Playground

“Settle down,” Tom demanded using his best disciplinarian voice. “I know you’re excited, but unless the two of you relax, we’ll turn this car right around. I’m serious, no more screaming. Is that clear?”

“Yeesh, chill out, Dad,” Sadie replied.

“Yeah, we’re just playing,” Samantha said.

Sadie leaned into her and let out a girlish giggle.

Isaac pushed his bulky glasses up his nose and sat staring out the window. He peered over the edge of the cliff, watching the stunning waves hypnotically flow. Even the road leading to their wondrous destination was fancy. Something incredible was approaching, and he wasn’t about to let his sisters fuck that up for him.

He usually preferred to keep to himself, but in this instant, he needed to speak up. At ten-years-old, Isaac still had much to learn and was fully aware of that. But for his age, he was far ahead of the majority of his peers. He wasn’t egotistical about it; quite the contrary. However, as he often did, Isaac used sound reasoning to plead his case to his father.

“How is it fair to punish all of us because Sam and Sadie wanna be brats?”

“Hey!” Sadie yipped.

While Tom kept his focus on the road, Molly took the initiative. She craned her neck around to Isaac and let out a sigh.

“I suppose if that happened, we’d just have to do something extra special for you in the future,” Molly said bouncing her eyebrows.

“We’ll be good,” Sam begged.

“Yeah,” Sadie chimed in.

“After seeing the pictures that you showed us of this place,” Isaac said, “there’s no way you could one-up it. I’d still be losing out.”

“It sounds like your sisters are going to behave, right?” Tom interjected, glaring at Sadie and Sam in the rearview.

They noticed the stare of chastisement and nodded at him accordingly.

“You shouldn’t have anything to worry about, buddy,” Tom assured him. “Besides, I think it’s just up ahead.”

Tall, ebony gates pointed toward the slow-drifting cluster of clouds floating above. The towering steel spears seemed higher than necessary. The preview of the immaculate patch visible through the gates of the property was breathtaking. The medieval architecture ripped from a children’s fable.

The placement of the estate at the end of the sequestered cliff-walk created another inordinate coating of privacy. Along with the location, the sheer altitude of the massive stone walls layered in front of the steel fencing could’ve kept a colossus at bay.

The girls screeched in unison. “We’re here! We’re here!”

Isaac crinkled his face in annoyance. His sisters knew how to squeak out pitches that always got under his skin. They knew it did. That’s exactly why they did it.

While Sam was a year older than Sadie, most people believed them to be twins. It wasn’t the case, but it spoke to their kinship and bond. Their personalities were in stark contrast to their older brother—Sadie in particular.

She might’ve only been seven years old, but she didn’t let that stop her from squaring off with Isaac. She’d been known to assault him, both verbally and physically. She was a firecracker, and once her fuse was lit, Isaac knew he was in for a battle.

Sam was no angel either but never seemed to initiate the torment. Despite being born first, she followed Sadie’s lead. If Sadie was mean, Sam was mean.

The mimic of brazen behavior was most likely the reason people believed them to be twins. Also, they both had a similar dainty stature and were blessed with the same shimmering blonde hair. The easiest way to tell them apart was their hairstyles. Sam’s hair was normally held back in a ponytail while Sadie had pigtails.

Most people who encountered the sisters for the first time perceived them as innocent. But looks could be deceiving, and often were.

“How the hell does this work?” Tom asked.

“Good question,” Molly replied, scanning the brochure.

“These gates are so huge,” Isaac mumbled.

“Your ears are huge,” Sadie sniped.

She reached around Sam and flicked the wide, awkward cartilage that leaped off the side of her brother’s face. Her harassment was stealthy enough to avoid garnering parental attention.

A slight rush of blush manifested on Isaac’s cheeks—his sister knew how to hurt him.

It wasn’t enough that he was scrawny and unathletic, or that he was shy as a chipmunk. He already got fucked with in school for having strange ears, but Sadie wanted to turn the screw even further. She wasn’t the type to avoid people’s sensitivities—she preferred to exploit them, to publicly tar and feather them. It wasn’t just Isaac. She’d done it to her peers, strangers, and friends. At just seven years old, Sadie’s name rang closer to her personality. She was a psychological sadist.

As the family wagon crept to a stop, Tom rolled down the window of his driver’s side door. He gawked at the small speaker with a single white button staring back at him.

“I guess I’ll just push the button,” Tom shrugged.

Molly nodded at him in approval.

The crackle of the speaker suddenly erupted with an elderly man’s German accent. “Hello, name, please?”

“Ah, it’s Tom—Tom Grimley.”

“Wonderful. Zhe gates ahead are opening now. Follow zhe path all the way up to zhe main entrance and we shall be with you very shortly.”

“Alright, sounds good!”

A loud metallic unlocking sound rang out, followed by the electronic hum of the gate gliding backward. The Grimley family sat wide-eyed as Tom pushed down on the accelerator.