Dark Vow (Blackwoods College)

I said my vows. I stared in her eyes as I did it, the simple silver band perched on the tip of her ring finger. She stared back, lips parted, and I meant every word I said, until death do we part. I slid it down and it fit.

She did the same thing, but with much less enthusiasm.

That finished, I moved closer to her.

“By the power vested in me by the State of Maine, I pronounce you two man and wife. You may—”

I didn’t wait for him to finish. I took Robyn in my arms and kissed her deep and hard, like it was the first time we’d ever touched lips. She returned it with a breathless and surprising hunger.

Nobody clapped. When I broke away, my mother was leaving with my brothers. The priest said something about his check and swept out of the tent. Martha wiped tears away and scooted after him.

My father stood and approached. I held Robyn’s hand tightly in my own.

“You did it,” he said, eyeing me, and looked at my bride. “I expected you to run.”

“Then you don’t know me very well.”

“I suppose you’ll fix that.” My father almost smiled. He turned to me. “Now that this is finished, you’re going to want a position in the company.”

“And a seat on the board.”

“We’ll discuss that.”

“No, we won’t. A seat on the board, and my brothers disinherited.”

He shook his head. “We’ll discuss that.” He turned and walked away.

I let him go. Not worth arguing.

“Congratulations,” Matthias said, and followed my father.

Leaving me alone with Robyn beneath the altar, standing in front of a few lonely chairs in a deep, beautiful tent.

“I guess there won’t be a reception,” she said.

“Not unless you want to dance right here.”

“No music. What a pity.” She adjusted her dress and spread out her hands. “How do I look?”

“Incredible.”

She blushed and stared at her shoes. “This isn’t how I expected my wedding to go.”

“No? You didn’t want to get married in front of an unwilling priest while everyone in the crowd imagined your bloody and horrible death?”

“Not everyone. Martha was happy.”

I laughed and steered her down the aisle. “That’s true. She was the only one.”

“Not your father? Not Matthias?”

“Things are complicated with my father, and I’m not sure Matthias cares either way. It won’t change his life much.”

“You have a weird relationship with him.”

“That’s definitely true.” I led her out of the tent and toward the house. “I want to show you something, if you’re up for it.”

“If this is some pretext to get me in bed, forget it. We’re not having the traditional wedding night.”

“I don’t need a pretext for that. This is about something else.”

She shrugged and took my arm. “Lead away then.”

I took her into the house, past several gossiping staff members, and down a series of hallways. This place was so familiar and so foreign, so strangely a part of my life, but always so remote. When I was a child, I explored this house obsessively, learned every corner, every inch, because there wasn’t much else to do. But I was always held at a distance, told never to touch anything, and punished severely if I made a mess.

“When I was twelve, I broke a Rembrandt right here.” I stopped in a hallway and pointed. “It used to be there. I was dribbling a soccer ball and decided to kick it against the wall.”

“That’s the danger of living in a museum, right?”

I smiled and unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. She watched carefully as I pulled my shirt aside and pointed at a scar. It was a small knot of puckered pink skin beneath my collar bone. “My father stabbed me with a pen.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “A pen?”

“It was what he had on hand. It could’ve been worse. He could’ve been shoveling.”

“God, Calvin. That’s so horrible.”

“I have scars all over like this one.” I closed my shirt again. “Marks on my body and the corresponding places in this hellhole of a home where they happened. Tears on my back, knots on my thighs. My father liked to punish me creatively, and used our space liberally in doing so.”

“He’d drag you around just to beat you?”

“Essentially, yes. He wanted me to know that everything I had, I had because of him. Nothing was mine. Nothing was earned. He wanted to make me strong. I think it worked, but it had some unintended consequences.”

“Like what?”

“Like how I enjoy hurting, and to hurt.” I touched her cheek and she flinched away. “Come on. There’s one spot you should see.” I walked on, twisting into memory, into the nightmare of my childhood. I passed corridors and rooms, statues and paintings.

I refused to stop. If I paused in this place, I’d let memory overwhelm me. I couldn’t get dragged back down, not right now. Not on my wedding day.