The Rapunzels ONC 2024

6: Disgrace

It is not only the blood on the floor Lexi and Lulu spend an hour cleaning, it's also the blanket that was used to cover their youngest sister. After making sure the parquet is spotless, they carry the duvet to Lulu's bathtub and dunk it in soapy water. On hands and knees, they scrub to make sure no traces of Fia are left.

Once everything is clean, the sisters take turns bathing in Lexi's en suite before stepping into clean clothes. Immaculate, they regroup in Lulu's room.

Once three years ago, Lexi had asked her mother what the blood was. Lilin turned pale. She fanned herself while telling her oldest offspring it was because of the curse. Long hair and blood went hand in hand. She went on saying it was not something they could fix, nothing they could hide, or rid of.

When Lex asked her mother if she ever bled, she was met with a slap across the face. "Really, Alexis! Me? Bleed? I do not carry the curse, child. I am not a disgrace."

None of the Grimstone girls ever dared ask about the blood again. Once a month, they were banished to one of the guest homes for three days when the red came. There they found special items to make sure their blood would not attract demons.

Three days. Three quiet and often boring days with no contact from anyone and little to do but train to hold your breath or see how long you could last on the roof before you felt you'd topple off the edge. Even the meals were dull. The sisters had to eat whatever of the canned goods that were kept in the small pantry.

"Be thankful it's only three days," their mother's voice rang in Lexi's ear. "I've heard of other cursed girls who were red longer...some for even seven days."

"We're safe now. You can relax." Lulu pokes Lexi in the arm with her wooden brush and Lexi pops out of her recollection. The sisters are sitting on Lulu's bed dressed in matching ivory skirts and tops.

Lexi scrunches her nose and thinks how their clean clothes often smell like old-lady soap. She prefers blueberry scents, lavender, and orchids yet her and her sisters are only given their favourite soaps to wash their hands and faces, never anything delightfully yummy-scented to wash their clothes.

"I'm glad the guest homes are off-bounds to him," Lexi looks out the window towards the vast yard rolling towards where Fia is.

Lulu nods. "The Devil can only enter the main house. Everyone knows that."

"Everyone knows that," Lexi echoes softly. "Even the wolves."

When silence comes and they no longer talk about Fia, blood, or the devil, Lexi hears Lulu counting under her breath.

"Ten, eleven, twelve..." Lulu's brush makes gentle strokes.

Rising, Lexi sets her brush on Lulu's desk. "I'm going down for some water."

The hallway is dark. Night paints everything black. Lexi doesn't bother switching on the light. She knows every inch of the house. She closes her eyes and takes a step, then another. She is a blind woman with a mental map leading her down to the kitchen. She knows there are eighteen steps, she knows the third and sixth ones creak if you step too far left. Her fingers dance over the banister idly.

When Lexi reaches the main floor, she continues to walk unsighted. The sound of a stranger's voice greets her. It is a woman. She stops and tries to recognize them. The sultry drawl becomes familiar, or so she thinks. Lexi purses her lips and huffs, "Blanche."

But when she opens her eyes, she sees that it's not grandmother Sofia's friend but a woman she's never seen before who's come for a Visit. "A family member I have not yet met?" The woman is flicking her hair over her shoulders saying that no one should hate her because she's beautiful.

Lexi tiptoes closer to the living room to get a better look, yet stops abruptly when she sees her father sitting with her mother. Though their backs are to her, Lexi's heart skips a beat. She does not want to be seen. She certainly doesn't want to speak with her father. Not now, not ever if possible.

Her eyes instantly dart to the clock. Seven thirty-two. "Fiddlesticks," she whispers to herself before taking a few steps back so that her parents don't see her.

Like a little mouse, she inches to the wall and hides partially behind it, peeking out just enough to see her father's briefcase on the floor and a couple of baggies on the table. White powder rests inside—spaceship fuel.

Tyrone takes some of the powder out and creates four white lines on a small mirror. He hands it to Lilin who bows into the powder, covers a nostril, and takes a deep breath.

"Colombian, my dear?" Lilin's voice is a collection of slurs. That's when Lexi spots the empty bottle of Chardonnay.

Tyrone's hand moves to Linin's hair, fingers weave in. He pulls her up to his lips roughly. He is feral. "Peruvian. It's the best. NASA outdid herself this time." He chuckles. "What do you think?"

Linin's reply is a deep kiss. She tosses her arms around him with such ferocity, that the little mirror falls to the floor and the powder scatters.

Lexi hears murmurs and sounds that make her skin crawl.

Lilin's lips move to Tyrone's ear. Her tongue flicks along flesh. "Take me upstairs. Now."

The words that come next make Lexi slap her hands over her ears and her stomach churn. Her face burns. She feels like someone set her on fire.

Scrambling backward, she makes a mad dash back upstairs and runs to hide in her room. Her mother's vile words echo in her ears. Lexi slides to the floor and no matter how hard she pushes her palms into her ears, she can still hear both Lilin and Tyrone telling each other how badly they want to fuck each other, what they want to do to each other in bed. 

The words make her want to throw up. It's not only the fact that they want to do that, it's because they always tell their daughters what a horrible, painful, and blasphemous thing that is.

Lexi wraps her arms around her legs. She rocks, back, forward, slow, faster. She opens her mouth and silently screams until everything she just heard shatters into tiny pieces that cannot harm her.