Flowers in the Attic

  "The War Between the States sounds better," he answered. "Spies, you think?"

  "How would I know?"

  Secrets, secrets, everywhere! Brother against brother I saw it--oh, what fun to find out! If only we could find diaries!

  "Look here," said Christopher, pulling out a man's suit of pale cream-colored wool, with brown velvet lapels, and piped smartly with darker brown satin. He waved the suit. Disgusting winged creatures took off in all directions, despite the stench of mothballs.

  I yelped, as did Carrie.

  "Don't be such babies," he said, not in the least disturbed by those things. "What you saw were moths, harmless moths. It's the larvae that do the chewing and make the holes."

  I didn't care! Bugs were bugs--infants or adults. I don't know why that darned suit interested him so much, anyway. Why did we have to examine the fly to see if men in those days used buttons or zippers? "Gosh," he said, finally disturbed, "what a pain to unfasten buttons every time."

  That was his opinion.

  In my opinion, olden-day people really knew how to dress! How I would love to flounce around in a frilly chemise over pantaloons, with dozens of fancy petticoats over the wire hoops, all bedecked in ruffles, lace, embroidery, with flowing ribbons of velvet or satin, and my shoes would be of satin and over all this bedazzling finery would be a lacy parasol to shade my golden curls, and keep the sun from my fair, unwrinkled complexion. And I'd carry a fan to elegantly cool myself, and my eyelids would flutter and bewitch. Oh, what a beauty I'd be!

  Subdued by the immense attic until now, Carrie let out a howl that took me swiftly from sweet speculations and right back to the here and now, which was where I didn't want to be.

  "It's hot up here, Cathy!"

  "Yes, it is."

  "I hate it up here, Cathy!"

  I glanced at Cory, his small face awed as he looked around and clung to my side, and catching his hand, and Carrie's, I left behind the fascination of the old clothes, and all of us wandered off to pry into everything this attic had to offer. And that was considerable. Thousands of old books in stacks, dark ledgers, office desks, two upright pianos, radios, phonographs, cartons filled with the unwanted accoutrements of generations long gone. Dress forms, all sizes and shapes, bird cages and stands to hold them, rakes, shovels, framed photographs of peculiar pale and sickly looking people who were, I presumed, dead relatives of ours. Some had light hair, some dark; all had eyes sharp, cruel, hard, bitter, sad, wistful, yearning, hopeless, empty, but never, I swear, never did I see any happy eyes. Some smiled. Most didn't. I was drawn in particular to a pretty girl of perhaps eighteen; she wore a faint, enigmatic smile which reminded me of Mona Lisa, only she was more beautiful. Her bosom swelled out beneath a ruffled bodice most impressively, making Christopher point to one of the dress forms and declare emphatically, "Hers!"

  I looked. "Now," he continued with admiring eyes, "that is what you call an hourglass figure. See the wasp waist, the ballooning hips, the swelling bosom? Inherit a shape like that, Cathy, and you will make a fortune."

  "Really," I said in disgust, "you don't know very much. That is not a woman's natural form. She's wearing a corset, cinched in at the waist so much her flesh is squeezed out at the top and the bottom. And that is exactly why women used to faint so much and then call for smelling salts."

  "How can one faint and still manage to call for smelling salts?" he asked sarcastically. "Besides, you can't squeeze out at the top what isn't there." He took another look at the shapely young woman "You know, she kind of looks like Momma. If she wore her hair differently and her clothes were modern-- she'd be Momma."

  Hah! Our mother would have more sense than to wear a laced-up cage and suffer. "But this girl is only pretty," Christopher concluded. "Our mother is beautiful."

  The silence of that huge space was so deep you could hear your heartbeat. Yet it would be fun to explore every trunk; to examine the contents of every box; to try on all those rotting, smelly, fancy clothes, and pretend, pretend, pretend. But it was so hot! So stifling! So stuffy! Already my lungs seemed clogged with dirt and dust and stale air. Not only that, spider webs laced the corners and draped down from the rafters, and crawling or slithering things rambled about on the floor or up the walls. Though I didn't see any, I thought of rats and mice. We'd seen a movie once on TV where a man went crazy and hung himself from an attic rafter. And in another movie, a man shoved his wife in an old trunk with brass corners and locks, just like these, and then he slammed down the lid and left her there to die. I took another look at those trunks, wondering what secrets they held that the servants shouldn't know.

  Disconcerting, the curious way my brother was watching me and my reactions. I whirled to hide what I was feeling--but he saw. He stepped closer and caught my hand, and said so much like Daddy, "Cathy, it is going to be all right. There must be very simple explanations for everything that seems to us very complex and mysterious."

  Slowly I turned to him, surprised he'd come to comfort and not to tease. "Why do you suppose the grandmother hates us, too? Why should the grandfather hate us? What have we done?"

  He shrugged, as baffled as I was, and with his hand still holding mine, we both pivoted to look the attic over again. Even our untrained eyes could tell where new sections had been added to the older house. Thick, square, upright beams divided the attic into distinct sections. I thought if we wandered here, and wandered there, we would come upon a place for comfortable, fresh breathing.

  The twins began to cough and sneeze. They fixed resentful blue eyes on us for keeping them where they didn't want to be.

  "Now look," said Christopher when the twins started to really complain, "we can open up the windows an inch or so, enough to let in a little fresh air, and no one will notice such a little opening from the ground." Then he released my hand and ran on ahead, leaping over boxes, trunks, furniture, showing off, while I stood frozen, holding to the hands of both my little ones, who were terrified of where they were.

  "Come see what I've found!" called Christopher, who was out of sight. Excitement was in his voice. "You just wait and see my discovery!"

  We ran, eager to see something exciting, wonderful, fun-- and all he had to show us was a room, a real room with plaster walls. It had never been painted, but it did have a regular ceiling, not just beams. This seemed to be a schoolroom with five desks, facing a larger desk up front. Blackboards lined three walls over low bookcases filled with faded and dusty old volumes that my perpetual seeker of all knowledge had to immediately inspect by crawling around and reading the book titles aloud. Books were enough to send him off on a high tangent, knowing he had a way to escape to other worlds.

  I was drawn to the small desks, where names and dates were etched, such as Jonathan, age 11, 1864! And Adelaide, age 9, 1879! Oh, how very old this house was! They were dust in their graves by now, but they had left their names behind to let us know that once, they, too, had been sent up here. But why would parents send their children into an attic to study? They had been wanted children, surely--unlike us, whom the grandparents despised. Maybe for them the windows had been opened wide. And for them, servants had carried up coal or wood to burn in the two stoves we saw in the corners.

  An old rocking horse with a missing amber eye wobbled unsteadily, and his matted yellow tail was a woebegone thing But this white-and-black-spotted pony was enough to bring a delighted cry from Cory. Instantly he clambered up on the peeling red saddle, crying out, "Getty-up, horsy!" And the pony, not ridden for ever so long, galloped along, squealing, rattling, protesting with every rusty joint.

  "I want to ride, too!" bellowed Carrie. "Where is my horsy?"

  Quickly I ran to lift Carrie up behind Cory, so she could cling to his waist, and laugh, and kick her heels to make the dilapidated horse go faster and faster. I marveled that the poor thing stayed hinged together.

  Now I had the chance to look over the old books that had charmed Christopher. Heedlessly, I reached in and took out a book, not ca
ring what the title read. I flipped through the pages and sent legions of flat bugs with centipede legs madly scampering everywhere! I dropped that book,--then stared down at the loose pages that had scattered. I hated bugs, spiders most of all, worms next. And what swarmed from those pages seemed a combination of both.

  Such a girlish performance was enough to send Christopher into hysterics, and when he calmed down, he called my squeamishness overdone. The twins reined in their bucking bronco and stared at me in astonishment. Quickly I had to reach for my poise. Even pretend mothers didn't squeal at the sight of a few bugs.

  "Cathy, you're twelve, and it's time you grew up. Nobody screams to see a few bookworms. Bugs are a part of life. We humans are the masters, the supreme rulers over all. This isn't such a bad room at all. Lots of space, full of big windows, plenty of books, and even a few toys for the twins."

  Yeah. There was a rusty red wagon with a broken handle, and a missing wheel--great. A broken green scooter, too. Terrific. Yet there stood Christopher looking around and expressing his pleasure in finding a room where people hid away their children so they couldn't see them, or hear them, or maybe not even think about them, and he saw it as a room with possibilities.

  Sure, somebody could clean all the dark secret places where creeping horrors lived, and they could spray all over with insect repellent so nothing sinister was left that was small enough to step on. But how to step on the grandmother, the grandfather? How to turn an attic room into a paradise where flowers bloomed, and not just another prison like the one below?

  I ran to the dormer windows and climbed upon a box to reach the high window ledge. Desperate to see the ground, to see how far we were above it, and if we jumped how many bones we'd break. Desperate to see the trees, the grass, where the flowers grew, where sunlight was, where birds flew, where real life lived. But all I saw was a slate black roof expanding wide beneath the windows, blocking out the view of the ground. Beyond the roofs were treetops; beyond the treetops, enclosing mountains hovered over by blue mists.

  Christopher climbed up beside me and looked, too. His shoulder brushing mine quivered, as did his voice when he said softly, "We can still see the sky, the sun, and at night we'll see the moon and stars, and birds and planes will fly over. We can watch them for amusement until the day we don't come up here again."

  He paused, seeming to think back to the night we came--was it only last night? "I'll bet if we leave a window open wide, an owl might fly in. I've always wanted an owl for a pet."

  "For heaven's sake, why in the world would you want one of those things?"

  "Owls can turn their heads all the way around. Can you do that?"

  "I don't want to do that."

  "But if you wanted to, you still couldn't."

  "Well, neither can you!" I flared, wanting to make him face up to reality, like he insisted I do. No bird as wise as an owl would want to live locked up with us for even an hour.

  "I want a kitty," spoke up Carrie, holding her arms up so she could be lifted to where she could see, too.

  "I want a puppy," said Cory before he glanced out of the window. Then he quickly forgot about pets, for he began to chant, "Outside, outside, Cory wants outside. Cory wants to play in the garden. Cory wants to swing!"

  Quickly Carrie followed suit. She too wanted outside, the garden, and the swings. And with her bull-moose voice, she was far more persistent with her wants than Cory.

  Now they were both near driving Christopher and me up the wall with their demands to go outside, outside, outside!

  "Why can't we go outside?" screamed Carrie, doubling up her fists and beating them against my chest. "We-ee don't like it here! Where is Momma? Where is the sunshine? Where did the flowers go? Why is it so hot?"

  "Look," said Christopher, catching her small battering fists and saving me from a bruising, "think of this place as outside. There's no reason you can't swing up here, like in a garden. Cathy, let's search around and see if we can't find some rope."

  We did search. And we did find rope in an old trunk that held all sorts of junk. It was very apparent the Foxworths didn't throw anything away--they stored their trash in the attic. Maybe they were afraid of one day being poor, and suddenly needing what was put away so miserly.

  With great diligence my older brother worked to make swings for both Cory and Carrie, for when you have twins, you must never, ever give them only one of a kind--of anything. For seats he used boards ripped from a lid of a trunk. He found sandpaper and smoothed away the splinters. While he did this, I hunted around until I found an old ladder with a few missing rungs that didn't hinder Christopher in the least from quickly reaching the rafters high above. I watched him climbing nimbly around up there, crawling out on a wide beam--and every move he made endangered his life! He stood up to show off his balancing skill He swayed suddenly off balance! Quickly he adjusted himself by putting out his arms, but my heart had jumped up, terrified to see him taking such chances, risking his life, just to show off! There was no adult to call him down. If I tried to order him down, he'd laugh, and do even more foolish things. So I kept my mouth shut and closed my eyes, and I tried to shut out the visions I had of him falling, splattering down, breaking his arms, legs or, even worse, his back or neck! And he didn't have to put on any act. I knew he was brave. He had the knots securely tied, so why couldn't he come down and give my heart a chance to beat normally again?

  It had taken Christopher hours to make those swings, and then he risked his life to hang them. And when he was down, and the twins were seated on the swings, fanning back and forth and stirring up the dusty air, they were satisfied for, perhaps, three minutes.

  Then it began. Carrie started off. "Take us out of here! Don't like these swings! Don't like in here! This is a baa-ad place!"

  No sooner did her wails cease than Cory's began. "Outside, outside, we want outside! Take us outside! Outside!" And Carrie added her chants to his. Patience--I had to have patience, deep self-control, act adult, not scream just because I wanted outside just as much as they did.

  "Now stop that racket!" snapped Christopher to the twins. "We're playing a game, and all games have rules. The main rule of this game is to stay inside and be as quiet as possible. Screaming and yelling is forbidden." His tone turned softer as he gazed down at their tear-streaked, grimy faces. "Pretend this is the garden under a bright blue sky, and tree leaves are over- head, and the sun is shining bright. And when we go downstairs, that room will be our home with many rooms."

  He gave us all a whimsical, disarming smile. "When we're rich as Rockefellers, we'll never need to see this attic again, or that bedroom below. We'll live like princesses and princes."

  "Do you think the Foxworths have as much money as the Rockefellers?" I asked disbelievingly. Golly-day, wow! We'd be able to have everything! Yet, yet, I was terribly troubled. . . that grandmother, something about her, the way she treated us, as if we didn't have a right to be alive. Such horrible words she'd said: "You are here, but you don't really exist."

  We rambled about the attic, half-heartedly exploring this and that, until someone's stomach rumbled. I glanced at my wristwatch. Two. My older brother stared at me, as I glanced at the twins. It must have been one of their stomachs, for they ate so little, but, nevertheless, their digestive systems were automatically set on seven for breakfast, twelve for lunch, and five for dinner, and seven for bedtime, and a snack before.

  "Lunch time," I announced cheerfully.

  Down the stairs we tripped single file, back into that hateful dim room. If only we could open the draperies wide to let in some light and cheer. If only . . .

  My thoughts could have been spoken aloud, for Christopher was perceptive enough to say that even if the draperies were opened wide, this room faced north and the sunlight would never enter.

  And my, just look at the chimney sweeps in the mirrors! Just like those from Mary Poppins, a spoken comparison to put smiles on the dirty faces of the twins. They dearly loved being compared with those
charming people who lived in their kind of picture books.

  Since we'd been taught from our earliest years never to sit down to eat when we were less than spotlessly clean, and since God had His keenest eye riveted on us, we would obey all the rules and please Him. Now, it didn't really offend God's eyes if we put Cory and Carrie in the same bathtub, when they'd come from the same womb, did it? Christopher took over Cory, as I shampooed Carrie, then bathed her, dressed her, and brushed her silky hair until it shone, and then I curled her hair around my fingers till it spiraled down in pretty coils. Next I tied on a green satin ribbon.

  And it wouldn't really hurt anyone if Chistopher talked to me while I bathed. We weren't adults--yet. It wasn't the same thing as "using" the bathroom together. Momma and Daddy had seen nothing wrong about bare skin, but as I washed my face, the memory of the grandmother's stern, uncompromising expression flashed before my eyes. She would think it was wrong.

  "We can't do this again," I said to Christopher. "That grandmother--she might catch us, and then she would think it evil." He nodded as if it didn't really matter. He must have seen something on my face that made him move forward to the tub so he could put his arms about me. How did he know I needed a shoulder to cry on? Which was exactly what I did.

  "Cathy," he soothed while my head was tucked down on his shoulder and my sobs came, "keep thinking about the future, and all that will be ours when we're rich. I've always wanted to be filthy rich so I can be a playboy for a while, only a little while, for Daddy said everybody should contribute something useful and meaningful to mankind, and I'd like to do that. But until I'm in college, and med school, I could sneak in a little fooling around until I settle down seriously."

  "Oh, I see you mean do everything a poor guy can't afford to do. Well, if that's what you want, go to it. But what I want is a horse. All my life I've wanted a pony, and we've never lived in a place that would allow a pony, and now I'm too big for a pony. So it will have to be a horse. And, of course, all the while I'll be working my way to fame and fortune as the world's leading prima ballerina. And you know how dancers have to eat and eat or else they'd be just skin and bones, so I'm going to eat a whole gallon of ice cream each day, and one day I'm going to eat nothing but cheese--every kind of cheese there is, put on cheese crackers. Then, I want lots and lots of new clothes: a different outfit for each day of the year. I'll give them away after one wearing, then sit down to eat cheese on crackers, and top it off with ice cream. And I'll work off the fat by dancing."