There was tape surrounding the cellar, and police officers speaking to Lillian. It had been a flurry of phone calls, questions, and avoiding invasive questions from fellow churchgoers. It had been branded a suicide, with a note to prove it. Orion Zoan, the man who told his children it was a sin to end one’s own life: ironic, wasn’t it? Only maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he finally got on someone’s bad side.

Dearest family, began the note, written in thick block letters, a trademark of Orion’s, I regret to inform you that I can no longer struggle.

It was all suspicious from the very start. Orion would never call his family dear.

Esther stood at Lillian’s side, curious about the sudden excitement at the house. For a little girl trapped between four walls, it was the biggest event of her life. “Mother, what’s happening?”

It would have been easy to get away with murder. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if Orion’s death wasn’t accidental. Over the years, he’d made many enemies - many were within his own family. Over the years, most of his children had wished harm upon him. He’d assumed himself to be omniscient and powerful, like the god he claimed watched over them. But he was a careless man, and took to violence when he was outsmarted. Saphira outsmarted her father a lot.

They say the most evil of people are the ones who seem the most humane. The most evil of men could charm whomever they wanted whenever they desired to, and then return home and commit the most atrocious of crimes. The most personable of people could also hold the most secrets, and you’d never know it. Saphira saw humanity in others, and believed in the good of other people. She’d been called many things for this: foolish, naive, stupid. She would have rather been blindly trusting than unnecessarily hateful.

When Saphira was seven years old, her father put his hands on her for the first time. She’d shouted at him, attempting to wriggle out from underneath her father’s grip - but Orion was a tall man, and he wasn’t often gentle. “Stop! I’ll tell Lillian!”

He’d always chuckled at her threats. “Who do you think she’ll believe: her husband, or a stupid little girl? Now shut up.”

She wasn’t the only one. She’d heard several of her sisters crying at night. She’d seen Seraphim tugging her sleeves down quickly, and putting on a little more makeup than usual. No one ever spoke about it. No one ever suspected a thing.

For a woman who’d just lost her husband, Lillian was calm and apathetic. She waved a hand dismissively, deep in conversation with an officer. “I’m busy, Esther. Go bother someone else.”

The girl frowned, tugging on Saphira’s sleeve, nearly knocking her over. “Sister, play with me. I’m bored.” She was both to be pitied and envied: pitied for her upbringing, for being born into the family she was, envied for her naivety and youth. Esther still had life in her eyes. Esther still had hopes and dreams.

“Come on. Let’s leave Lillian to talk to the police.”

“There was a bit of an incident last night,” Lillian said, when all of the children were gathered around the table for breakfast. “Your father passed away.” You’d expect a woman in her predicament to be inconsolable. There were tears on LIllian’s face, but it was very hard to tell if they were genuine. She never spoke much about it after this, and never really seemed to mourn her husband - at least, not in the way you’d expect.

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It could always be counted on for Canaan to break the silence. “What does passed away mean?” His relationship with Orion and Lillian had been very hard for Saphira to understand. He was a little girl who wanted acceptance, and Orion was an egoistic man. Saphira wasn’t a girl who was quick to anger, but there was one thing that always got under her skin. Canaan was an inquisitive and innocent child. Her family acted as though he were annoying them on purpose.

“It means he’s dead, Canaan.” Hannah sat up straight in her chair, always her father’s pet. “I saw the note. Who do you think did it?”

Samantha, who rarely involved herself in the affairs of Orion and his wife, sat at Asher’s side, and spoke up softly. “Your father had been struggling with his problems with the family and the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, it came to a point he just couldn’t bear it anymore.”

Hannah had rolled her eyes, shooting Samantha a look which could be described only as disgust. “Please. You’re stupid if you believe that. It’s obvious somebody killed him. Maybe it was you three. We all know you’ve been wanting to split the life insurance.”

Inside the house, the twins sat on opposite sides of the kitchen, working on that week’s homework. Samantha was a slim and quasi-motherly woman, known to feud with Lillian behind closed doors. Standing in between the teenagers, she jabbed a pencil at Eve’s paper. “Are you stupid? Redo this.”

Orion had met Samantha at a bar, three months after his marriage to Lillian, when she was still pregnant with her first child. This was the story she told, anyway. Lillian was never happy about Orion’s relationships with other women - though she’d been forced to accept them, as he was a selfish man.

Seraphim chuckled, not sadistically. In a dysfunctional family, filled with children fighting for attention, everyone just wanted to be praised.

Esther's current favourite toys were her Barbie dolls, though it was a limited collection. As a child, Saphira and her siblings were forced into boxes, playing with toys that matched their genders, forbidden from playing with the opposite sex. Once, she asked her father to buy her a remote control car. The scolding that came with this left her traumatized.

“I miss Sister. Will she ever come back?”

Esther hadn’t learned to read until she was five years old. She could spell her name, and count to one hundred, and not much past this. The bedroom she shared with Alma was at the end of the hall. It was separated into two halves, as all the rooms had been, and it was messy, even though the girls were often scolded for being untidy. Esther sat on the floor, tugging a doll out of her toy box, which was falling apart. None of the children had ever gotten toys of their own. They were handed down from siblings: nearly trashed by the time they were given to the youngest. Lillian said too many material things would spoil a child, so that they were no longer able to focus on what was important in life. Lillian couldn’t decide what was important. She was as inconsistent as the winter was cold.

Saphira took the doll Esther held out to her. “Which sister?”

Sometimes, Saphira wondered if Esther knew the names of some of her siblings. Everybody was Sister or Brother: as if identities no longer existed, as if everyone was just a slave. Children weren’t meant to be subservient to their parents. Children had feelings too, but everyone acted like they didn’t.

It was hard to keep a secret. Usually, Saphira was good at being secretive - she knew important things that no one else knew, and this made her feel powerful. But with secrets came weight, and after a while, they became heavy enough to weigh on you. Some of Saphira’s siblings would have confessed to terrible things if it meant saving someone else. She wasn’t sure if the same could be said about her.

“I miss sister Mary. Does she have a baby now?”

Next year, Saphira would be old enough to date. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this. “Yeah.”

“Is that why she left?”

It was cold in the house. Lillian and Samantha spoke loudly to the officers, hurting Saphira’s head. “Yeah.”

No one really played with Esther, except Saphira. She was mostly ignored, left to fend for herself or beg for attention. It was no way for a child to live. This house was no place for a child to live. Home didn’t feel like home. It never had, really. Home should be welcoming and friendly, not hostile and intimidating.