Way Down We Go

Chapter One

When I was five, my father was murdered. You see, he owned a large company and had more power than anybody around him, and people wanted it. So, they took it.

They took him.

I was there, believe it or not. We were playing in the little pen that had been set up for me whilst he worked, before those men came inside. He hid me, gave his life for me. I watched as those blades rose and fell, and blood created a growing lake around him on that dark wood floor. Imagine that, a five year old child being the only witness to a brutal slaughter known as the murder of James Stuart.

Then, everything changed. Everything fell apart. Nothing would ever feel completely right again. My trust for everybody was now gone. I would never fully commit again. I could never fully commit again. I could never be sure anybody I came close to would leave me, like he did. My family was broken. My heart was broken.

Because of the will and everything being left to me and my elder half brother -who I hadn't seen for months at that point-, the entire Stuart clan and all it's cousin families disowned me. I had nobody.

My mother? Insane, for all intents and purposes. After I crawled out of my hiding space and found his body, I screamed for my mother, that was the end for her. When her second husband died, her life ended. We managed for seven weeks, her crumbling mental state a secret, but when my home school tutor found the bruises and scratches -the result of an episode- she called the child protection services and took me away. Strange, really, worse things had happened. The screaming into the dead of night, the shattering of glass and the time -the last of four- when the doctor found her pills forced into my system by her own hand. But still, I watched her being wrestled into the van, screaming and thrashing and kicking and biting and spitting and punching, holding the officers' hand in one of mine, a blanket and a bear in the other, as they drove her away.

I had my bags packed and was dropped off at a mental hospital east of the city. I didn't speak a word and didn't trust those doctors, psychiatrists, nurses or fellow inmates -residents- at all. I simply stayed in my room, reluctantly ate and drank in the cafeteria and sat in those horrid classes for hours at a time, nodding and shaking my head my only form of communication. Not one word was spoken for six months.

I had been told that because of my parents' money, companies, power and fathers' murder, I was in danger and always would be. They had taken my name from me and referred to me as nicknames like 'flower', 'lovely' and 'dear', but I was too broken to do anything but either ignore or slowly look at them until they left me be.

Essentially, even though my biological mother was alive, I was an orphan. I was told that since my mother was in her own mental institute, I would not have contact with her until she either improved or died. Eventually, I would have two visits a year, but even they stopped. And, when they did, I was told that I would never see her again.

However, my mother had died the day my father did. The woman who nurtured me and adored me was gone, replaced by an insane being that broke things and hurt herself and pulled her hair out and turned her anger towards me. She held the same moniker, lineage and image, but she wasn't my mother. I was an orphan.

Well, there was always a time when I had thought myself a girl with only one parent. You see, for as long as I could remember, mother had severe bipolar disorder. Nobody could figure out where it came from. Although it could easily be pointed out later in life, at the time, it had just happened nearly overnight. I had clung to my father mostly, when mother was locked up in her rooms, but when he died and my mother was taken away, I had nobody.

I spent my sixth birthday in that institute. What a day that was. Being feared by all the children -because of bruises by my mothers' hand and the severe PTSD- and being just so broken that the nurses and doctors didn't know how to fix me. I spent all day sitting on a chair and staring at the wall, only leaving that space to go to the bathroom, cafeteria, my classes and nothing else.