Chapter Three: Calm

Thank Satan, William forgave me. I woke up bright and early (9am), which is somewhat unusual for me, and slipped a note under William's door. I'm not good with emotions or words so I just wrote "I'm sorry for what I said, bro. Look, let's go out today and talk. We good?". Will seemed pretty happy with that, and even offered to make me cereal. Sibling goals.

"We're gonna need more milk soon," I say, as he empties the remaining drizzles of the (one day out of date) milk. William grunts in reply. "Why don't we head out in a bit? It's a nice day again, plus we can get some more shopping whilst we're out. Also, Henry's 21st next week, and his last day at work today."

"I'm not sure how I feel about Henry at the moment," William says quietly. He always speaks quietly when talking about Henry, almost as if he's afraid he'll hear.

"Me neither," I admit, "but look, I want us all to be closer. As brothers. If that means celebrating a birthday, I'm going to celebrate a birthday."

"But Charlie," William says after a few minutes of no talking, just cereal crunching, "there's a man chained up in our basement, and soon enough, there will not be an alive man there, but a dead one."

"No." I try convince myself. "Henry wouldn't kill someone. He wouldn't... Will!" I shout. "Stop looking at your phone."

"Sorry. But, it is Isaac, and well, um, you did say to tell him how I feel - not that I've told him yet. I will, soon. Just not yet. I really don't want to ruin this amazing friendship that we have." He laughed. "Trust us to get friend-zoned. I mean, seriously. How many people does Henry have on the go? I know of three at least. Anna, Darcie and Nancy. I don't know if he's lucky or greedy."

After breakfast I get dressed hurriedly and wait for William to meet me by the door. All I know is that we're buying milk and maybe getting Henry a birthday present - not that we have any idea what we're going to get him. Maybe a DVD or something. The voices start to get really loud again. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I swear one of these days, it'll drive me insane.

William decides to make an appearance a few minutes later, and we head off to the supermarket first. We walk in silence, mainly. At least, we don't talk - but I can't say it's quiet. I can never really make out what they're saying, I don't even know if they're speaking English sometimes. I remember when I was five, William was six, and Henry was ten. William and I were playing with toys - I had the action figures and he had the dolls. Henry came in, and he had just started middle school. He'd had more aggression problems since then. He ripped the heads off the toys we were playing with.

When I woke up in hospital following the events six months ago, I was glad to be awake, in a way. I was having night terrors, when I woke up Will was stroking my hair. Henry was laughing at me, saying how much of a girl I was. He said William and I should have been killed instead.

Henry has never been a nice person, and I can safely say that I don't think he ever will be. I'm still curious as to how he treats the children when he's at work. Obviously he would not keep the job if he treated them horribly, the only thing I can think of, is if he learned from his mistakes and treated them in the exact opposite way that he treated us.

We walk into the supermarket and William picks up a basket. "Are we just here for groceries, or are we getting a present here, too?" Will asks.

In that moment, I see a kid from my year, and he sees me. He's a bully. "Carpetmuncher," he says under his breath as he walks past me.

I try to run after him but Will holds me back.

"Honestly, Charlie, he's not worth it. It's Aaron. People say nasty things, I know. Don't let it get to you. You know it's not true." Will says. I sigh. I guess I do know that. "Anyway, I made a list of what we need. Let's get started," he says. I follow after him. We get the essentials, and I actually manage to calm myself down. The basket slowly but surely fills up. "Hold this a sec," Will says, handing me the basket, and power-walks to the bouquets of flowers. He returns, with a bouquet of tulips. "They were on offer, and they were mum's favourite; we should go to their grave today. This whole thing with Henry is weird."

"I've never understood why people go to graves," I admit. "Like, I get it, it's for their memory, but they're not really there. It's creepy. They're just rotting bodies in the ground. However, if you want to go, we'll go."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks." William sighs. "I know. I do. Whatever happens, there is no bringing them back, which is why I don't understand why Henry is doing this. I understand letting them spend the rest of their lives in jail, but not dying in our basement."

"It's weird, even for us, even for our family, and I kind of want to go to the police but I can't. I'm half with you and half with Henry and quite frankly, the voices seem to approve," I say quietly.

Everything is awkward for a while. We go to our parents' grave and lay the flowers down, and William has tears that silently roll down his face, but I feel nothing. All I have now is their memory, and a headstone is not going to make me miss them any more than I always do every minute of every day. It physically hurts, them not being here. I never thought I would ever be apart from them. Yet, here I am. When we walk back, still without a gift for Henry, I can tell William is deep in thought, and so am I. I'm actually quite terrified of Henry, I always have been, but this is so surreal. There is literally a man chained up in our basement - if that's not insanely abnormal, I do not know what is. I'm not sure if torment is a passion for Henry, but he does seem to be a sadist. I don't know what normal is, any more.

We get home, and as soon as we walk in the door, we are greeted by Henry, smiling the same disturbing smile as yesterday.

"I have Hugo," he says cheerfully.