For as long as he remembered, he hated the little boy.
He observed him quietly from afar, dressed in rags, grime perpetually smeared across his face, dirt trapped underneath his fingernails. He watched the boy neglect the endless array of alluring books his tutor presented each week, scowled at his untouched piano in the corner, and salivated over the painstakingly prepared lunches brought each afternoon on a silver plate. Although the boy’s parents were never around, he had a full staff under his command and control, and oh, how he hated him for it.
His keeper scolded him, pulling his ear and clicking her tongue, reminding him that he was an orphan whose survival depended upon the good graces of the de Sadet family, and that hating their only son would not do him one bit of good.
So, he became clever. He hid himself so well that none of the other servants saw him as he studied the boy’s every detail. He noted the way he crossed his legs, the way he grasped his quill, his languid drawl when forced to recite Latin. He learned all his lessons in secret, taking notes with bits of salvaged ink and the parchment he’d hidden behind the wall.
He kept his muscles still even as he watched the boy beat the family hounds into submission, letting his self-produced seed spill onto their wounds as they cowered beneath him. When the boy became a young man and turned that same whip on the servant girls, he forced his own hand over his mouth, lest he scream out when the terrible boy relieved himself on the poor girls as they cried.
He continued to watch until the moment the shy, raven-haired piano teacher arrived to teach him. She was older than the Marquis’s son, but he looked at her in the same lustful fashion as the others he’d abused. The servant boy tried to remain detached like before, but she had been kind to him when she noticed him lurking in the shadows, ignoring his shabby clothes and rustled hair. They quickly became friends, sharing lunch together while the rest of the staff was preoccupied. She complimented his peculiar eyes, and he impressed her with his ability to recite the works of Plato and name the constellations. He looked forward to her company, a beacon of light in an existence hidden by shadow.
He continued to watch until the moment he witnessed her attack, two days after the Marquis’s son turned thirteen. It happened during a lesson when she accidentally brushed up against him, causing his fleshy face to turn red with excitement. He threw the sheet music to the floor before grabbing her, twisting her arms behind her waist as he had done to the others. The servant boy silently withdrew from his hiding space between the two walls and pounced, moving so fast that not a sound was heard as he wrapped piano wire around the Marquis’s son's throat, choking him until he grew limp and fell to the marble floor like a sack of potatoes.
He feared her reaction as he caught his breath, but the piano teacher merely beamed. She surprised him further by assuring him that if he would drag the body to her room, she would take care of the rest. Though his heart hammered in his chest, shocked at what he had done, he trusted her, calmed by her words and demeanor.
He looked down at the bloated, purple-faced body and knelt, gently removing its powdered wig and slipping it over his own unruly black curls. He struck a pose for the piano teacher, presenting the perfect imitation of the Marquis’s son.
She lit up as she realized his intentions, offering him a playful curtsy in response. They met each other’s eyes, coming to a silent agreement before he dragged the asphyxiated corpse out of the parlor while she trailed behind. From that moment on, he was no longer the servant boy hiding in the shadows, longing for greatness—he was the wealthy son of a Marquis and heir to a small fortune. She would make sure it was so.
He was only nine years old.