Sancte Diaboli

Saint

Present

It was too dark for it to be morning. I knew as much when I opened my eyes. My lace curtains swayed with the wind that was drifting through my room, cold yet oddly serene. White fabric moved with the lace. I rub my eyes and open them again, but just as my lashes lift from my cheek, a dark shadow zips past me, ducking behind the curtain. I jump off the bed in shock, fear crawling through me, its sharp nails moving down my spine.

“Who’s there?”

I rub my eyes again, suddenly more awake than I was a second ago. Opening them again, I reach for the curtain to push it out of the way. “Who—” It’s empty. My antique three-piece outdoor setting sits in the corner, with my mini Monstera plant in the center of the table.

“I’m going crazy.” I patter toward the bathroom where my white marble tub is mounted in the center beside my freestanding rainforest shower. I love my bathroom. Windows overlook the front of the house, but all of my different species of ferns hang from various places. Brantley calls my bedroom and bathroom “a fucking jungle,” but I think it’s just perfect.

Turning on the faucet near the sink, I splash water on my face, dabbing the moisture off my cheeks with Egyptian cotton. The room is quiet. Secluded. But I’m used to it. I’m more comfortable in silence than I am around noise.

Moving my way through my bedroom, around my plants, I change for the day, switching into something comfortable enough to garden in. Since I was a child, gardening has been my outlet. It was a hobby, but now it’s more like a lifestyle. To be able to grow and nurture something that is alive gives me a sense of purpose.

I’m jogging down the stairwell, raking my hair up into a high pony when I pause in my steps. Brantley is leaning against the wall opposite me, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders straight. I’ve never known him outside of these walls, never seen him interact with his peers or in social settings. Brantley has always come off as closed, cold, and completely unapproachable, but seeing how he moved around his friends last night, I’m guessing there’s a whole lot to him that not even I know.

Sometimes it’s not about the words people whisper into your ear in the dark; most times it’s about what they say in front of an audience.

I’m begi

“Is everything okay?” I ask, playing with the leather bangle that’s around my wrist.

“What did Tillie talk to you about last night?” He pushes off the wall and makes his way into the kitchen. I follow behind him slowly, watching as the muscles in his back flex while he gathers the ingredients he needs for a protein shake.

“She asked about some details of me being here,” I say softly, pulling out a barstool while remaining focused on him.

“And what did you say?” he asks, scooping out powder and tipping it into the blender cup.

“The basics,” I answer, watching him closely. He flips the blender on, and for a few seconds, we’re drowned out with noise. He switches it off, tears off the lid and tosses it into the sink, before turning to face me and leaning on the counter.

“Which is?”

Alarmed by the vocal confidence that he’s spewing, my mouth slightly closes. You would assume that because we live together and have always lived together, that we would see each other often. We don’t. Brantley is never home. At least since Lucan died anyway. Up until that point, I would have been confident enough to say that he and I existed around each other. It may have not been a conventional friendship, but I knew he tolerated me. Since Lucan died, however, Brantley’s anger has only peaked, and I hardly see him now. I see him around the house maybe once every three months—if that—and when I do, it’s in passing. It’s not because we live in separate wings in this gigantic mansion, either, because we’ve always stayed on the same wing. The same hallway. There were two bedrooms on the third level of this house. One door led to his room, while the other to mine.

When I don’t answer him, he interrupts. “I didn’t hire urbane tutors for you throughout all of your homeschool life for you to not speak when I ask you something. Answer the question.”

My cheeks flare, and I watch as his eyes drop to the spray of pink now exposed over my skin. That was probably the longest thing he has ever said to me. Brantley communicates through his eyes, his body language, the way he walks and moves around the room before he uses his words. At least, that’s how it has always been with me. “I told her that I’ve been here since I was a child. That’s all.”

His fist clenches around the edge of marble, while my eyes follow down his thick arms, where purple and green veins pulse beneath his pale, untouched skin. “Did you go for a run?”

His finger taps against the counter. Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Is there something that she was supposed to say to me?”

He shakes his head, bringing his shake to his mouth and taking a swig. “Hmmm,” is all he says. His eyes move up and down my body. “What are you doing today?”

“The gardens.”

“We pay people for that.” He turns to tip out the contents, rinsing, and leaving it on the side of the drying rack.

“You know that I like doing it.” At those words, Brantley’s back freezes, the muscles beneath his skin instantly hardening.

He turns, taking the steps he needs to my chair and spi

I think I spoke enough to occupy both of us.

I think he hated me for it.

He’s so close that I can feel the warmth of his breath fall over my lips, and I do everything in my power not to allow my eyes to drop down to his own, or God forbid, his arms. They drop, because I’m not very good at this. Human interaction, that is. He knows that.

So when his mouth twitches ever so slightly, it throws me off-balance.

“What?” I whisper, hypnotized by the bow in his lip. How it swells, dips, and curves in all the right places.

“Yeah,” he says, pushing off the table while keeping me pi

I’m still sitting, trying to catch the words he had said when he disappears upstairs. What does he mean, be ready? There have been few times that he has taken me out of the house, and all of those times were before Lucan died.

I make my way up to my bedroom, closing the door behind me. My room is in complete contrast to Brantley’s room, and the general aesthetic of this haunted mansion. Everything is white and beige. From my sheets, to my four-post bed, to the dresser and floor-length mirror. The curtains that cover the twin doors open out onto my little patio that overlooks the back of the house and the cemetery is the softest beige I could find. Not quite white, but not quite nude. I sleep with my doors open every night, even in the winter. I like to feel the cold while being warm in my bed.