Child of Darkness

  "Do you have everything?" she asked the social worker, who had quickly introduced herself as Mrs. Stormfield. "The prescriptions are very important."

  "Yes, yes. It's all here," the social worker said, showing her the briefcase she carried.

  "Okay. Good luck to you, Celeste. I will inquire after you. I will," she stressed.

  I looked down.

  She squatted to look into my eyes and gently lift my chin so I would have to look into her face.

  "You have to be strong," she said, almost in a whisper. "You have to get through it. You won't be alone, I'm sure."

  That brought a smile to my face, but it wasn't a smile that made her comfortable. I could see that. My smile was too cold. It made my face years older.

  "I know," I said. "I'll never be alone."

  Suddenly she looked very worried. She looked as if she was considering keeping me.

  Mrs. Stormfield cleared her throat and tapped her foot in impatience.

  Flora looked up at her.

  "We have a long ride," Mrs. Stormfield said. "It's best we get started immediately."

  Flora blinked, thought, and then shook her head.

  "Yes, of course," she said, standing up. She took a deep breath, glanced at her assistant, and in a quick decision that broke some rule she had imposed upon her-self, knelt down again and kissed me on the cheek. Then she turned and started away, those heels clicking like a clock ticking toward some hour of reckoning, winding down into an explosion of dead silence. I put my fingers on my cheek, where she had kissed me. I so wished I could keep her lips there forever.

  Mrs. Stormfield dropped her hand on my shoulder firmly to direct me out the door and to the automobile. Her fingers pressed so hard, I wanted to cry out, but I didn't utter a sound. Instead, I got into the car and sat as far away from her as I could. She followed and closed the door. Then she sighed deeply, as if it had all been such a terrible ordeal for her, far more than it had been for me. The driver put my suitcase into the trunk, got in, started the engine, and drove us away. I didn't even look back.

  It was only then that I thought about my cousin Panther. How odd that I hadn't thought of him until now, I remember thinking. Was it that I simply didn't care about him, or had I truly forgotten he existed? Where had he been taken? Where would he end up? Was he at some clinic or at some orphanage, or already living with new people?

  And then I thought about Noble. I hadn't thought about him for so long, but now I couldn't help it. In my memory he was there. He was still Noble. He hadn't changed. I heard his laughter, his voice as he repeated the vowel sounds or explained a picture in a book. I closed my eyes and once again felt his arms holding me, carrying me up the stairs to bed, pulling back the blanket and tucking me in with a soft goodnight. I remembered all the hours we spent together in the turret room, keeping as quiet as we could so the people below would not know I existed.

  Most of all, I remembered working beside him in the garden for hours and hours after I was permitted to be out in the daytime, watching and learning how he cared for the herbal plants. He would recite their names for me, and talk about them as if they were his children. Every morning I was always so anxious and excited about getting out there to see how much they had grown, how healthy were their leaves, and how close they were to fulfilling the promise of their maturation and healing powers.

  Back in the house Mother cooked and stirred, ground and mixed Noble's children into remedies she poured or spooned into bottles and plastic bags for people who made their pilgrimages up and down the country road to our farm. Mother described the spirits of our family standing along the driveway, nodding and smiling their approval and pride as the customers, or clients, as Mother liked to call them, came onto the property, their faces full of hope and faith.

  Where were our family spirits this very moment? I wondered. Now that I had been released from the clinic, were they waiting for me, anticipating my return? Suddenly that thought sparked a panic in me. Yes, they were waiting for me, and they would be disappointed if I didn't return.

  "I have to go home," I remember saying.

  Mrs. Stormfield turned slowly and lowered her glasses down the bridge of her bony nose to peer across the seat at me with her steely gray eyes. "What's that?"

  "I have to go home right away," I said. "They're waiting for me."

  "Who's waiting for you?"

  "My family."

  "Oh." She pushed her glasses back into position and turned to look forward.

  "They are. They really are."

  "Yes, well, why don't you just wait for them to call for you," she said.

  The driver laughed.

  "Yes," I said. "That's a good idea."

  She looked at me again, this time surprise lifting her right eyebrow.

  "Oh, you think so, do you?"

  "Yes. I will wait. And they will call," I added, and I sat back in the seat. I remember I smiled. I was so confident that I radiated with it.

  "This one's a corker," Mrs. Stormfield declared.

  "Ain't they all," the driver said. "Ain't they all."

  I didn't say another word to either of them. Long ago I had learned how to swim through the empty hours. I didn't need to be entertained or amused. I could simply rewind a book I had read and then turn the pages in my mind once more. I was vaguely aware of Mrs. Stormfield's eyes on mine as they moved back and forth. She slid a few more inches away from me, the way someone might move away from a person who might infect them with a disease.

  I smiled.

  She didn't know it, but I was very happy she had moved away.

  She was making room for Noble. Thinking so hard about him again had brought him back to me.

  He sat between us, took my hand into his, and said, "Don't worry. I'm with you again."

  "What are you smiling at?" Mrs. Stormfield asked me. "I'm speaking to you, young lady," she said as firmly as she could when I didn't respond.

  I still didn't answer, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  I just turned away from her and stared ahead. Noble was holding my hand. Just knowing he was there beside me gave me the strength and the courage to face all the Mrs. Storrnfields to come along with all the tomorrows, no matter how cloudy or dark or filled with static in the air they might be.

  2 A So-Called Normal Young Woman

  .

  Orphans don't know what to think about tomorrow. It's like we're afloat at sea in the dark and the sky is always overcast, so we don't know in what

  direction we're heading or if we're heading anywhere. We even wonder if we will ever have a Christmas or a birthday. Who really cares if we do? The state? The caregivers at the orphanage? Even though all these people might have good intentions, it is still not the same as being in a living room on Christmas Day or on birthdays, opening presents with people we love and who love us. We know about it, of course. We see it on television or in movies, and we read about it in books, and of course there are those who had families for a while, those like me.

  In the deepest places of my memory, I hear a piano playing on Christmas Day. I smell the hot apple pie and I see snowflakes sticking to the windows, the light of our living room illuminating them so they twinkle as though their edges consist of tiny diamonds. No matter how cold it was, the world inside our home was warm. It would surely be the same for all of us, but to have all that, we had to have families.

  Think about never celebrating a Mother's Day or Father's Day or anyone else's birthday in your family. Think about the word family, and imagine it not being in your vocabulary. Think about feeling as if you are a whole other species. That's how it was for us.

  People always say, "Blood is thicker than water." For us it was truly as if we had only water in our veins. No wonder I clung so hard to the memory of my spiritual family, despite the efforts of my therapists and counselors. Who else did I have? It's a terrible thing to be dependent only on the kindness and charity of strangers. No matter how they help you and what they say whe
n they do, you can't stop yourself from feeling obligated. I hate having to feel grateful constantly. No one says thank you more than we do. The words are practically pasted to our tongues.

  It is so important to have family, to have someone who is part of you and whom you are part of as well. What you do for each other comes from a deeper place, a place you'll share forever. There is no obligation. There is only love. That was the way it still was for me and Noble. How could I ever give that up?

  However, over time while I was at my first orphan-age, attending a public school, making some friends, I began to see and hear Noble less and less. It wasn't that I no longer needed him. I would always need him. He was too much a part of whom and what I was. It was more that things that interested other girls my age began to interest me. I wanted to watch more television, read magazines, go to movies, and Noble never did any of that or talked about it. Although I had no boyfriends as such, I flirted with boys and fantasized like my girlfriends did.

  Eventually, I overheard Mr. Masterson tell Madam Annjill that she was worried about me for no good reason, after all.

  I had discovered years ago that if I put my ear to the vent between their kitchen and our bathroom, I could hear their conversations clearly. Somehow, I anticipated when they would be talking about me. Maybe it was because they often were.

  "See," I heard Mr. Masterson say, "all little boys and girls have imaginary friends, Annjill, especially our little orphans. Celeste is no different, and now, as you say, she's doing it less and less."

  "I still think there's something very wrong with that child. How could she be brought up in a world of such madness and not have anything permanently wrong with her?" Madam Annjill insisted. "Why are we having such a terrible time finding any couple willing to take her into their home? On the surface, she is attractive enough, and she is certainly a very intelligent child. I'll give her that. Look at her school grades."

  "Someone will come along," Mr. Masterson insisted.

  "No. No one will come along. She's had too many chances, too many lost opportunities. We'll have to go fish them in," Madam Annjill said.

  I always suspected that was just what she finally went ahead and did, and that was how I found myself being taken into a couple's home for the first time. The Prescotts, the couple who came to see me soon after I overheard Madame Annjill and her husband talking about me, had already raised their family. They had grandchildren, in fact, but their rationale for seeking to become foster parents at this late stage was that their children and grandchildren all lived far away. They needed to fill their lives with something meaningful. I think that was more true of Mrs. Prescott than it was of Mr. Prescott.

  As soon as she met me, Mrs. Prescott immediately asked me to call her Nana and her husband Papa, as if they could snap their fingers and poof make me into their new granddaughter. She said I would have their daughter Michelle's old room, with my own television set and school desk. They sounded very generous, but I knew that they would be getting money from the state to use to pay for my necessities and clothes.

  Unlike the other couples who had met with me, they weren't at all put off by my demeanor. Perhaps Madam Annjill had prepared and warned them about me ahead of time. Mrs. Prescott's face looked molded out of plastic. The smile sat there and never so much as twitched. Nothing I asked or said seemed to bother them, even when I asked Mrs. Prescott why her daughter or her son and their children wouldn't need the room I was to have when they visited. From the way she glanced at her husband, I did sense that they were not visited that often by their children and grandchildren, and that truly bothered both of them, perhaps Mrs. Prescott more.

  Mr. Prescott was a tall, thin, balding grayhaired man with a pale complexion and watery dull brown eyes. Almost the entire time he was there, he tapped his long fingers on the arms of the chair as if he was keeping time to a marching band.

  "And when they do come, we'll always find a way to accommodate everyone, dear," she told me. "Not to worry. Oh, how wonderful it will be to have a little person in our lives again! Why, I even had some clothes in the attic that would fit you, and I know I have lots of toys in the closet, lots of pretty little dolls, too," she declared.

  She clapped her hands together and rubbed her palms as if she was washing them. She was stout, with a small bosom and wide hips. I imagined that long ago she had lost her waist, and the person she had once been had faded away like some very old photograph.

  "Won't your grandchildren be upset about your taking me in and giving me so much of what belonged to them, especially dolls?" I asked.

  Even at that young age, I could fix my eyes as a prosecutor fixed his on a witness in a courtroom. Madam Annjill always told me that was impolite, but I did it anyway. Most orphans wouldn't dare ask such a question for fear of bringing up a reason for their prospective parents to reject them.

  But it was an important question for me. The last thing I wanted was to be taken somewhere else to be resented. I was already nine years old, and I knew about envy. Jealousy lived beside each orphan and could instantly turn any of our eyes green as soon as someone else had received a gift or had a prospect of being adopted. Surely it would be even worse when it came to my taking a part of the Prescott's grandchildren's world.

  "Oh, no, no. No, no," she chanted.

  During the whole interview, Mr. Prescott looked out the windows with an obvious longing to be out there instead of in here with me and all this adoption business. Later, I found out he lived for golf, and anything that interrupted his usual schedule was distasteful.

  If Mrs. Prescott knew that, she ignored it or didn't care. She was in no rush. She talked incessantly, describing their house, which she said was a modest two-story Queen Anne with a wraparound front porch. She told me they had a pretty sizable backyard, with lots of room to exercise my little legs.

  "Papa will fix the swing set in the back, too, won't you, Papa?" she asked him.

  "What? Oh, absolutely," he said. "All it needs is a good paint job and some grease."

  The fact that it had been left to degenerate told me how little time their grandchildren spent at their home.

  "You can walk to the school, but we won't ever let you go by yourself, will we, Papa?"

  "Oh, no, never," he said firmly.

  They lived in a small village just outside of Kingston, New York. Mr. Prescott was a retired accountant. Mrs. Prescott had always been a housewife and had never been to college. They told me they had been high school sweethearts and had married as soon as Mr. Prescott had graduated from college and gotten his first job with a big accounting firm in Kingston.

  "Eventually, Papa formed his own company. We're not wealthy people, but we've always been very comfortable," Mrs. Prescott explained. I think she wanted to share their personal history with me as quickly as possible so I would feel like part of their family as quickly as possible.

  Afterward I heard Madame Annjill, who was practically salivating at the prospect of someone taking me off her hands, tell the Prescotts that I was the neatest ward in her orphanage, and I had the most promise for a good future.

  "She's a very independent little girl. You'll be so pleased, and you'll be doing a wonderful thing by giving her a real home and showing her what life is like with a normal family," she added. "Besides, Arnold knows well how to handle the property held in trust for her when the time comes. Who better to guide this poor unfortunate child?"

  I had no idea how much they knew about my back-ground, but I had the sense that Madame Annjill had made it seem as if I had been too young to be harmed in any way by the events. I was simply a lost little girl unfairly left on her own. From the way they talked about me and themselves, I knew Madam Annjill had probably worked on them for some time. In the end they signed the papers and told me I would be coming to live with them. It all happened so fast, my head spun, but they hoped I would be happy and that it was something I wanted at least as much as they did.

  When the other girls learned I was going to
someone's home to become part of a family, they all looked at me as if I had won the lottery. No one said anything unpleasant. Some of them even said they would miss me, but all of them had that distant look in their faces, telling me they felt even more left behind than ever. After all, I was the little girl no one wanted. Each of them was supposed to find a family first.

  The following day the Prescotts came to get me and my meager belongings. As it had started to rain before they came, there wasn't much time to linger in the orphanage's doorway. Madame Annjill had my things packed and ready the night before. She came for me right after breakfast and made me wait in the entryway, as if she wanted to be sure they didn't come, fail to see me, and leave again. I smiled to myself at how happy she was at finally getting me off her hands. She rattled on and on about how lucky I was to have such a nice loving couple take an interest in me.

  "You should be thanking me, thanking me, thanking me," she said.

  I turned to her slowly and glared at her so hard, she had to raise her eyebrows. I was sure I saw a dark shadow hovering about her shoulders. It looked like it was edging over them very slowly.

  "What?" she demanded.

  I stepped farther away from her because I didn't want the dark shadow to touch me. I could see the fear filling her face like blood in, a glass.

  "You better behave yourself," she warned, waving her right hand at me. "You just better. I'm not taking you back."

  I smiled coolly at her.

  "You won't be able to take anyone back," I said, and she looked like she had lost her breath.

  When the Prescotts did arrive, Madam Annjill hurried me out with a simple, "Good luck with her."