She could even afford to take long walks outside whenever the sun was kind enough to shine, and every time I watched her disappear down the dirt road with a steadier step than the day before.
It felt unreal, like I was watching a fragile miracle stubbornly insist on becoming normal, while John —and I ended up growing closer without even trying, spending more time together in the fields and the shed, laughing, working, sharing small moments that slowly solidified into something unmistakably like a real father-son bond, one that quietly left Gustav standing on the outside, confused and bitter, even if he tried his best to hide it.
I could tell Gustav didn’t understand what was happening anymore, because despite still slipping his mother’s so-called special food potions into Oge’s meals, the result he was clearly hoping for never came, and instead of her health deteriorating, it improved so dramatically that even someone as stubborn as him couldn’t ignore it.
A contradiction that gnawed at him day after day, fueling an anger so thick it almost leaked out of him whenever he thought no one was watching, and if not for the fact that he still needed to pretend, I was sure he would have dropped the mask long ago.
Even though he acted oblivious on the surface, he couldn’t completely hide how the family’s warmth and excitement seemed to revolve around me, the "six-eyed demon child" he hated so much, and it became painfully obvious the moment my extra eyes manifested more clearly, because instead of panic or fear.
Father and the others reacted with acceptance—no, with happiness—and I remember catching Gustav staring at them like they were insane, as if he was the only sane person left in a house full of fools who should have been calling the holy knights instead of smiling.
From the way his eyes darkened whenever he looked at me, I could tell he often drifted into his own twisted daydreams, imagining a future where he and his mother ruled this house alone, free from me, but that fantasy only seemed to rot further the longer I stayed.
As if my very existence was some indestructible plot armor that crushed his perfect dream beneath it, making him angrier with each passing day.
Now he wasn’t just forced to endure my presence—he had to endure the family progress, the praise I received, the attention that used to be his, and I could practically feel his resentment boiling whenever he saw me working beside Father, smiling, learning, living, while he felt his own freedom and happiness being slowly eaten away, piece by piece, until the smug expression he imagined on my face became unbearable to him.
From what I later pieced together, he began playing a careful game, because time, to him, was everything, and whenever he was sent out to work on the farm, he would finish faster than usual, then linger on the way back, striking up conversations with other kids around his age, choosing them carefully, not the loud or foolish ones, but those with their own grudges, their own sharp edges, kids who wouldn’t blab or fold under pressure.
By talking about his family—about me, about being forced to live with a so-called cursed child—he stirred their hatred first, then twisted the knife deeper by telling them what Elina had done to his mother, turning their scorn into sympathy, and sympathy into loyalty, until they started to believe he was the real victim, the wronged one, and that helping him would somehow make things right.
I didn’t hear it myself, but I later understood that it was during one of those whispered gatherings that Gustav finally told them, after a long pause, that the only chance to get rid of me would be when I left the house to sell vegetables to his aunt, a suggestion that immediately sparked frustration among the others, because I was rarely outside alone, and acting against me indoors would only invite trouble.
Arguments and uneasy murmurs followed, children debating in low, uncertain voices, until Gustav cut through it again, quietly, carefully, laying out a plan he had clearly been shaping for a long time, and as shocking as it must have sounded, some of them reacted with fear while others nodded with unsettling excitement, their eyes lighting up as if they were being handed permission to do something justified.
When they finally left the farm that day, spirits high and minds made up, Gustav stayed behind, and I can almost imagine the smile that crept onto his face once he was alone, thinking that after nearly five years of being dumped into what he saw as a living hell, he could finally begin to move.
Completely unaware of all that, Father and I were living our best days, perfecting our clumsy but heartfelt father-son routine to the point where even Elina sometimes looked at us with mild jealousy, and Father began teaching me everything he knew about farming and carpentry, trusting me far more than someone my age should be trusted, especially when he realized how natural my hands were with skinning and butchering, skills that didn’t faze him at all when it came to letting me craft knives or work beside him.
Yet even as life seemed peaceful, I started noticing strange things—subtle, unsettling things—like how after every one of Oge’s treatment sessions, both she and Mother would sometimes look at me with expressions I couldn’t decipher.
Opening their mouths as if to say something important, only to close them again, leaving the words unspoken, and those silent glances lingered in my mind far longer than they should have, spinning my thoughts into uneasy spirals as I tried, and failed, to understand what they weren’t telling me.
Author Notes: I would like to say a big thank you to everyone for reading this novel, and our top fans,I appreciate every comment, review, powerstones, golden tickets you guys give the book. But we need more.]
[Our hunger grows!]