CHAPTER 54
Hesitating for only a moment upon noticing Grandfather in the room, I felt compelled to see the man who was responsible for our isolation and imprisonment. Looking back into the hallway to make sure no one was around, I quietly walked in and shut the door behind me, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves.
The room was dark and stuffy, almost hot - as if the heat was on full blast in order to stifle any chill that the old man might have. Beads of sweat started to form at my forehead though I wasn’t sure if it was due to the temperature or the anxiety running through my body. I stayed still, just taking in the surroundings for a while, my feet frozen in place.
There were a couple of nightlights that glowed from the light sockets to keep the room from total darkness. The room was sparsely furnished, with the ornate king-size bed being the centerpiece of attention. A few other pieces of furniture were scattered around the room – a nightstand with a book, some prescription bottles, and a glass of water resting atop it sat to the right of the bed, a dresser with an antique lamp was against another wall, and a wrought-iron round table with matching chairs was positioned in the corner near the other side of the bed. There was a basket of knitting needles and yarns on top of the table, and I could picture Dru sitting here during the day by her dying husband’s side, knitting a blanket or a pair of socks to keep him warm.
Walking further into the room, I saw an IV stand set up next to the bed, and I followed the tubes to the pale and bony arm lying above the sheets. Breathing tubes were stuck inside his nose, the medical equipment mingling against his ashen skin and sunken cheeks. How could this fragile, broken man be so powerful that he held the fate of four children and their mother in his skeletal hands? Ethan was so thin that he looked to weigh less than I did. Surely, we could defeat this man easily with a flick of our wrists.
I sat down gently on the edge of the bed, careful not to wake him, and stared hard at his body, trying to see the rise and fall of his chest that indicated he was still alive. As I stayed there watching his chest barely move from his breathing, I realized that his power had nothing to do with physical strength; it was all about money and manipulation. Even from his deathbed, he held the power to ruin people’s lives with one phone call to his lawyer.
Anger welled up inside me. How could this man treat his grandchildren as if we were nothing? He had never even bothered to meet any of us; his own flesh and blood discarded and cast away without a second thought. In my head, I could see myself taking one of the fluffy white pillows resting against the headboard and holding it against his face, strangling what little life he had left out of him and putting us all out of our misery; allowing us to move on from our prison and letting him take up his rightful place in Hell.
I was so engrossed in my morbid fantasy that I didn’t notice when his eyes opened with a start. A cold, clammy hand grabbed on to my forearm, and a startled scream escaped from my throat.
“Joycie?” The corpse-like figure rasped out in confusion. “I knew you’d come back to me, Joycie.” He was obviously hallucinating, thinking I was Mother.
My eyes widened in terror as I met his steely gaze. Despite the frailty of the sick man in bed, his grip was like a vice on my flesh. I grabbed at his fingers poking into my skin with my other hand, but I couldn’t loosen his hold on me. I knew I was making too much noise with my whimpering, but I was desperate to break free. I tried getting up off the bed and yanking my arm out of his grasp with my full weight, but as soon as my body started to move away, Ethan wrenched me forward towards his face.
“Don’t go, Joycie,” he begged in his scratchy voice. “Daddy loves you. You’ll always be my little girl.”
His other hand came up to pet my head, pushing me forward further, and I lay trapped against the bed underneath his arm. Completely panicked, my legs flailed trying to find some purchase on the floor to no avail. My frightened screams were being muffled by the sheets.
Suddenly, I felt an arm around my waist and I was tugged out of Grandfather’s traumatic confinement. A hand covered my mouth to stifle any noises escaping from my lips. I continued to thrash in my captor’s arms upon seeing the shocked look in Ethan’s terrified eyes.
“No, no, no, no, no.” Ethan mumbled over and over again, his voice gaining volume as he continued.
My body was pulled tighter against the person behind me, and I heard a hushed voice next to my ear. “Shhh, Elizabeth, it’s me. It’s Will.” The gentle whisper reached my brain and realizing who was holding me, I started to calm down.
But my compliance only seemed to agitate Grandfather more. “You can’t take her from me, Robert! You’re dead.” Ethan started to whip his head back and forth against the pillows, his feeble fists banging against the bed. “Dead, dead, dead, dead.”
A beeping sound started from a medical machine somewhere by the bed. Will and I both looked towards the noise, though we couldn’t see anything. “Shit.” Will dragged me further away from the bed. “They must have monitors in here to track his health. Jesus Christ, I hope they don’t have video cameras.” He let me down and grabbed my hand as he started towards the doorway, but I couldn’t move. “Come on, Elizabeth! We got to get out of here before someone comes to see what’s wrong with him.”
As my body trembled in shock, I stood there motionless, barely registering the words Will was saying.
“Let’s go!” He said again, trying to get me to start running. “Dammit, Elizabeth!” Realizing I wasn’t going anywhere, he swept me up into his arms and ran to the door.
Poking his head outside, he checked both ways of the corridor before he went towards the large open room we originally came through. As he got to the end, he looked out into the room, and we saw Drusilla in her dressing gown clutching a strand of rosary beads reach the top of the staircase.
“Adam, what’s happening?” She cried out to her trusty servant who was standing at the bottom of the stairs, diligently waiting for her.
I couldn’t hear his response since Will had turned around and was now running to the other end of the hallway. “Fuck,” he said under his breath as he tried one of the doors past Grandfather’s room, but it was locked. Moving to the next one, the door opened and he slipped us inside just as Adam and Drusilla rushed into the hall.
When the door to Ethan’s bedroom opened, we could still hear his incoherent cries. “Adam, get the morphine.” Drusilla’s distressed voice was heard just before the door closed again.
“We have to go, Elizabeth. The door’s closed so they won’t see us, but it has to be now.” Will had put me down and was grabbing at my shoulders, shaking me out of my stupor. “Do you understand me?”
I nodded my head in obedience, and Will dragged me out into the hallway again – my legs finally working. Going in the opposite direction of Ethan’s room, we went down the corridor and through the swinging door awaiting us at the end.
We emerged on the other side of the door standing in a huge kitchen. The room took up almost the entire length of the house. There were multiple ovens, refrigerators and countertops. You could tell that when the manor was holding one of their dinner parties all of the food preparation and cooking was done here.
Inset in the wall opposite the swinging door was large windows that overlooked the expansive backyard. “That’s where we came in from when we first got here.” Will nodded towards the car parked in the driveway. “The other staircase to upstairs has to be around here somewhere.”
We hurried over to the other side of the kitchen, running our hands along the walls looking for the tiny corridor that would lead us back upstairs to safety. “Here.” Will alerted me as he opened the tiny hidden door next to the pantry.
Going down the hall until I reached the stairs, I climbed as fast as I could up the narrow staircase with Will right on my heels. Finding the latch at the top, I opened the door that led to our abandoned section of the house. Running halfway down the corridor to our bedroom, I bounced back and forth on my feet as I waited for Will to unlock the door.
As Will fumbled with the key in the lock, I heard footsteps coming from the main staircase. “Hurry, Will. Someone’s coming.”
“Got it,” he stumbled into the room, and I scurried in behind him. “Get into bed, lay still and get your breathing under control so it looks like you’ve been asleep the whole time.” Will told me as he locked the door again.
Pulling off his shoes and pants, he looked at me snuggling into bed, tension clearly written on his face. “They’re going to check to make sure we’ve been in here the whole time.” He got into bed, trying to put himself into a natural sleeping position.
I rolled onto my stomach, facing away from the door and closed my eyes, concentrating on the rhythm of my breathing. A few minutes later, I could hear the door unlock and struggled to stay still as someone peered into the room. Whoever it was came to stand between the two beds. Dawn shifted next to me, unconsciously feeling the weight of the person’s stare. Seemingly satisfied, the person left after what seemed like an eternity, re-locking the door and leaving us alone again.
Letting out a breath, I moved onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. My body began shaking as I thought about the events that occurred tonight. I could still feel Grandfather’s clammy hand on my arm and his hot breath on my face as he pulled me near him.
“Elizabeth, are you awake?” Will whispered into the night about twenty minutes later.
“Yeah,” I answered hesitantly.
Coming to stand next to the bed, I could feel the anger coming off of him in waves. “What the fuck were you thinking going in there like that alone? You should have found me first or just not gone in at all. Do you know what could have happened if we got caught, or worse, if Dru had found you before I did?” He whispered harshly between clenched teeth as he gripped my shoulders tightly.
Tears began to run down my cheeks. “Will, please.” I begged. I wasn’t in the mood to be reprimanded right then. “I can’t stop shaking. I was so scared.” A sob escaped my throat, and Will changed his demeanor with me from frustrated to comforting, bringing me in for a hug. I clung to him as I continued to describe my ordeal. “I couldn’t get away from him, he held me so tight even though he looked so small. I couldn’t get away.”
“Shh, shh. It’s okay, Beth. You’re safe now.” He rubbed small circles on my back while he tried to soothe my shaken nerves.
“He smelled like death.” I cried into his shoulder. “It felt like he was going to take me to Hell with him.”
“Elizabeth, you’re not going die. I’m going to do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
Dawn started to stir next to us, waking from the sounds of my sobbing. “Will? Bethy? You’re back.” Lifting her head off the pillow, she looked at us curiously, “Why are you crying, Beth?”
“It’s okay, Dawn. We just had a rough night. We’ll tell you about it tomorrow, okay.” Will pushed some of the hair out of her face and rubbed her cheek. “Go sleep with Connor for a little bit until she calms down.”
“Are you sure that’s alright?” Dawn said apprehensively.
“It’ll be fine, sweetie. I’m not going to sleep right now. I’ll move you back before morning, I swear.”
Dawn nodded her head, but before she left she laid her hand on my back. “I love you, Elizabeth.”
I sniffled through my reply. “I know, Dawnie. I love you too.”
Once Dawn was settled into the other bed with her breathing evened out in sleep, Will adjusted our positions so he was sitting against the headboard with my head cradled against his chest. “I don’t want you going out into the house anymore. This is why I didn’t want you to come in the first place.”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Elizabe…” He started to defend his decision. “Hold on, did I just hear that right?” Will couldn’t hide his shock. “You agreed with me without any kind of argument.”
“After tonight, I’d rather not go back out there. Besides, what else are we going to find?” I shrugged. “We found the office drawer with the medical and legal information, the staircase leading out to the backyard, Ethan’s room, and Mom’s room with the money we need for when we get out of here. I saw everything I need to see.”
“I suppose you’re right. So I’ll go out alone every once in a while to grab some more cash, maybe some jewelry so we can pawn it later, check out the office every once and a while for information and just come right back. No more exploring - I didn’t find anything interesting in any of the other rooms anyway.”
Will kissed the top of my head and gathered me a little bit closer. “I was so scared when I heard you scream. I had no idea what had happened to you.”
“I’m sorry. I know I could have gotten us into a lot of trouble. I just freaked when he grabbed me. He looked barely alive; I didn’t think he could hold onto me like that. Then when he started talking to me like I was Mom, it was creepy.”
“Wait, he thought you were Mom?” Will pulled me away so he could look me in the eyes.
“Yeah, he called me Joycie. Said I would always be his little girl.” I shuddered when I thought about it again.
“Beth, I thought he was just hallucinating, saying things that didn’t mean anything.” The wheels in his head were turning, trying to puzzle something together.
“I don’t understand? He obviously was. I’m not Joyce.”
“But you look enough like her when she was younger that he could have easily mistaken you for her. Ethan was thinking about something from the past. When I came in to take you away, he called me Robert.”
“Who the hell is Robert?” I asked, confused.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Will said coldly.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to Andrea for looking this over. Enjoy!