Chapter Text
Beth was not familiar with the rage that adults seemed to experience so frequently, but she was familiar with the aching hunger of something other than that every adult seemed to experience. Once, on a lazy morning where her mother had decided not to rise from bed, she’d confessed to Beth that she had not wanted children. When she was a child, she had wanted to explore the entire world, read every book, and sing every song. She had turned to Beth; her dull eyes making rare eye contact with her daughter and called her and her brothers the chains that kept her locked away in the mansion.
Beth knew her parents did not care for her like they should. She read stories of caring fathers rescuing their daughters in danger, mothers singing lullabies and brushing her daughter’s hair every morning. But she had never seen these things happen in person. At first, she figured it was a thing of fiction. That parental care was a fantasy like dragons and monsters. But then her big brother kept getting sick, stayed in bed longer, lost energy faster and then it was rare to see James without her father hovering over him.
She remembers being angry, putting salt in James’ food when he wasn’t looking and then faking sick so her father would brush the hair away from her face the way he did for John. But he had not come to her room to reassure her, leaving her with the doctor.
Victor had come in, seeing right through her charade like he always did.
“Get up,” he’d said. “Don’t pretend to be all weak like Jimmy.”
She remembers the clench in her stomach and the tangle in her heart. She’d whispered back, “I’m so hungry Victor.”
He twirled the pocketknife in his hands, which Beth knew he wasn’t supposed to have.
“You’re always hungry. We keep feeding you, you’re going to get fat and ugly.”
Staring, Beth curled her arms around her stomach and said nothing.
Victor sighed, stomping up to her little bed to pull the covers off of her. “We’re not like James,” he snapped.
“Because you’re a bastard, and I’m a girl,” Beth stated.
Victor laughed, poking her sharply in the stomach. “You’re not supposed to say things like ‘bastard’.”
“It’s true ain’t it?”
Victor grunted, “They don’t like us the way they like James. That’s not going to change even if you’re sick forever Anne.”
So, Beth stopped pretending to be sick, and stopped seeking the love her parents would not provide. She kept her hunger to herself and kept Victor company because no one else would. Sometimes her father would chase Victor out of the house, so Beth would pretend to be the brat Victor said she was, and screamed and cried until they allowed him back into the house.
Victor had laughed so hard when James told him when she did it for the first time. So, she kept doing it, beaming when he rubbed the top of her head so hard the pins in her hair would fall out.
On days when Victor didn’t want to play with her because he got in trouble when they horsed around like boys, Beth would sit with James and his doctor. She’d copy the religious men that came in and prayed over him, and hoped that because of her extra prayer, James wouldn’t die that day.
Eventually she got the hang of it, and now while Victor sat in the chair in James’ bedroom and made fun of him for being sick, she clasped her hands together by the edge of her brother’s bed and prayed and prayed and prayed.
Not today, she whispered, not yet.
Her father came in and frowned at all three of them being in the room. But Beth knew he wouldn’t swat at Victor as long as she was in the room, so she stayed still and kept praying even as he sat down on the bed to check on James.
“Elizabeth!”
Beth thanked God and said she hoped He was listening and stood on her own too feet. Victor’s father, Mr. Logan, was in the house. She tugged on her braid, they’d had fights, her mother, father and Victor’s dad. But he’d never been in the house before.
“You should help him home, Victor,” her father sneered.
“It's not my name he's calling, sir,” Victor glared.
Beth reached for her stuffed animal that she’d placed on James’ bed, clutching it tightly. Victor made fun of her for it every time he saw it, but one time when a boy from school took it, Victor had hit him with a chair, so she didn’t think he meant all that he said.
“He can’t go! He’ll hit him!” Beth protested.
Beth’s mother screamed from downstairs, and her father sprung into action.
“Elizabeth!” he called out, running out the door. James reached for him, sweat dripping down his forehead. “Father!”
“Stay where you are James!”
James threw the covers off of his body, breathing heavily in worry. “Father!”
“Anne, stay here,” Victor growled. He shoved her closer to the bed, running straight after her father and slamming the door behind him.
Beth clutched her toy rabbit until her fingers turned white, she knew that someone was bleeding downstairs. “Oh no,” she whimpered.
James shuffled, moving off the bed. “James no! They said stay here. Don’t go, please,” she cried.
“Come on Beth, come on. Mama needs help,” he urged, already at the door. Beth sniffled and followed after him. Surely it would be fine, the police would come and make Victor’s father go away and everything would be okay.
Beth stops at the bottom of the stairs, frozen. Her father is on his back, and there is blood everywhere Mr. Logan has a gun. Her mother is on the floor screaming. Beth is afraid, and James is angry.
He hovers over their father and screams. He screams like he’s talking to God, like he’s asking why. James raises his arms up, snarling and heaving.
His bones are sticking out of his hands. James is so angry, Beth knows. He doesn’t look sick anymore.
Their mother screams, hoarse and afraid like Beth was. And then she realizes, oh, James has just killed Mr. Logan. There’s blood on her big brother’s hands.
Beth doesn’t know what to do, her head is spinning and all she can smell is blood.
Mr. Logan whispers to James, and Beth can hear it. From all the way across the room, she hears it like its being whispered to her.
“He--” he gargles, then coughs, “he wasn't your father… son.”
Beth now knows what it sounds like when a man dies. She screams.
“Victor! Victor!”
She gags and folds herself in half as she throws up on the stairs. Beth looks up, and James is running. He throws open the door and runs away from her, from their house.
She screams again, just noise this time, like she’s forgotten how to speak.
And then her feet aren’t touching the floor anymore, and she smells the old jacket Victor always wears, the scent of blood fainter and fainter.
He’s carrying her, she realizes. They’re running after James. She cries and howls into his jacket, she wants her mother, she wants her father.
Victor tackles James, and Beth goes rolling onto the forest floor. She cries harder, it didn’t hurt. But she’s realized that none of them had shoes on, so they were going to be in even more trouble.
“I didn't mean it! I didn't,” James sobs, wobbling to his feet.
Victor grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him, “Yes, you did! He deserved it!”
He pants, glancing to Beth as she clambers onto her feet, “And you give it to him.”
James swallows and looks down at his hands, the bones protruding from his skin. Beth thinks that means he has to go to the hospital, but she doesn’t remember what direction it is in. She turns in a circle, thinking if she looks in every direction, it’ll appear.
“We're brothers, Jimmy. You realize that? Brothers protect each other, protect their little sisters,” he flails a hand at Beth. And she sees that his nails have gotten longer all of a sudden, even though he files them every day.
“You have to be hard now. Hard that nothing can't ever touch us, touch Anne,” he shakes him again, slapping a palm over James eyes to harshly wipe away his tears.
Oh, her big brother is crying, Beth thinks. When did that happen? When did he break his hands?
“I want to go home,” James whimpers. Beth hears the police coming to their house, hears their dogs barking and snarling. She remembers how much trouble James in going to be in. Killing a man is against the law, those are the rules.
“We can't. We stick together no matter what and take care of anyone who gets in our way,” Victor clenches his jaw and let’s go of James. He walks to Beth and picks her up again, swatting away the dead leaves in her hair.
“Can you do that little brother?”
James looks nervous, and she thinks maybe he’s thinking about running away again. She sniffles and makes a noise again. She can’t seem to remember how to form words. But James understands her meaning, and nods to Victor.
“They're coming,” Victor gasps, seeing the police lights come closer. “Can you run?” he asks James. He nods, stumbling forward.
And then the two of them are running. Running away from their home. Beth thinks she ought to run with them, but Victor won’t put her down even when she squirms. So, she falls asleep on his shoulder, and vaguely remembers she’d left her stuffed Rabbit in the house.