Flowers in the Attic Ruby Petals on the Wind Pearl in the Mist If There Be Thorns . All That Glitters My Sweet Audrina Hidden Jewel Seeds of Yesterday Tarnished Gold Heaven Melody Dark Angel Heart Song Garden of Shadows Unfinished Symphony Fallen Hearts Music in the Night Gates of Paradise Butterfly Web of Dreams Crystal Dawn Brooke Secrets of the Morning Rven Twilight's Child Runaways Midnight Olivia Darkest HOur For orders other than by individual onsumers, Pocket Books grants a discount on the .purchase of 10 or more copies of single titles for markets or premium use. For further details, please write tO the Mum-President of Special Markets, Pocket Books, t633 Brmdway, New York, NY 10019-6785, 8th Floor. For information on how individual consumers can place orders, please write to Mail Order Department, Simon & Schuster Inc., 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, N 07675. Following the death of Virginia Andrews, the Andrews family worked with a carefully sehcted writer to organize and complete Virginia Andrews'. stories and to create additional novels, of which this is one, inspired by her storyteng genius. This book is a. work of fiction. Names,- charaeten, places and inciclent are products of the authoc's imagination or are used fictitiously..Any remblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is emtirely coincidental. An Original Publication of POCKEF BOOKS POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster In¢ 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 1996-by.tho Vanda Genend Panership All rights reserved, including the ight to rept'oduce this book or poons thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ISBN: 0671534718 First Pocket Books paperback printing Septmember 1996 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 V.C. Andrews is a registered trademark of the Vanda General Partnership. POCKET and colophon are regLCteted trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc. Stepback art by 1Asa Palkenstem Printed in the U.S.A. Prologue go J think as soon as I was old enough to understand that Mommy and Daddy were having serious arguments, I felt like an outsider, for if I appeared while they were having one, both of them would stop immediately. It made me feel as if I lived in a house with secrets woven into the walls. One day, I imagined, I would unravel one of those secrets and the whole house would come down around me. Just a thought. But that is exactly what happened. One day. The Love Trap When I was a little girl, I believed that people could get what they wished for if they wished hard enough and long enough and were good enough, and although I'm fifteen now and long ago stopped believing in things like the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny, I never completely stopped believing there was something magical in the world around us. Somewhere, there were angels watching over us, considering our wishes and dreams and occasionally, when the time was right and we were deserving, they granted us a wish. Daddy taught me this. When I was still small enough to sit comfortably on his muscular right forearm and be carried around like a little princess, he would tell me to close my eyes really tight and wish until I saw my angel nearby, her wings fluttering like a bumble bee. Daddy said everyone had an angel assigned to him or her at birth, and the angels did all they could to get humans to believe. He told me that when we are very little it's much easier to believe in things that grownups would call imagination. That's why, when we're little, angels will appear before us sometimes. I think some of us hold on a little longer or a little harder to that world of V. C. ANDREWS make believe. Some of us are not afraid to admit we dream even though we're older. We really do make a wish when we break a chicken bone or blow out our birthday candles or see a shooting star, and we wait and hope, even expect that it will come true. I did so much wishing as I grew up, I was sure my angel was overworked. I couldn't help it. I always wished my daddy didn't have to go down into the coal mines miles under the earth, away from the sun in damp, dark caverns of dust. Just like every other coal miner's child, I had played in the openings of the deserted old mines, and I couldn't begin to understand what it would be like going down deep and spending a whole day below the fresh air. But poor Daddy had to do it. As long as I could remember, I wished we lived in a real house instead of a trailer, even though right next to us, living in their trailer, were Papa George and Mama Arlene, both of whom I loved deariy. When I wished for a house, I just added a little more and wished they would live in the house next to ours. We would both have real backyards and lawns and there would be big maple and oak trees. Papa George would help me with my fiddling. And when it rained hard, I wouldn't feel as if I were fiving in a tin drum. When the wind blew, I wouldn't fear being turned over and over while asleep in my bed. My wish list went on and on. I imagined that if I ever took the time and wrote all the wishes down, the paper would stretch from one end of our trailer to the other. I wished hard that Mommy wasn't so unhappy all the time. She complained about having to work in Francine's Salon, washing other women's hair and doing perms, even though everyone said she was an excellent hairdresser. She did enjoy the gossip and loved to listen* to the wealthy women talk about their trips and the'a things they had bought. But she was like a little girl who *j could only look in the window at beautiful things, one '| who never got to buy any of them herself, v Even when she was sad. Mommy was beautiful. One ofii MELODY my most frequent wishes was that I would be as pretty as she was when I grew up. When I was younger, I would . perch in her bedroom and watch her at her dressing table - meticulously applying her makeup and brushing her 3tea. As she did so, she preached about the importance I oi beauty care and told me about all the women she |lBSew who were attractive but neglected themselves and ^looked simply awful. She told me if you were born ^ pastty, you had an obligation to look pretty whenever yea ;wcrc in public. t ^Slat's why I spend so much time on my hair and my | aails, and that's why I have to spend so much money on JNtefC special skin creams," she explained. She was l bringing home samples of shampoo and hair aoners for me to use as well. brought home perfumed bath oils and would soak small tub for over an hour. I would wash her back a I was old enough to be trusted, polish her while she manicured her fingernails. Occasion- did my toenails and styled my hair. said we looked more like sisters than mother hter. I had inherited her small facial features, r her button nose, but my hair was a lighter of brown, hair the color of hay. Once, I asked her my hair the same shade as hers, but she shook her ad told me to leave it be, that it was a pretty color. wasn't as confident about my looks as she was hers, even though Daddy told me he rushed home VQsSn because now he had two beautiful women at ^waiting for him. daddy stood six foot three and weighed nearly one ad ninety pounds, all muscle from working in I so many years. Although there were times returned home after a very long day in the iag, and moving slowly, he didn't complain. at eyes on me, his face always burst out with No matter how tired those strong arms of his run into them and he'd lift me with ease V. C. ANDREWS When I was little, I would anxiously wait for the sight of him lumbering up the chipped and cracked macadam that led from the mines to our home in Mineral Acres trailer park. Suddenly, his six feet three inches of height would lift that shock of light brown hair over the ridge and I would see him taking strides with those long legs. His face and hands would be streaked with coal dust. He looked like a soldier home from battle. Under his right arm, clutched lake a football, was his lunch basket. He made his own sandwiches early in the morning because Mommy was always sdll asleep when he woke and got ready for work. Sometimes, even before he reached the Mineral Acres gate after work. Daddy would lift his head and see me waving. Our trailer was close to the entrance and our front yard faced the road from Sewell. If he saw roe, Daddy would speed up, swinging his coal miner's helmet like a flag. Until I was about twelve, I had to wait close to Papa George and Mama Arlene's trailer, because Mommy was usually not home from work yet herself. Many times, she would go someplace and not make it home in time for dinner. Usually, she went to Frankie's Bar and Grill with her co-workers and friends and listened to the juke box music. But Daddy was a very good cook and I got so I could do a lot of the cooking myself, too. He and I ended up eating alone more times than not. Daddy didn't complain about Mommy's not being there. If I did, he urged me to be more understanding. "Your mother and I got married too young. Melody," he told me. "But weren't you terribly in love. Daddy?" I had read Romeo and Juliet and knew that if you were desperately in love, age didn't make a difference. I told my best friend Alice Morgan that I would never marry anyone until I was so head-over-heels in love I couldn't breathe. She thought that was an exaggeration and I would probably fall in love many times before I was married. MELODY Daddy's voice was wistful. "We were, but we didn't listen to older, wiser heads. We just ran off and eloped without thinking about the consequences. We were both very excited about it and didn't think hard about the foture. It was easier for me. I was always more settled, but your mother soon felt she had missed out on things. She works in that beauty parlor and hears the rich ladies talking about their trips and their homes and she gets frustrated. We got to let her have some freedom so she doesn't feel trapped by all our love for her." "How can love trap someone. Daddy?" I asked. . He smiled his wide, soft smile. When he did that, his green eyes always got a hazy, faraway glint. He'd lift his gaze from my face to a window or sometimes just a wall as if he were seeing images from the mysterious past float .by. "Well... if you love someone a$ much as we love Mommy, you want her around you all the time. It's like having a beautiful bird in a cage. You're afraid to let the lard free and yet you know, it would sing a sweeter song jS it were." "Why doesn't she love us that much, too?" I demanded. "She does, in her own way." He smiled. "Your mother's the prettiest woman in this town--for miles «nd miles around it too--and I know she feels wasted sometimes. That's a hard thing to live with. Melody. JPeople are always coming up to her and telling her she should be in the movies or on television or a model. She thinks time's flying by and soon it will be too late for her to be anything else but my wife and your mother." $ "I don't want her to be anything else. Daddy." "I know. She's enough for us. We're grateful, but she's always been restless and impulsive. She still has big dreams and one thing you never want to do to someone you love is kill her dreams. "Of course," he continued, smiling, "I have every reason to believe you're going to be the celebrity in this family. Look how well Papa George has taught you to play the fiddle! And you can sing, too. You're growing V. C. ANDREWS into a beautiful young woman. Some talent scout's going to saap you up." "Oh Daddy, that's sSty. No txlott scoots come to the mining towns looking for stars.** "So you'll go to college in New York City or in California," he predicted. "That's my dream. So don't go dumping dirt on top of it. Melody." I laughed. I was too afraid to have such dreams for myself yet; I was too afraid of being frustrated and trapped like Mommy thought she now was. I wondered why Daddy didn't fed trapped. No matter how hard things were, he would grin and bear it, and he never joined the other miners to drown his sorrows at (he bar. He walked to and from work alone because the other miners lived in the shanties in town. We lived in Sewell, which was a village born from the mine and built by the mining company in the lap of a small valley. Its main street had a church, a post office, a half dozen stores, two restaurants, a mortuary, and a movie theater open only on the weekends. The shanty homes were all the same pale brown color, built with board-and-batten siding and tar-paper roofs, but at least there were children my age there. There were no other children near my age living in Mineral Acres trailer park. How I wished I had a brother or a sister to keep me company! When 1 told Mommy about that wish once, she grimaced and moaned that she was only a child herself when she had me. "Barely nineteen! And it's not easy to bring children into the worid. It's hard on your body and you have to worry about them getting sick and having enough to eat and having proper clothing, not to mention getting them an education. I rushed into motherhood. I should have waited." "Then I would never have been bornI" I complained. "Of course you would have been born, but you would have been born when things were better and not so hard for us. We were right in the middle of a major change in our lives. It was very difficult." MELODY . Sometimes, she sounded as if she blamed me just for being born. It was as if she thought babies just floated around waiting to be conceived, and occasionally they ^ jagsst^ sod eaicwma^ tiw paivsfs to ovate them. That's what I bad done. i. I knew we had moved from Provincetown, Cape Cod, to Sewell in Monongalia County, West Virginia, before I ,. was born, and we didn't have much at the time. Mommy ^iid tell me that when they first arrived in Sewell as poor ed, the lines in his pale, tired face were cut deep, if I was so thin Mama Ariene claimed she could [ him down with a cable-knit sweater. Still, Papa je and I had the greatest of times when he helped ; me the fiddle. : complained that it was Mama Ariene's nagging »rc him down. They always seemed to be bicker11 didn't know any other two people as dedicated [ other as they were. Their arguments were never E,mean either. They always ended up laughing. " ty laved talking with Papa George. On weekends By, the two could often be found sitting in the ; chairs on the cement patio under the metal ^ quietly discussing politics and the mining indusiyPapa George was in Sewell during the violent times en the mining unions were being formed and he had (X»f stories, which, according to Mama Ariene, were : fit for my ears. V. C. ANDREWS "Why not?" he would protest. "She oughta know the truth about this place and the people who run it." "She got plenty of time to learn about the ugly things in this worid, George O'Neil, without you rushing her into it. Hush up!" He did, mumbling under his breath until she turned her fiery blue eyes on him, making him swallow the rest of his angry words. But Daddy agreed with Papa George: the miners were being exploited. This was no life for anyone. I never understood why Daddy, who was brought up on Cape Cod in a fisherman's family, ended up working in a place where he was shut away from the sun and the sky all day. I knew he missed the ocean, yet we never returned to the Cape and we had nothing to do with Daddy's family. I didn't even know how many cousins I had, or their names, and I had never met or spoken to my grandparents. All I had ever seen was a faded black and white photograph of them with Daddy's father seated and his mother standing beside his father, both looking unhappy about being photographed. His father i had a beard and looked as big as Daddy is now. His | mother was wispy looking, but with hard, cold eyes. The family in Provineetown was something Daddy didn't discuss. He would always change the subject, just saying, "We just had differences. It's better we're apart. It's easier this way." I couldn't imagine why it was easier, but I saw it was painful for him to talk about it. Mommy never wanted to talk about it either. Just bringing up the family caused her to start crying and complaining to me that Daddy's family always thought little other because she'd been an orphan. She told me she had been adopted by people who she said were too old to raise a child. They were both in their sixties when she was a teenager and they were very strict. She said she couldn't wait to get away from them. I wanted to know more about them and about Daddy's family, too, but I was afraid it would start an MELODY 'Jirgument between her and Daddy, so after a while, I just itopped asking questions. But that didn't stop their Itlgmnents. ^Owe night soon after I had gone to bed, I heard their Voices rising against each other. They were in their Bedroom, too. The trailer home had a small kitchen to ,the right of the main entrance, a little dinette and a living jeoom. Down a narrow hallway was the bathroom. My Bedroom was the first on the right and Daddy and tommy's was at the end of the trailer. '- "Don't tell me I'm imagining things," Daddy warned, voice cross. "The people dropping hints ain't liars, te," he said. I sat up in bed and listened. It wasn't : to hear normal conversation through those paper- trailer walls as it was, but with them yelling at each t, it was as if I were right in the room with them. "They're not liars. They're busybodies with nothing 8| to do with their boring, worthless lives than manu- Itnre tales about other people." ^Kyou don't give them the chance ..." "What am I supposed to do, Chester? The man's the irtender at Frankie's. He talks to everyone, not just »," she whined. Jtjkaew they were arguing about Archie Marlin. I never ntioned it to Daddy, but twice that I knew of, Archie 'ye Mommy home. Archie had short orange-red hair skin the shade of milkweed with freckles on his chin forehead. Everyone said he looked ten years younger i he really was, although no one knew his exact age. one knew very much about Archie Marlin. He never anyone a straight answer to questions about him- He joked or shrugged and said something silly. osedly, he had been brought up in Michigan or , and had spent six months in jail for forging a. I never understood why Mommy liked him. She he was full of good stories and had been to lots of g places, like Las Yegas. said it again now during the argument in the TO. V. C. ANDREWS "At least he's been places. I can learn about them from 1 him," she asserted. | "It's just talk. He hasn't been anywhere," Daddy| Charged. "How would you know it's just talk, Chester? You'i the one who hasn't been anywhere but the Cape and thi trap called Sewell. And you brought me to it!" "You brought yourself, Haille," he retorted, and su<3 denly she stopped arguing and started crying. Moment later, he was comforting her so softly I couldn't 1 what he was saying and then they grew quiet. I didn't understand what it all meant. How Mommy bring herself here? Why would she bring h( to a place she didn't like? I lay awake, thinking. There were always those silences between Mommy and Daddy, gaps they both afraid to fill. Then the arguments would pass, in as this one did, and it would be as if nothing e^ happened, nothing was ever said. It was as if tit declared a truce over and over because both knew if ti didn't, something terrible might happen, something rible might be said. Nothing was as mysterious to me as love betwee man and a woman. I had crushes on boys at school! was now sort of seeing Bobby Lockwood more thaa other boy. Since my best friend Alice was the scat girl in school, 1 thought she might know something i love, even though she had never had a boyfriend.| was nice, but unpopular because she was about twt five pounds overweight and her mother made her] her hair in pigtails. She wasn't allowed to wes makeup, not even lipstick. Alice read more than a I knew, so I thought that maybe she had come some book that explained love. She thought a moment after I asked her. She re was something scientific. "That's the only way to < it," she claimed in her usual pedantic manner. MELODY P'Don't you think it's something magical?" I asked her. SilB Wednesday afternoons she would come to our trailer ^r school and study with me for the weekly Thursday ^ttetry test. It was more for my benefit than hers, for ||Rfilded up tutoring me. lll'ifcn't believe in magic," she said dryly. She was not ||S good at pretending. I was actually her only real ^^maybe partly because she was too brutally honest BlUtec opinions when it came to the other girls at then why is it," I demanded, "that a man will l^it one woman specially and a woman will do the l^lo^ at one man specially? Something's got to H^ between them, doesn't it?" I insisted. H^^ pressed down on her thick lower lip. Her big, Illlliad eyes moved from side to side as if she were ^^w»(to printed in the air. She had a habit of ^Ki00 the vasl^e °f Der 1^ cheek, too, when she ^111-m thought The girls in school would giggle and ^Blil!6-18 eating herself again." F|fae said after a long pause, "we know we're all things happen between cells," she t a certain man's protoplasm has a chemical I a certain woman's protoplasm. Something * tjust positive and negative atoms reacting, alee it seem like more," she concluded. ft," I insisted. "It has to be! Don't your ?5t's more?" (fed. 'They never forget each other's birth- IBaaiversary," she said, making it sound as I there was to being in love and married. ~r, William, was Sewell's dentist. Her r receptionist, so they did spend a great But whenever I went to have my teem ctwa"»». ^ -^-^..'^^"SS- ^, ^^^BL Morgan, as if she weren'dSS^^^^^s-^^sy^S^^^^. e^AliSBE»t.^®^ss^^ arguments?" I wondered it il was'ys&.'saw^ass^ mommy and daddy did. "Not terribly bad and very rarely in front of anyone she said. "Usually, it's about politics." "Politics?" I couldn't imagine Mommy caring a politics. She always walked away when Daddy and George got into one of their discussions. "Yes." "I hope when I get married," 1 said, "I never have| argument with my husband." "That's an unreatistic hope. People who live must have some conSacte. it's natural." "But if they do, and they're in love, they akwa^s1, wp and feel terrible about hurting each other." "Vsagyfifc" (ARft xAeoteA. "But that might be ji keep toe peasx. Qreofc, sq ^x^& ^&si ^iL^a other for nearly a week. 1 think it was-»?hen^"w*®«^*yw.y3&'sfcr ^&> "Sexual reproduction is a natural process per- >y all living things. It's built into the species." .» saying ugh after everything I say. You sound like Caaa^ '^s.^aA'i^.^^s.'^sfe.'gs^^^^L^saL S^r fUm in the bathroom yesterday and overheard her to Paula Temple about--" at?" ; know." saed my eyes. r was she with?" Getz. I can't repeat the things she said," i, blushing. aes I wonder," I said sitting back on my ?*jf-you and 1 aren't the only virgins left in our t not ashamed of it if it's true." ; ashamed. I'm just..." riosity killed the cat," Alice warned. She tiker round eyes. "How far have you gone with "IBlEWOOd?" ar," I said. She was suddenly staring at me so S to look away. aber Beveriy Marks," she warned. Marks was infamous, the girl in our eighth" l who had gotten pregnant and was sent away. Srno one knew where she went. worry about me," I said. "I will not have sex ne I don't love." shrugged skeptically. She was annoying me. I nes wondered why I stayed friends with her. t*s get back to work." She opened the textbook and V. C. ANDREWS teeth checked, I noticed she called her husband Morgan, as if she weren't his wife, but merely employee. Alice had two brothers, both older. Her brother Is had already graduated and gone off to college and brother Tommy was a senior and sure to be the valedictorian. "Do they ever have arguments?" I asked her. * arguments?" I wondered if it was just something mommy and daddy did. "Not terribly bad and very rarely in front of anyoia she said. "Usually, it's about politics." "Politics?" I couldn't imagine Mommy caring a politics. She always walked away when Daddy and. George got into one of their discussions. "Yes." "I hope when I get married," I said, "I never have| argument with my husband." "That's an unrealistic hope. People who live tog must have some conflicts. It's natural." "But if they do, and they're in love, they always: up and feel terrible about hurting each other." "I suppose," Alice relented. "But that might be ]u8 keep the peace. Once, my parents didn't talk to other for nearly a week. I think it was when they i about the last presidential election." "A week!" I thought for a moment. Even Mommy and Daddy had their arguments, they aN spoke to each other soon afterward and acted nothing had happened. "Didn't they kiss each good night?" "I dont know. I don't think they do that." "They don't ever kiss good night?" Alice shrugged. "Maybe. Of course, they kissed| they must have had sex because my brothers and I < born," she said matter-offactly. "Well that means they are in love." , "Why?" Alice asked, her brown eyes narrowing| skeptical slits. MELODY why, "You can't have sex without being in doesn't have anything to do with love per se," she & "Sexual reproduction is a natural process periled by all living things. It's built into the species." fef*^.^.»» u'gn» Stop saying ugh after everything I say. You sound like Boa Cross," she said and then she smiled. "Ask her "tesL" BfT qb in the bathroom yesterday and overheard her t to Paula Temple about--" I my eyes. $ she with?" Oetz. I can't repeat the things she said," i, blushing. aes I wonder," I said sitting back on my Fyou and I aren't the only virgins left in our l not ashamed of it if it's true." : ashamed. I'm just..." riosity killed the cat," Alice warned. She Her round eyes. "How far have you gone with _)»dcwood?" t fiu"," I said. She was suddenly staring at me so ' ft to look away. totoer Beverly Marks," she warned. Marks was infamous, the girl in our eighth- (who had gotten pregnant and was sent away. pao one knew where she went. marry about me," I said. "I will not have sex a^I don't love." fugged skeptically. She was annoying me. I l wondered why I stayed friends with her. t back to work." She opened the textbook and V. C. ANDREWS ran her forefinger down the page. "Okay, the main part , of tomorrow's test will probably be—" ^ Suddenly, we both looked up and listened. Car doors were being slammed and someone was crying hard and! loudly. "What's that?" I went to the window in my bedroom. It looked out to the entrance of Mineral Acres. A few of Mommy's co-workers got out of Lots Norton's car. Lois, was the manager of the beauty parlor. The rear door wat opened and Lots helped Mommy out. Mommy was crying uncontrollably and being supported by two oti women as they helped her toward the front door of i trailer. Another car pulled up behind Lots Norton's w two other women in it. Mommy suddenly let out a piercing scream. My he raced. I felt my legs turn to stone; my feet seemed naile to the floor. Mama Ariene and Papa George came out ( their trailer to see what was happening. 1 recogniz Martha Supple talking to them. Papa George and Mat Ariene suddenly embraced each other tightly-, Mai Arlene's hand going to her mouth. Then Mama Arle rushed toward Mommy, who was now nearly up to c steps. Tears streamed down my cheeks, mostly from fe Alice stood like stone herself, anticipating. "Wl happened?" she whispered. I shook my head. 1 somehow managed to walk out i my room just as the front door opened. Mommy took a deep breath when she saw me. "i Melody," she cried. "Mommy!" I started to cry. "What's the matter asked through my sobs. "There's been a terrible accident. Daddy and other miners ... are dead." A long sigh escaped from Mommy's choked thi She swayed and would have fallen if Mama Arl hadn't been holding on to her. However, her eyes bleak, dark, haunted. Despair had drained her face i radiance. I shook my head. It couldn't be true. Yet there MELODY 'clutching Mama Ariene, her friends beside and ter, all with horribly tragic faces. it" I screamed and plowed through everyone, i stairs, outside and away, with my hands over . I was running, unaware of which direction I had r that I had left the house without a coat and it litt'the middle of one of our coldest Februaries. |Mld fan all the way to the Monongalia River bend •lice caught up with me. I was standing there on embracing myself, gasping and crying at the just gazing dumbly at the beach and the I white oak trees on the other side of the river. led deer appeared and gazed curiously at the Etaay sobs. te my head until I felt it might snap off my neck, mchow already knew all the No's in the world I change things. I felt the world horribly altered. atil my insides ached. I heard Alice calling and fwe her gasping for breath as she chugged her e hill to where I was standing. She tried to hug art. me. I pulled away. •e lying," I screamed hysterically. "They're } me they're lying." l ifaook her head. "They said the walls caved in I'Stte time they got to your father and the "KSS' it;*' I moaned. "Poor Daddy." ;Nt her lower lip and waited for me to stop , "Aren't you cold?" she asked. 6 difference does it make?" I snapped angrily. lifference does anything make?" »dded. Her eyes were red, too, and she shivered, 3m her sadness than the wintry day. t go back," I said, speaking with the voice of the Of. Heed beside me silently. I don't know how I got Stake those steps, but we returned to the trailer ; women who had brought Mommy home were followed me into the trailer. V. C. ANDREWS Mommy was on the sofa with a wet washcloth on; forehead, and Mama Arlene beside her. Mom reached up to take my hand and I fell to the floor besid the sofa, my head on her stomach. I thought I was goin to heave up everything I had eaten that day. A fw moments later, when I looked up, Mommy was aslee Somewhere deep inside herself she was still crying,, thought, crying and screaming. "Let me make you a cup of tea," Mama Arlene quietly. "Your nose is beet red." I didn't reply. I just sat there on the floor beside sofa, still holding on to Mommy's hand. Alice stood 1 the doorway awkwardly. "I'd better go home," she said, "and tell my parents I think I nodded, but I wasn't sure. Everything arow me seemed distant. Alice got her books and paused at t doorway. "I'll come back later," she said. "Okay?" After she left, I lowered my head and cried softly i 1 heard Mama Arlene call to me and then touch my i "Come sit with me, child. Let your mother steep."| I rose and joined her at the table. She poured two < of tea and sat. "Go on. Drink it." I blew on the hot water and took a sip. "When Papa George was down in the mines, I ah worried about something Uke this happening. Tl were always accidents of one sort or another. We ou( leave that coal alone, find another source of-energy," said bitterly. "He can't really be dead. Mama Ariene. Not Dadi I smiled at her and tilted my head. "He'll be con home soon, won't he? It's a mistake. Soon he coming over the hill, swinging his lunch basket." "Child--" "No, Mama Arlene. You don't understand. Dadc an angel looking over him. His angel wouldn't let s terrible thing happen. It's all a mistake. They'll di the mine and find Daddy." "They already found him and the other poor i MELODY y." She reached across the table to take my hand. a've got to be strong for your mother. Melody. She's a very strong person, you know. There's a lot of ship to endure these next few days. The whole town Hn mourning." I gazed at Mommy, her eyes shut, her mouth slightly (pen. She's so pretty, I thought. Even now, she's so Jictty. She's too young to be a widow. ;•-1 drank some more tea and then I got up and put on r coat. I went out to stand near the front entrance and Eft down the road. As I stood there, I dosed my eyes & wished and wished as hard as I could that this wasn't ?, that Daddy would soon call out to me. ^l^ease, I begged my angel, I don't care if you don't rant me another wish but this one. I took a deep breath ad then opened my eyes. j^The road was empty. It was twilight. Long shadows ?t over the macadam. The sky had turned an angry t.god tiny particles of snow began to appear. The A moment later we heard Mommy turn on the Hl^Qd &id a station with lively music. i just doing that because she can't stand crying V. C. ANDREWS anymore," I explained. Alice nodded, but I saw she was uncomfortable. "She says I should go right back to school." "Are you? You should," she added, nodding. "AS "It's easy for you to say. Your daddy's not dead." I y1! regretted saying it immediately. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that" "It's aU right." "I know if I live like nothing happened, I won't feel i sick inside. Only, what will I do when it's time for Dadd^i to be coming home from the mine? I know I'll just stand out there watching the road every day, expecting him i come walking over the hill as usual." Alice's eyes Sited with tears. "I keep thinking if I stand there long enough af concentrate and hope hard enough, all this will new have happened. It will just seem to be a bad dream." I "Nothing will bring him back. Melody," Alice sa sadly. "His soul has gone to heaven." "Why did God put him in heaven?" I demande pounding my small fists on my thighs. "Why was I w born if I can't have a Daddy when I need him the mo I'm never going back to that church!" I vowed. "It's silly to think you can hurt God back," Alice sa "I don't care" The look on her face said she didn't think I mes what I was saying. But I did mean it, as much as I could mean anythin) took a deep breath, the futility of my outbursts and am washing over me. "I don't know how we will go without him. Ill have to quit school maybe and work." "You can't do that!" "I might have to. Mommy doesn't make very i money working in the beauty parlor." Alice thought a moment. "There's the miner's pension and social security, 1 "Mommy said it won't be enough." MELODY We heard a loud outburst of laughter come from both fommy and Archie Mariin. Alice grimaced. "My father doesn't know how Archie ujSa keeps out of jail. Daddy says he waters the Meey in the bar." ^Mommy's just trying not to be sad," I said. "She'd in anyone right now. He just happens to be ." I nodded, unconvinced. ked up my fiddle and plucked at the strings. idy loved to hear me play," I said smiling, rearing. i play better than anyone I know," Alice declared. 1 I'll never play again." I threw the fiddle on the f course you will. Your daddy wouldn't want you to t up, would he?" |ought about it. She was right, but I wasn't in the (.to agree with anything anyone said right now. her peal of laughter from Archie Martin reached s. 'walls of this trailer are made of cardboard," I ,'put my hands over my ears. »^e welcome to come to my house," Alice said. ^other's the only one home." e lived in one of the nicest homes in Sewell. yily, I loved going there, but right now I felt it was Lt© do anything enjoyable. tenly we heard Mommy and Archie singing along song on the radio, followed by their laughter I up and reached for my coat. "Okay. Let's get ie." >. nodded and followed me out of my room and he short corridor. Mommy was sprawled on the w and Archie was standing at her feet, holding his m his hand. They didn't speak, then Archie t to turn down the volume on the radio. V. C. ANDREWS "I'm going to Alice's house." "Good idea, honey. Daddy wouldn't want you moping around the trailer." I wanted to say he wouldn't want you laughing and Singing and drinking with Archie Martin either, but I swallowed my words and pounded my feet over the thin rug to the front door. "Don't be late," Mommy called after me. I didn't reply. Alice and I walked away from the trailer, the radio music turned up behind us again. Neither of us spoke until we rounded the turn toward Hickory Hill. The Morgans lived at the top and from their living room and dining room windows could look down on the valley and Sewell proper. Alice's mother was very proud of their home, whid she told me on more than one occasion was a colonia I revival, a house with historical architecture. It had tw stories and a front porch. They had an attached garag< The house had twelve rooms. The living room looked a big as our entire trailer. Alice's room was certainly twic the size of mine, and her brother Tommy's room even bigger. The one time I looked in at the ma bedroom with its own bathroom, 1 thought I had ent( a palace. Tommy was in the kitchen when we entered the ho He sat on a stool, smearing peanut butter on a piece i bread and holding (he phone receiver between his and shoulder. The moment he saw me, his eyes widei and his eyebrows lifted. "I'll call you back, Tina," he said and cradled receiver. "I'm sorry about what happened to your f He was a really nice gay." "Thank you," He looked at Alice for an explanation of what we' doing, why she had brought me to their house. Ever 1 was making me feel as though I carried a disease. No < wanted to be directly confronted with sorrow as d mine. "We're going up to my room," Alice told him. MELODY ^ He nodded. "Would you like something to eat? I'm |jl»t having a snack." -' -I hadn't really had anything substantial to eat for days 6ttBfd my stomach bubbled at the suggestion. | '^Maybe I should eat something." ^ "111 make us some sandwiches and bring them up to Sly room," Alice said. ^'Nother doesn't like you to have food in your room, |^icc," Tommy reminded her. |||**Sl»e'U make an exception this time," Alice retorted. pbr older brother retreated from the fury other eyes and liRr stern expression. H^-don't want to make any trouble," I said softly. guess it will be all right as long as you don't make a I^ISS," Tommy relented. "How's your mother doing?" H"She's doing fine," I said hesitantly. He nodded, gazed llgAlice who continued to glare at him defiantly, and ll^B-he took a bite of his sandwich. ^^et's go up to my room, first," Alice suggested, ^^mg and taking my hand. I followed. ^^e .went quickly up the carpeted, winding stairway to ^IjSorry my brother is such a dork," she said. "We're l||X fighting because he's so bossy. You can lie down if |^nt>" she said nodding at her fluffy pillows and Hgorter on her queen size bed. It had pink posts and a H^|>ght pmk canopy. The headboard was shaped like lUntine heart. I dreamed of having a bed like this 111^ °^ ^e simple mattress and box springs I had ^^^c off my coat and sat on the bed. H'lthought Bobby Lockwood was going to come to ^fiOuse," Alice said. B||new he wouldn't. He looked terrified at church and Briknow you like him, but I don't think he's that ^^ Alice remarked. B|Jg one's very mature when it comes to this sort of m^don't blame him for running away from me." 29 |t V. C. ANDREWS "If he really liked you, he would want to be with you, to help you." I knew Alice hated whenever I had a boyfriend be cause it took me away from her. "Right now, I don't care very much about boys," I said. She nodded, pleased. "I'll run down and make us some sandwiches anc bring them up with milk, okay?" "Don't get in trouble on my account." "I won't. Just rest or read something or turn on television set, if you want. Do anything you want," offered. "Thanks." After she left, I did lie back and close my eyes. I shoul<| be with Mommy now and she should want to be with mi not Archie Marlin. She'll be sorry when he leaves an she's all alone in the trailer, I thought, and then I decide I wouldn't stay away that long. I kept hearing Dadd explaining her actions, cajoling me to understand h» weaknesses. He always felt more sorry for her than t felt for himself. I was sure he was doing the same thit right now, even though it was he and not she who shut up in a coffin. I', I wondered how long it would be before my trie ii.1; would stop looking at me strangely. It would be so I f' to return to school, I thought: all those pitying < Ii1 aimed at me. I imagined even my teachers would gaze i ' me sorrowfully and speak to me in softer, sadder ton( Maybe Mommy was right: maybe it was better pretend nothing had happened. That way other peo weren't so uncomfortable in your presence. But was that like slapping Daddy's memory in the face? Soi how, I had to find a way to keep my sorrow private a go on with my life, as empty as it now seemed to be.1 If I had a brother like Alice had, I wouldn't be fightq with him all the time, I thought. Right now, a brot would come in pretty handy. He would help MELODY i and we would have each other to comfort. If he r than I was, I was sure he would be like Daddy. I Mommy for being too weak and too selfish to her baby. She didn't have to have a litter, but : have considered my need for a companion. fhave been a lot more tired than I realized, for I i hear Alice return. She placed the sandwiches and l on the night table beside the bed and sat reading ?ry assignment while she waited for me to open . It was twilight by the time I did. The lamp was t happened?" I asked, scrubbing my cheeks with is and sitting up. ; N1 asleep and I didn't want to wake you. The t little warm, but the sandwich is all right." Tffl sorry." head. Eat something. You need it. Melody." from the empty plate beside her and the empty e had already eaten her snack. I took a deep t and bit into the sandwich. I was afraid what my * "t might do once solid food dropped into it again. I and churned, but the sandwich tasted good, hed quickly. sre hungry." i so. Thanks. What time is it?" I gazed at the Ifather clock on her dresser. "Oh. I better get t't have to go. If you want, you could even ; tonight." inould go home," I insisted. "My mother needs wry I wasn't much company." » okay. Are you going to school tomorrow?" not. I'm staying home at least one day," I g you all the homework and tell you what we i," I paused and smiled at her. "Thanks for friend, Alice." V. C. ANDREWS It brought tears to her eyes and she flashed a smile back at me. Then she followed me down the stairs. Her house was so quiet. "My parents are showering and getting dressed for dinner," she explained. "They always do that after they come home from work. Dinner is very formal in my house." "That's nice," I said pausing at the front door to gaze back at her beautiful home. "It's nice to sit at the table 1 like a family and all be together. You're lucky." i "No, I'm not," she said sharply and I opened my eyes wide. "We're rich, maybe, and I get the best marks in school, but you're the lucky one." "What?" I almost laughed. Of all days, to say such a thing, I thought. "You're the prettiest girl in school and everyone lil you and someday, you'll be happier than anyone." I shook my head as if she had just said the dumb thing, but she didn't soften her determined expression.! "You will." i "Alice," we heard coming from upstairs. It was mother. "Did you bring food upstairs?" "I'd better go," I said quickly. "Thanks." "See you tomorrow," she mumbled, and closed door. Somehow, I don't know how, I left feeling m sorry for her than I did for myself. When I returned to the trailer, Archie Martin's car' gone. It was dark inside with only a small lamp on in \softline living room. The glasses and nearly empty bottle of g^ were still on tee coffee table, 1 gazed around, listens and then walked softly down the corridor to Mommy bedroom. The door was slightly ajar so I peeked throe ||j the opening and saw her sprawled on her stomach, t 1 robe was up around tile backs of her knees and her a -j l dangled over the side of the bed. ^ 1 walked in and gazed at her face. She was breathe heavily through her mouth and was in a deep steel covered her with the blanket and then left to dean up 1 MELODY ; before I was about to go to bed myself, there t gentle knock on the door. It was Mama Arlene. tur-are you, honey?" she asked, coming in. 6 all right," I said. "Mommy's asleep." d. I brought some of the food back from the wake to have." She put the covered plates in our >r. "No sense letting this go to waste." .you." w over to me and took both my hands in hers. lene was a small woman, an inch shorter than ording to Papa George, she had a backbone with steel. Although diminutive, she still ^abte to hold everyone else's troubles on her will be hard for a while, but just remem- 6 right next door anytime you need us, you," I said, my voice cracking, the tears nder my eyelids. we sleep, sweetheart." She hugged me and I a* right back. It broke the dam of tears and I »sob again. ,^ she said softly. "That's the cure. That, and sl-deep breath and went to my room. I heard her 1 then all was quiet. Off in the distance, the wail kwhistle echoed through the valley. Some of the years, I thought, might have been dug out by re.he... before he ... » up north, someone would shovel the coal , and for a while, be warm. I shivered and 1 tfl would ever be warm again. red if Mama Arlene was right about the power i the days and weeks that passed, the ache in scame a numbness. But that ache was always when my mind went to Daddy or when I ae who sounded like him. Once, I even V. C. ANDKEWS thought 1 saw him walking along the road. I hated going by the mine or looking at the other miners. The sight of i them made my stomach tighten and sent pins into my heart. Mommy never returned to the cemetery, but I did-- almost every day for the first few weeks and then^ every other day or so after that. Everyone treated m&4 differently at school for the first few days after I returned^ but soon, my teachers spoke to me just the way they spoke to everyone else, and my friends began to stay at my side longer, talking to me more, and laughing around me. Bobby Lockwood drifted away, however, and seeme interested in Helen Christopher, a ninth grader wt looked more like an eleventh grader. Alice, who some how managed to eavesdrop on conversations all d long, told me Helen was even more promiscuous th the infamous Beverly Marks. Alice predicted it was ox a matter of time before she would be pregnant, too. ^ None of this mattered. I didn't shed a tear o Bobby's betrayal. Things that used to mean a lot n seemed small and petty. Daddy's death had jerieed headlong into maturity. On the other hand, with Dac gone. Mommy became flightier than ever. The bigg effect Daddy's death seemed to have on her was to mi her even more terrified of becoming old. She spent great deal more time primping at her vanity table, fu' her hair, debating over her makeup. She continu reviewed her wardrobe, complaining about how old; out of style all her clothes were. Her talk was alv IP1 about herself: the length and shade of her hair, a p ness in her cheeks or eyes, the firmness leaving her; what this bra did for her figure as opposed to ^ another could do. ;1 She never asked about my school work, and bets what I made for dinner and what Mama Arlene did] us, she never cooked a meal. In fact, she seldom < came home for dinner with me, claiming she'd get; 1 34 MELODY I can't eat as much fatty food as you can. Melody," told me. "Don't wait for me. If I'm not home by six, t eating without me," she ordered. It got so she was (f home for dinner once or twice a week. Mostly, I ate ' [ama Ariene and Papa George. I though Mommy was worried about her complex- i her figure, she continued to drink gin and smoke. I asked her about that, she got very angry and told (her only vice and everyone need a little vice. people end up in monasteries or nunneries lally go mad," she explained. "I have a lot of >w with your father gone. I need to relax, so ae any new problems for me," she ordered. Ifclicnew simply meant, "Leave me alone." 1 to complain too: about how often she saw lin and how often he was at our house. But I l.my lips and swallowed my words. It took so »set Mommy off these days, and after she went on ff--shouting and flailing about--she would m and cry and make me feel just terrible. It got f to feel as if I was her mother and she was my (piled up, some simply because she just never bq. twice, the phone company threatened to r service and once the electric company came ts warning on our door. Mommy was always Stakes with our checking account. I had to tee bookkeeping, do our grocery shopping, and the trailer. Papa George helped me with that, i death had had a big impact on him, too. He sicker, and much more tired these days. ; was always after him to take better care of iver he wouldn't stop smoking and he even ig a little whiskey in the late afternoon. ; nights when I was wakened by the sound of laughter and then heard Archie Marlin's that laughter was coming from Mommy's V. C. ANDREWS bedroom. I pressed my hands over my ears, but I couldn't shut out the sounds that I knew were sounds of s lovemaking. The first time I heard that, I got so sick to my stomach and I had to run to the bathroom to vomit. Mommy' didn't even hear me and never asked what had happened. Usually, Archie was gone before I rose in the morning, and ill heard him moving about in the kitchen or living room, I'd wait as long as I could before rising. All of this had happened too quickly--far too quickly for most people in Sewell. I knew there was a lot of gossip about us. One night Mommy returned from work enraged. She had gotten into an argument with Mrs. Sampler, who had always been one of her best customers. They fought because Mrs. Sampler had made i remark about Mommy's not spending enough time il respectful mourning. From what I heard afterw Mommy had become so shrill and wild, Francine asked her to leave. She was fuming, and started to drink as she recited 1 | argument. "Who is she to tell me how to act? Does s | know how hard my life is? How much I suffered? £ ij, lives in her fine house and looks down on me, judgil 'i! me. Who told her she could be judge and jury?" > Mommy paused now and then to make sure I was o i her side. I knew it was better not to get her any moti furious than she already was, so every time she looked i me with her narrowed eyes I nodded enthusiastically i acted as outraged as I could about someone op criticizing her. "I hate these people. They think just because they 1 money, they can lord it over us. They're so si minded. They're so--" She struggled to? the right and looked to me for a suggestion. "Provincial?" "Yes. What's that mean?" she asked. "They just haven't been to enough other places to wider point of view," I said. She liked that. 1 MELODY t smart. Good. And you're right, too. Archie's : saying the same thing. He hates this town as M»$ I do. And you do," she added. iea't hate it. Mommy." If course you hate it. What's here for you?" She Tter cocktail and then went to the phone to call f and tell him what had happened. in't realize how serious the incident at the beauty ted been until days later when I came home early chool and found Mommy lying on the sofa watch* ' soap opera. She had obviously not even gotten 4 that day. I didn't even have to ask. She saw the w my face and told me before I could utter a on. knot working for Francine anymore," she said. ^ Why?" Jhad an argument. After all these years, you'd ie would be more loyal to me. I broke my back for tier all sorts of favors. The ingrate. That's what g^That's what they all are." ; are you going to do?" rt thinking about it right now. I'm too angry," pouting. "What are we going to have for B's the chicken from yesterday to warm up and I as some potatoes and some green beans." linked. tt'8 all we have, I guess that's what it will be," she (dosed her eyes. ids shook as I prepared our dinner. What would b?? Who was going to give Mommy a job? What job could she manage? There was only one on in Sewell. Maybe, what I had told Alice ie true: I would have to quit school and find a idn't bad enough life insurance and what we ^frorn social security wasn't enough. Besides, ' had spent a lot of that money on new clothes. 37 But she didn't appear worried. After I had the meal prepared, she changed her mind about not liking it. She 1 ate and drank and talked a blue streak about this new Sad, Beautiful Dreamer I returned from school that afternoon with an emptine that made my chest feel hollow. One foot followed other mechanically, the soles of my shoes barely lei the road. A group of grade school children ran Their laughter had the tinkling sound of china, crisi musical in the clear, sharp air. Children, I realized, i really have to contend with deep sadness. They wooed out of it with the presentation of a toy or| promise. But being mature means realizing life is fill with dark days, too. Tragedy had sent me headlong in reality. All the things I had seen before now lool different, even nature. The snow had melted. The white oaks, with tt powerful broad branches, the beech trees and po trees, all had leaves turning a rich shade of green. I' vaguely aware of the birds flitting from branch to brai around me. Above me, the lazy, milk-white do seemed pasted against the soft blue sky, but they loot like nothing more than blobs of white. Their shapes longer resembled camels or whales. My imagination' imprisoned in some dark closet. MELODY }ly, the first warm kiss of sunshine Oiled me with st. Things that oofmaUy made me depressed of looked small and insignificant against the ' of budding flowers or the laughter of young . rippling through the air. ' "ie spring glory in the world wouldn't bring my k. I missed his voice and his laughter more log day. Mama Ariene was wrong: time wasn't s wound. It made the emptiness wider, longer, I along, I carried my school books in the I bag Daddy had bought me long ago. I t to study for and lots of homework, so the I and heavy. Alice had remained after school t Events Club. There was also a rehearsal for 9l talent show, and I was supposed to play my it. I had volunteered months ago, but since i death, I hadn't picked up my fiddle once. I no "I the desire or the confidence. ie else seemed to have something to do, friends i, activities to join. Once or twice I tried to » some enthusiasm about something I had done ""Nddy's death, but an important part of me had sb. Daddy. I knew my friends at school, even acre losing patience with me. After a while, they 'pleading, begging, and encouraging me to do ' Do you want me to wait until I'm too old to have i chance? That's what happened to a lot of the ] MELODY raere. Well, it's not going to happen to me," she l determination. tiled again. "I have another surprise. I was going [until we actually left, until we were on the road hing ahead of us but a better future," she said. id at her dumbly, wondering what additional [aHe could possibly have. Tyou even want to know what it is?" she asked idn't speak. c my head and gazed around. It was overwhelm- suitcases on the floor, the house in a mess, A 9wa everywhere... I finally asked. t stop is going to be Provincetown, Cape Cod. 5 to see your father's family, finally. Well?" en I didn't reply. "Aren't you excited? You i asking about them. Now, you'll get all the rtown? Daddy's family?" pA it a good idea?" ^Jknow," I said. She was right: she had sur, something wasn't ringing true. I took a deep f heart pounded. With everything happening ernldn't think straight. €t we plan this better. Mommy? Can't we sit it it first and get organized?" ise that usually means we won't do it," she Archie says, if you don't do something we the urge, you probably never will." t-we have to go with him?" I pursued. i her face and narrowed her eyes. "I like y. He makes me laugh and I'm tired of aplaining. I'm tired of people looking at i some sort of freak because my husband i a mining accident. SArchie." She sat down on the sofa and f me to join her. I sat down next to her, but I (.Then she pulled me into her arms for the V. C. ANDREWS first time since Daddy had died. She held me tightly i began to stroke my hair and slowly I began to relax.] felt so good to have my Mommy back. I'd missed her| much. "You'll like Archie once you get to know h He's just the medicine I need and you need, honey."! paused, but kept caressing my hair. I hoped she we never stop. "The only thing," she added softly, "is; we leave Sewell, I don't want you to call him anymore." ' "Why not?" "His real name is Richard. Archie is just a nick "How come he can leave so quickly? He has ajol said, hoping she wouldn't get mad and stop holding! Perhaps he had been caught watering the whis" Alice's father thought. "It's not the sort of a job a man like Arch ... wants for the rest of his life. So we made a Now, Pumpkin, I want you to go pack, and remer only two suitcases." '"But I'll have to leave so much behind," I prote "George and Arlene will look after it," she said. * after we're settled somewhere nice, we'll have every shipped to us." "Mama Arlene," I muttered, realizing this me wouldn't see her anymore. "Did you tell her about I "I was just going to do that," Mommy said,' forcing me to stand here and talk, talk, talk, I down on my time. I have things to pack, too." "But don't I have to tell the school and don't- "Will you stop all this chatter, Melody, a packed! Everything will be just fine. We're not t people to move, you know. Although, I bet yc count on one hand how many escaped this rat-tn She smiled again and rushed off to her bedroox I just stood there, gazing around, still finding it I believe we were going to leave Sewell for goodij about going to Daddy's grave to say good-bye? A about Alice and my other friends? I had to tun library books! What about our mail? And the MELODY -surely, we had to go to the bank. There was ito do. [down my book bag and walked slowly down the '. Mommy had her closet open and her i on the bed. She stood in the center of the ng. to leave so much behind, but I'll get new »n't I?" she decided. ay, please. Let's wait and do this right." t^fcyou packing?" She turned to me angrily. "I'm u. Melody. When Archie arrives, we're going or," she threatened. "What you have packed, : you haven't, stays. Understand?" led down the lump in my throat and thought a ^.suggestion born of desperation came to my tshould stay and live with Mama Ariene and ; until you find a new home for us, her head. "I thought of that, but Papa sker than ever and Mama Ariene has her th him as it is. Besides, they are not really -and can't be your legal guardians. It's too ability for old, decrepit people to bear." of old and decrepit," I insisted. t your things into those suitcases!" Then aed. "Don't make things harder than they tey. I'm depending on you to be a big girl. htened, too. Everyone's afraid when they fe. I need your support. Melody." She IT! didn't move. "Besides, you know Daddy ^ym to do what I ask," she said. "Wouldn't ^ A "Wouldn't he?" iCtantly admitted. f head and turned away. When I stepped room and gazed about, I found myself an impossibility. There were so many , especially things Daddy had bought doll, and all the pictures. Those V. C. ANDREWS suitcases Mommy had set out for me were barely bi) enough to hold a tenth of my clothes, much less s ~ animals. And what about my fiddle? "Ten minutes!" Mommy cried from her room. I had ten minutes to decide what I would leave b< |^ maybe forever. I couldn't do it. I started to cry. "Melodyl I don't hear you putting things into suitcases," she called. Slowly, I opened the dresser drawers and took what I knew were necessities, my underthings, soi some shoes and sneakers. Then I went to the closet; chose my skirts and blouses, two pairs of jeans, . some sweaters. The suitcases filled up quickly, but I gathered as m of my photographs as I could and stuffed them under < clothes. Then I tried to squeeze in my first doll, stuffed cat and Teddy bear, and some gifts from Da Mommy came out and saw how full my suitcases' and how it was impossible to close them property. "You can't take all that," she said. "Can't I have another suitcase?" "No. Arch... Richard has his things, too, and 11 to take four suitcases myself. I need my good clothes i can look nice when I go for job interviews and tions," she claimed. "I told you, we'll send for the i "But I don't need much more. Maybe a small and--" "Melody, if you can't decide what to leave he decide for you," she said and reached down to plu stuffed cat out of the suitcase. "No!." I cried. "That was the last thing Daddy me!" "Well, it's obviously either this or that Teddy be» some of your clothes. Decide. You're a big girl now.i don't need toys," she snapped and threw the catr onto the clothes in the suitcase. I pressed the stuffed animals down and then Ij I, the suitcase so it would close and managed to snaps to hold. The sides of the suitcases bulged i 48 svy, but I had gotten in the things I would /aot leave behind. , only need the one coat," Mommy instructed, 1-tBe boots you're wearing. Don't forget your airing my fiddle," I said. fiddle? Melody, please. That's a backwoods, 'fefcrsoa's instrument." sf loved to hear me play." he can't hear you now. Yau're not going to play where you'll be going, I'm sure. Maybe you'll iNo play the guitar or--" t^o if I have to leave the fiddle. Mommy." I anas under my breasts and planted my back sast the wall. "I won't. I swear." >ed. ( it-will take time to get the shanty town out of irself." She marched down the corridor to g up her cosmetics. I had forgotten my own 1 had to open one of the suitcases to get : T»as still struggling to close it when Archie wed. a brown sports jacket, a shirt and tie, and ks. He looked a little better dressed than said, entering my room without knocking. ?" mournfully. s him smile. "I bet you're excited, huh?" , firmly this time. ?ittih? Well, there's no need to be scared. I've his road before and there's nothing to fear." as full of bravado. scared. I'm upset we're leaving so quickly." ' to go is to just get up and go." He snapped 'Either you're a man of action or you're just ie straightened his shoulders and pumped out ' turned away so he wouldn't see the tears Effly eyes. "Haille!" he called. V. C. MWKEWS "Oh, you're here, good." Mommy came into my i "I'm just about packed. You can start loading the Richard." He widened his eyes. "She knows it's your real name and Archie's ji nickname," Mommy explained. "Oh? Good. Never liked that nickname." a) Richard winked at me and went to get Mommy's 1 "Are you packed?" she asked me. "The bags are full. I just have to get this one cl "No problem." Archie paused as he d Mommy's two largest bags over the floor. He left i i moment to sit on my suitcase, pressing the fastci I'' and snapping them shut. "You need anything, N< you just ask," he told me. 1 snorted, hating the ic asking him for anything. "While we pack the car, why don't you go say gi to Mama Ariene?" Mommy said. I lowered my head and put on my coat. Then 11 fiddle in its case and started for the door. complained about how heavy Mommy's bags w struggled to get them down the steps behind me. "Careful!" Mommy screamed. "Some of my things are in those bags." Daddy could have picked them up with just a < of fingers, I thought. I knocked on Mama Arlene's trailer door. "Melody, honey, what's wrong?" She knew something the moment she looked at my face. "Oh, Mama Ariene. We're going away. We're Mineral Acres for good!" I rushed into her arms,, I told her everything quickly, including my si I remain behind and live with her and Papa Ge hadn't even moved from the doorway before 11 said. "Oh," she said nodding. "So that's why she n me about George's condition. Well, come in a i she said. "Where is Papa George?" I asked, not seeing! 50 MELODY ate oversized chair watching television and t Before she could reply, I heard his heavy cough ir bedroom. l«.Nt under the weather tonight," she said. "The | wanted him in the hospital, but you know Papa ', He wouldn't go. When did you say you were fffi Right now!" iit now? But she never said ... Right now?" The i shocked her almost as much as it had me. Her ds fluttered up to her throat like two little song ; shook her head in disbelief. ints you to keep our things until we send for (explained. awe. I'll take good care of everything. Oh »she said, actual tears flowing from her eyes fe'U miss you. You're the grandchild we never ihild we never had." |*t want to go," I wailed. to go with your mother, honey. She needs a't need me," I said defiantly. "She has a." sfcMarlin? Oh." She took on a look of disap- 1 sadness, her eyes darkening. sing on out there?" Papa George called from if go say good-bye to him." The way Mama fc it put an icicle in my chest, chilling my heart. ly to the bedroom doorway and gazed in. ge looked tiny under his comforter. Only med with that stark white hair, showed. He sntly for a few moments and spit into a at the side of the bed. Then, he took a deep 1 turned to me. "What are you women jabber- nag away. Papa George," I said. ^ing away?" ' and me ... and for good," I said. 51 V.C.ANDKEWS He stared, took another breath, coughed a bit and the pushed hard to get himself into a sitting position. "Where she taking you?" "We're going to see my daddy's family. They live ii Cape Cod." The old man nodded. "Well, maybe that's best. Leav* ing on quick notice, though, ain't you?" "Yes. I haven't said good-bye to any of my friends a I haven't been to the cemetery yet." He thought a moment and then reached over to night table drawer. He took something out and beckoi for me to come closer. "I want you to have this," he said and handed me i gold-plated pocket watch. I had seen it once or twii before and knew that on the inside was the inscriptio To George O'Neil, Ten tons of coal! "It still keeps got time," he said. When the watch was opened, it playi one of Papa George's favorite tunes: "Beautif Dreamer." "I can't take that. Papa George. I know what it i to you." "It will mean more to me to know Chester L little girl has it now and forever," he said, urging mel| take it. I reached out and clutched it in my hand. "r way, you won't be able to forget me." "Oh Papa George, I can't ever forget you," I moi and threw my arms around him. He felt so small, all! and bones, and his hug was barely anything. I shocked. It was as if he were wilting, disappearing i before my eyes. He started to cough again and pushed me back s could lower himself under the blanket. I waited for 1 to catch his breath. "Send us postcards," he said. "I will. I'll write every day." He laughed. "A postcard now and then is all we i Melody. And don't forget to play that fiddle. I spend all that time teaching you for nothing." MELODY i," he said. He closed his eyes. "Good." ra streamed down my cheeks. I felt as if my Id burst, the ache was that deep. I turned and i Ariene standing in the bedroom doorway, her igjust as hard and fast. She held out her arms ;hugged. Then she followed me out. ny and Archie had finished loading his Chevy. med the trunk closed and got behind the wheel. ' came over to Mama Ariene. B*t know you meant you would be leaving this te." t worked out that way, Ariene. I guess Melody :ed you to look after our remaining things, if »an eye on the place, sure." e're settled, I'll see about getting what else we e's George?" ; down," she said. I a knowing glance that made me weak 1 call and I'll drop you a line now and then," omised. i was racing. There was too much to think ima Ariene. I'm going to leave my school ie kitchen table. I'll call my friend Alice and tby to get them and my library books, okay?" endear." e keys to the trailer," Mommy handed them riene. She took them reluctantly. Her gaze ; and her lips trembled. r^o put the books on the table. Mommy," I , We want to be on the road. We've a lot of f cover," she said. "Go on. I'll wait here with : to the trailer and entered. For a moment I ; gazing around. Yes, it was a tiny place to 53 V.C.ANDIOEW& live and our furniture was very ordinary. Yes, the rug were worn, the curtains thin, the wallpaper faded. Th faucets dripped and the sinks were stained with rust t the drains. The heat never worked right and in summe the place was an oven. I had wished and wished to have i real house instead, but this had been home to me, ar' now I felt as if I were deserting a poor old friend. Daddy and 1 had eaten thousands oS meals at tl small dinette. I had curled up in his arms a thousa times on that worn sofa while we watched television, blew out candles on many birthday cakes here. In thi corner we had decorated our small Christmas tr® Although the pile of gifts under it was never impressiv it was always exciting for me. Good-bye trailer home, I thought. Good-bye to tl sound of the rain's drum beat on the roof while I slept < studied or ate my meals. Good-bye to every creak an groan in the wind; to the funny moaning sound in th plumbing that brought laughter to Daddy and me dozer of times. And how do I say good-bye to my small room, small private world? Once, this was my special place i now I was looking in at it for the final time. I bit down on my lower lip and pressed my pi against my heart, holding in the ache, and then I scooi up my school books and the library books and put the on the kitchen table. Archie Marlin honked the car's horn. I glanced' everything one last time, pressing it forever into memory. Archie honked again. "Good-bye," I whispered to the only home I had i known. I rushed out the front door, afraid that paused or looked back, I would never be able to leas "What took you so long?" Mommy complained, 3 head out the window. I got into the back seat. It was half covered with i of Mommy's clothes. I put my fiddle on the car flc "Be careful of my things," she said. "Here we go." Archie pulled out of our lot. I pn to the window. Mama Ariene stood in her , small and sad, her hand frozen in goodbye. t blurred my vision and some of them ran down _. I sat back to catch my breath as Archie spun l^tbe entrance to Mineral Acres and shot onto the Shsc stopping at, c. [Why?" He held his forkful of food at his aited for my reply, his thin lips stretching plastic smile. 'we believe all the places you've been to, ft hundred." jtaaBy left his face. "Well, I don't lie, bd. "I can't help it if you've been shut up in all your life." He realized how angry he iced quickly at Mommy, and replaced his sion with a syrupy smile. "But, thankfully, L«»c%to Aane&.^'g^ttaSteT' " She shot a fiery look at me. "It definitely is." 61 V. C. ANDREWS I shut up after that. They wanted to have coffee, dessert, but I didn't. I asked to be excused and ' permitted to wait in the car. Neither seemed unha. about getting rid of me. Archie gave me the keys at left the diner and flopped in the rear seat, fuming ; frustrated. They took their time. It was neariy a 4 hour before they came out, arm in arm, giggling.! children. "How's the country princess doing?" Archie : he started the engine. "Wonderful," I said. "Good, because we don't want any unhappy < princesses in our chariot, do we Queen Haille?*1 "No," she said. "It's against the law to be u isn't it?" "Exactly. I, King Archie--I mean. King Richi hereby declare all tears and sadness prohibited 1 lives from this day forward. Anyone who cc about anything gets a demerit. Anyone who demerits becomes the gopher." "Gopher?** Mommy asked. "Yeah, you know: go for this, go for that." Mommy got hysterical with laughter and we "Where were you born?" I asked Archie aftet^ minutes on the road. "Me? Detroit." "Don't you have any family?" "Not that I care to remember," he said. "Why not?" "Melody," Mommy chastised, "I taught than that You know better than to pry into else's personal affairs," she said. "I wasn't prying. I was just making corn Mommy. You complained about my being before, didn't you?" "Yes, but you don't have to cross-examine 1& you?" "I just wondered if it wasn't the other way i said with a shrug. MELODY at do you mean?" Archie asked. it wondered if it wasn't your relatives that would not remember you." tody!" lie wagged his head. "She's a card. You're going to ; fine. Melody." In the rearview mirror, I saw his »fade and his eyes suddenly turn glassy cold. ' e's not usually like this," Mommy explained. "It's i excitement, I'm sure." ' e said nothing. He turned on the radio. Darkness eker and we drove into a shower that turned into pour. The windshield wipers couldn't keep up r were apparently worn out anyway. The window ; lined with streaks. s like we won't make as much time and distance hoped," Archie remarked. "Best thing would be tffiotel and pull in for the night." lever you think, Richard," Mommy said. sAhe seasoned traveler. We're in your capable "t was enough to make me want to puke. I stared at the front window into the darkness, inter- »w and then by oncoming car headlights. They drops of rain look like slivers of ice that sent »wn my spine. en minutes later, Archie turned the car into the it of a motel. Rain was falling in sheets by now, f could barely see the motel's neon sign. Archie jacket over his head and ran through the to the office door. Bent he left the car, Mommy turned on me. F-wish you would treat Richard with respect. " ift, you know." 11 dor' sd to him as if he was one of your i» and I don't want you asking lots of istions. It's impolite. If he wants to tell us if, he will. Okay?" n't care." caring. We're going to be together for a V. C. ANDREWS long time. We have to get along. We should be; Richard is doing all the driving." She leased toward i her eyes full of pleading. "Oh, honey, try to be happy. Soon you're going to? wonderful new things. Think of that," she cajoled, "^i should be happy that you're getting this opportunity.1 one I never had. I was forced to have with people I "" ~ like and endure terrible things." "Like what?" I asked, my interest piqued. "Someday I'll tell you," she replied, a distant her eyes, the look of someone lost in her memories, "When will you tell me?" "When you're old enough to understand." "I'm old enough. Mommy. I'm fifteen. You take a good look at me once in a while. I'm not a i anymore." "I look at you plenty. You're still growing anAi sensitive stage. I remember how it was when I was 5 age. Trust me." She reached over the seat and put hand on mine. "I want only what's best for you.?| believe that, don't you. Melody?" "Yes, Mommy," I said, wanting so much to her. The door was pulled open and Archie hop] slamming it shut behind him. He brushed the rain< face. "Man, what a storm! But we're in luck. This ] almost filled. They had one room left" "Good," Mommy said. One room? I thought. All of us in one littte i Archie drove ahead and parked in front of Room; "Okay, we're going to have to move quickly. I'B| door open first and then you girls decide what yo| for overnight and we'll just bring that in, okay?" ( "A-ok," Mommy said. He jumped into the rain again. Mommy turned to me. "What do you need, "Mommy, how can we all sleep in the same s asked, mournfully. MEtODY } swe there's two beds, silly.'* e »» » « » start acting like the grown-up you want me to thballs. I kept my back to them, but I knew 4 to dance, drink their gin, and whisper. I asleep quickly, and miraculously, maybe I so exhausted, I did. f in the night, my eyelids snapped open. I t moan and a subdued giggle, followed by the sd springs squeaking. They thought I was didn't turn around. I had heard similar through the thin walls of our trailer. I i Mommy let another man put his hands on intimate with her so soon after Daddy's [iered. Didn't she still see Daddy in her »voice, remember his lips on hers? Archie different from Daddy, too. He was a dn't Mommy wait until she met someone r was realty in love? , frustrated, afraid to be alone, I V.C. ANDREWS told myself. Maybe it would all change when we foun another place to live and she was happier with hersel Surely she wouldn't want to spend the rest of her lii with a man like Archie Marlin. I squeezed my eyelids tighter and pressed my ear 1 the pillow. I tried to think of something else, but the heavy breathing grew louder. Mommy moaned and the they grew silent. Moments later. Mommy slipped in( bed beside me. For now, at least, we were all supposed to pretend! heard and knew nothing. In the morning she would' here in bed with me and Archie Marlin would be in I It was a sad way to start a new life ... lying to other. We left the motel as soon as we were all washed dressed the next morning. In the daylight, the m looked seedier. Even Mommy commented. Arel laughed it off, saying, "Any port in a storm. I've slept ^ lots worse." ' "I believe that," I muttered. If either of them heard i they didn't react. We stopped for breakfast off Route 1 north of Richmond and then continued. I saw i Capitol building in the distance from the highway, 1 we didn't stop in Washington, D.C., to do any of s sightseeing Mommy had promised. Nor did we go Baltimore or any city along the way. It was apparent t3 Mommy and Archie Marlin wanted to get us to Pa incetown as soon as possible. I began to think about family I was about to meet. I knew very little, of course, but I did know Daddy had a younger brother who lived on the < with his family and that Daddy's family had been in1 lobster business for a long time. Daddy's father i retired and he and my grandmother lived in a housed big for just the two of them. That was all I knew. W8 asked Mommy how many children Daddy's you' brother had. Mommy said she remembered he twins, a boy and a girl. Another child had been born i MELODY ; and Daddy left Provincetown. She couldn't remem- ; if the third child was a "boy or a girl, but she did say t she thought the twins were about my age, maybe a r older. Daddy's brother got married before you and Dad" I asked. E think so. Maybe. I don't remember. Please, Melody, : Stood me with questions I can't answer. You'll get r answers when you get to Provincetown.'* ... well, how much younger than Daddy is his rT L'year or so," she said. "He's different," she added. 'at do you mean?" I'll see," she said and refused to do anything but tat that. ) all this family mystery looming ahead me, I it help being nervous. Mommy had obviously told about Daddy's death. Was his parents' grudge 1-Sfow come, after all these years, we were finally (to see them? 11 pushed Mommy about why we were finally i see Daddy's family, she sighed deeply and said, iat your father would want now, I'm sure." myself that must be true and I must be strong what I could to make things right again among all know," Archie Martin said as we headed into ilisetts, "I just realized I've never been to the ' is that possible?" I asked dryly. say flashed her eyes at me, but Archie widened e. "I'm not one for sailing or fishing," he said. I thought you went riverrafting," I followed ;'s not sailing or fishing. That's just a thrill," he Cod has its charms," Mommy said, "but the n be hard. The ocean makes them that way." i't make you hard," Archie said lustily. 71 V. C. ANDREWS I tamed my attention bade to the scenery flying That night we slept in a much nicer motel. We stayed ir suite and I had the sofa bed all to myself. I was able < wash my hair and shower, too. We ate dinner at motel and I returned to the room while Mommy ) Archie remained in the lounge listening to mi and drinking. They stumbled in hours later, giggling i whispering. I pretended to be asleep as they clum made their way into the bedroom and shut the door.' Even though the conditions were better, I had a hard time falling asleep. Now that we would be in Provinc town the very next day, and meeting Daddy's family.i had a small trembling inside. Where was my new go to be? I felt like a balloon, floating, bouncing, carried t way and that by the winds of Mommy's and Ar Mariin's fancy. Maybe we didn't have all that much I in Sewell, but now I had nothing: not a friend, n familiar sight, no one in whom to confide. I had n felt so alone. I could squeeze my eyelids shut until i ached, but I couldn't dose out the fears that kept tossing and turning, fretting in and out of nightma until the first light of morning streaked through motel room curtains. . Mommy and Archie slept very late. I washed f dressed and sat reading a visitor's guide, wondering i least we could do some sightseeing. Finally, tired' being shut up in the stuffy room, I went for a m around the motel. By the time I returned. Mommy i Archie were awake. We went for breakfast. They both very subdued, they hardly talked and their e^ drooped. "Are we going to do some sightseeing before we ] to Provincetown?" Archie groaned. "On the way back," Mommy said quickly. "We' to get to the Cape as early as possible today." "I thought we were exploring new places," I mut "Oh Melody, please. No complaints today. I'm, I had a little too much to drink last night," she i MELODY I said nothing. After breakfast, we moved mutely, Aing the car and getting in for the drive. I saw many ; views of the ocean, especially when we crossed the Cod Canal. It was a beautiful warm day* The >ats and fishing (rollers looked painted on the blue . As I smelled the salty air, I had the funniest g, as if I were truly returning home. Perhaps I was riencing what Daddy would have felt if he were alive with me on this journey. I would learn more about by going to this place. I began to overcome my less and fear. In a way. Daddy would be with ay fell asleep as we continued our journey up 5. The miles slid by like a long ribbon with no end. i the road signs indicated we were getting closer to etown, a tiny charge of excitement passed my heart. How could Mommy sleep through ter all, she was going home, too. Finally, Archie, I been quiet himself, announced we were close to |. tip of the Cape, Provincetown. Mommy stirred, I her eyes and stretching. bt sight of the dunes. "It looks like the desert" Pilgrim's Monument came into view and told me what it was. (pilgrims supposedly landed here first," Mommy 'he blue bloods make a big deal of that." Moods?" I asked. rie who trace their family history back to the vei. Your father's family," she added disdain- (e,' "They think that makes them better than the rest at why you and Daddy left?" : among other things," Mommy said and sewed shut- He do we go?" Archie asked. i left," Mommy ordered. s they expecting us today. Mommy?" >," she said. "Jacob should be home. I see the tide V. C. ANDREWS "How can you tell?" I asked. "The waves are breaking on the beach up at the 1 grass. See?" I nodded. "Fishing boats go out and come back at high tk Mommy explained. "I remember that much, but d< ask me too much more," she said quickly. It was as ifil were painful for her to remember. 4 Archie followed her directions. We moved alowtyi through the narrow street, on both sides of which werftji small souvenir shops, boutiques, restaurants advertising | fresh lobster dinners, and taverns with names like The | Buccaneer and Mast Head. Here and there were signs | advertising bed and breakfast accommodations. Thfrj buildings, some of which looked very old, were made | from gray cedar shingles. All had Vacancy signs dangling | in the breeze. ,.3 Mommy explained that it wasn't the season yet, so the' tourists really weren't here. "These small streets get crowded in the summer, it's wall-to-wall people." "Yeah, just like the Vegas strip," Archie comment® "Item here," Mommy directed. We went east on i even narrower street that had small Cape Cod houses < both sides, none with much more than a couple ofi hundred feet of rough-looking grass in front. But sow had flowers. I saw one with a lilac bush towering as big as its roof. As we rolled along, I heard Mommy mumbi "It seems like a hundred years ago, but not much hi changed." I Suddenly, there were no more houses, just a stretchy dunes. I thought we would stop, but Mommy told Ar to continue following the road. It turned north, then, on the right, just a few hundred yards or so fa a house appeared. I could see the beach and the not too far away. A flock of terns circled over sorry I on the sand. "There it is," Mommy said, nodding at the 1 There was a light brown pickup truck parked m gravel driveway, and in front of that a dark blue, The Only Mother I H< Archie slowly pulled into the driveway. Uncle didn't turn around again until we came to a full Then he stood up and gestured emphatically for / to back up. "I need the room to work here," he explained. "Sorry," Archie said. He backed up a good te and we all got out of the car. Uncle Jacob, his back 1 continued to work on removing the flat tire. "Hello Jacob," Mommy said. He nodded turning around. "I'll be a while with this," he finally replied, looking our way. "Go on inside. Sara's been wa you all morning. Thought you were supposed to 1 last night." He groaned as he turned the nut on' tire. The muscles in his long arms tightened muscles in his neck bulged with the effort. ' loosened and he relaxed again. "It took longer than we expected," Mommy s Uncle Jacob grunted. Mommy looked at me and then at Archie, who I lips twisted in disgust. She put her hand on my i MELODY I guided me toward the front door. The house was a pe Codder with a widow's walk that faced the ocean. e trim on the railings and shutters was a Wedgwood a, but like the cedar siding, it was faded by the salt ^Tbere was a short, narrow cobblestone walkway to ftent door. It the windows were dainty eggshell white curtains, |^3oa the sills were flower boxes full of tulips and Ills. A bird feeder dangled from the roof of the porch and a tiny sparrow fluttered its wings y, cautiously waiting for us to pass. any tapped gently on the door. Then, after a st, she tapped again, a bit harder. t go on in," Uncle Jacob called from the driveway. an't hear you. She's in the kitchen, I'm sure." ay turned the knob and we entered. A small y led us to the living room on our right. A I brick fire place consumed most of the far wall. is a bluish-gray throw rug on the tongue- re floor. A deep-cushioned sofa and the d chair beside it were the only things that The rest of the furnishings were antiques, ;luded a well worn rocker, two small pine it' the ends of the sofa, an old sewing table iomer, and lamps made of cranberry glass i glass. On the mantle were framed photos. [ oa a dark blue board and hanging over the , was a swordfish that looked at least seven feet glass eye seemed to turn toward us as we Mommy called. "We're here." d a pan being dropped into a metal sink and a r later, my Aunt Sara appeared in the doorway to kb. ;woman, maybe an inch or so taller than she wore a long, flowing light blue skirt that r look all legs. Over her skirt she had a plain on which she wiped her hands. Her 77 V. C. ANDREWS blouse had frilled sleeves and pearl buttons closed most to the top. The collar parted just enough to r her very pronounced collarbone and a thin gold < that held a gold locket. Her chestnut brown hair down over her shoulders. Through it were del streaks of gray. Aunt Sara wore no makeup to bri her pale complexion, and she wore no jewelry but. locket. She might once have been pretty, but the silvery' at her temples were deep and her eyes looked a dark brown. The darkness spread to the puffiness neath her eyes, too. She had a small nose and 1 cheekbones with gracefully full lips, but her face thin, almost gaunt. "Hello, Sara," Mommy said. "Hello, Haille," Aunt Sara replied without her expression. The way Mommy and Aunt Sara gazed) each other made my stomach turn. It was as if they v not only looking at each other across this room, across time and great distance. Neither made an atte to hug or even shake hands. A deep silence lingered i confusing moment, making me feel as if I were noun ing in the world of adult quicksand. What sort of welcome was this? I stood there, full i thousand anxieties, butterflies panicking in my chest.l "This is my friend, Richard," Mommy said fi she had to explain Archie*s presence first, I sup "He was kind enough to drive us here from Virginia." Aunt Sara nodded but her eyes quickly went to with greater interest, her face brightening in anticT tion. "And this is Melody,^ Mommy added, putting hands on my shoulders. Aunt Sara's gaze was so pe trating I thought she could look right through me small smile, almost impossible to notice, formed at t corners of her mouth. "Yes," she said nodding as if I were exactly the way ( imagined S would be. '"She's about Laura's size MELODY , only Laura's hair was darker and she never kept it long," she said, sadness making her face long and oweyed. Cm so sorry about all that," Mommy said softly. I," Aunt Sara said, still staring at me. I looked to ay. What was she sorry about? Who was Laura? ently, she knew more than she had admitted about f's family. '. bet you're hungry," Aunt Sara said to me, a smile ffiing to her lips. I smiled back, but my stomach was I in so many knots I didn't think I could ever put food E. "I've got a chicken roasting. Cary will be home i school soon with May. They're both very excited % your coming here." She turned to Mommy and lie. "In the meantime, I have some clams steamed fOU." % good. In the years since I've been here, I've never 1 any good as yours, Sara." I don't do anything more with clams than anyone else Ipad here does," she said modestly. "You scrub them tdrop them into a clam kettle with just enough water ver them. No mystery about it," Aunt Sara said, her s suddenly harder, sterner. laybe it's just the clams here," Mommy said. She 1 awkward and uncomfortable under Aunt Sara's re. at's it for sure," Archie said. Aunt Sara raised her ows and looked at him as if she had just noticed his see. Veil now, come into the dining room and make elves to home," she said. antique trestle table stretched nearly the whole i of the dining room. It had a captain's chair at each fand four straight chairs in a perfect line on each side. ; at the head of the table was a leather-bound Bible. ; was a small pine table in a corner of the room with .e of yellow roses on it. On the wall was an oil ting: a seascape with a lone sailboat moving toward V.C. ANDREWS the horizon. I looked closer and saw what looked ray of bright sunshine pouring through an opening in 1 overcast sky with a godlike finger in the center of the') of light. The finger pointed at the lone sailboat. "Please take a seat," Aunt Sara said. 'That's Jaoo chair," she added and nodded toward the captain's c& at the end of the table where the Bible lay. Obviously^ one else was permitted to sit in it. "Everyone cranberry juice?" "ft makes for a great mix with vodka," A quipped. "Pardon?" Aunt Sara said. Mommy gave him a: manding look. "What?" He recovered quickly. "Oh, sure we like Thank you." Aunt Sara hurried back to the kitchen. "Who's Laura, Mommy?" I asked. "Why didn't: tell me about her?" "It's too sad," Mommy whispered and brought finger to her lips. "Not now, honey." Aunt Sara reappeared carrying a pitcher filled ' cranberry juice on a tray with three tall glasses, each' two ice cubes. She gave us each a glass and started 1 reach for the pitcher. "Let me pour that," Archie volunteered. Aunt Sai nodded to him. She gazed at me again, drinking me i for a long moment, her eyes twinkling with pleasure) approval. It made me feel uncomfortable to scrutinized so closely. I looked away. "Do you like clams, dear?" she asked. "I guess so," I said. "I don't remember eating "She loves them," Mommy said quickly. "Laura loved them so," Aunt Sara said. She I "I'll go get them." She returned to the kitchen. "Mommy?" I said, pleading for information. "Just wait. Melody. Let everyone get to know one before you start, asking all your questions." looked at Archie. "She's always full of questions." MELODY don't have to tell me." He gulped down some ry juice. "Hey, this is good." aberries are a big thing here," Mommy said. "I'd [a penny for every one I harvested. I'd be rich." "'au'fe gonna be rich," Archie promised. Mommy's I warmed and she turned to me. "Isn't this a nice i, honey? There's a beach right behind it and a , too." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. forgot how refreshing the ocean air could be," she 'I, which I thought was funny. She had never enjoyed trips to the ocean as much as Daddy had. feah, it sure cleans the coal dust out of your lungs," b said. it Sara brought in pretty bhie-and-white china soup and set them in front of us. Then she brought in i kettle of clams and a bowl of melted butter. lease help yourselves," she said. Archie dipped his t into the kettle quickly and brought out a dam. He ked the meat with his thumb and forefinger and ed it in the butter and sucked it down quickly. jreat," he said. Jse your fork," Mommy instructed as quietly as she A what? Oh. Sure." He took a handful of clams out of kettle and dropped them into his bowl, this time ging into the clams with his fork. 'Aunt Sara smiled quickly and then looked as if she >re at a loss as to what to do next. "Aren't you having any, Sara?" Mommy asked. No. I'm fine. Go on. You eat, HaUle." She looked at again, stabbing me with her penetrating gaze. I vously reached into the kettle and scooped up a few os. I put them into my bowl and picked out the meat Fone with my fork. Aunt Sara watched my every move, ^proving with a little nod every gesture I made. I felt he a specimen under a microscope. I looked at Jommy. She didn't seem to notice or care about the way Aunt 81 V.C ANDREWS Sara was looking at me. "These clams are as woa as I remember them. It's been a long time." "Yes," Aunt Sara said. After a deep sigh, she finally < in her chair. "Was it a liard trip?" "Naw»" Archie said. "Some rain along the way is i "We had an unusually cold winter this year," t Sara said. She looked around. "This house never see to warm up." "How do you heat it?" Archie asked. "Fireplace, and kerosene stoves. It's an old house, we've been here ever since." "Ever since what?" Archie asked. "Ever since Jacob and I got married," she said.! looked at Mommy a moment "You haven't changed'a that much, Haille. You're still so pretty." "Thank you, Sara." "Melody has inherited your best features," Aunt l added* gazing at tte agate, I rting sound of a loved one's voice. It ;specially for a little girl as nice as May. 1 nodding. I gestured at the desk and she ith her standing beside me and began to , struggling to explain what I was doing. ; my difficulty to communicate, she appeared to V. C. ANDREWS gesturing at everything. "Tomorrow morning," she tinned, "I will take you to the school to get you enrc It's not far. You can walk home with Cary and May e day, just as Laura did." Aunt Sara turned, paused in the doorway, and marched back to the closet. "I might suggest something for you to wear to dim She sifted through Laura's garments. "Now this, yes would be perfect." She held out a blue dress with a v collar and white cuffs on the three-quarter sleeves. "It looks as if it might be tight here," I said holdin hands on my ribs. "Oh no, it won't be. This material gives a bit, but if it is, I'll let it out for you. I'm a talented seamstr she added with a laugh. "I used to adjust all of La clothes. I made her this dress." She pulled a pink ft off its hanger to show me. "She wore this to a sc dance." "It's nice." "Perhaps you'll wear it to a school dance, too." gazed at it a moment before returning it to the d She hung it between the exact same two dresses, where it had hung before she retrieved it to show l She lay the blue dress on the bed and stepped N "What size is your foot?" ^ I told her. She looked disappointed. 1 "Laura had smaller feet. It's a shame for you nofej able to use any of her shoes." '•_ "Maybe May will get to wear them," I suggested "Yes," she whispered, looking heartbroken. Hi way," she said, "I'm sure the dress will fit. WeteKJ our home, dear." ^ Before leaving, she again paused in the doorway "It's so wonderful knowing all these things n| used and loved again. It's almost as if... as q sent you to us." She smiled at me and left. ^ A chill passed through my breast. I felt like an ilq in this bedroom. It was still Laura's room. MELODY es were stacked beside each other against the wall y fiddle in its case was resting on top of them. was so little of me here, so much of Laura. >acked, putting my own stuffed cat next to the one ' on the bed. They looked as if they'd come from ae litter. I put my teddy bear above them on the too. Then I hung up what clothes I had brought ed the drawer Aunt Sara had cleared for me. n I was finished, I went to the window and stared the ocean and the beach. Cary and Uncle Jacob back from the dock. Cary still had his shirt off id tossed it over his shoulder. His shoulder d in the sunlight as he plodded along with his own. Uncle Jacob appeared to be lecturing him something. tenly, as if be knew my eyes were upon him, Cary ip at the window and for a strange moment, it was aura herself were gazing up at me through his d eyes. Aped when I heard someone behind me. May ft the doorway. " I said and waved. She came into the room with a She plopped on the bed and opened the book, H to a page. I sat and gazed at her math text. "You elp?" I asked. I pointed to the page and to myself en to her. She nodded, signing what I assumed ; "Yes, please help me." | is just figuring percentages," I muttered. "It's ^ (tared at me. I kept forgetting she couldn't hear a ward. What would it be like, I wondered, to live in 1 and never hear a bird sing or music, never comforting sound of a loved one's voice. It (rfair, especially for a little girl as nice as May. " I said nodding. I gestured at the desk and she < I sat with her standing beside me and began to terns, struggling to explain what I was doing. difficulty to communicate, she appeared to 103 V. C. ANDREWS understand my guidance, carefiilly reading my lips. When she did a problem, she quickly followed my lead. She was cleariy a bright girl. We did another problem and again she picked up my suggestions quickly. "What's going on?" I heard and turned to see Cary in the doorway. ,., "I was just helping May with her math homework." "I help her with her math," he said. "She can't hear you. It makes it too difficult for her," he said. "She's doing just fine with me." He signed something to May and she looked upset. He signed again and she shook her head. "If she doesn't do well, it will be your fault," Cary snapped and walked away. "He's not very friendly," I muttered. May didn't see my lips move, but she was apparen not bothered by Gary's attitude. She smiled at me a went to my suitcases, inquisitively tapping on the fid< case. She looked at me curiously. "It's a fiddle," I said. I opened tee case and took owf, the bow. Her eyes widened with surprise. How horrible, it occurred to me: she won't be able to hear me play. ; But she urged me to do so anyway. I smiled and shoot my head, but she seemed to plead with those big eyes.' "But how can you ...?" I was confused. "/f' She nodded at my fiddle. '* I shrugged, picked up the bow, and played. May stepped closer. I ran the bow over the strings played a jaunty mountain ditty. Slowly, she raised hand and put her fingers on the fiddle. She closed eyes. H She's feeling the vibrations, I realized, and swM enough, her head moved slightly up and down with 4| undulations in the rhythms. I laughed happily aa| continued. 4 Suddenly, Cary was at my door again, buttoningjl clean white shirt. "What are you doing with her now^ he demanded. ,?s| 104 MELODY 1 pound stopped, lowering the fiddle. May opened her eyes nth disappointment and then turned to see what I was coking at. ^"She wanted to know what this was and then she mated me to play it for her." > "That's a pretty sick joke," he said. "She was listening through her fingers," I began to xplain, but he shook his head and walked away again. '' 1 famed. ^'Your brother," I told May, "is a... a monster." I SiCaggerated my eyes and twisted my mouth when I lointed to the doorway. She looked at me, shocked for a Knnent, then when she realized what I meant she toghed. May's sweet laughter calmed my temper. S **I better get ready for dinner," I told her and pointed B Laura's dress. I pantomimed bringing food to my south. She nodded and scooped up her math book and Wpers to go off and get dressed herself. I put my fiddle away, thinking about Daddy, recalling 2m, Papa George, and Mama Arlene sitting on their latio and listening to me practice. How I missed them Aunt Sara had made it sound as if dressing for dinner iras very important in this house. I went to the bathroom yd washed up, then returned to my room's vanity ttirror to fix my hair. I wanted to dear away all of aura's things and make room for my own, but I emembered Aunt Sara asking me not to move anything. pfound small places for my own stuff and crowded iWrything in together. ^laura's blue dress was snug, especially around my Bsom. I had to leave the top two buttons undone, but it gas somehow important to Aunt Sara that I wear it. r. Maybe it was because I was wearing this clinging dress, Wt when I gazed at myself in the mirror, I had a new ense of myself, a feeling that I had reached a level of eteimnity. Despite the way Mommy always talked V. C. ANDREWS about herself, I felt guilty being proud of my looks, my| figure. In church the preacher called it a sin ofpnde. a But as I ran my hands over my bosom and down tfi<| sides of my body to my hips, turning and inspecting a myself, I thought that I just might look pretty. Perhaps I, 1 too, would turn men's heads the way Mommy did. Was it ^ sinful to think like this? j A loud rapping on the door shattered my moment of i introspection, making me feel as if I had been caught i s doing something naughty. -J "It's time to come down," Cary growled. My father doesn't like us to be late." "I'm coming." I fixed a loose strand of hair. I opened the door. Cary and May stood outside in the hallway, waiting. I saw his look of surprise. The mask of sternness and fury shattered. He looked handsome with his hair brushed back. He wore a tie and a nice pair of slacks. 'That's one of Laura's dresses," he whispered. Panicky butterflies were on the wing again, battering my brain with doubts, buffeting my heart with indecision. Perhaps I shouldn't have put on her dress. Maybe I was violating another unwritten code in this confusing house. "Your mother picked it out for me to wear to dinner," I replied. The answer satisfied him and his face softened. May took my hand. Cary glanced at her and then pivoted and strutted to the stairway, leading us down. May signed to me and I imagined she said, "You look very nice." Uncle Jacob was seated at the table. His hair was wet and brushed back, parted in the middle. He was cleanly shaven and wearing a white shirt, a tie, and slacks. Cary glanced at me before sitting. May followed. I hesitated. "I'll see if Aunt Sara needs help," I said. Uncle Jacob nodded and I went into the kitchen. "Can I help you bring the food to the table. Aunt Sara?" She turned from the stove. "Of course, dear. That's what Laura always did." She 106 MELODY I at the bowls of vegetables and the potatoes, the I and the cranberry sauce. tarted to bring out the food. Uncle Jacob had his ' open and was silently reading. Gary and May sat od straight, waiting, but Gary's eyes lifted to follow movements around the table. The last thing I bt in was a pitcher of ice water. I poured some in ane's glass and then sat as Aunt Sara brought out >ast chicken. She smiled at me and took her seat. st us give thanks," Uncle Jacob said. Everyone ed his head. "Lord, we thank you for the food we i about to enjoy." |I thought that was it when everyone looked up, but (jocle Jacob handed Cary the Bible. h"It's your turn, son." ^ Cary shot a look at me and then gazed at the pages Jncle Jacob had opened for him. "What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lose me of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the rildemess and go after that which is lost, until he find t?" Cary read in a voice so hard and deep, I had to look wice to be sure he was reading. He continued. "And when he hath found it, he layeth I on his shoulders, rejoicing. p "And when he cometh home, he calleth together his §Baends and neighbors, saying unto them. Rejoice with isie; for I have found my sheep which was lost." |" "Good." Uncle Jacob took the Bible. He nodded to sAnnt Sara and she rose to serve the vegetables, beginning iarith Uncle Jacob. 1.; As he cut the roast chicken, he finally looked at me. "I [lee that you're settled in," he began. "Your aunt will give 'yoa a list of your daily chores. Everyone pulls his weight here. This ain't a Cape Cod rooming house." He paused to see if I was listening closely. "I did most of the chores in our house in West Virginia," I said firmly. ""You lived in a trailer, I understand," he said, putting the chicken on May's plate. 107 V. C. ANDREWS "There was still lots to do, cleaning, cooking." "I bet there was." He shook his head. "Haille never one for doing home chores." He paused turned to me. "What was that music I heard before? "I was playing my fiddle for May." Uncle Jacob raised his eyebrows as if I had said l most astonishing thing. "Who taught you how to that? Chester wasn't musical." He paused and "' added, "Although Dad says his Pa was." "Papa George taught me," I replied, quickly ing who he and Mama Arlene were. "So he was a coal miner, too?" He shook his head, don't know how anyone could shut himself inside mountain for his daily bread," Uncle Jacob said. "e! cially someone who was brought up on the oc< breathing God's freshest, cleanest air. It's what we v meant to do. We weren't meant to live like moles." "It wasn't something Daddy wanted to do," I repla Uncle Jacob grunted. "You make your bed and " you tie in it." I was afraid to ask what he meant. We all eating. My uncle paused after a few moments and looked i me again. "This year, we're going to have our I cranberry crop. If you're still here in the fall, you help harvest." "Cranberry crop?" "We got a bog just over the hill here." He nodd toward the north end. "Helps supplement what I mi lobstering. That ain't what it was when my father had I fleet of boats working." He nodded at Cary. "Cary can tell you all about 1 cranberry harvesting. We're not millionaires, but if| easier than clawing black rocks from the earth's gut," "' muttered. My eyes went to Cary. His eyes were on me. He shi them quickly away and I looked at May. She smiled.' one bright spot at the table, I thought. 11 looked at Aunt Sara. She hadn't yet eaten a bite --r. She had been staring at me the whole time, I Aunt Sara with the dinner dishes and silver, then decided to take a walk. The entire time I was ie kitchen, Aunt Sara went cm and on about Laura, cibing how much of a help she had been and how I she was at making cranberry muffins and jams. ^ Sara wanted me to learn how to do everything l had been able to do. I didn't mind, I suppose, but t strange being constantly compared to my dead l. If I voiced any hesitation, however. Aunt Sara 1 stop whatever she was doing and smile at me. it you have to try, dear. Laura would want you to ' She said it with such certainty. It was as if she could speak to her drowned daughter. It gave me the ing the kitchen, I felt drained, but I had more ahead of me. I had to walk through the living to the front door. Uncle Jacob sat in the rocker ; a newspaper. He looked up sharply when I id. lies done?" he demanded. Uncle Jacob." 1, then take a seat there and we'll have our talk He folded his paper and nodded at the settee .from him. ir talk?" I slowly entered the room and sat. He put wspaper on the sea chest table, tapped the ashes & his pipe into a seashell ashtray, and sat back in his et, gazing more at the ceiling than at me. IfWhen Sara told me Haille wanted to bring you here we a while, I was against it," he admitted frankly. "It I't surprise me none to hear that she was trying to id her responsibilities. That was the only Haille I knew. But Sara had her heart set on this, and Sara t suffered far more than a decent, hardworking worn- V. C. ANDREWS an like her should. We can't question the burdens gives us. We've just got to bear them and go on. "Sara," he continued, fixing his cold, steely gaze at i "thinks God sent you here to help fill the hole in hearts we got from Laura's passing. You ain't never y to fill that hole. No one can fill that hole. But Sara's g right to hope, a right to put her tears to bed. Can understand that?" "Yes," I said meekly. I held my breath. "Good. I want you to promise never to dis Sara. You got off to a good start here helping out dinner like you did without anyone having to tell you do it. It's the way Laura would have behaved. "Laura was a good girl. She read her Bible, said t prayers, did well in school, and never gave us none of t grief some of the young people today are giving tl folks. I never caught her smoking ... anything," added. His eyes burned with warning. "And she ne drank beer or whiskey outside of this house. If she w on a date, she was always home the proper time and i nothing about which we would be ashamed to hear." I let out the breath I was holding. Surely, Laura w a total saint, I thought. I dared not suggest it. "This is a small town. Everyone knows everyone i itches and scratches. What you do reflects on us and wet hear about it, you can be sure of that.0 "I didn't get in trouble back in West Virginia, and^ won't get in trouble here. I won't be in Cape Cod long," I promised confidently. He grunted. "Good. Fll hold you to that. Da chores, do well in school and mind Sara, then we'll all 1 fine." He reached for his pipe and stuffed new tobac into it. "I didn't even know until today I was going to staying here," I said. His eyes widened. "That so?" "Yes. I thought we were coming here only to visit."'! He nodded, thoughtful. "Haille always had a lot ' MELODY with the truth. It was like hot coals in her r don't you like my mother? Is it only because she ; have ancestors that went back to the Pilgrims?" e're all sinners," he said. "Our first parents, Adam ?, caused us to be cast from Paradise and wander th struggling with pain until we're granted mercy. e's better than anyone else." s said you treated her poorly because she was an t," I threw back at him. at's a no-account lie," he snapped. ien why didn't you and my daddy talk all these '» at was his doing, not mine," Uncle Jacob said. He ipipe. hat did he do?" e defied his mother and father," he replied, a hard s in his voice. "It says in the Bible to honor thy Her and father, not defy them." How did he defy them?" tour mother never told you?" Mo." }sd my brother, he never said nothing about it a?" Nothing about what?" I asked. 16 tightened his lips and pulled himself back in the fc "This ain't a proper conversation for me to have ^ a young woman. The sins of the father weigh rfly on the shoulders of his sons and daughters, too. I's all I'll say about it." trt..." o buts. I've taken you in and asked you to behave I you stay. Let's leave it at that." theld back my tears. |l$e lit his pipe again, took a few puffs, and looked at "Sunday you'll meet my parents. We're going to house for dinner. You be on your best behavior. ' ain't happy I took you in." Ill V. C. ANDREWS It was as if an electric shock had passed througl What sort of grandparents were these? How could hold a grudge so deeply? "Maybe I shouldn't go," I said. He pulled the pipe from his mouth sharply. "Ofo you'll go. 'You'll go anywhere this family goes as lo you're living under this roof, hear?" His eyes seem sizzle as they glared at me. "Yes, sir," I said. "That's better." He rocked gently but continued ing at me. I started to rise from the chair. "It ain't proper to leave without first asking pe sion." I sat again. "May I please go?" I asked in a brittle voice. I fd bone china myself and feared I would shattel moment. "This place you lived in West Virginia—" "Sewell" "Yeah, Sewell. It's in the back hills, ain't it?" ,s "Hills. Yes, I suppose." ; "Where those families have those rotgut whiskey and feud and marry their cousins." , "What?" I started to smile, but saw he was d; serious. "No, it was just a coal mining town," I sai He snorted with skepticism. Then he leaned fon| pointing at me with the stem of his pipe. "Then places in this country, havens for the devil where his< do his work. The fiend's at home there as much as | in Hell itself," he added. "It don't surprise me Ch< went to such a place directly after leaving here < Haille." He sat back again and took a puff on his d rocking and thinking a moment. "Maybe Sara is x| Maybe God did send you here to be saved." | "My daddy was a good man. He worked hard for u| said. "He was no sinner." | Uncle Jacob continued to rock and stare. Thai 112 MELODY A ^Yon might not even know what a sinner is. ; been brought up a Godfearing girl?" feat to church with Daddy." at w? Well, maybe Chester made his peace with >rd before he was taken. I hope so for his soul's f daddy was a good man. Everyone in Sewell liked tfore than his own family," I added, but Uncle was lost in his own thoughts. He didn't hear me. blinked and looked at me again. "Who was this Tought your mother here?" he asked. friend of hers who knows people who can help coffered weakly. He heard the doubt in my voice k his head. low him before or after your daddy's death?" his eyes small and suspicious. ,ew him before, too," I reluctantly admitted. lit so." A wry smile was smeared over his lips. E away so he couldn't see how thick my tears ng. It stung my eyelids to keep them from ;n»y cheeks. "May I please go now? I want to take I pleaded. I go far or be out there long. Sara has to take you I tomorrow and get you started." I wanted to turn and shout at him. I wanted to >ack and say "Who do you think you are? I Kyou said no one is better than anyone else. What iyou so perfect and how dare you judge my daddy ornrny and say such things?" But my tongue stayed to the roof of my mouth. Instead, I fled the room arried out the front door. I felt like a coiled fuse ed to a time bomb. Sooner or later I was bound to * te. However, right now I wished I could run into a iher's steel arms. tliere was only the strange darkness to greet me. tfor the light from the windows of the house, there ithing to illuminate the street. Behind the house, ties were draped in thick darkness. A sea of clouds V. C. ANDREWS had closed away the stars. The wind twirled the Beyond the hill, the ocean roared. This world was completely different from the worid| had lived in all my life. I felt cold and alone, withou trees and songbirds and flowers of my past. Inste heard the scream of terns. Something ghostly < Sapped its wings against the wall of night. Som could have easily pluck my nerve endings and hear 1 twang like my fiddle's strings. Embracing myself, tears streaking down my chei walked over the cobblestones to the driveway and went a little way out toward the dunes and the sea.1 stared up at the sky, hoping for sight of a star, just < star of hope and promise. But the ceiling of clouds l too thick. Nothing but darkness greeted me everywhd I wondered where Mommy was tonighL Was ; thinking about me? Surely her heart was as hea^j mine was at this moment. , Or was she drinking and dancing and laughing t Archie someplace? Was he introducing her to so US exciting people that I never came to mind? ^ I wanted desperately for her to call me on the'1 phone. tr I started to turn to go back into the house, whenH appeared out of the darkness like some night creaN gasped when his silhouette first took shape and 1 gazed with astonishment when he drew close enc be caught in the dim light from the house windo He looked just as surprised to see me. "What are you doing out here?" he demanded. "I'm just taking a walk. Where were you?" I asl "I had to check something on the boat and didn't i to have to do it in the morning," he said, walking to me. "But it's so dark out there." "Not for me. I've been back and forth over that) of beach in storms and in darkness more times care to remember," he said. "You get to know i| as the back of your hand and your eyes get MELODY s." He stared at me for a moment. "You look (sam cold," I said. I was shivering more from ^ional ice than from the weather. So why don't you go inside?" law going." pe," he said curtly before continuing toward the b, ^y rced him to say it. It brought a smile to my face. I returned to my room, closed the door, and slipped er the comforter. The windows were still open, but I a't mind the breeze. It was a comfortable bed, the I could snuggle in. ?I gazed at Papa George's pocket watch, running my agers over its outside. Then I opened it carefully and auched the blade of grass I had taken from Daddy's lave. The watch tinkled its tune. It gave me comfort. I didn't want to think of anything sad. I didn't want to mber Mommy driving off. I didn't want to hear e Jacob's harsh words, yet they rang in my ears. ; sins of the father weigh on the shoulders of his sons daughters?" What sins? outside the window, the sound of the ocean's waves iking the shore resembled a lullaby. In the darkness of i room, I wondered about Laura falling asleep to the ie rhythmic ocean song. I wondered about her hopes . dreams, and her fears, too. V, C. ANDREWS here. Did you sleep well? But of course you did," she said, answering her own question. "Laura's bed is so comfortable, isn't it?" 1 I rose on my elbows and then sat against the headboard and ground the traces of sleep from my eyes. "What time is it?" '. "Oh, it's early. We rise early. Jacob wanted me to wafce| you with everyone else, but I told him you had such a" trying day yesterday you needed a little extra sleep. Caryl and your uncle Jacob have been up for more than ant hour preparing the boat. I've already made them and] Roy breakfast." "Roy?" "Jacob's assistant." "Oh. Then May is up, too?" "Yes, she's eating breakfast." Aunt Sara spotted some1 thing and entered the room. "She and Cary will be off to school soon. But that's all right." Aunt Sara went to the' dresser and moved a picture of Laura back to the exact' place it had been. She turned to me. "You and I will have | a little time together and then we'll walk to school, | stopping at Laura's grave in the cemetery. I visit herj every morning." She returned to the doorway. "Come j down as soon as you're ready." She took a deep breath; and closed her eyes. "It's going to be a glorious day. I caa^ feel it." I She left and closed the door. I gazed at the picture 04 the dresser. I had obviously not put it back exactly where I had found it. The room was brightening with the strengthening morning light. More than ever I felt that I was invading a shrine. I felt guilty enjoying the things my cousin Laura should be enjoying--her bed, her clothes, her beautiful vanity table, i Nevertheless, after I showered, I put on the dress Aunt! Sara had chosen for me to wear on my first day in a new school. I had seen how important it was to her that I do so and I didn't have the heart to refuse. I gazed at myself MELODY i- mirror. Were there any resemblances between me ^flaay dead cousin? There were none I could see fad the general things: both of us being about this ht and weight when she was my age. Our hair color t't the same, nor our eyes, nor the shapes of our ^8. 1-Cary and May were already gone by the time I went nstairs. [ knew that dress would fit. I just knew it!" Aunt Sara d around the kitchen excitedly. She had prepared itbing she called flippers, fried dough that accompa- my eggs. It was good. She sat and sipped coffee, hing me eat, describing the town, the school, the is Laura enjoyed, the things Laura liked to do. |$ "She was always in the school plays. Were you ever in a '|»ool play?" : "No, but I was in the school's talent show, playing my iddle." "Oh. Laura wasn't musically inclined. She sang in the hprus, but she didn't play an instrument." She thought 'moment and then smiled. "I imagine she could have tough. Laura could do just about anything she put her aind to. ."I was so different," Aunt Sara continued. "I only it as far as high school. My father didn't believe a mg girl needed much formal education. My mother ited me to go to college, but I didn't know for what. I i never the best student. It was finally decided I would rry Jacob and be a homemaker." "What do you mean it was decided?" I asked. "Jacob's father and^my father were close. They were satchmaking Jacob and me before we went to high chool." She followed that with a light laugh that re- ilinded me of tinkling glasses. "But weren't you in love with Uncle Jacob?" "I liked him, and ray mother always said love was naething you grow into rather than something that plodes in your heart the way romance novels and ivies portray it. Real, lasting love, that is." She nod V. C. ANDREWS ded, her face firm. "It makes seme. That's why there ase. so many divorces nowadays. People claim to fall in love rather than grow into love. Growing into love takes time, commitment, dedication. It's as Jacob says, marriage and love are just other kinds of investment." "Investment? Love?" I nearly laughed at the idea. "Yes, dear. It's not as silly as you think it sounds." "My father fell in love with my mother," I insiste "He told me so many times." "Yes, I know," she muttered sadly and looked away. "Isn't it true that everyone in the family was upset about it only because my mother was an orphan?" "Who told you that?" A curious, tight smile appeared on Aunt Sara's face. "My mommy." "No one disliked your mother for being an orphan. That's silly. Everyone was always kind to her, especially Samuel and Olivia." :; "I don't understand. Why else did this family stop talking to my daddy? Wasn't it just because he married her?" I continued. Aunt Sara bit down on her lower Up and then rose and began clearing the dishes. "Uncle Jacob told me my daddy didn't honor hisf father and mother. Wasn't that what he meant?" l| pursued. | "I don't like to talk about Chester and Haille." AuntJ Sara was near tears. "Jacob forbids it." She took a deepj breath, as if the subject stole the air from her lungs. 1 "I'm sorry. I don't mean to upset you," I told her. She| took another breath and nodded. >, "It's over and done. As Jacob always says, we've got to| go with the tide. You can't fight the tide. Now you're herej and I would like you to be happy with us." She turned,^ smiling again. She could flip emotions like someone: surfing television channels. "Okay, dear?" I pouted for a moment. Why was it all such a great secret? What more could there be? MELODY t's get ready to go to school, dear." nodded, rose from the table, and went upstairs to e one last look at myself. I had my hair brushed down I tied loosely with a light pink ribbon I had found in a's vanity drawer. I dabbed some of her cologne t my ears, but decided not to wear lipstick. I 1 that the tiny freckles that were under my eyes more prominent. There was nothing I could do : that. Cake makeup only seemed to emphasize the es. »;Going to a new school and making new friends was rifying. I had seen how other girls who had moved to weU were sometimes treated the first few days and how rvous and timid most of them were. I always felt sorry ' them and tried to help them get oriented quickly, but e of my friends felt threatened by new faces. Boys i always more interested in fresh faces, at least for a e, and every girl who had a steady boyfriend was noid. Aunt Sara was waiting at the foot of the stairs. Just as I torted to descend, she stopped me. "You're going to Bed a pen, a pencil, and a notebook. They're on Laura's tak, honey," she instructed. ifel hesitated, then returned to the room. Taking the pen t the pencil was fine, but the notebooks all had Laura ;an written on their front covers in big, black letters. ny of the pages were written on, too. I'll take one for v, I thought, and get a new notebook later. gAunt Sara was pleased. "Laura usually made her own tench for school, but since you had so little time this IBoming, I decided to give you the money to buy your EBnch." Aunt Sara put two dollars into my hand. ^"Thankyou, Aunt Sara." L"I want you to be happy." She kissed me on the cheek. y "Don't you think I know that?" She paused and ttmed. "Don't you know who I am? Why they picked Be to show you around?" if. shook my head. "No." "I'm Theresa Patterson. My father is Roy Patterson. ye slave-works for your uncle Jacob, so naturally they ast assumed I should slave for you," she added and calked on. Welcome to your new school, I thought and hurried to atch up with Theresa. School was not much different here from what it had sen in Sewell, I decided. The desks were the same type pind we had even been using the same history textbook, I 01 wasn't behind the other students. In fact, I had read I mough ahead to actually raise my hand and answer a 1| mestion the first day, even though I was full of a || Housand anxieties. The teacher, Mr. Kattlin, whom the adents called Mr. K., was obviously impressed. There- simply offered me a smaller smirk. . "Did you take algebra, too?" she asked as soon as the ?t>ell rang to end the period. f^ "Yes." | "Good. Then I won't have to do much," she com- tteented. "Let's go. Math is all the way at the end of the corridor and we often get surprise quizzes. I like to look tower last night's work before class starts," she added. It turned out I was actually a chapter ahead of the class 127 V. C. ANDREWS in algebra, but I didn't volunteer any answers period. The teacher did spring a quiz on the class, a surprised him by offering to take it, too. Some of other giris who had been in my history class lool annoyed with me. I was afraid that if I did better tl they did, the teacher would use me to mock and chas< them. I had seen my teachers back in Sewell do that.' After math we had our lunch break and Them showed me to the cafeteria. "I've got my own lunch," she told me and showed i her brown bag. "Buying lunch is too expensive for all < us." ? "All? How many brothers and asters do you have "I have two sisters and a brother, all in elernei school, and my father doesn't make enough money." "Oh. Your mother doesn't work too?" I asked. "My mother's dead," she said sharply. "I'm going i get a seat over there," she said nodding toward a table i the rear where other students with dark complexions sa "But you probably don't want to sit with the bravas."" "Bravas?" "Half black, half Portuguese," she explained walked away, leaving me in line. I looked for Gary and saw him way on the other i sitting with two boys. He was a senior so I knew wouldn't be in any of my classes, but I was hoping would at least see each other at lunch. He looked i way, but made no gesture for me to join him. Instead, J continued to talk to his friends. Alone in a large room full of strangers, most ofwhon were staring at me, made me fed like the proverbial fisi out of water. What better place to feel like that, thought, than Cape Cod? The idea brought a smile to m face and I turned toward the food counter. "Hi." A tall, slim, brown-haired girl appeared besid me. She had the brightest blue eyes 1 had ever seen and a| pretty smile. "I'm Lorraine Randolph." She offered me her hand and we shook. MELODY Login," I said. t know. This is Janet Parker." Lorraine nodded at a t 'brunette who had harder features and dull hazel She had two prominent pock marks on her fore, too, and, being large breasted, was quite a contrast srraine Randolph. li," she said. .''m Betty Hargate." The shortest of the three pushed if between Janet and Lorraine. She had her dark I hair cut in a page boy and wore a cap to match her aer blouse and skirt. There was a puffiness under I eyes and a twist in her mouth that made her look as if were smirking. Her small nose looked as if it had planted at the last minute of birth between her ed cheeks. She was the only one of the three who earrings. She had a gold necklace and a ring on f other finger, too. B," I said. o you're Grandpa's cousin, huh?" Betty asked. Irandpa?" I smiled, confused. ^"Cary Logan. We call him Grandpa," Lorraine ex- ^ned. 3^/e moved down the food line. "Cary? Why?" "Because he acts like it," Betty explained. "Don't you low your own cousin?" "We just met, actually," I replied, and chose my lunch. moved quickly, not comfortable with Betty's tone of . They followed and Lorraine asked me to sit at table. I wanted to walk over to Gary's table even ;h he hadn't invited me, but I didn't want to turn any prospective new friends, either. "How come you just met Cary?" Janet asked before Eg half her hot dog into her mouth. s lived too far away from each other for our es to see each other." That seemed to satisfy them. P "So you never knew what he was like then," Betty concluded. 129 V. C, ANDREWS "What do you mean: what he's like?" I asked. "I < understand." "All he cares about is working with his father saying his prayers. He doesn't smoke or drink, never [ to any of our parties. He talks to us as if we're all.. "What?" I asked. "Jezebels," she said. They all laughed. "What?" l "Didn't he tell you about Jezebel?" Janet asked. I shook my head. Betty leaned toward me. "Jezebel was the wife o(/ and worshiped pagan gods." "It means wicked woman," Lorraine explained. "If you. don't know your Bible, you're in for hell i damnation living with Grandpa," Betty said. "I know my Bible," I said defensively. "I just did understand why Cary would call you that." "You will, once you get to know him better and starts calling you that," Betty told me. I gazed at Cary. He was looking at us with soi interest. He didn't smile, but when our eyes met, seemed to soften and nod slightly. I continued eating my lunch, answering questk about life in Sewell, West Virginia, the music I lik movies and TV shows I watched. The girls acted as had come from a foreign country. "You can forget about television as long as you*i living with the Logans," Janet said. "Why?" "They don't have a television set, right?" I thought about it for a moment and then was . that I hadn't noticed myself. "No, they don't. I why." "Television is full of sinful acts," Be(ty quipped. "Grandpa doesn't even know what the Beatles He still thinks we're talking about insects," Lor said. Their laughter attracted the attention of evei around us. I felt guilty sitting here listening to mock Cary. MELODY i shouldn't make fun of him," I said. "He and his • have suffered a great loss." ' all stopped smiling and laughing. i mean Laura," Betty said. , Did you know her well?" i^*(|tf course we knew her," Lorraine said. They ex- iged glances as they continued to eat. Silence fell our table and those who had been looking at us, aing and smiling along with them, turned back to • own conversations. ^"My aunt is still very upset," I continued, angry at ow cruel and insensitive they seemed to be. "It was a pTibly tragic accident, wasn't it?" 5 The three glanced at each other. Janet wiped her lips th her napkin and gulped down her apple juice. frame's eyes shifted quickly from mine, but Betty sat ck, stretching. "Better ask Grandpa about it," she said. The other 0 looked shocked that she had said it. sr"What do you mean?" ^ She shrugged. ^ "Just ask him about Laura and Robert. They were using Grandpa's sunfish when they got caught in the BB'wester," she replied as if that explained it. | "Sunfish?" f "It's a shell with one sail on it," Lorraine said. h "Not the sort of boat to be in when bad weather hits," etty continued. "Grandpa knew that better than any- ne. He was born on a wave and came in with the tide." They laughed again. , "I don't understand. What are you trying to say?" "We're not saying anything," Betty replied quickly, Eher smile evaporating. "And don't tell anyone we did." - The bell rang. I stared at the three of them for a moment and then stood up. "Where do we dump our trays?" I asked. "Just follow Theresa. She knows how to clean off ibles," Janet told me. I rushed from their annoying laughter. It was making V. C. ANDREWS my blood boil. I followed the others to an opening in 1 wall where trays and dishes were placed. Theresa waite for me there. "Making new friends?" she asked dryly. ^ "More like new enemies," I responded. Her-eyebr lifted. I thought I even detected a small, tight smile her lips. "English is next," she said. "We're reading Huckle ryFinn." "I read it." Theresa paused and turned to me. "You did? Good.5 Then maybe you can help me for a change." I "I'd love to," I shot back, my voice as tight and firm as: hers. J She stared a moment and then she smiled warmly for, the first time. Her pearl black eyes brightened and shel laughed.I laughed, too. , Betty, Janet, and Lorraine stared at us with amaze4 ment as they walked past and down the corridor. "Do the witches from Macbeth have English now,' too?" I asked Theresa. * "Witches?" She gazed after Lorraine, Janet, and Betty. "Oh. Yes." "Good," I said firmly. We walked on, Theresa talking more freely now about I our teachers, our classes, and the way things were. Cary waited outside the school building at the end of; the day. He looked up sharply when I appeared. ' "My mother wants you to walk home with May andi me," he explained. "But you don't have to if you don't-3 want to." i "I do," I said. He started walking quickly. : "Are we walking or running?" I asked, keeping up with him. He glanced at me. "I don't like to be late for May," he said. "She doesn't know how to get home by herself?" I asked innocently. He stopped and spun on me. MELODY ^"She's deaf. She might not hear a car when she crosses tB»tteet." g?i bet she would look carefully first," I said. "She's a light giri." fc**Why take chances?" he said. ; "She needs to feel she can be on her own," I told him. (K"She's only ten. There's plenty of time for that. tesides, we're wasting time standing here and arguing." iy "We're not arguing^" I said keeping up with his pace. iBfe're only having a conversation." He grunted like Uncle Jacob and kept his face forward . he took long strides. "I see you made friends with the most popular girls at lool already," he commented. "I'd rather be friends with Theresa Pattersoa," t died. He shot a glance at me, a look of surprise on his ». "She's a brava." .."So?" "If you hang out with them, the others won't be as iendly. You won't be included in their gossiping and au'll never get invited to their wonderful parties." "I'll risk it," I said. Although he didn't turn back to Pane, I saw a smile form. May was waiting patiently for us at her school. She ake into a wide, happy smile when she saw I had come r her, too, and I signed hello. She ran to us, but Cary gan to sign quickly. Whatever he told her calmed her | down and she walked along holding tightly to his hand. I : was at a great disadvantage not knowing the language of the deaf. I made up my mind to learn as much as I could as quickly as I could. Aunt Sara stood at the front of the house when we arrived. She rushed to us, her face full of expectation. I could tell that the way she was gazing at us as we all came walking up the street made Cary uncomfortable. I heard him mumble something under his breath, and then he quickened his pace, tugging May along. V. C. ANDREWS "How was your day, children?" "The same as always," Cary muttered and through the gate and past her quickly. May paused to te Aunt Sara her school news. Her fingers and hands move so quickly, I wondered how Aunt Sara could keep up.l She didn't seem to be paying much attention either,! because as she nodded and smiled, her eyes were focusedl on me. '' "It's so good to see three of you come down the street instead of only two. Was school okay? Did you make new friends, dear?" "It's hard to make friends the first day," I replied, without revealing anything in my tone of voice. "Of course," she said. "Would you like something cold to drink? Laura and I would enjoy a glass of iced tea about this time of the day." "That sounds nice. Did my mother call?" I asked 1 hopefully. | Her smile wilted like a flower without sunshine and ' water. "No, dear, not yet." r- : I tried not to look disappointed. "I'll just go and ' change into something else. I'd like to see the cranberry bog." "Oh, yes. It's right over the hill. Maybe Cary will take you," she suggested. May tried to get Aunt Sara's atten tion and interest again. Her hands resembled small fluttering birds, but Aunt Sara babbled on about her quiet afternoons with Laura. By the time I got to my room, Cary was emerging, dressed in a worn pair of pants, dirty sneakers, and an old shirt. "I've got to go help my father with today's catch," he said as he passed. I was standing in the doorway. "I don't have time to take someone sightseeing." "Can I help?" I called after him, but he was bouncing down the stairs and didn't reply. Why did he avoid me? Coming home from school, he had looked embarrassed walking with me at his side, and whenever he spoke to me, he always looked at something else. Was I that detestable? I was sure it had something to MELODY fwsth his resenting my being in Laura's room, using [ura's things. I couidnt wait for Mommy to call so I old at least get the shipment of my other things. ^f changed into my own jeans and blouse, loosened my and put on my older pair of sneakers. May had changed out of her school clothes and was for me. She signed something I didn't under- "Wait," I told her and scooped up the book on sign Lnguage. "You and I will practice, okay?" I said holding f the book. vShe nodded and I took her hand. As we descended' the flairs. Aunt Sara called from the kitchen. ., "Is that you, dear?" ^"It's May and me," I replied. She appeared with only ne glass of iced tea in her hand. "Come, sit with me a linute on the porch," she said, handing me the glass. "Thank you, but doesn't May want any?" I held up the glass. May started to nod. / "May has something to do," Aunt Sara said harshly. "She gestured at her and May's smile faded. She looked at I me a moment and then ran to the rear of the house. 1 "Where's she going?" "May helps with the laundry, folding towels and putting away the linens. It's her chore. Everyone has a 'fist of chores," Aunt Sara said. "Where's mine?" "Oh, there's time enough for yours, dear. I want you to get settled in first." "It's not fair," I said looking after poor May. "Maybe I can help May." "No, dear. She'll be fine. Come." Aunt Sara led me to the porch. "Tell me all about your day at school. Laura used to describe everything so well that I felt I had been right there beside her," she said with a short, thin laugh. She sat in a rocker and I sat on the small bench. A tiny song sparrow perched itself on the red maple tree and paraded as if to show off its plumage. The afternoon sun had fallen behind a thin layer of clouds, 135 V. C. ANDREWS and a cool breeze passed through my clothes, giving i sudden chill. I looked toward the beach where sunshine was still strong. I told her how I felt about my teachers and how, thought I really wasn't behind in my schoolwork, howj was even a little ahead in some classes. She lif attentively, but she looked disappointed, as if I telling her what she really wanted to hear. "You didn't make friends with anyone yet?" "Theresa Patterson's nice," I said and she grimaced, "You should make friends with the daughters of the I better families in town, dear. That way you'll get to meet | nice, respectable young men." She smiled. "I'm sure you ] will. You're too pretty not to succeed. It's what I always told Laura, and sure enough ... sure enough • • •" She hesitated as if she had forgotten what next toi^ say and 1 then she turned abruptly toward the ocean. "We're going | to have a neap tide tonight, Jacob says." ; "What's a neap tide?' ; "It's when the moon's at its first or third quarter. It's at its third quarter. The breakers could be as high as seven feet. Stay away from the water tonight," she added. She sighed deeply. "Laura went out on the neap tide and never came back. I never laid eyes on her face again." She shook her head slowly. "Only Robert's body was recovered." "But Laura has a grave," I said. "Yes. I had to have a monument for her, a place for her spirit." She smiled. "Only a clamshell's toss away as you saw. I can go there whenever I want and talk to her. I told her all about you last night, so I'm sure her spirit's looking over you. That's why I know she'd want me to give you this." She dug in her dress pocket. "Hold out your left hand, dear," she ordered. I did so slowly and she put a gold charm bracelet around my wrist and locked it on before I could resist. "Oh, it looks perfect on you." "I can't take this," I said. "It isn't right." MELODY l wouldn't want you to have it if it weren't right. rill bring good luck. You know why, dont you?" shook my head, afraid to even guess. fe^lbu were born June twelfth, right?" IP'Tgss," I said, holding my breath. NSae widened her smile. ?**Dorft you know, dear?" ^Know what?" ^ "Laura was born June twentieth. You're both Gemini. S?6n't you see?" I shook my head, still holding my breath. I^Gemini, the twins. That was Laura's sign, that's guy's sign, and it's your sign," she said. "Isn't that onderful?" "I don't know anything about astrology," I said. "One night when it's clear, I'll show you your constelition. Laura and I loved to see it in the night sky." She azed up as if it were already night and the sky were lazing with stars. May timidly appeared in the doorway. Aunt Sara asked her if she had completed her chore and She signed back that she had. " "Maybe May can show me the cranberry bog?" I I-^suggested. Aunt Sara nodded, disappointed that I didn't I; want to sit and talk some more. She reluctantly told May |^ny request. May beamed, took my hand, and urged me "to follow her. , "Come right back!" Aunt Sara called from the porch. "We will," I promised. "I've got nice flounder for tonight's dinner. It was one of Laura's favorite meals," she cried. May pulled harder. I laughed as we broke into a run around the rear of the house and over the pinky-mauve and pearly pebbles toward the hill. Toward the ocean I could see Cary on the boat working with his father and Roy Patterson. It looked as if he was gazing our way, but he didn't wave. May lead me to the top of the hill. We paused and I looked down at the cranberry bog. It was all in blossom. V. C. ANDREWS It looked like a second sea of pale pink. May gesture^| wildly with her hands. I was sure she was explaining toe.l planting, the flooding, the draining, and the harvesting! of the berries. It was frustrating not to understand. '| I sat her down beside me on the top of the hill and ^ opened the book about sign language. If we workedj together, I thought, I would make faster progress. Wfelj were still practicing gestures when Gary and Uncle Jacob I returned from the dock. | "Hey!" Gary barked. "Get her back to the house." He made some gestures and May stood up. Using my new skills, I thanked her. She hugged me. When I looked back, I saw Cary glaring at vs. He lowered his head and then plodded after Uncle Jacob. I' took May's hand and we followed. "May showed me the cranberry bog," I told him when we entered the house. He was in the living room with Uncle Jacob. "It's beautiful." He snorted. "See if you still think it's beautiful when it comes harvest time." He cut past me quickly to go upstairs. "If I'm stm here," I called after him. Couldn't I say anything that would please him? "Go see if Sara needs any help with dinner," Uncle Jacob commanded. He didn't even say hello and he had no questions for me about my first day at school. He snapped his newspaper and sat back to read. May looked at me, wondering, I was sure, what all the dark faces meant. I smiled at her reassuringly. Then I heard the phone ringing. Oh let that be Mommy, I prayed. I had never longed to hear her voice so much. No matter what her faults were, how much she had annoyed or disappointed me before, I would be grateful for the sound of her voice. Uncle Jacob lifted the receiver reluctantly and said hello. His eyes were on me. "I said go help Sara," he ordered. I took a step past the doorway, but paused to hear him talk. "Yeah," he said, "She's here. She's looks a lot like A Stormy Warning As we had at dinner the night before, we began prayer and a Bible reading. Uncle Jacob gazed at glanced at May, and then turned to me. "You might I well start right off," he said. "It's your turn." "My turn?" I looked at Aunt Sara. "He wants you to read an excerpt from the Book, dear. Laura always followed Cary." "I could read again if she doesn't want to," volunteered with a smirk. "It's all right," I said quickly. "I'd like to read. do I read?" Uncle Jacob handed me the Bible with his thumb i I'i the section he wanted read. I began. "Who can find a virtuous woman? For I price is far above rubies. "The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her,| that he shall have no need of spoil. "She will do him good and not evil all the days of I life." I gazed quickly at Cary because I felt the heat of 1 eyes on me as I read. MELODY seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly r hands." " Uncle Jacob said nodding, obviously pleased »wl read. glanced down as I continued until the chapter mpleted. xi," Uncle Jacob said. "Words to remember. &" His eyes fixed on me. I knew what he thought of lother. Did he choose this chapter because he nt I would be just like her? I was afraid to ask. I soon as we began to eat. Uncle Jacob and Cary got »a conversation about the lobster catch and the uction of more traps. While they talked, I tried to rse with May. I saw Cary watching us out of the : of his eye, and something I did brought a smile to ye. But Uncle Jacob suddenly looked furious. /ul you tell your daughter to eat and not talk at r," he commanded Aunt Sara. "It's distracting." s, Jacob." Aunt Sara signed his orders to May, who diately dropped her gaze to her food and stopped to communicate with me. 11 ceurred to me that I had yet to see Uncle Jacob use i language with May. Up until now, it had been only y. Aunt Sara, and I. Pm sorry," I said. "It was my fault. I am trying to . sign language." fe\. do it after dinner," Uncle Jacob snapped and id back to Cary to talk about the new traps. ter dinner I helped Aunt Sara clear away the dishes put away the food. She went on and on about the iderful things Laura had learned to do with fish. "Got so her filleted bass was good enough to be in a Btest. You should have tasted her fish pie, too. The ist always came out so light. That girl had magic in her ^" b"I cooked for my daddy often," I said. i"0h, did you, dear? Yes, I bet you did. I don't ember Haille being much of a cook. She had other . on her mind." V. C. ANDREWS "Like what?" I pursued. "Not fit to discuss." Aunt Sara sewed her lipsa "What's that mean?" I demanded. She shook her head and then gazed at the d< j^ before lowering her voice to a whisper. "Truth iSyI don't even like me mentioning her and those days.| "Well, I'd like to hear more about her," I said. ~ "No you wouldn't dear. I must show you sot Laura's needlework," she said to change the sn "Did I tell you she used to do that? I have it all a bedroom on the walls, but there is one she never j finish. It's in my closet. Have you ever done work?" "No," I said, sulking. "Oh you should try needlework, dear. I bet you i be good at it, too." "I don't think so," I said. "Is there anything else I ( help you with. Aunt Sara?" "What? Oh. No dear, thank you," she said. "D right. You have to do homework now, don't you?" "Yes," I said. "Then go on, dear. I'll see you before I go to sle she said. I hurried upstairs. When I ascended the stairw; noticed a ladder had been lowered from the roof al the second floor landing. It led up to a door in ceiling. 1 approached slowly and gazed up at the Ugh attic. Curious, I started up the rungs and stopped at-i top to peer into the room. Two oil lamps illuminate table and a chair, chests, boxes, all sorts of antiques < old paintings. But the most interesting thing to me v the model boats constructed of balsa wood. One ' partially completed on the table. The others were lie up on shelves, all painted, too, and some with tiny sailo manning the sails. There was a very worn-looking couch on the right ai a telescope pointing at the sole window. "What are you doing?" I turned to see Gary staring l at me from the bottom of the ladder. MELODY s just wondering what was up here. Do you do s7" , they're not boats, they're ships. And second, e is a private place, if you don't mind." sorry." I started down the rungs, but slipped on tto last one and fell into his arms. For a moment es were inches apart. The moment he realized he .ding me in his arms, he released me and I landed i my feet on the floor. it's why I don't like anyone going up there," he oving past me quickly. "It's dangerous." His i were crimson. fm sorry. Is that your hobby?" I asked before he hed the top. te dropped a "Yes" back at me before pulling the ter up after him. F don't have the measles or anything you know!" I t. Ie hesitated a moment before closing the door. od riddance!" I marched to my room, and lost ' in my homework. Once in a while, I heard the i of Cary moving above me. I gazed up at the ; and listened until he grew quiet again. I telephone rang below in the living room, I waited, ding my breath and then, I heard Aunt Sara call my tte. Telephone, dear." "Mommy!" I cried. "Finally!" I hurried down the HIS. "It's Haille," Aunt Sara said. "Hurry, it's long dis-tce." fl rushed to the living room. Uncle Jacob sat in his * rir, smoking his pipe and thumbing through a mauler catalogue. He glanced at me and then back at his ^es, but he didn't get up. Aunt Sara stood in the orway, watching. I would have no privacy for this hone call. Nevertheless, I seized the receiver. |Mommy?" "Hi Honey. See, I told you I would call you first 143 V. C. ANDREWS chance I got. Aunt Sara says you've already school there and you said you were right up with. work." "Yes, Mommy. Where are you?" "We're on our way to New York City," she excitedly. Her voice dropped. "The people in Be weren't available when they told Richard they woulc so we never met them, but he has people for me to j in New York and then in Chicago. After that we'll! for Los Angeles." "Los Angeles? But Mommy, when will I... when' we be together again?" I asked my question as quietl I could. "Soon, honey. Real soon, I promise." "I could still meet you someplace. Mommy. I take a bus and--" "Now don't make things harder than they are for; honey. I've already suffered a serious disappoint™ Please, cooperate." "But I need my things," I said. "You didn't leave i any money. Mommy. I can't call my friends. I can't! Alice or Mama Arlene. It's long distance." "I'm calling Mama Arlene as soon as I get to York," she promised. I heard a horn blaring and s one shouting. "Coming!" Mommy shouted back. "I've got to honey. I've already held us up longer than I should ha I'll call you as soon as I can. Be good, honey. Bye." "But Mommy--" The phone went dead. I held it tightly. Silent screa stuck in my throat and tears froze behind my eyes. "Hang it up properly," Uncle Jacob instructed. "I waitin' on an important call." I cradled the receiver with my back to him and wa out of the living room quickly, not glancing at Aunt! either. "Just a minute, there," Uncle Jacob growled. yourself right back in here, young lady." I sucked in my breath, turned, and marched back. MELODY Jded madly, drumming out a tune of fright in je. rsir?" tpioper to thank people when you use their things. in't your secretary." i sorry. Thank you. Aunt Sara." o're welcome, dear. Is everything all right with ttph," Uncle Jacob grunted. 1 bring you a glass of hot milk tonight," she offered. bu don't have to do that. Aunt Sara." always brought Laura a glass of warm milk. I bring g-(0 May as well." Her huge scared eyes stared "illy at me. I glanced at Uncle Jacob. He looked (o pounce. then thank you. Aunt Sara." face brightened, the darkness evaporating from res. I forced a smile and hurried up the stairway. , 11 reached my room, I closed the door behind me 'threw myself on the bed, burying my face in the 3w to smother my sobs. Ijfidn't want to be here! I hated it! No wonder my "lj?r stopped speaking to his family. He was nothing Uncle Jacob. I would be happier if Mommy had aped me in an orphanage, I thought. My shoulders } with my muted crying. Suddenly, I felt something i my shoulder and I turned quickly to see little May ig at me, her face full of fear and sympathy. She had s in so quietly that I had not heard her. Her hands lived rapidly, wondering why I was so unhappy. What kde me cry? |'"I miss my mother," I said. She tilted her head. I let t a deep breath and located the book on sign language. bund the gestures and produced them. May nodded 3 signed how sorry she felt for me. Then she offered : a hug. How sweet, I thought, and bow sad that the only one V.C ANDREWS in this house who made me feel at home was die ( who couldn't hear the sound of my voice. _,| Nor could she hear the sounds of scuffling and f steps above, but she saw where my gaze had gom| understood, j "Car... ry," she said and demonstrated thfti struction of a model ship. "Yes. Do you go up there?" I signed. "Or c even let you up there?" | She thought a moment and then shook her i "No?" She shook her head and gestured "only., .'r! pointed to Laura's photograph. "Only Laura?" May nodded. "Only Laura," I tho aloud and gazed at the ceiling. May grunted and gestured about his great sorrow. I gazed at the ceiling again. Gary was in i thought, and for a moment at least, I stopped sorry for myself. May returned to her room to complete her work. After I finished mine, we practiced sign lai until it was time for her to go to bed. I washed dressed for bed myself and then Aunt Sara brought i glass of warm milk. There was something rolled un her arm. She took it out and showed me Laura's un ished canvas of needlework. It was a picture of a wob on a widow's walk gazing at the sea. "Laura drew the picture herself," Aunt Sara plained. "Isn't it beautiful?" "Yes," I said. "Don't you want to finish it for her, dear? I can't j myself to do it," she said with a deep sigh. "I'd be afraid I would mess it up. Aunt Sara." "Oh, you won't, I'm sure. I'll just leave it here t bring up the threads tomorrow and show you the stitc "I never did something like that before," I said, she didn't seem to hear or care. "My goodness," she said, her gaze falling on the 1 MELODY ' identical stuffed cats. "Where did this one come 19 : was mine, a present from my daddy. I brought it ae in my suitcase." at that remarkable. Cary won the other one for Lat a fair one summer. And this Teddy bear you lit along, too?" » minis," she said. "All of you." gazed around the room sadly, looked at me, and then left, after washing me a good night's rest. was tired. It had been an exhausting day, my emo- is on a rollercoaster. I had gone through the tunnel of ", been angry, sad, and curious. I enjoyed being with e May and appreciated that she sincerely welcomed ?.-That was the only ray of sunshine in this gloomy rid of sadness. impulsively, I picked up my fiddle and played a * jmful tune. It was the mood I felt and the music ie from deep within me. I closed my eyes and ured Daddy sitting on the sofa in our trailer living m, a small smile on his face, his eyes full of pride as I 'ed. Afterward, he would pull me to him and give me of his bear bugs, smothering my cheek and forehead ipth kisses. ^ Suddenly, there was a loud rapping on the wall. , "Stop that noise!" Uncle Jacob ordered. "It's time for everyone to sleep!" My memories of Daddy popped like soap bubbles. I put away the fiddle and crawled under the comforter. Then I turned down the oil lamp, closed my eyes, and listened to the roar of the ocean. The house was very quiet for a few moments, and then I heard what I recognized as the distinct sound of someone sobbing. "Just go to sleep!" Uncle Jacob commanded gruffly, his voice seemingly coming out of the walls. The sobbing stopped. The ocean came roaring through my window again, V. C. ANDREWS the same ocean that had taken Laura from this he and the melancholy worid in which I now found my! Following Aunt Sara's instructions the next morning, 1 made lunches for both Cary and myself. It was some thing Laura always had done and I assumed it was to b< one of my chores. We were to have a sandwich and aAl apple, and we were given fifty cents to buy a drink. May*s| lunch was provided for her at the special school. When we left the house. May took my hand instead oft Gary's. He paused for a moment, visibly annoyed, but said nothing about it. I "Let's go. We don't want to be late," be muttered and j plodded along ahead of us, moving so quickly. May | practically had to run to keep up. We dropped her off] first and then started for our school. I tried to make : conversation. "How long have you been constructing model ships?" I asked. He glanced at me as if I bad asked a stupid question. "A long time and they're not toys," he added. "I didn't say they were. I know grown-ups can have hobbies, too. Papa George used to carve out flutes from hickory branches. He even made my fiddle." "Why do you call this person Papa George?" he said disdainfully. "He's not your grandfather. This Sunday you'll meet your grandfather." "Papa George is the only grandfather I've known. He and Mama Arlene are my real grandparents as far as I'm concerned," I replied firmly. "Don't they have any children of their own?" "No." "So why didn't Haille leave you with them while she went rushing off to become a movie star?" he asked, his eyes sparkling wickedly. "Papa George is very sick. He suffers from black lung," I replied. He grunted. "That's a convenient excuse," he said. Furious, I seized him at the elbow and pulled him to a AfjEJLODY 5, spinning him around. He was genuinely shocked at 'outburst of physical strength. I shocked myself. "It's not an excuse. He's very sick. I don't know why i don't like me, Cary Logan, and the truth is, I don't e to know. If that's the way it has to be, that's the way as to be, but don't think I'll let you ridicule me or say fethings about the people I love." k He went from astonishment and shock to what looked Ice appreciation and pleasure, before returning to his tnip cdf r^hk ikCil. pf^I can't be late for school," he said. "I already have |wo demerits." l^ He walked on and I hurried to catch up. ^t^'Yw have two demerits? What for?" I He was silent. |WWhat did you do?" I pursued, keeping pace with him. ?1 was curious what possible infraction of the rules Mr. [perfect could have committed. ; "Fighting," he finally replied. "I wonder why that comes as no surprise?" I said. I ; Wouldn't resist. He glared at me and I thought if looks could kill, I'd be long dead and buried. Then he pumped his legs harder, remaining a foot or two ahead of me the rest of the way io school. Theresa Patterson was friendly and spoke to me be tween classes, but since she didn't have to be my guide any longer, she stayed with her own friends. She didn't have to say it, but I knew if she brought me along, her friends might resent it. Just as in my school, and probably in most schools, clumps of girls and boys clung to each other in cliques, feeling safer and more comfort* able hanging around with those whom they perceived to be their own kind. At lunch I sat at a table alone until Lorraine, Janet, and Betty brought themselves and two other giris over to join me. I saw by the mischievous twinkle in Betty's eyes that they had been plotting something. V. C. ANDREWS "So after nearly two days here, how do you like school?" Lorraine asked innocently. ^ "It's okay. The teachers are nice," I said. 1 "Are the boys better looking than the boys in Wea( Virginia?" Janet asked. k at the sky. Even a landlubber like you should be ^ see rain comin'." a't call me a landlubber." i smiled. "Well what are you?" ?ta a person, just like you, only I was brought up in a srent place. I'm sure you wouldn't know your way md a coal mine, but I wouldn't call you silly names ; to pump myself up." Pm not doing it to pump myself up." turned away. To my surprise, he was at my side in iments. "Keep walking in this direction and you'll get ight in a downpour. Look at the breakers. The ocean is king to us, telling us what to expect. See how the terns I heading for safer ground, too." """Where's Uncle Jacob?" I asked, gazing toward the '^ "He took today's catch into town. It wasn't good. Only ir good-size lobsters in the traps." "How do lobsters get trapped?" I asked. "We bait them with stinky dead fish and set them on lie ocean bottom. The lobster crawls into the living room and gets caught." I "Living room?" . "That's what we call that part of the trap. Later, we pull up the traps and if the lobsters meet the measurement, we prepare them to take to market." "How do you prepare them?" "Well, you got to put rubber bands on the claws so V.C^SDSEWS they cant pinch. One claw is a cruncher claw, dull; the other is like a scissor, sharp and quick." "I didn't know they were so dangerous." "It's not really so dangerous if you're careful. I've pinched a bit, but only once had blood drawn." showed me his right hand. I could see a faint scar aj his forefinger. "Did Laura go lobstering with you?" I asked. blinked rapidly and turned toward the ocean. "No, not much," he replied. "She didn't know the ocean as well as you did?" "We should go back to the house. There goes Cary nodded at the tall, broad black man who h away from the dock. "Where do the Pattersons live?" "In the saltbox houses on the other side of town." "What happened to Theresa's mother?" I asked. "You're stuffed full of questions, aren't you?" "Wouldn't you be if the shoe was on the other foot you just arrived?" His lips made that tiny turn up again and he pen his eyes to stay on me for a few moments longer. "I guess," he finally admitted. "Theresa's mother did in a car crash coming home from work. She was chambermaid in a hotel in North Truro. Terrible a dent. Man driving a tractor trailer lost control in the: and crossed the road. Smacked her clear into the o world. Dad says it was meant to be." "How can something so terrible be meant to be?" "It's what my father believes," he said. "Is that why he doesn't seem one bit sad about my father's death, even though my father was his brother? It was meant to be?" Cary was silent. He kept his head down and kicked some sand. A particularly loud tern cried at the approaching storm. "And your sister's death," I pursued. "Was that also meant to be?" He looked at me, his eyes glistening with tears. MELODY ^ don't like talking about Laura's ... Laura's disap- a»ce." you keep sadness and pain bottled up, it swells and i inside you until you burst," I said. "Mama Ariene me that." fcah, well I never had the pleasure of meeting Mama ie," he replied. "I'm going back to the house. Do you want." 'hy did your father stop talking to my father?" I nided, my hands on my hips. He hesitated and then d. "He told me my daddy defied his parents. What he mean by that? What did my daddy do to them?" B don't know." tot Aunt Sara and Uncle Jacob must have talked it it often." don't listen in on their private talks," he said. ides, it's over and done, why talk about it now?" ?l know. You've got to go with the tide." He widened his eyes and lifted his eyebrows. ^"Well," I continued, "sometimes you have to swim jainst the tide and just be strong enough to get past it, is. Sometimes, you don't give up and give in." "Really?" he said, amused by my defiance. "Yes, really." "Well, first chance I get, I'm going to take you out in y sailboat and let you buck the tide." ^Good." 4 He shook his head, his smile widening. [1 "The girls in school told me Laura and her boyfriend ^went out in your sailboat. Was that so?" It The smile quickly faded. "I have a different sailboat aow. And I told you," he said, turning away, "I don't talk about Laura's disappearance with anyone. Especially strangers." . I watched him walk away, shoulders sagging, his head bent, his hands clenched in fists. The wind grew stronger and whipped past me, catching my hair. Sand began to fly from the beach into my face. The small patches of blue had disappeared from the 157 V. C. ANDREWS sky, now completely overcast with dark, bi clouds. I could feel the ocean spray even this far ftom) beach. It all began to terrify me. How could weathe change so rapidly? I started for the house, bucking the wind, every s harder than the one before it. My feet slipped on sand that gave way beneath them. It was harder tl walking on ice. The wind was so strong, my eyes began 1 tear. I had to keep them closed and pump my legs hard. I| tried to run. My blouse flapped over my breasts and ribs. Just before I reached the house, the first sheet of rain tore down, washing over me. I screamed and ran hardes for the front door. When I burst in, Cary stood in the hallway, a look of glee in his eyes, an "I told you so"| written on his lips. "I hate it here!" I screamed at him and charged up tt stairway. The wind howled around the house and whistle through it. I thought it might take the roof off, but at tt moment I didn't care. Let the sky fall, let the rain swe the ocean and wash over this place, I thought. I en braced myself at the window, watching the trees bend 1 the point of breaking. The rain came down like bul' fired by God. The street was being pounded. I shudde and stripped off my blouse. Then I rushed to bathroom to get a towel for my hair. Moments later, when I emerged, Cary was in hallway. He glanced at me before I realized I standing there in my bra. I draped the towel arc myself. "I'm sorry," he said. He looked repentant. shouldn't have left you out there." "It was my own fault. I didn't listen," I admitt "Where's May?" "She's in her room. Sometimes, it's a blessing to deaf," he said. "She can't hear how hard it's raining i blowing." "How do you say it's raining?" I asked. He demonstrated. "This means its raining hard," MELODY and showed me. Then he smiled. "Not the same ; as being out there, huh?" relented and smiled. "No." ybe you ain't such a landlubber after all," he i. He blushed before going to his room. It was the he had come to giving me anything akin to a Bpliment. 'Daddy would say, "Be grateful for the little things.'' «I went into my room to work on the needlepoint until l"was time to help Aunt Sara with dinner. Before it was tee to go down, I heard a knock on my door. : "Yes?" Cary poked his head in. "I just thought I'd let you know what we do in case it's till raining in the morning." I "What do we do?" "We walk faster," he said. For the first time since I had to Provincetown, I heard the sound of my own 159 Something Special It rained most of the night. Twice, the loud drumming the drops on the windowpanes woke me. I heard A Sara come to my door after the second time. She st< there gazing in at me, her face in shadow, her hi silhouetted against the dim hallway light. I said nothi and she finally closed the door softly. The rain stopped just before morning. After I dress and went downstairs, I was surprised to find most ofthi windows crusted with salt. It reminded me of ice and I| remarked about it at breakfast. Aunt Sara said it wasn't: unusual after a storm. "The salt even peels the paint from our window casings. The weather is hard on us, but we endure it." "The weather's hard on people everywhere," Uncle Jacob declared. "But it's good to us too, and we should be grateful for our blessings. Mark that," he said sharply, waving his long right forefinger at us like some Biblical prophet. "I can help you clean the windows after school today," I told Aunt Sara. "Why thank you, dear. It's kind of you to offer." MELODY ad? She should do nothing less," Uncle Jacob fixed . m on me. "Most young people today don't know I ft is to have regular chores and responsibilities. y think everything is owed to them just because they Kiorn." wanted to snap back at him and tell him I hadn't i brought up to be spoiled and selfish. I did plenty of k around our home in Sewell, and I often helped na Ariene and Papa George with their housework, 'I never asked them anything for it and I never scted anything. It was enough that they gave me their glared back at Uncle Jacob, the crests of my cheeks teing. He didn't know me. He had hardly spoken ten autes to me my whole life. What right did he have ing there on his high and mighty throne and lumping As with all the spoiled young people he saw in town? 2ary must have sensed those Words were at the tip of tongue, for he shot me a look of warning before I had iance to part my lips. I stared at him a moment and a gentle, but definite shake of his head. I looked n at my hot cereal and swallowed back my anger, i though it threatened to get stuck in my throat and ;e me all day. , "Your father is an ogre," I told Cary as we left for chool that morning. y'Caay didn't reply for a few moments and then said, He*s just afraid, that's all." "Afraid?" I nearly laughed. "Your father? Afraid of 'hat?" '*0f losing another one of us." Cary marched on, his 'lips tight, his eyes so focused on the street ahead he barely glanced at me the remainder of the way to school. Despite what Cary said, I think he was ashamed at how his father sometimes behaved. Since it was Friday, at the end of the school day, Betty, Lorraine, and Janet reminded me about their beach party Saturday night. I said I would try to go, but I reminded them I couldn't go without permission. (61 V. C. ANDREWS "Then you won't be there," Betty predicted.' miss a great time." "I can't help it. I have to ask my uncle and aui My mother left them in charge of me." "Just do what Janet told you to do: tell them going over to her house to study," Lorraine inst "A little white lie is no big deal. We all do it." "It sounds like more than a little white lie. If my found out I lied—" "He won't find out," Betty assured me. "We dor on each other." "Of course, if you tell Grandpa, he'll turn yoi Janet said. "Stop calling him Grandpa," I snapped. "He' anything like an old man." "Oh? Why do you say that? Do you know som» we don't?" she asked quickly. The girls waiting with expectation for my reply. "No" I said. "Did you get him to smoke the joint?" "No." "He didn't see it and tell your uncle, did he?" Lorraii asked quickly. "If my uncle even thought I had something liktfl that—" • "He'd turn you over to the police," she suggested, m "He'd turn his own mother over to the police," Bettyj added. "Do you still have it or did you smoke it yourseq last night?" Betty asked. • "No, I didn't smoke it." I didn't want to tell them q had simply thrown it out. "You can smoke it at the beach party," Janet said. "Let's go, girls," Betty said. "Be at Janet's house at eight. You won't be sorry, Adam Jackson will be at the beach party," Lorraine sanj back at me as they all walked off. J I watched them go down the hallway and then • hurried out to meet Cary and walk home. I wanted to telx him about the party and ask his opinion, but I was afraicH MELODY b to mention it. I knew how much he didn't like these i but I wanted to go. I had never been to a beach f and I had to admit, Adam Jackson's eyes had been y dreams last night. leeided to wait until after dinner when I was helping t Sara with the dishes. She had done all the windows stf, even the upstairs ones. "I would have helped fc" I told her. fcknow, dear, but don't fret about it. Work gets me V. C. ANDKEWS dinner as usual. I approached him with my reqi "Excuse me. Uncle Jacob," I said from the doorway^ He slowly lowered the paper, his eyebrows tilting «S| the skin folding along his forehead. I couldn't reca speaking to Daddy without seeing a smile in his eyesk on his lips. "Yes?" "Some of the girls in my class at school are havil party on the beach tomorrow night and they invited me. Aunt Sara said I should ask your penni I would like to go. It's the fastest way to get to people," I offered as a practical reason. He nodded. "It don't surprise me you'd like to go to a party whe they'll be no adults supervising." "What do you mean?" He leaned forward with a wry smile. "Don't you tl I know what goes on at those beach parties: how drink and smoke dope and debauch themselves?" "De ... what?" "Perversions," he declared, that irritating forefing raised like a flag of righteousness again. "Young gi: parade around with their revealing clothing and then roll around on blankets with young men to lose their inno cence. It's pagan. While you are under my roof, you wilT live decent, look decent, and act decent, even if it flies iff the face of your instincts." He snapped his paper like a whip. "Now, I don't want to hear another word on it." "What instincts?" I asked. He ignored me. "I am decent. I've never done anything to shame my parents." He peered over the paper at me. "It would take something to shame them, I suppose, I but I know what's in the blood, what's raging. If you give | it free rein, it will take you straight to hell and damna tion." "I don't understand. What's raging in my blood?" "No more talk!" he screamed. I flinched and stepped back as if slapped. My heart began to pound. A white line had etched itself about his tightened lips as the rest MELODY (flamed with bright red fury. I had never seen rage led by so small a spark. All I had asked was to go to y. roed away and marched up the stairs. The girls ight, I fumed. I should have just lied and said I wag i to Janet's to study. Lying to such a man wasn't (. He didn't deserve honesty. y was at the foot of the attic stairway, waiting for i reach the landing. hat was all the yelling about?*' (told him and he snorted. ffou should have asked me. I would have spared you lyeaction to such a request." Why is he so mean?" I told you. He's not mean, he's just... afraid." I don't understand. Why should he be so afraid?" ary stared at me a moment and then blurted, "Be- ie be believes it was his fault and that he was being ished." He turned away to go up his ladder. &"What was his fault?" I drew closer as he moved up lie rungs. "Laura's death? I don't understand. How mild that have been his fault? Was it because he gave her ermission to go sailing that day?" fe*'No," Cary said, not turning, still climbing. .-"Then I don't understand. Explain it!" I demanded. (y tone of voice turned him around. He gazed down at ? with a mixture of anger and pain in his face. "My father doesn't believe in accidents. He believes | we are punished on earth for the evil we do on earth, and | we are rewarded here for the good we do as well. It's I what he was brought up to believe and it's what he has I taught us." "Do you believe that, too?" "Yes," he said, but not convincingly. "My daddy was a good man, a kind man. Why was he killed in an accident?" "You don't know what his sins were," he said and turned away to continue up the stairs. "He bad no sins, nothing so great that he should have 165 V. C. ANDREWS died for it! Did you hear me, Cary Logan?" I rushed < the ladder and seized it, shaking it. "Cary!" He paused at the top and gazed down at me pulling up his ladder. "None of us knows the darkness that lingers another's heart." He sounded just like his father. "That's stupid. That's another stupid, religious idea»1 I retorted, but he ignored me and continued to lift ' ladder. I seized the bottom rung-and held it down. looked down, surprised at my surge of strength. "Let go." "I'll let go, but don't think I don't know what you'r doing up there every night," I said. His face turned s red I could see the crimson in his cheeks even in the dir hallway light. ""You're running away from tragedy, onl you can't run away from something that's part of you.' He tugged with all his strength, nearly lifting me fr( the floor with the ladder. I had to let go and the lade went up. He slammed the trapdoor shut. "Good riddance!" I screamed. May, locked in her world of silence, emerged from 1 room with a smile on her face. In my mind, she was luckiest one in this damnable home. She signed to me, asking if I would let her come into' my room. I told her yes. She followed me in and watched 1 me angrily poke the needle and thread into the picturei her sister Laura had drawn just before she died. As t worked I glared up at the ceiling and then down at the I floor, below which my coldhearted uncle sat reading his 1 paper. After a while the mechanical work was calming: and meditating. I began to understand why Laura mightj have been entranced with doing so much of it. Everyone in this house was searching for a doorway. ' May remained with me until her bedtime, practicing communicative skills, asking me questions about myself, my family, and our lives back in West Virginia. She was full of curiosity and sweetness, somehow unscathed by the turmoil that raged in every family member's heart. MELODY ; her worid wasn't so silent after all. Perhaps she ^different music, different sounds, all of it from her i and innocent imagination. When her eyelids began ling downward, I told her she should go to bed. I was id myself. I felt as if I had been spun around in an fttional washing machine, then left in a dryer until my itear evaporated. ary lingered in his attic hideaway almost all night. I woken just before morning to the sound of his steps on the ladder. He paused at my doorway for a neat before going to his own room. | He was up with the sunlight a little over an hour later d had gone out with Uncle Jacob by the time I went wn for breakfast. Aunt Sara said they were going to be (lobstering all day. I walked to town with May and we ent most of the afternoon looking at the quaint shops . Commercial Street, then we watched the fishermen ivn at the wharf. It wasn't quite tourist season yet, but ''warm spring weather still brought a crowd up from ston and the outlying areas. There was a lot of traffic. ; Aunt Sara had given us some spending money so we id buy hamburgers for lunch. She didn't mind my ag May along with me. She saw how much May led to be with me, and I was growing more confident . sign language. ' Aunt Sara remarked at how quickly and how well I Ftad been learning it. "Laura was the best at it," she told fee. "Even better than Gary." "What about Uncle Jacob?" I asked her. "Doesn't he know it?" "A little. He's always too busy to practice," she said, ; but I thought it was a weak excuse. If my daddy had to ; team sign language to communicate with me, nothing would be more important, I thought. About midday, I counted the change I had left and went to a pay phone. It wasn't enough for a call to Sewell, but I took a chance and made it collect to Alice. Luckily, she was home and accepted the charges. "I'm sorry," I told her. "I don't have enough money." 167 V. C. ANDREWS "That's okay. Where are you?" "I'm in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, living with uncle and my aunt." "living with them? Why?" "Mommy's gone to New York to get an opportunity i a model or an actress," I said. "If she doesn't get a c there, she's going on to Chicago or Los Angeles, so 11 to stay here and enroll in the school." "You did? What's it like?" I told her about the school and about my life at uncle's house, Laura's disappearance and death, May's handicap. "It sounds sad." "It's hard to live with them, especially with my coi Cary. He's so bitter about everything, but I keep tellii myself I won't be here long." "What are the giris like at school?" "They're different," I told her. "They seem to know! more about things and do more things." "Like what?" I told her how they had given me a joint of marijuana in the school cafeteria. "What did you do? You haven't smoked it, have you?" 3 "No. I was scared. Actually, I was terrified when a; teacher came to our table. Afterward, when the girls' weren't looking, I threw it in the garbage." "That's what I would have done," Alice said. "Maybe you should stay away from them." "They invited me to their beach party tonight, but my uncle won't let me go." "A beach party!" She hesitated and with some envy said, "Sounds like fun. Maybe you're going to like living there after all." "I don't think so," I said. "I wish I were back home." "I was passing the cemetery yesterday and I thought about you so I went in and said a little prayer at your father's grave for you." "Did you? Thank you, Alice. I miss you," MELODY , if you're still there, I can come up to visit you aer." would be great, but I expect to be gone from I by then. Mommy's coming to get me as soon as she , settled. Which reminds me, have you seen Mama sne? Mommy was supposed to contact her to send me firings." t saw her, but George is real sickly." [know." f think he may be in the hospital." Oh no! Would you please tell Mama Arlene I called?" ril go right over to see her," Alice promised. [gave her my uncle's name and telephone number and f promised to call me the next weekend. ^< keep your shoulders back and your head up when you alk. Olivia hates the way young people slouch today. he's always saying posture shows character and embelshes good health." "No one's ever said I slouch." "No, you don't, but just be more attentive to it. Well, I Vast see about May." 1 took a deep breath and rose, feeling even more Eaervous this morning than the day I had first arrived. , When I finally thought myself dressed well enough and ^looking somewhat the way Aunt Sara wanted me to, I descended the stairs to find the family waiting in the 6 living room. Everyone was still dressed in their church - clothes. Uncle Jacob wore a dark blue suit and tie and Gary wore a light blue sports jacket, tie, and slacks. His shoes were spit shined. May looked sweet in her pink cotton dress with her hair tied in a pink ribbon. She wore black patent leather mary janes. Aunt Sara had on a dark blue, high-necked dress with a belt at the waist. As usual she wore no makeup and only the locket for jewelry. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun and held there with a bone-white comb. 179 V. C. ANDREWS They all stared at me when I entered. I was beii inspected. I waited for approval. Gary's eyes widenei and then went darker before he looked away. I was sure ^ was because I was wearing another one of Laura's^ dresses--this time a pretty cream-colored one. li couldn't wait for my own things to arrive. ' "Well, she looks very nice, doesn't she, Jacob?" Auntj Sara asked meekly. F s "Aye," he said reluctantly. "Did you talk to her aboti her behavior?" "Not yet," she said. "What have I done now?" I asked. "It's not what you've done. It's what you might do,'^| Uncle Jacob remarked. Then he turned to Sara. "Well, do it and then come out," he said rising. He nodded at Cary, who got up quickly, took May's hand, and left. "Just sit a moment, dear," Aunt Sara said. "There are a few other things you must remember." "What other things?" I sat on the settee. "Olivia, your grandmother, is very particular about how children behave in her home." "I'm not a child," I said. "I'm nearly sixteen." "Oh, I know, but until you're married yourself, she thinks of you as a child." Aunt Sara obviously spoke from her own experience. She stood before me like a teacher in school. "Most important, speak only when you are spoken to. Olivia thinks it's rude for a young person to demand answers from adults or give an opinion without being asked to do so. And especially, never, never interrupt when someone else is speaking." "I don't," I said. "Good. Remember to say please and thank you and never sit with your legs apart. Put your hands in your lap. At the table be sure to bring the spoon and the fork to your mouth and not vice versa, and remember to keep only one elbow at a time on the table. Always dab your lips with your napkin after you put something in your mouth. Sit with your back straight and don't stare at MELODY she recited as if she had memorized some I book. "Do you understand everything?" Fnodded. fit doesn't sound as if I'm going to enjoy myself very ach." I muttered. She went white. ?^*0h dear, never say such a thing. Please! Keep such "aughts under lock and key." ^Don't worry. Aunt Sara, I've never embarrassed my Wots. I won't embarrass you." I rose, my legs very Ketant, and left the house. Cary and May waited in the _ » of the car. I got in beside May. IrHow far away is it?" I asked Cary softly. ^"About twenty minutes." ; My teeth were actually chattering in anticipation of jrrandma Olivia's disapproval and rejection. But why? I .JBts finally going to meet my father's parents, my real J grandparents. I should have been excited. All the grand| parents I ever heard of loved their grandchildren dearly. |» But, I reminded myself, our family is different. 1.^ From the outside, my grandparents' house did not [look cold and impersonal. It was a large, wooden clap- aboard house. | Aunt Sara said that the house was very old and [ prestigious, the original portion having been built ? around 1780. Cary shook his head and raised his eyes fc toward the car ceiling when Aunt Sara went into her [ lecture about the house, a lecture I guessed Grandma Olivia had given her so many times it was stored forever in her memory. The grounds were certainly the prettiest I had seen on the Cape. The beautifully cared for green lawn was uncommon, and the flower garden was the most elaborate with its baskets of gold, purple pansies, roses, and geraniums. There was a small duck pond to the right with about a dozen or so ducks in it. Most impressive were the large, blooming red maple trees. Between two on the far right was a bench swing with a canopy over it We stopped in the driveway and got out. Aunt Sara 181 V. C. ANDREWS immediately brushed a loose strand of my hair back t straightened the shoulders of my dress. "Leave her be," Cary muttered. She stood next to Uncle Jacob as he rang the bell, three of us standing behind them. A moment later door opened. H I set eyes on my grandfather for the first time in i life. Up until now, all I had seen was that old photograp of my daddy. Grandpa Samuel was still a tall, straight-standing ma with a proud, strong demeanor. I saw my daddyt resemblance in his face immediately. Daddy, as did Cary, shared his green eyes. Grandpa Samuel's hair was! mostly gray, but he still had a full head of it. It wasi trimmed neatly at the ears and sides, with the top brushed back. There was a trace of a wave running through it. Daddy had had the same straight, firm nose, but Grandpa Samuel's lips were thinner and his chin more carved. He had Daddy's large hands and long arms, and for a man his age, I thought he had very firm, full shoulders. "Hello, Jacob, Sara," he said. He gazed past them | quickly to focus on me. I thought I saw a small smile at I the corners of his mouth, the same light and gentle twisti. that Daddy often had. He looked quickly at Cary and ' May. "Children." "Hello, Papa," Cary said. "Hello ... Pa pa," May said. "This is Melody," Aunt Sara said stepping to the side to bring me forward. "Pretty girl. Lot of Haille in her, eh Jacob?" "Aye," Uncle Jacob replied glancing at me. "Hello, Melody," my grandfather said. I didn't know whether I was to shake his hand or curtsey or just nod. "Hello," I replied. "I'm pleased to meet you." I almost added, "finally." He nodded, holding that small smile on his lips. MELODY . come on in," he told us and stepped back. a's seeing to the brunch, of course." entered a short, marble-floored entryway with ' gs on both sides: pictures of the Cape and boats, i of sailors. The house was full of the perfume of iidpa Samuel showed us to the room on the right, ting room. It looked like a showcase in a furniture t window. The oak floor was so polished I was sure I y be able to see my face in it if I looked down. On f table, on every shelf, there were expensive-looking s pieces, vases, and occasionally, photos in silver and I frames. I just glanced at them, but they looked like ires of my grandfather and grandmother when they I younger, and some pictures of Uncle Jacob, Aunt Laura, Cary, and May. There were no pictures of iy. It with Cary and May over there," Aunt Sara acted. We took the settee on the right. Grandpa auel sat in the chair and Aunt Sara and Uncle Jacob on the settee across from us. Although he kept his % on me. Grandpa Samuel spoke to Uncle Jacob. ' "So how was your week, Jacob?" . "Fair to middling," he replied. "We had a good day Pyesterday, eh Cary?" f-1 "Yes sir," Cary said. He shot a glance at me. : Grandpa Samuel nodded. Then he turned toward me. . "So you're Melody. How old are you?" . "Fifteen, almost sixteen." "Aye, that would be right." He thought a moment and then smiled. "I hear you can play the fiddle. My grandfather played the accordion. I ever tell you that, Sara?" "No," she said, her eyes wide. "I've told you the same before," Uncle Jacob snapped at her. "Did you? I don't remember your speaking about your grandfather playing the accordion, Jacob." "Aye, he was good at it," Grandpa Samuel said, 183 V. C. ANDREWS directing himself to me. "I can still remember he his jolly tunes." "There are better things to remember than a fisherman," I heard a sharp, small voice say. We tui to the doorway to see Grandma Olivia. She stood a 1 over five feet tall, and wore a pale yellow dress. snow-white hair was pulled back in a bun as severely,: Aunt Sara's, which only made her eyes look bigger . her forehead look wider. There were tiny age sf clustered at the foot of her hairline and on her cnei Without lipstick, her lips were a dull pink. Below jaw, her skin hung loosely like a hen's. There was no bend in her back, and because she 1 such a regal posture, she looked taller, sturdier than 1 was sure she was. "You're early," she accused, gazing at us, her fixing tightly on me. "We were ready, so we came," Uncle Jacob rernai "Early's better than late," Grandpa Samuel said.; shot a look at him and his smile faded quickly. "Well, then," she said, nodding at Sara, "make proper introductions." "Yes, Olivia." Aunt Sara turned to me. "This Melody, Haille's Melody." Haille's, I thought. Why not Haille and Chester's? Was] even my father's name forbidden in this house? | Aunt Sara nodded at me to tell me to stand. I rose and] Grandma Olivia came closer. She drank me in, gazing at | me from head to foot quickly, and nodded to herself to: confirm some previous notion. "Looks healthy. Tall, too, with good posture." Tall? I wasn't so tall, I thought, but then I realized almost anyone would be tall to her. "Well then, what do you say?" she asked. I glanced at Aunt Sara who nodded and smiled. "Hello, Grandma Olivia," I replied. The words appeared to sting her. She tightened her body and lifted her shoulders. "We'll eat even though we're a bit early," she said, MELODY a'll tell me all about yourself. Samuel," she I and he rose. Cary and May stood and Aunt Sara i quickly with Uncle Jacob. r a moment I felt as if we were all in some army and dma Olivia was the general. She started out and we wed. We crossed the hallway to the dining room. t was a beautiful room, with dark, oak-paneled walls la glossy, long cherry-wood table. All the chairs were tobtered with high backs. The china looked very ensive and the candle holders looked as if they were ie of real gold. The silverware was heavy. Everyone E a linen placemat and linen napkins. ^ry, May, and I were put on one side. Aunt Sara and de Jacob on the other. Grandma Olivia sat at the far E of the table and Grandpa Samuel on the other end. laid brought out the brunch. began with a tossed salad, glittering with plum toes and the greenest peppers and lettuce I had ever Long loaves of bread were sliced and placed on serving plates. Everyone was given tall glasses of water. Following that, a large dish of perfectly mged jumbo shrimp on a bed of lettuce was sented. There were small, cold potatoes, asparagus ars, and then two beautifully roasted ducks, all sliced. Grandma Olivia took tiny portions of everything, but fecandpa Samuel ate as much as Uncle Jacob and Cary. I ;lt Grandma Olivia's eyes on my every move and | recited Aunt Sara's instructions for etiquette at the dinner table to myself as I chewed, sipped, and reached for things. j-i. "So then," Grandma Olivia said suddenly, as if we : were all still in the midst of a conversation that had previously begun. "Haille called?" "Yes," Aunt Sara said. "The other night she spoke with Melody." Grandma Olivia turned her cold, steely eyes on me. "Where is your mother?" "She called from someplace between Boston and New York," I replied. V. C. ANDREWS "And how long does she intend to carry on like this? she asked. I shook my head. "Carry on?" "Pretending she's doing something with her wretch® life," she explained. } I felt the heat rise into}my neck and face. "She ha auditions, meetings, appointments," I said. "She's tryin to become—" "A what? A model, an actress?" she interrupted wit small, thin laugh. Then she looked at Grandpa Sami "An actress she's always been," she said. He looked awag(| and she turned back to me. ,| "Your father left you and your mother no money afterj all these years of so-called honest labor?" "We had something, but expenses were high for us i Mommy needed things and—" "Wasteful. Never changed a bit," she muttered. "What' did she look like?" she asked Aunt Sara. "Oh, she's still very pretty, Olivia. Maybe she can be «| model." "Ridiculous. With her posture? Cary," she snapped, deciding to move on to someone else at the table, "how is your schoolwork now?" "Not much better than it was. Grandma, I'm afraid," he said. "Well, what do you plan on doing about it, Cary? You don't have all that much more time left, do you?" she asked. "I'm thinking of being tutored," he said, shifting his '; gaze to me. I saw the small smile on his lips and smiled, • too. Grandma Olivia caught the look between us and > turned to me again. "You are a good student, I understand?" "Yes, Grandma. I've always been on the honor roll." "Hmph," she said and shook her head. "Your mother didn't even graduate from high school, you know." I looked up quickly. "Yes, she did," I said. Aunt Sara made a tiny gasp and brought her napkin to MELODY pops. She shook her head slightly at me. Was I 'r ed to just sit by and let Grandma Olivia say is? told you that, did she?" ," I said. smiled that cold smile again, twisting her thin lips they looked as if they would snap. "That girl never i distinguish between reality and illusion. No won- she's gallivanting around the country trying to be an ss or a model," Grandma Olivia continued. w do you know so much about my mother? I ed to ask. You who disowned my father after he ied her. But I lowered my eyes and nibbled on my instead. Then I gazed at May, who sat eating and g ahead with a soft smile on her face. I wondered if Grandma Olivia or Grandpa Samuel knew bow to tunicate with her. All I had seen so far were smiles nods from Grandpa Samuel. Grandma Olivia barely lowledged her, from what I had seen. ;We ate in silence, with everyone but Grandma Olivia eeping his eyes on the food before him. Finally, Grand- a Samuel looked up. "The word I been getting," Grandpa Samuel said to Fade Jacob, "is there'll be a good tourist season this ^ far with the price of travel overseas going up and all." i' - Uncle Jacob nodded. "Aye. I heard that the hotels were looking good. There'll be lots of garbage to dean off the beach come this fall," he added. I knew where Cary got | his attitude about the outsiders. "How are the cranberries coming along?" Grandpa Samuel asked. "They look good. We're anticipating a decent crop." "Does she expect to leave you here over the summer?" Grandma Olivia suddenly asked me. "I don't know," I said. "I hope not." She raised her eyebrows. "And why is that? Aren't you being treated weH at my son's home? They gave you Laura's room, I understand, and you're even wearing her things, arent you?" 187 V. C. ANDREWS "Yes, I'm being treated well," I said quickly. "I y meant I would like to be with my mother. I miss he She smirked. "A girl your age should have a home! not be living out of a car running on someone's dreams," she muttered. "We had a home and we'll have another one," I i my voice full of defiance. "What kind of home did you have in West Virgil she asked, not intimidated by my tone of voice. "We lived in the trailer park. Daddy worked very ha in the coal mine. I never went hungry." "And your mother, what did she do?" "She worked in a beauty parlor." ?| "That figures," Grandma Olivia said. "That woma*| could wear out a mirror." Before I could respond. Grandma turned quickly call the maid. "The adults will have coffee in the sittii room, Loretta." "Yes, ma'am." v "Bring out some ice cream and some of the petit fours for the children," she ordered. Children? I looked at Cary to see how he liked beingi referred to that way. He tucked the corner of his mouth in and gazed at the wall. "Lucky for you that your Aunt Sara saved all of Laura's clothing," Grandma Olivia told me. "She always had such nice things." ; "Mommy's sent for my things," I replied. I glanced at' Aunt Sara and saw the hurt look on her face. "Although I am grateful for what Aunt Sara has given me to use. I'm just sorry about the circumstances." Grandpa Samuel nodded, his look softening. Grandma Olivia raised her eyebrows. "And what do you know about the circumstances?" she demanded. "What? Well, I was told--" "Olivia, must we go through this again?" Grandpa Samuel asked softly. Grandma Olivia snorted. "Jacob says you can play the fiddle 'well.*! she saidiri was shocked. Uncle Jacob had MELODY something nice about me? "Maybe one day you'll over and give us a concert," she added. My jaw t dropped. Was she serious? ; stood up. "Let's go into the sitting room for coffee, id," she commanded. t6t, dear," he said rising. s maid brought out three dishes of ice cream for y. May, and me and served them with a plate of small ts, the ones Aunt Sara told me Laura had loved. H*Sorry, we only have vanilla ice cream," Grandma a remarked. "Cary, you can show Melody the ids when you're finished, and entertain yourselves de. But don't track in any dirt. Make sure May rstands," she concluded. "Okay, Grandma," he said and signed instructions to by. "How is she?" Grandma asked, remaining at the table Bd looking at her with pity. -"She's doing very well. Grandma," Cary said, before i parents could reply. Grandma Olivia nodded, shook r head as if to drive the thoughts away, and led the ults out of the dining room. I felt a ceiling of oppressive gray clouds and heavy air, |loo thick to breathe, go out with her. I*. "You should call this place the Ice House," I remarked. K Cary smiled. "She's not as tough as she makes out." ' We ate the dessert and, I had to admit, I did like the [ small cakes. "This house itself is very nice, nicer even than Alice Morgan's." ; "Who's she?" "My best friend back in Sewell." I gazed at the pretty things, the antique hutch filled with expensive crystal, the beautiful chandelier above us, and the rich, large paintings on the walls. "How did Grandpa make so much money?" I asked Cary. ' } "». "A great ^leal was left to Grandma Olivia wlieasAer 189 V. C. ANDREWS parents passed away. Grandpa had a fleet of vessels, including five lobster boats. But, he lost mosta them during bad times. Luckily, my father had his m by then. Come on. I'll show you around." He signed to May and she gulped down one me spoonful of ice cream. I took her hand when she ( around the table. Cary led us through the house, d tile corridor, past the door to the kitchen, past a |L office on the right, finally to a rear door. It opened ofed small porch. Behind the house was a large gazebo, some bend and a rock garden with a small fountain. The rear oft property was on the beach and there was a dock large sailboat and a small motorboat tied to it. "This is a beautiful place," I declared. |f "Aye. They actually have a small cove here so it's: as rough as it is up and down the beach." We walked down to the dock and looked at the ocean,! The waves were gentle. Milk-white streaks of clouds lay 3 against the blue sky. To the right against the shoreline! were large rocks. ' "See the mussels clinging to those rocks," Cary said pointing. They were dark purple against the stone. On the sand, seagulls strutted about searching for clams. I saw one circle the rocks and then drop something from its beak. The moment what it had dropped hit the rock, it swooped to retrieve it. "What is that bird doing?" "Seagulls drop the clams on the rocks to break the shells and then drop to eat them as soon as they bit the stone. Smart, eh?" I shook my head in amazement, not only at what I saw, but at how much Cary knew about nature. I looked down the beach to our left. A large sailboat bounced over the waves, its sail napping in the breeze. "I can understand why my daddy wanted to go to the seashore so much. He missed this." Cary nodded, glanced at me, and then checked the I on the rope that held the motorboat to the dock. «signed to us she was going to look for seashells. •"ot too far," Cary signed. She nodded and directed ttention to the beach. ur grandmother sure hates my mother, doesn't ' I said. ry kept his watchful eyes on May. "Looks that 8?." he admitted. **Do they often talk about her and my daddy?" ^'Hardly ever," he said. He started for the beach and I wed. r can't understand what my daddy could possibly Edone to make them so angry. Why shouldn't a man i a right to chose the woman he loves to marry? Why I they have to disown him? She's very cruel, or are you tog to tell me it's simply because she's afraid, too?" He spun around, his eyes filled more with pain than ger. "Grandma's bark has always been worse than her »," he said. "After you're here a while, you'll see that, o. It takes her a little time to warm up to strangers." "I'm not a stranger. I'm her granddaughter, whether he likes it or not." He looked away. May was close enough to the water Ifbt the tide to just touch her feet. "Damn!" He rushed to | her and pulled her farther back. I thought he was tinnecessarily rough with her and said so. Then I took her hand and we walked away. I told her I would help her find seashells. Cary followed. "She can't swim, you know," he said in his defense. "She can't swim?" "No. Even if she could, the undertow can sometimes pull the strongest swimmer out to drown." I kept us a good distance from the water. "I understand why you are so protective other, Cary, and it's a good thing, a loving thing, but you've got to let her breathe." He stared at me. The wind made the strands of his hair dance around his face. I felt the sea, spray on my, own. Above us, the terns circled and eried^., ( h, r, ^, 191 V. C. ANDKEWS "I know why the family had nothing to do with father and why he and your mother ran on,"' confessed. "You do?" "Yes." He knelt down and plucked a shell out oft sand and handed it to May. "It wasn't something anyi told me," he continued. "I learned about it all in bits s pieces over the years just being nearby when they w< discuss it. "When my father realized what I had learned knew, he pulled me aside one day and forbade me to < mention anything, especially in my grandparents' pr ence." "Tell me." I asked softly. "Your mother should have been the one to tell you, ( your father, but I'm sure they were too ashamed ar afraid," he added. My heart seemed to stop and then start, and accomp nying that came a thumping that made my blood to my head. "Ashamed of what? What had they done?" "Married," he said. "So? Are your parents and our grandparents so con»| ceited, so arrogant, that they can look down on someone I who wasn't from what they call the best families? Some: one who was an orphan? Just who do they think they--"; "Your mother was an orphan, yes. But she never told you the truth about who her adopted parents were." I held my breath. "What do you mean? Who were they?" "Grandma and Grandpa," he said. "Your mother and your father grew up like brother and sister, and when they found out she had become pregnant with you, it was even more of a disgrace." I shook my head and nearly laughed aloud. "That's stupid. That's some ridiculous lie your father told you to covcr'-up for the disgraceful and disgusting way-they treated my-daddy." MELODY fs the truth," he insisted. for* I put my hands over my ears. "I won't listen to ter horrible word." iy stared at me, her face in a grimace. She started to ^quickly, asking what was wrong. I shook my head at I thought you should know so you would understand f everyone has these feelings about your mother and ler. Maybe you won't blame Grandma and Grandpa t my father and mother so much." " blame them more!" I screamed at him. "More for M hey're not lying," he said softly. "I'm surprised gossipmongers in school haven't said anything to It's an old story, so maybe they don't know, or te they just don't realize who you are." rt shook my head and backed away from him. "You're ; getting back at me for what I said about May. "You're I hate you," I said. "I hate you!" an down the beach, tears streaming down my s. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, my feet dipping and sliding in the sand. I even splashed through "sine water without caring, and then I fell forward on the md, exhausted, my chest feeling as if it would explode. I >ok deep, hard breaths. He had to be lying, or passing on their lies. Why ; wouldn't Mommy or Daddy ever have told me? : Moments later, Cary stood at my side. "I knew I I shouldn't have said anything." "You shouldn't have said anything so stupid," I retorted, looking up at him. He stood holding May's hand. She looked frightened, as if she might start to cry herself. I got to my feet and brushed off" my clothing. "When we get back to the house, I'll show you something," he said. He turned and started away. I took May's hand and we followed. At the rear door, Cary paused. "This way." He took us around to the north side of the house-where tbcteiwas a 193 V. C. ANDREWS joartaf cellar door. He reached down aad pulled it open S-rr»»^^^^^^Hrearje^?»Bgr^Sr--^^^^!^afe? " door. "It's the basement." «| I hesitated. He went down the stairs and opened thes next door, stepping in to pull a cord that turned oaA^ swinging, naked bulb. When I walked down the stairs, l| saw the basement had just the ground for a floor, bi" there were metal shelves against the old fiddstone fo dation. I passed through cobwebs. There was a dank. musty odor. "This is under the oldest section of the house," C explained. "I think it was once the fruit and vegea cellar. Something like that. Laura and I used to think < this as our clubhouse. We didn't mind the dampness er'1 the spiderwebs and mice." . | "Mice?" I "They've scurried into their hiding places by now." 3 He smiled, then stepped across the small room to one of , the metal shelves and pulled a carton off the second | shelf, lowering it to the basement's dirt floor. The| cardboard, left in this clamminess, was soft and nearly I ripped under his touch as he opened the box slowly, j "Here," he said, waiting for me to approach. I took 1 slow steps, my chest feeling as if I had swallowed lumps ; of coal that now lay stuck against my heart. May re- mained at my side, clinging to my hand. I gazed into the box. It was filled with photo albums. He took out the first' one and opened it. "Your parents were gone by the time Laura and I had . discovered all this, of course. When we asked Grandma Olivia about these pictures, she forbade us ever to come in here again. We didn't for a long time," he said. 1 looked at tile pictures. They were old photos taken of children, two boys and a girt. "This is your father and your mother and this is my father," Cary pointed out. He turned the pages, which contained pictures of Daddy, Mommy, and Uncle Jacob as they grew older. The resemblances became sharper and deafer with every turn of the page. "Your father was MELODY ^'^^W^^^^^a^^asss^^^i^.ss^ , 'jsa^^^c-sanf. ^ ' j streamed down my cheeks as he slowly turned ; pages, revealing pictures taken at lawn parties, on the "Tg bench, near the flower gardens, pictures on sail- ts and fishing boats. There were school pictures, as , as group family pictures. i shook my head in disbelief. I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry you never knew the te truth." tat down on my lower lip and sucked in air through VffSe, ignoring my hot tears. He put the afflnun^ VwSL K. canon, waSty closed it, and placed it back on the There's a lot more here, but maybe some other time," isaid. ^,1 turned away, releasing May's hand. It felt as if I had tao of a lifeline and I was now drifting in space. Dazed, at back to the cement steps and up into the daylight, idy hearing Cary put out the light and dose the ment door behind us. I stared out at the glittering the ocean looking like a floating mirror, mesme- ng. > cocoon of lies had been spun around me. Cary had cd it open and I was looking out at the world with Bcrent eyes. But more was yet to come. I sensed it, and that linous dread put thunder in my heart. I would know it , I vowed, no matter how damning the truth might be. He Says Pm Pretty Cary stepped up beside me and stood there for a moments without speaking. Two terns flew by. It cries sounded like screams to me. Maybe that i because I felt I was screaming inside myself. In mome my world had gone topsy-turvy. The blue sky n looked gray. The soft blue water had turned to ice. "I'm sure my parents were unaware that ^ didn't know about Haille, Melody. At least, I ne heard my father say anything. I'd appreciate it if; didn't let them know I was the one who told you," C said. I spun on him so sharply, he winced as if he pected to be slapped. "I guess I could lie and tell th Mommy had told me all this. Or I could prete someone at school told me. Maybe I just figured it all on myself, right? I mean, everyone here grows lies abundantly as the cranberries. I have lots to chc from, don't I?" He nodded. "I understand how you feel." "Do you?" I snapped, the skin on my face feeling 1 and sunburnt. "Yes," he replied firmly. His green eyes grew dark, by MELODY | with their sincerity. "I do. Melody. When I first I'you didn't know the whole truth about your 1 'was shocked. 'Even before toda^, I thov^A ;ellmg you because 1 was tired of hearing you in about how my father treated your mother and fter, but--" I what, Cary Logan?" fr looked away, swallowed, and then turned back. in't want to happen just what is happening now," ted. E what's that?" I demanded, hands on my hips. | of the corner of my eye, I saw May watching us, listen on her face. "Well?" I demanded. I. didn't want you hating me," he confessed. ty heart continued to thump, but the steel in my alders and back softened. I relaxed and looked back to ocean. (don't know what you mean," I muttered. don't remember the story, but I remember the a the teacher taught," be continued. "It was some* about how we always hate the messenger who ^s us bad news. That's why we hate to deliver it." don't hate you for telling me the truth," I said. , I am angry, mostly at my mother. She should told me everything before she brought me here dumped me on the family that hates the sight of »» ^"No one hates the sight of you. How could anyone ne you? But you're right: your parents should have ^you," he said, nodding. "They should have trusted with the truth about their past and all that had «ned. I guess my father hit the nail on the head: they ashamed of themselves. That's why they ran from to live in West Virginia after they had gotten ?tly married." "But... I just don't understand it all." I shook my 1. "Why did Grandpa Samuel and Grandma Olivia my mother into their home and adopt her if they 197 V. C. ANDREWS considered her inferior? And even though my lived like brother and sister, they weren't brother sister. Why was it so terrible, terrible enough to di my father, to hate him so much that none of you mourns his death?" "Look, I don't know details. As I said, no one lil talk about it. Maybe now your mother will tell everything," he concluded. "You can ask her." ^ "Yes, I will ask her," I moaned, "if she ever calls me? comes for me." "I'm sorry. Melody," he said. "It all stinks like rotten fish." I gazed into his now softened emerald eyes and how deeply he felt my pain. "Thank you for caring," I said. His eyes brighte and a small smile formed on his lips. May stared up at me, waiting for an explanation. outbursts and anger had frightened her. Why sh( someone so innocent and sweet be hurt by my misera mood? I thought. "Everything's all right," I signed and reached for hand. She grinned from ear to ear. "We better go back inside now," Cary said. "They be looking for us." He told May to be sure her shoes w® clean before we all re-entered the house. "There are the children," Aunt Sara said as we a peared in the living room doorway. "I was just going call you. Where did you go, Cary?" "We took a walk on the beach." "Find any interesting seashells?" she asked me. " ra always found the most unusual ones, didn't she»l Jacob?" ^ He grunted. It was so hard looking at them all, now that I knew more of the truth. Grandma Olivia sat in the oversized high-back chair, her arms on the arms of the chair, her back straight. She looked furious when she gazed at me. I felt her eyes burning through me. I don't care what Cary MELODY ^^Kr^hates the ^ ^ to't wait to le^e nle wlthout seel^ ^ n^^-1 9 the other hand. Grandpa Samuel's face waa softer, tall smile on his lips. "You take your cousin sailing |Cary?" he asked. We sir." (there's no hurry," Aunt Sara said, her voice flutter- ^with fear. can't think of anyone I would trust more in a eat than Cary," Grandpa Samuel said, his eyes still [ on me. Cary blushed. "He's the best sailor the ly's ever had, eh Jacob?" *Aye," Uncle Jacob said. "That he is." He slapped his ds on his knees and stood. "Well, I guess we had cr be moving on." He glanced at Aunt Sara and she i quickly. Then he looked at Cary. lank you for the brunch. Grandma," Cary said ly, prodded by his father's look of expectation. Jacob's gaze moved to me. iank you," I said, my lungs so hot I didn't think I make sounds. I wanted to add sarcastically, ik you for keeping my mother and father's pictures ried in a carton in the basement. Thank you for hating a own son so much that you won't even mention his ne, much less mourn his death. Thank you for blam- me for anything and everything they did." But I diowed back the thoughts and turned to watch May ling her thank you. They barely acknowledged her. ybe that was their way of pretending she didn't have i handicap, I thought. Another lie was being added to fast I had to leap out of the way to dry ground. It > as if the ocean itself were snapping at me. I took off sneakers and socks and waded through the water, nous to the cold. If I came down with pneumonia, it 1 be Mommy's fault. No one would care anyway. I t so hard I imagined smoke pouring out of my ears. v could Mommy not tell the truth? Didn't she : the day would come when she would have to admit t^all the lies? urely Daddy would have eventually told me every- ig. He was just waiting for me to be old enough. idy wouldn't have wanted to see me hurt this way. ; Mommy must have realized I would hear the whole ry while I was here. All she worried about was getting ty and doing her thing, becoming famous. "It's not fairi" I shouted at the ocean. My words were TOwned by the roar of the waves. I didn't realize how far I had walked until I turned to X)k back. at the house. I folded my arms across my reasts and sat on a dry mound of sand, staring across tie ocean waves. There was a constant breeze, but the [sky wasn't as cloudy as it had first seemed. The weather ; changed so quickly it was as if a Cape Cod magician V. C. ANDREWS controlled it. I sensed the sun was strongerTdowa-i water, reflecting off the sand. Like a Ping-Pong ball bouncing from warm moments to cool ones. The 1 brushed the tears from my cheeks. I sighed so de thought I might snap like a brittle piece of china. envisioned my face shattered in pieces like some a ter puzzle. All the king's horses and all the men ... couldn't put poor Melody together again. Suddenly, I saw and heard a motorboat skipping* the waves, the spray flying up around it. Whoever! driving it turned it sharply toward the shore and spell heading directly toward me. I watched with curiosit it drew closer until it was near enough for me to rea who was driving. Adam Jackson waved. He shut offi motor and the boat drifted in with the tide. "Hey!" he called, his hands cupping his mouth. "^ are you doing out here all by yourself?" The boat lifted and fell until he was nearly to sh "Just taking a walk," I shouted back. "I thought it was you. I have great eyesight, huhT'i laughed and then held up a pair of binoculars. "Cos on. I'll take you for a spin." (1 I shook my head. "No, thank you." "Come on," he urged. "You'll have fun." "How will I get to the boat? I'll get soaked to the I and shrink to death." He laughed and hopped out. He was wearing a black bathing suit and a light blue polo shirt, which ^ getting wet, but he didn't mind. He pulled the boat ck until the bow hit the sand. Then he took off his shirt i threw it into the boat before he beckoned. "Come on. I'll make sure you don't get too wet." "I don't think so." "You don't look too happy," he said. "A ride in thing will drive your gloom away. You have the Ac Jackson one hundred percent guarantee." I looked toward the house. Aunt Sara and Uncle Ja would have a fit if they saw me get into the boat, MELODY ; shoulders gleamed invitingly in the afternoon ht. I stood up, my heart thumping. f not? I thought. I'm not a prisoner here. "Okay," I npulsively. >od," he cried. "Hurry up. The Atlantic Ocean . exactly a bathtub yet," he said laughing and pre- ling to be shivering in the water. I rolled up my dungarees as high as I could, cradled my takers and socks in my arms, and then stepped into b water. The tide kept rising, however, and I screamed d retreated. He laughed and rushed forward, scooping »into his arms before I could protest. Then he carried 6 to the boat as if I weighed nothing and gently lifted t over the edge. Once I was in, he pushed the boat out, _fUed himself up and swung over. ySee. Barely a drop on you." :.,**! can't believe I'm doing this." ""What's the big deal?" he said shrugging. "Boats, ater, fishing... they're as common as breathing to us ape Codders, and now that you're becoming one, too, hi have to get used to it all or risk forever being known i an outsider. And you know how we treat outsiders," i said. He widened his eyes as though that would be a | fate worse than death. He laughed and started the motor. I The boat lifted and fell with the waves so sharply, I I bad trouble standing. ? "Isn't it too rough today? I feel as if I'm in an egg s beater." ? "Call this rough? Hardly." He started the engine. : Then he patted the seat beside him. "Sit up here so you get a good view. I'll even let you steer if you want." "Really?" "Sure. Come on, sit," he urged and I did so. "I haven't been out much myself this year," he said. "I'm glad I had the desire to do so today." He turned to me with a twinkle in his soft blue eyes. "It wasn't just an accident finding you on the beach, you know." "Oh?" "It's fate, what's meant to be," he said with a wink. V. C. ANDREWS And then he gunned the engine so fast and hard, front of the boat lifted and we hit the water with a b bounce. I screamed. I had to cling to him, but he didn't seem i mind. "Do you have to go so fast?" I cried. The spray w hitting us and the wind made my blouse flap so much,I| thought it would tear off. My eyes were tearing, too. "Of course," he said. "You want to get a thrill, do you? Going slow is not for people like us." People like us? I thought. Who did he think I was? "•' The boat bounced so hard each time it hit the water, J was afraid it might fall apart. My heart was pounding; s; Finally, he slowed down and told me to try steering i myself. He slid over and I took the wheel. Then he pulled1' himself around, straddling me, and reached over my s shoulders with both his arms to put his hands over mine. "I'll show you how to do it first," he said, his cheek, against my cheek. He was wearing some wonderful- smelling aftershave lotion. The water, the breeze, the scent of the ocean and his lotion made me dizzy, t felt myself spinning, but it was wonderful and exciting. For a while anyway, I could forget the secrets and the lies. He accelerated slowly and I turned the wheel, im pressed and fascinated with my power to direct the boat. I was so entranced with it that I didn't pay much attention to his lips moving over my ears and down my cheek. "You're delicious," he suddenly said. "What?" I pulled to the side to look at him. He was staring at me, those remarkable eyes drinking me in, then swallowing me down. I quickly fastened one of the buttons of my blouse that had opened, but my garments felt flimsy and transparent under his piercing gaze. It took my breath away. Without warning, the boat bounced sharply, tossing him into my lap. We both MELODY ned and he recovered quickly enough to drop the . J and straighten the bow. We caught our breaths and boat bobbed gently. This far away from shore, the „ _ter was calmer and more inviting. 1< "You have to keep your eyes on what you're doing," he lid. "And you have to keep yours in your head. I have apil prints in places I'd rather keep unblemished." He laughed and leaned back. "You sure talk funny etimes, but it's refreshing. All the girls here sound I same. Everything's groovy, know what I mean?" I nodded. "Why didn't you come to the party last night?" he sked. "I kept looking for you." "I couldn't," I said. "I wanted to, but--" "Your uncle and aunt wouldn't let you?" ;? "Something like that." "I figured." He shook his head. "Must be hard for you. t bet you feel as if you're in some kind of a prison or a nunnery, huh?" I didn't say anything. "All the girls are jealous of you, you know." "What? Why?" "I heard them talking about you last night, saying how pretty you are." "They did not." "Swear," he said raising his hand. "It's true. You're about the prettiest giri I've seen and I've seen quite a few." He leaned toward me. "I've even gone out with college girls, but you've got that one-in-a-million look about you, the magic that makes for movie stars and models. I heard from the grapevine that your mother is a model. Now I understand." I sat there with my mouth gaping open. I had never heard a boy in our school talk like this and certainly never about me. "Wait a minute," he said before I could respond. He got up and went to a cabinet to take out a camera. "I'd V. C. ANDREWS like to get a few shots of you just the way natural, the wind in your hair." "What do you want me to do?" "Just sit there. Steer the boat and be yourself."-! aimed his camera and snapped pictures. "These' worth something someday after you're famous." I laughed and shook my head. "I am not so pi have freckles and my ears are too big. I'll never b famous." ?| "Adam Jackson knows pretty women and I'm teffi you. Melody, you're one of 'em. Don't argue witbs expert." He kept on looking at me with that gleeful r~ in his eyes. He was making me very nervous. "Can I make it go faster again?" I asked. "I knew you would want to. Just move the lever i slowly." I did so, getting better at controlling the boat He eve gave me a compliment about it. "You've got your sea legs," he said and ran his f down the side of my right leg. "And they're really n; He laughed at the look on my face. "You better get to compliments. Melody. They're going to rain down oaj you like a hurricane as you get older and prettier." | The blood rushed to my face. Was he just saying these! things or did he really mean them? He put his arm; around my shoulder and helped steer with his other! hand. He held me tighter, drawing me against him until 13 felt his breath on my cheek again and then the soft touch; of his lips. "I think you better take me back," I told him, my voice close to cracking. "My aunt will be turning over rocks looking for me." He laughed. "Okay, but only if you promise to meet me tomorrow night about eight o'clock." "Meet you? Where?" He thought a moment. "Meet me right there where I found you sitting, or are you afraid to walk the beach at night?" MELODY }rwst afraid," I said quickly. "It's just that--" i might not be able to get out? Don't let them treat ; a child," he said, his eyes narrowed. I't," I protested, but in my heart, I knew he was . it's settled. I'll bring a radio and a blanket and ig to drink." nething to drink?" aething to keep us warm. You've done that before, »*t you?" he asked. are," I said, not even positive what he meant. Was sag to bring a thermos of hot chocolate, coffee, tea, d he mean whiskey? thought so. You have a more sophisticated look tt you. I'd like to hear what it was like growing up in pounds Virginia. My college friends tell me that girls from oal mining towns know the score. The girls here like |think they're so sophisticated. They talk a good game, lit when it comes right down to playing it, they're not issae. You know what I mean?" ^No" I said. p"Sure you do." t^I'd better get back." i^Aye, aye. Captain," he replied sitting up quickly and biting. I laughed as he hurriedly took the controls and cned the boat around. "You want me to put you back tere you were or closer to the house?" "Better put me back where I was," I said. "My aunt mid turn inside out if she saw me riding in a motor- »at, and my uncle would put a ball and chain on my ikle." "The Logans are strange, and not because of what ^ happened to Laura. They were strange long before that." I wanted to see just how much he knew and how much the people here gossiped. "You mean about my mother and father?" I asked. "No." He shook his head. "I don't know much about them, except what I was told in school. I'm sorry about 207 V. C. ANDREWS your father. That must have been a terrible actiki too." "It was." "You've got a lot of good reason to be sad, Melody^l you're too beautiful to remain melancholy long."! brought the boat as close to the shore as he had brou) it before. My heart skipped beats when he smiled at l again. Then he bopped out. "Sit on the side,'* ordered. "Don't worry. I won't drop you." I clutched my sneakers and socks and did as he sa He scooped under my legs again, this time holding: tighter around the waist. Our faces were inches apar thought I would drown in his eyes. He leaned in a kissed me softly on the lips. "No fair," I said. "I'm trapped like a cat up a tree.^ He laughed. "That's right. And if you don't kiss a back, I'll drop you in the ocean." He pretended to let j and I screamed. "Well?" "All right, but just once," I said. This time, our ki was long and his tongue moved between my lips, grazil mine. It sent a chill down my spine, but it wasn'l unpleasant. "I've got to get back," I said, practically whispering.1 My heart pounded so hard, I thought I wouldn't be abli to get out the words. "No problem," He gracefully moved through th water and set me down on dry land. "Until tomorrow | night." His face turned serious. "I'll see you in school 1 tomorrow, but I'd rather we kept this our little secret. If| we don't we'll have company. I know these kids here. ] They can be pains in the rear end. Besides, I like secrets, don't you?" "No," I said quickly and so firmly, he raised his eyebrows. "Not even secrets of the heart?" I didn't want to tell him that I had never really had any, so I just shrugged. He laughed. "Bet you just got a sea chest full of love secrets," he teased. MELODY a'd lose." I started backing away. "I have to go. s for the ride." stood there, watching me walk quickly over the Then he turned and waded through the water to it. I stopped to watch him accelerate and spin i the waves. I felt as if I had stepped in and out of e. He had been right about the boat ride. The ess that had washed over me had dried up with s. I had a new bounce in my step as I hurried over ch toward my uncle and aunt's house, wondering (would have the nerve to meet Adam Jackson tomor- 'night. liere were you, honey?" Aunt Sara asked as soon as red the house. She was in the doorway of the living i. She looked at my sneakers and socks in my hand. I simply forgotten to put them on or roll down my _ garees. "I just took a walk on the beach," I said quickly. ' "You shouldn't go anywhere without telling your aunt : me," I heard my uncle Jacob cry from behind her in i® living room. "Your aunt shouldn't have to go looking r you, hear?" v "Yes," I said. "Sorry," I told Aunt Sara and ran up the tairs before she could ask or say anything else. Cary sard me pound the steps and came out of his room. "You all right?" he asked as I turned down the allway. |r "Yes." |t His eyes grew smaller with interest and he stepped I closer, a. textbook in his hand. 'f. "I heard you run out, but by the time I put on my I sneakers, you were over the hill. I figured you wanted to be alone, maybe to sort things out," he said. "Sort things out?" I started to laugh. "It would be easier to unravel a bee hive." He nodded and then his eyes widened with interest. "You look like you got some sun." 209 V. C. ANDREWS I couldn't keep my eyes from shifting guiltily'i Did he notice the flush on my face, the excitement A eyes? Daddy used to say they were like little w' panes, with my thoughts as clear as newsprint. "You were walking in the water?" Cary cot nodding at my sneakers in my hand and my toI dungarees. Tiny grains of sand were in between bqm "I'm tired," I said moving to my room. "I'm gof rest before dinner." "Melody?" I turned. He held up the book. "I was wondering if after dinner you might--" "That's your English textbook?" "Yes. We have a test tomorrow on clauses. The clause I know is Santa Claus," he said glumly. "It's not really hard. 111 show you some tricks teacher in West Virginia showed me." "Thanks." "Where's May?" "She's doing her homework, too," he said. I node and went into my room, softly closing the door behi me. For a few moments I stood there, reining in : emotions. I had gone from anger and sadness to excite"1 ment and thrills. I couldn't be more confused about this place, I thought. My family was hard and unpleasant, but May was sweet and hungry for love, and Cary ... Cary was more sensitive and caring than he let on. The ocean could be cold and gray, and no thunderstorm in West Virginia was as frightening as the storm we had had | the other night--the nor'easter Cary called it. Yet today, 1 the ocean was delightful, exciting and the beach was warm and inviting. Didn't I hate it here? Didn't I want to just run away? And yet, Adam Jackson's handsome face lingered before my eyes and his compliments echoed in my ears. Was I really as pretty as he said I was? I gazed at myself in the mirror. Was there as much potential beauty as he MELODY (-he saw? Was he making up what he had told me ar girls thought of me? I didn't want to become id, and yet, I didn't want to underestimate myself become some mousy creature with no self- dence, terrified of life like ... like Aunt Sara hover- HJncle Jacob's dark shadow. It at the vanity table and thought and then I gazed i at the pile of letters bound with a rubber band. r'were Laura's letters from her boyfriend. I had no It to look at them, and yet, I couldn't help wondering Ht'sort of a relationship they had had before their ;ic end. took on" the rubber band and opened the first elope. The handwriting was pretty, an almost artistic Dt. The letter had been written on blue stationery. tDearest Laura. I had a wonderful time yesterday. I don't know how many times I've walked on that beach, but yesterday, with you, it suddenly seemed more beau. .tifid than ever^ I didn 't mean to take you away from Jf your work. I know Cary was upset with me for just ^, appearing unexpectedly. When I get a chance, I'll ["y apologize to him for stealing you away and leaving him with all the lobsters and fish. But I'll never apologize for taking you anywhere. I'm glad you feel the same way about me that I feel about you. I've felt this for a long time, but I didn't have the courage to tell you. Don't ask me why I have it now. I think it's because of the way you smiled at me in the cafeteria that day. It gave me all the nerve I needed. I'm not used to writing letters to girls or anyone. Actually, you're the first girl I've ever written a letter to, not counting my cousin Susie. I know it's hard for you to talk long on the telephone. Besides, it's kind of exciting receiving letters from you, tee. I'm just nervous about mailing the letters and maybe 211 V. C. ANDREWS having someone else read them. You know who. He .i| never seems to be happy to see me around, even when I'm not taking you away from helping your father. Maybe, when he feels about a girl the way I feel about you, he'll be more understanding. I know what you meant when you said you were afraid of how you felt about me sometimes. It's a bit over- -M whelming, but I'm not ashamed of it and never will ^ be. I hope you feel that, too. I promise, I'll try to .,.' control myself more, but you know what they say ^| about promises lovers make. Just kidding, only, please don't hate me for loving you more than 4 should. , || / like writing to you, Laura. I see your face In", front of me as I think of the words. It makes me s want to write to you all night. Until I see you. hold me in your heart. Love, Robert Tears filled my eyes. Would I ever have anyone love no as much as Robert Royce loved Laura? If they ha something so beautiful, why did they have to die sol tragically and so young? I sighed and thought about] reading another letter, but there was a sharp knock on | my door. I guiltily stuffed the letter back into the^ envelope. ; "Yes?" 1 Cary entered. His gaze moved from me to the pile of i letters and then back to me. "My mother says you have a phone call. A girl friend from Sewell." "Alice!" I jumped up. "Thanks." I went downstairs quickly, forgetting that I still hadn't put on my sneakers and socks. This time. Uncle Jacob wasn't sitting near the phone, ready to listen. Aunt Sara held the receiver away from her as if it were a forbidden object that might contaminate her. . MELODY k "Jacob doesn't approve of young people gossiping on the telephone," she whispered. "Don't be long." s "Thank you," I said and took the receiver. "Alice?" "Hi. Was it all right for me to call now? Your aunt founded upset." "It's all right. I'm happy to hear from you so toon." Aunt Sara gave me a look of warning and stepped pagerly out of the room. "I miss you and I miss Sewell," I added as soon as she ibs gone. "More than I ever expected." ."Oh? Well, I don't have good news. Papa George IS in Vt^ospital sad wbea I asked Mama Arlene about your pther and your things, she told me she hasn't heard a jWd from your mother since you all left." ^Mommy never called her?" »"Not yet. I thought I had better tell you." "How is Papa George doing?" ^'He's in intensive care. He's very sick. Melody. I'm ^rry." "I should be there," I moaned. "I don't know what to to." "What can you do?" Alice asked in her habitual blunt nanner. "Nothing until Mommy calls me." "You really hate it there?" "There's a lot happinging, Alice." "Tell me," she pleaded. "I cant. Not on the phone. I'll write you a letter." "Don't wait. Write it tonight." "Melody, dear, not too long," I heard Aunt Sara say through the wall. She was probably just on the other side of the door all the while, I thought. "I've got to hang up, Alice. Thanks for calling." "Write me and I'll call you the moment I hear that your mother called Mama Arlene," she said quickly. "Thanks. Bye." I cradled the receiver just as Uncle Jacob came 213 V. C. ANDREWS through the front door. He saw Aunt Sara standing in < hallway and me by the phone. < "Was that your mother?" he asked me. "No. A friend from Sewell." He glared at Aunt Sara. "She wasn't on the phone long, Jacob." He grunted. Then he noticed my bare feet. "We don't walk through the house half dressed hen he said. For a moment I didn't understand. "Your fe he said nodding at them. "Oh. I just came down quickly. It was a longi phone call and--" "A decent girl always thinks about those things : he chastised. "I am a decent girl," I fired back. "We'll see," he said, undaunted, and started up stairs. "Getting dressed for dinner," he muttered tow Aunt Sara. "Okay, Jacob. We'll have a good Sunday dinner," I promised. "Don't worry," she whispered to me. "He'S soon see that you're as sweet as Laura was, and thei everything .. . everything will be wonderful again," sh< added. Her eyes glittered with hope. "Hurry and get] cleaned up and dressed so you can set the table, dear.". I watched her walk away with that fragile smile on hen face. Aunt Sara had wrapped herself snugly in her| illusions, but illusions, I thought, were just dressed up !i lies. Someday the weight of the truth would come downJ on her glass house and shatter her dreams even more. ''.. I didn't want to be here when all that happened. I wanted to be far away. I wanted to be in a place where people didn't have to Ue to each other to live with each other. Was there such a place? And even if there were such a place, could I, a daughter born in a world of deceit, ever hope to find it? With Daddy dead and gone and Mommy off searching for her own private dreams, I felt like an orphan, a hobo MELODY ', for a handout of love. No wonder my eyes saw i Jackson's eyes and my ears were so receptive to wds. I meet him tomorrow night, I thought defiantly. Not . one of Cape Cod's treacherous nor'easters could t me away. 215 An English Lesson At dinner everyone appeared to be in a subdued : even May. After Uncle Jacob read his selection from) Bible, we ate in near silence. I thought the hef atmosphere in the house might be a result of the weath Although it wasn't raining, a thick fog had rolled in i great billowing waves. It shrouded the landscape, turni everything cold and dreary. Once again, the weather < the Cape surprised me with its fickleness and its abilifr to change so abruptly. I wondered if there was any way 1 tell right now what it would be like tomorrow ni; Would it rain and thus put off my rendezvous with Ac Jackson? "Does it often get foggy like this at night?" I asked; innocently as I could. Uncle Jacob raised his eyebrow Aunt Sara smiled as if I had asked the silliest litt question, and Cary looked amused. "This time of year it| often does." " | "Weathermen might as well toss the dice, as good as| they predict these days," Uncle Jacob muttered. "Better | off just listening to the creak in your bones." "Aye," Aunt Sara said. "More^tatoes, dear?" MELODY you. Aunt Sara," I answered. it be having coffee tonight," Uncle Jacob anas if the whole country were awaiting his "Got a big day tomorrow. Getting up early to .the boat to Stormfield's in North Truro for an frtuneup." xmid skip school tomorrow," Cary offered immedi- He glanced quickly at me because he knew I stood why he would like to cut classes. He hoped I to't say anything. There was no reason to worry. It lone of my business and I certainly wouldn't want responsible for getting him in trouble with Uncle 1 wouldn't do that to my worst enemy. need," Uncle Jacob said, rising. Gary's face in disappointment. "Roy and I can handle it. ," he said stretching, "I'll just have a pipeful in the and go up to bed. I'd like a peaceful night," he added iog at me as if I were a noisy teenager who played e music late into the evening. r'rose to help Aunt Sara with the dishes. May wanted I to go to her room and help with her homework, but I 'ained I was helping Cary study for a test tomorrow. looked disappointed, so Aunt Sara offered to help She still looked disappointed, but I could see she (Stoo considerate to hurt her mother's feelings. ";er we had put away the dishes, I went up to my and waited for Cary. I had just a little of my own ilwork left and finished it quickly. He knocked on my door and peeked in timidly. "Got me now?" he asked. "Yes." I pulled a chair up alongside my own at the [desk. "Sit here." 1: "I hate this stuff," he complained as he entered. He tried to narrow his vision just to me and the desk, but his eyes flitted from one side of the room to the other, the took on his face sad and as painful as a raw wound that refused to heal. He caught me scrutinizing him. "I don't come in here often," he confessed. "Anymores" "I understand,"-! said. V. C. ANDREWS Skepticism clouded his face and gave birth to a < frown. Did he think that because I had no broth sister, I couldn't appreciate what it was like to someone I loved? "It was really hard for me to look at things in»| trailer that reminded me of my father after his ter" accident," I explained. Gary's skepticism faded as 11 on. "I was closer to him that I am to my mother. when be died, I thought the world had come to an en still doesn't seem the same. Nothing does." He nodded, his eyes softening. "I wish I could I gotten to know him." "I wish you had too. I wish this family wasn't vindictive." He tilted his head. "Vin-what?" "Cruel," I continued. "When you love someone,: don't hate them to death for mistakes they make. You to understand them, help them, and if that doesn't w you feel sorry for them. But you don't disown the forever and pretend they never lived." He stared at me a moment and then he smiled shook his head gently. "That's something Laura w say. She always looked for the good in everyone. girls at school mocked her, ostracized her, were jeal of her, but she was always nice to them. We had lot arguments about it," he said. "It was practically the < 1s thing we argued about. We agreed about most everyt) 1 else." "Even Robert Royce?" I asked quickly. When looked at me this time, there were shadows in emerald depths of his eyes. "That was something entirely different. She blinded by--" "By what?" I asked, intrigued. "Blinded by his lies, his phony charm, his handsci face," he replied bitterly. "How did you know he was a phony?" I asked. letter to Laura seemed sincere. MELODY r knew," he insisted. "She always listened to me. I dose and not just because we were twins. Wfe did like the same things and feel the same things. Sdn't have to speak to each other lots of tunes r. We just looked at each other and understood. She 1 smile at me or I would smile at her and that was after Robert..." His gaze drifted, his eyes S smaller--darker--when he looked at Laura's ; on the dresser. at happened after Robert came into her life?" f turned to me, his watery eyes hard. "She changed. I 1 to help her see, but she wouldn't listen." laybe what she saw she liked," I offered softly. i grimaced. "Why is it that girls who are normally ter than boys are so dumb when it comes to boys?" |asked me. I stared at him. He blinked his eyelids rapidly. He had Bg, perfect eyelashes, which most girls I knew would eto have. |"That's a matter of--" "What?" he interrupted. t"I was going to say opinion, but it's really more a |fctter of the heart." ?He blew air through the side of his mouth. "Matters of |e heart," he said disdainfully. "An excuse for stufttity." "Cary Logan, are you going to sit there and tell me you fon't believe in love? 'Ybu don't believe two people can ill in love?" : "I didn't say that exactly," he retreated. "But it's silly I think you can fall in and out of love the way you ... bu catch a cold." "From what I understand, that doesn't sound like a ood description of Laura. She didn't have lots of oyfriends, did she?" I* "That's not the point. She thought she was in love and that he loved her, but... Let's just say I know it was a ^mistake, okay, and leave it at that." He glared down at V. C. ANDREWS his textbook. "I hate this stuff. What does it have with what's important?" "It's important to understand our language so wet express ourselves," I said, my voice hard and firm. LT splinter, Cary had a way of getting under my skin. He grimaced again and raised his eyebrows. I wasn't intimidated by him. "You're not just going to spend all your life t lobsters, Cary Logan. You're going to have to talk to i customers, too, and if you sound as if you don't" what you're doing, they won't believe in you, no how good a fisherman you are." He broke into a smile. "Don't get so mad." "I'm not mad. I'm--" "What?" he teased. "Mad," I said. "Why should you have to be talked it educating yourself? We don't live in the Dark Ages. Ev up here in Cape Cod heaven where everyone is suppi ediy so perfect, people still need to be educated,'^ snapped. J He laughed. "Okay, help me talk to my customers." I gazed at the page. "Clauses are easy to recognize. Just test them. If t don't have a subject and a verb, throw them back in'. a lobster that's too small." His smile widened. "I like that. That, I can undc stand." I went over what a subject does in the clause and the what the verb does. He listened, tried some examples, and then widene his eyes. "I understand what you're saying. I just don'l understand how you know whether it's an adverb or; adjective." "Test it again," I told him. "Here's one way: if you c move it around in the sentence, it's an adverb. Look at| this one: Because I got sick, I had to go home. I had to go| home because I got sick. See?" His eyes lit up. MELODY u rteacher never showed you that?" I asked. n't remember. I guess I wasn't paying as much n to her as I paid to you. Maybe you should be a 9^ be I will. Do those exercises at the end of the r. I'll correct them when you're finished." i ma'am." ait to the closet to sift through the clothing. tow, I would wear one of my own things, I ft, not that I had much from which to choose. How I Mommy not have called Mama Arlene yet? She I needed my clothes. aura always looked really good in that," Cary said. I a't known he was watching me. I held a light yellow m dress in my hands. "You thinking of wearing that hooir' might just wear a pair of jeans and a blouse I ght with me," I said. "Laura never wore jeans to school. My father didn't ink it was proper." |*'Well he's not my father," I replied. "And I'm not "(ana." 3ie shrugged. "I'm just telling you." ""Are you finished with the exercises?" "No, I--" "Then finish," I commanded. "Right," he said turning back. I smiled to myself and considered the yellow dress fain. It had a square collar with frilled sleeves and a ;ntly billowing skirt. I imagined it might look nice on ie. I did want to look nice for Adam, I thought. "Finished," Cary declared. I put the dress back and went to the desk. He had one mistake, but even I might have made it, I thought. "Not too bad," I said. "I hope I can do it tomorrow." "You will. Just remember the tricks," I told him. 221 V. C. ANDREWS "Thanks," he said standing. "I owe you one." thought a moment. "Maybe I'll do what Grandpa ; gested this weekend." "What's that?" "Take you sailing. Would you like that?" I thought about Adam. What if he invited me to ; motorboating again? ««T »» A My hesitation jarred him. "Don't if you have things to do." He turned for the door. "No, it's just that I've never really gone sailing." He looked back at me. "Whatever. If you want to, wel do it." "We'll go over the material again on the way school," I told him. He rolled his eyes. "Can't wait," he said and left. A little while later I heard him go up to his at hideaway. I didn't know for certain, of course, but I w willing to bet that he spent more time up there alon^ since Laura's death than he had when she was alive. | We all retreat to different attics when we're unhappy, thought. I was still looking for mine. Uncle Jacob had eaten his breakfast and left by the time May, Cary, and I went downstairs the next mom- ing. I decided to wear Laura's yellow dress, and when Cary saw me in the hallway, he said I looked very nice. "It's not going to rain, is it?" I asked him. "No. It's going to be a nice day and a pretty nice night," he told me. I breathed relief and felt a tingle ofj the excitement of anticipation. Downstairs, Aunt Sara was frenzied. Grandma Olivia had called last night and told her the dinner would be tomorrow night. Apparently, from the way she spoke, I understood that dinner at my grandparents' house wasn't merely dinner, it was an elaborate affair. There would be someone else there, some highly respected member of the community. We would all have to be on MELODY bwl behavior, be well dressed, and be more s than the Queen of England. en't forget Grandpa wants to hear Melody play her ^" Cary teased. Aunt Sara gasped and gazed at me t abject terror in her eyes. Ml, I don't think he meant this particular dinner," „.. said in a voice just above a whisper. : "Sure he did," Cary continued, deliberately raising his i voice. "We all heard him, Ma." sat Sara shook her head. "But Olivia didn't..." ;'s all right. I don't want to bring my fiddle anyway," —A. :-?*Grandpa's going to be disappointed," Cary warned. "• might just send you back for it. Why don't you bring >ng and leave it in the car, just in case," he pursued. mt Sara shook her head again, this time more iphatically. "Jacob might be upset. I don't know if—" 'I'm not bringing it along. Aunt Sara. Stop worrying," declared firmly. I gazed at Cary, whose green eyes >arkled with mischief. May wanted to know what we were all talking about so intensely. Cary signed and explained, mimicking my ''* dng the fiddle. Her eyes lit up with encouragement. See, Ma, even May wants her to bring it along, and can't even hear." "Oh dear," Aunt Sara said, wringing her hands. "Stop it," I told him sharply. "You're going to get me H*4nto trouble." With a tiny smile on his face, he finished eating his breakfast quietly. On the way to school, I chastised him. "You shouldn't tease your mother that way, Cary Logan." "I wasn't teasing. I'd like you to play your fiddle, too. It will spice up the dinner party. I've been to enough of them at Grandma's to know what to expect. They could use some excitement." "Well under the circumstances, I'm not feeling much like fiddling. It only reminds me of my daddy and 223 V. C. ANDREWS Grandma Olivia's house is no place to be thinking i him," I said bitterly. Gary's impish grin faded. "Maybe if they heard play and learned more about your father after he Haille left here, they'd be more inclined to feel s< about things, too," he offered. "They should feel sorry! My daddy's gone and damage that was done is done forever and ever." Gary was silent. The subject sank deeply in the pool ( our thoughts. We dropped May at her school and contir ued to our own, reviewing the material Gary would have on his English test. As soon as Cary and I arrived at school, we split up. Fortunately, he didn't hear the girls heckle me when I went to my locker. I'm sure he woul4i have become very angry. ,'. "We missed you Saturday night," Janet said. "Too busy darning socks or something?" : "Or did you have to make cranberry muffins?" Lorraine asked. "I tried to come," I told her. Betty closed in beside her | and Janet to listen to my explanation. "But my uncle wouldn't let me go." 3 "We told you he wouldn't. We told you to lie," Betty said. "But you're just like Laura, aren't you? You're too | goody-goody to have any real fun. It must run in the' family or something--Grandpa, Laura and now you. I bet the mute is the same." "She's not a mute," I snapped, my face filling with blood so fast I thought I would blow the top of my head off. "She's deaf, but she can talk." "I've heard her talk. Who could understand that?" Betty said. The others agreed. "If you take the time, you can understand her. She's a bright, sweet little girl." "Right. Anyway, we all had a good time. A certain boy was heartbroken that you weren't there," Lorraine said, a twisted smile on her lips. As if on cue, Adam sauntered down the corridor and paused when he reached us. All three of the witches from MELODY th fluttered their eyelashes and beamed their most ive smiles, but his eyes were on me. "Good morning, girls. Exchanging feminine secrets or 11 listen in?" he asked with that beguiling smile. Even ly in the morning, he looked perfect enough to have t walked out of an aftershave advertisement in a n's magazine. 'We were just telling Melody about what a great beach rty she missed," Janet said. "That's right. It was a great party," he agreed, his eyes till fixed on me. "Debbie McKay certainly had a good time," Betty rid. "Didn't she, Adam?" "You'll have to ask her," he replied with a nonchamce that made the three giggle. "I'm sure we'll find out," Lorraine said. "Debbie's the md who kisses and tells. See you later. Melody," she ^ sang. |- "Yeah, see you later," Betty echoed. The three walked ' off, leaving me with Adam. [ "Now you know why I want you to keep the things between us secret," he said looking after them. "The . gossipmongers around here work overtime. I'll walk you '4o homeroom," he offered when I closed my locker. "Everything else all right? You didn't get into trouble after our ride yesterday, did you?" "No," I said. "Good." I noticed everyone's interest as we continued down the corridor. Even Mrs. Cranshaw, the librarian, peered at us over her thick lenses. "I really had a good time with you," Adam said softly. "Did you like it, too?" "Yes, I did." "Good. Until eight o'clock," he whispered at the homeroom door. "Don't disappoint me." He squeezed my hand and walked away. My heart pounded. Was I really going to meet him? Did I have the courage? His lips had the lure of forbid225 V. C. ANDREWS den fruit, but oh, hew luscious, ripe, and delicious the promise they had left on my own when he held me vq his arms and kissed me! I sighed. 3 When I turned to go into the classroom, I saw each and every giri was looking my way. All looked curious, many| looked envious. "That didn't take long," Theresa Patterson said coming up behind me as I walked to my desk. "Pardon?" "For Adam Jackson to find a new fish," she muttered, | walking by. ; The girls in this school, I thought, gave the word catty a new meaning. Adam wasn't wrong about that. Cary had told me much the same thing. I didn't see my cousin until lunch time in the cafeteria. When I did, he looked very excited and happy. He had taken his English test and for the first time, he felt confident of the results afterward. "Every time I considered an answer, I could hear your voice, your advice. It didn't seem as hard as I thought it would be." "Good," I said. I looked past him toward the cafeteria's entrance, hoping to spot Adam. I expected he would want to sit with me, but when he came in, he was with some boys and they all went to a table on the right. He gazed my way and smiled. He looked as if he were holding court. Cary saw the direction of my interest and my expression of disappointment. "Thanks for your help," he said dryly and started away. "Cary," I called. He turned. "Mind if I sit with you? I'd rather skip my new giri friends for the moment." I could see they-had a place open for me at their table, but it would have been like delivering myself to the Spanish Inquisition, torture chamber and all. Cary shrugged and looked in Adam's direction. "Suit yourself," he said. "It won't be the most exciting table, though." I followed anyway and he introduced me to two of his friends. Billy Beedsly and John Taylor. Their MELODY t were also in the lobster and fish business. They ie a lot of questions about coal mines, but they istrated by my limited knowledge of the industry. ' father was stuck down in the shafts, locked away unlight and air, and I hated thinking about it. He tSSee talking about it much either." by did he do it then?" Billy asked. Cary and I aged knowing looks. .was the best work for the money at the time," I ;d and then Cary managed to change the subject. (the end of the day, Cary eagerly waited for me, a n plain as day on my face. "What?" he asked. V. C. ANDREWS "I already made a promise to someone," I said. He nodded. "Okay," he said and walked ahead. "Maybe tomorrow night," I offered, running to up. "Sure," he said. "But let's wait and see. You have made another promise by then." He shut up turtle, his shoulders rising, his neck sinking. It made feel sick inside. I realized how much it must have for him to reveal his feelings to me. Since Laura's i he was all clammed up. I felt pinched by contradictory emotions. They like scissors cutting me in half. One part of me was of excitement--counting the minutes to my rendez with Adam--while another part of me longed to shtH Gary's elation and be part of his return to trust, to hdj to a world where there were sunshine and stars and f the gloom of his tragic memories. Just for tonight^ thought, I wished I could duplicate myself and be in 1 places at once. But I couldn't, and there just wasn't anything to about it but feel sorry. Cary walked ahead of me all the way to May's scho When he saw her run to me, he just kept walking. "S that she gets home all right," he called behind himsefl "We're coming. Wait up!" I cried. 1 But he didn't slow down and May was full ofquestiol and stories. I had to watch him round the bend as disappear, his shoulders still scrunched up, making hi look like an old man. It brought tears to my eyes, 1 held them back and put on my best smile for May, chatted away with her hands all the way home. Cary remained down at the dock with Uncle Ja until just before dinner. As usual, I helped Aunt! prepare the meal, but right before Uncle Jacob and C returned, the phone rang. Aunt Sara answered it called out to me excitedly. "It's your mother, dear!" 228 Kheart stopped and then started again, pitter- ring so quickly, I thought I wouldn't have the voice »hich to speak. I walked slowly into the living room ook the receiver from Aunt Sara, wondering if the could hold the heat of the words I wanted to to over them. ieflo," I began. IK, honey. I just have a couple of minutes, but--" " n't you dare rush off again. Mommy. Don't you Melody, we're in Los Angeles and I'm--" w could you lie to me so much?" My throat (to tighten almost immediately. I thought I would I before I got out my words. "How could you have t your real adoptive parents a secret? Why didn't you r tell me you and Daddy grew up together?" iler a short pause, she replied, "Your father didn't It to tell you all that. Melody. He wanted to protect .from all that was unpleasant." ai't put it all on him. Mommy. He's dead. He can't sr." ell, it wasn't just me! He wanted it that way, too," I proclaimed. h"Why?" I cried. "Why not tell me the truth about how Ou really met and fell in love? Why not tell me why the unity was angry?" I demanded. The tears were burning Oder my lids. ^"Chester thought you were too young to understand." h**But I'm not too young now! Why did you leave me icre without telling me the truth, the whole truth about fou and Daddy? How could you do that?" She was quiet a moment and then she admitted, "I lidn't think you would stay if I told you all that. Melody, rid I didn't have much choice at the time. If you are as Id as you claim you are, you'll understand." "Mommy, these people hate you and they hate Daddy what you two did. How can I stay here?" 'Uncle Jacob will never throw you out. Melody," she V. C. ANDREWS said. "And he has no right to be so high and mi| believe me. Don't let him talk down to you. Don't1| troublemaker, but don't take his ... garbage," "I can't stay here. Mommy, and I want to know i I want to know everything." "You will. I promise. You're obviously old ei now to know our side of the story. Who told you any Jacob, Sara, or Olivia?" "I saw your pictures. Grandma Olivia put all pictures of you and Daddy in cartons," I told her. "T don't mention Daddy's name, they don't talk about! accident. It's horrible." "Olivia's doing, I'm sure. The whole time I lived the I could never call her anything but Olivia, you know| could never call her mother," she said with bittemes "But why did they take you into their home? Why i they adopt you?" "It's a very involved story, honey. That's anoti reason why I couldn't get into it before I left Provin town. Just hold out a little longer. Put up with ih4 snobbery a little longer," she pleaded. "Mommy, you never called Mama Arlene to get things sent up here." "I'll do it right after I hang up," she promised. "And Alice called and told me Papa George was in t hospital, very sick." "It was expected, honey." "Mommy, I can't stay here. Please come back for! or send for me. I'll meet you anywhere and put up witi anything, travel, running about from city to city. I'l never complain about anything. I promise. I swear." ' "Melody, I'm in Los Angeles! I'm in Hollywood! , have appointments, auditions. Can you imagine? Some thing wonderful is going to happen and soon, just as told you. Give roe a little longer. Finish school there, a least. Then, during the summer months--" "Mommy." Tears streamed down my face. "Why did they hate you for marrying Daddy? Why didn't the accept it? You weren't blood relatives." WS.WW. ,1 Queen Olivia," she quipped. "Just stay wet way. She'll die soon and put everyone out of ^teery. Ooo," she said, "I just hate talking about "hey made us suffer. Get everything you can out . They owe you. That family owes us more than it s repay. Do your own thing and ignore them. s Jacob won't throw you out." bmmy--" F have to go, honey. I have an appointment. Ill call ^'e. I promise." «t where are you? How can I reach you?" e haven't settled into one place yet. I'll let you v," she said. "When we're together again, we'll have ig talk, a grown-up talk, and I'll tell you everything, ^'last crummy detail. Be good, honey." ifommy!" ie click sounded like thunder. ^shouted louder. "Mommy!" I squeezed the neck of ^ receiver with all my might and screamed into it n. tint Sara came running. he front door opened and Uncle Jacob stopped in the idor with Cary right behind him. 1 was crying hysterically now, bawling without control. ^"What's going on here? What's the meaning of this ^tburst?" Uncle Jacob demanded. "She was talking to Haille," Aunt Sara explained. "Well I won't have this sort of emotional display. Stop f" he commanded. I cradled the receiver slowly and then wiped my cheeks ith the back of my hand, glaring at him. The fury in my eyes took him aback and he blinked. "Go clean yourself up," he ordered, "or you won't have any dinner." "I ked past him at the stars and they seemed to blur and aerge. He kissed my neck, then lowered himself so he ||>.could move his tongue under my collar, toward my breasts. I felt him lift me gently and find the zipper V.C.AMXREWS behind my dfess. I started to resist, bat the. down and he quickly nudged my dress over my) ders, driving his mouth to my breasts. It was as if I were on a magic carpet and not, beach blanket. It seemed to lift both of us offthe^ and begin to turn in a counter-clockwise code. He^ the straps of my bra down and was manipulating book with surgical expertise. It popped and his i moved up under the garment instantly, lifting it a Before the air could touch my naked bosom, his lips' there, nudging, strumming my nipples. I felt a weakness in my legs as his legs moved between and forced mine to separate. It was happenii so fast--the blinking, out-of-focus stars were falling I a downpour of diamonds around us, the blanket ' spinning, his hand was under the skirt of my dress « his fingers were toying with my panties. The roar of ocean covered my small protests and he was sayir "You're perfect. I knew we would be great together." But this wasn't romantic and lovely. This frenzy passion frightened me more than it excited me. Too fa I thought. It's happening too fast. I pushed at his chest and shook my head, butg smothered my exclamation with his lips, y& tongue harder into my mouth. I nearly gagged, i he pulled back I screamed. "Stop it!'* "What?" he cried. "You wanted this, didn't yc Otherwise, why would you come here? Just relax. 1 back and enjoy Adam Jackson." My arms were too small and weak to hold back the weight of his upper body. I started to cry as he lifted me easily and began to slip my panties down my thighs. I was shaking my head and pleading. I could hear his heavy, hard breathing and 1 tried to turn my mouth from his, but he seemed to have grown in size. I saw him in the same distorted way I saw the stars. He resembled a great jellyfish spreading over me, encompassing me. "Please ... stop!" I pleaded. MELODY his head up to look down at me Sir tease," he said, "and Adam Jackson is not ktf." |t I would pass out beneath him. My eyes ftBtiad went dark for a moment, and then, ' I felt him rise off me, his head going back first i his lower body lifting. I opened my eyes to see (pulling him away, clutching his hair, and grasping Tit arm. He jerked him so hard he fell back on the toff her!" he cried. m turned over on the beach quickly and got to his > I sat up, my stomach gurgling. The two boys faced H other. Gary's hands were clenched into small mal. With his shoulders hoisted like a hawk, he stepped -Adam. ne on," he said. "Let's see how you protect that is handsome face of yours." i out of here!" Adam whined. "She wanted it," he E pointing at me. "She came here, didn't she?" gazed at the bottle of vodka on the blanket, t at him and Adam lumped back_ iWwf , cnc&.^four whole family's crazy, tIaeaA" HcbadKsA wrsy. "yto wA ®oin%to fcg^rt, t et." He continued to back toward las boat. Cary id glaring at him. Then he turned, reached down for s bottle of vodka, and heaved it in Adam's direction. e bottle smashed against the side of the boat and Uttered. "You're out of your mind! You'll be sorry," Adam ireatened, but he pushed his boat away from the shore ad quickly jumped into it when Cary threatened to borne after him. "This isn't the end of this. Youll hear l&om me!" he screamed. "Sue me!" Cary retorted, his hands on his hips. V. C. ANDREWS Adam started his engine and turned the boat; moment later he was bouncing over the water, 1 I turned over on my left side and buried my face h blanket. I felt Cary kneel down and touch my shoi "You all right. Melody?" he asked softly. "No," I said. I felt sick and embarrassed and sue very, very tired. "Come on. I'll help you home," he said. "I don't want to go home. That's not my hor cried. "I don't have a home!" "Sure you do. You're with us until your mother i back." "I don't care if she ever comes back." "Sure you do." "Stop saying sure I do. You don't know what I None of you know or care." "I care," he insisted. "Come on," he urged. He st to zip up the back of my dress. "You'll feel better i you walk a while." "I'll never feel better. I don't want to feel better. leave me here on the beach and let the water come in i pull me out to sea. I'd rather drown." He laughed. "Come on. You're just a little drunk." "I am not drunk," I said and spun around, only when did, the whole world spun with me and kept spinning. moaned and fell into his arms. The gurgling in ir stomach turned into a volcano and it began to erupt. ¥. held me as I heaved. All the vodka I had drunk on top < a relatively empty stomach came up like molten lava. burned its way up my throat and poured out of dc mouth. The pain of heaving doubled me over. If it ha not been for Cary holding me, I was sure I would have fallen face forward into the sand. Finally, it stopped. I took deep breaths, gasping for; clean air. "You all right now?" I was feeling better after getting rid of the vodka. I nodded and he lowered me to the blanket. MELODY I rest a moment," he said. k shorter breaths, the heaviness in my chest g, but there was an ache in my eyes and my i felt as if I had been punched a dozen times. The ing was that the spinning had stopped. i did you find us?" I asked, starting to realize all 1 happened. _-lowed you. I had a suspicion you were going to I flat creep," he said. ^He has trouble keeping his png tied at the dock. He was telling some of his ^ds that he was going to have a good time tonight on .beach and he would have a big story for them arrow. He didn't mention your name, but I was lid it was you, and then, when you told me you ^-a't go to town with me because you had made other ises, I was even more suspicious. That lie you told mer clinched it. I knew you wouldn't go to Janet »««r's house to study." "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry I made trouble for tt." . "No trouble for me," he said with a laugh. "Trouble It Mr. Perfect." -^He threatened you." ^"He'll be too embarrassed to tell anyone what really appened. Don't worry." I tried to sit up. "Think you can walk?" Cary asked. "Yes," I said. He had pulled the zipper of my dress up, it my bra was still undone. For the moment it didn't atter. I started to stand. He came around behind me id lifted me at the elbows until I was on my feet, but I ibbled and fell against him. "Whoa," he said. "Steady as she goes. Seas are a bit S ifough tonight." [ "Maybe I should be wearing a life jacket," I said and he laughed. We started away. "What about the blanket and the radio and all?" "Leave them to the ocean. She has a way of cleaning V. C. ANDREWS up the messes left on her beaches," he said. He held) right arm as we continued walking. "I must look like a mess," I said. "My stomach fee if I swallowed a beehive." "We'll get you home and to bed, but you'll prob feel crummy in the morning." "Your mother will be very upset with me, and if] father sees me—" "He won't," Cary promised. "It's too soon. Your mother will wonder why I'm 1 from studying already." "We'll smuggle you in," he promised. I walked with my eyes shut, my head against shoulder, feeling heavy with the burden of shame j carried. He held me as if I were made of spun glass aT any second I'd break. When I stumbled, he held me ev tighter and more firmly. It seemed to take forever to; back over the hill, and then when we started to i' the second one, he abruptly stopped. "Wait." I opened my eyes. "What?" He squinted at the darkness. "My father," he whispered. "He's coming back the dock." "Great. Now all I'll hear is how this proves I'm mother's daughter. He'll have me reading the Bible night." "Shh! Just don't move for a moment." Cary was quie a long moment. "All right, he's just about to the house Let's go to the boat for a little while," he said. "You'l clean up and straighten up and then we'll go in. Cornel on. You'll be all right," he promised. His words spread »| magic shawl of comfort about my shoulders. I relaxed and followed his direction. He turned me right and we moved down the hill toward the ocean again. Moments later, we were at the dock. He helped me onto the lobster boat. It bobbed I gently in the water, but I was still too unsure of myself to | walk without Gary's support. MELODY ^." He guided me into the cabin, leading me to a »d bench. He turned on a small oil lamp. "How i doing?" ;1 as if I'm stuck on a runaway roller coaster. My ?, my head feels like a hunk of coal, my stomach 8 to resign from my body ... I've never been drunk e. Lucky you were there for me," I said. "Thanks." ? stared at me. "I hate guys like Adam Jackson. They i everything's coming to them because they were i with silver spoons in their mouths. They all oughta arpooned, or taken out to sea and left there floating heir egos." [laughed, but it hurt and I moaned. " tstinetively, he reached for my hand. "You want a tk of water?" Ves, please," I said and he rose to get it. That was 11 looked down and saw the mess I had made on the of my dress. "Oh, Cary, look. Aunt Sara will be stated. One of Laura's dresses. It will be stained." &He turned and gazed at me. He thought a moment. "I ' t a tub on deck, and some soap. We'll scrub it clean 1 then I'll put it on the kerosene heater for a half hour I that'll dry it enough." He poured me a glass of water I handed it to me. "In the meantime," he took a fcer raincoat off a hook, "you can wear this." . I drank the water. ivtii go fill the tub and get a brush." "I'll wash it," I said. "You don't have to do that." ; "It's all right. If I can wash smelly fish guts off the leek, I can wash off some used vodka." "Ugh," I said, laughing. He left, and I took off the dress, fastened my bra and |put on the raincoat. "All set," he called out. "I'll do it," I insisted. "You sure?" "Yes." He took me to the tub and I scrubbed the dress clean 247 V. C. ANDREWS while he lit the kerosene heater in the cabin. thought the dress was clean enough, I brought it in he draped it carefully over the heater. "Shouldn't take too long," he said. I sat on the bei He went to a closet and took out a pillow. "Here,^! said placing it on the corner of the bench. "Lie b close your eyes, and rest." "Thank you. You're a regular rescue service," I him. He sat at the base of the bench, his back against it, 1 arms around his legs. The small flame in the oil ku flickered, making the shadows dance on the walls of 1 cabin. I could hear the water licking at the sides of i boat. The pungent odor of seaweed and salt water was l refreshing as mint at the moment. I took a deep bi and sighed. "I'm a mess," I said. "You're not. You're bright and pretty. Everything going to be all right." He said it with such assurance,! wondered if everyone else could see my future clearca than I could. "Don't feel bad about what happened, Guys like that fool girls every day," he added bitterly^ I thought about Laura and Robert Royce and imaj ined that was what Cary meant. "I read a letter Robert Royce wrote to Laura," confessed. "That garbage?" Even in the dim light, I could see hfa| frown. | "It didn't seem like garbage, Cary. I read only one, but 1 I thought he was sincere." j "He knew how to use sincerity to get what he wanted," Cary said sharply. "He was a conniving, sneaky--" "How can you be so sure?" "I can," he said firmly. "I'm not even confident about people I've known all my life, people I've seen on a daily basis. You can't possibly know what things Laura and Robert said to each other, what they told and promised each other, and MELODY rwhat I've learned about her, she must have been a bright person, Cary. Maybe you were just--" Bt what?" wriy worried. It's only natural, I suppose. Tell me t the accident." here's nothing to tell. They went sailing, a storm , and they got caught in it." ' had no warning?" ' were out there too long. He was probably ..." ably what?" He didn't answer. "Cary?" ably trying to do to her what Adam Jackson Ito do to you tonight. She resisted and he kept her there and they got caught in the storm. He's respons for what happened. He's lucky he died too, other" i, I would have killed him with my bare hands. In fact ih he hadn't died. I wish I could have been the one to Hum." iwas quiet for a moment. His shoulders, hunched up th rage, relaxed a bit. PDon't you think that if Robert Royce were that sort | a boy, Laura wouldn't have continued seeing him, Say?" I asked softly. "I certainly don't want to be alone |th Adam Jackson again." _He didn't reply for a while. Then he sighed, lowered is head and shook it. "She was confused, is all. She was a a rush to have a boyfriend." i»Why?" "Because of those ... busybodies in school always sasing her about not having one, saying nasty things to er about..." "About what?" I held my breath. "About us. They spread dirty stories about us and she "thought it was because she didn't have a boyfriend. So you see, she didn't really like Robert that much. She was just trying to please everyone and get them to stop. She thought it was bothering me and she blamed herself." "That's terrible," I said. He nodded. "Why did they make up those stories about you two?" V. C. ANDREWS "Why? Because they're dirty, mean, selfish. couldn't understand why Laura and I were so close, l we did so much together and for each other. They? jealous so they made up stories. They're as r for her death as Robert was," he concluded. "I'm sorry, Cary." I touched his shoulder. He nodded. "Don't bother reading any more oft phony letters. They're full of lies. He wrote and! whatever he thought would get him what he want' Cary assured me. "Why doesn't your mother throw them out, then? "She wouldn't touch anything in that room. For at time afterward, she refused to believe Laura wai coming back. They've never found her body, so refused to accept her death. And then, my father had t gravestone put in and forced her to go there with ha Finally, she accepted that much, but she still clings to 1 room, to her things, her clothes. I was surprised wanted to take you in and let you stay in Laura's i but it's almost as if she thinks ..." "What?" "Laura's come back through you. That's another i son why my father hasn't been the most hospiU person. It's not that he dislikes you for any reason." "There's a reason," I said prophetically. "Somethi happened that has made him so bitter about my mother,! and I want to know what it was. Do you know anything I else?" I asked. ' "No," he said quickly. Too quickly, I thought. ; "Then, I'll just have to ask our grandparents to tell me everything." He turned, a look of disbelief on his face. "You wouldn't just come out and ask them?" "Why not?" "Grandma Olivia can be ... tough." "So can I," I said firmly. "When I have to be." He laughed. "Maybe you shouldn't. Melody," he said after a mo MELODY (smile gone. "Maybe some things are better left k." i fester like infections. After a while they make ly sick, Cary. That's the way I feel. It's the way ; when people were making up stories about you ura," I said searching for a way to make him and how important it was to me. 1 you what," he said, reaching for my hand. "I'll |you a promise. I promise to try to find out as much an about your parents, too." ?0. you? Oh thank you, Cary." 6 held on to my hand. "It's okay," he said. "You're ibly right. You probably should know everything i is to know about the Logan family." ailed at him. "When I first came here, I thought you J me-" E did," he confessed. "I knew why my mother wanted iThere and I felt bad about it, but..." ^But?" Ifou're very nice," he said. "And the only cousin I 6, so I have to put up with you." 'hanks a lot."