“The grandmother is dead. Foxworth Hall has been burned to the ground.”
Foxworth Hall? What was that?
“No, it hasn’t, Chris. I heard her climbing the stairs a short while ago, and you know she’s afraid of small, confined places—how could she climb the stairs?”
“Were you sleeping when you heard her?”
I shivered. What the devil where they talking about? Which grandmother?
“Yes,” she murmured, her lips moving over his face. “I guess I did drift into nightmares after I finished my bath and lay out on the bedroom patio. I don’t even remember climbing the stairs up here. I don’t know why I come, or why I dance, unless I am losing my mind. I feel I am her sometimes, and then I hate myself!”
“No, you’re not her, and Momma is miles and miles away where she can never hurt us again. Virginia is three thousand miles from here, and yesterday has come and gone. Ask yourself one question whenever you are in doubt—if we could survive the worst, doesn’t it stand to reason we should be able to bear the best?”
I wanted to run, wanted to stay. I felt I, too, was drowning in their sea of deceit even when I didn’t understand what they were talking about. I saw two people, my parents, as strangers I didn’t know—younger, less strong, less dependable.
“Kiss me,” Mom murmured. “Wake me up and chase away the ghosts. Say you love me and always will, no matter what I do.”
Eagerly enough he did all of that. When he had her convinced, she wanted him to dance with her. She replaced the needle on the record and again the music soared.
Shriveled up tight and small, I watched him try to do the difficult ballet steps that would have been so easy for me. He didn’t have enough skill or grace to partner someone as skilled as my mom. It was embarrassing to even see him try. Soon enough she put on another record where he could lead.
Dancing in the dark,
Till the tune ends, we’re dancing in the dark . . .
Now Dad was confident, holding her close, his cheek pressed to hers as they went gliding around the floor.
“I miss the paper flowers that used to flutter in our wake,” she said softly.
“And down the stairs the twins were quietly watching the small black-and-white TV set in the corner.” His eyes were closed, his voice soft and dreamy. “You were only fourteen, and I loved you even then, much to my shame.”
Shame? Why?
He hadn’t even known her when she was fourteen. I frowned, trying to think back to when and where they’d first met. Mom and her younger sister, Carrie, had run away from home soon after Mom’s parents were killed in an auto accident. They’d gone south on a bus and a kind black woman named Henny had taken them to her employer Dr. Paul Sheffield, who had generously taken them in and given them a good home. My mom had started ballet classes again and there she had met Julian Marquet—the man who was my father. I was born shortly after he was killed. Then Mom married Daddy Paul. And Daddy Paul was Bart’s father. It had been a long, long time before she met Chris, who was Daddy Paul’s younger brother. So how could he have loved her when she was fourteen? Had they told us lies? Oh gosh, oh gosh . . .
But now that the dance was over, the argument began again: “Okay, you’re feeling better, yourself again,” Dad said. “I want you to solemnly promise that if anything ever happens to me, be it tomorrow, or years from now, you swear that you will never, so help you God, hide Bart and Jory in the attic so you can go unencumbered into another marriage!”
Stunned, I watched my mom jerk her head upward before she gasped: “Is that what you think of me? Damn you for thinking I am so much like her! Maybe I did put the beds together. Maybe I did bring the basket up here. But never once did it cross my mind to . . . to . . . Chris, you know I wouldn’t do that!”
Do what, what?
He made her swear. Really forced her to speak the words while her blue eyes glared hot and angry at him all the while.
Sweating now, hurting too, I felt angry and terribly disillusioned in my dad, who should know better. Mom wouldn’t do that. She couldn’t! She loved me. She loved Bart, too. Even if she did look at him sometimes with shadows in her eyes, still she would never, never hide us away in this attic.
My dad left her standing in the middle of the attic as he strode forward to seize the picnic hamper. Next he unlatched, then pushed open the screen and hurled the basket out the open window. He watched it fall to the ground before once more turning to confront my mom angrily:
“Perhaps we are compounding the sins of our parents by living together as we are. Perhaps in the end both Jory and Bart will be hurt—so don’t whisper to me tonight when we’re in bed about adopting another child. We cannot afford to involve another child in the mess we’ve made! Don’t you realize, Cathy, that when you put those beds up here you were unconsciously planning what to do in case our secret is exposed?”
“No,” she objected, spreading her hands helplessly. “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t do that . . .”
“You have to mean that!” he snapped. “No matter what happens, we will not, or you will not, put your children in this attic to save yourself, or me.”
“I hate you for thinking I would!”
“I am trying to be patient. I am trying to believe in you. I know you still have nightmares. I know you are still tormented by all that happened when we were young and innocent. But you have to grow up enough to look at yourself honestly. Haven’t you learned yet that the subconscious often leads the way to reality?”
He strode back to cuddle her close, to soothe and kiss her, to soften his voice as she clung to him desperately. (Why did she have to feel so desperate?)
“Cathy, my heart, put away those fears instilled by the cruel grandmother. She wanted us to believe in hell and its everlasting torments of revenge. There is no hell but that which we make for ourselves. There is no heaven but that which we build between us. Don’t chip away at my belief, my love, with your ‘unconscious’ deeds. I have no life without you.”
“Then don’t go to see your mother this summer.”
He raised his head and stared over hers, pain in his eyes. I slid silently on the floor to sit and stare at them. What was going on? Why was I suddenly so afraid?
Bart
And on the seventh day God rested,” read Jory as I finished patting the earth nice and firm over the pansy seeds that were meant to honor my aunt Carrie’s and uncle Cory’s birthday on May fifth. Little aunt and uncle I’d never seen. Both been dead a long, long time. Dead before I was born. People died easy in our family. (Wonder why they liked pansies so much? Silly little nothing flowers with pudding faces.) Wish Momma didn’t think honoring dead people’s birthdays was so darn important.
“You know what else?” asked Jory, like nine was a dumb age, and he was a big adult. “In the beginning, when God created Adam and Eve, they lived in the Garden of Eden without wearing any clothes at all. Then one day an evil talking snake told them it was sinful to walk around naked, so Adam put on a fig leaf.”
Gosh . . . naked people who didn’t know naked was wicked. “What did Eve put on?” I asked as I looked around, hoping to see a fig leaf. He went on reading in a singsong way that took me to olden times when God was looking out for everyone—even naked people who could talk to snakes. Jory said he could put Biblical stories into “mind” music, and that made me mad and scared—him dancing to “mind” music I couldn’t hear! Made me feel stupid, invisible, dumber than crazy. “Jory, where d’ya find fig leaves?”
“Why?”
“If I had one, I’d take off all my clothes and wear it.”
Jory laughed. “Good golly, Bart, there’s only one way for a boy to wear a fig leaf—and you’d be embarrassed.”
“I would not!”
“You would too!”
“I’m never embarrassed!”
“Then how do you know what it’s like? Besides, have you ever seen Dad wear a fig leaf?”
“No . . .” But I figured since I’d neve
r seen a fig leaf, how could I know whether or not I had? I said this to Jory.
“Boy, you’d know!” he answered, with another laugh to mock me.
Then he was grinning, jumping up to leap up all the marble steps in one long bound that I couldn’t help but admire. Me, I had to trail along behind. Wish I was graceful like him. Wish I could dance and charm everybody into likin me. Jory was bigger, older, smarter—but wait a minute. Maybe I would make myself smarter if not bigger. My head was big. Had to have a big brain inside. I’d grow taller by and by, catch up with Jory, bypass him. Why, I’d grow taller than Daddy; taller than the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk”—and that giant was taller than anybody!
Nine years old . . . wish I was fourteen.
There was Jory sitting on the top step, waitin for me to catch up. Insultin. Hateful. God sure hadn’t been kind to me when he passed out coordination. Remembered five years ago when I was four and Emma gave each of us a baby chick, all soft yellow fuzz, making chirps and cheeps. Never felt nothin so good before in my whole livelong life. There I was lovin it, holdin it, sniffin its baby smell before I put it kindly on the ground—and darn if that chick didn’t fall over dead.
“You squeezed,” said Daddy, who knew about stuff like that, “I warned you not to hold it too tight. Baby chicks are fragile and you have to handle them with care. Their hearts are very near the surface—so next time, gentle hands, okay?
Thought God might strike me dead then and there, even though most of it was His fault anyway. Wasn’t my fault he didn’t make my nerve endings go all the way to the surface of my skin. Wasn’t my fault I couldn’t feel pain like everybody else—was His! Then I’d shivered, fearful He might do something. But when He was forgivin I went an hour later to the little pen where Jory’s live chick had been walkin around lonesome. I picked him up and told him he had a friend. Boy, we had a good time with me chasin him and him chasin me, when all of a sudden, after only two hours of havin fun—that chick keeled over dead too!
Heated stiff cold things. Why’d it give up so easily? “What’s the matter with you?” I shouted. “I didn’t squeeze! My hands didn’t hold you! I was careful—so stop playin dead and get up or my daddy will think I killed you on purpose!” Once I’d seen my daddy haul a man out of the water and save his life by pumpin out the water and blowing in air, so I did the same things to the chick. It stayed dead. Next I massaged its heart, then I prayed, and still it stayed dead.
I was no good. No good for nothin. Couldn’t stay clean. Emma said clean clothes on me were a waste of her good time. Couldn’t hold on to a dish when I dried it. New toys fell apart soon after they came my way. New shoes looked old in ten minutes after knowin my feet. Weren’t my fault if they scuffed up easily. People just didn’t know to make good, unscuffable shoes. Never saw a day when my knees weren’t scabby or covered with bandaids. When I played ball I tripped and fell between bases. My hands didn’t know how to catch right, so my fingers bent backward and twice I’d had fingers broken. Three times I’d fallen from trees. Once I broke my right arm, once my left arm. Third time I only got bruises. Jory never broke anything.
Was no wonder my mom kept telling me and him not to go next door to that big ole house with so many staircases, ’cause sooner or later she knew I’d fall down steps and break all my bones!
“What a pity you don’t have much coordination,” mumbled Jory. Then he stood up and yelled, “Bart, stop running like a girl! Lean forward, use your legs like pumps. Put your heart in it and let go! Forget about falling. You won’t if you don’t expect to. And if you catch me I’ll give you my superspeed ball!
Boy, wasn’t nothin I wanted in this whole wide world more than I wanted that ball of his. Jory could throw it with a curve. When he pitched at tin cans setting on the wall, he’d hit ’em one after another. I never hit anything I aimed for—but I did hit a lot I didn’t even see, like windows and people.
“Don’t want yer ole speedball?” I gasped, though I did want it. It was a better ball than mine; they were always givin him better than me.
He looked at me with sympathy, making me want to cry. Hated pity! “You can have it even if you don’t win the race and you can give me yours. I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I just want you to stop being afraid of doing everything wrong, and then maybe you won’t—sometimes getting mad enough helps you win.” He smiled, and I guess if my momma had been around she would have thought his flash of white teeth was charmin. My face was born for scowlin. “Don’t want yer ole ball,” I repeated, refusing to be won over to someone handsome, graceful and fourteenth in a long line of Russian ballet dancers who’d married ballerinas. What was so great about dancers? Nothin’, nothin’! God had smiled on Jory’s legs and made them pretty, while mine looked like knobby sticks that wanted to bleed.
“You hate me, don’t you? You want me to die, don’t you?”
He gave me a funny, long look. “Naw, I don’t hate you and I don’t want you to die. I kinda like you for my brother even if you are clumsy and a squealer.”
“Thanks heaps.”
“Yeah . . . think nothing of it. Let’s go look at the house.”
Every day after school we went to the high white wall and sat up there, and some days we went inside the house. Soon school would be over and we’d have nothing to do all day but play. It was nice to know the house was there, waitin for us. Spooky ole house with lots of rooms, jagged halls, trunks full of hidden treasures, high ceilings, odd-shaped rooms with small rooms joinin, sometimes a row of little rooms hidin one behind the other.
Spiders lived there and spun webs on the fancy chandeliers. Mice ran everywhere, havin hundreds of babies to put droppins all over. Garden insects moved inside and climbed the walls and crept on the wood floors. Birds came down the chimneys and fluttered about madly as they tried to find a way out. Sometimes they banged against walls, windows, and we’d come in and find ’em dead and pitiful. Sometimes Jory and I would arrive in the nick of time and throw open windows and doors so they could escape.
Jory figured someone must have abandoned the ole house quickly. Half the furniture was there, settin dusty and moldin, givin off smelly odors that made Jory wrinkle his nose. I sniffed it and tried to know what it was sayin. I could stand real still and almost hear the ghosts talking, and if we sat still on a dusty ole velvet couch and didn’t talk, up from the cellar would come faint rustling like the ghosts wanted to whisper secrets in our ears.
“Don’t you ever tell anybody ghosts talk to you, or they’ll think you’re crazy,” Jory had warned. We already had one crazy person in our family—our daddy’s mother, who was in a nuthouse way back in Virginia. Once a summer we went East to visit her and ole graves. Momma wouldn’t go in the long brick building where people in pretty clothes strolled over green lawns, and nobody would have guessed they were crazy if attendants in white suits hadn’t been there too.
Every summer Momma would ask, when Daddy came back from seein his mother, “Well, is she better?” And Daddy would look sad before he’d say, “No, not really much progress . . . but there would be if you would forgive her.”
That always shook Momma up. She acted like she wanted that grandmother to stay locked up forever.
“You listen to me, Christopher Doll” my momma had snapped, “it’s the other way around, remember! She’s the one who should go down on her knees and plead—she should ask for our forgiveness!”
Last summer we hadn’t gone East to visit anybody. I hated ole graves, ole Madame Marisha with her black rusty clothes, her big bun of white and black hair—and I didn’t care even now if two ole ladies back East never had a visit from us again. And as for them down in those graves—let ’em stay there without flowers! Too many dead people in our lives, messin it up.
“C’mon, Bart!” called Jory. He had already scaled the tree on our side of the wall, and he was sittin up there waitin for me. I managed the climb, then settled down next to Jory, who insisted I sit against the tree trunk—just in
case. “You know what?” said Jory wistfully. “Someday I’m gonna buy Mom a house just as big. Every once in a while I overhear her and Dad talking about big houses, so I guess she wants one larger than the one we’ve already got.”
“Yeah, they sure do talk a lot about big houses.”
“I like our house better,” said Jory, while I set about drummin my heels against the wall, which had bricks under the crumblin white stucco. Momma had mentioned once she thought the bricks showin through added “interesting texture contrast.” I did what I could to make the wall more interestin’.
But it was sure true that in a big house like that one over there you could get lost in the dark and ramble on and on for days on end. None of the bathrooms worked. No water. Crazy sinks with no water and stupid fruit cellar with no fruit, and wine cellar with no wine.
“Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if a big family moved in over there?” Jory said, wishin like me we could have lots and lots of nearby friends to play with. We didn’t have anybody but each other once we came home from school.
“And if they had two boys and two girls it would be just perfect,” went on Jory dreamily. “Sure would be neat to have all girls living next door.”
Neat, sure. I’ll bet he was wishin Melodie Richarme would move in over there. Then he could see her every day and hug and kiss her like I’d seen him do a few times. Girls. Made me sick. “Hate girls!—want all boys!” I grouched. Jory laughed, saying I was only nine and soon enough I’d like girls more than boys.
“What makes Melodie’s arms rich?”
“Do you realize how dumb that makes you sound? That’s her last name and doesn’t mean anything.”
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 86