Page 3 of House of the Beast

Surely not, I thought. Surely my father could not be one of them. A devout follower, maybe, or a high-ranking guard. It was said that those who heard the Beast eventually succumbed to His bloodlust, and the man in our apartment looked only haughty, not mad.

Rallying myself, I nodded. “Yes. I wrote the letter.”

He did not seem very impressed. “Right—the letter. We’ll need to get you a proper tutor. Pack your bags now; you’re coming with me.”

“No, she is not,” my mother cut in. “Alma, go to your room.”

For the first time in my life, I found myself caught between orders from two parents. Under normal circumstances, I would have listened to my mother. After all, I didn’t know this man, nor was I particularly charmed by his quick dismissal of me. But I had called him here for a reason.

“What about my mother’s medicine?” I asked. “I wrote to you because we needed help. What about her?”

He grunted in acknowledgment. “She will receive the care she requires, so long as you fulfill your duties to our House. But she will not be coming along.”

“She’s not going,” my mother said, firmer this time.

“Ma,” I protested. “Your illness—”

“Does not matter.” She wasn’t even looking at me—her eyes were trained on my father’s every movement, like he was a vicious animal prowling inside our home.

The look on her face was terrible. She really would do it, I realized.

Just let herself die, instead of taking my father’s offer.

“You won’t bring her into your wretched House.

You won’t destroy her life like that. I won’t let you. ”

My father’s expression darkened, and so, too, did the whole room. A sudden, inexplicable fear surged through me. In the years ahead, I would grow used to making him angry, but I would never forget that first time his displeasure became a tangible thing, weighing down the air.

“Quite frankly,” he said, “you cannot stop me from taking her.”

My mother’s face was flushed. Clutched against her chest, I could feel how she trembled—both with rage and with the mere effort of standing up. She was so thin now, and so pale.

“I want to go,” I said, and watched her face shatter.

For a moment all she could do was stare at me.

She pressed her palms against my hair and bent so we were eye to eye.

“Alma,” she said, and her voice nearly convinced me to give it all up.

The sound of it would haunt me for the rest of my years.

“I know—I know that life hasn’t been easy for you here with me.

I know I haven’t been a great mother, or spent enough time with you, and that—”

“That’s not it,” I said, panicking. How could she think such things?

“But you don’t understand,” she plowed on despite my interruption. “Your father—he serves one of the Four. If you go, they’ll give your life to a monster.”

All my petty denials went out the window. A part of me had already known, the moment I saw his metal arm.

I’d known that I’d bitten off more than I could chew.

My father raised an eyebrow. “Such words could be considered heresy. You’re lucky I’m not inclined to bother with petty insults.” He turned to regard me. “I need an heir, and you need money. That’s all it comes down to.”

That was, in fact, all it came down to.

Gently, I pried myself from my mother’s arms. Her fingers clung to my shoulders, but she was weakening, and I shook myself loose. I could not bear to look her in the eye. I stepped away and stood before my father.

“You’ll make her better?” I said to him.

His face was like stone, devoid of emotion. “My attendants will immediately arrange for the care she needs. All her expenses will be covered by my own finances.”

“And I just have to go with you?”

His eyebrows pushed together. “You will be initiated into the family,” he said, “as all Avera children are.”

I looked at his metal hand. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he meant.

But I thought, I would rather lose my arm than lose my mother .

And it was such an incredible relief, to know that someone else would be able to care for her.

That I wouldn’t have to worry, all alone, about the medicine, about our money, and the life I might live after she was gone.

I would hate myself for feeling that way for a long time.

I turned back to my mother, who had been watching me in silence. She looked small and pale and heartbroken. I mustered up a smile for her.

“Everything will be fine,” I said. “I’ll visit you when you’re all better.”

And then, like the fool that I was, I left her.

***

THERE WAS A FLASH OF SENSATION, AND THEN NOTHING.

MY father’s sword was so sharp that I wondered vaguely if that was why it didn’t hurt.

Something warm splashed into my lap. My head felt light, and my breath was terribly loud in my ears.

An ache dug its way into my arm and seeped into my fingers—but that didn’t make sense.

I stared.

Why would that not make sense?

I sat back slowly onto my heels, and that was when I realized that the mechanism locking my wrist into place was no longer holding me up, because my wrist was no longer attached to me.

I’d been crying before, but that was nothing compared to the panic that took hold of me now, my breath growing frantic, my sobs ragged and uncontrolled.

I looked down and all that was left of my arm was a stump.

Everything was wet with blood. Somewhere behind me, the woman who had barged in was shouting at my father, but I couldn’t make out her words.

Everything came to me as if through a haze, and through that haze, something else called like a siren’s song on a foggy night.

I looked into the maw of the Beast. My arm, which had been resting half-submerged in the shallow basin of water, was sinking.

There should have been no room for it to sink.

Nevertheless, it went deeper and deeper into that perfect pane of darkness until it was gone.

All that was left was a smear of blood on the lip of the Beast’s metal maw.

At the edges of my vision, something moved. It wasn’t much more than a shadow, a trick of the light. But it came closer nonetheless, between each flicker of the candle and each trembling shadow, until it crouched beside me, a dark mass that every inch of my being knew did not belong in this world.

Faintly, as if from far away, I could still hear my father and the woman arguing.

I had the distinct feeling that this creature existed only in my mind—a distortion of my own vision.

I was so frightened then that my tears had stopped.

I could barely make a noise, though I desperately wanted to call out for help.

Who would help me? Who could help me, against such a thing?

It leaned in, as if to examine me, to commit my face to its memory. I got the sense that it was smiling. With the next flicker of light, it was gone, and I knew my life would never be the same again.