If There Be Thorns

  Madame Marisha visited today and brought with her all the nightmares that haunt my days. I have other nightmares for sleeping. When she was gone I felt panic throbbing so loud my heart sounded like a jungle drum beating out the rhythm of the last battle. I wanted to run and hide as we used to hide when we were locked away in Foxworth Hall. I ran to Chris when he came home, and clung, clung, unable to tell him anything. He didn't notice my desperation. He was tired from a long exhausting day.

  Then he kissed me, and was off for his evening rounds, and I sat alone in my room, both of my sons silent and locked behind their bedroom doors. Do they know that soon our world is coming to an end?

  Should I have let Madame take Jory and keep him safe from the scandal and humiliation? Was I selfish to want to hold fast to him? And Bart, what about Bart? And what would happen to Cindy if our secret were revealed?

  Suddenly I felt I was back in Charlottesville, with Chris and Carrie, and again we were on our way to Sarasota. My memory seemed like a movie as that huge black woman struggled to board the slow bus with all her bags and bundles. Henrietta Beech. Dear, dear Henny. It's been so long since I last thought of her. Just to remember her broad beaming smile, her kind eyes, her gentle hands and a certain peace steals over me, like she is taking me again to Paul, who would save us all.

  But who will save us now?

  Tears were in my eyes when I put her journal away. I stole into Bart's room and found him sitting on the floor, in the dark, hunched over like an old man. "Bart, go to bed," I said. But he didn't get up. He seemed not to hear me.

  The Gates of Hell

  . Knew it, just knew it. Jory had to spy and check up on what deviltry I was up to. Pretended not to notice. Soon as his room was dark, I pulled out the last pages of Momma's story. Knew it was the end for she'd written her initials and address near the bottom of the page.

  Didn't know why I was crying. Malcolm wouldn't feel pity for her and my daddy. Now I'd have to grow tough, mean, pretend nothing could hurt me nearly as much as it hurt others.

  Morning came and I went into the kitchen where Momma was helping Emma do little

  housekeeping chores, making cookie dough, talking about cakes. The woman thought evil could go on unnoticed forever. Unpunished forever. She should know better.

  I sat in my corner, hunched over on the floor, my knees pulled up under my chin, my shins wrapped with my arms. Bony arms. Getting skinnier by the day. I stared at Momma, at Daddy, hoping to look into their minds and find out what they really thought of me, of themselves and what they were doing. I closed my eyes. Behind my lids I saw Momma dancing like she used to before she hurt her knee. Last summer, not so long after I came home from the hospital and I had trouble falling asleep, I'd stumbled into the kitchen to rob the fridge while nobody could see. I wanted them all to worry and think about me starving to death. But before I could gobble down all the cold chicken legs, Momma had danced into the family room wearing a little white tutu with hardly any top, and Daddy had trailed along behind. He didn't even see me. Couldn't see anybody but her.

  She'd looked pretty in that costume, whirling around, always smiling and flirting with the man who stood in the shadows watching her. She teased him by tugging at his tie, pulling him out into the center of the room, forcing him to turn around and around, and trying to make him dance that ballet stuff. But he'd grabbed her in his arms and pressed his lips down on hers. I'd heard the sound, wet and mushy. Then her arms tightened around his neck. I stared to see him unhooking all those little dark things that held her tutu on! It slipped and fell to the floor at her feet, and she was wearing nothing but white leotards that he soon tugged off. Naked. He made her naked. Next he lifted her in his arms, and while her lips were still pressed to his, he carried her off to their room--and all the time he'd been her brother.

  Oh, no wonder John Amos said they had to be punished. No wonder. Whore! Bitch! Sinners with my own blood! They wouldn't get away with this. They'd have to burn, burn--burn like my daddy, like my real daddy named Bartholomew Winslow.

  I read all her story. I know how ugly and mean some mothers could be. Hiding her four children, making them stay upstairs in one room, forcing them to play in a hot miserable attic that was freezing in the winters. All those years locked up, whipped too, and starved-- and tar in my mother's beautiful golden hair. I hated Malcolm, who'd done so many wicked things to his own grandchildren. I hated that old lady next door who put arsenic on their sugared doughnuts. What kind of crazy nut was she? Had she put poison on my ice cream, my cake and cookies too? I shivered and felt queasy in my stomach. Why hadn't the police locked her up until they dragged her to the electric chair to burn, burn?

  No, whispered a sly voice in my head, they don't let pretty ladies die in electric chairs when clever lawyers can call killers insane. They were locked in pretty palaces tucked away in green hills. That crazy woman was the same one my daddy had to visit each summer. The mother of my momma too. Oh, the sins of my momma and daddy piled clear up to the sky. Certainly God was gonna punish them now--and if he didn't, Malcolm would see that I did.

  Went to bed that night and tried to sleep. But I kept thinking. Daddy was really Momma's brother-- and that made him really my uncle, and Jory's uncle. Oh, Momma, you are not the saint or angel Jory thinks you are. You tell him not to do this, and not to do that with Melodie, and all the time you keep going into the bedroom with your brother and closing the door. Telling us never to enter when that door was shut without knocking first. Shame, shame! Privacy, always needing privacy to do what brother and sister should never do. Incest!

  Wicked, both of them, just as wicked as I was sometimes. Just as wicked as Jory wanted to be with Melodie, with other girls--doing all the shameful things Eve did with Adam after she bit into the apple. Doing those horrible things the boys whispered about in the restrooms. Didn't want to live with them no more. Didn't want to love Momma or her brother.

  Jory knew too. I knew Jory knew too --he was gonna go crazy like Momma thought I was. But I was finally gaining sense, good sense, like Malcolm's. The children of incestuous parents deserved to suffer as I was being made to suffer, as Jory was suffering. Cindy had to suffer too, even if she was too young and dumb to know big words like "incest."

  Yet, yet, why did I keep praying for God not to let tomorrow come? What was I gonna do tomorrow? Why did I want to die tonight, and save myself from doing even worse than "incest"?

  Another breakfast to eat. Hated food that tasted nasty. Stared down at the tablecloth that would soon be soiled when I accidently knocked something over. Jory looked as lost as I felt.

  Days came, days went, and nobody was happy. Dad walked about looking sick. I guessed he knew we knew, and Momma knew too. Now neither one of them could meet our eyes or answer Jory's questions. I never asked any. I heard Momma one day rapping on Jory's locked bedroom door. "Jory, please let me in. I know you overheard when Madame M. was here--let me try to explain how it was. When you understand you won't hate us."

  Yes he would. I'd read that damn book. Wasn't fair for life to cheat us by not giving us honorable parents.

  Thanksgiving Day, and ole hateful ugly Madame M. showed up when she should never have had the nerve to accept any invitation. Momma shouldn't have given her one. I thought she was gloating when she watched Dad carve the turkey and not once did he smile, and then she was looking at Momma, whose eyes were red and swollen. Crying, she'd been crying. Served her right. Didn't like turkey anyway, wasn't nearly as good as chicken. Daddy asked me what meat I liked, dark or white. I scowled, not answering, thinking his voice was so husky he must have a cold, but he didn't cough or sneeze, and his eyes didn't look weak like mine when I had a cold. And Daddy was never sick.

  Only Emma was happy, and Cindy, hateful Cindy.

  "Come, come," said Emma with a big cheerful smile that wouldn't do any good, "it's time for rejoicing!--for giving thanks for our many blessings, including having a new daughter to sit at our table."

  Revol
ting to hear that.

  Silently Dad picked up his carving knife and fork again, no smiles, and even I stared at him for forgetting to give me the thigh. I looked at Momma, who seemed upset though I could tell she was trying to pretend everything was still all right. She ate a bite or two of her meal, then jumped up and ran from the dining room. Down the back hall I heard her bedroom door slam. Daddy excused himself, saying he had to go and check on her.

  "Good Lord, what's wrong with everybody?" asked Emma while ole Madame Marisha sat on silently, looking glum too. She was part of it all. I glared at her, hating her, hating my own grandmother even more-- hating everybody and Cindy too, and all the time thinking maybe Emma had done some evil too by keeping her mouth shut and letting all this sinning go on under her long nose. Jory tried to laugh and smile, teasing Cindy to make her laugh and eat. But I knew he was bleeding deep down in his heart, just as I was bleeding, crying for my real daddy who died in that fire. And maybe Jory was crying for his real daddy, whom Momma hadn't loved nearly enough because all the time she had a brother who loved her too much.

  I wished I hadn't found out. Why did Momma have to go and write that book? I wouldn't really have believed anything John Amos told me about her, for I'd thought he was a liar, a pretender, like me. Now I knew he was the only truthful person in the whole world, the only one who respected me enough to tell the truth.

  Sobbing, I got up and left the table, glancing at Cindy, who was sitting on Jory's lap and laughing as she played with some little toy he'd given her. Never gave me anything. Nobody but a lying-black-witchgrandmother who didn't count gave me gifts . . . nobody.

  Then, there came a Sunday when Momma didn't seem to feel so "wretched," maybe because she thought Madame M. was gonna leave us alone, and maybe even go back East where she belonged. I knew then Momma could pretend too, like me, like she and Daddy pretended in their marriage game.

  I hid in the shadows near her open bedroom door and watched her go down on her knees in prayer. Silent prayers. Wondered if God ever listened.

  Back in the family room I crouched in my corner and began to light matches one by one, holding the flames so close to my face I could feel the heat. How awful it was gonna be to be purified and redeemed by fire. How awful it had been when my real daddy's soul went up in black smoke. And I was just a tiny thing then, hiding in my momma's womb, called an "embryo" and not Bart, and maybe I'd even been a girl then too, worst of all.

  Wish Daddy wouldn't tell me so much about things I didn't want to understand.

  My head began to ache. Made my hand that held the match shake so much I dropped the match. Quickly I had to snuff it out before someone smelled the carpet burning. They'd blame me, like they always blamed me, not even knowing Jory was outside doing something perhaps just as bad.

  What was it John Amos kept saying? "Your mother made all the bad things happen. Every one of the bad things was her fault--that's the way of women, especially beautiful women. Evil through and through, tricky, sinful beautiful women, out to steal from men."

  Yeah, I thought, my momma, my grandmother, all tricky beautiful sinful women. Telling me lies, hiding from me who she really was, showing me her portrait when she was young and beautiful, seducing my real father when he was too young for her anyway. My head ached more. Darn dratted Momma had done the same thing to my real daddy.

  I sighed, thinking I'd better get on with my own business of being the angel of the Lord, sent to act in Malcolm's stead. After all, I was his great-grandson, and getting almost as smart as him. Acted like Malcolm more and more, making my bones feel tired; making my muscles sore and aching, getting the true feel of being old like Malcolm had been when he was wisest. Though it did get painful to make my heart throb so fast. Disgusted with all women, all. Had to fix them all, everyone. Momma thought I didn't know, thought only Jory knew . . . but I'd been there too when old Madame Marisha shrilled out loud enough for everyone to hear and I'd read her book.

  Head hurt worse. Didn't know who I was anymore. Malcolm? Bart? Yeah, was Malcolm now, bad heart, weak legs, thinning hair, but so damned clever and wise.

  Stupid daughter, hiding her four children on the second floor and thinking I wouldn't find out sooner or later. Fool. She should have known John would tell me everything. She should have known so many things she ignored, or forgot. So, she thinks I'm going to die soon, and I'll never climb the stairs, but why should I when John will do that for me. Spy, I told John, spy on my daughter, see what she does when she's out of my sight. She thinks I'm going to die soon, John, and I'll change my will and write her back in, but I'll have the last laugh. She's not going to inherit all my hard-earned money. Jingle, jingle, jingle, hear the money in my pockets, like music, the best kind of music. Never too old to outsmart all of them, never too old--and I'll win as I always win in the end.

  Shuffling my feet along, I headed for their bedroom which smelled of their evil acts of love. I paused just outside their closed door. Inside I felt like a little boy who was quietly sobbing, but I had to be Malcolm--the stronger, older, wiser part that was me. Where were the blue-misted mountains? This wasn't a great house sitting high on a hillside. Where were the servants, the grand ballroom, the winging staircases?

  Confused, so confused. Head ached worse. Knee began to throb. Back pained, heart was going to have an attack.

  "Straighten up there, Bart," said that man who was really my uncle. Scared me. Made me jump and grow more confused. "You're too young to be hobbling around like an old man, Bart. And your knee is just fine." He gave me a friendly pat on my head and opened the door to his bedroom, where I could see my mother was waiting for him in the bed, her eyes wide open and staring up at the ceiling. Was she crying? Had he just come home from those hateful hospitals with all their germs?

  "I hate you!" I whispered fiercely, trying to stab him with the glare of my eyes. "You think you are safe, don't you? You think a doctor can't be

  punished--but God has sent the black angel of his wrath to see that you and your sister are punished for the evil you have done!"

  He froze on the spot and stared at me as if he'd never seen me before. Defiantly I glared back. He closed the door to his bedroom and led me down the hall so she wouldn't hear. "Bart, you go to visit your grandmother every day, don't you?" His face looked troubled, but he kept his voice soft and kind. "You have to learn not to believe everything you hear. Sometimes people tell lies."

  "Devil's spawn!" I hissed. "Seed planted in the wrong soil to create Devil's issue."

  This time he grasped my arm so tightly it hurt, and he shook me. "Never let me hear you say that again! You are never to mention any of this to your mother. If you do, burn your bottom so hard you may never sit down again. And the next time you see that woman next door, you remind her that it was she who planted all the seeds and started the flowers growing. Watch her face when you speak . . . and then guess who is the evil one."

  I shrank back, didn't want to hear what he had to say. I ran off, bumping into a hall table, upsetting an expensive lamp that toppled to the floor.

  In my room I fell on my bed, shaking all over, panting and gasping for breath. In my chest was that awful throbbing pain that made iron bands tighten about me, squeezing me, wanting to shut off my air.

  Felt like toothpaste being squeezed from the bottom, then I was rolled up tight as a coil. Painfully I rolled over on my back and stared up at the ceiling as I started to cry. Huge fat tears slid off my face to wet my pillow. If I wet the bed for any other reason I'd get spanked for ten years old was too old for such babydoings.

  Did I want to be ten, or eighty? Who was making me be so old? God? Was it those children hiding in the attic, laughing, laughing, making the best out of the worst that was driving me to prove Malcolm was smarter and they'd never get away even after he was put in the ground.

  Momma's gone and left me. Left me for good this time. Momma's gone and left me, Now I don't know how to end what I've begun . .

  Fell asleep and tossed ar
ound. The little boy kept right on crying as the old man hurled him in the trashcan so soon I'd be dumped outside the city limits--fit only for burning.

  For sinners of sinners, those born of incest, they had to be punished too, even me, even me who was dying in the trashcan.

  Rage of the Righteous

  . The rain came down like bullets fired by God. I stood at the back windows and watched the rain batter the faces of those marble statues, punishing them for being naked and sinful. I waited for Jory to come home and look for me.

  Bad. We were both bad from living with parents who weren't supposed to be parents.

  Behind me Momma came in from a shopping spree, all rosy-cheeked and laughing, shaking the rain from her hair, greeting Emma like everything was okay. She dumped her parcels in a chair, took off her coat and said she felt she might be catching a cold.

  "I hate it when it rains, Emma. Hello, Bart--I didn't see you there until now. How've you been? Lonesome for me?"

  Wouldn't answer. Didn't have to talk to her now. Didn't have to be polite, nice, or even clean. Could do anything I wanted. They did. God's rules didn't mean anything to them. Meant nothing now to me either,

  "Bart, it's going to be so nice this Christmas," said Momma, not looking at me but at Cindy, who needed more new clothes. "This will be our first Christmas with Cindy. The best kind of families always have children of both sexes, and in that way boys can learn about girls, and vice versa." She hugged Cindy closer.

  "Cindy, you just don't know how lucky you are to have two wonderful older brothers who will absolutely adore you as you grow up into a real beauty--if they don't adore you already."

  Boy, if she only knew. But like Malcolm had said, beautiful women were dumb. I looked into the kitchen at Emma, who was not beautiful and never could have been. Was she wiser? Did she see through me?