76 Rue de Marcheries - The Thief Of Joy [Closed]

Saturday, June 3, 1922

3:12 PM

It was late afternoon when Cassian stepped into the apartment building at 76 Rue de Marcheries.

Alençon.

They’d only been gone a week, but already it felt like a lifetime since this had been their world. The bakery on the corner was still open; the streets were still full of people. Cassian had walked by the park he’d confessed his demons to Rosie in late that night. The French that blared in the street was familiar, pulling him back to heated factories and heavy boxes to be loaded. Working from dawn until dusk, a poorly educated middle-aged man barking orders and slurs in equal measure.

He pushed his way through the lobby door and into the small foyer where the mailboxes sat.

Their box…was it still theirs? It held a few envelopes, remnants of an independence that had been stripped away. They mocked him now, asking whether he really thought he could’ve carried on for much longer. If the men hadn’t come, if they hadn’t returned to his parents’ house, how much longer could he have provided?

What would he have done when the baby came? Would they have been fine? They’d never know now because someone else had thought to make the decision for them.

Cassian crushed the bills and tossed them to the floor. Electricity, water, gas, rent; none of them mattered.

The boy ascended the stairs with a false calm, getting off the stairwell on their floor.

Apartment 20.

Apartment 22.

…Apartment 24.

Beyond it was their apartment. The door was locked but it was nothing an ‘alohomora’ couldn’t fix. There was an eeriness to the normalcy of the apartment inside. The curtains were drawn, the furniture set in place, it was a world stuck in time—the wrong time. It didn’t speak to any of the horrors; it kept the secrets of that night hidden behind organisation. They hadn’t been back to collect their stuff. Cassian found them packed away in a box by the door.

The land lord, maybe.

There was the evidence of what used to be a blood stain near the centre. Drifting toward the balcony, he found Rosie’s plants wilting. Some of them. Others had obviously been taken, leaving behind the empty spaces where they once sat.

Cass shrank everything, stuffing them carefully into his pocket before leaving.

Back to Apartment 24. Locked, but not for long.

After a subtle glance around the hallway, he cast another ‘alohomora’ and the door opened with a soft click. He nudged it open with his foot and the afternoon news anchor greeted him with news of the French economy and the prime minister’s plans, the Cannes Conference, something about Germany. He wasn’t listening. It was another sound that caught his attention as the door clicked shut behind him. There was a sudden shuffling in the living room beyond the narrow passage each apartment had.

Proactively, the boy cast a ‘silencio’ over the apartment, already knowing how quickly things could escalate.

Mrs. Rousseau moved cautiously toward him, her face going white as a sheet when she saw him. It was all the confirmation he needed. There was a knowing in those dark eyes of hers, a silent admission of guilt that her lips hadn’t been able to give. The woman, while he’d caught her sneering at him a time or two, had never looked at him like that. She’d always managed to force a smile. They’d been gone a week, and she wasn’t asking any of the right questions.

“Que fais-tu ici?”

“Heard you needed some help,” the boy said quietly, his gaze locking onto the trembling woman. She was smaller than him and he was under no illusion that she was confused about his presence there that day. “Rosie said you’d been screaming. Startled her right over. I came to see what the problem is.”

He wouldn’t humour her with French. Seeming to realise this, Mrs. Rousseau made the switch herself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she trembled to say. A moment later, she remembered her authority. “Now, get out—out, out—”

He reached forward to grab her, yanking her toward him.

“À l'aide! Aidez-moi!” she screamed, waving and flaying her arms.

“Scream louder. No one can hear you.”

She did.

Cassian could hear the strain in her voice as the old woman wailed for rescue. In between those wails, she begged and insisted she’d done nothing. She called him names. She cursed his parents. Her greatest sin? She called his wife a liar. He yanked her further into the apartment but let her go to close the curtains. Mrs. Rousseau took the opportunity to run into her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her.

“BOMBARDA!”

The explosion shook the walls and sent chunks of wood splintering and cracking before flying in all directions. The force of the explosion knocked several frames from their wall perches, filling the room with the sound of shattering glass.

He walked in to find her cowering on the other side of her bed. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he asked, standing over her. He grabbed her by the throat, dragged her back to her feet. “What right did you have to take our baby from her?”

“I…please…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Our baby,” he clarified through gritted teeth. “The one she’ll never hold because of you.”

“Please, they never said—“

“They?”

“N—No one.”

Cassian pulled her from her bedroom by her throat, his hold tightening every time she staggered until she began to gasp for each breath of air, she managed to take in. Her fingers clawed desperately at his hand, but they were no match for youth, vigour and the wrath of a boy who’d seen the devastation in his wife’s eyes.

Back in the living room, his eyes caught sight of a mug on the coffee table, one that used to sit in their kitchen. He let her go, hypnotised by the very presence of it. “You’re…shameless…” he whispered, turning the cup over in his palm. “Did you even care what they would do to us…?”
She held her neck, too busy performatively gagging to respond.

“What sort of monster are you?”

Looking over at her, he saw that she was looking to her crushed bedroom door. Mrs. Rousseau had always known the pair were useful and that Rosie’s herbs were particularly helpful with her age-related ailments, but she’d never guessed that there was any more to the pair than that. Her muggle understanding of the world never left itself able to process that there could be anything more. Just a pair of children who had become less useful to her than whatever had been offered by Leo Laurence.
The movement at the corner of his eyes drew his attention back to her as the old woman inched slowly toward her kitchen counters. She bolted the moment he saw her, getting there seconds before he could get to her. Cassian saw her dive for something, catching only the way it glistened before she could stick it behind her back.

“What have you got there?”

“Nothing!” she insisted.

His patience was wearing thin. He accioed her by her clothes, causing her hands to flail and the little trinket to catch the light within the room again. The boy’s entire expression fell when he realised what it was: the locket he’d given to Rosie on their 15th birthday.

She wasn’t sorry.

She’d gone in after they left and helped herself to their things. Only someone who thought they’d never be back would be so bold. Before he could stop himself, he was on top of her. Cassian couldn’t say when they’d hit the ground or how he’d gotten his hands around her neck again, but he squeezed.
“Haven’t you taken enough?” he challenged. He’d never liked her. Mrs. Rousseau was nosy and needy. She called at all the wrong times and always seemed to want something. She spoke about everyone’s business—which could only mean she was discussing theirs. He’d tried to tell Rosie she wasn’t the sort of company to keep, but Cassian couldn’t have imagined she was anything like this.

Below him, he could hear the gurgled sound of her strained breathing, each wheeze a little more desperate than the last. She clawed at his face, kicked with all her might…and affected no change in the boy who’d already stopped seeing reason. Her blood pulsed beneath his palms, growing fainter with every second that his grip held. Even that infuriated him. The life that still flowed inside her was an affront to his grieving wife.

“P—Please…” she choked.

His child would never say please. He would never see his mother smiling warmly down at him; he’d never get to see the way her eyes sparkled with pride or feel her fire that burned so bright. He’d never breathe the way Mrs. Rousseau tried to now. The woman had helped to make sure of that.

Her eyes began to roll backward as she struggled to cling to consciousness. In another two minutes, she was out.

He kept squeezing.

It was difficult to let go of the anger, difficult to accept that anything could be over. The way Rosie looked at him…it was all he could see. If he squeezed harder, would it make her hurt less? Would it make him hurt less? The boy’s face contorted with his anger and disgust. He continued to squeeze until the muscles in his arm cramped.

With the anger in him spent, he slunk off her, sitting next to her on the carpet. There was nothing left but shame. Not for what he’d just done—just a glance down at her was enough to reignite a dull fury inside him—but for all he hadn’t been able to stop. It had gotten this far because he hadn’t been able to do anything about it sooner. He’d been the one to take them to Alençon, him. He’d secured them the apartment next door to the devil.

He pulled his legs up to his chest, one arm slung limply over his knee, the other pressing his palm into his forehead.

“Fuck,” Cass breathed quietly. He slammed his hand into his forehead a few times. It wasn’t enough to clear the thickening fog.

Mrs. Rousseau’s unfocused eyes continued looking up, horror permanently etched into her expression. Her final moments had been too kind, but the woman only had one life to surrender.