My Sweet Audrina

  The thick carpeting down the halls, meant to soundproof and give privacy, made it very difficult for Sylvia to shove me along. The little wheels dug deeply into the pile and resisted. No wonder Billie had asked Papa to have the carpet taken up when she used the corridors. But now it was back to hinder my escape. Where could Sylvia put me?

  Tediously Sylvia shoved, panting and heaving and talking gibberish. She stopped to rest often, to take her prisms from the huge pockets of her loose, shiftlike garment.

  “Aud … dreeen … na. Sweet Aud … dreen … na.”

  Weakly I turned my head. I moved spastically. I managed to look over my shoulder to see Sylvia’s rapt expression of pleasure. She was helping me, and happy to be of use. Her eyes were glowing with joy. To see her like that flooded me with strength enough to manage a few more halting words. “You … said … my name … just … right.”

  “Aud … dreeen … na.” She beamed at me and wanted to stop and play, or talk.

  “Hide me …” I managed to whisper before I half fainted.

  Everything began to move in on me then. The walls came closer, then receded. Bric-a-brac on the hall tables moved, figurines loomed up hugely. The swirling patterns on the rug snaked around me, trying to choke me as I fought off the blackness that wanted to claim me again. I had to stay awake and in control or I would fall off the cart. Hours and hours of Sylvia crawling behind and pushing. Where was she taking me?

  Suddenly the front stairs were just ahead. Nooo! I wanted to yell, but I was mute with terror. Sylvia was going to shove me down the stairs!

  “Aud … dreeen … ah,” she said. “Sweeeet Aud … dreen … ah.”

  Gently and slowly, the cart curved away from the stairs and headed toward the western wing where the First Audrina’s room was.

  In and out of consciousness I flitted, feeling pains stabbing from time to time. I began to silently pray. Downstairs I heard the front door slam.

  Speeding up just a fraction, Sylvia made the turn into the playroom.

  No, no, no, was all I could think as Sylvia shoved me into the room where all my nightmares had begun. The high bed loomed ahead. Straight under it Sylvia pushed me as I released my hold on my pulled-up knees and fell backward to avoid being knocked out, and just in the nick of time, too. The old-fashioned coil springs, coated with years of layered dust, met my stare. Sylvia peeked under the dust ruffle and then let it drop.

  Sylvia’s slow steps faded away. I was alone under the bed with the dust—and a huge spider was spinning a dainty web from one coil to another. It had eyes as black as Vera’s. Seeming aware of my presence, it paused in its chore, looked me over, then went on to complete its half-finished design.

  Closing my eyes, I gave in to whatever fate had in store. I tried to relax and not worry about Sylvia, who might forget where she’d hidden me. Who would ever think to look for me under the bed in this room no one used anymore?

  Then I heard Vera screaming. “Sylvia! Where is Audrina? Where is she?” There was a crash, as if something had fallen, then another cry, closer this time. “I’ll catch you, Sylvia, and when I do you’ll regret throwing that vase at me! You idiot, what have you done with her? When I catch you I’m going to rip the hair from your scalp!” I heard doors opening and closing as the race to catch Sylvia went on. I didn’t even know Sylvia could run. Or was it Vera running as fast as she could to check every room before Arden and Papa came home?

  She was searching in such a hurry that it didn’t seem she could be doing a thorough job. There were so many rooms, so many closets and antechambers.

  Then I heard her enter the playroom.

  The dust ruffle cleared the rug about half an inch. Painfully, I turned my head, unable to resist, and I saw her navy blue shoes come closer. One had a very thick sole. She was approaching the bed.

  The rocking chair began to make those familiar squeaking noises. “Get out of that chair!” snapped Vera, forgetting to look under the bed as she hurried to haul Sylvia away. Vera yelled as Sylvia scampered out of the room. She started to give limping chase.

  Just barely I could see her shoes receding. I think I fainted then. I don’t know how long it was before I heard footfalls, and once more Sylvia was peeking under the dust ruffle.

  Again Sylvia was tugging on my arm. I tried to help, but this time I was in too much agony. Still, somehow she managed, and later I came back into fading daylight to find myself seated in the calla-lily rocking chair. Sylvia lifted each of my arms so I could grip the chair arms. I screamed. I didn’t want to die! Not here, in her chair!

  Sylvia closed the door behind her.

  I began to rock. Had to rock now to escape the pain and horror of what was happening.

  Easily my full pitcher of woes emptied to hold more. I had no resistance to protest anything that happened. I saw again Vera as she’d been in her early teens, and she was teasing me about not knowing what men and women did to make babies—but you’ll find out one day soon, she whispered.

  The rainy day in the woods came again. The boys chased and caught me as always in visions I was the First Audrina, and she made me suffer her shame. It was Arden this time who ripped off my clothes that were her clothes, and Arden who fell on her who was me, and was the first to ravish. I screamed, then screamed again, over and over.

  “Audrina,” came my father’s voice from a far, far distance, just when I’d called for him. This time not God, but Papa heard my cries … and in the nick of time.

  “Oh, dear God in heaven, my sweet Audrina has pulled out of her coma! She’s screaming! She’s going to recover!”

  Feeling like they weighed tons, my lids parted enough for me to see Papa running to me. A few steps behind him was Arden. But I didn’t want to see Arden.

  “My darling, my darling,” sobbed Papa as he took me into his strong arms and held me. “Arden, call an ambulance.”

  I gasped as I shoved off Arden’s hands that tried to take me from Papa. “The dream, Papa, the First Audrina …” My voice came raspy from disuse, funny sounding.

  He sighed and held me closer, though I was fading away. I saw Arden run off, presumably to call the ambulance.

  “Yes, my darling, but that was a long time ago, and you’re going to be just fine. Papa will take care of you. And the rest of my life I’ll go down on my knees and give thanks for God sparing you, just when I thought there was no more hope.”

  I don’t remember what happened after that. But when I woke up I was in a hospital room with pink walls, and red and pink roses were everywhere. Papa was sitting in a chair near the window. “Let me talk to her,” he said to the nurse, who nodded and told him not to take too long. “Mr. Lowe wants time to see his wife, too.”

  Sitting on the bed, Papa tenderly took me into his embrace and held me so I heard his heart thudding. “You’ve had a trying ordeal, Audrina. There were times when neither Arden nor I thought you’d pull through—and that was long before today. Today was a special kind of hell for both of us. We paced outside while the doctor worked on you—and now it appears you’ll be all right.”

  But there was something I wanted to know, had to know. “Papa, you’ve got to tell me the truth this time…” My throat hurt when I spoke, but I made myself talk. “Was Arden there when your First Audrina died? I saw his face in my dreams. He was there, wasn’t he? The First Audrina tried to warn me against him, and I paid no heed, no heed.”

  He hesitated and looked toward the door that Arden had opened. He stood there looking as distraught as I’d ever seen him, except when he was a boy in the woods who had no courage whatsoever.

  “Go on, Damian,” said Arden, “tell her the truth. Tell her, yes, I was there, and I ran! Just as I’m going to leave now, for I see by your eyes that you hate me. But I’ll be back, Audrina.”

  In the torturous days that followed, I refused to allow Arden into my room. He came with flowers, with candy, with pretty nightgowns and bed jackets, but I sent them all back to him.

  “Tell him to giv
e them to Vera,” I said to Papa, who looked solemn as he saw the tears roll down my cheeks.

  “You’re being very hard on him, although I can understand why. But you must hold on there, girl,” ordered Papa when I wanted to sleep. “Since the night of your fall, Arden and I have been through hell. I admit I never wanted you to marry Arden Lowe, yet you did, and his mother made me understand something I hadn’t understood before. And both you and I owe his mother a great deal. And if you owe her, you owe her son even more. Give Arden a chance, Audrina. He loves you … let him come in … please.”

  I stared at him disbelievingly. Papa didn’t know that Arden had been planning to kill me and run off with Vera.

  A gray-haired nurse opened my hospital door and stuck her head inside. “Time to go, Mr. Adare. I’m sure Mrs. Lowe will want to have a few minutes to spend with her husband.”

  “No!” I said firmly. “Tell him to go away.”

  I couldn’t see Arden yet. He’d been unfaithful with Vera. And he’d failed my dead sister when he might have saved her … and there was something else I had to figure out. Something elusive that kept evading me even as it whispered that I still didn’t know the whole truth about the First Audrina.

  Days came and days went. I grew stronger as I was fed vitamins and high-protein food. Papa came to visit twice a day. I still refused to see Arden.

  I was given physical therapy treatments to strengthen my legs and arms, and lessons on how to control all the muscles that had been so long unused. I was taught to walk again. In the three weeks I was in the hospital, not once did I allow Arden into my room. Then Papa came to take me home. Sylvia sat beside me.

  “Arden wanted to come with us,” said Papa as he turned off the main highway. “Really, Audrina, you can’t put him off forever. You’ve got to talk this out with him.”

  “Where’s Vera, Papa?”

  He snorted in disgust. “Vera fell and broke her arm,” he said indifferently. “Egg-shell bones if ever I heard of any. Lord, the hospital bills I’ve paid to keep her whole.”

  “I want her gone from our house.” My voice was hard. What happened between me and Arden depended on what happened between Vera and Arden.

  “She’ll leave the day the cast comes off.” His voice was as hard and determined as mine. “I think Sylvia made her trip. Sylvia’s got a real hatred going for Vera.” He shot me a shrewd glance. “You really can’t blame Arden for what he did with her. Many a morning at breakfast, even before Vera came back, I noticed how unhappy he seemed. He’d smile when you were looking his way, but when you turned your head I could tell his nights with you left much to be desired—and it pleased me. I confess that.”

  It pleased me, too, that I’d made him unhappy. I hoped Arden never lived long enough to have another happy hour. Ugly thoughts welled up out of me as we approached that tall, splendid and restored house. Whitefern. What a laugh to have been so proud that my ancestry was dated back to those who’d come ashore to settle in The Lost Colony.

  With Papa supporting me on one side and Sylvia on the other, we slowly ascended the porch steps. Arden threw open the front door and came rushing out. He tried to kiss me. I jerked away. He then tried to take my hand. I snatched my hand from his and spat, “Don’t touch me! Go to Vera and find your solace—as you found it while I was in that coma.”

  Pale and miserable looking, Arden stepped back and allowed Papa to guide me inside. Once we were inside, I fell onto the purple velvet lounge, now with its golden tassels and cording bright and new and all its stuffing covered over.

  Now came the moment I’d dreaded, when I was left alone with Arden. Wearily I closed my eyes and tried to pretend he wasn’t there.

  “Are you going to lie there with your eyes closed and say nothing? Won’t you even look at me?” Then his voice grew louder. “What the hell do you think I’m made of? You were in a coma and Vera was there, willing to do what she could to help me survive. You lay on that bed stiff and cold—and how was I to know that day by day you were gradually getting better when you never indicated in any way that you were?”

  He got up to pace the room, never striding its full length but stalking back and forth the length of the chaise I lay on. With some difficulty I rose to my feet.

  “I’m going upstairs. Please don’t follow me. I don’t need you anymore, Arden. I know you and Vera planned to kill me. I used to have such faith in you, such trust that I’d found the one man in this hateful world who would always be there when I needed him. But you failed me. You wanted me dead so you could have her!”

  His face turned white and he was so shocked that his voice ran away and left him speechless, when he’d learned to be as garrulous as Papa. I used that opportunity to head for the stairs. In another moment he rushed to stop me, catching me easily since I moved so slowly.

  “What’s ahead for us now that you hate me?” he asked hoarsely. Without answering I passed on by the room we’d shared, though when I looked in there I saw my regular large bed was back, and the narrow one had been carted away. Everything had been refurbished, so there was nothing left to remind me of all those dreadful days when I’d lain there unmoving and waiting to die.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  What right did he have to ask me anything? He didn’t belong in my life now. Let him have Vera. They deserved each other.

  Painfully, but gaining strength with each step I took, I headed for other stairs that soon took me into the attic. Arden started to follow. I whirled around and flared at him in a hot burst of temper.

  “No! Let me do something I’ve been trying to do most of my life! When I lay on that bed and heard you and Vera plotting to end my life, do you know what bothered me most? Well, I’m going to tell you. There’s a secret about me that I’ve got to find out. It’s more important than you, than anything else. So leave me alone and let me finish something that should have been finished a long time ago. And maybe when I see you again, I can bear to look at your face … for right now, I don’t think I ever want to see you again.”

  He drew back and stared at me bleakly, making my heart ache as I saw him again as a boy, when I’d loved him so much. I thought of Billie, who’d told me once everybody made mistakes, and even her son wasn’t perfect. Still, I headed for the attic, for the spiraling iron stairs that would take me into the cupola where even now I could hear the wind chimes tinkling, tinkling, trying as they’d always tried to fill the empty holes in my memory bank.

  The Secret of the Wind Chimes

  Laboriously I managed to climb the iron stairs that had led me away from Vera so many times. The sun was shining brightly through all the stained-glass windows, and on the patterned Turkey rug they threw myriad confusing patterns, turning this room as the sunlight did into a living kaleidoscope. And I was the center of all the colors, making everything happen, as the colors caught in my chameleon-colored hair and made it a rainbow, too. My arms were tattooed with light, and in my eyes I felt the colors that patterned my face as well. I looked around at the scenes my childish eyes had loved so well and saw high above the long slender rectangles of painted glass suspended on their faded scarlet silken cords.

  I looked around, trembling as I did, expecting childhood memories to rise up like specters and scare me off, but only soft memories came, of me all alone, wishing, always wishing to go to school, to have playmates, to be allowed the freedom other children my age had.

  Had I made so much effort to gain no new knowledge? “What is it?” I screamed at the wind chimes high above. “Always I hear you blowing and trying to tell me something—tell me now that I’m here and willing to listen! I wasn’t willing before, I know that now! Tell me now!”

  “Audrina,” Papa’s voice came from behind me, “you sound hysterical. That’s not good for you in your weakened condition.”

  “Did Arden send you up here?” I yelled. “Am I never to know anything? Must I go into my grave with my mind full of holes? Papa—tell me the secret of this room!”

/>   He didn’t want to tell me. His dark, fugitive eyes quickly dodged away, and he started talking about how weak I was, how I needed to lie down and rest. I ran to him to batter his chest. Easily he caught both my fists and held them in one hand as broodingly he stared down into my eyes.

  “All right. Perhaps the time has come. Ask me what you will.”

  “Tell me, Papa, everything I need to know. I feel like I’m losing my mind by not knowing.”

  “Okay,” he said, looking around for something to sit on, but there was nothing but the floor. He sat down and leaned back against a window frame and managed to pull me down with him. Holding me in his arms, he began to speak in a heavy voice.

  “This is not going to be easy to say, nor is it going to be pleasant for you to hear, but you’re right. You do need to know. Your aunt told me from the beginning you should know the truth about your older sister.”

  With bated breath I waited.

  “The vision you had when first you went into the rocking chair, where the boys jumped out of the bushes—I’m sure now you realize that those three boys raped my Audrina. But she didn’t die as I told you.”

  “She’s not dead? Papa … where is she?”

  “Listen and hear, and don’t ask more questions until I’m finished. I told all those lies only to protect you from knowing about the ugliness that could have spoiled your life. That day when Audrina was nine, after the rape, she staggered home clutching the remnants of her clothes together, trying to hide her nudity. They had humiliated her so, she had no pride left. Muddy, soaking wet, bruised and scratched and bleeding, she was filled with shame, and in the house twenty children were waiting for the birthday party to begin. She came in the back door and tried to steal upstairs without anyone seeing her, but your mother was in the kitchen, saw Audrina’s shocking state and raced to follow her up the stairs. Audrina was able to say only one word, and that was ‘boys.’ That was enough for your mother to realize what had happened. So your mother took her in her arms and told her it would be all right, that those awful things did happen sometimes, but she was still the same wonderful girl we both loved. ‘Your papa doesn’t have to know,’ she told Audrina … and what a mistake that was. Those words clearly told Audrina that I would be ashamed of her, and that what those boys had done had ruined her value for me. She started screaming that she wished the boys had killed her and left her dead under the golden raintree, for she deserved to die now that God had deserted her and failed her when she had prayed for Him to help.”