Chapter Text
It was a sunny afternoon, a rarity that the two siblings took delight in capitalising on. They took their time walking away from the school grounds, the younger sister swinging their joined hands in tandem with the jaunty melody she sang. With a wry smile that made him look much older than the ten-year-old he truly was, the brother shook his head, letting her prance happily.
Both of the Afton children had the same straight black hair and pale skin, although their eyes couldn’t be more different. His were like shards of ice, a strange mixture of grey, blue, and even purple, always watching and always thinking; hers were warm and cheery, gleaming green and ever-ready to sparkle with wonder, usually fixed on her beloved brother… even while he gazed steadily into the distance.
William felt a stronger-than-normal tug on his hand, drawing his attention fully to his sister, and he arched an eyebrow. “Yes?”
She giggled. “I love you! Thank you for waiting, today.”
“Cassie, I’d have waited, no matter what. You know that. Father wouldn’t like it if I came home without you, you know,” he stated, shaking his head again. “And I love you, too.” A small path caught his gaze, trailing away from the road they were traveling down, and he grinned. “Hey, come with me… I want to show you something.”
The eight-year-old hummed, obliging without complaint. “What is it, Will? Are we going to a secret hideout? Oh, or a portal to somewhere that all our toys come to life and we’re the king and queen? Maybe—…”
He tuned her babble out with practiced ease, leading her down the overgrown path and offering the occasional hum or grunt of affirmation or dismissal at random intervals. Ever since she’d been born, his sister had the strangest imagination he’d ever encountered… to the point that he’d long-since given up trying to keep track of her bouts of whimsy. After around ten minutes, the path opened up into a small clearing with a crumpled and rotten wooden fence, which they clambered over to reach their destination.
It was an old apple orchard, with no sign of anyone having been there for what might as well have been ‘forever’.
“Tada!” William crowed, letting go of his sister’s hand to raise his arms and spin on the spot. “What do you think? I found this place a month ago, and I think we can have it all to ourselves.”
As he’d expected, Cassidy began to bounce on the balls of her feet, doing so for all of a minute before she hugged him tightly and ran up to a few withered trees in quick succession. “This is great! It’s like something in a fairy tale –we really could make this a secret hideout, too!”
“Come on, you’ll like it even better in the centre,” he said, guiding her through the rows of trunks until they reached another small clearing filled with wildflowers, swamping the green carpet with spots of colour. William watched his sister squeal and dive headfirst into a particularly tall patch of flowers with a fond smile. “So, are you a fairy princess, today?”
“Nope! I’m a pirate princess!” she laughed. Cassidy rearranged her limbs to sit primly on the grass, hands already snapping the stems of flowers in her reach. “Do you want to be my first-mate?”
Snorting softly, he sat down opposite her, plucking a few flowers of his own and handing them to her. “I shouldn’t have read Treasure Island to you,” he bemoaned dramatically, before laughing under his breath. “Are you sure you don’t want me to be a navy officer, or a rival pirate captain?”
She hummed thoughtfully as her hands deftly wove the stems together into a wreath. “Maybe…” After a moment of silence, Cassidy grinned at her brother. “Oh, I know! You can be a pirate king, and we’re both after the same treasure.” Satisfied with her idea, she nodded and handed him the first wreath. “Your crown, your majesty.”
William took the offered gift with an exaggerated grimace. “Cassie… Boys don’t like flowers as much as girls do,” he teased, only to frown as her face fell. “…You really have gotten better at getting what you want, haven’t you?”
Her crestfallen expression disappeared the moment he placed the wreath on his head. “No, I haven’t, but Mother said she’d teach me someday.”
Again, he arched an eyebrow, coupling it with a smirk. “Is that so? That sounds much more interesting than Father wanting me to learn real estate.” Pale eyes rolled and he heaved a sigh. “I still don’t know what ‘unreal estate’ is supposed to be, though.”
“It’s imaginary, of course.” Cassidy stated in a serious tone as she placed a new wreath atop her own head. She maintained that demeanour for all of a few seconds before giggling, with William joining in moments later. “Now! We need ships! Pirates aren’t pirates without ships.” Looking around at the trees closest to them, she pointed at a couple that had low branches and stood close to each other. “Those ones… Arr, land-ho, matey!” With that, she scrambled to her feet and set about scaling one of the trunks.
Their game lasted for an hour or so without issue, aside from the scraping of knuckles and knees from the rough bark. William relished it, a smile never far from his lips. As his own studies had grown more serious and complex, he’d been forced to spend less and less time with his sister, which in turn had made her more inclined to demand his attention at the most inopportune times. It was nice to simply be siblings for once, away from the overbearing gaze of their mother and the stern stare of their father.
Playing these ridiculous games of make-believe was like a much-needed breath of fresh air.
As the shadows started to grow long and dark, Cassidy lowered the stick she’d claimed as a sword, a pout replacing her earlier grin. “I’m hungry…”
William paused mid-lunge and shrugged. “Just eat one of the apples or something.”
She sent him a disgusted look. “Ew! No, they’re gross! Let’s go home. Mother said that we’re going to have something new and tasty for dinner tonight.” Turning back to where their schoolbags sat forgotten on the grass, Cassidy pitched her voice higher. “Come on, it’s getting late, and I’m getting cold, too…”
His fingers twitched around the makeshift sword in his grip before releasing it entirely in favour of plucking one of the vaguely-more appetising apples from the tree closest to him. “But we’re having so much fun… Do you really want to stop, now?” he asked, glancing up from the too-soft fruit to pin his sister with a flat stare. “I don’t, not yet…” Holding out the fruit for her to take, William scowled when she stuck out her tongue and went to pick up her bag.
“I said no, and that apple’s all stinky. I’m not eating it.” A shudder rocked the girl’s body. “I really am getting cold, though…”
Irritation transformed into a sudden blaze of fury. Weren’t they having fun, for the first time in weeks? Weren’t things better for them away from their parents’ command-ridden influence? Wasn’t him going along with the game she wanted to play enough? His fingers clenched, crushing the fruit slightly; he was going to make sure they could keep playing… and to do that, Cassidy needed to eat something –being cold could be fixed by moving around some more.
William thought back, trying to remember if he’d left anything uneaten in his bag, but came up empty. He grit his teeth. “Cassie… I’m sorry. We’ll head back soon,” he lied, only realising exactly what had come out of his mouth after he’d already moved to join her. “Look, let me just… get something, and then we’ll get on with it, okay?”
He dropped the apple, wiping his hand on his uniform before digging into his bag. When no lingering articles of food met his search, he hissed through his teeth. Nothing… that wouldn’t do, that wouldn’t do at all. With a grimace that he smothered with a too-wide grin, he looked back up at his sister, who was watching him impatiently; his hand sought out the discarded fruit… he had just one option left that didn’t require them to leave the orchard…
The next thing he knew, William was sitting on top of Cassidy, one hand bunched in the front of her own uniform and the other pressing the rotten apple as far into her mouth as it would go. He blinked and frowned, wondering why she wasn’t trying to get up, or even why she wasn’t eating it like he wanted her to.
Oddly numb, he realised that she wasn’t awake, so he clambered off and sat beside her, settling down to watch as she slept.
Around him, the shadows grew even longer and darker while he waited. Worry began to nip at the edges of his mind… had he hurt her more than he realised? Was that why she lost consciousness? Luckily, William didn’t need to wait for long before Cassidy coughed herself awake again; his relief didn’t last long, however, as she dissolved into tears and incomprehensible wailing the moment her eyes met his own.
William’s earlier fury surged back to the front of his mind, and he was back on top of her with his hand clenched around something cool and solid. “Quiet! I’m sorry, okay, I didn’t mean—…!” Whatever he was trying to say was drowned out –even to his own ears– by her cries as they rose in volume. His face stretched into another too-wide grin; ‘always aim to smile, William, people like it when you smile and they listen when they like you’, their father’s voice rang out in the back of his mind. “Stop screaming!”
His hand came down on her chest, hard and fast, over and over and over and over. She just wouldn’t stop or even let him speak, and he only wanted her to be quiet enough for him to try to explain himself…
Warmth bloomed under his hands and across his face.
He blinked… there was no sound in the clearing. Cassidy had finally been silenced. His grin turned into a smile, and he breathed a sigh of relief; finally, some peace and quiet. Looking down at his sister, however, tore the smile from his face entirely.
Her eyes were open… but they were dull, no longer sparkling with life, and her skin and clothes were covered in splatters of deep red…
William swallowed thickly and scrambled to get off of her, his hands beginning to shake, sending a pair of scissors held in one of them to the ground. He stared blankly at the tool –when had he grabbed them?– then at the hand it had fallen from.
Both were almost completely covered in the same red that she was.
Without another thought, he grabbed his schoolbag and ran.
~*~
William snuck through the front door well after nightfall, only to be met with the disapproving glare of his father, which turned shocked and angry at the state of his uniform. The boy froze in the entryway, his eyes stinging with tears and his lower lip trembling. His mother hurried into view from the kitchen.
“Are they back?” she asked, her voice thick with too many emotions for William to begin to categorise, leaving him reeling when she rounded the last corner and caught sight of him… and shrieked. “Will?! What… Where’s Cassidy?!” Her hands quickly found their way to his face, his shoulders, patting and stroking as if to chase away her distress via his body.
“…What happened?” the Afton family patriarch rumbled through grit teeth, his expression hardening further the longer he glared at his son. “There had better be a good reason why you’re covered in blood.”
He couldn’t reply to either of them, his throat closing up and his mind blanking. What could he say? How could he tell them anything? William tried to force back the urge to burst into hysterical cries, and shook his head. His father said something else, but he barely registered the words. “Can’t…” he whispered hoarsely.
“Oh, honestly dear, let’s at least get him cleaned up a bit, first,” his mother said, cutting through the building haze in his mind as she guided William with shaking hands to the bathroom. She focused on his face first, swiping and rubbing with a damp cloth. “Come, now, darling. We really do need to know what happened…” she implored sweetly after several minutes. “It’s only natural to worry when someone you love doesn’t come home when you think they will.”
“…Sorry…” he managed at last, the tightness in his throat loosening slightly with each care-laden action his mother made. “Didn’t mean to make anyone worry…”
She nodded. “I know you didn’t, Will. You’re too much of a good son for that.”
“Feeling better enough to tell us, now?” his father interjected from the bathroom doorway, and William’s spine snapped ramrod-straight at the still-icy tone in the man’s voice. “Where is your sister?”
After a long and heavy pause, he finally managed to conjure up an answer. “Cassie… got hurt. Bad. She’s… she wasn’t moving.” William took a deep breath and forced himself to meet his father’s gaze. “I think she’s dead. We were walking home, but she wanted to play a game, so we did, and… I’m so sorry… the trees weren’t even that tall… I didn’t think it’d turn out like this…!” He shuddered; he could feel his mother’s hands tightening on his shoulders, while his father’s face became thunderous for a moment before the man turned on his heel and stalked away. “I just wanted to play…”
His mother shushed him, running her fingers through his hair for a while before telling him to clean himself up the rest of the way and leaving to fetch him some clean clothes. In the silence left behind, William shuddered and gripped his head tightly.
He didn’t mean to.
He really didn’t mean to.
Chills crept up his spine, drawing his attention to the mirror set above the sink… Something was there, in the space behind him, pale and mist-like and… it had a face… a face he knew all too well… His breath hitched and his eyes widened.
A whisper drifted into his ears, and he cried out, punching the mirror and spinning on the spot –there was nothing there… but the whisper could still be heard.
“It’s me…”