Circling Carousels by Ashlee North Page B

Marcus stood at the door, visibly trying to settle himself down as he watched out the peephole to make sure this intruder had left.
    Sienna, Crystal, and Elsie, who had now returned to the kitchen in a protective gesture of the girls, could see Marcus clearly, and as he turned around, his face was a shade of purple they had never seen. He looked as if he might explode. Instead, he sat back down in front of the television and did precisely nothing except sip his Scotch.
    Five tense minutes ticked by as Elsie and the children set the table and placed dinner at each setting. Marcus got up from his chair, sat at the head of the table, and began to eat. The girls and Elsie followed suit, and nothing was said at all. Following dinner, Marcus stood up from the table, made a phone call, and left the house to go back to his business dealings. All three females almost collapsed with relief. Elsie was sure that Marcus would calm down by the time he came home later that evening, and she was hoping he would see the beauty in the girls’ concern about their mother rather than being angry at their betrayal of the demand of secrecy. She was sure of it—sort of.
    Elsie told the girls of her thoughts and shared her hopes that all would be well once he had calmed down, and she reassured Crystal that although he had been told it was she who had made the offensive phone call that he would surely forgive her indiscretion.
    Elsie, as a special treat for the worried children, gave them a lavish amount of ice cream—three different flavours—and covered it with chocolate fudge and nuts and sat down in the lounge with them to watch a movie of their choice. Sienna and Crystal were tucked into bed at nine o’clock by the housekeeper, and they fell into fitful sleep about an hour later, after they had shared their fears and both of them promised that they would look after each other no matter what may happen.
    That evening, when Marcus arrived home, he was still boiling with anger. He went into the bedroom where the girls slept, took Crystal carefully from her bed so she didn’t wake up, and placed her upstairs in his room. There he took out his frustration on her, in the way he could no longer do with her mother, and robbed her of her virginity and her childhood innocence. Then when he was done, with Crystal sobbing into the pillow, he said right into her face, “This is your punishment. Now that you know what it’s like, you can do this every night. If you tell anyone, I will kill your mother, then your sister, and then you.”

Chapter 16
    C rystal ran from the room, crying and bleeding and feeling more afraid than she had ever felt in her life. As Marcus had promised, it happened every night, and she became frightened to go to sleep at night for she knew he would come and get her. She couldn’t tell Sienna or Elsie; she just had to bear it for the sake of her mother and her sister. After weeks of this kind of treatment, she became numb to it. She no longer fought him. Marcus became bored with his game, and instead of taking her to his bed the next night, he took her for a drive in his car. Crys- tal had no idea what he was doing or why, and she didn’t know where they were going, but she certainly knew she was afraid. This man and his silent torture of her had made her life an abso- lute living hell for the last couple of months. He never spoke to her, and he could make her obedient with one look now.
    They pulled up outside a large house on the west side of town, and with a rough growl and a pull on her arm, he forced her up the stairs and into the massive front doors. Crystal found her voice and cried out, “Where are we going? Why are you dragging me like that? Let me go!” Marcus swung her round to meet his gaze. “Let me tell you this so you have it straight. I hate you! I hate the look of you, your voice, your ridiculous childish whining, and the way you are always hanging off your sister! You are useless to me, and you put my whole