He Is & He Was

Part 10: The Demon Keepers

I had been living at the manor for less than a year without Vincent's father noticing. The day he did was a day the clouds grew dark and twisted, swirls of silver once the lightning boomed behind them. It was a day without laughter, pale skin or dry eyes. Vincent's skin was red with punishment and a whale, deep blue and overwhelmed with sadness swam above his bedrooms ceiling. His eyes looked fractured with all his tears as if we were looking at one another under water. Crystals that weren't beautiful because of their deep brown colouration. Cracked conkers.
The man didn't know who I was and I didn't know what he was; even when he stank of death. He was confident to get rid of me and soon my face was shown to the world on yellowed paper and fancy printed words which bled in the rain.
No one came which didn't surprise me. No one was interested in me and nor was anyone wealthy enough to take another mouth to feed.
My eyes scared people away.
"Why did your servants do that to your hands?" I asked Vincent, the purple nighttime making our now shared room a blue and black contrast where details were hard to squint at.
"It's just a punishment humans do." He lay his hands on the mattress between us, a fluorescent redness stained his palms with a few white blisters bubbling up for tomorrow. 
"It's stupid." I replied.
"It's the way things work," he looked at me, "After all, your kind locked you up in a well for a punishment." He smirked vaguely.
I only remained silent to his remark as I knew he didn't think like that, we both believed violence was made by a stupid man who wasn't smart enough to defeat the bullies. I liked to think I was smart enough to never revert to violence but I was born to create it, I was the new generation of war and it was important for me to design a new way of it, so what if I made a war that didn't have to be filled with death and the colour red?
"I hope you can live with me forever." He muffled, snuggling even more into his blankets and duvets which kept us warm during the freezing nights.
It felt weird to be told that. His hopes and dreams were very simple but yet I knew they would be crushed by his father, due to their wealth and desperate need to have a good role to show off to the people they belittled with their manor. I was a rodent, a pest that was ruining their perfect painting that they placed in front of the poor people's eyes, fooling them to think everything was okay when Vincent rebelled and Francis muddled up the roles of women and men together as if it was a normal thing to do.
"Why?" I questioned.
He closed his eyes as he begun to dose off and leave me behind, he begun to walk into a wonderland of dreams and sometimes horrors. He looked peaceful even after today's events which still marked his hands and made his nose sniffle.
"You make it bearable to live here." He lowered his voice.
"What do you mean?" I stared at him intently, wondering if he was actually comfortable or just a loose bag of anxieties, ready to pour out onto the floor.
"I just find it difficult." He opened up his vague honey brown eyes.
"Find what difficult?"
"Life, in general," he licked his lips as his mouth begun to grow dry, mentally rather than physically, "Its a weird life."
I didn't understand. He was a son of a unsuccessful man who was now a ruler thanks to the pure luck of marrying a woman of nobility and wealth. Once she passed on, she left him everything including his power over the village that wrapped around this manor like a loose scarf. Vincent was going to take over once he was mature of age, meaning his life was already sorted for him and he didn't have to worry about anything anymore, he didn't have to worry about being dumb, being useless at work or finding a wife since that was just thrown to his feet along with money and food as the villagers called out his name. He had nothing to worry about.
"My life is weirder, I come from Hell after all." I said unnervingly.
He smiled to my response but it was paler than usual, lacking both colour and happiness but I blamed the night rather than his emotions, "I know. I don't really understand why I feel like this." He fidgeted slightly as the twists in the duvet begun to feel like snakes around his ankles.
"Like what?"
He shrugged, "Unhappy. At least I think it's unhappiness. Some days I'm me and others I'm just a cloud above my head, watching myself," he looked at my confused face before sighing, "It's dumb, it doesn't matter."
I quickly spoke, "It isn't. I think most people feel like that."
He glanced at me but I could tell he was done talking to me now that I somehow upset him with vague questions. He confused me a lot, more than the other humans I had met since I was pulled out of the well. He was a kind spirit but yet he punished himself when he realised what he did was wrong rather than right, he didn't know it was bad to keep me in this big home and yet he was reminded everyday by the glances we gathered throughout the hours. He didn't know what I would become when I grew older but his father was sure I would be evil.
"Emotions are hard for me," I sighed, after a few minutes of us lying in silence, his eyes fluttering even when they were shut tight as he pretended to be asleep, "I don't know how you and others feel most of the time but I know that your emotions aren't you. You're just influenced by them." 
The tight grip he had on the covers to hide his mouth; loosened. Yet again his eyes were revealed to me but it was a different version of him looking at me now, he looked like a young teenager who was struggling to let go of the childhood he had only a few months ago, where we both met with the same nativity. But now, he was growing while I was stunted in a loop of being a child. Forever I would never age as the day I was born was forgotten about.
"That will surely get me into trouble, letting my feelings influence my judgements rather than the justice of right and wrong." He said.
"I'm not talking about Earl Phantomhive here, I'm talking about Vincent."
Yet again a silence filled between us but not because we had nothing to say this time but because his breathing became wavered and cracked.
"I think there's something wrong with me." His voice was louder and more hysterical but luckily no one else was around to hear his pleas to a demon.
I moved closer to him, my feet rubbing against his as I embraced his lanky body awkwardly, unsure what I was doing was right or disgusting. I kept my grip tight nonetheless. His body rippling as he sniffled and snorted, trying to be as silent as possible.
He curled his body around me, his warm body becoming my bed during my sleepiness, his arms holding me in return as his hot breathe moved my hair in a unrhythmic pace, "You are not crazy, you're just a human." I spoke calmly even when I was unsure of touching the boys skin.
It felt strange but he seemed to be comforted by it and so, I remained silent and  immovable until sleep dragged him into a deep slumber. His grip had became loose and I finally had the chance to move; but I hesitated.
                          ********
While I continued to live at the manor after the missing posters of me painted London, Vincent's father decided to make me into a servant as he soon begun to realise I might be living there forever even if he tried to throw me out. Vincent would always find a way to sneak me back in, even if it meant the worst of punishments.
Grandpa Tanaka tried to teach me how to cook but I grew confused with the different names of herbs, spices and different chopping techniques, I managed to make bitter things taste sweet and sweet things taste bitter. He tried to compliment my attempts but his face begun to grow grey and so I gave up, my hair stuck together in clumps from the sticky sauces I managed to throw up the walls and ceilings.
Next he tried to teach me how to wash up the cutlery we used but once the water grew cold, my hands became black like coals in a mine. The soap streamed down the clay of the sink like fractal lights on Christmas trees; glistening as I squinted my eyes.
"This is the same sink I bathed you in," Tanaka said softly, "Already you seem to have grown too much to fit back in here." He chuckled, the cuff of his shirt slipping into the lukewarm water and growing into a pale grey blue colour.
"Why are you nice to me?" I asked, placing a soapy plate into his virgin clear water, the bubbles dissolving and popping instantly on the surface.
"What do you mean?"
"For the first couple of days, you were scared of me. Hated me for all I know. And now you laugh with me even when I have no sense of humour," my sleeves rolled down my forearms slightly, "So why are you nice to me now?" My eyes glared at him.
He seemed stunned for a while before smiling, resting a damp hand on my shoulder which I didn't enjoy the feel of. He towered over me but in the softest way a giant could; it still felt intimidating.
"Because you are special." His voice was rather dull.
"Special?" I spat out and laughed slightly, the irony burning my skin like a flame to a candles wick.
Tanaka's smile faded as I continued, "You don't have to use such positive vocabulary on me. I know it may work on Master Vincent and Lady Francis but it won't on me. I know what I am, I know what you think of me. So tell me, what has caused this sudden kindness?" I felt like my words were much more dramatic than they were meant to be due to my youngness, which caused my statements to be irrational and immature even when they were the truth.
If I was a man maybe it would of sounded more serious and viscous, making Tanaka not turn away and continue cleaning in a crippling silence. But I was only a child and he did just that, making me regret my reply. Maybe he just didn't know how to tell me the truth as to why he kept me as a pet and didn't throw me away like rubbish back down that well. I continued to not ask anymore questions and finished my part of the washing quickly and relentlessly, leaving marks still on the dark cracked plates which Tanaka only sighed at and cleaned off himself.
I begun to fiddle with the ribbon of the yellowing apron that was tattered and damp from my carelessness. The rope so long that it wrapped around my twiggy body twice unlike Tanaka who could only managed once, his did not trail on the floor like mine though which I envied him for.
"You need to be brought up right for very specific reasons, Mister Raven, that is why I'm kind to you." He suddenly said.
I looked at the wooden chair that was left untucked out of the table, that was covered in small slits from knives scraping and claw marks from anxieties that cause nasty picking habits. I hastily walked towards it and sat on the edge, my back far away from the support, making my eagerness to leave the kitchen noticeable.
"What do you mean? Isn't that statement agreeable for everyone? Being brought up right is better than being brought up bad, it's common sense." I said, looking down to my hands to see them going back to their natural pasty colour, making me realise I was like a uncooked pastry abandoned on the counter, never to be cooked into a lovely brown colour. I will forever be unfinished. I will be thrown down into a tall bin; to be forgotten about and to be remade again.
"Yes but if this was Master Vincent and not you, he would just be a thief or a murderer that could be caught. For you, you may as well begin a plague of death or judgement day for all I know." He kept his back to me, tiny broken fractals of glass from a wine glass I broke this morning, lay unseen around his feet. They looked like golden gems as the light caught them and so I was hesitant to tell him, they just looked too beautiful and valuable now.
"I wouldn't do that." I said but the words meant nothing to me while they meant the world to the scared humans that raised me.
"But it's because you can Raven," he finally looked at me, his hands flopping to his sides and draining water and bubbles all over the gems, making them disappear into the murky white water, "You seem to be unaware of how much power you truly have. We don't want you to use it wrongly. We don't want you to be those things that people fear in the Bible, in the stories or in the folktales."
Things.
Just because my kind had a different style of survival, we had lost our names now that religion became a politic. Meaning any other way of living was sinful and wrong, even if you weren't a demon. I wondered if the Phantomhive family was religious and what did they think about me when I stamped around their home as if it was my own.
Vincent was a sinner as soon as he looked down that well.
If they were religious, why did they keep me here? Why was I still alive and why were they trying to give me a normal life when it was so tedious?
It irritated me what Tanaka said, reminding me that he didn't have trust in me at all and was in fact just as blind as everyone else. A demon couldn't be changed, a demon was a demon no matter what you did. I had done nothing to show the true colours of being a demon and yet he feared me, he was disgusted by me and dissolved into a blank wall around his masters when I came into the room.
"Maybe you should stop reading fairytales," I hummed cockily.
His moustache shivered with disgust, unhappy with my statement but he should of known using religion against me was more hilarious to me than scary, "Can I go now?" It was more of a statement than a question, knowing I should of left the kitchen a long time ago.
He glanced at the door and nodded, my feet barely touching the floor until he made another remark. "Don't cause a scene out there. We don't want this manor going up in flames because of your stupidity."
I froze and nodded before leaping to the floor, leaving in more of a hurry than before. I wondered if people were actually that petty to burn an entire manor down because of a few minor mistakes from a child. I smiled at the thought of portraying a child of the human race for the rest of my life, it was easier than being a child down below even when Vincent seemed to find it difficult here. Maybe he was just weak. Or maybe, he was incredibly smart and could see the truth of being a human. It was pointless. Boring and unnecessary but yet the species kept on living, trying desperately to claw at the top of the food chain which was adorable to watch in a saddening way.
Statuses and titles seemed to be very important to them.
The hallways of the servant quarters were very different from the ones in the manor, theirs -if not wooden- would be painted in a brilliant berry red with golden swirl markings of diamonds and leaves, a thick cherry wood plank would cut the walls in half just to emphasise their wealth. The floor was a lighter glossy wood to brighten up the dimly lit halls as if they were walking on the clouds in heaven. The odd tables decorated with plants or candles with lanky metal phones scattered around the manors maze-like halls.
The servants was just a cheap wooden rectangle with concrete flooring that followed through the bedrooms, cleaning rooms and kitchen. It was always cold down here and almost smelt damp and musty with age, my eyes catching a few glimpses of black mould in the corners of the meant-to-be white ceilings. It was gross but it was better than where I came from I suppose. Maybe Vincent's father didn't know about its unliveable state.
I paced quickly down the hall and entered the bell room. Multiple bronze bells painted the walls, the names of the rooms around the manor stamped below them on a moulting piece of paper; this room also bare except for the scratched up staircase and the desk underneath the steps, a wooden square implanted into the wall just above the desk was wide open and showed abandoned dirty dishes that were delivered down the small elevator this morning, they must of been sent down from Vincent's fathers room. I was reluctant to take them back to the kitchen, thinking about all the other awkward conversations I could have with Tanaka in just a matter of a few seconds.
I decided to leave them like every other maid and servant did even when it bothered me. They didn't do their jobs ever, but I supposed they weren't paid enough to even blink an eye at the dirt hiding in the corners of the rooms.
I dragged my feet onto every step of the staircase thinking about what I should do for the rest of the day, should I leave and find somewhere else to stay, should I become the monsters that Tanaka feared or should I just stay a silent lamb in a lions body?
Once I reached the door and opened it up to the rich side of the manor, I saw Vincent and his father in their hunting gear. Thick brown blazers that were tartan with yellow and deep green and white trousers tucked into knee high black boots, still muddy from the lack of cleaning from the maids.
As soon as Vincent turned he gave me a bright smile even after a night of tears and confusion, "Raven, we are going hunting." As if it wasn't obvious enough.
I looked at his father, his eyes a brilliant lime green with a ring of a deeper green decorating them, his dark cap casting a shadow over them and causing them to suspiciously glow, "I didn't think you liked hunting." I replied.
"Well he needs to. He needs to know how to hold a gun, especially if a rodent like you is going to be staying here." His father said, a few odd strains of his silver hair showing underneath his hat, it was odd to see such a young man with grey hair but then again Vincent's hair was just a darker shade of grey so maybe it wasn't that weird. Maybe it was a new thing.
Vincent flinched slightly at his fathers words and gave him a quick glance as he tightened the grip on the rifle that didn't suit his soft personality. I only shook my head displeasingly, "Bullets don't work." I sighed and begun to walk away from them, uninterested to be insulted further.
"Have we dismissed you?" His father suddenly snapped, "We need someone to carry our belongings."
I gritted my teeth.
                     ***********
The woodland was surprisingly silent even when numerous birds nestled in the branches, finally becoming thick with greenery after another winter came and left us. The ground was damp and slippery because of the decomposed brown leaves that squelched underneath our shoes, worms scattering in spasms as they tried to find their homes as we stomped through; bodies slimy and plump with fat.
It always smelt so welcoming after rain. It was a smell everyone knew but couldn't describe no matter how many words you used. It was a dampness with a mixture of mud and purity. A smell of oxymorons. A smell of Mother Nature.
Droplets of this mornings rainfall dribbled down one newborn leaf to another until falling and sliding down my pale face, a rush of coldness thrilled me as the trees swayed like big drunk men. I heaved the spare guns over my shoulders, surprised that they gave me a weapon even after the drama of me being a evil that could kill anything with a click of a finger. I wondered if that was even true.
I had never really done anything that I remarked as supernatural but maybe that was because I didn't think about it. Or maybe I had and it was just normal to me but not to everyone else.
"Did you do anything interesting with Grandpa Tanaka?" Vincent trailed beside me, barely lifting his feet and causing the dead leaves to move and reveal tiny sprouting buds of wild plants with swirling stems.
It was a dull conversation starter so I added a few white lies into the story of how he yelled at me for being a demon and how he would get villagers with black pitchforks and blazing torches to chase me back down into Hell, it was funny to look at his concerned face grow pale but it made me feel a slight twinge of guilt at the same time.
"Did he really say that stuff?" He asked in disbelief.
I shook my head, "No. well, not that aggressively anyway." I replied deeply.
Red berries on thorn leaved plants chimed like bells, big and round and moist with the freshwater of rain. A robin with a mimicked chest plucked at them before pausing and staring at us with midnight eyes.
"Hi mother," Vincent suddenly said, making his father shatter, his uptight shoulders now low, even though he didn't say anything, it was clear he was suffering from grief still, "I believe mother came back as a robin. She loved them so much, it has so much of her character inside it's tiny fat body," he giggled but it was sad, "It's dumb."
I glanced back at the robin with a pause in my steps, hoping it's eyes would shout out 'yes it's me'. But she was silent, with only the clapping of her wings notifying us she flew away.
I watched her become a black speck in the camouflaged woodland and continued on following Vincent and his father, "It isn't dumb. I'm sure that was her." I was getting too use to lies.
His face immediately lit up in a sickly loving way, his face regaining a small tint of a pinkish red on the end of his nose and cheeks. He sniffed as the cold air made his nose run, "You think so?" He asked eagerly.
I nodded but I didn't know why I felt the need to do such a thing for a being that would never do the same in return. Once I told him about my parents, he never consoled me or touched me or said anything happy. He just stared with judgemental eyes as I grew accustom to my new life style, I soon realised it was easy to not say anything but hard to forget those images; I would be more than a liar if I said it didn't hurt me still.
It shouldn't hurt me.
A sudden crackle in the distance stopped me from walking any further, Vincent's father also noticing; his head flicking to a jolt. A sudden but barely noticeable movement.
The world came to life with a flash. Birds singing with vibrating necks, rain finally falling hard from the branches like a tap dropping water into the sink below, the droplets like abandoned silver bullets which God left for Mother Nature to use against me. Patters of foxes feet were barely noticeable as a few grass snakes slithered by; thread through brown fabric.
"Why have we stopped?" Vincent finally piped up, his hands gripping onto his loaded gun in incorrect angles and postures.
He was truly hopeless when it came to violence.
"Animal of course." His father muffled, snapping the barrel of his rifle and filling the singular bullet holder into the stiff rubber placer.
He fingered the trigger guard as he rested the end of the wooden stock into the front of his shoulder, close to his chest to avoid break and bruising in his bones. He held on tight to the rest of the body and stalked around the place but he didn't seem enthusiastic or at all bothered, in fact he seemed like he just wanted to go home back in the warmth where he could hide and laugh at the old jokes Grandpa Tanaka had learnt over his years of living in London.
I grew closer to Vincent and watched as he mimicked his father but in a much more fragile and almost pathetic kind of way, even his feet stumbling on nothing as his hands held the gun wrongly into his body. For sure he would break his shoulder during the recoil.
"You're holding it wrong." I said, gesturing to him.
"Show me then." He huffed, as his father was gone in a world none of us belonged in. A world of death and a echoing silence that reminded him of the loneliness he had gained during the loss of his wife.
I could see her body on his back, pulling him down and closer, closer to the ground that she was buried in but for some reason, death was not an option for him. He seemed to have been dead for a long time already now.
I took hold of his rifle and pushed it further away from the edge of his arm and into his armpit and tried to angle it forward rather than down to the ground. He wasn't going to impress his father by killing a worm.
I pressed myself closer to him hesitantly and rested my head on his shoulder, making sure the snout followed his field of vision and onwards into the new shooting range. My hands slipped on top of his and moved them into the correct positioning, his warmth even through his leather gloves gave me a happy greeting. My finger wrapped around the trigger with his.
"Keep it like this, then," I flicked the safety of, "Turn that off and aim, then fire."
"You know a lot about guns." He said.
"I don't know why I do." I grumbled and went to slip my hands off.
As my hand left his, a black figure bounced before us in a bundle of hair and sharp teeth, the two off us panicking but I only felt his finger go down on the trigger. The bullet spun and hit the creature straight in the head.
A pathetic Rose formed from its blood before it splattered onto the ground, seeping through the mud and making it look like red velvet mixture.
I stared at the animal slightly dazed from what just happened.
A border collie from the farmers close by sprawled on the floor, its brown eyes wild and flaring with a brightness that faded as the blood dribbled out of the bullet hole in its skull like wine from an expensive olive green bottle. It's body twitched a few times.
"What have you done?" Vincent's father snapped, "Why did you shoot? It was clearly a dog!"
I looked at Vincent as I backed away from the murder scene and acted like a witness, his body was still and solid as his expression was of complete awe; his eyes just like the dogs.
The gun angled to the floor in his now shaking hands, smoke coming from its drooling muzzle, pleased with its mistake of taking a dogs life.
"I," he stuttered, "I didn't know. It scared me father. It scared me." He looked at his father for guidance but he got none.
It amazed me how Vincent cried last night about his own problems but once he became a hunter, no tears ran down his face and no shame shone down onto him. He was just silent and grey as he behaved more like a master than he did the entire time that I lived at the manor.
I wasn't blamed for what happened and I was surprised that his father didn't say anything since I too was holding the gun, but he seemed to put all his anger on his daughter and son by yelling, punishing and shunning them into submission. I hadn't seen Vincent's hands and feet so sore, they were raw with popped blisters and bruising from the cane that he couldn't walk for most of the weekend. His ankles and knees blotched with swelling as his hands were continuously irritable with stinging sensations.
That's when I decided I disliked dogs.