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Hubert is seven where Billiam is six, and because he’s older, he gets to be in charge. Sure, he lets Billiam lead them around, but that’s because the grounds are sprawling and Billiam’s parents, and not the reason all of the adults think it is. After all, Hubert is older, so why would Billiam be in charge?
Hubert is older, and therefore he decides where they go to play. Hubert is older, and that means he decides which foods they try and steal. Hubert is older, and that means he gets to climb trees and walls first.
But, Hubert is older, and that means he carries Billiam’s things because he’s stronger. Hubert is older, and that means he holds doors open for Billiam because he got there faster. Hubert is older, and that means he has to be quieter in the house because he’s not a kid anymore.
Hubert is older, but it doesn’t matter anymore.
He’s eight, and Billiam is seven, but Billiam is way smarter than he ever was at seven. Billiam can read and write, and gets fed up with him quickly since he can’t. (The one time Billiam tried to teach him went horribly wrong and Hubert swallows a lump of guilt anytime he thinks about then.)
Billiam gets dragged away to do lessons, and since Hubert is alone, he gets dragged off to do his own sort of lessons. Hubert learns how to walk without making a sound, balance heavy trays of food, wash dishes, do laundry, and how to navigate the secret passages that worm their way through the house. It’s cool... he supposes.
On one of the rare occasions they hung out, Billiam tells him about how he knows how to ride a horse and fence and speak another language, and Hubert’s secret tunnels don’t seem as cool anymore. Their time is cut short anyways, both of them being whisked off to their respective places in the house. Hubert leans over the sink, furiously scrubbing his bitterness away along with Billiam’s father’s lunch.
Hubert is eleven, Billiam is ten, and the old house is apparently “too small” for The Owner’s liking. So they move.
Billiam sits in a carriage, on a comfortable seat, laughing with his family while he eats and reads an old book. Hubert walks silently behind it, arms aching with effort as he carries a large bag of kitchenware.
It’s a two-day journey to the new house, and The Owner refuses to live at the house for even a day without servants, so a night is spent in an inn.
Billiam gets his own room, and when Hubert is called in to clear it of dust, he can see how his friend’s(?) nose wrinkles with distaste at the size. Hubert thinks he wouldn’t mind how small a room was so long as the bed was more comfortable than the bench in the inn’s main room he’d slept on.
Hubert is still eleven and Billiam had just passed his own eleventh birthday when Hubert’s parents fall ill. When The Owner catches wind, his parents are swiftly kicked out, Hubert only staying because he’s been deemed well enough to still be useful.
There’s a village nearby, tucked away in the woods, that Hubert pleads with to allow his parents to stay. It’s his own fault he sees them in constant pain, he thinks barely a week before they both kick the bucket. The grave the village helps him dig is hardly big enough for both of them. It’s cheerily bright and sunny on the day of their funeral.
Hubert is a week at most away from his seventeenth birthday when Billiam’s mother dies. Billiam locks himself in his room, refusing to come out for meals. Hubert’s suddenly glad Billiam doesn’t know about the servant passageways when he’s enlisted to tidy up the bedroom and leave a bowl of soup as one of his night jobs. (Billiam stalks down to the kitchen to talk to him for the first time in nine years, but all it’s for is to tell him it was too watery. Hubert adverts his gaze like he was taught and nods. It’s hard to think of present-day Billiam and past Billiam as the same person anymore.)
Billiam’s dad passes away the day before the funeral. Some in the house call it fate, others misfortune, others still the sign of a curse. Billiam calls it a good enough reason to shove over a dresser, and Hubert would agree with him if he weren’t the one who had to clean it up.
Billiam wears old mourning clothes the next day. Hubert can see the places the thread pokes up, giving the fabric odd bumps because he’d just spent all of last night trying to work said bumps out.
Hubert’s father had passed down the set Billiam was currently wearing to Hubert years back. The things were old enough that there were tears along the side, and despite his best efforts, Hubert was not the best sewer. Billiam stomps down hard on his foot, motion barely noticeable underneath everyone’s layers. His foot aches and burns for hours after that, and he thinks it might be broken, but he says nothing. Just stand tall, smile, and bear it. No one cares about the poor man when the rich are beside them.
Silas is a mere eleven years old when he becomes Hubert’s unofficial trainee and looks like a strong wind could send him flying. He’s tall, barely a head shorter than Hubert despite the seven-year difference, but as thin and wiry as a reed, and couldn’t carry anything more than an empty bucket to save his life. But they were short-staffed, so Hubert managed.
He showed Silas the servant hallways, how to milk the cows quickly, how to properly set a table, and the little bit of written word he’s picked up from delivering letters to his superiors. Silas picks up on the writing and reading far faster, and far better than he ever could. A bubble of pride swells in his chest at that.
Of course, it doesn’t matter to Billiam how smart Silas is, it matters that he came from less than anyone else there. It matters to Billiam that Silas doesn’t mind being dirty, and doesn’t understand how money works. It matters to Billiam that Silas is so desperate to stay somewhere safe that he couldn’t care less about the conditions in which he stayed.
Hubert grit his teeth, biting down on his tongue any time he found Silas curled up in a dark corner, fingers stiff and cold from drafts of cold air. It got harder every month, what with how fast the kid gained height, but Hubert was more than happy to skip a few nights of sleep in return for Silas sleeping in an actual bed.
Hubert celebrates his nineteenth birthday by once more trekking across open expanses of land. Silas is still eleven, and will be for the next two months, and utterly in awe of the different biomes they pass through and by.
Silas’s joy and curiosity are more than enough payment for the ache in his shoulders and trembles in his legs from carrying a double load.
The new house is smaller than the first two, tucked away in a pine forest. There’s something sinister about it, sinister enough to make Silas cling to his side (something he hasn’t done since his first days at the house), and Hubert would place a reassuring hand on the kid’s back if he didn’t know he would drop everything if he did.
The kind-eyed girl who tended to the stables helped him set everything down, keeping an eye on Silas while Hubert let himself rest for a few minutes.
Silas is twelve and a half when it first happens. A boy who worked in the kitchen goes missing. It puts everyone on edge, except, predictably enough, Billiam.
The search for him lasts a week before everyone, with heavy hearts, admits defeat. Someone carves his name into a rock and places it on the top of his mattress. It lasts a total of a week before Billiam notices. A week before the mattress and rock are gone. Someone else shoves a stick in the ground outside as replacement.
Silas glues himself to Hubert’s side, and Hubert doesn’t blame him. He’s more than happy to endure stiff necks and sore arms if it means he knows his brother is safe. He only leaves Silas’s side when he’s forced too, constantly on lookout even though no one is sure what even happened.
But there’s nothing. A week of nothing becomes two weeks, then a month, then a month and a half. Some fractured version of normality settles back over the house, easing the tension out of everyone’s shoulders.
There’s a load of dishes left dirty beside the sink, and for the first time in six weeks, Hubert feels safe enough to leave Silas alone while he works.
It took longer than he expected, body threatening to collapse by the time he’d finished, and Hubert doubted he’d have the strength to haul himself back upstairs to his room. The kitchen however led directly to the library, the one where the old couch sat.
Silas tackles him awake, muffling his sobs in Hubert’s chest. Hubert finds out that three more people had gone missing that night and everyone thought he was the fourth. He lets Silas cling to him however long he wants, swearing to himself to never pull that kind of thing again.
Three more sticks are hammered into the ground. The feeling of tension and fear quickly seeps away as the day turns to night. They have over a month to figure out how to stop whatever’s happening. Except they don’t.
They have over a month to find a way to keep everyone safe, except it only takes three days before more people go missing. They have over a month to stop whatever’s happening, except suddenly they don’t, and suddenly the halls are empty.
Hubert has a month to gather enough money and supplies to get both him and Silas out of there, except he doesn’t, and Billiam is at his doorway.
“There’s a reason you and the kid have survived this long, you know,” Billiam says, pulling his cloak towards himself so he doesn’t “sully it” on the floor outside Hubert’s room.
“Be a pal and tell me, why don’t you?” Hubert spits, and it feels wrong and dangerous to be talking to his boss like this. Billiam grins, teeth sharp and flashing in the low light spilling from the lantern in Hubert’s room.
“He’s special to you, old friend.” And Hubert could feel his world shatter.
They had to get out. They had to get out. They had to get out. Silas couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t stay here. Billiam was going to kill Silas if Hubert left alone, but if Hubert sent Silas out into the world alone, he wouldn’t last a day. They were stuck.
Hubert attached himself to Silas’s side, glaring daggers at Billiam anytime he passed him in the house. Billiam only smiled back, eyes gleaming with mirth. I’m in control here, his face screamed at Hubert. Hubert grits his teeth and bares it. There’s nothing he can do.
Except maybe there is. All it takes is a few trips out with the cows (and a bit of Hubert accidentally letting a few cows wander away), and Silas knows where all of the nearby villages are. All it takes is a few hurried explanations, and his brother starts to avoid him in the hallways. All it takes is a few gentle shoves, a few cold shoulders, a few nights avoiding his room, and Billiam watches his control “slip away”.
But the world is never fair.
All it takes is a sleepless night. A quick walk in the halls. A single glance.
His brother, eyes glowing red, axe blade shining in the low light, and Hubert knows he was never in control, not in the slightest.
There’s something growing in the walls, something poisoning people’s minds and stealing others, and it got Silas. Billiam took his brother away. Billiam and the fucking red stole away his last support. Billiam has his brother, and therefore him.
So Hubert runs. The image of his brother hunched over, blade gleaming, burns its way into his eyelids. Billiam’s words echo in his ears. He’s haunted by the threats of his past, but more so by what he knows he caused.
Tears fall hot and heavy as he tears through the woods, but because of him he can’t stop at the village he runs across. Silas should be running with him, but because of him his brother is gone, replaced by a mindless husk. Because of him, the remains of his brother that still wore his face would die.
When Hubert finally finds a place he deems safe enough, he carves his brother’s name into a rock. It sits in front of a stick hammered into the ground.