Helena

I never did find out what they did to guys like Gerard in prison. Unlike Helena’s death, his was sudden. One minute we were all in the house, the animals scurrying at our feet, the next he was gone. I was sometime during the night, Lucas’s snores grating through my brain when I awoke. I realised I must have slept, though my body ached from hours of restless tossing and turning following my conversation with Gerard. I sat up slowly, listening for Gerard’s strangled sobs. It had become a common occurrence for them to wake me, and I had taken to getting up and sitting by the fire downstairs, usually with one of the kittens in my lap or a bat on my shoulder. On that night though, for some reason I padded along the hall to the bat cave. All was silent as I knocked the door.

“Helena” I whispered, “You in there?”

There was no reply. I stood shivering in the hallway, imagining the endless possibilities of why I could hear nothing for the first night in weeks. I imagined that Max had somehow clambered through the window and hammered plates through Gerard and my sister’s heads. My chest tightening, I rapped the door more urgently with my knuckles.

“Helena” I called, my voice high pitched with panic, “Gerard, you there?”

I couldn’t wait for a reply. Throwing open the door, I cried out in shock at what I found. The bed was empty, sheets cast onto the floor in untidy heaps. My eyes darted around the room, noting that Gerard’s black, gothic boots were not parked in their usual place at the end of the bed. His jacket, black with white, skeletal markings also appeared to have vanished. I rummaged through the sheets looking for it, prying that my worst fears would not be confirmed. Upon finding both the jacket and the face paint missing, I sat down on the cold floorboards and buried my face in the long fur of an otter which had scrambled onto my lap.

“What am I going to do” I whimpered

After several minutes, I became vaguely aware of the rumbling of male voices downstairs. None were Gerard’s however, their mumbles steady and serious. Then another voice wafted through the house.

“He wasn’t there” it sobbed, “I woke up and he was gone”

I clambered to my bare feet and scurried downstairs to find the lounge swarming with police officers. Helena sat on the sofa, an officer on either side of her, Gerard’s jacket clutched to her chest. Rooted to the spot, I stared at the policeman who appeared to be in charge. He had a thick, sprouting moustache which almost covered the lower part of his nose. It twitched disconcertingly as he scribbled furiously in a notepad.

“Helena” I croaked

She looked at me for a moment, before getting up and wrapping her arms around me. She was shivering as she led me back to the sofa. The female officer on my left sniffed disapprovingly as I sat beside her, Helena holding me tightly. The jacket was spread across our knees, Helena acting as though she couldn’t bear to let it go. It was time to find out the inevitable.

“Where’s Gerard?” I asked, my voice strained and catching in my throat.

She gripped me tightly, her teeth chattering in my ear. Her face was pale above mine, streaked with tears and tinged with panic.

“He’s gone” she choked

I was dimly aware of Helena attempting to reassure me, one of the policemen pushing a brimming glass of milk into my hand, but my mind felt oddly smothered as I sat shivering in our lounge, questions being fired at me.

“Did Mr Way talk to you yesterday evening?” the officer with the moustache asked, his voice a drill penetrating my skull.

I nodded, feeling the milk in my mouth sloshing around unpleasantly. I couldn’t seem to swallow, my entire body uncoordinated and shaking.

“Did he give you any information about where he might be going?”

Helena still had her arms round me as I shook my head. I thought back to the previous night, when I’d adorned Gerard’s face with the paint. Silently I began to examine the memory, searching for any clue which might have led to Gerard’s whereabouts. I thought about Max again, wondering if he could somehow have escaped from the prison and smuggled Gerard from the bedroom. I imagined him, his face twisted with evil and laughing mechanically as a plate was smashed across Gerard’s head. I saw Gerard, left abandoned; alone and in pain as blood seeping from his head ran down his face.

“Alright” the officer said, that’s all for now”

He nodded to his colleagues, who abruptly got to their feet straightening their ties and arranging the guns positioned on their belts. I was still clutching the almost full glass of milk in my hand as all but one of the officers trouped out of the door. The remaining, a stocky woman with wirey grey hair gave me a grim, unsympathetic smile. She took up a lot of our lounge, her cheeks peony, her hat straight and authoritative. It was a cruel contrast to Helena, who appeared smaller and more pathetic looking than I’d ever seen her. She was till wearing pyjamas, with Gerard’s shirt pulled over for decency. It swamped her skeletal, frail body, almost drowning her in its black material. Suddenly, she let go of me.

“Go and wake Lucas, will you” she said, “He could sleep through a hurricane…all this rammy doesn’t seem to have disturbed him.”

I didn’t want to go back upstairs, it seemed so strange accepting that Gerard would not be there waiting for Helena with a new addition to their zoo clutched in his hands. But I couldn’t argue with Helena, not that night. Sliding from the sofa, I sidled past the policewoman and into the coldness of the hall. I felt for the banister, not trusting my quivering legs to carry me smoothly up the stairs. Lucas’s snores echoed on the staircase, making me jump. I wondered how he could possibly have slept through the policeman’s interrogation and Helena’s sobs. When I reached our bedroom,, it seemed somehow colder than the rest of the house. Lucas was huddled under the blankets, the sheets tangled around his bony legs. I couldn’t believe I was about to disturb his peacefulness in order to tell him that our family was being ripped apart.

“Lucas” I hissed, “Lucas, wake up”

His face twitched in response, a small grunt rumbling in his throat. I thumped him on the shoulder, harder than I intended.

“What’s up” he groaned, “It’s the middle of the night”

“He’s gone” I said stiffly, “Gerard’s missing”

Lucas sat bolt upright, his eyes wide with shock. He leapt out of bed, pulling on a pair of jeans and a thick jacket over his pyjamas. His movements were jerky ad uncoordinated, rather like a puppet being controlled by an unskilled master.

“What are you doing?” I asked, “You’re not going out, are you? You can’t leave Helena”

He dropped to his knees, hunting for his shoes.

“I’m going out to look for Gerard” he said, his voice indistinct as he burrowed under the bed.

My entire family was disappearing. Gerard had disappeared into the blackness, and Lucas looked set to follow.

“The police are looking for him” I said, “There’s one of them downstairs, she’ll want to talk to you”

Emerging with a shoe clutched in each hand, he shook his head furiously.

“Talking isn’t going to find him, is it?” he snapped, “I’m going out to have a look around. The cops are hopeless; they stand around polishing their fucking pistols all night”

He pushed past me into the hall, his hair dishevelled and uncombed. I hurried after him into the lounge, where Helena has curled up under Gerard’s jacket and was sobbing into a cushion. The officer stood like a statue, in exactly the same position I had left her. Ignoring her stare, I knelt beside the sofa with my throat burning and my stomach oddly knotted.

“Helena” I whispered

She looked nothing like my sister, the person who had protected me and cared for me all my life. Her entire face was crumpled in pain and fear. I reached out to her.

“They’ll find him” I said, “There’s police everywhere, and Lucas is going out too”

I longed for her to insist that Lucas stayed at home, that it was the middle of the night and he wasn’t stumbling around in the dark. She said nothing, clutching the jacket, the ears poring from her swollen eyes. I couldn’t bear it. The thought of staying at home with Helena and the policewoman, waiting for Gerard to return, made my chest tighten in dread. I couldn’t watch her cry for Gerard, knowing I was doing nothing to help.

“I’ll go with him” I said, “I’ll find him Helena, I swear I will”

She barely acknowledged me, simply generating a watery smile which looked more like a grimace. The rain battered the window, heavy goods vehicle’s headlights shining into the lounge and casting an eerie glow on Helena’s face. It made her appear sickly, a jaundiced colour flashing across her as each one passed the house. Getting to my feet, I snatched up a jumped and pulled it over the t-shirt I always wore to bed. It too, belonged to Gerard. I’d taken it some years before, sneaking it from his drawer in childish irritation that he had moved into what I considered to be my house. My face burned with shame as I recalled the tricks I’d played as a jealous four year old determined to drive a mysterious stranger from my home. I had accepted him quickly however, two weeks of hiding his CDs were ceased when he’d set a vividly green snake on my bony shoulders. From that moment on, I had looked up to his as my hero.

I stuffed my feet into the previous year’s shoes, they only ones I could find during my frantic dash around the lounge. Stealing a last glance at Helena, I slipped out of the door after Lucas, my head spinning. The rain was torrential, beating down on us and soaking through my clothes before we’d even reached the end of the street. It was bitterly cold too; the icy wind a sharp slap in the face. I bit my lip, looking around desperately as we reached the end of the close.

“Where do we start?” Lucas murmured.