THE BABY

Each and every doll in Dad’s doll house had a meaning and a purpose. They were not born to be themselves, they were created and carved into perfect shape and Emilio remembered their little limp dolls from childhood sitting in seats twisted into whatever position people dreamed of. They were blind to it but that was their destiny too. They had been twisted and stretched and torn into pieces and put back together like some ugly collage and now parts were beginning to peel away and it still didn’t make sense to them who they were.

“I am sick of playing hide and seek with you July,” Emilio told him, ignoring each word he said. It was simply a lie. Even if he could he would not try. Belva was a mirror, unable to deviate from her shallow path of being Daddy’s little girl (or the shadow of one) but July was intelligent, he stayed in place because he knew it would be his best plan. “I wonder when you found our Father, were you finally satisfied with this life we’ve lived? Or did it just make you hungry for what else there was?”

She watched him and her gaze flickered to Helios. What a sweet creature, it sensed whatever it was inside of her that was simply off but Emilio loved animals. They reminded her of herself, wild and uncontrollable. She lived only to satisfy her needs because there was nothing else to her that she could follow. A beast trapped inside a girl.

She looked back at July and her lips remained pressed together into a small almost satisfied smile, eyes leaking out all the darkness that was trapped inside of her into the house where it belonged, “Not yet but I’m waiting. And if the tides turn, July,” she blinked, “I’d still be waiting for you.”

“Dad taught me how to play hide and seek,” was July’s simple response in return, shrugging his shoulders as he said those words. He fished for a lollipop from his jacket, nose scrunching in disappointment when he saw the tangerine flavor, but he unwrapped it anyway. His sister stare upon him felt like he was a kid being scrutinized by their teacher, expecting him to come out and tell her the truth. She was sick of playing games, and he was sick of the oxygen inside of the room being swallowed by lilies and unwanted guests lingering around like leeches. He was sick of her trying to unravel him. Taking the lollipop out of his mouth, he innocently adds, “But you were never allowed to play along.” Those were father’s rules; he never wanted him to be close with the twins.

Placing the candy in his mouth, the taste of orange is strong on his tongue, and July’s eyes narrow at the question that was asked. He wasn’t satisfied the least bit. For all the games he had taught him to play, cheat, and win, his father had beaten him when it came to the last round, a defeat he would not easily accept. A hunger that was not sated. But admitting the truth doesn’t come so quickly to him, instead he preferred to play around it. “I have always wanted to go to Disneyland in California, but father never allowed me to leave England. He can’t stop me now.”  

Emilio has a small smile, and he hides his. The darkness in her eyes should be unnerving, but he is preoccupied with his hand ruffling through Helios’ dark fur, and the other clasped around a lollipop. If the tides turn, July. I’d still be waiting for you. It almost sounds like an indication that he would make a mistake as they had. The difference between them was that he wasn’t as impulsive like her or reckless like December. “You are my sister, after all.”

Emilio had made things hard for people throughout her life but for some reason she seemed unable to control it. She looked at her siblings and watched them shed tears and her mind never allowed her to understand or comprehend the emotions that leaked from their eyes or their little beating hearts. That is what had made them weak to Dad and all his ploys. They had mistaken his actions for love but she had seen him for what he really was… A game master. He had left her game before she was finished and she thought still of how she had stood outside the study that night as he drew the curtains thinking they would play cat and mouse for many years longer before he finally got caught.

The police hadn’t really understood her, even the psychologist had determined her as guilty and made her wish she could rip their throats out instead so they would stop speaking as if they knew more than her. If she had been holding that bloody hammer because she’d killed someone then she would have admitted it. If she hated someone enough to want them dead… if they were worth that much energy then she would gladly tell everyone she knew about what she had done. No holds barred. But, she had not done it and not a single person in the entire world believed her. Not one single person bothered to ask her if it was true and nobody at all except for maybe her brother understood that she would have never been behind killing December because she cared about her siblings. They were apart of the game.

She turned to the doorway and when the figure that she heard outside entered she addressed them, “Isn’t it funny that the one with the least motive is pinned down to a crime just for the way they are? I never wanted it, I never asked for it, I never did it, I never even gave one single hint or reason why I would want to kill anybody and yet everyone blamed me. It’s really that easy to pretend that I never did a thing right in my entire life because nobody wants to believe anyone other than the obvious could be a killer. As if only I could be the one to do something so awful, so terrible. As if I am the only evil thing that grew within this house.”

December wasn’t death, but still it felt like the remainder of his father’s grief had drenched the house into a funeral home like lilies claiming up all the oxygen inside, causing July to get out for some air any chance he could find. 

A cigarette was stomped out on the doorsteps of their home. The House on the Hill would always be their home, even if the will stated something else, July refused to let go. Not because he wanted this place for himself. No, he would be out of here in a heartbeat (if it weren’t for some loose strings that needed some pulling). But he was prideful, and he had a longing like teeth that had bitten into the estate’s grounds. He had called this place home for eighteen years, and when the rest of his siblings were allowed to leave, he wasn’t. That bitterness had soaked deep into his bones, refusing to let things go. He just had to push and pull the-ever-so stubborn Ace into the direction he wanted, make him go after what was rightfully his. 

Annoyingly difficult, however, was getting his siblings to focus on one thing at a time. With everything twisting and changing every moment, nothing stayed the same, and it felt like one of those video games where he was stuck on the same level. A test of his patience.

He had just returned from a walk with Helios when Emilio’s voice boomed through the hallway, the Rottweiler growled at the sight of his sister, settling beside him like he was someone that needed to be protected. An image that his father cherished, and caused July to slip into the role of a boy innocent and naïve, and incapable of doing the things Emilio was cold heartily accused of. They always pointed their pitchfork to the most obvious ones. 

“I didn’t blame you,” July began, it felt like last time, when he had been too young to understand why Emilio was taken away from home. She included him in her blame so quickly, and he despised that. “But no one ever listens to me,” this part was typical of him, pushing what could be his mistake from himself onto someone else, in this case, it was the rest of the siblings, but July is not far from the truth with what he says. As the baby of the family, he was often overlooked, things he said were never taken seriously or considered for too long, someone was always talking over him, knowing what was best, what was right and what was wrong. 

“Have you seen December?”

DOLLHOUSE & TEXT POSTS PRT 5.