Chapter 7
Blackwood still had my childhood room.
Nobody had changed it.
That surprised me.
I went the next morning.
Alone except for two guards who stayed outside.
The house smelled like cedar and old stone.
I remembered more with every hallway.
Breakfast at seven.
Shoes aligned beneath the bed.
Beds made tight enough that my mother could bounce a coin.
Silence at meals when disciplined.
No comfort after nightmares because “future bosses sleep alone.”
I entered the dining room.
Smaller than our main estate.
Same long table.
My stomach turned.
Beneath it, near the head position, shallow scratches remained in the wood.
R.V.
My initials.
I crouched.
Memory came back whole.
Six years old.
Hungry.
Under this table.
Using a dinner knife I stole from above to scratch my initials because I wanted proof I existed somewhere they kept putting me out of sight.
I sat on the floor.
Thirty-seven years collapsed.
My mother had planned to bring Milo here.
Same house.
Same table.
Same philosophy.
One of the older caretakers, Thomas, found me.
He had worked there when I was a boy.
He looked ashamed.
“I wondered when you’d remember.”
“You knew Milo was coming.”
“Yes.”
“Would you have stopped it?”
He looked down.
“No.”
Honest.
Good.
“Why?”
“Mrs. Vivian said you approved.”
Again.
My name.
My permission.
My ghost authority.
I almost laughed.
“Did she do this to other boys?”
Thomas hesitated.
Two cousins.
One nephew.
Not as often.
Vivian had become the family’s unofficial trainer of “difficult heirs.”
Some parents thanked her.
That was the sickness.
The result looked impressive from the outside.
Quiet boys.
Perfect posture.
No tantrums.
No visible fear.
Adults called it discipline.
Nobody asked why the children stopped asking to go home.
I looked at the table.
“Close Blackwood.”
Thomas stared.
“The estate?”
“The training program.”
Silence.
“No child comes here for correction again.”
He nodded.
I touched the carved initials once.
May you like
Then stood.
Milo would never see this room unless someday he asked where I learned the things I was trying to unlearn.
