Tears were in my eyes. No First and Best Audrina, only me.
“Go on, Papa,” I whispered, feeling very weak, very strange, riveting my eyes on him as if to pull every speck of the truth from him while I had him.
Telling it was like reliving it, and none of it was pleasant for him, either. “Audrina, I lied and deceived only to spare you suffering. I would have told any lie, done anything to turn you back into that wonderfully self-confident, friendly girl who feared nothing. And if you wonder now about certain incidents you can’t remember, remember you were suicidal, trying to destroy yourself. In my own way, I think I saved not only your life but also your sanity.”
My heart was pounding. Something was going on in my body, but the revelations coming at me like blows kept me asking questions when I should have guessed what was wrong. I had stood at the grave of the First and Best Audrina, and I’d envied her because he’d loved her first, and better than he’d ever love me. I had wanted to be her, just to have known that kind of love. It seemed wild and insane that I had been her all the time, the first, the best … not the second, the worst.
Tears coursed down my cheeks as I crumpled to my knees where Papa could gather me into his arms. As if I were that ruined nine-year-old girl, he rocked me back and forth.
“Don’t cry, my darling, don’t cry. It’s all over and you’re still the same sweet girl you always were. You’re not changed. Nothing dirty can touch some people. You’re that kind.”
Still, up there in the cupola I felt nine years old again, ravished, degraded and not quite human.
Only then did I look toward the opening in the floor to see Vera standing there. Her dark, glittering eyes showed such hatred, such malice that it made her lips quiver. Her strange orange hair seemed alive with electricity as she glared at me. Bits and pieces of the past began to flash behind my eyes.
That look of envy on Vera’s face … the way I’d felt when I thought about the First Audrina. Gladly Vera would see me dead, as I’d been glad the First Audrina was dead. Now I remembered my ninth birthday. I remembered that morning, getting ready for school. I hadn’t finished dressing. Vera and I used the same bathroom to bathe and dress for school. Vera kept glancing at me as I stepped from the tub.
“Wear your prettiest petticoat today, Audrina. The one with that handmade lace and the little shamrocks that you love so much. Wear the matching panties, too.”
“No. I’ll put those things on after I come home. I hate school restrooms. I hate Momma forcing me to wear my best dress to school when all the girls will be jealous and hate me for doing it.”
“Oh, silly, it wasn’t Momma’s idea, it was mine. It’s time the village girls know just what kind of beautiful clothes you have. She thought it was a wonderful idea to show them the Whitefern girls still do wear silk dresses—and everything else.”
On the porch I stood and watched as Vera headed for where the school bus would pick her up. She twisted around and called back, “Enjoy your pedestal for the last time, Audrina. For when you come home you’re going to be just like the rest of us—not so pure anymore.”
I jolted with that memory and stared at Vera with new awareness. No, I tried to convince myself, Vera wouldn’t have set those boys on me … would she? She was the only one who knew which paths I always used. There were many vague meandering paths in our patch of woods that spread for hundreds of acres.
It was those dark eyes that betrayed her, the cunning way she looked me up and down, smirking, laughing at me silently inside, as if she’d get the better of me no matter what I did.
“It was you who set me up, wasn’t it, Vera?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm, my thoughts rational. “You hated me, and envied me so much you wanted Papa to hate me, too. I cried with my head in Momma’s lap, thinking something I’d done had made those ugly boys think I was wicked. I blamed myself for teasing them. I thought I’d done some innocent thing that gave them evil ideas, when I couldn’t remember anything I’d said or done to make them think I wasn’t the nice kind of girl Papa wanted me to stay. It was you who told them which path I took!”
Despite myself my voice was rising, taking on an accusatory tone. I stood, then took several steps closer to her.
“Oh, stop it!” she yelled. “It’s all over and done with, isn’t it? How could I know you’d disobey and use the shortcut? It wasn’t my fault—it was your own!”
“Wait a minute!” bellowed Papa, jumping to his feet and hurrying to my side even as Arden came closer, too. “Many times I’ve overheard whispers in the village drugstore about someone in this house who betrayed my daughter. I thought it was the boy who used to trim our shrubs and mow our lawn. But, of course, it had to be you! He wasn’t of this house, or in this house… we bred a viper in our midst. Who else here would want Audrina harmed more than the unwanted child who didn’t know who her father was!”
Appearing terrified, Vera backed away more.
“May your soul rot in everlasting hell!” roared Papa, stepping forward threateningly as if he’d finish off Vera and she’d never breathe again. “I thought at the time it was too much of a coincidence. On her birthday—but your mother kept saying you were innocent. Now I know. You arranged with those boys to have my Audrina raped!”
Vera put her hand to her throat and tried with her broken arm to feel behind her. There was terror in her large dark eyes so much like Papa’s.
She screamed at him, “I’m your daughter and you know it! Deny it all you want, Damian Adare, but I am like you! I’ll do anything to get what I want—the same as you will. I hate you, Damian, really hate you! I hate that woman who bore me! I’ve hated every day I’ve lived in this hellhole you call Whitefern! You gave my mother a check when she wanted to come to New York and be with me … and it was no good. A damned no-good check to pay for all those years when she was nothing but a slave in this house.”
Papa took another threatening step closer to Vera. “Don’t you say one more word to me, girl, or you’ll regret the day you were born! You’ve been nothing but a burr in my side since the day your mother brought you here. And you were the one who came and volunteered the information that Arden Lowe had been at the scene of my daughter’s rape, and he had done nothing to save her. You laughed when you told me he’d run away. You gloated then, Vera. If you hadn’t reminded me just now, I might have forgotten.” Papa’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
Like a tigress Vera sprang forward to confront Papa, seeming to forget her broken arm, forgetting she was a woman and he was a huge, powerful man who could be merciless when it came to her.
“You!” she spat. “What the hell do I care what you think? You gave me nothing after Audrina was born. You treated me as if I didn’t exist once sweet Audrina came home from the hospital. I was shoved out of the pretty room you’d had fixed up for me, and it was turned into a nursery for her. It was sweet Audrina this, and sweet Audrina that, until I could have vomited. Not one kind word did you ever say to me. The only time you took notice of me was when I was sick or injured. I wanted you to love me, and you refused to love anyone but Audrina …”
She sobbed then and hurried to press her face against Arden’s chest. “Take me away from here, Arden … take me away. I want to feel loved. I’m not bad, I’m not really bad …”
Papa roared then like a bull and charged. Screaming, Vera released Arden, wheeled around and ran for the stairs. But she’d forgotten she wore those shoes with the lift, and never should she have run in those shoes. The built-up sole on her left shoe caused her ankle to turn over. She lost her balance and started to fall… and the opening of the spiraling stairs gaped like a huge square mouth behind her.
Like a doll caught in a time-lapse film, she fell headlong down the spiraling stairs. Her screams ripped the air in short, horrible spurts. First her shoulder struck against one side of the iron balustrade, then she ricocheted to strike the opposite side.
Turning over and over, striking again and again against the hard metal until her
last scream was cut off in mid-air and she thudded to the bottom and just lay there.
In a flash Arden tore down the stairs to her side, kneeling there as Papa, Sylvia and I hurried down, too. She lay there, stunned, her dark eyes unfocused and already beginning to glaze as she stared toward Arden, who held her head on his lap.
“Take me away, Arden,” she croaked in a small whisper. “Take me far from this place where everyone has always hated me. Take me from here, Arden … take me—”
She lapsed into unconsciousness then. Arden eased her head to the floor, and without a glance my way, raced to call an ambulance to rush Vera to the hospital… again.
Hours passed before I heard a faraway door bang shut, telling me Arden was back from the hospital emergency room. I dimmed the gaslamp by my bed and closed my eyes, hoping he’d go away and not bother me with tales of all Vera’s broken bones that would heal. I was afraid to hear his sympathy for her, afraid he’d agreed to take her far from here.
Like a child still afraid of total darkness, without some light I felt defenseless. Yet total darkness was what I wanted when he came to me with his news. Softly my bedroom door opened and closed. Arden’s scent wafted to me.
“I’ve just spent some time with Damian, telling him about Vera … may I talk to you now about her?” he asked, coming to perch on the side of my bed. His tired eyes moved my heart to compassion. Unwanted sympathy tried to steal my determination not to let him dissuade me from what I’d determined to do. What I had to do.
“No need to shrink away,” he said with weary impatience. “I don’t plan to touch you. Vera died about two hours ago. She had too many internal injuries to survive; just about every bone in her body was broken.”
I began to tremble. Some part of me had always strived to reach out to Vera and make her my sister.
“I know what you’re feeling,” said Arden wearily. “Some part of us always seems diminished when someone dies. Vera gifted us with something before she died, Audrina. Three deaths from accidental falls in this house caused the police to raise some eyebrows, and they were there questioning me when Vera whispered she’d tripped and fallen … and it was her own fault.”
I turned on my side, my back toward him, and began to quietly sob. In the darkness I sensed he was starting to undress, with the notion of holding me all night, but quickly I spoke.
“No, Arden. I don’t want you in my bed. Go to another room and sleep until I have time to think this out. If Vera said she was to blame for her fall, she was, wasn’t she? Nobody pushed her… but it was she who pushed me, and as I think about it more and more, and remember the door that closed softly soon after I found my aunt dead … it had to be Vera who pushed her own mother down the stairs and took that blue check from the corkboard where I pinned it. And then there’s Billie, who fell, too. She and Papa might have married, and that would have given Papa another heir to his fortune, for all along she must have planned to do away with me.”
There was no answer from him, except when he closed the door.
Only then did I get up and pull on a robe before I went to check on Sylvia. But she wasn’t in her room. I found her in the playroom that had once been mine. Gently she was rocking to and fro, singing her strange little ditty. I knew that now as I looked around with new insight and recognized the dolls Papa had won at many a carnival from shooting the moving ducks. And all those stuffed, plushy animals, more prizes that he’d won for me.
I stared at Sylvia’s pretty young face, innocently singing like one of the witches from Papa’s tales of his ancestors. Those tales that had once made me shout a witch’s curse to stop boys who weren’t afraid …
Little dolls appeared in Sylvia’s hands, apparently taken from the pockets of her loose garment. Tiny dolls I myself had bought to please her. Neutered dolls of no sex, but somehow they seemed more boyish than girlish.
Arden had come in behind me and stood there watching. Sylvia hung back, staring at us, then slowly shuffled out of the room.
“Sit down,” Arden growled, pulling me into the playroom and shoving me into the rocking chair. He went down on his knees beside me and tried to capture my hand. I sat on them to keep them from him. He sighed and I thought of Billie and all the little hints she’d tried to give me to tell me her son wasn’t perfect. But I’d wanted him perfect.
Perhaps that was in my eyes as I glared at him, and accused him now, outraged and devastated at how he’d failed me when I needed him most. Sadness and guilt shone in his eyes so that I could almost read his thoughts. He’d put up with so much from me to make up for that shameful day. Even now I loved him, even as I scorned his weakness.
“This is the moment I’ve dreaded since that day of your ninth birthday. I was hurrying home, planning to race on to your house and be there for your party. I’d never been inside Whitefern, and it was a big day for me. On the way through the woods to the cottage, three boys hailed me and told me to hang around and enjoy some fun. I didn’t know what they meant. Time, what I had of it, was spent working, and having fun with older boys was something I’d never done. It pleased me that finally I was being invited to be one of them, so I joined them when they told me to crouch down behind the bushes. Then you came skipping along the dirt path, singing to yourself. No one said a word. When they jumped out and ran to catch you, and I heard them yell out all they planned to do to you, it was like a nightmare. My legs and arms went numb … I didn’t know what to do to stop them. I felt sick with fear for you, and weak with hatred for them … and I couldn’t move. Audrina, I forced myself to stand up … and you saw me. You pleaded with me with your eyes, with your screams before they stuffed something into your mouth … and shame for being paralyzed made me even weaker. I knew you’d despise me for doing nothing, as I still despise myself for doing nothing but running for help. That’s why I ran, for I didn’t stand a chance of winning in a fight against them. One to one, I might have had a chance, but three … Audrina, I’m sorry. It’s not enough to say, I know that. Now I wish I’d stayed and tried to defend you—and then you wouldn’t be staring at me now with so much scorn on your face and in your eyes.”
He paused and reached to gather me into his arms, and with his kisses perhaps he thought he could build another fire like he had in the graveyard, and I’d be his again, and forgiving.
“Forgive me for failing you then, Audrina. Forgive me for failing you every time you’ve needed me … give me another chance, and you’ll never need to forgive me for failing to act when I should.”
Forgive him? How could I forgive him when I could never forget? Twice he did nothing to save me from people who wanted me destroyed. I didn’t want to give him a third chance.
The Last Spin of the Web
On a fine sunny day we laid Vera to rest beside Aunt Ellsbeth. Strange that I’d be at this funeral, when I’d missed Aunt Ellsbeth’s and Billie’s. I had loved those other two, yet it was Vera’s coffin that I saw lowered into the ground. As I said goodbye to Vera, I understood her. Maybe in understanding someday I’d forgive her and remember only the moments of love I had for her.
We came home from the funeral, and immediately after I helped Sylvia out of her funeral garb, Papa suggested a game of ball in the yard would help us overcome the depression that seemed to lay on us like a thick blanket of fog, oppressive, gloomy. I had hardly spoken to Arden since the night Vera died, and now, three days later, I made my plans, while Papa sprawled in a chair across from mine and tried as always to discover my innermost secrets.
When Sylvia entered the foyer trailed by Arden her shuffling gait seemed much improved. Fresh air and sunshine were giving her a bit of color, and those lovely aqua eyes scanned to find me before she smiled.
I left before Arden had the chance to appeal to me again, and hurried up the stairs. In my bedroom I sat on my bed, trying to think ahead so I could do the right thing for myself and for Sylvia. Papa came to the door and stood there, pleading for me not to leave him. Could he read my mind?
&n
bsp; “You promised, Audrina, you promised. All your life you’ve sworn you’d stay with me. And what about Sylvia? Are you going to set her back and take from her the one person who’s stood by her?”
“I’m going, Papa,” I said tiredly. “I promised not to leave you when I was a child and didn’t understand what you wanted from me, but I can’t stay. There’s something wrong in this house. Something rules here that keeps everyone from being normal or happy. I want out.”
“Think of Sylvia,” cried Papa. “Though she’s better, she’ll never speak with confidence or fluency. She’ll never be normal enough to perform any difficult mental tasks—how is she going to survive if I die?”
I didn’t plan to leave Sylvia here, but I didn’t want to tell him that. Not yet.
“How will Sylvia survive when you’re gone?” His dark Arab eyes sparkled with what I took for cunning. “And so you did lose the gift, after all. They killed that specialness in you, that ability to love selflessly, the sensitivity that would always call you when someone needed you. You are no longer that special girl with the rare and precious gift.”