First Visit: What Makes Him Special?
692 Words
Maxwell is taken to the foul room and deposited on the bed.
“Bring him to the back,” Harry says when he pops into the room.
“We have gotten into enough trouble.”
“I will not have you or father ruin this for me.”
“You already have to explain the girl. Let us leave him here. Until father’s temper cools.”
“I will do it myself.” Harry grabs for Maxwell, catches air. He turns to face Sarah. “Do it or I will tell father that you are making plans to leave.”
“You would not…”
“I would.”
“Then I will tell him you wish to do the same.”
“You have the power to leave and the magic he needs; I cannot leave, and I have no magic. Which of us do you think will get it worse?”
“Fine,” Sarah says, “I will bring him in for you. But I will not accept any responsibility for the girl.” Sarah lifts Maxwell off the bed, steadies him on her shoulder. “And after this, you are on your own. Get one of the others to help with your ritual.”
Harry reaches for Sarah; at the last minute, he drops his hand. Sarah settles Maxwell into a chair.
“Be quiet,” she says. “Or maybe you should make some noise…so father can deal with Harry once and for all.”
Definitely not the sibling love Maxwell had been thinking about here.
Sarah adjusts Maxwell’s body, ensuring she stabilizes his head between the red, velvet side cushions of the high-backed gold chair.
“You owe thanks to whoever has placed that hedge around you.”
“What’s taking you so long?” Harry slips through the fake wall.
“I am done. I will be out shortly.”
“No. You will come out now.”
Sarah looks down at Maxwell. “Make noise.” Sarah smiles. Who the hell smiles with someone they’ve kidn*pped?
Not long after Sarah has left the room, Maxwell hears a voice bellow across the wall.
“What are you thinking?”
Maxwell doesn’t hear the reply; he doesn’t hear much of anything other than the voice that seems to shake the very foundation of the house and makes Maxwell try to remember the last time he’d emptied his bladder.
“I determine what happens and when. You do not make the rules.”
“The girl? I have already found the girl. She is barely alive. I smell your incantation on her.”
A scream. Sarah’s voice.
There’s a rumbling in the room.
“Father, stop! I was only trying to help Harry. We saw Maxwell returning. We had to stop. I had to do something. We tried to finish after, but we couldn’t. The eyes had stayed out too long. And not enough of her is left.”
More rumbling; another scream. Sarah.
“Father stop!”
“First the pair…and now this. You keep trying to usurp my authority.”
“No! Father.”
“You dare to use your magic on me?”
“I am sorry, father!” Loud, desperate pleading.
“You are not indispensable. None of you are indispensable. Remember that. The boy will be delivered to me within the hour or your souls will find no rest.”
Silence.
More rumbling. “Do you hear me?”
“There is magic around him, father.” Sarah, again. Maxwell wonders if Harry has truly deserted his sister, left her to clean up his mess, or if he is present and mute because he is not the subject of their father’s rage.
“What magic?” The wall vibrates; something crashes to the floor in the other room.
“We cannot harm him in any way. We can drug him by the air or what he willingly ingests, but we cannot harm him.”
“What do you mean? No one here is that protected.”
An inaudible response.
“That b***h has crossed me for the last time.”
- Writer
