Heaven (Casteel Series #1)

by V. C. Andrews

  Strange how close this shopping expedition made us, as if creating a pretty room together gave us a special bond. "What movie are we going to see?" I asked when we were back in the car.

  Again he was staring at me with that quizzical, self-mocking look fleeting through his golden-brown eyes. "If I were you, I shouldn't think it would matter."

  "Not to me, but it must to you."

  "You'll see." He'd say nothing more.

  It was exciting driving to the movie theater, seeing all the crowds on the street. So much better than it had been with Kitty to spoil the fun with the tensions she caused. I'd never been inside a theater before. I was trembling with excitement, seeing so many people all in one place, all spending money as if they had barrels of it. Cal bought popcorn, cola drinks, two candy bars, and only then did we settle down side by side in the near dark. I'd never thought it would be this dark in a movie theater.

  My eyes widened when the colorful picture

  began with the woman on the mountaintop singing.

  The Sound of Music! Why, this was a movie that Logan had wanted to see withme. I couldn't feel unhappy about that, not when Cal was sharing the single big box of buttery, salty popcorn. It was hot, and I couldn't eat enough. Occasionally we'd both reach into the box at the same time. To sit there, to eat and drink and feast my eyes on the beauty of the movie, filled me with so much delight I felt as if I were living in a picture book with sound, movement, dancing, and singing. Oh, truly this had to be the most exhilarating day of my entire life.

  On and on I sat spellbound, my heart bursting with happiness, a kind of magic enveloping me so I felt I was in that movie. The children were Tom, Fanny, Keith, and Our Jane . . . and me. That's the way we should have been, and I wouldn't have cared at all if Pa had blown a whistle, and hired a nun to tutor us. Oh, if only my brothers and sisters could be here with us!

  After the movie Cal drove me to an elegant restaurant called the Midnight Sun. A waiter pulled out my chair and waited for me to sit, and all the time Cal was smiling at me. I didn't know what to do when the waiter handed me a menu, except to stare at him in a helpless way. All of a sudden I was inundated with need for Tom, for Our Jane, for Keith and Grandpa, so much so I was near tears. . . but he wasn't seeing that.

  Cal was seeing something beautiful written on my face, as if my very youth and inexperience made him feel ten times more a man than Kitty did. "If you'll trust me, I'll order for both of us. But first tell me which you like most. Veal, beef, seafood, lamb, chicken, duck, what?"

  Images of Miss Deale came again, she in her pretty magenta suit, smiling, appearing so proud to have us . . when nobody else wanted to know we existed. I thought of her gifts—had they ever arrived?

  Were they back there on the porch of the cabin, with no one there to wear the clothes? Eat the food?

  "Heaven, what meat do you want?"

  Oh, my God . . . how did I know? I frowned, concentrating on the complicated menu. I'd had roast beef when Miss Deale took us to a restaurant not nearly as fine as this one.

  "Try something you've always wanted to eat and never have," Cal softly prompted.

  "Well," I mused aloud, "I've had fish caught in the river near the cabin—had pork—eaten many a chicken and had roast beef once, and it was really good, but I guess I'll have something brand-new--you choose it."

  He laughed and ordered salad and veal cordon bleu, for two. "Children in France grow up on wine, but I guess we'll wait a few years before you try that."

  He'd encouraged me to order escargot, and only after I had finished my six did he explain that they were snails in hot garlic butter, and the bit of French bread I was using to sop up the delicious sauce hesitated in my hand that was suddenly trembling.

  "Snails?" I asked, feeling queasy, sure he was teasing me. "Nobody, even the dumbest hill folks, eats things as nasty as snails."

  "Heaven," he said with a warm smile in his eyes, "it's going to be fun teaching you about the world. Just don't say anything about this to my wife.

  She's stingy about restaurants, thinks they charge too much. Do you realize that since the day I married her we have not once eaten out except in fast-food joints?

  Kitty just doesn't appreciate gourmet cooking, and doesn't really understand what it is. She thinks she does. If she spends half an hour preparing a meal, she thinks that's gourmet food. Haven't you noticed how fast she puts a meal together? That's because she refuses to tackle anything complicated. Warm-up food, I call what she cooks."

  "But you said Kitty was a wonderful cook before!"

  "I know, and she is, if you like her breakfast menu. . . that's what she cooks best, and country food that I don't like:"

  That very day I began to fall in love with city life and city ways that were far, far different from mountain ways, or even valley life.

  We were barely in the door when Kitty came home from her nighttime ceramic class, irritable as she stared at us. "What ya two do all day?"

  "We went shopping for the new furniture," Cal said casually.

  She narrowed her eyes. "What store?"

  He told her, and her scowl came. "How much?"

  When he named a figure, she clasped her long-nailed hand to her forehead, seeming appalled. "Cal, ya damn fool—ya should buy her only cheap stuff!

  She don't know good from bad! Now, ya send that all back if it comes when I'm gone. If I'm here, I'll send it back!"

  My heart sank.

  "You will not send it back, Kitty," he said, turning to head for the stairs, "even if you are here.

  And you might as well know I ordered the best mattress, the best pillows and bed linens, and even a pretty coverlet with a dust ruffle to match the curtains."

  Kitty screamed: "YER TEN TIMES A

  DAMNED FOOL!"

  "All right, I'm a damned fool who will pay for everything with my own money, not yours. Good night, Heaven. Come, Kitty, you sound tired—after all, it was your idea that we drive to Winnerrow and find ourselves a daughter. Did you think she'd sleep on the floor?"

  I could hardly contain myself when the

  furniture arrived two days later. Cal was there to direct where things should go. He expressed a desire to have the room wallpapered. "I hate so much white, but she never asks me what color I'd like."

  "It's fine, Cal. I love the furniture." Together, when the deliverymen had gone, he and I made the bed with the pretty new flowered sheets, and then we spread on the blankets, and topped everything off with the pretty quilted coverlet.

  "You do like blue?" he asked. "I get so damned tired of hot pink."

  "I love blue."

  "Cornflower blue, like your eyes." He stood in the middle of my small room, now prettier than I could have imagined, and seemed too big and too masculine for all the dainty things he'd chosen. I turned in circles and stared at accessories I hadn't known he'd ordered. A set of heavy brass duck bookends for the books I'd stuffed in the broom closet with my clothes. A desk blotter, pencil cup, and pen and pencil set, and a small desk lamp, and framed pictures for the wall. Tears came to my eyes, he'd bought so much.

  I sobbed, "Thank you," and that's all I could manage before I lost my voice and cried all the tears I'd saved up through the years, flat on my face on that narrow twin bed that was so pretty, and Cal sat awkwardly on the side of the bed and waited for me to finish. He cleared his throat. "I've got to get back to work, Heaven, but before I go, I have another surprise. I'll lay it here on your desk, and you can enjoy it after I'm gone."

  The sound of his feet departing made me turn over and sit up, and once more I called out, "Thank you for everything." I heard his car drive off, and I was still sitting on the bed . . . and only then did I look at the desk.

  A letter lay on the dark blue of the desk blotter .

  . . a single letter.

  I don't even remember how I got there and

  when I sat, except I did sit, and I stared for the longest time at my name written on that envelope. Miss Heaven Leigh
Casteel. In the upper left-hand corner was Logan's name and address. Logan!

  He hadn't- forgotten me! He did care enough to write! For the first time I used a letter opener. What nice handwriting Logan had, not as scrawly as the way Tom wrote, or as precisely perfect as Pa's small script.

  .

  Dear Heaven,

  You just can't know how much I've worried

  about you. Thank God you wrote, so now I can go to sleep knowing you're all right.

  I miss you so much it hurts. When the sky is bright and blue, I can almost see your eyes, but that only makes me miss you more.

  To be honest, my mom tried to keep your letter hidden so I'd never read it, but one day I found it stashed in her desk when I was hunting for stamps, and for the first time in my life, I was really disappointed in my own mother. We fought, and I made her admit she'd hidden your letter from me.

  Now she admits she was wrong, and has asked me, and you, to forgive her.

  I see Fanny often, and she's fine, looking great.

  She's a terrible showoff, and to be honest again, I think that Reverend Wise may have his hands fuller than he thought.

  Fanny says she wasn't sold! She says your

  father gave all his children away to save them from starving. I hate to believe either one of you, yet you've never lied to me before, and it's you I do believe. I haven't seen your father—but I have seen Tom. He came into the store and asked if I had your address so he can write. Your grandfather is living in a rest home in Winnerrow.

  I have no idea how to help you find Keith and Our Jane. Keep on writing, please. I still haven't met anyone I like nearly as much as I do Heaven Leigh Casteel.

  And until I see you again, I'm not even going to look.

  My love as always, Logan

  .

  I cried again I was so happy.

  Shortly after Logan's letter came I turned fifteen. I knew better now than to call attention to myself and didn't say a word to Kitty or Cal, but somehow Cal knew and gave me an incredible gift—a brand-new typewriter!

  "It will help with your homework." His smile was wide, so pleased with my overwhelmed response.

  "Take typing in school. It never hurts to know how to type."

  That typewriter, as much as I loved it, wasn't the biggest thrill of my fifteenth birthday. Oh, no. It was the huge card that came in the mail, bright with pretty flowers, sweet with a verse, and thick with a silk scarf and a letter from Logan.

  Still, I longed to hear from Tom. He had my address now; why wasn't he writing?

  In a whole school of girls I managed to make two good friends who repeatedly invited me to visit their homes. Neither one understood why I always had to refuse. Then, to my dismay, discouraged or put off, they began, bit by bit, to drift away. How could I tell anyone that Kitty flatly denied me friends who might take time away from the housework I had to do every day? The boys who asked me for dates I had to reject too, though not altogether for the same reasons. It was Logan I wanted to date, not them. I was saving myself for Logan and not once did I question that he was doing the same thing.

  The house I slaved to keep clean and tidy never stayed that way-when Kitty could come in to devastate ten hours of work with her careless habits. The plants I watered and dusted and fertilized withered from too much care, and then Kitty yelled at me for being stupid. "Any damn fool kin keep a plant living . . . any damn fool!"

  She found her water-spotted silk plants and slapped me for being an idiot hill-scum girl who didn't have brains. "Yer thinkin bout boys, kin see it in yer eyes!" she yelled when she caught me idling one afternoon when she came home unexpectedly. "Don't ya sit in t'livin room when we ain't home! TV is off limits fer ya when yer alone! Ya stay busy, ya hear?"

  I was up early every day to prepare breakfast for Kitty and Cal. She seldom came home for the evening meal before seven or eight o'clock, and by that time Cal and I had eaten. For some reason this didn't annoy her.

  Almost with relief she fell into a kitchen chair and broodingly stared at her plate until I dished up the food she wolfed down in mere seconds, without appreciation for all the trouble I took to learn her favorite dishes.

  Before I could go to bed I had to put the kitchen in order, check all the rooms to see that everything was in its proper place and no magazines or newspapers cluttered the tabletops or lay on the floor.

  In the morning I hurried to make my bed before Kitty came in to check, then rushed downstairs to begin breakfast. Before I left for school, I washed clothes while I made the beds, put the dirty dishes in the washer, wiped up all fingerprints, smudges, spills, and such, and only when I had the door locked behind me did I begin to feel free.

  Now I was well fed and my clothes were warm and adequate, and yet there were times when I thought longingly of home and forgot the hunger, the awful cold, the deprivations that should have scarred me forever. I missed Tom so much it hurt. I ached for Our Jane and Keith, for Grandpa and even Fanny. Logan's letters helped me not to miss him so much.

  I was riding the school bus now that it was raining every day and Kitty didn't want to buy me a raincoat or boots. "Soon it'll be summer," she said, as if there'd be no spring to mention, and that made me homesick again. Spring was a season of miracles in the mountains, when life got better and the wildflowers came out to coat the hills with beauty Candlewick would never know. In school I studied with much more determination than other students, on a mad hurry-hurry schedule to get back home and dig into housework.

  The many TVs were a constant temptation

  calling to me. It was lonely in the empty house, and despite Kitty's warning never to turn on a TV when I was alone, I soon was a soap-opera addict. I dreamed about the characters at night. Why, they had even more problems than the Casteels, though none were financial, and all of ours had been related to money problems—or so it seemed now.

  Day after day I checked the mailbox waiting for Logan's letters that came regularly, always anticipating that long-awaited letter from Tom that didn't show up. One day, out of pure frustration from not hearing from Tom, I wrote to Miss Deale, explaining how we'd been sold and pleading with her to help me find my brothers and sister.

  The weeks passed, and still no letter came from Tom. The letter I'd written to Miss Deale came back stamped Addressee Unknown.

  Then Logan stopped writing! My first thought was he had another girl. Sick at heart, I stopped writing to him. Every day that passed without hearing from Logan made me think that nobody loved me enough to last long enough to do me any good, except Cal. Cal was my savior, the only friend I had in the world, and more and more I depended on him. The quiet house came alive when he came in the door and the television was snapped on and housework could be forgotten. I began to long for him as the hour of six drew near and my dinner was almost ready to serve. I took pains to set the table prettily, to plan menus I knew he'd enjoy. I spent hours and hours preparing his favorite dishes, not caring anymore if Kitty grew fat from the pasta dishes he preferred and I liked, too.

  When the clock on the mantel struck six, my ears keened to hear the sound of his car in the drive. I ran to take his coat when he came in the back door, loving the ceremony of his greeting that was the same each day:

  "Hi there, Heaven. What's new?"

  His smiles brightened my life; his small jokes gave me laughter. I began to see him as bigger than life, and forgot all his weaknesses when it came to Kitty. Best of all, he listened, really listened, when I talked to him. I saw him as the kind of father I'd always wanted, always needed, the one who not only loved me, but also appreciated what I was. He understood, never criticized, and always, no matter what, he was on my side. Though with Kitty that never helped much.

  "I write and write, and Fanny never answers, Cal. Five letters I've written to her since I've been here, and not even a postcard in return. Would you treat your sister like that?"

  "No," he said with a sad smile, "but then, my family members never write to me, so I don't write to
them—not since I married Kitty, who doesn't want any competition for my affections."

  "And Tom doesn't write, even though Logan gave him this address."

  "Maybe Buck Henry doesn't give him the time to write letters, or prevents him from mailing the ones he might write."

  "But surely he could find a way—?"

  "Hold on. One day you'll see a letter in our box from Tom, I'm sure of it."

  I loved him for saying that; loved him for making me feel pretty, for saying I was a good cook, for appreciating all I did to keep the house clean. Kitty never saw anything I did unless it was wrong.

  Weeks passed during which Cal and I became closer and closer, like a true father and daughter.

  (Often Kitty didn't come home until ten or eleven at night.) I knew that Cal was the best thing in my Candlewick life, and for him I was going to do something special. He had a yen for all kinds of fancy egg dishes, so for the first time in my life I was going to prepare what he often asked Kitty to make—a cheese soufflé. An amusing lady on TV was teaching me all about gourmet cooking.

  The perfect time was Saturday, before our trip into Atlanta to see a movie.

  I fully expected it to fail, as most of my experiments did—and then I was drawing it from the oven, amazed to see it looked right. Golden brown, high and light! I'd done it right! If I could have patted myself on the back, I would have done so. I ran to the china cabinet, wanting to serve it on the royal dishes it deserved. Then I stepped halfway down the basement stairs, leaned over, and called in my most demure voice, "Lunch is served, Mr. Dennison."

  "Coming right up, Miss Casteel," he called back. We sat in the dining room, where he stared with admiration at my high and wonderful cheese souffle.

  "Why, it's beautiful, Heaven," said Cal, tasting it, "and delicious," closing his eyes to savor it. "My mother used to make cheese souffles just for me—but you shouldn't have gone to so much trouble."

  Why did he look uneasy sitting in his own

  dining room, as if he"d never eaten in here before? I looked around, feeling very uneasy. "Now you'll have lots of dishes to clean up before we head for town and fun . . ."