“Cory!” I gasped. “Cory died of arsenic poisoning? Momma said it was pneumonia that killed him!”
“Can’t she tell us anything she wants? How do we know when she’s telling the truth? Maybe she didn’t even take him to a hospital. And if she did, obviously the doctors didn’t suspect any unnatural cause of death, or else she’d be in jail by now.”
“But, Chris,” I objected, “Momma wouldn’t allow the grandmother to feed us poison! I know she wants that money, and I know she doesn’t love us now as she did once—but still she would never kill us!”
Chris turned aside his head. “Okay. We’ve got to make a test. We’re going to feed Cory’s pet mouse a bit of powdered-sugar doughnut”
No! Not Mickey, who trusted and loved us—we couldn’t do that. Cory had adored the little gray mouse. “Chris, let’s catch another mouse—a wild one that doesn’t trust us.”
“C’mon, Cathy, Mickey is an old mouse, and lame, too. It’s hard to catch a mouse alive, you know that. How many have lived after the cheese was nibbled on? And when we leave, Mickey won’t survive when we set him free—he’s a pet now, dependent on us.”
But I was planning on taking him with us.
“Look at it this way, Cathy—Cory’s dead, and he hadn’t even begun to live. If the doughnuts aren’t poisonous, Mickey will live, and we can take him with us, if you insist. One thing for certain—we have to know. For Carrie’s sake, we’ve got to be positive. Look at her. Can’t you see she’s dying, too? Day by day, she’s losing ground—and so are we.”
* * *
On three well legs, he came staggering to us, dragging the lame leg, our sweet little gray mouse that nibbled trustingly on Chris’s finger before he bit into the doughnut. He took a small piece and ate it, trustingly, believing in us, his gods, his parents, his friends. It hurt to watch.
He didn’t die, not right away. He grew slow, listless, apathetic. Later on he had small fits of pain that made him whimper. In several hours he was on his back, stiff, cold. Pink toes curled up into claws. Small black bead eyes, sunken and dull. So now we knew . . . for sure. God hadn’t taken Cory.
“We could put the mouse in a paper sack along with two of the doughnuts and take it to the police,” said Chris tentatively, keeping his eyes averted from mine . . . .
“They’d put the grandmother in jail.”
“Yeah,” he said, and then turned his back.
“Chris, you’re holding something back—what is it?”
“Later . . . after we’ve gone. Right now I’ve said all I can say without throwing up. We’ll leave early tomorrow morning,” he said when I didn’t speak. He caught both my hands in his and squeezed them tightly. “As soon as possible, we’ll get Carrie to a doctor—and ourselves too.”
* * *
Such a long day to live through. We had everything ready and nothing to do but stare at the TV for the last time. With Carrie in the corner, and the two of us on separate beds, we watched our favorite soap opera. When it was over I said, “Chris, soap people are like us—they seldom go outdoors. And when they do, we only hear about it, never see it. They loll about in living rooms, bedrooms, sit in the kitchens and sip coffee or stand up and drink martinis—but never, never go outside before our eyes. And whenever something good happens, whenever they think they’re finally going to be happy, some catastrophe comes along to dash their hopes.”
Somehow I sensed someone else in the room. My breath pulled in! There stood the grandmother. Something in her stance, in her cruel, hard, gray-stone eyes showed her mocking scornful contempt, and informed me she’d been there for some time.
She spoke, her voice cold: “How sophisticated the two of you have grown while locked away from the world. You think you jokingly exaggerated the way life is—but you didn’t exaggerate. You forecast it correctly. Nothing ever works out the way you think it will. In the end, you are always disappointed.”
Chris and I stared at her, both chilled. The hidden sun took a nose-dive into night. She’d had her say, so she left, locking the door behind her. We sat on our separate beds, with Carrie slouched over near the corner.
“Cathy, don’t look so defeated. She was only trying to put us down again. Maybe nothing did work out right for her, but that doesn’t mean we are doomed. Let’s go forth tomorrow with no great expectations of finding perfection. Then, expecting only a small share of happiness, we won’t be disappointed.”
If a little hill of happiness would satisfy Chris, good for him. But after all these years of striving, hoping, dreaming, longing—I wanted a mountain high! A hill wasn’t enough. From this day forward, I vowed to myself, I was in control of my life. Not fate, not God, not even Chris was ever again going to tell me what to do, or dominate me in any way. From this day forward, I was my own person, to take what I would, when I would, and I would answer only to myself. I’d been kept prisoner, held captive by greed. I’d been betrayed, deceived, lied to, used, poisoned . . . but all that was over now.
I had been barely twelve years old when Momma led us through the dense piney woods on a starry, moonlit night, . . . just on the verge of becoming a woman, and in these three years and almost five months, I’d reached maturity. I was older than the mountains outside. The wisdom of the attic was in my bones, etched on my brain, part of my flesh.
The Bible said, as Chris quoted one memorable day, there was a time for everything. I figured my time for happiness was just ahead, waiting for me.
Where was that fragile, golden-fair Dresden doll I used to be? Gone. Gone like porcelain turned into steel—made into someone who would always get what she wanted, no matter who or what stood in her way. I turned my resolved gaze on Carrie, who slumped in the corner, her head so low her long hair covered her face. Only eight and a half years old, but she was so weak she shuffled like someone old; she didn’t eat or speak. She didn’t play with the sweet little baby who lived in the dollhouse. When I asked if she wanted to take along a few of those dolls, she kept on hanging her head.
Not even Carrie, with her stubborn, defiant ways would defeat me now. There was no one anywhere, much less an eight-year-old, who could resist the strength of my will now.
I strode over and picked her up, and though she fought weakly, her efforts to free herself were fruitless. I sat down at the table and forced food into her mouth, and made her swallow when she would spit it out. I held a glass of milk to her lips, and though she clamped those lips together, I pried them apart and forced her to swallow the milk too. She cried out that I was mean. I carried her into the bathroom, and used tissue when she refused even to do that.
In the tub I shampooed her hair. Then I dressed her in several layers of warm clothing, just as I dressed myself. And when her hair was dry, I brushed it until it shone and looked somewhat like it used to look, only far thinner, and less glorious.
All through the long hours of waiting, I held Carrie in my arms, whispering to her of the plans Chris and I had for our future—the happy lives we’d live in the golden, liquid sunshine of Florida.
Chris was in the rocker, fully clothed, and was strumming idly on Cory’s guitar. “Dance, ballerina, dance,” he softly chanted, and his singing voice wasn’t bad at all. Maybe we could work as musicians—a trio—if Carrie ever recovered enough to want a voice again.
On my wrist was a fourteen-karat-gold watch, made in Switzerland, that must have cost Momma several hundred dollars, and Chris had his watch, too; we weren’t penniless. We had the guitar, the banjo, Chris’s Polaroid camera and his many watercolors to sell—and the rings our father had given our mother.
Tomorrow morning held escape for us—but why did I keep thinking I was overlooking something very important?
Then suddenly I realized something! Something both Chris and I had ignored. If the grandmother could open our locked door, and stand quietly for so long before we noticed her . . . had she done this on other occasions? If she had, she might now know of our plans! She might have made her own plans to prevent our
escape!
I looked over at Chris, wondering if I should bring this up. He couldn’t hesitate this time and find a reason to stay . . . so I voiced my suspicion. He kept picking on the guitar, apparently not disturbed in the least. “The minute I saw her there, that thought flashed into my mind,” he said. “I know she puts a great deal of trust in that butler, John, and she might very well have him waiting at the bottom of the stairs to prevent us from leaving. Let him try—nothing and no one are going to stop us from leaving early tomorrow morning!”
But the thoughts of the grandmother and her butler waiting at the bottom of the steps wouldn’t go away and leave me peace. Leaving Carrie on the bed asleep, leaving Chris in the rocker and strumming the guitar, I wandered up to the attic to say good-bye.
Directly under the dangling lightbulb, I stood and looked around. My thoughts went flashing back to the first day we came up here. . . . I saw us, all four, holding hands, staring around, overwhelmed by the gargantuan attic and its ghostly furniture and clutter of dusty junk. I saw Chris up high, risking his life to hang two swings for Carrie and Cory to use. I ambled into the schoolroom, looking at the old desks where the twins had sat to learn to read and write. I didn’t glance at the stained, smelly mattress to picture us sunbathing there. That mattress put other memories in my head. I stared at the flowers with sparkling centers—and the lopsided snail, the menacing purple worm, the signs Chris and I had lettered and through all the maze of our gardens and jungle, I saw myself dancing alone, always alone, except when Chris stood in the shadows watching, making his ache my ache. For when I waltzed with Chris, I’d made him someone else.
He called up the stairs. “It’s time to go, Cathy.”
Quickly I raced back to the schoolroom. On the blackboard I wrote very large, using white chalk:
We lived in the attic,
Christopher, Cory, Carrie, and me,
Now there are only three.
I signed my name, and wrote down the date. In my heart I knew that the ghosts of the four of us would override all other ghosts of children shut away in an attic schoolroom. I left an enigma for someone in the future to unwind.
* * *
With Mickey in a paper sack along with two poisoned doughnuts stored in Chris’s pocket, he used that wooden key and opened our prison door for the last time. We’d fight to the death if the grandmother and the butler were below. Chris carried the two suitcases filled with our clothes and other possessions, and over his shoulder he slung both Cory’s beloved guitar and his banjo. He led the way down all the dim halls, to the back stairs. Carrie was in my arms, partially asleep. She weighed but a bit more than she had the night we’d taken her up these same stairs more than three years ago. Those two suitcases my brother carried were the very same ones Momma had been burdened with on that terrible night so long ago, when we were young, so loving and trusting.
Pinned inside our clothes were two small bags holding bills stolen from Momma’s room, divided equally just in case something unforseen separated Chris from me—then neither of us would be left penniless. And Carrie was sure to be with one of us, and taken care of. In the two suitcases were the heavy coins, also put into two bags, to weigh them evenly.
Both Chris and I were very much aware of what lay waiting for us on the outside. We hadn’t looked at so much TV without learning the worldly and heartless lie in wait for the naïve and innocent. We were young and vulnerable, weak, half-sick, but no longer naïve, or innocent.
My heart stood still as I waited for Chris to unlock the back door, fearful every second someone would stop us. He stepped out, smiling back at me.
It was cold outside. Patches of snow lay melting on the ground. Soon enough the snow would fly again. The gray sky above foreboded that. Still, it was no colder than in the attic. The earth felt mushy beneath our feet. Strange feeling after walking so many years on hard, level wooden floors. I was not yet feeling safe, for John could follow . . . take us back, or try to.
I raised my head to sniff the clean, sharp mountain air. It was like sparkling wine to make one drunk. For a short way I kept Carrie in my arms. Then I set her on her feet. She wobbled uncertainly, stared around, disoriented and bedazed looking. She sniffled, swiped at her reddened nose so small and finely shaped. Ohhh . . . was she going to catch cold so soon?
“Cathy,” called back Chris, “you two have to hurry. We don’t have much time, and it’s a long, long way. Pick up Carrie when she tires.”
I caught her small hand and pulled her along. “Take deep, long breaths, Carrie. Before you know it, the fresh air, good food, and sunshine will have you feeling strong and well again.”
Her small pale face tilted upward to mine—was that hope sparking her eyes at last? “Are we going to meet Cory?”
The first question she’d asked since that tragic day when we learned Cory had died. I gazed down at her, knowing her deepest yearning was for Cory. I couldn’t say no. I just couldn’t put out that flicker of hope. “Cory is in a far-far place from here. Didn’t you listen when I said I saw Daddy in a beautiful garden? Didn’t you hear when I said Daddy took Cory up into his arms, and now Daddy is taking care of him? They’re waiting for us, and someday we’ll see them again, but not for a long, long time.”
“But, Cathy,” she complained, puckering her fault brows, “Cory won’t like that garden if I’m not there, and if he comes back looking for us, he won’t know where we are.”
Earnestness like that put tears in my eyes. I picked her up and tried to hold her, but she struggled free to drag her feet and hang back, twisting halfway around so she could stare back at the huge house we were leaving.
“Come, Carrie, walk faster! Cory’s watching us—he wants us to escape! He’s down on his knees, praying we’ll get away before the grandmother sends someone to take us back and lock us up again!”
Down all the winding trails we tagged along behind Chris, who set a very fast pace. And just as I knew he would, he led us unerringly to the same little train depot that was only a tin roof supported by four wooden posts, with a rickety green bench.
The rim of the dawning sun peeked over a mountaintop, chasing away the low morning mists. The sky turned lavender-rose as we drew nearer the depot.
“Hurry, Cathy!” called Chris. “If we miss this train, we’ll have to wait until four o’clock!”
Oh, God, we couldn’t miss this train! If we did, the grandmother might for sure have time to catch us again!
We saw a mail truck, with a tall, broomstraw man standing near three mailbags on the ground. He took off his cap, displaying a Brillo pad of reddish hair. Genially, he smiled in our direction., “You folks are sure up early,” he called to us cheerfully. “On your way to Charlottesville?”
“Yep! On our way to Charlottesville,” answered Chris, as, with relief, he put the two suitcases down.
“Pretty little girl you got there,” said the tall mailman, sweeping his pitying gaze over Carrie, who clung fearfully to my skirt. “But if you don’t mind my sayin’ so, she seems kinda peaked.”
“She’s been sick,” Chris confirmed. “But soon she’ll be better.”
The mailman nodded, seemingly believing this prognosis. “Got tickets?”
“Got money.” Then Chris added sagaciously, practicing for less reliable strangers, “But just enough to pay for the tickets.”
“Well, get it out, son, ’cause here comes the five-forty-five.”
As we rode on that morning train, headed toward Charlottesville, we saw the Foxworth mansion sitting high on the hillside. Chris and I couldn’t take our eyes from it, couldn’t help but stare at our prison from the outside. Especially we fixed our gazes on the attic windows with the closed black shutters.
Then my attention was drawn to the northern wing, riveted on that end room on the second floor. I nudged Chris as the heavy draperies parted, and the shadowy, distant form of a large old woman appeared there, staring out, looking for us . . . then vanished.
Of course she coul
d see the train, but we knew she couldn’t see us, just as we’d never been able to see the passengers. Nevertheless, Chris and I slipped down lower on our seat. “Wonder what she’s doing up there so early?” I whispered to Chris. “Usually she doesn’t carry up our food until six-thirty.”
He laughed, sounding bitter. “Oh, just another of her efforts to catch us doing something sinful and forbidden.”
Maybe so, but I wanted to know her thoughts, her feelings when she entered that room and found it empty, and the clothes gone from the closet and the drawers. And no voices, or steps overhead to come running—if she called.
* * *
In Charlottesville we bought bus tickets to Sarasota, and were told we had two hours to wait for the next Greyhound heading south. Two hours in which John could jump into a black limousine and overtake that slow train!
“Don’t think about it,” said Chris. “You don’t know that he knows about us. She’d be a fool to tell him, though he’s probably snoop enough to find out.”
We thought the best way to keep him from finding us, if he was sent to follow, would be to keep on the move. We stored our two suitcases and the guitar and banjo in a rented locker. Hand in hand, Carrie in the middle, we strolled the main streets of that city, where we knew the servants of Foxworth Hall came to visit relatives on their day off, and to shop, go to the movies, or pleasure themselves in other ways. And if this were Thursday, we’d have really been fearful. But it was Sunday.
The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! Page 39