I still feel the shame of that night. The humiliation.
She had my sisters watch. A family punishment, after a proper family dinner. She had me strip naked from the waist down and bend over the recently cleared dinner table while they all watched.
At least she sent the maids out of the room.
When my father had thought I’d had enough, she ordered him to go on until welts covered me from the backs of my knees to the whole of my buttocks. A lesson for my sister’s to learn what would happen should they try the same.
I think the Scafoni family is sick, but we’re sick too, us Willows.
Amy’s the only one of my sisters that I miss.
“You should teach your little pet to address us respectfully,” Lucinda says, drawing me back into the present.
“I’ll teach my pet to do as I like, not as you like.”
I pick up a breadstick and turn, leaning my back against the buffet, crunching the breadstick and watching them silently, washing it down with my martini. I should take it easy. I haven’t eaten all day.
It’s breezy tonight, and Sebastian favors me in dresses apparently because that’s about ninety percent of my wardrobe. I’m grateful the sleeves of my sweater are long, long enough I can hold them in my palms.
I lay one arm across my belly and just watch them while helping myself to a second breadstick.
Sebastian has turned his gaze back to Lucinda, and I guess they’re having a staring contest that she’s losing. I turn the bone ring in my hand, knowing now whose bone it is, feeling a surge of power run through me at the thought.
It’s my secret. Just mine. I have a piece of them. My aunt took the finger of her Scafoni bastard, took the bone from it, and made it into an ornament for herself. A skull she hung around her neck like a token of her victory.
Her notch.
How fitting, the skull.
God, I want to laugh. I want to laugh out loud.
“Your aunt wasn’t all there, and definitely not by the end.”
Hell, maybe I’m not all there either because since I’ve come to this place, I feel insane.
Sebastian turns to me. He unceremoniously shoves out the chair beside his with his foot.
“Sit.”
I guess those daggers are turned on me now. I walk obediently to the table and sit.
The girl I recognize from the few times she’s been up to my room quickly sets a place before me.
“I’m hungry,” Sebastian says. He’s resumed his stare down of Lucinda.
She swallows the last of her drink and rises. Ethan follows her lead, and for the first time, I see the hesitation on his face and what Sebastian said makes sense. He’s not all there. I’m curious what happened, what this accident was.
I glance at Sebastian. He’s watching Ethan too, and I swear I see something like remorse there. But it’s gone the instant Lucinda speaks.
“We’ll be on our way, then. Don’t want to keep you from your dinner.”
She gives me a pointed look before she turns, and Ethan follows on her heels.
A few minutes later, I hear the engine of the boat just as a bottle of wine is opened and dinner is served, a steak for each of the brothers with a side of potatoes and roasted vegetables, and for me, the same, but instead of a beef steak, mine is a vegetarian version.
“Thank you,” I say to the girl.
Sebastian and Gregory pick up their forks and cut into the meat. I start with a bite of potato. When I put the second bite into my mouth, Sebastian sits back and chews his, watching me.
He’s in a mood.
“I want you down for every meal from now on.”
“I don’t eat breakfast,” I say, knowing it’s a weak excuse.
“Well, you’ll start. Especially since we’ve taken into consideration your diet, and the cook is preparing special meals for you.”
“Why are you taking it into consideration?”
“Christ. Can you ever just be grateful and move on?”
He’s right on this one. I know it. “I am grateful. Thank you. It was just a question.”
“Nothing is just a question with you. Eat. I don’t want you too skinny.”
“Not enough flesh to whip?”
“Something like that.”
We glare at each other for a full minute until I can’t anymore and do as he says. I eat. I’m starving, and the food is good.
I study Gregory while I work my way through my plate. He and Sebastian share similarities in features and, more so, mannerisms, and I can’t help but watch them. They’re not big on talking, so we eat mostly in silence.
“Were you both here when my Aunt Libby was the Willow Girl?”
They both look at me, and it’s Sebastian who answers a moment later. “Yes, over the summers.”
“What was she like?” They seem surprised by my question, and I clarify. “I was only five when she came home. I never really got to know her.”