By Tiernan Blanchard
At dinner Daddy said ‘Your brother is coming home tomorrow’
Princess took a spoonful of dinner.
Her brother! From school! Princess wondered what he’d be like. Would he look like her? Would he like to play games like she did?
“I should get his room ready,” she said. Mummy and Daddy smiled at her wide and happy.
She’d tell Granny later too, and make sure Granny had something to eat.
After bedtime, in her perfect pink room with the perfect pink bed she loved so much, she thought more about this brother. What had he learned at school? Had he missed his little sister? She hoped he was looking forward to seeing her.
He arrived just before dinner the next day. Princess had spent the whole day preparing for him. Mummy and Daddy were sitting just where they should be in the living room, neat and welcoming. Mummy was wearing the dress Princess liked best, the blue one with white flowers over it. There was a good smell in the air from the kitchen. Granny was sleeping. Everything was alright and good. She was almost vibrating from excitement when the knock finally came! Daddy opened it, because that was his job as Daddy. She heard him greet her brother, his son, and bring him into the living room.
Brother didn’t much look like Princess, or like Mummy or Daddy, but then no-one in this family ever looked like each other. He had very light hair that would curl if it was even an inch longer. He looked confused. He looked from Mummy to Daddy to Princess and back again while his mouth worked.
“Brother!” Princess said. “I must have grown up a lot since you went to school.”
“School,” he said. His eyes were wet.
“You’re home from school,” Mummy and Daddy said in droning unison. “We missed you.”
“School,” Brother said again. “You’re my… sister.”
“Yes,” said Princess. “I don’t remember you well. I was too young when you went to school.”
“I came here, to… to.”
“Stay back with your family until you get married! Of course!” Princess said. “That’s how it’s done so that’s how you’ll do it. But you won’t get married too soon, will you? I want to get to know my brother again.” He smiled at her shakily.
“Yes,” he said. “Of course.”
“You must be hungry!” Princess said. “Mummy made soup.”
“I made soup,” Mummy said. She was still smiling, smiling, smiling. Always smiling. A happy family together.
“I love soup,” Princess said. “Especially mummy’s soup.”
“She loves soup,” Mummy and Daddy said.
“I,” Brother said. “I like tomato soup.”
Princess frowned. “Oh no,” Princess said. “You must have learned that in school. We like pea and ham soup.”
“I must have, mustn’t I.”
“Mustn’t you,” said Mummy and Daddy.
The pea and ham soup was green and delicious. Princess wanted to have it every day. It had always been her favourite, right from when she was a very little girl. Brother spooned idly at his bowl but didn’t eat much. Maybe travel had spoiled his appetite. He’d be hungrier tomorrow.
After dinner she left Mummy and Daddy sitting in the living room, and showed Brother to his room.
“You can decorate it just how you like,” she said. “Anything you want.”
The room was a plain room, painted pure stark white, with pure stark white sheets on the single bed and a pure stark white set of curtains. The curtains were drawn and let in no light.
Brother stared at it. “You must have turned it into a guest room when I was at school.”
“Yes,” Princess said. “We must have.” Though she didn’t remember having guests ever. “You were at school a very long time.”
Brother sat down against the white. “Yes.”
“Did you have friends at school?”
“I… can’t remember.”
“Well, the journey was very tiring. You’ll remember tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Brother said. “I’ll remember tomorrow.”
Every day was a good day for Princess. She woke up in the morning, and Mummy made her a delicious breakfast. Pancakes dripping with maple syrup and perfect bacon cooked crispy and fresh squeezed orange juice from perfect oranges, all on her lovely white plates with the pink hearts on them.
Brother sat at breakfast. He looked uncomfortable and awkward in his neat smart Brother clothes, fidgeting and pulling at the seams.
“I dreamed of a woman,” he said.
“A girlfriend?” Princess said. Daddy rustled behind the newspaper. Brother squinted at it.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I can’t read the front of that.”
“Of course we can’t,” Princess said. “We’re not Daddy. When you’re a Daddy, you’ll be able to read it.”
“That’s not how reading works, Princess.”
“It is.” Mummy dropped a bowl in the kitchen with a loud sharp sound. “Daddy’s read the paper. Mummy reads magazines and romance novels. I read books about dragons and comics. You read your school books. That’s how it is.”
Mummy dropped something else.
“Now look what you did,” Princess said. “Now there’s a mess, and I have to help clean it up.”
“But that,” Brother said. He looked at Daddy, and at the kitchen where Mummy couldn’t be seen. “It’s not.”
“Now now, Son,” said Daddy. “Don’t work your sister up. You know how she is.”
“I don’t, though. I don’t remember how she is. Why don’t I remember?”
Princess kicked her chair back under the table as she got up. She wanted Brother to know she was angry. In the kitchen Mummy was kneeling on the floor surrounded by the shards of broken plates and bowls. She was weeping, silently. She was shaking and not looking at Princess. She had wet herself. It smelled bad.
“Stop it, Mummy,” Princess said. “You have to stop it. You know what happens if you don’t stop it.”
“Please,” Mummy said, very quiet. “Please don’t. It was an accident.”
“Get up. Get changed. Mummy’s aren’t dirty. They’re nice and clean and gentle.”
Princess put the smile back on her face and smoothed her hands down the pretty pink and white dress. Pink and white, pink and white, sweet little girls wore pink and white and smiled and were spoiled by their Daddies.
She wasn’t sure about this brother.
When she left the kitchen Daddy stood up, holding a briefcase. “It’s time for work,” he said, staring at the wall. “I am going to work.” He smiled so wide it looked like it hurt.
“Yes, Daddy. It’s time for work.”
“Where do you work?” asked Brother. Princess clenched bits of her skirt in her fists.
“I work in the office,” Daddy said.
“What do you do?” Brother asked again. He sounded angry and afraid.
“He works there, silly Brother!”
“Working hard or hardly working, haha!” Sweat dripped off the tip of Daddy’s nose and onto the table. From the kitchen the slow scraping of Mummy cleaning up the broken crockery. Daddy turned around slowly and walked out the door. It locked behind him.
Mummy came out of the kitchen with the tear stains on her face and the pee stains on the back of her dress. Brother stared at her, appalled.
Princess picked up one of her unfinished pancakes, now cold, and threw it at Brother’s face.
She sobbed in her room loud enough to make sure Brother and Mummy could hear it. Eventually Mummy came in. She was wearing a clean dress. She stood in the door for a long time and stared at Princess. Princess cried louder.
Finally, Mummy sat down and put a hand on Princess’s back.
“There there,” she said. “You’re my precious perfect girl. There there.”
“Brother needs to say sorry too.”
“He will.”
“He has to. He has to.”
But Brother didn’t come. He didn’t apologise. Princess got bored of Mummy offering the same back pat and the same there there, so she pushed her off. Mummy landed on the floor and sat there like a doll. Her head drooped and she stared at Princess’s carpet.
Princess went to Brother’s room. It was already decorated a bit. The sheets and curtains had become blue and grey. There were posters forming themselves on the walls, just bright illogical shapes and colours right now. If he let it happen, they’d be musicians and girls in bikinis, because those were the posters that Brothers had.
Brother was sitting on a chair that hadn’t been there before. There was a greyish shape forming out of the wall in front of it.
“You’ll have a new desk soon, Brother.”
“What’s my name?” he asked. He looked at her with huge glassy dark eyes.
“You’re my brother,” Princess said.
“Surely I have a name. Everyone has names. They can’t have called me Brother at school.”
Princess folded her arms. “You need to apologise to me.”
“What’s our mother’s name? What’s our fathers name?”
“Stop it.”
He didn’t stop it. He raised his voice. “I don’t remember anything! I don’t remember school! I don’t remember my own name!”
“You’re tired,” Princess said. “You only got home the other day.”
“It’s not right,” he said. He got up and tore his sheets off the bed. “I don’t even like blue. I hate these sheets.”
“Boys like blue,” Princess said. “Girls like pink.” Nearly everything Princess had was pink, or had some pink design on it.
“I need some light,” he said. “I can’t think here. I can’t think.”
“Stop it!”
But Brother dragged open the curtains even as Princess shouted.
Behind them was a blank wall, shining a square of pale light. “Is that… is that normal? Is that right?” Brother asked.
“Of course it’s right,” Princess said. “What else would be there? Brother. I think you might be getting sick. You need to lie down.”
He didn’t lie down. He just stood there, slump shouldered, with the pale light shining on his face.
Oh, Princess didn’t like Brother. He was a bad Brother. He was confusing and wrong for the house. It was worse than having a sister would be. A sister would just want to steal all her games. Brother wanted to ruin them.
Princess slammed the door on him. It clicked and locked. Mummy was still sitting where Princess had left her. She was breathing like something hurt. Princess looked at her and saw things she’d not noticed before. Mummy was looking old and tired. Not all fresh and pretty, like she used to.
Princess tried to fix Mummy’s face. She pushed at the skin til it held tight and young again, stretching it like fabric. Pinned it together under Mummy’s chin and ears. Mummy’s blood came through and ruined it. She kept crying. Princess gave up and let her look old and ugly again.
“Come on, Mummy,” Princess said. “Let’s ask Granny what we can do to help you.”
She took Mummy’s hand. Up, up, up the stairs, so many stairs, up and up.
When Daddy got home he had pizza. “Mummy had to go to hospital,” he said. “So I brought pizza.”
“Pizza!” said Princess. “I like Hawaiian.”
“I made sure you had one all for yourself, Princess.”“She’s in hospital? What’s wrong with her?” asked Brother. Daddy didn’t answer him.
“Thank you, Daddy. Brother, say thank you.”
“What’s wrong with Mummy?” Brother asked instead.
“Don’t worry,” Daddy said. “The doctors will send her back, good as new.”
“He should be nicer to you, Daddy,” Princess said. The pizza smelled good.
“Boys of his age are often this way. Why, when I was his age…”
“You what, Daddy?” Brother asked. “I bet you can’t remember.”
Daddy stood still, hand still holding up the pizza boxes. Princess glared at Brother and took them from him to put them on the table, waiting for Daddy to move again. She shoved one box over to Brother. She shouldn’t starve him, she supposed.
She sat neatly, and ate her pizza with a knife and fork, so that she wouldn’t get cheese and sauce all over her nice dress. Brother opened his pizza box.
“It’s plastic,” he said.
“It’s pizza.”
He took the whole thing out of his box and threw it onto the table where it clattered. A simple circle of bright colours. “It’s made of plastic,” he said.
“What a funny joke!” Princess said. “Toys are made of plastic. Not pizza. That looks like a pizza to me. Take a bite!”
Brother stared her in the eyes and picked up the stiff disc in his two hands. He bit into it. It stuck to his teeth. It held his teeth tight. It closed his mouth so he couldn’t scream or talk. He pulled at it, moaning through his glued together teeth. Princess ate calmly.
“It’ll come free when you’re ready to say sorry for being so rude.”
He started to cry. Princess smiled. “You’d better go upstairs,” she said. “It’s bedtime for bad Brothers.”
“Why, when I was his age,” Daddy said, and stopped. “Why, when I was his age.”
“It’s alright, Daddy,” Princess said. “Mummy will be home tomorrow.”
Brother pulled at the deformed plastic. He cried. It made Princess angry. “Boys don’t cry,” she said.
Mummy came back the next morning. She arrived in the kitchen as if she’d never been away. She was wearing a green dress with flowers on it and smiling. She was making breakfast.
“Good morning, Princess,” she said.
“Good morning, Mummy,” Princess said.
“Good morning, Daddy,” Mummy said.
“Good morning, Mummy,” Daddy said.
Brother didn’t say anything because he wasn’t ready to say sorry. His mouth was still stuck together. He was looking at Mummy with hot wide eyes. He pulled at the plastic in his mouth again, hard, harder, harder and harder. Princess hit him on the side of the head and he pushed her away. She fell on the floor. She cried as loudly as she could so that everyone would crouch around her and be sorry for her.
“Brother pushed me! He pushed me!”
Brother kept yanking at the plastic in his mouth. Eventually there was a wet sound and it came out, with some of his teeth stuck in it. Watery blood came out of his mouth.
“That is not the same woman as before,” he said. He lisped when he talked, which was funny and made Princess forget to cry.
“That’s Mummy,” she said. “She came back from hospital.”
“I came back from hospital,” Mummy said, vague and confused like Brother had been when he got home. “Was I sick?”
“You were very sick,” Princess said.
“This woman is Black,” said Brother. “The previous one had red hair and pale skin.” He was almost screaming, spitting out blood and broken teeth. “What happened to the other one?”
“This is Mummy,” Princess insisted. “This is Mummy, this has always been Mummy, you’re being mean.”
“It’s not! It’s not!”
“I have to go to work now,” Daddy said and got up.
“Where do you work? Where do you work?” Brother threw a plate at Daddy. Daddy flinched but kept smiling. He turned round and went through the door to go to work. Brother yanked it open after him. Princess screamed but no-one did anything.
Behind the door was a dark cupboard. The dark was very dark. In it Daddy sat, curled up around his briefcase.
“Work,” Brother said. He pulled the briefcase away from Daddy. He opened it and pink glitter and feathers fell out.
“That’s work! That’s work!” Princess screamed. “It’s work! Stop it! You’re ruining everything! I wish I didn’t have a brother!”
“You don’t,” he said. His voice was so strange from the missing teeth. “None of this is real. We’re trapped here. It’s a prison. You’re just a little girl, so you don’t know better, but we have to get out of here.”
Mummy stood in the room like someone had switched her off. It was so annoying that she wasn’t right yet. Princess sniffled. Yes. She was just a little girl.
“This is my home,” she said. “These are my parents. You’re my brother.”
“None of this is real,” he said. “I’m remembering now. I was looking for my big sister. My real sister.”
“Maybe Granny knows? She’s upstairs. She knows everything.”
Brother nodded. “Maybe.” He winced and cradled his jaw. He was feeling his teeth now. “Take me up to Granny.”
Well, he’d asked.
Princess turned round to look at how he’d spoiled her family. Daddy curled up with his hands over his ears. Mummy standing blankly.
“It’s a long way up,” she said, and took him by the hand.
A very, very long way. The stairs started like normal stairs, the ones to the bedrooms. Wooden, with a blue carpet. The wall was warm cream with family pictures on it. Mummy’s face and body was changing to match how hospital had changed her in them. Brother’s face was blurred.
Then there was no carpet on the stairs, and the wall was raw brick.
Then the stairs were stone, worn down in the middles, and the wall was stone too, with scratch marks in it. Brother looked frightened. Princess wasn’t. She’d come up these stairs lots of times.
All the way to the door at the top.
The door changed every time she blinked. A neat fairytale cottage door, painted green and with a brass knocker. A tall ancient wood door, aged til it was hard as metal. A slab of rotting wood on an iron hinge. A hollow space in an earth mound with just a brown rag to cover it.
Princess held Brother’s hand tight. She didn’t want him to run away now. With a deep breath, she went into the room.
And everything changed. She was taller. She was older. Her name was not Princess. She remembered everything, all the way.
“I hate this bit,” she said to Brother. “Normally you all last a lot longer.”
He didn’t pay attention. He was staring at Granny, or more accurately, at the thing nailed to the bed.
Bed was a strong word. It was a wooden framed filled with straw, as it had been long ago when she nailed Granny to it. The nails were long and cruel, pinning her hands and wrists and ankles to the frame. They bled all the time, little trickles of dark clotted blood.
Granny herself was half-mummified, skin clinging tight to bones and joints. Her hair was sparse on her head and the bright orange-red of a bog body. The only thing that indicated she was still alive was her slow, painful breathing. Granny glared at the woman who was not Princess with hate.
“What?” Brother asked.
“She tried to eat me up, long ago,” not-Princess said, almost fondly. “But I won, didn’t I? And I give her just enough, just enough. She eats you all, and gives me back a childhood.”
He was staring at her in horror. He tried to pull his hand away but not-Princess was very strong.
“And why shouldn’t I?” she said, in response to his look and the horror and judgement in it. “Why shouldn’t I? Never grow up. Never lose anything ever again. Have what I want, every day, forever. Why shouldn’t I?”
She shoved Brother towards Granny. Granny’s belly opened, a great wet brown slit, and out of it came hands, so many hands. Young hands and old hands, of all colours, all of them with overgrown yellow and filthy nails. They grabbed Brother, and he screamed. They pulled him close to Granny, a terrible embrace, and his body decayed at speed, him awake the whole time. His belly bloated and his skin slid off his bones in thick slabs and the maggots crawled through his eye sockets, and he screamed through the loss of his tongue and till he didn’t have a voice box any more.
And then he was bones, and then, after that, he was gone.
The arms reached for not-Princess.
“Don’t,” she said. Granny looked younger, plumper. Her hair was a little thicker. She looked healthier. Better fed. Not-Princess didn’t like it at all.
“I’ll have to run this Daddy a little longer,” she said. “Who knows what you’ll do with another big meal.”
She left the room, and shrank more than a foot. Became small, and pretty, and young again. She waited until the memories faded, went distant, and then she went downstairs.She was Princess. Her Mummy was back from hospital. Her Daddy was at work, but would be home tonight. She had a room full of pink. Pink fabric and pink plastic. She was a sweet, spoiled little girl, and her brother would be home next week.
Tiernan Blanchard is a writer and occasional poet from England, who formerly wrote as C.B. Blanchard. He has a wide range of interests, opinions and obsessions which he cannot shut up about as @GayCannibalism on Bluesky. His website is CBridhBlanchard.weebly.com.