The Protector’s Canon

*Sensitive content: Mental health, abuse & kidnapping.

Henry doesn’t need me anymore.

The realization comes slowly, painfully, like an infection. What’s worse is that he hasn’t discarded me, he has twisted me into something that I no longer recognize.

His grin widens as he removes his hand from the clear tank on the dresser by his bed. A Grammostola pulchra covers the entire palm of his hand.

I scream at the sight of its eight legs sprawled over Henry’s bare skin. What if its bite could kill? What if it escaped and hid under the pillows? What if it began crawling so quickly it crawled right inside of his mouth before he could stop it, and all he could do was feel the tiny hairs covering its body prickle his esophagus, then the rolling skitter of it finding its way around his stomach?

Henry looks at me, a wild spark in his eyes that I’ve become too familiar with. I threaten to consume him with a burning anguish of fear and dread, but when I am finished, he laughs, throws me into a box, and labels it “excitement”.

Once the spider finds its way back into its hollowed-out log within the confines of its glass tank, it’s time to visit Margot. I tag along, as always, present during the preparation of the sandwiches, cutting of the apples, and placement of the potato chips, then down the hallway to the second door closest to the kitchen.

The wooden door creaks open and shut, the room within painted a bright blue, with a neatly made bed pushed against the corner of the space and a small glass table directly under the square inset of the wall that used to house a window. Margot, the middle-aged woman who calls this room her own, is already seated at the table.

My discomfort grows unbearable about two minutes in. Her sandwich is almost halfway finished, but Henry has hardly taken two bites around the words spilling out of his mouth. The woman is kind enough to nod every few seconds, the corners of her eyes crinkling in a faux smile. She must think horribly of him. I beg him to be quiet, to leave her alone, but it only seems to make him louder.

When Margot finishes her meal, she uses the linen napkin to the right of her plate to dab her lips, then begins folding and re-folding it in her lap. Every few minutes, she reaches down to adjust the iron fetter circling her left ankle, now covered in a mix of purple and green bruises, connecting her to the leg of the bed that is bolted to the floor.

“Thank you, Henry,” she says softly about thirty minutes later, when both plates are empty.

“What are friends for?” He replies. “See you tomorrow!”

She only hums in response, a despondent sound that troubles me deeply, and then he is gone. With the plates in the dishwasher and napkins in the laundry bin on the floor, he turns toward the stairs.

I yell and writhe and claw at the walls of the box I’ve been trapped in but he only runs faster, taking two steps at a time.

Daniel hates you.

I throw the words at Henry as if they were nails in a coffin.

He smiles, runs past the hallway of doors, takes a right, and opens the first door to the left. His burst of energy briefly reminds me of Christmas mornings when Henry was a boy, running through these same halls, down the stairs, and skidding to a stop just before the brightly lit Grand Fir and array of presents underneath.

“Hey, Johnny!” Henry exclaims as he shuts the door behind him, and I am violently thrown back to reality. He relaxes into the green velvet armchair in the corner of the room, directly across from the half-made bed and its resident.

“My name is not Johnny. My name is Daniel. I have a wife and three kids waiting for me at home,” Daniel grits out, the muscles along his jaw popping.

It’s the same monologue he has used for the past three days. I almost preferred the heart-wrenching screams for release that filled the room the first ten days. Those were filled mostly with fear, but this is filled with detestment in the highest degree.

I break into hives that threaten to infiltrate Henry’s body as he stares at Daniel, but he just stands, moves closer to the bed with slow, deliberate steps, and stops just out of reach of where Daniel’s arm span could catch him with the restraints pulling his opposite wrist to the bed frame.

“How could you say that?” Concern twists Henry’s face. “This is your home. It always will be.”

Tears threaten to spill onto Daniel’s cheeks as he shakes his head in silent denial. His eyes are red and puffy. They always are.

Henry’s expression softens into a newfound resolve. “It’ll just take some time, Johnny. Friends always go through rough patches. I can be patient.”

“You can’t erase me or my life outside these walls by changing my name,” Daniel says, rising to his knees, his voice rising with him. The scabs along his wrist break open one by one with the friction of iron against skin. It looks as if his shoulder could dislocate at any moment with the force he is using to pull away from the bed. “We are not friends! This is not my home! Let me go!” His voice carries from deep in his chest and bounces off the walls of the room, creating a deafening silence once gone.

“It’s okay”, Henry says, consoling him. He lifts his right hand toward the bed, and Daniel thrashes against the chain, willing them to lengthen. Henry clicks his tongue in disapproval. “I wonder how you’d get out of those without me,” he says, glancing towards the chains. “And how do you suppose you would get food? Or water?” The thought warms his belly and spreads through his chest. “You need me.”

With his right hand still extended, Henry twitches his fingers to beckon Daniel. When he doesn’t move, Henry takes two steps forward. Daniel glares up at him through dark brown tendrils of hair, and painfully places his free hand on top of Henry’s who raises it gently and places a kiss atop the knuckles.

“It is nice to have friends who trust me.” Henry nods, then drops his hand and turns to leave, singing softly to himself. Daniel’s scream rings throughout the fifteen-room, three-story house, and more seem to follow. Two, five, now ten.

It was better when it was empty. Quiet. Lonely. As a child, Henry would kiss his mother on the cheek, wave goodbye to his late father’s portrait hung in the foyer, hop on his bike, and ride through the lines of trees to school. Walking into the building, there was no one to say hi to, no one to worry about pleasing. A boy with a backwards hat would talk to him during history class, and Henry would begin sharing his interests in architecture and engineering, and how he hates the ocean and spiders. The boy would turn away halfway through and never speak to him again.

It’s better this way, I would tell him. If you remain quiet, they have nothing to dislike.

He listened, and I thrived. We thrived. Who needs success when there’s never any failure?

Henry runs his hand along the wall until he reaches his office. The grand mahogany desk that his mother asked in her will for him to keep in the family sits in the center of the large space. I can still vaguely picture Henry’s father, a grey-haired man with sharp features and a kind smile, sitting in that chair for hours at a time.

Key in hand, the top drawer opens with a click and reveals rolls of blueprints that Henry will present at his next meeting with the only happy gentleman here. He invites Henry into his room with glee every day as if it were the first time, and I believe that to him, it is.

The drawer jams halfway closed, and Henry opens and closes it repeatedly, jiggling it this way and that. Finally, it slams shut and the line of journals standing on the edge of the desk topples to the floor. One of the books opens as it lands, and as he bends down to pick up the mess, a name in the entry grabs hold of me.

Mrs. Burnett.

Her name had slipped my memory, though her voice had never left.

“How has this week been?” She started off Henry’s sessions the same way every week, and that particular day was no different.

“All the same. I tried going to that group you suggested but couldn’t get out of the car,” he replied.

“Hm,” she hummed thoughtfully. “Have you ever tried reframing your anxiety?”

He looked up from his lap, confused.

“Instead of taking the racing heart, spinning mind, and shaky hands as a warning,” she continued, “use it to your advantage and tell yourself you’re excited. These two intense emotions often have symptoms that mimic one another, it’s up to us to determine which box it goes into.

The elation Henry felt from that revelation has remained a stronghold for him, and ever since that awful day, nothing has been the same.

Hidden away, distorted, and ignored, I sit tucked in my foreign box and choke out, All I ever wanted to do was help.