If There Be Thorns

  Next morning Jory left with Daddy. Easy to slip away from Emma and Madame Marisha, for they had to fool around with Cindy so much. But it gave me the chance to steal into the mansion next door. I sneaked around to find John Amos. He was packing all the beautiful lamps, paintings and other valuables in boxes. "The silver should be wrapped in tarnish-proof papers," he said to one of the maids, "and be careful with that china and crystal. When the movers show up, have them put in the best furniture first, for I may be busy elsewhere."

  The prettiest maid was young, and she frowned. "Mr. Jackson, why we go? Thought Madame liked it here. She never say we moving."

  "Your mistress is a woman of changing moods

  -it's that nutty boy next door. That little one who keeps coming over here. He's gotten to be a real nuisance. He killed the dog she gave him I suppose none of you know that?"

  I stared in the room and saw the maid's lips part in horror. "No . . . thought the dog went over to boy's home . ."

  "The brat is dangerous! That's why Madame has to move--he's threatened her life more than one time. He's under the care of a psychiatrist."

  They looked from one to the other and made circles above their heads. Mad! Mad as hell at John Amos, telling lies about me.

  Waited until he was alone, sitting at the fancy desk where my grandmother kept her checkbook. He jumped when I came in. "Bart, I wish you wouldn't sneak around like that. Make some noise when you enter, clear your throat, cough. . . do something to announce you are there."

  "I heard what you told the maids. I'm not crazy!"

  "Of course you're not," he said, his S's hissing as always. "But I do have to tell them something, don't I? Otherwise they might become suspicious. As it is, they think your grandmother has gone on a trip to Hawaii . . ."

  I felt sick inside, standing there, toeing in my sneakers, and staring down at them. "John Amos . . . can I give my momma and granny sandwiches to eat today?"

  "No. They can't be hungry already."

  Knew he would say that.

  He forgot me then. He was reading over her bankbooks, her savings accounts, her receipts and giggling to himself. He found a little key and opened a tiny drawer way back behind another door. "Stupid woman, thought I didn't notice where she hid her key . . ."

  I left him having his fun with my granny's things, and I stole down to where my caged mice were. Made me feel better to think of them as only mice.

  My momma was groaning, half crying from the cold as I peeked inside and saw they had the little stub of candle lit. I'd shoved in the candle along with some matches so I could see what they were doing. Momma looked little and white, and still my granny held her head in her lap, and wiped her face with a rag she must have torn from her slip, for it had lace on one ragged edge.

  "Cathy my love, my only daughter left, please listen to me. I have to speak now for I may never have another chance. Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, I allowed my father to torment me until I didn't know right from wrong, or which way to turn. Yes, I put arsenic on your sugared doughnuts thinking each one of you would get only a little sick, then I could slip you out one by one. I didn't want one of you to die. I swear I loved you, all four of you. I carried Cory out to my car where he breathed his last breath just as I laid him on the back seat and covered him with two blankets. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't go to the police, and I was so ashamed, so guilty."

  She shook my mother, while I trembled too.

  "Cathy, my daughter, please wake up and listen," she pleaded. Momma had awakened and seemed to be trying to focus her eyes. "Darling, I don't think Bart killed the dog I gave him. He loved Apple. I think John did that hoping Bart would be blamed and considered crazy and dangerous so the police would put the blame on Bart when you and I disappeared. I think John strangled Jory's little pet poodle too, and killed my kitten as well.

  "Bart is a very lonely, confused little boy, Cathy, but he's not dangerous. He likes to pretend he is, and in that way he can feel like he's going to be a powerful man. But it's John who is dangerous. He hates me. I didn't know until a few years ago that if I hadn't returned to Foxworth Hall after your father died, John would have inherited all the Foxworth fortune. My father trusted John as he trusted no one else, perhaps because they were so much alike. But when I came back, he forgot John. He wrote John out of his will and put me back in as his sole heir. Cathy, are you listening?"

  "Momma, is that you, Momma?" asked my mother in a small voice that sounded like a child in trouble. "Momma, why don't you look at the twins when you come in to see us? Why don't you notice that they don't grow as they should? Are you deliberately not seeing?--just ignoring them so you won't feel guilty and ashamed?"

  "Oh, Cathy!" cried Grandmother, "if only you knew how much it hurts to hear you say those things after all these years. Did I hurt you so deeply you can never heal, you and Chris too? It's no wonder you and your brother--I'm sorry, so sorry I could die." But in a moment or so she pulled herself together and went on with what she called a "desperate urgency."

  "Even if you are delirious and can't fully understand now, I must speak, or I may not live to tell you everything. When John Amos was a young man, about twenty-five, he lusted after me, though I was only ten. He'd hide in corners and spy on me, then hurry to my father and make the worst of innocent deeds on my part. I couldn't tell my parents that John told lies for they never believed me--they believed him. They refused to recognize a young girl is often preyed upon by older men, even older relatives. John was third cousin to my mother, the only member of her family my father could stand. I think my father put it in his head after my older two brothers died, that if ever I fell out of his favor, John would benefit. That was my father's way of extracting the most out of everyone--dangling his sugar plums that would vanish when reached for. John wanted my mother's wealth too. They encouraged him to think he might inherit. They thought him a saint. He wore a pious look all the time, he acted godly, and all the while he was seducing every pretty young maid who ever came into Foxworth Hall. And my parents never suspected. They couldn't see any evil but what their children did. Can you understand now why John hates me? Why he hated my children too? He would have been the beneficiary if I had stayed in Gladstone.

  "One day I heard him in the back hall

  whispering to Bart, your son, that I used my 'feminine wiles' to cajole my father into disinheriting the only man who was his friend, his best confidant."

  Grandmother began to cry then. I shriveled up tight, hurting deep inside from all I was finding out. Malcolm, were you evil too? Who was Ito trust now? Was John Amos just as conniving with his "masculine wiles" as my granny was with her feminine ones? Was everybody just as wicked as my granny and momma? Was God on my side, on her side, or John's?

  "Momma, are you still there, Momma?"

  "Yes, darling, I'm still here. I'll stay and take care of you as I never took care of you before. This time I'll be the mother I should have been before. This time I'll save you and Chris."

  "Who are you?" demanded my mother, bolting up again and shoving my grandmother away. "Oh!" she screamed, "it's you! You weren't satisfied just to kill Cory and Carrie, now you've come back to kill me too. Then you'll have Chris all to yourself, all yours, all yours," she broke then and cried; then she began to scream like she was crazy, shrieking out over and over again how much she hated her mother. "Why don't you die, Corrine Foxworth--why don't you die?"

  Went away. Couldn't stand anymore of that. They were both evil.

  But why was this hurting so much?

  Detective

  . Just as Dad and I had planned, early the next morning Dad drove me off toward school, then he let me out on the road that led to our house. "Now take it easy, Jory. Don't do anything that will endanger your life, and don't let Bart or that butler know what you're up to--they could be dangerous, remember that." He hugged me close, as if afraid I might be foolhardy. "Listen carefully to me now. I'm going to see Bart's psychiatrist this morning so I can
tell him what has happened. Then I'm checking the airports to see if my mother has flown anywhere, though God knows that's not likely. But for both women to disappear in the same day is just too much of a coincidence."

  I had to say it. As much as I dreaded hearing the words come from my own lips, I had to speak. "Dad, have you considered that Bart might have . . . well, you know. Clover was strangled with wire. Apple was starved and then stabbed with a pitchfork. Who knows what he might do next?"

  He patted my shoulder. "Yes, of course I've thought of that. But I can't picture Bart overcoming your mother. She's very strong even if she does have a cold. That's what worries me most, Jory. She had a temperature of one hundred, and fevers do make a person weaker. I should have stayed home to take care of her. A woman is a fool to marry a doctor," he concluded bitterly, as if he'd forgotten I was there. And all the while his motor was purring softly. He bowed his head down on his hands that held the steering wheel.

  "Dad . . . you go on and do what you can to check the airlines. I'll handle everything here." And I added with a big burst of overconfidence, "And remember-- Madame M. is here. And you know how she is. Bart won't pull anything with her around."

  Smiling, as if I'd given him the assurance he needed, he waved goodbye, and drove off, leaving me standing there and wondering just what to do. The fierce rain of yesterday had dwindled to a slow drizzle that was miserable and cold, but not wild.

  Home again, and I was hiding behind the shrubbery all wet and dripping, as Bart sat in the kitchen and refused to eat his breakfast. "Hate everything you cook," he said sullenly. It was surprising to hear his voice coming to me so clearly. Then I smiled, not feeling spooked as I had before. It was the intercom system, left on. Often delivery men came to our back door rather than use the special drive that circled the front. Our breakfast nook wasn't too far from the panel on the wall with dozens of buttons. I remembered when our house was being constructed how Mom had wanted "music in every room--so housework won't seem such a bore." Then came Madame's strident voice. "Bart, what's wrong with your cereal?"

  "Don't like cereal with raisins."

  "Then don't eat the raisins."

  "They get in the way."

  "Nonsense. If you don't eat breakfast, then you

  won't eat lunch either. And if you don't eat lunch, there will be no dinner--and one ten-year-old boy is going to bed very hungry!"

  "You can't starve me to death!" Bart shrieked. "This is my house! You don't belong here! You get out!"

  "I will NOT get out. I am staying until your mother returns safely. And don't you dare raise your voice to me again or I might turn you over my knee and paddle your behind until you scream for mercy!"

  "It won't hurt," he jeered --and it wouldn't. Spankings never bothered Bart who had skin with no surface nerve endings.

  "Thank you for telling me," said Madame with great aplomb. "I will then think of a better punishment -- such as keeping you indoors, locked in your room."

  By this time I was peering in a window. There sat Bart with a secret smile on his face.

  "Emma," ordered Madame, "take Bart's plate away, take his bowl, his orange juice too. Bart--go straight to your room and don't let me hear another word out of you until you can come to this table and eat your meals without complaints."

  "Witch, old black witch come to live in our house," Bart chanted as he ambled away. But he didn't go to his room. He bolted out of the garage door when Madame wasn't looking, and from there he headed toward the garden wall, and the old oak tree he could climb to take him over the wall.

  I ran as fast as I could, following him. But once I was inside the mansion I lost sight of him. Where had Bart gone? I stared right and left, looked behind me, turned around slowly. Had he disappeared up the stairs or down into the cellar? I hated this house with its maze of long corridors, with so many niches between the walls where Mom could be hidden. Usually a builder used the leftover spaces to make closets or put in shelves. But this one, I knew for a fact, had secret doors, only I'd already searched all the secret rooms. Useless to look in them again.

  Suddenly I heard a footfall. Bart was right behind me. He looked right through me, his eyes glazed as he stared bleakly at nothing. I couldn't believe he didn't see me.

  I followed silently, believing he'd take me to where Mom and her mother were hidden.

  Unfortunately, he headed for home. Sickened, dishearted, I trailed along behind, feeling I'd betrayed my father and failed him.

  Lunchtime and Dad came home tired and distressed looking. "Any luck, Jory?"

  "No. How about you?"

  "None. My mother did not fly to Hawaii. I checked with all the airlines. Jory, both Cathy and my mother must be inside that house next door."

  I had an idea. "Dad, why don't you have a long talk with Bart? Don't jump on him, or condemn him, just say nice things. Praise him for being nice to Cindy, tell him how much you care about him. I know he's behind this for he keeps mumbling about the Lord and being His dark angel of revenge."

  Dad couldn't find any words to say as he digested my information. Then silently, he set off to find Bart and do what he could to make an unwanted little boy feel needed--if it wasn't already too late.

  The Last Supper

  . Later I went down to the cellar again with John Amos. "Corrine," John Amos called softly as he bent over stiffly. Clumsy like me, he got down on his knees and peered through the small kitty door he opened. "I want you and your daughter to know this is your last meal, so I made it a good one." He lifted the lid of the silver teapot and spat inside, then poured the steaming hot liquid into fine china cups. "One for you, one for your daughter," he said. He shoved one cup and saucer inside the kitty door, then the other set. Next he picked up a plate of sandwiches which looked stale and kinda dirty, then managed to drop the plate on the filthy cellar floor.

  He picked up the little triangles and wiped them off against his trouser leg, shoved the meat that had fallen out back in, then put the plate of coal-dusted food in through the kitty door. "Here you are, Corrine Fox- worth," snarled John Amos in his hissy voice. "I hope you find these dainty sandwiches to your liking, you bitch! I took your word when you married me, truly believing you'd be my wife--and though you have never been my wife in the way I'd hoped, still I will inherit what is rightfully mine. Finally I have managed to destroy you and yours--just as Malcolm wanted to kill all your Devil's issue."

  Did he have to hate my granny so much? Maybe she wasn't to blame, like me who sometimes did bad things and couldn't help it. Why was everybody doing bad things to everybody else and calling the excuse "inheritance"?

  "You flaunted your beauty before me!" screamed out an enraged old man, "tormenting me when you were a child--teasing me when you were an adolescent, thinking you could have your fun and I could never harm you. Then when you married your half uncle and came back to disinherit me, you treated me like I wasn't even there--just another piece of furniture to ignore. Well, are you arrogant now, Corrine Foxworth? Do you feel haughty sitting in your own filth, holding your dying daughter's head on your filthy lap? I have made you crawl at last, haven't I? I have beaten you at your own game, stolen Bart's affection from you, made him mistrust you and trust me. You can't use your charm and feminine wiles now. It's too late. I hate you now, Corrine Foxworth. For every woman I have fantasized was you, I have paid, but no longer. I have won, and though I am seventy-three now, I will live on at least another five or six years in luxury enough to make up for all the years I've suffered at your hands."

  My grandmother was sobbing quietly. I was crying too, wondering again who was right, him or her?

  John Amos was saying terrible things. Nasty evil bad words that little boys wrote on bathroom walls. Grown-up old men shouldn't talk like that, and in front of my grandmother and my momma.

  "John!" yelled Grandmother, "haven't you done enough? Let us out, and I'll be your wife in the way you want, but please do not punish my daughter more. She's very sick. She needs to be
in a hospital. The police will call this murder if you let her die and me too."

  John Amos just laughed and walked heavily back up the stairs.

  I couldn't move. I was frozen, so confused I didn't know who was good and who was bad.

  "Bart!" screamed my grandmother. "Run fast to your father and tell him where we are! Run, run!"

  Bleary-eyed, I just stood there. Didn't know what to do. "Please, Bart," she begged. "Go tell your father where we are."

  Malcolm--was that him over in the corner, his ghost face frowning at me? Passed my smutty hand over my blurry eyes. Dark, so dark. I pretended to leave, but I snuck back. I wanted to hear more of the truth.

  Out of the darkness came my mother's thin voice screaming at that old woman who was her mother, my grandmother.

  "Oh, yes, Mother. I understood everything you said. We didn't stand a chance no matter who died and who didn't die when you took us into Foxworth Hall and locked us away. Now, years later, we will die just because that crazy old butler didn't inherit the money he expected, promised to him years ago by a dead man--and if you believe any of that--you are just as crazy as he is."

  "Cathy. Don't deny the truth because you hate me so much. I'm telling you the truth. Can't you see how John has used your son, the son of my Bart. Don't you see how perfect his revenge is?--to use the son of the man he hated, the man he felt took his place, when it could have been him who married me if my father could have forced me to do it. Oh, you don't know how Father tried to tell me I owed it to John to marry him, and allow him to have half of his fortune--he didn't guess, or maybe he did, that John wanted it all. And when you and I die, it won't be John who is found guilty--it will be Bart. It's John who killed Clover, then Apple. It's John who dreams of having Malcolm's power, Malcolm's wealth. It's not my imagination when I hear him mumbling to himself incessantly."