Chapter one

I felt the muscles in my leg tense and loosen with each heavy step I took. My feet dug deeper and deeper into the soil with each step. I felt my lungs get heavier and heavier as my heart began to race. Suddenly I heard footsteps behind me, they got louder and louder as his pace quickened. I quickly cut through the large set of trees to try to lose him, the farther I went into the trees the quieter the footsteps became. I stomped up the hill to see a line of girls whistling and cheering as I crossed the finish line. I bent down to catch my breath and say my brother coming up the hill behind me. My heart slowed a bit as Wren approached me.

“Lewis, you are the biggest cheater, cutting through the trees just to try and get away from me, I’m sure that’s the only reason you won” he said gasping for air.

“You always say that but you lose every time to me” I said.

“You cheat because you can’t stand to lose to your older brother”.

“You brag because you can’t stand to lose to your younger brother”.

He looked at me and gave me that annoyed face, “You know I see a few girls over there who look like they are in desperate need of attention”.

He turned and walked over to the large crowd of girls who cheered us on and wrapped his arm around a short blonde girl with a pink dress on. He slowly took her to the house. At that I turned and walked the other direction to our large horse stable. Since my father is a business man just like the rest of the men in my family, he owns a large estate just outside of London. We have our own fenced off land with small patches of trees here and there. Our house was in the center of the property, it was a large white house with several stories and many windows that mother had put in. I live with my parents, a few maids and my brother. The house is quiet it has been even quieter after my brother Roy died. He was on a boat to America when there was an accident and the ship sunk about 10 years ago. Mother didn’t speak for a month, she missed him so much she painted a picture of him and hung it on the wall by her room. She and father always enjoyed Roy more than my brother and I. After he passed mother went insane and father locks himself away in his office and works. No one really talks to each other anymore and when they do only mean, harsh things come out of their mouths. The only people with nice things to say are the maids but I’m sure they are just the same when they are alone. As I approached the stable I saw our maid Sonya. She was short in stature with dark brown hair the color of and dark brown-green eyes.

She put her head down when she saw me “Hello, Master Lewis” at that she scurried away to the house. She was always an odd girl, but a good maid.

I walked over to my horse, Shadow. I named him that because his fur glistens like a nights shadow and his eyes dark as black oak. I slowly pet his neck and felt his breath on my arms and his heart beat through my fingertips. My grandfather took me to pick a horse when I was young, I never understood why a business man would need one. I picked him because he drew me to him. When I first saw the horses he was the only one I wanted for some reason, no other horse compares. I made it a daily routine of mine to feed him because he always needed special feed to get stronger and stronger. Grandfather said it would make him even stronger than the other horses. Once he was fed I left to the house through the trees. I passed through the trees and admired the summer leaves. I loved the bright green leaves with cream tree trunks. I took large breaths of air, I felt the clean air go in my nose. I have always been one with nature. I loved it since I was a young boy hunting with my grandfather but even more as I have gotten older. I walked through the trees and cut through the large green yard to the house. I went down to the weapons room in the basement of the house. My father and my grandfather were hunters, they go out every spring and go fox hunting. They took my and Wren but only because grandfather wanted us to go. We always take the dogs with us or sometimes even go alone. Grandfather always told us to listen and watch our surroundings and pay attention to what goes on, it could help me improve and become a true hunter. They use several different types of weapons to prepare us for anything and they use a new weapon each trip. I walked downstairs to the large black room. There were rows of swords, spears, daggers, guns and my favorite a bow. As a child I was always told to learn to use a weapon. You needed to protect yourself and your family against threats. I learned how to use every weapon in this vault but my favorite was a bow and arrow. I set up a few targets on the other end of the room and grabbed my weapon. I shot the target. With each arrow I shot I felt a small wind hit my face as the arrow zoomed by. There was a small thud as the arrow punctured the red circle dead on. I haven’t missed a shot for many years since I first learned how to shoot. My brother Wren likes using swords. He has always been good at using them, he could master and sort of sword in a day. He enjoyed cutting the targets into nothing. As I shot my last arrow I heard the door open. Our maid Elizabeth came down the stairs. Elizabeth was easily 20, she had worked here for about five years now. She was the kindest of our maids. She had long ebony hair that touched her waist and bright emerald eyes with skin the same color of sand.

“Sir Lewis, your dinner is ready for you whenever you want it,” she said.

“Thank you, I will be up in a minute”. I said

I put my bow and arrows away to where they were and went up the stairs. I walked over the dinner table and no one was there. I walked over to the kitchen and saw Elizabeth preparing a tray of food.

“Where is everyone” I asked.

“Your father was busy, so I gave him a tray. Your mother is busy painting and I knocked on your brother’s door and he told me to bring him a tray”.

I walked over to the tray, “Is this Wren’s” I asked”.

“Yes I will take it to him. Don’t worry Master Lewis, I will take care of it”.

As she picked it up, I lightly put my hands on it “Allow me”. I said carrying my plate and Wrens plate to his room. I went up the stairs and walked to Wren’s room just in time to see the same blonde girl who was with him earlier burst out of his room angrily and stomp down the stairs. At that I pushed the door open to see him lying on his bed.

“Haven’t you heard of knocking Lewis?” He asked.

“Haven’t you heard of being polite to people, maybe even being polite to girls” I set his tray down on a small table by his window.

“It’s funny you criticize me because you can’t even talk to them”.

I scoffed and turned to leave, “Wait” he yelled “Come eat with me” He pulled out a chair out for me at the table. “ I knew you would bring me my food when you saw Elizabeth making a tray, come eat with me”.

I didn’t say anything and brought my food to the small table. Wren and I don’t always get along, we have always had different personalities and we don’t agree on a lot. We are opposites but we have our moments.

He split his roll in half and said “Mothers painting again”.

“Elizabeth said she was too busy painting to eat at the table”.

“Great, now there will be hundreds of paintings of Roy everywhere again”.

“She needs our support Wren, she is ill”.

“No Lewis, she is crazy. I always knew that she favored Roy over all of us I hoped she wouldn’t do it when he was dead. Think about it there are no pictures of you, me or even father just portraits and pictures of Roy. She doesn’t care about us just Roy”.

“She cares for us Wren, she just has a different way of showing it to us”.

“She has a different way of showing everyone else “love” except Roy” He began to laugh “Maybe a doctor will come take her away”.

I felt my heart beat faster, my fists got a little tighter “She still loves you and she is still your mother”. I said trying not to yell.

“Lewis, you have always been too delusional to see, she has you wrapped around her finger, she doesn’t love us and any love she had for us died the day Roy did. Think about it, when was the last time she said she loved you?” I paused, I couldn’t think it had been years. “See,” Wren said “You don’t even know, but she wrote Roy letters and always said she loved him.”

Wren always thought it was funny when she went mad like this. She would sit there for hours and hours just painting pictures of Roy. It secretly bothered me, it makes my heart hurt to see her sitting in her room with dozens and dozens of paintings around her. The ripped canvases around her of pictures she didn’t like. She wasn’t well and when she wasn’t well this meant a doctor would come and try to fix her again.

“Roy is gone, she needs to accept it, we all did, dad lost a son too and we lost a brother” He took a bite of the apple and dropped it on the tray with a disgusted look on his face.

“What”

“This apple, someone pulled it off of Roy’s tree”. He threw the apple on his plate and stood up. “Are you done?” he asked.

I nodded and he took the tray. As he walked out of the door he turned, “Wait here” he said. I sat at the table and waited patiently. I turned and looked out the window. The night sky was beautiful. The moon looked like a bright silver coin in the sky and cast a large silver lighting that lit the half of the world in a luminous silver light. The stars looked like bright dots in the ebony sky. As I looked over to woods I noticed Roy’s tree. The tree sat in front of all the others, when he was a little boy he planted a tree and he helped it grow for many years. As I began to look at it more I noticed something different. The tree looked as it was glowing. I pushed the windows open and stuck my head out. The stars shone on the tree but the others around it were still dark as if no light had ever touched them. The wind rustled the leaves of the tree around it but his stayed still. It stood at rest like a calm candles flame.

“Lewis!” Wren yelled.

I spun around quickly on my heels to see him looking at me. “Shut the damn window, it will get cold in here”.

I turned quickly and looked at the tree but the illusion was gone. It just looked like a plain tree among plain trees in a plain wood. My heart began to sink. I missed Roy, I had hope for a long time that he would come back but then he didn’t. I used to wait everyday under the tree for him to come back and look at the strong green leaves, water the large brown roots but he never came back. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around quickly.

“Here” Wren said handing me a glass of port.

I grabbed it and sipped it slowly as I stared at the tree. “Father will get mad that we are drinking this” I said.

“Are you going to tell on me Lewis?” he said taking a large drink of the wine.

I was quiet for a minute as I took a sip “Have you seen father today?”.

“No,” he said bringing his glass of red liquid to his lips. “You may want to see him, you know how he gets when you don’t take time out of your day to see him when he can’t even take the effort to see you”. We were silent for a minute. “Go see him Lewis”. He poured another glass as I set my empty one down on the table and left his room.

I walked down the long hallway filled with doors and passed by mother’s art studio. I bent down on my knees and looked under the door to see the candle light shining under the door. I knew that she was still in there painting and it had been hours since she started painting. I stood up and headed to my father’s study. When I got to the large brown door I knocked on the door. A silent Come in Came from the other side of the door. I opened the large creaking door to see my father siting at his desk with piles and piles of papers next to him. He was hunched over with one hand on his forehead and the other on a paper. I saw a metal loop around the back of his ear and an ink pen next to the paper. I stepped closer to him .

“Father” I said quietly as I quietly walked toward him.

“Do you know what time it is Lewis, why did you come to visit me so late at night?” he said with an annoyed voice.

I looked at my pocket watch, I read 11:26.“I haven’t seen you all day father, I was getting worried”.

“If you were really that worried you would have come to see me earlier”.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice. I opened my mouth to say something but I stopped myself. I stood there until my father put his paper down and sat up straight.

“Lewis how was your day?” he said still not facing me.

“It was fine, how was your day?”

“I have been paying bills, dealing with the maids and dealing with your mother”. He said angrily.

I was silent again for a moment, he was always like this. When I would ask him a question he would answer in a sentence I was too afraid to respond to or didn’t know how to respond to.

“Why hasn’t Wren come to see me yet today?” he asked looking at a different paper.

“He has been busy today” I lied.

“Ah, so he has being chasing pretty girls then going to his room and drinking when they leave.”

“He was with me a lot of the day today-”

“-Where” he asked quickly.

“We raced outside this morning”

“See Lewis that was this morning, my guess was that when you were done racing all the girls stood there waiting. When you were done he saw a pretty girl maybe talked to her then took her back to his room. She probably ran out and soon after that he stared drinking. Don’t lie to me Lewis”

That was what happened. This happens almost every day so I’m sure everyone can guess what Wren did for the day. I changed the subject, “How is Mom” I asked.

“She has been in her studio all day just painting pictures of my dead son. She knows it hurts everyone around her but she does it anyway. I have said one word to her today but she ignored what I said so I started working. I need to have a doctor come and see her again.”

I knew she wasn’t always like this, she used to be the best mother of all the mothers but one day she just changed. “Will she ever be the same as she used to when I was a young boy?”

“She may one day, she isn’t the same girl I fell in love with. She is the opposite of who she was, if she was like this when I first met her I would never have married her Lewis. You are 19 now and Wren is almost 21 you to should already be married by now but when you find a girl to marry be careful, something like this may happen to you. You will lose something and you will drift apart from each other, you won’t love each other anymore. “

I stood there shocked they didn’t love each other anymore? “You don’t love her anymore?”

“No, I used to, after Roy passed no one mattered anymore”.

It hit me like a bullet to the heart. No one mattered to him anymore? Not me, Wren or even mother. He only cared about himself. My head became heavy, my vision became blurred. My teeth clinched together. “You mean Wren and I don’t matter to you either!” I exclaimed.

At that his slammed his hands on his desk so hard his paper rattled. He stood up still not looking at me. “At least Roy did what he was supposed to, he found a girl before he left! He isn’t a drunk who sleeps with every woman in the world. He didn’t waste his time running outside like a little boy, he grew up and moved on! He studied to become a lawyer and you two are still at home doing nothing!”

“Maybe we are still at home because we don’t want to leave Roy behind either!”

“No,” he said calmly “You two are still at home because neither of you can do what you are supposed to do. You can’t find a girl to marry, you refuse to study and carry out the family name, and you won’t listen. Ever since you two boys were little you never listened to me. I always knew it would be a problem but I didn’t know you would become a burden to this household”.

I just stood there, my heart hurt, my head rattling so much I can’t even see straight. I turned and other way and ran out of the room and slammed the door. I took about 10 steps before I leaned on the wall. His words echoed in my head over and over on a loop. He always thought of us as burdens but always saw Roy as a savior. My fists got tighter and tighter, my heart then beat faster. “Mom”, I thought. Maybe she would tell me she tell me we weren’t burdens, maybe she would say she loved us. I ran to her studio room and opened the door quickly. She sat in her stool by the window with dozens of broken canvases to her right. My heart sunk to my stomach. She was always bad but she was even worse this time. She had never had so many failures painting him. I slowly walked to her and knelt down. Her left hand was free so I grasp it in my hand. It was freezing cold. You could tell she was ill because her skin was normally a light golden brown but it was pale and sickly looking. Even her bright blonde hair looked darker.

“Mom” I said quietly. “How are you?” She said nothing, she just kept painting. “Mom, did Wren and I ever bother you as children, were we a burden to you?” She said nothing. In my head I pleaded with her for an answer. My heart began to hurt more and more the longer she said nothing. “Mom, please answer me, were we a burden to you”. She stopped painting and looked down. She shook her head and continued painting. My heart suddenly began to hurt less and some of the weight was gone until I stood up and saw the dozens of ripped canvases on the floor. I saw the empty tubes of paint that she had wasted on the bad paintings. My heart began to ache for her. I wanted her well again even though she did favor Roy she was better than father. She was the better parent that Wren and I had. I finally opened the door and left. I walked down the hallway and turned to the right and opened the door to my room. I shut it behind me and began to undress. I opened my curtains and let the moonlight in. Curled up in my white bedding and slowly let the darkness take me.

 

 

“You don’t love her anymore?” Lewis asked.

“No, I used to, after Roy passed no one mattered anymore”. Father said.

How could he say that, he really doesn’t care about Lewis and I just like I told him. He was still the bastard I remember him to be. “You mean Wren and I don’t matter to you either!” Lewis exclaimed.

At that dad slammed his hands on his desk. “At least Roy did what he was supposed to, he found a girl before he left! He wasn’t a drunk who sleeps with every woman in the world. He didn’t waste his time running outside like a little boy, he grew up and moved on! He studied to become a lawyer and you two are still at home doing nothing!”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran downstairs to the kitchen and grabbed more wine, bourbon and anything I could fine and took it to my room. I ran to my door and shut the door hard behind me. I set the drinks down on my bed and opened them one by one and drank them as quickly as I could. Soon enough my sight began to sway and with each drink I began to hate myself even more. I then opened another bottle just as Elizabeth came in. She walked over to my bed and sat down at the end.

“Wren, what will we do with you”. She said.

“What do you want Elizabeth?” I said with my words slightly slurred.

“I want you to stop drinking like this, you are going to kill yourself before you’re 21 Wren! You have to stop drinking like this.”

“Don’t tell me how to live Elizabeth, you don’t know anything! You’re just a maid who gets paid to do the job no one else wants to do.” She put her head down and looked as if she was going to cry. I sat by her and put my arm around her and rubbed her arm. “I’m sorry Elizabeth I didn’t mean that, I’m glad you are here in the house, you are the only nice person in this god awful place”. At that she looked up at me her face happier. I put my other arm around her and hugged her. “I’m sorry Elizabeth I really didn’t mean what I said”. I put my arms down and looked at her. She stood up and started to grab my bottles. “What are you doing Elizabeth?”

“You need to stop Wren, you will end up a drunk for the rest of your life and you will never find a wife” she said. She continued to take the bottles and walked over to the door. “Goodnight, Wren” she said with an arm full of bottles.

I waited for her to go down the stairs then I stood up and went to my dresser. I opened it and pulled out more bottles of whiskey. I went back to my bed and drank until my eyes became heavy and everything was black.