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Chapter 2: In My Uncle's Den

Like my father, George Lehr was a wealthy man, though that was only one of two similarities the brothers shared. George was a business entrepreneur; a modern baron of a successful crude oil shipping company. His station brought him money, power, women, servants, and all of the modern amenities that a forty-three year-old man could wish for in the 1950s. His house was more of a mansion than my father's and while it was intimidating at first, I soon realized that my monstrous uncle knew surprisingly little of the building's actual layout, which made it relatively easy to avoid him when he came hunting for me.

To say that George Lehr was lecherous would be a gross understatement. The night he brought me back to his palace on Long Island, there were no less than six women waiting for him to pleasure them. Not that I was aware of the reason for their presence back then. I was too young and naïve to understand why my uncle spent each night with different women. The first night I slept in that huge, strange house, I dreamed a horrible dream...

I was running through a thick, black fog. The killer, with his hand dripping with the blood of my parents, was chasing me. Each time I looked over my shoulder the stranger's hideous grin was closer. My legs wouldn't move the way I wanted them to. It was like running through molasses. My heart pounded in my chest as I felt the stranger's presence getting closer and closer behind me. I could feel his chilling breath on the back of my neck. His dry hand gripped my shoulder and I felt a stab of pain in my spine. As swiftly as he had appeared in my dream, he was gone, leaving behind an echo of chilling laughter. I bled on the cold ground in the black fog. My uncle appeared before me moments later, lifting my pierced body from the ground. He carried me from the fog until we were standing on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Hudson Bay. I was no longer bleeding. My uncle looked down at me and smiled. It was a kind smile. The wind gently caressed us and then my uncle did something unexpected. He threw me from the ledge. I screamed as I fell away from him; over the edge of the bluff towards the black water. I watched in horror as my uncle transformed into the stranger that terrifying grin spread from ear to ear and then his face became my own; enormous and malicious against the grey sky as I abruptly came awake.

I sat up in my bed the next morning covered in cold sweat and out of breath. The sunlight danced across the floor; filtered through the bare branches of the trees outside. My body ached as if I really had been running and my back was stiff. Gingerly, I made my way to the bath, drawing it as my father had taught me to. I was in the middle of soaking my sore muscles when my uncle burst through the door. He looked like my father only less refined. There was an almost brutish quality to him, with a thicker body type. His jaw was practically square and he had a gut that hung over his belt as if nothing could contain it. If he had my father's metabolism, he must have truly binged on food to gain that weight. His chest and arms were stocky, huge, and thickly muscular. His eyes were brown, but piercing like my father's. They burned with an anger that was general and unfocused as if he was furious at everything. That notion wasn't far from the truth. What he was wearing is unimportant, but it was some kind of business suit.

"Get your lazy ass up," he said. "Your first day of public school starts today and your breakfast is getting cold."

It took me a few moments to realize what he was talking about.

"Public school?"

"Yes. Are you hard of hearing, boy?"

I shook my head no.

"You wouldn't believe the strings I had to pull to get them to accept you this late in the season so you had better start being grateful. No child of this family goes without schooling."

"But I have a private tutor," I said. "His name is Jonas Marsh."

"Oh, well aren't you special? Excuse me, highness, but you will be going to public school from now on like normal children. Now get your ass out of the tub and eat quickly or you will be late."

My uncle watched as I stepped out of the tub and quickly dried myself. He was making sure I obeyed him. What choice did I have in the matter? I dressed with equal swiftness and devoured my meager breakfast of oatmeal and orange juice voraciously. My uncle personally drove me to the public school in a shiny, black sports car of some kind.

"Feeling any better?" He asked along the way.

I assumed he was referring to my parents' deaths.

"A little..."

"Good. It will pass in time. Your teacher is a good friend of mine. Do not disappoint her or you will disappoint me."

I nodded. There were a few moments of silence before he spoke again.

"Do you even realize how much this inconveniences me?"

I still don't know if his question was rhetorical, but in that moment I decided not to answer.

"I have a business to run. I don't have the time to babysit a spoiled child like you. It figures that my brother and his wife would go and get themselves killed in a way that leaves the rest of the family with nothing."

I felt rage bubbling in my gut, but I held it back. George Lehr was frightening to me and I didn't want to even risk attracting more of his ire. The rest of the trip to the school was spent in silence while I let the anger simmer. I still am not sure if he even realized the effect his words had on me. Upon our arrival, half an hour early I might add, the teacher that my uncle had spoken of greeted us. She was ordinary as far as I could tell; a middle-aged woman with glasses and a kind smile. There was nothing special about her appearance or mannerisms to me. For all I know, now, she could have just been one of my uncle's nightly conquests. In fact she probably was just that. There was also nothing significantly special about that first day of public school. I am sure you have heard the traumatic stories other children talk about. I was introduced to the class as normal, except that the teacher specifically mentioned that I was from a "very important" family. Children are at their most cruel when left alone with someone different from them. I would have surely been that target due to that introduction, but the anger my uncle had left me with remained for the duration of the day at school, leaving me with a dour expression in the back of the classroom while the teacher went on about grammar. My vicious look no doubt made the other children avoid me like one would avoid a plague. No one wanted to risk associating with a mean looking child.

Despite my late entry into the class, I excelled in my school work over the next few weeks. It wasn't too different from being tutored. There were just more people in the room and less time for personal questions. The children in the class were typical children; as was I. Gradually, I learned who I could speak to comfortably and who I should avoid in the class. Mostly, the other students were sheepish when talking to me and it was difficult to get to know them because of it. I didn't mind not having any real friends in the class. It helped me to concentrate on the class work.

Over those same few weeks, I became bolder in my uncle's house. The servants told me not to set foot in the mansion's East Wing. But by the third week in that house, I had explored everywhere else and my youthful curiosity had been gnawing at me for several days. Surely, there was no harm in a little exploration. It would be best after everyone was asleep. I decided to try my luck that weekend.

It was after midnight in the dead of winter when I began my stealthy journey toward the forbidden wing. The mansion's floors were marble, as were many of the furnishings on the lower level. Paintings lined the light-colored walls in the main hall, but I ignored them as I passed. Many of them were of people I had never even heard of and, at seven years old, I couldn't care less about. I stopped at the threshold of the door leading to the East Wing as nervousness assaulted my stomach. I took a deep breath, looked around me for any other people, and slowly opened the door. Immediately, the change in décor was obvious. The walls went from a pleasant, cream color to dark wood paneling; the drapes from pleasant blue to deep crimson. It was a stark contrast. The East Wing was not inviting to say the least. Strangely enough, it also seemed to be much older than the rest of the house. The wooden floors were scratched and stained in some places and some of the drapes had holes in them. There was no art on the walls in this wing and as I silently walked down the foreboding hallway, a feeling of immanent dread crept over me. The lamps on the wall were dimmed, though I wasn't sure if they could even be turned up at all. It very much looked like a haunted house straight out of one of my books.

I stopped dead as a sudden noise from down the hall sent chills down my spine. It sounded like a woman was being attacked by a beast. I could have turned back. I probably should have. But my curiosity won out over my fear and I continued gingerly moving down the hallway. The woman's screams and the growling noises grew louder as I neared a slightly open door. The light from within pooled on the wooden floor of the hallway and I peeked inside. The room within was elaborately decorated with red cloth. It hung from the windows, draped from the ceiling, and overflowed from a bed. Candles were laid out on the floor in an odd pattern around the room. I caught a glimpse of the shrieking woman's bare leg, roped to one of the posts on the bed. I also saw my uncle's naked form, panting and sweating over her. She was protesting and swearing at him, trying to get him off of her, but he was too strong and held her down. I watched, horrified as my uncle raised a curved dagger above his head.

"One life, as the council demands," he said in a growling voice that seemed hardly like his own.

The woman suddenly seemed to notice me through the crack in the door.

"Help me!" she shrieked.

I took a step backward from the door as my uncle leaped from the bed faster than I had ever seen him move before. He flung the door wide, extinguishing many of the candles in the room as he did. He stood over me, fury etched into his monstrous features. He easily lifted me onto my feet before I could force my legs to move.

"You were told never to come to this wing!" He shouted, stabbing the dagger into the wooden frame of the door.

I felt his rough knuckles slam into my cheek and the wave of searing pain that followed. The blow knocked me from his grip and into the wood paneling of the wall on the other side of the hallway. Through my ringing ears, I could hear the woman screaming again for help as my uncle's foot planted itself squarely in my gut.

"Maybe this will teach you to do as you are told!" He emphasized each word with another kick to my head or torso.

I felt wetness dribbling down my forehead through the intense pain. I started to crawl back in the direction of the rest of the mansion. I just wanted to get away. My uncle raised his foot again and I winced in anticipation of the blow, but instead he stopped.

"H-he must not be given. The offering must be pure..." he said as if remembering something vitally important in that instant.

I was silent, cowering there on the floor as he returned to the room and closed the door. The woman's hysterical screaming was muffled behind it as he continued enacting whatever dark ritual he had started before my interruption. I didn't want to hear any more so I gingerly got to my feet and limped out of the Eastern Wing of the mansion. I managed to clean and dress my own wounds during the remainder of that night. What I had experienced kept me from sleep entirely. The next morning, the servants acted like my injuries didn't even exist as they went about their daily duties. I wanted to tell them what I had witnessed the night before, but I had the feeling that they already knew. From that night on, whenever my uncle was angry at something, he would hunt me down to take it out on me. I swiftly learned all of the best places to hide in the mansion, often sequestering myself away with a book or three until my uncle grew tired of looking and retired to his bed.

As my teen years began, I often wondered if I would live the rest of my life in this manner; hidden behind a closet or cupboard door. I decided that I no longer wanted to. Thankfully, I would only have to endure that life for several more years.