I pause at a large carved double-door, and before I can think the better of it, I push it open.
It’s someone’s living quarters. I’m standing in a parlor area, in the middle of creams and beiges and blues. It’s like someone threw up neutral colors and I spin in a circle, taking it in.
I’ve almost decided that it’s a guest room, that’s it’s not worth exploring, when I see the edge of a picture in the next room. A portrait in a thick, gilded frame.
I cross the threshold and gaze up at the family in front of me.
Dare, his mother, and my uncle stare back down at me.
Dare is younger, of course. Much younger.
He looks to be only ten or so, thin and young, but those same dark eyes yawn from the photo, haunting and hurt. It’s evident to anyone who looks at him that he’s not happy. He shirks as far as he can from my uncle, although he allows his mother to wrap her arm around his shoulders. Her expression is soft, her eyes kind. I find myself wondering what in the world she’s doing with Richard?
Because my uncle’s eyes are hard as steel. He’s got Eleanor’s eyes and her rigid posture, too. He’s imposing, he’s stern. And I can tell he wasn’t a nice person.
I find myself taking a step back, actually, which is silly.
And when I turn to look around the rest of the room, I still feel like he’s watching me, which is silly too.
It’s as quiet as the crypts in here, and part of it might be that I know that two of the three occupants of this suite are now dead. I saw their alcoves in the mausoleum, I traced their names beneath my fingers.
It’s also apparent that Dare no longer occupies this room. He must’ve moved when his parents died, intent on avoiding memories.
I can’t say that I blame him.
I can taste the memories in here in the air, and they aren’t good.
Energy doesn’t disappear.
There’s a bad feeling in this room, although there’s no tangible reason why.
There aren’t any other photos. The dressers are all devoid of personal things, the walls filled only with ornamental décor. I glance into the closet and find it still full of clothing. Rows of suits, dresses and shoes. All exactly the way they’d been left. It has an eerie feel, as though it is frozen in time, and I turn to leave.
But I’m stopped by one thing.
A brown belt hangs on a hook just inside the door.
Normally, a belt wouldn’t grab my attention, but this belt is old and battered, and covered in brown splotches.
It’s old and battered in a house filled with exquisitely fine things.
But it’s the fact that is battered that intrigues me. In a house of perfect, rich things, why would someone like Richard keep something so ratty?
I bend closer to examine it, and I trace the spots with my hand.
I yank my fingers away when I realize what the splotches are.
They’re blood.
And I would bet any amount of money that the blood is Dare’s.
I suck in a breath, my fingers fluttering to my chest as I imagine little Dare and those big sad eyes, and the huge man who used such a thick belt on such a tiny back.
In my head, I see Richard, swinging the belt, high and hard, and I see Dare fall to his knees, his head bowed, his mouth clenched tightly closed to avoid screaming.
He’s stubborn and he won’t cry, and I can’t stop the visions in my head.
I don’t want to imagine it, but the pictures still come and I can hear a woman crying. Dare’s mother cries for Richard to stop, and he throws her off. She hits the wall behind the bureau, slamming into it hard enough to knock the picture from the wall.
The room swirls and the nausea returns and I fall to my knees, sucking in air.
What is happening to me?
Am I really seeing this?
I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to find solace in the dark, trying to close out the horror of this room.
But I can’t.
Because Richard did this to Dare. I’m not imagining it. He hurt Dare over and over throughout the years and nobody stopped it, nobody could.
I tried my best to protect him.