Jake was surprised when MacKenzie left her seat and sat down beside him. She didn’t touch him. All he received was a soft smile, but it was enough for him to continue.
“Diana loves beautiful things and our tutor was a very handsome man. That night, after our appeal to our tutor, the butler, and I use that word loosely, came into my room. Diana wouldn’t allow Josh and I to share a room. The first thing I became aware of was the hand over my mouth. To look at us now, you wouldn’t imagine it, but when we were kids, we were little runts.
I fought, but I couldn’t get away. I was placed in a travel chest with holes bored into the top. I was left there for what seemed like an eternity. How many days I remained there, I didn’t know at the time, and Diana would occasionally come and speak to me. I won’t tell you the type of things she would say, because they didn’t matter then, nor do they matter now.
All I could really think about was what was happening to Josh. Was he okay, was he locked in another box? That was the thought that nearly drove me mad. I stayed awake as long as I could, but at some point I must have dozed off. I awoke to the sound of the lock being turned, the lid being opened and the butler standing over me.” Jake broke off and looked over at his younger brother.
Josh took up the story. The room still deadly silent as all their attention switched to him.
“I never could stand that woman. Always the talker, I didn’t care if she knew it, so I told her as often as I could. At first it was just childish gabber, but it was enough. For the most part, she just ignored me. Jake tried to stop me, but I never listened.
Although it was obvious, she hated us both, for some reason the feeling appeared to be more strongly directed towards Jake. We used to think it was because he had blond hair. As dumb as that sounds, we couldn’t come up with any other reason.
Jake had been missing for a couple of days. I remember being scared that something bad had happened to him. I was locked in my room and the only person I saw was the maid, Jake and I couldn’t stand. As Jake said, Diana loves beauty, and the maid was no exception. Yes, she was beautiful, but she had dead eyes,” Josh shuddered as though recalling his feelings of those years so long ago. With a visible shake of his head, he continued.
“I tried to ask, Dead Eyes, as we used to call her, where Jake was. All she did was laugh at me. I remember going after her and kicking her because she wouldn’t answer me. For that, I didn’t get any more food. I didn’t care. After two days with no sight of my brother, I decided to go and look for him. The only problem was, I had no idea where to find him, and I was locked in my room.
My room was at the top of the house, but I managed to get the window open. When I swung one leg over the windowsill and saw the drop, I nearly gave up. That thought only lasted for a few moments. I knew that if I were missing, Jake wouldn’t stop until he found me.
My heart was beating so hard and fast, I could feel its pulse thumping in my palms as I clutched onto the window ledge.
I remember the howl of the wind, as it tried to rip me from my grip on the drainpipe. I remember my lament of; I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die, as I moved my hands and feet. That prayer was the only thing I had room for in my brain as I hung on and kept sliding and gripping the pipe.
I don’t know how long it took, but finally, I was on the ground. I was so thankful I sat down and cried.
When I pulled myself together, I made my way to the back of the house, all the while hoping and praying that nobody spotted me. I could hear people, and I didn’t want to be discovered. I think that was the day I realized that I was a daredevil because I felt a rush at swiping a knife from right under their noses—”
“Are you crazy,” Aviva broke in. “What if they’d caught you?!”
“They didn’t,” Josh stated in a matter of fact voice.
“Yes, well... sorry I interrupted, go on.”
“I—”
“What the hell were you thinking, Joshua? What were you going to do with that knife?” Aviva demanded cutting him off again.
“If you let the man finish, we’ll all find out,” Jason told his wife.
Casting her husband a disgruntled look, Aviva turned back to Josh, “please continue.”
With an indulgent smile, Josh again started speaking. “When I took the knife, I honestly didn’t know what I intended. It wasn’t until I got into the hallway that I started to put a plan together.
I could hear that Diana was entertaining, so I snuck up to her bedroom. Each morning, whenever she was home, wherever we were, Jake and I had to go and see her in her bedroom to get our orders for the day. During those meetings, she was always propped up with a breakfast tray over her lap.
It came to me that she loved that bed otherwise she wouldn’t spend so much time in it.