evander orion | two | fin

evander

"Who are you?"

"I'm Third Of Three.
There's my brother, my sister, then me.
We are not of the earth, nor of the trees,
but we are of the sky, the Orion Three."

Fear came to my house years ago, and I let him in and called him Uncle Charlie.

A business partner of my father's, but a friend of the family's, he came and went with free will. He had dinner with us some nights, bought me new paintbrushes and flower seeds. And Uncle Charlie was a part of the family, simple as that: Mom, Dad, Siberia, Breena, and Uncle Charlie. Mom had only her family's wealth and good memory, and Dad burned bridges with his parents long ago, so we were all we had.

Dad liked to tell people he built his business from the ground up: that he started with a shack on the outskirts of the district, that every meal was fought for, but it wasn't true. His business was off to a running start after cashing in on the larger part of Mom's inheritance and Uncle Charlie's silver tongue. They became the biggest manufacturer of wines and spirits in what felt like a blink of an eye, selling their alcohol to every pub and every restaurant worth dressing up for, and eventually, even the Capitol caught wind of it.

I, for one, was glad my father had finally chosen a career and stuck with it. After marrying my mother and letting the boy who never had anything fade into the past, Dad tried making careers out of superfluous things: glorified hobbies like bird-watching, or trading coins. He was finally given the chance to explore his creative side with my mother's hand in his, and he took it for all it was worth for the first several years of my childhood.

Our childhood. Never just my own.

They had the makings to become the wealthiest men in District Two, and perhaps they would have if they hadn't of been so greedy.

(Isn't that ironic? They blew their chances of fortune by letting greed take hold of them?)

It were as if they had refused the night by counting stars in the daytime.

They cut corners, Dad and Uncle Charlie-- started substituting certain portions of alcohol with water and claiming the percentages were all the same on their fancy labels. More profit, less contribution. More alcohol to use. A business opportunity they both knew was a risk-- and a crime, and they still chose to do it.

Perhaps if Mom had loved us, or even herself, as much as she loved him, she would have warned him of the thin ice on which he was trekking. Maybe, just maybe, if she had protested to his wrongdoing instead of encouraging him, none of it would have happened. But, well, that wouldn't have made for a very interesting story at all.

---

We're seven.

Our mother's hair is pulled back in a red ribbon, ever-present plastic smile stretched tight against her lips.

"Dad and I have been talking," She says. Bree weaves her fingers into Mom's.

"'bout what?"

"Ways for the three of you to occupy your time," Mom says in reply. The end of her nose is red from the cold, strands of hair dancing with the wind. My Mom has always been pretty, but then, money has a way of making people appear more beautiful than they truly are. She has that heiress look; the look where you walk with your shoulders back and your chin up, where your teeth are pearlie white and your skin is clear. She appears graceful before all else.

And Dad has that rugged outskirt boy look. He may have married rich, but his genes will never leave him. Bulky shoulders and stony features, hands like bricks. Still handsome, though. Rugged. But certainly not the type of man who was supposed to marry a princess.

Bree twirls in Mom's gentle hold, the folds of her skirt stretching out like the petals of a flower.

"You look silly," I say, sticking my tongue out at her.

"Mama!" Bree whines. She has always been Mom's pick; Berry is Dad's, I'm Uncle Charlie's. None of them say so, but the three of us are in agreement. Dad always asks Berry to help him outside first, and Bree goes into town with Mom every time without fail. Uncle Charlie always sneaks me hard candy from his coat pocket and tells me not to tell my brother and sister.

"Evan," Mom says. She doesn't sound angry, but she almost never does.

"Yes ma'am." I grumble.

Bree twirls again, this time giggling.

"There are plenty of things the three of you could do. Ballet, singing. You could learn to play an instrument! You all just need something to enjoy. What kind of mother would I be if my children never got to have any fun?"

(If only I had known then what I know now. I would have had plenty of things to say.)

"Still a good one." Berry says, people-pleaser as ever. Mom ruffles his hair.

"But I have a secret for you all," she says, stopping to face the three of us.

"I'm only a good mom," her blue eyes shift between the three of us, "because you're all such wonderful children."

I pick up my first paint brush that day, and I don't ever put it down.

---

Siberia was always the wisest of us. Bree, a dancing flame that consumed until there was nothing and I, a soul of cracked and chipping paint. Siberia was just that boy. Sometimes, I would lean my head against the door of his bedroom late at night, my legs aching from their place sprawled out on the floor. I would close my eyes and fall asleep to the sound of his piano. Passion. Like what I had for painting. Only it was different with him--

(Everything always was.)

Berry's emotions demanded to be heard, and the piano was what gave him his voice.

Bree had a great deal of talent as well: feet light as a first snow, twirling with the stars and ensuring a golden spotlight stay permanently placed on her slender figure.

They told her she didn't have the body of a dancer. She laughed then, and she's never stopped. Each medal and trophy that decorates our home is a reminder that she can do anything, be anything she wants to be.

---

"Uncle Charlie." I say. Now that I'm older, I don't sound quite as enthused. Like my mother, I care about appearances. My hair is always styled, my clothes are always tailored, my smile is made of the finest plastics.

Uncle Charlie stands in my doorway: fear. Absolute terror, and I never even know. It is a nightmare, a promise that it could never be true and then there it is, unfolding right before my eyes.

It starts with my father's drunken curse from the stairwell, Uncle Charlie's blind rage following him up three steps at a time.

Siberia and Breena make appearances at edges of doorways, watching in awe as the two men fight at the head of the stairs, but I am there, front and center. I can't move. I'm too afraid to.

Greed. (Fear.)

Power kills my family.

"Still wanna blame it on me, Charlie?" my father bellows. He hits Uncle Charlie with a hard right, sending the man into the wall. A painting I made my parents for their anniversary loses its place and tumbles down the stairs.

It took me days to complete; my eyes never move from the fighting pair. I hear it falling and crumbling, crashing down the stairs, but my gaze never hesitates.

It lands at my feet, torn and broken-framed. Still. I am still, and I stay that way.

"It was your idea!" Charlie fires back. He knees my father in the stomach, and now he has the upper hand. Dad falls on his back, head hanging past the first step. I think he might be struggling to breathe.

Uncle Charlie climbs on top of my dad, hands clutching throat. Dad gasps even louder this time and, from where I'm standing, he turns red, then purple, then blue, and Uncle Charlie doesn't let go.

I can't move.

(Fear.)

"Let him go!" I think for a moment the words are mine, but I see my mother, knife in hand, racing toward them.

Blink.

Dad is coughing, gasping. Mom is smiling that same tight-lipped, humorless smile. I think she is proud of what she's done.

Uncle Charlie is at my feet, right next to the painting. The knife still hangs from his back.

"We'll keep it a secret," Mom says, yanking it out and wiping it off on the hem of her skirt, "No one has to know."

---

"I can't! I can't do this!" My hands haven't stopped shaking for three weeks, four days, eleven hours, and twenty minutes. My hair is falling out, my eyes bloodshot and my breathing shallow. People ask me what is wrong and I am forced to tell them the closest thing to the truth I am allowed-- "Uncle Charlie is still missing," -- but it isn't enough. Guilt has me halfway swallowed down its throat, and any minute I'll be completely consumed.

"We don't have a choice," Breena says, "We talk, we die. Or we spend our lives in prison without our tongues, and that's if we're lucky."

(It isn't fair.)

"I don't care!" Tears fall down my cheeks and I don't try to hide them; Siberia and Breena have seen me cry before.

"Maybe that's what we deserve!"

Siberia puts a hand on my shoulder: "We didn't do this, Evan. Why should we be punished?"

"Exactly. We did nothing. What if we could have saved him? I let him run right past me and then I just... I just fucking stood there and watched it happen!"

Perhaps the greatest evil I've ever accomplished could be letting my fear overcome me. Perhaps it could be letting my guilt overcome me. Either way, I am drowning on dry land: limited air supply growing smaller by the second.

"So, what? We turn ourselves in and hope for the best?" Breena asks.

"It's the right thing to do. We're kids. And we didn't actually kill him." Neither of them speak, so I carry on. "Berry, you said it yourself: We didn't do this."

"But they did." He says. He stares at the ground, and I know why. Even if they go easy on us, our parents will be punished. Be it by death or by torture, imprisonment or avoxing, we will likely never see them again.

The three of us exchange looks rather than words. We know what comes next. Our parents have been good parents, but they deserve what they get, no matter how harsh and how terrible it may be.

"Tomorrow?" Breena suggests.

"Tomorrow," I agree.

I swear I see a figure in the kitchen window, but once again, I do not say anything. A shimmer: a change in the light and then there is nothing there, so it never crosses my stupid mind to mention it.

That night is the first night I have slept in weeks.

(Tomorrow never comes.)

The sun rises, birds sing and Meela plays with her toys, but we lock our doors that day.

Blood. Not Uncle Charlie's. Mom's. Dad's. Bodies gone without a trace. There is no sign of struggle: just blood smeared on the floors. Entire handprints were in some places, puddles of it soaking my parents' white sheets.

"They faked their deaths," Siberia says. I hear the horror in his voice, and I feel it for myself deep in my chest.

"They faked their deaths to keep us quiet."

We lock the doors and we make up stories of our parents falling ill: too ill to see visitors. Breena forges documents to get everything: wealth, house, Dad's business: she even had it written out that Meela would go to us in the event of our parents' passing.

Our parents thought we were stupid. They wrote us off as children who would instantly alert the authorities, who would then connect the dots of our missing parents to Uncle Charlie, make up stories about how we did it to claim the business for our own.

Our parents tried making us pay for crimes we did not commit, and for that reason, I am not sorry that we have made damn sure they'll have nothing to come back to if they ever bother showing up.

All the money, all the rights: all ours now: We, the Orion Three.