✎ | The Heir of Shadows

Prologue

It took Dad two hours to get his ancient record player to start working. It's working now, though— after a lot of swearing and a lot of "why won't this thing work?"

Bing Crosby is singing Jingle Bells ever-so-quietly, and on the tv, Clark Griswold is stapling Christmas lights to his house.

I'm sitting on the floor with a board game in front of me. I reach down and pick up a card located in a stack. I grin the second I see it. "Chocolate mountain!" I yell, turning it around in my fingers.

Bia's face falls. Her eyes crinkle.

I grab my marker and move it all the way to the top of the board, onto the specialized chocolate mountain space. Now I'm definitely going to win.

"That's not fair," Bia starts, looking up at me through her hair.

It's hard to take her seriously. Her voice is wavering because she's about to cry over losing a game of CandyLand, and she's wearing footie pajamas with a tutu overtop and reindeer antlers on her head.

"Yeah it is," I reply. "The card wouldn't be in the box if it wasn't fair."

She looks down as tears bud in her eyes. She hiccups.

Great.

I cross my arms defiantly.

"Now I can't win," she sobs, tears erupting from her eyes and spilling out over her cheeks. Her body shakes, moving up and down as she cries.

Why do kids do that? Why do they start screaming and crying the second they can't be the best at something? Don't they know that begging to be named the best when they aren't will only bring them a false sense of achievement? Their incompetent selves will go into life expecting to be named the best at everything without ever trying. Why would they ever want that for their future?
I think, in that moment, about how I'm never going to have kids.

"Dad!" I yell.

"What?" Comes a voice from the kitchen.

"Bia is being a sore loser!"

Footsteps emerge from the kitchen, and soon enough, Papa is hovering over the both of us, frowning.

I gulp.

Frequently, as a child, I used to claim that Papa was the leader of the Italian mafia, even though we lived in a tiny middle class town in suburban New York.

People still believed it, and right now, I understand why.

"It's well past someone's bedtime," Papa says to Bia, shaking his head.

Bia throws back her head and lets out one of those horrible-child-noises.

It kind of sounds like: AHHHGGGGGRRRAAAAAA

Papa reaches down and scoops her flailing frame into his arms with ease. Her hair is stuck to her face with tears, and I cringe.

"Let's go upstairs now, okay?" Papa suggests in the parent way, meaning it's not a suggestion.

Bia lets out another ugly sob and drops her head onto Papa's shoulder with a thump.

Being the older sibling is comical.

Dad appears behind Papa. He's wearing a Santa hat that lights up and jingles.

"Someone's had a long day. Say goodnight to your brother," he says, sticking a finger out to Bia like she's a cat about to snap at his hand.

Bia lifts her head from Papa's shoulder and looks down at me.

She doesn't say goodnight. Instead she says: "AHHHGGGGGRRRAAAAAA."