Stalked by my Professor Novel

Chapter 27 "It's never going to stop, Bash," Sybil's whines. "Never, ever, ever!" "You're being childish." I look up at her over the top of my doorstop of a book. "The rain will stop. The sun will come out again. It always does." "Not this time." She lifts her head from her arms, propping her chin on top of them as she stares bleakly out the window at the gray afternoon. "It's gonna keep going until I die." "Not unless you're dying tomorrow." I lick my thumb, turn another of Pamela's many, many, many pages. It's so hard to focus on Samuel Richardson's story.

Probably because it feels more like a damn lecture. I despise the amount of words in this book. I get it, okay? Pamela isn't going to give it up for just anybody. Dude even hid in her closet, and she isn't giving in. So damn what? I'd rather be reading Poe, but Evelyn refuses to keep his books in the house. She nearly caned the hide off my backside when she caught me sneaking a peek at The Pit and the Pendulum at the library. That was the last time I was allowed to go with her.

Now Sybil and I hardly ever leave the house, except for our annual check ups and the very rare occasions where Evelyn's deemed our behavior satisfactory enough to take us to the pond so we can watch the ducks swimming around. We're not allowed to feed them. Nor may we speak to anyone else we encounter. The latter is forbidden. The former, a reward reserved for only truly angelic beings. Unlikely we'll ever get to experience it, seeing as Evelyn considers us the spawn of Satan. "Think she'll let us build an ark?" Sybil mumbles mournfully from the window. I snap the book closed.

"What are you on about now, Billy?" "It's flooding." I go stand beside her to watch the puddles forming. She rolls her head and gives me a sorrowful glance before looking outside again. "We'll have to take the animals, two by two, and then maybe God will⁠-" I cuff the back of her head. "Shut it!" I hiss. "If she hears you talking like that, no way you'll see the sun again." Sybil clutches the back of her head like I lay a hammer to her skull, scowling up at me. "Now I won't let you on my ark.

You'll drown with the rest of the sinners." I gape at her as she storms out of the reading room of our dark, suffocating townhouse. If she keeps on like that, Evelyn's going to find out Sybil watches television on Sunday mornings when she's out doing grocery shopping. Why on earth my little sister watches the bible network instead of cartoons like a regular kid, I'll never know. Television is a waste of time, anyway. I'd rather read books. I grimace down at the tome in my hands. Okay, I'd rather read good books. I can follow Sybil's progress through the house as she stomps her little feet.

And any second now, that sound is going to bring Evelyn down from her ivory tower in the attic. Then we're both deep in the shit. "Hey. Hey!" I hurry after my sister, grabbing her thin arm. We're in the handmade matching sweater and sweatpants Evelyn sows for us, and I grimace from the feel of the thin felt fabric. "Stop it, Billy! You're gonna summon The Witch," I tell her, making my eyes big, and my voice as deep as it will go. These days, it has a mind of its own. Sybil started giggling at the dinner table last night when it suddenly got all high pitched like a girl's.

Evelyn just told her to be quiet and eat her food, and then cast me a narrow-eyed look I didn't like one bit. Not. One. Damn. Bit. Sybil's already pale face goes so white it's almost gray. She claps a hand over her mouth, her lime green eyes slowly rolling up to the ceiling. We both strain to hear if the stairs leading down from the attic are about to start squeaking. But thankfully, there's just silence. "You should thank your God she didn't hear you," I tell her. Sybil rips her hands away, her scowl back. "Screw you, Bash." Then she starts stomping away again.

I try to hold back the growl of impatience, but damn it, we've barely seen Evelyn today, and that makes today a good day. She's been so busy with her new book, I'm hoping she'll forget to eat and starve up there, and we'll have to put on sad faces when the police come because the stench of her decomposing corpse made the neighbors complain. Sybil gasps when I rush over and scoop her up, and looks like she wants to scream, but one big-eyed warning glare down at her, and she squeezes her lips together in a sulky line and keeps quiet.

I slow down almost immediately at the feel of her little body rattling in my arms, like chicken bones in a cloth bag. She's much too light for a nine-year-old. Much, much too brittle. There's barely any power in her grip when she throws her arms around my neck. "Where we going?" "I've got something that'll cheer you up, Billy," I tell her. "You do?" she says, frowning. I can't blame her cynicism. She spent years believing Evelyn when the crone told her she'd get ice cream for dessert if she ate all her broccoli. I told her there hadn't been ice cream in the house for years.

Yet Sybil was stupid or gullible enough to believe it would magically appear in the freezer at Evelyn's command, like something out of a fairy tale. She came around a few months back. Watching that last shred of childish naivety wither made me loathe our witch of a mother even more. Which was astonishing, because I thought I already hated her with every fiber of my being. I'd feel sorry for my little sister...if I didn't force myself to finish every last disgusting green crumb on my plate at night, because I'm apparently just as gullible as she is.

"Where are we going?" Sybil whispers when we reach the kitchen door. She knows it's locked, so she's stupid if she's expecting me to go in, but she still stares forlornly at it as we pass. Evelyn shouldn't bother locking it. Not as if there's anything tasty in there. The witch just does it to remind us who's in charge. And perhaps as insurance. After all, if something should happen to her, we'd have to break down that door, or starve. "Where, Bash?" She grips me a little tighter when I turn down the hall. There are only two doors down this passage, one of them a guest bathroom.

She gasps again, turning to burrow her head against my chest. "No, Bash. No. Not there." "Relax, Silly Billy. The witch is upstairs. Without her, it's just a room." "No, no." She shakes her head against me. "Please. I won't talk about arks and sinners and floods and dying anymore, I promise. I'll be good." It makes me mad as hell that she's so scared. I should have left her in the hall, but I don't just read epistolary conduct books out of sheer boredom. I've read some of Evelyn's psychology journals too. I know all about stuff like exposure therapy.

The only way Sybil's going to get over her fear, is to face it head on with someone she trusts. Not sure if that someone is me, but I'm all she has. This room isn't locked. Unlike the kitchen, none of us would dare to go inside here. Usually, we're dragged. That's why it makes the perfect hiding place. I swear, my heart's pounding a mile a minute as I fumble for the light string. An ugly amber bulb flickers on above us, and Sybil risks a quick peek over her shoulder before curling into a ball against my chest.

These stairs don't creak like the attic stairs, and I've never been able to figure out why. But I'm grateful. A dry, musty smell hits my nose when we reach the basement floor, and my stomach coils uneasily as the familiar scent triggers an almost feral flight-or-fight response inside me. "I'm going to put you down for a second⁠-" "No, no, no!" Sybil grips me tighter, which still isn't all that tight. "Promise you won't let me go, Bash!" This was a bad idea. I need my hands.

"You're being silly, Billy," I tease, keeping her suspended with one shaking arm as I brush her mousy brown hair out of her face. "The floor won't swallow you." She protests with a soft moan as I let her slip down and then throws her arms around my waist. Her head barely comes up to my chest, but I'm tall for my age, and she's...well, she's just a sack of bones. The boiler rumbles away to itself in the corner, the orange light from the stairs barely picking out more than its bulky silhouette in the thick, stuffy darkness. I make sure not to look too hard at anything else in the room.

Just because I'm brave enough to come down here sometimes when I need to hide something from Evelyn, doesn't mean this place doesn't give me the damn heebie jeebies. Something moves in the dark on the opposite side of the room, and if I hadn't clapped a hand over my mouth, I'd have squealed as loudly as Sybil. Okay, fine. This place scares the bejesus out of me. "Quiet!" I snap, covering her mouth. "You want The Witch to find us down here?" "Let's go, let's go!" Sybil begs shrilly the moment I take my hand away. "Please, Bash.

Please!" "Shh!" I grab her by the scruff of her neck and drag her after me as I make a beeline for the dusty shelves beside the boiler. I make a detour around seeming nothing, but I could draw this room's layout in my sleep. "You're gonna love this, trust me." "I'm nooooot," Sybil whines, but at least she does it quietly. And she doesn't resist, doesn't run away. I guess she doesn't dare. There's a pool of darkness between us and the stairs now. And we both know what lurks there. What I'd been so careful to avoid.

Dust coats my fingers as I hunt around in the dark, but I find what I'm looking for a second later. Sybil's face scrunches up as I light a match, then her green eyes go wide. She starts to turn around, trying to look over her shoulder, but I grab her chin and wrench her face forward again, leaving dust smudges on her pale skin. "Eyes on me, Billy." Her lips quiver. "I wanna go." "I'm cheering you up, remember?" Tears pool in her eyes. Eyes that swivel like she wishes she could look through the back of her own skull. "Nuh-uh. Eyes on me." I snap my fingers, drawing her gaze back.

"What did I tell you about the basement, Billy?" Her lips are trembling non-stop now, and her weak little voice shakes. "Th-that, that it's only a b-bad place if...if..." "If what, Billy?" She swallows, squeezes her lips shut. Like she can't bear to say it. "It's only The Bad Place if The Witch is here." I tighten my hand on the back of her neck, drawing her a little closer. "And what have I told you about the dark?" She finds her voice, a little more sure now that I've eradicated the threat of The Witch.

"Light shows what eyes shouldn't see, the dark-" she hitches, losing her place in our mantra, then rallies splendidly, blurting the rest out all at once, "-the dark keeps bad places safe for me!" It took me a while to come up with that. I'm terrible at rhymes. "Well done," I tell her. She bites down on her lip, swaying a little as she shows me her teeth. There's nothing but a sparkle left of her unshed tears. "I was keeping this for your birthday, but it's close enough, right?" "My birthday?" Her green eyes sparkle as she searches my face.

"You didn't forget, did you?" She shakes her head, but the way her mouth hangs open, I think she did. We don't celebrate birthdays, but she's read about them in books. We even saw one once at the diner, back when Sybil was five and Evelyn still took us out of the house once a month for supper. That stopped over four years ago. Right around that day, in fact. Coincidence? Most certainly not. Seeing all those kids having fun. Stuffing their face with processed carbohydrates and refined sugar. Laughing, playing. Sybil began asking questions. Started throwing tantrums.

Mother became Evelyn became The Witch. And the basement became The Bad Place. "Eyes on me, Billy." Her eyes snap into focus again, fixating on me, then my hand as I reach behind a crate full of automotive parts that hasn't been touched in years. The flame is burning my fingertips. "Light another match. Quickly." Sybil's hand shakes as she snatches the match box and fumbles out a match. I smile when she shivers at the quick flare as the tip ignites. My fingers close around smooth glass, and I let the moment draw out as I drag it out from behind the crate.

Sybil's eyes go bigger and bigger, her mouth falling open as she catches sight of the jar. I'm grinning like an idiot now, but screw it, it's worth it ruining the surprise. That's not just the match's flame sparkling in my little sister's eyes. It's joy. Motherfreakin' joy. "Oh, Bash!" She claps a hand over her mouth, letting out a muffled, "It's so beautiful!" "Go on." I take the match from her fingers, holding it close as she carefully takes the mason jar from me. Inside, a Northern Blue flutters frantically. "She's so pretty!" Sybil breathes as she cradles the jar to her chest.

"How do you know it's not a boy?" "Boys aren't pretty." "It's usually the opposite in the animal world, you know. Birds, for example. The males usually have much brighter plumage than the females." "I don't care," she says. "It's a girl. Stop ruining everything." I hold back a laugh, happy to watch Sybil watching the butterfly. For a few moments, everything else ceases to exist. I can forget about The Bad Place, about The Witch, about what happens when we're not satisfactory. Sybil taps her fingernail against the glass, but the butterfly is oblivious.

All it's concerned with is trying to find escape. I should feel sorry for it, but I'd capture another one in a heartbeat, just to see the awestruck glee on my sister's face. I guess that's what The Witch saw too. I'm guessing she didn't like it. Not. One. Bit. Harsh, fluorescent light strips away the shadows, the hiss-click of the long tubes on the ceiling making my skin crawl. Evelyn appearing as a tall, slim silhouette at the foot of the stairs makes me want to heave up every bland, nutritious thing I've eaten today.

Who forces their children to eat steamed kale and sludgy egg whites for breakfast? The witch currently descending the stairs, that's who. If I had the courage, and the strength, I'd smash the jar and try to ram a piece through Evelyn's jugular. And one in each eye, just for good measure. But that would be stupid, because if I failed, we'd both suffer for it. I can't take the risk. Sybil tries to cower behind me, but I'm right up against the shelving, so all she can do is squeeze against my side as The Witch approaches.

The rim of the jar digs into my side, and Sybil's panicked panting warms my flesh. "Don't punish her." I try to sound calm, but my voice is shaking like a damn leaf. "I made her come down here. I was bored. I thought we could organize the shelves. It's very dusty down here. We should clean it. May we clean it, Mother? Let us clean it, then you don't have⁠-" The witch's backhand cuts me off so violently the last word is little more than a huff.

"-to!" "Are you saying I'm lazy, child?" Evelyn's voice is as bleak and sinister as the fluorescent lights streaming into my eyes as I blink back tears and straighten to face her. Sybil starts to cry. Tiny, gulping, pathetic little sounds she desperately attempts to suppress. But she's too young to hold back fear. It took me twelve years to master my fear of Evelyn. But sometimes, especially at night, it still finds a way to sidle out, terrorizing my mind until dawn. Right now, I'm struggling to hold back the barriers. Struggling to hold in my own damn urine. What was I thinking?

I'm an imbecile. A stupid, selfish, pathetic child. "What have you got there?" Evelyn's sharp gaze darts away from me, latching onto my sister where Sybil is trying to burrow into my side. "Show me before I lose my patience." Sybil's tears hitch, her mouth a twisted, shaking mess as she reluctantly turns to Evelyn. A thin hand stretches out, palm out, and Sybil nearly fumbles the jar as she tries to pass it to Evelyn. Thankfully, my reflexes are excellent, and I snatch it out of the air before it can crash to the ground.

Evelyn sniffs as I hand her the jar, then angles away from us, holding it up to the light. Despite the faint humming whine of the fluorescent lights, I can hear the butterfly's wings as they tap against the glass. "Genus?" Evelyn snaps. "Plebejus." "Species?" "Northern Blue. Male." "How long has it been down here?" "Two days." "You've been feeding it?" "Honey water, soaked into a cotton ball." Evelyn's narrow chest rises as she takes a breath, then she tips the jar over, and unscrews the lid.

With it upside down, the butterfly is still trapped as it strives forever upward, to where the sky used to be. Sybil wipes the back of her hand over her eyes, her crying having simmered down to a sullen, "Uhu-uhu." But she must hold her breath then, because there's silence as Evelyn reaches into the jar and snatches out the butterfly by an iridescent sapphire wing. Wing dust floats down as the insect's struggles grow more violent. I know they're actually tiny little scales, but with the fluorescent lights glaring down, they look more like fairy dust than ever.

"You caught this for Sybil." "Yes." ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ꜰʀᴏᴍ FindN()vel.net "How nice of you." I think it's my imagination. Evelyn's voice is always the same monotonous drone, every consonant perfectly articulated yet somehow lacking any intonation whatsoever. But I hear it now. The tiniest emphasis she puts on nice. Just like I immediately answer anything asked of me, I know to step back when Evelyn advances on Sybil. It's an automatic gesture, like ducking when someone raises a hand to strike. I might have put Sybil in this position, but it's survival of the fittest.

I'm not ending up as collateral damage. Sybil's sobbing starts up again when The Witch grabs my little sister's face. With a practiced motion, she pinches into Sybil's cheeks, forcing the child's lips apart. My chest closes up, breath trapped in my throat as my stomach clenches painfully. But I stand there, hands behind my back, and I watch. Because that's what Evelyn expects. And doing what she expects means-mostly-that I don't get punished. My eyes shift of their own, trying to look across the room, to where the dark had hidden the Bad Place. Sybil's howl drags them back.

And I don't know what's worse in this moment. Watching as Evelyn, the woman who birthed me thirteen years ago but whom I shall never, ever call Mother in my head, forces that pretty blue butterfly inside my sister's mouth and makes her chew... ...or the two chairs bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. I can smell the leather straps attached to the arms and feet of the chair. Can feel the smooth, worn surface of the wood against my pants. The splinters at the tips of the arms where my fingers fold over the edge. But those chairs aren't the worst.

Not even when I hear a crunch and Sybil gags. What's worse of all down here in the Bad Place, is the Wall of Death. The one the bolted-down chairs face. The one covered with the neatly positioned corpses of nearly a hundred small, furry creatures. Some dried out like beef jerky. Some crawling with maggots. Some still fresh enough that blood glistens from the fatal blow that ended their brief lives.