He smiled.
“But neither of us is going anywhere soon,” he added.
I felt trapped in a nightmare. No matter how hard I shook myself, I couldn’t wake up. When he walked toward me, I cringed.
The cat reappeared and sniffed around the floor beneath the counter.
“Mr. Moccasin will find any crumbs, only I don’t drop any. My mother would have killed me. She was one of those people who believe cleanliness is next to godliness. She’d be down here every night inspecting. I had to change my bedsheets twice a week and do my own laundry. Actually, I was doing it when I was eight. She would say, ‘Junior, good habits die hard, so form them first.’ Wise old lady, my mother. That’s why I want you to form good habits here first.”
“Please,” I said. “Let me go. I won’t tell anyone what you did. I’ll just go home. Please.”
“Just go home? This is your home, Kaylee. That was the plan.”
“I’m not the one you were talking to all the time. You have me mixed up with my sister, Haylee. I swear.”
His face seemed to transform into cold, dark marble, the shadows closing around him. “I didn’t mind this in the beginning,” he said in a firm, hard voice. “I can play games as well as anyone, but you’re carrying it too far and too long. I want you to stop it.”
After a long moment, he smiled again, and his whole body seemed to soften. He stepped out of the shadows.
“Let’s not make our first night together an unhappy one, Kaylee. We’ve been looking forward to this for so long.”
I shook my head. “You were talking to my sister, Haylee. I swear,” I said, sucking back my tears but finding it harder to breathe.
“You’re as pretty in person as you are in pictures, Kaylee. When I was undressing you, I thought you were the most beautiful young woman I’d ever seen. You look like that Venus statue. I was very careful when I touched you. I didn’t even want to leave fingerprints. That’s how gentle I was and always will be.”
I felt my throat close up, and my chest felt so heavy I thought I would smother my own heart. All I could do was sob.
He stood there watching me and then reached out and grasped my hair. I screamed in pain.
“There’s only one thing to do with you when you’re like this. That’s put you to bed. Stand up,” he ordered. “Stand!”
I rose, trembling. He seized my upper left arm and turned me toward the bed. He pulled back the comforter and plumped the pillow.
“Get in,” he said. “Go on.”
I shook my head, but he seized my arm again, and I got onto the bed. He pressed on my shoulders so I would lie back, and then he pulled the comforter up to my shoulders and tucked it under me.
“Comfy?” he asked. “It’s a brand-new mattress, just for you, and for me, of course. But not tonight. Tonight I want you just to enjoy our hideaway by yourself. It is a hideaway. In here, we can hide away from all that’s unpleasant in the world. We don’t have to watch the news together or read the papers. This will be our world. We’ll create our own news. Later on, when you’re ready, we’ll go out, and we’ll enjoy the farm. We’ll have picnics and go on hikes and do everything you dreamed we would, but we have to have our . . . what should I call it . . . what did you call it? Yes, I remember, our honeymoon. This will be our honeymoon.”
The cat leaped onto the bed
“Oh, look, Mr. Moccasin likes you. He’s going to sleep beside you. That’s something. He doesn’t particularly like anyone else. He won’t let anyone but me pet him or hold him, but I bet he will let you soon.”
He reached up and pulled the cord on the light above us, and half the basement went dark. Then he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite. I’m joking,” he added quickly. “There are no bedbugs, not in this farmhouse. When you wake up, I’ll be right here making your French toast. You did say it was one of your favorites, Kaylee. I have homegrown maple syrup for us and farm-fresh eggs to use. You told me what coffee you like, and I have it. Oh, and there’s fresh fruit, too. We’ll eat healthy.”
He petted Mr. Moccasin, looked at me, and smiled.
“I don’t remember ever being happier than I am at this moment. Thank you, Kaylee, for bringing us together,” he said.
He walked to the doorway, reaching up to pull the cord of the second light on his way. It dropped darkness all around me. There was the tiniest sliver of light coming through a board over one of the windows. I heard the door close and his footsteps on a stairway. After that, I could hear him walking above me. It was the only sound, except for the pounding of my heart resonating in my ears. And then I heard his cat start to purr.
I sat up and reached down to the ankle bracelet. I couldn’t find where it was fastened. It was impossible to slip it off. I tried and tried, until it was too painful, and then I began to sob again. The cat came closer, and I felt its head against my right hand. I had the mad idea that it was trying to comfort me. I slipped off the bed and in the darkness made my way to the door through which he had gone. It wasn’t locked. That gave me a surge of hope. I opened it slowly. The light seeping under the door above the stairway lit it enough. I started for the first step, moving slowly so that the chain wouldn’t make too much noise, but I was able to get only to the middle of the stairway before I ran out of chain. When it tightened, a wave of panic deep and wide came over me. I sat on a step and gasped. My gasps turned into sobs. If I could only see a clock, I would know how much longer it would be before Haylee would realize I was not coming back and tell Mother.
What would she tell Mother? I wondered as I envisioned that moment. She would have to tell her all about her Internet romance. Mother would be furious, but she would put all that aside and concentrate on getting me back. They would go right to the police, and Haylee would tell them everything she knew about Anthony. It might take a while, but they’d find me tonight, I thought. I must stay calm.
After a few more deep breaths, I picked up the chain so it wouldn’t rattle on the steps and went back into the basement. I thought it best to close the door again so he wouldn’t know I had tried to get out this way. Then I moved slowly back to the bed. I didn’t see Mr. Moccasin on the bed. I sat on it and then just lay back without pulling the comforter over me.
Moments later, the door was thrown open. Anthony reached up for the light cord. He stood there, holding Mr. Moccasin. I had not seen the cat go out with me, and I must have locked him between the basement and the upstairs.
“Why did you let Mr. Moccasin out, Kaylee? He’s here for you.”
I didn’t answer.
“You weren’t trying to leave, were you? I was about to go to sleep.” He put the cat down. “When I heard Mr. Moccasin crying at the door, I realized I had made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t have left you alone in a new place. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, not realizing that. I’m sorry. Of course I’ll sleep with you. You’ll find that I’m a little shy. That comes from living alone so long, but I promise, I’ll get over it. I know you’re not shy.”
He reached up and pulled the light cord again. Silhouetted by the tiny bead of light through the boarded window, he walked toward the bed slowly. I cringed. He fixed the comforter again and got into the bed beside me. I felt him reach for my hand.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“What time is it?” I asked, hoping he would just tell me, hoping he wouldn’t realize why I was asking.
“Oh, it’s late,” he said. “Way past my bedtime.”
“How late?”
“It’s close to midnight, Kaylee,” he said.
“No!” I cried. That was two hours past when the movie ended.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be fine,” he said. “I have an easy day tomorrow. Just think about French toast.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. “I can’t believe we really made it happen,” he said.
I wanted to pass out, but I couldn’t close my eyes or slow my heart from pound
ing. He drew closer to me and kissed my cheek.
“I’ll go slowly,” he said. “I promise. It’s when you rush things in this world that you make mistakes, even in love.” He leaned back on his pillow. “Good night again,” he said. “Don’t worry now. I’m here. Nothing will ever harm you.”
The cat was on the bed again. It settled in between us and almost immediately began purring.
“Hear him? Mr. Moccasin is here with us. All the world is good.”
I lay there with my eyes open, listening, praying for the sound of the police pounding on his front door. To keep myself from screaming, I imagined Haylee crying and saying she was sorry she had started all this and how it was all her fault.
It’s all right, Haylee, I thought, confident that she heard me, that our telepathy was working and that it would bring her to me. We’d hug and kiss and vow never to be cross with each other ever again. I forgive you, Haylee. Oh, how happy she would be, almost as happy as I was. I would even help her with Mother. She didn’t mean to cause all this turmoil, Mother, I would tell her. She was experimenting, but she’s sorry. Please don’t be angry at her, because you will be angry at me, too, for not warning you. You remember? Everything one of us does the other does, too. Every pain I feel, Haylee feels, and vice versa. We would both be crying by now. Mother would be shaking her head, and then she would hug us both to her just the way she used to hug us, and all would be forgiven.
My vision of this was so vivid I could feel myself smiling and my body calming. I could feel myself rising off the bed and floating safely above all this. It was only a matter of time.
Just a little longer, and the darkness would be peeled away to reveal smiling, grateful faces. We would all be safe again, wouldn’t we? I was convincing myself of this when something occurred to me. It rang like an alarm in my head. Haylee had told me that his name was Anthony Cooper, but he had said his family name was Cabot. Did she just say any name that came into her head to get me to go, or did he tell her the wrong name deliberately? Why would he tell her the wrong name if he thought she really wanted to be with him?
It didn’t matter, I told myself, and relaxed again. He had been on the Internet with her. She would only have to show the police, and they would track him. They could do that. If they could find hackers, they could find him. Haylee would give them all that was needed. She couldn’t do it fast enough. She was actually just as frightened at this moment as I was. Almost all our lives, we were happy together and sad together at the same time. We shared everything. This would be no different.
In fact, I thought I could hear her whispering now, just the way she and I used to whisper when we were little girls, sharing a room and a bed, and Mother had turned off the lights after saying good night. It was so important that we comforted each other, especially when we were in the darkness.
“Kaylee-Haylee,” my sister would say.
“Haylee-Kaylee,” I would reply.
And we would both fearlessly embrace sleep at almost the exact same moment and see each other in our dreams.
Now turn the page for a sneak peek at
Book Two in the Mirror Sisters series
By V.C. Andrews®
Available Spring 2017 from Pocket Books
Prologue
My mother’s dinner date, Simon Adams, stepped out of his car right after Mother started screaming at me. She had practically leaped out of his car before he came to a stop when she saw me standing there alone. I had waited as long as I could to walk out so that I would be one of the last to leave the theater. No matter what my twin sister, Kaylee, thought or what anyone else might think, I couldn’t be exactly sure what would happen after she had left to, as she believed, meet my Internet lover and make my excuses. I had a pretty good idea, though. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have sent her.
The movie theater we had gone to as part of my plan was one of the few that weren’t in a mall these days. Most of the stores on the street in this neighborhood were already closed by the time the movie ended. People scattered quickly to their cars in the nearby parking lot or on the street, as if they were worried that it was a dangerous area. Maybe it was. I had no idea what it was like. We had never gone to a movie or shopped here.
“What are you saying? What are you saying?” Mother shouted after I began to explain Kaylee’s absence. “What do you mean, she’s not back? Back from where?”
I started to cry, always a good touch. Mother hated to see either of us cry, always expecting that the other twin would soon start, too.
“Where is she?” she demanded, stamping her foot.
“I don’t know,” I said. I kept my head down.
Only hours ago, Mother had seen Kaylee and me go into this movie theater, and now, when they drove up, she saw only me come out and stand there looking frantically in both directions. I was sure that my face was full of enough concern and panic to impress her. I had planned how I should look and sound. When you think ahead to what a scene will be like, it’s like rehearsing for a play. Mother wasn’t doing or saying anything I hadn’t expected when she heard what I had said. I could have written her dialogue, too.
I glanced behind me and saw the cashier, a woman in her sixties, and an usher who was no more than twenty, gaping at us. We were probably better drama than the movie now playing. Some other people walking near the theater paused on the sidewalk to look our way.
“How could you not know where your sister is? Maybe she’s still in the theater. Is she in the bathroom?”
“She’s not in the movie theater bathroom.”
“You checked?”
“I didn’t have to, Mother.” I took a deep breath. “Kaylee left to meet a man very soon after we got here, but she was supposed to return before the movie ended,” I blurted, and continued to cry.
“What? What man?”
“What’s going on?” Simon asked, hurrying up to us. He looked at the theater entrance. “Where’s the other one?”
The other one? He wasn’t sure which twin I was. I nearly stopped crying and started laughing.
Mother looked at him, annoyed, but ignored him. I couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t exactly what anyone would describe as a strong-looking, take-charge man. He had lost his wife just more than a year ago in a traffic accident, and either the tragedy had made him meek and helpless or he had always been that way. I had referred to him as Mother’s “charity date,” because she had told us she was his first date since his wife’s death and she was going to take extra care with him. I had told Kaylee that it seemed more like emotional and psychological therapy than a romantic evening. Mother had gone out with at least half a dozen men since her and our father’s divorce, but none of them were good enough for her to continue dating. I doubted Simon would be.
“What’s the matter? What’s going on? Where is she?” Simon asked again.
“I’m trying to find out. She says Kaylee left the theater to meet a man,” Mother told him.
“A man? Who? What man? Did you know about this?” He grimaced, making it seem like this was her fault.
“Of course not! That’s what Haylee was about to explain.” She grabbed my shoulders and shook me. “Talk, and stop crying,” she said.
I took a deep breath, wiped away my tears, and began with “I’m sorry, Mother. I should have told you, but Kaylee would have hated me.”
“What are you saying? What should you have told me? Hated you for what?”
“Kaylee was carrying on an Internet relationship with some older man. I told her she could get into big trouble, that men like that are dangerous, but she insisted he was all right. According to her, they were talking almost every night for the last month or so on her computer, and she liked him very much.”
Mother stared at me in disbelief. She shook her head as if my words were shower water caught in her ears. Every part of her face seemed to be in motion as she reluctantly digested what I was saying.
“She met someone on the Internet? These things can be bad,” Simon said. “S
o where is she?” he asked me, stepping forward, suddenly more aggressive and manly. “As you can see, your mother and I are very concerned.”
He was showing off for Mother, I thought, and smiled to myself. He was still pathetic.
“Talk,” Mother ordered. “Quickly.”
“She said she and this man finally decided to meet, but she knew you would never approve of it, so she came up with this idea to pretend we were excited about the movie,” I said, the words rushing out of my mouth like water bursting through a dam.
“Pretend?”
“It was her plan. After you took us here, she left the theater to meet him somewhere. She promised to be back way before the movie ended. Right up to the time she left, I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Mother looked up and down the street. “Which way did she go? What else do you know?”
“That’s all I know. I went along with it because she said she would hate me forever if I didn’t. I couldn’t have her hate me. I couldn’t. We’re too much a part of each other. I’ve been so worried.” I started to cry again.
“We’d better call the police,” Simon said. Mother didn’t respond. She stood there almost frozen in place now. I was afraid to look at her. Sometimes I thought she could read my thoughts. “I’ll call the police,” he said.
He took out his cell phone and stepped back toward the car.
“How could you let her do this? How could you keep it a secret from me? Didn’t we talk about when either of you should come to me to tell me about the other getting involved with someone dangerous?”
I nodded but kept my head lowered. “She made me promise,” I said. “I couldn’t betray her.”
“Her? What about betraying me?”
I raised my head. “I told her that, Mother, but she said we needed to believe in each other if we were to be forever special sisters. I was afraid of breaking her heart.”