Requiem for a Mouse (18 page)

LISSANDRA

Lissandra returned home with two plastic bags full of food. She stood in front of her house just watching the door, the same way Bolt had. She found herself counting the cracks on the door, if anything, just to keep her occupied.

Sorry, Bolt, but I’ll only hold you back.

From here, it looked like her house had been abandoned long ago. There was only silence and the occasional creak of wood. The birds chirping nearby sounded like an orchestra next to her house. Not even her neighbors made noise, though she wasn’t even sure she had neighbors. For the few weeks that she had lived here, she hadn’t once encountered any.

Her mother was probably drunk again, passed out on the couch in the clothes she had been wearing since the passing of her father. Gunther was most likely out looking for work and Leon hungry, waiting for his big sister to come home with food.

“God I miss you.” Lissandra whispered to her father. She held her breath for a moment, expecting some cool gust of wind or maybe even a whisper back, anything that might indicate that her father had heard her from the other side. There was only silence.

Lissandra opened her front door and stepped inside.

“Where have you been?” Her mother was standing right in front of her with her fists at her waists. Her face looked years older than it had just a day ago, and centuries older than a week ago.

“I was getting food.” Lissandra replied as calm as she could. She carried the bags to the kitchen.

“And how’d you get the money to do that?” Elizabeth stepped in front of Lissandra. She grabbed Lissandra’s arm, her fingers like talons. “Tell me!”

Lissandra squirmed away from the grip, but it was iron-tight. “Let go of me.”

Her mother’s nails dug into the dark purple of her bruises. “Tell me how you got this money!” Elizabeth wore the smell of booze like perfume.

Lissandra winced and twisted her arm out of her mother’s clasp. “I did a job for Jynx.”

“You’re lying, aren’t you?” Elizabeth was in tears. Just then, she looked on the verge of collapsing. Her face turned pale and she stumbled backwards. She held up a rigid finger at Lissandra. “Your father would be ashamed of you.”

Lissandra looked away as if slapped. She would’ve preferred being slapped. “What would you have me do?” she asked, her voice like the calm before a storm.

“You think I was too drunk to notice you? You disappear all night then come home with bruises and money and with a boy! How could you?”

“That’s not—”

“Did you even consider how this would affect Leon? Having a whore for a sister?” Elizabeth covered her face with her hands as she sobbed into them.

“Mom, stop.” Lissandra fought her tears, but they came regardless. “I’m not—”

Elizabeth grabbed both her shoulders. Lissandra felt herself being crushed between her mother’s frail arms. Elizabeth looked Lissandra in the eye with a twitching smile. “Tell me Liss, look me in the eyes and tell me you’re a virgin.”

This isn’t fair.
Why did it have to happen like this? All I wanted was to…

Lissandra swung up her hand and smacked her mother’s face. The sound of it echoed throughout the house. Her mother toppled over to the ground.

“All I wanted was to feed Leon!” Lissandra screamed the words at the ground, her head swinging with each word. Tears flew from her face, spraying the floor. Before her mother responded, she ran out and disappeared into the streets.

“Whiskey.” Lissandra knocked on the bar. “All the way up.”

Within moments another cup was in front of her. A translucent yellow drink filled it to the brim. She laid her head on the bar in case she were to fall backwards. With clumsy fingers, she fished a coin out of her pocket.

She had planned not to spend this money, to save it as an emergency fund. However, this was an emergency.

She sat at the same bar she used to sneak into with Gunther. They scraped up coins for a week just to share a filthy drink together. Neither enjoyed it, but both enjoyed watching the other choke through it.

Her father would always find them. Most times he would be angry, yanking them by the ear back home. Once in the privacy of their house, he would lecture them for hours. But compared to the embarrassment of being dragged through public by ear, his lectures were a welcome change.

However, every now and then, instead of dragging them out, he would pull out a stool and order a drink with them. With a wink he would say…

“Don’t tell your mother.” Lissandra whispered to herself in recollection.

“But how can I refuse such great company?”
He would finish. And with that, he would take a seat and order the next round of drinks. A tap on her shoulder interrupted her daydream.

“I thought I would find you here.” Gunther pulled out a stool beside her and ordered a drink, just as their dad used to. “You look radiant.”

Lissandra watched him, noticing how he resembled their father. It wasn’t just in looks either, he had the same ability to know just what to say to her.

“Shut up.” She responded.

Gunther knocked on the bar and ordered his own drink. It looked just as disgusting as hers. “I heard you and mom got in a fight.”

“Drink!” Lissandra brought the cup to her lips and drank until the burning liquid forced her to gag. She set it down, spitting some back out into the cup. Beside her, Gunther threw his head back and drained his cup of everything.

“Aren’t we a little too old for this game?” Gunther asked, his mouth twisted in a disgusted frown. With a knock on the bar, he ordered another drink.

“I’m not to come home anymore.” Lissandra said without looking at him. “Apparently, I’m a bad influence on Leon.”

“Look, you know how mom is. She’s just going through a lot, she’s not herself right now. When I got home she on her knees begging me to find you. She wants you to come home.”

“Why would I go back to that—”

“Drink!” Gunther said.

Gunther raised the glass to his lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as the liquid drained from his cup. Lissandra did the same. She forced the rest of her drink down her throat. It was embarrassing to only be able to drink half cups for every cup Gunther could drink.

“Leon misses his big sister.” Gunther wiped his mouth on his sleeve like he could rub the drink’s taste from his tongue.

“Really? I heard his sister’s a whore.”

“I sure hope not,” Gunther remarked as he ordered another drink. “Because then I’d have to kill every man who so much as looked at her.”

“Even you thought so…” Lissandra stared into her empty glass, remembering how Gunther had told her not to do anything she couldn’t explain to Leon. Back then, his words were a knife in her back, now, it felt like she had been speared through.

Gunther looked down at his drink, at a loss. Finally, he answered. “I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it. I was just trying to get you to come back home.”

“And is that what you’re doing now? You’re going to ask me to go back home?” She knocked on the bar and watched the bartender pour her more poison.

“No,” Gunther said meekly. “I’m going to get down on my knees and beg you to come home. We need you, Liss. At the very least, I need you. Mom’s depressed, Leon’s scared, and I think I’m going crazy. You’re the only one I can even talk to anymore.”

Lissandra stared at her drink. She let out a small sigh, but the corners of her lips curled up into a reluctant smile. “Drink.”

GUNTHER

By the time Gunther and Lissandra were done drinking, twilight had swallowed the sky. They stumbled to their front door. Before Gunther could fish the keys out of his pocket, Lissandra plopped down onto the dirt street and laid down.

“I thought you could handle your liquor a little better.” Gunther hooted. “C’mon little sister, you barely drank half of what I drank. Are you really so light?”

“I fell on purpose, I just want to sit here for a little.” Lissandra shot back, her vowels stringing together. She rested her head against the floor and closed her eyes. It seemed like she would fall asleep, but then again, she was never one to let someone else have the last word. “You have a job yet, Gunther?”

“No, so I guess it’s a good thing you drink so little then. Save us all a little money.”

Lissandra chuckled back. “Maybe I only drink so little because we can’t afford more.”

Gunther sat down next to her, happy not to be on his feet anymore. “Seriously though, I’ll get one soon. I swear.”

“You better, because I just quit mine.”

“Well, as the man of the…” Gunther let his sentence fade. With a drawn-out sigh, he continued, “You’re more man of the house than I am, you actually put food on the table. I’m sorry, Liss. I’ve been too hard on you, I just didn’t want you doing anything that’d get you in trouble or hurt.”

Lissandra stayed silent. Her eyes kept to the stars. Except for the rise and fall of her breaths, she was completely still.

“Do you remember what dad told me whenever he and mom left the house?” Gunther asked.

“No.” Lissandra said as if scared to speak too loudly.

“Gunther, no matter what, keep your little sister and brother safe. You’re the man of the house now, anything that happens to them, is on you,” Gunther recited in a deep voice, mimicking the baritone command of their father. “Back then, I remember complaining about it. I thought it was unfair that I was responsible just because I was born first. But honestly Liss, if anything were to happen to you, I think I’d lose it. That’s why I’ve been arguing with you so much.”

“I know.” Lissandra said as light as a breeze. She sniffed back tears.

In a quiet voice he said, “I love you, Liss.”

“I love you too.”

“We don’t talk anymore. We just fight all the time.” Gunther let his head fall right next to Lissandra’s. “Look, you don’t need to tell me everything, but at least tell me the important stuff. You know?”

Gunther counted stars as he waited for Lissandra to respond. The silence around them was lightened only by the sound of chirping crickets. By the time he had counted fifty, he figured his sister was either asleep, or refusing to talk.

“That’s alright,” Gunther told himself in a hushed voice. He got up and looked over at his sister’s emerald eyes, still open and fixed on the stars. Perhaps she too was counting.

“Mouse.” She whispered.

“What was that?”

“I was a Mouse.”

Gunther cast his eyes to the ground. “I figured it was something like that.”

“It paid well and was easy to get into.”

“I know it’s unfair of me to ask” –Gunther looked back up at Lissandra— “especially since you only got into it because I’m too pitiful to get a job, but promise me you won’t do that anymore. Please, Liss.”

Lissandra gave him a slight nod.

“Thanks,” said Gunther, jumping to his feet. “Let’s get back home, I have to be up early tomorrow to look for—”

“I was raped.”

“What?”

Gunther wished he had misheard her, but by the way she bit into her lips so hard she drew blood, he knew he hadn’t. Her eyes clenched shut, a stream of tears rolling off the side of her face.

Gunther couldn’t peel his eyes away from her. Never before had he seen her so frail. His own words caught in his throat and disappeared into a painful groan.

“What did you say?” Gunther insisted.

Lissandra continued to silently cry, coughing and gagging just to remain quiet. The last time she cried this hard was at their dad’s funeral. Gunther looked away. He wanted to hug her and comfort her, but he felt that a single step might shatter him.

No. Not her.

Gunther grit his teeth. If he could, he would’ve ground them to dust. His right fist was clenched so tight, his entire body shook. Drops of blood dripped from the trenches his nails had dug into his palm.

“No,” he muttered to himself. He fell to the ground on all fours. His fingers stabbed the cracked earth. Tears rained down from his face. He clutched his chest and laid his forehead on the ground.

“It was a drop. There were two Hawks. And I couldn’t…” Lissandra’s voice cracked then faded.

“No.” Gunther tapped his head against the ground. “No, no, no, no!” Each word came louder than the last. Each tap hit harder than the previous until he was slamming his head against the ground and screaming. It felt like his head might split in two. But even if it did, it would not be nearly enough punishment. He was to blame.

Lissandra’s shaking arms wrapped around his head and held him back. She pressed her nose into his hair and brought him into her chest.

Even now, I’m the one being comforted.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered.

They stayed like that until their tears dried. By then, orange edges cracked the horizon. Gunther led his little sister back into their room to sleep. He didn’t follow her inside. There was no way he could sleep tonight.

For once, his mother was in her bedroom, giving him the couch to sit on. Gunther sat there with his hands clasped onto his head and fingers digging into his skull.

It’s my fault. It’s because I’m too pathetic to find work.

Gunther took heavy and laborious breaths. He crunched himself deeper until his knees came up to his head. His hands trembled as they tried to break his skull.

Fuck!

With tears still in his eyes, he sprinted through the door and before he knew it, he was standing in front of the Riverside Tavern. It was still too early for it to be open, but he didn’t care. He walked in to see the place vacant except for the bartender cleaning a table.

“What are you doing here?” The bartender asked him surprised. It was the first time Gunther had ever heard him use a tone that wasn’t a bored indifference.

“I’ll take it!” Gunther screamed.

“What?”

“I’ll do whatever it is, work for whoever it is. I don’t care what happens, as long as it pays.”

“Sounds good.” The bartender’s calm voice stood in stark contrast with Gunther’s.

With a nod, the bartender retreated back behind his bar and began polishing glasses with an expression Gunther had never seen on him before, a smile.