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!

by Andrews, V. C.

  Towering above me, John Amos didn’t notice the hay that fell from the loft above and caught on his stringy mustache and made him look gruesome.

  “How did Malcolm make all his money, John Amos?” I asked just to see if the hay fell off his mustache when he spoke.

  “By being more clever than those who would stop him.”

  “Stop him from what?” The hay didn’t fall off.

  “From getting what he wanted.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Everything. Everything that wasn’t his he wanted—and to get everything that belongs to others you have to be ruthless and determined.”

  “What’s ruthless?”

  “Doing what you have to to get what you want.”

  “Doing anything?”

  “Anything,” he repeated. Stiffly he bent over to peer into my eyes. “And don’t hesitate to step on those who get in your way—including members of your own family. For they would do the same to you if you stood in their way.” He smiled thinly. “You know, of course, that sooner or later that doctor who is dissecting your personality bit by bit will lock you in an institution. That’s what your parents are doing—getting ready to remove from their lives a little boy who is proving to be too much of a problem.”

  Baby tears got in my eyes.

  John Amos scowled. “Don’t show weakness with tears that belong to women. Be hard, like your great-grandfather Malcolm was.” He paused to eye me up and down. “Yes, you have inherited many of his genes. Someday, if you keep going as you are, you will be just as powerful as Malcolm.”

  * * *

  “Where’ve you been, Bart?” snapped Emma, who looked at me all the time like she was disgusted, even when I was clean. “Never in my life have I seen a boy who could get dirtier more quickly than you. Look at your shirt, your pants, your face and hands! Filthy, that’s what. What do you do, make mud puddles and wallow in them?”

  Didn’t answer. Headed for the bathroom down the hall.

  Momma looked up from her desk in her bedroom. “Bart, I’ve been wondering where you were. You’ve been gone for hours.”

  Was my own business, none of hers.

  “Bart . . . answer me.”

  “Was outside.”

  “I know that. Where outside?”

  “Near the wall.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Digging.”

  “Digging for what?”

  “For worms.”

  “Why do you need worms?”

  “Goin’ fishin.”

  She sighed. “It’s too late to go fishing, and you know I don’t like you to go off by yourself. Ask your father if he will take you fishing this Saturday.”

  “He won’t.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He never has time.”

  “He’ll take time.”

  “No, he won’t. Never has, never will.”

  Again she sighed. “Bart, try to be understanding. He’s a doctor, and he has many very sick patients. You wouldn’t want his patients to go unattended, would you?”

  Wouldn’t care. Rather go fishing. Too many people in the world anyway . . . especially women. I ran to bury my face in her lap. “Momma, please get well quick. YOU take me fishin! Now you don’t have to dance, you can do all the things Daddy never has time for. You can spend all the time with me you used to spend with Jory dancing. Momma, Momma, I’m sorry about what I said,” I sobbed, “I don’t really hate you! I don’t want you to fall down and die. I just feel mean sometimes and I can’t stop. Momma, please don’t hate me for what I said.”

  Her hands were soft and comforting in my hair as she tried to smooth it down and make it stay neat. Hairbrushes and hairspray never worked, so how could her hands? I buried my face deeper in her lap, thinking of how John Amos would scold me if he knew, though I’d already told him what I’d said to her, and he’d smiled, so pleased I was talking like Malcolm. “You shouldn’t have done that, Bart,” he said to confuse me. “You have to be clever, make her think she’s having her way. If you let her know how you feel she’ll find a way to defeat our purpose. And we do have to save her from the Devil, don’t we?”

  I raised my head to stare up into her pretty face, making tears streak my face for the living lie she had to be. Been married three times, John Amos had told me. I didn’t really care if she was good or evil. I’d make her good. I’d teach her to leave all men alone—but me.

  To win I had to play my cards just right, and deal out the aces one by one, like John Amos had told me. Fool her, fool Daddy, make them think I wasn’t crazy. But I got mixed up. I wasn’t crazy, only pretending to be Malcolm.

  “What are you thinking, Bart?” she asked, still stroking my hair.

  “Got no playmates. Got none but what I make up. Got nothing but bad genes from inbreeding—and as for my environ—well, that’s no good either. You and Daddy don’t deserve any children. You don’t deserve anything but the hell you have already made for yourself!”

  Left her sitting stunned. Glad to make her unhappy, like she was always making me. But why didn’t happiness come and make me laugh? Why did I run to my room and throw myself down on my bed and cry?

  Then I remembered the one person who didn’t need anyone—Malcolm. He knew he was strong. Malcolm never hesitated in making decisions, even wrong ones, for he knew how to twist them about and make them right. So I scowled, hunched my shoulders, stood up, and shuffled down the hall, wanting what Malcolm wanted. I saw Jory dancing with Melodie and went in Momma’s room to report to her. “Stop what you’re doing!” I yelled. “Sinning is going on between Jory and Melodie—they’re kissing—making a baby.”

  Her flying fingers paused over the typewriter keys. She smiled. “Bart, it takes more than hugging and kissing to make a baby. Jory is a gentleman and won’t take advantage of an innocent young girl who is decent and wise enough to know when to say stop.”

  She didn’t care. All she cared about was that damn book she was writing. I didn’t have any more chance with her now than I’d had when she was a dancer. Always, always she found something better to do than play with me.

  I clenched my fists and hit at the doorframe. There’d come a time when I was her boss, and she’d listen then. She’d know who she’d better play with. She’d been a better mother when she taught ballet classes. At least she had a free moment once in awhile. Now all she did was write, WRITE. Mountains and mountains of white paper.

  Again she stopped paying attention to me, and reloaded her typewriter as if she had a shotgun to kill the world. She didn’t even notice when I took a box she’d filled and put aside as she began to fill another with her words on paper.

  John Amos would be interested in what she’d written. But before he read a sheet, I’d read them first. Even if I had to use a dictionary every minute I struggled to understand some of the longer words she used. Appropriate . . . knew what that meant. I think.

  “Good night, Momma.”

  She didn’t hear me. Just went right on as if I weren’t there.

  Nobody ever ignored Malcolm. When he spoke people jumped to do his bidding. I was gonna make myself over into Malcolm.

  A week later I was spying on Mom and Jory. They were before the long mirror in the “rec” room and Jory was helping Momma use her bad leg. “Now, don’t think of falling. I’m right in back and I’ll catch you if your knee gives way. Just take it easy, Mom, and soon you will be walking just fine.”

  She didn’t walk just fine. Every step she took seemed to hurt. Jory kept his hands on her waist to keep her from even tottering, and somehow she made it to the end of the barre without falling. Weakly she waited for him to push up her chair so she could sit down again. He turned the footrests into position as she held up her legs. “Mom, you’re stronger each day.”

  “But it’s taking so long.”

  “You sit and write too long at a time. Remember, your doctor said to get up more often, and sit less . . .”

&
nbsp; She nodded, looking exhausted. “Who was that long distance call from? Why didn’t they want to speak to me?”

  His face breaking into a smile, Jory explained: “It was my grandmother Marisha. I wrote and told her about your fall, and now she’s flying west so she can replace you in your school. Isn’t that great, Mom?”

  She didn’t look happy even a little bit. As for me, I hated that ole witch!

  “Jory, you should have told me before.”

  “But, Mom, she wanted it to be a surprise. I wouldn’t have told you today, but I think it’s not very polite for people to drop in out of the blue. I knew you’d want to get ready, look pretty, tidy up the house . . .”

  Funny kind of look she gave him. “In other words, I don’t look my best now, and my house is messy?”

  Jory smiled with all that charm I hated. “Mom, you’re always pretty, you know that, but too skinny, and too pale. You’ve got to eat more and get outside a little more each day. After all, great novels aren’t written in a few weeks.”

  Later on that same day I followed Jory out into the yard, then I hid in my special hideaway place to spy on Momma and Jory as both took turns pushing hateful Cindy in her baby swing. Never let me swing Cindy. Nobody trusted me. Head shrink wasn’t getting anywhere, so why couldn’t everybody give up and leave me alone?

  “Jory, it’s sometimes a torment to hear your ballet music and not be able to dance and express all the emotions I feel. Now when I hear an overture begin, I tighten up and cringe inside. I yearn to dance, and the more I yearn, the harder I have to write. Writing saves me, but it seems Bart resents my writing as much as he used to resent my dancing. It seems I am never going to have the ability to please my younger son.”

  “Aw, heck, Mom,” said Jory with his dark blue eyes sad and worried too, “he’s only a little boy who doesn’t know what he wants. I know something weird is going on in his mind.”

  I wasn’t weird. They were the weird ones, thinking dancing and stupid fairy tales mattered, when all others with sense knew money was king, queen, and God almighty.

  “Jory, I give as much of myself to Bart as I can. I try to show affection and he pulls away. Then he’s running away from me, or to me, and putting his face in my lap and crying. His psychiatrist says he’s torn between hating me and loving me. And I’ll tell you this in confidence: His behavior isn’t helping me recover from my accident.”

  Left then. Heard enough. Good time to sneak into her bedroom and steal some more of her book pages. Stuffed in my shirt drawer I had the ones John Amos had read and returned, so I put those back and took some new ones.

  In my little green cave made of hedges I sat down to read. Stupid Cindy was laughing and squealing while her two adoring slaves pushed her into the air. Boy, wish I had the chance to swing her. I’d push so hard she’d sail right over the white wall and end up in the swimming pool next door. The pool that never had any water.

  Reading Momma’s book was very interesting. “The Road to Riches,” read the title of one of her chapters. Was that girl really my own mother? Were she and her two brothers and one sister really going to be locked up in one bedroom?

  Read on until the day grew old and the fog came in and smothered me.

  Got up and went inside the house, thinking about another title in her book. “The Attic.” What a wonderful place to hide things. I stared at Momma, who was kissing Daddy’s lips, teasing him, asking him about his pretty nurses, and had he found someone to replace her yet. “A beautiful young blonde of twenty or so?”

  He appeared hurt. “I wish you wouldn’t make a joke out of my devotion. Cathy, don’t provoke me with silly remarks like that. I give all I can to you because I love you with a passion I recognize as idiotic.”

  “Idiotic?” she asked.

  “Yes, it is, when you don’t respond as passionately as I do! I need you, Cathy. Don’t let this writing come between us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You do understand! Our past is coming alive. You’re living it again as you write. I peek in and see your face, watch the tears streak your face and fall on the paper. I hear you laugh and say aloud the words that Cory said, or Carrie. You’re not just writing, Cathy . . . you are reliving.”

  Her head bowed down and her loose hair fell and covered her face. “Yes, what you say is true. I sit at the desk and relive it all again. I see again the attic gloom, the dusty, immense space; I hear the silence more terrifying than thunder. Loneliness that knew me well then comes and burdens my shoulders, so I look up startled to see where I am, wondering why the windows aren’t heavily covered over and when the grandmother will come in and catch us with windows not covered. Sometimes I’m startled to look up and catch Bart standing in the doorway staring at me. First I think he’s Cory, then I can’t account for his dark hair and his brown eyes. I look at Cindy and think she should be larger, as old as Cory with the dark hair, and I’m confused, not knowing the past from the present.”

  “Cathy.” His voice was worried. “You’ve got to give this up.”

  Yes, yes, Daddy . . . make her give it up!

  She sobbed as she fell into his arms, and tightly he cradled her to his heart, murmuring sweet love words in her ear that I couldn’t hear. Rocking back and forth, like true wicked lovers. They look like the couples I spied on sometimes, the ones who “made out” on lover’s lane, which wasn’t so far from my grandmother’s mansion.

  “Will you put the book away, wait until the children are grown and safely married . . . ?”

  “I can’t!” Even I could hear the agony in her voice, as if she’d like to if she could. “That story is in my brain screaming to get out, to let others know how some mothers can be. Something intuitive and wise tells me that when I have it down, and it’s sold to a publisher, and made into a book for everyone to read—only then will I be set free from all the hate I feel for Momma!”

  Daddy couldn’t speak. Just went on holding her, rocking, and his blue eyes, staring into space above the head that was pressed against his chest, seemed tormented.

  Stole away to play alone in the garden. Jory’s old witch grandmother was coming. Didn’t want to ever see her again. Momma didn’t like her either; I could tell from the way she grew tense and careful around her, as if afraid her quick tongue would betray her.

  “Bart, my darling,” called my own grandmother softly from her side of the thick white wall, “I’ve been waiting for you to come over all day. When you don’t come I get worried, and then I’m unhappy. Darling, don’t sit alone and pout. Remember I’m over here, willing to do anything I can to make you happy.”

  I ran. Fast as my legs could take me. I climbed the tree, and she had a stepladder waiting there for me so I could get to the ground safely. It was the same ladder she used to peer over at us.

  “I’m going to leave the ladder there for you to use,” she whispered, hugging me, covering my face with her kisses. Lucky for me she took off that dry veil first. “I don’t want you to fall and hurt yourself. I love you so much, Bart. I look at you and think of how proud your father would be. Oh, if only he could see his son. His handsome, brilliant son!”

  Handsome? Brilliant? Gee . . . didn’t know I was either one. It felt good to be told I was wonderful. She made me believe I was every bit as good-looking as Jory, and every bit as talented, too. This was a grandmother. The kind I’d always wanted. One who loved me and no one else. Maybe John Amos was wrong about her after all.

  Again I sat on her lap and let her spoon ice cream into my mouth. She fed me a cookie, a slice of chocolate cake, then held the glass of milk for me to drink. With a full stomach I snuggled more comfortably on her lap and rested my head on the softness of her full breasts that smelled of lavender. “Corrine used to use lavender,” I mumbled sleepily with my thumb in my mouth. “Sing me a lullaby . . . nobody ever sang me to sleep like Momma sings to Cindy . . .”

  “Lullaby and good night . . .”

  Funny. As she sang softly, seemed I
was only two years old, and a long, long time ago I’d sat just like this on my mother’s lap, and heard her sing that very song.

  “Wake up, darling,” she said, tickling my face with the edge of her sleeve. “Time for you to go home now. Your parents will be worried—and they have suffered enough without having more anxiety about your whereabouts.”

  Oh! Over in the corner John Amos had overheard her speak. It was in his watery pale blue eyes that gleamed dangerously. He didn’t like my grandmother or my parents or Jory or Cindy. He didn’t like anyone but me and Malcolm Foxworth.

  “Grandmother,” I whispered, hiding my face so he couldn’t see my lips move, “don’t let John Amos hear you say you feel sorry for my parents. I heard him say yesterday they didn’t deserve sympathy.” I felt her shiver and try not to let him know she was aware he was there.

  “What’s sympathy mean exactly?”

  Sighing, she held me tighter. “It’s an emotion you feel when you understand the troubles of others. When you want to help, but there’s nothing you can do.”

  “Then what good is sympathy?”

  “Not much good in any meaningful way,” she said with her eyes looking sad. “It’s only good is letting you know you are still human enough to have compassion. The best kind of sympathy moves one into action to solve problems.”

  * * *

  John Amos whispered as I sneaked out into the evening shadows: “The Lord helps those who help themselves. Remember that, Bart.” Gravely he returned the pages of my mother’s manuscript I’d given him to read. “Put these back exactly as you found them. Don’t get them soiled. And when she’s written more, bring those—and you will be able then to solve all your own problems. Her book is telling you how. Don’t you understand, that’s why she’s writing it.”

  Ever Since Eve

  She was coming now, coming from Greenglenna, South Carolina, where the graves grew like weeds. Any day I could expect to look up and see her ugly mean face.