Darkness. 



"Tinker Bell. Meggie whispered the name twice; she had always liked the sound of it, you click your tongue against your teeth, then there was that soft B sound slipping out of your lips like a kiss.” – Inkheart by Cornelia Funke 

 

Liam grunted as he collided with the cold tarmac pavement. He quickly got up, dusted off his clothes hoping that no one had seen him trip over his ancient holey shoes and picked up the brown paper bag which had fallen on to a heap of grubby material on the kerb. Luckily for Liam, no one had. It was a sunday; everone would be eating their roast dinners, not watching a scrap of a boy fall over. Liam hurried back home as though nothing happened, ignoring the stinging sensation in his left knee. 

“About bloody time!” called a deep Tennessee accent coming from the living room when Liam had closed the red front door behind him. A tall, dark haired unshaven man came out and took the paper bag from Liam. He took the bottle out of the bag, thrust the bag at Liam, unscrewed the small black cap, took a long drink from it and walked back to the living room to slump in front of the big screen television as he had been doing all day. ‘Lazy bastard!’ thought Liam as he ascended the stairs to his room. It was small, cramped and cold. Liam’s room contained little furniture, a cardboard box for his clothes in the corner beside the door and old, smelly, uncomfortable mattress looking as though it belonged at a dump site, not in being used in a room. The once crème wallpaper was peeling off the walls, tattered strips reaching the floor to reveal the brown plastered walls – one of the sources of the cold; the others were the lack of bedding and curtains. The room echoed badly but Liam didn’t particularly mind because, after all, it was shelter.

“Liam!” the lazy man hollered from his newly brought red arm chair. Liam hurried to his side.

“Liam, how many times do I have to tell you?” the hillbilly rose from his chair and pointed to a dark liquid oozing into the brown carpet. “Clean this mess up now!” He ordered, stepping over the crouching boy desperately trying to soak it up with his tee-shirt and walking into the kitchen.

 The liquid was alcohol; the smell was too familiar to Liam for a boy of his age, 11.  He took the wet tee-shirt into the bathroom and wrung it out in the bath. The scent of the strong alcohol made Liam gag. Once the brown liquid had stopped dripping, he dropped the shirt into the sink, cleaned the bath out, then the shirt and then left the shirt on his open window to dry. He spent the rest of the night doing the orders the man barked at him and making himself scarce. It had gone two am before his father had passed out, sprawled across the living room floor, which meant that it was about two thirty when Liam finally got to relax. 

As he lay on the mattress covered with a coat, he wondered if his father had been like this with his mother and sister before they were killed. 

It was on a winter’s day about five years ago that his father had been driving his family home after a church meeting when their silver Vauxhall Corsa slipped on a patch of black ice, despite the fact that the car was going under 10 mph, skidded off the road and down a steep hill, hitting a tree at the bottom.

His mother was instantly killed.

 She wasn’t wearing her seat belt because she was trying to locate her red handbag which was under the passenger’s black leather seat. Her neck snapped noisily. The younger two of the crash, 9 year old Liam and a 10 year old girl named Aurora, had minor injuries. Liam had whiplash, bruises and a few cuts in the shape of the seatbelt. Aurora had more cuts on her face and head but less bruises on her chest as she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt correctly. Liam’s father, Anthony, had his legs trapped between the leather steering wheel and the floor because hitting the tree had caused the front of the car to fold in on its self. He also had fairly bad head wounds. Aurora reached for their mothers’ bag and called the ambulance service. 

In under thirty minutes, the now motherless children were sitting by their father’s white sheeted trolley bed all bandaged up. Aurora was holding his hand and Liam was praying that he wouldn’t die, losing one parent was bad enough, and he didn’t think he could handle losing both parents and being put into foster care. After twelve hours of constantly being checked on, Anthony had been moved up stairs to a ward from the ICU.

The walls were a bright sunny yellow with sunflowers printed on as border, supposedly to make the ward feel warm and friendly, but Anthony didn’t find it very warm and friendly. He thought it was cold, and didn’t fulfill its purpose of lightening patients’ moods. Anthony would have rather been in the ICU again with the plain, boring walls than have to see the stupid sunflower walls the moment he opened his eyes in the morning. About three years after that, Anthony hung up the phone, sat down on the fancy armchair next to the coffee table and cried.


“What’s wrong, daddy?” Liam asked wrapping his arms around his father.
“Aurora is not coming home.” He wiped his eyes and pulled his lost looking son on to his knees.
“Why daddy, is she staying with Paul?” Paul was Aurora’s 'punky-looking' boyfriend; they had been dating for 2 years prior her death.
“No.” He said surprising loud. Liam jumped. “She... she...” Anthony couldn’t finish the sentence before sitting Liam onto a chair beside him, standing up, and briskly walked to his room. He slammed the door, the force made the wall hangings wobble on their nails. Liam had only seen his father like this once before; when his mother died, Liam assumed the worst. He knocked on Anthony’s door and opened it slowly.
“Dad?” he stepped towards the bed. Anthony was crying loudly under the red silky duvet, Liam crawled up the soft spongy bed under the duvet from the bottom of the bed and cuddled up next to his father.
“It’s going to be okay, daddy.”
“No, Liam, it’s not. Aurora’s gone and she’s never coming back.” Anthony let out another long, loud string of sobs.
“Daddy? Where’s Aurora?” he stroked Anthony’s arm hairs downwards.
“She... she...she’s dead, Liam.” Anthony only just managed to whisper the words out before he chocked on tears.
“No, daddy, she’s not. I spoke to her before” Liam protested.
“Liam! She is gone. Bugger off! Go play and leave me alone!” Anthony barked. “Erm...But, Daddy...” Liam started to say.
“Liam! Out, now.” He commanded pointing to the door.  He walked to the door, turned round, caught a glimpse of his father’s arm disappearing back under the duvet and sighed. He went upstairs, into Aurora’s light pink painted walled room, looked through all her stuff – not all of which he knew what to do with – and cuddled into her dark pink sheeted bed. He inhaled deeply, trying to keep her scent locked in his brain forever.
“Oh, Aurora.” He sighed quietly. He picked up one of her stuffed toys – a silly looking zebra with a head three times the size of its body, Liam always thought it was ugly, but it was Aurora’s favourite. He cried himself to sleep that night. 

 
For the next week or two after Anthony went to the police station and to the morgue to identify her , he didn’t show his face around the house, he stayed in his room and grieved. Liam had to feed his father like he was acting adult, and Anthony a small child for Liam feared that his father would die from starvation.

Once Anthony had gotten over the shock of loosing Aurora, it took about 10 months until he started coming of his room but about a year and a half until he made any attempt of being sociable. He started to act less and less like a father and more like an evil stepfather character in a fairytale, ordering him about all the time. Until a late night in December.
“Liam.” Anthony said when they were sitting at the dinner table. He put his knife and fork down and sat on his hands.

“Aurora got murdered.” He said looking at the ceiling to prevent the tears. Liam sat there shocked and confused. His father’s eyes dropped and looked at his eyes. “You understanding what I am saying, Liam?”
“Umm... I don’t know.” He whispered pushing the peas around on his plate with the back of his fork.
“I am going to tell you what happened and you are going to listen. I want you to know what happened. It will upset you but you need to know.” Anthony moved to Liam’s side and glanced at his face and then looked at the chair legs.“A man found her hanging upside down on a bridge, she had a deep cut in her stomach, and this ment she lost all her blood.” Liam gasped.
“How can anyone do that?” he whispered.
“I don’t know, I just don’t know.” He replied with a sigh. “Anyway, they caught the guy. His name was Maximilion  Harries and he thought that Aurora killed his wife.” Anthony cursed at Maximilion under his breath.
“What? Is that guy locked up, dad?” Liam asked
“No, Liam. He’s dead. He killed himself.” Liam muttered a ‘bloody good’ under his breath. “Right, now, you finish your dinner and then go away, yeah?” Anthony said as his son stabbed the peas on his fork, lifted them towards his mouth, then put the fork down, stood up, scraped the peas into the bin, put the plate in the sink and walked up stairs to Aurora’s room.

“Liam, time to go to sleep now!” Anthony shouted as he looked at the clock which read 10:30pm but Liam was already asleep tucked in between Aurora’s dark pink bed sheets.



She woke with a splitting headache, she couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed.
The room was too dark and the pain in her side was becoming more unbearable as the minutes passed. She tried to move away from the sharp object digging into her side and piercing her skin.
“What the..?” she muttered struggling to get free of the bonds which were tightly bound around her wrists and ankles. She soon gave up for the pain was too much. Someone somewhere turned on a bright light. The girl shielded her eyes as possible.
“So she awakes.” The stalker said sitting on a single wooden kitchen chair in the middle of the blank walled room.
“Who the hell are you? Where am I? Why am I tied up? Untie me! Let me go!” The curly haired blonde shouted wriggling trying to loosen the ropes. The man laughed.
“A ‘hello’ wouldn’t kill you would it?” he said sarcastically. The girl looked disgusted and turned away from him. “I am Maximilion Harries; you can call me Max or Maxxie. I was married to Claire Harries. Claire died 3 years, 1 month and 6 days ago. You are the little whore that pushed her in front of that car.”
 She opened her mouth to object but Max quickly got off his chair, went over to her and gagged her with his red handkerchief. Her eyes widened with confusion and she muffled a scream. He sighed with a smile playing on his lips.
“Finally, peace and quiet. You are a noisy little shit aren’t you! Now let me explain why you are here.” He sat back on the chair; it creaked when he sat down. “I fell apart when Claire died, she was my best friend, my soul mate, the person you walked the earth trying to find” The girl’s eyes softened at the way Max spoke of Claire.
“When you took her away from me, I fell to pieces; I couldn’t think of anything but revenge, all I wanted was revenge. That’s when I saw you again. I followed you everywhere; I waited for you after you went to school.” Her eyes hardened again, he paused. “I realized, I love you.”
The confused bound child stopped squirming and looked at him. “It’s true, ya know. I didn’t know it until now, I could do anything with you now...But, I don’t think I want to though, I just want revenge. And you know what the best thing is?” He stepped to the girl; she tried to flatten herself against the wall. He grabbed her hair and shouted in her face, inches from his own, “YOU SHOULD FEAR ME FOR I AM DEATH.”
The girl squeezed her hare bell blue eyes tightly shut and held her breath trying to block Max and his awful breath out.

Liam awoke screaming, covered in sweat and tangled in the damp linen sheets. “Shit” he cursed under his breath as his father came into the room.
“Liam? What happened?” “Nothing, I just had a nightmare.” He said shrugging it off
“Oh. It’s okay, nothing’s gunna happen.” Anthony said reassuring his now only child.
“Maximilion was in it.” He stated. His father looked at him sharply.
“What happened?” he demanded
“Maximilion had tied a girl up and he was going to hurt her”
“What did she look like?”
“I didn’t see her face. She had long yellow hair.” Liam whispered to Aurora’s fat headed zebra soft teddy. Anthony didn’t say anything. He knew who the girl was.
“It’s only a nightmare. It’s not real. Go back to sleep.” Anthony said trying to be reassuring but was shaking to much to be any comfort for his shaken up 9 year old boy.
Anthony tucked Liam back into Aurora’s sheets and went back to watching the old television in his bedroom.                                                                     

                                                                                        ----

“OI! Get down here NOW, Liam!” shouted his father from his newly painted crème room in the early hours of a Tuesday morning.
Liam was already awake and had been so for hours; he rarely ever had a decent night of sleep. He was down stairs quickly before Anthony shouted again.
“I need some paracetamol.” He groaned holding his head. Liam dragged his tired body into the kitchen, climbed on to the surface and got the paracetamol box out of the top cupboard - he thought it ironic that it said ‘Keep out of reach of children’ when it was really his father who needed to be kept away from the drugs – and took them along with a glass of fresh orange juice to his father’s side.
“What is this?” he said accusingly about the glass of orange juice.
“Orange juice”
“I don’t want orange juice! I want whisky not fucking orange juice, you idiot boy!” he roared before throwing off the duvet, tipping the glass over his son and slamming the front door on the way out to get some whisky.
Liam sighed, went for a shower in his clothes and sat in front of a radiator on a rag of towel to dry until the door slammed a long time later. Anthony was drunk already. He also stank of weird smoke; he’d been to the pub again.

“Liam, come ‘ere son!” he called in a friendlier tone than normal. When Liam got to the bottom of the stairs, his father met him with, not a slap or an order, but a hug, a hug that felt like it belonged long ago.  The hug stunned Liam but then when he was sure his father wasn’t going to drop him or hurt him, he returned the hug. He whispered into Anthony’s ear:
“Daddy, are you back?” Anthony smiled and pulled him closer into his chest. It was only a short hug, but still a hug.

Liam decided he liked this Anthony, even if he did smell funny and had red eyes. It gave him a little bit of hope that his daddy was beneath all the monstrosity. That night Liam slept almost peacefully for once, dreaming of the old times when he had all of his family. 

“Liam!” his father’s voice came loudly up the stairs. Liam bounded down the stairs to his father’s side beaming. “What are you grinning at boy? Go get me paracetamol.” He ordered. Liam’s hopes fell as quick as his smile had. He dragged himself to the kitchen and got the paracetamol and gave them to his father.
“Where’s my drink?” he asked glaring at Liam.
“Get it yourself.” Liam said in monotone, turned on his shoeless heels and walked out the door. Anthony sat stunned in a pile of bedding momentarily.
“Liam! Liam! Get back here now!” he shouted into the empty streets. Anthony ran into the alley behind their rusty red bricked house. “Liam!” he shouted. 
 

The alley echoed his shouted back to him. “Come on Liam where are you, son?” he said under his breath while looking behind a piece of corrugated iron. All he found was a few rats eating a mouldy chocolate and peanut butter sandwich, most likely dropped by a small child.
“Eughh!” He leapt back, and sent the corrugated iron clattering to the floor noisily. After hours of hopeless searching, he went to the pub as he did every night and got drunk.“Liam!” Anthony bellowed for the fifth time, “LIAM! Get your arse out of bed now!”


Five minutes later Liam still hadn’t come downstairs, Anthony roared “LIAM CHARLSON, if I have to come up those stairs, you will be in deep trouble!”
He threw the duvet to the floor and stormed up stairs, pushed Liam’s bedroom door open with force. When he saw the mattress with no boy lying on it, his face fell. He had forgotten that his boy had run away.
“ARRRRGGHHH!” he yelled into the empty room, and the empty room returned the angry yells. “I have failed you, Sarah. I haven’t been looking after Liam at all.” He sobbed to the ceiling.

Sarah had been Anthony’s wife for nearly 18 years. They had first met at a mountaineering expedition to Ben Nevis in Scotland several years prior to their marriage. Sarah had been as beautiful then, as she was when she died. Her shiny waist length hair was as blonde as the day they met, not one grey hair. Her skin never gave her age, of 41, away. Everyone said she looked like a 30 something year old. Her always happy attitude and her happy smiley blue eyes also contributed to everyone thinking this.