Midas Is King

Mommy’s screams waken me from my slumber. Confused I crawl out of bed and run down the hallway as fast as my six-year old legs can take me. The sight that awaits me is strange, I can see my Daddy hitting her from the second floor landing in our house. He can’t see me from here, Johnny and I used to hide here from whoever was downstairs. Silent tears begin rolling down my cheeks as I watch my Daddy attacking my Mommy, she doesn’t stop screaming. What is he doing to her? I want to go help, it’s my Mommy, she makes me PB&J sandwiches and tucks me into my princess sheets. Before I can take another step hands come down on my shoulder and I squeak out of fear. Daddy pauses for a second to look up at us, he can’t see me but he knows I’m there now. He has one of those really sharp knives that I’m not allowed to touch and it’s got red stuff on it. What’s he doing with that? My two older brothers, James and Jonathon pull me back, away from the edge, one of them covers my mouth before I can say anything.

“Don’t speak princess” Jamie whispers to me removing his hand from my mouth, I look up at him, he is never nice to me, he is rude. I don’t think he likes me very much, so I do my best not to listen to him. Johnny sees me open my mouth to scream but quickly covers my mouth again.

“Lele, trust him here, don’t make a sound, dad’s gone crazy,” He explains as quietly as he can, I nod silently, trying to understand, Johnny puts a finger to his lips and I brighten. We played this game before, it’s the quiet game, and whoever speaks first loses. Enthusiastically I place my own finger over my mouth and try not to giggle. Johnny ruffles my hair affectionately but Jamie surprises me by hugging me, this must be some way to make me speak so I keep quiet. He kisses my forehead and whispers something strange into my ear,

“No matter what he says El, we love you and you are our little sister. Yes El, I love you too and I’m sorry for not being a better brother, if I could go back..”

Johnny nudges him just as the stairs creak, signalling that Daddy must have started to climb up them. Sighing, Jamie kisses the top of my head and pushes me into the staircase closet, I hear a click and I know he’s locked me in. The dark is scary and filled with monsters, scary, scary monsters that are going to eat me but I can’t speak or I will lose the game. A loud noise fills my ears and I almost cry out, the monsters are in here with me but I remember the game and I know Johnny wouldn’t let them get me. He is my oldest brother and he’s big and tough and strong. He always fights off the monsters for me, he likes taking care of me, and he claims its fun having a sister ten years younger. Johnny loves me but Jimmy hates me and my father hates me, what did I do? I hear people outside the door, but no one has let me out yet so I peer through the door handle, using it like a peephole. Jamie is lying on the floor, sleeping in a puddle of that red stuff, his clothes are going to get dirty, I think with a giggle, than I freeze. It’s just the sort of thing he would do, lock me in the closet with all these scary monsters and go to sleep and forget about me. Something hits the door and I fly backwards, into the dark blackness at the back of the closet. Something grabs onto me and I start screaming, thrashing to get away.

“JOHNNY!” I scream out, the monsters holding me tight, I can’t get away no matter how hard I try but Johnny never responds. He is too busy yelling at Daddy to let me out, tears fall down my face as I try to break free.

“Move boy!” My Daddy howls at Johnny, I don’t understand what’s going on, he’s angry and he’s never angry.

“You are not going to hurt her!” Johnny exclaims, and I feel a little bit better even with these monsters surrounding me. ‘If you can’t see them, they can’t see you,’ Johnny’s voice comes back to me, so I shut my eyes tight and chant,

“They aren’t real, they aren’t real!”

The second I stop struggling, I fall to the floor, the monsters having let me go, but they don’t exist, it’s all in my mind, right? Creeping silently back to the door I realize that Johnny and Daddy have gone silent. Peering out, I can’t see anyone but Jamie, who slept right through the arguing, I giggle, realizing that I already lost the game and Johnny would be angry.

“Princess,” Daddy sings out in a silly voice, it makes me giggle at the sound, Daddy is so silly, “It’s okay now, I’m going to let you out.”

I smile at the idea of getting out of here, even if ‘they don’t exist’, they have started to come towards me again. His bright blue eyes appear at the keyhole and I jump back in surprise, it looks weird. His eyes look angry and upset, sort of wild-like, he reminds me of a monster. His sickly sweet voice is muted by the wooden door. I don’t move an inch, too scared by the scenes that played out in front of me. He brings his face down level with the door handle and he can see me through the lock. The blueness of his eyes haunts my thoughts; I gasp and back up until I hit the back wall of the closet. Sobs rake my body and I just want it all to end. If I let him in at least it would be over, right? A loud thump breaks me out of my thoughts, he’s trying to break the door down, panic fills my body and I can’t catch my breath. There’s nowhere to run, no place to hide, this is the end. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that once I open them the scary things will have gone away.

“Get away from her” One of the monsters say in not-so-friendly tone, I shiver as Daddy laughs at it. Why does he only laugh? Is the monster laughable? Slowly I open one of my eyes to a sliver and look out the keyhole. There’s a young-but-nice looking man facing down my Daddy; a tremor runs through my body as I realize I’ve seen this man before school started. He made my Mommy cry, she refused to let him see me but I saw him. I was hiding from Mommy because of the game and he never saw me. Mommy found me after, when she stopped crying, ‘Aella, listen to me very, very, closely. Do not tell your father about that man or that I was crying, understand? Don’t worry sweetheart its nothing and I love you. No matter what happens, I love you.’ Her voice comes floating out of the memory and with my eyes shut tight once more I can see that day in my head. Daddy hates when I use my ima.. what does Johnny call it? I-ma-gin-a-tion. Yeah that’s it! But Daddy gets really mad when I talk with Mommy about how I see fairies in the gardens or unicorns at the edge of the big dark forest. He doesn’t believe me but I see them, they are real. I know they are. They must be.

“Lele, open the door for me,” The scary man coos at me, using Johnny’s nickname. I shake my head, refusing to let this monster in. There’s a loud cry from what sounds like Daddy and the house seems to shake. Silence falls and the monsters in the closet seem to back off, as if they are afraid of that man, but I am not afraid. I crawl forward, to look outside of the door but I see nothing. Jimmy lies there sleeping, I giggle at him, he is so lazy. Daddy and Johnny aren’t in sight and he’s gone. I curl up, blocking out everything by closing my eyes and hum the tune Mommy always did when she was nervous.

A loud creak makes me open my eyes in fright. The door is open, but Jimmy locked it. I know he did. The noise seems to scare the monsters back into the shadows; but they’re still watching me. I can feel their eyes on me and I let out a scream, running out of the closet and away from them. Monster-man and Daddy are gone, I can’t seem to find them and only Jimmy lies sleeping to keep me company. He’s still sleeping; how could he just leave me in the dark? I’ll tell Mommy on him, Mommy will punish him.

“Mommy?” My voice echoes in the silence; it scares me a little. Mommy hates the silence; she always makes sure that something will be making noise. She claims that the noise helps her to drown out the evil in the world. I stand at the top of the stairs, looking down; it’s dark, almost too dark.

“Mommy?” I call out again, the stairs groan as I descend them. Light falls in through the windows making a red-blue-red pattern. Pretty flashing lights, I smile joyfully, jumping down the last step to reach them. My fingers follow the designs that the light is making on the carpet. When the light goes blue there is a purple streak on the floor. It makes me giggle, purple is my favourite color. The smear of purple leads towards the kitchen, so I follow it, maybe Mommy will be in the kitchen.

“Mommy?” The question bursts from my lips as I enter the kitchen. She’s sleeping on a puddle of my red paint, Daddy is going to be sooo mad at her. Where did Daddy go anyways? I cross the kitchen to be beside Mommy, she doesn’t seem like she’s sleeping, she’s too still to be sleeping. Maybe she’s just pretending to scare me. Reaching out, I poke her side hoping to wake her up, but she doesn’t even move. Frowning, I put both hands on her side and push her back and forth.

“Mommy? Mommy wake up! Mommy you’re scaring me! Mommy!” Tears fill my eyes as Mommy doesn’t move. Arms wrap themselves around my body and lift me away from her.

“Mommy help me!” I cry out to her as the person pulls me away from her. I try to kick the person but they don’t let me go, they won’t let me go.

“Mommy wake up! Please wake up! Mommy! Mommy!”