FIRST AND FOREMOST, before this story truly begins, it’s important that you know the relationship between Henry and Will wasn’t always abusive—it began as strict discipline… which got out of control, to put it lightly. No, it began with being banished to the corner, and ended with blood, bruises, and broken teeth. It began like any other story, and culminated in a moment where he had no strength to crawl away from the darkness, even if it meant the difference between life and death. There is no divine mercy, and there are no miracles.
At least, he didn’t think so.
All his life, Will had the unfortunate luck of being caught at mischief—except when it truly mattered. In the beginning, he was put in the corner, facing the wall, sometimes for up to eight hours. It wasn’t long before the very sound of his father’s voice sent shivers down his spine. Even when the shouting wasn’t directed at him, Will hid under the bed, praying that his father wouldn’t find him there.
But when he decided the corner was no longer effective, it was the strap. At first, it was a punishment without notice, where his father would snatch him up like a kitten and beat him until flesh ripped from bone. Then he was forced to lie on his flayed back, staring at the ceiling. Whenever his siblings came into the bedroom while he was lying on the blood-stained blanket, which had been thrown across the floor, they gazed thoughtfully down at him, then carried on as before.
Henry was different as night and day when his wife came home. Her presence meant no abuse, and no fear. She was his shield; his protector, and nothing on earth could keep them apart.
But, one morning, she knelt before him, gathered him close, and told him to be good, because she wasn’t going to be coming home for a while. His father stood behind, arms folded, looming over them. Will looked into his cold blue eyes, and a pulse of icy blood shot through his veins. He wanted her to hold him and never let go. He wanted someone to hold his hand and tell him everything was going to be okay. But, in the end, no one did, and like always, his mother walked away, back into the world he didn’t understand. She had never seemed so big, and he had never felt so small. She didn’t touch him that way again—that soft, that gentle, and as though she would truly miss him if he were gone.
For a while, the waters were calm, as they rarely were, and never would be again. His parents held flamboyant parties for their upper class friends, dancing round the ballroom as the old, baroque gramophone released the low strains of the Florence Symphony Orchestra. They held each other close, and seemed so perfectly happy that Will thought perhaps that time of fear was finally behind them.
But he was wrong. He didn’t yet know the meaning of mortal terror, nor the unimaginable depth of the darkness a human soul can reach.
One morning, Will saw the life he wanted in a shop window. But when they went in, and he held it between his hands, it slipped just as quickly out of reach, shattering upon the floor at his feet. There was no time for any form of rational thought before his father rushed up from behind, taking him roughly by the arm and jerking him in the direction of the toilets. His eyes were glazed over, and his breath smelled of hard alcohol. The door slammed behind them, and as the lock turned, Will closed his eyes. He shielded his face with his hands, but they were just as quickly knocked away. His arm flew up in front of his face. As his father took hold of it, the small bones, thin and fragile, snapped beneath the weight of his fingers. Searing pain shot through every fibre of his being.
The startled expression on Henry’s face confirmed that he had heard the sound, as well. He released Will’s arm, and went to wash his hands, as though nothing had happened. Will collapsed to the ground, clutching his arm, which he knew was most certainly broken.
When he was summoned to supper that evening, he sat down between his elder brother and younger sister, then reached for his water glass. But his arm did not respond, hanging lifeless at his side. He glanced up at his father with pleading eyes, but was afraid to say that he needed to go to A&E immediately. Instead, he sat there, pushing roasted vegetables around his plate with a trembling hand.
Early in the morning, he fell asleep with his uninjured arm folded over his chest, and the right lying useless beside him. He hadn’t slept for more than an hour, when suddenly he was heaved out of bed and slammed against the nearest wall. He slid to the floor, eyes rolling up to see the shadow standing above him—his father, who threw him over his shoulder, then deposited him heavily in the back seat, a heap of skinny legs and broken bones. He seemed unconcerned, even when oily spots appeared before Will’s eyes and the world spun out into darkness, as the car edged ever closer to the hospital. It was pain like nothing else on earth.
When his father told the doctors that he’d fallen out of bed, he almost blurted that it hadn’t been an accident, but was paralysed by fear once again. When they returned, his arm was heavily cast and in a sling. His father created an even more dramatic tale for Annalise, which he listened to apathetically. He knew that this man, who broke his heart at every twist and turn, was not evil. This wasn’t his fault, because he was insane. But that fear kept anyone from getting close enough to help.
School was a sanctuary for Will. He made friends easily and was happy to learn. But still his father took him by the arm and threw him into his bedroom, rolling end over end across the hardwood floor. He screamed in his face, telling him he’d been held back because of his behaviour. Will couldn’t understand it. He had received the highest marks in his year and obeyed his teacher without question. But still he was sent to bed without dinner every night. After a thrashing, he was sent to the wine cellar—a dark, damp cave beneath the house—to stand in the darkness and cold until he was called up for bed.
That summer—beautiful, sweltering, and bright—he boarded a flight to Switzerland, sent to stay with the Malakoffs. He hadn’t been told before it happened. He didn’t understand it when the car pulled away from the airport, leaving him behind with a suitcase twice his size, holding the hand of the air stewardess who was to accompany him to Zürich. He was more than sad, more than broken. He was a hollow husk of a person.
That was the summer he tried to run away. He wanted his family; his brother and sister. Despite everything, he wanted his parents. He managed to reach the bus stop before he was found. They told his father, and Will paid dearly for his sin. He tried to protest—to plead for his life—but his father didn’t listen. When he finally choked out a few words, a bar of soap was rammed into his mouth. After that, he was no longer allowed to speak without permission.
For years, they all lived in the nightmare his father had created. But Will prayed that the morning would come, and they would be released from this endless darkness; that they were not on the losing side of this war.
All too often, the look in his father’s eyes told Will that he was out for blood. After beating him with the metal end of a belt, he took Will and pulled him to the kitchen, as blood soaked through the back of his shirt. Will pressed himself against the door, but it didn’t matter—his father reached across and seized him by the chin, snapping his head up to face him. He was stripped of his clothes and told to stand beside the cooker. Will obeyed, shaking like a leaf. Henry reached over him and turned on the gas burners, and the flames snapped to life. His mind was blank, and his legs quivered like jelly. He closed his eyes, begging for mercy.
His mind ground to a halt when he felt a hand clamp down on his broken arm and rip it from the sling. It was straightened, doused in petrol, and held over the searing flames. His skin exploded into hellish heat. The dark, choking scent of scorched flesh rose in plumes from his arm, but hard as he fought, he couldn’t break free. Then, finally, he let go, and Will fell to the floor, clutching his arm and screaming. His skin was still crackling, burnt down to the fat, which sizzled and popped as it melted away.
Then he was ordered to climb up onto the burners and lie on the flames, so his father could watch him burn alive. Will refused, but his father lifted him onto the counter and emptied the petrol can over his head, holding him down as the inferno roasted his skin. Will felt the flames flicker and dance, screaming at the top of his lungs.
When the flames enveloped his chest, his father stepped back, and Will rolled off the burners, onto the floor. Before he hit the ground and the fire was snuffed, he realised that the longer he kept himself off the cooker, the better his chances were of staying alive. His father never threatened his life when there was a witness—although, he wondered what would have happened if he had died, and there was a charred corpse left behind to be disposed of.
He had to stall for time.
Will stole a glance at the clock. The second hand was creeping forward, but not quick enough. He curled into a tight ball as blows rained down on his head and back, but the more it hurt, the clearer the realisation became that he had won—his life would not end today; he would not go up in flames.
Then the front door clicked open, and James came running in. The blood drained from Henry’s face. Now he knew that he had lost. For that singular moment, there was nothing he could do. And while he was standing there, paralysed, Will seized his clothes and hurried down to the cellar, where he put them back on and stood against the wall, whimpering at the white-hot pain.
Standing alone in the darkness, he knew, for the first time, that he would survive this. He would use any tactic if it meant delaying the inevitable. He couldn’t give in, come Hell or high water.
That day, he vowed never to give his father the satisfaction of seeing him beg for mercy. His body trembled with the aftershocks of mortal fear. He wanted to scream at the pain, and did, stuffing a sleeve into his mouth to muffle the sound.
AFTER THE BURNING, school became his only hope of escape. His relationship with his father was falling apart. Will had new clothes, but because he wore them week after week, they soon became weathered, torn, and noxious. His father no longer tried to cover the black, bloody contusions that covered every inch of his skin. When asked about them, he gave the excuses that had been quite literally beaten into his head.
By then, he was no longer eating in the evenings, and breakfast often fared no better. On a good day, he was given a bowl of raw chicken, wet and sticky, in the hope it would make him deathly ill, but somehow it never did. At night, his stomach lurched and growled, and he lay awake, fantasising about the steaks he’d seen on television. He envisioned every inch of it, from the meat, dripping with juices and blood, to the vegetables and gravy on the side. Then he woke, stomach hollower than ever before.
After that, nothing could satisfy that bone-deep hunger. It wasn’t long before he began to steal food from other people, skin burning with fear and giddy anticipation. He always did it in the morning, while the others lingered outside the building, talking and laughing. He crawled along the wall outside the classroom, dropping his satchel below the coat hooks, and began to tear apart their lunches like a swine in a trough. The first few times were easy, but after several days, they began to notice things were missing from their lunchboxes. They told the headmaster, who informed Will’s father, leading to more aggressive beatings and less food than ever before. It finally reached breaking point, where he was nearly foaming at the mouth as he plotted against the world and its people, who took everything from him time and time again.
By then, he was no longer a member of the family. He existed and held a place in time, but wasn’t acknowledged. He no longer had a name, and wasn’t allowed to eat with his family, or look at, or even speak to them. He slept in the cellar, where there was no light or heat, even in the dead of summer.
His mother was his only hope, but even then, all her attempts came to naught in the end. Henry was stolid and impassive, immoveable as a mountain. Regardless of what her efforts did to help Will, they only led to more tension between her and Henry. From his bed, in the middle of the night, Will could hear the sound and fury building to an earth-shattering climax, and shivered in fear. They were both drunk, for his mother had just come home from a night out with another man, and he could hear his father calling her every cruel name in existence. Then he fell asleep, and the day after, they continued on as if nothing had happened—as though all those vicious, hateful words had been a nightmare, and now they were awake.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
After every argument, his mother packed an overnight bag and set off in the middle of the night. After she left, his father slapped him from one side of the kitchen to the other. He lay on the floor, without the strength to stand. His father pulled him up and shouted in his face. In these moments, his message was always the same: Will was the reason their lives were coming apart. Often, he was so exhausted that his only escape from reality was to stare down at the lines of linoleum and pray to a god he didn’t believe in.
By the time he was five years old, Will’s teacher, Miss Mary Meyers, had begun to take a special interest in him. She questioned his attentiveness during lesson. All of his lies could not convince her of something she didn’t want to believe. She continued to pry about the condition of his clothes and the bruises that painted his body.
The months crept by, and Miss Meyers became more persistent, until she finally reported her concerns to the headmaster, who rang his father. After that, he became more violent than ever, and met with the headmaster the next day to justify all the false accusations. By the end of the night, Will’s nose was leaking blood like a tap, and he was missing one of his milk teeth.
He went to school the next day in the same uniform he had worn for the past two years, with his ragged shoes and threadbare satchel, which only had one strap. Because he was no longer a member of the family, he wasn’t allowed to ride in the car. Instead, he walked everywhere he went. During lunch, he stood at the drinking fountain, gulping down water to stave away the pain in his stomach and listening to his peers poke fun at him. He had no one to talk to or play with—but if we’re being honest, that was nothing new.
At home, he stood for hours in the dark, musty wine cellar, passing the time by inventing new ways to steal food. He had reached the point in starvation where he could feel that he was dying. His mother occasionally tried to feed him, with remarkably little success. Will knew that if he survived this, it would be of his own volition. He had exhausted all possibilities when it came to school—now, everyone hid their lunches or locked them in the supply closet, and the teachers kept an eye on him.
So, that was the end of stealing food at school.
That is, until he devised a plan that just might work. Students weren’t allowed to leave the courtyard during break, so it was unlikely that anyone would expect him to leave. After all, how often does a five-year-old run away from school, in search of food? His idea was to slip away while the others were rounded up for lunch, and make it to the supermarket, where he stole crackers, biscuits, and sweets—whatever he could find.
In the morning, as he walked to school, he counted every step. In the afternoon, he plotted the route in his head. After two weeks, he had all the information he needed. The only thing left to do was muster up the courage to enact his plan. Each day, he pushed himself to run faster, slamming his feet down on the pavement until he couldn’t feel the ground beneath them. As the days ticked forward and the plan solidified in his mind, the hunger was replaced by daydreaming. But it was always interrupted by that old, familiar pain, and his thoughts circled back to stealing food. Will knew his plan was perfect, but was still afraid to act on it, and so stepped forward, then back again, making excuses for his lack of courage. He worried that his timing was inaccurate, and about what would happen if he was caught.
Finally, after a week with nothing but a burnt triangle of toast and a handful of aspirin for a splitting headache, he decided it was time. After the bell rang, he was hurtling over the fence, down the street, heart hammering in his chest. He made it to the shops in record time.
Walking up and down the aisles, he felt as if everyone was staring at him. He was doomed to fail, all because he hadn’t considered what others would think or do, and the more he worried, the more his stomach clenched inward, until he nearly vomited up the one thing he’d had to eat since the weekend before. He reached out blindly, thinking of all the times he had been starving, and broke into a run, before anyone could catch him. When he looked down, in his hands was a box of chocolate galettes, clutched so tightly the cardboard was caving in.
As he approached the school, he hid the box under his coat, then climbed up on the bins and crawled through the window, landing in the boys’ toilets. Once inside, he tucked it under the heaps of used paper towels, where no one would think to touch it. At the end of the day, he returned, eager to devour the biscuits, but his heart sunk to the floor, because the bin was empty. All that planning, and all that foolish hope that finally, finally he would have something to eat… it had all been for nothing.
His father knew why he stole, but still refused to feed him. And the longer it became, the more Will schemed of ways to get it.
After dinner, his family scraped what remained on their plates into the bin, and Will was called up from the cellar, where he’d been standing for hours, because it was time for the washing up.
Standing there, hands peeling away in the scalding rinse water, he could almost taste the morsels in the bin. At first, it was unthinkable, but the longer he went without food, and the longer he had to consider it, the more enticing it seemed, until finally he fell to his knees and began to pick through it, flicking away bits of paper and still-warm cigarette butts. His revelry came to an abrupt halt when his father caught him in the act.
After that, Will gave up, focusing his attention on finding another way to steal food at school. His next idea was to take the pre-packaged food from the cafeteria when no one was looking. While the others were playing games in the gym, he crept to the cafeteria and snatched bags from the slit-open boxes that had just arrived. Then he scurried off to the toilets, where he ate frost-bitten cheese pies and caramel tarts so quickly he nearly choked.
As he walked home that day, all he could think of was the next time he would eat. Unfortunately, it was only a matter of minutes after he walked in that he was being dragged into the bathroom and struck so hard in the stomach that he folded in two. Turning him around sharply, facing the toilet, Henry rammed two fingers between his teeth, as though attempting to pull his stomach up through his throat. Will bit down like a rabid animal. But even then, his father only agreed to release him if he agreed to vomit. And so, Will did as he asked, and bits of cheese and caramel spilled into the toilet.
Henry stood behind him, hands on his hips. Will tensed in anticipation of the blows to come, but they never did. Will turned back, to find that he’d left the bathroom, returning and ordering that Will scoop the masticated food out of the toilet and put it in a bucket.
Later that night, he made Will stand beside the dining room table. Before him was the bucket of caramel-coloured vomit. He could hardly bear to look at it, and so closed his eyes and detached himself from the cold tiles on which he stood. But his father was relentless, and when he returned to the kitchen, he ordered Will to eat it. There was no further hope of a truce.
And so, he took a seat at the table and lowered his hand into the bowl. Thick saliva slipped through his fingers as he dropped the half-digested food into his mouth. He forced himself to swallow, and began to whimper, breaking out in a cold sweat. He swallowed without tasting, sinking deeper into the chair. His eyes burned, and tears cascaded down his cheeks. He tilted his head back and let what remained run down his throat. He closed his eyes, trying to keep himself from being violently sick, but was unsuccessful. Instead, he leaned over and coughed it all back up again. Hot liquid splashed onto his bare feet. When he opened his eyes, mouth dripping with vomit and tears, he looked at his mother, who was staring down at him with a horrified expression.
His father told him he had two choices: either he ate it off the floor, like a dog, or he would sleep in it. Annalise turned away, holding a hand to her mouth, as not to bear witness to his suffering. Choking back tears, Will chose the latter.
That long night of lying awake gave him time to think. Perhaps if he ate in the morning, it would be gone by the time he came home from school. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him, so he would have time to scavenge for food. But, one day, he altered his course, and stopped to knock on the door of the old Italian lady across the street. He knew just by looking at her that this poor woman pitied him, and that he was about to take advantage of that. She didn’t speak English, but she knew that he was hungry, as all grandmothers do. So, he sat at her table and ate everything she gave him—ragu, caponata, zeppole—until he couldn’t take another bite.
For a long time, this worked. Until the woman, who had been learning English to be able to speak to him, asked why his parents didn’t feed him. She knew that he lived across the street. She saw him coming out of the house every morning. Even before he left, he knew she would involve his father.
That day, he prayed for a swift and painless death. Walking home, he felt as though his feet were encased in lead. With every step, he hoped he was mistaken. Above him, the skies were clear and blue, and he felt the sun’s warmth on his back. He looked up, wondering if they would ever meet again.
He carefully cracked the front door open before slipping inside, hurrying downstairs to the wine cave. He expected his father to come down and beat him to death any moment. But he never did.
After changing out of his uniform, Will crept up to the kitchen and began washing the dishes from teatime. Now knowing where his father might be, he listened closely. His every muscle was tense with fear. His hands shook, and he could hardly concentrate.
Then, finally, Death came to take its toll. It came, and it was insidious, so slow and quiet you almost wouldn’t even know it was there. Finally, Will heard him coming. For a fleeting moment, he looked out the kitchen window and considered jumping through it. He heard the laughter and screams of children playing outside. He closed his eyes and imagined that he was one of them, but the moment was gone all too quickly. A strange and beautiful warmth filled him from the inside out, and he couldn’t help but smile.
His heart skipped a beat when he felt a breath on his neck. Startled, he dropped a plate, but before it could shatter, he snatched it out of mid-air.
Will waited for him to strike. Instead, he stayed behind him, watching his every move. Will could see the reflection of his own dead-white face in the window, and his father’s behind it.
When he had finished the washing up, he began to clean the bathroom, and his father stood in the doorway, watching. While he was on hands and knees, scrubbing the tiles, Henry calmly lowered down against the opposite wall, never once taking his eyes off him. Will’s anxiety could not be quieted or contained. He knew he would be beaten, but now when or how. It seemed hours before he finished the bathroom. When he did, he was quivering with anticipation.
By suppertime, after a long day of worrying, Will was exhausted. He almost fell asleep as he waited for his father to summon him to clear the table. Standing alone in that frigid cave, something dark and evil blossomed inside of him. All he wanted was to dash himself dead against the floor, but without permission, he couldn’t move a muscle. Now he knew why his father had followed his every move: to maintain a constant pressure, never letting him know when that fragile patience would snap. But before this thought could spiral any further, his father called out to him from the head of the staircase.
After he was through, Will was sent back to the cellar to wait. As he did, sweat cascaded down every inch of his body, seeping down to the bone. When his head lolled forward, he snapped it upright, waking himself. No matter what he did, he couldn’t control the movement of his head, as it bobbed up and down like a cork on the sea. In this trancelike state, he felt light as a feather, soul lifting from his physical form, until his head pitched forward again, jolting him awake. He knew better than to fall asleep, for it meant certain death, and so he stared at the wall, escaping into his mind, where he imagined the sweep of headlights across a pitch-black street, and the blinking of airplanes overhead.
He dreaded every step as he mounted the stairs. He knew this was the end; that his time had come, and a strange calmness filled his soul. The house was dark, save for a single light in the kitchen. He could see his father sitting at the dining room table, and paused. Henry smiled, and a breath of ice passed down Will’s back. His thoughts became clouded, trance breaking when his father rose, knelt beside the sink, opened the cabinet, and removed a bottle of bleach. Will only wished he didn’t understand.
Bottle in hand, Henry started toward him. Bleach dripped from the opening, splattering across the floor. Will backed away, until he came up sharp against a wall. Before he could move, or speak, or cry out, the bottle was rammed into his mouth, and his head tipped back. He couldn’t breathe. His throat seized. He swayed, feeling as though his eyes were about to burst from his head. He fell forward, pounding the tiles with all his strength. His fingernails raked across the floor, vision narrowing down to a single point. The colours all ran together, watery, and so much brighter than they were in reality.
Then he came back to his senses, struck sharply on the back. The force of the blow brought air back into his throat, and he was able to drag in a life-saving breath. As he kneeled on the floor, choking, his father returned to his brandy. He took a long sip, then blew a mist of burning air in Will’s direction. He finished his glass before dismissing him back to the cellar.
The morning after, Will stared into the looking glass, looking at his tongue. Layers of burning red flesh had been stripped away. Those remaining were raw and flaming. He stood there in disbelief, realising how lucky he was to be alive.
But not every incident was a victory on his father’s part. Though Will was caught in most of his attempts to find sustenance, he couldn’t be caught every time. After months of being confined in the cellar, he gathered the courage to steal from the freezer. He knew he would pay dearly for it, and so ate every bit as though it had been touched by angels; as though it were his last, because it very well could be. In the darkness, he closed his eyes, dreaming that he was a king clad in the finest robes, dining on the best in the world. And as he held a waffle or round of ice-encrusted bread, Will finally saw light at the end of the tunnel.