She opened her arms wide and pleaded with her eyes. “You are just like my own daughter. To lose your respect hurts so much. Audrina, forgive me for disappointing you and giving you pain. I love you, Audrina, as I’ve loved you since you were a child and you came running to me through the woods as if you’d found a second mother. Please don’t hate me now, not now when I’ve found such happiness …”
Unable to resist, I fell into her arms, forgiving her anything, crying as she cried. And praying that when the time came, Papa would be kinder to her than he had been to Aunt Ellsbeth—and Momma.
“He’ll marry you, Billie!” I cried as I embraced her. “I’ll see that he does!”
“No, darlin’ … not that way, please. I want to be his wife only if he wants that. No force, no blackmail. Just let him decide what’s the right thing to do. No man is made happy by a marriage he doesn’t want.”
A small snort of disgust in the doorway made me look. There stood Vera with the cane she had to use until that lame leg strengthened. How long had Vera stood there eavesdropping?
“What wonderful news,” said Vera drily, her dark eyes hard and cold. “Another freak to add to the Whitefern collection.”
“I’ve never seen my mother happier,” Arden commented a few weeks later as we ate breakfast together in the refurbished solarium. Hundreds of beautiful plants surrounded us. It was April and the trees were leafing out. The dogwoods were in bloom, and the azaleas made a riot of color. This was one of the rare occasions when we had the chance to be alone. Vera was on a side porch lounge chair wearing a brief little bikini, pretending to be sunbathing. Arden took great pains not to notice she was there.
Sylvia was on the floor with a stuffed cat taken from the playroom upstairs. “Kitty,” she said over and over again. “Pretty kitty,” and then, dropping the cat, her attention span always short-lived, she picked up one of the crystal prisms and began to hold it in such ways as to throw rainbows everywhere. She had gained considerable skill at directing the rays, and it seemed she wanted to dazzle Vera’s eyes. Vera, however, wore sunglasses.
Feeling uneasy, I glanced away. Sylvia stepped on all the refracted colors that I avoided—what was that Arden was saying?
“Mom said last night that this is the way she always wanted to live, in a wonderful house, with people she loves. Audrina, has it occurred to you my mother might be falling in love with your father? We can’t expose his fraud. It would ruin him, and destroy her. I’ll speak to him privately and tell him he has to stop.”
Gathering up his papers, Arden neatly bumped them on the table to even the edges, then stashed them in his attaché case before he leaned to kiss me goodbye. “See you around six. Have a good time with Sylvia down by the river. Be careful, and remember, I love you …”
Before he left he had to steal a glance at Vera, who had taken off the top of her bikini. I glared at him, but he didn’t turn to see me. Her breasts were medium-sized and firm—very pretty breasts I wished she’d keep covered.
“Come along, Sylvia,” I said, getting to my feet. “Help me put the dishes in the washer.”
Papa came into the kitchen as I finished putting everything away. “Audrina, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Billie. You’ve avoided me since that night you caught us. Billie says she talked to you and you understood. Do you understand?”
I met his eyes squarely. “I understand her, yes, but not you. You’ll never marry her.”
He seemed thunderstruck. “She wants me to marry her? Why, I’ll be damned … it’s not such a bad idea at that.” He grinned and chucked me under my chin as if I were two years old. “If I had a wife again who adored me, I wouldn’t need daughters at all, would I?”
He grinned again as I stared at him, trying to see if he was serious or only teasing. He said goodbye and hurried out to ride to work with Arden.
“Come along, Sylvia,” I said, catching hold of her hand and guiding her to the side door. “We’re going to have a lesson on nature today. The flowers are all in bloom, and it’s time you knew how to name them, too.”
“Where are you going?” Vera sang out as we passed her. She’d put her bra back on now that Arden had gone. “Why don’t you ask me to go with you? I can walk now … if you don’t go too fast.”
I refused to answer. The sooner she left, the better.
Trotting at my heels, Sylvia tried to keep up. “Going to see the fish jump,” I called to her. “Going to see the ducks, the geese, the squirrels, rabbits, birds, frogs and flowers. It’s spring, Sylvia, spring! Poets write about spring more than any other season because it’s the time for rebirth, for celebrating the end of winter—and, hopefully, the departure of Vera. Summer comes next. We’re going to teach you how to swim. Sylvia will soon be a young woman, and no longer a child. And by the time she is, we want Sylvia to be able to do everything other young women her age do.”
Reaching the riverbank, I turned to look for my ten-year-old sister. She wasn’t behind me. I glanced back at the house and saw Vera had carried a blanket down onto the lawn and was sunning herself out there as she read a book.
A small sound from the edge of the woods made me suspect that at last Sylvia was going to play a hide-and-seek game, something I’d been trying to teach her to do for months. “Okay, Sylvia,” I called. “Ready or not … here I come.”
Nothing but silence in the woods. I stood there looking around. Sylvia was nowhere in sight. I began to run. The paths here were faint and randomly made. Unfamiliar paths that soon had me befuddled and very anxious. Suddenly a golden raintree loomed just ahead of me, and beneath it was a low, grassy mound. I froze and just stared. They’d found the First and Best Audrina lying dead on the mound under a golden raintree, killed by those terrible boys. I began to back off. The woods were usually alive with the sounds of birds claiming their territory, with insects making perpetual hums and buzzes. Why was it so quiet? Deadly quiet. Even the leaves on the trees didn’t move. An unearthly stillness visited as my eyes stayed glued to that mound that had to be the one.
A drum began to pound behind my ears.
Death.
I could smell death. Whirling around, I screamed Sylvia’s name again. “Where are you? Don’t hide now, Sylvia… do you hear me? I can’t find you. I’m going back to the house, Sylvia. See if you can catch me!”
Near the house I found a stem of pink sweetheart roses that had fallen to the ground. They gave me a hint. There was only one place where they grew—near the cottage where Arden and Billie used to live. Had she made it there and back in such a short time? It had been Sylvia’s habit, since the first day she came, to always pull the prettiest flowers and sniff them. Again I looked around, wondering what to do next. The rose I now had in my hand was warm, the tiny blossoms crushed, as if held too tightly in a small hand. I stared up at the sky. It was cloudy and looked like rain. I could see Whitefern, though it was a good distance away … but where the devil was Sylvia? Home, of course. That had to be the answer. All the time I’d skipped along the trail to the river, thinking Sylvia was directly behind me, she must have headed for the cottage, thinking that was our destination. She’d pulled the roses, changed her mind and headed home. She did have an animal’s instinct about storms.
Yet I didn’t want to leave her if she was still in the woods. All these years I’d waited for Sylvia to do something independent of me except steal Billie’s red cart … and she had to choose this day to wander off alone. Maybe Sylvia had even gone down to the river to find me, and when she reached there, I’d been in the woods staring at that raintree.
A chill wind whipped up to beat the branches of the trees so that they fanned and struck at my face. The sun became a sly fugitive, racing to escape the wind, ducking behind the dark clouds that came rushing over the tree-tops like black pirate ships. I looked for Vera on the lawn, hoping she could tell me if she’d seen Sylvia. Vera wasn’t there. I again raced for home. Sylvia had to be there.
Inside the door in the nick of time,
I heard the first terrible clap of thunder sound directly overhead. Lightning sizzled and struck something down by the river. The rain beating at the windows seemed likely to break them. It was always dim in our house but for the brief moments when the sun could shine through the stained-glass windows. Without the sun it was almost dark. I thought about finding matches, lighting a kerosene lamp. Then I heard a cry. Shrill! Loud! Terrifying!
Something clattered down the stairs. I cried out and ran forward to catch whatever it was. I collided with a chair that was out of place—and both Billie and I were always careful to put every chair in the same dents it made in the soft rugs.
“Sylvia … is that you?” I called in distress. “Have you fallen?” Or had Vera done it again, and we’d have to wait for another bone to heal before she left?
Near the newel post I stumbled over something soft. I fell to my knees and began to crawl around in the dark, feeling with my hands for whatever had made me fall. My right hand slid on something wet, warm and sticky. At first I thought it was water from one of the fern pots, but the odor … the thickness of it … blood. It had to be blood. More gingerly I reached with my left hand. Hair. Long, thick, curling hair. Strong hair that I knew from the feel was dark blue-black.
“Billie … oh, Billie. Please, Billie …”
Far away in the high cupola the wind chimes tinkled. Pure crystalline notes that shivered down my spine.
Gathering Billie’s shortened body in my arms, I cried and rocked back and forth, comforting her as I would Sylvia. Even as I did, silly thoughts flitted in and out of my brain. How did the wind get in the house? Who had opened one of the high windows in the cupola that nobody but me ever visited?
Over and over again, the same ringing notes. Easing Billie’s dead weight to the floor, I crawled to where an oil lamp should have been and felt in a table drawer for matches. Soon the beaded shade allowed a soft mellow glow to brighten our foyer.
I didn’t want to turn and see her lying dead. I should call a doctor, an ambulance, do something just in case she was still alive. I shouldn’t believe she was already dead.
Aunt Ellsbeth, Billie, Aunt Ellsbeth, Billie… confused, time repeating itself …
With great difficulty, I managed to stand. Leadenly I approached the still figure of Billie on the floor, her eyes staring up at the embellished ceiling, just as my aunt’s eyes had stared.
I hovered above Billie. Too late for a doctor to save her, her glazed eyes told me that. I panicked then, felt weak and faint, though I wanted to scream. On and on in the flickering, struggling gaslight I stared down at the beautiful doll without legs, lying at the bottom of the stairs. Six feet away was the little red cart she must have been riding before she misjudged her positioning, or maybe she’d been coming down the steps with the cart in tow … to turn on the lamps?
Time was trapping me in déjà vu … Aunt Ellsbeth … Billie, over and over again the two women changed places. My hands rose to feel my face, which felt numb. Tears slipped between my fingers. That was no princess doll on the floor, wearing bright blue with no legs, no feet and no shoes. This was a human being with black mascara smearing her cheeks with tears only recently shed. Who had made Billie cry when Papa was gone? What had smeared Billie’s scarlet lipstick when Papa was gone?
Frozen in shock, I was brought back to myself by a familiar sound, the metal roll of small ball-bearing wheels on the hard marble floor. Ready to scream, I spun around to see Sylvia shoveling along on Billie’s cart, which had splintered but was still usable. “Sylvia … what did you do? Did you push Billie down the stairs? Did you have to have that cart so much you would hurt Billie? Sylvia, what have you done?”
In the same old way, as if I hadn’t spent a good portion of my life trying to teach her how to hold her head high, Sylvia’s head lolled on a rubbery neck, rolled from side to side as her eyes went unfocused and her lips gaped. She grunted, quivered, tried to speak, but in the end nothing came out that could be understood. She seemed just as stupid as when she’d come home for the first time.
Immediately guilty and feeling ashamed, I hurried to take her into my arms. She shrank away. Her vacant eyes appeared huge in her pale and frightened face.
“Sylvia, forgive me, I’m sorry, sorry … even if you didn’t like Billie, you wouldn’t hurt her, would you? You didn’t push her down the stairs … I know you wouldn’t do that.”
“What’s going on here?” Vera called from the top of the stairs. A lilac towel was wrapped about her naked body, another swathed about her wet hair. She held her hands away from her as if she’d just finished a manicure and didn’t want to smear the wet polish. “I thought I heard someone scream. Who screamed?”
With teary eyes I stared up at her and then pointed down at the floor. “Billie fell,” I said weakly.
“Fell…?” said Vera, coming slowly down the stairs, holding onto the bannister. Reaching the bottom step, she leaned to peer into Billie’s face. I wanted to shield Billie from that kind of cruel curiosity. “Oh …” sighed Vera. “She’s dead. I know the look, seen it a hundred times. First time I saw it, I could have screamed myself. Now sometimes I think some are better off dead. When I was in the tub, I could swear I heard Sylvia screaming, too.”
My breath caught. I looked at Sylvia, who was again riding on Billie’s little red cart. With a rapt look of intense enjoyment, as if knowing that the cart was hers forever now, she rolled happily along, softly singing the playroom song to herself. I felt almost sick. “What else did you hear, Vera?”
“Billie, shouting something at Sylvia. I thought she was telling Sylvia to leave her cart alone, but, as you know, Sylvia can’t seem to leave it alone. She wanted it—now she has it.”
When I looked again, Sylvia had disappeared. I ran to search the house and find her, as Vera called Papa’s office.
What had Sylvia done?
Breaking Through
Sylvia was nowhere to be found. Hysterical, I ran outside in the rain, searching for her. “You come out! Don’t try to hide! Sylvia, why did you do it? Did you shove Aunt Ellsbeth, too? Oh, Sylvia … I don’t want them to put you away, I don’t …”
I tripped and fell to the ground and just lay there crying, not caring anymore. No matter what I did, or how hard I tried, everything went wrong. What was wrong with me, with Whitefern, with Papa, with all of us? It was useless to try to find happiness. Whenever I had it just within my grasp, it slipped from my hand and shattered.
It just wasn’t fair what had happened to my mother, to my aunt, and now to Billie. I beat at the ground and screamed at God for being unmerciful. “Stop doing this to me!” I yelled. “You killed the First Audrina—are you trying to kill me, too, by killing all those I love?”
A small touch on my arm brought me back to myself. Through my tears I turned to see Sylvia above me, pleading with eyes that had focused again. “Aud … dreeen … naaa,” she said in her slow way.
I sat up and with relief pulled her into my arms. On the wet grass she slumped against me. “It’s all right,” I crooned, “I know you didn’t mean to hurt Billie.”
Gently I rocked her back and forth, thinking, despite myself, of her dislike for Billie and how she coveted that red cart. Several times she’d shone the colors the prisms made into my own eyes. An accident? Deliberately? Of course, whatever Sylvia had done, it had to be done without intent to kill. She’d shoved Billie off the cart, and when she had, both Billie and the cart had clattered down the stairs.
But not deliberately planned—for Sylvia couldn’t think ahead.
Sylvia started to speak, but speech didn’t come easily to her. As she struggled to say the right words, with the rain soaking us both to the skin, Arden came running to me.
“Audrina, Vera called. What’s wrong? What are the two of you doing out here in the rain?”
How could I tell him? Thank God Vera hadn’t made the effort. Death seemed as nothing to her, an everyday occurrence that made her only curious, not sad.
&nb
sp; “Let’s go inside, darling,” I said as he helped me to stand. Holding fast to Sylvia’s hand, I guided him to the side door and into the hall that led to the dining room. I stood and allowed him to dry my hair with a towel taken from the powder room behind him. I saw my pale reflection in the mirror.
“It’s your mother, Arden,” I said falteringly.
“What about my mother?” Immediately he was alarmed. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. “Audrina, what’s wrong?”
“Sylvia and I went down to the river … or at least I thought Sylvia was behind me …” I floundered, and then I had to let it gush out. “When I went back the storm had started. The front hall was dark. Something came crashing down the stairs. I stumbled on whatever it was. Then, Arden … it was … it was … Billie. She fell down the stairs. The cart came with her. Arden … it’s just like what happened to Aunt Ellsbeth …”
“But, but—” he said, dropping the towel and searching my eyes. “Your aunt died … Audrina … Mom … she’s not … not dead?”
My arms went around him as I pressed my cheek against his. “I’m so sorry, Arden, so sorry to tell you. She’s gone, Arden. She fell all the way to the bottom. I think she broke her neck just as my aunt did …”
His face crumpled. His eyes went void with pain he didn’t want me to see, then he pressed his face into my hair and cried.
Just then a loud roar jolted us both. Papa’s voice screamed at Vera, “What are you saying? Billie can’t be dead!” His heavy steps came running down the hall. “Billie can’t have fallen down the stairs! Things like that don’t happen twice.”