What Storms Shake the Oceans of my Sleep

“Raven…” Raven Godfrey’s head snapped up. She had been reading one of her favourite books, completely submerged in the story but her brother's soft call awoke her from this stupor. Within an instant she knew what was wrong, the beans that she had been cooking were burning to the pot due to her lack of focus. Shutting the book with a loud crack, she quickly picked up the pot and attempted to rescue what was still edible in the smouldering pan. "It's okay B I got it, Mum, I'm fixing it..." A stony silence met her words, but she didn't expect anything else. In this house there was no reason for her to speak, she never received an answer, but she still did to stop her from going crazy. Little too late for that... Raven thought as she spooned the remains of the beans onto plates.

She usually made tea, and breakfast, and lunch for that matter. She also cleaned and tidied the house and attempted to work the farm, the harsh silence only broken by her hums of distant lullabies or the rare occasion that her brother spoke. Or if her father was home. He was a brute, tall, thickset with podgy eyes that were always intoxicated like wildfire, stinking of whisky and sweat. He hadn't been in at all today and she was glad he hadn't.

Back in reality, Raven turned and handed dinner of now burnt beans on toast to her mother and brother who were sat at the table. B looked at Raven and smiled, throwing his head back as if the force of his grin pushed his chin up, smiling more at the ceiling than Raven, and began to eat. Their mother, however, just sat there staring into nothing as she usually did. Raven knew it was one of her mother’s bad days. Some days she was able to do things like getting dressed and eat by herself, but some day's she just sits there, looking but not really seeing. She was a shell of a human, pale and sunken with grey eyes that seemed clouded over with something neither Raven or B could quite understand. Raven sighed and hovered over her mother, "C'mon now, you can do it…" Using her mother’s shaking hand she picked up the rusted spoon, ladled hot beans onto it, and directed it towards her mother’s mouth. The woman seemed to get the hang of it after a couple of mouthfuls, carried it on herself holding the spoon awkwardly in her thin fingers, beans every so often jumping from the spoon back into the depths of the plate below. Once Raven thought she was safe enough to continue the task alone she walked over to the chipped sink to attempt to clean the charred remnants burnt to the bottom of the pan.

A loud crash announced that her father was home and she turned to see him staggering in, clutching the door frame for support with one hand and an empty whisky bottle in the other. He stalked in like a wounded animal and dropped the bottle on the floor as he moved over to the large wooden cabernet. The bottle bounced a few times before shattering and leaving the stench of alcohol in the air thick enough to choke on. Raven bit her tongue and attempted to shrink into surroundings smoothing her skirt down, knowing that it was best not to anger him when he was like this. As the man passed her she took a shuddering breath that caught in her throat, constricting with the stench of alcohol. Raven could almost taste the alcohol on her tongue and she felt simultaneously disgusted and disgusting. She nodded at B who slid under the table and into the cavity in the wall, one of the hiding spaces that Raven had made for whenever things got really bad. He would hide there, draw and wait until it was safe and Raven would come and get him. After taking another deep breath, she knelt down and started to pick up the shattered pieces of glass that shimmered like a thousand mirrors on the floor.

“WHERE THE HELL IS MY DRINK?” Before she could register what was happening she had been lifted into the air by her shoulders and plonked down on her feet- hard. Her father’s face was inches from hers, reeking of musty alcohol and instinctively she tried to move away. “Would you like to explain to me- Where. My. Drinks. Are?” He spat every word but all Raven could see was the gaping pores that splattered his nose and felt herself falling into them. Claustrophobic and suffocated, unable to breathe, drowning in whisky and beer. Tearing her eyes away from him Raven looked over his shoulder and noticed what had got him so annoyed. His liquor cupboard, a dark wood, floor to celiing cupboard that always homed some form of alcohol stood empty and forlorn against the opposite wall and Raven felt almost mocked by its barrenness.

“It’s all gone, you drank it all.”

“I have not drunk it all, slut.” He spat the last word as if it sickened him and Raven flinched at the sound of it. “You must have had some.” He said slowly as if realising what must have been true all along and with one brisk movement hands were around Raven's throat, constricting her breathing and blurring her vision. She scraped helplessly at the hands willing them to let go of her but they didn’t and she cursed herself for biting her nails.

“I haven’t, I swear, I haven’t.” she choked helplessly.

“You liar!” He grabbed her hand that was still holding the shattered pieces of glass and squeezed it hard, crushing it and causing warm thick blood to trickle down her hand and arm, onto the floor. Raven didn’t speak or move, just staring into her father's face not attempting to hide her hatered which only angered her father more.

“LIAR!” Raven was flung through the air and crashed into the brick wall causing a dust cloud to form from it. She spluttered and coughed musty air back into her collapsed lungs. He spat down at her and sat at the table eyeing up the food on it. “What is it?”

Shakily standing up, Raven massaged her throat and croaked “Beans on…” Another quick movement and he had left his chair, hitting Raven square around the face causing her to stumble and fall, more warm blood appearing on her cheek. This time she stayed down and after spitting once more down on her he left without a word.

By this time her mother who seemed oblivious to what was happening around her had finished her food. She was just sat with her hands limp on her lap, smiling serenly at her empty place, alf surprised half proud that she had finished it by herself. Raven felt a pang in her stomach and stepped toward her mother who turned and looked at her confused nd lost again- not recognising the girl before her. Raven half laughed at herself at the idea that her mother would miraculously become better as if there was a miricle cre in the beans. She rubbed a few tears from her eyes that she hadnt noticed with her hand and quickly sent her into her room without a word. She spent most of her days in this room, staring at walls. She just sat on her bed, or in the chair by the window smiing slightly at the peeling yellow wallpaper and sighing pleasently to herself. Raven didn’t understand her mother. She must have been deranged on some sort of level, probably from what her husband did to her. She spends day after day trapped in solitary confinement, trapped in her own mind, never talking, never thinking, never seeing. Yeah, deranged was the nice word for it, if anything about it was nice. She used to think that how her mother ived must be horrible, but now she was older, and wiser. She had learned that to understand the world around you were more unbearable then being lost inside yourself and she envied her mother for it. Once she had settled her mother in bed she ran back to find her brother. Barnabas or B as she called him was still in his hiding place and Raven had to crawl to find him.

This particular hiding point was underneath the great mahogany table, a small hole int he wall lead into the living room where the room was hidden by an amchair. If you tried really hard it was possible to fit all the way through into the other room but they never really did this opting to stay within the walls like over-large, under-hairy mice. There wasn’t much room in the hole but Raven could clearly see the silhouette of her brother hunched in the dark, his trusty book on his knees. “Hey, B, it’s okay now, he’s gone.” He looked up and Raven saw nothing but terror in his face. He was what people called ‘slow’ or ‘dumb’ but he wasn’t. He knew exactly what was happening he just couldn’t convey anything well. The shackles of being autistic. B knew and understood what was happening despite his age, but for a split second Raven wished that he didn’t understand. He was too young and innocent to be brought up like this, he deserved better- she knew it. Raven wiped the sweat off her forehead with her sleeve and whispered: “Are you okay?” It took him a second or two but he eventually shakily nodded which was good for him, and Raven was flooded with a small ounce of reassurance. “Do you want to finish your food now?” Another nod and they both crawled out.

Back in the coldness of the kitchen, they passed a few moments in silence, but neither seemed to mind. The pain from her hand suddenly peaked and she looked down at it, forgetting what had happened. Her hand was a mess of blood and glass. Raven poured some hot water from the tap into a bowl which she placed on the table and proceeded to pull long, thin shards of glass from her raw, cut skin. She looked up and saw her brother staring at her, his stare not fully seeing not unlike his mother's and something painful hit her stomach as she wondered if he was the same. But he wasn’t- she wouldn’t let him. “Hey, did you draw anything for me?” B wasn’t much of a talker, preferring only to talk when it was just them two, but he drew. Drawings of people of places and sometimes just shapes and Raven loved looking at them, for once it gave her an insight into her brother’s mind and helped her start to understand him. He was very much like her in appearance. Short and stocky with green eyes and brown hair that had lost its shine years ago.

He now looked her full in the face, actually seeing her, and she noticed that his eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Ow...” he said slowly raising a hand and pointing to Raven’s hand and face which was covered in blood from her hand framing a small cut on her cheekbone glistening like wet paint. “Oh, it’s okay.” And using a cloth she mopped her face and hands up in the water which slowly swirled from clear to red, stained and impure. She spent a moment just looking at the water, wondering about nothing in particular and once again she was brought back to reality by her brother.

“Did he do that?” he said slowly, measuring every word as if he were speking a foreign language and was very aware of jumbling words up in the sentence. Raven looked at him and smiled. “It didn’t hurt. He’d have to do more than that to hurt your sister. Yeah?” He nodded once more and Raven threw her head back, grinning like he always did, he giggled for the first time in weeks, and smiled right back at her in the same way and they ate the rest of their cold meal in a comfortable silence.