by Lois Duncan
“She asked especially to see me. She’d written a letter she wanted me to read at today’s meeting.” Irene withdrew a folded sheet of notebook paper from her purse. She spread it flat on the table in front of her. “I’d better tell you first that Laura won’t be coming back to Modesta High. She’s being discharged from the hospital later today, and she’ll fly immediately to her father’s home in Rhode Island. She’s going to finish the school year there.”
“But why?” Jane Rheardon asked in bewilderment. The question was echoed in eight other faces.
“Let me read you the letter,” Irene said, leaning forward over the paper.
“ ‘Dear Sisters—I am sorry to be going away like this without saying good-bye. I just don’t feel that I can face anybody right now. I don’t think I can come back to school and face certain people ever. I want to go to a new place and start all over. I wish I could forget my whole life except for you, my sisters. You are the only kind people I know in the world. I want you to know how grateful I am that you let me be one of you. My homecoming dress is in the back of my closet if one of you has a use for it. I sure never will. I love you all—Laura.’ ”
For a moment no one spoke.
Finally, Jane said, “I don’t understand. That doesn’t explain anything.”
“Somebody did something terrible to her,” Kelly said.
“What happened, Irene?” Erika asked. “Did Laura tell you?”
“Yes, she did,” Irene said. “I think it’s right that I share this with you, but first I want your promise that it will never go any further. What I’m going to tell you must not be repeated outside of the sisterhood.”
“That’s part of the pledge,” Kelly reminded her.
“That’s right, it is. ‘We pledge ourselves to divulge to no one words spoken in confidence within this sacred circle.’ I just want to be sure that everyone understands how important it is that this pledge be kept.” Irene glanced about the circle of solemn faces.
“When Mrs. Snow returned last night from a card party, she found that Laura had taken sleeping pills. The empty bottle was lying on the bedside table. Luckily, Laura’s mother found her in time. She called 911, and the ambulance was able to get to her before the bulk of the medication got into the bloodstream. If she’d been a few minutes later, or if she hadn’t noticed the bottle and realized what had happened, Laura would have died.”
There was a collective gasp.
“Did she mean to take them?” Ann asked in horror. “I mean, was she trying to—to—”
“To commit suicide? I don’t know, Ann. Laura herself doesn’t seem sure. She told me this morning that she was in such a state of shock and pain she just wanted to ‘sleep and forget everything.’ As Kelly said, somebody did something terrible to her. She wasn’t tough enough to handle that.”
“Who was it?” Kelly demanded. “What did they do?”
“I think I know,” Kristy Grange said. “It was my brother, Peter.”
“Peter?” Madison exclaimed incredulously. “But Pete wasn’t anywhere near Laura! He was with me all evening. Besides, they hardly know each other.”
“Yes, they do,” Kristy said. “When I went up to bed after the dance, there wasn’t a glass in the bathroom. I wanted to brush my teeth, so I went down to the kitchen to get one. Niles and Peter were there talking. They didn’t see me in the doorway, and I heard them—heard them talking about—”
“About what?” Madison said. “Stop stalling, Kristy!”
“The way they were talking, I guess… Pete’s been hooking up with Laura,” Kristy said miserably. “That’s how it sounded. You know the way guys talk, though. They like to brag and blow things up bigger than they really are.”
“It figures,” Madison said slowly. “I kind of wondered—all that time after we stopped going out and he didn’t seem to be seeing anybody else—it didn’t seem like his style. Pete doesn’t sit around and lick his wounds. But—Laura! No, Kristy—you must have heard wrong. They were kidding around or something.”
“No, they weren’t.” Kristy shook her head. “Laura thought Pete was going to take her to homecoming.”
“And then when he and I got back together again he canceled the date?”
“No. He just—just didn’t show.”
“He stood her up?” Madison’s face was pale with anger. “Of all the shitty things to do! To both of us! You should have heard the line of crap he gave me. How he’d missed me. How lonely he’d been. And all the time he had Laura waiting in the wings! I wonder what he was telling her that whole time. How far do you think it went?”
“I think—pretty far.”
“That bastard! Freaking bastard!” Madison brought her clenched fist crashing down on the surface of the table. “And I thought he’d changed, that he really cared about me and about our relationship! How could I have been such an idiot!”
“You’re not an idiot,” Tammy said, trying to soothe her. “You believed what he said, and why shouldn’t you? There was no way you could’ve guessed this was going on with Laura.”
“I believed him because I wanted to, that’s what was stupid. And Laura—well, at least she had the excuse of not having a lot of experience. I can see where she might fall for his crap, but with me—I’ve been going out with guys since middle school! I should’ve known better!”
“So should Laura,” Kelly said coldly. “Maybe she hasn’t had dating experience, but she had a dad who walked out on her and on her mom. That should be enough right there to teach her that you can’t trust men.”
“We don’t really know—” Ann began.
“Of course we do! Irene and I had a long talk about that very thing the other night. All of us know a whole lot of things down deep inside, but we close our eyes and our minds to them. Like Madison just said. We believe what we want to believe. It’s easier than standing up for ourselves.”
“Like with my mom,” Jane said. “She keeps telling herself that it’s her own fault Dad beats up on her because she’s dumb and irritates him and things like that.”
“What would happen if she faced the truth, Jane?” Irene asked quietly. “What if she acknowledged the fact that she is married to a cruel and brutal man who hates all women and is taking this hatred out on her?”
“She’d have to leave him,” Jane said.
“And if she did that—?”
“She’d have to be by herself and that scares her. She doesn’t know how to do that.”
“And so she stays where she is and lets herself be beaten?”
“You’re making it sound as if I should be doing something,” Jane said. “What can I do? I’ve talked to Mom. I’ve told her to leave him. She says she will someday, after I’m grown. That’s just an excuse. She’ll never leave, no matter what he does to her.
“I don’t understand it. I only know I’m never going to get into anything like that, ever.”
“Not all men are like that,” Ann said. “My dad would die before he’d do anything to hurt my mom. And Dave is the same way.”
“You may think that now,” Kelly said. “Jane’s mother probably felt like that, too, in the beginning.”
“Cruelty isn’t always physical, either,” Irene said. “In many cases it’s quite subtle, an undermining of a woman’s self-confidence, a draining of her self-esteem so that she’s forced to channel her energy in nonproductive directions.”
“That’s what happened to my mom with her music,” Holly said.
“But not to mine,” Tammy announced adamantly. “She’s doing her own thing, and she’s happy. My dad’s really proud of her, too.”
“What about last summer when she was offered that lecture job at the writers’ conference in California?” Kelly said. “She turned that down because your dad had to stay here and teach summer school.”
“He didn’t make her turn it down. She made her own decision. She doesn’t like to take trips without him.”
“How does she know she doesn’t when she’s nev
er tried it?” Kelly asked. “Face it, Tam, she’s afraid that if she leaves for a month your dad might find somebody else. Every woman is scared of that, or, if she isn’t, she should be.”
“That’s a nasty thing to say,” Tammy said. “My dad would never think—”
“Sure, he would! Why should he be any different from my dad?”
“Girls, let’s not fight among ourselves,” Irene said. “We need our strength and unity for the larger fight. We have to work together. Our strength is in our sisterhood.”
“But you’re making it sound like all men in the world are enemies,” Tammy said. “Just because Kelly’s dad fell in love with somebody else doesn’t mean my dad is going to. There are people who stay together because they love each other, and they try to make each other happy. It may not always work out perfectly but they try.”
“You live in a dream world, Tammy,” Irene said coldly. Her voice was low and controlled. “Little sisters of mine, wake up! You must open your eyes! You are not like your mothers and grandmothers! You are a whole new generation. You don’t have to let yourselves be ground underfoot, as they have been. You can rise—fight back—show the world that you know your own worth!”
“The way we did by forcing them to use the raffle money for a girls’ team?” Paula said.
“That was a beginning.”
“If that creep, Peter, thinks I’m ever going to go out with him again, he’s got another think coming,” Madison said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s over, and I mean forever.”
“Is that all?” Irene asked her.
“All?”
“That seems like mild retribution. This is a man who drove a trusting and loving girl into an attempt to take her own life. Does your refusal to date Peter in the future seem like sufficient punishment?”
“It’s a beginning.” Madison smiled slightly as she repeated the teacher’s words. Her sharp blue gaze flickered around the table. “If it’s going to be more than that, I’m going to need help.”
“You’ve got plenty of that right here,” Kelly said.
“Then we’ll plan something. Something he won’t forget for a long while. Is that what you meant, Irene?”
“This decision must be made by all of you. This is a club, after all. Motions must be voted on. It’s appropriate, I think, for you to present a proposal for group consideration.”
“What about Kristy?” Madison glanced across at the younger girl. “Pete’s her brother.”
“If Kristy doesn’t want to be involved, she’s free to leave.”
“What exactly is it that you’re going to do?” Kristy asked nervously.
“That hasn’t been decided.” Madison regarded her thoughtfully. “If you’re going to leave, you should probably do it now before this goes any further.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“Then you’ll have to remember, you’re bound by the pledge.”
“I’ll remember. Don’t worry,” Kristy said solemnly. “Pete may be my brother, but Laura’s more than that. She’s my sister and my friend.”
“Are you going to take part in it?” Tammy asked.
“I guess so,” Ann said slowly. “We don’t have much choice, do we? We voted.”
“We could drop out.”
“Leave the group?” Ann shook her head. “We can’t do that. You tried it once and it didn’t work, remember? No, we’re all together in this. We have to do our share.”
The late afternoon light was thin and gray, and the wind was beginning to pick up intensity as they walked. Tammy dug her hands into her jacket pockets for warmth and her mind slid back to another day, two months ago—was it only two months? Yes, unbelievably, it was—when she’d run out of the school building into the bright warmth of the September afternoon. But she hadn’t been warm. She’d been shivering, in the grip of some cold, strange thing that chilled her through, despite the golden sweetness of the day.
It chilled her now. Her spine was like ice, and her teeth were chattering with a cold that didn’t come from the November wind.
“Madison was so angry,” she said. “I’ve never seen her like that. She’s always been the laid-back one, who didn’t get upset about anything.”
“She has reason to be mad,” Ann said. “She trusted Pete. She thought he loved her. And then there’s Laura. It makes me want to cry when I think about her.”
“Kelly’s the one who scares me,” Tammy said. “She’s changed so much, so fast. She’s become so bitter.”
“Who can blame her? I’d be bitter, too, if my dad walked out on Mom and me. Wouldn’t you—if it was your dad?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t deny that.
“And think about Jane.”
“Yeah—Jane. That’s a bad situation.” Tammy shuddered. “I never believed people could really be that way. You see her parents at church, and they look so happy together.”
“It’s like Irene says, we’ve had our eyes shut,” Ann said. “You and I are luckier than most people. We’ve been sheltered. But the real world is out there, and you never know when it’s going to reach out and grab you. It can happen so suddenly.”
“How did you vote?”
“I voted to punish Peter.”
“That doesn’t sound much like ‘gentle Annie,’ ” Tammy said wryly.
Her friend gave her a surprised glance. “How did you know Dave calls me that?”
“I didn’t. It just came to me, the way things do sometimes. I told you once that something was going to happen this semester. I saw a candle—with blood—”
“Tammy, don’t,” Ann interrupted curtly. “I don’t want to worry about your seeing things. I’ve got problems of my own.”
“I’m sorry,” Tammy said contritely. “Do you want to talk about them?”
“No. But I really don’t want to talk about bleeding candles. Sometimes, Tam, you’re so weird it creeps me out.”
It was the first cruel thing Ann had ever said to her. Or, as far as Tammy knew, to anyone.
Chapter 14
November 29 was a Wednesday.
Two days short of December, the final month of the year. Something happens at that break point between November and December. There is a quickening, a shift in movement; days that formerly shuffled along as though in bedroom slippers begin to sharpen their pace into a measured clip like the staccato rap of boots on asphalt. Soon the end, and then a new beginning. Hurry, hurry along and wind the old year up so that the new one may begin.
November 29 in Modesta broke through a week of overcast skies as a bright, blue day, as blue as the shade of David Brewer’s eyes. A sharp, whining wind arrived with the dawn; it dropped to a lull in the middle of the day and rose again toward evening. People built fires. Along Locust Street and Elm Street and Maple Street, along First Street and Second and Third, rows of chimneys emptied columns of smoke into the skies, and the wind caught them and twirled them and sent them riding upward in a soft, gray haze, which hung like a blanket over the town.
Mrs. Rheardon cooked venison for dinner that night. Bart Rheardon had killed a deer on his hunting trip. The meat was stringy and tough with an odd, wild taste that made Jane gag, but she ate it anyway, washing it down with water. Her father was in a good mood. She wanted to keep him that way.
“I have to go over to Kristy’s tonight to study for a history test,” she told him.
Tammy Carncross’s mother fried hamburgers.
Paula Brummell’s mother served spaghetti with canned sauce. She’d done eight heads of hair that day, one of them a frosting. She was tired.
Paula excused herself early to get started on cleaning up the kitchen so she could go next door to Erika’s and get some help with her math homework.
Erika Schneider announced at dinner that she’d need to use the car to drive over to Barnards’ Pet Emporium to pick up a new breeding cage.
“They aren’t open at night, are they?” her father asked her.
“They are until nine. After I leave
there I have to stop at the Carncrosses’ to get the application forms for the science fair. I need to get those filled out before the end of the week.”
The dinner hour ended. Here and there throughout the town, doors opened to let young girls step through them, out into the early winter darkness.
Holly Underwood had to go to church to practice the new organ pieces for Sunday’s recessional.
Ann Whitten and Madison Ellis were going to the apartment of one of their teachers to work on an art project.
Kelly Johnson and Tammy Carncross and Kristy Grange all had work to do at the library.
Parental voices. “You’re not going to try to walk, are you?”
“No—no—of course not. I’ve got a ride with Erika”—“with Kelly”—“with Holly.”
“Did you get your note, Pete?” Kristy called back as she left. “I left it on your dresser.”
“Who’s it from?” Niles asked. “Another hot admirer?”
“Madison.”
“Oh, well, there’s no difference. Love note?”
“Nope. It’s weird. I don’t get it,” Peter said. “It doesn’t sound like her. Even the handwriting’s different. Scrawly. As if she were in a hurry or mad or something.” He held out the paper for his brother to read. “What do you make of it?”
“ ‘Meet me at the creek. Seven thirty. Very important. M.E.’ ” Niles grinned. “It sounds to me like she’s finally coming around.”
“Not Maddie. Not like this, anyway.” Peter frowned. “She never wants to meet me anywhere. I always pick her up.”
“Maybe she wants her own set of wheels so she can take off when she feels like it.”
“That’s what worries me. Do you think she knows about Laura?”
“No way,” Niles said. “How could she? That fat bag isn’t going to go around telling people. You should have seen her Saturday night. She was a basket case.”
“You shouldn’t have gone over there.”
“Why not? It was worth a try.”
“She’s not like that.”
“How was I supposed to know that? If she’d put out for one guy, she might for another.”