Dark Angel

  "And when I finally got away, Troy had saddled Abdulla Bar, according to a stable boy, and on horseback Troy raced through the maze, over and over through the maze. It was not a place that a sensitive horse liked and soon he leaped the last hedge hurdle, driven insane by the twists and turns of the maze he'd never been in before--and the horse headed for the shore!"

  "Abdulla Bar . . ." I repeated, the name almost forgotten by this time.

  "Yes, Jill's favorite stallion. The one nobody but her could ride, I saddled my own horse and rode to catch up with him, but the wind here on the shore was wild. Ahead of me about a hundred feet, a sheet of trash paper flew into Abdulla Bar's face. He reared and whinnied as if terrified, and he whirled about and ran straight into the ocean! It was crazy to sit on my horse, who refused to run into the wind, and watch my brother fight to bring that crazy horse back to shore! The sun was red and low on the horizon behind us . . . and the sea turned to blood . . . and then both horse and rider disappeared."

  My hands fluttered to my forehead and hovered there. "Troy? Oh no, Tony!"

  "We called the Coast Guard. All the men at the party put out in the boats I have, and we searched for him. Abdulla Bar swam back to shore with an empty saddle, and then, toward dawn, Troy's body was found. He had drowned."

  No! No! It couldn't be true.

  He went on, wrapping my shoulders with his arm and pulling me against his side. "I tried

  desperately to find where you were staying in Maine, but I never was able to. Every day I have held my own small memorial service for him, waiting for you to return, and say your own goodbyes."

  I thought I had cried all the tears I could cry for the love I'd had for Troy. Yet, as I stood there and gazed out to sea, I knew that throughout my life I would cry many more tears for him.

  Time passed as I stood with Tony and waited for that floating wreath to reappear. Oh, Troy, years we could have had together! Almost four years that would have given you a fair share of life, and love, and normalcy, and maybe then you would have loved life enough to have stayed!

  I was numb now, blind with tears I didn't want to share with Tony. On the walk back to the mansion I said goodbye to Tony quickly, though he clung to both of my hands and tried to force from me the promise that I'd return again.

  "Please, Heaven, please! You're my daughter, my only heir. Troy is dead. I need an heir to give purpose and meaning to my life! What good is all of this that we have accumulated through the centuries if our line ends now? Don't go! Troy would want you to stay! Everything that he was is here in this house and in his cottage that he left to you. He loved you . . please, don't leave me here alone with Jill. Please stay, Heaven, please, for my sake and for Troy's! All that you see around you will be yours. It's your legacy. Take it if for no better reason than you can pass it down to your children."

  I tugged my hands away. "Why you can go anywhere you want without Jillian," I said ruthlessly, stepping into my fine car. "You can hire help to take care of her, and not come back until she is dead. You don't need me, and I don't need you, or the Tatterton money. You have now exactly what you deservenothing."

  The wind fanned my hair. He stood and watched me drive away, the saddest-looking man I'd ever seen. But I didn't care. Troy was dead and I had graduated from college, and life would go on, despite Tony, who needed me now, and Jillian, who had never needed anything but youth and beauty.

  Twenty-three Revenge

  . I WAS GOING BACK HOME, BACK TO WINNERROW. AT last it was time for me to put the past to rest, and to become that person I always wanted to be. For I knew now that our childhood dreams are often the most pure ones; I wanted more than anything to follow in Miss Marianne Deale's footsteps, to be the kind of teacher who could give a child like me a chance in life, who could open up the world of books and knowledge that provided a way out of the narrowness and ignorance of the hills. And it was not really hard to risk my Tatterton legacy--for I was no longer a scumbag Casteel, cowering on the fringes of society. No, I was a Tatterton, a

  VanVoreen, and even if I planned never to tell anyone in my family the truth of my parentage, still, I was now ready to confront the man whose love I had needed so desperately as a child, who had denied me so relentlessly and brutally. For I didn't need him at all now. And I wanted him, and only him, to know just who I was.

  It took me three days to drive to Winnerrow, and on the way I stopped in New York City, at one of the best hairdressers, and did something I'd wanted to do for years. All my life I'd wanted my mother's silvery blond hair color. All my life I'd been the dark angel, betrayed by what I had thought was my Indian Casteel hair. Now I would be the true, bright, shining angel, the rich girl from Boston who no one ever looked down on. I emerged from that salon a different woman--a woman with shining, silvery blond hair. No, I wasn't a Casteel anymore. I was my mother's true daughter. And I knew that to at least one man I would no longer appear to be the Heaven Leigh Casteel he hated--no, he would see how much like Leigh I was, he would finally understand how much he loved me. I would be a Heaven Leigh he loved-- for at last he would see in me his beloved Angel.

  Grandpa almost didn't know who I was when I first arrived at the-new cabin in the woods. He seemed almost afraid when he first saw me, as if a ghost had truly come back from the dead. It was then I realized that if he ever really did catch sight of his "Annie" he'd probably have a heart attack. "Grandpa," I said, hugging his frightened, rigid body, "It's me, Heaven. Do you like my hair?"

  "Oh, Heaven child, I thought ya was a ghost!" he heaved a mighty sigh of relief. And when I told him I was coming to live with him he was overjoyed. "Oh, Heaven chile, ever'body comin' home at once. Ya know Luke's circus is comin' to town next week. All the Casteels comin' back to Winnerrow. Ain't it grand tho!"

  So, I wasn't the only Casteel come back to show who I was now. Now I could get on with my plans much sooner than I expected. Now I knew just what I had to do.

  The circus was all that people in Winnerrow talked about. They stood on street corners, and in the pharmacy, and in the beauty shop and barber shops, and cluttered the one and only supermarket with their many speculations on whether or not it was "Godly" to attend a circus where so many performers wore so few clothes. Everyone was so busy with the circus, they barely had time to gossip about me and my white Jaguar driving through town.

  I was busy that week before the circus was due to arrive--busy making the cabin as cozy and pretty as possible, busy washing an old dress that had to be carefully bleached so it would turn truly white. Then the dress had to be ironed, and I'd had no experience ever with handling an iron, even the best new one that money could buy. It just so happened that the day I was setting up the contraption called an ironing board, Logan dropped by to bring Grandpa his weekly supply of medications. He sucked in his breath when he saw me. "Oh," he said, looking uncomfortable, "I almost didn't know who you were."

  "You don't like it?" I asked lightly, determined to keep my distance.

  "You look beautiful, but you looked even more beautiful with your own dark hair."

  "Of course you'd say that. You like everything as God gave it to us. But I know nature can be improved upon."

  "Are we going to start off again fighting, and over such a silly thing as the color of your hair? I quite honestly don't care what you do to your hair."

  "I didn't think you really did."

  He set down his bundle on the middle of the kitchen table, and looked around. "Where is your grandfather?"

  "He's down the hill, bragging about Pa and his circus. Why, you'd think Pa had become the president of the United States from the way he's carrying on."

  Uneasily Logan stood in the center of the kitchen, looking around, obviously not wanting to leave yet. "I like what you've done to this cabin. It seems so cozy."

  "Thank you."

  "Are you going to be staying awhile?"

  "Maybe. I'm not sure yet. I've filed my application at the Winnerrow's school board, but so far I haven't
heard a thing."

  I began to try and iron my dress. "You didn't marry Troy Tatterton, why not?"

  "It's not really any of your business, is it Logan?"

  "I think it is. I've known you for many years. I took care of you when you were sick. I loved you for a long time . . I think that gives me a few rights."

  It was several minutes before I could say thinly, with tears in my voice, "Troy died in an accident. He was a very wonderful man who had too many tragedies in his life. I could cry for all he should have had, and didn't."

  "What is it the super-wealthy can't buy?" he asked, with a certain mocking tone in his voice, and I whirled to confront him, still holding my iron in my hand. "You're thinking as I used to think, that money can buy everything, but it doesn't and never will." I turned and began to iron again. "Will you please leave now, Logan? I have a thousand things to do. Tom will be staying here with us, and I want the house to be perfect in time for his arrival--I have to make it feel like home.

  For the longest time he stood behind me, so close he could have leaned forward and kissed my neck, yet he didn't. I felt his presence, almost as if he were touching me. "Heaven, are you going to find time in your busy schedule to fit me in?"

  "Why should I? I hear you are as good as engaged to Maisie Setterton."

  "Everyone is telling me that Cal Dennison returned to Winnerrow just to see you!"

  Again I whirled around. "Why are you so eager to believe anything you hear? If Cal Dennison is in town, he's made no effort to contact me, and I hope never to see him again."

  Suddenly he smiled. His sapphire eyes lit up and made him seem a boy again, the boy who used to love me. "Well, it's nice seeing you again, Heaven. And I'll get used to your blond hair, if you decide to keep it that way." And then he was turning and walking out the back door, leaving me staring after him, and wondering, wondering.

  As the day of the circus dawned, Grandpa was so eager to see his youngest son and Tom that he was almost hopping with excitement as I tried to knot the first tie he'd ever worn. He grouched and complained and said I was worse than Stacie, who was always trying to make him look like what he wasn't. "Ya kin't do it, Heaven chile. New clothes won't do it . . jus' get ya gone. I kin brush my own hair!"

  It was my intention to make him look like a gentleman as much as possible and to show all those pseudo-snobs in Winnerrow that even Casteels could change. Grandpa was wearing, also, the first real suit of his life. I tucked a colorful handkerchief in his pocket, fiddling with it for a few minutes, while Grandpa itched for me to get on with it.

  "Why, durn iffen ya ain't gone an' made me look like some big city gent," he proudly said, eyeing himself up and down in the full-length mirror that had been ordered for the bedroom that I was using. He preened like a bird in bright plumage, touching tentative fingers to his hair, the little he had left.

  "You be careful with yourself, Grandpa, until I'm dressed."

  "But I don't know now what to do wid myself."

  "Then I'll tell you what to do. You won't go farther from this house than the front porch, and don't start whittling or you'll cover your good suit with sawdust and shavings. Sit in one of the rockers next to Grandma, and tell her all about what's going to happen today. And sit there until I come out, ready to go."

  "But Annie not gonna want to stay here widout us!" he said in shrill objection. "Luke's her son, too."

  "Then Grandma will go with us." He smiled when I said that. He touched his withered old hand to my face. "Yer gonna dress her up fancy, too?"

  "Of course."

  Grandpa stared at me almost struck with awe, and then teary wonder came to his eyes. "All yer life ya've been a good girl, chile Heaven. The best kind of girl t'have."

  Oh, oh, it hurt more than I'd ever expected to be complimented by someone at this place in the mountains where no one had ever loved me enough.

  "Now don't go farther than the front porch until I'm ready," I warned him. "If you get yourself dirty we'll have to begin again from the beginning--and that means the bathtub."

  He shuffled away, mumbling to himself about the number of baths taken in this house, and all that water wasted.

  That night I wore a thin, blue summer dress and matching blue sandals. I was saving my white dress for the second night, when the circus performers would be more at ease and perhaps able to pay more notice to the audience. The first night all the Casteels would display themselves to Winnerrow. The next night I would show my true self to Pa. My jewelry was real, and I knew I was a fool for wearing it to any circus, but I figured nobody would know it from costume junk, unless they too owned the real thing.

  When finally I showed up on the front porch, ready to go, Grandpa was having a terrible time keeping Annie from getting nervous. "She looks pretty, don't she, Annie," he said, looking pleased even as he looked troubled whenever my fair hair drew his attention.

  After we had Granny "dressed to kill" I still wanted Grandpa to sit up front with me, so I could show him off to all the snobs in Winnerrow who thought Casteel men didn't know how to look like gentlemen.

  "But I don't wanna leave my Annie sittin' back there alone," he complained.

  "She wants to lie down and rest, Grandpa, and there isn't room for her to do that unless you move up here beside me."

  Once I had him persuaded it was his duty to let her rest when she wanted to, he moved to sit beside me. And that's when a big, happy grin broke out on his craggy old face. "What kind of auto ya got here, Heaven chile? I neva in my whole life rode so soft! Takes t'bumps like they're flat. Why, gosh durn iffen it don't feel like we're home in bed!"

  Slowly, slowly we drove down Main Street in Winnerrow.

  Heads turned on Main Street. You bet they turned.

  Eyes bulged to see the Casteel scumbags riding in a custom-designed Jaguar convertible. And if there was one thing every country person knew about, it was automobiles. For once in his life Toby Casteel found dignity and sat straight and proud, only turning to whisper back to his wife after we'd left Main Street behind us.

  "Annie, wake up now. Did ya see 'em starin', did ya? Ya didn't sleep through it, did ya? Weren't it somethin', though, t' way they eyeballed us, weren't it? Why there ain't nobody who's got it betta than us, not now. Why- this Heaven chile of ours has gone t'college an' come out wid all that money can buy. Neva saw t'likes of what education kin do, neva did."

  I'd never heard Grandpa say so much before, even if he didn't know what he was talking about. The money that had bought this car had been Tony's, not any money earned by me.

  It took us more than an hour to get there, I drove so slowly, but eventually we did arrive at the circus grounds just beyond the city limits.

  Three large tents were up, and many smaller ones for the side show. The huge middle tent impressed me with its bright colors, its many flags snapping smartly in the wind. People from five counties had flocked to see the circus, where Luke Casteel would stand high on a platform and spiel out his talk. As Grandpa and I strolled in, heads turned to stare, and I overheard their whispers. "That's Toby Casteel, Luke's father."

  Grandpa and I had hardly had time to adjust to having so many eyes stare at us, when a slender woman wearing bright red came up from behind, yelling like a bull moose all the way. "Stop! Wait up! It's me, yer sista, Fanny!" And before I had the time to brace myself, Fanny hurled herself into my arms with her overly enthusiastic greeting.

  "Oh holy Jesus Christ on the cross, Heaven," she screeched loud enough for a dozen people to turn around and stare, "ya sure do look good!" Fanny hugged me several times before she embraced Grandpa. "Why Grandpa, neva saw ya lookin' so citified before! Why I hardly know ya, when ya usually look so old and crummy."

  That's the kind of compliments Fanny always knew how to give. Double-edged ones. Her red dress had large white polka dots. It fitted so tight it seemed painted on. Gold bracelets laddered up both of her tanned arms. Her black hair was parted in the middle and caught behind both her ears with large wh
ite silk flowers. She looked, indeed, like a fine exotic cat wearing the wrong colors.

  Fanny stood back to stare at me. , Her dark eyes gone frightened-looking. "Ya scare me, ya really do. Ya don't look like yerself no more. I bet ya look just like yer dead ma. Don't it frighten ya some nook like somebody dead an' buried?"

  "No, Fanny. It makes me feel good to look like my mother."

  "Neva could understand ya, neva could," she mumbled, then grinned shyly. "Don't hold no grudges, Heaven, please. Let's be friends. Let's go an' watch Pa, an' ferget t'past."

  Yes, I thought I could do that tonight, for Grandpa, and for Tom whom we would meet later. Tomorrow night, the past would rise again.

  "Got rid of ole Mallory, I did. Second I knew he married me only so I'd become his brood mare, I brushed him off, fast, fast. Kin ya imagine that man thinkin' I'd have his baby, when I already got one? I told him straight out I weren't gonna ruin my figure so when he kicked t'bucket, I couldn't get no young fella. An' ya know what? It made him mad. He asked me what t'hell did I think he married me for but t'have his babies . . . Lordy, he's already got three grown ones."