AFTER THE GUTTING, Annalise no longer lived in their house on the days she wasn’t in court, coming in only for a moment, to gather her things and say her goodbyes. When she spoke to Will, she assured him that she would be back, this time to take Henry to court and win custody of her children. This made him smile, though he knew she way lying for his sake. She knelt down and took his hands, begging him for forgiveness. Will looked her in the eyes, searching for that person she used to be. The change in her was frightening to a little boy, who had only ever wanted his mother. Beneath her eyes were deep black shadows, and her face was hollowed-out and lifeless. Her once strong and confident shoulders hung limp. Her brilliant golden hair was going grey. Before she left that day, Will threw his arms round her waist and held on tight, until he was peeled away from her.

After she walked out of their lives, Will was starved for ten consecutive days. It no longer mattered if he met the time constraints of his father’s commandments—still, he would have nothing to eat. Henry was very thorough in ensuring that he couldn’t steal food, even when his stomach felt as though it were turning inside out and eating itself alive. He cleared the supper dishes himself and threw the scraps over the fence to the neighbour’s dog. He padlocked the refrigerator and kept the key in his pocket. Will was used to being starved for up to six days, but this was unbearable.

By the seventh day, he was so weak that he could not stand without swaying. His limbs were going numb, and he was cold all the time. To his father, this was just another game, but to Will, it was life or death. At the end of the eighth day, he would’ve been satisfied with a rotting steak, if only it would quiet the pain.

Then, one October evening, the food he had craved for so long was dangled above his head. He was kneeling on hands and knees, panting in anticipation, like a dog awaiting a treat. The frost-cloaked pizza was a feast to his starving eyes. But he was wary, because nothing was ever simple where his father was concerned. He was told he had one minute to eat as much as he could, and so seized the opportunity and sat back on his heels, preparing to tear it apart. But the moment before his teeth sank into it, the pizza was gone, floating upside-down on the scummy water in the sink.

Will was startled into submission. He didn’t know what to say, and couldn’t understand why his father treated him the way he did. He knew that what he wanted was for Will to give in and plunge his head into the water, but he didn’t. He sat there, holding back tears. He was five seconds from losing all control.

He craved food. He craved forgiveness. But, more than anything, he craved an ounce of respect. He wished it hadn’t ended this way; that his skin had not acquired a faint grey tint, muscles thin and fragile. There was hardly enough meat left to cover his bones.

Ten days, he was starved. Ten days, he wished for death.

On the final day, a peeled orange was dangled above his head. He knew it would soon he gone, and so moved with purpose. He didn’t give his father a second chance, as he had the night before. He bit the orange out of his hand, ripping it apart, then swallowed the pieces whole. Twenty-five seconds, it was gone.

The next morning, Will was lashed to the doorknob of one of the empty bedrooms and beaten with a leather strap. It left him sprawled on the floor, where he lay unconscious for hours, as blood dripped down onto the floorboards and soaked into the wood. He had lost all faith in God. A dark shadow followed him everywhere he went.

The next day, even the sun seemed to avoid him, hiding in a cloud cover that drifted overhead. He stood in the semi-darkness, releasing the tension in his shoulders and retreating into the solitude of his dreams.

He did not know how much time passed before he heard the sound of a car pulling up to the curb. He climbed in, wondering what awaited him back at the house, and praying that it wasn’t another flogging. Henry led Will inside, up to the bathroom, and his heart sank, for he knew that he was doomed.

He watched timidly, shrinking back against the wall as his father turned on the cold tap in the bathtub. Will thought it odd that he had forgotten to turn on the hot one, as well, but said nothing. As the tub filled with freezing water, Will’s clothes were torn from his body, and he was dropped into it. Fear coursed through his veins like a shot of ice.

Henry pressed a hand to Will’s head and pushed it beneath the surface of the water. Instinctively, he fought back, trying desperately to get back above the water. But his father was too strong, and he was still too small. Under the water, his eyes slid open, and he could see silver bubbles rising from his mouth. He snapped his head from side to side, as the bubbles became smaller and less frequent. His hands shot up out of the water and clutched his father’s wrists. His fingernails broke through the fragile skin, blood burst forth, and he was released.

Henry looked down at him, panting. Will submerged his head once more, keeping his nose barely above the surface. When his father left the room, his plan was undeniably clear. Will laid in the frigid water, as it became colder by the minute.

Hours ticked by. Will lifted his head out of the water just enough to be able to hear stirrings from the rest of the house. Whenever anyone walked down the hall, he quietly slid his head back into the icy water.

Before sitting down to supper, his father came in and told him to get out of the bathtub. He pulled on his clothes without drying off. The cuffs of his trousers dripped, and his feet slid across the tiles as he followed his father downstairs.

Outside, the sun was setting, but half the garden was still bathed in light. He tried to sit on a bench in the sun, but was dragged to one in the shade. He wanted nothing more than a moment of heat, but with every passing minute, his chances of dying by hypothermia became greater than ever before. From the upstairs window, he could hear the sounds of his family having dinner. Once in a while, a burst of laughter escaped through the dining room windows. He wanted to look up, but didn’t, for he lived in another world entirely, and did not deserve even a glance of the life he’d been denied all these years.

With the beginning of school came a temporary escape. Will’s teacher was young, and far more lenient than any he’d ever had. At the end of the first week, she rewarded those who behaved with sweets. Will didn’t receive any the first week, nor the second, nor the third, and so promised himself that he would at the end of the month.

On the last day before autumn break, Will dreaded stepping out the door, for it could very well be the last time. After the others had gone, Miss Perrin kneeled at his side and told him he had to go home. But he wanted to stay with this woman, who treated him far better than his own mother ever had. She held him for a moment, and it was just the two of them in all the world. Then she sent him away, and he left, not once looking back.

Because he was late, he was dragged by the heels out to the garden, which was damp and cold, for it had rained the night before. That day, he looked up through the thick blanket of fog obscuring the sun and wept bitterly for the loss of true, unquestionable love. For the first time, he had been treated as though he mattered. The night before, he had even dreamt that someone loved him.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

As he sat there, marinating in self-pity, he wondered where Miss Perrin had gone, and what she was doing. He didn’t understand it at the time, but she was his first love.

Sitting on the steps, he heard the sounds of life from behind. When he closed his eyes, he could see her red lips and smiling face floating in front of him. And as he shivered, the last light of day fading to black, the memory of her kindness kept him warm.

IT WAS OCTOBER. Will was prey to the predators of the playpark, who beat him to a pulp every week. When the final bell rang, he walked home, to spill the contents of his stomach into the toilet. If his father was in a good mood, Will was made to stand in the perishing cold of the cellar until six o’clock in the morning, when his father woke up to make breakfast. If he wasn’t, Will was whipped with a belt soaked in vinegar. It was inhumanly, indescribably painful, but he clenched his teeth and bore it. He was always left hanging from the doorknob, waiting for divine mercy that never came.

His fragile hope deteriorated, and he began to believe that nothing would change—that it would be this way for the rest of his life. With every passing hour, he became weaker, and it became devastatingly clear that all promises are broken in the end; that there is no such thing as infallible trust in this world.

One morning, he went to the school infirmary, where the nurse inspected the state of his clothing and the weeping wounds along his forearms. At first, he obeyed his father’s orders, but as his trust in her solidified, he began to tell her the truth: that he had found a razor blade in the cellar and used it; that his father beat him to within an inch of his life; that the shadow in the corner kept him awake at night, and the voices in his head were vicious and bloodthirsty. She took notes, telling him she would alert his teacher of his present mental condition, and that she would be in touch with a social worker and child psychologist as soon as possible. He learned only after that her profound interest in him had stemmed not from a place of kindness or concern, but because of the reports from Miss Perrin, which it was her duty to investigate.

At the end of the month, it was tradition to carve pumpkins. Will had been denied this privilege for the past six years, for he was far too young to be handling a knife. But his sister was allowed to, and she was younger than him, wasn’t she? The absurdity of the situation made him want to laugh through the tears. If only his father had any idea what happened in the cellar in the dead of night; if he knew that the stains on the ground weren’t wine, but spilled blood. But would that really have changed anything?

Instead, Henry filled the bathtub and warned Will once more about keeping his head underwater. He pushed his head under the surface and held it there, then stormed out, flicking off the light as he went. Looking to his right, Will could see through the window that night had befallen them.

As the hours passed, his flesh became cold and hard—and not in the normal way that comes from not moving, but the very same stiffness that comes of dying and becoming not a living thing, but a corpse. He leaned against the side of the bathtub, choking back tears. He could hear the delightful music of La Veille de la Toussaint through the door, and it made him want to crawl out of his skin. He pushed the world away and gazed out the window, wondering who else was looking up at those same stars.

When the carving was finished, he could hear blood-chilling films playing, and the more he heard, the more he despised each and every one of them—his mother, father, and siblings, who were all perfectly happy without him. It was despicable to wait on the back step during dinner. But to be forced to wait in this ice-cold bathtub, shivering, while his brother and sister stuffed themselves like Christmas hens with popcorn and confectionaries; to lie in this porcelain coffin during the best and brightest time of the year? There was no word for that—or, at least, he couldn’t think of one.

By Sunday, his spirit was drained. He detested going to Mass, and eagerly awaited the return to school.

On Tuesday, his father came down with pneumonia. As his mother drove them to the hospice in Westminster, Will prayed that he would never return. After all, was it really cruel to want his father dead, after al he had done, or was it recompense for the unimaginable? That you must decide for yourself.

The day he returned from hospital, Henry came into the bedroom, where Will was sitting on the floor, and kneeled down beside him. He told him that it was time to repay him for all the years they had lost to darkness and death. Will smiled brightly as he leapt into his father’s arms, happy tears streaming down hi face. Henry cried too, and that was when it sank in that it was truly over. He looked deeply into his father’s eyes, searching for that small part of him that must certainly be lying. But there was nothing.

“It’s… over?” he murmured.

“Yes, Will, it is.”

He nodded, and there was nothing more to it than that. His father drew him a hot bath and brought him the new clothes he’d received for Christmas the year before. He hadn’t been allowed to wear it until then.

For the first time, with the exception of the holidays, there were guests at the house, and Will sat down to supper at the dining room table. It all happened so quickly, and a quiet part of him felt that it was too good to be true, but he tamped it down until it was inaudible. He was happy, of course, but knew he was walking on eggshells. He thought for certain that his father would wake up one day and return to the person he used to be, but he didn’t—at least, not for a long time. Instead, Will stuffed himself to bursting every night, as though it were his last, because it very well could be.

Then, one day, what he had been waiting for finally happened: a lady from social services came by. The nurse had promised Will that she would involve a social worker, and she had kept her word. Henry sent the children out to play—all except for Will, who stayed behind, sitting in beside his father at the head of the table. He was asked if he was content in life, and assured her that he was. She wanted to know if he was treated well by his parents, and if he had ever been hit. At first, he didn’t know how to answer, and so looked up at his father. He was smiling, but his eyes were dead. That was when the bomb went off in the pit of his stomach, erupting up through his every muscle and vein, setting his brain alight. It occurred to him now why his father had changed. Will was so completely starved of love that he had forgotten everything he knew, in the hope that he was wrong. So, this is what he got for trusting someone other than himself. He would never make the same mistake twice.

A hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality.

“Go on, Will. Give the lady an answer.” Will looked up at the woman, and a sickening heat rose in his face, perspiration beading on his forehead. His head was spinning like a top.

“N-No,” he stuttered. “No, my father would never hit me.” The scoreboard in his head illuminated once again. Ding! One point for Will. “I’m only punished when I misbehave.”

He could tell by the resulting glare that he had chosen the wrong answer. The scoreboard flicked back down to zero. He had been groomed by his father to be a compulsive liar with no remorse, and now all that time and effort had been for nothing. He knew that the lady had seen the unspoken line of communication that ran between them—which was really more of a metaphysical chokehold—and that it worried her.

But she did nothing, and he was left alone, again, and again, and again. When she had gone, Henry closed the door and whirled on Will with wildfire in his eyes. His hands flew up to shield his face, but it was too late. He was backed up sharp against the cellar door, then kicked down the stairs, sliding on his back into death. His head slammed on the stone floor at the bottom, and hot blood pooled in a ring round his shoulders. Will was unfathomably angry, without an ounce of remorse or regret for what he had done. He was right, and his father was wrong, and there was nothing more to it than that.

A dark emptiness opened in the depths of his soul, rising up to the surface until it was all he knew. That quiet part of him had been right all along: Henry Claridge was incapable of love.

But it was good while it lasted.