My Sweet Audrina
by
VIRGINIA ANDREWS


END OF SYNOPSIS

Available in Fontana by the same author Flowers in the Attic Petals on
the Wind If There be Thorns

VIRGINIA ANDREWS'

My Sweet Audrina Fontana Paperbacks First published in the USA by
Poseidon Press 1982 First published in Great Britain by Fontana
Paperbacks as a trade paperback 1982 This edition first published 1983
Copyright V. C. Andrews 1982 Made and printed in Great Britain by
William Collins Sons and Co.  Ltd, Glasgow CONDITIONS OF SALE This book
is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without
the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other
than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed Oil the subsequent purchaser For
Ann Patty, my editor, For Anita and Humphrey, my agents, with
gratitude.

Acknowledgement to Itichard W. Maurer, who dauntlessly supplied me with
lists of misdemeanours concerning stock market activities, herein
committed by Damian Jonathan Adare.

PART ONE

Whitefem thing strange about the house where I grew up.  A.-lie re was
some very comer and were shadows in e whispers on the stairs time was
as irrelevant as honesty.  Though how I knew that uldn t sayIliere was
a war going on in our house.  A silent war that j u no guns, and the
bodies that fell were only wishes that ded and the bullets were only
words and the blood that spilled always called pride.  Th ugh I'd never
been to school and I was.  seven years old , ,"d it was high time I was
at school- it seemed I knew all about Around us the Civil War was still
being waged, Abe Civil War though the future might stretch ahead for
billions of years as s the war we'd never forget, for our pride n red,
and our passions were lingering on.  We'd lost the bett won by the
opposite side.  Maybe that's why it stiller hurting.  ornma and my aunt
Ellsbeth always ,ud that men liked t discussions about wars better than
any other topic, but there were other wars of any importance at all,
they were discussed in our house.  Papa would read any book, see a
movie cut out any magazine photo that represented th t N between
brothers, even though his ancestors had fought my maternal ones.  He
was Yankee born, but a r by preference.  At the dinner table he'd
recount the of the long novels he read about General Robert E. Lee,
give grisly accounts of all the bloody battles.  And if most 'what he
read charmed me, it did not charm either my aunt, preferred the
television, or my mother, who preferred to her own books, claiming Papa
left out the best parts that n't fit for young ears to hear.  That
meant my ears, and my cousin Veras ears.  Though most of the world
believed Vera to be my sister, I knew she was my unmarried aunt's
illegitimate daughter and that we had to shield, her from the scorn of
society by pretending she was my legitimate older sister.  I did have a
legitimate older sister, too, but she had died before I was born.  Her
name was also Audrina and, even though she had been dead a long time,
still she lingered on.  My papa never forgot the First and Best
Audrina, and still hoped that some day I would be as special as she
was.

My cousin Vera liked people to think she was my sister.  I didn't know
her true, age, for she refused to tell me that.  Nobody in our house
ever revealed their ages.  Only my age was talked about all the time.
It was Vera's boast that she could be any age she wanted to be ten,
twelve, fifteen, and even twenty.  With a few elegant and sophisticated
postures, truly she did change her manner and expression.  She could
look very mature or very childlike depending on her mood.  She liked to
ridicule me because I was so uncertain about time.  Often Vera told me
I'd hatched fiffi blown from a giant ostrich egg at the age of seven.
She always said that I had inherited that bird's famous habit of
sticking its head in the sand and pretending nothing in the world was
wrong.  She didn't know about my dreams and the ugliness they gave
me.

From the very beginning, I knew Vera was my enemy even when she
pretended to be my friend.  Though I wanted her for my friend in the
worst way, I knew she hated me.  She was jealous because I was an
Audrina and she wasn't.  Oh, how I wanted Vera to like and admire me,
as sometimes I really Eked and admired her.  I envied her, too, because
she was normal and didn't have to try to be like someone who was dead.
No one seemed to care if Vera wa t special.  No one except Vera.  Vera
was fond of telling me that I wasn't really special either, I was
merely strange.  To tell the truth I thought there was something
strange about me, too.  I seemed to be unable to recall anything about
my early childhood.  I couldn't remember anything about the past what I
had done the week, or even the day before.  I didn't know how I had
learned things I knew, or why I seemed to know things I shouldn't.

The many clocks scattered throughout our giant house me even more.  The
grandfather clocks'm the hans out different hours; the cuckoos in their
wooden Swiss popped in and out of small ornate doors, each
.,."06nvrsdicting all the others; the fancy French clock in my .;iJkMM'
bedroom had stopped long ago at midnight or noon, Chinese clock ran
backwards.  To my great distress, Vwogb I searched everywhere, there
were no calendars in our ..JmWw, not even old ones.  And the newspapers
never came on at day they were due.  Our only magazines were old ones,
J in cupboards, hidden in the attic.  Nobody threw .."Ahything away in
our house.  It was kept, saved for our 14mend ants so they could sell
it one day and make a 'Much of my insecurity had to do with the First
Audrina, who died exactly nine years before I was born.  She had died
AW ousiy in the woods after cruel and heartless boys had , 0iJed her in
some indescribable way, and because of her, I never supposed to enter
the woods, even to go to school.  the woods were all around us, almost
smothering us They Opbraced us on three sides, the River Lyleon the
fourth.  To p anywhere we had to travel through the woods. gao! 
Everywhere in our home, photographs of the First and Best r; dr ini
were scattered.  On Papa's desk, there were three 7 Med portraits of
her, at age one, two and three.  There was LAw one single baby picture
of me, not one, and that hurt.  The Audrina had been a beautiful little
girl, and when I looked her photographs, I felt oddly haunted, wanted
to be her so I ached inside.  I wanted to be her so I'd feel as loved,
as everyone said she had been, and then again, I wanted more than
anything to be myself, and on merits gain the love I felt denied me. 
h, the tales Papa could tell me about the wonders of his first r, and
every one he told made me know I was not the Audrina, not the perfect
and special one only the second the inferior one.

parents kept the First Audrina's bedroom like a shrine a dead princess.
It.  was left exactly as it had been on the day met her fate which was
never explained in detail to me.

room was so full of toys it seemed more a playroom than a bedroom.
Momma herself cleaned that room, and sheliated."  housework.  Just to
see her room made me realize nothing had been too good for her, while
my bedroom lacked toy shelves, and her vast array of playthings.  I
felt cheated, cheated of a real childhood.  Audrina the First and Best
had stolen my youth, and everyone talked so much about her that I
couldn't remember anything about me.  I believed it was bemuse of her
that my memory was so full of holes.

Papa would try to fill those holes by putting me in her chair and
making me rock and sing until I became' the empty pitcher that would
fill with everytW.

He wanted me to fill with her memories and capture her special powers,
since she was dead and didn't need them any.  More.

And as if one ghost wasn't enough, we had a second who came every
Tuesday at four.

"Teatime,"we called Aunt Mercy Marie's day.  There she'd sit on the
piano, in her black and white photograph in a silver frame, her fat
face beaming a vacuous smile, her pale blue eyes staring out as if she
could see, us, when she couldn t- She was dead and yet undead, just
like MY dead sister.

My aunt and my mother would speak for Aunt Mercy Marie, and through her
they would let loose all the venom they held back and saved for tea
times  Strangely enough, my cousin Vera enjoyed these Tuesday tea times
so much she'd find any reason to play hookey from school, just to be
there and hear all the ugly things my mother and her half-sister could
say to one another.  They were Whitefem sisters, and once upon a far
ago time, that had meant something wonderful.  Now it meant something
sad, but they would never tell me exactly what.

Long ago the Whitefem family had been the most notable family in our
Tidewater section of Virginia, giving the country senators and Vice
Presidents, but we'd fallen out of favour not just with the villagers,
but also with everyone, and we were no longer honoured, or even
respected.  Our house was far from the nearest city of any size.  Papa
had to drive thirty mil esto and from his stock brokerage office.
Whitefem Village was fifteen miles down a -lonely country road, but we
seldom went there.  It was as if long ago some secret war had been
declared,-i A N IA, kxv calstleas Papa liked to can our home were hated
m 9 in f the lowlands.  If any place in our vicinity could b called,
highlands', it was the slight hill on which Whitefem a All the friends
we had lived in the city.  Our nearest it re twelve miles away as a car
drove, five as a crow =307 e our only car to work, leaving all of us
without pa Zv So often my aunt Ellsbeth would bemoan the day, 'd sold
her small car to buy the TV set.

aunt, who'd never been married, loved her portable set with a
twelve-inch screen.  She seldom allowed me ,jo,watch, though her
daughter Vera could watch as much as Aw had when she was home from
school.  That was another ihing I couldn't understand, why Vera was
allowed to go to bW when I couldn't go.  School was dangerous for me,
but x.w Ir Vera.

Naturally I presumed there had to be something terribly "V,rmg with me.
My parents had to hide me away to keep me ib , if not from outsiders,
then from myself.  That was the J fleetthoughtofall.

6 "At the age of seven while other children boarded yellow and rode off
giggling and having ftin, I sat down at the ;"Jftheri table and was
taught how to read, write, add and obtract by my mother, who played the
piano beautifully but not good at teaching anything but how to play the
piano.

or maybe not, my Aunt Ellsbeth was there to She had once been a
grade-school teacher with ready slaps a4eliver to any boy who dared to
call her a nasty name.  just f toe slap too many, and the parents had
seen that my aunt was Otd.  Though she tried for many a year to find
another position, the word was out, My aunt had a ferocious r and a
ready hand.  Aunt Ellsbeth, like her daughter Vera, also had ready ts
to criticize our way of living.  According to my aunt were all as
'antediluvian' as the house in which we lived.  t of sync with the rest
of the world', shed say.  In my dreams of home, Whitefern loomed up
high and white t a dark and stormy sky, frightening to behold.  It in
the night, but in the day it welcomed me with n arms.  I had a habit of
sitting outside on the lawn and admiring the grandness of Whitefern.
It was a gingerbread Victorian house of many frills, with its white
paint peeling, its dark blinds loose and crooked.  It had three
stories, with an attic and a basement towards the back half of the
house where the, spacious lawn inclined towards the River Lyle.  As I
stared at that house, I thought I had much in common with it.  We were
both antediluvian and 'out of sync'.

Our windows were myriad, many of them beautiful stained glass.  The
shutters, about to fall off, were so darkly red they appeared black
from a distance, like dried blood.  From the outside the most marvelous
things of all were the balustrades on all the many porches, balconies
and verandas, designed to look like stylized woodfems.

In the very centre of the dark roof was a round cupola with a copper
roof now turned green from tarnish.  It formed a point that was topped
by a golden ball whose gold leaf was coming off bit by bit each time it
rained.  The cupola was about fourteen feet in diameter, and every sing
leone of its many windows was made of leaded stained glass with scenes
to represent the angles of life and death.

Inside and out, ferns cascaded everywhere from wicker stands.  There
were other plants, but the ferns seemed to steal what moisture there
was in the air so soon all other plants died.

On stealthy timid feet, I played my small lonely games in the great
foyer where the stained glass from the double front doors threw
colourful patterns on the floor.  Rapier sharp colours sometimes,
stabbing into my brain and punching holes them.  I also had little
rhymes Vera had taught me that I said to protect myself from the
colours:

Step on black, live forever in a shack.  Step on green, never be
clean.

"Step on blue, work will never be through.  Step on yellow, hear the
world bellow.  Step on red, soon be dead.  Just so I wouldn't have to
step on any colour, I stole along near the walls.  keeping to the
shadows, listening to the clocks ticking away the wrong times and the
silly cuckoos going crazy crazyVben the wind blew hard, the shutters
banged "'floor creaked, the furnace in the basement coughed, rs and the
wind chimes in the cupola groaned tinkled.  ill.  the daytime there
were things so wondrously grand Art ijk,wr house that I felt like Alice
lost in a house of jewels.  J ;"Igmps and objets dart were scattered
hither and yon.

rose up to throw more colours, to pattern the VAW .  Crystal prisms
dangled from lamp shades, from wall from chandeliers, from gas lamps
catching colours, Jifiatting rainbows that flashed like lightning
whenever Ao -managed to steal through the lace curtains.  e had a
fireplace in every room.  There were eight of A0 many of elegantly
carved wood, and none of brick.."  as not elegant enough forourtypeof
housethatseemed ,. Oipis simplicity.

ceilings were high, and carved with elaborate designs, J. f 'ames r for
Biblical or romantic scenes.  In the olden -people had, or so it seemed
to my young eyes, either too clothes on, or too little that wanted to
stay in place.  I why the Biblical scenes usually had more flesh than
the ones where people were decidedly wicked ... could hardly believe
those near-naked people were ly trying to follow where God would lead
them.  bosoms of impressive proportions protruded brazenly=O..  room of
our house but mine.  George Washington and T Jefferson and several
other dead-eyed presidents day after day at the naked lady lying on a
chaise across way as she forever dropped grapes into her pping mouth.

baby boys flew about shamelessly shooting aimless But the naked men
always modestly hid their maleness some strategically placed leaf or
graceful flow- of ry.  Women were not so apt to hide what they had, I'd
thought as I gazed at them.  They look shy, but acted Aunt Ellsbeth had
come up behind me once and bitterly that since most artists were men,
it was only for them to delight in 'exploiting' the nude female n't
judge women by what you see in paintings ana statues  judge them only
by what you yourself know about the women in your life.  The day any
m-an understands any woman will be the day the world com esto an end.
Men are hateful, contrary creatures who say they want goddess esto put
on pedestals.  Once they have one up there, they rip off the halo, tear
off the gown, slice off the wings so they can't fly, and then kick the
pedestal away so the woman falls at his feet and he can scream out as
he kicks her, tramp!  or worse."

To hear my Aunt Ellsbeth talk one would think she'd been married a
dozen or more times, and one thousand men had disappointed her, and as
far as I knew, only one man had.

Our furniture had many styles, all of them fancy.  It seemed each
chair, each table, each sofa, lamp, pillow, hassock, desk was in
competition, trying to outdo the others.  Although Aunt Ellsbeth
complained about the furniture, Momma would catch hold of my hand and
lead me reverently from room to room, explaining that this table was a
"Renaissance Revival' centrepiece, made by Berkey and Gay, Grand
Rapids, Michigan" An antiques, Audrina.  All worth their weight in
gold. The bed in my room is five hundred years old.  Once kings and
queens slept behind its curtains."

Behind us my aunt would snort her contempt and disbelief.

Other people had electricity in all their rooms; we had electricity
only in our kitchen and bathrooms.  In other rooms we used gas lamps
because Momma thought them more flattering to her complexion.  My aunt
thought them a pain in But I wasn't supposed to use some of the words
my aunt said readily.  Even more than gas lamps Momma loved candles
burning, and logs in the fireplace snapping and crackling and making
shadows dance on the dark panelled walls.  Our kitchen stuck out like a
sore thumb with all its modern gadgets, which made life bearable for
Momma who hated any kind of hard work but loved cooking the gourmet
meals my father had to have.

The room we all favoured most was the Roman Revival Salon.  On its
royal purple velvet lounging chaise with the gold cording tarnished and
Falling off where it wasn't fastened by amis Momma would lie dressed in
some filmy 40go gee  or a soft summer dress.  She didn't seem to notice
that ij.  s6iffing was coming out, and the springs poked through in w
places.  Sprawled elegantly on that chaise, she'd read her cbmances and
occasionally lift her eyes to stare dreamily off space.  I guessed she
was imaging herself in the arms of the boo, some lover on the colourful
cover of her paperback novel.

myself bravely that some day I was going to have the m, to read novels
like that, wicked and beautiful at the same MI: though how I knew they
were wicked books I couldn't 1= I'd never read one.  But almost-naked
people on the jw seemed awfully wicked.  :77 ,..tphpa's huge round home
office, directly under the cupola, Misands of old-old books, and many
fine editions of d .04j 61hat nobody read but me and Aunt Ellsbeth.
Papa said ii .t have time to read them, but he kept on adding to our
1jet her-bound collection as if hoping all his friends would
think.Wread them.  Momma hid her paperbacks in her bedroom -j4oboards,
and pretended that she, too, loved the high-minded it printed on fine
paper and bound with beautiful leather.

of those classic books contained very wicked material, - mr ding to my
cousin Vera, who always informed me about was, or was not, wicked.
liked to watch Momma lying on her couch.  Behind her was Atoncert-sized
grand piano that her father had given her when .,ij had won a gold
medal in a music competition.  Many a i "A d told me she could have
gone on to play in all the best p0mrt halls, but Papa hadn't wanted a
professional musician his wife.

"Don't expect to have too many talents, Audrina.

won't approve if it's likely you'll earn more money than do."  Downward
her hand would drift.  Without even she would cleverly find the very
piece of chocolate she and pop it into her mouth.  My father often
warned her eating too much chocolate and becoming fat, but she did.
mother was tall, curvy where she should be, and slender All the places
a woman should be.  My papa often told me she the greatest beauty on
the East Coast, and had been the of the season at her debutante ball.
Many a handsome and rich man had asked for my morn ma hand in
roarx1age" but it had been Damian Jonathan Adare who had swept my
mother off her feet with his dashing dark good looks and his winning
charm.

"He towered over every other man in my LIFE, Audrina," my mother would
tell me.

"When your father came back from -the sea, all the girls went ga-ga
just to have hiin in the room.  I felt so lucky when he had eyes only
for me.  "Then she'd frown as if remembering some other girl Papa might
have 'had eyes foe.

Vera liked to joke that my father had married my mother only because he
admired her hair colour so much.

"Witchy hair," Vera called Momina's hair and mine.  Chameleon hair,
papa often called it.  It was strange hair, and at times I believed
Vera was right.  Our hair didn't know which colour it was supposed to
be, and was, instead, all colours.  Flaxen blonde, with gold, auburn,
bright red, chestnut brown, copper, and even some white.  Papa loved
the strange prism-like colour of our hair.  I believed he'd ordered God
to give me the kind of hair I had; if He hadn't Papa might have sent me
back.  For the First Audrina also had chameleon hair.

My papa, six foot five, and weighing well over two hundred pounds, was
the tallest man I had ever seen, though Vera was always telling me
there were many men who were taller, especially basketball players.
Papa's hair was the darkest black, looking blue sometimes in the
sunlight.  He had beautiful, almond-shaped eyes, so brown they appeared
black, and his lashes were so long and thick they appeared false, even
though they weren't.  I knew; I'd tried to pull them off after I saw
Momma glue some false ones on.  His eyes were slick as oil, scary and
wonderful, especially when they glittered.  He had smooth, soft skin
that often appeared ruddy in the winters, and richly bronze in the
summers.  When Momma was displeased with Papa and his selfish ways of
spending more on himself than on her, she'd call him a dandy and a fop,
though what those words meant I didn't know.  I suspected she me that
my huge powerftd papa cared more about clothes than he cared about
principles.

He feared growing old, especially feared losing his hair.  lie checked
his hairbrush each day, almost counting.  the hairs heHe saw the
dentist four times a year.  He Bossed so often Momma grew disgusted.
His doctor checked 881.1nuch as the dentist did.  He fretted about
minor no one would ever notice but him, such as thick, horny 116 had
difficulty clipping.  Yet when he smiled, his irresistible.  mpks were
another thing I didn't understand, except often said that Papa lacked
them.  Again I vaguely she meant Papa wanted what he wanted, and no one
get in his way and try to prevent him from -taking W. he had to have.
Yet, sometimes when he was with me, J was tender and loving, he'd give
me my way.  But only b0de3es.  There were other times terrible other
times.

been agreed when my aunt came back to live here .: Akm was only one
year old, that she would do all the in exchange for her board and keep,
while my did the cooking.  Unreasonably, my aunt wanted to do cooking
which she considered easier instead of the k but no one could cat
anything my aunt prepared.  despised housework, but could throw
anything into or bowl without measuring, and it would come out tasting
Papa said she was a creative' cook because she had an s mind, while
Ellie as only he called her was born to be man's slave.  How my aunt
glared when he said mean O p like that.  aunt was a fearsome woman.
Tall, lean and mean was it her s description.

"It's no wonder no man wants to marry my father teased my aunt many a
time.

"You've got the jog.  f hrew."  Not only did she have a sharp tongue,
as o as I = for me as for Vera, she also had her golden rule about rod
and spoiling he the child.  Neither Vera nor I were when she was in
charge.  Fortunately my parents seldom alone with her.  In some ways,
it seemed my aunt disliked daughter even more than she disliked me.  It
had always my belief that women were born to be loving mothers..  when
I gave that more thought, I couldn't remember I had arrived at that
conclusion.

liked for my aunt to chastise Vera, so then she could her arms wide and
welcome Vera into them, saying timeawagain to Vera, 'it's all right,
ru love you even ifyourown mother, can't."

"That's the weakness of being You, Lucietta," said my aunt sharply.

"You can give love to anything."

As if her Own daughter Vera was less than human.  Never would my Aunt
Ellsbeth time the man who was Vera's lather.

"He was a cheat and a liar.  I don't want to remember his name; she'd
say with scorn.

It was so difficult to understand what was going on in ou house.
Treacherous undercurrents led, like t in r swir hose the rivers which
ran into the sea that wasn't so very far away.

It was true my aunt was tall, her face was long, and she was SkUMY even
If Slit did eat three times more than MY mother.  Sometimes when Papa
said cruel things to my aunt, her already thin lips would Purse
together to become a fine line.  Her nostrils would flare, her hands
would tighten into fists, as if she'd like to belt him one, if she only
had the nerve.

Maybe it was Aunt Ellsbeth who kept our city friends from coming more
often.  There had to be some reason why they came only when we threw a
party.  Then, Momma said, our friends' popped out of the woodwork like
insects come to feast on the Picnic- Papa adored all Parties until they
were over.  Then, for One reason or another, he would jump on Momma and
Punish her for some trivial thing he called asocial error" such as
looking at a handsome man for too long, or dancing with him too many
times.  Oh, it was difficult being a wife, I could tell.  One never
knew just what to do, or how friendly to be.  Momma was expected to
play the piano to entertain while people danced or sang.  But she
wasn't supposed to play so well that some People cried and told her
later she'd been a fool to marry and give up her musical career.

No casual callers ever came to our doors.  No salesmen were allowed,
either.  Signs were Posted everywhere: "No Solicitors Allowed," and
"Beware Of the DOg," and Keep' Off This is Private Property.
Trespassers will be Prosecuted."

I often went to bed feeling-unhappy with my life, feeling an
undercurrent that was Pulling MY feet from under me, and I was
floundering, floundenrig, bound to sink and drown.  It seemed I heard a
voice whispenrig telling me there were rivers Placesto go, but I'd
never go anywhere.  There to know and fun to have, but I wouldn't
experience that.  I woke up and heard the tinkle of the whispering
Chiam telling me over and over that I belonged where And, here I would
stay forevermore, and nothing I did "Matter in the long run. Shivering,
I hugged my arms diinchest.  Inmyears I heard Papa's voice, saying over
Mpain""This is where you belong, safe with Papa, safe 11Cjme.

11 I did I have to have an older sister dead and in her grave age of
nine?  Why did I have to be named after a dead, it seemed peculiar,
unnatural.  I hated the First Audrina, Audrina, the Good and Perfect
and Never Wrong Yet I had to replace her if ever I was to win a t place
in Papa's heart.  I hated the ritual of visiting ve every Sunday after
church services, and putting, there bought from a florist, as if the
flowers from our weren't good enough.  the morning I ran to Papa and
right away he picked me held me close, as the grand father clocks in
the hallways les sly ticked on.  All about us the house was as Went as
as ff waiting for death to come and take us all, as it had the First
and Best Audrina.  Oh, how I hated and envied..  older, dead sister.
How cursed I felt to bear her name.

is everyone?"  I whispered, glancing around fearfiffly.  Out in the
garden," he said, hugging me closer.

"It's "Atorday, my love.  I know time isn't important to you, but it to
me.  Time is never important to special people with Watial gifts.  Yet
for me the weekend hours are the best ones.  ,"s,l,"knew you'd be
frightened to find yourself alone in an empty " Duse, so I stayed
inside while the rest went out to harvest the Owards of their
planting."

"Papa, why can't I remember every day like other people?  don't
remember last year, or the year before why?"

e are all victims of dual heritages," he said softly, stroking hair and
gently rocking me back and forth in the rocker that
gmt-grest-great-grandmother had used to nurse her children in.

"Each child inherits genes from both ts, and that determines his or her
hair colour, eye colour, and Personality traits.  Babies come -into
the Wo Ir1d to, be controlled by those genes and by the Particular
environment that surrounds them.  you are still waiting to sis tees
gifts.  When you do, all that is good and bfill Your deadeautiful in
this World will belong to You, as it belonged to her.  While you and I
wait for that marvelous day when your empty pitcher is filled, I am
doing my damnedest to give you the very best., At that moment my aunt
and mother came into the kitchen, trailed by Vera, who carried a basket
Of freshly Picked butter beans..  Aunt Ellsbeth must have overheard
most of what papa had just said, because she remarked sarcastically,
"You should have been a Philosopher instead of a stockbroker, Damian. 
Then maybe someone would care to listen to Your words of wisdom.t I
stared at her, dredging up from my treacherous memory something I might
or might not have dreamed.  It could even be a dream that belonged to
the First Audrina who'd been so clever, so beautiful, and so
everlastingly perfect.  But before I CMId capture any illusive memory,
everything was gone, gone.

I SWW, UWMPPY with myself, unhappy with the adults who ruled me, With
the cousin who insisted she was really my only sister, because she
wanted to steal my place, when Y place had been stolen by the Firstand
Best Au who a dead Audrina.  I And now I was supposed to act like her,
talk like her, and be everything that she'd been ... and where was the
real me supposed to go?

Sunday came, and as soon as the church services were over, Papa drove,
as he always did, straight to the family cemetery near Our house where
the name Whitefem was engraved on a huge arching gateway through which
we slowly drove.  Beyond the archway the cemetery itself had to be
approached on foot.  We were all dressed in our best, and bearing
expensive flowers.  Papa tugged me from the car.  I resisted, hating
that grave we had to visit and that dead girl who stole everyone s love
from me.

It seemed this was the first tune I could clearly remember must have
said many times before.

"There she stone bearing my very 10'" F1tbeAsJuednrdiremrw.9
hSiotrromwarfubllleyh,ehaedstared down at the flat but her birth and
death dates.  I wondered when my WoWd recover from the shock of her
mysterious death.

to me that if sixteen years hadn't healed their shock, ninety wouldn't,
either.  I couldn't bear to look at that , so I stared up into my
papa's handsome face so high This was the kind of perspective I would
never have J,grew up, seeing his strong square chin from underneath,
t.hjs heavy, pouting, lower lip, then his flaring nostrils, and -fibW
of his long, lower, dark lashes meeting with the tones as he blinked
back his tears.  It was just like looking ieemed so powerful, so much
in control.  He smiled at ASM.

"My First Audrina is in that grave, dead at nine years That wonderful,
special Audrina just as you are and special.  Never doubt for one
moment that you I just as wonderful and gifted as she was.  Believe in
what tells you and you will never go wrong."  swall Visiting this
grave, and hearing about this owed always made my throat hurt.  Of
course I wasn't erful or special, yet how could I tell him that when he
so convinced?  In my childish way I figured my value him depended on
just how special and wonderful I turned -to be later on.

Papa," cried Vera, stumbling over to his side and .....hWhing at his
hand.

"I loved her so much, so very much.  She so sweet and wonderful and
special.  And so beautiful.  I ,.!"M ther like t think in a million
years there will ever beano First Audrina."  She flashed a wicked smile
my way, to tell ag;ain that never would I be as pretty as the First and
Best Most Perfect Audrina.

"And she was so brilliant in school, It's terrible the way she died,
really awful.  I'd be so if that happened to me, so ashamed I'd rather
be Shut up!"  roared Papa in a voice so mighty that the ducks the
riverfiew away.  He hurried then to put his pot offlowerson that
grave, and then he seized my hand and pulled me towards his car.

Momma began to cry.  Already I knew Vera was right.  Whatever wonderful
special ness the First Audrina had possessed was buried in the grave
with her.

In the Cunola2 not worthy, not pretty and not special enough words I
thought as I went up the stairs and into the wished the First Audrina
had never been born.  I had jhrough the clutter of old dusty junk
before I came to 'iron spiral stairs that would take me through a
square :in the floor that once had a ricketty iron guard rail some day
was going to replace.  octagonal room there was a rectangular Turkey
rug, .  golds and blues.  Each day I visited Icombed that my fingers,
as Papa often raked through his dark his fingers when he was enraged or
frustrated.  There own funishings in the cupola, only a pillow for me
to sit sunlight through the stained-glass windows fell upon t in swirls
like bright peacock feathers and confused with patterns of coloured.
light.  My legs and arms patterned, too, like impermanent tattoos. High
above, down from the apex of the pointed roof, were long Of painted
glass Chinese wind chimes that hung scarlet silken cords. They hung so
high the wind never them move, yet I often heard them tinkle, tinkle. 
If just they would sway for me while I watched, then I could I wasn't
crazy.  fell down on the cushion on the rug, and began to play with old
paper dolls that I kept lined up around the walls. Each

2L" V .  - - , 04,

was named after someone I knew but I didn't know too people, so many of
the paper dolls had the same names.

one was named Audrina.  It seemed I could vaguely r that there had once
been men and boy dolls, but now d only girls and ladies.  was so
absorbed in my thoughts that I didn't hear a sound until suddenly a
voice asked, "Are you thinking about, me" sweet Audrina?"

My head jerked round.  There stood Vera in the haunted, Coloured lights
of the cupola.  Her straight hair was a pale apricot colour unlike any
other colour Id ever seen, but that wasn't unusual in our family.  Her
eyes very dark, like her Mother's, like my father's.

The colours refracted from the many windows cast myriad Coloured lights
on the floor, tattooed patterns on her face, so I'm sure my eyes were
lit up just like hers, like many-faceted jewels.  The cupola was a
magic place.

"Are you listening to me, Audrina?"  she asked, her voice whispery and
scary.

"Why do you just sit there and not answer?  Have You lost your vocal
cords as well as your memory?"  I hated her being in the cupola.  This
was my own special, private room for trying to figure out what I
couldn't remember as I moved the dolls about and pretended they were my
family.  Truthfully, I was putting the dolls through the years of my
life, trying in this way to reconstruct and dredge up the secret that
eluded me.  Some day, some wonderful day, I hoped to retrieve from
those dolls all I couldn't recall, so that Id be made whole, and just
as wonderful as that dead sister ever was.

Vera's left arm had just come out of a cast.  She moved it gingerly as
she stepped into my little sanctuary.

Despite my off-and-on dislike for Vera, I felt sorry she could break
her arm just by banging it against something hard.  According to her,
she'd had eleven broken bones, and I'd never had any.  Little brushes
against the table, and her wrist fractured.  A slighter bump and huge
purple bruises came to mar her skin for weeks.  If she fell off her bed
onto a soft padded carpet, she still broke a leg, an ankle, a forearm,
something.

"Does your arm still hurt?"

"Don't look at me with pity!  "ordered Vera, limping into the cupola,
then scrunching down on her heels in an awkward way.  Her dark eyes
bored holes into me.

"I have fragile bones, small, delicate bones."  and if they break
easily, it's because I have more blue blood than you do."

She could have her blue blood if it meant broken bones twice a year.
Sometimes when she was so mean to me I thought Godi.bM .  And sometimes
I felt guilty because my and refused to break even when I occawdered
again if the First, Best and Most Perfect been as aristocratic as Vera.
IDOUM MY arm hurts," shrilled Vera, her dark eyes reds, greens and
blue.

"It hurts like hell!"  Her plaintive as she went on.

"When your arm is "it-Makes you feel so helpless.  It's: really worse
than a because there are so many things you can't do for Since wu don't
eat much, I don't know why your 't break more easily than mine ... but,
of course you peasant bones."  know what to say.  a boy in my class who
looks at me so syrapathetihe carries my books, and talks to me, and
asks me of questions He's so handsome you just wouldn't His name is
Arden Lowe.  Isn't that an unusual and name for a boy?  Audrina, I
think he's got a case on he's kissed me twice in the cloakroom."  s a
cloakroom?"  are you stupid!  Holes in the belfry with bats flying
that's Papa's sweet Audrina."  She giggled as she tossed enge, but I
didn't want to fight, so she went on to tell about her boyfriend named
Arden Lowe.

"His eyes Coloured, the prettiest eyes you ever saw.  When you close,
you can see little flecks of green in his eyes.  His dark brown with
reddish highlights when the sun hits Issmart, too.  He's a year older
than me, but that doesn't he's dumb, it just means he's travelled
around so much behind in his schoolwork."  She sighed and looked old is
Arden Lowe?"  ester day I was twenty, so Arden was younger,
naturally.

n't have my kind of talent for being any age I want to I guess he's
eleven, and kind of a baby when I'm twenty, such a good-looking
baby."

smiled at me but I knew dam well she couldn't be more than twelve?  I
went back to my dolls.

"Audrina, You love those dolls more than you do me.,!"

"No, I don't But I wasn't really too sure even as I said that.

"Then give me the boy and men dolls."

"All the boy and men dolls are gone," I answered in a funny" tight,
voice that made Vera open her eyes wide.

"Where did all the male dolls go, Audrina?"  she whispered in the
weirdest land of knowing voice that made me shiver.

"I don't know,"I whispered back, somehow afraid.  I quickly glanced
around with scared eyes.  Tinkle-tinkle sounded the chimes above as
they dangled perfectly still.  I shrank tighter inside.

"I thought you took them."

"You're a baa ... ad girl, Audrina, a really wicked girl.  Some day
you'll find out exactly how bad, and when you do, you'll want to die."
She giggled and drew away.

What was wrong with me that she'd want to hurt me fame and again?  Or
was something wrong with her?  Like my mother and her sister..  . were
we going to repeat history over and over again?

Vera's pale, pasty face grimed at me wickedly, seeming to represent all
evil.  When she turned her head, the colours came to play upon her skin
and her apricot hair turned red, then blue streaked with violet.

"Give me all your dolls, even if the best ones have gone on to hell."
She reached to seize up half a dozen of the closest dolls.

Moving lightning fast, I snatched those dolls from her hands, then,
jumping to my feet, I ran about gathering up all the other dolls.  Vera
crawled to rake my legs with her long fingernails, always filed to
sharp points.  Still I managed to hold her off with one foot against
her shoulder as I gathered up the last handful of dolls and costumes.
With both hands full now, I shoved her with my foot so she fell
backwards, and I was off and running down the spiral stairs at
breakneck speed, sure she couldn't catch me.  Yet I heard her right
behind me, screaming out my name, ordering me to stop.

"If I fall, it will be your fault, your fauld' She added a few filthy
names, which had no meaning for me at all.

"You don't love me, Audrina," I heard -her wail.  Her hard-soled shoes
made clunking noises on the metal stairs.

"Iflike a sister, you'd do what I want and give want to make up for all
the pain I have to hC1 stop and gasp for breath.

"Audrina, don't those doW Don't you dare!  They belong to me as they
belong to you!"  did et  rd been the one to find them in an old was a
rule about finders being keepers, and I rules, old adages, maxims. They
were tried and that knew so much more about everything than "MY to duck
out of sight as Vera tediously, clumsily down the steep and narrow
stairs.  Under a loose I stuffed the dolls and all their colourful
Edwardian that took them to many an important social fimcdon.

I heard Vera scream.  She'd fallen again.  I ran to where she lay in a
'heap.  Her left leg was buckled' under her in a way.  It was the leg
she'd broken twice before.  I to see a bit of jagged bone protruding
through her torn was gushing blood.  ylour'fault," she moaned, in so
much agony her pretty as twisted and ugly.

"It's your fault for not giving me twanted.  Always your fault,
everything bad that happens Y4JUF IdU lL  Somebody should give me what
I want give you the dolls now," I said weakly, prepared to give she
demanded now that she was hurt.

"I'll run for mother and mine first2 5t want your damned dolls now!"
she cried.

"Just get vand leave me alone!  But for you, I would have had Some day
you're going to pay for all that you've 'from me, Audrina.  I'm
supposed to be the first and best, made me feel sick to back off and
leave her alone like she broken and in pain, that left leg gushing
blood.  Then I her left arm was lying there in a peculiar position,
too.  dear Lord.  It had broken again.  Now she'd have a broken and a
broken leg.  But even so, God had not taught Veraanything about
humility, as I'd been taught, and taught well... How did I know that?
Flying down the stairs, I bumped into Papa.

"Haven't I told you to stay out of the cupola?  "he barked, grabbing
hold of my arm and trying to prevent me from reaching my mother.

"Don't 90 UP there until I have that guard rail put back.  You could
fall and hurt yourself."

I didn't want to be the one to tell Papa about Vera's broken bones. Yet
I had to since he refused to let go of my arm.

"She's up there bleeding, Papa.  Great gobs of blood, and if you don't
let go of me and call an ambulance, she might die."

"I doubt it,"he said.  Still, he did bellow out to Momma, Call for the
ambulance, Lucky.  Vera has broken her bones agamMy health insurance
will cancel my plan if this keeps up."

Still, when it came down to the nitty-gritty, Papa was the one who ad
med Vera's fears and sat beside her in the ambulance and held her hand
as he wiped away her tears.  And on a stretcher, in an ambulance that
knew her well, Vera was on her way to the closest hospital to have yet
another cast put on her arm, and on her leg, too.

I stood near the front door and watched the ambulance disappear round
the bend of our long drive.  Both my mother and my aunt refused to go
to the hospital again, and suffer through all the long hours of waiting
and watching that shrivelled leg being again put into a cast.  The last
time she'd broken her leg, Vera's doctor said that if she broke it
again, the leg might not grow as long as the other.

"Don't look so worried, darling," comforted Momina.

"It wasn't your fault.  We have warned Vera time and again not to climb
those spiral stairs.  That's why we tell you not to go up there,
knowing she'll follow sooner or later to check on what you're doing.
And doctors always give you the most dire predictions, thinking how
grateful you'll feel when they don't come true.  Vera's leg will grow
to match the other... though God knows how she manages to break the
same one over and over again so consistently.

Aunt Ellsbeth said nothing at all.  It seemed her daughter's broken
bones didn't concern her nearly as much as huntingI.hoose,for an old
vacuum cleaner which sherd under the back stain.  She headed it'
Amflydinin room where six presidents hung to I ;wked lady eating grapes
... anything I can do to help, Aunt Ellsbeth?"  I my aunt.  "You don't
know how todoanything the end you only make more work.  Why the devil
give Vera the paper dolls when she asked for she'd only tear them up."
snorted, glared at me, at my mother, whose arms me, and then she tugged
the vacuum down the red.  I whispered, 'why does Vera always lie?  She
told her down the stain, but I wasn't even near her.  attic, hiding the
dolls, while she was coming down She feU in school, and even then she
aid I pushed why would she say that when I've never been to Why can't I
go to school?  Did the First Audrins go to Of course she went," said
Momma, sounding as if a frog t in her throat.

"Vera is a very unhappy girl, and why she lies.  Her mother gives her
very little attention knows you receive a great deal.  But it's hard to
love Mean, hateful girl, although we all try our besL There's sweak in
Vera which worries me greatly.  I'm so afraid ... something to hurt
you, to hurt us all."  Her lovely, eyes stared off into space.

"It's too bad your aunt didn't Away.  We didn't need her and Vera to
complicate our lives old is Vera, Momma?"  old has she told you she
is?"

es Vera says she's ten, sometimes she says she's and sometimes she's
sixteen, or twenty.  Momma, she like she's mocking me ... because I
really don't know old I am."

course you know you are seven.  Haven't we told you that and over
again?"

"But I cant remember my seventh birthday.  Did you give me a birthday
party?  Does Vera have birthday parties?  I can' remember one."

"Vera is three years older than you are," said Momma quickly.

"We can't afford to have birthday parties any more Not because we can't
spend the money but you know birthday parties bring back tragic
memories.  Neither your father nor I can bear to think of birthday
parties any more, so we all stopped having birthdays and have chosen to
stay the age we like best.  I'm going to stay thirty-two."  She giggled
and kissed me again.

"That's a lovely age to be, not too young and not too old."

But I was serious and sick of evasions.

"Then Vera didn't know my dead sister, did she?  She says she did, but
how can she when she's only three years older than me?"

Again my mother looked distressed.

"In a way she did know her.  You see, we've talked so much about her.
Perhaps we talk too much about her."

And so it went, as always, evasions but no revelations, at least not
the kind I really wanted, the kind I could believein.

"When can I go to school?"  I asked.

"Some day, "murmured Momma, 'some day soon "But Momma," I persisted,
following her into the kitchen and helping her chop vegetables for the
salad.

"I don't fall and break my bones like Vera, so I'd be safer in school
than she is.t "No, you don't fall," she said in a tight voice.

"I suppose I should be grateful for that but you have other ways of
hurting yourself, don't you?"

Did I?  Papa's Dream could steal the last rosy glow of dusk Papa was
the hospital and carrying Vera into the Roman .  As if Vera weighed
only a feather, even with a cost on her left leg, and a fresh cast on
her left arm, waderly deposited Vera on the purple velvet couch loved
to keep for herself.  Vera appeared very large box of chocolates she'd
half-eaten on her "from the hospital.  She didn't offer the box to me,
stood there longing to have just one.  Then I saw that also bought her
a new jigsaw puzzle to put together good right arm.

"It's all right, honey," he said to me.

chocolates and a puzzle, too.  But you should be "YOU you don't have to
fall and break your bones just to Vera threw away her puzzle and shoved
the from the tab leto the floor.

"Now, now," soothed up the boxes and handing them back to her.  is very
large, Audrina's is very small.  You have box of chocolates.  Audrina's
box weighs only one , Vera smirked my way.

"Thank you, Papa.  good to me."  She stretched her arms forth, wanting
her.  I cringed inside, hating her for calling him he wasn't her
father, but mine.  I resented the kiss her cheek, resented, too, that
huge box of chocolates puzzle that had prettier colours than the one
Papa to bear watching longer, I wandered away to sit on and stare at
the moon that was coming up over water.  It was a quarter moon, what
Papa called a moon, and I thought I could see the profile of the man-B
33 in the moon, old and withered-looking.  The wind through summer
leaves had a lonesome sound, telling me that soon leaves would die, and
winter would come, and I hadn't enjo summer at all.  I had vague
memories of happier, hott summers, and yet I couldn't pull them out to
clearly view I put a round piece of chocolate in my mouth, even though
had yet to eat dinner.  This August seemed more lUke to really it
did.

As if he heard me caning, Papa came to sit next to me.  sniffed the
wind as he always did, an old habit he'd told many times, left over
from his days in the Navy.

"Papa, why are the geese flying south when it's summer?  thought they
only flew south in late autumn."

"I guess the geese know more about the weather than we do and they're
trying to tell us something."  His hand light brushed over my hair.  I
started to put another piece o chocolate in my mouth when he said,
"Don't eat but one those."  His voice was softer when he spoke to me,
kinder, if my sensitivities were as eggshell fragile as Vera's bones.
saw you looking jealous when I kissed Vera.  You resented th gifts I
gave her.  Somebody has to pamper her when -she's suffering.  And you
know only you are the light of my life, the heart of my heart."

"You loved the First Audrina better," I choked.

"I'm never gonna catch her gift, Papa, no matter how many times I rock
in that chair.  Why do I have to have her gift?  Why can't you take me
like I am?"

With his arm about my shoulders, he explained that.,... he only wanted
to give ineconfidence in myself  "I S U, to be had in that chair,
Audrina.  I do love you t you are, I just want to give you a little
extra something s cno longer needs.  If you can use what she used to
have, why not?"  Then your Swiss cheese memory would fill to
overflowing, and", I'd rejoice for you."

I didn't believe there was a gift to be gained from that chair, It was
all another lie which gave me as much terror as it seemed': to give him
hope.  lEs voice took on a pleading tone.

"I need someone to believe in me wholeheartedly, Audrina.  I need from
you the trust that she gave me.  That's the only gift I want gift for
having faith in me, in yourself.  me, I know that.  But she doesn't
believe in is gone, I'm depending on you once made me feel clean and
wonderful.  Need me.  Trust me as she trusted me.  For when the best,
that's what you will get."  .A away from his embrace.

"N true!  I yanked only the best, and was so trusting of you, against
your orders?  Was she was found dead under the golden asked sharply.

1' I cried, unsettled to hear my own words.  I "know what a golden rain
tree was.  His face bowed my hair as his hand gripped my shoulder so
hard it he finally found something he could say, he and miles away,
like the warm place those geese to.

"In some ways you're right.  Perhaps your I should have given her more
explicit warnings.  As were embarrassed and didn't tell our First
Audrina I none of it was her fault."  what, Papa?"  sang out Momma, as
if she'd been listening exactly when to interrupt our conversation.  My
aunt at the round table in the family dining room,; as Papa carried
Vera into the room.  Vera glowered only time my aunt seemed to like her
daughter was was out of sight.  When Papa was around, she could to Vera
that even I winced.  She wasn't as cmel to she treated me with
indifference, unless I somehow to irritate her, which was often. hugged
Vera before he went to sit at the head of the "Feeling better, honey?" 
Papa," she said with a bright smile.

"I feel fine now."  minute she said that, Papa beamed a broad smile my
He gave me a conspiratorial wink that I'm sure Vera saw.

her eyes and stared down at her plate refusing to up her fork and
eat.

"I'm not hungry," she said when' my r tried to coax her.

"Eat now, "ordered Aunt Ellsbeth,"or you wont eat until breakfast.
Darnian, you should have known better to give the children chocolates
before dinner."

"Ellie, you give me a pain in a certain part of my to I won't mention
in front of my daughter.  Vera will not die u on.  Tomorrow she'll
stuff herself as she herself before her fall."

He reached to- squeeze Vera's pale long fingers.  Go on, darling, eat.
Show your mother you can hold twice as much she can."

Vera began to cry.  How awful of Papa to be so cruel!  After dinner,
just like.  Momma did, I ran upstairs, threw myself on my bed and
rrealll bawled.  I wanted a simple life with firm ground beneath my
feet.  All I had was quicksand.  I wanted parents who were honest,
consistent from day to day, not so changeable I couldn't depend on
their love to last for longer than a few, minutes.

An hour later, the corridor resounded with Papas heavy tread.  He
didn't bother to knock, just threw open the door so hard the latch
banged into the plastered wall and made another niche.  There was a key
in the lock which I never dared to use, fearful he would kick my door
down if I did.  Papa strode in, to my room wearing a new suit he'd
changed into i ' since dinnertime, telling me he and Momma were going
out.  He'd showered, shaved again, and his hair fell in soft waves
perfectly moulded to his skull.  He sat on my bed, caught my hand in,
his, allowing me to see his square large nails that were buffedl so
much they shone.

Minutes passed as he just sat there holding my hand which felt lost in
the hugeness of his.  The night birds in the trees outside my bedroom
window twittered sleepily.  The little,",.  clock on my night table
said twelve o'clock, but it wasn't the real time.  I knew he and Momma
wouldn't go Dut at midnight.  I heard a boat whistle in the distance, a
Ship putting out to sea.

"Well," he said at long last, 'what have I done this time to wound your
fragile ego?"

"You don't have to be nice to Vera one minute and nasty to push Vera
down the steps.  "My voice and this was certainly not the kind of which
would make anyone believe me.  Jidn't push her, "he said somewhat
impatiently.

to tell me you didn't.  Audrina, never confess 43OW you are accused."
In the gloomy dimness, his eyes glittered.  He frightened me.

and I are going to spend the evening with .  You don't have to rock in
the chair tonight.  girl and fall into dreamless sleep."  I could
control my dreams?

"How old am I, king chair has never told me that."  my bed to head for
the door, and in the open paused to glance back at me.  The hall gas
lamps on his thick, dark hair.

"You are seven, soon to be to be eight?"

He came back and sat down, saying we had .  k more before he left.  do
you want to be?"  he asked.  old asTm, supposed to be."  make a good
lawyer, Audrina.  You never give a answer.  did he.  Iwascatching his
habits.  "Papa, tell me again 't remember exactly what I did last year,
and the year 0. he sighed, as he always did when I asked too many "My
sweetheart, how many times do I have to tell ou are a special kind of
girl with talents so extraordinary u don't realize the passing of time.
 You walk alone in own space."

y knew that.

"I don't like my own space, Papa.  It's where I walk.  I want to go to
school like Vera does.  I to ride on that yellow school bus  I want
friends to play ... and I can't remember ever having a birthday
party."

you remember Vera's birthday parties?"

0."  hat's because we don't celebrate birthdays in this house.

It's much healthier to forget about time and live as if there we no
clocks and no calendars That way you never grow old."

His story was so much like Momma's ... too much.  Tira' did matter,
birthdays, too; both mattered more than he said.

He said good night and closed the door, leaving me to lie o my bed and
wonder.

Time passed.  One night screams woke me up.  My screams.  was sitting
up, clawing at the sheet, covering myself up to my chin.  In the long
corridor I heard the pounding of Papa's bare feet as he came running.
On the side of my bed he perch cd to hold me in his arms, smoothing my
tousled hair, hushing my piercing cries, telling me again and again
that everything -as all right.  Nothing could harm me here.  Soon I
fell asleep, safre in his arms.

Morning fight woke me, and Papa was in the doorwDy.  smiling broadly,
almost as if he'd never left me alone.

"Sunday morning, love, time to rise and shine.  Put on your Sunday."
clothes and we'll be off."

I started at him sleepy-eyed and disoriented.  Was it only last much
longer' A. week that Vera broke her leg?  Or was it much, m It was a
question I put to Papa.

"Darling, you see what I mean-' It's December now.  In five days, it
will be Christmas.  Dol,"t tell me you've forgotten.

But I had.  Time had such agility when it came to fleeting pat." me. 
Oh, God ... what Vera said about me had to be true.  I was;
vacant-headed, forgetful, perhaps brainless.

"Papa," I called'," out nervously before he closed the door so I could
dress for' church.

"Why do you ano Momma let everyone in church; believe Vera is your
daughter and not Aunt Ellsbeth's?"

"We don't have time for that kind of discussion now, Audrina.  Besides,
I've told you many times before how your aunt went away for almost two
years, and when she came back she had a one-year-old daughter.  Of
course, she was expecting to marry Vera's father.  We couldn't let
everyone know a' Whitefem had given birth out of wedlock.  Is it such a
crime to pass Vera off as our own and save your aunt from "grace?  This
isn't New York City, Audrina.  We live in the Bible Belt,an supposed to
abide by the rules of the to some nameless man and my father was doing
the decent thing, and I was his one and Vera liked to pretend he was
her father W I'm your only daughter ... who's alive."

at me blankly for a moment, his fiW lips thinning.

many a time that eyes were the windows of the his lips as I studied his
dark, shuttered eyes.  hard and suspicious rested in them.

"Your mother, any differently, has she?"  but Vera has."

he laughed and hugged me so tight against his my ribs ached
afterwards.

"What difference does it Vera says?  Of course she wants me for her
father.  I'm the only father she's ever known.  And if all others J
your mother's child, let them think what they isn't a family anywhere
without skeletons in its Our skeletons are no worse than anyone else's.
wouldn't the world be a boring place if everyone knew was to know about
everyone?  Mystery is the spice of s what keeps people living on and
on, hoping to all the secrets they can."

the world would be a better place without all the and mysteries.  My
world would be a perfect place if one in my home knew how to be
honest.

The Rocking Chair Vera came to my room that night, soon after I'd
climbed I bed, determined to have only happy thoughts before slee i
hoping they'd lead to happy dreams.  Hobbling with con sid able skill
on the crutches she'd grown accustomed to, s managed to carry things in
a bookbag she'd slung over shoulder only this bookbag was different
from any I'd se before.

"Here she said, tossing me the bag on the be "Educate yourself Those
two women in the kitchen will nev teach you what I will."

I felt a little sceptical but happy, nevertheless, that she w
interested in my education.  I knew there were many things was missing
by not going to school.  Shaking the bag's conte onto my bed, dozens of
photographs cut from magazines to my bed in a ragged chimp.  I couldn't
believe my eyes w I picked them up and started to separate then,
staring all t time at pictures that showed naked men and women in le
weird embraces.  The hateful things clung to my fingers, tacky I
plucked them free from one hand only to find thi sticking to the other.
Then, to my consternation, I heard t heavy tread of Papa's feet as he
came towards my room.

Vera had done this on purpose!  She knew Papa came to room each night
around this time.

"I'm going," said Vera with a delighted grin.  She ho bbl towards the
door of the bedroom that adjoined mine, to escape Papa.

"Don't you dare tell him I was here if you what's good for you."

But on her crutches she couldn't move fast enough.  Pa threw open the
door and glared at the two of us.  What's go on in here?"  he asked.

With the guilty evidence stuck to my fingers, I hesitated an thus gave
Vera the chance to dump all the crime in my lap.  in a cupboard, and
since it was monogram, I thought this Audrina should have it."  Papa
came to me and tore the clippings He took one glance and howled in
rage, then, he thrust out his arm and sent Vera reeling to she was
already broken enough.  Like someone dying, Vera screamed out her
rage.

"It's hers!

me?"

and held her as is she were some -puppy from the gutter.  He held her
over my bed.  them up!"  he ordered harshly.

"My First Audrina look at that filth than she'd tar and feather you do
if you don't stop tormenting me!  Now you have he added when she had
them in her nervous, pale he was joking, so did she.  to scream for my
mother," threatened Vera.

"I'm got broken bones  I could die!  You let me go, or I'll go to the
police and tell them you abuse 1' he bellowed.

"You've coated them with glue" 't taste worse than your mother's
cooking."  pa," she wailed, do ret make me eat paper and in disgust, he
carried her out of the room'.  A few;"Ilater I heard her screaming as
he applied his belt to her I didn't truly know if he used his belt when
she was t ten to one she'd tell me he did.  Vera could scream kU on her
arm, so how could I know unless I got up out for myself?  I never did
because for some reason that what she said might be true.  passed while
my heart raced.  Eventually Vews ebbed away, but still Papa didn't
come.

re downstairs a clock chimed ten times, but that little- Every bone in
my body ached, every muscle was I knew I'd have to sit in the rocking
chair again when I felt I could bear the suspense no longer, yet I'd
never fall asleep until I did what he'd force me to heard a door close
and soon heavy footfalls sounded in die corridor.  Papa's tread was
even, heavy, squeaking the old sagging floorboards.

Softly, he eased my bedroom door open and stepped inside.  Quietly he
closed the door behind him.  He loomed up in the night like some huge
monster, casting a long shadow in the dimness of my moonlit room.

"Sooo," he drawled in his most beguiling Southern voice, cultivated
over the years from his clipped Yankee delivery, Cnow you ve taken to
looking at obscene photographs winch will dirty your mind.  That shames
me, Audrina, really shames me.

"Not me, Papa," I said.

"Vera brought them in here but don't hit her again, please.  You could
break her other arm and leg, or maybe her neck.  You shouldn't whip her
when she's hurt.

"I don't whip her," he said harshly.

"I just scolded her, and she started screaming that I didn't love her.
God, can anyone love someone who makes so much trouble?  Even if Vera
brought in those nasty pictures and gave them to you, you didn't have
to look, did you?"

Didn't I?

"I thought better of you than that: Don't let Vera destroy the best
that's in you."

"Why are boys dangerous for me and not for Vera, Pap0l' "Some girls are
born to be what Vera is.  Boys can sniff them out from miles away.
That's why I don't bother about her.  It wouldn't do any good.  It's
you I care about because it's you I love.  I used to be a boy, and I
know how boys think.  I'm sorry to say most boys cannot be trusted.
That's why you have to stay out of the woods, and close to home, and
out of school, too.  It's dangerous for a beautiful, sensitive girl
like you.  The kind of woman you ll grow up to be is the kind that will
be the salvation of mankind.  That's why I struggle to save you and
protect you from contamination."

"But, but ... Papa."

"Don't protest, just accept the fact that parents worry.  Adults are
far wiser about the world, espocially wise about tffiheilir own flesh
and blood.  We know you are ultra sensitive  We want pains  We love
you.  We want 'healthy and happy, that's all."  s t i on the edge of my
bed as I lay on my back, not to breathe.  Pd a bit to peek and see if
he believed I'd asleep I might even be dead, and maybe in nobility of
the First and Best Audrina and have to sit in her chair again.  But he
leaned of the sheet and pulled it up high under my iron like hands
closed down on my shoulders.  His digging into my tender skin made my
eyes pop clash with his.  Our gazes locked and in a silent fought until
my mind went vague, out of focus winner i .

he soothed, beginning to stroke my hair, 'it's is it'?  You've done it
before, and you can do it again.  ncr, or later you will catch the
gift, if you are patient rying.  You can help me, Audrina."  but," I
stammered, wanting to make him stop.  But i and on, inundating me with
his needs, which had too.  Still my love for him made me an easy
subject, be cajoled, flattered, and won over to feeling I had just for
my 'gifts' when I had them.  you have to do is dream, Audrina, just
dream."  dream.  That was the one thing I didn't want to do..  going to
keep it up until I was an old lady, or would 'to seize hold of the
First Audrina's gift and satisfy God the First and Best Audrina's gifts
wotad help differently than she did.  Why didn't he ever worry that?  ,
Audrina, my love, my sweet.  Shakespeare wrote it, "to sleep, perchance
to dream."  To dream and know h. Come back and give me your dreams,
Audrina, and all your father's hopes for the future come true."

at him sitting there on my bed.  His dark eyes were r glittering and
frightening, only pleading and full of how could I keep on resisting?
He was my father.  Fatherswere supposed to know right from wrong.  And
I did owe hi ttl a great deal.  Tes, Papa," I whispered.

"Just one more Lime.  Won't just one more time be enough?"

"Perhaps it will be," he said, his smile lighting up his face.

Appearing happy, Papa led me by my hand down the hall to the very end
room.  Once there, he released me and took 0 1' a large key to unlock
her door.  I felt a cold draught that madt me shiver.  It was the First
Audrina's grave breathing on me.

I looked around as I always did, as if I'd never been hert before.  I
couldn't say how many times I'd been here.  This rooiz seemed to be the
one thing that filled all the holes in m, memory, looming larger than
any other experience.  Y the0 act time I came it was a shock to hear
the wind chimes intheculpNo begin to softly tinkle, tinkle.  Even in
the dark, crystal pris colours flashed behind my eyes.  Perhaps I had
seized hold o a memory the memory of this all too familiar room.
Perhaps I was beginning to benefit from just being here.

If it hadn't once been her room, I'd have wanted it for my own It was
huge, with a big tester bed under the fancy cano There were two giant,
dark armoires; filled with all the pre clothes that had once been hers,
clothes they didn't want .  e to wear.  little shoes were lined up in
neat rows, from one-year sizes to those a nine-year-old girl would
wear.  Some weTe scuffed and old, some were shiny and new.  The dresses
that hung above grew longer with each succeeding year.

Toy shelves lined the walls.  full of everything any little girl could
ever want.  There were dolls from every foreign country dressed in
native costumes.  There were toy tea sets and dinner sets."  picture
books and story books, beach balls and bouncing balls, skipping ropes
with fancy handles, jacks, boxes of games, puzzles and paint sets oh,
there was nothing they,..  hadn't bought for the First, the Best and
the Most Perfect!"  Audrina far more than they'd bought for me.  On
those dark'.  '... and brooding shelves, where the toys sat eternally
grieving and waiting to be loved again, were dozens of soft, plushy,
pastel animnhq, 0 with dark button eyes that glinted and gleamed and
seemed to follow my movements.  Even baby rattles with small teeth
marks were there, and worn-looking bronzed baby shoes taken her first
steps.  They hadn't saved mine bronzed, nor had they saved Vera's. "the
wide windows covered by fmy white Priscilla a doll's house.  A child's
toy table with four chairs mady for the party that was never given.

were scattered about to make stepping stones room, compartmentalizing
it into rooms within a with a maze.  Aas vandals we left the doorway
and stole inside that breathlessly awaited us.  My bedroom slippers
were hallway outside, as were his, to show our respect to where the
perfect daughter had once reigned.  The had taught me to bow my head
and lower my in reverent whispers once I was in this room, in me.
Expectantly, he kept his eyes on me, as if her special ness to jump
into my brain and fill my memory with the First Audrina's gifts. 
watching me, waiting for something to happen, but only turned in
circles, staring at one thing and then he grew impatient and gestured
towards the only chair in the room the magic rocking chair with calla
Wy back and the rose velvet cushion.  I inched it reluctantly, holding
my breath as I forced myself to I had stiffly settled myself on the
seat, he came to MY side.  Then began his ritual of kisses rained on my
face, even my aims and hands, all meant to tell me loved me best.  He
murmured endearments- in my ear, th hot and damp, and before I could
protest, he to his feet and raced from the room, slamming and the door
behind him.  never left me alone in here before!  PapaV I scr earned
panic in my voice, terror all around e back!  Don't make me stay in
here by myself" ou're not alone," he called to me from the other side
of the "God is with you and I am with you.  I'll stay and wait here,
watching through the keyhole, listening, praying..ng but good can come
from rocking in that chair.  Believe Audrina; nothing but good will
fill your brain and replace lost memories."

I squeezed my eyes shut and heard the wind chim, clamouring louder,
much louder now.

"Sweetheart, don't cry.  There's nothing to be afraid of.  Hol onto
your faith in me and do as I say, and your future will s more brightly
than the sun above."

Beside the chair was one of the night tables that held a I and a Bible,
her Bible.  I snatched up the black leather-bou elf, book and held it.
close against my heart.  I told myself, as 1,d told myself before, that
there was nothing to be afraid of .  Tlhwe dead couldn't harm anyone.
But if they could Mt  why was I so terrified?

I heard Papa's soft voice outside the locked door.

"You d have gifts, Audrina, you do.  Even if you don't believe,
believe.  And I'm the one who knows.  I'm sure the reason o previous
efforts have failed is because I stayed in the room wi you.  It's my
presence that ruins your chances of succeeding, I know now it's
solitude, loneliness, that makes the process begin.  You've got to wash
your mind free of anxieties, feel no fear, no joy, no confusion. Expect
nothing and everything will be given.  Feel nothing but contentment to
be all ve to be where you are and who you, are  Ask nothing, receive
everything.  Sit there and let go of whatever makes -you afraid or
worried.  Let contentment loosen your limbs and relax your mind, and
sleep wants to come, then let it come.  Do you hear me? Are you
listening?  No confusion.  No fear.  For Papa is here."

All his words were familiar.  Same old thing about not being aft-aid,
when fear was almost choking me.

"Papa."  I wailed for one last time, 'please don't make me ... 9 "Oh..
he said heavily, sighing, 'why do I have to force you?  Why can't you
just believe?  Lean back in the rocker, put your head against the high
back, hold the chair arms and begin to rock.  Sing if it helps to wash
your mind clean of fear, of worries, of desires and emotions.  Sing and
sing until you become an empty pitcher.  Empty 'pitchers have room for
many."  many things, but full pitchers can hold no more..."

Oh, yes, I'd heard this before.  I knew what he was doing.  He was
trying to turn me into the First Audrina or maybe I was going to be the
instrument through which he'd be able to communicate with her.  I
didn't want to be her.  And if ever him hate him.  Yet, he kept
soothing me, if I didn't want to stay in here all night, I'd be-
said.

around at the room again, memorizing again Little tickling sensations
began to whisper, I could be her, I was her, the dead Audrina, who I
her grave.  No, no, had to think the right in give to Papa what he had
to have.  I told myself a bedroom filled with old toys.  I saw a huge
spider web from doll to doff.  Momma didn't like even cleaning this
room.  Though it appeared a -.-A-span shrine, it wasWt anything but
surface some reason that made me feel better Momma what Papa called
'lip service' to reverent cleanliAunt Ellsbeth refused to clean this
room.  ". ly I began to rock.  head filtered an old, almost forgotten
tune.  The the lyrics played over and over again.  The words while the
melody tingled my spine and slowed my was coming unbidden to heavy my
eyelids..  . and I heard my fiail voice singing:

a playroom, safe in my home, a playroom, safe in my home, fears re else
to roam, papa wants me always to stay home, in my playroom, safe in my
home.

of the First and Best Audrina.  The Perfect who'd never given her
parents the pain and the trouble daily.  I didn't want to sing her
song.  But Icouldn't and on I heard the singing, trying to keep my eyes
they could see those elephants, bears and toy tigers on , all sweet and
friendly-looking until I glanced I looked back, they were fiercely
snarlin wallpaper was faded bluish violet, entwined with silver threads
to make spiderwebs on the walls.  There spiders on the toys.  A giant
one began tow' eave more dolls together, and another came to rest in
the eye socket of o doll that had hair somewhat the colour of my own. 
HOW awftil.

"Rock, Audrina, rockPordered Papa.

"Make the floorboards creak.  Make the grey mists come.  Watch the
walls dissolve hear the wind chimes tinkle.  They'll take you back,
back to-.  where You'll find all your memories, an the gifts that were
hers.  She doesn't need them where she is, but you do.  So sing, sing,
sing... HYPnotizing, like a sing-song chant he, too, had to use, but he
didn't know the words I was saying.  papa loves me, yes he does.  Papa
needs me, yes he does.

Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so... The shiny
black button eyes of the plushy animals seemed to glitter and gleam
with more knowledge than I'd ever have.  Little pink or red tongues
appeared ready to speak and tell me secrets Papa would never reveal.
High above, the wind chimes were tinkling, and contentment was coming
as I rocked and rocked and became more and more tranquil.  Nothing
wrong wi for sooner or later I was going to be changed in some ith me
indefinable way for the better... I grew sleepy, sleepier, unreal
feeling.  The orange light from the gas lamps shivered, caught silver
and gold threads in the wallpaper.  All the colours in the room began
to move, to sparkle like diamonds suddenly catching the light.  The
music of the cupola wind chimes was in my brain dancing, dancing,
telling me of happy Playtimes up there, slyly whispering of one
terrible time up, there.  Who was flashing that crystal prism in my
eyes?  How did the wind set into the house to blow my hair when the
windows were all down and locked?  Were there draughts in the cupola,
and ghosts in the attic?  What made the hair on my head move, what?

Far back, near the sane side of me, I wanted to believe all of this was
hopeless and I'd never become an 'empty pitcher' that would fill with
everything wonderful.  I truly didn't wantA even .  she n more
beautiful" too.  Still I rocked and sang, I couldn't stop.  was on the
way, making me happier.  My panicky My pulse stopped racing.  The music
I heard was heard behind me, or ahead of me, a man's voice needed me
was calling; someone who was in and dreamily, unquestioningly, I
fuzzily open as the molecules slowly, slowly separated, formed such
grainy pores I could drift through t difficulty.  I was outside in the
night that swiftly day.  'was free of the playroom.  Free of my papa.
Free of merrily home from school on my own special I was me.  Happily I
danced along a woody dirt path.

school, and I didn't question or wonder about this, .  I'd never been
to school.  Something wise was I was inside the First and most
wonderful Aud-rina, gonna know her as well as I knew myself.  I was
her, was me, and 'we' were wearing a beautiful crepe de .  I wore my
best petticoat underneath it the one lace and embroidered shamrocks
near the hem.  my birthday and I was nine years old.  That meant soon
and ten wasn't far from being eleven, and when I all the magic of
becoming a woman was close at in circles to see my accordion pleated
skirt flair up waist.  I inclined my head and spun some more to see my
petticoat.

there was a noise on the path ahead.  Someone Like black magic, the sky
abruptly turned dark.

flashed.  Thunder rolled deep and ominously.  Idn't move.  Like a
statue of marble, I stood frozen.  MY to beat wildly like a jungle
drum.  Some sixth sense up and screamed that something awful was soon
to n.

my sixth sense was beating out, shame, terror and tion.  Momma, Papa,
help me!  Don't let them hurt me!

Don't let them do it!  I went to Sunday school every wee didn't miss
even when I had a cold.  I'dearned my black Bi' with my name on the
cover emblazoned in gold, and I had gold medal, too.  Why hadn't the
rocking chair warned me told me how to escape!  God, are you there? Are
you seei God?  Do something!  Do anything!  Help me!

Out of the bushes they jumped.  Three of them.  Run, fast.  They'd
never catch me if I ran fast enough.  My le unlocked, they ran ... but
not fast enough.

Scream, scream loud and louder!  I fought with kicks and scratches, I
butted my head bac .  t the teeth of the boy who pinned my arms behind
me God didn't hear me cry for help.  Nobody heard.  Scre scream, and
then scream again until I could scream no more, Just feel the shame,
the humiliation, the ruthless hands t ripped and tore and violated.

See the other boy who rose from behind the bushes d st' to there
paralysed, staring at me with his hair pasted c'Onhi forehead from the
rain that come down hard now.  See him ru away!

My screams brought Papa flying into the room.

"Darling, darling," he cried, falling to his knees so he could gather
me into his arms.  He cuddled me against his chest and stroked my back,
my hair.

"It's all right, I'm here.  I'll always be here.  "You shouldn't have,
shouldn't have," I choked, still trembling from the shock.

"What did you dream this time, my love?"

"Bad things.  Same awftil thing."

"Tell Papa everything.  Let Papa take away the pain and shame.  Do you
know now why I warn you to stay out of the woods?  That was your
sister, Audrina, your dead sister.  It doesn't have to happen to you.
You're letting that scene into your head when all I want is for you to
travel beyond the woods and take for yourself all the special ness she
used to have.  id you see how happy she-could be?  How joyful and
vibrant?  Did you feel how wonderful it used to be for her when she
stayed out of the woods?  That's what I want for you.  Oh, my sweet
Audrina," he whispered with his face buried deep in my hair, 'it won't
always be that way.  Someday when you sit down to IM 11 IA33WS the
woods, forget the boys, and beauty of being alive, and once you do, all
the M Ve forgotten, the good things, will come wholeagain."  and make
you I wasn,t whole ling me, with good intentions, that -if that were
so, what was I?  Crazy?

night, we'll do this again.  I don't Oink it was as out of it and as
before.  This time you pulled came bad to save myself from this room
and this chair.  had to convince him I had gone on beyond the I had
already found the gifts the First Audrina no he tucked me into bed, and
on his knees he said send me safely into sweet dmams, asking the angels
protect me through the night.

My cheek and said he loved me, and even as he door behind him, I was
wondering how I could him not to make me go to that room and sit in
that How could I hate what he did to me, and love the what he wanted?
How did I preserve me when ing to turn me into her?

I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling, trying Past in all the
fancy swirls in the overhead plaster.  given me many clues as to what
would make him Papa wanted lots and lots of money, for himself, for for
me, too.  He wanted to fix up this house and make Dew again.  He had to
fulfill all the promises he'd made Lana Whitefern, the heiress every
worthy man on the "F st Coast had wanted until she married him.  What a
imy mother had been.  If only she hadn't given birth to Tuesday
Teatime Christmas came and went, but I hardly remembered anythina but a
Princess doll that showed up under the tree."  making Vera jealous,
even though she often insisted she was much too old to play with dolls.
It scared me the way time moved along so swiftly, so that even before I
knew what was happening, spring was on its way.  Days were falling into
the holes in my memory.  Vera liked to torment me by Saying that anyone
who couldn't keep track of time was insane.

Today was TuesdaYj and Aunt Mercy Marie would visit again, even though
it seemed to me only Yesterday that Mercy Mane had been brought out for
teatime.

Papa was taking his time about leaving this Tuesday morning.  He sat at
the kitchen table expounding on life arid all its complexities, while
Vera and my aunt consumed pancakes as if they would never eat again.
Soberly my mother was Preparing the canaP s and other treats for
'teatime'.

9 "They were the best of times; they were the worst of times began MY
Papa, who loved to say that phrase over and over again.  It seemed to
grate on my mother5s nerves as much as it did on mine.  He made it an
awesomely fearsome thing to even think beyond tomorrow.

On and On he went, making his time to be young seem.  so much better
than any time I was likely to know.  Life had been perfect when Papa
was a boy; back then people hadd bbeenn nnicc r; houses had been
constructed to last forever and not fall apart as they did nowadays.
Dogs, too, had been better when he was a boy, really reliable, sure to
bring back every hurled stick.  Even the weathir was better, not so hot
in the summers, r so cold in the winters, unless there was a blizzard.
Then, no blizzard now had a chance of equalling the freezing ferocity
of the blizzards Papa had to trudge home from school in.  miles," he
boasted, 'through the wind and SWW, sleet and rain, through the hail
and ice, nothing borne even when I had pneumonia.  Even when I was
school on the football team and broke my leg, that me from walking to
school every day.  I was hardy, to be well educated, to be the best
there was.  I slammed down a dish so hard it cracked.

"Damian, .  Her voice was harsh, impatient.

"Can't you false notions you plant in your daughter's mind?"  other
kind of notions have either one of you ever asked Aunt Ellsbeth
sourly.

"If Audrina grows UP to , it will be a miracle."  to that," contributed
Vera.  She grinned at me and out her tongue.  Papa didn't notice, he
was too busy at my aunt.  ?  What is normal?  "In my opinion normal is
only , mediocre.  Life belongs to the rare exceptional who dar esto be
different."

2 will you please stop expounding on your ideas to too young to
understand that you are not an authority .  g except how to run your
mouth all day long."  nce!"  bellowed Papa.

"I won't have my wife ridiculing front of my only child.  Lucky,
apologize immediwas Aunt Ellsbeth smirking?  It was my secret belief
aunt loved to hear my parents argue.  Vera made some noise and, with a
great deal of dfficulty, rose to her limped towards the front hall.
Soon she'd be boarding lbus I'd sell my soul to ride on like every
other child wasn't as special as I was.  Instead, I had to stay home"
for playmates, with-the kind of adults who filled my head hodgepodge
notions and then stirred them up with a 's stick of contradictions.  No
wonder I didn't know who or which day of the week, month or even year
it was' 't have any best or worst times.  I lived, it seemed to me3l
eatre, with the exception being the actors on stage were .  y members
and I, too, had a role to play only I didn't what it was.  of a sudden,
for no reason at all, I was looking around the kitchen and remembering
a large orange tat who used to sleep near the old cast iron stove.

"I wish Tweedle-Dee would come home," I said wistfully."

"I'm even lonelier since my cat went away."

Papa jolted.  Mornma stared at me.

"Why, Tweedle Dee has been gone for a long, long time, Audrina."  Her
voice sounded strained, worried.

"Oh, yes," I said quickly, "I know that, but I want him to come home.
Papa, you didn't take him to the city pound, did you?  You wouldn't put
my cat to sleep, would you just because he makes you sneeze?"

He threw me a worried look, then forced a smile.

"No, Audrina, I do the best I can to cater to all your needs, and if
that cat had wanted to sMy and make me sneeze myself to death, I would
have suffered on in silence for your sake."

"Suffered, but not in silence," muttered my aunt.

I watched my parents embrace and kiss before Papa headed for the
garage.

"Have a good time at your tea party," he called back to Momma, 'though
I wish to heaven you'd let Mercy Marie stay dead.  What we need is
someone to live in that empty cottage we own; then you'd have a nice
neighbourly woman to invite to your teas."

"Damian,"called Momma sweetly, you go out and have your fun, don't you?
Since we're held captives here, at least let Ellie and me have ours."

He grunted and said no more, and soon I was at the front windows
watching him drive away.  His hand lifted in a salute before he drove
out of sight.  I didn't want- him to go.  I hated Tuesday teatime.

Teatime was supposed to begin at four, but since Vera had started
playing ho6iej to escape her last class in order to reach home by four,
teatime had been moved up to three o'clock.

Wearing my best clothes, I sat ready and waiting for ritual to begin. I
was required to be there as part of my social education, and if Vera
was incapacitated enough to stay home legitimately, then she was
invited to the parties, too.  I often thought Vera broke her bones just
so she could stay home and hear what went on in our best front salon.

My tension built as I waited for Momma and my aunt to, First came
Momma, dressed in her prettiest own a soft, flowing, wool crepe in a
pretty coral piping of viblet to match her eye colour.  She wore , and
earrings with real diamonds and pearls to choker.  It was heirloom
Whitefern jewellery she'd times would be mine one day.  Her magnificent
up high, but a few loose curls dangled down to k not so severe, but
instead, even more elegant.  my aunt in her best outfit, a dark navy
blue suit white blouse.  As always, she wore her dark in a figure-eight
knot low on the back of her neck.

studs were in her ears, and on her small finger a ruby class ring.  She
looked very swc sc will you let Mercy Marie in?"  said Momma sweetly.
was the only day my mother was allowed to call her her nickname.  Only
Papa could call my aunt Ellie any dear, you are late," said Aunt
Ellsbeth, getting up to fift he, and taking from underneath the heavy
silver enclosed' the photograph of a fat woman with a very "Really,
Mercy Marie, we expected you to arrive on 've always had the annoying
habit of arriving late.  To impression, I suppose.  But dear, you'd
make an even if you arrive dearly  Momma giggled as my down and primly
folded her hands in her lap.

"The t too hard for you, dear" is it?  But it is sturdy enough 5 .
Again Momma giggled, making me squirm for I knew the worst was yet to
come.

"Yes, Mercy we do understand why you're always tardy.  Running those
passionate savages must be very exhausting.  really should know it's
been rumoured about that you in a pot by a cannibal chief and eaten for
dinner.  and I are delighted to see that was only a malicious she
crossed her legs, and stared at that portrait on placed just where
music sheets were usually stacked.  part of Momma!s role to get up and
light the candles in candelabra while the fire snapped and crackled,
and the gas lamps flickered and made the crystal prisms on chandeliers
catch colours, and dart crazily about the room, .  "Ellsbeth, my dear,
my darling," said my mother, for tllt dead woman who had to
participate, even if her ghost was ofteti rebellious, 'is that the only
suit you own?  You wore it last weq and the week before, and your hair,
good God, why don't you change that hair style?  It makes you look
sixty."

Momma's voice was always sickeningly sweet when st spoke for Aunt Mercy
Marie.

"I like my hair style," said my aunt primly, watching ray mother roll
in the tea wagon loaded down with all the goodie, Momma'd prepared
earlier.

"At least I don't try to look Hike' pampered mistress who spends all
her time tryJ aa y L 4 egotistical sex maniac.  Of course, I realize
that'stght 4e0o PnlLl d of man there is.  That is exactly why I chose
to stay single."

"I'm sure that's the only reason,"saidmy mother in hero voice.  Then
she spoke for the photograph on the piano.

"But, Ellie, I remember a time when you were madly in love with an
egotistical maniac.  In love enough to go to bed with him and have his
child.  Too bad be only used you to satisfy his lust; too bad he never
fell in love with you."

"Oh, him," said my aunt, snorting her disgust.

"He was just a passing fancy.  His am mal magnetism drew me to him
momentarily, but I had sense enough to forget him and move on to better
things.  I know he found another immediately.  AD men are alike
selfish, cruel, demanding.  I know now he would have made the worst
possible husband."

"Too bad you couldn't have found a wonderful man like Lucky's handsome
Damian," said that sweet voice from the piano, as my mother sat down to
nibble on a dainty sandwich.

I stared at the picture of a woman I didn't remember ever meeting,
though Momma said I had known her when I was four.  She appeared to be
very wealthy.  Diamonds hung from her ears, neck, studded her fingers.
The far trimming on her suit collar made her face seem to sit on her
shoulders.  Often I imagined if she rose, she'd have fur on her long
full sleeves and trimming the edge of her skirt, like a medieval
queen.

Mercy Marie had travelled all the way to Africa in hopes of a few
heathen souls, and converting them toity  Now she was part of the
heathens, eaten, after she was killed and cooked.

to everything I'd learned from attending these Aunt Mercy Marie once
had a ridiculous fondness for and lettuce sandwiches made with the
thinnest cheese bread.  In order to do this, my mother bad to bread,
then trim off the crust, and then flatten the her rolling pin.  The
bread was then cut with cookie into fancy shapes "Really, Mercy Marie,"
said my aunt 'harsh way, "ham cheese, chicken or tuna is not as tacky
think.  We eat food like that all the time, don7t we, >1 scowled.  I
hated to hear what shed say next, 9 cruel and biting.

"If Mercy Marie adores dainty r and lettuce sandwiches, Ellie, why
don't you let her few, instead of hogging them all for yourself?  Don't
be A pig.  Learn to share."

ietta, darling," spoke up the shrill voice from the piano, donated by
my aunt, 'please show your older sister pect, due her.  You give her
such tiny portions at , she has to make up for your stinginess by
eating the s I adore."  Mercy, you are such a dear, so gracious.  Of
course I know my sister's appetite can never be satisfied.  A pit could
hold no more than Ellie's stomach.  she tri esto fill the great
emptiness of her life with food.  for her, it replaces love."  and on
went the memorial teatime, while the perfumed burned, and the fire spat
red sparks and Aunt Ellie all the sandwiches, even those with chicken
liver which I liked very much and so did Vera.  I nibbled on ic I
hated.  This kind always tasted like Aunt Mercy might have: damp,
grassy and soggy.

Lucietta," said Aunt Ellsbeth, using the voice of the departed, casting
me a grievous look for so obviously what Mercy Marie must have loved
most.

"You d do something about that child's appetite.  She's nothing skin
and bones and huge haunted eyes.  And that ridiculous mop of hair. 
Why does she look so spooked?  From the looks of her some dry wind
could blow her away if she doesn't lose her mind first.  Lucietta, what
are you doing to that child?"

About this time I heard the squeak of the side door opening and in a
few seconds Vera crawled into the room.  She hid herself behind a
potted fern so our mothers wouldn't see her and put her finger to her
lips when I looked her way.  She had with her a huge medical
encyclopedia that had cardboard front pieces made of both the female
and male body- without clothes on.

I cdnged.  Behind me Vera giggled.  I shrank into that small luding
place in my brain where I could feel safe and unafiwd, but that place
felt like a cage.  I always felt caged when Aunt Mercy Marie's spiteful
ghost come to our front salon.  She was dead and unreal, but somehow or
other she still made me feel like a shadow without substance.  Not real
in the same way other girls were real.  My hand fluttered nervously to
feel my 'haunted' eyes, to touch my' gaunt cheeks, for sooner or later
shed get around to mentioning those things, too.

"Mercy," spoke my mother chastisingly, 'how can you be so insensitive
in front ofiny daughter?"  She stood, looking tall and willowy in her
soft, flowing dress.

I stared at that dress, confused.  Surefy shed walked into this room in
something coral coloured.  How had it changed colours?  Was it the
light from the windows making it seem violet, green and blue?  My head
began to ache.  Was it summer, spring, winter or fall?  I wanted to run
to the windows and check the trees, only they didn't lie.

Other things were said that I tried not to hear, and then Momma strode
over to the piano and sat down to play all the hymns that Aunt Mercy
Marie like to sing.  The minute my mother sat on her piano bench,
something miraculous happened; she assumed a stage presence as if an
audience of thousands would soon be applauding.  Her long, elegant
fingers hovered over the keys drama , then down they came, banging out
a commanding chord to demand your attention.

"Rock of Ages' she played, and then she was singing so beautifully and
sadly that I wanted to cry.  My aunt began to sing, too, but I couldn't
join in.  Something inside me was All this was b1se.  God w Wt UP
tbmwhen you needed him ... he never had and would.

saw my tears and abruptly changed pace.  This time was played in a rock
style that bounced through the OWon't you come to the church in the
wildwOod, W01it to the church in the vale, she sang, rocking from s de
making her breasts jiggle.

began to eat cake again..  my mother left the piano and sat on the
sofa.  I asked in a small voice, 'what's a vale?"  hing of why don't
you teach your child so met that merciless voice on the piano.  When my
head round, trying to catch Aunt Ellsbeth talking, she was hot tea,
which I knew was heavily laced with bourbon, Mommals tea was.  Maybe it
was the liquor that made so cruel.  I didn't know if they had liked
Aunt Mercy when she was alive, or if they had despised her.  I knew
liked to mock the way they thought she'd been killed, as couldn't quite
believe Papa, who had explained to me than once that Aunt Mercy Marie
might very well be and the wife of some African chieftain.

"Fat women are in many primitive societies," he told me.

"She just red two weeks after she arrived there to do her io nary work.
Don't believe everything you hear, Auhat was my worst problem what to
believe, and what not lie ve  Giggling, Mornina poured-a bit more tea
into my aunes cup some into her own.  Picking up a crystal bottle
labelled urb on she filled the two cups.  Then Momma spotted era.

"Vera," she said, 'would you like a cup of hot tea?"  Of course Vera
did, but she scowled when no bourbon was ed.

"What are -you doing home from school so early?"  shot out aunt.

"The teachers had a meeting and let all the students off earlier
usual," said Vera quickly.

"Vera, be truthful in the presence of the living dead,
"giggled-.9w1modwrl almost drunk by dib time.  Vera and I exchanged
71is was one of the only times we Could rpaH3, communicate, when we
both felt strange and baffled.

I'What do you do for amusement, Effie?"  asked my mother, in that
high-pitched, sugary voice she used for Aunt Mercy Marie.

"Certainly you must get bored, too, once in a while, living way out in
the sticks, having no friends.  You don't have a handsome husband to
keep you warm and happy in your cold, lonely bed."

"Really, Mercy," responded my aunt, looking straight into those
photograph eyes, 'how could I possibly be bored when I live with such
fascinating people as my sister and her stockbroker husband, who both
adore fighting in bedroom so much one of them screams.  Truthfiffly, I
feel rather safe in my lonely bed, without a handsome brute of a man
Who Ekesto wield his belt for a whip."

"Ellsbeth, how dare you tell my best friend such nonsense?  Damian and
I play games, that's all.  It adds to his excitement and to mine.
"Momma smiled apologetically at the photograph.

"Unfonunately, Mbeth knows nothing at all about the many ways Of
Pleasing a man, or giving him what he likes."  My aunt snorted
contemptuously.

"Mercy, I'm sure you never allowed Horace to play those kind of sick,
sexganies with YOU.V "If she had, she wouldn't be where she is now,"
giggled my momma.

Vera's eyes were as wide as mine.  We both sat silent and motionless, I
was sure both of them had forgotten we were there..  "Really, Mercy
Marie, you do have to forgive my sister, who is a bit drunk.  As I was
saying a moment ago, I do live with such fascinating people there is
never a dull moment.  one daughter dies in the woods, another com esto
take her place, and the fools give her the same name' "F beth," snapped
MY momma, bolting upright from her slouched position, 'if you hate Your
sister and her husband so much, why don't you leave and take your
daughter with you?  Surely there Must be some school somewhere that
needs aou do have the kind of sharp tongue that could really in their
place."  said my aunt calmly, still sipping her tea, "I'll never
cluttery museum of junk.  It's just as much mine as "She held her small
finger in a crooked way I admired.  could I manage to make mine stay
like that for so how my aunt had such prissy manners, and wore such
clothes.  My mother had very prissy clothes, and very mannerisms. While
my aunt held her knees close my mother parted hers.  While my aunt sat
as straight had a poker down her spine, my mother made herself rag and
assumed sensual poses.  They did everything to one another, and they
succeeded.

r contributed anything unless it was demanded of me, usually stayed
just as quiet, hoping to hear more Vera had crawled round behind a
sofa, and there she her lame leg stretched straight out, her other
pulled to her chin as she slowly leafed through that illustrated book
that showed human anatomy.  just beneath the cover was her cardboard
man of many thick paper layers.

first one he was just-naked.  When that cut-out man was over, he was
shown with all his arteries painted red" his blue.  Beneath that
colourful plate was another man with vital organs showing.  The last
plate showed the skeleton, didn't interest Vera at all.  There was also
a naked woman could be viewed inside out, too, but she never held much
rest for Vera.  Long ago she had pulled the'foetus'from the b, and in
her schoolbooks she used that tabbed baby for .  Bit by bit Vera began
taking the naked man apart, bbing his numbered paper parts and studying
them sel .  Each organ could be fitted back into proper position the
tabs were stuck through the right numbered slots.  In left hand she
clutched his male parts, even as she plucked his heart and his liver,
turning them over and over, before again took that cardboard thing from
her left hand and examined it in great detail.

How strangely men were made, I thought as she put the man back
together and he came out right.  Then she started to take him apart
again.  I turned my eyes away, By this time both MY mother and Aunt E
beth were more than a bit drunk.

"Is anything as wonderful as You thought it would be?"  D Wist WY MOmma
met my aunt's softened gaze.  q Still love am ian even if he hasn't
lived UP to his Promises.  Maybe I was only fooling myself anyway,
thinking I was really good enough to be a concert pianist.  Maybe I
married to keep from finding out just how mediocre I really am."

Tucietta, I don't believe that" said my aunt with surprising
compassion" YOU are a very gifted pianist and you know it as well as I
do.  You just let that man of yours put doubts in Your head- How many
times has Damian smoothed you by saying you wouldn't have succeeded if
you had gone on?"

"Lots and lots and lots of times" chanted my mother in a silly, drunken
way that made me want to cry.  Donlt M to me about it any more, Ellie. 
It makes me feel too sorry for myself.  Mr.  Johanson would be so
disappointed in me.  I hope he's dead and never found out I amounted to
nothing."

"Did You love him, Lucietta?"  my aunt asked in a kindly way.

I Perked up.  Vera looked up from her play with the gross naked man
whose heart she was squeezing in her hand.

Mr.  Ingmar Johanson had been my mother's music teacher when she was a
young girl.

"When I was fifteen, and full of romantic notions, I thought I loved
him."  Momma sighed heavily and rubbed at a tear that ckled down her
cheek.  She turned her head so I saw her beautiful Profile, and she
stared towards the windows where the winter sun could only dimly filter
in to pattern our Oriental with faded patches of liglit.

"He was the first man to give me a real kiss... boysinschool had, but
his was the first real kiss., Weren't all.  kisses alike?

"Did you like his kisses?"

"Yes, Ellie, I liked them well enough.  They filled me with longing.
Ingmar woke me up sexuallY and then left me Many a night I lay awake
then, and even now I and wish I'd let him go ahead and finish what he'd
instead of saying no, and saving myself for Damian."  Lucietta, you did
the right thing.  Damian would never .  you if he'd even suspected you
weren't a virgin.

s to be a modem man with liberal ideas, but he's a at heart.  You know
damn well he couldn't handle ned to Audrina any better than she could."
did she mean?  How could the First Audrina have anything when they
found her dead in the woods?

Momma turned to see me half hidden behind the She stared, as if she had
to readjust some thoughts in her "before she spoke.

"Audrina, why do you try to hide?  Come sit in a chair like a lady. Why
are you so quiet?  te something once in a while.  No one enjoys a
person doesn't know how to make small talk."

t was it the First Audrina couldn't handle any better Papa?"  I asked,
getting to my feet and falling in an ylike fashion into a chair.

rina, be careful with that cup of tea!"  , exactly what happened to my
dead sister?  What her a snake?"  t's not small talk," snapped Momma
irritably.

"Really, , we've told you all you need to know abo.  ut your 's
accident in the woods.  And remember, she would still "alive if she'd
learned to obey the orders we gave her.  I hope will always keep that
in mind when next you feel stubborn rebellious and think being
disobedient is a good way to get at your parents, who try to do the
best they can."  , Was the First Audrina hard to handle?"  I asked with
some of hearing she was less than perfect.  Tnough is enough," Momma
said more gently.

"Just ember the woods are off limits."

"But Vera goes into the woods... Vera had risen and was standing behind
the sofa, smiling at mother in a knowing way that told me she knew the
cause my older sister's death.  Oh, oh, now, suddenly, I wished
shehaWt overheard Momma's warning, for that gave Vera another weapon,
to use against me..

From the way the Party died after that, it seemed I was never going to
be a social success.  Aunt Ellsbeth put the photograph away.  Vera
hobbled up to her room, carrying one part of that naked man with her,
and I sat on alone in the Roman Revival room, realizing I couldn't ask
direct questions and expect an answer.  I had to learn how to be
sneaky, like everyone else, or I would never know anything, not even
the time of day.  Valentine's Day came that very week, and Vera limped
home from school with a paper sack full of valentines from all her
boyfriends.  She came into my bedroom with a huge red satin heart that
opened to reveal a delicious array of chocolates.

"From the boy who loves me most, "she said to me arrogantly, snatching
the box away without offering me even one piece.

"He's going to take me away from here one day, and marry me, too.  It's
in his eyes, his marvelous amber eyes.  Soon he's going to move well,
never mind where he's going to move, but he loves me.  I know he loves
inc..."

"How old did you say he was?"

"What difference does that make?"  She sat on my bed and dipped into
the chocolate box again, eyeing me in a funny way.

11 can be ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, any age.  For I have caught
the magic of the First Audrina, the Best- and Most Perfect, Most
Beautiful Audrina.  Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest
Audrina of all, and the mirror says' YOU are, Vera, you are."

"You sound crazy," I said, backing away from her.

"And you can't catch a gift that's meant only for girls with my name.
Papa told me that."

"Oh, Papa would tell you anything, and you'd be stupid enough to
believe.  I'm never going to be that dumb.  My mother was stupid enough
to let some sweet-talking guy talk her into his bed, but that's not
going to happen to me.  When the seducing is done, it will be me who
does it.  And I know how.  That medical book is teaching me all I need
to know.  upid sex courses they teach in school don't give enough all
the chocolates were gone, and when they were, Vera the empty red satin
heart.  For some reason that red touched me.  How nice of that boy to
give Vera tes.  I hadn't known Vera could inspire love in anyone, she
couldn't even inspire it in her own mother.

Lions and Lambs One day I heard the special-delivery man say to Momma,
"Isn this a lovely spring day?"  or else I might not have known it was
spring from the cold way it was.  The trees hadn't budded out yet, and
birds weren't singing.  I rejoiced to know the reason, if not the
month, but I was too ashamed to try nd ask what14 It month it was and
have people look at me with V .  t wasn't special to not know anything
about the passing of time it was crazy.  Maybe that was why they were
ashamed to tell me why the First Audrina died.  Maybe she'd been crazy,
too.

Daring his scorn, I ran after the delivery man and asked my silly
question.

"Why, it's the month of March, girl, come in like a lion.  And soon it
will go like a lamb."

Now when he put it like that, I felt I had to run to someone else and
ask what he meant.  It was cold, the wind was wild, and that I could
easily associate with a lion.  The next day I woke up and the sun was
out, squirrels and rabbits were gambolling on our lawn, and all was
right with the world, according to Papa and according to Momma.

Dinner ended the next night 'with Papa bellowing at Vera, "Get out of'
the kitchen!  I've been hearing tales about your getting caught cutting
out dirty pictures in the drugstore.  Any girl who's stealing like
that, has already proved there's fire beneath the smoke!"

"I Jidn't do anything, Papa!"  Vera sobbed.

Uter, in my room, she hurled at me.

"God cursed me with fragile bones and you with a fragile brain, but
between the two, I got the best deal."  But then she was crying.

"Papa doesn't love me like he loves you ... I hate you, Audrina, really
hate YOU.

I was baffled.  I was Papa's child, naturally -he loved me best.  I
tried to tell her this.

"Oh, you," she sprearned.

"What do you anything  You're spoiled and Pampered and YOU ore too good
for the world, but in the end it will comes out on top.  You just wait
and see!"  on a course of action, I went to papa, who seemed about
something.  He paced the floor of the Revival Salon, glancing from time
to time at Ins .  But he wouldn't let me look when I tried to.  What
want, Audrina?"  he asked impatiently.

to talk about Vera, Papa."  ,t want to talk about Vera, Audrina.
back.

"Even if she's not your daughter, you shouldn't to her."  ts she been
telling you?"  he asked suspiciously.  I.Ias n trying to explain why
you have that dream?  eyes widened.  I'd never told Vera about my worst
e. He was the only one who knew about my troubled I was sure he didn't
want Momma to worry about too.  And that dream was my curse and my
shame; never I tell Vera.  My head moved from side to side as I kept g
away.  y are you acting afraid of your own father?  Has that girl
filling your head with foul tales?"  o, Papa."

n't lie to me, girl.  I can tell when you lie, your eyes betray mean,
uncaring mood he was in made me turn and run.

into, things like armed coat racks and umbrella s, and finally fell
into a comer where I stayed just to catch breath.  That's when I heard
my aunt coming down the hall my father at her side.

"I don't care what you say, Ellie, doing the best I can to cure her.  I
am also doing the best for Vera, and that's not easy.  God, why didn't
you give h to a child like my Audrina?"

"That is exactly what this house needs," answered my aunt ly.

"Another Audrina."

"You listen to me, Ellie, and listen well.  You keep Vera away in my
daughter!  You keep reminding Vera each day of her e to keep her mouth
shut or I'll have the skin from her back and the hw ripped from her
scalp.  If ever I find out Vera was', somehow connected' .  "She
wasn't!  Of course she wasn'tP Their voices faded away.  I was left in
the shadows, feeling sick and trying to figure out what all that meant.
Vera knew the secret, knew why I couldn't remember like everyone else.
I had to get Vera to tell me.  But Vera hated me.  She'd never tell me
anything.  Somehow I had to make Vera stop hating inc.  Somehow I had
to make her like me.  Then maybe she'd tell in e the secret of
myself.

The next morning at breakfast Momma was smiling and cheerful.

"Guess what," she said as I sat down to breakfast.

"We're going to have neighbours.  Your father rented that small cottage
where Mr.  Willis used to live before he died."

That name rang a familiar bell.  Had I known Mr.  Willis?

"They're moving in today, "Momma went on.

"If we weren't expecting your Aunt Mercy Marie, we could stroll through
the woods and welcome them.  June is such a lovely month."

I stared at her open-mouthed.

"Momma the delivery man said yesterday it was March."

"No, darling, it's June.  The last delivery man to come here came
months ago."  She sighed.

"I wish I had the department store deliver -every day; then I'd have
something to look forward to besides Damian's return home."

All the joy I should have felt at the prospect of neighbours was
spoiled by my disjointed memory.  Vera limped into the kitchen then,
throwing me a mean look before she fell into a chair and asked for
bacon, eggs, pancakes, and doughnuts.

"Did I hear you say we're going to have neighbours, Momma?"

Momma?  Why was she calling my mother that?  I shot my own mean glare
her way.  I tried not to let Momma see.  She looked tired, rather
distraught as she began to make goose liver p 6 for the party.  Why did
she go to so much trouble when that woman was dead, and only Aunt
Ellsbeth would be there to eat the best of everything?

"I know who the new neighbours are," smirked Vera.

"The boy who gave me a box of chocolates for Valentine's Day hint edt
be moving near us.  he's eleven years old, but lies 'he looks like
thirteen or fourteen."  aunt stalked in, her long face grim and
formidable.

"He's for you, then," she snapped, making me wonder if really was much
older than I'd thought.  Gosh, why it I know anyone's age?  They knew
mine.

"Don't you .  around with him, Vera, or Damian will kick us C not
aft-aid of Papa," d Vera smugly.

"I know how to men.  A kiss, a hug, a big smile, and they melt."  are a
manipulator, I know that.  But leave that boy Are you listening, Vera ,
Mother,"answered Vera in her most scornful voice.

"Of I am listening!  Even the dead could listen!  And I don't want a
boy who's only eleven.  I hate living' way out here sticks where there
aren't any boys but the stupid ones village.

came in next, wearing a new custom-fitted suit.  He sat a napkin under
his chin so nothing would spot his pure If cleanliness was next to
godliness, Papa was a god the earth.  it really June, Papa?"  I
asked.

do you ask?"  t seems only yesterday it was March that man who ght
Momma's new dress said it was March."

t was months ago, darling, months ago.  Of course it's Look at the
flowers in bloom, the green grass.  Feel how it is.  You don't get days
like this in March."  Vera half ate her pancakes, and then was up and
heading for foyer to pick up her schoolbooks.  She'd failed her grade
and to spend eight weeks of her vacation going to summer I. "Why are
you following me?"  she bit out.  I held fast to my determination to
make Vera like me.

"Why you hate me, Vera?"

"I don't have time to list the reasons.  "Her voice was haughty. very
one in school thinks you're strange; they know you'reThat surprised
me.

"How can they when they don't know me?"

Turning, she smiled.

"I tell them all about you and Your quirky ways, staying close to the
shadows near the wall, and how you scream out each night.  They know
that you're so Cspecial' you don't even know which year, month or day
of the week it is."

How disloyal to spread family secrets.  Wounded again, my desire to
have her like me weakened.  I didn't really think she ever would.

"I wish you wouldn't talk about me to people who might not
understand."

"Understand what that you're a nutty freak with no memory?  Really,
they understand you perfectly, and nobody, absolutely nobody, would
ever want to be your friend."

Something hard and heavy grew in my chest, making it ache.  I sighed
and turned away.

"I just wanted to know what everybody else knows."

"That, my dear little sister, is totally impossible for someone with no
brain."

I whirled about and shouted, "I'm- not your sister!  I'd rather be dead
than be your sister!"

Long after she disappeared down the dirt road, I stood on the porch,
thinking maybe I was crazy.

Again, at three, Aunt Mercy Marie came to sit on our piano.  As always,
my aunt and my mother took turns talking for her.  The bourbon was
poured into the steaming hot tea, and I was given my cup of cola, with
two cubes of ice, but Momma told me to pretend it was hot tea.  I sat
uncomfortably in my very best white dress.  Because Papa wasn't there,
I was soon forgotten as those two women lit into each other, letting
loose all the frustrations they held in check all week.

"Ellsbeth," shrieked Monima after some insult about the house she
loved, 'the trouble with you is you're so damned jealous our father
loved me better.  You sit there, and say ugly things about this house
because you wish to God it belonged to you.  just as you cry your heart
out each night, sleeping alone in your bed, or lying there restless and
awake, jealous again because I always got what you wanted when you
could have had what I have if you'd kept your damned big mouth shut!"
you certainly know when to open your big mouth, V barked my aunt.

"All your life wandering through us oleum and gushing about its beauty.
Of course our left this house to you and not to me.  You set out to rob
everything I wanted.  Even when my boyfriends came to me, you were
there smiling and flirting.  You even flirted our father, flattering
him so much you made me seem cold indifferent.  But I did all the work
around here, and I still ou prepare the meals and you think that's
enough.  Well, t enough!  I do everything else.  I'm sick and tired of
being body's slave.  And as if that's not enough, you're teaching
daughter your tricks!"  ghly indignant, my mother's beautiful face
flamed red.  keep it up, Ellsbeth, and you won't have a roof over your
I know what galls you, don't think I don't.  You wish to you had
everything I do!"  ou're a fool.  And you married a fool.  Damian Adare
only what wealth he thought you'd inherit.  But you never him until it
was too late for him to back out, that our dear r hadn't paid his taxes
or had one lick of repair work done this house.  You claim to love
gaslight, but the truth of it YOU know electric lights would show
Damian just how by this house really is.  The kitchen and this room .te
our lives.  The kitchen is so bright when he steps in he can hardly see
none of us can.  In your place, I would e been honest, and if you call
honesty a fault, then by God, are flawless!"

"Ellsbeth," screamed a high voice from the piano, 'stop being to your
beloved sister."

"Go cook yourself," yelled Aunt Ellsbeth.

"Mercy Marie," said my mother in her most arrogant, ughty voice, "I
think you'd better leave now.  Since my sister of be kind to a guest,
or kind to my daughter, or kind to s house, or kind to anyone, not even
to her own flesh and lood, I think there's no reason to go on having
these tea times  say goodbye with reluctance, for I loved you and hate
to think dead.  I can't bear to see people I love die.  This has n my
pitiful attempt to keep you alive."  She didn't look at my aunt as she
said, "Ellsbeth, kindly leave this room before you say something to
make me hate you more."  MOm rna appeared on the verge of tears as her
voice broke.  Had she forgotten this was only a pretend game?  Was I
just a pretend game for her, too, so she could keep the beloved First
Audrina alive?

Wednesday morning came, and I was happy I'd written myself a note to
remind me that Tuesday was yesterday.  Now I had a grip on reality.  It
was Wednesday.  I'd write that down tonight.  At last I'd figured out a
way to keep track of the days.

As I was passing by my parents' room on the way to the kitchen, my
mother called me inside.  She was brushing her long hair with an
antique silver hairbrush.  Papa was leaning close to the dresser
mirror, making a knot in his tie.  Ever so carefully he made the turns,
the twists, the pull-th roughs

"You tell her, Lucky," said Papa in a soft voice.  He looked happy
enough to burst.  Momma turned to smile at me, too.

Eagerly I ran to be embraced and held against the soft swell of her
breasts.

"Sweetheart, you're always complaining about having no one to play with
but Vera.  But someone new is commg to take away your loneliness.  Come
November or early December, you are going to have what you've wanted
for so long..."

School!  They were going to send me to school!  At last, at long
last.

"Darling, haven't you told us many times you'd love a brother or
sister?  Well, you are going to have one or the other."

I didn't know what to say.  Visions of happy schooldays vanished.
Will-of-the-wisp dreams never came true for me, never.  Then, as I
stood trembling in the circle of her arms and Papa came to softly
stroke my hair, I felt a surge of unexpected happiness.  A baby.  A
little brother or sister would surely set me free from all their
demanding attention.  Then, maybe they'd want me out of the house and
in school, learning how to do many things I didn't know about now.
There-was hope.  There had to be hope.

Momma gave Papa a long, distressed look, full of unspoken 72 , Damian,
surely this time we'll have a boy, won't she put it like that?  Didn't
she like girls?  calm, Lucky.  The odds are with us.  This time we'll
Papa smiled at me lovingly, as if he could read my in my wide eyes.

"We already have one beautiful and daughter, so God does owe us a son."
God did owe him a son after taking the First and Best and replacing her
with only me.  my knees that night beside my bed , I put my palms under
my chin, closed my eyes and prayed: "Lord even if my parents do want a
boy, I really won't mind send them a girl.  just don't let her have
violet eyes and on hair like mine.  Don't make her special.  It's so
lonesome being special.  I wish you'd made me only and given me a
better memory.  If the First and Best is up there with you, don't use
her to model from, or either.  Make this baby wonderful, but not so
special it even go to school."  I started to close out and say amen, I
added a postscript.

"And Lord God, hurry up and let neighbours move in.  I need a friend,
even if that boy does Vera."

t a daily journal now to aid my faulty memory.  That ay my aunt and my
cousin were told the news which I'd n for a full day.  it made me feel
special for my parents i e something so important to me first.

"Yes, Ellie, is pregnant again.  Isn't that wonderful news?  Of course,
e we already have the daughter we asked for, now we're g to demand a
son."  My aunt threw my motherastartled look.  "Oh, my God,"she ponded
dully.

"Some people never learn."  Vera's pasty pallor sickened more.  Panic
seemed to fade her eyes as well.  Then she caught me staring at her and
ckly she straightened before she stood.

"I'm leaving to visit friend.  I won't be home until dark."  She stood
there waiting for someone to object, as surely eryone would if I were
to say the same words, but no one said almost as if they didn't care
whether or not Vera ever come back.  Looking surly-, Vera limped from
the kitchen.  I jumped up to follow her out to the front porch.

"Who are you going to visit?"

"None of your damned business!"

"We don't have any close neighbours, and it's a long walk tD visit the
McKennas."

"Never mind," she said, choking, tears in her eyes.

"You just go back inside and hear about the new baby, and I'll visit
Iny friend who could never stand you."

I watched her limp off down the dirt road, wondering where she could
go.  Maybe she wasn't going anywhere, but only looking for someplace to
cry alone.

Back in the kitchen Papa was still talking.

"They moved some of their things into the cottage last week, but they
only started staying there yesterday.  I haven't met them myself, but
the realtor says they've lived in the village for several years, and
always paid their rent on time.  And just think, Lucky, now you'll have
a live woman to invite to your teas, and we can say goodbye to Mercy
Mane.  Though no doubt you two enjoy imitating her cruel wit very much,
I want you to quit that game.  It's not healthy for Audrina to witness
something so bizarre.  Besides, for all you know, Mercy Marie may be
the fat wife of some African chief, and not dead at all."

Both, my mother and aunt scoffed they wanted to believe no man would
want Mercy Marie.

"We're finished with tea times said Momina dully, as if she'd finished
with all social life now that she was expecting a baby.

"Papa," I began tentatively as I sat at the tableagain, 'when did I
last see Aunt Mercy Marie alive?"

Leaning across the table, Papa kissed my cheek.  Then he shifted his
chair closer to mine so his arm could encircle my shoulders.  My aunt
got up to sit in the kitchen rocker where she knitted.  In a second or
so she was so angry with her knitting that she threw it down and picked
up a feather duster, and began to swipe at dusty table tops in the
adjoining room, keeping always close to the door so she could listen.

"It was years and years ago when you knew Mercy Marie; naturally YOU
don't remember her.  Sweetheart, stop troubling with efforts to recall
the past.  To y is what counts, y. Memories are only important to the
old who y lived the best of their lives and have nothing to to.  You're
only a child and your future stretches inviting before you  All the
good things are ahead, not You can't remember every detail of your
early " but neither can 1. The best is yet to be, some poet and I
believe that.  Papa's going to make sure you have best kind of future.
Your gift is growing stronger and and you know why, don you?"  .. me
the First and rocking chair.  That chair was giving Audrina's brain and
erasing all my memories.  Oh, I hated Why couldn't she stay dead in her
grave?  I didn't want her J wanted my own.  I pulled from Papa's
embrace.

"I'm out into the garden to play, Papa."  't go into the woods, "he
warned.  Aunt Ellsbeth seemed back into the kitchen.  She swung that
duster in such a .g way, it seemed she might whack Papa with it.  a
turned her violet eyes on her sister and said mildly, , Ellsbeth,
you're flinging around more dust than you're ig up."  .  e I was
outside, Papa's words kept resounding in my He didn't really love me.
He loved her, the First and the The Most Perfect Audrina.  For the rest
of my life I had live up to the standards she'd set.  How could I be
everything 'd been, when I was me?  I had been planning to slip through
the woods and see Our neighbours.  But my aunt called me back inside
and kept e busy all rnornmg helping her clean the house.  Momma n't
feeling well.  Something called morning sickness' had running to the
bathroom often, and my aunt would look n she did that, muttering to
herself all the time fools who risked the wrath of God.  Vera came
limping home around three, looking hot, pale and us ted  She threw me a
scathing glance and stomped up the I decided I'd check on what she was
doing before I stole s to meet the new neighbours.  I didn't want era
to 0 me.  She'd be sure to tell Papa so I'd be punished.

Vera wasn't in her room.  Nor was she in in me, prowling urprised
through my drawers in hopes of finding something to steal.  I kept
searching, hoping to surprise her.  Instead, she s me.

Inside the First Audrina's room, which Papa usually kept locked except
on the days Momma cleaned in there, Verma was seated in the rocking
chair with the calla My back.  The magic chair.  Back and forth she was
rocking, sing-song chanting as Papa made me do so often.  For some
reason it made me furious to see her there.  No wonder I wasn't
'catching' the gift Vera was trying to steal it too.

"Get out of that chairP I yelled.

Reluctantly she came back to herself, opening her Large dark eyes that
glittered just like Papa's.  Her lips curled in a sneer."

"You gonna make me, little girl?"

"Yes!"  I stormed bravely, striding into the dreaded room and ready to
defend my right to sit in that chair.  Even though I didn't want the
First and Best Audrina's gifts, I didn't want, Vera to have them,
either..  Before I could do a thing, Vera was out of the chair.

"Now you hear this, Audrina.  Number Two!  In the long run, it's going
to be me who takes the First Audrina's place.  You don't have what she
had, and you never will.  Papa is trying and trying.  to make you over
into what she was, but he's failing, and he's beginning to realize
that.  That's why he told me to start using this rocking chair. Because
now he wants me to have the First Audrina's gifts."

I didn't believe her, yet something frail within me cracked and pained.
She saw me weaken, saw me tremble.

"Your mother doesn't love you nearly as much as she loved the First
Audrina, either.  She fakes love for you, Audrina, fakes it!  Both your
parents would see you dead if they could get back the girl they really
loved."

"Stop saying things like th atV 1'll never stop saying what needs to be
said."

"Leave me alone, leave this room alone!  You are a fake, Vera, the
worst kind of fake!"  Then, taking a wild swing, I tried to hit her.
She chose to stand at that moment, and if she hadn't timed it so well,
my fist would have missed her.  As it was, it 76 smack on her law.  She
fell back on the rocking tipped over.  Surely that fall didn't do as
much as her loud howls of pain indicated, Ellsbeth came on the run.

"What have you done to my she yelled, running to help Vera stand.  Once
she on her feet, she dashed back to me and slapped my -Quickly I dodged
her second blow.  J heard Vera g, "Mother, help me!  I can't breatheV
course you can breathe," snapped my aunt impatiently, trip to the
emergency room proved Vera had four broken The ambulance men gave
Momina and my aunt funny as if they suspected Vera couldn't possibly
always be herself.  Then they looked at me and weakly smiled.  sent to
bed without an evening meal.  Papa didn't come until late because of
some business meeting, and Momma early, leaving my aunt in charge.  All
that night I heard moaning, gasping and panting as she tried to sleep.
I over like an old crone, she came into my room in the le of the night
and shook her fist in my face.

"Some day going to bring down this house and everyone in it," she in a
deadly voice, 'and you'll be the first I fell.  em r that, if you never
remember anything else, Second Worst Audrina."

Arden Lowe In the morning, I was desperate to escape the house.  Since
Ellsbeth was tending to the wounded Vera, and Momma was staying in bed
with her morning sickness, I had the first opportunity of my lifetime
to steal away unobserved.

The woods were full of shadows.  just like the First Audrina, I was
disobeying, but the sky above said there wasn't a chance of rain, and
without rain, it couldn't happen again.  Shimmering sun rays fell
through the lacy green canopy of leaves to pattern the path ahead with
golden spots of light.  Birds were singing, squirrels were chasing each
other, rabbits ran, and now that I was free from Whitefem, I felt good,
yet slightly uneasy.  Still, if ever I was going to make friends of my
own I had to make the first move and prove something if to no one but
myself.

I was going to see the new family living in the gardener's cottage that
hadn't been occupied for many years.  I'd never seen this part of the
woods, but still it seemed familiar.  I stopped to stare down at the
path, which branched off right and crookedly wandered forward, too.
Deep inside some directing knowledge told me to turn right.  Each
little noise I heard made me freeze, listen, straining to hear the
giggle I heard when I was in that rocking chair, reliving events that
had happened to the First and Best, and were glued to that chair.
Little whispers were in the summer leaves.  Little butterflies of panic
were fluttering in my head I kept hearing all the warnings: "Dangerous
in the woods.  Unsafe in the woods.  Death in the woods."  Nervously I
quickened my steps.  I'd sing like the seven dwarfs used to whist leto
make them unafraid ... now why did I think that?  That was her kind of
thought.

I told myself as I hurried along that it was time I braved the world by
myself, time indeed.  I told myself each foot away house of dim comers
and brooding whispers was me feel better, happier.  I wasn't weak,
spoiled or unfit world.  I was just as brave as any girl of ...
seven?

hing about the woods, something about the way the ne through the
leaves.  Colours were trying to speak to me what I couldn't remember.
If I didn't stop thinking , soon I'd be running and screaming,
expecting the ng to happen to me as had happened to her.  I was the u
rina left alive in the world.  Truly I didn't have to be Lightning
never struck twice in the same place.  the very edge of a clearing, I
came upon the cottage in s. It was a small, white cottage with a red
roof.  I to hide behind an old hickory tree when I saw a boy out of the
cottage door carrying a rake and a pail.  He was d slim, and already I
knew who he was.  He was the one .d given Vera the box of chocolates on
Valentine's Day.  had told me he was eleven, and in July he'd be
twelve.  most popular boy in his class studious, intelligent, witted
and fun and he had a crush on Vera.  That sort vcd he wasn't too
brilliant. But from what my aunt was s saying, men were only grown-up
little boys, and the sex knew only what their eyes and glands told
them, g else.  tching him, I could tell he was a hard worker from the
nt way he set about cleaning up the yard that was a emess of tangle
weed briars, Virginia crabgrass, spidere wore faded blue jeans that
fitted skin tight, as if he'd grown them, or they'd shrunk.  His thin
old shirt might e have been bright blue, but now it was faded
grey-white.

time to time he'd stop to rest, to look around and whistle mutation of
some bird.  Then, after a few seconds, he was to work, pulling up
weeds, throwing them in his pail, etch he often dumped in a huge trash
can.  This boy didn' the me, even though Papa and that rocking chair
had taught to be terrified of what boys might do.  Suddenly he tore off
the worn canvas gloves he wore, hurled n down and spun round, directly
facing the tree I was hiding d .  .A "Isn't it time you stopped hiding
and watching?"  he asked turning to pick up his pail of weeds to empty
it in the larger' can.

"Come on out and be friendly.  I don't bite."

My tongue stayed glued to the roof of my mouth, though hi voice was
kind.

"I won't hurt you, if that's why you're afraid.  I even know your n e
is Audrina Adelle Adare, the girl with the beautiful long hair that
changes colours.  All the boys in Whitefern' Village talk about the
Whitefem girls, and say you're the most beautiful one of all Why don't
you go to school like other girls?  Ana why didn't you write me a note
and thank me for that box of Valentine chocolates I sent you months and
months ago?  That was rude, you know, very rude not to even call on the
phone..  ., My breath caught.  He'd given me the chocolates and not
Vera?

"I didn't know you luiew me, and no one gave me the chocolates," I said
in a hoarse small voice.  I wa t sure even now that he'd send a totally
unknown girl a box of expensive chocolates when Vera was pretty enough
and already shaping into a woman.

"Sure I know you.  That's why I wrote you that note with the
chocolates.  I see you all the time with your parents," he continued.

"The trouble is, you never turn your head to see anyone.  I'm in your
sister's class in school.  I asked her why you didn't go to school and
she told me you were crazy, but I don't believe that.  When people are
crazy, it shows in their eyes.  I went into the drugstore and looked
for the prettiest red satin heart of all.  I hope Vera gave you at
least one piece, since it was all yours."

Did he know Vera that well, enough to suspect shed lie, and eat it
all?

"Vera said you gave the box of chocolates to her."

"Ahal' he said.

"That is exactly what -my mom said when I told her you must be a very
ungrateful kind of girl.  And even if you didn't eat a piece, I hope
you realize I did try to let you know there's one boy who thinks you
are, the prettiest, girl he's ever seen."

"Thank you for the chocolates," I whispered.

"I deliver the morning and evening newspapers.  It's the first time
I've spent my hard-earned money on a gift for a girl."

you do it?"

head quickly, trying to catch a glimpse.  Oh, were amber coloured.  The
sun was in them, making ost blind, but showing me in detail what a
pretty colour were, a lot lighter in shade than his hair.

"I guess , Audrina, you ran look at a girl and know right away e her a
lot.  And when she keeps walking right on by, t ever looking your way,
You've got to do something And then it didn't work,."  knowing what to
say, I said nothing.  But I did move a so he could see my face, while
MY body stayed safely the bushes.  I can understand why You don't 90 to
school could I explain when I didn't understanO unless it was "Aunt
Ellsbeth said, that Papa wanted to keep me all for If and 'train' me.
myself.  I'm Arden Since you haven!t asked, I'll introduce scr to My
hiding n Lowe."  CautiouslY, he stepped clO , craning his neck in order
to see me better.

"I'm an A e, too, if that means anything, and I think it does."

"What do you think it means?"  I asked, feeling perplexed.  d don't
come any closer.  if you do, ru run-, 1f you run, I'll only give chase
and catch you," he said"I can run very fast5' I warned.

"So can I."

1117 ld you do , you caught me, what wou He laughed and spun round in a
circle.

"I really dOet know, cept it would give me the chance to see you rally
close, and then I could find out if those eyes of yours are truly
violet, or just dark blue."

"Would it matter?"  I felt worried.  My eye colour was like my hair
colour ambiguous.  Strange eyes that could change colour xk purple.
Haunted with my moods, from violet to dark, da eyes, said Aunt
Ellsbeth, who was always telling me in indirect ways that I was
weird.

"Nope, it wouldn!t matter," he said.

"Axd4en," called a woman's voice, 'who are you talking to "Audrina,9
lie called back.

"You know, Mom, the youngest of those two girls who live in that big,
fancy house beyond the woods- She's awfully pretty, b4om, but shy.
Never met sue a shy girl before.  She stays behind the bushes, ready to
run if I come too close.  She sure isn't like her sister, I can tell
you that.  Would you say that's the Proper way to meet a boy?"

From inside the cottage, his mother laughed gaily.

"It may be exactly the right way to interest a boy like my son, who
likes to solve mysteries."

I stretched my neck to see a beautiful, dark-haired womazi siting at an
open cottage window, which showed her from her waist up.  She seemed to
me as lovely as a movie star with all that long, blue-black, curling
hair tumbling down on her shoulders.  Her eyes were dark, her
complexion as fair and flawless as porcelain.

"Audrina, you're welcome here whenever you care to visit," she called
in a friendly warm fashion.

"My son is a fine and honourable boy who would never do a thing to harm
you."

I felt breathless with happiness.  I'd never had a friend before.  I
had disobeyed, like the First Audrina, and dared the woods .. only to
find friends.  Maybe I wasn't as cursed as she'd been.  The woods
weren't going to destroy me, as they had he r.

I started to speak, to step forward and show all of myself and brave
meeting strangers on their own ground.  just as I was ready to reveal
myself, out of the depths of the woods behind me came the sound of my
name being called repeatedly, commandingly.  The voice was distant and
faint, but each time it sounded it was closer.

It was Papa!  How did he know where to find me?  What was he doing home
from his office so early?  Had Vera called him to tell him I wasn't in
the house or garden?  He'd punish me, I knew he would.  Even-if this
wasn't the forbidden, worst part of the woods, he didn't want me out of
sight from those who watched over me from morning until night.

"Goodbye, Arden," I called hastily, peeking from around the tree and
waving.  I waved again to his mother in the window.

"Goodbye, Mrs.  Lowe.  I'm happy to have met you both, and thank you
for wanting me to be your friend.  I need friends, so I'll be back
soon, I Promise."

Arden smiled broadly.

"See you soon, I hope."  back towards Papa's voice, hoping he wouldn't
guess I'd been.  I nearly collided with him as he came striding the
faint path.

"Where've you been?"  he demanded, hold of my arm and swinging me
halfway around him.  are you running from?"

up into his face.  As always, he looked wonderfully clean, wearing a
new three-piece stockbrokers tailored to perfection.  Even as he let go
of my arm, he away dried leaves that clung to his sleeve.  He checked
rs to see if the briars, had snagged them, and, if they he might have
treated me worse.  As it was, his quick ct ion found his new suit
undamaged, so he could smile enough to take some of the fear from my
heart.

"I've been you for ten minutes.  Audrina, haven't I told you edly to
stay out of the woods?"  ut Papa, it's such a beautiful d.1y, and I
wanted to see re the rabbits run to hide.  I wanted to pick wild
berries, and blueberries and find forget-me-nots.  I
lilies-of-the-valley to put in my bedroom to make it pretty."  ou
didn't follow this path all the way to the end, did you?"  re was
something peculiar in his dark, dark eyes, thing that warned me not to
tell him about meeting Arden e and his mother.  o, Papa.  I remembered
what I promised and stopped owi g the rabbit.  Papa, rabbits run so
very fast."

"Good," he said, snatching my hand again and spinning me d so I could
do nothing but be dragged along as I tried keep up with the stride of
his exceptionally long legs.

"I hope never lie to me, Audrina.  Liars come to no good end."
Nervously, I swallowed.

"Why are you home so early, apa He looked backward to scowl.

"I had a feeling about you this orning at breakfast.  You looked so
secretive.  I sat in my office wondered if you might not just get the
notion to visit the new people who moved into that cottage.  Now hear
this, girl, you are never to go over there.  Understand?  We need the
rent 'money, but they are not our social equals, so leave them
alone."

It was terrible to have a fitther who could read your mind.  I had to
try again to make him see how much I needed friends.

"But, Papa, I thought you said Momma could invite the new neighbour
lady to Tuesday teas."

"No, not after what I found out about them.  There are a lot of old
sayings in this world, and most of them should be heeded.  Birds of a
feather flock together and I don't want my bird flocking with those
beneath her.

"Common People will steal your special ness and make you just a member
of the herd.  I want you to be a leader, one who stands out from the
crowd.  Peopleare sheep, Audrina, stupid sheep, ready to fOllow the One
who has the strength to be different.  And you don't have to worry
about having frieD ds when our family is going to increase soon.  Think
of how much fun it will be to have a little brother or sister.  Make
that baby your best friend."

"Like Momma and her sister are friends?"

He threw me a hard look.

"Audrina, your mother and her sister are to be pitied.  They'live in
the same house, share the same meals, and refuse to accept the best
each could give the other.  If only they'd break through that wall of
resentment.  But they never will.  Each has her pride.  Pride is a
wonderful thing, though it can grow out of proportion  What you see
each day is love that turned inside out and turned into rivalry."

I didn't understand.  Adults were still like the prism lights, changing
colours constantly, confusing my thoughts.

"Sweetheart, promise you won't go into the woods again."  I Promised.
He squeezed too hard on my fingers not to promise.  He seemed satisfied
and eased his pressure.

"Now, here's what I want you to do.  Your mother needs you now that
she's not feeling well with this pregnancy.  It goes that way
sometimes.  Try to help her as much as you can.  Promise never to
disappear and not let me know where you are.  I But he wasn't going to
let me go anywhere, not ever.  Did he think I might run away?

"Oh, Papa," I cried, throwing my arms about him again.

"I'll never leave you!  I'll stay and take care of you when you grow
old.  I'll always love you, no matter what!"  shook his head, looking
sad.

"You say that now, but you 't remember when you meet some young man you
think love.  You'll forget me and think only of him.  That's the life
is, the old have to make way for the young."  Wo, Papa, you can stay
with me even if I do marry... and 't think I will."

hope not.  Husbands have a way of not wanting Parents Nobody wants old
people around to clutter up their and create more expenses.  That's why
I have to make and more money, to save for my old age and your er's."

"Staring up at him, I felt old age would never touch him.  He.  too
strong, too vigorous for age to grey his hair and put es on his face
and sag his jowls.

"Are old ladies unwanted, too?"  I asked.

"Not your mother's kind," he said with a bitter smile.  ome body would
always want your mother.  And if no man s her, she'd turn to you... so
be there when or if she needs Be there when I need you, too."
shivered.1 not enjoying this kind of serious, grown-up talk I had just
met the first boy I could like.  We drew near the edge of the woods
now, where the trees to spread out and the lawn began.  Papa was still
weet, there's an old lady at-the house whom you've never t. Your mother
and I both want a boy so much, we feel we it wait until the birth to
find out what sex we're going to e. And I've been told this lady, Mrs.
Allismore, has a talent predicting the sex of an unborn child."  As we
neared the house, I paused to stare up at our grand house that I saw as
a stale and time-worn wedding cake; cupola was where the bride and
groom should have been but weren't.  I saw the tall, narrow windows as
sinister, slotted eyes, looking out.  When I was inside, I saw the
windows as looking inward, keeping an eye on everyone, especially me.

Papa tugged me on.  A strange little black car was parked on bur long,
curving drive that needed repaving.  Weeds shot up in all the many
cracks that I was careful to step over, not wanting to break my
mother's back.  I tried to pull my hand lice in Papa's 30 I wouldn't
have to be there and wa something that might be scary, but Papa pulled
tch front door, giving me no opportunity me through the in the cupola.
Once the doors were c1to run to MY hideaway osed behind us I was
released.  Adroitly, I avoided putting my feet on any rainbowed design
the sun made through the stained glass windows in the doors.

In, the best of the front salons, My mother, Aunt Effibeth Vera, and an
old, old woman were gathered together.  Momm' was I ing on the purple
velvet chaise  The old woman lea aned above her- The moment she saw us
come in, she took the wedding band from my Mother's finger, and tied it
to a piece of string.  Vera leaned closer, looking very interested.
Slowly, slowly, that old woman began to swing the ring tied to a string
over my mothers Middle.

"If the ring swings vertically, it will be a boy3 "Muttered the Old
woman.

"If it swings in a circle, it will be a girl."

At first the ring moved erratically, terribly undecided; then it paused
and changed course, and Papa began to smile.  Soon his smile vanished
as the ring tried to make a circle.  Papa leaned forward and began to
breathe heavily.  Aunt Ellsbeth sat very tell and straight; her dark
eyes held the same intense expectancy as Papa's eyes.  Vera drifted
closer, her ebony eyes wide.  Monima lifted her head and craned her
neck to see what was going on, and why nothing was being decided.  I
swallowed over the lump that closed my throat.

"What's wrong?  "Momma asked in a worried way.

"You have to stay calm," croaked Mrs.  Allismore.  Her witch like face
screwed up like a tiny wrinkled prune.  Her .  scule mouth pursed into
a crudely stitched buttonhole.  Hours seemed to pass instead of seconds
as that ring on the string kept chang ix4 directions, settling
nothing.

"Has your doctor mentioned twins?  asked the old crone withaPerplexed
frown.

"No," whispered Momma, appearing even more alarmed.

"He said the last time I went that he heard only one heartbeat."

Papa reached to take her hand in his, then raised it to his4 1, rubbing
it against his faint stubble.  I could hear the raspy sound.  Then he
leaned to kiss Momma's cheek.  cky, don't look so concerned.  This is
all tomfoolery ay.  God will send us the right child; we don't have to
Momma insisted that Mrs.  Allismore try for a while Five excruciating
minutes passed before the old woman unued the string from the ring and
handed Momma her band.

"Maam, I hate to say this, but what you're is not mate or fern ale

let out a small terrified cry.  ever before had I seen Papa fly into
such a rage.

"Get out here!"  he yelled.

"Look at my wife!  You've scared her half death."  He shoved the old
woman towards the door, and to utter amazement he shoved a
twenty-dollar bill into her Why was he paying her so much money?

"It's fifty Uars, sir."

"Ies twenty or nothing for a report like that," barked Papa, V' g her
outside and locking the door behind her.  When I the salon again, Vera
had move into the shadows to at Papa with hard eyes She had a huge
chunk of chocolate in her hands, left for me to eat for dinner dessert
... and de aten twice as much last night.  Catching my glare, she ed
and licked chocolate from her fingers.

"All gone, now, t Audrina.  None left for you, because you had to steal
.  Where did you go, sweet Audrina?"

"Shut up!"  ordered Papa, falling on his knees beside the cOuFh where
Aomma lay crying.  He tried to console her by ata ting it was a
crackpot idea in the first place.  Momma threw her arms about him and
really bawled.

"Damian, what could she have meant?  Everyone says her predictions come
true every time."

"Well, not this time."

Vera balled up the wax paper that had held her cake and shoved it in
her pocket.  "I believe Mrs.  Allismore is one hundred percent right.
Another freak is about to some into this Whitefem house.  I can smell
it in the air.  "With that she headed toward the foyer- but not quickly
enough.  In a bounding flash, Papa was on his feet, and she was over
his knee.  He yanked'-iier , , up skirIt and began to spank her so
hard I could see through her transparent, white, nylon pants how red
her buttocks grew, She screamed and fought him, trying to wriggle free,
but in no way could she match his strength.

"Stop it, Damian!"  screamed my mother and my aunt simultaneously.

"That's enough, Damian," Momma finished, .  I rising up on one elbow
and looking very weak.

Ruthlessly, Papa shoved Vera off his lap so she fell on the floor.  She
began to crawl away, trying to tug down her skirt and cover- her
pants.

"How could you, Damian?"  asked my aunt.

"Vera is a young woman much too old to be spanked.  I wouldn't blame
her if she never forgives you."

After that, we ate dinner.  Everyone was so angry that only Vera and my
aunt managed to clean their plates.  Later that night I heard Momma
sobbing in Papa's arms, still worried about her unborn baby.

"Damian, something is wrong with this baby.  Sometimes it moves
constantly, keeping me awake, and other times it doesn't move at
all."

"Sssh," he comforted softly.

"All babies are different.  We're two healthy people.  We'll have
another healthy baby.  That woman has no more divining power than I
do."

What could have been a wonderful summer was spoiled because Vera
insisted on following me everywhere.  Time and again I tried to slip
through the woods without Vera knowing, but she seemed to smell my
thoughts and, like an Inch-an, she was on my trail.  Though Arden's
mother insisted that we call her Billie, this felt strange.  When she
kept insisting, finally I did.  She was the only adult Id ever met who
was ready to share her adult knowledge with me in a way I could
understand.  I liked it best when I could steal over without Vera, who
had a way of dominating all conversations.  Every time we visited, we
both went away wondering why Billie didn't mivite us into her cottage.
I was too polite to say anything.  V ra was pretending to be mannerly,
so she didn't mention it either.

One day I heard Arden tell Billie that Vera was twelve.  I stared at
him, feeling very strange.  He knew more about Vera that I did.

"Did she tell you that?"  I asked.

"Gosh, no," he laughed.

"Vera's got nutty ideas about telling But she is listed on the school
register, and I happen she's twelve."  He gave me a shy smile.

"Are you trying me you don't know your own sister's correct age.

y I covered up.

"Of course I do.  She says people have memories, so she's going to pass
around so many lies, no 'will ever know years from now just what age
she was his er.1 pite Vera, I did have fun that summer.  It seemed to
me Billie gave me three times the warmth she gave Vera, and ful as it
seemed, she seemed more concerned about my than my own mother did.  But
Momma wasn't feehng and I could forgive her.  Dark circles came beneath
her She walked with her hand supporting her back.  She playing the
piano and even stopped reading her rback romances.  Every day she'd
fall asleep on the purple se with the book on her swollen breasts.  I
loved her so h I'd stand and watch her sleeping, so afraid for her and
little baby that wasn't a boy or a girl.  Vera was telling me he time
it was going to be a 'neutered' baby of no sex, like doll.

"Nothing between its legs," she'd laugh.

"That does ppen sometimes.  It's a fact.  One of the bizarre things
that re can do.  It's writ-ten about in medical books."  onthly cramps
which kept Vera in bed gave me my best esto run to Arden and Billie.
Arden and I ate picnic lunches er the trees, spread on red and white
checkered gingham lecloths.  I never felt afraid of Arden.  He never
tried to touch or kiss me, but his eyes always looked at me with .oa.
When finally he did touch me, it was to feel my I didn't mind that.

"When is your birthday?"  he asked one day while I was sprawled on my
back, staring up through the tree above, trying to see the clouds and
make them into sailing ships.

"September the ninth," I answered unhappily.

"I had an older sister who died exactly nine years before I was born.
She had my very same name.

Until I'd said this, Arden had been busy hammering a dent Put of some
tiny wheel he meant to use on something.  He stopped hammering and
stared at me in a strange way.

"An older sister?  With your same name.

"Yes.  She was found dead in the woods, under a golden rain tree and
because of that."  I'm never supposed to come here."

"But you are here," he said in a strange voice.

"How do you dare to come?"

I smiled.

"I'd dare anything to visit Billie."

"To visit my mom?  Why, that's very sweet, but what about me?"

That's when I turned on my side so he couldn't see my face.

"Oh, I guess I can put up with you."  I turned to peek at him, and he
was just sitting there cross-legged in his white shorts, his chest bare
and glistening where sunlight hit it.

"Well," he said, picking up the hammer and beginning to beat on that
little wheel again, "I guess that tells me you've got a lot of growing
up to do, or else it tells me you're quite a lot like your sister after
all."

"She's not my sister, Arden, but my cousin.  My parents only pretend
she's theirs to save my aunt from the shame.  My aunt went away and
came back almost two years later.  Vera was only one year old.  My aunt
was so sure the father of Vera would take one look at his baby and fall
in love with her.  It didn't happen that way.  While my aunt -was gone,
he married someone else."

Arden didn't say one word.  He just smiled to let me know he didn't
care who Vera was.

Arden loved his mother more than I thought boys ever could.  When she
called him, he'd jump up to fly into the house.  He'd hang up her wash
and take it down.  He carried out the garbage cans, something my papa
would never do.  Arden had strong principles about honesty, loyalty,
about helping those who needed it, about devotion and dedication to
duty, and he had something else he didn't talk about, but I noticed it
anyway.  He had an aesthetic eye that seemed to appreciate beauty more
than most people did.  He'd stop in the woods and work for hours to dig
up a bit of quartz that looked like a huge pink diamond.

"I'm going to have this made into a pendant for the girl I marry some
day.  I just don't know what form it ought to take.  What do you think,
Audrina?"

I felt envious of that girl he'd marry one day even as I took and
turned it over.  it had many strange c0n tions, but in the centre were
colours so bright and clear it resembled a rose.  Why not a rose?  Just
the blossom full open, not a bud."  'he said, tucking the quartz A rose
blossom it will be, then, his pocket.

"Some day when I'm rich, I'm going to give girl I love everything she's
ever dreamed of wanting, and 901.Dag to do that for my mom, too."  A
shadow passed over face.  The only thing is, money can't buy what my
mom ts most."

"What's that?  If that's not too personal to ask."  It's personal, very
personal.  He grew silent, but that was right.  We could go for hours
without speaking and still we to feel comfortable with each other.  I
lay on the grass g him repair his bicycle, glancing at his mother in
the dow as she blended some mixture for a cake, and I thought was the
way real families were supposed to live, without ,!  Shouting, arguing,
fighting all the time.  Shadows in the house put shadows in the mind. 
Out here under the sky and trees the shadows were only temporary. 
Whitefera was permanently, densely shadowed.

"Audrina," Arden said suddenly, still fiddling with the spokes of his
bike, 'what do you really think "of me?"

I liked him more than I wanted to admit, but in no way did I want to
tell him that.  Why would a boy of twelve want to waste his time on a
girl of seven?  Surely Vera must appeal to him more.  But I didn't want
to ask this, either.

"You are my first friend, Arden, and I guess I am very grateful you
bother with me at all."

His eyes met mine briefly, and I saw something glistening in them like
tears why would he cry because I said that?

"I'm going to have to tell you something one day, and you're not going
to like me after I do."

"Don't ever tell me if that's what it will do.  For I don't want to
stop liking you, Arden.".

He turned away then.  What did he have to tell me that wotuld make me
dislike him?  Did Arden have to have a secret, too, just like everybody
else?

One early morning I ran to meet Arden so he could teach mehowto catch,
fish and bait the hook with live worms' Vera trailed along behind,
though I'd tried to slip out unseen.  I didn't like spearing the worms
on the hook, so soon Arden was pulling out his kit of fancy flies and
trying to show me how to cast from shore.  He stood on a river bank
higher than most to demonstrate the right technique.  Seated beside me,
Vera leaned to whisper about Arden in his red swimming trunks, giggling
and pointing to where all the little babies would come from.

"I don't believe one word of what you say,"I whispered back, turning
red and knowing perfectly well that what she said was true.  Why did
she make everything about boys seem so vulgar and gross?  As much as I
disliked Vera, she did have a way of digging up all the facts no one
else wanted to talk about.  I figured her interest in medical books was
teaching her more about life than I'd ever fir id out on my own.

"I'll bet you and Arden have already played show and tell."

Laughing more, she explained what she meant.  I slapped at her for even
thinking we'd do that.

"I hate you sometimes, Vera!

"Hey, you two," called Arden, turning to hold up his catch.

"This is a really big one.  A bass and big enough for all of us.  Let's
take it to Mom and she'll broil it for our lunch."

"Oh, Arden," exclaimed Vera, clasping her hands together and widening
her dark eyes with awe.

"I do believe that's the granddaddy fish all the fishing experts around
here have been trying to catch for years and years.  And to think you
caught it.  What a wonderful fisherman you are."

Usually Vera seemed to annoy Arden, but this time he smiled broadly,
flattered by her praise.

"Gosh, Vera, it just jumped on my line."

I hated him for falling for her stupid flattery, for not recognizing
that Vera would say anything to make him look at her more than he
looked at me.  I jumped to my feet and ran to where I'd left my
sundress.  Behind concealing bushes I hoped to change from my swimming
suit into my clothes.  But my clothes were gone, even my sandals!
Already my white bathing suit was on the ground, wet and muddy, and I
was everywhere thinking my clothes might have been away.

"Vera, did you hide my clothes?"  that instant, as I looked in another
direction, I caught a e of a quick hand that snatched up my discarded
bathing I recognized the ring on her finger.  Vera's hand.  I yelled
her and started to give chase, but Arden was out there and .  't have
on one stitch.

"Arden," I cried, 'stop Vera!  She's len all my clothes and my
bathingsuit, too."  Almost crying, looked around for something I could
use to conceal my ty.  I heard Arden thrashing around in the bushes,
calling Vera and then he was coming my way, making plenty of noise.

drina, I can't find Vera.  She can't run very fast, so she must hiding.
You can put on my shirt.  It's long enough to cover u until you reach
home."  Daring to peek, I saw him turn to head for where he'd left his
clothes.

"Hey!"  he cried, 'my clothes are gone, too!  But it's all right,
Audrina.  You just stay where you are and I'll run 'home and ask Mom to
loan you something of hers to wear home."  I At that moment my father
came running through the bushes, shoving them aside as he yelled at
Arden, "Where my aughter?"  He looked wildly around, then riveted his
threatening eyes on Arden again.

"All right, young man, where is Audrina?  What have you done to her?"

Shocked into momentary speechlessness, Arden shook his head, unable to
say a word.  Then, as my father advanced, his huge hands balling into
fists, he found his voice.

"Sir, she was here a moment ago.  She must be on her way home."

"No," growled Papa, knitting his thick brows and scowling.

"I would have passed her on the way if that were true.  If she's not
home, and she's no there where else can she be?  I know she visits you
and your mother often.  Vera told me that.  Now where the hell is
Audrina?"

There was an edge of panic in Arden's voice.

"I really don't know, sir."  He leaned over to pick up his catch of
fish.

"I was teaching Audrina how to fish.  Shi6 doesn't like hurting the
worms, so I was showing her how to cast with flies.  Audrinacaught two
of these big ones, and Vera caught one.  Here's the one I caught."

Papa's back was to me.  If I dared, I might be able to sneak away and
perhaps he'd never even see me.  Scrunching down, I began to steal
away.  Suddenly I was shoved from behind.  I screamed as I fell face
forward, directly into a briar bush.

Papa bellowed my name.  He came charging my way, thrashing through the
heavy underbrush, yelling to find me naked, screaming out his rage as
he tore off his expensive summer sports jacket and threw it over my
shoulders.  Spinning on his heel, he raced back to where Arden stood
and seized him by the shoulders.  Then brutally he began to shake hinL
"Stop it, Papa!"  I yelled.

"Arden hasn't done anything wrong.  We were only fishing, and wearing
bathing suits so we wouldn't ruin our clothes.  It was Vera who stole
my sundress, and when I had my bathing suit off, she snatched that and
ran."

"You took off your bathing suit?"  roared Papa, his face so red he
seemed ready to explode.

"Papa!"I screamed as my father made another menacing move, "Arden
hasn't done anything wrong.  He's the only friend I've ever had, and
now you're punishing him for Eking me!"  I ran to where I could put
myself between Arden and my father.  He glared at me and tried to
thrust me aside, but I clung to his arms, weighing him down.

"I was changing clothes behind the bushes; Arden was still fishing.
When Vera stole my clothes, and even my bathing suit, he offered to
give me his shirt to wear, but she'd stolen his clothes, too.  just
before you arrived he was going to run home and bring back something
his mother would loan me to wear and you hit him!  You, want to punish
him for what Vera did."

Behind me, Arden jumped to his feet.

"If you feel such a need to punish someone, punish Vera.  Audrina has
never' done one thing to make you ashamed of her.  Ies Vera who plays
the dirty tricks.  And for all I know she may have been the one to tell
you what we planned to do today, hoping you'd presume the worst."

"And what is the worst?"  asked Papa sarcastically even as he close at
his side.  His jacket almost slid off my shoulders ground.  I made a
desperate grab to hold it in place.  I was to hide a bosom that didn't
exist.  apa's anger began to simmer down, but only a little.  His
uncurled, though he kept tight hold on my shoulder.  Dung man, I admire
you for trying to protect my daughter, she's misbehaved just by being
here.  Vera told me nothing., en t seen that wretch since last night at
the dinner table.  I had to do was watch my Audrina's eyes this
morning.

were shining so much at the breakfast table I immediately e
suspicious."  His smile was charming -and evil, too, as turned to me.

"You see, my love, there are no secrets you keep from me.  And if
anyone should know better than to t secretly with a boy in the woods,
it should be you."  Papa grinned, put his hand flat on Arden's chest
and thrust away.

"As for you, young man, if you want to keep that nice, straight nose of
yours unbroken, leave my daughter 'alone!"  Arden had staggered
backward from the hard shove, but he didn't fall.

"Goodbye, Arden," I called, tugging on Papa's hand and trying to move
him, along before he pushed Arden again.

Papa chose the most overgrown and difficult paths home, where
everything clawed at my face, ray legs and feet.  After a while, he let
go of my hand in order to protect his own face from being whiplashed by
the low branches.

I was having great trouble keeping his jacket in place.  The neck was
so large it kept slipping off my shoulders.  When I reached to pull it
up on one shoulder, it slipped off the other.  The sleeves dragged on
the ground, several times I tripped and fell.  impatiently he waited
for me to stand after the third fall and then he took the sleeves and
wrapped them about my neck like a heavy scarf.

Helplessly, I stared up at him, wondering how he could be so mean to
me.  "Are you feeling sorry for yourself now, darling?  Do you regret
your hasty actions deciding to risk your Papa's disfavour, to see a boy
who will only ruin you in the end.  He's only a bit of trash, not
worthy of you."

"He's not trashy, Papa," I wailed, already beginning to itch and bum.
My feet were full of cuts, my legs scratched.

"You don't know Arden."

"You don't know him eitherP he bellowed.

"Now I'm going to show you something!"  Again he seized my hand and
Pulled me along a different direction.  On and on he dragged me until I
gave up trying to resist.  Finally he came to an abrupt halt.

"You see that tree," he said, pointing to a splendid one, lush with
golden leaves that trembled in the gentle summer breeze.

"That's a golden rain tree  "There was a small mound under the tree,
covered with clover over which honey bees hovered, hummed and fingered
for nectar.

"That's where we found your older sister, sprawled there stone-cold
dead.  Only it was raining that day in September.  Raining hard.  The
sky was dark with thunder clouds, and lightning flashed, so at first we
thought she might have been struck by lightning.  But there was
evidence enough to prove it wasn't the work of God."

My heart was a wild, frantic animal in my chest, thudding hard against
my ribs, screaming and wanting to get out.

"Now you listen to me, and listen carefully.  Learn from the mistakes
of others, Audrina.  Learn before it's too- late to save yourself.  I
don't want to find you dead there, too."

The woods were closing in on me, smothering me.  The trees wanted me
dead because I was another Audrina they wanted to claim for their
own.

His lesson still not complete, heartlessly Papa dragged me onward.  I
was crying now, completely defeated, knowing he was right.  I should
never disobey, not ever.  I should never have forgotten the other
Audrma.

He was leading me to our family plot.  I hated this place.  I tried to
sit down and resist, but Papa picked me up by the waist, and holding me
rigid before him like a wooden doll, he stopped in front of the high,
slender toombstone that seemed symbolic of a young girl.  He said it
again, as he'd said it a hundred or more times in the past, and just as
before, his words made my blood chill and my spine turn mushy.

"There she lies, my First Audrina.  That Wonderful, Special Audrina who
used to look up to me as if I were God.  She trusted me, believed in
me, had faith in me.  In all my life I never had another who gave me
that kind of unquestioning love.  But God to take her from we and
replace her with you.  Them t be some meaning in all of this.  It's up
to you to make her meaningful.  I cannot bear to live with the
knowledge that may have died in vain, Audrina.  You have to take on all
gifts of your dead sister, or I'm sure God will be angered, t as I am
angered.  You don't love me enough to believe I doing the very best I
can to protect you from the very thing happened to her.  And certainly
you must have learned the rocking chair about the boys in the woods on
the day died.1 Staring up into his handsome face that soon streaked
with , I twisted in his arms so my arms went around his neck, my face
tucked down on his shoulder.

"I'll do anything you long as you let me see Arden and Billie once in
while.  I'll sit in the rocking chair, and really try to fill with r
gifts, I swear I'll co-operate as I never have before."  His strong
arms embraced me.  I felt his lips in my hair, and later he used his
handkerchief to clean my dirty face before he kissed me.

"It's a bargain.  You can visit that boy and his mother once a week as
long as you keep Vera with you, and make that boy escort you through
the woods, and never go there after dark, or on a rainy day."

I didn't dare to ask for more.

M.S.A.-D

Competition The cemetery and the rocking chair had taught me their
lessons.  From now on I'd be the kind of girl Papa had to have in order
to gain wealth and live happily.  I knew he believed his way was the
best way, and I couldn't judge for myself the right and wrong of most
situations.  And I wanted Papa to love me more than that hateful First
Audrina whom Iwished had never been born, just as I'm sure Vera wished
that I'd never been born.

"You'll never be as wonderful as your dead sister," stated Vera so
firmly that it seemed indeed she must have known her.  She was trying
to press Papa's shirt to show him she could, but she was only managing
to ruin it.  The iron kept sticking and left burned places shaped like
the iron.  Even the steam holes showed.

"The First Audrina could iron shirts like an expert," she said, bearing
down hard on the iron.

"And she was so neat with her hair.  Your hair is always a windblown
mess!

Vera7s hair wasn't exactly terrific looking, either, the way it fell
down into her face in wispy strings.  The sun through the windows shone
through her apricot hair and turned it gold on the ends and red near
her scalp.  Sun hair.  Fire hair.

"I can't understand why they'd name someone as stupid as you are after
such a brilliant girl.  You can't do anything right," she went on. What
fools parents can be.  Just because you happened to have her colouring,
they thought you'd have to have her brains and personality, too.  And
you aren't nearly as pretty.  And you're moody and dreary to be
around."  She turned down the heat on the iron, but it was already too
late.  Worry puckered her brow as she studied the bum mark and tried to
figure out what to do.

"Mom" she called, 'if I burn Papa's shirt, what should I do?"  V un for
the woods, "called back my aunt, who was glued to TV set which was
showing an old movie.

"Stupid," she said to me, 'go ask your mother what can be one to take
out the scorched place on Papa's shirt."

"I'm too stupid to know what you mean," I said, still stirring cereal
around, sure that Papa would put me in that rocking again tonight, as
he'd been doing two or three times a k, hoping the gifts were coming my
way.  Poor second-best Audrina," Vera continued.

"Too dumb to even go to school.  Nobody here wants the world to know
how idiotic you are with your senile memory."  She took from the
cabinet a huge bottle of bleach, poured a little onto a sponge and
dabbed at Papa's new pink shirt.  The shape of the iron 'made an
unsightly bum right where his coat wouldn't hide it.

I went over to see what she was doing.  The bleach seemed to be
working.

Papa stalked into the kitchen, bare-chested, cleanly shaven, his hair
styled and ready to go.  He paused near the ironing board to stare at
Vera, who looked extremely pretty now that she was shaping up and
slimming down in her waist.  Then he was, looking from me to her, then
back again.  Was he comparing me to her?  What did he see that made him
look undecided?

"What the devil are you doing to my shirt, Audrina?"  he asked,
catching his first glimpse of the ironing board.

"She was pressing it for you, Papa," spoke up Vera, moving in closer,
as if to side with him.

"And the silly girl was so busy picking on me, she left the iron flat
on your new shirt .."

"Oh, my God,"he cried, grabbing up the shirt and inspecting it closely.
He groaned again as he saw something I hadn't noticed until the light
shone through it.  Holes were appearing in the fading scorch mark.

"Look what you've done!  "he roared at me.

"This shirt is one hundred percent silk.  You've just cost me a hundred
dollars."  He saw the huge bottle of bleach then he groaned again.

"You bum my shirt, then pour on bleach?  Where was your common sense,
girl, where?"

"Don't get excited," said Vera, running forward and snatching the shirt
from his hands.

"I'll repair this shirt, for you, and you won't know it from new. 
After alb Audrina doesn't know how to do anything."

He glared at me, then turned doubtfully to her.

"How can you repair a shirt that's been eaten by bleach?  It's gone,
and I had planned to wear that to an important meeting.  "He hurled
down his wine-coloured tie, looked down at his light grey trousers,
then started to leave the kitchen.

"Papa," I began, "I didn't bum your shirt."

"Don't lie to me," he said with disgust.

"I saw you at the ironing board, and the bleach bottle wasn't a foot
away.  Besides, I don't think Vera would give a damn if my shirt was
wrinkled.  I naturally presumed you would be the one who knows how much
I like to be turned out to perfection."

"I don't know how to press shirts, Papa.  As Vera says all the time,
I'm too stupid to do anything right."

"Papa, she's lying, and what's more, I told her to turn on the steam
and use a press cloth, but she wouldn't listen.  But you know how
Audrina is."

He seemed ready to flare back when he noticed my look of despair.

"All right, Vera.  That's enough.  If you can salvage this shirt, I'll
give you ten dollars."  He smiled at her crookedly.

True to her word, that evening when Papa came home, Vera showed him his
pink shirt.  It looked brand new.  He took it from her hands, turned it
over and over to look for patch stitches and could find none.

"I don't believe my eyes, "he said, and then laughed as he pulled out
his wallet.  He handed Vera ten dollars.

"Honey, perhaps I've been misjudging you after all.

"I took it to a silk mender, Papa," she said demurely, bowing down her
head.

"It cost me fifteen dollars, so that means I lost five of my
savings."

He was listening attentively.  If there was one kind of person my papa
admired, it was one who knew how to save.

"Where did you earn the money to save, Vera?"

"I run errands for old people.  Help by shopping for their groceries,"
she said in a small, shy voice.

"On Saturdays, I walk all the way to the village and do what I said.
Sometimes I babysit, too."

My mouth gaped.  Sure, once in a while Vera disappeared-ons, but it was
hard to picture her walking fifteen miles and another fifteen back.
Papa was triply impressed, and out another ten and gave that to her.

"Now this shirt cost me a hundred and twenty, but it's better than
throwing it "away.

He didn't even look at me as he impulsively planted a un ding kiss on
her cheek.

"You surprise me, girl.  I haven't 'always been nice to you.  I thought
you wouldn't care about my ruined shirt.  I even thought you didn't
love me."

"Oh, Papa,"she said with her eyes gleaming,"I love you from the top of
your hair to the tip of your toenails."

I hated her, really hated her for calling him Papa, when he was my
father, not hers

For some strange reason, he backed away from Vera, glancing down at his
shoes as if to check the horny toenails that embarrassed him.  He
cleared his throat and looked disconcerted.

"Well, it's an overdone compliment, but if it's genuine, I'm pleased
and touched., Stunned, I watched him leave the room without once
glancing my way.  He didn't come in that night to tuck me in bed, or
kiss my.  cheek, or hear my prayers, and if I dreamed of boys in the
woods, I was pretty sure on this night he wouldn't come running to save
me.

In the morning it wa Vera who poured Papa's coffee', in placcof Momma,
who seemed wilted and looked very pale.  She jumped up to put on three
slices of toast, and stood close to see that it didn't toast too long.
He liked it golden on the outside, tender on the inside, Vera fried his
bacon to perfection, and I didn't hear one complaint from him.  When he
eating, he thanked her for waiting on him, then got up to leave for
work.  Limping after him, Vera caught, hold of his hand.

"Papa, even though I know you're not my real father, can't we pretend
you are, can't we, Papa?"

He seemed uncomfortable, as if not knowing what to say, and at the same
time, touched.  Papa belonged to me and Momma, not to Vera.  I glanced
at my aunt, who sat' tight-lipped and grim, wishing both she and Vera
would leave and go anywhere away from here.

Soon Papa left.  I watched as his car turned off the dirt road that
would take him onto the expressway and into town, where he'd have lunch
with businessmen and call it work.  To my surprise, he stopped
momentarily at the letterbox on the corner where our private road
forked off to meet the main road.  I wondered why he hadn't picked up
the letters last night.  Had he been so eager to reach Momma and see
how she fared that he'd forgotten again to check the.  letterbox?

When I reached our letterbox, I found the letters were still there.
Papa hadn't picked it up, though he'd stopped, nor did it hold any
letters he was posting off.  In fact, magazines and newspapers were
bulging from the door, which wouldn't close.

It took some doing to stack my arms with all that was addressed to
Papa.  This was just what I needed.  I would win Papa back.  I knew
what he wanted from me.  I knew what Papa cared about most money.  I
had to use my gift to make Papa money.  Then he'd love me best for
ever.  I was trying to read the front page of The Wall Streetioumal
even before I reached the kitchen to toss the letters on the table.  I
raced off to find the items I needed: a pencil and notepad, and a
length of string 'and a straight pin.  I In the cupboard under the back
stairs was all the junk we wanted to keep and later throw out.  It was
there I found old copies of TheJoumal.  I laid out the quote sheets and
began to list the most active stocks, thinking two' weeks should give
me time span enough.  Even as I worked I could hear Vera upstairs
arguing with my aunt, who wanted her to help with the laundry.  Vera
wanted to go to the movies.  She was meeting a friend.

"NoVyelledmy aunt.

"You're too young to start dating."  Vera said something else that I
couldn't make out.

"No, no, no!"  I could hear very well.

"Siop pleading.  Once I say no, I mean no I'm not like some others
around here who say no and later change their minds."

"You let me do as I want or I'll spill out all our family secrets in
the middle of Main Street," shrilled Vera.

"I'll stand there until everybody knows who my father is, and what you
did the Whitefern.  name will go even farther down on the list of
scoundrels!"

40pen your mouth about family secrets and you won't get l02 dime from
me or from anyone else.  If you behave yourself, re's a chance for us
to profit sooner or later.  You antagonize an and Lucietta.  You're a
thorn in both their sides, but it can pay off for both of us if you
just try to behave yourself."

"Pleading came into her voice.

"I used to rue the day I conceived "YOU.  Many a time I wished I'd have
had an abortion, but when ou had Damian's shirt repaired and I saw how
impressed he was, I regained some hope.  Audrina doesn't have to be the
darling in this family, Vera.  Remember all that's happened to her has
given you a certain edge.  Take advantage of it.  You know how he is,
and what he needs.  Admire him.  Respect him.  Flatter him, and you'll
become his favourite.1 There was a long silence up there, and some
whispering I couldn't hear.  That all too familiar lead ball came to
reside in my chest again.  They were plotting against me and they knew
what had happened to me when I didn't.

I had almost believed that my aunt liked me.  Now I was hearing that
she, too, was my enemy.  I went back to the tab leto work with- more
determination to find just the right stock that would go up, up, up,
and make Papa very, very, very rich.

I tied my little birthstone ring to the string, figuring I could do the
same as Mrs.  Allismore and predict which stock would be a winner. Papa
was always saying trading stocks was not a science but an art, and what
I was doing seemed very creative.  I'd fastened a pin to the ring with
a bit of thread to use it for a pointer.  Twice it touched down on the
same stock.  I tried to force it to touch a third time.  Three of
anything was a magic number.  But it refused to choose the same stock
three times, even when I opened my eyes and tried to control the ring.
It seemed to have some power of its own, faltering, indecisive, the
same as Monima's wedding ring had been confused over her abdomen.

Just then I heard a loud howl.

"Where are my diamond stud earrings  shouted Aunt Ellsbeth.

"They're the only things my father left me of value, and my mother's
own engagement ring.  They're gone!  Vera, did you steal my
jewellery?"

"No," bellowed Vera.

"Perhaps you misplaced them like you do everything else."

"It's been years since I wore that ring."  You know I keep all my best
jewellery locked in a box.  Vera, don't lie.  You're the only one who
ever enters my bedroom.  Now, where are those things?"

"Why don't you ask Audrina?"

"Her?  Don't be ridiculous.  That girl would never steal a.hything;
she's got too much conscience.  It's you who doesn't have any."  She
paused as I began to fold up the newspapers, my stock list put safely
away.

"Now I know what you did to restore Damian's one-hundred-dollar pink
silk shirt," said my aunt scornfully.

"You stole my earrings and ring, hocked.  them, and bought him a new
shirt.  Damn you for doing that, Vera!  No, you are not going to the
movies.  Not today, or any Saturday!  Until the day you earn enough
money to reclaim my jewellery, you stay home!"

I'd drifted to the bottom of the stairs to hear better; then I heard a
thump, like someone falling.  Then Vera came rushing down the stairs,
with my aunt limping after her.

"When I catch you, you're going to be locked in your room for the
remainder of this summer!"  I Vera came flying in her best dress and
Jiew white shoes.  I stood in her way.  Brutally she shoved me aside
and reached the front doors before my aunt was down the back stairs.

"Audrina, you can tell that beast of a woman that I hate her as much as
I hate you, your mother, your father and this house!  I'm going to the
village, and when I get there I'm going, to sell my body on the
streets.  I'm going to stand out before Papa's barber shop and yell,
"Get your Whitefern daughter!"  I'll yell it out so loud that the men
in the city might hear, and they'll all come running!  And I'll be the
richest one yed' "You tramp!"  yelled my aunt, running through the
kitchen and heading for Vera.

"You come back here!  Don't you dare open that door and leave!"

But the door was opened and slammed shut before my aunt ran out to the
porch.  I stood looking out a window, watching Vera disappear round the
bend.  The village was fifteen miles away.  The city was thirty.  Was
she going to hitch-hike?

My aunt came and stood next to me.

"Please don't tell your what you overheard here.  There are some things
better it unsaid."  I nodded, feeling sorry for her.

"Can I help?"  Stffly, she shook her head "Don't waken your mother. She
needs to rest.  I'm going upstairs.  You'll have to fix your own
breakfast."

On Saturdays, Momma liked to sleep late, and that gave my aunt her
chance to stay in the little room off the dining room whee she kept her
little television set.  She loved to watch old movies and soap operas. 
They were the only entertainment she had.

My appetite had fled with Vera.  I didn't doubt in the least that she
would do just as she'd threatened.  She'd destroy us all.  I sat down
and tried not to think of what Arden and his mother would think.

My mind was a workshop of miserable thoughts, wondering what made Papa
the way he was, lovable and detestable, selfish yet giving.  I knew he
needed someone nearby at all times, to watch him shave, and since Momma
had to fix breakfast, it was usually me who perched on the rim of the
bathtub and listened to all the interesting things that went on in his
brokerage office.

I asked many questions about the stock market, and what made stocks go
up, and what made them go down.

"Demand," was his answer for high fliers.

"Disappointment," was his explanation for those that went down.

"Rumours of mergers, takeovers, are great for sending stocks soaring
but by the time the general public knows about those things, it's too
late to get in.  All the banks and big investors have bought and are
ready to sell off to the poor unknowing investor who buys in at the
top.  When you've got the right connections, you know what's going on
and if you don't have those connections, then keep your money in the
bank."

Bit by bit, I'd, gained a great deal of knowledge about the market.  It
was Papa's way of teaching me, too, about arithmetic.  I didn't think
of money in cents, but in eighths of points.  I knew about triple tops
that were sure to slide, and double bottoms that should take off.  He'd
showed me charts and how to read them, despite Momma ridiculing him
about my being too young to understand.

"Nonsense.  A young brain is a quick brain; she understands much more
than you do-"Oh, yes, in some ways I loved my father very much, for if
he couldn't restore my memory, he did give me hopes for my future. Some
day he was going to own his own brokerage firm, and I'd be his
manager.

"With your gifts, we can't miss," was the way he put it.

"Can't you just see it now, Audrina: D. J. Adare and Company."

Once again I went back to the most active lists and performed my string
and ring trick, and again my pin pointer touched down twice on that
same stock.  Happiness swelled in my heart.  I ha t left it to
providence.  Papa was going to make money when I gave him this dream.

And if this stock I'd chosen did go up, as by now I was fully expecting
it would, then never again would I have to sit in that First and Best
Audrina's rocking chair.  I'd have her gift or one even better.  I knew
Papa.  It was money Papa wanted, and money he needed, and money was
truly the one thing he didn't have enough of.

I raced upstairs to dtess, sure that soon i'd have my memories back,
too.  Maybe the string and ring trick would work if I swung it over the
Bible.  I laughed as I sped on by the First Audrina's bedroom and
hurried down to the kitchen, stilul tying my sash.

Momina was up and in the kitchen with blue curlers as fat as tin cans
in her hair.

"Audrina," she begin in a weary Voice 'would you mind watching the
bacon while I whip the eggs?"  Dark circles were under her eyes.

"I tossed and turned all night.  This baby is unusually restless.  just
as I fell asleep toward dawn, your father's alarm went off, and he was
up and talking ten miles a minute, trying to tell me not to worry about
what that old woman said.  He thinks I'm depressed, not tired, so he
decided that he's going to invite twenty people over tonight to a
party!  Canyou imagine anything more ridiculous?  Here I am, in my
sixth month, so tired I can hardly manage to get out of bed, and he
thinks I need cheering up by preparing fancy little goodies for his
friends.  He tells me I'm bored, when he's the one who's bored.  I wish
to God he'd take up golf or tennis, or that would use up some of his
energy and keep him away from home on the weekends.

Oh, oh, now I understood perfectly!  Somehow that sixth sense Papa
possessed had told him that today I had the gift that had to be the
real reason he wanted to celebrate.  A hundred or more times he'd told
me he'd celebrate with a party on the day my gift came to light.  So it
was true.  I did have the gift now.  Otherwise, the ring wouldn't have
settled twice on the same stock, when nine others were listed there.  I
felt so good I wanted to shout.

"Where are Ellsbeth and Vera?"  asked Momma.

I couldn't tell her about the argument and what Vera had threatened to
do.  Momma's maiden name was her most cherished possession.  And if
someone had picked Vera up, at this very moment she could be in the
village shouting out all our secrets.

To.  think of Vera was to think of reality, and soon my confidence in
my 'gift' began to wane.  All my life, or.  so it seemed, Papa had
dumped all kinds of junk into my head about the supernatural that he
believed in and Momma didn't.  I was convinced what he told me was
true, when I was with him, and convinced it wasn't true the moment he
left the house.

"Where's Ellsbeth?"  Momma asked.

"She tripped and fell, Momma."

"Cursed," murmured Momma, reaching to prod me into turning over the
bacon.

"A house of idiots, determined to make you and me idiots, too. Audrina,
I don't want you to sit in that rocking chair any more.  The only gift
your older dead sister had was an extraordinary amount of love and
respect for her father, and that's what he misses.  She believed every
word he said.  Every one of his, crackpot notions she took seriously. 
Think for yourself, don't let him rule you.  just stay out of the woods
take that warning very seriously."

"But Momma," I began uncomfortably, "Arden Lowe lives in the gardener's
cottage in the woods.  He's my only friend.  I'd want to die if I
couldn't see him often."

"I know it's lonely for you without friends of your own age.  But when
the baby comes, you'll have a friend.  And you can invite Arden over
here.  And we'll invite his mother to tea, and we won't let Aunt Mercy
Marie sit on the piano."  I ran to hug her, feeling so happy I could
have burst.

"You like him a lot, don't you?"

"Yes, Momma.  He never tells lies.  He never breaks a promise.  He
isn't so fussy he's aft-aid to get his hands dirty, like Papa.  We talk
about real things, not like the things Papa talks about so often.  He
told me once he read somewhere that a coward dies many deaths.  He says
that once he was so petrified he acted like a coward, and he can never
forgive himself.  Momma, he looks so troubled when he says that."

Pity filled her beautiful eyes.

"Tell Arden that sometimes it's better to run away, and live to fight
another day, for there is such a thing as odds too great."

I wanted to ask what she meant, but she had everything ready now to put
on the table, and Papa wasn't home, and my aunt was upstairs, and Vera
... Lord only knew what Vera was doing this minute.

"Set the table, darling, and stop looking worried.  I think Arden is a
very noble-sounding name, and he's living up to his name as best he
can.  just try to love your father as much as his first daughter did,
and he'll stop forcing you into the chair."

"Momma, when he comes home, Fin going to tell him to cancel the
party."

"You can't do that," she answered dully.

"He's driven into town to pick up party food and fresh flowers.  As
soon as his business meeting is over, he'll be rushing back here.  You
see, your father never had parties when he was a boy, and now he uses
any excuse to make up for that lack.  Men stay children at heart,
Audrina, remember that.  No matter how old they become they manage to
keep some boy inside them, always wanting what they wanted then, not
realizing that when they were boys, they wanted to be manly instead of
boyish.  It's strange, isn't it?  When I was a girl I wished we'd never
have parties, for when we did have them I wasn't invited and I had to
stay upstairs, dying to come down.  I'd hide and watch and feel so
unwanted.  It wasn't until I was sixteen that I danced in my own
house."

"Where did you dance?"

"We'd roll up the rugs and dance in the Roman Revival roomin the back
parlour.  Other times I'd steal out the window meet a boyfriend who'd
drive me to a dance.  My mother uld leave the back door unlocked so I
could sneak back in and my father would never know.  She'd come into my
room -when she heard me return, and sit on my bed so I could tell r
everything.  That's the way it's going to be with us.  When ou're old
enough to go to dances.  "I'll see that you go."

If my gift didn't set me free, maybe my mother would.

"Did have lots of boyfriends, Momma?"

"Yes, I guess I did."  Wistfully, she stared over my head.

"I msed to promise myself I wouldn't marry until I was thirty.  I
wanted my musical career more than I wanted a husband and children and
look what I got."

"I'm sorry, Momma."

Then she was touching my hair lightly.

"Darling, I'm sorry.  I'm talking too much and making you feel guilty
when it was I who made the choice.  I fell in love with your father,
and love has a way of brushing aside all other considerations.  He
swept me off my feet, and if he hadn't, I would probably have died of a
broken heart anyway.  But you be careful not to let love steal what
aspirations you have for yourseLf.  Though your father fills your head
with silly ideas, in one he's perfectly right.  You are special. You're
gifted, too, even if you don't know what that gift is.  Your father is
a good man who just doesn't always do the right thing."

I stared up into her face, feeling more and more confused.  First she
said Papa gave me idiotic notions, and then she told me his craziest
one about being special was true.

Moments later, Papa was home with his sack of groceries and florist's
flowers.  Vera came straggling after him.  She looked dirty, her hair
was a mess, and she'd been crying.

"Momma," she sobbed, running to my mother and making me feel incan
again because she was trying to claim not only my father but also my
mother.

"Papa pulled me into his car by my hair look what he did to my hair,
and I just set it last night."

"Don't comfort -her, Lucky!"  shouted Papa when he saw my mother's arms
go protectively about Vera.  He grabbed hold of Vera and shoved her
into a kitchen chair so forcefully that she began to wail.

"That smart-mouth was stumbling along the highway when I saw her. 
When I stopped and ordered her into the car, she told' me she was going
to become a whore and shame us all.  Ellsbeth, if you don't know how to
tame your daughter, then I'll use my own method."

I hadn't even noticed my aunt had slipped into the kitchen, wearing one
of her plaid cotton house dresses that seemed so cheap and ordinary
compared to the pretty clothes, my mother wore.

"Vera, go upstairs and stay there until I tell you to come down again,"
barked Papa.

"And no meals until you can apologize to all of us.  You should be
grateful you have a place at all in this household."

"I'll go, but I'll never be gratefuli'Vera picked herself up and
trudged out of the kitchen.

"And I'll come downstairs when I get good and ready!"

Papa rushed forward.

"Momma, don't let him whip her!"  I cried.

"She'll only do something to hurt herself if he does."  Vera always
caused her own accidents soon after she had enraged Papa so much he had
to punish her.

My mother sighed and looked more fatigued.

"Yes, I guess you're right.  Damian, let her g6.  She's been punished
enough."

Why didn't my aunt speak up to defend her own daughter?  Sometimes it
seemed she disliked Vera as much as Papa did.  Then I filled with
guilt.  At times I, too, absolutely hated Vera.  The only time I liked
her was when I pitied her.

Upstairs Vera was screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Nobody loves me!  Nobody cares!  Don't you dare ever hit me again,
Damian Adare!  If you do, I'll tell!  You know whom I'll tell, and
you'll be sorry, you will be !"  In a flash Papa was out of the chair
and flying up-the stairs.  That stupid Vera kept right on screaming
until he threw open her door, and then there was a thud.  Next came the
loudest and longest howl I'd heard her make yet and her lifetime had a
long record of howls and screams.  My blood chilled.  Another loud
thump and then total silence.  All three of us left in the kitchen
stared up at the ceiling, which was the floor of Vera's room.  What had
Papa done to Vera?  kitchen.  A few minutes later, Papa came back to
the "What did you do to Vera?"asked Momma sharply, her eyes hard as she
glared at him.

"She's only a child, Damian.  You don't have to be so harsh with a
child."

"I didn't do a damn thing!"  he roared.

"I opened the door Of her room.  She backed off and tripped over a
chair.  She fell and started howling.  She got up and started to run to
hide in the cupboard where she put that lock on the inside, and dam if
she didn't trip and fall again.  I left her on the floor crying.  You'd
better go up, Ellie.  She may have another broken bone."

Disbelievingly, I stared at Papa.  If I had fallen, he'd have run to
help me up.  He'd have kissed me, held me, said a hundred loving
things, and yet he did nothing for Vera but walk away.  And only
yesterday he'd been so nice to her.  I looked at my aunt, almost
holding my breath, wondering what she would do to Papa for being so
heartless.

"After breakfast, I'll go up," answered my aunt as she sat down
again.

"Another broken bone would spoil my appetite."

Momma rose to go upstairs and see to Vera.

"Don't you dare!"  ordered Papa.

"You look fired enough to faint, and I want you well rested and pretty
for the party tonight."

Shaken again, I got up and started for the stairs.  Papa ordered me
back, but I continued on, taking the steps three at a time.

"I'm coming, Vera," I called.

Vera wasn't in her room lying on the floor with broken bones as I'd
thought she'd be.  I ran about, wondering where she could be.  Then, to
my utter amazement, I heard her i gmig in the First Audrina's
bedroom.

Only a playroom, safe in my home, Got no tears, no fears, And nowhere
else to roam, "Cause my papa wants me always, To stay home, Safe in my
playroom, safe in my home... I thought Id never heard such a pitiful
tune, the sad way she sang it, as if she'd sell her soul to the devil
to be me, and to be forced to sit in the chair I despised.

ill Reluctantly, I returned to the kitchen again, where an
inexplicably jovial Papa was telling a grouchy Momma a party was indeed
just the thing she needed to lift her spirits.  How,s Vera?"  Momma
asked.  I told her Vera was fine, and not broken, though I didn't
Mention she was using the rocking chair and must have stolen that key
from papas keyring.

"Didn't I ten you?"  said papa.

"Lucky, as soon as Audrina finishes her brunch, the two of us are
taking a stroll down to the river."  He stood, and it seemed he
deliberately tossed his linen napkin so it fell into his half-full
coffee cup.  Momma plucked his napkin from the cup and gave him an
expressive YOU-have-again-Proved-Yourself-a-slob stare.  But she didn't
dare to reprimand him.  It wouldn't have done any good.  Papa did as he
wanted and always would.

He led me by the hand to our back lawn which gradually descended to the
river.  Its sparkling ripples made the day seem wondrously fine.  He
smiled at me and said, "Tomorrow's your ninth birthday, darling."

I "Papa," I cried, staring at him, 'how can tomorrow be my ninth
birthday when I'm only seven today?, Momentarily he seemed at a loss
for words.  As always when he lacked ready explanations, he caressed my
hair, then lightly rubbed his curled fingers over my cheeks.  My sweet,
haven,t I told you many times that's why we don't send you to school?
YOU are One Of those rare individuals who has no sense of time at all-'
He spoke Precisely, looking directly into my eyes as if to engrave his
information.

"We don't celebrate birthdays in our house because somehow it confuses
your own special calendar Two Years agO.  Or One day short, you were
seven years Tid.

What he said was impossible!  Why hadn't he told me that I was eight
years old and not seven?  Was he deliberately trying to make me crazy?
I Put my hands over my ears to shut out anything else he had to say. My
eyelids squeezed tightly together as I racked my brain to remember
someone telling me I was eight years old.  I couldn't remember anyone
mentioning any age but seven.

"Audrina."  honey, don't look so panicked.  Don't try to remember. just
trust what Papa tens you.  Tomorrow is your birthday  Papa loves you,
Momma loves you, and even shrew-tongue Ellie loves you if shed dare to
admit it, but she can't because Vera is there, and Vera envies you,
Vera could love you, too, if I showed her more affection.  I'm going to
try."  really try to like that girl just so you won't have an enemy
living in your own home."

I swallowed, feeling a sore throat coming on and tears filling my eyes.
Something was weird about my life.  No matter how many times Papa told
me about my special ness it wasn't natural to forget an entire year, it
just could Mt  be natural.  I'd ask Arden.  But then he'd know
something awful was wrong with me and he wouldn't like me either.

So it seemed I'd have to believe Papa.  I told myself that I was only a
child, and what difference did it make if I lost just one year in the
process of growing up.  And if time skipped past quicker than I could
keep track of, what difference did it really make?

Sometimes subconscious fears tried to sneak out, whispering slyly,
disturbing me, threatening my tentative acceptance.  Inside my brain,
colours were flashing and I felt the rocking motion of my body, to and
fro, to and fro, singing voices whispering to me of birthday parties
when I had been eight years old, and I'd worn a white dress with
ruffles, tied round with a violet satin sash.

But what did rocking chair dreams mean, except the First and Best
Audrina had worn a ruffled white dress to her party.  All those visions
of birthday parties were her parties.  Where could I find the truth?
Who was there who was totally honest with me?  There was no one who
would tell me the truth, because I might be hurt if they did.

Papa drew me down on the grassy slope beside him.  The sun was high
overhead and burning hot through my hair as I sat on and on with Papa,
and every word he said washed clear un ages from my brain and replaced
them with smeary blots.  I watched the geese and the ducks that were
using unseen paddle feet to swim like mad to where Momma liked to feed
them.  They had a fondness for eating her tulips and daffodils in the
spring.

"Let's talk about what you dreamed last night," Papa said after we had
been silent for a long time.

"Last night I heard YOU moaning and groaning, and when I went to check
on you, you were tossing in your bed, mumbling incoherently in your
sleep.V Feeling panicky, I looked around to see a red-headed woodpecker
working on one of our best old hickory trees.

"Go way!"  I cried.

"Eat the worms on the camellia bushes!"

"Audrina," said Papa impatiently, 'forget about the trees.  The trees
will be here long after you and I have come and gone.  Tell me what you
saw in the rocking chair."

If Papa believed in Airs Allismore's string and ring trick, it seemed
only right I could use the same method and please him.  I was about to
speak and tell him when I felt the hackles on my neck rise.  Turning my
head quickly, I glimpsed Vera in the room where the rocking chair was.
Still up there, still rocking.  Let her rock on and on for ever, there
was no gift but the one imagination concocted to please somebody who
wanted magic in his life.  And maybe in the long run imagination was a
special gift.  I "Okay, darling.  I'm not going to plead further.  just
tell me what you dreamed last night?"

I spoke the name of the stock my pin had touched on twice, and then
twice again.  Papa looked incredulous, then angry.  Immediately from
his reaction, I guessed I'd done the wrong thing.

"Audrina, did I ask you for a stock tip?"  he asked with annoyance.

"No, I did not.  I asked you to give me your dream.  I'm trying to help
you restore your memory.  Don't you realize yet that's why I put you in
the rocking chair?  I've tried to make it seem your loss of memory is
natural, but it isn't.  All I wanted you to do was regain what you've
forgotten."

I didn't believe him.  I knew what he wanted.  He wanted me to turtr
into the First Audrina!  That's why he had all those books about black
magic and psychic powers hidden away in his study.

Pulling away, I stared back at the house again, terribly upset now.
Back and forth Vera was still rocking.  Oh, God, suppose she had the
only dream the chair ever gave me?  Would she scream?  Would Papa go
running to save her?  Or just suppose everything Papa had told me was
true, and there was a gift to be gained.  Then, any second, she might
replace me in his heart.  Breathlessly I gushed, undecided no longer.

"There I was, Papa, a grown-up woman, working in a huge place with
business machines all around.  They glowed, changed colours, talked in
strange voices, and sent messages tough the -air, and I was up front
instructing a large class how to use them.  So that's why I thought
but, of course, I should have let you decide what it meant.  The
letters I told you were on all the machines, every last one, Papa."

IBM.  For a reward, his smile came tight and thin, though he did
embrace me.

"All right, you've tried to help me financially, but that's not what I
wanted.  Memories, Audrina, fin the holes in your brain with the right
memories.  We'll try the rocking chair again later, and see if the next
time doesn't skip the woods, and put you down in the right place."  I
was about to cry, for I had a funny dream about machines, and the pin
had wanted to stop on those initials four times.

"Don't cry, my love," he said, kissmg me again.

"I understand, and I might even put some money on that stock, even
though it has had a thirty percent run up and is due for a sell-off.
Still," he went on thoughtfully, 'it wouldn't hurt to wait for the
profit-taking to end, and then buy in heavily before another climb. She
is intuitive and her heart is pure even if .. ."

lumping to my feet, -1 ran to escape his embarrassing ruminations Now
he was going to put on that stock.  What if it continued to go down
after the profit'-taking?  Poor Momma was slaving in the kitchen,
preparing for a stupid party she didn't need to have when she was
feeling so rotten.  I ran to a window' where I could watch Papa still
down by the river, standing now and skipping pebbles across the water
as if he didn't have a care in the world.

lomma didn't say a word about tomorrow being my ninth birthday.  Was
that because tomorrow truly wasn't my birthday' I went to the cupboard
under the back stairs and I checked the newspapers.  Tomorrow was
September the ninth, and just like me, I forgot later today was the
eighth.  Was reaching the age of nine really so meaningful?  Yes, I
decided as the day wore on and no one but Papa mentioned my birthday,
reaching nine was dangerous.

The party began at nine-thirty, not long after I was sent to bed.  The
noise made by the crowd of twenty of Papa's best friends drifted up to
me even though my room was far from the party rooms.  I knew there were
bankers down there, and lawyers, doctors, and other affluent people
with aspirations to become richer.  They liked our parties; the food
was elegant, the liquor plentiful and the best thing of all, the moment
Momma sat down to play the piano, the party came alive.  Because she
was a musician, she drew other musicians who liked to perform with her,
so that the doctors and lawyers would bring their- sons or daughters
who knew how to play some musical instrument, teenagers, usually, with
considerable skill.  And together, with Momma as mispiranion, they'd
have a jam' session

In my nightgown, on bare feet, I raced to peek at her sitting on the
piano bench.  She was wearing a red silk gown that had a cowl neckline
that drooped so low it showed more than Papa would approve.  All the
men gathered around the piano, leaning over Momma's shoulders, staring
down into her bodice as they encouraged her to play on, play faster5
put more jazz into what seemed to me jazzy enough.  Her fingers flew;
she bounced with the tempo that quickened.  Smiling and laughing in
response to whispers in her ear, Momma played with one hand and sipped
the champagne her other hand held.  She put down the empty glass,
signalled a boy of about twenty to play his accordion, and they both
began some wild version of a polka that no one could resist dancing to.
According to Papa, Momma was all thin is to all people and true to no
one, not even herself.  If her audience wanted classical music, she
gave them that; if they wanted popular ballads, she could give them
those, too.  If you asked her what kind of music she liked best, she'd
answer, "I like all kinds."  I thought it was wonderful to be so
open-minded and so versatile.  Aunt Ellsbeth didn't like any music that
wasn't by Grieg.

From all the fun Momma seemed to be having, who would ever guess she'd
complained all day about having to slave for people she didn't even
like?

"Really, Damian, you expect too of me.  I'm, in my sixth month, really
showing, and you : ant them to see me like this?"

"You're gorgeous and you know it, pregnant or not.  You always look
sensational when you put on your makeup and wear a bright colour and
smile.

"You told me this.  morning I looked awful."  Fatigue had made her
sound hoarse.

tjAmd it worked, didn't iO You jumped out of bea, shampooed your hair,
polished your nails, and I've never seen you look lovelier."

41 , 'll13wi, Damian"' my momma had whispered then, her voice choked
with emotion, and then the door had banged shut.  I'd stood alone in
the hallway outside their bedroom, wondering what they did after Papa
kicked the door to.

All of the words exchanged between them echoed in my head as I watched
Momma at the piano.  She was so beautiful.  My aunt looked dowdy in com
prison in her print dress that seemed right for the kitchen but nowhere
else.

I yelped from the pgm of a pinch on my arm.  There was Vera in her
nightgown, and she was not supposed to come downstairs until Papa told
her she could and so far he hadn7t.  Every time Vera came near me-she
hurt me in some minor way.

"Your mother is nothing but a big show-off," she whispered.

"A woman as pregnant as she is shouldn't show, herself.1 Yet, when I
glanced at Vera, I saw admiration in her eyes as she, too, caught the
rhythm of Momma!s music.

"The First Audrina could play piano just like that, "said Vera in my
ear.

"She could read music, too, and the watercolours she painted!  You
can't do anything in comparison."

"Neither can you!"  I flared back, but I was hurt again.

"Good night, Vera.  You'd better disappear when I do, or else Papa
might see you and punish you again."

I headed back for my room.  Halfway up the stairs, I looked back to see
Vera still hiding behind the beaded curtains, clinging to them for
balance as her feet shuffled in rhythm to the music, watching until the
very end.

It wasn't until the noise below stopped that I was able to fall into a
deep and dreamless sleep.  It was my way to toss restlessly, and Vera's
way to sleep soundly.  I was wishing11, had that knack when I drifted
off, only to be awakened what seemed only seconds later.  My parents
were arguing violently.

No wonder Momma didn't like parties with Papa.  Every time we bad a
party it ended this way.  Lord, I prayed as I slipped out of bed, today
is my ninth birthday and this isn't a good way for it to start.  Please
let it be like March, and gD out like a lamb.

Vera was already kneeling on the hall carpet, peeking through the
keyhole.  She held a cautioning finger before her lips, and silently
gestured me to go away.  I didn't like her spying on my parents and I
refused to leave.  Instead, I knelt beside her and tried to shove her
away.  Papa's strong voice came right through the solid oak door.

"And in your condition' too, you danced like some cheap little tramp.
You made a fool of yourself, Lucietta."

"Leave me alone, Damian!"  cried Momma, as I must have heard her cry a
hundred times or more.

"You invite guests without telling me in advance.  You go out and buy
liquor we can't afford, and flowers, and champagne for them to drink,
and even hand me a glass, and when I get drunk, you become enraged.
What am I supposed to do ata party?  Sit around and watch you
perform?"

"You -never know how to do anything properly," Papa shouted.  He' had
the kind of voice that could hurt your eardrums when he was angry, and
a sweet soft voice to use when he wanted something from you.  Why
wasn't he considerate of Momma when she was so obviously in need of his
understanding?  Didn't he think at all of that little baby that might
be hearing his rage?

Inside I was all aquivdr, trembling with fear for Momma's health.  Was
this the way love went, on and off like an electric switch?  I went
back to my bedroom and pulled a down pillow over my ears, and still I
could hear them fighting.  Sickened, I didn't know what to do but get
up again and go back to where Vera still leaned against the door.  She,
too, was trembling, but with suppressed laughter.  Furious, I wanted to
slap her.

"You flirted, Lucietta.  Flirted in your conditio ri too.  You cuddled
so close to that teenage piano player on the bench you blended into one
person.  You jiggled!  Your nipples 6uld be seen."  Shut up!"  she
yelled.  My hands rose to cover my mouth.  I wanted to scream out and
stop them.

TaJnianl YOU re a brute!  An inconsiderate, selfish, contradictory
boot.  You want me to play, but you are enraged when you lose the
spotlight.  I've said it before and I'll say again and again, you have
no talent but the ability to run your mouth!  And you're jealous of
mine."  I Now she'd done it!  He'd show her no 'mercy now.  Slowly,
slowly, as in a nightmare trance, I sank to my knees beside Vera.  She
allowed me to peek through the keyhole just in time to see his stinging
slap whain against Momma's face.  I cried out just as my mother did.
Feeling her pain and humiliation as my Vera started to laugh as she
shoved me away and put her eye to the keyhole.

"Audrina," she whispered.

"He's taking off his belt.  Now your mother is going to get what she
deserves.  And I'm glad, really glad!  It's time he punished her as he
ought to punish you!"

Furiously I slapped at her, my rage as great as papa's as I shoved her
aside and clawed the door open.  I fell into my parents' bedroom,
tripping over Vera's sprawled form.  Papa whirled round, shirtless, his
trousers half unzipped.  His face was a mask of red blood.  Mommia was
curled up on the bed, her arms hugged protectively over her protruding
middle.

"What the hell are you two doing here?"  roared Papa, throwing his belt
to the floor and pointing to the door.

"Get out!  And don't you ever spy on us again!"

jumping to my feet and trying to make my voice as powerful as his, I
yelled, "Don't you dare hit my mother again, or use that belt to whip
her!  Don't you dare!"

He glared at me.  His dark eyes were wild and wide.  He reeked of
liquor.  As I glared back, my eyes wide and wild, too, he began to
simmer down.  He wiped his huge hand over his face, glanced at his
reflection in a mirror and seemed shocked.

"I'd never strike your mother, you should know that," he said weakly,
as if afraid I'd seen, or ashamed that I'd seen, I didn't know which.
Out in the hall Vera tittered.  He spun round toYCJ 15 "HOW many
times- have I told you that this part of the house belongs to me?  Get
the hell out of here, VeraV "Oh, Papa, please don't yell at me.  None
of it was my fault.  It was Audrina who came into my room and woke me
out of a sound sleep, and made me come with her.  She's always spying
through your keyhole, Papa, all the time when she can't sleep.

His head snapped round.  I could tell he considered me too honourable
to spy.

"Go to your room, Audrina," he ordered coldly.

"And don't you ever spy on me again.  I thought better of you than
that.  It may seem to you that I'm a brute, but that's only because I'm
the only man in a house of women bent on destroying me.  Even you try
in your own way.  Now, out!  Both of you, outV "You won't hurt Momma?"
I held my ground and waited for an answer, though he took a step
forward.

"Of course I won't hurt Momma."  Sarcasm was in his voice..  "If I hit
her and hurt her, then I'd have to pay her doctor's bills, wouldn't I?
My son is inside her, and I am thinking of him."

Weakly my mother sat up to call me to her.  Her arms opened as I
approached.  Her kisses felt wet on my face.

"Do as your father says, darling.  He won't hurt me.  He's never really
hurt me in physical ways."

Undecided, I looked from her to Papa as he shoved Vera out of the room,
delivering a hard slap to her bottom as he did.  Then he turned to me.
I, too, feared a slap, but he took me into his embrace.

"I'm sorry I woke you up.  When I drink too much, I look in the mirrors
and see a fool who doesn't know when to quit, and then I want to punish
someone because I've failed myself."

I didn't understand any of that.

"Everything will be just fine.  The party is over."  There was a sob in
his voice, pain in his eyes, shame, too.

"Go back to bed and forget all you heard and saw here.  I love you and
I love your mother, and tonight has seen the last of my parties.  No
more, ever."

I-lay onmy bed tornwithdoubts about men, about marriage.  I decided
that night I'd never marry, not in one million years, not when all men
could be like Papa, wonderful and terrible.  e, and cruel even when he
loved, wielding andlovabl belt in private, scre abuse, criticizing,
stealing self-loathing and a deep sense of jelf confidence, and
instilling shame for just being female.

Perhaps Aunt Ellsbeth was right.  Men were king of the 0ountains, king
of the woods, king of the, home and office and h just because they were
male.  tveryw ere The Nightmare in Daylight That night when finally I
fell into sleep I tossed and fretted and dreamed awful things, but I
didn't dare whimper or scream for fear Papa would, come flying into my
room to question me.

From now on, no matter what went wrong in my life, I'd handle it all by
myself.  How could I forgive him even one slap on my mother's face?

Confusion was a daily state of mind for me, so why should I feel so
depressed and disappointed by someone I loved when I'd known all along
I could hate him, too?  Baffled by my own contrariness, I somehow
managed to slip into a light dream tortured by horrible visions of bony
people ambling over a fi-all bridge to nowhere.

I willed myself to wake up and found tears had wet my pillow.  I
suspected the day would give-me little pleasure, and the tears I'd
cried without knowing would be tears for a very good reason.

Depression hung about me at dawn, while I bathed, dressed and crept
down the stairs.  The house was full of gloom; no sunlight came through
the stained-glass windows.  I didn't have to step over the colours, but
I wished the colours back to make this day seem brighter and more
ordinary.  One glance out of a kitchen window showed me a murk-y dark
sky that threatened rain.  Morning mists hung heavy over the River
Lyle.  Distant fog horns sounded sad and mournful, and far away ships
putting out to sea sent back melancholy goodbyes.  The seagulls that
always hung over the place where Momma fed the ducks and geese could be
heard, but not seen.  Ghostly and muffled their shrill, "Plaintive
cries came to me and tickled goosebumps on my arms.  On a day like
this, only awful things would happen.

Send out the sun, God, send out the light.  It's ray ninth God and on
this day the First and Best Audrina died YR- w S..1 wanted the fog to
lift, to tell me this birthday of mine was am for ing terrible things
ahead just because it was so I stood near the back stairs waiting to
hear my mother's -16otfalls or the sweet way she'd hum to herself as
she dressed Md moved about upstairs, her pretty satin mules
clickettyclacking where the floors weren't covered by rugs.  Hurry up
and come down, Momma, I need to see you.  She'd take away my fears. , I
left the kitchen, which seemed so bleak without Momma moving around in
there, and went into the formal dining room.  AD its twenty chairs were
lined up along a huge rectangular table.  That table made a wonderful
dancing floor when no one was around, and often I took off my shoes to
just slide up there.  But today the room was dreary, and hardly a place
for dancing.  No one had pulled open the heavy green draperies to let
in some light.  Always Momma did that as soon as she reached the ground
floor.  When I opened the draperies and looked around, the cheeriest
room in the house still looked as grim as the others.

Somewhere there had to be a calendar to mark with a red circle this
ninth birthday of mine.  But I shouldn't want a red circle, for this
had been her birthday, too.  On this day- she would have been eighteen
years old.  How young Momma must have been when she married Papa.
Looking out the window, I saw the first few drops of rain begin to
fall.  Oh, dear God, did it always rain on September the ninth?

Work.  Aunt Ellsbeth was always saying that when she was ha s she
didn't have time to worry about anything.  T t' what I'd do.  I'd fry
the bacon, whip the eggs, make the omelettes, scrape the dishes after
the meal, and Momma could sit and feel pleased about how well she'd
trained me.  If only Aunt Ellsbeth and Vera would keep their mouths
shut.

I'd no sooner put the frying pan on the gas range, very intent Qn
starting the bacon off in a cold pan so it wouldn't curl, when .1 was
rudely shoved to one side.

"What the devil do you think you're doing?"  barked my aunt.

"Helping Momma."

Poor Aunt Ellsbeth couldn't cook worth a dam.  Nobody wanted her in
the kitchen unless she was there to scrub the floor or clean the
windows.

"What nasty thoughts are in your head?"  barked my aunt, taking over
the bacon.  Right away she turned the heat up too high.  She wouldn't
listen if I told her she should keep the flames low.

I pulled out what Id need for five place settings, watching my aunt as
I did.

A cup slipped from my hand and fell to break 'on the floor.  I stood
there frozen.  It was Papa's favourite coffee mug.  The only one he
wanted to drink from.  Now he'd have another reason to be angry with
me.

My aunt threw me a disdainful glance.

"Now look what you've done.  You'd be a bigger help if you stayed out
of the kitchen.  That coffee mug was the last of a set given to your
parents as a wedding gift.  He's going to blow when he knows what
you've done."

"What's idiot Audrina done this time?  "asked Vera, limping into the
kitchen, falling into a chair, and putting her arms on the table so she
could rest her head on them.

"I'm still sleepy.  This is the noisiest house; you can't ever get
enough sleep."

I Setting the table was the one thing I thought I could do correctly,
and now my aunt was shouting something about using too many plates.

"Three place settings, girl, that will be enough.

I turned to stare at her.

"Why only three?"  She kept right on turning over the bacon.

"Your mother's contractions began just before dawn.  It seems all her
children have to come just when I've finally fallen asleep."

"Do contractions mean Momma's baby is on the way?"

"Of course."

"But isn't the baby coming early?"

"That's the way it is sometimes.  There's no way of predicting exactly
when a baby will come.  She's over six months, going on seven, so if
the doctor can't stop the miscarriage, it has a chance to live
anyway."

Oh, golly, I was hoping the baby would have plenty of time to be
finished, with hair and little fingernails and toenails.  does 'it take
for a baby to be born?"  I asked d bt it will take someone like
Lucietta all day and most ou tomorrow, knowing how she likes to make
even the most amp, lea nd natural thing look very difficult and painU.
"Aunt Usbeth stretched her thin lips into a mean spinster smile.
Srq1..1. "Spoiled2 all her life spoiled, just because she happened to
be prettier than most girls."

"Has a P pa called to say Momma's having lots of pain?  Did I wanted to
scream at her for.19 say she was losing the baby.

4aying so little, when it was MY mother, and my brother or ter
involved.  The heavy knot in my chest began to weigh More as it grew
larger.  The rain was forecasting trouble.  The nightmare flitted in
and out of my thoughts.  Those bony people ... "Audrina is spoiled,
too," Vera contributed, 'and she isn't even the prettiest daughter." .1
tried to swallow some awful stuff my aunt had thrown in "A blender a
mixture she said would put meat on my punt bones, and take the
hollowness from my cheeks.  Vera giggled when she sp.-id this.

The bacon was thrown down the garbage disposal, burned to such a dry
crisp even my aunt wouldn't eat it.  Grouchy and irritable, Vera
complained about the omelettes my aunt had tried to make tasty.

"Gee, it's sure going to be difficult to enjoy food now that Momma
isn't here to cook the meals."  Vera put great stress on Momma, just to
watch her own mother Wince.

Aunt Ellsbeth tried to pretend she didn't hear the barb.  It was I who
cleaned up the kitchen when my aunt went to -watch TV, and I who swept
the floor as Vera hurried off to dressing for school.  As I polished
the stove, I wondered if I was prettier than Vera, and if I was even
half as beautiful I, las, that First and Best Audrina had been.  I
-pessimistically guessed I couldn't be from all the praise he gushed
about her ..xadiant, transcendent, ethereal beauty'.  "Now you stay
home and out of the woods," warned my aunt Irorn the other room when
she heard the back door open.

"It's raining.  And the last thing your father said was to keep an eye
on you and not let you wander off.  If the rain stops, you can play in
the back garden but go no farther."

"What did he say about me?"  asked Vera, all ready to hurry to where
the school bus would pick her up.  She wore a yellow rain slicker with
a hood over her hair.

"Damian didn't mention you."  How cold my aunt could make her voice
when she wanted to.  She didn't care much for her own bastard daughter.
I smiled to myself, for it sound so silly.  Many a time I'd sneaked to
peek at the television y aunt selfishly kept for her own viewing
pleasure, and I knew those soap people were always having babies out of
'wedlock'.  "You can't trust Audrina when' it com esto Arden Lowe,"
called Vera back hatefully.

"You'd better lock the doors, bolt the windows or somehow she'll slip
over to see him.  You just wait and see, and soo iner or later she's
going to let him..  "Let him what?"  I asked, scowling at her.

"Vera," called my aunt, 'not one more word out of you!  Get out of here
before you miss the bus."

Enviously I watched Vera stomp off towards the highway, making the
water in every puddle splash.  just before she turned the bend, she
looked my wAy and thumbed her nose.  Vera disappeared, and still I
stood on, thinking about Momma, hoping it wasn't hurting too much, and
there wouldn't be a great loss of blood.  All pain seemed to come with
lots of blood, and lots of mental anguish too.  I already knew about
that.  Maybe that was the worst kind of pain, because nobody knew about
it but you.

Why didn't Papa call home and talk to me?  I wanted to know what was
going on.  I hung around the telephone so long, the rain went away, and
the gloomy quiet house began to wear on my nerves.

When the rain ended, I walked down by the river where our back garden
ended.  Under the pale washed sky, lit by weak sunlight, I tossed
pebbles into the river as rd seen Papa do.  A week without Monimii!s
cooking was going to make me lose weight and I was already skinny.

Papa didn't call all day long.  I worried, fretted, paced the floor,
went often to the windows.  Vera trudged home,ng she didn't like the
vegetable stew Aunt Mbeth d for dinner.  Then I saw Arden come flying
down prepare dr ve with a huge box fastened to his bike.  I ran outside
Af.  t him, afraid my aunt would report his visit to my father.

birthday" he called, grinning as he left his bicycle and running to
me.

"Haven't got but a second to stay but brought you something my mother
made for you, and a something from me, too."

I told him it was my birthday?  I didn't think I had.  I A IN 't even
known myself until yesterday.  His eyes were warm bright as I tore into
the largest box.  Inside was a wonderful dress with a white collar and
cuffs.  A small bouquet of violets was pinned at the neckline.

"Mom made it for you.

he can measure anyone with her eyes.  Do you like says s it?  Do you
think it will fitY Impulsively I threw my arms about him, so happy I
wanted -to cry.  No one else had remembered it was my birthday.  He
Acemed embarrassed and delighted with my reaction, then -bastffly
handed me a smaller box.

"It's nothing much, really, but you told me you had difficulty
remembering and were keeping a dated journal.  I looked everywhere to
find you one to match the colour of the dress Mom made you, but
journals don't come ig .. in violet, so I bought you a white one with
painted-on violets.  A".4; And if you can slip over to our house around
five, Mom's got .,a birthday cake all decorated just for you.  If you
can't come,

I'll bring it to you."

I wiped my eyes and choked back my tears of gratitude.  Arden the
baby's coming today.  My mother's been gone since before dawn, and we
haven't heard.  one word.  I'll come if Papa calls and tells me that
Momma and the baby are O.K. If he doesn't, I can it leave."  Gingerly,
as if afraid I might scream or resist, he hugged me ""-"briefly, then
let me go.

"Don't look so worried.  Babies are born "every second of the day,
millions of them.  It's a natural thing..","I R bet your aunt forgot
all about your birthday, didn't she?"  I nodded and ducked my head so
he couldn't see tl4e pain I felt.  The pretty little diary he'd given
me had a golden key to lock away my secrets.  Oh, I had plenty of
secrets, unknown to me.  ,rU be waiting on the edge of the woods after
I deliver the newspapers.  I'll wait until the sun goes down, and if
you don't show up, I'll bring your birthday cake here."

I couldn't let him do that.  Papa would find out.

"I'll come tomorrow for sure, and we can celebrate then.  Thank Billie
for this wonderful dress.  I just love it.  And thank you for the
beautiful diary, it's just what I wanted.  Don't wait at the edge of
the woods.  Terrible things happen in the woods, especially on this
day.  I don't want you there after it's dark."

The look he gave me seemed haunted, strange and full of something I
didn't quite understand.

"See you later, Audrina.  I'm glad you're nine years old."  Then he was
gone and I was left feeling not so lonely and unhappy.

My aunt's dinner was so tasteless even she ate without much enthusiasm.
Still Papa didn't call.

"That's the kind of awful man he is," said Vera, 'selfish and without
regard for anyone's feelings but his own.  I'll bet you right now he's
in some bar, passing out cigars.  And you can bet your bottom dollar,
sweet Audrina, you won't be his favourite once he brings home that baby
... girl or boy."

That night I flitted in and out of nightmares.  I saw babies waiting to
be born floating around on clouds, all of them crying to be my Momma's
child.  I saw Papa use a huge baseball bat to knock all the girl babies
out into the universe, and then he snatched one huge baby boy and
called him' son  The brother I thought I wanted grew up overnight to be
a giant who stepped on me and Papa didn't even care.

I woke up to see my room pale and foggy.  The sun was only a rosy glow
on the horizon.  Still tired, I fell again into dreams, and this time
Momma came and hugged me, and told me I was the best and most wonderful
daughter, and she'd be seeing me some day soon.

"Be a good girl, obey Papa," she whispered as she kissed me.  I didn't
hear her words, only felt that's what she said.  I watched her fade
away, until she was part of one rose-coloured cloud that shimmered like
some of her fancy evening gowns.

Strange to wake up and know my parents weren't in our home.  Even
stranger to have dreamed about them.  I never anyone until they'd done
something to hurt or I dreamed about Vera a great deal.  next day was
more of the same.  My agitation grew I called Billie and told her to
hold the birthday party, still hadn't called, and I had to be here when
he did.  tand, darling'.  Your cake will wait.  And if need be, I'll
you a fresh one."  Around four, my aunt called me into the kitchen.

"Audnna," as she pulled out the blender, 'your father while you were
upstairs.  The baby is born.  She's Sylvia."  Not once did she look my
way, not once.  named hated people to talk to me without looking at me.
Vera was "y for a change, peeling potatoes.  Now you're in for it," she
said with a mean grin.

"He'll like more than he does you, vacant head."

"Stop that, Vera!  I don't ever want to hear you call Audrina Oat name
again."  It was the first time my aunt had ever defended me and I
looked at her gratefully.

"Vera, go upstairs .00 do your homework.  Audrina can finish peeling
the p9tatoes.

My gratitude vanished.  I was always doing Vera's chores.  It im like
having a wicked step-sister, and I was Cinderella.  I :,4!1';?"  dwered
as Vera smirked.

"I'm sorry to do that to you," said ,; .N;: Ay aunt in what was for her
a kind tone, 'but I wanted io talk .. 4o you alone."

"Is Momma all right?"  I asked cautiously.

"Audriina, I have more to tell you," said my aunt falteringly.

410-eyond the kitchen, I could see a lock of apricot-coloured hair As
Vera hid to eavesdrop.

"It's all right, Ellie," said Papa, who was just then coming into the
kitchen from another doorway.  He fell wearily into a Chair.

"I'll tell her in my own way Jii-.  He'd come so quickly and quietly
out of nowhere that I stared at him as if at a stranger.  I'd never
seen him with so much beard stubble."  never seen his clothes so
rumpled.  His eyes were -rimmed and swollen, with dark circles
underneath.  He met eyes briefly, then put his elbows on the table and
bowed head into his hands, covering his face as his shoulders trribled.
Even more alarmed, I ran to him and tried to

K.S.A.

embrace him as he so often embraced me.

"Papa, you look so dred."  My heart seemed to have dropped into my
shoes.  Why was he trembling?  Why did he hide his face?  Was he so
disappointed the baby was a girl, he just couldn't cope with the idea
of another like me?

He shuddered before he lifted his head and lowered his hands and
clenched them into fists.  He struck the table several hard blows,
making the vase of flowers topple over.  Quickly my aunt was running to
stand it upright again.  She went for a sponge to mop up the water, as
I ran to fill the vase-with water again.

"Papa, hurry!  Tell me about Momma.  It seems she's been gone a whole
month."

His dark eyes were watery with unshed team.  He shook Ins head from
side to side, with that same motion dogs use to throw off water.  There
was panic struggling to stay out of his eyes, and when he spoke, I
heard the heavy slowness of Ins words with dread.

"Audrina, you're getting to be a big girl now."  I stared at him,
hating the way he'd begun.

"Remember how you used to tell me about tea times and how Aunt Mercy
made life and death seem in a constant battle?  Well, that's the way it
is.  Life and' death are as much a part of our human experience as day
and night, sleep and wakefulness.  One is born, another dies.  We lose,
we gain.  That's the only way you can look at life and stay sane."

"Papa," I sobbed, 'don't you "Oh, enough of this!  "cried my aunt.

"Damian, why don't you just come straight out and tell her?  You can't
always shield Audrina from the harshness of life.  The longer you put
it off, the harder it will be when finally she has to face up to the
truth.  Stop putting this daugher of yours into a world of fantasy."
'He listened to her harsh words and her brusque, abrasivt voice an
Hooked at me regretfully.

"I suppose you're right," he said with a sigh.  One of those tears that
glittered his eyes slipped to the comer and trickled down his face.  He
reached to draw me into his arms, then lifted me onto his lap and
cuddled me close against Ins chest.  Then he had, to clear Ins
throat.

"Sweetheart, this isn't easy for me to say.  I've never had to give
news like this to anyone, much less to the child of my have heard in
the past that your mother had delivering you."  I had heard that before
but she'd had trouble with too.

1ad an even worse time with Sylvia."  He held me almost crushing my
bones.

"I think I explained to you ume ago how a baby comes through the
mother's birth -and out into the world.  "He hesitated, filling
inewitheven anxieties.

"Poor Sylvia was caught in that canal- perhaps long Again he paused. My
heart was beating so loud I hear the thudding.  Vera had stepped into
the kitchen and .1.0a listening, too, her dark, dark eyes seemed
already Ii owing  ,5 .:.."  ,. ,. , "Darling hold fast to me now. I've
got to say it, and you have .o..  hear it.  Your mother is gone,
darling.  Gone on to Heaven you're dead.  She died shortly and you
don't go there until "re Sylvia was delivered."  I heard him say it,
but I didn't believe him.  No, no, it just be that way.  I needed my
mother.  I had to have her, God had already robbed Papa of his Best
Audrina.  Was he 4 he ari 4".  less he could hurt Papa again?  !  kz
No, Papa.  My mother is too young and pretty to die."  I i bed.  I was
still a little girl.  Who was going to help me grow 40 I stared at him
to see if he'd grin and wink and that would 1;oean this was all some
ugly trick dreamed up by Vera.  I d at my aunt, who stood with her head
bowed and her out her apron that was spotlessly clean.  Vera wringing
re, a peculiar look, as if she was just as stunned as I was.

s head bowed down on my shoulder then, and he was ; ying.  Oh, he
wouldn't cry if it weren't true!  I went numb inside and the tears in
my brain flooded and Washed my screams onto my face.

loved her, Audrina," sobbed my father.

"Sometimes I it all I should have been, but I loved her just the same.
M11 gave up so much to marry me, I know that I kept her from career she
wanted, and I told myselfdaily'that she wouldn't amounted to anything,
but she would have if I hadn't into her life.  She was turning down one
man after ther, determined to be a concert pianist, but I wouldn't let
her refuse my proposal.  I wanted her, and I got her and then I told
her she was only a mediocre musician, more to console myself than to
console her.  I wanted to be the centre of her world, and she made me
that.  She gave so much of herself, trying to be all I wanted, even
when what I wanted wasn't what she wanted.  She taught herself how to
please me, and for that I should have been grateful.  I never told her
I was grateful.

"I

He broke then and had to dry his eyes and clear his throat again before
he went on, "She gave me you, Audrina.  She gave me other things, too,
and now that it's too late, I realize I didn't appreciate her nearly
enough."

Somewhere in my frozen panic I found visions of him standing above her
wielding his belt.  I heard her voice again, as she'd spoken on the
last night I saw her alive.  '..  . he never hurts me ... physically."
He must have hurt her emotionally.  I felt rivers of hot tears flooding
my eyes, melting my face.  And why didn't Papa mention how she'd given
him the best of all daughters, that dead daughter in the cemetery?

"No," Papa repeated, quaking all over and trying to drown me with his
grief, "I didn't appreciate her nearly enough."

I was angry at Papa for starting that baby.  Angry at God for taking
her away.  Angry at Vera a 'nd, everybody else who had a mother when I
didn't.  Now I bad only an aunt who hated me, and Vera wasn't one whit
better, and Papa what kind of love was his?  Not the kind I really
needed, the dependable, safe kind that never lied.  Who would I have to
confide in now?  Not my aunt.  She'd never want to hear what I needed
to say, nor would she tell me all I needed to know about growing up.
Who was there to teach me how to make a man love me?  Papa's kind of
love was so selfish and cruel.  Somehow I'd known since the moment I
woke up this morning that something awful would happen.  Something that
was wise in me, all knowing, especially about tragedy, had prepared me
in advance and that's why I'd dreamed of her this morning.  Perhaps
she'd even come to me and said goodbye before she faded into a
rose-coloured cloud.  Why did somebody always have to die on my
birthday?

What if God took Papa, too, and I had only my aunt, who'd destroy the
best in me.  baby?"  I asked in a thin, brittle voice.

Papa, 'it's going to be all right, away and glaring at him, I could
tell he M wide shoulders drooped.

"All right, let me try you understand.  Newborn babies are always
frail.

those who are premature.  Sylvia is very small, only a half pounds.
She's not a finished baby like you "No hair, no fingernails or
toenails, so she needs a great ,-"professional attention.  It's not
possible to give that to .1wre.  She's in an incubator, Audrina, a
heated glass case the doctors and nurses can keep a vigilant watch over
That's why Sylvia will have to stay in the hospital a while want to see
her.  You take me to the hospital so I can see Why, for all I know
Momma might not have even had a but died from ... from .. ."  and so
help me, as much as , anted to tell him, I couldn't say he'd killed
her.  Sweet he went on in his heavy flat voice, his dark eyes Sylvia is
a tiny, tiny baby.  The nurses take care of round the clock.  They wear
masks over their fac esto keep atmosphere sterile.  Children your age
carry many germs d; they wouldn't let you near her.  She may not even
live, you must prepare yourself for her death, too."  Oh, God!  If that
happened, then Momma's death would be if death could ever be
meaningftd.  I told myself t Sylvia would live, for I was going to pray
morning, noon night until the day she came home to me and I'd be her
other.

"So little to have caused so much trouble and pain," ured Papa wearily,
once more putting his head onto his ed arms on the table.  He closed
his eyes and seemed to p. Aunt Ellsbeth hovered over him, seemingly
wanting to le him and not knowing how to do it.  Once she even to touch
his face, but quickly she snatched her hand and only her eyes lingered
to caress him.  She was blaming him just as I was, I thought, never
thinking Momma just wasn't built right to bear babies easily.  n, as if
Papa felt my aunt hovering over him, he lifted his head and stared
straight at her with some unspoken challenge in his tired but steadfast
gaze.

"I hope you can afford to hire a nurse to take care of Sylvia when she
comes home," said Aunt Ellsbeth in a tat, uncaring tone.  Her dark eyes
confronted him, challenged him right back.

"If you think I'm going to throw away the rest of my life staying on
here and taking care of two children who aren't then think again,
Damian Adare."

For long moments their dark eyes fought in a silent battle of wills,
and only when her eyes dropped first did Papa answer.

"You'll stay," he said tonelessly.  She looked up then, meeting his
steady gaze, defiantly.

"Yes, Mlie, you won't leave because you'll be mistress of Whitefern and
all it contains."

Did he put some special emphasis on all?  Perhaps it was only my
imagination.  And I did have a lively one, even at that time when I was
in shock.

Vera slipped into my bedroom that night while I cried, to whisper in my
ear that Papa could have saved my mother's life if he hadnt wanted the
baby.

"But he didn't love your mother enough," she went on cruelly.

"He wanted that baby he was positive would be his son.  You can bet
your bottom dollar if he'd guessed it would be only another girl like
you, he would have told the doctors to let the baby go, and save your
mother."

"I don't believe you," Isobbed.

"Papa didn't tell me there was any choice to make."

"Because he didn't want you to know.  You see, he didn even tell you
your mother had a bad heart, and that's why she lay around so much on
that purple sofa, and on her bed.  That's why she was always tired.
After you were born, her doctor told them that she shouldn't have
another baby.  So when Sylvia was caught in what your father calls the
birth canal, he could have told the doctors to go ahead and save your
mother's life and forget the baby.  But he wanted that baby.  He wanted
a boy.  All men want a son.  That's why your mother is lying right this
moment on a hard cold slab in a huge refrigerator in the hospital
morgue.  And tomorrow morning early they will open the drawer and pull
her out, and transfer heT remains to a mortuary, where men will come
and draw out all her blood.  her lips and eyelids together so they
won't open viewing and they will even stuff of the deceased rod my
father, striding into the room and seizing her hair.

"How dare you come into my daughter's room her head with awful tales.
What kind of sick mind do kind?"

the day of my mother's funeral.  It had been raining for three days.
Our small family grouped under canopy.  The drizzle misted and ran in
rivulets to drop 's casket, on the huge spray of red roses.  "my mother
at the head of that casket was a cross of white roses a violet ribbon
that bore my name in gold.

"To Momma, your loving daughter, Audrina," it read.

"Papa," I ed."  tugging on his sleeve, 'who sent that cross for did 'he
whispered back.

"The red roses that she loved best from me, but I thought it more
appropriate for white roses Mpresent a child's love for her mother. Our
city friends sent other flowers."  'i Td never seen so many beautiful
flowers gathered together such a dismal place.  Around us sombrely
clothed people ed with sorrowful faces, and still I felt so alone, even
h I clung to Papa with one arm, and Arden on the other kept tight hold
of my hand.

"Dear friends," began the minister of the church we attended Sunday,
'we are gathered together on this rainy day to our last respects to a
dear and beloved member of our ety.  A beautiful and talented lady who
could light up a day this with the sunshine of her presence.  She
graced our lives made them better.  Because she lived, we are made
richer e she was generous, there are children in the village of tefern
who had toys and new clothes under their Christmas when there would
have been none.  There was food on the les of the poor because this
lady cared and on and on 'heud of all the good deeds my mother had
done.  Never had hinted that she contributed to any of the many
charities the sponsored.

And so many times my aunt had called my mother selfish and spoiled
when she'd always been giving and wearing her old clothes she made look
new.  The wind began to blow, and I swear it felt like snow.  Cold, I
felt so cold.  Clinging closer to Papa I squeezed hard on his gloved
hand that gripped mine.  I heard words then that I had known that
minister would say sooner or later, even though this was my first
funeral: "And 16 though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I shall fear no evil, for thou are with me..."

It seemed I stood there for ever with the rain coming dow if hard and
splashing in the puddles it made.  Behind my eyes I pictured my mother
singing in her clear, soprano voice,"I come to the garden alone ...
while the dew is still on the roses .. and now I'd never hear her sing
or play anything again.

Now that hydraulic lift was going to pick up her casket and lower her
into the hole.  I'd never see her again.

"Papa!"I wailed, letting go of Arden and turning to press my face
against his jacket front.

"Don't let them put Momm,a down in that wet hole.  Let's put her in
one- of those little houses made of marble.1 How sad he looked.

"I can't afford a marble mausoleum," he whispered back, telling me not
to make a spectacle of myself.

"But when we make it rich, we'll have a fine one designed, a temple for
your mother are you listening, Audrina?"

No, I wasn't listening with both ears.  My mind was busy with thoughts
as I fixed my eyes on the tombstone of the First and Best Audrina.  Why
weren't they putting my mother beside her?  I asked Papa why.  His
square chin thrust forth.

"I want to be when I am dead between my wife and my daughter."

"Where will I lie, Papa?"  I asked with pain in my heart that must have
shone from my eyes.  Even in death I didn't really belong anywhere.

"You'll know your place sooner or later," he answered in a tight
voice.

"Say no more, Audrina.  The villagers are staring at you."  What he
said made me gaze around at the Whitefern villagers who never came to
call, who never spoke or waved when we drove through their streets.
They hated us for too many reasons, said my father, even though none of
what had been done in the past was our doing.  Yet they came to see my
mother the poor she'd fed and clothed and donated -If so why weren't
they crying, too?  Still, I 'my term."  straightened my spine, raised
my head in of Papa, and knew Momma would approve, wanting b1ta0e and
strong.

"Cultured people never show their they save them for when they are
alone."

funeral was over.  The people drifted away to our family ready to ride
home in Papa's car.

"I'm '""'"New York," I said to Papa as he held open the front door for
me to get in.

"I've decided I'm going to be There's nothing, pianist like Momma
wanted to be1 nothing that you can do to stop me."  was fight behind
me, ready to climb into our car, too, with Vera and my aunt in the back
seat.

"You don't how to play the piano, "Papa replied harshly.

"When your .  was your age she'd been- playing for years.  You have 1.
e put your hands on the keyboard.  That surely indicates -not drawn to
music."  her was she, Papa.  She told me her parents forced her
lessons, until eventually she caught on.  Then she began it very much.
I'll like music, too, once I know how to "41, Audrina her chance," said
Arden, who'd clung, to my d during the funeral.  I was hurt because
Billie hadn't -to see my mother buried.  ,k'You stay out of this, young
man, "growled Papa, throwing a hateful, mean look.

"You're only a child, Audrina, and don't know yet what's right for you.
You have other gifts, s far more important than banging on the
ivories."  I didn't believe for a minute that he really regretted
making ma only a wife and mother.  Nor did I believe he'd let me pc him
but I was going to give it a try.  I would accomplish erything my
mother had desired for herself when she was ung and full of dreams. I'd
make her dreams come true, her than sitting in the rocking chair to
make Papa's dreams true.

"It's a foolish ambition," began Papa, still glaring at Arden, if he
hoped he'd drop dead and never bother meow wait a minute, Mr.  Adare.
Stop putting Audrinadown.  It's not a foolish ambition to want to
fulfill her mother's dreams.  Audrina is just the sensitivel feeling
kind of person who'd make a great musician.  And I know just the right
teacher.  His name is' "I don't want to hear his nameP stormed Papa.

"Are you going to pay for her lessons, boy?  For damned if I will.  My
wife's father spent a fortune, thinking his daughter would become world
famous, and she failed to follow through."

Why, he was forgetting all he'd said the day Momma died.  He didn't
have any regrets!  None at all!

"Because she married you, Pa paP I raged loud enough for the people
still in the cemetery to turn their heads and stare our way.  I
blanched from their interested stares and moved my eyes to where that
slender, white headstone stood stark against the stormy sky.  How
disquieting to see your own name on a headstone.

"This is not the place to discuss careers," said Papa.

Once more he addressed Arden.

"And you, young man, can stay out of my daughter's life from this day
forward.  She doesn't need you, or your advice."

"See you later," called Arden, waving to me and, in his own way,
showing his defiance..  "That boy means nothing but- trouble," grumbled
Papa.  Somehow or other, Vera had climbed over the back seat and sat
between me and Papa, making him even more angry as she waved
frantically to Arden when we passed him by.

Now that Momma was gone the house seemed empty, without a real heart,
and Papa seemed to forget the rocking chair.  It occurred to me one
restless night that if Papa thought I could contact the First and Best
Audrina by rocking and singing, perhaps I could communicate with Momma
by doing the same thing.  I wouldn't scream if I saw my mother again.
The thought kept me from falling asleep.  Did I dare steal into that
room and rock all alone, without Papa in the hall outside?  Yes, I had
to grow up.  Somebody had to teach me how to, and Momma surely would
know her mistakes and tell me how to avoid them.

Silently I tiptoed down the hall, past Vera's room, where I could hear
her radio playing.  In the playroom I lit one dim lamp before I closed
the door and looked around.  It was not nearlyos it had been before
Momma died.  Aunt Ellsbeth said too much to do if she had to cook and
clean and do the as well.  The few spiders that had scurried away to
hide "Momma had reproduced and were clinging to the ceiling.  were
spinning webs between the filies of the rocking Feeling repulsed, I
went to one of the two armoires and inside to find a baby dress.  I
yanked it off a hanger and the rocking chair, then used the baby dress
to shield my before I squashed each spider dead.  It was a gruesome I'd
never done before.  Already I was growing stronger.  mbling and weak, I
sat gingerly in the chair, ready to out if anything bad happened.  The
house was -so quiet myself breathing.  Relax, I had to relax.  I had to
become empty pitcher that would fill with peace and contentment, then
Momma could come to me.  As long as I thought of and not that other
Audrina, the boys in the woods n't come.  was one of Momma's songs I
chose to sing.  and he walks with me, and he talks with me, F:0.  and
he tells me I am his own... the first time since Papa had forced me
into this chair, it T terrify me, for Momma was waiting, as if she'd
known do this.  Behind my closed lids I saw her, about nineteen, ing in
the fields of spring flowers, and I was a baby in her .  I knew it was
me and not the First Audrina, for around little girl's neck was my
birthstone ring on a golden chain.

I was seeing Momma helping me tie my sash, teaching how to form bows.
Then, much to my surprise, she had me ide her on the piano bench and
was showing me how to play scales.  I was- older this time, and the
ring once worn on a was on my index finger.  I came back from the
playroom terribly excited.  Nothing ible had happened.  And what was
more, I'd found out a ret.  A lost memory had filled one hole in my
brain ., own to Papa, Momma had given me a few piano ns.

That knowledge I carried back to my bed, hugged tight in my heart, for
now I knew for certain.  It had been my mother's desire to see me take
her place, and find the career love had stolen from her.

PART TWO Music Begins Again very different in our house after Momma's
death.  longer went into the cupola to fir id peace and solitude.  I
the once-dreaded rocking chair, where I could feel that was near. 
Because life was opening up for me more more, I paid little attention
to Vera, who had difficulty the stairs.  When it rained, she limped
worse than it was dry.  Still, I couldn't help but notice she was ng to
be very concerned about her appearance.  She her hair every day, curled
it, polished her nails so often ed the house smelled constantly of
polish remover.  She her slips, her dresses, and sometimes even her
Even her voice changed.  She tried to speak softly and shrilly as she
used to do.  I realized in many ways Vera was earnestly to imitate my
mother's many charms when ought they belonged to me alone.  Ileautumn
days that had seen the last of my mother soon ened into winter. 
Thanksgiving and Christmas were bleak brat ions that made my heart ache
for Papa and for me.

Vera looked sad when she stared at Momma's empty at the foot of the
table.  When Papa was working, I was in a house ofenernies, a shadow of
what I uled to be whe mother lived."  Itlung to her memoV desperately,
trying 01 her image sharp in the vagueness of my nebulous ry.  Never
did I want anything about my mother to sink those bottomless holes in
my brain where all those awful en memories struggled to reveal
themselves.  kept me almost a prisoner in our home, clinging to me a
kind of desperation that made me pity him, love him, him ... and need
him, "too  Whenever I had the chance, was at the grand piano trying to
figure out how to place my how to make a tune come magically from the
keys.  Forhours and hours I banged away before I began to sense the
piano resented the sour, ugly noises I made.  I couldn't play.  Even if
Momma had tried to teach me a long time ago, I hadn't inherited any of
her talent, any more than I had inherited talent from the First and
Best Audrina.  Not gifted, not gifted, I went around tormenting myself
"Audrina," Arden comforted me one day after I complained to him that I
wasn't gifted, 'no one magically, automatically knows how to play."

"Listen," I said, "I'll tell Papa I just have to have piano lessons.
He'll pay for them if I plead hard enough."

"No doubt," he answered, looking away uneasily.  Then, hand in hand, we
walked towards his cottage.  Much to my disappointment, Billie stayed
at the window but still didn't invite me inside the cottage.  Arden and
I sat on the back porch and talked to her through the open window.
Flies could easily enter her house, and that would have driven my aunt
crazy.  Billie didn't seem worried about flies, but she did seem happy
to see me again.

That very evening I approached Papa about music lessons.

"I've heard you banging.  If ever anyone needed lessons, it's you.  Of
course, your mother would have been thrilled.  I'm thrilled, too."  I
couldn't believe he could change his mind so completely.  He seemed
lonely, bored, making me step closer to put my arms about him.  Maybe,
after all, Papa was going to try to let me be happy.

"I'm sorry for all the ugly things I said after Momma died, Papa.  I
don't hate you, or blame you for her death.  If only you'd bring Sylvia
home I'd feel she didn't die for nothing.  Please bring Sylvia home
soon."

"My darling," he said, looking far away, "I will ... as soon as the
doctors give the word, you'll have your baby sister.  1 I told myself
that night that perhaps God did know what he was doing when he took
away mothers and gave fathers a new daughter.  Perhaps he had a good
reason for doing what he did.  Even if it did rob me of my mother I
desperately needed, Sylvia wouldn't miss her because she'd have me and
wouldn't know any better.

It was midsummer before the music teacher Arden knew' from a long stay
in New York City.  Finally, one day Arden put me on the handlebars of
his bike and into Whitefem Village to meet Lamar Rensdale.  He and very
thin, with a high, broad brow and wild curly -brown hair.  His eye
colour matched his hair colour He looked me up and down approvingly,
smiled, then to the piano and asked me to demonstrate what I already
"Just fool around, like you said you've been doing," he standing behind
my shoulder as Arden sat down to smile as bad as you told me," said Mr.
Rensdale.

"Your hands small, but you can span an octave.  Did your mother play ly
well and often?"  t's the way it began.  Of course, Papa knew that it
was who rode me to and from the village; still he didn't ect.

"But don't you play with him in the woods.  You stay '-, iew of his
mother at all times.  You are never to be alone him.  Never.  You
hear?"

" Now, listen here, Papa," I began, facing him squarely and ggling not
to sound weak, "Arden is not the trashy, class kind of boy you think he
is.  We don't meet in the S, but on the rim.  His mother sits in the
window and talks us.  We're seldom out of her sight.  And she's so
beautiful, really she is.  Her hair is dark like yours, and her eyes
like Elizabeth Taylor's.  Only Billie's eyes are even prettier.

you've always said no one had eyes prettier than Elizabeth ioes."Isn't
that nice?  he said cynically, as if he didn't believe any woman could
be as beautiful as a movie star.  obody is as beautiful as Elizabeth
Taylor but Elizabeth r. Peopleare individuals, Audrina.  Unique, each
one of A Miracle, each one of us never to be duplicated, though old
world of ours may spin around another five to ten n years.  There will
never be another Elizabeth Taylor, other Lucietta Lana Whitefem Adare,
another you, or her me.  That's exactly why you are so special to me.
If ever I am lucky enough to meet a woman as beautiful as your er, and
as warm and loving, then I will fall down on mykoces and thank God.  I
may never find another like her, and I'm lonely, Audrina, so lonely."

He was lonely.  It showed in his shadowed eyes, in his loss of
appetite.

"Papa, Billie is really beautiful.  I haven't exaggerated."

"I don't care what she looks like," he said despondently.  "I'm through
with wives and married life.  I'm devoting all my energies to taking
care of you."

Oh, I didn't want him to devote all his energies to taking care of me!
That meant he'd never give me any freedom.  And that meant he'd spend
all his time trying to turn me into the First and Best Audrina.  And if
he really believed there was only one of each person, why did he always
want me to become her?

I stood before him, his hands still on my waist, and I couldn't speak
up and say more.  I could only nod and feel confusion whirling like a
maelstrom in my brain.

Since Arden rode off every day to the village, I was allowed five
weekday lessons which made me think I'd soon make up for lost time. For
one solid hour I stayed with Lamar Rensdaleand really tried to retain
all he taught while other students sat in another room and waited fog
me to go.  Arden would hurry back from delivering his evening
newspapers to pick me up when my lessons were over.

Late one night, eight months after Momma's death, I stole downstairs
and again practised on Momma's grand piano.  Its tone was so wonderful,
so true, much better than the cheap piano My teacher used.  Before my
music lessons I hadn't notice it had a tone.  According to, Mr.
Rensdale, I was an em student with great natural ability.  Lwanted to
Mieve he was telling the truth, not just flattering me to keep me
coming back and paying his fees.  As I sat there in the dead of night
playing my simple little piece, I closed my eyes and pretended I was
Momma, and my fingers were as skilled as hers were, and I could pour
into them all the nuances that she had.  But it didn't sound wonderful.
My music didn't send chills down my spine as hers had.  Discouraged, I
opened my eyes and decided rd better keep a close eye on the music and
not try to improvise.  That's when I heard a small sound behind me. IV
era standing in the doorway.  She smiled 07 archly, making me squirm.

sure are wrapped up in music all of a sudden, "she said.  he like, your
Mr.  Rensdale?  s nice."  't mean that, stupid.  I heard the girls at
my school say very young, handsome and sexy and a bachelor."

ily, I fidgeted.

"I guess he is all of that, but lies too you, Vera.  He wouldn't look
at a kid like you."

y is too old for me but everybody.  will be too old you, sweet Audrina.
By the time you escape Papa, you'll in the joints and wearing glasses
to match your grey worst of this was I knew every word she said was
true.  was latching onto me more and more with each passing In all ways
but bedroom ones, he was making me his wife.

t, I listened to his stock rnA ket talk with far more and understanding
than Momma ever had, and my had no patience with that sort of 'boring
talk'.  "I'm gonna make Papa give me music lessons, too," stated
glaring' hard at me, and I knew she'd give me hell if she 2t have her
way.  he very next morning Vera was dressed in her most oming clothes.
Her strange, bright orange hair somehow ered her very pale face, and
her dark eyes were truly king.

"You do everything for Audrina, and nothing at all me, "she said to
Papa.

"And it's my mother who cooks your s and cleans your house and washes
and irons, and you t pay her anything.  I want to study music, too. I'm
every as sensitive and talented as Audrina."  He stared at her pale
face until she flushed and turned half eways, as she always did when
she had something to conceal.  need some beauty in my life, too," she
said plaintively, ting down her dark eyes and tugging on a length of
her ri cot hair.

"Once a week for you," he said grimly.

"You go to school and ve lessons to learn.  Audrina can have one class
a day to keep r idle mind out of trouble."  I thought surely Vera
would object to this unbalanced arrangement, but oddly enough, she
seemed satisfied.  I took Vera with me one Friday to introduce her to
Mr.  Rensdale.

"Why, beauty must truly run in the Whitefern family, just as everyone
in the village says," he said as he held out his hand and smiled.

"I don't think I've ever met two prettier sisters."

It seemed to me Vera's fingers gripped his hand so even when he wanted
to stop shaking hands, she wouldn't let go.

"Oh, I'm not nearly as pretty as Audrina," said Vera in a shy, small
voice, fluttering her mascaraed eyelashes.

"I only hope I'm half as talented."

I had to stare, really stare.  This girl talking to Mr.  Rensdale
wasn't the Vera I knew.  He liked her, I could tell that, and he was
grateful for another student, especially one who flattered him and
couldn't stop staring at him.  Whenever she could, she was picking lint
from his suit or brushing back that lock of hair that kept falling on
his forehead.

On the way home she confided all she knew about him from her school
friends.

"He's very poor, a struggling artist, they say.  I've heard he composes
music in his spare time, and hop esto sell his songs to some Broadway
producer."

"I hope he does."

"You don't hope it nearly as much as I do," she said fervently.

The months passed so swiftly by without Sylvia coming home that I grew
more and more apprehensive about my unseen little sister.  I knew my
father had taken my aunt to visit her several times, and she truly did
exist, but not once did Papa allow me to go with him.  He took me to
the movies, to the zoo, and, of course, to the First Audrina's grave,
but Sylvia was out of bounds, still.

Papa refused to bring Sylvia home no matter how much I pleaded.  It was
over a year now since my mother had died and Sylvia had been born.

"Surely she's weighing over five pounds by this time?"

"Yes, she weighs a bit more each time I see her.  "He said that with
reluctance, as if he wished she weren't.  s not blind, without arms or
legs everything is "t it?"  he said in a heavy voice, 'she's got the
right parts they should be, and all four limbs, same female YOU have.
But she's still not strong enough," Papa for the zillionth time.

"She's not exactly normal, But don't ask for more details until I'm
ready to give 1houghts about Sylvia kept me from feeling good.  I for
her as I dusted and pushed the vacuum.  Vera vacuum because it made her
short leg ache.  She dust because she had little control of her hands
and pped what he picked up.  That also excused her from or clearing the
table.  I did every one of her chores.  I all the beds, which was the
one duty my aunt Vera do.  Perhaps because she was grateful, Vera to
like me more.  Trustingly, I tried to treat her as a "How's your music
proceeding?  I never hear you like I do."  t's because I practise at
Lamaes," she said with a small .  smile.

"I told him you wouldn't let me use your 2s piano, and he believed me."
She giggled as I frowned ed to speak.

"He's so handsome he sends chills over ess he is, if you like his
type."  your type, huh?  I think he's exceptionally handsome.  told me
all about himself, too.  I'll bet hi didn't tell you hing.  He's
twenty-five years old, and graduated from the d School of Music.  Right
now he's composing a musical for some play he's writing, too.  He's
sure he'll sell it to ucer he met when he lived in New York."  She
pressed to whisper.

"I'm hoping and praying he does sell his;--I and he'll take me with
him."

Vera, Papa would never let you go with him.  You're young."

"It's none of Papas damn business what I do, is it?  He's,not father
and he doesn't own me like he owns you.  And don't dare tell him I've
got designs on Lamar Rensdale.  We'rejust as good as sisters aren't
we?  I needed her friendship and gladly promised not to tell Papa
anything.  Wishes Come True spring again.  Momma had been dead for more
than a and a half.  She was gone but far from forgotten.  I pored her
gardening books and taught myself to care for her Each rose petal
reminded me of Momma with her skin, her glorious hair, her rosy cheeks.
In the back n my Aunt Ellsbeth tended the onions, the cabbages, ,
cucumbers and everything else she grew to eat.

that grew and couldn't be eaten were valueless to my era was sometimes
hateful to me, sometimes nice to me.  't trust her even when I wanted
to.  Now that Vera had the rocking chair I avoided it as I had before,
though believed I still rocked in it, believed sooner or later the it
haid would be mine.  ow old did you say you were?  "asked Mr.  Rensdale
one day he'd explained again how I had to feel' the music as well to
strike the right keys.  For some odd reason tears to streak my face,
when long ago I'd learned to accept unique plight.

"I don't know," I wailed.

"No one tells me truth.  I've got a smeary memory full of half-seen
images whisper I might have gone to school, yet my father and aunt say
I never have.  Sometimes I think I'm crazy and t's why they don't send
me to school now."  He had a graceful way of rising, like a ribbon
unfolding.

he stood behind me.  His hands, much smaller than my 's, caressed my
hair and then my back.

"Go on, don't stop.  like to hear more of what goes on in your house.
You und me in so many ways, Audrina.  You are so young, and old.  I
look at you sometimes and see someone haunted.  I'd to take away that
look.  Let me help."  Just the tender way he spoke made me trust him,
and out it all come, like a river bursting through the dam, all that
confounded me came gushing out breathlessly, including Papa's
insistence that I sit in that rocking chair and 'catch' the gift that
had once belonged to my dead sister.  "I hate having her !  Why didn't
they give me my own name?"

He made some compassionate sound.

"Audrina is a beautiful name, and so right for you.  Don't blame your
parents for trying to hold onto what must have been an exceptional
girl.  Accept the fact that you, too, are exceptional, and maybe even
more so .. ."  But I thought I heard a something in his voice that said
he knew more about me than I knew about me, and wanted most of all to
shield me from whatever it was I wasn't supposed to know.  And it was
that onelthing I didn't know, that I had to know.

Then, before I knew what to expect, he had his fingers under my chin
and was looking deep into my eyes.  It was strange to be so close to an
adult man who wasn't my father.

I pulled away from him, a mixture of emotions stirring me into panic. I
liked him, and yet I didn't want him to look at me in the way he was
looking.  I remembered Papa's warning about being alone with boys and
men as flashing visions of the ramy day in the woods dazzled my eyes,
making him seem a smeary vision of the past, too.

"What's wrong, Audrina?"  he asked.

"I didn't mean to frighten you.  I just wanted to reassure you.  You're
not crazy, you're quite wonderful in your own special way.  There's
passion in your music and in your eyes, too, when you lower your guard.
Nature is going to wake you up one day, Audrina; then the sleeping
beauty inside you win come into her own.  Don't smother her, Audrina.
Let her come out.  Give her a chance to set you free and your dead
sister will haunt you no more.

Filling with hope, I stared at him pleadingly, unable to voice my
needs.  Still, he understood.

"Audrina, if you want to go to school, I'll find a way to see that you
go.  It's against the state law to keep an underage child home, unless
that child is mentally or physically unable to attend.  I'll talk to
your father or your aunt ... and you'll go to school, I promise."

I believed him.  It was in his chocolate-brown eyes, he meant know my
eyes lit up with gratitude for I "who swore the very next day he'd
visit my aunt.  I my father wasn't likely to listen to him.

Ntra and I swam in the river that summer, fished and Jiow to sail the
small boat Papa had bought.  Each Papa just a little richer.  Now he
was making plans the house and restore it to its former grandeur.  He
90 much about it without doing anything that I feared would.  Anyway,
it didn't matter now, for Momma

Ruut was not as grouchy as she used to be; in fact, I often looking
rather happy.  Papa no longer made sarcastic, Twiarks about her long
face and her skinny figure.  He complimented her new hair style, the
makeup she'd to wear.

still wouldn't tell me why he couldn't bring Sylvia I saved money from
the allowance he gave me to buy rattles and teething rings, but he
never brought her Now she was too old for those things.  He told me the
wouldn't let her have her own toys.  -I still didnt what was wrong with
Sylvia.  by day, Arden was growing taller.  He was fifteen now, seemed
much older.  He was begirming to plan for his From all I'd heard, Vera
was one year younger than "Now, please don't think this silly," he
began in a ve way, 'but ever since I was a kid, I've wanted to be an t
t. At night I dream of the cities I'll build, functional beautiful,
too.  I want to plan the landscaping, have trees middle of town.  I'd
make the highways multi-level so won't take up so much ground space."
He smiled at me.  , just you wait and see the kind of cities I
build."

ted for Arden what he wanted for himself, and many I'd wondered why he
bothered with me w so many girls must have attracted his eyes.  Why did
he give me feeling sometimes he was duty bound to me and no r?  den had
up days, and a few down days.  He liked being oors more than he liked
being in, and I told myself time and time again th aes why we never
went into his house.  And Billie must be just the opposite, for she
never came outside.  In all the time I'd known Billie and Arden, not
once had she invited me into their home.  Of course, I couldn't invite
Arden into my home, either, because of Papa, and maybe they were just
retaliating.  Vera often teased and said Billie didn t think I was good
enough for her son, and not good enough for her house, either.

At the edge of the woods Arden and I paused to say goodbye.  As the sun
sank low over the horizon, Whitefern loomed up dark and lonely against
a sky that was purple and shot through with crimson and orange.

"What kind of sky is that?"  I asked in a small whisper, holding
tighter to his hand.

"A sailor's sky," he said in a low voice.

"Signalling a better day tomorrow."

How like Arden to say that, even if it wasn't so.  I looked from the
house to the drive, and then I stared off in the direction of the
family cemetery.  I had to clear my throat before I could ask, "Arden
... just how long have you known inc?"

Why did he let go my hand, blush and turn away?  Was that such an awful
question?  Was I convincing him with such a question that I was truly
crazy?- "Audrina," he said at long last, in the tightest of all
possible voices, "I met you first when you said you were seven."

That wasn't the answer I wanted.

"Hey, stop frowning.  Run on home so I can see you enter safely before
I go."

From the doorway I looked back to see him waiting there.  I waved, then
waited for him to wave back.  Reluctantly, I entered the gloominess of
Whitefern.

Time had slowed down, and August really dragged.  The sultry, sticky
days made me wish for a vacation where it was cool, but we never went
anywhere.  Inside the house the high ceilings made it cooler than
outside, but the dimness of the rooms made the stained-glass colours
too brilliant, and the colours still tinkled the wind chimes that still
tried to whisper secrets.

"Papa," I said in September when Vera was going back to school, 'is
Vera three years or four years older than me?"  almost four years,
older," he said without "What age does she tell then gave me a strange
look.  ?I 't matter what she tells me, for she lies all the time, Arden
she's older."  fourteen," said Papa indifferently.

"Her birthday is the twelfth."  that down as possibly true, knowing
that birthdays just didn't happen normally.  Knowing, too, that his
never-never party had spoiled all birthdays for r my eleventh birthday,
for Arden gave me ce of pink quartz he'd had made into a rose.  It hung
my neck on a slender gold chain and made me feel very No one at my
house gave me anything for my birthday wished me a happy birthday.
still using my string-tied-to-the-ring trick, and giving my lists.
Sometimes I found those lists in his office ket, and sometimes I saw
him stare at those lists for long moments, as if memorizing every stock
1, listed he threw the list away.  November I caught him doing this.

"You wanted me to hing to help you, and when I do, you pretend I don't.
why do you go to such -trouble to convince me I'm then toss away my
lists as if you don't believe I am?"  use I'm a fool, Audrina.  I want
to gain by my own , not by yours.  And I've seen you perform your silly
lk tricks by swinging the ring over the stocks.  I want honest , not
contrived ones.  I know when you're honest and you're not.  I'm going
to make you what you should beFit takes me the rest of my life and
yours."

Chilled" I froze in position, frightened by his determined "What is it
you want me to be?"

my First Audrina," he said resolutely.  Even colder, I backed away.
Maybe he was the crazy one and me.  lEs dark, brooding eyes followed my
every motion, as commanding me to run to him now and love him as she'd
him and I couldn't do what he wanted.  I didn't want be her.  I only
wanted to be me.

I wandered into the front salon and found Vera sprawled again on
Momma's purple chaise.  Lately she had taken to lying around all the
time on Momma's favourite chaise, reading those paperback romances
Momma had adored.  She said they were teaching her about life and
loving.  And it seemed they were, for certainly something besides
medical books was putting sophistication in Vera's dark eyes, making
them even more hard and brittle.  She had told me that she was going to
make herself so beautiful and charming that no man would notice her
left leg was one inch shorter than her right.

"Vera," I asked, 'why don't you have your shorter leg put in traction
like your doctor advised?  He said it would stretch out and be even
with the other."

"But it would hurt.  You know I can't stand pain, and I hate
hospitals."

A fine nurse she was going to make.

"Wouldn't the pain be worth the reward?"

She seemed to look inward and weigh the cure against the outcome.

"I used to think so."  Then, after more consideration, she said, "Now
I've changed my mind.  If I walked normally, then my mother would make
me a slave, as she makes you one.  Now I can live the life of luxury,
like your mother did while my mother slaved until she dropped exhausted
into bed."  Meanly, she grinned.

"I'm not stupid, idiot or vacant headed.  I'm thinking all the time.
And my game leg is going to stand me in better stead than both your
normal ones."

There was no reasoning with Vera.  It had to be her way or no way. Vera
didn't want to do anything.  When it suiked her purpose, and often it
did, she'd torment me with saying my mother had faked her incessant
fatigue just to gain Papa's sympathy, and her sister's free housemaid
services.

As I ran the next afternoon to visit Arden, the wind blew leaves and
scuttled them everywhere.  Geese overhead were flying southward.  Soon
the snow would be falling.  We were both bundled to our ears in heavy
coats.  Our breath came in small puffs of steam.  What were we doing
walking in the woods in five zing weather like this?  Why couldn't we
go into each other's houses like most people?  I sighed as I stared at
him, then lowered my eyes.  why I cant invite you inside Whitefern.
understand why Billie doesn't invite me inside your she think I'm not
good enough for an indoor F what you7 re thinking, and1 understand." 
He hung Jwking more and more embarrassed.

"You see, she's rything.  Both of us are painting and wallpapering.

new slipcovers, making bedspreads, curtains.  working on our place ever
since the day we moved she has to stop and sew for other people, ours
last.  Our house isn't fine inside ... not yet.  One day soon, we'll be
finished, and then you can come in and have a nice visit."  ving,
Christmas and New Year's came and went, Arden and Billie didnt think
their home fine enough me in.  Workmen came to our house in droves to
paint, , remove old finishes, put on new stain, polish and 'whole
house.  We had many, many rooms.  The cottage five.

"If mally asked one day, 'why is it taking the two of long to fix up
your house?  I don't care if it's pretty or had a habit of holding my
hand and comparing it to his band size, just as a way to keep from
meeting my eyes.  ftgers were twice as long.  Although it was a sweet I
wanted him to meet my eyes and speak honestly.  be was evasive.

"I have a father somewhere.  He left when when He stumbled, stammered,
blushed, shuffled hit and looked panic-stricken.

"It's Mom doesn't really like me."  course she like you!  "He tugged me
forward, as if going me into his home whether or not his mother
approved.  not easy to talk about, Audrina.  Especially when she's me
not to tell you anything.  I said from the beginning should be honest,
and that would have saved us both a lot embarrassment, but she wouldn't
listen.  I've seen you look her, at me, and wonder what the heck was
going on.  I know father doesn't want me in your life, so I don't
question why I'm not invited.  inside Whitefern.  So, let'sgetit over
with  It's time you knew."

It seemed all my life had been spent inside one house.  I'd never been
in another house one without ghosts from the past.  The cottage's small
rooms couldn't be dim and frightening like our giant rooms, nor could
they be full of splendour and decaying antiques.  I was going to see,
for the first time in my life, a small house, a cosy house, a normal
house.

We reached the cottage where smoke, limp as chiffon scarfs, drifted
heavenward.  Seagulls were flying and sounding off, making the day seem
very bleak.  I came to an abrupt stop when Arden was about to pull me
through the door.

"Before we go in, answer one question.  Just how long have we known
each other?  I've asked before, and you didn't give me a straight
answer.  This time I want the honest answer."

Such a simple question to make him shift his eyes away.

"When I think backward, I can't remember when I didn't know YOU- Maybe
I dreamed of you even before I met you.  When I saw you in the woods,
hiding behind the bushes and tree, it was like a dream coming true
that's the day I first knew you in reality.  But I was born knowing
you."

His words spread a magic shawl of comfort about my shoulders as with
eyes locked and hands clasping he opened the cottage door and stood
back to let me enter first.

This time I hadn't seen Billie at the window.  Nor did I see her in the
room I entered.  Arden whispered, "I think my Mom planned to postpone
this day for ever, so trust me as I trust you.  Everything will work
out fine."

That's all he said to prepare me.  Many times I wondered afterwards why
he didn't say much, much more.  Billie the door behind us.  Loud.  Very
loud.  A 'iOgnal her.  A few dead leaves had blown in with us.  to pick
them up.  When I had them in my hand, to quickly glance around with a
great deal of The living room was very pretty, with bright chintzy .  g
the sofa and two comfortable-looking chairs.  to our huge rooms, it did
look very small.  The hardly eight feet above the floor, giving me a k
feeling.  Still, the room had a cosy charm our would never have, no
matter how much money rejuvenate their lost splendour, or how many
sofas were covered by chintz.  were no shadows here, only clear,
bright, winter that poured in brilliantly.  There were no stained-glass
to dazzle my eyes and enchant me with unwanted called Arden, "I've got
Audrina with me.  Come on can't keep your secret for ever."  round to
stare at him, the dead leaves forgotten in my rets, secrets, everyone
seemed to have secrets.  I saw his nervous hands that he stuffed in his
pockets as back at me in apprehension.  From the look in his new that
won Iwould ha veto pass at est  "GW4 Prayed o this right whatever it
was.  be right out," called Billie -from another room.  She1 as anxious
as her son looked.  Her usually warm voice lost its welcoming tone. Now
I felt uncomfortable and to turn and leave.  Still I hesitated, seeing
Arden narrow, vyes as he watched me closely.  No, I wasn't going to run
time.  I was going to stay and find out at least one secret.  e Arden
glanced towards what I pres med was Billie bedroom door.  He didn't ask
me to sit down.  Perhaps he even forgot I wore a heavy winter coat with
a hood, for he didn't ask me to take off my coat.  He was much too
distracted by that closed door he kept watching.  I shook off the hood
but kept the coat on as I waited and waited, and waited some more. 
Arden hadn't removed his long coat, either, as if he expected we Ildn't
stay long.

Then, as he bowed his head and stared at his shoes, I noticed for the
first time a wooden wall shelf that held dozens of gold medals with
dates and names.  Irresistibly drawn, I stepped closer .  Oh, good
golly day!  Delighted, I whirled round to flash a happy smile at
Arden.

"Arden!  Billie used to be an ice-skating champion?  How wonderful!
Look at all these Olympic awards!  How could you keep something so
fantastic a secret for so long?  just wait until Papa hears about
this."

Now what had I said wrong?  He seemed even more embarrassed.  Why, this
was almost as good as Billie being Elizabeth Taylor.  I could envision
Billie gracefully skimming over the ice, wearing some skimpy little
costume that glittered.  Shed whirl and spin and do those things called
double axels and never become dizzy.  And in all the time I'd know her
and Arden, they'd never boasted, never even hinted.  She'd talked to me
as if she was nobody special, and she was.

A small noise distracted me.  I whirled round to see Billie, who must
have waited until my back was turned, then swiftly hurried to sit in a
chair.  I stared.  Why was she wearing such a full, long skirt in the
middle of the afternoon?  The gown she wore looked very expensive, as
if she were going to attend some gala formal affair.

Her marvelous jet-black hair was piled high on her head in a mass of
ringlets, instead of just hanging loose down her back, and that alone
made her look different.  Her face was heavily painted, even garishly
so.  Her lashes were longer and thicker than I'd noticed before.  And
she must have put on every last piece of jewellery she owned.  I smiled
weakly, not knowing how to hand lea situation like this.  Without all
that stage makeup she was stunningly beautiful.  The fancy tafetta
dress and heavy costume Jewellery made her seem cheap, a fraud,I didn't
even know.  And worse, someone I didn't d' want to know.

said Arden, a struggling smile trying to survive on you didn't need to
go to so much trouble."  Billie, you didn't.  I liked you the way you
looked before I did and Arden, you should have warned me, you ked from
one to the other, guessing something was wrong.  The vibrations between
mother and son so strong I quivered, sensing their anxieties because I
was -their house where she didn't want me.  Yet Arden was at me with so
much appeal; his eyes were pleading for t to notice anything amiss.  So
I smiled, I stepped over her hand.  I sat down and began a silly
conversation.  she'd been at the window and I'd been on the ground
she'd been so easy to talk to.  Now we were like meeting for the first
time.  Soon I made some flimsy about having to hurry home to help Aunt
Ellsbeth.  on't you stay for dinner?"  asked Arden.  I flashed him a
,.4ook of reproach.  At least Papa was direct with his hostility didn't
hide it behind the guise of friendship as Billie was Gee I thought
childishly, feeling hot tears stinging the .  of my eyes, our
friendship was only for the outsidd, not rs.  it was just as Vera had
told me I wasn't respectable for Billie.  Was I so crazy that people
didn't want me houses?  Again my eyes clashed with Arden's mine ng, his
still pleading for understanding.  Please, please, were begging.  I
decided to stay on long enough to find V was making all of us so
self-conscious.

was something burning in the oven.  Maybe I was pting her cooking and
she didn't like it.  There wasn't for three and she didn't really want
me to stay for r. It was such a little house that the kitchen seemed
part living room.

"Billie, I think I smell something burning oven.  May I take it out for
you?"  he blanched, shook her head, gave Arden a furtive signal re she
weakly smiled at me.  "No, thank you, Audrina.

can do all of that.  But please do stay and have pot luck with us."
But the expression of anxiety she couldn!t control gave he to her
words.

Really distressed and embarrassed now, I bowed my head.

"Thank you for asking me.  But, as you know, my father doesn't like for
me to come through the woods and over here."

Arden glanced at me, then his mother, and said sombrely, "Mom, this is
getting a bit much.  Can't you tell Audrina?"  She flushed, then paled.
I didn't want to know now.  All I wanted to do was escape.  I stood to
go.

Suddenly Billie gushed, "Oh, why nod' Flinging wide her slim arms that
were strongly muscled, too, she went on, "Audrina, my dear girl, you
are now gazing upon what was once the world's Olympic ice-skating
champion until I turned professional.  That lasted about eighteen
years.  I had a glorious tune, loving every moment of the excitement.
Arden can tell you tales of how we lived out of trunks.  We travelled
all over the world entertaining people, and then one fateful day I fell
on the ice because someone had lost a bobby pin.  I could have broken
my leg, but I only received a cut from my skate.  That small cut should
have healed in a week or so.  But it didn't heal in six months because
the doctors found out I had diabetes.  Would you believe my leg was
rotting right before our eyes and there didn't seem to be anything the
doctors could do to stop it.  I had ret been to a doctor all during my
career.  I suppose if I had known what kind of a vicious disease I had,
I might have given up skating much sooner.  But as it was, I had my
day, didn't I, son?"

"Yes, Mom.  You had your day in the sun, and I'm happy you did."  His
eyes lit up with pride as he smiled.

"I can close my eyes right now and see you skating, the star of the
shhow.  And I felt so proud, so very proud.  "He paused and glanced my
way again.

"Audrina, what my mother is trying to say and having so much difficulty
with is2 "I don't have any legs that's whatV shrieked Billie.

I stared at her disbelievingly.

"Yes,"she cried,"I was hoping you'd never find out.  I wanted us to be
friends.  I wanted you to treat me like a normal human being and not
like a freak."

So stunned by her information I felt sick, I stared at her face, To
look where her legs should be under all those s. No legs?  How did she
get around?  I wanted to run, to cry.  For here was another, beautiful,
kind I woman whom God had punished and else Papa wouldn't approve of.
rid silence filled the small room and spread t the whole cottage,
almost as if time were standing all hung on the brink of some chasm
that would Billie and forever separate Arden and me.  Whatever said,
whatever expression was on my face this very , would tell.  them more
than my words.  't know what to do or what to say, or even what to
foundered helplessly, trying to grasp something that give me the right
words ... and then I thought of my Suppose, just suppose, that Momma
had come home hospital with no legs.  Would I have felt disgust, ?
Would I have been ashamed and embarrassed to r seen?  No, Id have
wanted her back, no matter what.  anything to have Momma back, with or
without legs.  when I found my voice.  "re the most beautiful woman
with dark hair I've ever I said it sincerely.

"I'd say you were the most beautiful .  I've ever seen, but my mother
was beautiful, too.  If could have my mother again, I wouldn't care if
she had not I paused, flushed and felt guilty.  For Momma have cared.
She wouldn't have been able to cope with She'd cry, hide herself away,
and probably die from of wanting to live without her legs.

tion washed over me for Billie, who would live for 's sake, for her
own, too, no matter what the circum stan- """I think, too, that you are
the kindest, most generous.  I've ever known," I went on.

"I've piled my problems ur shoulders and not once have you even hinted
you had own."  Humbled and ashamed, again my head inclined.  I felt
sorry for myself just because my memory was ted with holes, through
which were dropped the secrets existence.

that she'd told me a little, Billie was going to tell me thing.

"My husband left me shortly after I came home from the second
amputation two years ago-' There was no bitterness in her voice.

"My son waits on me; at least, he helps me with what I can't do myself.
Although I'm Pretty good about doing for myself, hey, Arden?"

"Yes, Mom, you're super.  There's very little you can't do for
yourself."  He smiled at me, so proud of his mother.  of course, my
ex-husband does send his piddling cheque once a month," added Billie.

"Dad will come back one day, Mom.  I know he will."

"Sure he will.  In a year of Sundays he'll come back."

I jumped up to run and kiss her heavily rouged cheek, then impulsively
I hugged her close.  Her strong arms closed about me almost
automatically, as if she couldn't resist someone who loved and admired
her, even though tears were streaming down her cheeks and black mascara
ran in streaks.

"I'm so sorry I burst in on you without warning," I choked, crying,
too.  in sorry you lost your legs.  But Billie, if you were still
skating, and this may sound selfish, I'd never have known you or Arden.
Fate brought you both to me."  I smiled and brushed away my tears.

"Papa says that fate is the captain of all our ships, only we don't
know it."

"That's a fine way to put responsibility where it doesn't belong.  Now
get along home, Audrina, before your papa comes looking for you, and
I'll see you another day.  If you want to come back."

"Oh, I'll be back soon," I said with confidence.

That day Arden again walked me back through the I was full of
admiration for Billie and wonder, too.  I to know just how she managed
to clean house and do the laundry when she had no legs.  If only I
could tell Vera all that Billie could do without legs, when she could
hardly do anything with two.  I wondered how I'd handle the day when
finally I saw Billie without all those stiff, concealing skirts.  For
surely she couldn't wear so many clothes in the summer.

At the edge of the woods we said a hasty goodbye.  He still had to
deliver newspapers, and then bag groceries.  It was likely Arden would
never have enough sleep until he graduated from college.  I watched him
turn and race back home.  He was so conscientious, so dedicated to his
mother and to helping her that I had less and less time with him. 
There was pay for everything, I thought sadly, opening the side
entering our house of shadows.

on the purple chaise, Vera was busy reading of the romances that filled
Momma's cupboard She was so deeply engrossed she didn't pay much to me.
I wanted to tell her about Billie, but for some n held back, afraid
she'd say something ugly.  And it 't make any Merence if I told her how
hard Billie Vera thought work was for stupid people who didn't
better.

"My brains will see me through," she'd told times.  As I watched her,
and she was unaware of me, tip of her tongue moving back and forth on
her lower eyes appeared glassy; her breasts heaved upward and hand was
inside her blouse, caressing herself.  Then the book aside, threw back
her head and began to use hand under her skirts.  I stared at what she
was doing.  Stop that!  It looks gross!"  'way," she murmured without
opening her eyes.

"What know about anything?  You're a babe in the woods or that I was
growing up, boys were beginning to turn and after me, making Papa feel
very proud.  Very often he took to his brokerage firm, allowing me to
watch and listen to all about what he did.  I was his showpiece,
replacing my r, who'd often sat in the very chair he gave me beside his
'k.  Old men and women came to talk to me and to joke with before they
turned their conversations to financial talk had taught me to
understand.

"My daughter is going to my business partner one day," Papa proudly
informed all co ers who hadn't heard this a hundred times before.  h my
kind of daughter, a man doesn't need a son."  e made me feel good on
days like this, which ended wither in a fine restaurant and a movie
afterwards.  On the city ts I saw legless beggars on little carts they
shoved along, imes with gloved hands.  Sometimes they used little that
looked like small rubber-bottomed irons to grab at sidewalks and spare
their hands.  the blisters.  And once I'dnever seen them, or if I had,
I'd turned my eyes away and pretended they didn't exist.

The very next day I had to say something to Billie that I'd held back
since the day I knew about her lack of legs.

"Billie, I've been looking at people in the city who have no legs.  So
I won't be shocked if you don't always wear those long skirts."

She scowled at me, then turned her head.  She had a lovely profile,
classical and perfect.

"I'll know when you're ready to see me without my full, long skirts.
I'll tell by your eyes.  And you're not ready yet.  It's not pretty,
Audrina.  Those men you see on the streets wear trousers that they fold
over so you don't see the stumps.  Once I had very beautiful legs; now
I have eight-inch stumps that even I can't look at without feeling
disgust.  "Shesighed, shrugged, then gave me a charming smile.

"Sometimes my missing legs still hurt.  Phantom pain, the doctors call
it.  I wake up in the night and feel my legs below me, hurting so badly
sometimes I can't help but call Arden, and he comes running to give me
some drug the doctor prescribes.  He won't let me keep it by my
bedside, afraid I'll take too much by accident.  It makes my mind fuzzy
so I can't remember if I take one or even two pills.  While I wait for
the pill to take effect, he sits by my bedside and tells me silly
stories to make me laugh.  Sometimes that boy of mine stays up all
night just to entertain me when the pains won't go away.  God was good
to me the day he told me not to destroy the baby that might spoil my
career.  I thought twice and didn't have an abortion.  If I had know
long ago all the children I prevented would have been like Arden,
perhaps I'd have had twelve children."

Did that mean she'd had many abortions?  I didn't like to think she
had.  I convinced myself she meant she'd done something else to keep
from having babies and giving up her career.  I also knew even if she'd
had a hundred sons, only one would be like Arden, devoted, responsible,
a man even before he finished being a boy.  He was never depressed or
angry."  just even and steady and always there when he was needed. Like
Billie.

Overwhelmed with my thoughts, I got up to embrace Billie.  I never was
able to impulsively show affection to my aunt, when many times I wanted
to.  I needed Billie to be my mother especially when Aunt Ellsbeth
always held arm's length.

"All right, Billie, maybe I'm not ready yet you without your long
skirts, but one day when I come here and you don't have on your dressy
clothes, I won't st.  Youll look in my eyes and you'll see nothing but
on and gratitude for being what you are and giving to the world as
well."  laughed and put her strong arms around me before she deep into
my eyes.  There was sadness in her voice when kc next.

"Don't go falling in love too soon, Audrina.  is my son, and I think
he's perfect, but all mothers think sons are perfect.  You need someone
special.  I'd like to that Arden is that special, for I'd never want
him to .t you but if at some point he does, remember that of us is
perfect.  We all have our Achilles heels, so to again, with a great
deal of perception she was searching I and maybe my soul.

"What troubles you so much, ?  Why all those shadows in such beautiful
violet n't know."  I held fast to her.

"I guess I just hate being after an older sister who died mysteriously
at the age - I wish like crazy I'd been the First Audrina, who was the
Best Audrina.  My papa won't stop telling me' how she was, and every
word he says to praise her tea not living up to the standards she set.
I feel cursed, and cursed now that Momma died on my mi nth birthday and
was born then, too.  It's wierd and not right for so much when the
ninth day of the ninth month comes thingly, she held me, patiently
listening until I finished.  , that's all it is, plain nonsense. 
You're not haunted cursed, though your father should know better than
so often about a girl in her grave.  From all that I hear say about
you, if you were more perfect you'd have to a halo and sprout wings and
stand on a pedestal of solid "Silly, isn't it, how men want women to
look like angels t like ... well, never mind.  You're too young to
hear Darn there she went, stopping just when she was going to say
something meaningful.  Like Momma, Aunt Ellsbeth and Mercy Marie, too,
she grew embarrassed and left me hanging, still waiting for information
that would n't yer come.

One afternoon I was in the rocking chair, lazuy drifting beyond the
boys who waited in the woods to ravish.  I knew now that it was papa's
presence, even when he stayed in the hall, that had kept me from
finding anything from the rocking chair except the terror in the woods.
On my own, alone, I could fill the empty pitcher with contentment and
peace, but with Papa anywhere nearby, I had to stand behind the rocking
chair and pressure it hard with my hands to make the floorboards
squeak.  Only when he thought it was working would he leave.

This time I bypassed the school and headed towards somewhere wonderful
when I heard an argument raging down by my aunt's bedroom.  Reluctantly
I gave up the vision of the First Audrina and came back to being only
me.  My aunt was shouting.

"That girl needs to go to school, Darnian!  If you don't send her to
school, someone is going to report you to the school authorities.
You've told them you're hiring tutors to see that she's educated, and
you're not.  And she's not being neglected only educationally; she's
abused in other ways, too.  You have no right to force her to sit in
that rocking chair!"

11 have the right to do anything I want with my own child!"  he stormed
back.  11 rule this house, not you.  Besides, she's not afraid of the
rocking chair as she once was.  She goes there willingly now.  I told
you that sooner or later the chair would work its miracle."

"I don't believe you.  Even if she does sit there willingly, which I
doubt, I want that girl to go to school.  Every day I see her watching
Vera, standing at the window, wanting what Vera has so badly I could
almost cry for her.  Hasn't she endured enough, Damian?  Let her try
again to find her place.  Give her another chance.  Please."

My heart was doing flip-flops.  Did my aunt really care about me after
all?  Or had Lamar Rensdale found a way to convince her that I needed
school if I was ever to grow up happy and normal?  relented.  I would
be allowed to go to school.  a small normal thing to fill mewithsuch
overwhelming I had the chance, I whispered to my aunt while Vera over
another romance, "Why, Aunt Ellsbethil I didnt you cared ff I was never
formally educated."  drew me into the kitchen and shut the door, as if
she, 't want Vera to hear.  Irm going to be totally honest, AM truth is
something you are not likely to hear in house from anyone but me.  That
man who teaches you the piano came here one day and pressured me into
something to help you.  He threatened to go to the school and tell them
about your situation; your father would i'been fined or even sent to OR
for keeping a minor out of touldn't believe it!  Lamar Rensdale had
fiffilled his though it had taken him long enough.  I laughed and
around, and almost hugged my aunt, but she backed off.  left to run
upstairs and return to the rocking chair where to sing, hoping to find
Momma so I could tell her my Almost a Normal Life Papa took me
shopping so'I'd be ready to attend school at the beginning of the
midterm in February.  All my Christmas gifts were school clothes,
coats, shoes, even that raincoat that I'd been wanting for years and
years.  It was exciting to select skirts and blouses, sweaters and
jackets.  Papa wouldn't allow me to buy the jeans other girls wore.

"No pants for my daughterP he stormed, letting the saleslady
overhear.

"They show too much.  Now, you keep remembering to sit with your legs
together and don't even look at the boys do you hear me?"

His words were loud enough to inform the whole department store.  I
turned red and told him to lower his voice.  Something ugly always came
over Papa when he talked about boys.

When February finally rolled around, I was like a small child expecting
the circus to keep me forever happy.  There was no fear of the woods,
for Papa would drive me in the mornings, and I'd take the school bus
home in the afternoons.

"You're going to loathe it," proclaimed Vera.

"You think it's going to be fun, that the teachers will care if you
learn, but they won't.  You'll sit in a class with thirty or
thirty-five others and soon enough you'll find it's nothing but
boredom, plain, dull monotony.  Without the boys there I would run away
from home and never come back."

Not once had she ever said this to me before.  When I couldn't go to
school, she'd had glowing reports of all her fun activities.  Her
friends she'd numbered by the hundreds now she was telling me she had
none.

"Nobody likes a Whitefern, even if they lude behind the name of
Adare."

Papa told Vera to keep her big mouth shut.  Hurriedly, I said good
night, racing up the stairs and into the playroom, where I could rock
and tell Momma abDut my life.  Somewhere up there I was sure she was
listening, happy for me.  And as Iagain the walls seemed to dissolve
and become porous, was running wild in a field of flowers, laughing as
a t ten chased her.  She whirled to confront him when 'gcd on her sash
and it came off in her hands.  Who washy did he stare at the First
Audrina like that?  The scene and the other Audrma was again in school,
with a huge, with pimples seated behind her, and again, lock by was
dipping her long hair into his India-ink bottle.  It .g art class, and
she didn't even notice.... dreen ... na,"chanted a frightening
sing-song voice e me bolt back to myself.  Vera was in the doorway, at
me.

"Get out of that chair!  You've got enough!  You need her gift, too!
Get out, and never sit there again !  I need her gift most .. ."  her
have the chair, thinking she was right.  I didn't need own gift.  It
hadn't kept her alive until she was eleven, I was surviving, she
hadn't, and for now that was gift ously I dressed for my first day in
school the next My skirt was deep periwinkle blue, made of some wool
that would need dry cleaning.  My hands when I tied the black ribbon at
the throat of my white "You look beautiful, "said Papa at the door,
smiling his him Vera was standing, envy on her face.  Her dark scanned
me from head to toe.

"Oh, Papa," she said with 'nobody dresses like that any more.
Everybody's going ghat overdressed Audrina."  She glanced.  down at her
faded blue jeans and a sweater.

"I'm the one who's in t she said did little to give me the confidence I
needed.  te to fit in, not stand out like some oddity, yet Papa to let
me wear anything but skirts, blouses, sweaters S. Vera boarded the
yellow bus for her high school, Papa me to my grade school and came
with me to the 'pal's office.  My entry into school had been
prearranged, re was nothing to it except I had to be shown where to d
told how to behave.  The principal seemed to believe I'dbeen sick a
long time.  Sympathetically, she smiled.

"You'll be just fine once you've learned your way around."

Panic seized me in a tight grip when Papa turned to leave.  I felt six
ye;Fs old.  Then I panicked more, for I didn't remember being six years
old.  Papa threw me a glance over his shoulder.

"This is what you wanted, Audrina.  What you've begged for, so if you
can, enjoy it."

"You're a lovely girl," said the principal, striding off down a long
corridor and indicating I was to follow.

"Most of the children here are very well disciplined, but a few aren't.
Your father says your aunt was a school teacher, and has kept UP Your
assignments.  You should fit right into the fifth or sixth grade with
no difficulty.  We'll start you in the fifth so you won't feel
overwhelmed, and if you do well there, we'll advance you higher.  "She
gave me another waring smile.  "Your father is avery handsome man and
he thinks his daughter is absolutely brilliant.  I'm sure he's the one
who knows, too."

I looked around at all the children, who stared at me.  Their clothes
were very casual, just as Vera had warned.  And yet Vera had told me
the day before we shopped that the clothes I had on now were right for
grade school.  I should have known Vera would lie.  The girls were all
in jeans  None had ribbons in their hair.  Furtively, I untied my
ribbon and let it fall to the floor.

"Hey!"  called a boy from behind me.

"You dropped your ribbon."

Several students had already dirtied it with their sneakers.  Now I
didn't know what to do with it but hide it away in my little purse.

"Girls, boys," said the principal, who strode to the front of our
classroom.

"I want you all to meet Audrina Adare.  Do what you can to make her
feel welcome."  She smiled at me, gestured towards an empty desk and
left the room.  As yet the teacher of this room hadn't shown up.  I sat
there with my notebook and new pencils, and didn't know what to do.
Somewhere far back in my brain was a hint that I needed books the other
students had books.  In front of me sat a pretty girl with dark hair
and blue eyes.  She turned to smile.

"Don't look so scared," she whispered, "You'll like our teacher.  Her
name is Mi".c Trible."  have any books," I whispered back.  they'll
give you books.  More books than you'll want to from school every day."
She hesitated and looked me .  "Hey, haven't you been to school
before?"  e reason I just couldn't say I hadn't been.  I lied and of
course, but I was out for a while ... when broke my leg."

Vera had served some useful purpose.  I could use her and report on
them faithfully.  Soon all the girls were to hear about my broken bones
that had kept me out I until I was eleven years old.

Miss Trible came into her class, she gave me the strangest look.  Her
smile was tight.

"Let us all stand the flag," she said.

"Then we'll have roll call, and each will answer, "Present."

boy behind me giggled.

"Boy, what's wrong with her?  like we don't know what to expect."
excited, yet puzzled, worried, tense and not too happy.  t think Miss
Trible liked me.  I thought groups of in the halls at lunchtime were
whispering about me.  find it nearly as wonderful to talk to girls my
own age ught.  I felt so much older than all of them.  And then, y, I
was like a first-grader, terrified of what to do if the bathroom. Where
was the bathroom?  more I thought about the problem, the worse it
became.  I needed to go so desperately I was in agony.  I began to and
uncross my legs.

"Audrina, is something wrong?"  the teacher.  , ma'am," I lied, ashamed
to say what was wrong in front boys.  you need to be excused, the
girl's room is at the far end wing.  Turn left as you leave the room."
.  and miserable, I jumped to my feet and ran.  I left ole classroom
laughing.  When I came back, I was too ssed to enter.

"Come in, Audrina,"called Miss Trible.  first day in a new school is
always somewhat traumatic, you soon find out where everything is. What
you don't ask."  Then she was tapping her pointer on the d, calling for
attention.

Somehow I managed the first terrifying days of school.  I did what the
other girls did, fading into their shadows.  I smiled when they smiled,
laughed when they did, and soon I was feeling completely false.  Some
of what those girls whispered in the restrooms shocked me.  I didn't
know girls talked like that.  Little by little I found out what made
Vera the way she was.  She conformed.  I couldn't.  I didn't know how
to laugh at jokes that seemed gross and not funny.  I didn't know how
to play the game of tease the boys and then run, for I had too many
visions of the first Audrina's rainy day in the woods.  I made one
friend, the girl who sat in front of me.

"It's going to be all right," she told me when the long first week of
school was over.

"But don't try and out-dress the rich girls from the city ... unless
you, too, are rich."  She gave me a troubled look.

"You are rich, aren't you?  There's something different about you.  Not
just the clothes you wear, and your hair, which I think is the
prettiest hair I've ever seen, but you seem to come from another
century."

How could I tell her I felt like I came from another world?  The
nineteenth-century world, old and antiquated as the house I lived in.

My class wasn't large like Vera had predicted, but small.  My school
was a private school.  That made Vera dislike me even more, since her
school was a public one.

Faithfully, I attended music classes every day after school.  Some day
I would be a fine pianist if I kept on as I was.  Lamar Rensdale
treated me with special kindness.

"Are you grateful you're in school?  Do you wish now I'd minded my own
business?"

"No, Mr.  Rensdale, I'll forever be grateful for what you did, for I'm
beginning to feel real, and I never did before.  I owe you for that."

"Goodbye, good luck and may your music live on for ever," he called' as
I ran out the door, hopping into the old car Billie had bought for
Arden.

My teachers seemed to be very careful with me, and I appreciated that.
They smiled encouragingly and gave me the books I took home each day.
After two months in school, I found there was some hidden source of
knowledge within me it seem I had been 6 school before.  Maybe I had
Ise my absorbed all the first Audrina's memories, or e and my aunt had
taught me very well while I sat at the table.  Those other tutors that
Papa kept saying he'd I couldn't remember must have contributed, too.
the first time, Arden was allowed to visit and sit down leon Easter
Sunday.  I'd pleaded and begged and threatened, wanting Billie, too,
but Billie had "Come to see me after your dinner.  Well have that
mousse you say your aunt doeuet know how to make dessert."  Sunday
dinner was a miserable meal because Papa tioning Arden about who his
father had been and -his occupation had been, and why he had left his
wife and All through the meal Vera flirted with Arden, batting her
eyelashes, twisting and turning to show off her breasts that y showed
she didn't wear a bra.  Arden seemed awed by e of my home.  He glanced
around uneasily, as if thinking never be able to afford anything half
as grand.  hen summer came, Arden and I spent every spare minute r. He
taught me how to swim in the River Lyle, really like he did.  The river
bottom was muddy and layered oysters and crabs; mullets swam, jumping
and frolicking during the twilight hours.  Their little splashes came
to dreams, waking me sometimes so I'd drift to the window gaze down on
the glittering moonlit water.  Something erful was happening inside me
this summer, making me to wake up and escape the house; but try as I
would to Vera behind, she always came trailing after.  ra was demanding
that Arden teach her how to drive Ais car.  I was hoping he wouldn't
want to, but he did teach her ve the country roads without much
traffic.  One day, after a lesson, we hurried back to the river and
tore of four outer lies.  All of us wore swim suits beneath our shorts.
The rat ure was soaring near a hundred degrees.  I turned to den
staring at Vera in her skimpy bikini.  The three little gles were
bright green and very flattering to her hair r. Her pale skin- had
tanned to a light copper shade, and I had to admit she looked extremely
pretty.  Already shed developed a woman's figure, with high full
breasts that jutted out that little-nothing green bra.  My chest was
still flat as a pan bottom.

Vera strolled closer to Arden with a lighter green towel thrown
casually over her shoulder.  Her hips undulated.  Apparently the
fascination of watching them move like that made Arden forget all about
me.

"I'm terribly tired after all that driving, and the long hike here.
Arden, would you mind helping me down the incline?"

He hurried to assist her down the gentle slope, which I knew she could
manage perfectly well.  For some reason he couldn't seem to let go of
her waist or arm.  His fingers on her upper arm just brushed the
swelling contours of her new bosom.  I flushed with anger when she
smiled up into his eyes.

"You grow more handsome each year, Arden."

He grew nervous, flushed, then snatched his hands away and looked
guiltily at me.

"Thank you, "he said with difficulty.

"You seem prettier each day yourself ' My eyes widened as I watched
Vera lie on her stomach in the bright sunlight.  Arden hovered above,
seeming unable to move away.

"Arden, would you mind smoothing on some of my suntan lotion?  With my
kind of-light-sensitive skin, I have to be very careful or I get a
terrible burn."

She had the palest skin I'd ever seen.  Even as I stared at her pretty
copper tan, I was wondering when she'd acquired it.  Then, to my
amazement, Vera was asking him to untie her bra at the back.

"I don't want pale string marks.  Stop glaring at me, Audrina.  I won't
show anything if I don't move too quickly Not that Arden hasn't seen
naked boobs; before."  She grinned when he Jerked away and looked
surprised and guilty.  Still he knelt down to untie her bra, and even
if he looked embarrassed and awkward, he managed to smear some of that
oil on her back and a dam long time it took him to do it, too.

It was taking too long.  I thought his hands lingered unnecessarily
long in certain places.  He appeared so excited his hands trembled.
Furious with him, with Vera, I jumped up and ran all the way home,
hating them both.

Hours later Vera limped into my room, flushed and happy' What a silly
prude you are," she said as she fell into t chair.

"I'm not interested in your boyfriend.  I've got eyes on someone else."
didn't believe her.

"You leave Arden alone, Vera.  To get you'll have to kill me first."
might have been better if Id never said that.  Her dark eyes p.

"Oh, if I really wanted him he'd be easy enough to take," rred like
some fat cat.

"But he's just a boy, too immature .  But maybe he's more mature than I
thought and I owe another chance.  The next time I'll let him apply the
oil r. pa would kill you."

threw a bare leg over the velvet arm of my chairing so much I had to
look away.

"But you won't tell him, ina, his sweet Audrina, for you ve got a
great, big secret.  're taking lessons from the Don Juan of Whitefern
Village.  r Rensdale has seduced every virgin within the radius of ty
miles."  You're crazy!"  I shouted.

"He's never done anything."  She leaned over the opposite arm of the
chair so that her h-air led to the floor.  The tiny bikini top rode up
so high I saw had tanned her breasts, too.

"But Papa won't believe that," answered smugly, shaking her hair to
free it of sand.

"Papa I believe anything the villagers ten him.  So you'd better be to
me, Audrina."  .1 felt sick as she got up, went to the mirror and took
off her ng suit, showing me what she had and I didn't.  Then, still ,
she sauntered out of my room, leaving her wet suit on rug.  ow I was
nervous about my music lessons, afraid now Of man I'd trusted before. I
cringed when he leaned above me, shrank when his hand accidentally
touched mine.  His some face showed puzzlement as his eyes tried to
meet e and failed.

"What's wrong, Audrina?"

"Nothing."

"I hate it when someone says that, when obviously something is very
wrong.  What made you stop trusting me?"

"I guess I've heard a few things," I whispered with my headed.

"I'm afraid I can't come here again."

"So," he began in a bitter way, Wre going to be like all the others
and believe the worst of me."  He jumped up from the bench and paced
his small living room.

"You happen to be the only student who keeps me tied to this hick town.
I keep telling myself even if I'm not good enough for Broadway, I am
contributing a fine musician to the world."

I felt sorry for him, for me, too, for there wasn't another qualified
teacher except in the city thirty miles away, and I had no way to reach
the city.

"Mr.  Rensdale -2 I tried to begin.

"Lamar, why can't you call me by my first name?"  he shot out angrily,
locking his long fingers together and flexing them back and forth.

"I can't call you by your fiat name.  Papa has warned me not to do
that, for it's the first step..  Here I hesitated, beginning to feel
very hot and uncomfortable.

"Vera talks a lot, remember that.  If she ever told Papa about your
reputation, he'd come after you ... and Papa is huge, and it's not his
way to stop and listen to reason.  He'd believe anything Vera told him
.. . and she hates me.  He knows she hates me, and still he'd believe
what she says, for he doesn't trust any man around young girls.  If he
didn't believe me so chaste and pure in mind, he wouldn't have let me
come in the first place."

"I'll speak to Vera when she comes for her next lesson."  He stopped
pacing and stood before me.

"She's wasting her time with me, and your father's money.  She has no
musical ability at, all, yet she insists on trying.  She's competing
with you, Audrina.  She wants everything you want.  She wants your
young man, she wants the love your father gives you and not her  She's
jealous of you, and dangerous, too.  Beware of Vera."

Slowly my eyes lifted to meet his.  He lightly touched my hair, then my
cheek where the tear had slid.

"Are you crying for me, or for yourselp."  he asked softly.

"Who win teach you the piano when I'm gone?  What will you do with your
talent then?  Bury it under the dishes you wash -and the babies you
bear, like your mother did?"

"I'll come back," I whispered, terribly afraid of repeating my mother's
frustrations.

"I'll risk Vera's telling Papa, but you be careful of her, too."  smile
came thin and crooked as he wiped away MY tearsa smile very much like
Vera's.

day I played better and better.  At her piano I felt like enthralled by
the music I created and somehow in the life I led.  Something was
missing, and I 't know what it was.  stood that winter staring out at
the softly falling snow, and needing, and I allowed myself to believe
it was I needed for fulfilment.  Once I had Sylvia home with where I
could give her all the love and-mothering she must tely need, Td feel
happy.  I wondered as I'd wondered sand times just what was wrong with
Sylvia.  Was it so Papa was sure the truth would deliver such a blow to
my itivitiesi that I might not recoveO Was I really that ve?  My aunt
ridiculed the notion so often that I felt both Papa shared the proof of
my hidden weakness.  snow danced in the wind, whirling around like tiny
ri has bouncing up, drifting down, floating sideways, pictures, telling
me, always telling me that I was never, r going to be free, any more
than Momma had been era came bounding through my bedroom door, the cold
air g to her heavy coat as she threw it down, and stained yet r
delicate chair.

"Guess what I've been doingt' she Ied, hardly n bleto contain herself.
Her eyes were lit up black coals.  The cold had made her cheeks red as
apPles.  re were red marks on her neck.  Marks she pointed out to
"Kisses made those," she said with a smirk.

"I've got those all over me.  I am no longer a virgin, little
sister."

"You're not my sister!"  I flared.

"What difference does it make, I might as well be.  Now, sit and listen
to what's going on in my life, and compare it the dull stuffiness of
yours.  I have seen a naked man, ina, a real one, not just a picture or
illustration.  He is so You'd never suspect just how hairy by looking
at him his clothed.  His hair travels from his chest down past siavel
and runs into a point and keeps on going and getting ushier until
"Stop!  I don't want to hear more."

"But I want you, to hear more.  I want you to know what you're
missing.  It's wonderful to have all those nine inches stabbing into
me.  Did you hear me, Audrina?  I measured it ... almost nine inches,
and it's all swollen and hard."

I ran to the.  door but she was up and blocking my way.  With
surprising strength she threw me to the floor, straddled my body.  I
thought about kicking her out of the way, but I was afraid she'd fall
and break another bone.

She put her foot on my chest, which was just beginning to swell, "He's
got a marvelous body, little sister, really a fantasti body.  What we
do would shock you so much you'd scream and possibly faint .. . and I
love every second of what we do together.  Can't get enough, never can
get enough."  .  "You're only fourteen," I whispered, truly shocked at
the loony way she looked and the disgusting way she talked,.  "Soon to
be fifteen," she said with a hard laugh.

"Why don't you ask me who is my lover?  I'll tell you, gladly tell
you."

"I don't want to know.  You tell lies all the time.  You're lying now.
Lamar Rensdale wouldn't want a kid like you."

"How do you know that?  Because he doesn't want you?  Who would want
you but a kid like Arden?  He feels obligated to you, protective of you
... and I could tell you so much about that you'd probably lose your
mind which already hovers on the brink of insanity.  Anybody fully sane
knows exactly what's gone on in their lives everybody but you."

"Leave me alone, VeraV I shouted.

"You're a liar and always will be.  Lamar Rensdale wouldn't want you
after I told him about Papa."

"What did you tell him about Papa?"  she asked with hard, narrowed
eyes.

"I told him Papa was huge, and had a terrible temper, and even if Papa
isn't your father, you could ruin our name."

She laughed so hysterically she fell on the floor and rolled around
like someone demented.

"Boy, you take the cake, Audrina!  Rum our name?  How can something
already destroyed be ruined?  And if you don't believe me, go and ask
Lamar.  He doesn't object to my age.  He likes young girls.  Most men
do.  Why, if you could see him striding to me without a stitch on, with
that great gun cocked and aimed by what she said, I ran from the room,
down to Aunt Ellsbeth was in the kitchen.  I forgot about Vera t pity
for my aunt, always working so hard, doing half of chores and most of
Vera's, too, now that I didn't all day.  Ellsbeth looked up from
washing the dishes.  What I in her dark eyes startled me.  They were
glowing radiantly, she'd looked all her life and had at last discovered
to be joyful about.  No longer did she call Papa cruel s as once she
had.  He no longer called her a walking le, tall, lean and mean, with
the tongue of a shrew.  she began and in her voice I heard a bit of
'you've got to be very careful not to let your father te your life.
He'll never do that to Vera because she 't care what he thinks of her.
Because you do care, you yourself vulnerable.  He's self-serving to the
point of cruel enough to rob you of what you need.  He lies; he and
deceive .  He's devilishly clever and likable, but I'm to say,
completely without honour or integrity.  If he can ly manage it."  he
will keep you here with him until the he dies, and never allow you to
have a life of your own.  I tell that you love him.  In some ways I
commend you for loyalty and devotion.  But blood ties are not supposed
to .s. You don't owe him, or Sylvia, your life."  Oh, what did she
mean?  He's bringing Sylvia home this spring," she said in that flat
that sent chills down my spine.  "Once she's here, you 't have time for
music lessons, or time to do anything but on her."  was thrilled to
know that at last Sylvia was coming, but the of that was shadowed by
her words and her expression.  Ivia.  was two years old last September,
Aunt EUsbetlL 't that mean she's past the time of being a troublesome
She snorted.

"Your father doesn't want me to discuss Sylvia.  e wants you to grow
very attiched to her.  I'm warning you, 't let that happen.1 I stared
at her, completely bewildered.  Wasn't I supposed 1o love my own
sister?  Didn!t Sylvia need me to love her?

"Don't look at me like that.  I'm thinking of you, not her Nothing can
help Sylvia, and that's too bad, but you can be saved and that's what
I'm trying to do.  Keep yourself detached, Do for her what you can, but
don't love her too much.  In the long run you'll thank me for saying
this now and not when it's too late."

"She's deformed!"  I cried out, horribly distressed.

"Why didn't Papa tell me, Aunt Ellsbeth?  I have the right to know.
What is wrong with Sylvia, Aunt Ellsbeth, please tell me.  I need to be
prepared."

"She's not deformed," she said in a kind way, looking at me with such
pity.

"Indeed, she's a beautiful child, and in many ways she looks very much
as you did at her age.  Her hair is not as remarkably coloured as
yours, but then, she's hardly more than a baby, and it may change and
become exactly like yours and your mother's.  I only hope that some day
she will look exactly like you.  Lord God above, if that happened,
perhaps he'd set you free from playing those silly dream games he
believes in so much.  For an adult man with a high degree of
intelligence, he can sometimes be as superstitious as any moron.  I've
seen you swing that ring on a string over the stock lists you make, so
I give you creditior being clever.  Be clever enough to save yourself
when the time comes."

What did she mean?

"Audrina, heed ray advice and stop what you're doing.  Don't try to
help him.  Try, instead, to see him for what he is5 someone determined
to keep you tied to him in as many ways as he can dream up.  He's
convinced himself that you are the only female in the world worthy of
his love and devotion, and to You he will give everything he possesses,
never realizing he's stealing from you the best the world has to
offer."

"But I don't understand!"

"Think about iti then.  Think of how afraid he is of growing old and
infirm so he'll be put away in some old-age home.  It's like a phobia
with him, a sickness, Audrina.  We all have to grow old.  There's
nothing we can do to stop it."

Ut, but .  - ."  I sputtered.

"Why are you trying to help me, when I didn't know you even liked
me?"

"Let me try to explain," she said, folding her work-reddened primly on
the slight lap she made.

"When I came back jo live with my daughter, I was made into a servant.
I was to let myself feel anything for you.  I had Vera, and Vera nobody
but me.  The trouble was, Vera adored Lucietta soon grew to despise me
for being a slave, when I had to ftt or get out.  I had my reasons for
wanting to stay.  And right to say on ... for it worked out just as I
knew it would had the patience."

breath caught.

"Tell me more," I whispered.  n the beauty rsce your mother always won,
so naturallyI envious of her in all ways.  I was jealous of her figure,
her her talent, and, most of all, envious of her ability to make love
her exceedingly well."  A tightness came into her .  "There was one man
I loved, only one and then he saw Once he saw her, it was all over for
me.  It hurts to lose, rina, hurts so badly sometimes you wonder how
you can with it.  But I did live with it, and perhaps one day I will m
win one race by default."  .

en, hard, why my aunt had always been so jealous nd why Momma had flung
back at her sister that always got what she wanted, and my aunt never
did.  Aunt sbeth had been in love with my father!  Despite the fact
that argued with him, disapproved of him, still she loved him.  seemed
that way back in my mind I'd guessed this long, long and tried to tuck
it away into one of my memory hold.

"Aunt Ellie, do you love him even when you know he cheats deceives and
has no honour and no integrity?"  Alarmed, her eyes fled from mine.

"I've talked enough for e day," she answered shortly, stalking into the
dining room th a fresh tablecloth.

"But you take heed of what I said, and aware that things are not always
as they seem to be.  Put your st in no man, and, most especially,
discard any dreams that turb you."

Sylvia Time had slowed down for me.  Now I could retain y Memories and
Store them in the safest places in my brain.  in With the help of my
daily journal, I read over my memories daily to deeply implant them-
The rocking chair was helping in more ways than one now, despite Vera.
I had hold f I had a refuge now, a sanctuary where I could 0 peace now
image floating on the clouds.  find MoMma,s S I was eleven years and
eight months old that May when Ylvia came home.  My aunt had confirmed
this, and I believed she was telling me the truth this time.  She also
confirmed t Vera was three years and ten months my senior.  Nothing, I
that myself" would ever make me forget my Age Again.  told I wouldn't
allow the grey mists Of forgetfulness to come again and obscure
important events.  I looked in MY mirrors and saw small, hard breasts
swelling out my sweaters- I wore MY sweaters loose, hoping Arden
wouldn't notice, but already I'd seen him looking there and trying not
to let me see him when he did.  I saw Other boys in school taking
interested surveys on how my figure was improving.  I ignored them and
concentrated on Arden, who was still in the same school Vera attended.
What I bad under my sweaters was small in comparison to what Verma is
played by wearing the tightest sweaters she could squeeze into.

Papa never objected to Vera,s tight sweaters.  Vera was allowed to date
and 90 to movies and school proms.  She belonged to half a dozen clubs,
or so she reported when she came home very late sometimes.  I never had
time to socialize.  I had to hurry to Mr.  Rensdale every day after
schoohbut I was uneasy with him now.  I couldn't help thinking of what
Vera W told me about what she did with him.  Half the time I thought
she lied; half the time I thought maybe she didn t. Onehis sports shirt
open at the throat, and his chest was just as she'd said.  She had
described his naked body ,"oin such detail it was almost as if he wore
transparent I couldn't look his way.  girls I met at school asked me to
their slumber parties..

always refused to let me go.  He wanted me home with g to him, watching
him shave, hearing of his trials,tdbulations at work.  While he shaved
and I still perched edge of his tub, I learned how to short stocks,
what long meant.  I heard about wash sales and municipal and tax
shelters, and percentage rates, and hedging, tax loopholes.  The stock
market was a crazy gambling for the very rich.  Only the ones with
millions were sure fit unless they were somehow 'intuitive'.

you are," said Papa with a wide smile as he wiped off excess shaving
lather.

"Audrina, the rocking chair did help, It it?"  es, Papa.  Can I go now?
I want to call Arden and make s to meet him tomorrow.  There's a movie
showing I'd like see.  ,ru take you to the movie.

"Vera go esto the movies with boys.  Why can't IF "Because I don't give
a dqmn what Vera does."  I'd argued this out before and lost; I was
sure to lose-again.

Papa smiled at me.

"Well, my love, my patient one, you soon to have again what you want
most.  T- morrow .ng early, I'm taking off to drive to where Sylvia has
lived e she left the hospital.  I've already called and made all the
ecessary arrangements.  Sylvia will come home with me 'tomorrow
morning."

"Oh, PapaV I cried happily, 'thank you, thank you!"  How strange his
sad smile, how very strange.  Early the next morning, long before Papa
was out of bed and was ready to drive to Sylvia, I raced through the
woods to the cottage on the other side.  The woods were lush and green,
full "of the beauty of spring.  I was hoping to catch Arden before he
rode off on his bicycle to deliver the morning papers.  His old car had
'conked out' and was now just junk to clutter the yard as he tried to
repair it again.  Robins and purple martins were on the grass, paying
little attention to me as I ran to the cottage door and threw it open
without knocking.  Straight on into the kitchen I ran, only to pull up
short and gasp.

There was Billie wearing shorts and a red tank top.  For the first time
I was seeing her without all those long, full skirts that made it seem
she did have two legs hidden somewhere underneath.  Her hair was loose
and waving, and the knit top revealed a remarkably voluptuous bosom,
but all I could see were the little eight-inch stumps thrusting out
from the legs of her short shorts.  They seemed like fat sausages that
slimmed down quickly so they could be neatly tied at the ends.  Faint
radiating lines made folds like wrinkles from where the excess skin had
been drawn and somehow fastened.  I shrank away.

It was so pitiful, those stumps where her beautiful legs used to be.  I
glanced towards the living room where she had all those photographs of
herself in costume.  I choked back a cry of distress, when I hadn't
wanted to show pity.  I had wanted to see them, and not remark, or even
seem to notice.

To my surprise, Billie began to laugh.  She reached to touch my cheek,
then touselled.  my already windblown hair.

"Well, go ahead and stare all you want to.  Can't say I blame you.
They're not pretty to look at, are thei?  But remember that once I had
two of the most beautiful, skilful and creative legs any woman could
desire.  They served me well when I had them, and most people never
have what I did."

Again I was left without words.

"People learn to adjust, Audrina," she said softly, refraining from
touching me again as if afraid now I wouldn't want her to.

"You're putting yourself in my place and thinking you couldn't stand to
live with my handicap, but somehow, when it's your own, it isn't nearly
as horrible as it seems to someone else.  Then, again, as contrary as
we humans are, I can look around and think, why me and not her or him?
I could throw myself into an abyss of self-pity if I wanted to.  Most
of the time I don't even think about the loss of my legs."

I stood there, all gangly and awkward, feeling humbled.  I could almost
see her legs that weren't there.

"Arden told me he sees you with your legs.  He never sees the stumps."
she said, her eyes shining, He's a wonderful son.  ut him, I would
probably have given up.  He saved me.

Arden forced me to carry on and teach myself to do hing.  And Arden
would do anything for me.  Somehow e we had each other, we've managed.
None of it has been and yet because it was difficult we have more to be
proud "Now, darling', enough said about me.  What are you doing here at
such an early hour?"  te went on with her canning as I hesitated.  Her
high stool Xollers was placed so she could scoot from here to there
with any effort, just by shoving or pulling with her hands.  it
happened more quickly than I could wink she slipped the stool, fell on
the floor with a thud, and lay at my feet a brief second like half a
large doll.  J started to help.  ""Don't help," she ordered, and in no
time at all, she used strong arms to heft herself back onto the
stool.

"Audrina, in the pantry and you'll see a little red cart I use when I t
to really speed around.  Arden made it for me.  He wants paint it a
different colour each year, but I won't let him.  I red best.  Nothing
shy about me, darling'."  Weakly I smiled, wishing I could be as brave.
Then I asked Arden had already left.

"Yep, he's gone.  If that lousy, stingy husband of mine would nd more
money, my son wouldn't have to work himself to th."  She turned and
smiled brightly and asked again, mon, tell me what you're doing over
here so bright and ly?"

"Billie, Sylvia's coming home today.  My aunt's told me she V. n't
normal, but I don't care.  I feel so bad that a poor little baby -aever
had a mother, and no family but Papa to love her.  That's not enough,
especially when Papa only visits her once or twice a month if he does.
You can never tell when my father tells the truth, Billie," I said with
some shame.

"He lies, and you 'know he's lying; and he knows you know he's lying,
and still be doesn't care."

"Your father sounds like a real dilly."

"I told Arden yesterday that Sylvia might come home today.

how Papa is I wasn't really sure but I eavesdropped and heard him
talking on the telephone last night.  He is bringing her home.  He also
called his office and told them not to expect him in today.  Did I tell
you he's manager now?"

"Yes, darling', you've told me at least two dozen times.  And now I'm
going to tell you something perhaps you don't know.  You are very proud
of your papa.  Even when you think you dislike him, you dislike him
regretfully.  Darlin', don't feel bad about loving and hating your
daddy.  None of us is all good or all bad.  People come in all shades
of grey.  No out-and-out devils, and no true angels and saints."  She
glanced around, not having paused one second in what she was doing.

She smiled.

"You go right on loving your papa even if he is straight from a cake.
Arden feels the same way about his father."

Two hours later, with my heart lodged somewhere in my throat, I stood
on the front steps of Whitefern with my aunt beside me and waited to
see my baby sister for the first time.  I looked around, knowing I had
to remember this special day so that later 11 could tell my little
sister just how it had been when she first came home.  The sun was out
bright and full.  Not a cloud was in the sky.  Some haze hung over the
woods and muffled the cries of the birds.  Dampness from the dew, I
told myself, only that.  The warm breezes from the River Lyle stirred
my hair.

The spacious lawn had been mowed by a man from the village-, he'd
trimmed the shrubs, weeded the gar-dens, swept the front walk.  The
house had been repainted white, and its roof was new, too red as dark
as congealed blood, like the blinds at the windows.  We were dressed in
our best to welcome Sylvia home.  Vera was there, too, seated lazily on
the swing, a small secret smile curving her lips and making her dark
eyes sparkle wickedly.  I suspected she knew far more about Sylvia than
I did, as she knew more about everything than I did.

"Aud ... dreentin ... ah..  she chanted, "soon you're going to see ...
see for yourself.  Boy, are you gonna be soff ... reee you kept
pleading to have your baby sister, because I disown her.  For me,
Sylvia Adare just does not exist."

In no way was I going to let Vera kill my excitement, or my us ted
Verawas jealous that it was my mother's my aunt S. Aook!  Here they
come!"  I cried excitedly, pohiting toes ducking in and out of the
thick rows of trees our curving drive.  I edged a bit nearer to my
aunt, tened her spine and stood taller.  For a brief second reached for
mine, but she didn't take my hand, as taken it.  us, Ver.  tittered as
she swung to and fro, to and fro, her "You'll be sorry' time.  shiny
black car drew to a stop before our entranceway.

out and strolled round to the passenger side, opened r and for the life
of me I couldn't see anyone in there.  Papa reached inside and lifted
from the seat a very -small called to me, "Here's Sylvia.  "He beamed a
broad smile and then put Sylvia on the ground.  's when the creaking of
the wooden slab swing stopped.  rose reluctantly to her feet and
drifted closer.  I glanced her eyes fixed on me, as if she were only
interested in ""reactions and didn't care about Sylvia at all.  Not
once did Zi look at my sister.  How odd.

pite Vera, and my aunt's grim expression, I was so happy stared at that
pretty little girl who was my sister.  In another n I was seeing her as
not just pretty, but beautiful.  She a bright head of chestnut-coloured
curls, reddish blonde re the sun highlighted, and how marvellously
shiny they .  I saw her sweet, little, dimpled hands that reached
Qd;ngly towards Papa, wanting him to pick her up.  He had stoop to
catch hold of her hand, yet he did that and began guide her towards the
steps.

"One step at a time, Sylvia," he our aged

"That's the way it's done, just one step at a How dear were the little
white shoes she wore.  What fun she was going to be, a living doll of
my very own to dress and play with.  Too excited for words, I stepped
down lower, just one "step and then paused.  Something ... something
about her -eyes, about the way she walked, the way she held her
mouth.

h, dear God what was wrong with her" Come Sylvia," urged Papa, tugging
on her miniature hand which must be lost in his.

"You come too, Audrina.  Step down to our level and meet the little
sister you've been dying to have.  Come closer so you can admire
Sylvia's aquamarine eyes that tilt so charmingly upward.  See how
widely spaced they are.  See Sylvia's long, curling, dark lashes.  See
all the beauty that Sylvia possesses and forget everything else."

He paused, looked at me and waited.  Vera giggled and moved for a
better place from which she could observe my every reaction.

Frozen, I thought at that moment that all of nature stood still waiting
for my decision and my judgement of Sylvia.  It was my move now, but I
couldn't move and couldn't speak.

Grown impatient, Papa spoke.

"Well, if you can't come to us, then we'll come to you."  Undaunted as
always, he flashed me a charming smile that made his teeth flash in the
sunlight.

"You have been pestering me for more than two years to bring home your
baby sister.  Well, here she is.  Aren't you delighted?"

Step by tortured step, Papa had to assist Sylvia to walk.  She couldn't
lift either foot with any degree of skill.  She shuffled her feet
along, making them slide-over obstacles, Even as she did this, her head
lolled to the right, then to the left; it fell forward; it jerked and
fell backward as if she stared at the sky.  Then back again, and the
ground would draw her attention if that nothing stare could be called
attention.

Sylvia's bones seemed made of rubber.  Before she'd taken five small
steps, she'd scuffed her new white shoes, fallen to her knees three
times and been hauled up by Papa.  Easily enough Papa tugged her up the
steps by lifting her by one frail arm.  As they advanced, I backed up
the stairs, not even realizing I was retreating.  Still Sylvia was
coming closer and closer so I could see details.  Her lips never met
but gaped so she drooled; her eyes never focused.

I trembled, feeling sick.  Papa, it was all his fault!  He was
responsible for Sylvia's condition!  All those arguments, the times he
used his belt for a whip.  I sobbed, then, for Momma, who had done her
bit, too, when she drank that hot tea laced with bourbon, even when
Papa told her not to.  doser every second was the end result of all
this ely little girl who looked absolutely moronic.

house hard behind my back.  up until I felt that Papa pursued, dragging
my sister along.  Then he pick her up, and in the cradle of just one of
his Id her so she was at my eye level.  Audrina, see Sylvia.  Don't
turn your head aside.  close your eyes.  See how Sylvia drools and
can't focus or even make her feet move correctly.  She'll reach for
wants a dozen or more times before she can figure out to grasp it.
She'll try to shove food into her mouth and'.  though eventually she'll
find a way to eat.  Shes like an a wild thing, but isn't she beautiful,
charming and too  Now that you see, perhaps you'll understand-why her
away for so long.  I was giving you freedom, and not did you thank me.
Not once."

ia is a crazy ... a crazy ... a crazy .. ."  chanted Vera in the
background.

"Now Audrina's got a nutty ... a a nutty .. ."

roared, "Vera, get in the house and stay there!"  some reason, Vera
paled.  She stalked closer to where stood with Sylvia.

"You'd rather have that idiot little girl me, wouldn't you?"  screamed
Vera, glaring at him and too.  Something tortured twisted her mouth and
made look old and ugly.

"There Will come a time when you'll want more than you ve ever wanted
anyone else but r1l spit in face before I'll help you when you need
it!"

"You are not telling me anything I don't already know," said coldly.

"You are like your mother free with your hate spite, stingy with your
love.  I don't need your help, Vera.  of now, and not in the future.  I
have Audrina."

"You have nothing when you have Audrina" yelled Vera ly, striking out
at him.

"She hates you, too, only she n't know it yed' Easily Papa continued to
hold Sylvia, as his free hand shot and delivered such a hard slap to
Vera's face that she fell p, the porch floor.  Crumpled there, she
screamed wildly, t insanely.  Sylvia began a loud wailing.

"Damn you for hitting herl'cried my aunt.  "Damian, allthatgirl wants
is a little show of affectiOn from You.  You've never given her
anything but indifference.  And you know who she IS VM know!"

"I don't know anything," Papa said in a voice so deadly cold I shivered
with fear.  He riveted his dark, menacing eyes on any aunt, almost
visually ordering her to keep her mouth shut or perhaps he'd knock her
down, too.

Panic was taking me over.  Vera crawled to where she could use the
screen door to pull herself up.  Then, still crying, she disappeared
into the house.  And I was left still staring at Sylvia, who couldn't
focus on anything or anyone.

What kind of eyes did she have?  Vacant eyes.  Nowhere eyes.  Though
their colour was striking and her long lashes were dark and curling,
what difference?  What difference when there was no intelligence behind
that void stare.

I swallowed over that aching lump that came again to thicken my voice
and sting my eyes with tears.  My fist balled and I swiped at my tears,
trying not to let Papa see.

Papa was staring at me.

"No comment, Audrina?  Come, now."  you must be thinking something."

My eyes lifted to meet his.  His smile came then, slight and cynical. I
asked in a weak voice why Sylvia couldn't close her mouth and focus her
eyes, and why couldn't she walk as well as other children almost three
years old."

"Leave us," said Papa to my aunt, who appeared rooted to one spot.  I
could still hear Vera's cries rebounding down the stairs.  Though our
huge house was cluttered with dark and massive ftimiture, when someone
screamed as Vera was screaming now, it seemed a hollow house, ghostlike
and full of echoes.

"Why should I leave, Damian?  Tell me that."

"Nobody's influence should come between Audrina and her sister.
Ellsbeth, take that disapproving scowl from your face.  It's not
becoming."

Without another protest, my aunt entered the house and slammed the
door.  Papa put Sylvia on the porch and released her hand.  Immediately
she began to wander about, aimlessly heading this way, then that,
turning, to clumsily bump into a wicker rocker, to upset a potted fern
placed on the white wicker the fern tumbled off the stand before it,
too, fen !s, blind, isn't she, Papa?"  I cried, all of a sudden why her
eyes were void and couldn't focus.

"Why tell me that a long time ago?"  be better if she were blind, "said
Papa sadly.

"Sylvia blind, but she can see almost as well as you or I- only
-Control the muscles of her eyes and make them stay Her doctors thought
soon after she was born that she of those nerve diseases and they
tested her for those.

through every examination known to modem to find out what's wrong with
her.  She can see, and hear, but still she doesn't react to anything as
she Now, go ahead and ask how the doctors know, and IT great boring
details to explain all the tests they gave her as they suspected
something was wrong."

e," I whispered.

fully, you'll see that she will bump into watch care and knock things
over, but she will not fall down the He had his eyes on me, and not
Sylvia, who really watching, as he went on.

"If you call her name tedly, she will respond eventually.  She may walk
right by but she'll come.  I wanted to leave her with the ther-4pists
another year.  I hoped in that time they might have ed in teaching her
how to control her body functions."  saw the look on my face and said
softly, "Audrina, Sylvia diapers like many other children her age, but
unlike children, Sylvia will no doubt have to wear diapers the of her
life."  -oh, how awful!  I stared at Sylvia disbelievingly.

"Papa went on.

"If what her specialists say is true-, Sylvia isently and severely
retarded.  I don't like believing that, I have to accept the fact.
Still, some little part of me keeps .  g that maybe Sylvia will one day
be normal if given the t care that is, if any of us know just what
normal is."  I'd prepared myself for anything but this.  Blind, deaf,
lame t I could handle but not this.  I didn't need a retarded r to
complicate the rest of my life.  That's when I turned to see that
Sylvia was dangerously near

M. S. A. -G 193

the steps.  Rushing forward, I grabbed her just in time.

"Papa, YOU she could seeP "She can see.  She is also very intuitive.
She wouldn't have fallen.  She's very much like a wild creature that
lives by its instincts.  Love her a little, Audrina, even if you can't
love her a lot.  She needs someone to love her and to my way of
thinking, if you love every stray cat and dog, and nurse every wounded
bird you find, then you can love your retarded sister and care for her
as long as she needs you."

I stared up into his full, handsome face just beginning to show a few
lines, and a bit of silver softened the dark hair at his temples.  I
wasn't twelve years old yet, and he was putting me in charge of a child
who would stay a perpetual baby.

Many times Papa had told me I was smart, that I could do anything I set
my mind to.  Soon he was saying I'd have Sylvia potty-trained in no
time at all.  Love could do more than professional expertise.  I
continued to stare at him with wide eyes as he went on to say I'd also
teach her how to focus her eyes, control her lips, how to walk
properly, talk well.  I couldn't stop watching Sylvia awkwardly backing
down the five steps on her hands and knees.  Then she got up to wander
about in the garden.  Several times she made an attempt to pull a
camellia from the bush.  The colour seemed to attract her, and when she
finally had it in her small hand, she tried to hold it to her nose and
sniff.  She didn't know exactly where her nose was, or if she did, she
didn't know how to aim precisely.  I was touched, horrified, and full
of pity.  In the short time she'd been here, she'd managed to dirty her
dress, scuff her shoes beyond repair, and her pretty hair was hanging
in her face.

I was in a turmoil.  I pitied Sylvia.  I wanted her and I didn't want
her.  I loved her, and maybe I was already beginning to hate her a
little, too.  Weeks later I was to suspect that if given a choice at
that moment, before she had a chance to seize my heart, I would have
sent her back from where she came.

But Sylvia was here and she was my responsibility.  Maybe I didn't want
her or need her, but for my beloved, dead mother I would take care of
Sylvia, even if it meant denying myself the freedom I might have had if
she'd never been born.

As I stood at the age of almost thirteen watching her, tender and
loving came and hurried me along the I rushed down the stairs so I
could ler up into my arms and on her round chubby cheeks a dozen or
more kisses. I cupped her small head in and felt the soft silky baby
hair.  "love you, Sylvia!  I'll be your mother.  You'll never be from
now on.  I'll teach you one day how to control er and how to use the
toilet.  I'll save you, Sylvia.  going to believe you're retarded, only
physically ed.  Each morning when I wake up I'm going to tell find new
ways to teach you what you need to know.  is a way to make you normal,
I know there is."

Sisters Thai very same evening Papa held me on his lap for the last
time" You growing up, Audrina.  Each day sees you more and more a
woman.  I see the changes taking place in your body and I certainly
hope Your stint did a good job of instructing yoU On how to handle
certain situations.  From now on I won't be able to cuddle you like
this.  People often presume ugly things but even if I don't hold you,
it won't mean I don't love YOU.

His hands were in my hair as I pressed my face against hwis shirt
front.  At that moment all I felt was his love.

"I'm proud and very glad you promised to take care of Sylvia," he went
on in an emotional voice, as if at last I was myself to be very like
his First and Most BBeloved - "It is Your duty to take care of your
unfortunate sister.  You must agree never to put her in a mental
institution where -she'll be abused by other patients, by the
attendants who are not honourable when it com esto pretty young girls.
And she Will be beautiful; even now you can see it.  She won't have any
mental capabilities, but men won't care.  She'll be used by them,
abused by them.  By the time she reaches puberty, some boy Will steal
her virginity, perhaps make her a mother.  And God help her child, who
will then become your responsibility, too.

"Don't look at me like that and think TIM putting my burden on your
young shoulders.  Sylvia will outlive me, just as you will.  I'm
preparing you for the time when I'm gone and your Aunt Ellsbeth is,
too."

I sobbed on his shoulder, thinking of the heavy cross Sylvia was.

Papa carried me up the stairs for the last time and tucked me into bed,
and maybe for the last time he kissed me good night.

came of all the times he'd put me to bed and good night, and heard my
prayers, and taken me to Audrina's room to rock and dream.  He was
telling me in the doorway, looking at me sadly, that from now ted me to
be an adult.  right, Papa," I said in a strong voice.

"I'm not aft aid halls at night now.  If Sylvia cries out in her sleep,
to her and you won't have to bother.  But you love her, do for her all
that you did for me.  I'm not even afraid I'in the rocking chair any
more.  When you don't stay the door, I do become the empty pitcher that
Us to with everything beautiful.  The boys in the woods t bother me
now, for I've learned not to fear them like I to do.  Thank you, Papa,
for helping me overcome my fear stood there silent for long, long
moments.

"I'm happy to your empty pitcher has filled."

I rock in the chair now I can find Monima and talk is that crazy,
Papa?"  e shadow came to darken his eyes even more.

"Stay out rocking chair, Audrina.  It's done all it can for you , t?
How surprising.  I knew now I wasn't going to give Papa was protecting
mi from something he didn't want , Ito.know, and that very something
was what I had to e -left me then and closed the door and I was alone.
I lay still in the gloom I could hear the house breathe, and the boards
whispered, conniving a way to keep me here for In the dimness of my
shadowed room with all the ghosts of Wluteferns murmuring, I heard the
creak of my door it opened and softly closed.  A wraith straight from
hell to come through.  Its hair stood on end.  The long, white t it
wore trailed on the floor.  I almost screamed!

"Audrina ... it's only me ... Vera."  My heart pounded so fast from the
fright she'd given me, my quivered when I asked what she wanted.  Weak
and her words came to dumbfound me.  "I want to be your friend ... if
you'll have me.  I'm tired of living in a house where everybody hates
me, even my own mother.  Audrina, I don't have anybody.  Teach me how
to make people love me, like they love YOU.

"Your mother doesn't love me," I choked.

"Yes, she does.  At least, she loves you more than she loves me.  She
trusts you with the best china and crystal and that's the real reason
she lets you take on most of my chores.  I'm not good enough to be a
kitchen slave.  Audrina, have you noticed how often she throws that
into Papa's face?  It's her weapon to beat him with, like she knows it
hurts him when she says that.  For that's what he made your mother his
kitchen and bedroom slave."

I didn't like this kind of talk; it seemed disloyal.

"My mother loved him," I said defensively.

"When you love, I suppose you give up what you wanted for yourself."

"Then give up something for me, Audrina.  Love me as you are willing to
love Sylvia, and she's retarded and stupid, even if she is little and
pitiful and kinda cute.  I'll be your best sister.  I will.  From now
on, I swear never to be mean or hateful to you again.  Please be my
friend, Audrina.  Please trust me."

Vera had never come near me before without making some attempt to harm
me, or my possessions.  She trembled as she stood near my bed, seeming
pathetically vulnerable in her long, white nightgown with her strange
hair that rose straight up and made her look frightful.  Yet I couldn't
help understanding.  It was terrible to be unloved by your own mother
... andifshe wanted my love, Id give it a try.

Less than eagerly I allowed her to crawl into my bed, and, locked in
each other's arms, we were soon fast asleep.

I never questioned why, on the very day that Sylvia came home, Vera
decided she needed me.  I was only grateful..  Soon Vera and I were
close and having so much fun together, it seemed impossible that a
short while ago I'd felt she was my worst enemy.  Though she studied
with Mr.  Rensdaleonce a week, she began to come with me every day to
my music classes.  Very proper and subdued, she'd sit on his sofa and
listen to me play.  Arden whispered that he was happy that Verafriends
at last.

"That's the way it should be with or first cousins.  Families should
stick together."  all right to say she's my sister.  Everybody thinks
she is that I was seeing Vera and my music teacher together, I could
judge from their behaviour just what lies, or Vera had told me.  Were
they really lovers?  One hot, afternoon, Vera wore nothing but a brief
white piqud 'with her bright green shorts.  I had on a white blouse and
that Papa approved of for music lessons.  The way Vera dressed or
undressed he'd think was indecent for me.

I earnestly tried to play with the sensitivity of a promising Vera
sprawled in one of Mr.  Rensdale's chairs, one leg over an arm.  Her
fingers idolently traced circles over breasts to define her nipples
that were already protruding.  Rensdale couldn't keep his eyes from
wandering her way.  matter how beautifully I played, or how many
mistakes I he didn't notice.  What good had eighteen' hours of e on one
piece done when Vera was there to distract ?  Thoughtlessly, Vera would
hug herself, caress her thigh, arms, jiggle her breasts as if to shake
crum outofherbra.

am 71ng how she kept so busy doing things to her "Vera, for God's sake,
what's wrong with you?"  snapped ar Rensdale.

"A bee stung me in the most embarrassing place, and -it urts,-'she
wailed, looking at him beseechingly.  11 need to pull t the stinger,
but I can't see it.  It's on the bottom side of y "I know where it
-is," he said shortly.

"You've been trying to pull it out for half an hour.  Audrina, go into
my bathroom and help your sister pull out the stinger."

Mr.  Rensdale had his back tamed to her and was looking at -me
pleadingly.  Behind him Vera was violently shaking her head, telling
me, no, she didn't want my help.  I got up anyway and went into the
bathroom to wait for Vera.  Minutes passed.

"Hurry up, Vera.  Soon Arden will be coming back to take us home."

"It's all right," sang out Vera cheerfully.

"I just now managed to Pull Out the 86UM Myself As I came back into
the living room, she SmIled and tugged down her brief bra.

"All I needed was a good magnipjing, mirror.  Thank you for letting me
use your tweezers, Mr.  Rensdale., Why was he looking so red-faced?
Then I looked at Vera's smug look and guessed she'd Pulled up her bra,
and in front of him had pulled out the stinger if there had been one
there in the first place.

From that day forward I began to notice the little exchanges between
them.  For my sake, it seemed, he wanted to show decorum, but for my
sake, too, Verawanted to reveal just what their relationship was.  When
it was her time to play at the piano, she struggled to Produce some
childish tune that made him wince - and yet her halter top would come
untied, or her tennis dress would show her panties.  She flirted with
her eyes, with her gestures, with the way she sat carelessly,
invitingly, telling, him in all possible ways that she would be free
with herself if and when he wanted.  I began to dislike her again.  She
told jokes that made me blush, and he sat with his eyes downcast,
seemingly very tired.  He always looked so tired.

"It's the heat," he explained when I questioned.

"The mugginess drains me of energy."

"Oh, save a little, Mr.  Rensdale,l crooned Vera.

"Save just enough for the sake of Pleasure."

He said nothing, only got up and handed me my assignments.

"I hope your house isn't as humid as this one."

He didn't assign anything to Vera, but they exchanged some secret
messages with their eyes..  "The downstairs rooms are wonderfully cool"
chimed up Vera, 'but upstairs it's just as hot and muggy as this.  I'd
go naked all the time if Papa didn't have a fit."

I stared at Vera.  Once in a great while, during a long hot spell, our
upstairs was stuffy, but seldom so hot anyone would need to stay
nude.

As the summer days stretched long and sultry, the beach was an
occasional treat with Arden beside me and Papa keeping a watchful eye
on what we did together.  Vera refused to go anywhere with Papa, and my
aunt had too much to do to have any time for fun.  Sylvia toddled on
the sand, looking pitififflyfrprn other children her size and age.  She
couldn't fill bucket, however diligently she tried; she didn't have
sense to run from the waves that could have caught her wdertow and
carried her out to sea.  It was Arden and ten to save her time and
again.  Papa sprawled under a "cWourful umbrella, eyeing all the pretty
girls.

I lea med that Sylvia would eat anything, even grass.

outside and inside the house, got up to stumble bumping into things.
Miraculously, after the first day r broke anything.  Left alone in the
garden for only a ds, she meandered off and became lost.  Once, after r
of frantic searching and calling, I found her sitting a tree eating
wild strawberries, looking as innocent as a without sense.  She
screamed during the nights, proving have active vocal cords and could
one day speak if ever activate her dormant brain.  She fed herself
clumsily up her food after many fruitless attempts, then shoving it was
in her hand towards her mouth.  Unfortunately r managed on the first
try and would miss at least twice he centred her hands on her mouth.
meal ended with Sylvia looking a dreadful mess, with plastered all over
her face, in her hair, in her nostrils.  A did no good at all.  She
dropped, she spilled, she threw up especially after eating grass. Worst
of all worse than she still had no control over her body's eliminative
tions.  he's not three years old yet," encouraged Papa when I put an
old potty seat in disgust.

"Even you weren't out of pies at her age.

"Yes, she was," disagreed my aunt.

"Audrina was always nfully aware of being messy.  She trained herself
as Lucietta nursery rhymes and showed her pretty pictures, anded her
with cookies when she performed well."  Papa scowled disapprovingly,
then proceeded to ignore her.

you will have to keep her cleaner, Audrina, or she'll end with a red,
raw bottom that will be the devil to heal that's y she cries out in the
night.  That nappy rash hurts?

"Damian!  Stop it!  You cannot expect a young girl likeAudrina to take
fall responsibility for a retarded child.  t her back in that place or
hire a nurse."

"I can't afford a nurse," added Papa sleepily, yawning and stretching
out his long legs, ready to nap on the porch chaise.

"I've got you, Ellie, and that daughter of yours to support.  That
takes all my cash."

I stated at Papa, hating the way he could take the truth and twist
it.

Half an hour later I tried the potty seat again, tying Sylvia to it so
she wouldn't wiggle off.  For an hour I read to her from Mother Goose,
but to no avail.  The moment I had Sylvia dressed again in clean
nappies with plastic pants over them, she was soiled.  Vera came in
just in time to see me change her again.  She laughed scornfully.

"Boy, Fin glad she's not in my charge, or she'd stay filthy-I "A fine
nurse You'll make," I said angrily.  Then I snapped my head round to
glare at her.

"Where've you been?"  Sometimes when I thought Vera was in her room
reading, she wasn't there at all.  She wasn't anywhere where I could
find her.  Usually she'd show up just before six, when Papa was due
home.

Yawning sleepily, she fell into one of my bedroom chairs.  I hate
summer school- I hate winter school.  I know school ends at twelve, but
I do have a few friends in the village, even if you don't .. ."

Smiling and looking mysterious, she tossed a chocolate bar my way.

"A gift.  I know you like chocolate., Something was going on in Vera's
life, but I didn't pry.  Though she no longer OPenlY tormented me, she
still didn't help with the housework, or the dishes, or with Sylvia.

"I'm pooped, Audzina, really pooped."  She yawned and curled up in the
chair like some slinky, sensuous cat.  I could almost hear her
purring.

As my aunt and I prepared the meals and cleaned the house and changed
bed linen together, some kind of closeness developed between us as we
worked, doing all the many things Vera refused to do.  Occasionally,
now, she even let me call her Aunt Ellie.  Oh, how she struggled to
cook as well as Momma had cooked .  It was her desire though she never
said this tome,-it to cook even better than my mother.  She wanted have
all his favourite dishes.  Sometimes it was two the morning before she
went to bed.  it was six months after Sylvia came before finally ,
after he wiped his mouth and put down his and said, "Well, Ellie, you
really outdid yourself this No one could have done better.  That was a
superb meaL superb."

would have ever thought I'd be happy to hear him say t could match my
mother in anything?  I appreciated hi sent so much that tears came to
my eyes perhaps they came to hers, too.  different kind of life
developed for me.  A frantic life that MY summer; stole three
afternoons a week from taking lessons, leaving me little tine for
Billie and Arden.  In autumn, it forced me to race home from where the
lbus let me off, arriving to search breathlessly for Sylvia, had the
worst habit of wanting to hid herself away ere.  was a thankless task
I'd set for myself, truly an impossible to try and train Sylvia in the
same way you would a child .mormal intelligence.  Her attention span
was exceedingly She couldn't sit still.  She couldn't focus her eyes or
her on anything but movement.  The worst of it was that no r did Npa
figuratively drop Sylvia into my lap than he t her existence. 
Desperately I turned to my aunt anded for help.

"All right," she agreed reluctantly, "I promise what I can while you're
in school, but the moment you e home and on the weekends and school
vacations, Sylvia yours all yours."  Many times I rescued;ylvia from
some horrible punishment aunt felt perfectly justified in delivering.

"NoP I yelled, ing into the kitchen and throwing down my schoolbooks,
n't use that switch on Sylvia!  She doesn't know it's wrong pull up all
the chrysanthemums.  She thinks they're pretty, she likes pretty,
colourful things."

"Don't we all?"  asked my aunt acidly.  11 like to put them on table
for your father.  What's more, Sylvia trampled down vegetable beds,
too!  Everything ready to harvest, shesruined.  Sometimes I think
she's deliberately trying to drive Me as crazy as she is!"  Tears of
self-pity made her eyes sparkle.

Sylvia's room was like a padded cell.  In that small, pitiful room was
a small, low bed from which she could fall to the floor without
injuring herself when she hit the thick carpeting.  Truly, sometimes it
seemed my aunt was right.  Sylvia should never have been born.  But
born she was and there wasn't much I could do about it and still like
being me.

Sylvia was three years old now, and unlike other children who liked to
play with building bricks, and balls, and small cars, Sylvia wasn't
interested.  She didn't know what to do with herself but roam about
endlessly.  She liked to climb, to eat and drink, to prowl, to hide.
away, and that was all.  I didn't know how to begin her education when
pretty picture books couldn't capture her attention and toys were
meaningless objects to her.  Even when I tied her in a chair, she could
still loll her head about and avoid seeing anything I tried to show
her.

Then one wonderful day when I was rocking in the chair in the First and
Best Audrina's playroom, I had a vision.  I saw a little girl who
looked somewhat like me or the other Audrina playing with crystal
prisms, sitting in the sunlight and catching sunlight, to refract it on
the walls, into the mirrors that shot the colours back again, and all
the room turned into a kaleidoscope.  On the toy shelves of the
playroom, I found half a dozen beautifully shaped crystal prisms, two
like long teardrops, another like a star, one a snowflake, and another
like a giant diamond.  I gathered them together, then opened the
draperies wide, tore back the sheer curtains and sat on the floor to
play with the prisms myself.  It was Sylvia's habit to follow me around
when I was home, such a close shadow that often when I tu 'med
abruptly, I bumped into Sylvia and knocked her down.

The sunlight through the prisms shot rainbows about the room.  I 'saw
in my peripheral vision that Sylvia was interested in the colours.  She
was staring at the rainbows that danced about the room.  I played them
over her face, made one cheek red, the other green, then briefly I
flashed the light in her eyes, dazzled her and blinded her, and for
some reason she cried out.  forward, she moaned as she grabbed for the
prisms, m. for herself.  to Sylvia the things in my hands were hard,
flowers.  She took them and went to crouch in a as if to hide from me,
and there she tried to make the dance.  They wouldn't.  I watched her,
mentally' telling into the sunlight.  Only in the sunlight would the
come alive.  and over she turned the prisms, grunting in frustra
wailing noise coming from deep inside her, and then she to crawl with a
prism clutched in each hand until she was largest patch of sunlight.
Immediately the crystals came and filled the room with beams of colour.
For the first I saw her eyes widen with surprise.  Sylvia was making
happen.  She knew it.  I could see her joy as she made move about the
room.  lat up to hug her close.

"Pretty colours, Sylvia All yours.

to you what used to belong to her.  "A faint and K smile her gaping
lips.  It seemed those prisms might never her hands now that she'd
found one thing she could do God, take those things from her,"
complained my aunt next morning as Sylvia sat in her highchair and
dropped prism in her cereal even as with another she beamed rays to
dazzle everyone in the kitchen.

"Did you have to give ve her alone, Ellie," said Papa.

"At least she's found to do.  She's fascinated by the colours, and who
maybe they'll teach her something."  ?" asked my aunt cynically..  "How
to blind us?"  e ... ell," said Papa thoughtfully, buttering his third
slice toast, 'how to keep her fingerprints off the walls and .  at
least.  Shes holding onto those things Like they'll away if she lets
go, so leave will enough alone."

4 agreed with Papa.  Sylvia now had something to do.  While I cared for
Sylvia and Vera continued to be sweeter sugar to me, I tried like crazy
to find time to practise at once a day on my mother's piano.  Sylvia
didn't like me practise on the piano.  She sat in the sunlight and
threw coloured beams on my sheets of music, and if I shielded them in
some way, she beamed the lights in my eyes so I couldn't read the
music.

I continued ray lessons with Lamar Rensdale, even though I didn't have
much time to practise.  I knew he was preparing to go to New York. This
time he was planning to stay to teacl, music at Julliard.

"It's better than eking out an existence in a vlace that treats any
artist with scorn," held explained.  He'd Zed to tell me his good news
the night before, sounding terribly excited.

"I'd rather you didn't tell anyone of my appointment, Audrina.  And you
must swear to go on with Your music study.  Some day I know I'm going
to sit in an audience and say to myself that I was the one who started
Audrina Adare on the road to fame."

I hadn't told a soul, not Billie or Arden, not even my aunt that I'd
decided to drop by Mr.  Rensdale's to say goodbye.  In my pocket I had
a small farewell gift, a pair of gold cufflinks that had belonged to my
maternal graodfather.

Once Lamar Rensdale had seemed the neatest man possible.  A place for
everything, and everything in its place.  Now his once impeccable lawn
and garden were untended and cluttered with junk.  The grass needed
mowing, the weeds needed P , 91, and beer cans were rolling in the
wind.  He hadn't even raked the leaves or corn down the old bird nests
over his door.  I started to knock at the back door, but at the slight
touch of my knuckles, it swung open, helped by the strong gust of wind
that blew in behind me.

Whenever I entered his home, I'd hear him at the piano, and if he
wasn't there, he'd be in the kitchen.  Since the house was very quiet,
I presumed he'd gone into the city.  I decided to just leave my gift
with a note and then sit on the porch and wait for Arden to come round
and pick me up.  I began to scribblea note on his kitchen memo pad.

"Dear Mr.  Rensdale,"I'd written when I heard a noise coming from the
living room.  I parted my lips to call out when I heard a f4miliar
girlish giggle.  Stiffening, I shuddered to think that all those lurid
tales Vera had told me might be true.  I tiptoed to the kitchen door
and eased it open just a bit.  Mr.  RenWaleand Vera were in the living
room where he taught.  A lively log.  Jrackling in the fireplace,
spitting sparks up the November had just turned cold enough for fires.
oon was dreary, but with the fire it seemed very cosy in that small
room, as Lamar Rensdale moved to on the player.  Sweetly it filled the
house with 's "Serenade, and now I knew I was secretly a SC of
seduction.  there, unable to decide what to do.  It would be an more
before Arden came for me.  It was such a long borne and the highway was
dangerous on foot, and I be so foolhardy as to hitchhike.  No, Id go
sit on the poron, despite the cold.  Instead of moving, I debated and
forth it was a good reason to watch what was going the living room.  u
see," said Lamar Rensdale, 'you can dance just fine.  I your limp is
hardly noticeable.  You make too much Vera.  When a girl is as pretty
as you are, and has your of figure, no man is going to notice one small
flaw.  - ."

my limp is a flaw?  Lamar, I was hoping you'd see me C Her voice had a
plaintive, sweet tone, reproachU Iouching."  Did she really love him?
How could she?  Shed just turned sixteen last week.

Y" Vera, you are very pretty, and very appealing, and seductive.  But
you're too young for a man of my age.  For years we've had wonderful
times together and I hope you regret one moment.  But now I'm leaving.
You should a boy your own age, a boy who'll marry you and take you from
that house you seem to hate."  u said you loved me, and now you're
talking as if you t," wailed Vera, team beginning to streak down her
cheeks.  never did, did you?  You.  just said that so I'd go to bed you
... and now that you're tired of me, you want ne new.  And I love you
so much!"

"Of course I love you, Vera.  But I'm not ready to get married.  u know
I need that professoes assignment.  I told them I n't married, and they
liked that.  They thought I'd be more oted to teaching.  Vera, please
remember that I am not the ins, in the world."

"For me you are!"  she wailed louder.

"I love you.  I'd die for you  I gave myself to you.  You seduced me,
and swore to me you'd always love me, and now that I'm pregnant, you
don't want met' Deeply shocked, I cringed backward.  Mr.  Rensdale
forced a controlled laugh.

"My dear girl, you cannot possibly be pregnant.  Don't try that old
trick with me.1 "But I ain," she wailed.  When this seemed to have no
effect, she moved, pouted, then snuggled closer in his arms.  She
pressed against him so tightly they seemed welded together.

"Lamar, you do love me, I know that you do.  Make love to me again,
right now.  Let me prove again how much I can thrill you .. ."  I
gasped to see how she ran her hands an over his back, then down to his
buttocks even as she parted her lips and kissed him with such wild
passion I felt giddy just watching.  She did something then that I
couldn't see while the music still played, and the fire still-burned.

"Don't .. ."  he pleaded, as she became more aggressive and tugged at
the zip on his trousers.

"Your sister mentioned something last night about dropping in to say
goodbye."

"Are you teaching her what you've taught me?"  asked V era in a sultry,
low voice.

"I'll bet I'm ten times better, better than ... 2 He grabbed her then
and shook her by her shoulders as he shouted, "Stop saying things like
that!  Audrina is a lovely, innocent girl.  The Lord alone knows how
the two of you could turn out so different."

As he continued to scold her, Vera lifted her green sweater to show her
naked breasts.  They bobbed as he kept shaking and she kept laughing.
Even as he shook her, she unfastened her skirt and let it fall to the
floor.  In another second her thumbs were hooked inside her panties and
she snatched them off.  Lamar Rensdale couldn't resist staring at her
nudity.  It seemed silly for her to keep that sweater pulled up under
her armpits as she taunted.

"You want me, want me, want me ... so why don't you take me or do I
have to do what I did last time ... Mr.  Rmsdale?"

Oh!  She was imitating the way I spoke.  Suddenly he seized her in his
arms and kissed her ruthlessly hard, bending her.  until I thought she
might break.  They both fell to and there they wrestled and kissed,
breathing hard passion, even as they said ugly things to one another.
Over r rolling ... as if seven years old and trapped in the rocking
again, I watched until their violent sexual act was over was lying
naked on top of his long, very hairy bodyly she stroked his cheeks,
caressed his hair, kissing his and nibbling on his ears as she murmured
with a certain s tone, "If you don't take me to New York with you, I'll
everyone you raped me and Audrina.  The police will you in jail .  for
I'm only sixteen and Audrina is only They'll believe me, not you, and
never again will you a decent job.  Please don't make me do that, L . r
e you.  Really love you so much it hurts to even say mean like that to
you."  With those words she sat up, turned began to play with the most
intimate parts of his body.  His s of joy followed me out the back
door, which I closed behind me.  ut side I breathed the cold November
air deeply, trying to my lungs of the musky odour of sex that permeated
all small rooms.  I was never going back.  No matter what pened, I was
never going back.  Silently I sat next to Arden all the way home.

"Is everything right?"  he asked.

"Why aren't you talking to me?"  Everything is fine, Arden."

"Of course it's not fine.  If it were you'd be babbling away, me about
Lamar Rensdaleand how wonderful he is.  But re not saying any of that
why not?"  How could I tell him what I was thinking?  Vera had boasted
the other day that she'd had sex with Arden, too.  That very evening
Vera jumped on me.

"You were there, rina!  You spied on us.  If you tell Papa you'll pay
I'll see t you pay.  Ill tell him you do the same thing with Arden, d
with Lamar, too!"  She hurled the gold cufflinks Id left for Rensdale
at me.

"I went into the kitchen and found these here you left them on the
kitchen table."  Menacingly, she ped closer.

"I'm warning you right now, if you dare to tell Papa r1l do something
so dreadful you'll never want to look in a mirror again!"

I hated and despised her so much then that I wanted to hurt her as she
threatened to hurt me.

"You wanted to be my friend.  What a wonderful friend you make, Vera.
With you for a friend, I don't need any enemies, do I?"

"No," she said with a slow smile that lit up her dark eyes with a
sinister glow.

"With me for a friend you have the best of all possible enemies.  I
wanted you to love me, Audrina, so you'd be hurt more when you realized
how much I hate you!  How much I've always hated you!"

The vehemence of her shrill words left me quivering.

"Why do you hate me so much?  What have I done to you?"

She spread her hands wide, indicating the entire house and everything
in it.  She told me I'd stolen everything that was rightfiffly hers.

"You idiot!  How can you be so blind?  Can't you look at me, at my eyes
and see who's my father?  I am the First Audrina, not you!  Your papa
is my father, too!  I'm the eldest and I should come first, not you!
Papa dated my mother before he even knew your mother, and he made my
mother pregnant.  Then he saw your mother, who was younger and
prettier.  But he didn't say one word to my mother, until she told him
she was pregnant with me, and he refused to believe he was the father.
He forced my mother to leave town.  And that stupid mother of mine did
just what he wanted.  And all the time she kept thinking that when she
came back and he saw me and how pretty I was, he'd want to marry her
then.  I was only one year old and she had me all fixed.  up so he'd be
impressed -but he wasn't impressed, for he'd married your mother in the
meanwhile.  Oh, Audrina, you just don't know how much I hate and
despise han for what he did to both of us.  I was just a baby and
rejected by my own father.  He never has given me any of the things
which are rightfully mine.  He plans to leave you this house, and all
his money, too.  He told my mother that and it belongs to me!
Everything here should belong to me!"  She sobbed and struck out at me.
Quickly I dodged and sprang away.  Whirling round, Vera, in her insane
rage, hit out at Sylvia.  Down flat on her face Sylvia sprawled,
screaming at the top of her lungs.  when I ran to tackle Vera, yelling
as I did, "Don't you Sylvia again, Vera!"  on top of Vera, holding her
down as she writhed and tried to scratch out my eyes.  Wildly she
fought me, rake my face with her long sharp nails.  Sylvia was still .
Using a chair to pull herself up, Vera was finally feet.  She stumbled
towards the bedroom door and the .  She didn't notice a small prism
that Sylvia had g with.  She stepped on it, lost her balance and fell
to the floor.

howled in great distress, but it was Vera who the loudest.  When I
looked, I was amazed to see great of blood on the floor.

Sylvia in my arms, I ran for my aunt.

"Aunt Ellsbeth, quickly!  Vera is bleeding all over my bedroom floor!"
.eren my aunt looked my way, flour smudged on her "She's really
bleeding, and the blood is running down her then did my aunt stride to
the sink to wash the flour her hands.  She dried them on her spotless
white apron.

come -along.  I may need your help.  There's a wild, tive side to that
girl, and no doubt she's managed to get in trouble."  arrived in time
to -see Vera crawling on the floor, with her own blood by now and still
bleeding as she through the congealing pools of blood, crying out, "The
I've lost my baby-Wild and distraught looking, her head when we entered
the room.  I hugged Sylvia re you pregnant?"  asked my aunt coldly,
doing nothing her daughter.

"Yes!"  screamed Vera, still feeling around in the blood.

"Ive to have that baby!  I've got to!  I need that baby!  It's my t out
of this hellhole, and now it's gone.  Help me, , help me save my baby!"
My aunt glanced down at all the blood.

"If you've lost it, r so."  Demented looking, Vera's eyes went wild and
her fingers around one huge clot of blood that she hurled at her,
mother  It struck my aunt's apron and fell to the floor with a
sickening clomp.

"Now he'll never take me with him," Vera wailed.

"Clean up the mess you've maae, Vera," ordered my aunt, seizing me by
the hand and trying to drag me away.

"When I come back, I want to see this room as spotless as it was this
morning.  Use cold water on that rug."

"Mother," cried Vera, looking weak now and ready to faint.

"I've just miscarried and you worry about the rug?"

"The Oriental is valuable."

Closing the door behind us, my aunt shoved me in front of her as Sylvia
continued to whimper.

"I should have known it would happen this way.  She's no good, like her
father.  he paused, seemed to reflect before she added, "And yet he 2de
other children without her flaws."

Feeling sick, I still managed to find a voice.

"Is Vera really Papa's child?"

Without answering, my aunt hurried back to the kitchen, where she
immediately washed her hands again, scrubbing them with a brush.  She
hurled her soiled apron into the laundry sink which she filled with
cold water, then took a fresh apron from a cabinet drawer.  The apron
was white with sharp, ironed creases.  Once she had the apron strings
tied, she began to roll the pie pastry she'd abandoned.

"You look paler than usual," Papa said to Vera at the dinner table.

"Are you sick with a cold or something?  If so, you should eat in the
kitchen.  You should know better than to spread your viruses around."

The look Vera gave him was so thick with hatred it could have been
sliced with a knife.  She got up and left her dinner unfinished.  I
felt sorry for her as I watched her stumble weakly from the dining
room. She always limped worse when she was tired.

"Vera, is there anything I can do to help?"  I called.

"You can stay the hell away from me!"

Vera didn't even make an effort to clean my rug of all that blood.  She
just left it for me to do.  For hours and hours that night before I
went to bed, I scrubbed on my hands and knees at the bloody sta ms that
refused to leave the deep woollen pile.  t came in and saw what I was
doing, left to return with a second pdl and a hard brush.  Side by side
we worked on the rug.

"Your father has gone to bed, "she said tone.

"He must never know about this.  He'd skin Vera Audrina, tell me what
he's like, this music teacher of She's told me he's the father."  could
I tell her when I knew absolutely nothing about To me he'd seemed a
fine, kind and noble gentleman who never seduce a young girl but then,
what did I the rocking chair knew.  Knew everything that Papa about how
evil men were, and the terrible things they did ris.

re's Vera?"  asked Papa when I carried a clean and t-smelling Sylvia
down into the kitchen the next morning.

ped her securely into -her highchair, tied a huge bib her chin and gave
her the prisms to play with until I had breakfast ready.  Finally he
looked up from his morning r and saw me.

"What's wrong with your face?  Were you fight?  Audrina ... who hit you
in your eye and scratched cheek?"  pa, you know I sleepwalk sometimes.
I did that last night fell."  think you're lying.  I noticed your face
looked red last , but Vera made me so damned mad that I didn't pay
-attention to you.  Now you tell me the truth!"

sing to say more, I began the bacon that Papa adored.  he picked up the
newspaper and began to read.  Until the newspapers had never been
delivered to our house had been mailed.  I frowned as I gave this some
thought.  I said, dropping bread into the toaster, 'why do you the
morning paper now, when you didn't want it before died?"

"It is just something to do, love, besides argue with your His words
brought my aunt striding into the kitchen.  The t she saw what I was
doing, she shoved me aside and over turning the bacon.

Breakfast was over before my aunt said one word, therl quietly came
her information

"She's gone, Damian.  I "Who's gone?"  he asked blandly, turning the
newsPaPer before he neatly folded it so he could read the next page.

"Vera's gone."

"Good riddance."

MY aunt paled.  Her head bowed for a moment, and then she Pulled a
folded note from her apron pocket.

"Here," she said handing it to him.

"She left this for you on her pillow.  rv' already read it.  I'd like
you to read it aloud for Audrina to hear.  9 "I don't care to read it,
Ellsbeth.  She's your daughter, and I'm sure she's said nothing that
will make my day happier., Instead, Ellsbeth handed the note to me.
Tears came to my eyes as I read what she'd written.

"Wait a minute, Papa," I called as he stood to pull on his jacket.

"You need to hear this for the good of your own soul."

For some reason he paused, looking ill at ease as he shifted his weight
from one leg to another.  He kept Ins face in profil eas I read:

Dear Papa, You have never allowed me to call you Papa, or Father, but
this time I'm going to disobey and call you Papa as Audrina does.  You
are my father and you know it, my mother knows it, Audrina knows it,
and I know it.

When I was very young all I wanted was for you to love me, even just a
little bit.  I used to stay awake at nights plotting all the good
things I could do to make you notice me and say, "Thank you, Vera. "But
I was never able ttoo wwinn your affection, no matter how hard I tried,
so soon I gave UPI used to watch your wife so I could learn to be like
she was soft spoken, always well dressed and smelling of perfiune, and
you spanked me for using her perfume, and spanked me for wearing my
good clothes when I played.  You spanked me, for any reason at all.  So
I stopped trying to please you, especially after you had 'your sweet
Audrinal-could do no wrong.  She was the' one who pleased you ways.  o
doubt at this moment as you read this you are glad to of me, since you
never wanted me in the first place.  sure you'd be happy to see me
dead.  But you can't get of me so easily.  For I'm coming back, Damian
Adare rybody who made me cry is going to cry ten times than I ever did.
won't give away any secrets in this letter, but there will a day when
all your secrets will be dragged out in the for all to view.  Count on
that, dear Papa.  Dream about at night.  Think about my dark eyes that
are just like rs, and wonder just what I've got in store for you and
Ours.  And remember most of all, you brought it all on rself by being
heartless and cruel to your very own flesh awl blood.

Without love now, I am the daughter who will serve you best ... and
serve you longest.

Vera ly, slowly, Papa turned round and stared at me.

"Why did want me to hear that?  Audrina, don't you love me r?"  don't
know," I answered in a small, uncertain voice, eIpt I thought you owed
her a greE tdeal she never got.

s gone, Papa and she told you e truth.  You didn't when she talked. You
tried not to see her.  You never to her except to order her to do this
or do that.  Papa, she is your daughter, don't you owe her something? 
Would little kindness and a little love have been too much to ve?" 
Papa squared his massive shoulders.

"You've heard Veres of it, Audrina, not mine.  I'm not going to defend
my .  I say this one thing: beware the day when Vera comes cir into our
lives.  Go down on your knees tonight and pray she stays away.  But for
your aunt, I would have had her t in some distant boarding school a
long, long time ago.

re are some who should never have been born."  Unwaveringly, he looked
my aunt in the eyes.  I seemed to hear tifeir dark eyes clashing with
the sound of swords.  It was she who lowered her eyes first, then her
head bowed so low her long, straight parting showed.  Her voice was
small and thin when she spoke.

"You've said enough, Damian.  You.were right and I was wrong.  But she
is mine, and I had hopes she'd turn out differently."

"We all had hopes, didn't we?"  With those words he left the kitchen.
Solving Dilemmas Aunt Ellsbe-th, I, didn't know what to say.  She sat
at the kitchen table staring into space.  Quietly I table and filled
the dishwasher.  Then I lifted Sylvia highchair, washed her face again
and took her with me while I dressed for school.  vff my robe,
realizing I might be late for the school bus my drawers for the
sweaters I washed each Only my old and too small sweaters were in the
Every good cashmere was gone.  All the pretty too, the ones Papa
brought home for me from time to gone.  Vera must have taken my best
clothes which her.  I ran to the chest of drawers to see what else
might .  She didn't want my underwear, all that was there, I opened the
jewellery case that had once been everything of real value left to me
by my mother 'was n the cufflinks and tie clasps meant for my future
gone.  I cried when I discovered my mother' sent ring and wedding band
had been stolen, too. How hateful to rob me of things I treasured so
much.  All jewellery Momma had inherited from her ancestors no doubt
been hocked in some pawnshop.  The only thing of any value was the tiny
birthstone ring I always wore on I about my neck and the quartz rose
that Arden had given It's a wonder she hadn't tried to take those off
while I I returned to the kitchen with Sylvia in my arms, I my aunt
still sitting at the table "Vera took an my good rs and blouses, and
the jewellery Momma left inc."

"She took what jewellery I had, too," said my aunt in a flat 'and also
my best coat.  I only bought that coat last winter  The first new coat
I've had in five years, and Lord knows when I'll have another."

"Papa will buy you another."  But I wasn't so sure he would.

All day long, while I tried to concentrate on what the teachers said, I
kept thinking of Vera and how she'd slipped, away in the night like a
thief, not caring whom she hurt.  As soon as the school bell rang at
the end of the last period, I was out the door and running to plead a
ride with a friendly girl I knew.

The little cottage where I'd studied music for three years looked
deserted.  I stood on the front porch and pounded on the door as the
wind behind me whistled and tore at my hair.

"Hey, you, kid," called the lady next door.

"Won't do you no good to keep hitting the door like that.  He's gone.
Heard him drive off in the middle of the night.  Took some woman with
him."

"Thank you," I said, turning away and not knowing what to do now. Arden
would be home from his school by this time, and preparing to deliver
his papers, and I didn't have a dime to call him and tell him where I
was.  I hadn't asked my aunt for change when I left home, since her
purse had been emptied by Vera.

With my stomach growling, I began the long fifteen-mile trek to my
home.  It began to rain long before I reached home.  The wind whipped
the trees along the roadside and tore at my wet hair, and soon I was so
cold, despite my heavy coat, I beggan to sneeze.  Men slowed their cars
and offered me rides.  I felt wild with panic as I pretended not to
hear them.  I speeded my steps.  Then a car pulled to a stop and a man
got out as if to catch me and drag me into his car.  Wild with terror,
I screamed as I raced on.  It was like a rocking chair nightmare.

A hand grabbed my arm and spun me about.  Screaming still, I struck out
at him.  Then he had my other arm, and I was captured even as I
continued to kick and struggle, my eyes smeared with water in my
face.

"What the devil's wrong with you, Audrina?"

It was Arden who had me.  His amber eyes came closer as he pulled me
into his arms.  His hair was pasted down on hiscyowre all right.  it's
only me.  Why are you ling?  You shouldn't be out here on the highway,
You that.  Why didn't you call?p teeth chattered so I couldn't speak.
What was wrong me?  It was only Arden.  Why did I feel like I wanted to
?  Shaking his head in puzzlement, he led me to his car.

led on the front seat, cringing to the far side, not wanting near him.
He turned up the heat so high that he soon said felt he was cooking but
I was having chilIs.

"You're going be sick," he said as he glanced my way.

"You're already erish looking.  Audrina, why did you go to the village?
I rd in the village that Mr.  Rensdale left last night for New ork."
-He ... he ... did."  I sneezed, then told him about Vera.

"Ink she's the woman he took with him.  Papa's going to throw fit.  He
knows she's run away, but he doesn't guess she ran ay with my music
teacher."  I shivered and felt all the goose ps on my arms under the
coat.

"Take care," said Arden as he let me out.  Swiftly, he leaned brush a
kiss over my cheek.  That kiss made me want to ream again.

"Don't you go worrying about Vera.  She knows w to look out for
herself."  I was sick in bed with a terrible cold that gave me four
days to think about nothing much but Vera, and Lamar Re e.."Do you
think he'll marry her?"  I whispered to my aunt one 'night soon after
dinner.

"No," she said with authority, 'men don't marry girls like Vera."

The new year started, and though Vera was gone from our lives she was
far from forgotten.

"Damian,"began my aunt one 0 g, 'why don't you ask about Vera?  Do you
miss her;' Do worry about where she is and what's happening to her?
he's only sixteen.  Don't you feel any concern for her?"

"All right," said Papa, neatly folding the morning paper and tting it
beside his plate.

"I don't want to ask about Vera ause I don't want you to tell me
something I might not want hear.  I don't miss her.  This house is a
much nicer place to me home to now that she's gone.  Nor do I worry
about her.  or feel concern for her.  She's given me just cause to
despise her, If she did what I think she did, what I have a very good
reason for believing she did, I could have taken her neck and gladly
wrung it.  But you protected her even then, and tried to convince me
she couldn't have been that cruel.  I was a fool to have let you
protect her.  Now pass the butter.  I think I'll have another English
muffin and another cup of coffee."

I wanted to ask what Vera might have done that made him want to wring
her neck.  But already I'd learned that neither he nor my aunt ever
answered questions, except by asking me questions about what I
remembered.  I couldn't remember Vera when she was younger than ten, or
twelve, or whatever age she'd been when my memory began again.

"No doubt she ran off with that good-for-nothing piano player," said
Papa with his mouth full.

"Rumours are all over the village, speculating on the woman who left
with him in the middle of the night."  He gave me a quick surveying
glance, then smiled approvingly.

"Audrina, I know you know what can happen when you fool around with
boys.  And if you never believe another word I say, believe this you'd
better not try the same trick.  I'd follow you to the ends of the earth
to bring you back where you belong."

In some ways life was much better without Vera in the house.  Still, I
wondered how Vera was ring with a man who hadn't wanted her.

Every day I asked my aunt, "Have you heard from Vera?"  Every day she
told me the same thing: "No.  I don't expect to hear from her.  I made
the worst mistake of my life the day I came back here.  But now that
I've made my bed, I'm going to make the most of it.  That's the winning
attitude in life, Audrina, remember that.  Once YOU decide what you
want, stick with it until you have it."

"What is it you want?"

She didn't answer, just plodded about the kitchen in floppy shoes that
made slip-slop sounds shoes that she.  took off before Papa came home.
An hour before he was due, she raced upstairs, bathed, dressed,
arranged her hair that, she had trimmed so it hung loose sometimes. She
looked years younger, mostly because she'd found a smile to wear. Vera,
our lives took on a certain sameness, an routine that was comforting. 
I turned fourteen, .  Sylvia grew but did not progress. She took up all
time, but still I saw Arden every day.  Papa had himself to Arden,
confident I'd see so much of him I'd be bored with the sameness.  I was
filled with when Arden told me that next fall he'd be going away - I
didn't want to think of life without Arden. Audrina,"cried Arden
suddenly, picking me up by my and swinging me round so my white skirt
flared wide.  His eyes were on a level with mine now.

"Sometimes when at you and see how lovely you've become, it makes my
hurt.  I'm so afraid while I'm gone you're going to find else. Audrina,
please don't fall in love with anyone Save yourself for me." Somehow or
other my arms, had round his neck, and I was clinging to him.

"I wake up in night," he went on, 'thinking of how you'll look when 're
fully grown, and I think as your father does then, that 'll feel toward
me like a brother and that's not what I want.  heard my mom say she
changed her mind about boyfriends tunes a week when she was your age."
Suddenly I was very conscious of being in his arms, and I until my toes
were on the ground, though he still held "I'm not your mother."  How
serious I felt, how adult and , when I. wasn't adult and wise.
Something soft and wonderful happened in his eyes, making pupils
enlarge, grow darker.  The light that grew in them me even before his
head inclined that, at the tender age fifteen, I was going to be kissed
by the only boy I'd allowed my life.  How tender his lips were on mine,
so tentative and I felt shivers both hot and cold race up and down my
Joy and fear combined as I tried to decide if I liked that or not.  Why
should I fear?  Then he kissed me again, a bit passionately, and I was
filled with apprehension as the day in the woods came back to haunt me.
It belonged to First Audrina, that awful day why was it tormenting me,
Arden?

trembling?"  Arden asked, looking hurt..221 "I'm sorry- I just
couldn't help but be a little alarmed  I've never been kissed like that
before."

"I'm sorry if I shocked YOU but I just couldn't help myself.  A million
times I've held back ... this time I couldn,t., Then I was sorry.

"Oh, Arden, isnt it silly ofine to be scared when I've wondered what
was taking you so long."  Why had I said that?  it sounded like
something vera would say, and all along Id been scared to death.

Ire you going to be a pushover?  My mother was like that.  I was hoping
you'd be different, and that would prove to inc that what we have now
might last for ever.  Maybe Mom hasn't told you, but she's been married
more than once.  She was only seventeen the first time, and it was over
in a few months.  My father was her third husband, and so she clam, her
best.

"Sometimes I think she says that just to make me feel good about Three
times?

"I'm no pushover; I said quickly.

"It,s just that I love You.  PuPPY love, Aunt Ellsbeth tells me.  I
never tell her anything.  She just looks at me and saysiesmorethan just
being outside so much that makes my eyes shine and my skin glow.  Even
Papa Says I never looked healthier or happier.  But I think it's you,
and I think it's because I've'learned to love Sylvia so much.  And she
loves me, too, Arden.  When I'm not around she crouches in a dim comer,
as if she doesn't want anyone o notice her.  I think she's terrified of
Aunt Ellsbeth.  Then when I come in to the room' she comes over to me
and she tugs on my hand, or on the hem of my skirt, and her small face
tilts backward ... and she makes me the centre of her life.  I He
looked uncomfortable, refusing to turn and look at Sylvia, who was
always with me, if not in sight, somewhere close by.  She made him
uneasy, yet he never said this.  I think she embarrassed him with her
odours, her messy habits, her inability to talk or focus her eyes.

Not too far away Sylvia crawled on the ground, following a long string
of ants to their hole in the ground.

"Stop looking at Sylvia looking at the ants," he teased, 'and look at
me."  Playfully he slapped at me when I refused to look at him.  I
shoved him away, and he shoved back, and then we both fell on the
ground and wrestled around before his a=rmsme and we were soulfully
staring into the eyes of the do love you," he whispered hoarsely.

"I know I'm too to feel this way, but all my life I've been hoping it
would this, while I'm young, with the kind of girl you are, clean,
decent."  heart began its nervous throbbing as his amber eyes ly
downward from my face, to my neck, my new waist Then he was looking to
a lower place that me blush.  Staring into my eyes, and even 100" at my
had made me feel beloved and beautiful, but to look sent shivers of
recognition da ming through my memory, up the nightmares of the rocking
chair and all that had one to the First Audrina, who had died because
all three boys had looked there, despite her frantic efforts to them
away.  Shame filled me.  Quickly I moved my leg to position, and I had
on clothes.  What I did made blush.

"Don't be ashamed of being a girl, Audrina," he whispered his head
turned away.  All of a sudden I began to cry.  Shed me ashamed.  All my
life I'd been to mired because of her  ted her!  I wished she'd never
been born, and then maybe feel right and natural, instead of wrong, and
unnatural.  ill I kept on shivering, even more violently.  What steps
walking on my grave?  Hers?

"I'm going home now," I said stiffly, getting up to brush off slacks.

"You're angry with me."

"No, I'm not."

"It's half an hour before twilight.  Plenty of time before k.2 "I'll
make up for it tomorrow."  I ran for Sylvia and seized her I hand,
pulling her to her feet before I turned to smile y at Arden.

"Just stand where you are and don't walk us the edge of the woods.  If
anything bad happens, I'll call for You.  I need to do this, Arden."
The sun was in his eyes, preventing me from reading his expression.

"Call out when you reach your lawn to let me know you're all right."

"Arden, even if sometimes I act strange, and I puff away and tremble
don't pull away from me.  Without You, I wouldn't know how to get
through the woods, or the days."  Embarras.  sed, I whirled round and
tried to run.  But Sylvia didn't know how to run.  She stumbled on tree
roots, tripped on sticks, felUl over her own feet, and soon I had her
in my arms.  She was six years old now and getting heavy.  The crystal
prism she carried in her pockets everywhere she went made her heavier.
Soon I put her down and slowed my hurrying feet.  Home before dark, I
kept saying to myself.  Home before it rained.

"I'm here, Arden!"  I called.

"Safe 'in our own garden."

"Go inside ... and good night.  If you dream ... dream of me.1 His
voice from the woods sounded very close, making me smile sadly  He'd
followed us asif he knew what had happened to the First Audrina, and he
wanted to save me from her fitte.

Arden had been in college one year when I had my sixteenth birthday. He
made top grades, but it was a dull year for me, lonely in the house,
and even lonelier when I ran through the woods, hauling Sylvia with. me
when I visited Billie.  The cottage seemed half empty without Arden,
without its heart.  I marvelled that Billie could stay there alone and
still manage to smile.  Over and over again she read his letters to me,
as I read bits and pieces of his letters to me to her.  She'd smile
when I skipped some little endearment, for in his letters he dared much
more than he did in person.

High school pleased me more than junior school, but the boys there were
much more persistent.  Sometimes it was hard to concentrate solely on
Arden, whom I saw so seldom.  I was sure he was dating other girls he
never wrote about, but I was faithful, dating no one but him when he
came home on school vacations.  All the girls, were envious that I had
a college-age boyfriend.

Taking care of Sylvia filled my life, stole every spare moment when I
could have made friends with girls my own age.  I didn't have time for
any of the social activities they enjoyed.  Every day I had to rush
home as quickly as possible in case I had to rescue Sylvia from the
switch my aunt liked to wield and out-UM MY aunt made Sylvia suffer
unnecessarily me to tend to her physical needs.  my afternoons with
Billie, and in the years Arden was taught me to cook, to sew, to can,
and every once she'd tentatively try to teach me just a little about
what they expected from their wives.

"A physical .  is not everything, but it's very important as far as
concerned.  A good sex life makes the best cornerstone and happy
marriage."  Christmas after I turned seventeen, a card arrived from
York, showing the city as seen from the Hudson River, I bluish with
snow sprinkled over with glitter.  My aunt at the message inside.  It
said only, "You'll see me never fear," and was signed Vera.  It was the
first we had from her in three yeam.  least she's alive, and for that I
should be grateful.  But did she address the card to Damian and not to
me?"  week later, I suddenly awakened in the wee hours of the Since
Sylvia came into my life I'd developed some alert sense that made me
aware even when I was as1cep, of the of time, o if events going on that
needed me them.  When the loud voices again, my first thoughts were of
Sylvia.  flash I was out of bed and racing to her room, only to find
deeply asleep.  A thin line of light came from under my father's
bedroom and to my utter amazement, my aunt's voice was coming there.

"Damian, I want to go to New York.  Yesterday called.  She needs me.
I'm going to her.  I've done all I can Y911, and for your daughters.
You can always hire a maid cook and clean, and you do have Audrina,
don't you.  You've gcd to tie her hand and foot to Sylvia.  It's not
fair what re doing.  I know you love her, so let her go to college. Set
free, Damian, before it's too late."

"Ellie," he said placatingly, 'what would happen to Audrina she left
here?  She's too sensitive for the world out there.  I'm she will never
marry that boy, and he'll find that out once tries something.  No man
wants a woman who can't respond, I doubt if she'll ever learn how."

"Of course nod' she yelled.

"You've done that to her.  When M. S. A.-H 225 she told you the
rocking chair gave her those visions, still you made her use it."

"To give her peace," he said wearily, while I froze in panic.  Why were
they fighting over me?  What was my aunt doing in his bedroom at three
in the morning?

"Now listen to me, Damian," my aunt went on, 'and hear some common
sense for a change.  You like to pretend that Vera doesn't exist, yet
she does.  And as long as she is alive, neither You nor Audrina nor
Sylvia is safe.  If you allow me to go to her, I can talk some sense
into her head.  She's constructing her entire life around you and her
revenge.  If she comes back, she could destroy Audrina let me go,
please.  Give me enough money to make the trip and tide me over until I
find a job.  I need to be with Vera, and you do owe me something, don't
You?  That girl in New York is just as much your flesh and blood as
Audrina and Sylvia, and you know it.  You said you loved me.

"It's over and done with, Ellie; he said wearily.  Theiv's more to life
than regretting the past.  Let's get on with today, and the here and
now."

"Why did You Say You loved me, when you didn't?"  she screamed.

"You had your charms then, Ellie.  you Were Sweeter then."

"I had hopes then, Damian," she said bitterly.

"Ellie, tell me what Vera is threatening to do if she comes back.  I'll
kill that girl ff she does one more thing to hurt Audrina."

"Oh, God!  You made her what she is.  Behind every evil thing Vera did
was frustration and pam from feeling rejected by her own father.  You
know what Vera's threatening.  When first you and Lucietta told me what
you planned to do about Audrina I thought the two of you fools, but,
still I sat back and said' nothing, hoping it would work.  I gave up
trying to please you long ago, for I don't know how to subjugate myself
to your whims.  It's Audrina I want to save.  There was a time when I
thought that girl a weakling, but she's proved she is not.  I thought
she bad no spirit, no fight, but I applaud each time she slaps back at
YOU.  SO sit there and glare with those damn black me I don't give a
damn, but tell Audrin a the truth Vera does."  s a fornme in this
house, and pan of it could be he said to her in a cajoling voice.

"But none of it will if ever you or your daughter say one word to
Audrina."  persuasion left his voice and it turned colder.

"How could go anywhere without money, Ellie;, Who would want you mev on
don't want me!"  she yelled with so much anger I fell my knees and put
an eye to the keyhole, just as Vera used do so many years ago when
Momma fought with him.

"You me, Damian, as you use all women."  Oh ... there was my prim and
prissy aunt pacing my papa's dressed in nothing but a filmy peignoir
that had once "longed to my mother.  She was naked underneath.  To my
she looked better without clothes than with them.  breasts weren't
large and full like Momma's had been, but , firmer, and very high.  My
aunt's nipples were -coloured and very large.  How old was she, anyway?
For life of me I couldn't remember my mother telling me her she'd been
vam enough not to want her death date on her tombstone.  Many times I'd
heard her tell Papa to let the newspapers publish her age.  It wasn't
the first time I'd realized that no one's birthday was as important as
mine.  My aunt's long, dark hair was loose and flowing, fanmng out Ias
she spun round.  I stared at my aunt, wondering why she hadn't found
another man after losing Papa to my mother?  As she was now, she seemed
very exciting, high voltage and 'challenging ... especially exciting if
I could judge from the way Papa's eyes lit up even as he yelled at her,
and tried to talk her out of going to New York.  Suddenly he lunged and
grabbed "her by her waist, and dragged her kicking and fighting onto
his lap She struck at him time and again as he laughed and ducked, and
then managed to crush his lips down on hers.  All the fight went out of
her then as her arms hungrily embraced him, and she held his head to
hers" moaning as his lips began -to explore all the crevices and hills
of her body.  I watched, shocked as he kissed her breasts while his
hand fondled beneath her peignoir.

"You're wrong, Ellie," he muttered, his face smeared with passion as he
stood and carried her to his bed.

"I do love you if I my own way.  just as I loved Lucky in a very
special way.  It's not my fault if I can't keep love after the object
of it is dead.  I have to go on, don't I?  And if you think I love
myself more than I love anyone else, then I haven't tried to deceive
you, have I? At least respect me for being honest, if you can't respect
me for anything else."

Now I knew for a certainty, with no more guilty speculating, ust w the
man was my mother had stolen from her half-sister.  I also knew
definitely my father was also Vera's father.  The more I thought about
it, the more uncomfortable I became about my mother.  Had she
deliberately stolen her older sister's lover?

Standing, I left them on the bed.  Now MY aunt and my father were
lovers again.  Strangely, after more hours of thought, I wasn't as
shocked as once I would have been, or as distressed.  Perhaps fate did
work in mysterious ways to see that all things worked out equally.  It
also occurred to me that perhaps the two of them might have been lovers
even when my mother was alive right in this house, under her own roof.
Certainly there were enough unused rooms that would have given them the
place and opportunity.  My memories went flittering back to tea times
when Aunt Mercy Mane's photograph was on the piano, and in my head the
echoes of all the harsh words exchanged between my mother and her
sister resounded.  Not once had my aunt showed one indication that she
was anything but jealous of my mother.  No, I decided, Aunt Ellsbeth
had too much respect for herself, and scorn for Papa, than to have had
a clandestine affair with a man who'd rejected her once for Lucietta.
Lana Whitefern.

After I labelled their relationship as Papa's need and my aunt's
reward, I put away their secret and determined never to let them know I
knew.  It was a long time before my aunt ever mentioned Vera again.

The Christmas I was seventeen, Arden put an engagement ring finger then
pulled me into his arms.

"Now you can stop any year with a nine.  When you are nineteen, you'll
be wife and I'll take care to see that nothing bad ever happens June I
graduated from high school.  I still wore the ring Arden had given me
round my neck on the that used to suspend my little birthstone ring.  I
began notice a steady change in my aunt, who didn't seem as t as
before.  I'd never thought of her as happy until I her unhappiness. She
seldom went anywhere.  Other her age belonged to bridge clubs and
attended coffee mings, but my aunt didn't have a single friend.  What
she wore at home were old, and the new ones she wore g t best o on were
chosen by Papa, just as he often selected my .  She didn't have one
hobby other than knitting as she he'd those everlasting soap operas.
She had me, she had .  , and Papa, and that eternal cooking and
cleaning and reward of having a few hours to sit before her choice of
new ur TV sets.  And I'd never realized that she needed or rv more. She
didn't, complain.  There were no obvious physical ptoms to make me
think she was ill, but something had .  She often paused in her work to
stare into space.  She to read the Bible, as if looking for solace. She
took long alone, avoiding the woods and sticking to the shores of
river.  Sometimes I walked beside her, neither of us g much.  She'd
stop to stare down at the ground with e interest.  She gazed up into
the trees and at the sky with same kind of intense curiosity, as if she
never taken notice nature before and it was brand new to her.  She
stared at the Is that infested all our impressive old trees.  I told
her I was sure they had been here when Columbus set sail from Spain,
and my aunt had scoffed and told me I was unduly romantic like my
mother.  Practicality was my aunt's virtue.

"Tet, as she hadn't won Papa, why hadn't she set her sights on I I
another man?  In no way would my 'unrealistic and romantic' ?  mother
have remained unmarried all -her life.

But how could I say any of this when I was just beginning to understand
my aunt?  And with the understanding came the love that had been
lacking in our relationship before.  I wanted to talk to her, but it
was difficult to communicate with a woman who'd never learned the art
of conversation.  One day she surprised me.

"Do you love that young man?"

"Arden?  Oh, yes, of course I do.  He makes me feel so safe, and
beautiful, too.  He tells me all the time how wonderful I am, and how
much he loves me.  "My own words gave me pause it was like I was
letting Arden convince me I had to love him because he loved me.

Frowning, my aunt glanced my way briefly, then looked away.

"I hope you'll always feel that way about him.  People change, Audrina.
He'll change.  You'll change.  You'll see each other differently
because of new perspectives.  You may not love him at twenty as much as
you do at eighteen.  You're a beautiful young woman and could pick from
the best the world has to offer.  But you have even more, something far
better than beauty, for that won't last.  You think it will, pray that
it will, but it goes sooner or later.  The more beauty you have the
worse it hurts when it's gone.  In one thing your father is right you
are speciall."

"No, I'm not.  "My head bowed in embarrassment.  11 have no special
gifts- My dreams are only ordinary."

"Oh, that," she said as if shed known all along.

"What Merence does it make how you achieve your goals?  At least your
father leaves you alone now at rug hts and you no longer scream out.
I've always considered him a monster for forcing you into that room
when you didn't want to go there but that's beside the point.  Without
you, Damian wouldn't have fared so well, so don't let him take credit
for all his good fortunes.  You motivate him, and give him reason for
accumulating wealth.  To travel life's road alone isn't easy, and no
one knows that better than 1. Damian could never have survived your
mother's death without you.  Men are strange creatures, Audrina,
remember that.  So stand up for your rights and demand a college
education.  Don!t let him.  talk you out of what you want.  He'll try
to keep you from marrying, from ever leaving him don't let him succeed
in chasing Arden away."

"He couldn't do that, or else Arden would have disappeared time ago I
know Papa's tried.  Arden's told me he's tried make him stay away from
me."

"All right, then.  But when you see your chance to escape the
opportunity and flee.  You don't need to live near those , and in that
house filled with all its unhappy memories.  y, it would even be better
if you moved into that cottage his poor crippled mother .. ."  I
gasped.

"You know about Billie?  I didn't think anyone "Oh, for heaven's sake,
Audrina.  Everybody knows about Billie Lowe.  There was a time when her
face was plastered on ry magazine cover, and when she lost one leg, and
then the er, that made the headlines.  You were too young at the time
,tD notice.  Besides, your father only allowed you to read the
.1mancial.  pages."  She paused, as if ready to say more, but ed to
think better of it.

"Don't you realize your father has -been coaching you about the stock
market since the day you were born?  Audrina, use your knowledge and
benefit yourself, Aot him."

What did she mean?  I asked, but she refused to explain.  Still, :1
loved her for trying to help me, never suspecting that maybe she was
waiting for me to try and help her.

Later that night I decided she was depressed because Papa Aidn't marry
her, depressed because she hadn't had but one Christmas card and one
telephone call from Vera in five years.  How hateful of Vera to treat
her mother as if she'd never existed.  I had to have a talk with Papa
soon, very soon.

But Papa was seldom home, and when he was, my aunt was there and I
didn't want her to know I was going to urge him to marry her.

How complicated everything was.  Those were almost the first words I
said to Arden when he came home for a weekend.  My aunt knew all about
your mother's condition."

He smiled, kissed me four or five times, held me for long, long moments
so hard I felt every muscle in his strong young body.  I felt something
else, too, making me draw away and downward.  That bulging hardness
made the wind clamour in my head, filled me with hightened panic so
felt weak and ready to.  run  He noticed and seemed hurt, then so
embarrassed that he held his topcoat to cover what betrayed his
excitement.  Lightly he said, "Well, I did what I could and she did
what she could, and I'm sure you did what you could, but secrets will
out, and maybe it's for the best."

He went on to speak of our marriage soon after he finished college, and
that was only weeks away.  Again panic visited me and told me I needed
more time.  We were in the woods, on the way to my home, when he
embraced me again, much more passionately than ever before.  Until he
grabbed me I'd heard the little birds overhead singing, but the moment
he touched me the birds turned off.  I froze and became stiff from one
too intimate caress.  I jerked from his arms and turned my back,
clamping my hands over my ears to shut out the clamour of the wind
chimes, which I shouldn't be hearing way out here.

Tenderly Arden slipped his arms about my waist and pulled me back
against him.

"It's all right, darling.  I understand.  You're still very young, and
I've got to keep remembering that.  I want to make the rest of your
life happy to reimburse you for ... for..  and there he stumbled,
making me yank away again and whirl to confront him.

"Reimburse me for what?"  , "For all the things that shadow your eyes.
I want my love to erase your fears about everything.  I want our child
to respond to your care a Sylvia never has."

Child, child, child.  I didn't need another child.  Arden seldom spoke
Sylvia's name, as if he, too, wanted to pretend she didn't exist.  He
did nothing to- harm her, but nothing to assist her, either.

"Arden, if you can't love Sylvia, then you can't love me.  She's part
of the rest of my life.  Please realize that now and tell me if you can
accept her, or else let's say goodbye before this goes on any further."
.  He glanced to where Sylvia was winding round and round the tallest
tree in the woods.  Her slender arm was outstretched so her fingers
could lightly trail over the bark as endlessly she circled.  I told
myself she was trying to communicate with the tree by feeling its
'skin' and there was some sense in what she did.  That's the way she
was, always active, never still while she was awake, always doing
something that was essentially nothing.  to the edge of the woods Arden
escorted me and I was feeling right enough by this time to exchange
plans with him for that evening and the next day.  father and aunt were
in the kitchen arguing.  The minute heard me enter the house, their
voices stilled and I heard unnatural quiet which announces that you
have inter something private.  hurried up the stairs with Sylvia.

"Arden left again for his last term, and I settled down to g Papa turn
this house into better than new.  Now that was noted for making
everything he touched turn to gold, Ellsbeth liked to tell him acidly
that soon his head would too large to come through the double front
doors..terally thumbing his nose at her, Papa ordered workmen tear down
walls, to make some rooms larger and others er.  He had bathrooms added
to his rooms and to mine, two more as well.  He decided he needed two
large walk-in ds to accommodate his many suits and dozens of pairs
expensive shoes.  My own room was enlarged and a dressing was added,
and with my private bath, I felt splendidly adent with all those
crystal and gold fixtures, and electric s framing my dressing mirror.
In the end it seemed wed a home not equal to but surpassing what it bad
been.  "Papa he'd until he found all the genuine antiques the
Whiteferns sold years ago, proving that all that my aunt had thrown my
mother's face about the 'fakes' in our house was true.

that grand bed Momma had believed was the real thing, to be just a
reproduction.  listened with incredulity to all he planned to do.  He
had miserly ways about petty things, and such extravagant when it came
to this house and his clothes.  everyone in the financial world he was
the 'messiah' Of stock market.  That gave him so much confidence he
began write a stock advice newsletter in his spare time.  He listed
stocks to buy, to short, to sell, and then sold what he told rs to buy
long the day his newsletter was delivered.  He his shorts when others
went in too short.  He bought told his clients to sell.  In a few hours
of trading, he'd With thousands of dollars in profits.  It seemed
unfair,.  and I told him this.  But he replied by saying that 0 of
life was unfair.

"A battle of wits to survive, Audrina.  The victories in life belong to
those who move fastest and most cleverly and it's not cheating.  After
all, the public should have better sense, shouldn't they?

Papa sent this stock advice letter to a friend who lived in San
Francisco, and this friend had a publishing business, and all such
'friends' were willing to collaborate in the fraud.

Then came that wonderful day when Arden was due home from college,
having received his diploma.  Papa had been so heartless that he would
not allow me to attend his graduation ceremony.

Unknown to Papa, who'd have had me always dependent on him, Arden had
taught me to drive years ago.  Therefore it was easy to 'borrow' one of
Papa's older cars while he was at work, and with Sylvia dressed in her
best, I headed for the airport terminal to wait for his plane to land.
The moment was at hand.  I was foolish enough to think I was ready for
anything.  A Long Day's journey came running to me in the airport. 
Soon I was so tightly and so fervently kissed that I pulled away,
overwhel0 with his emotions.  Frantically I looked for Sylvia, who'd
the moment Arden seized me in his arms.  After houes search, we found
my small sister staring at the magazines.  She was completely
dishevelled by this and I'd wanted Arden to see how pretty she was when
was fresh and clean.  To make matters worse, someone 'd meant to be
kind had given her a chocolate ice cream Half the ice cream was on her
face, part in her hair and her nostrils, and very little of what was
left was finding its Iting way into her mouth.  I took it from her
grasp and held for her to lick.  Worse than anything was the stench
that came her nappies. I had managed to half toilet train Sylvia, but
She still had enough accidents so I kept her in nappies, : There was
little Arden and I could talk about on the way home, when every move
Sylvia made was an embarrassment to both of us.

"I'll see you later this evening," he said as I let 'him out of his
comer.  He tried not to wrinkle his nose when ylvia clawed at him for
affection.  No sooner were Sylvia and I inside the house than I heard
loud voice of my father.  A terrible argument was going on the hen.  I
paused in the doorway with my arm protectively round Sylvia's thin
shoulders.  Aunt Ellsbeth was dashing about, frantically preparing
another of those troublesome gourmet meals that Papa loved so much.

My aunt wore a new dress, a very pretty, feminine dress that might well
have been taken from my mother's wardrobe where "all her clothes still
hung, growing old and musty smelling.  Aunt Ellsbeth wielded a huge
cleaver so ferociously I wondered why Papa didn't fear for his life
when she glared at him with that thing in her hand.  He didn't seem
afraid as he bellowed again, "Ellie, what the hell is wrong with
you?"

"You need to ask?  "she yelled back, slamming down her knife and
whirling to confront him.

"You didn't come home until five-thirty this morning.  You're sleeping
with someone.  WhoF "It's really none of your business," he answered
coldly.  I shuddered at his flat tone.  Couldn't he tell she loved him
and was doing the best she could to please him?  I "None of my
business, hey?"  she stormed.  Her long, handsome face flamed redder.

"We'll see about that, Damian Ada reP Her dark eyes furious, my aunt
seized up the large bowl full of her chopped vegetables and quickly
dumped them down the garbage disposal.  Then she was emptying all the
steaming pots and pans into the sink.

"Stop th atV roared Papa, appearing beside himself.

"That food cost me good money!  Ellsbeth, behave yourself."

"To hell with you!"  she screamed back at him.  She tore off her apron
and hurled it in his face, then shouted, "I need a life of my own,
Damian!  A life far from here.  I'm sick of being your housekeeper,
your cook, your gard6 ncr your laundry expert, and, most of all, sick
of being your now and then bed partner!  I'm also sick of taking care
of your idiot daughter and as for your Audrina 2 "Yesss," drawled Papa,
his eyes narrowing, his voice taking on that deadly, silky tone that
made the hackles on my neck rise.

"What is it you want to say about my Audrina?"

I quivered as I drew Sylvia into my embrace, trying to cover her ears
and her eyes and shield her as much as possible from this.  I had to
hear what they were going to say.  They didn't seem to see, either of
us.  I watched the colour in my aunt's usually pale face drain-away.

Nervously my aunt fluttered her hands towards him in a helpless,
appealing way.

"I wouldn't tell her, Damian, really I wouldn't.  I would never tell
Audrina anything to make her unhappy.  just let me go.  Give me what is
mine, and let me go.  And what is it that is yours, Ellie?"  asked Papa
in that same sitting at the kitchen table with his elbows propped 1and
his hands term pled under his chin.  I didn't trust him he looked like
that.  ou know what is mine," she said in a hard and very ed voice.

"After you lost Lucietta's inheritance, you t after the little I had
left.  You promised to pay it back in three months What a fool I was to
have believed YOU.  But hasn't that always been my weakness, believing
in ?  Now, Damian, give me back my two thousand dollars bled!"

"Where would you go if you left here, Ellie?  What would you He picked
up the little paring knife she'd used to peel t and began to clean
under his nails, which were always 911m going to my daughter, to your
daughter, too, though don't want to admit she is.  She's in that huge
city all alone, off by that man she ran away with."  He stayed her with
his upraised hand, like a king who had turn his head away from a
distasteful subject.

"I don't care bear more.  You're a fool if you go to her.  She doesn't
love you, Ellie, she just wants to take what you'll bring.  I heard in
the village that Lamar Rensdale killed himself.  No doubt your daughter
had a lot to do with his suicide."  Damian, pleasePshe wailed, all her
fire gone now.

"Just give 'me what is mine, that's all I want.  I'll go and never
bother you again.  I swear you'll not hear from me or Vera just give me
enough so I won st starve."

"I am not giving you one red cent, "said Papa coldly.

"As long as you stay in my home, you'll have food to eat and cloth esto
wear, a place to sleep and money to spend on the trifles you hell will
freeze over before I give you money to go live wi that hellcat you gave
birth to.  And remember this, once you leave, you can't come back.  Not
again.  Life is hard on the outside, Ellie, very hard.  You're not a
young woman any more.  And even if it isn't heaven here, it isn't hell,
either.  Think twice before you leave me."

"Isn't it hell?"  Her voice rose to a shriek.

"It's hell with a H, Damian, pure, unadulterated hell!  What am I here
t an unpaid housekeeper?  After Lucietta died and you began to look my
way with kind eyes again, I thought you'd love me again.  You came to
my bedroom when you needed release, and I gave you that.  I should have
denied you, but I wanted you, as I've always wanted you.  When you
lived in this house with my sister, I stayed awake at night picturing
the two of you in your bedroom and how I envied her, and hated her.  I
began to hate you, too, even more than I did her.  Now I wish to God
I'd never come back with Vera.  There was a young doctor in the
hospital where I gave birth to Vera, who wanted me to marry him, but I
had your image engraved on my brain.  It was you I wanted.  God alone
knows why when I knew even then what you were, and still are.  Give me
my money, Damian,"she said, striding towards his office as I backed
away, pulling Sylvia with me.  She didn't see us as we crouched in a
dim comer of the wide hall cluttered with furniture.

In a few seconds, while my father sat at the table, she was back,
carrying my father's corporation cheque book.

"Write," she ordered.

"Make it twenty-five thousand.  After all, this was my home, too, and I
should get something for abandoning my lifetime privilege to live under
this roof.  Wasn't it considerate of my sister to include me in her
will?  It was almost as if she meant for her husband to be part of her
legacy but I don't need you nearly as much as I need the money."

He gave the blue cheque book a funny look, then took it and with
precision he wrote a long blue cheque, which he handed to her with a
tight, ironic smile.  She glanced at the figure, then glanced again.

"Darnian, I didn't ask for fifty thousand."

"Don't leave me, Ellie.  Say you're sorry for all those ugly words.
Tear up the cheque or keep it, but don't go."

Rising again to his feet, he tried to take her in his-arms.  She kept
staring at the cheque.  As I watched, I saw a blush of excitement heat
her face.

Then Papa seized her from behind and turned her round to crush Ins M
lips down on her thin ones.  Even as she tried to struggle, the cheque
slipped from her grasp and fluttered to the floor.  Greatly to my
surprise, after all she'd screamed at him, her arms slipped eagerly
round his neck, and she responded to his kisses with just as much
ardour as he showed.  Helplesslyto resist, she allowed him to pick her
up.  He headed back stairs with my aunt in his arms.

numb and dazed, a queasiness in my stomach, I MY trembling sister into
the kitchen.  I picked up the and stared at the fifty thousand dollars
and no cents out to Ellsbeth Whitefem.  I pinned the cheque to the
where my aunt was sure to see it in the morning, and it she could leave
if she wanted to.  that I'd heard and seen in the kitchen churned in my
head night like a carousel of skeletal ponies, going round and 05, and
up, down.  Lamar Rensdale had killed himself ?  How did the villagers
know?  Had his death been in the newspapers, and if it had, why hadn't
I seen it?  It had to that Vera had called.  and told my aunt, and she
was so -stricken now she needed someone, and the only one she was her
mother.  Had Vera truly loved my handsome music her?  If so, why had he
taken his own life?  I sighed and the wind answer ... and that was
about all the answer was likely to get.  V: recesses of my mind I
avoided the biggest Deep in the question of all.  What was it my aunt
promised she wouldn't tell me?  What was the secret that would make me
so unhappy if .1 learned about it?

Bad dreams woke me up early next ifiorning.  At the top of front
stairs, with the early sun pouring through the stained s, I stopped
short and froze.  Down on the foyer floor, with the sun coming through
that 'rich, colourful glass to throw geometric designs on the floor, my
aunt was sprawled face down and very still.  I took the steps slowly,
slowly, like someone sleepwalking and fearful every second of facing
too many horrors.  She's not dead, I kept telling myself, not dead, not
dead, only hurt.  I had to call an ambulance before it was too late.
She very seldom used the front stairs because the back ones took her
down so near the lutchen, which was where she stayed almost all day.  I
thought I heard a faint sound from the kitchen, like a door being
carefully closed.

Tentatively I approached her.

"Aunt Ellie," I whispered fearfully.  I knelt to roll over the body of
my aunt, and then Istared into her face.

"Don't be dead," I pleaded over and over.  She was difficult to move,
like lead.  Her head lolled unnaturally loose as I shoved and pushed
and finally had her on her back.  Her dark and fiery eyes gazed
glassily at the intricately carved ceiling.  Her skin had a sickly,
greenish grey colour.

Dead, she was dead.  Dressed for travelling in a suit I'd never seen
before, she was dead and already travelling to compare His heaven and
hell with here.

There was a scream stuck in my throat.  Rasping sobs kept it from
sounding.  I didn't want her dead.  I wanted her to have that cheque
and have the chance to enjoy herself, and at the same time I wanted her
to stay on here with us.  Crying freely now, I began to straighten the
bow at the neck of her new white blouse.  I tugged down her skirt so
her slip wouldn't show, and arranged her broken legs beneath her so
they didn't look broken any more.  With that huge bun at the back of
her neck, her head kept falling to a crazy angle.  Crying harder, I
undM her figure-eight knot and spread her hair so it looked pretty.
Then her head stayed in position.

Everything done now, I heard the screams.  Over and over someone was
screaming.  Out of the-kitchen, heavy feet came running fast, a voice
calling my name.  I whirled to see Sylvia tripping awkwardly down the
stairs, babbling to herself as she tried to hold on to the bannister
and hold on to the prisms, too.  She was coming to me as fast as
possible, a big smile on her pretty face.  And her eyes were focused! 
I thought she was going to speak when suddenly from behind me a voice
... "Who was screaming?"  asked Papa as he raced into the foyer.  He
stopped short and stared at Aunt Ellie.

"Ellie .. . is that Ellie?"  he asked, pale and shocked looking.
Shadows seemed to immediately darken his face.  He hurried to kneel
where I'd knelt only a moment ago.

"Oh, Ellie, did you have to do this?"  he asked with a sob, lifting her
so she was cradled in his arms and her rubbery neck stretched too
long.

"I gave you a cheque, Ellie, more than you asked for.  You could have
gone.  You didn't have to fall down the stairs just to hurt me .. ."

Seeming to remember my presence, he paused and asked "How did this
happen?"  His eyes narrowed as I pulled SylviaI wanted to defend her
from that hard way at those prism clutched in her hand.  Holding
against my breasts, I faced him.

"I was coming when I saw her ... she was face down on the floor, d
fallen he was staring at my aunt's dead face.

"She very used the front stairs.  You turned her over?  "How empty how
flat his tone.  Was he hurting like I was I turned her over."  heard us
last night, didn't you?"  he asked accusingly.  I could answer, he was
picking up her purse I hadn't and rummaging through it.

"No cheque," he said as if .  "We did quarrel last night, Audrina, but
later on we it up.  I asked her to marry me.  She seemed very happy she
went back to her room."  eased my aunt back onto the floor and stood
up.

"She 't leave me ... I know she wouldn't do that, not after her, and
she wanted that, I know she wanted that .. he was gone, taking the
steps three at a time.  'grabbed hold of Sylvia and forced her to run
with me to back stairs, hoping we'd reach my aunt's room first and I'd
re to see what, he did with the cheque when he found Even if his way
was the longest way, he was in her room I could drag Sylvia there.  Her
suitcases lay open on her Frantically, he was tearing through her
things, opening closing every handbag she owned.

"I can't find it!  Audrina, to find that chequel Did you see it?"  I
told him then that I'd pinned it to the cork board so she'd it first
thing in the morning.  He groaned and wiped his hand over his lips.

"Audrina, run see if it's still there."  With Sylvia beside me,
stumbling along as I tried to hurry, reached the kitchen and found the
cork board empty.  I rted that to Papa.  He sighed heavily, glanced
again at the form of my aunt in her crisp dark suit, then dialled the
lj .  "Now," he instructed before I went upstairs to dress, "You just
tell them exactly how you found her but don't tell them she was
leaving.  I'll put away all her clothes.  I can't believe she was
leaving anyway.  She had such idiotic things in her suitcases, clothes
that wouldn't even fit her now.  Audrina, I think it would be a good
idea if you took off your aunt's travelling suit and put on one of her
house dresses

I didn't want to, though I understood his reasoning, and with his help
we managed to take off her jacket, blouse and skirt.  Soon she was
wearing a plaid cotton dress.  I was trembling long before we were
finished.  Hurriedly I did up her hair while Papa held her in position.
My fingers shook so her knot had never looked so messy.  No sooner was
I dressed myself than the police were jabbing at the doorbell.

Huddled with Sylvia at my side on the purple velvet chaise I watched
and listened as my father gave the two policemen an explanation of my
aunt's fall down the stairs.  He appeared calm, only a little
distraught, with worry and sadness making him seem genuinely grief
stricken.  The policeman seemed to consider him charming, very likable,
and I was thinking unmercifully, what an actor he was.  He would never
have married her.  What a lie to tell me that as if he considered me so
gullible Id believe anything.

"Miss Adare," said the older of the policemen, his face kind and
grandfatherly, 'you were the one who found her?  She was on her
back?"

WOR "No, sir, she was face down.  I didn't want to think she was dead,
so I had to turn her over to check."  I bowed my head and began to cry
again.

His voice was sympathetic when he asked, "Was your aunt subject to
dizzy spells?"  On and on the questions came until Papa fell into a
chair and bowed his head into his hands.  Somehow I forgot to mention
Id heard the back door softly close.  But perhaps I'd only imagined I'd
heard that.

"Where were you when your sister-in-law fell?"  asked the older
policeman, looking directly at Papa.

"I was asleep," said Papa, lifting his head and meeting the eyes of the
policeman squarely.

Even as my aunt's body was lifted and put on a stretcher, covered over
and taken to the police morgue, the questions Aad on.  I was numb and
feeling dazed, and I was of Sylvia who hadn't eaten breakfast.  That
was the A a I did after the police left.  Papa sat down to eat what
too, not saying a word to me, only chewing and automatically.  later
on, when I was alone in my room and Sylvia was in hers, I kept thinking
of my aunt and the argument had with Papa.  She had wanted to go to
Vera, and now dead.  The more I thought about that the more alarmed
about my own situation.  How many times had my told me to escape when I
had the opportunity?  Hundreds Now, while Papa was off somewhere making
funeral s, was my chance.  did you go when Fate kept breaking your
heart over over again?  A little voice inside me kept whispering that
thought baby girls were born every day just to serve his when they grew
older.  And when he was old and ugly, thinking money would buy them and
when even couldn't, he'd still have me left to take care of him and him
from those institutions he seemed to hate.  Even as that, behind that
was another whispering menace... awful thing my aunt had said to han
about how he was ble of doing anything and everything to get his way. I
about madly, throwing my clothes into suitcases.  I ran Sylvia's room
and gathered up what she'd need, too.  We leaving.  Leaving before
something awful happened to us, Now, while Papa was away and couldn't
stop us.

I pulled Sylvia along with me, we had to pass the front and in the door
I paused as I said goodbye to my mother's piano.  It seemed I could see
her sitting there playing her .te Rachmaninoff melodies, one of which
had been given in a popular ballad.

Full moon, and empty arms ... Steel arms, that's the kind my father
had.  Killing arms of As I stood there I think I forgot every hateful,
mean thing aunt had ever said or done to me and Sylvia.  I shoved into
the darkest corners of my brain all she'd,said to tell me I was too
sensitive and unable to cope with reality, and remembered only the good
things, the thoughtful deeds.  I forgave her everything.

Pulling Sylvia with me, I picked up the two heavy suitcases and began
our journey through the woods to reach the cottage on the far side.
Billie looked sober when I told her my plans.  Arden was delighted.

"Of course.  What a wonderful idea.  But why can't your aunt look out
for Sylvia?  It's not going to be much of a honeymoon if we have to
drag her along with us."

With my head low and my voice, too, I told them what had happened and
that-it was escape now or never.  I had told everything in such a way
that Papa had seemed blameless.  Why had I spared him?

Billie cuddled me in her strong arms.

"We have to think some things are for the best when there is nothing we
can do about it anyway.  You've told me your aunt has acted strangely
all winter.  Maybe she did have a dizzy spell.  Now, there's no reason
why you can't leave Sylvia here with me, if you truly feel you have to
escape like this.  I just want you to be sure you love my son enough,
Audrina.  Don't marry Arden today and regret it tomorrow."

"I will love Arden for every I cried fervently, fully believing this
was the truth.  Arden smiled at me lovingly.

"I can echo that," he said softly.

"All my life will be devoted to making you happy."

Nervously I glanced from Sylvia, who started to scream when Billie
tried to touch her, to Billie, then Arden.  I couldn't leai,e my sister
with Billie, whom she seemed to fear and dislike.  I'd promised Papa a
long time ago that Id take care of Sylvia; she was my responsibility,
and I couldn't leave her.

My heart seemed to stop as I waited for Arden's response after I told
him Sylvia had to go with us.  He blanched, then quietly agreed.

Perhaps Billie was right to look worried as she waved goodbye.  I Take
Thee, Arden town in North Carolina, where the law permitted to be
married on the same day on which they took out licence, Arden and I
were married by a fat, balding of the Peace, while his plain-looking,
skinny wife atrocious wedding music on a worn-out old organ.  the brief
ceremony was over, she sang without our "I Love You Truly."

sly, Sylvia perched on what looked like a bridge swinging her feet as
she played with the crystal prisms bbl incessantly to herself, as if
suddenly shed found and was going to use it, even if she couldn't say
words or was she trying to sing?  It was difficult ncentrate on our
vows.  a few years we'll do it all over again in the proper way," Arden
as we headed south, towards a famous beach a fine hotel.

"You look so pretty in that violet suit.  It your eyes.  You have such
wonderful eyes, so deep.  I er if ever in a million years I will have
time to find out J,our secrets."  fJneasily I fidgeted.

"I have no secrets."

nightfall we were registered in the hotel.  Soon we were their dining
room, where all the guests stared at Sylvia ving food into her
wide-open mouth without benefit of .  "I've been working on that, too,"
I said with apology Arden.

"Sooner or later she catch on."  He smiled and said , we'd both teach
Sylvia how to be the perfect lady.  I was glad dinner took a long time.
Only too soon would the time I dreaded most.  Try as I would, that
dark, fugitive memory of the wet sy day kept flashing before my eyes.
Sex had killed the t Audrina, and it was my wedding night.  Arden
wouldn'tagain to reassure my hurt me, I said self.  It wouldn't be
awful with him.  The pain and the terror and the ugliness all belonged
to that crazy rocking chair dream of the First Audrina; it didn't
belong to my life with a wedding certificate in my purse.

Arden was wonderfully considerate, tolerant of Sylvia as he
simultaneously tried to be romantic with me a nearly impossible task. I
felt sorry for him as he tried so hard.

Held rented a double suite of rooms with a connecting door so Sylvia
could have her own bathroom, and in her bathroom I slowly,
painstakingly did what I had to.  When I tucked her into the wide bed I
gave her strict orders to stay in bed or else.  The last thing I did
was put half a glass of water on the night stand.

"Drink as little as possible so you won't have an accident during the
night.". I kissed her and reluctantly withdrew when she drifted into
sleep, still clutching the crystal prisms.

in the bedroom Arden and I were to share, tie paced the floor
impatiently while I took an hour-long tub bath and shampooed my hair.
Next I rolled it on curlers, used my hair dryer, creamed my face, and
while my hair finished drying, I removed my nail polish and did my
nails all over again, my toenails, too.  Now that my hair was
thoroughly thy, I had to wait for my nails to dry as well When they
seemed solid enough, I carefully took out the curlers and brushed the
tight curls into loose, soft waves.  I sprayed on cologne and puffed on
talcum and finallly dropped a fancy nightgown down over my head.
Stupid, stupid, I was calling myself for being afraid to go to my
husband.

I tugged at the revealing nightgown Billie had given me on my last
birthday, wishing it wasn't so transparent, though I guessed she'd
given it to me for just this reason.  It had a matching peignoir of
violet, with creamy lace that wasn't placed to conceal anything.  When
I'd finished every last detail I could think of, I sat on the edge of
the bathtub and just stared at the closed door, dreading to open it and
go through.

I kept seeing Momma as I sat there, so much like I looked, only older.
I thought of Papa and the belt he used for a whip.  I envisioned again
all that had happened to the First Audrma that awful day in the ram
when she'd been found dead underraintree.  A child raped, it wasn't
fidr or right.  I began ble, and beads of sweat came to dampen my
armpits the deodorant I wore.  I saw Vera rolling about on the with
Lamar Rensdale, and the violent way he'd taken her, a rutting animal. I
couldn't go through with it.  I didn't to go through with it.

9, I began to unfasten my peignoir I couldn't let me in this bit of
nothing.  called Arden from the other side of the locked door, his
voice beginning to sound angry, 'what's you so long?  You've been in
there for hours."  ve me five more minutes," I answered nervously.
Already him that two times before.  I fiddled with my hair, Peignoir,
taking it off, thinking about pulling on my or getting fully dressed
again.  I began to chew on my .  , a habit long ago abandoned.  I told
myselfagain that had known me since I was seven, seen me in play
clothes a bathing suit, in all sorts of conditions ... but he'd never
me in a see-through nightie just before intimate relations.  he was my
husband now.  Why did I have to be so worried?

n't end up dead under a golden rain tree or on the floor, would he use
his belt ... would he?  -"One more minute," reminded Arden.  Im holding
-you to time limit ... and no more excuses."  His tone was so grim
scared me.  He'd never sounded so harsh before.  Oh, it was t like I'd
heard Aunt Mercy Marie, Aunt Ellsbeth and my say: you never knew a man
until you married him.

"I'm watching the second hand," he informed me.

"You've thirty seconds now.  If you're not out when you promised,
coming in.  Even if I have to kick down that door, I'm inP I shrank
back against the wall, my heart pounding as I .  I took a step closer
to the door, said a quick prayer the soul of my aunt and asked her
forgiveness for not her funeral.

"Time's upV he' yelled

"Stand back I'm coming He'd hurt himself if he backed up and ran
forward to slam shoulder through the door.  He kicked the door twice
but it didn't budge.  I heard him swear, and guessed he was going to
throw himself against the door next.  Hurriedly I turned the lock and
threw open the door.

it was his misfortune to hurl himself forward at the very second I
swung the door inward.  He slammed hard against the tile wall opposite
the door.  He crashed against it, then slid to the floor and lay there
looking stunned and in terrible pain.

Rushing forward, I knelt to hover above him.  Oh, Arden, I'm sorry, so
sorry.  I didn't know you'd really try to break down the door."

To my surprise, he laughed and grabbed for me.  He began to smother me
with kisses.  His words came between them.

"I've heard that brides can get stage fright, but, Audrina, I thought
you loved me."  More kisses on my face, neck, the swell of my
breasts.

"It's not as if we just met."

jerking away, I rose to my feet and painfully, he stood, too, before he
leaned over and felt for broken bones.

"I guess nothing is permanently damaged, "he said with a good-natured
grin.  Tenderly he took me in his arms and gazed deeply into my eyes.

"You don't have to look so scared.  All this is kind aa funny in a way,
like a farce, but I don't want our wedding night to be a farce.  I love
you, Audrina.  We'll take it easy, go slow, and you'll be surprised at
how naturally things come about."  Lightly he kissed me with his parted
lips.

"Your hair looked great before, you didn't have to wash it again.  Yet,
I've never seen you look so beautiful ... and even if you do look
terrified, you take my breath away."  Again he kissed me, like he
didn't want to stop.

"I'll be finished in a flash," he said reluctantly parting and entering
the bathroom.

He didn't have to tell me that.  I'd know all along he'd be finished in
a 'flash.

I'd have to endure this night, and all the nights to come if I was to
escape Papa and find the physical rapport every woman was supposed to
enjoy with the man she truly loved.

Pulling off the peignoir that Arden hadn't even noticed, I slipped
between the sheets of that huge bed.  Hardly had I arranged myself
comfortably when Arden was opening the bathroom d= finished with his
shower and what little else a man did to get ready for bed.  he can to
the bed, silhouetted briefly before the light behind him.  To my
horror, he wore nothing but bath towel swathed about his slim hips.
Whatever dim there was in the hotel room seemed to concentrate on his
shiny skin, forcing me to take notice of his maleness-when I didn't
want to think about it.  I just wanted this over and done with as
quickly as possible.  I could have from the casual way he took off that
towel and tossed or and slid to the it missed the chair arm he aimed f
it was already starting, all the sloppy things neat men r they had a
wife to pick up after them.

"You forgot to off the bathroom light."

use you turned off all the fights inhere, he said easily I like some
light.  I could open the draperies instead, and the moonlight."  The
scent of toothpaste was on his breath.

by the bed, as if wanting me to look him over in rosy night light he
turned on.  ling, look at me.  Don't keep your head turned.  Ive ed for
this night for years and years.  I've gone through all of trouble to
make my body muscular and attractive, and .I'once have you ever said
anything to say that you noticed.  you ever nonce anything about me
except my face?"  swallowed.

"Yes, of course I've noticed."

he put one knee on the bed.  Alarmed at what I saw before my eyes took
flight again, I drew into a tighter inside and mched farther away on
the bed.

"Audrinal re shivering.  ies not cold in here.  Don't be frightened. We
each other.  I've kissed you, embraced you, and a few times dared a bit
more and was quickly reprimanded.  Theresto making love than all thay
combined."  His low voice worried.

"You do know what this is all about, I es, I knew.  Perhaps too much. I
stared towards the sickeningly terrified.  The faint and distant sound
of r filtered into our room.  With the approaching electrical came a
new flood of terror, bringing with it visions of dark woods overhung
with leaden skies.  Like it had beenin the First Audrina's room, I felt
the ominous threat of what by ahead.

Rain, oh, please, God, don't let it rain tonight!  Fraction by fraction
he moved closer.  I could sense him in every pore.  I breathed his
special male aroma felt his nakedness, felt my own vulnerability
beneath my nothing nightgown.  My skin seemed to wake up and turn into
a zillion antennae, each almost invisible hair quivering, warning me to
do something and do it quickly.  Back, back, I was going back to the
rocking chair when it had frightened me, before I learned how to escape
the horror of the woods.  I felt myself rocking, heard a childish voice
singing, saw the spiders spinning, saw the eyes of the stuffed animal
glinting, heard the floorboards squeaking.  The wind was blowing and
soon the lightning would flash and the thunder crash.

Arden said something sweet.  Why couldn't I hear clearly?

"I love you," I heard him say again, his voice coming to me as if
through a dream.  My heart thudded so loudly that I hardly heard him
above the noise of all that was happenhig inside of me.

Very close now, Arden turned on his side and tentatively put out his
hand to lightly touch my upper arm.  His fingertips brushed the left
side of my breast.  Don't, don't, I wanted to yell.  I lay there
speechless with fright, my eyes so wide they began to ache.  My mouth
became very dry.

He cleared Ins throat and moved so his flesh was against ml c, hot
flesh, bristly with hair.  His lips, even hotter andd -moist, brushed
over mine.  I shrank into the pillow, trying to choke back a scream.

"What's the matter?  "he asked.

"Have you stopped loving me already, Audrina?"

An excuse came to me from one hole in my memory.  Momma saying to Papa
she was too tired.

"I'm just so tired, Arden.  It's been a long day.  My aunt died this
morning.  Why can't you just hold me in your arms tonight and tell me
you love me over and over again, and then, perhaps, I won't feel so
aShAiined."

"There's nothing to be ashamed of," he said lightly, though I sensed
his tenseness.

"You're feeling like lots of brides feel,-told.  Since you're my first,
and I hope my last, I from experience."  to ask him if I was the first
girl he'd taken to bed, aft-aid he'd say no.  I wanted him to be just
as as I was; then, contrarily, I wanted him to know to do to make me
like what I was sure I would really knew he'd waited to have sex with
me first, that Itally prove he loved me enough.  fingers lightly
trailed a pattern up and down my arm as above me, forcing me to close
my eyes. Hadn't I my own mother say that boys were always more ready
for sex? joking with my aunt at the time, with Aunt Marie, too, as she
sat smiling vacuously on the piano.  his hands dared more, venturing to
fondle my breasts his fingers arrowed in more specifically.  They began
to round and round my rupples that were only lightly by the thin
fabric.  I shivered, cringed away, and asked, "Have you ever had sex
before?"  YOU have to ask that at a time like this?"  it the wrong
thing to ask?"

sigh sounded exasperated.

"There are differences n men and women, some say.  Maybe that's true,
and it s not.  A woman can live out her life happily without I've heard
said, but a man has a buildup of sperm that the released in one way or
another.  The most pleasurable 'with the woman he loves.  Loving is
sharing, Audrina.

mutual pleasure, not pain, and not shame, either."  Billie tell you to
say that to me?"  I asked hoarsely.  too eager lips burned the hollow
of my throat before he ured, "Yes.  Before we left the cottage, she
took me aside 4old me to be very tender and slow with you tonight.  She
't have to tell me that.  I would have been anyway.  I want everything
right.  Give me a chance, Audrina.  Maybe it 't be as terrible as
you're thinking it will be."  hy are you saying that?  Why do you think
I'm thinking be terrible?"  half-laugh was tight and small.

"It's pretty obvious.  're like a violin with strings tuned so tight I
can almost your nerve endings and hear them twang.  But it was you who
came running to me today, wasn't it?  You did throw yourself into my
arms and say, "Let's get married, "didn you?  You wanted to elope today
not tomorrow or next week.  So isn't it natural that I'd think that at
last you were ready to accept me as your lover?"

I hadnt thought.  I'd just acted.  Escape from Papa had been all that
mattered.

"Arden, you didn't answer my question."

"What question?"

"Am I the first?"

"All right, if you have to know.  There have been other girls, but none
that I loved as I love you.  Since I decided you were going to be the
one I'd marry, I have not touched another girl."

"Who was the first girl?"

"Never mind," he said with his face pressed between my breasts, and his
hand exploring beneath my gown.  I didn't stop him from doing what he
wanted to.  I clung to my pain.  He didn't love me enough.  He'd had
others, perhaps a hundred.  And he'd always acted like I was his one
and only girl.  How deceitful, like Papa.

"You're so beautiful, so soft and sweet.  Your skin is so smooth," he
murmured, his breath coming faster, as if all that he did to me was all
he needed, and nothing I did or didn't do mattered at all.  His hand
was now beneath my bodice, cuppmig my breast, kneading it, moulding it
to the shape of his hand -as his lips came down hard on mine.  rd been
kissed by him many times before, but not like this.

Panic put me back in the rocking chair, made me a child again and
terrified of that playroom where awful things came inside and filled me
with shame.  The lightning flashed and made my nerves jump so that I
bucked upwards.  Arden took that for beginning passion, for his lust
sizzled more and the shoestring straps of my rughtie broke as he pulled
it down, baring my breasts for his lips and tongue to play with.  I
arched my neck and forced my head back into the pillow as I bit down on
my lower lip to keep from screaming.  I squeezed my eyes together and
tried to endure the humiliation of everything he did.  Inside I was
sobbing, just like when they'd ripped off thes pretty new dress and
torn off her silk I was crying, and he didn't hear me or see my tears.
popped open when the thunder clapped.  The lit up the room enough for
me to see his handsome above mine, rapt looking, out of himself with
the he was experiencing.  , 41-is touching, caressing, kissing was
giving him pleasure it gave me terror.  I felt cheated, angry, ready to
hurt him 'my screams when he tugged off my nightgown and threw like a
rag.  They'd done that!  hands were all over me, finding everything but
what he to be seeking.  I hated where he had his hand and was he swore
to himself as his fingers worked madly.  he siihed and rolled on top of
me, and I felt his The rocking chair, I was in it again, rocking to and
fi-o.  the woods, heard the obscene words shouted, heard the was too
late.  I felt him jabbing deep into me, thick and slippery wet.  I
fought to free myself, bucking, kicking, I clawed deep into the skin of
his back, raked at his buttocks, but he didn't stop.  He kept on
jabbing, the same land of shame, the same kind of pain as they caused
her.  His fitce ... was that Arden's boyish face with plastered to his
foreheadl his' eyes bulging as he stared he turned and ran?  No, no,
Arden hadn't been born He was just another like them, that was all. All
men alike "4111 alike."  alike ... alike ... I was drifting, losing
sense of reality.  Aunt Ellsbeth been right when she said I was too
sensitive.  I should never led Arden on and allowed him to believe I
could be the wife.  couldn't be any kind of wife at all.

hot ejaculations came then.  Scream, scream, but the overhead muffled
my cries.  Nobody heard, not even lips from the bite of my teeth I
tasted my own blood on my tried to cut off my screams.  Only Arden who
loved me.  was the way physical love had to be .. . and one more last
heaving thrust nearly ripped me apart .. then, spin tung off, all
terror and shame faded.  Blackness mercifully took me, and I felt
nothing, nothing at all.

Morning light wakened me.  Sylvia was slouched in the comer of our
bedroom playing with her prisms, her nightgown riding up to her hips.
With her vacant eyes looking at nothing, her lips parted and drooling,
she crouched there as limp as a rag.

My husband rolled over, came awake and reached for my breasts as if
they belonged to him.  He kissed them first, then my lips.

"Darling, I love yow so much."  More kisses he rained on my face, my
neck, all over my naked body, and Sylvia was there, though I'm sure he
didn't see her.

"At first you seemed so tight, so scared.  Then, all of a sudden, you
seized hold of me and eagerly surrendered.  Oh, Audrina, I was hoping
you'd be like that."

What was he saying?  How could I believe his words when his eyes were
pleading the way they were?  Yet, I allowed him to fake his
satisfaction realizing that he'd had some, while I'd had nothing but
pain, shame and humiliation.  And far, far back in my perforated memory
was the scent of blood of damp earth and wet leaves ... and Audrina was
stumbling home, trying to hold the shreds of an expensive dress
together to cover her nudity.

PART THREE Home Again Ve drove up our long curving drive, I saw Papa
standing front porch, as if he'd known in advance this was our to come
home.  e towered up there, a formidable giant, wearing a spanking white
suit, white shoes, with a bright blue shirt and a white ith silver and
blue diagonal stripes.  uivered and looked at Arden, whose eyes met
mine with t deal of apprehension.  What would Papa do?

one hand I clung to Arden's arm, my other held 5s as all three of us
slowly ascended the steps to the front h. All the time Papa's fiery
gaze clashed with mine, silently I me of betraying him, failing him.
Then, done with ng he turned those dark, piercing eyes on Arden as if
to weigh and his strength as an opponent.  Papa smiled warmly and t out
his huge hand for my new husband to shake.  "Well," genially, 'how nice
to see all of you again."  He pumped n's hand up and down.  Endlessly,
it seemed.  was proud to see Arden didn't wince.  To squeeze too fumly
friendly handshake was Papa's way of determining a man's strength and
emotional character.  He knew his erfal grip hurt, and a man who
grimaced was crossed off list and labelled 'weak'.  Turning to me then,
he said, "You have disappointed me ly."  Casually he patted Sylvia on
the top of her head, as she were some pesky puppy.  Three times he
kissed my ks, one, then the other, but at the same time he managed
reach behind me to pinch my bottom so hard I wanted to out.  This kind
of pinch was meant to test a woman's urance, and her reactions were
noted, labelled, filed.  Let him label me as he would.

"Don't you ever pinch me like that again," I said fiercely.

"That hurts, and I don't like it.  I have never liked it and neither
did my mother or my aunt."

"My, what a saucy bit of baggage you've become in four days," he said
with a wide, mocking grin.  Then he reached to playfully pat my cheek,
and it felt like a slap.

"You didn't need to elope, my sweetheart," he said in a soft, loving
purr.

"It would have been my pleasure, my joy, to walk you down the centre
aisle and see you wearing your mother's beautiful wedding gown."

just when I thought nothing he did could ever surprise me, he caught me
off guard.

"Arden, I've been talking to your mother about you, and she tells me
you've had some difficulty finding the kind of position you want with a
good architectural fi - I admire you for not accepting a third-rate job
in a =ond-rate firm.  So until you find the kind of position you really
want, why not accept a junior account executive position with my
brokerage firm?  Audrina can help teach you the ropes so you can pass
the exam, and, of course, I'll do what I can to help.  Though she knows
almost as much as I do."

This wasn't what I wanted.  Yet, as I glanced at Arden, I saw he was
very relieved.  This offer would solve a lot of problems.  Now we'd
have an income and could rent a small apartment in the city, far from
Whitefern.  Arden appeared very grateful, and glanced at me as if I'd
over exaggerated Papa's desire to keep me all for himself.

How like Papa to take a situation he disliked and turn it round to his
advantage.  Good-looking young account executives were much in demand,
and Arden was smart and good with maths.

"Yes, Arden,"he expounded, putting a friendly, fatherly arm over my
husband's shoulders, 'my daughter can teach you the fundamentals, and
the technical side, too."  His voice was smooth, easy, relaxed.

"She is almost as knowledgableas I am, and perhaps even better since
the market is not a science but an art.  And Audrina has a stranglehold
on sensitivity and intuition right, Audrina?"  He gave me another smile
of great charm.  Then, while Arden wasn't looking, he quickly reached
to pinch my bottom again, even harder.  He smiled and whenced our way
again, Papa was hugging me lovhe continued, "I have another wonderful
surprise for beamed at both of us.

"I've taken the liberty of moving r out of that miserable little
cottage.  She is now 'he'd upstairs in the best rooms we have."  His
polished e again.

"That is, the best next to my own."  to see Arden so grateful when he
should have known Perhaps all men were more or less alike and
understood rot her very well.  I raged inside that Papa was still my
life, even though I was married.

0 established in what had been my aunt's rooms, made in a useless
effort to please her, was Billie, dressed like star in a fancy lace
dress that should have been seen only en Party.  bright eyes glowing,
she gushed, "He stormed over to about an hour after you drove away and
raged at me 'uraging the two of you to elope.  I didn't say a word he
calmed down.  Then I think he really looked at me for t time.  He told
me I was beautiful.  I was wearing my too, with those damned stumps
sticking out, and he to care.  Darlin', you just don't know what that
did ego.0 was clever, so clever.  I should have expected he'd find to
defeat me.  Now he had my mother-in-law on his, he said we should make
the best of a situation that It be changed, and that wonderful man
invited me to and live here, and share your lives and his.  Wasn't that
Ma of him?"  course it was.  I glanced around at the room I thought be
a shrine to my aunt s memory and ached inside ... what good were
shrines when Billie was so grateful?

EUsbeth had never appreciated anything done to her rooms pretty.
Certainly if anyone deserved rooms it was Billie.

you never told me your father is so kind, I and charming.  Somehow you
always made him inve, conniving, and abusive."

How could I tell her Papa's good looks and contrived charms were his
stock in trade?  He used them all on women, young, middle-aged and old.
Ninety per cent of his clients were wealthy older women who totally
depended on his advice, and the other ten percent were wealthy men too
old -to have good judgment of their own.

"Audrina, darling, Billie went on, holding me against her full, firm
breasts, 'your father is such a dear.  So sweet and concerned about
everyone's welfare.  A msin like Damian Adare could never be cruel. 
I'm sure you misunderstood if you think he mistreated you."

Papa had followed us upstairs, and until she said this, hadn't seen him
leaning gracefully against the door frame, taking all of this in.  He
spoke to Arden in the sudden silence.

"My daughter has been raving about you since she was seven years old.
God knows I never thought puppy love would last.  Why, I loved a dozen
girls or more by the time I was ten, and two hundred before I married
Audrina's mother."

Arden smiled, appearing embarrassed, and soon he was thanking Papa for
offering him a job when no one else had and a decent salary for someone
with absolutely no training as a broker.

And so again Papa had won.  Aunt Ellsbeth was dead.  She had not saved
me any more than she'd saved herself.  Only Papa was free to time and
time again hurt those he claimed to love most.  Soon Papa was talking
seriously to me and Arden about giving him a grandson.

"I've always wanted a son," he said while looking directly into my
eyes.  It hurt, really hurt to hear him say that, when he'd always
claimed I was enough to please him.  He must have seen my pain, for he
smiled, as if I'd been tested and he found me still faithful.

"Second to a daughter, I wanted a son, that is.  A grandson will do
just fine, since I already have two daughters."

I didn't want a baby yet, not when just being Arden's wife was
traumatic enough.  Bit by painful bit I was learning how to cope with
those nightly acts of love that seemed atrocious to me and wonderful to
him.  I even learned to fake Pleasurelooking so anxious and allowed
himself to believe R now enjoying sex just as much as he did.  "before
Arden and I returned from our seashore Billie had taken over in the
kitchen Aunt Ellsbeth t=ntly abandoned.  Billie had her high stool
there, over with most of her other belongings by my own detested doing
physical labour.  I watched him as her with admiration."  adroitly
putting meals without one grumble, and not much fuss, either.  She,
laughed in response to his many jokes.  She cared for his clothes and
ran the huge house with so little Papa couldn't stop admiring her
remarkable do you do it, Billie?  Why do you even want to?  Why tell me
to hire servants to wait on you?"  , Damian.  It's the least I can do
to repay you for all 're doing for us."  Her voice was soft and her
eyes warm ked at him.

"I'm so grateful that you wanted me, and med my son as your own, I can
never do enough.  having servants in the house steals your privacy."

at Billie, wondering how a woman with her could be so easily fooled.
Papa used people.  Didn't that she was saving him tons of money by
being his r and cook?  and that generous offer to hire was all fraud,
calculated to make her feel she wasn't used.

'said Billie one day when I'd been married about two Arden was still
studying for his broker's exam, watching Sylvia.  For some reason she
dislikes me like to see me gone.  I'm trying to think as she might uld
be she's jealous because she sees you love me, s never had to share
your love with others.  When cottage it was different, but now I'm in
her home your attention and your time from her.  Arden is on, too, but
for some reason, maybe because he her alone, she isn't jealous of him.
It's me she's jealous 9s more, I don't believe she's nearly as retarded
as you -She mimics you, Audrina.  Whenever you turn your back she
follows you.  And she can walk just as normally as you do when she
knows you can't see her."

Whipping round, I caught Sylvia just behind me.  She appeared startled
and quickly her closed lips parted, and her focused eyes went vacant,
blind looking.

"Billie, you shouldn't say things like that.  She can hear.  And if
what you say is true although I don't believe it is she might
understand and be hurt."

"Of course she understands," said Billie.

"She isn't brilliant, but she's not beyond the pale."

"I doWt understand why shed pretend!

"Who told you she's hopelessly retarded?"  Sylvia had drifted out into
the hall, tugging Billie's little red cart along with her and even as I
watched, she sat upon it and began to shove herself along in Billie's
fashion.

"Papa didn't bring her home until she was more than two and a half
years old.  He told me what her doctors had told him."

J admire Damian a great deal, although I don't admire the way he's
burdened your life with the care of your younger sister, especially
when he could afford to pay for a nurse to care for her, or, better, a
therapist to train her.  Do what you can to teach her skills, and
continue with your speech training.  Don't give up on Sylvia.  Even if
those doctors gave what they thought an honest evaluation, mistakes are
often made.  There is always hope and a chance for improvement!

In the months that followed, Billie convinced me that perhaps I had
misjudged my father after all.  She obviously adored him, even
worshipped him.  He ignored her legless condition and treated her with
such gallantry he surprised me and pleased Arden.

Papa even had a special wheelchair custom made for Billie.  He hated
her little red car with a passion, though the fancy' our kind' of chair
with concealed wheels didn't speed around enough for her.  She never
used that chair unless Papa was around.

Arden worked like an Egyptian slave in the day, then studied half the
night, trying to remember all he needed to know for his broker exams.
It was what he said he wanted, but I knew his heart wasn't in it.  YOU
don'twauttobea broker,- i itupanddo else.  give "Vant it go on, teach."
I began when he was seated across the table in our "They will give You
several kinds of tests to judge ability, and comprehension of the
written word.

your verbal agility, and You'll have to understand W saying, which goes
without saying..."I smiled at ShOved his roving foot away from my leg.
Answer, Would YOU rather paint a picture, look at a picture, or ture?"
t a Picture," Arden answered quickly ... ng, I shook my head.

"Second question.  Would you read a book, write a book, or sell a
book?"

a book ... but I guess that's Wrong.  The right answer book, sell a
picture right?"  three failures came the passing exam, and my husband a
Wan Street Cowboy.  day when my work was through, I wandered into the A
MY mother's piano was.  I smiled ironically to as -I pulled out Aunt
Mercy Marie's photograph and set grand Piano- Who would have ever
thought I'd do A crazy thing on my own?  Perhaps it was because I' was
about my a and how I'd missed her funeral.  To for that, I went often
to the graveyard to put flowers grave, and on my mother's grave, too.
Never, never did "any flowers for the First Audrina.

of them, I began my Own 'teatime.  As I began once performed by two
other sisters, Sylvia crept room and sat on the floor near my feet,
staring up into with a look Of bewilderment.  A weird sensation of time
itself stole over me.

"Lucietta,l said the fat-faced was speaking -for, "What a lovely girl
your third is.  Sylvia, such a beautiful name.  Who is Sylvia?  used to
be an old song about a girl named Sylvia.  , play that song again for
me, please."  aurse, Mercy Marie" said I in ' a good imitation of how
be red my mother speaking.  1Isn,t she beautiful, my-I sweet Sylvia? I
think she is the most beautiful of all my three girls., I banged out
some tune on the piano that was pitifully amateurish.  But, like a
marionette controlled by fate, I couldn't quit once I'd begun my act.
Smiling, I handed Sylvia a cookie.

"And now you talk for the lady in the photograph-' jumping to her feet
with surprising agility, Sylvia ran to the piano, seized up the
photograph of Aunt Mercy Marie and hurled it into the fireplace.  The
silver frame broke, the glass shattered, and soon the photo in Sylvia's
hands was torn into shreds.  Finished, and'a bit scared looking, Sylvia
backed away from me.

"How dare you do that?"  I yelled.

"That was the only picture we had of our mother's best friend!  You've
never done anything like that before."

Falling down on her knees, she crawled to me, whimpering like a small
puppy and she was ten years old now.  Crouched at my feet again, Sylvia
clawed at my skirt, allowing her lips to part, and soon spittle wet her
chin and dribbled down on her loose, shift like garment.  A small child
couldn't have looked into my eyes with more innocence.  Billie had to
be mistaken.  Sylvia couldn't focus her eyes but for a second or two.

In my dreams that night, while Arden slept peacefully at my side, it
seemed I heard drums beating, natives chanting Animals howled.  Bolting
awake I started to wake up Arden, then decided the animals howling was
only Sylvia screaming again.  I ran to her room to take her into my
arms.

"What's wrong, darling?"

I swear I think she tried to say, "Bad ... bad ... bad," but I wasn't
truly sure.

"Did you say bad?"

Her aqua eyes were wide with fright but she nodded.  I broke into
laughter and hugged her closer.

"No, it's not bad that you can talk.  Oh, Sylvia, I've tried so hard,
so hard to teach you and at last you're trying.  You had a bad dream,
that's all.  Go back to sleep and think how wonderful your life is
going to be now that you can communicate."

Yes, I told myself as I snuggled up close to Arden, liking his me when
he wasn't passionate, that's all it was, a Sylvia had.  iving Day was a
week away.  I was more or less sat with Billie in the kitchen and
planned the menu.  treaded the long halls like a child still taking
care step On any of the colourful geomeir c patterns the glass windows
cast on the floor.  I'd stop and stare forts at the rainbows on the
walls, just as I had when child- MY memories of childhood were still so
hazy with NAJIleft the kitchen and started for the stairs, with the
notion that Playroom and evoking the past, challenging 1-cal the truth,
I turned to find Sylvia trailing me Ishadow.  Of course, I'd grown
accustomed to her IV -my constant companion, but what surprised me was
ay she managed to catch a random sunbeam with that prism she clutched
and flash the colours directly into st blinded, I staggered backwards,
for some reason In the shadows near the wall I dropped the hand I'd to
shade my eyes and stared towards the huge chandelier caught all the
colours already on the marble floor.  The on the walls refracted them
back to Sylvia; who them again at me, as if to keep me from the
playroom.  and unreal feeling."  visions flashed in my head.  I saw my
sprawled face down on the hard foyer floor.  i t if Sylvia Wha n
downstairs in the foyer and had used that prism to my aunt's eyes with
sunlight colours?  could that have my aunt dizzy enough to fall?  Was
Sylvia trying to nuke , too?  r that thing down Sylvia!"  I yelled.

"Put it away.  Never those lights in my' eyes again!  Do You hear
me?"

the wild thing Papa compared her to, she ran.  Stunned moment I could
only stare after her.  Feeling frightened own violent reaction, I sat
On the bottom step and tried myself together and that's when the front
door an stood there, tall and slender, wearing a smart hat Y shades of
green feathers.  A mink cape was slung casually over one shoulder, and
her green shoes matched her very expensive-looking green suit.

"Hi,"she said in a sultry voice.  "Here I am, backagain.  Don't you
recognize me, sweet Audrina?"  A Second Life are you doing?"  called
Vera as, much in the manner of young child, I began to back up the
stairs without

9 UP.

"Aren't you a bit old for such childish behaviour?  Audrina, you don't
change at all, do you?"  ing into the foyer, Vera hardly appeared to
limp.  But I checked I saw that the left sole of her high-heeled shoes
an inch thicker than the right sole.  Gracefully she ched the stairs.

"I stopped off in the village and they told By did marry Arden Lowe.  I
never thought you' dea adult enough to marry anyone.  Congratulations
to him, I, and my best wish esto you, the bride who should have
better."  trouble was."  what she said could very well be true.  n't
you glad to see me?"  our mother is dead."  How cruelly I said that, as
if I wanted the score and dish out pain for pain.  lly, Audrina, I know
that."  Her dark eyes were cold asked me up and down, telling me in her
own silent nt way that I was no competition for her.

"Unlike you" Audrina, I have friends in the village who keep me posted
what goes on here.  I wish I could say I was sorry, but I Ellsbeth
Whitefern was never a real mother to me, was Your mother was kinder."
be turned round slowly and exhaled a long withheld breath.

I Would you look at this place!  Like a palace.  Who would ever thought
dear Papa would be idiot enough to fix up house like this.  He could
have bought two new ones for it cost to restore this monstrosity."

midway up the stairs, I tried to regain some lost ure.

"Did you come back for some reason?"  n't you happy to see me?"
Smiling, she cocked her head me again, then laughed.

"No I can to one side and looked over tell you aren't.  Are you still
afraid of me, Audrina?  Afraid Your boy husband might find a real woman
twice as appealing as a modest, shy bride who can't really give him any
pleasure?  just looking at you in that white dress tells me you haven't
changed.  It's November, little girl.  Wintertime.  The season for
bright colours, parties, good cheer and holidays, and you wear a white
dress."  Mockingly she laughed again.

"Don't tell me your husband is no lover at all, and you are still
Papa's pure little darling."

"It's a wool dress, Vera.  The colour is called winter white  It's an
expensive dress that Arden selected for me himself.  He likes for me to
wear white."

"Of course he does," she said even more mockingly.

"He 1. Poor Audrina, the indulges your need to stay a sweet little gu
sweet and chaste.  Audrina the pure and virginal.  Dear Audrina, the
obedient little darling who can do no wrong."

"What do you want, Vera?"  I asked, feeling very cold.  I sensed
danger, felt Vera's threat.  I wanted to order her out of the house.
Go, leave me alone.  Give me time to grow up, to find the woman th aes
hidden somewhere in me.

"I've come home for Thanksgiving," said Vera smoothly, in that same!
sexy voice she must have copied from someone she admired, as she'd
tried once to talk like a TV actress.

"And if you're nice to me, really nice, as a family member should be,
then Ill stay on for Christmas, too.  It's really not very hospitable
of you to keep me standing in the foyer while my bags are in the porch.
Where's Arden?  He can carry in my higgage."

"My husband is working, Vera, and you can bring in your own bags.  Papa
won't be happy to see you.  I suppose you must know that."

"Yes, Audrina," she said in that smooth, hateful voice.

"I know that.  But I want to see Papa.  He owes me a great deal and I
intend to have what belongs to my mother, and what belongs to me.1 A
small scuttling sound made me look towards the back hall to see Billie
shovelling along on her little red dolly cart.  As if she'd just seen a
mouse, Vera jumped backwards and nearly because of that thick sole. 
Her gloved hand -w smother her cry.  Her other hand stretched forward
off contamination.  I watched her struggle to as the small half-woman,
twice as old and t as Vera, looked at her appraisingly and with of
self-composure.  I admired Billie for holding her MY amazement, Vera
smiled brilliantly at my law.

"Oh, of course.  How can I have forgotten Billie w are you, Mrs. Lowe?"
 Ily Billie greeted Vera.

"Why, hello there.  You're t you' How beautiful you look.  How nice
you've for the holidays.  You're just in time for lunch.  Toom is
clean, and all I have to do is put on fresh linen fed right at home."
She looked upward to give me warm smile.

"Well, Audrina, that itchy nose of yours herald a visitor after all."

live here, too?"  asked Vera, rather taken aback.  in the village
didn't know everything that went on in gushed Billie happily.

"This is the most wonderful ever been lucky enough to call home. Damian
has tely marvelous to me.  He's given me the rooms to belong to' here
she hesitated, looking a bit 'your mother'.  Her appealing look at Vera
Iny heart.

"At first I thought it was wrong to take such "suite of "rooms when
Audrina might want them, but hasn't said a word to make me feel I'm
usurping place.  What's more, Darnian carried over all the ed from the
cottage himself.  He did that the very and Audrina eloped."

me another loving smile.

"Come, darling', it's time Sylvia is already at the table.  There's
plenty for all me bring in my' luggage Audrina,"said Vera, abruptly
head towards the porch, as if fired of responding to th and good cheer
Billie showed her.  "I'll be leaving '"weeks, so you don't have to look
so bothered.  I don't husband."

"Because you have your own?"  I asked hopefully.  Laughing, she half
turned to grin at me with Papa's.own cunning.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?  But no, I don't have my own.  Lamar
Rensdale was a miserable failure who took the easy way out once things
got rough.  What a coward he proved to be.  No talent at all once you
took him away from the provinces.  Do you still play the piano?"

No, I didn't practise on the piano any more.  There was too much to do.
But as I helped Vera bring in her three bags, carrying two while she
carried one, I vowed that when I had the time I'd find another music
teacher and pick up where I'd left off.

"Vera, I'd like to hear more about Lamar Rensdale.  He was very kind to
me, and I'm sorry he's dead."

"Later," said Vera, following me up the stairs.

"After we eat, we'll have a nice long talk while we wait for Papa to
come home and rejoice at seeing me again."

On the way to her room we found Sylvia riding Billie's cart, shovelling
along with some expertise.

"Sylvia, take Billie's cart back to the kitchen.  You have no right to
use it even when she isn't.  Any moment she may want to hop down and
her cart won't be there."  I reached to pull Sylvia from the dolly.  If
there was one thing that made Sylvia stiabborn and hateful, it was
taking from her that little red cart she wanted for her own.

"Good God," exclaimed Vera, staring at Sylvia as if at some creature in
a zoo, 'why waste your breath on an idiot?  Why not just shove her off
and be done with it?"

"Sylvia is not as retarded as Papa led us to believe,l said innocently
enough.

"Bit by bit she's learning to talk."

For some reason Vera turned to stare at Sylvia with narrowed,
suspicious eyes, distaste clear on her face.

"God almighty, this house is full of freaks.  A legless woman and a
stammering moron.  P "As long as you're in this house, you will not
refer to Sylvia as a moron, idiot or freak.  And you will treat Billie
with the respect due her, or else I'm sure that Papa will kick you out.
And if he doesn't, then I will.  Appearing surprised, Vera smiled
weakly, then turned her back and strode on into her old room to
unpack.

I was silent at lunch as Billie did her best to welcome Vera, Vera
looked sophisticated in the lovely beige knit dress changed into.  The
soft colour flattered her complexion seemed not as sallow as it had
once been.  Her makeup was ly applied, her hair styled to perfection
while mine was lown and wild.  My nails were short and unpolished since
to help Billie with the housekeeping.  Every one of my ons rose up like
mountains as I stared at Vera.  rn sorry about your mother, Vera," said
Billie.

"I hope you "t mind if Audrina told me all about that.  She is like my
daughter, and one I always wanted to have and now I tefully I smiled,
happy she wasn't going to abandon me Vera, who seemed to have become
the epitome of glamour.

Billie admired all that Vera now represented.  Pretty s, long polished
nails, and the kind of jewellery Vera that's when I realized it was my
mother's jewellery, my is jewellery she was wearing.  The stolen
jewellery.

Ilery that she took off and stashed somewhere before and my husband
came home together.  e were seated in the Roman Revival room.  The sun
had settled down behind the horizon, leaving a bloody trail of clouds,
when Papa threw open the door and strode inside Arden at his heels.

was talking.

"Damn, Arden, how the hell can you forget you make notes?  Do you
realize your mistakes are going lose several good clients?  You have to
list all the stocks each t owns and call them when dramatic changes
occur, or, r, before they occur.  Anticipate, boy, anticipate!"

t's when Papa saw Vera.  He stopped in the middle of r chastising
remark and stared at Vera with loathing.  t the devil are you doing
here?"  e winced.  Papa had disappointed her.  Arden threw Vera uneasy
glance, then came to kiss my cheek before he settled 4he sofa beside
me, putting his arm about my shoulders.

you all right?"  he whispered.

"You look so pale."

t answer, though I did snuggle closer to him, feeling 'with his arm
about me.  Vera stood up.  With her high on she was still about five
inches shorter than Papa, but stilts she managed to look formidable
even so.  In the comer of the large room, Sylvia squatted down on her
heels and rolled her head about idiotically, as if she were
deliberately going to undo all the progress we'd both struggled to
achieve.

"I had to come home, Papa, to see my mother's grave, "said Vera in a
small voice of apology.

"A friend called and told me when she died, and I cried all night and
really wanted to come for her funeral.  But I was on duty and couldn't
get off until now.  I'm a registered nurse.  Also, I didn't have enough
money to get down here, and I knew you wouldn't send me the money to
come.  It comes as such a shock when someone healthy has an accident.
That same friend sent me the newspaper obituary.  It arrived on the day
of her funeral."

She smiled then, tilting her head to one side in a charming manner,
separating her feet so she stood staunchly, with her arms akimbo.
Suddenly she appeared not so sweet, but defiant, masculine, taking up
almost as much space as Papa did when he spread his legs wide and
prepared himself for assault.

Papa grunted and glared at her.  He seemed to recognize her
challenge.

"When will you be leaving?"

"Soon," said Vera, casting down her eyes, gone dove like and demure as
she tried not to appeai hurt.  But her feet stayed apart, and that
betrayed her put-on expression of meekness.

"I felt I owed it to my mother to come as soon as I could."

Arden leaned forward to better watch her expression, dragging me along
with him as he forgot his arm about me.

"I don't want you in my house!"  snapped Papa.

"I know what went pn here before you left."

Oh, dear God.  Vera threw Arden a nervous, warning look.  Immediately I
pulled free from Arden's casual embrace and moved to the far side of
the sofa.  No, I tried to tell myself, Vera was deliberately trying to
involve Arden and rum my marriage.  But Arden looked guilty.  I felt my
heart crack.  All along he'd claimed I was the only one he loved.  And
Vera must have told the truth a long time ago, about sleeping with
Arden.

"Papa," appealed Vera in her seductive, throaty voice, "I've made my
mistakes.  Forgive me for not being what I should have been.  I've
always wanted to win your approval and be what you wanted, but nobody
told me anything.  I dit know Mr  Rensdale wanted when he kissed me and
started .  He seduced me, Pa paP She sobbed as if with shame w her
smooth cap of shining, orangey hair.

"I came to pay my respects to my mother's grave, to spend sgiving Day
with the only family I have, to renew our ties.  And I also came to
collect what valuables my left me."  Papa grunted.

"Your mother had nothing of value to you after you ran from here and
stole what jewellery she and what jewellery my wife left Audrina.
Thanksgiving is a week away.  Pay your respects at your mother's grave
and leave tomorrow morning."  am ian  said Billie reprimandingly.

"Is that any way to talk ur own nece?"  fIt's exactly the way I talk to
this oneP stormed Papa, .ng about and striding towards the front
stairs.

"Don't call me Papa again, Vera."  He glanced back at Billie.

"It's night out on the town, have you forgotten?  The movies dinner in
a good restaurant.  Why aren't you dressed and to go?"  e can't leave
the house on the day your niece comes Billie said in her calm way.

"She thinks of you as her Damian, regardless of what you call your
relatiQnship.  can always dine out and go to the movies.  Damian,
please t embarrass me again.  You've been so kind, so generous be so
disappointed if you" There she broke off, looking with tears in her
eyes.  r tears of distress seemed to affect him greatly.

"All right," id, turning then to Vera.

"I want to see as little of you as ble, and the day after Thanksgiving
you leave.  Is that rstood?"  ra nodded meekly.  Bowing her head, she
sat down to lock together and form a lap on which she could demurely r
hands, a well-trained, modest young woman.  And was something Vera had
never possessed.

"Anything want, Pa Uncle Damain."  turned my head just in time to see
Arden gazing at her y. From one to the oth6r I stared, sensing it had
already The seduction of my husband.

In no time at all Vera and Billie were fast friends.

"You dear, wonderful woman, to take on all this housework all by
yourself when my father could easily afford a maid and a housekeeper. I
marvel at you, Billie Lowe."

"Audrina helps a great deal," said Billie.

"Give her credit, too.

I was in the cloakroom down the hall from the kitchen, tedious' ,y
trying to untangle SylvWs wild mop of chestnut curls.  Pausing, I
waited to hear what else Vera had to say to Billie.  But it was Billie
who again spoke.

"Now, if you'd do your bit and run the vacuum in the two best rooms,
I'd really be grateful.  Be sure to use the attachments on the lamp
shades, furniture and draperies.  It would help Audrina.  She really
has her hands full trying to teach Sylvia how to talk and move
correctly, and she's succeeding, too."

"You're kidding," Vera sounded surprised, as if she was hoping Sylvia
would never talk.

"That kid can't really talk, can she?"

"Yes, she can say a few easy words.  Nothing is clearly enunciated, but
understandable if yqu listen closely."

Holding Sylvia -by the hand, we followed Vera to watch her enter the
Roman Revival salon, where she pushed the vacuum without enthusiasm.  I
loved Billie for putting her to work without asking, as if she assumed
Vera would be willing.  Not to be willing would spoil Vera's game.  At
least, I thought it was a game.  Vera pushed and pulled the vacuum, but
all the time here eyes were on the y treasures.  While the machine
idled, she pulled out a notepad and began to write.  Very quietly,
leaving Sylvia in the hall, I slipped up behind her to read over her
shoulder.

1 Vacuum, dust, use furniture polish.  Mirrors, huge, gold leaf, worth
a fortune.

2 Pick up newspapers, arrange magazines neatly.  Lamps, Tiffany,
Venetian, solid brass, priceless.

3 Should make beds before coming downstairs.  Genuine antiques
everywhere now, oil paintings, originals.

4 Help with laundry.  Don't use bleach on towels.  Orien274 and Chinese
rugs, bric-a-brac ofporcelain and blown especially birds.  Run for the
mail early.  Never forget!  Cheques stored in his office safe.  Never
saw so many cheques come in the all an interesting way to list your
chores," I said when she MY presence and whirled round, looking
startled.  with the valuables, you want to run for the mail.  Are
planning to rob us, Vera?"  ou little sneak!"  she snarled.

"How dare you steal upon me.md over my shoulder" always watches a cat
who becomes very quiet.  Is it necessary to list everyday ordinary
chores?  Don't they naturally to you?  As for the rest, most of it was
here Everything has been refurbished and upholstered, all.  Papa hunted
up some of the older Whitefern antiques been sold.  Since you weren't
impressed before, why sed now?"  a moment it seemed she might slap me.
Then she sagged into a chair.

"Oh, Audrina, don't fight with me.  If only ew the horror of being with
a man who doesn't want you.  hated me for forcing him to take me with
him to New I kept insisting I was pregnant, and he kept insisting I 't
be.  When we reached New York, we moved into a house, and he went to
teach at Julliard.  He was always you in my face, saying he wished I
was more like you, maybe he could have loved me.  The fool!  What man
enjoy a woman like you?"  Then she flashed me a strange '"and allowed
tears to trickle from her eyes.

"I'm sorry.  You beautiful in your own way."  She sniffled, then went
.,"i While Lamar taught, I started my student nurse training.  my
wasn't enough to feed a parakeet.  In what little spare J had, I did
some modelling for an art school.  I told Lamar do the same thing in
his spare time, but he was too t to take off his clothes.  Models don't
wear a stitch.  I've been proud of my body.  Stupid Lamar was too
modest t, and too proud.  He hated me more for showing to all those men
in the classes.  Every time I modelledI'd come home to find him dead
drunk.  Soon he was drinking so much he didn't have any job at all.  He
lost his touch at the piano, forcing us to move to a slum area where he
taught music to poor kids who never had the money to pay him that's
when I left.  I was fed up.  The day I graduated as a registered nurse,
I picked up the newspaper to read that Lamar had drowned himself in the
Hudson River.  "She sighed and stared into space.

"Just another funeral I had to miss.  I worked the day they buried him.
I was glad his parents came to claim his body, or else he might have
ended up one of the cadavers in the hospital where I worked."  She
grimaced before she looked downward.  A heavy silence filled the room.
I bowed my head, weighed down with sorrow for a man who'd wanted to
help me, and had fallen innocently into the trap Vera had set.  I knew
who'd done the seducing.

"I suppose you're thinking I helped kill him, aren't you?"

"I don't know what to think."

"No, of course you don't," she cried scornfully, jumping up and
beginning to pace the room.

"You've had it easy, staymg on here and being taken care of.  You've
never had to face the real world and all the ugliness out there, and
all the things you have to do in order to stay alive.  I'ie done it
all, Audrina, the whole can of worms.  I came back to help and you
don't want me."  Sobbing, tears began to course down her cheeks, and
she fell onto the sofa.

Disbelievingly I watched her cry.  Billie, who must have been
listening, came scooting into the room.  Ia a flash she was on the sofa
beside Vera, trying to comfort her.

Instantly, Vera bolted.  A short hysterical scream escaped her lips.
Then she paled.

"Oh ... I'm sorry.  It's just that I don't like to be touched."

"I understand."  Billie lowered herself onto the dolly and
disappeared.

"You've hurt her feelings, Vera.  And you promised that as long as
you're in this house, you would nenr say or do anything to hurt Billie
or make her feel unwanted."

Vera said she understood.  She was sorry, and never, never would she
pull away again.  It was just that she was unaccustomed to being
touched by a legless woman, a cripple at her shoe with the inch lift,
perversely enjoying blanched.  can't notice my limp now, can you?"  she
asked.

"We all idiosyncrasies, such as yours for forgetting."  Arden was
telling me whenever we were alone, usually we were in bed, what a
wonderful help Vera was, much work off his mother's shoulders and
mine.

be glad she's back to help."  on my side and closed my eyes.  To turn,
my back -way of telling him to leave me alone.  Quickly he pulled his
front so that my back was fitted into the warm his body.  Our breathing
coordinated even as those ble hands of his began to sear chout the
curves he to trace again and again.  't be jealous of Vera, darling,"
he whispered, moving so rub his cheek against mine.

"It's you I love, only once more, I had to let him prove it.

g Day came and went, and Vera stayed on.  For reason Papa stopped
ordering her to leave.  I reasoned how much help she was to Billie
while I taught Sylvia talk, to walk, to dress herself, to comb her own
hair, her own face and hands.  Slowly, slowly, Sylvia was from her
cocoon.  With each new skill she mastered, came more into focus.  She
began to make a real effort her lips together and not let the drooling
begin.  In some was like finding myself, as I taught her all she needed
the First and Best Audrina's playroom, she seemed to J t On my lap
while we rocked together, Id read to her "Unther G---e and simple books
for very young children or three.  With the dolls and stuffed animals
on the for schoolmates, we sometimes sat at the small tea table our
lunch, and it was there that Sylvia picked up a tiny stirred the bit of
tea in her minia ure cup.  one day very soon, Sylvia is going to pick
up her own and fork and she will cut her own meat."

meat .. ."  she repeated, trying to pick up the fork and and hold them
as I was demonstrating.

"Who is Sylvia?"

"Who ... who ess..  "Tell me your name.  That's what I want to hear."

"Tell meyer name..."

"No.  What is your name?"

"Nooo ; .. what esss yer name .. "Sylvia, you're doing wonderfully well
today.  But do try to think about the reasoning behind what I tell you.
Everyone and everything must have a name, or else we wouldn't know what
to call one another, or how to know a chair from a lamp.  Take me, for
instance.  My name is Audrina."

"Mah ... name ... esss ... Aud ... dreen ... na.

"Yes, my name is Audrina.  But your name is Sylvia."

"Yesss ... mah ... name."

I picked up the hand mirror the First Audrina had on her small dressing
table, held it before Sylvia and pointed.

"See, in the mirror, that is Sylvia."  Then I held the min-or so my
face was reflected, and again I let her look so she could see what I
was trying to impart.

"That is Audrina in the mirror."  At the same time I pointed to myself
"Audrina."  I pointed to myself, then put the mirror so she could see
her own face.

"That is Sylvia.  You are Sylvia."

Some flickering small light lit up her lovely aqua eyes.  They widened
and focused on the mirror.  She grabbed for it and stared at her
reflection, holding it so close her nose was mashed against the
glass.

"Syl ... vee ... ah.  Syl ... vee ... ah.  "Over and over again she
said it, laughing, jumping up and dancing awkwardly around the
playroom.  Hugging the mirror hard against her small chest, she glowed
with happiness.  Finally, after many repetitions, she said it right.

"My name is Sylvia."  I ran to hug her, to kiss, her, to reward her
with the cookies I'd hidden in a drawer.

I turned with the cookies to see that all happiness had fled from
Sylvia's eyes.  Sylvia was frozen.  Her eyes unfocused, her lips gaped
and the spittle ran.  Once more she went mute.

Vera stood in the doorway.  She wore the expression of an angel, so
pious as she looked us both over.  Lambs for the slaughtering, I
thought irrelevantly.  away, Vera," I ordered coldly, hurrying to
protect "I've told you before not to come up here when I'm hing
Sylvia."

IP She snapped, striding into the playroom and sitting in the rocking
chair.

"You can't teach an idiot anything.  just repeating what she hears you
say, like a parrot.  Go help Billie in the kitchen.  I'm so damned sick
of preparing and cleaning house.  My God, it seems nobody does in this
house but eat, sleep and work.  When do you fun?"

"When the work is finished, Vera," I answered angrily.  I hold of
Sylvia's hand and started for the door.

"Rock the chair, Vera.  I'm sure nothing I've seen there would make
scream for you've known it all, the whole can of g like a demon
straight from the pits of hell, my sister ran to hurl herself at Vera.
She tore into her, hing, kicking, and as Vera tried to ward her off,
Sylvia her teeth down on Vera's arm.  tly Vera slammed Sylvia to the
floor.

"You screwy idiot!  Get -out of here!  I've just as much right in this
room u haveP ran to save Sylvia from more harm as Vera raised her foot
ck, aiming for Sylvia's pretty face.  But before I could reach Sylvia
rolled out of harm's way.  In so doing her shoe ht behind Vera's foot
and threw her off balance.  Vera ed to the floor like a felled tree.
Then came the howls of yen before I knelt to check, I could tell from
the grotesque tion of her left leg that Vera had again broken it.

tionf The last thing we needed was an invalid to wait tting and fuming,
I paced the Roman Revival room as n and Papa came home carrying Vera
with another cast r broken leg.  Her black eyes met mine, challenging
me of her arms encircled Arden's neck.  The other was round They
supported her on the cradle they made with their udrina," said Arden,
'run for pillows to stack behind Vera back.  She'll need others to
raise her leg above her heart level.  She's got to wear that thing
seven to eight weeks."

Slowly I gathered several pillows from other sofas and stuffed them
behind Vera's back.  Arden tenderly lifted her heavy cas ted leg and
put four more pillows under it.  Her red toenails wiggled like little
warning flap as he tended to her.

"How did Vera fall, anyway?"  asked Billie that night as I helped her
prepare dinner.

"An accident.  I heard Vera tell you that Sylvia deliberately hooked
her foot behind her ankle, but I was there and it was an accident."

"It was not an accidend'screamed Vera from the other room.

"The brat did it deliberately!"

"Audrina, I hope that's not true."  Billie threw Sylvia an Iuneasy
glance.  Once again Sylvia was riding on the little red cart, speeding
down the slick waxed floor of the back hall.

"You know, Billie, both you and Arden find it very hard to believe
anything I say about Vera.  I don't mean to be overly critical, but it
was the first real breakthrough for Sylvia.  I saw her eyes light up
with understanding ... and then Vera had to.  show up at the door."

I heard Sylvia singing as she raced up and down the back hall on that
red cart.

"Just a playroom ... safe in my home ... only a playroom."

I almost dropped the spoon in the steaming gravy.  Who had taught
Sylvia to sing that song?

"Are you all right, darling?  "asked Billie, pulling herself along by
grabbing the countertops.

"I'm fine," I answered out of habit.

"But I can't remember teaching Sylvia to sing any song.  Did you hear
her singing, Billie?"

"No, darling, I didn't hear her singing.  I thought that was VerWs
voice.  She sings that song a lot.  It's like a child's song of
reassurance rather pitiful.  It makes me hurt to think that Damian didn
t show Vera more kindness.  And she's trying so to make him appreciate
her."

Silently I poured the gravy into its bowl, then carried it into the
dining room.  On the way back I pulled Sylvia off the cart and scolded
her thoroughly.

"How many times do I have to tell40 leave that cart alone?  It's not
yours.  Go ride the tricycle gave you.  It's red and pretty."  uting
her lower lip, Sylvia backed away from me.  I pushed cart with my foot
into the kitchen.

evening Papa and Arden picked up the purple chaise Vera still lying
there like an orange-haired Cleopatra and ate with us in the dining
room.  hated seeing her on Momma's purple chaise, but there Vera after
day, reading those same paperback novels she had years and years ago.
Ivia retreated into herself, refusing to enter the playroom be taught
again.  Because Papa had to have gourmet meals no longer could Billie
be given relief by eating in urants with him, she did nothing but cook.
I did all the ork, all the laundry, though Arden did what he could 'he
came home from work.  Papa was always too busy, or tired to do anything
but talk or watch TV.

nth after the New Year had come and gone, I led Sylvia to the playroom
to continue our lessons.

"I'm sorry I've ted you, Sylvia.  If Vera hadn't broken her leg,
I'll.bet be reading by now.  So let's go back to where we left off.  is
your name?"  had reached the playroom door, and to my surprise, and s,
too, Billie was in the rocker.  She flushed when we her.

"It's silly, I know, but if there's magic in this chair, t a little of
it myself."  She looked very girlish and pretty, she giggled.

"Don't laugh.  But I've got a dream, a erful dream that occupies most
of my thoughts.  I'mthis chair will help my dream come true."  She
smiled tremulously.

"I questioned your father and he said ng is possible, if you believe,
so here I am ... and I'ming  She smiled and held out her arms.

"Come, Sylvia, hold you on my lap.  Be my little girl today and tell me
your name is."  oooo!"  wailed Sylvia, loud enough to bring Vera
hobbling the hall on the crutches the doctor was allowing her to W.
aad!"  yelled Sylvia, pointing at Vera.

"Baad!"  Ivia would not sit on Billie's lap, but on another day
Papafound us both there rocking and singing together.

"Just you, my love," he said, looking at me and never at Sylvia.

"Rock alone, become the empty pitcher that fills with everything
wonderful."

I ignored him, thinking him a fool on that particular subject.  I
turned to Sylvia, wanting to show her off in front of P!,:,- "Darling,
tell Papa your name."  Only a moment ago she'd said it, before we
started singing.

"Tell him my name, too."  My small sister on my lap made her beautiful
but sometimes terrible eyes vacant, so that they looked straight
through him, and some babbling nonsense came from her lips.  I wanted
to cry.  I'd worked so hard, and denied myself many trips into the city
with Arden to stay home and teach Sylvia.  Now she refused to give me
the reward I felt I needed.

"Oh," said Papa in disgust, 'you're wasting your time.  Give it up."

My husband seldom came home before nine or ten at night.  Often he
missed dinner, explaining this by saying he had so much paperwork to
do, so much technical data to read, he had to study in order to keep
up.

"And there are so many distractions at home," he said in an evasive
way.

"Now don't jump on Darnian.  It's not his fault but my own.  I just
don't catch on as quickly as I should."

The very next night Arden came home with even more papers to read.
Financial reports, financial advisory services, technical stock charts,
tax shelters to evaluate more work than Papa had ever assigned to him
before.  At two in the morning, I awoke to see Arden still at our small
bedroom desk, reading, making notes, his eyes tired and bloodshot.

"Come to bed, Arden."

"Can't, honey."  He yawned and smiled my way.  As exhausted as he was'
he still didn't lose patience with me, or with Papa.

"Today your father took off somewhere and left me in charge of the
firm.  I couldn't take care of my own affairs when his are more
important and now I have to catch up."  He stood up and stretched, then
headed for the shower.

"Cold water will wake me up."

In another -moment he was back at the bathroom door,ng to tug off his
clothes as he said in a troubled way, there I was in Damian's office,
in charge, and I knew well he was expecting me to make every mistake
possible could shout and humiliate me again in front of everybody.

a quiet day, and as I sat behind his massive desk and for the telephone
to ring, I started looking for hing and discovered the drawers were
very short and I 't understand why such a large desk had such short rs.
I soon found several small secret compartments way back of the
drawers."  fly out of his clothes now, he stood there naked, as if he
ted me to look at him, something I could never do without and blushing.
Though he said nothing sexual to me ated he wanted me to do more than
listen, I sensed a kind of expectation.  rina, I'm not an expert
bookkeeper, but when I found ger in one secret compartment, I couldn't
resist leafing it and doing a little calculating.  Your father
'borrows' from his more dormant accounts, uses it to invest in his
account, and when he's made a nice profit, he puts the back in months
later.  His clients never know the rence.  He's been doing it for years
and years."

y I stared at him.  t's not all he does, either," Arden went on.

"Just the day I heard him telling one of his wealthiest clients that
stock certificates she found in her attic were worthless t for framing.
She mailed him the certificates to frame hang in his office a little
gift, she told him.  Audrina, they Union Pacific stocks that have split
time and time again.

she gave him that little gift, she gave him hundreds of ands of dollars
and she's eighty-two years old.  Rich, but He probably thinks she's got
enough and doesn't need it as much as he does, and he must figure she's
too old to out he's cheated her."

yawned again and rubbed at his eyes, and again heed boyish and very
vulnerable.  For some reason I washed

"You know, for the longest time I wondered why he ted old stock
certificates.  Now I know why he wants them  He sells them on the West
Coast.  It's no wonder he's so rich now, no wonder at all."

"I should have known he had to be doing something dishonest to have so
much cash to invest, when only a few years ago we couldn't even afford
meat on our table.  Oh, how dumb not to have guessed years agoV I
looked at him anxiously.

Something sweet, young, wistful and yearning was in his eyes that
pleaded for me to come to him.  And this time I felt the stirrings of
sexuality in my own body, responding to his call.  Alarmed by my
surprising arousal, I whirled round to leave.  I couldn't let Arden
distract me.  I had to confront Papa with his thieving ways.

"Arden, you didn't say anything to Papa about his embez ling funds, did
you?"

I heard his sigh.

"No.  Besides, when I checked the secret compartments in his desk
later, they were empty."  He looked towards the windows, his lips
tightening, as if he gave up trying to entice me by doing nothing
aggressive, and he said nothing to keep me with him.

"I suppose Daniian thinks of everything and had some way of detecting
when those papers and ledgers were tampered with."

"Go to bed.  I'm going to Papa."

"I wish you wouldn't.  He'll wonder how you know."

"I won't say anything that will let him know who told me."  I waited
for him to protest again, but he turned and headed for the bed.  I
leaned above him.  and kissed him.  good night.

"Audrina ...?"  he murmured, 'do you really love rile?  Sometimes in
the night I wake up and wonder why you married me.  I hope it wasn't
just to escape your father."

"Yes, I love you," I said without hesitation.

"It may not be the kind of love you want, but maybe one day soon you'll
be surprised."

"Let's hope so," he muttered before he fell into exhausted sleep.

If only I'd stayed in bed that night and given to Arden what he needed.
If only I hadn't thought I could always set everything right.

I expected Papa to be asleep at almost three in the morning.  Certainly
I didn't expect to see the thin line of yellow lightb.is closed bedroom
door, any more than I expected to laughter and a woman's smothered
giggle.  I stopped t knowing what to think or do.  Had he been so e as
to bring home one of his 'playmates', as Momma sarcastically call them?
you stop that, Damian," said a voice I couldn't help .  e.

"I've got to go now.  We can't risk letting the find out about this." r
one second did I stop to consider what to do once who it was with him,
nor did I think of the nces of my impulsive actions.  I threw open the
door into the dimly lit room that Papa had redecorated a died.
Red-flocked wallpaper, with gold-framed everywhere, made his room seen
an opulent eightntury bordello.  were in bed together, Arden's legless
mother and my playing intimately with each other.  When they saw me,
gasped and snatched her hand away.  Papa quickly up the covers to
conceal them both.  But I'd seen was such a red rage in my brain I
wanted to scream word I was to think of later but not now.  All I could
Yell at her, "You whore!"  Then at him I hurled, "YOU son of a bitch!
Leave my house, Billie!  I never want to again!  Arden and'I are
leaving you, Papa, and taking with us."

began to cry.  Papa slipped discreetly from the covers led on a red
brocade lounging robe.

"You silly little girl," easily, not appearing embarrassed at all.

"As long as wants to stay she willed, feeling Billie had betrayed me
and Arden, too, I about and raced back to my room to find Arden had
from bed to resume his work. However, it had done him .  He was slumped
over on his desk, fast asleep on his ympathy rushed to erase my anger,
and gently I woke p and helped him off with his robe.  Then, with my
arm his waist, I assisted him to the bed, and in his arms I lay fell
asleep.  night long I fretted before I reached my conclusion. 
It'wasn't Billie's fault it was Papa's.  He'd seduced her with his
gifts, with his charm and good looks, so he could have the kinky thrill
of having sex with a legless woman.  I couldn't drive Billie out.  It
was Papa who had to leave so we could all live decent lives.

And now I had the perfect weapon to force him to go.  I'd threaten to
expose him for the fraud and embezzler he was.  Even if he had hidden
the incriminating ledgers, I had all the information I needed about his
illegal stock advisory firm in San Francisco and that alone would be
threat enough.

However, it wasn't to be that way.  Billie came to me early the next
day, soon after Arden and Papa had left for work.  Her eyes were
red-rimmed and s-qwollen and her face seemed very pale.  I turned my
back and continued to brush my hair.

"Audrina ... please.  I wanted to sink through the floor last night
when you stormed into his room.  I know what you think, but it wasn't
that way, really it wasn't."

Viciously I tore the brush through my hair.

"Listen to me, please!"  she wailed piteously.

"I love Damian, Audrina.  He's the kind of man I always wanted but
never had."

Spinning round, my eyes blazed as I tried to scream out all my anger,
but for some reason her tears stopped me.  The colours in her eyes made
me feel strange, as too many colours always did.  She had a habit of
always wearing bright clothes: crimson, scarlet, magenta, electric
blue, emerald green, purple and bright yellows.  Colours flashing ...
colours and thhe tinkling wind chimes when trouble came.  I put my hand
over my ears and closed my eyes, turned my back and refused to hold the
gaze that pleaded for my understanding.

"Turn your back and close your mind as well as your ears, but I think
he loves me, too, darW," she went on.

"Maybe you think because I'm crippled he can't love me.  Still, I think
he does, and even if he doesn't, I'll just be grateful he gave me a
little of what I always wanted a real man.  Compared to him my three
husbands were little boys playing at being men.  Daminn would never
have left me, I know he wouldn't have."  to look at her then, to see if
she truly believed her Her beautiful eyes pleaded, just as her hands
reached me.  I stepped farther away.  rolled closer to me.

"Listen to what I say.  Put yourself position, and maybe you'll
understand why I love him.  's father walked out on us the day I lost
my second leg.

a weak man who expected me to support him with my 9When I couldn't, he
sought out another woman who d. He never writes.  He stopped sending
child support long Arden came of age.  I had to earn what I could, and
you yourself that Arden has worked like a man since he was , and even
before that .. ."  't!  I wanted to yell.  What you do with him is
ugly, rgiveable, and you should have known better.  We were to find
out, bound to ... r father is the kind of man who needs a woman in his
i just as my son is.  Damian hates being alone, hates doing alone.  He
likes to come home and smell good food He likes someone to run his
home, to keep it clean, care of his clothes, and I'd gladly do all that
for him, if he never marries me.  Audrina, doesn't love make it not
Doesn't love make all the difference ... doesn't it?"  didn't believe
Papa loved her.  Standing with my' back to 0 I stiffened and wanted to
scream.

right, darling," she whispered in a hoarse voice.

"Hate me u must, but don't make me leave the only real home I've had,
and the only man who's ever loved me."

ting to confront her, I said sarcastically, "Perhaps you'd terested to
hear that my aunt Ellsbeth loved him as much u say you do, and he
claimed he loved her in return, too.  rdless, he soon tired of her, and
night after night, after slaved all day to prepare his meals and keep
his house and take care of his children, he still had other women.
erfded up just his slave.  That's what she used to call herself kitchen
and bedroom slave.  Is that what you want for elf?"  i paused, gasping
for breath as I heard the TV in Vera's giving the morning news.  Lazy,
lazy Vera, who om got up until noon.

"There will come a day when he will stop loving you, Billie.  A day
when he'll look at you and say such ugly words you won' have any ego
left.  He'll have some other woman he'll say he loves like no other
before, and you'll be only another notch on his belt with many notches
of conquest."

She winced as if I'd slapped her.  Fresh tears shone in her blue, blue
eyes.  But perhaps she'd cried too many times before to let them spill
because of anything I could say.

"If a kitchen slave is all I'll ever mean to Damian, or just another
conquest ... even so, Audrina, I'd be grateful, even so."  Her voice
lowered.

"When I lost my legs, I thought that never again would a man want to
hold me and love me.  Damian has made me feel like a whole woman again.
Ten me that I smile and act cheerfully, Audrina, but that's the facade
I wear, like a pretty dress.  The ugly dress I wear is the fact that I
hate the way I am now.  There's not a day goes by when I don't think of
the way I used to be, graceful and strong, with the agility to do
anything, and when I walked down the street I pulled all admiring eyes
my way.  Damian has given me back the pride I used to feel.  You don't
know what it's like to feel half a woman.  To be restored and complete
again, even if only temporarily, is better than the bleakness I faced
before."

She opened her arms wide and pleaded with her eyes.

"You are just like my own daughter.  To lose your respect hurts so
much.  Audrina, forgive me for disappointing you and giving you pain. I
love you, Audrina, as I've loved you since you were a child and you
came running to me through the woods as if you'd found a second mother.
Please don't hate me now, not now when I've found such happiness ..
."

Unableto resist, I fell into her arms, forgiving her anything, crying
as she cried.  And praying that when the time came, Papa would be
kinder to her than he had been to Aunt Ellsbeth and Momma.

"He'll marry you, Bilfie!"  I cried as I embraced her.

"I'll see that he does!"

"No, darling' not that way, please.  I want to be his wife only if he
wants that.  No force, no blackmail.  Just let him decide what's the
right thing to do.  No man is made happy by a marriage he doesn't
want."  snort of disgust in the doorway made me look.  There era with
the cane she had to use until that lame leg How long had Vera stood
there eavesdrop wonderful news," said Vera drily, her dark eyes hard
"Another freak to add to the Whitefem collection."

er seen my mother happier, "Arden commented a few later as we ate
breakfast together in the refurbished Hundreds of beautiful plants
surrounded us.  It was and the trees were leafing out.  The dogwoods
were in , and the azaleas made a riot of colour.  This was one of rare
occasions when we had the chance to be alone.  Vera on a side porch
lounge chair wearing a brief little bikini, ding to be sunbathing.
Arden took great pains not to she was there.  I was on the floor with a
stuffed cat taken from the upstairs.

"Kitty," she said over and over again.  kitty," and then, dropping the
cat, her attention span s short lived, she picked up one of the crystal
prisms and to hold it in such ways as to throw rainbows everywhere.

gained considerable skill at directing the rays, and it she wanted to
dazzle Vera's eyes.  Vera, however, wore ses.  ling, uneasy I glanced
away.  Sylvia stepped on all the ted colours; that I avoided what was
that Arden was Mom said last night that this is the way she always
wanted e, in a wonderful house, with people she loves.  Audrina it
occurred to you my mother might be falling in love with father?  We
can't expose his fraud.  It would ruin him, and troy her.  I'll speak
to him privately and tell him he has to Gathering up his papers, Arden
neatly bumped them on the leto even the edges, then stashed them in his
attache case ore he leaned to kiss me goodbye.

"See you around six.  Have good time with Sylvia down by the river.  Be
careful, and ember, I love you..."  Before he left he had to steal a
glance at Vera, who had taken M.S.A-K 289 off the top of her bikini. I
glared at him, but he didnt turn to see me.  Her breasts were medium
sized and firm very pretty breasts I wished she'd keep covered.

"Come along, Sylvia," I said, getting to my feet.

"Help me put the dishes in the washer."

Papa came into the kitchen as I finished putting everything away.

"Audrina, I've been wanting to talk to you about Billie.  You've
avoided me since that night you caught us.  Billie says she talked to
you and you understood.  Do you understand?"

I met his eyes squarely.

"I understand her, yes, but not you.  You'll never marry her."

He seemed thunderstruck.

"She wants me to marry her?  Why, I'll be damned ... it's not such a
bad idea at that."  Heed and chucked me under my chin as if I were two
years orm'.  If I had a wife again who adored me, I wouldn't need
daughters at all, would IF He grinned again as I stared at him, trying
to see if he was serious or only teasing.  He said goodbye and hurried
out to ride to work with Arden.

"Come along, Sylvia," I said, catching hold of her hand and guiding her
to the side door.

"We're going to have a lesson on nature today.  The flowers are all in
bloom, and it's time you knew how to name them, too."

"Where are you going?  "Vera sang out as we passed her.  She'd put her
bra back on now that Arden was gone.

"Why don't you ask me to go with you?  I can walk now ... if you don't
go too fast."

I refused to answer.  The sooner she left, the better.  Trotting at my
heels, Sylvia tried to keep up.

"Going to see the fish jump," I called to her.

"Going to see the ducks, the geese, the squirrels, rabbits, birds,
frogs and flowers.  It's spring, Sylvia, spring!  Poets write about
spring more than any other season because it's the time for rebirth,
for celebrating the end of winter and, hopefully, the departure of
Vera.  Summer comes next.  We're going to teach you how to swim. Sylvia
will soon be a young woman, and no longer a child.  And by the time she
is, we want Sylvia to be able to do everything other young women her
age do."

Reaching the riverbank, I turned to look for my ten-year-old She wasn't
behind me.  I glanced back at the house and Vera had carried a blanket
down onto the lawn and was .  herself out there as she read a book.
small sound from the edge of the woods made me suspect at last Sylvia
was going to play a hide-and-seek game, thing I'd been trying to teach
her to do formonths.okay, ,"I called.

"Ready or not ... here I come.  I hing but silei.ce in the woods.  I
stood there looking .  Sylvia was nowhere in sight.  I began to run.
The paths were faint and randomly made.  Unfamiliar paths that soon me
befuddled and very anxious.  Suddenly a golden ree loomed just ahead of
me, and beneath it was a low, d. I froze and just stared.  They'd found
the First drina lying dead on the mound under a golden ree, killed by
those terr;ble boys.  I began to back off.  The s usually were alive
with the sounds of birds claiming territory, with insects making
perpetual hums and s. Why was it so quiet?  Deadly quiet.  Even the
leaves on trees didn't move.  An unearthly stillness visited as my eyes
glued to that mound that had to be the one..A drum began to pound
behind my ears.  Death.

ould smell death.  Whirling round, I screamed Sylvia's again.

"Where are you?  Don't hide now, Sylvia ... do you me?  I can't find
you.  I'm going back to the house, Sylvia.  if you can catch inc!"

ar the house I found a stem of pink sweetheart roses that fallen to the
ground.  They gave me a clue.  There was only lace where they grew near
the cottage where Arden and used to live.  Had she made it there and
back in such art time?  It had been Sylvia's habit, since the first day
she to always pull the prettiest flowers and sniff them.  Again .ked
around, wondering what to do next.  The rose I now in my hand was warm,
the tiny blossoms crushed, as if held tightly in a small hand.  I
stared up at the sky.  It was cloudy looked like rain.  I could see
Whitefern, though it was a distance away ... but where the devil was
Sylvia?  Home, course.  That had to be the answer.  All the time I'd
skipped g the trail to the river, thinking Sylvia was directly behind
me she must have headed for the cottage, thinking that was our
destination.  She'd pulled the roses, changed her i and headed home.
She did have an animal's instinct about storms.

Yet, I didn't want to leave her if she was still in the woods.  All
these years I'd waited for Sylvia to do something independent of me
except steal Billie's red cart ... and she had to choose this day to
wander off alone.  Maybe Sylvia had even gone down to the river to find
me, and when she reached there, I'd been in the woods staring at that
rain tree ... A chill wind whipped up to beat the branches of the trees
so they fanned and struck at my face.  The sun became a sly fugitive,
racing to escape the wind, ducking behind the dark clouds that came
rushing over the treetops like black pirate ships.  I looked for Vera
on the lawn, hoping she could tell me if she'd seen Sylvia.  Vera
wasn't there.  I again raced for home.  Sylvia had to be there.

Inside the door in the knick of time, I heard the first terrible clap
of thunder sound directly overhead.  Lightning sizzled and struck
something down by the river.  The rain beating at the windows seemed
likely to break therif.  It was always dim in our house but for the
brief moments when the sun could shine through the stained-glass
windows.  Without the sun it was almost dark.  I thought about finding
matches, lighting a kerosene lamp.  Then I heard a cry.  Shrill!  Lou
Terrifying!

Something clattered down the stairs.  I cried out and ran forward to
catch whatever it was.  I collided with a chair that was out of place
and both Billie and I were always careful to put every chair in the
same dents it made in the soft rugs.

"Sylvia ... is that you?"I called in distress.-"Have you fallen?"  Or
had Vera done it again, and we'd have to wait for another bone to heal
before she left?

Near the newel post I stumbled over something soft.  I fell to my knees
and began to crawl around in the dark, feeling with my hands for
whatever had made me fall.  My right hand slid on something wet, warm
and sticky.  At first I thought it was water from one of the fern pots,
but the odour... the thickness Of it ... blood.  It had to be blood.
More gingerly I reached with Long thick, curling hair.  Strong hair
that feel was dark blue-black.... oh, Billie.  Please, Billie ... in
the high cupola, the wind chimes tinkled.  Pure tes that shivered down
my spine.  Billie's shortened body in my arms, I cried and k and forth,
comforting her as I would Sylvia.  Even thoughts flitted in and out of
my brain.  How did get in the house?  Who had opened one of the high in
the cupola that nobody but me ever visited?

0'1 and over again, the same ringing notes  Easing Billie's to the
floor, I crawled to where an oil lamp should and felt in a table drawer
for matches.  Soon the shade allowed a soft mellow glow to brighten our
'didn't want to turn and see her lying dead.  I should call or, an
ambulance, do something just in case she was still I shouldn't believe
she was already dead.  t Ellsbeth, Billie, Aunt Ellsbeth, Billie ...
confused, repeating itself ... great difficulty, I managed to stand.
Leadenly I he'd the still figure of Billie on the floor, her eyes
staring -at the embellished ceiling, just as my aunt's eyes had hovered
above Billie.  Too late for a doctor to save her, her eyes told me
that.  I panicked then, felt weak and faint, I wanted to scream.  On
and on in the flickering, ng gaslight I stared down at the beautiful
doll without ying at the bottom of the stairs.  Six feet away was the
little cart she must have been riding before she misjudged her .o ing,
or maybe she'd been coming down the steps with cart in tow ... to turn
on the hi mps

e was trapping me in ddj vu ... Aunt Ellsbeth ... over and over again
the two women changed places.  My s rose to feel my face, which felt
mimb.  Tears slipped n my fingers.  That was no princess doll on the
floor, ng bright blue, with no legs, no feet and no shoes.  This a
human being with black mascara smearing her cheeks tears only recently
shed.  Who had made Billie cry when Papa was gone?  What had smeared
Billie's scarlet lipstick when Papa was gone?

Frozen in shock, I was brought back to myself by a familiar sound, the
metal roll of small ball bearing wheels on the hard marble floor. Ready
to scream, I spun round to see Sylvia shovelling along on Billie's cart
that had splintered but was still usable.

"Sylvia ... what did you do?  Did you push Billie down the stairs?  Did
you have to have that cart so much you would hurt Billie?  Sylvia, what
have you done?"

In the same old way, as if I hadn't spent a good portion of my life
trying to teach her how to hold her head high, Sylvia's head lolled on
a rubbery neck, rolled from side to side as her eyes went unfocused and
her lips gaped.  She grunted, quivered, tried to speak, but in the end
nothing came out that could be understood.  She seemed just as stupid
as when she'd come home for the first time.

Immediately guilty and feeling ashamed, I hurried to take her into my
arms.  She shrank away  Her vacant eyes appeared huge in her pale and
frightened face.

"Sylvia, forgive me, I'm sorry, sorry ... even if you didn't like
Billie, you wouldn't hurt her, would you?  You didn't push her down the
stairs ... I know you wouldn't do that."

"What's going on here?  "Vera called from the top of the stairs.  A
lilac towel was wrapped about her naked body, another swathed about her
wet hair.  She held her hands away from her as if she'd just finished a
manicure and didn't want to smear the wet polish.

"I thought I heard someone scream.  Who screamed?"

With tearful eyes I stared up at her and then pointed down at the
floor.

"Billie fell," I said weakly.

"Fell ... said Vera, coming slowly down the stairs, holding onto the
bannister.  Reaching the bottom step, she leaned to peer into Billies
face.  I wanted to shield Billie from that kind of cruel curiosity "Oh
.. ."  sighed Vera.

"She's dead.  I know the look, seen it a hundred times.  First time I
saw it, I could have screamed myself.  Now sometimes I think some are
'better off dead.  When I was in the tub, I could swear I heard Sylvia
screaming, too .. ."

My breath caught.  I looked at Sylvia, who was again riding's little
red cart.  With a rapt look of intense enjoyment, i nwin that the cart
was hers for ever now, she rolled along, softly singing the playroom
song to herself.  I felt sick.

"What else did you hear, Vera?"  , shouting something at Sylvia.  I
thought she was Sylvia to leave her cart alone, but, as you know,
Sylvia 13= to leave it alone.  She wanted it now she has it."

I looked again, Sylvia had disappeared.  I ran to search se and find
her, as Vera called Papa's office.  had Sylvia done?

Breaking Through Sylvia was nowhere to be found.  Hysterical, I ran
outside in the rain, searching for her.

"You come out!  Don't try to hide!  Sylvia, why did you do it?  Did you
shove Aunt Ellsbeth, too?  Oh, Sylvia ... I don't want them to put you
away, I don't."

I'tripped and fell to the ground and just lay there crying, not caring
any more.  No matter what I did, or how hard I tried, everything went
wrong.  What was wrong with me, with Whitefern, with Papa, with all of
us?  It was useless to try to find happiness.  Whenever I had it just
within my grasp, it slipped from my hand and shattered.

It just wasn't fair what had happened to my mother, to my aunt, and now
to Billie.  I beat at the ground and screamed at God for being
unmerciful.

"Stop doing this to me!"  I yelled.

"You killed the First Audrina are you trying to kill me, too, by
killing all those I love?"

A small touch on my arm brought me back to myself.  Through my tears I
turned to see Sylvia above me, pleading with her eyes that had focused
again.

"Aud ... dreeen... naaa," she said in her slow way.

I sat up and with relief pulled her into my arms.  On the wet grass,
she slumped against me.

"It's all right," I crooned, "I know you didn't mean to hurt Billie."

Gently I rocked her back and forth, thinking, despite myself, of her
dislike for Billie and how she coveted that red art.  Several times
she'd shone the colours the prisms made into my own eyes.  An accident?
Deliberately?  Of course, whatever Sylvia had done, it had to be done
without intent to kill.  She'd shoved Billie off the cart, and when she
had, both Billie and the cart had clattered down the stairs.

But not deliberately planned for Sylvia couldn't think ahead.  to
speak, but speech didn't come easily to her.  to say the right words,
with the rain soaking to the skin, Arden came running to me..  Vera
called. What's wrong?  What are the two of out here in the rain?"

I tell him.  Thank God Vera hadn't made the seemed as nothing to her,
an everyday occurrence her only curious, not sad.  - o inside,
darling," I said as he helped me to stand.  'fast to Sylvia's hand, I
guided him to the side door and hall that led to the dining room.  I
stood and allowed my hair with a towel taken from the powder room I saw
my pale reflection in the mirror.  mother, Arden," I said falteringly.
about my mother?"  Immediately he was alarmed.  He nervous hand through
his hair.

"Audrina, what's and I went down to the river ... or at least I thought
was' behind me .. ."  I floundered, and then I had to let out.

"When I went back, the storm had started.  The was dark.  Something
came crashing down the stairs.

on whatever it was.  Then, Arden ... it was... it Billie.  She fell
down the stairs.  The cart came with her.

it's just like what happened to Aunt Ellsbeth."  but .. ."  he said,
dropping the towel and searching my our aunt died ... Audrina ... Mom
... she's not ... "arms went around him as I pressed my cheek against
his.  sorry, Arden, so sorry to tell you.  She's gone, Arden.  all the
way to the bottom.  I think she broke her neck 'my aunt ..

crumpled.  His eyes went empty with pain he didn't see, then he pressed
his face into my hair and then a loud roar jolted us both.  Papa's
voice screamed , "What are you saying?  Billie can't be dead!"  His
heavy came running down the hall.

"Billie can't have fallen the stairs?  Things like that don't happen
twice."

do when Sylvia is on the loose!"  yelled Vera, limping to where we
were.

"She wanted Billie's red cart and shoved her so she fell down the
stairs.  I was in the bathtub.  I heard the screams."

"Then how do you know it was Sylvia?"  I yelled.

"Can you see through walls, Vera?"

In the foyer, Papa knelt beside Billie's still form and tenderly took
her into his arms.  Her dark head lolled backward, much in the way
Sylvia's did.

"I was having artificial legs made," he said in a flat way.

"She told me she couldn't ever use them to walk, but I thought she
could have pretty legs just for showing off when I took her into town.
They would have fitted over the stumps and looked good.  Then she
wouldn't have had to wear all those long, hot dress esto ... oh, oh, oh
.. He sobbed.  Carefully he put Billie back on the floor, and then he
jumped to his feet and made a grab to seize Sylvia.

"Damn you!"  he screamed as he came at me to get her.

I shoved Sylvia behind me and heard her whimper of fright.

"Wait a minute, Papa.  Sylvia was with me all the time.  We went down
to the river, and when we came back, Billie was dead on the floor."

"But Vera just said .. ."  he shouted, then stopped, looking from me to
Vera.

"You know what Vera is, Papa.  She lies."

11 did not lie!"  Yelled Vera, her pale face very white, her apricot
hair flaming like wildfire.

"I heard Billie yelling at Sylvia, and then I heard Billie scream.
Audrina is the liar!"

Papa's eyes narrowed as he tried to guess who was telling the truth.

"All right, both of you tell different tales."  He sniffled and wiped
away his tears, shrugged and turned so he couldn't see Billie.

"I know for a fact that Vera is a liar, and I also know that Audrina
would do anything to protect Sylvia.  Regardless of how Billie died ...
I cannot bear to look at Sylvia now.  I am going to have her put away
so she can never harm anyone, else."

"No!"  I screamed, pulling Sylvia into my arms and holding her
protectively.

"If you put Sylvia away, then send me with her!  Whatever happened, it
was an accident."

His hard eyes became slits.

"Then Sylvia was not with you all the time?"  g came to me then and
lifted a burden from my pa, Sylvia would never go near Billie.  She
refused to touch her, and never would she willingly touch Billie, get
her cart.  Her way was to sneak Billie's cart from Billie wasn't
looking..."  't believe you," said Papa, looking at Sylvia with "I only
hope for your sake that the police will.  Two falls down the same
stairs is going to be rather lain."  who called the police, and by the
time they d all gained some control of our emotions.  With plied a
dozen times first, the police ambulance e away.  before the ornate
fireplace covered with tooled Papa made a formidable, impressive
opponent for the e who came with the same two policemen who'd my aunt's
death.  He told his story straight.  it was Vera's turn.  I marvelled
at how protective she Sylvia, never mentioning the shouts or the
screams she'd "I was taking a bath, shampooing, doing my nails, and
came out I heard my cousin down in the foyer crying.  I went down, I
saw Mrs.  Lowe at the bottom of the a minute, miss.  You are not Mrs.
Lowe's sister?  "were raised as sisters in this house, but we are
really first scowled darkly, but at the same time seemed to breathe of
relief.

then my turn to repeat what I knew.  I weighed each 11 said carefully,
doing my utmost to shield Sylvia, who in a distant comer with her head
hanging so low her completely concealed her face.  She seemed like a
puppy cowering in.  the comer after misbehaving.

mother-in-law had a way of lowering herself down the pne step at a
time.  As she went, she'd take the cart with tting it on the next lower
step first.  She went up the .""in the same way.  Her arms were very
strong.  She had a in one finger.  She must have put too much weight on
d and lost her balance and fell.  I can't be positive, forI wasn't
there.  I had taken my sister Sylvia down to the river' with me."

"The two of you stayed together all the time?"

"Yes, sir, all, the time."

"And when the two of you came back ... you found Your mother-in-law
dead on the floor?"

"No, sir.  Soon after we came in the door, before I had the chance to
light the lamps, I heard her falling down, and the cart, too."

Vera was watching the younger policeman, about thirty, who kept staring
at her.  Oh, my God!  She was flirting with him, crossing and
uncrossing her legs, fiddling with the neckline of her half open robe.
The older policeman didn't seem nearly as interested but rather
disgusted.

"Then that means, Miss Whitefern," he said quietly, 'that you were the
only one in the house when Mrs.  Lowe, senior, fell."

"I was taking a bath," repeated Vera, throwing me a hard glare.

"I sunbathed this morning, and that made me feel hot and sticky.  I
came inside to wash my hair, and, as I always do, I soaked and did my
nails.  Did my toenails, too," she said.  She thrust forth her expertly
manicured nails.  Her gleaming toenails peeked through her sand ils

"If I had struggled with Mrs.  Lowe, I would have smeared my nail
polish."

"How long does it take for nail polish to dry?"

He asked me this, not Vera.

"It all depends."  I tried to remember.

"One coat dries in a hurry, but the more coats you use the longer it
tak esto dry I try to be careful with my nails for at least thirty
minutes after the last coat."

"Exactly!"  said Vera, looking at me gratefully.

"And if you know anything at all about nails, you can see I put on five
coats, counting the base coat, and the top sealing coat."

The policemen seemed lost in the cqmplexity of feminine toiletry.

In the end, it was decided our front stairs were highly dangerous to
everyone, especially after they were examined and a loose place in the
carpeting was found.

"That could easily have tripped her up," said the younger officer.

I stared down at the red carpeting, trying to remember how happened
when our house had been refurbto bottom, and new carpet had been laid
on the a woman with no legs trip, anyway?  Unless started to move her
hand and it had snagged xme place, or her clothes had caught on
something was flashed in her eyes to blind her.  But the hall sun went
away.  all looked too grief-stricken to be murderers, or .  - trtngs he
pulled, for again another death at was called accidental.

presence now.  She hadnt liked Aunt I began to watch her covertly,
again realizing, .Zlere impact, that Sylvia resented anyone who might
to her place in my heart.  It was in her eyes, in her that I was the
only one who mattered in her life she was going to cling.  I had done
that to her myself urging from Papa.  Billie's funeral I was deathly
sick with the worst 10,"life,.  Feverish and depressed, I lay on my bed
as Vera seeming happy to show off her professional skills.

194d turning, burning with fever, I hardly heard her spoke of how
handsome Arden had become.

"Of, was' always good looking, but when he was a boy I weak.  He seems
to have taken on a little of Papa personality, have you noticed?" said
was true.  Arden was as ambivalent about my Was; he loathed him and
admired him.  And, bit by picking up Papa's mannerisms, his walk, his
firm, of talking.  , I saw Billie behind my eyes sitting at the cottage
passing goodies out to Arden and me when we were I saw her as she'd
looked the last week of her life, happiness because she was in love. 
But why had to use the front stan-s when the back ones were so to the
kitchen?  Just like Aunt Ellsbeth, who had -most of her days in the
kitchen.  Could it be that front stairs led straight down to the
marble floor sharp turns and car petted landings of the backstairs
they were the 'deadly' stairs.  Then that meant someone had
deliberately pushed both my aunt and Billie.  I lived that day of
Billie's death over and over again, hearing her scream, then the
clatter and thuds of both Billie and the cart crashing down the
stairs.

"Stop crying!"  ordered Vera harshly as she thrust a thermometer in my
mouth.

"Remember when my mother told you that tears never did any good.  They
don't, never have, never will.  You take from life what you want and
don't ask permission, or else you get nothing."

As sick as I was, I cringed from the harshness of her loud voice when
there was no man around to hear her speak.  She threw Sylvia, who was
crouched in the comer, a malicious glance.

"I despise that little monster.  Why didn't you tell the truth to the
police and rid yourself of her?  She's the one who killed my mother,
just as she killed Billie."  She strode over to stand in front of
Sylvia, making me shove up on my elbows to try to prevent what might
happen next.

"Get this, Sylvia," shouted Vera, prodding Sylvia with her foot.

"You are not going to sneak up behind me and shove me down the stairs,
for I'll be on my guard and it's not going to happen understandF "Leave
her alone, Vera."  My voice was weak, my vision fuzzy, but it seemed
Sylvia was more terrified of Vera than Vera was of her ... so terrified
of Vera that she crawled under my bed and hid there until Papa and
Arden came home.

Life went sour after Billie died.  Perhaps because all of us, except.
Vera and Sylvia, missed her so much, perhaps because I was suffering a
double loss now that I doubted and mistrusted Sylvia.  I gave up on
Sylvia and no longer bothered to try to teach her anything.  Often when
I turned suddenly I caught Sylvia staring at me wistfully, a yearning
in her expression.  It was not so much in her eyes as it was in her
attitude as she tried to catch hold of my hand and tried to please me
with wildflowers  she brought in from the woods.

My cold lingered and lingered, keeping me coughing through most of the
summer.  I was nineteen and still looking forward to that birthday that
would make me twenty ... and I safer then, with no nine to curse me.
Life seemed too taking both my aunt and Billie in only one year.  And
Ira was still with us, taking over the household chores with ivMingness
that both surprised and pleased Papa.  I lost weight and began to
neglect my appearance.  My tie th birthday came and went and the relief
of escaping a with a nine in it didn't bring me happiness.  I clung
more ows near the wall and eyed all colours with fear.  I my memory
still had holes into which I could drop my anguish and my suspicions of
Sylvia.  But the Swiss cheese Lemory belonged to my childhood, and now
I knew only too how to hold on to that which grieved me.  Another
autumn passed, another winter.  There were might-s xJvhen Arden didn't
come home at all, and I didn't care.

"Here," said Vera one spring day, near the anniversary of Affillie's
death, 'drink this hot tea and put some colour in your eeks.  You look
like death warmed over."

"I like iced tea better," I said, shoving the cup and saucer ay.
Angrily she shoved it back at me.

"Drink the tea, udrina.  Stop behaving like a child.  Didn't you just
say a few minutes ago you had a chiJl?"  Obediently, I picked up the
cup and started to put it to my ps when Sylvia came running forward. 
She hurled her full' weight against Vera,.who fell forward and grabbed
for me.  In ,-, so doing she knocked the cup from my hand.  It fell to
the floor and broke and both Vera and I tipped over the chair.

Screaming her rage, with pain twisting her face, Vera tried opunish
Sylvia ... but she'd sprained her ankle.

"Oh, goddamn that moron!  I'm going to talk to Papa about having 1er
put away!"

Blinking my eyes and trying to pull myself back into focus, I picked
myself up and out of habit pulled Sylvia into my arms.

"No, Vera, not as long as I live will Sylvia be put away.  Why don't
you leave?  I'll take over the housework and the cooking.  We don't
need you any longer."

She began to cry.

"After all I've done to help you, and now you don't want me."  She
sobbed as if her heart were broken.

"You're spoiled, Audrina, spoiled.  If you had a backbone at all you'd
have left this place a long time ago."

"I thank you for taking care of me, Vera, but from this day forward
I'll do for myself."

One day in summer Arden came storming home from his office very early.
He ran into, our bedroom and yanked me from bed.

"Enough is enough!"  he yelled.

"I should have done this months ago!  You cannot throw Away your life
and mine because you're not mature enough to face facts.  Death is all
around us, from the moment we're born we're on our way to our graves.
But think of it this way, Audrina," he said as his voice softened and
he pulled me into his embrace.

"No one really ever dies.  We are like the leaves of the trees; we bud
out in the spring of our birth and fall off in the autumn of our fives,
but we do come back, just like the leaves of spring, we do live
again."

For the first time since that awful day Billie fell, I really saw my
husband's fatigue, the small lines etched around his tired, red-rimmed
eyes.  Eyes that had sunk deeper into his skull, like mine.  He hadn't
shaved, and that lent him a raffish, out-of-character look, like a
stranger I didn't know and didn't love.  I saw faults in his face I'd
never noticed before.

Pulling away, I fell back on the bed and just lay there.  He came to
kneel and bow his head on my breast, pleading for me to come back to
him.

"I love you, and day by day you are killing me.  I lost my mother and
my wife on the same day and I still eat, still go to work, still carry
on.  But I can't continue to live this kind of life if this can be
called living."

Something in me cracked then.  My arms slid Around him and my fingers
curled into his thick hair.

"I love you, Arden.  Don't lose patience.  Keep holding on and 111 come
your way ... I know I will, for I want to."

Almost crying, kissing me with an almost crazy passion, he finally drew
away and smiled.

"All right.  I'm willing to wait but not for ever.  Remember that."

Soon he was in the bathroom showering and Sylvia had risen from her
place in the comer to stand at the foot of my bed.  Pitifully she tried
to focus her eyes.  Her small hands reached.--Me pleadingly, begging me
to come back to her, too.  She Jod changed.  I hardly knew her.

At twelve years of- age, Sylvia had developed almost ernight or while I
wasn't looking a woman's figure.  Someone had brushed her hair and tied
it back in a ponytail with an aqua satin ribbon that matched her lovely
outfit I'd never seen before.  Totally surprised, I stared at her
beautiful, young face, her shapely young body that the form-fitting
cotton dress revealed.  What a fool I was to have suspected Sylvia
could harm anyone.  She needed me.  How could I.have forgotten Sylvia
in my apathy?

I stared at Sylvia, who had moved to the dimmest comer and crouched
with her knees pulled up so the crotch of her panties showed.  Pull
your dress down, I thought, and watched her obey without any sense of
power or surprise.  A long time ago Sylvia and I had developed a
rapport between us.

"Mothers and aunts could die, daughters and sons, too, yet life on and
the sun still shone, the rain still fell, and the months came and went.
Papa began to show more deffilite signs of aging, as he also showed
faint signs of mellowing.

I knew that Arden was seeing a great deal of Vera away from Whitefem.
Even under my own roof I oftch glimpsed them mi some room that was
seldom used.  I closed my mind and my eyes and pretended I didn't
notice Arden's flushed face and the way Vera had to smooth down her
tight sheath dress that seemed painted on.  She smiled at me smugly,
mockingly, telling me she'd won.  Why didn't I care any more?

Late one evening when I no longer expected to see Arden enter my room,
he opened the door and came in to sit on the edge of my bed.  To my
utter amazement, he began to tug off his shoes, then his socks.  I
started to say something sarcastic about Vera, who'd been bitchy all
day, but then said nothing.

"In case you're interested," he said in a stiff way, "I'm not going to
touch you.  I'd just like to sleep in this room again and feel you near
me before I make up my mind what to do with my life.  I'm not happy,
Audrina.  I don't think you're happy, either.  I want you to know I've
talked to Damian, and your father no longer embezzles money from his
dormant accounts.  He's honest now about old stock certificates that
have great value.  He was surprised I'd caught on and didn't deny
anything.  All he said was, "I did it for a good cause."

He gave his information in an indifferent way, as if it was only words
to bridge the gap between us.  Now that Arden was assistant
vice-president of my father's firm, he'd stopped talking of some day
returning to his first love, architecture.  He put away his draftsman's
tools, the drawing table Billie had bought for him when he was sixteen,
just as he put away the other dreams of his youth.  I guess we all did
the same thing.  Fate dictated the paths we trod.  Yet it hurt to see
those things carried up into the attic, for so seldom did anything come
back down.

I watched him put his creative ability away like something useless, and
I felt disappointed to see he'd developed Papa's craving for money, for
power, and then more money.

Though I tried time and time again to find concrete evidence that he
was Vera's lover, I guess I didn't really want to know, or I could have
caught them easily enough..  And time, once so fast, then so slow,
speeded up again from the very monotony of everyday ness and I was
twenty-one.  Another spring and summer would soon disappear into the
void I'd created for myself.

Just for something to occupy myself with, I seriously began cultivating
the rose garden Momma had started long ago.  I bought books on how to
grow roses, and attended garden club meetings, taking Sylvia with me
and introducing her for the first time to outsiders.  Though she said
little, no one thought her anything but shy.  Or at least they
pretended to think that.  I dressed Sylvia in pretty clothes and styled
her hair becomingly.  She was always frightened and seemed relieved to
come home again and put on her old garments.

One hot Saturday in late May, I was down on my knees in Momma's rose
garden, lightly scratching the ground with a hand rake before I added
fertiliser.  Tuberose bulbs were nearby, and soon I'd have them in the
ground.  Sylvia was inside the house taking a nap, and Vera had driven
with Papa into town to shop for new clothes.  udde a long shadow threw
cool shade above me.  I tipped the brim of my straw hat and stared up
at Arden, whom believed was off playing golf with his friends.  A small
part -me thought he and Vera could very well have arranged to in town.
Why are you wasting your time out here and forgetting your F he asked
harshly, kicking at the bag of fertiliser by my tools.  CAnytwy -can
grow flowers, Audrina.  Not has the potential to be a great musician."
i"

"What happened to your dream of making all American cities utiful?"  I
asked sarcastically, thinking that as soon as I won with my new breeds
of roses and tulips, I'd go on to ate orchids in a greenhouse I'd
ordered.  And once I was with orchids, I'd find another hobby to keep
me going, one day I, too, ended up in the Whitefern cemetery.  ou sound
bitter, like your aunt," said Arden as he settled beside me on the
grass.

"Don't we all have dreams when 're very young?"  His voice and face
took on a certain "I used to believe that you would never find as
fascinating or absorbing as me.  How wrong I was.  sooner did we marry
than you were locking doors to keep out.  You don't need me like I
thought you would.  There are on your knees with canvas gloves on your
hands, and keep that damned hat on your head to shade your face so 't
even see you.  You don't lift your eyes to meet mine and 've stopped
smiling when I come home.  You treat me as if become a stuffy piece of
furniture to clutter up the neatness days without me.  Don't you love
me any more, F on feeding the roses, plotting the tulip beds, thinking
the orchids, wondering how soon Sylvia would wake up.  reached to put
his arms about me.

"I love you," he said a solemn way I was alerted enough to stop what I
was His arms about me knocked off my wide-brimmed hat.  can't love me,
Audrina, then let me go.  Set me free to who will love me as I want and
need to be myself to say indifferently, "Vera?"

11 he bit out, "Vera.  At least she isn't cold and unresponsive  She
treats me like a man.  I'm not a saint or a devil, Audrina, just a man
who has desires you won't satisfy.  I've tried for almost three years
oh, how I've tried.  But you won't yield and now I'm tired of trying. I
want out.  I'm going to divorce you and marry Vera ... unless you can
love me physically as much as you love me in other ways."

I swivelled round on my knees to stare into his face.  He really did
love me, it was in his eyes.  I saw love for me shining in his eyes,
and a terrible sadness was there.  Divorcing me and marrying Vera
wouldn't make him truly happy, not nearly as happy as my physical
response would.

Confused thoughts raced through my mind.  Puppy love, my aunt and
father had called what I felt for Arden ... and they'd been right.
Adolescent love that wanted nothing more than hugs, small kisses and
hand-holding.

Now he was leaving me for Vera .. . and in the end he'd be just another
Lamar Rensdale.  Vera didn't love him.  She'd never love any man more
than she loved herself, or maybe because she couldn't love herself, she
couldn't love anyone.

I shook my head, wondering if at last I was finally growing up.  Was
the mature side of me going to burgeon forth at this very momenti, I
felt a rising excitement and none of the fear I'd experienced on our
wedding night.  He could have gone and never said a word to warn me. He
could have taken Vera and I wouldn't have contested our divorce, and he
knew that.  Still ... he was giving me another chance ... he did love
me ... it wasn't pity ... he did love me ... His eyes delved into mine
as his hands gripped my shoulders and his voice filled with urgency, as
if he sensed what was going on within me.

"We can start all over, "he said in an excited way.

"This time we can start off right.  just you and me, without Sylvia in
the next room for you to fret about.  I have physical feelings for
Vera, but I love you in all the sweet, romantic ways that seem silly
with someone as unromantic as Vera.  You touch my heart when I come
home and I see you sitting near a window, staring out.  I stand and I
see the way the light falls through your hair and makes it a halo and
your skm seems translucent, and I'm filled with wonder that you are my
wife.  Vera never makes me feel I have anyone special, only someone
could have.  I used to think when I was younger that n I won you, I won
a princess who would love me for ever, juW happily we'd grow old
together, and hand in hand we'd ficc old age without fear.  But it
hasn't worked out that way.  I can't go on this way, loving you but
taking Vera in your place.  You drain me dry, Audrina.  You take my
heart and wring it, forcing me to run to Vera for solace.  When it's
over, I find only physical satisfaction but no spiritual sustenance.
Only you can give me that.  How can you expect me to go on wanting you
when you don't want me in the same way?  Love is like a fire that needs
replenishing often, not just with tender smiles and light touches but
with passion, too.  Let's do it again, our honeymoon night, without
doors between us to hide behind.  Without shame, make love to me now.
Right now.  Out of doors, here where you are.  Damian is in town.  Vera
is gone.  Sylvia was in that damned rocking chair singing to herself
before I came out here ... and she's likely to stay there until she
falls asleep."

He was touching my heart, caressing me with his eyes and stirring my
blood as he'd never done before.  His amber eyes burned, even his hand
seemed hot when he touched my face lightly.  Quickly he withdrew his
hand as if my flesh felt as hot as his.

"Darling, marriage needs to grow, become adventuresome ... do something
that you've never done before.  I don't care what.  Make love to me
this time.  Don't wait for me to start."

No, I thought, I couldn't do that.  It was a man's duty to make the
first overture.  It would be cheap and unladylike to touch him first.
But his eyes were imploring, lit up with desire.  I didn't deserve him
he should leave me alone, for in the end Td fail him.  Still, I wanted
him ... something was telling me to do as he said, regardless of what
Papa had said about men and their evil desires that shamed the woman
who did as they wanted.  Papa had brainwashed me long ago, I told
myself, and this time I was going to override all the signals that
flashed evil, dirty, nasty ... It wasn't easy to drown out all that
shouted shame.  I didn't think I could initiate anything unless he kept
on looking at me as he was now.  He made himself vulnerable, put his
hands behind his back and resisted his urges to touch me first.  I
fought the small voices instilled by Papa and his teachings ... no, he
was my husband, and I did love him, and he really did love me.

"I'm scared, Arden ... so scared of losing you to Vera."

His eyes were warm, soft, encouraging me.  Deep and passionate eyes
that kept urging me to go ahead and it wouldn't be his lust, only my
own desire, and for some reason that seemed to make a great difference.
What I did would be what I wanted to do and if it was evil, then let it
be evil.

Arden needed me.  He loved me and not Vera.  Tentatively I cupped his
face between my palms.  He didn't move.  His hands stayed behind his
back.  I kissed him lightly on his cheeks, his forehead, his chin, and,
finally, his lips.  They stayed soft, but not too soft, and parted only
a little.  Again I kissed him, with more passion, and still he didn't
respond.  He was like someone I could do anything with and he'd never
harm me.  I dared another kiss that was deep and long, even as my hands
curved around him and began to stroke his back right down to his
buttocks.  Something was coming alive in me as he allowed me to do what
I wanted, without his doing anything to me or requesting or hinting.

Passion such as I'd never felt before began to swell deep and hot and
demanding in me.  My breasts grew Larger and peaked with demand as I
ached to have his hands on my flesh, needing his body, wanting him
inside me.  My breath began to come faster, his, too, but still he
didn't reach to drag me down or pull off my clothes.  I was the one who
tore off his shirt.  Off with his belt, too, then I unzipped his
trousers and threw them aside.  Shamelessly I pulled down his briefs
and even then he didn't touch me, though he rose up on his knees to
allow me to rid him of all that he wore and fell on his back so I could
pull off his shoes and socks.  He seemed so eager, he was impatient,
but it seemed ridiculous to me to keep on shoes and socks.

Not a word did he say as I fell upon him to kiss him everywhere and
fondle everywhere, until at last I could wait no longer.

Under a clear blue sky, with the hot sun beating down, 1his
penetration.  This time, this marvelous first time, myself to enjoy the
feel of him inside me, lifting into t d of paradise I'd only read about
but experienced.  And when his arms finally clasped me, I groaned from
the, ecstasy of having made him one with me at last.

crying," he said when it was over.

"It 'was so I've finally- reached you, Audrina.After trying so I've
broken through that barrier you put up a long time Yes, he was right. A
barrier that Papa had constructed to p me always bound to him.
'sometimes I thought it was because you just didn't love me a man, only
as a companion."

you kept right on loving me?"  I asked with d "Won er.

"I could never stop loving you, no matter what."  His voice At, "was
hoarse, gritty with emotion.

"You're in my blood, part of A my soul.  If you never let me touch you
again, I'd still want to wake up and see you asleep beside me.  I said
what I did only I I to shake you up and make you fear you might lose me
to Vera.  Audrina, there are times when you seem so remote and aloof,
;,;dmost as if you're in a trance, or caught in a spell."

Quickly I leaned, to kiss him, to stroke where I'd never wanted to
touch before.  He groaned with the joy and held me tighter.

"If ever I should be so unfortunate as to lose you, I'd look the world
over until I had another Audrina so that means I'd go to my grave still
searching.  For there will never be another you."

"Another Audrina?  Did you know another Audrina?"I asked with a shiver
that raced up and down my spine.  Why had he said that?

His hands were warm on my skin, his eyes warmer.

"It's just way of saying I have to have you and no one else."  It was
sweet to hear him say that and I easily shook off the chill of
apprehension and forced some leaden weight away from my soul, from my
heart and conscience.  Young and I'd never been, I laughed and turned
to him again.  joyous as I teased him with kisses and small touches,
and wantonly Iexplored his body as many times he'd explored mine.  For
I loved him so much then that I could have died for him.  And once I'd
thought all this so sinful and evil.  Damn Papa for making me think
that, for spoiling what could have been like this all the time.

Twilight flooded the sky with its rosy farewell to the day, flaming the
cloud bottoms crimson, streaking them violet shot through with saffron.
Folded in his arms, I watched the sun sink into the bay beyond the
river.  I watched as Arden fell fast asleep.  For the first time after
making love, I felt clean, and worthy of staying alive.

Unlike Papa, who loved the First Audrina best, Arden loved me for what
I was, not for what he wanted me to be.  I wrapped him in my arms as I
watched the colours reflected on the water, different from the colours
in the house.  I lay there and began to think I hated all that stained
glass, all those Tiffany lamps and shades, all that art deco and other
false, mamnade colours that gave me false fears.  What did I have to
fear now?

In the middle of the night I awakened.  I thought I heard Sylvia
calling my name.

"Aud ... dreen ..,. naa."  Softly, repeatedly, my name called like
that.

I'm coming, Sylvia, I thought-waved to her, as I often did, and somehow
my messages seemed to reach her.  First I had to lift Arden's arm from
my waist, then carefully I shifted from the heavy weight of his leg
thrown, over both of mine.  When I was free, I bent above him and
stroked his cheek, kissed his lips.

"Don't go ... where are you going?"  he sleepily asked.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," I whispered.

"You'd better be," he murmured sleepily, exhausted from hours of making
love.

"Need you again ... soon .. ."  and then he slept.

Sylvia was deeply asleep, curled up on her side, looking angelic in
sleep as she always did.  I kissed her, too, feeling full of love for
everyone.  Asleep she had never looked anything but beautiful and
normal.

On the way back to where Arden slept and waited, I thought I heard my
name called again.  It seemed to come from then!

m ... her bedroom.  Was she jealous bemuse now rd a man who loved me
more than anyone had loved her?  '1had to go to the playroom.  I had to
go and face up to her which had always prevented me from enjoying Arden
as have.  It was in that rocking chair that I'd seen the three assault
the First Audrina, and that had been the first step me away from
normalcy.  The second step to take me 0 farther away from ever enjoying
sex was Papa and all the he'd done to Momma, and said to me.  And the
third taking me miles and miles away, was Papa's indifference how he
hurt my aunt.  But it wasn't my horror, I told myself Papa's, it was
hers, too, that first daughter who'd died I was born.

Again Upon a Rainy Day What compulsion had driven me to the First
Audrina's room and forced me into this chair where I sang foolishly? 
As I rocked, an ingrained terror of this chair that had tormented my
childhood stole over me and made me a child again.  Something whispered
and told me to get out and leave before it was too late.  Go back to
Arden, said a wise part of me.  Forget the past that can't be changed,
go back to Arden.

No, I said to myself.  I had to be strong.  I had to overcome my fears
and the only way to do it was to deliberately evoke the rainy-day scene
and make it happen again ... and this time I'd stay with it until she
died and cast her memory for ever from my life.

As I'd done before as a child, so I did again as a woman.  I rocked and
I sang and soon enough the walls softened and became porous before the
molecules divided and I was inside the First Audrina's memory again.

I saw my mother as she must have been when the First Audrina was alive,
looking so young and pretty as she warned, "Audrina, promise you will
never take the shortcut through the woods.  It's dangerous for young
girls to go there alone."

She was wearing one of her lovely, water colour-printed, voile dresses
that fluttered in the breezes cooled by the river.  All her favourite
colours.  and mine were in that dress.  Shades of green, blues,
violets, aquas and rose.  Her beautiful hair was loose and flying like
a banner.  Even as I thought all of this, I was planning to disobey and
take the shortcut home.

Momma stooped to kiss my cheek.

"Now, obey me, even if you are late for your own birthday party.  It
can't start until you arrive anyway.  Just forget the shortcut and ride
the school bus home."

But Spencer Longtree rode the school bus with his gang ofk buddies.
They said such nasty, ugly things to me.  An't tell her the awful
things they said.

G ... L ... Y .. ."  shrilled Spencer Longtree, who ""It taken the
school bus home.  Risking the woods wasn't me his awful presence.

"Audrina Adare has got ugly spelled already know how to spell ugly,
Spencer Longtree," I over my shoulder, 'and that's a description that
fits you I ... N ... E."  V III get you for that ... and maybe when
you've been had, won't feel so high and mighty just because you're one
of Whiteferns who live in a fancy, big house."

"Ti ime to run, to skip, to hop and have fun in the woods where the
little animals hid.  Look at the rain clouds overhead.

hid the sun and made it dark.  Would the storm reach me ore I reached
home?  Ruin my dress.  Frizz my curls?  omma would throw a fit if I
didn't look prettier than any r girl at my party and this silly kind of
dress r-spotted and shrank, too.  The rain came down.  took the faint
and winding path at full speed, feeling the whisper of my ruined dress
as it clung to my legs.  Yards I thought I saw the bushes by the path
move.  I paused, y to spin round and flee.  The thickness of the leaves
above made a kind of canopy that the rain to fall in exceedingly large
drops.  They he'd down on the dirt before me, making dark polka dots t
swiftly blended until all the dirt went dark and muddy.  Some people
whistled when they felt afraid.  I didn't know w to whistle.  I could
sing ... Happy birthday to me, happy ay to me ... happy birthday, dear
Audrina ... happy Pbir I broke off my song and froze.  A definite
movement in the lies ahead.  A muffled giggle.  I turned to run the
other way, glanced back and saw three boys jump out from behind se
thorny bushes that lined the faint path.  Scratches bloodied their
faces and made them seem fearsome.  Yet they o seemed silly.  Stupid,
silly boys.  Did they think they could catch me?  I could run faster
than Aunt Mbeth, who had boasted she could outrun anybody when she was
a child.

Just when I thought I'd outraced them, one boy bounded ahead and seized
me by my long hair.  He almost ripped it from my scalp, it hurt so
much.

"Stop that, you beast!"  I screamed.

"Let me go!  It's my birthday let me go!"

"We know it hurts," Spencer Longtree's raspy voice snarled.

"We're glad it hurts.  It's our birthday gift to you, Audrina.  Happy
ninth birthday, Whitefern girl."

"You stop pulling my hair!  Take your filthy hands off me!  You're
ruining my, dress  Leave me alone.  You just dare to do one thing to
hurt me and my papa will see all of you put in jail and burned!"

Spencer Longtree grinned.  His buck teeth seemed fit for a horse.  He
thrust his long face full of pimples closer to mine.  His breath
smelled bad.

"Do you know what we're going to do to you, pretty face?"

"You're going to let me go," I said defiantly, but something in me
quivered.  Sudden fear made my knees weak, made my heart beat faster,
made my blood sink into my heels.

"Nooo," he growled, 'we're not going to let you go ... not until we're
finished.  We're going to rip off all those pretty clothes, tear off
your underwear and you're going to be naked, and we're going to see
everything."

"You can't do -that," I began staunchly, trying to be brave.

"All the Adare women born with my colour hair, can put the curse of
death on those that harm them.  So beware of your life when you harm
me, Spencer Longtree Spiderlegs.  With my violet eyes I can bum you
with the fires of eternal hell while you still liveP Sneering, he
shoved his face so close his nose touched mine.  Another boy grabbed my
arms and pinioned them behind me.

"Go on, witch, "he said, "do your worst!  "The rain plastered his hair
to his forehead in a, fringe of spikes.

"Curse me now and save yourself.  Go on, do it, or in another few
seconds I'm going to take off my pants, and my buddies are going to
hold you down, and each one of us will have our turn."

I screamed it out: "I.curse you, Spencer Longtree, Curtis Hank Barnes!
May the devil in hell claim all three "for his own!"  A moment they
hesitated, making me think it was going Looking from one to the other
gave me the chance to but just then a fourth boy rose up from behind
the same they'd used to hide, and I froze and stared at him.  His was
wet and glued to his face, too.  I swallowed and -weak.  All my blood
turned to rainwater.  Oh, no, not him, , not him, too, never him.  He
wouldn't do this.  He'd come me, that's why he was there.  I called his
name, pleaded him to save me.  He seemed in a trance, staring blindly
What was wrong with him?  Why didn't he pick up a a stone, hit them?
Batter them with his bare fists ... do .g to help!  wasn't the way it
was supposed to be.  He was my friend.  stood there more petrified than
I was.  I cried out his name and he turned and ran!

mouth opened to call him back, but a dirty rag was inside.  Was wrong,
Audrina.  You really are a pretty thing ..

ripped off my clothes.  My new dress was tom from Ir to hem and hurled
away to land on a bush under the n rain tree  Next my pretty petticoat
with the Irish lace the hand-embroidered shamrocks was ripped off and
in the mud.  I fought like crazy when rough hands to pull down my
pants, kicking, screaming, twisting, trying to rip violating eyes from
their sockets.  the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled.  I was ed of
being outside in an electrical storm.  I screamed happened fast, but
not mercifully fast enough.  My pretty s were yanked down and torn off.
My legs were d wide as one boy held me under my chin ... and every
those three participated in my desecration- Even as I was despoiled I
kept thinking of him.  That coward who'd and run!  He could have stayed
to fight even if he lost, r then I could forgive him ... maybe they'd
have killed him, they were really killing me .. . better that than this
... came back to the rocking chair in the playroom.  My eyes were
wide, so wide they hurt.  I'd seen him again with the rain pasting his
hair to his face.  Arden!  That was the name she'd called ... and he'd
run. Oh, the lies they'd told me to shield me from knowing just who
Arden was.  Oh, no wonder Papa had warned me against all boys, and
Arden most of all.  Papa knew him for what he was a coward, as bad as
the others, maybe worse, for she'd known him, trusted him, thought him
her friend, and then he'd turned to me ... years later?

He'd been there!  Through me, he was redeeming himself!  Oh, oh, oh ...
now I knew why my memory was full of holes.  I'd seen him before in
visions, many times, and had made myself forget that he'd been there
when those boys had raped, then killed her, just because she was a
Whitefern and all the villagers hated Whiteferns.

Papa had lied to me when he said the First Audrina was nine years
older!  Vera had told the truth!  But why didn't I remember her And
Papa had put me in the rocking chair so I could capture contentment and
peace.  He'd taken my empty pitcher and filled it with horror so that
never again could I trust anything male.

I sobbed, knowing I'd betrayed her, too, and married the friend she'd
hoped would protect her and fight for her ... and he'd run.  I jumped
from the chair and ran from the room.  Oh, if only I'd known before I
would never have gone to his cottage!  This day would never have
happened.  Papa, why didn't you tell me all the details about your
first daughter?  Why did you hold back so much?  Didn't you know the
truth always serves the purpose better than a lie?

Lies, so many lies ... and to think Vera had told me the truth all the
time when she said she'd known the First Audrina, who was so much
better than me prettier, smarter, more fun.

As I ran towards my room, determined to wake Arden and face him with
the truth a gaslanip, came on.  Next a flashlight shone directly into
my eyes.  Blinded by the lights after the darkness of the hallway, I
barely made out the vagueness of a hand that dangled a crystal prism
before the beam of strong battery light.  Colours refracted in my eyes.
I staggered backwards, throwing up my hand to shield my eyes from the
Then I turned to run.  Someone followed.  I heard the of footfalls. I
screamed, whirled round and shouted, have you come to finish what they
started?  What are trying to do to me?"  tore lights came on. Strung
down the main upstairs were hundreds of crystal prisms, catching
colours, stabbing and blinding me, threatening me.  I spun sed and
disoriented, unable to find the direction confu bedroom.  Then the
hands .. . hands that struck me on shoulders from behind.  Hard, strong
hands that sent me .  forward into space ... and down, down, down, down
hurting all the way until my head struck ... and then kness.

ring, whispering, on the shallow waves of evening tide s drifted.  They
called.  Forced me back from a place I Idn't name.  Was this me, this
tiny pepper dot in the sky?

could I see above, below, behind and before?  Was I only eye in the sky
seeing everything, understanding nothing?

-"Vhose name was that I heard spoken so softly?  Mine?

e room was this?  Mine?  On a narrow bed I lay, staring at the ceiling.
Fuzzily, I made out the dresser across the way its wide mirror that
reflected what was behind my bed.  vision cleared more so I could see
the white chaise longue Arden had wanted me to have.  Whitefern, I was
still in hitefern.  In the adjacent room Vera's voice drifted to me as
she spoke I to Arden.  I cringed, or tried to.  Something was wrong me,
but I didn't have time to dwell on that.  I had to e t te on what Vera
was saying.

"Arden," she continued in a stronger voice, "why do you keep objecting?
It's for your own good, for hers, too.  Certainly you she'd want it
that way."  What way?

"Vera answered the unmistakable voice of my husband, ou have to give me
time to make a decision like that an reversible decision."

"I've had about all I can take from you and from her," said P era.

"You have to decide just who you want, her or me.  Doyou think I'm
going to hang around here for ever waiting for you to choose?"

"But ... but stammered my husband, 'at any moment, any day, maybe today
or tomorrow, she could pull out of the coma.

Coma?  I was in a coma?  I couldn't believe this.  I could fuzzily see,
hazily hear.  That had to mean something, didn't it?

"Arden," said Vera's deep and sultry voice, "I'm a nurse and I know
about things you've never heard of.  No one can stay in a coma three
weeks and pull out of it without irreversible brain damage.  Think
about that for a while, a long while.  You'd be married to a living
vegetable to burden the rest of your life.  When Damian is dead, you'd
have Sylvia, too -don't forget her.  With the two of them to care for,
you'd be praying to God that you'd done as I suggested, but then it
would be too late.  I'd be gone.  And you, my dear, would never have
the courage to do it alone."

Courage to do what?  The two of them were coming closer.  I wanted to
turn my head and watch them enter my room.  I wanted to see Arden's
expression and watch Vera's eyes and see if she really loved him.  I
wanted to swing my feet to the floor and rise.  But I couldn't move,
not anything.  I could only lie there, a stiff, still thing, feeling
only mental anguish and an unbearable sense of loss.  Again and again I
was flooded with panic.  Drowning in panic.  How could this have
happened?  Wasn't I the same as earlier today, last night, yesterday?
What had made me this way?

"Vera, my darling," said Arden, now sounding even closer, 'you don't
understand how I feel.  So help me God, even as she is, I still can't
help loving my wife.  I want Audrina to recover.  Every morning before
I leave for work I come in here and kneel by her bed and pray for her
recovery.  Every night before I go to bed, I do the same thing.  I
kneel and wait for her eyes to open, for her lips to part, for her to
speak.  I dream about seeing her well and healthy again.  I'm in hell
and I'll never be free of hell until she's herself again.  Just one
sign of life and I'd never consent He paused, sobbed, choked out, "Even
is, I don't want her to die."  tV era did.  I knew now that somehow
Vera was for this situation, as she was responsible for the disastrous
events in my life.  right," shrilled Vera.

"If you still love Audrina, then you possibly be in love with me.  You
have used me, Arden, me!  Stolen from me, too!  For all I know I may be
carrying child again as I carried your child once before and you 't
know it."  'One nime between us then, Vera, only one.  You don't know I
was the one responsible.  The odds against it were too . You-came to
me, too, and let me know you wanted me, were willing to do anything,
and I was young, and Audrina ts fill a child."

"And she will always be a child!"  Vera shrilled.  Then her dropped an
octave as she continued to persuade.

"You me, too.  You took me and you enjoyed it, and I had pay the
price."  Oh, God, oh, God ... on and on all of us kept paying prices,
thought, my mind going in circles as I tried to grasp at g stable.

"But if you love her, Arden, then you keep her.  And.  I hope arms will
give you comfort when you need it and her kisses warm your lips and her
passion will satisfy your desire.  Lord knows I've never known a man
who needs a woman more you do.  And don't you stand there and think you
can hire ,4not her nurse to take my place.  You may not know this, but
rina needs me.  Sylvia needs me, too.  Somehow, despite all "you've
said about Sylvia not responding to anyone but your wife, I've managed
to make Sylvia trust and even like "Sylvia doesn't trust or like anyone
but Audrina," Arden id.  I stared at Vera.  Her shining apricot hair
peaked out below starched white cap.  Every strand was perfectly in
place.  Her complexion appeared as soft as putty, but even so, she was
pretty wearing white, with those glittering black eyes of Hard, cruel,
spider eyes, I thought..S.A.-L 321 just as I used to do, she- cupped
Arden's handsome face between her hands, resting her long, crimson
fingernails on his cheeks.

"Sweetheart, there are many ways to know when Sylvia is trusting.  I'm
beginning to know her .  - ."

Oh, God!  Sylvia shouldn't trust and believe in Vera!  Of all people,
not Vera!  .

As if she heard me speak, Sylvia shuffled forward into view.  I sensed
she must have risen from her perpetual crouch and realized, too, that
she was desperate now that I could no longer protect her.  In her
meandering way she advanced towards my bed as if to shield me.  Poor
Sylvia, an Pwanted was to keep her safe, and now she had to keep me
safe.

Her aquamarine eyes stared at me blankly, as if she saw through me,
beyond me, and into some far, far distance.

Sylvia, Sylvia, what a burden shed always been.  My cross to bear for
the rest of my life.  Now I was the cross for someone else to bear.  I
tried to swallow the self-pity I felt and found I could barely manage
to make my throat muscles move.  I went on thinking of that far ago day
when I was eleven and Papa had brought Sylvia home for the first time.
My baby sister, who was nine years younger and born on my very
birthday.  Cursed, the Whitefern girls, each born nine years apart ...
funny, too.

Or was that why my Aunt Ellsbeth had always said, "Odd, so odd," and
she'd looked at me as if to give me a clue.  And, of course, it was
odd.  My life was built on lies.  That, older Audrma had not been nine
years my senior.

Why was I thinking as I was?  Something was in the back of my brain,
something that had happened in the playroom ... something that made me
hate Arden ... "Goodbye, Arden, "Vera said, breaking into my reverie as
she moved towards the door, leaving my husband staring after her with a
stricken expression.  Suddenly all that the rocking chair had revealed
came back, and I remembered what he had done to the First, Dead
Audrina.  Still I ached for Ins terrible dilemma to keep me, now a
nothing thing, and to keep Sylvia, a mindless, wandering creature, or
to leave and take what happiness he could find or steal.

"Don't go!"  cried Arden.  His voice was deep and hoarse, as if the
words were torn from his throat against his will.

"I needI love you.  Maybe not in the same way I love my but it's love
nevertheless.  I'll do what you want, anything want.  just give me a
little more time.  Give Audrina a little and promise you won't harm
Sylvia."  era came forward again, all smiles, her spider eyes 9. Her
voluptuous figure swayed from side to side as into my husband's eager
open arms.  Together they to move in rhythm to silent music as their
earthy lust right before my eyes.  etinies nature was kind.  My vision
fogged.  I began to away, but etched deep on my brain was the thought
that to save Sylvia and rid Arden of a woman who would ruin manhood in
the end.  Still, why should I care?  He'd failed First Audrina, too,
when she needed him most ... and 's when I knew.  Arden was mine to
punish, not Vera's.  had to stay alive for Sylvia, to save her from an
institution.

had to be somewhere I had to save him, too, from Vera.  how, when I
couldn't move or speak?

the monotonous days slowly passed, I began to really Vera as never
before, by the cruel words she said to me.

I couldn't hear, she always spoke the truth.  wish you could hear and
see me, Audrina.  I'm having sex your beloved Arden.  He calls it
making love, but I know it is.  He's going to pay for everything I've
been through him.  He's going to give me the world, this house, Papa's
ne, and everything this monstrosity holds will be sold at tion.  As
soon as I have everything in my name, I'll then get of Sylvia ... and
Papa, too."  She laughed cruelly.

"Arden so appealing in some ways, so dependent on women for his ess.  A
man is a fool to allow that to happen.  I admire who always keeps his
wife in her proper place but I'll the man in our family.  Sooner or
later Arden will be mine, doubt that."  - Aer long nails scratched as
she brutally rolled me over on my to change the sheets.  She'd placed
me so precariously near edge I almost fell to the floor.  By my hair
and one bare leg seized and yanked back to safety.  She delivered a
hard on my bare bottom, as if I'd purposefully tried to roll off bed.
Next she moved me from ray side over onto my back, came round to the
opposite side of my bed and finished tucking in the clean sheet before
she stared at my naked body in an appraising way.

It was so awful to be naked and vulnerable and unable to help myself
and her eyes were no kinder than those ravishing eyes of the boys in
the woods.

"Yes, I can see why he loved you once.  Nice breasts," she said,
pinching my nipples so I felt a dull pain.  Pain ... that meant I was
going to recover if she gave me time.

"Slim waist, too, flat stomach, nice, very nice.  But your beauty is
leaving, Audrina, darling, leaving fast.  All those rich young curves
he loves will soon be flabby flesh to hang and droop, and he won't want
you back then."

I lay staring at the ceiling high above.  Where was Papa?  Why didn't
he visit me?

In the comer Sylvia leaned forward, her aqua eyes in focus as she
studied Vera intently.  Warily she was inching closer and closer, too.
I could barely see the drift of her long hair in the dimness of the
Large room.  Yet, I kept willing her to do something to help.  If you
don't want to be put away in one of those awJid places, help me,
Sylvia! Help me!  Do something to save my life and your oam, too!

Sylvia had inched forward enough to find a spot of random sunlight that
fell on her hair and turned it copper.  In her hand she turned the
crystal prism constantly, like a baby watching the colourful.  light
rays sparkle myriad rainbows about the room.  One ray of scarlet and
orange she beamed directly into Vera's spider eyes.

"Stop thad'yelled Vera.

"That's what you did to my mother, wasn't it?  You did it to Billie,
too, didn't you?"

Crablike, Sylvia sidled back to her place in the shadows, keeping a
watchful eye on me, on Vera.

On and on Vera rambled as if I were her confessor and, when she put me
in the ground, I'd take her secrets with me and never again would she.
be haunted by any of the awful things shed done.

"You know something, clear sister, there are times when I think Arden
believes it was I who shoved his mother down the stairs.  When he
thinks I'm sleeping, he rests on one elbow and into my face, and it
makes me wonder if I talk in p and say things he hears.  He talks in
his sleep.  He says "Aame, trying to call you back from wherever you
are.  And him up, he turns from me unless I want to make love.  that's
all he wants from me.  In many ways I don't think me, and doesn't
really love me, only needs me now But I'll make him love me more than
he loves you.  times more than he loves you.  You were never a real
wife , Audrina.  How could you be after what happened?"

as thin glass her laughter tinkled, like the wind chimes cupola.

"Wasn't it a nice birthday present those boys had came into the room
just then.  He seized Vera by the Aers.

"What are you saying to her?  She might be able to Her doctors tell me
sometimes a patient in a coma can and hear and think and no one knows
it.  Please, Vera, even dies, I want her to die believing in me and
loving me she laughed.

"So it is true, you were there, and you nothing to save her.  What a
boyfriend you turned out to You ran, Arden, ran!  But I can understand,
really I can.

were so much older and bigger, and you had to think of if."  nfused, I
tried to put all this together at last I knew the of the First Audrina,
who had not been nine years older.  why had Papa told me such a silly
lie?  What difference it have made just to ten me the truth?  That
meant Vera t have played with the First and Best, and truly she did w
her and had liked her so much I could never take her e. But then I must
have known her, too!  My head began e. Lies, my whole life constructed
on lies that really make any sense.  y after day Vera tended me with
loathing, looked at me disgust, brushed my hair ruthlessly so that much
of it out.  With unsanitary methods she inserted a catheter, when Arden
was in the room.  Thank God he had enough t for me and the decency to
turn away.  But often when Vera was somewhere else in the house, my
husband came to me and talked softly as he gently moved my arms and
legs.

"Darling, wake up.  I want you to recover.  I'm doing what I can to
keep your legs and arms from becoming atrophied.  Vera tells me it
won't do any good, but your doctors say it will.  She doesn't like for
me to talk to them unless she's there, too.  For some reason they seem
terribly reluctant to say anything; perhaps Vera has been trying to
protect me from knowing too much.  She nags me every day to pull your
life support system.  She doesn't have the nerve herself.  Oh, Audrina,
if only you could save yourself and save me from doing something that
will ruin the rest of my life.  She tells me I'm weak ... and maybe I
am, for when I see you day after day like this, I think perhaps you
would be better off dead.  Then I think, no, you'll recover .. . but
Audrina, if you grow much thinner, you'll wither away to nothing, even
if Vera and I do nothing."

He was weak.  He'd failed her, and he'd failed me.  Despite all his
declarations of love, he still went to Vera every night.

Then one day when I'd just about given up hope, Papa came into my room
with tears in his eyes that fell onto my face like warm summer rain.  I
tried to blink my eyes to let him know I was conscious, but I had no
control over my eyelids.  They popped open or closed without my will.

"Audrina," he cried, falling down on his knees and clutching at my
thin, slack hand, "I can't let you die!  I've lost so many women in my
life.  Come back, don't leave me alone with only Vera and Sylvia.
They're not what I need or want.  It's always been you I've counted on
to last.  God forgive me if I've put a burden on you by loving you too
much."

I was tired of Papa, too.  If Papa came to me again, I wasn't
conscious.  The next time I woke up, it seemed weeks later.  But I was
now as I had been as a child; I had no time, so how could I know? Again
I was in the bed.  My room was empty but for me.  The house was so
quiet; it felt so huge and empty all around me.  I lay there paralysed
and tried to think of what I could do to escape while Vera was occupied
elsewhere.

The door opened and Arden and Vera came in together.  She was talking
to him in an irritated tone.

"Arden, sometimes you

of a boy than a m5in.  Then must be some legal way force Damian to
leave you his money when he dies.

he must realize Audrina can't outlive him, and 't benefit from his
millions."  Sylvia will always need care, Vera.  I don't blanic for
looking out for her.  If, or when, Audrina should having it drawn into
his will that if ylvia is put in an 1. or dies, my share, that would
come from AnS, will be cut off.  He's putting it in a trust fund so it
will out monthly.  I don't care if he leaves me anything.  always earn
enough to keep us fed, clothed and clothed and housed?  Is that all you
want out of ffe?  is a world of glamour and pleasure beyond the walls
of museum.  Go after it.  If you don't, I will.  Arden, look at 71I'm
twenty-five, one year younger than you are.  Life so swiftly.  Soon
we'll both be thirty.  It's now or never.  good does lots of money do
when you're too old to enjoy "What good are beautiful clothes and
expensive jewellery your figure is gone and your neck is wrinkled?  I
want it Arden" now!  While I'm still pretty enough to feel good myself.
Decide, Arden.  Decide what you want.  Do hing positive for once in
your lifetime.  You've allowed to rule you because you failed that day
in the woods .. . in a way you failed again when you were stupid enough
to Audrina.  Say it now, that you take me and not her  I out of this
miserable situation today!"  Appearing torn by indecision, Arden
glanced at me, at Vera, stared at Sylvia, who shambled into the room.
She de red over to my bed and tried with clumsy hands to h my hair even
as she tried to say my name.  But Vera was re, and she couldn't.  even
make her hands stop trembling.

g deeply troubled and frustrated, she slowly turned nd and spread her
arms wide as if to protect me.

"Whenever she can, Sylvia sneaks up on me and jumps me.  clamps her
teeth into any part of my body she can grab hold I hit her, kick her,
stomp on her toes and pull her hair to e her stop, but she hangs on
like a bulldog!  She's crazy."  On and on Arden stared at her without
speaking.  Then he turned his eyes on me lying like a stick of wood,
my eyes half open, my Ups slack.  The IV dripped its solution into my
veins, and my hair lay in limp, dull strings on the pillow.  I knew I
couldn't appeal to him now.

"Yes,"he said heavily as the mists began to form around him and Vera,
"I guess you're right.  Audrina would want to die rather than live on
as she is now.  She's so young to have suffered so much.  Isn't it a
terrible pity that I've never been able to help her, when all I ever
wanted to do was save her from more suffering.  Oh, God, if only I
could have done differently, then maybe none of this would have
happened."

His head bowed.  The last I saw of him this tune he was kneeling by my
bed, his hand clutching mine, and on our clasped hands he rested his
cheek that was wet with his tears.

And just barely, before I floated to that nowhere they called sleep, I
felt the warmth of his face, the wetness of his tears.  I tried to
speak, to tell him I wasn't going to die, but my tongue stayed frozen
and all I could do was drift away.  Last Rites t I was to find out
later was a clear summer day it came as in a dream that my death was at
hand. purposeful way Vera strode into my room that morning me so much. 
She came to my bed and stared down into ,-fiace.  I kept my eyes almost
closed, knowing my lashes give me the appearance of being asleep.  Her
cold hand MY forehead to feel its warmth.

she said, 'but not cool enough.  Are you recovering, ?  Your skin looks
better today why, you almost look alive.  I do believe you've put on
some weight.  Though Im Arden won't notice that."  She giggled.

"He seldom sees .  but your face, even when he sneaks in here to move
arms and legs.  Papa does that, too, and his eyes are always of tears
he can't see anything either.  The two of them V burdened down with
guilt, it's a wonder they can still up in the mornings to go to
work."

glanced at Sylvia, who'd taken to sleeping on the floor my bed.

"Get away from there, idiod' She made some that I took to be a kick.
Sylvia squealed in pain, then up and staggered over to her favourite
dun comer.  she crouched down to keep a suspicious eye on Vera.  t bath
time," sang out Vera.

"Wouldn't want the coroner I neglected you.  Gonna wash that man right
out of your she sang gaily, 'gonna paint that face and make you look ..
. but not so pretty, he'll cry too long."  was making my death like a
musical farce as she came me bearing a basin of warm water and several
towels.  she disconnected the IV and eased me round so my dangled off
the side of the bed into the basin of water  She several pitchers of
warm water to rinse off the lather.  Next moved back onto the bed,
bathed, and over my head she tugged one of my prettiest nightgowns.
She seemed to notice some difference in the flexibility of my body. She
looked disturbed, hesitated, then shook her head and began brushing and
arranging my dried hair.

Several times she used her thumb and forefinger to spread my lids and
peer into my eyes.

"Did I just see you move?  Audrina, I could swear I saw you move.  You
winced, too, when I Pulled your hair.  Are you only pretending to still
be in your coma?  Well, I don't give a damn.  Keep the game up and
pretend long enough and you'll find yourself in your grave.  Already
you've pretended too long, Audrina.  You're so weak now you can't do a
thing to help yourself.  Too weak to walk, too weak to talk, and Papa
and Arden have gone away on a daylong conference in Richmond.  They
won't be home until late.  Soon I'll be rushing off to the beauty
parlour in Arden's car, and Nola, our new maid, will be instructed to
look out for YOU Every sense I had quickened, became sharper.  My
survival instincts came alive as I quivered with apprehension,
wondering how she planned to kill me, and what I could do to save
myself.

Seconds later Vera used my' dressing room to.  apply my makeup to her
face.  I caught the whiff of my own French perfume, smelled my own
dusting powder.  Then I heard her fimbling around in my cupboard.
Finding what she wanted, she came into view wearing my best winter
suit.

"It's August, Audrina.  August in Paris, what a honeymoon that's going
to be.  Before this month is over Arden Lowe will belong to me ... and
he's got enough evidence on Papa to have him locked away in jail.  He
doesn't want to use it, for dear Papa has reformed and no longer cheats
and embezzles.  Your noble Arden made him quit.  I don't really want
Papa in jail anyway.  I want him where I can put my hands on him and
make him pay, and pay, and pay.  And when I have all his money, into an
old folks home goes dear Papa, and dear little Sylvia will get her just
rewards, too.  I think it's very romantic for you to die in the summer.
We can lay all the roses you love on your grave Remember that first box
of Valentine chocolates Arden sent you?  And I ate every piece?  I
hated you for attracting him evenI was more his age.  You've been
unconscious three s ... do you know that?  I pray you can hear'.
According husband, you and he finally found each othee just your fall
down the stairs.  Really, Audrina, you do know right ways to mess up
your life.  Too many people fall house.  Someone should have Sylvia
locked up before body else takes a tumble.  You shielded a killer,
Audrina.  you won't have to worry about anything after today.  I'm to
the village, making a big show of myself.  While I'm -the job will be
done.  I'll come home to find you dead."  laughed and then turned to
look hard at Sylviahe clickity-clack of her high heels on the floor
sounded ous as she went out the door.  ,"J was alone now, except for
Sylvia.  tried to speak, to call, and though I made some gurgling, ty
noises, nothing coherent came out.  Sylvia, I willed, to me.  Do
something to help me.  Don't let me be here when comes back.  Please,
Sylvia, please ... "In her comer Sylvia played with several prisms,
using them ""send separate light rays that crossed.  Looking up every
once a while, she vacantly stared my way.  I had to find my voice.
'psed every ounce of power I had within me to speak, "Sylvia help me
... came out as little more than a moan, but Sylvia and understood.
,-Sluggishly she rose to her feet.  Excruciatingly slowly she de red
not to my bed but to the dressing table, which was t reflected in the
mirror over the dresser.  But I could hear r fiddling around with the
pretty jars and bottles.  She tushed the perfume atomizer, wafting to
me the scent of mine.

I moaned again.  Help me.  Take me away.  Hide me.  please ... Sylvia
... help Audrina.  Something had her attention.  Now I could see her
reflection the dresser mirror.  She was looking my way.  Startled,
almost ared appearing.  Inch by slow inch she ambled towards my her
hand she carried my silver hand mirror and from she glanced at her own
reflection."  as if fascinated the pretty girl in the glass and no
wonder.  When she held her head high and threw back that tangled mop
of hair, she was breathtakingly lovely.

I found my voice again, weak and trembling" Billie cart, Sylvia ... The
little red cart ... find ... cart.  Put me on it."

Slowly, slowly, she came to gaze with unfocused eyes into my face. Then
she looked in the hand mirror.  I could tell what she must be seeing. 
She looked more like me now than I must look like myself.

"Please ... Sylvia ... help me," I whispered.

The door opened.  My heart almost stopped beating.  Vera was back so
quickly.  What had gone wrong?  Then I saw her reason for coming back.
she held a handful of biscuits.  The very kind of biscuits which Sylvia
used to have such a passion..  for.

"Look, Sylvia," charmed Vera in her sweetest voice.

"Pretty Sylvia hasn't had a treat like this in years and years, has
she?  Mean Audrina won't let you eat biscuits, but nice Vera will.
Come, pretty Sylvia, eat your biscuits like a good girl and I'll bring
you more tomorrow.  See where Your half-sister Puts Your biscuits ...
under the bed."

What was she up to?  In another few moments Vera wag on her feet,
picking up her purse, which was really my purse, and softly chuckling
to herself, she headed once more for the door.

"Goodbye, Audrina, goodbye.  When you get to heaven say hello to your
mother for me.  If my mother is there, ignore her.  Dying won't hurt
much.  Your food supply will stop, that's all.  The machine functioning
for your kidneys will shut off it won't hurt.  Maybe when the
respirator stops, You'll just stop breathing ... it's hard to tell, but
you can't last long.  AME t hat grieving for Billie helped run down
your health long before your fall.  And did you know I contributed a
little drug to your tea?  just a little to keep you in a constant
apathetic state Bang!  She shimmed the door.  No sooner had she closed
the door than Sylvia was on her kness and under the bed.  When next I
saw her she was MUn hing on a handful of biscuits and in her free hand
was the single plug that connected an my machines to the outlet.  Good
God.  Vera must have fastened the biscuits to the plug picture wire I
saw dangling from Sylvia's hand.  Sylvia the wire from the biscuits,
threw it down, then stuffed again.  I felt strange, really strange.
Sylvia was fuzzy, fuzzier ... dying!

want me to die, Syhia?  Desperate now, I concentrated last bit of will
power I had on controlling her.

to live, I fought the drowsiness that tried to take down.  if
consolidating her strength, trying to focus her eyes and them that way,
my younger sister touched the tear that from my right eye.

"Aud .. . dreeen ... naaa ... F loved me.  The bread cast upon the
waters of Sylvia was back a thousand fold

"Oh, Sylvia, quickly.  "Vera could home sooner than I think.  And she
was so slow ... ruciatingly slow.  It seemed like hours passed before
came back with Billie's little red cart that had splintered when it had
clattered down the front stairs.

"Baaa .. . ad ..."  thilmh Sylvia, tugging on my arm and trying to me
off the bed.

"Baa ... ad Vera .. ."  F'Panting, gasping, I managed to make a small
sound that nded like, "Yes," and then I willed Sylvia to try to pick me
Certainly I couldn't weigh much.  But her strength was so that she
couldn't manage to do more than tug and pull one arm and one leg.  She
succeeded in pulling me off the , so I landed on the thick piling of
the soft carpet.  The jolt t rippling waves of shock throughout my
body.  Ripples that he'd every nerve ending.

"Aud ... dreeen ... na..."

"Yes, Audrina wants you to take her away ... Down the hall a safe
place."

was difficult for her to manage.  When she had my buttocks the cart, my
head and upper body were off, and my legs .  Sylvia studied we with a
puzzled look.  Then she ed to shove up my knees, and since that seemed
to work, gave a grunt of pride and with struggling efforts, she me into
an upright position.  But when she let go, I fell s. Again she shoved
me back on the cart, then lookedI slumped over on my pulled-up knees
and tried to latch my fingers together to keep my legs in position.  My
head lolled heavily, jerkily, when I wanted to lift it.  Every small
movement I made was so difficult, so painful that I wanted to scream
with the agony of doing what used to come so easily.  Desperation made
me frantic, yet it lent me an unexpected spurt of strength and I
managed to lock my arms together with my fingers in such a way I kept
my legs from straightening out.  I was like -a crudely wrapped package.
Wringing wet with perspiration, I waited for Sylvia to begin pushing me
out of the room.

"Syl ... vee ... ah, Aud ... dreen ... na," she happily murmured as she
got down on her hands and knees and began to shove.  Fortunately she'd
left the door open when she came back with the cart.  Talking all the
time in her mumbling way about me being her baby now, she mentioned
again that Vera was baaa ... ad.

The grandfather clocks in the lower hall began to chime in all their
myriad voices.  The clocks on the mantels joined in, the clocks on the
tables, dressers and desks told the hour of three.  Someone had finally
synchronized all our clocks.

The thick carpeting down the balls, meant to soundproof and give
privacy, made it very difficult for Sylvia to push me along.  The
little wheels dug deeply into the pile and resisted.  No wonder Billie
had asked Papa to have the carpet taken up when she used the corridors.
But now it was back to hinder my escape.  Where could Sylvia put me?

Tediously Sylvia pushed, panting and heaving and talking gibberish. She
stopped to rest often, to take her prisms from the huge pockets of her
loose shift like garment.

"Aud ... dreeen .. . na.  Sweet Aud ... dreen ... na2 Weakly I turned
my head.  It moved spastically.  I managed to look over my shoulder to
see Sylvia's rapt expression of pleasure.  She was helping me, and
happy to be of use.  Her eyes were glowing with joy.  To see her like
that flooded me with strength enough to manage a few more halting
words.

"You..  said ... my name ... just ... right."

"Aud ... dreeen .. . na."  She beamed at me and wanted o stop and play,
or talk.

"Hide me .. ."  I managed to whisper before I half-fainted-.  0 began
to move in on me then.  The wwb came receded.  Bric-a-brac on the hall
tables moved, loomed up hugely.  The swirling patterns on the rug
"around me, trying to choke me as I fought off the that wanted to claim
me again.  I had to stay awake I or I would fall off the cart. Hours
and hours of behind and pushing.  Where was she taking the front stairs
were just ahead.  Now!  I wanted but I was mute with terror. Sylvia was
going to shove the stairs!  ... dreeen ... ah," she said.."Sweeeet Aud
... dreen and slowly, the cart curved away from the stairs and towards
the western wing where the First Audrina,s out of consciousness I
flitted, feeling pains stabbing e to time.  I began to silently pray. 
Downstairs I heard at door slam.

up just a fraction, Sylvia made the turn into the no, no was all I
could think as Sylvia shoved me into where all MY nightmares had begun.
The high bed ahead.  Straight under it Sylvia pushed me as I released
On MY Pulled-up knees and just in the knick of time to avoid being
knocked out.  The old-fashioned ngs, coated with years of layered dust,
met my stare.  peeked under the dust ruffle and-then let it drop..  9s
slow steps faded away.  I was alone under the bed the dust and a huge
spider was spinning a dainty web one coil to another.  It had eyes as
black as vera,s.

aware of my presence, it paused in its chore, looked then went on to
complete its half-finished design.  g my eyes, I gave in to whatever
fate had in store.  I to relax and not worry about Sylvia, who might
forget she'd hidden me.  Who would ever think to look for me the bed in
this room no one used any more?

I heard Vera screaming.

"Sylvia!  where is Audrina?  is she?"  There was a crash, as if
something had fallen,

then another cry, closer this time.

"I'll catch you, Sylvia, and when I do, you ll regret throwing that
vase at me!  You idiot, what have you done with her?  When I catch you
I'm going to rip the hair Erom your scalffl heard doors owning and
closing as the race to catch Sylvia went on.  I didn't even know Sylvia
could run.  Or was it Vera running as fast as she could to check every
room before Arden and Papa came home?

She was searching in such a hurry that it didn't seem she could be
doing a thorough job.  There were so many rooms, so many cupboards and
antechambers.

Then I heard her enter the playroom.  The dust ruffle cleared the rug
about half an inch.  Paitiffilly, I turned my head, unable to resist,
and I saw her navy blue shoes come closer.  One had a very thick sole.
She was approaching the bed.

The rocking chair began to make those familiar squeaking noises.

"Get out of that chair!"  snapped Vera, forgetting to look under the
bed as she hurried to haul Sylvia away.  Vera yelled as Sylvia
scampered out of the room.  She started to give limping chase.

just barely I could see her shoes receding.  I think I fainted then.  I
don't know how long it wai before I heard footfalls, and once more
Sylvia was peeking under the dust ruffle.

Again Sylvia was tugging on my arm.  I tried to help, but this time I
was in too much agony.  Still, somehow she managed, and later I came
back into fading daylight to find myself seated in the calla lily
rocking chair.  Sylvia lifted each of my arms so I could grip the chair
arms.  I screamed.  I didn't want to die!  Nothere, in her chair!

Sylvia closed the door behind her.  I began to rock.  Had to rock now
to escape the pain and horror of what was happening.

Fasily my full pitcher of woes emptied to hold more I had no resistance
to protest anything that happened.  I saw again Vera as she'd been in
her early teens, and she was teasing me about not knowing what men and
women did to make babies but you'll find out one day soon, she
whispered.

The ramy day in the woods came again.  The boys chased and caught me.
As always in visions I was the First Audrina, an dme suffer her shame.
It was Arden this time who off my clothes which were her clothes, and
Arden who her, who was me, and Arden was the first to ravish.  I then
screamed again, over and over.  came my father's voice from a far, far
distance, when I'd called for him.  This time not God, but Papa heard
'. and in the nick of time.

dear God in heaven, my sweet Audrina has pulled out coma!  She's
screaming!  She's going to recover!"  ling like they weighed tons, my
lids parted enough for see Papa running to me.  A few steps behind him
was But I didn't want to see Arden.  y darling, my darling," sobbed
Papa as he took me into strong arms and held me.

"Arden, call an ambulance."

"I gasped as I shoved off Arden's hands that tried to take me Papa.

"The dream, Papa, the First Audrina..  My voice raspy from disuse,
funny sounding.  He sighed and held me closer, though I was fading
away.  I Arden run off, presumably to call the ambulance.

"Yes, my darling, but that was a long time ago, and you're .  to be
just fine.  Papa will take care of you.  And the rest my life I'll go
down on my knees and give thanks for God g you, just when I thought
there was no more hope."

don't remember what happened after that.  But when I woke p I was in a
hospital room with pink walls, and red and pink were everywhere.  Papa
was sitting in a chair near the owLet me talk to her, "he said to the
nurse, who nodded, told him not to take too long.

"Mr.  Lowe wants time to see s wife, too."  Sitting on the bed, Papa
tenderly took me into his embrace, and held me so I heard his heart
thudding.

"You've had a trying ordeal, Audrina.  There were times when neither
Arden nor I ght you'd pull through and that was long before today. Todg
y was a special kind of hell for both of us.  We paced outside while
the doctor worked on you and now it appears you'll be all right. I But
there was something I wanted to know, had to know.

you've got to tell me the truth this time .. ."  My throat hurt when I
spoke, but I made myself talk.

"Was Arden there when your First Audrina died?  I saw his face in my
dreams.  He was there, wasn't he?  The First Audrina tried to warn me
against him, and I paid no heed, no heed."

He hesitated and looked towards the door that Arden had opened.  He
stood there looking distraught as I'd ever seen him, except when he was
a boy in the woods who had no courage whatsoever.

"Go on, Damain," said Arden, 'tell her the truth.  Tell her, yes, I was
there, and I ran!  just as I'm going to leave now, for I see by your
eyes that you hate me.  But I'll be back, Audrina."

In the tortuous days that followed, I refused to allow Arden into my
room.  He came with flowers, with chocolates, h pretty nightgowns and
bed jackets, but I sent them all back to him.

"Tell him to give them to Vera," I said to Papa, who looked solemn as
he saw the tears roll down my cheeks.

"You're being very hard on him, although I can understand why.  But you
must hold on there, girl," ordered Papa when I wanted to sleep.

"Since the night of your fall, Arden and I have been through hell.  I
admit I never wanted you to marry Arden Lowe, yet you did, and his
mother made me understand something I hadn't understood before.  And
both you and I owe his mother a great deal.  And if you owe her, you
owe her son even more.  Give Arden a chance, Audrina.  He loves you ...
let him come in ... please."

I stared at him disbelievingly.  Papa didn't know that Arden had been
planning to kill me and run off with Vera.

A grey-hawed nurse had opened my door and stuck her head inside.

"Time to go, Mr.  Adare.  I'm sure Mrs.  Lowe will want to have a few
minutes to spend with her husband."

"NoP I said firmly.

"Tell him to go away."

I couldn't see Arden yet.  He'd been unfaithful with Vera.  And he'd
faded my dead sister when he might have saved her ... and there was
something else I had to figure out.  Something illusive that kept
evading me even as it whispered that I still didn't know the whole
truth about the First Audrina.

Days came and days went.  I grew stronger as I was fed7'a nd
high-protein food.  Papa came to visit twiceaday.

sed to see Arden.  given physical therapy treatments to strengthen my
arms, and lessons on how to control all my muscles been so long unused.
I was taught to walk again.  In weeks I was in the hospital, not once
did I allow Arden room.  Then Papa came to take me home.  Sylvia sat
wanted to come with us," said Papa as he turned off highway.

"Really, Audrina, you can't put him off for You've got to talk this out
with him."  's Vera, Papa?"  snorted in disgust.

"Vera fell and broke her arm," he said ntly.

"Egg-shell bones if ever I heard of any.  Lord, the bills I've paid to
keep her whole."  t her gone from our house.  "My voice was hard.  What
d between me and Arden depended on what happened n Vera and Arden.  'll
leave the day the cast comes off, "his voice as hard and 'ned as
mine.

"I think Sylvia made her trip.  Sylvia's got hatred going for Vera. lie
shot me a shrewd glance.

"You can't blame Arden for what he did with her.  Many a g at
breakfast, even before Vera came back, I noticed nhappy he seemed. He'd
smile when you were looking y, but when you turned your head, I could
tell his nights you left much to be desired and it pleased me.  I
confess I pleased me, too, that I'd made him unhappy.  I hoped en never
lived long enough to have another happy hour.  gly thoughts welled up
out of me as we approached that tall, ndid and restored house.
Whitefern.  What a laugh to have n so proud that my ancestry was dated
back to those who'd ashore to settle in The Lost Colony.  ith Papa
supporting me on one side, and Sylvia on the r, we slowly ascended the
porch steps.  Arden threw open front door and came rushing out.  He
tried to kiss me.  I away.  He then tried to take my hand.  I snatched
my d from his and spat, "Don't touch met Go to Vera and find r solace
as you found it while I was in that coma."

Paleand looking miserable, Arden stepped back and allowed Papa to
guide me inside.  Once we were inside, I fell onto the purple velvet
lounge, now with its golden tassels and cording bright and new, and all
its stuffing covered over.

Now came the moment I'd dreaded, when I was left alone i Arden. Wearily
I closed my eyes and tried to pretend he wasn't there.

"Are you going to lie there with your eyes closed and say nothing?
Won't you even look at me?"  Then his voice grew louder.

"What the hell do you think I'm made of?  You were in a coma and Vera
was there, willing to do what she could to help me survive.  You lay on
that bed stiff and cold and how was I to know that day by day you were
gradually getting better when you never indicated in any way that you
we reF He got up to pace the room, never striding its full length but
stalking back and forth the length of the chaise I lay on.  With some
difficulty I rose to my feet.

"I'm going upstairs.  Please don't follow me.  I don't need you any
more, Arden.  I know you and Vera planned to kill me.  I used to have
such faith in you, such trust that I'd found the one man in this
hateful world who would always be there when I needed him.  But you
failed me.  You wanted me dead so you could have her!"

His face turned white and he was so shocked that his voice ran away and
left him speechless, when he'd learned to be as garrulous as Papa.  I
used that opportunity to head for the stairs.  In another moment he
rushed to stop me, catching me easily since I moved so slowly.

"What's ahead for us now that you hate me?"  he asked hoarsely. Without
answering I passed on by the room we'd shared, though when I looked in
there I saw my regular large bed was back, and the narrow one had been
carted away.  Everything had been refurbished so there was nothing left
to remind me of all those dreadful days when Id Lain there unmoving and
waiting to die.

"Where are you going?"  he asked.

What right did he have to ask me anything?  He didn't belong in my life
now.  Let him have Vera.  They deserved each other.  but gaining
strength with each step I took, I other stairs that soon took me into
the attic.  Arden to follow.  I whirled round and flared at him in a
hot temper.  Let me do something I've been trying to do most of my I
lay on that bed and heard you and Vera plotting life, do you know what
bothered me most?  Well, I'm tell you.  There's a secret about me that
I've got to find more important than you, than anything else.  So leave
and let me finish something that should have been a long time ago.  And
maybe when I see you again, I to look at your face .. . for right now,
I don't think to see you again."  drew back and stared at me bleakly,
making my heart I saw him again as a boy, when I'd loved him so much.

t of Billie, who'd told me once everybody made and even her son wasn't
perfect.  Still, I headed for for the spiralling iron stairs that would
take me into where even now I could hear the wind chimes tinkling,
trying as they'd always tried to fill the empty in my memory bank.

The Secret of the Wind Chimes Laboriously I managed to climb the iron
stairs that had led me away from Vera so many times.  The sun was
shining brightly through all the stained-glass windows and on the
patterned Turkey rug they threw myriad, confusing patterns, burning
this room, as the sunlight did, into a living kaleidoscope.  And I was
the centre of all the colours, making everything happen, as the colours
caught in my chameleon-coloured hair and made it a rainbow, too.  My
arms were tattooed with light, and in my eyes I felt the colours that
patterned my face as well.  I looked around at the scenes my childish
eyes had loved so well, and saw high above the long slender rectangles
of painted glass suspended on their faded, scarlet, silken cords.

I looked around, trembling as I did, expecting childhood memories to
rise up like spectres and scare me off, but only soft memories came, of
me all alone, wishing, always wishing to go to school, to have
playmates, to be allowed the freedom other children my age had.

Had I made so much effort to gain no new knowledge?  "What is it?"  I
screamed at the wind chimes high above.

"I always hear you blowing and trying to tell me something tell me now
that I'm here and willing to listen!  I wasn't willing before, I know
that now!  Tell me now!"

"Audrina," Papa's voice came from behind me, 'you sound hysterical.
That's not good for you in -your weakened con it ion.1 "Did Arden send
you up here?"I yelled.

"Am I never to know anything?  Must I go into my grave with my mind
full of holes?  Papa tell me the secret of this room!"

He didn't want to tell me.  His dark, fugitive eyes quickly dodged
away, and he started talking about how weak I was, how I needed to lie
down and rest.  I ran tobim, to batter hi she caught both my fists and
held them in one hand he stared down into my eyes."  Perhaps the time
has come.  Ask me what you me, Papa, everything I need to know.  I feel
like I'm my mind by not knowing."

he said, looking around for something to sit on, but nothing but the
floor.  He sat down and leaned back the window frame and managed to pun
me down with me in his arms, he began to speak in a heavy is not going
to be easy to say, nor is it going to be t for you to hear, but you're
right.  You do need to Your aunt told me from the beginning you should
know about your older sister."  hated breath I waited.  vision you had
when first you went into the rocking where the boys jumped out of the
bushes I'm sure now -realize that those three boys raped my Audrina.
But she 't die as I told you.".

ts not dead?  Papa ... where is she?"  t and hear, and don't ask more
questions until I'm .  I told all those lies only to protect you from
koowing the ugliness that could have spoiled your LIFE.  That day
Audrina was nine, after the rape, she staggered home hing the remnants
of her clothes together trying to hide nudity.  They had humiliated her
so, she had no pride left.  dy, soaking wet, bruised and scratched and
bleeding, she filled with shame, and in the house twenty children were
for the birthday party to begin.  She came in the back and tried to
steal upstairs without anyone seeing her, but mother was in the
kitchen.  She saw Audrina's shocking and raced to follow her up the
stairs.  Audrina was able say only one word, and that was 'boys'.  That
was enough your mother to realize what had happened.  So your mother
her in her arms and told her it would be all right, that those things
did happen sometimes, but she was still the same girl we both loved."

"Your papa doesn't have to she told Audrina .  and what a mistake that
was.

Those words clearly told Audrina that I would be ashamed of her, and
what those boys had done had ruined her value for me.  She started
screaming that she wished the boys had killed her and left her dead
under the golden rain tree for she deserved to che now that God had
deserted her and failed her when she had prayed for him to help."

"Oh, Papa," I whispered, "I know how she must have felt ... 1 "Yes, I'm
sure you do.  Then your mother made her second mistake, an even worse
one.  She took Audrina into the bathroom and filled the tub with
scalding hot water, then she forced my girl into that hot water, and
with a hard brush she began to scrub off the contamination of those
boys.  She was already sore and cut and bruised, and her body had
endured enough shock, but Lucietta went wild with rage and wielded that
harsh scrub brush with no mercy, as if she was ridding the world of all
filth, all boys, never realizing what she was doing to her own
daughter.  It was degradation your mother was trying to remove, and if
that brush took off a great deal of Audrina's skin, she didn't seem to
notice.

"Downstairs, the kids who had come for the party were clamouring for
ice cream and cake, and Ellsbeth dished it out, and told the guests
that Audrma had come down with an awful cold and she wouldn't be
attending her own party.  Naturally this didn't go over very well, and
soon the guests departed.  Some left their gifts, others took theirs
back, as if they thought Audrina was slighting them.

"Ellsbeth called me at my office and told me briefly what she thought
had happened.  My rage was so huge I felt I might have a heart attack
as I ran to my car and drove home so fast it's a wonder the police
didn't stop me.  I reached home just in time to see your mother pulling
a white cotton nightgown down over Audrina's head.  I glimpsed that
small raw body, so red it seemed to be bleeding all over.  I could have
killed those boys an beaten your mother for being so cruel as to use
that damned brush on that tender skin that had already endured enough.
I never forgave her for doing that.  I had little mean ways of throwing
it back in her face later on.  When she scrubbed Audrina down with that
brush, she implanted the idea in her that the filth would never come
off, that she was more ruined in my eyes, in everybody's eyes.  Then
your went to the medicine cabinet and came back with not the kind we
use nowadays, but that old kind that stung like fire.  screamed at
Lucietta, "No more!"  and she dropped the and Audrina broke away from
her mother.  She seemed to see me, the father she'd always loved so
much, and feet she went flying up to the attic.  I chased behind her so
did your mother.  Audrina screamed all the way, no from pain as well as
from shock.  She ran up these spiral to this room welre in right now.
She was young and fast, when I came into the cupola she was standing on
a chair, had managed to open one of those high windows."

pointed to the one.

"That's where she was, and the wind howling in, and the rain, and the
thunder was cracking, lightning was flashing, and the colours in here
were -boggling with the brightness the lightning caused.  The chimes
were beating frantic ally  It was pandemonium up And Audrina on that
chair had one leg outside the ow and was preparing to jump when I raced
up and seized of her and pulled her back inside.  She fought me, clawed
my face, screaming as if I represented to her all that was evil very
male, and if she harmed me, she'd succeed in harming ... the ones who'd
stolen her pride when they ravished body.7 I twisted about to stare up
at the wind chimes that hung so on their silken cords, yet I thought I
could hear them ly tinkling.  here's more, darling, much more.  Do you
want to wait for her day when you feel stronger?"  o, I'd waited too
long already.  It was now, or it was never.  on, Papa, tell it all."

"I told your mother time and again she shouldn't have given ina a bath.
She should have comforted her, and later we have gone to the police.
But your mother didn't want her and humiliated by more men who would
have asked all sorts of intimate questions a child shouldn't have to r.
I was so enraged, I could have killed those boys with my bare hands,
wrung their necks, castrated them, done' something so terrible no doubt
they would have put me in prison for life ... but my Audrina wouldn't
name them ... or else she couldn't name them for fear of their
reprisal.  Maybe they threatened her, I don't know."

And Arden had been there, too.  Arden had been there and she had
pleaded to him for help and he'd run away.

"Where is she, Papa?"

He hesitated, turning me so he could look into my eyes, and up above
the wind chimes began to clamour more, and I knew instinctively they'd
keep on doing that until I knew the secret.

I stood in the circle of Papa's powerful arms in the middle of the
Turkey rug, where he'd pulled me so I wouldn't stand too near the
glass.

"Why did you pull me from the windows just now, Papa?"

"The sky.  Didn't you notice the dark clouds?  A storm is brewing, and
I don't like being up here when storms come.  Let's go downstairs
before I tell you the rest."

"Tell it now, Papa.  This is where she always came to play.  I always
knew those paper dolls were her dolls."

He cleared his throat, as I needed to clear mine.  It was constricting,
making me breathe too fast, making me feel panic was soon to make me
scream.  It was like being in the rocking chair again when I was seven,
and I was scared, so scared.

Papa sighed heavily, releasing me long enough to put his large hands to
his face, but only briefly, as if aft aid to let go of me for too
long.

"I loved that girl, God how I loved her.  She gave so much to those she
loved, gave so much trust to me.  She was really the only female who
ever trusted me fully and I promised myself I'd never disappoint her.
And it wasn't only that she was an exceptionally beautiful child; she
also had the ability to charm everyone with her warmth, her
friendliness, her sweetness.  She had something else, too, some
indefinable quality that made her seem lit up from the inside with
happiness, with a contagious exuberance for living that so few of us
have.  To be with her made you feel more vitally alive than you felt
with anyone else.  A trip to the beach, the zoo, the museum, a park,
and she'd light up your life and make you feel seeing everything
through her eyes.  Because things, you saw them as well.  It was a rare
re than anything money can buy.  The least little she was delighted. 
She loved the weather, the good rare."  He d. Such rare qualities she
had, so very , lowered his eyes briefly and met mine, then looked
away.

1 mother was happy when Audrina was near, and Lucky had reasons enough
to be unhappy; Ellsbeth loved both of them.  And I tried to be
everything both I don't think I ever succeeded in making either h." His
voice faded small then as his eyes swam tears.

"But she should have obeyed our instruc- 'ime and time again we told
Audrina not to take the she should have known better."  t stop now," I
said nervously.  your mother washed away all the evidence of the rape,
we could keep Audrina home and the secret would this house.  But
secrets have a way of leaking out faster what you do to keep them
hidden.  I wanted to find 'boys and smash their stupid heads together.
As I said 5 she would if t tell us who they were, nor would she to
school where she might see them again.  She didn't to go to any school.
She refused to eat, to leave her bed, she look in a mirror.  She got up
one night and broke nurror in this house.  She'd scream when she saw
me, not father any more but as another man who might harm her.  hated
anything male.  She threw stones and drove her poor away.  I never
allowed her to have a cat again, fearful of what might do if it was
male."

I stared at him incredulously.

"Oh, Papa, I'm so sed.  Are you trying to tell me that Vera is truly
the First the one I've envied all my 160 Papa, you don't even Vera!"
The strange light in his eyes frightened me.

"I couldn't let 11 he went on, his eyes riveted to mine, pinning me to
butterflies were pinned to a board.

"If she died, part me would have died, too, and shed take that gift
ofters into grave and never again would I have known one second of
happiness  I saved her.  Saved her in the only way I knew how.

Like water sinking into concrete, something was trying to filter into
my brain, some knowledge that hovered on the brink of being born.

"How did you save her?"

"My sweet Audrina ... haven't you guessed yet?  Haven't I explained and
explained and given you all the clues you need?  Vera is not my First
Audrina ... you are."

"No!"  I screamed,"I can't be!  She's dead, buried in the family
cemetery!  We went there every Sunday ... I "She's not dead, because
you are alive.  There was no First Audrinal because you are my First
and only Audrina and lif C 3W strikes me dead for telling a he, then
let him.  strike me -dead, I'm telling the truth!"

Those voices I heard in my head, those voices that saild, Papa, why did
they do it?  Why?

It's only a dream, love, only a dream.  Papa will never let wtyhing bad
happen to his Audrina, his sweet Audyina.  Butyour oUff dead sister had
the gift, that wonder rid gift that I want for you now that she doesn't
need it any longer.  Papa can use the gift to help you, to help Momma
and Aunt Ellsbeth.

God wanted the First and Best Audrina dead, didn't he?  He let her the
because she disobeyed and used the shortcut.  She was punished because
she liked feeling pretty in expensive new dresses, nam't she?  That
First Audnna thought it was fun for the boys to run after her and she
could prove to them she could run faster than Aunt Ellsbeth.  Faster
than any other girl in school.  She thought tWd never, never catch her,
and God was supposed to be looking out for her, wasn't he?  She prayed
to him and he didn't hear.  He lot sat up there in his heaven and
pretended everything was just jine in the woods, when He knew, He knew.
He was glad another proud Whitefern girl was being assaulted because
God is a man, zoo!  God didn't ca rel Papa!  and that's the truth of it
isn't it?

God is not that cruel, Audrina.  God is merci rid when you give him a
chance.  But one has to do what's best for oneself when He has so many
to take care of.

Then what good is he, Papa, what good I screamed and tore myself from
his grasp.  Then I raced, the stairs at breakneck speed, not coring if
I fellTheTirst Audrina Out into the stormy, threatening afternoon I
ran to escape I Whitefern.  I ran to escape Papa, Arden, Sylvia, Vera,
and, most of all, I ran to escape the ghost of that First Audrina, who
was now trying to tell me I didn't exist at all.

The rape had happened to her, not me!  I sped like a crazy woman,
aft-aid all her memories were chasing after me, wanting to jump into my
brain and fill all the empty Swiss cheese holes with her terror.

I ran, trying to run fast enough and far enough to escape what I was,
to escape everything that had tormented me most of my life.  Lies,
lies, running to where they couldn't exist, and art he same time not
knowing where I was going to find such a place.

Behind me I heard Arden call my name but that was her .  too!  Nothing
was my very own.

"Audrina, wait!  Please stop running!"  I couldn't stop.  It was as if
I were a spring-wound toy, twisted for years and years until now
finally I had to let go or break.

"Come backV Arden called.

"Look at the sky!"  He sounded desperate.

"Audrina, come back!  You're not well!  Stop acting crazyV Crazy, was
he telling me I was crazy?

"Darling," he gasped as he continued to chase me, sounding almost as
panicked as I felt, 'nothing can be as bad as you think."

What did he know about being me?  Me, like a fly caught in Papa's
sticky web of lies, spinning round and round me, wrapping me in a
cocoon so my life could be drained dry pleasure.  I threw my arms wide
and screamed at the sky, at God, at the wind that rose up and tore at
my hair and whipped The wind screamed back and came at me more fiercely
I felt I might fall.  I yelled again, deoing Nobody, nothing was ever
going to tell me what not to do, not ever again would I believe anyone
my arm was seized.  I was whipped round by at him with both fists"
battering his face, his as easily as Papa had, he caught both my hands
perhaps he might have dragged me back to the house was with me this
time.  He lost his footing and let go .  I was free to run on.  te
marble headstones of the Whitefern cemetery view, stark against the
gloomy, menacing sky.  flashes in the distance heralded a big storm.
Deep thunder grumbled beyond the treetops near the church steeple.  I
was terrified of storms when I was Whitefern.  Out here, God help me,
for he hadn't her, and probably wouldn't help me either.  , yet needing
to find the truth, I whirled about and to search for something to dig
with.  Why hadn't I to bring a shovel?  Where did the person who tended
leave his equipment?  Somewhere I had to find for digging.  family plot
consisted of about one-half acre that was within a low crumbling brick
wall with four eways.  Red ivy crept along those walls, trying to choke
from the masonry.  Even in the winters when Papa had us to come here at
least once a week, preferably on s, rain or shine, sick or not, it had
been a dreary, bleak with the trees clawing at the sky with black bony
fingers.  in autumn, when the trees were brilliant elsewhere, in the
the leaves chased along dry and brown on the ground, like ghosts
tripping lightly back to their graves.  pi to look around, I began to
tremble.  I saw the grave mother, of Aunt Ellsbeth, and Billie.  There
was a space to my mother's grave where one day my father would lie,
beside him was the grave of the First and Best Audrina..bly she'd drawn
me here.  Inside her coffin she was now me, laughing at me, telling me
in all ways possible thatrd never equal her in beauty, in charm, in
intelligence and her 'gifts' were hers alone and never would she
relinquish one to save me from being ordinary.

It was her tombstone that glittered the most.  Rising up tall and
slender and graceful, like a young girl itself, that single tombstone
seemed brighter than all the others, catching all the ghostly light
there was in the cemetery.

I told myself that we always saw what we wanted to see, and that was
all.  Nothing to be afraid of, nothing.  Stiffening my resolve, I
strode straight to that headstone.

How many times had I stood right where I was standing now and hated
her?

"And here is the grave of my beloved," I imagined Papa intoning as I
hesitated.

"Here my first daughter sleeps in hallowed ground.  In her place by my
side, when the good Lord sees fit to take me."

No more, nd more!  I fell on my knees and began to paw at the grass
with my bare hands.  My nails broke; soon my fingers were sore and
bleeding.  Still I dug on and on; at long last, I had to know the
truth.

"Stop thad' roared Arden, rushing into the cemetery.  He ran to pull me
to my feet.  Then he had to wrestle me to keep me from falling again to
the ground' and doing what I felt I had to do.

"What the devil is wrong with you?"  he shouted.

"Why are you clawing at that grave?"

"I've got to see herP I screamed.  He looked at me as if I were crazy.
I felt crazy.

The wind whipped up into a real gale.  It tore more frantically at my
hair, at my clothes.  Frenzied, it beat the limbs of the trees so they
snapped almost in my face.  Arden had me by my waist, trying to wrestle
me into submission when out of the sky came a deluge of hail pelleting
down on both of us with stinging force.

"Audrina, you are hysterical!"  he bellowed at me, sounding like
Papa.

"There isn't any body down there!"

I screamed back, the wind deafening us both so we had to shout, even
though our faces were only inches apart.

"How would you know?  Papa lies, you know that!  He'll say anything, do
anything to keep me tied to himV Appearing to consider that briefly,
Arden then shook Wishe shook me again.

"You're talking nonsensel' he "Stop behaving like this!  There is
nobody in that There isn't any older sister and now you have to face up
V eyed, I stared at him.  There had to be the First Dead , otherwise my
whole life would be a lie.  I screamed and fought him, determined to
defeat him.  Determined, t I would dig down into the grave and drag out
her remains.  Yes, I told myself as I struggled with Arden, was a liar,
a cheat and a thief.  How could anyone believe he said?  He had
constructed my whole life on lies.  foot slipped in the mud then. Arden
tried to keep me falling.  Instead, we both tumbled to the ground. 
Still I on, kicking, scratching, bucking and trying to do what ther
Audrina hadn't been able to do when she was nine.  him!

n fell flat upon me, spreading his arms to pin mine to earth.  His legs
twined around my ankles so I couldn't even His face hovered over mine,
taking me back to her day Spiderlegs had tried to kiss her in the woods
against her I butted My head up with such force against his jaw that
when his teeth bit through his lower lip.  on his face now like it had
been on theirs.  Rain beat down on my face.  Rivulets streamed off him
and me.  I flashed in and out of that day in the woods, seeing as
Spencer Longtree ... seeing him as all three of those , seeing him as
every boy or man who'd ever raped a girl woman and this time for the
First Audrina, for every since time began, I was going to get even and
win.  I heard the rip of my blouse as I fought.  I felt my violet skirt
e up to my hips, but I only cared about my revenge.  Blood my scratches
streaked his face, too, and the wind was in hair and in mine.  All
round us beat the fury of nature gone e, driving us both into more and
more violence.  He slapped me twice.  Like Papahad slapped Momma for
the little thing.  He'd never done anything like that before.  It e me
even angrier, but I never felt the pain.  I hit him back.  grabbed my
hands again, seeming to realize that he couldn't k letting go my wrists
again.

"Stop it!  Stop it" screamed Arden above the shrieking wind.  CI'm not
going to let you do this to me, or to yourself.  Audrmia, if you have
to see what's in that grave, I'll run back to the house for a shovel.
Look at your hands, your poor, poor hands."

Already he had my hands captured, but even so I tugged them free again,
wanting to rake his eyes from his skull.  Then he had them again and
was pressing my filthy hands to his lips as his eyes turned soft and
gazed down into the fury of mine.

"You lie there, glaring hatred up at me, and all I can think is how
much I love you.  Haven't you had revenge enough.  What else do you
want to do to me?"

"Shame you, hurt you, like you shamed and hurt meP "All right, go
aheadV He released my hands and crouched above me, putting his hands
behind his back.

"Go ahead," he yelled when I hesitated.

"Do what you want to.  Use those ragged, dirty nails on my face, and
laing your thumbs into my eyes and maybe when I'm blind, you'll be
satisfied!"

I slapped him repeatedly with my open palm, first with one hand and
then with the other.  He winced as his head was rocked from side to
side from the force of my hard blows.  My strength seemed that of a man
from all the rage I felt.  Adrenalin pumped through my body as I
streamed and hit at him.

"You beast!  You cowardly brute, let me go!  Go back to Vera she's the
one who deserves you!"

As fiercely angry as I was, his amber eyes seemed to sizzle as they
blazed down at me.  Above us the sky split apart.  Bolts of lightning
zig-zagged downward and struck a giant oak that must have sent its
roots into every Whitefern buried in this cemetery.  The tree split
open and fell with a tremendous crash just a few feet away, then it
began to bum.

We didnt even turn our heads to watch the giant he.  I kept on beating
on his face and chest with my fists which were raw and bleeding and
beginning to weaken and hurt.  Appearing so wild now, completely out of
himself, Arden ruthlessly threw Ins weight flat down on me again,
almost burying me in the soft and mushy ground.  My arching back again
tried to throw him off, but I was tiring.  He cursed as I'd never heard
him curse before, then lunged to crush his lips down on mine.  I turned
my head to the right, then the left, then right again, but try Id I
couldn't escape the brutal kiss that bruised my caused my teeth to bite
down into the tender flesh my mouth.

his ravishing hand was inside my tom blouse, my front-hook bra.  Seeing
his animal lust made me to kill him.

as I fought him, something just as ravenous as what had of him betrayed
me and caught fire.  I fought on, but n my blows I responded to his
kisses, parting my lips as my fists stopped flailing, and my arms
suddenly him and drew his head down to mine.  I bit his lip, him to
draw away, but he kept on with that kiss until was kissing back,
stroking him, loving and hating him, off his wet clothes, too, until we
were both naked on ve of my dead sister.  his arms, on that grave,
while the storm beat into a wild ndo, I surrendered to the greatest
passion of my life.  Not tender loving as it had been that one time,
but brutal that devoured and-demanded.  Gasping and panting, I back to
reality time and time again, to find myself jerking one orgasm after
another.  Then he rolled off and came at in a different way, making me
into the sknimal he seemed.  hands reached beneath me and cupped my
swollen breasts.  moaned.  hen it was over and we were both locked in
each other's r e. Even so, we kept kissing, and I returned kiss for
kiss, if we hadn't had enough and would do it all over again and stop
until we were both dead.  On shimmering hot waves of smouldering desire
to do it all again, out here in the storm when the world could end any
and no sin would matter, I drifted back to being me.  to find I'd lost
again.  I hadn't meant to surrender.  won't leave this place until I
see her body," I said as I rose feet and began to pull on my sopping
wet, filthy, torn .. . like hers, just like hers.  ""If that's what you
want and need to convince you," he said an angry way, "I'll run back to
the house and get a shovel wait until I'm back!"

"All right.  But ran fast."

Zipping up his trousers as he ran off, Arden soon disappeared into the
day that had turned into night.  Perhaps it was six o'clock and
twilight should have had the sky M Of vibrant colours, but the night
was black as tar, and the storm raged or, full force.  I didn't seek
any shelter, just fell flat on the ground and cried.

In what seemed only a few minutes, Arden was back.  He yelled at me to
get out of the way, then put his foot on the spade and savagely
shovelled down into the soggy earth.  He heaved and panted as he threw
out shovelfuls of dirt.  Then he wass gasping, "This ground is only six
feet above sea level.  The law insists on a concrete burial vault ...
so I should be hitting it soon.1 The rain had me almost blind.  I
crawled closer to where I could look down and see her vault.  On and on
Arden dug, until there was water in the deep hole.  On my knees on the
very edge, the mud began to slide.  I yelped and grabbed for something
to cling to as I slipped, unable to stop my momentum.  Arden yelled,
"Get back!"  just as I fell on top of him and both of us slid down into
her empty grave.

Bleakly I stared down into his eyes.

"Arden ... does this mean I really am the First, the Best Audrma?"

Sorrow was in his deep voice.

"Yes, darling."  He threw out the shovel and embraced me.

"Your father didn't lie.  He told you the truth."

All the strength I'd felt before vanished.  I went limp in his arms,
drowning in the realization that it had been me who had been gang-raped
when I was nine years old, and my entire family Momma, Papa, Aunt
Ellsbeth and even Vera had connived to deceive me.  What did they think
I was, a weakling who couldn't cope?  Putting me in that damned rocking
chair to gain peace and contentment, to find that special something
they had called her 'gift' when all along it had been me?  I was the
First, the Best Audrina, and to this grave they'd brought me, and
forced me to put flowers into the um that was really mine.  Oh, God,
they were the ones who were crazy!

Somehow Arden managed to hoist me out of the grave first, then he
scrambled out of the hole.  He wanted to carry me back to -the house,
but that would show Papa and Vera, again, that Wong enough.  Devastated
and wrung out, still to walk beside Arden as the rain pasted our
clothes our hair to our heads.  Like war victims, we blindly forward,
making that long trek back to that of deceit.  By the time we reached
there, the rain had us both free of mud Me were inside the house, Arden
hurried me into the cloakroom, and in there he dried my hair.  He off
my wet clothes and I stood there shivering, my .  , goose bumps rising
up on my arms.  He me down with a fresh towel before he pressed his
face my thighs.  I jumped with the electrical thrill of his kiss why
hadn't he kissed me there before?  've never allowed me to do anything
like this," he said took a white terry cloth robe from the linen
cupboard and it for my arms to slip into.  His lips brushed over my
before he pulled the robe on more snugly.

"Don't pull from me again.  Scream and yell and fight back, but don't
me out.  I don't know how to cope with you when you and cold.  Tonight
when you fought and screamed, it to me you were ftilly all ve and for
the first time you I of your life, and even if you thought you went
down you were the victor.  You have made me see how e our lives could
have been, and how wonderful our will be from now on."  couldn't decide
anything now.  I had to find Papa and him.  I had so many questions.
I'd force him to answer d to.  I pulled from Arden's embrace.  11 need
to see Papa, then we'll talk about us."

tiently I waited for Arden to dry his hair and change his wet clothes
into a robe similar to mine, and then, with beside me, I went to find
Papa.

Papa's Story In the hallways the lamps threw shadows on the walls as
Arden and I walked up the stairs to take us up to the attic, and into
the cupola ... and even before we were halfway up the spiralling iron
stairs, I heard Sylvia's voice as she tried to talk to Papa.

"Aud ... dreen ... na ... F "I don't know where she is," said Papa, as
if beside himself.

"That's why I came up here.  From this vantage point you can look for
miles and miles .. but I can't see a damned thing!"

"I'm here, Papa," I said as I came through the opening in the floor and
stood again on the Turkey rug.  Quickly he closed the window to keep
out the wind and rain that had the wind chimes beating frantically My
huge Papa looked exhausted, too weary to face all the questions I had
to ask.

"What did you do to me?  Why did you lie to me?  Papa, we dug into her
grave it's empty!"

Sagging, he slumped to the floor where his great head bowed low.

"I did what I thought was best."

How could he know what was best for me?  He was a man.  How could any
man know what it felt like to be a woman or girl, used and defiled.

His head lifted and his dark eyes pleaded for understanding, telling me
that he had tried, desperately tried to give me back the pride the boys
had stolen.

"They had left you so little, so little, and nine years old was a long,
long way from dying, "he said in that gritty, hurt voice as I stared
down at him and Arden's arms came round me to give me additional
strength.

"And if your mother lied, and I lied, we both did what we could to you
believe there had once been a First Audrina, and it was she who was
raped, and not you."  .  358 I yelled.

"How could you make me forget what ?  What stave you the right to take
my mind and fill holes, so that I've gone through my life thinking I'm
for you gave me that right," he answered wearily.

"It's to deceive a child.  Darling, listen to me and don't mind.  Your
aunt said a. hundred times we should be and help you cope, and
sometimes Your mother agreed But it was I who didn't want You to live
with what .  It was I who made the decision to do what I to erase that
rainy day in the woods from Your mind."  .. free from Arden,s arms and
began to pace the Turkey glancing at Sylvia, who backed up to a window
and stared the wind chimes as if she were hearing them blow" when just
dangled now, motionless.

went on, following me with his troubled eyes.

"You are Audrina.  There never was another.  After you were... what
happened, I had a grave dug and a tombstone Put to convince you that
you had an older, dead sister.  It was way of saving you from yourself
I His voice had turned very a I known all along and hidden from the
truth?  The tion badgered me.  Had I known I was the first but no r the
best?  I sobbedJeeling myself coming apart.  Into MY came a fleeting
memory of staggering home that day, ing the house was full of birthday
guests, their cars had parked in the drive ... and inside the back door
Momma grabbed me, and she'd made me sit in that scalding hot er while I
screamed, and she used that stiff hard brush to b where already I was
bleeding and hurting so much.  MY mother hurting me worse than the boys
had.  Making all skin raw and ready to bleed, trying to cleanse me of
their h, and at the same time letting me know I'd never be sed, for she
couldn t reach inside my brain and scrub there ... and Papa wouldn't
want me now ... wouldn't want again Whirling, I confronted Papa "What
did you do to me forget?  How did you do it?"

"Stand still and let me tell you then," he said, his face going red

"And I'm going to confess something I've tried to hide from myself ...
I didn't think you could cope with that gang rape ... because I
couldn't cope with it.  To save myself and to save my love for you ...
I had to make you over into that same chaste little girl who'd never
known an ugly deed.  When you wouldn't go back to school, and wouldn't
cat, and refused to look in the mirror because you didn't want to see
the face of a girl who'd been so brutally used, I took You to a
psychiatrist.  He tried to help you, but in the end he decided the best
thing to do was give you electric shock treatments.  I was there the
day they strapped you down.  You screamed as you were buckled down and
a leather strap was put between your lips so you wouldn't bite off your
tongue.  Inside I was screaming too.  Then they fired that electricity
into your brain ... and your back buckled up as you tried to scream. It
came out a horrible gurgle that I can hear to tins day ... and I
screamed, too.  I couldn't stand that again.  I took you home, and
decided that in my own way, I could do the same thing without all that
torture."

I stopped pacing and stared down at him.

"But Papa, I do remember some things.  My cat named Tweedle Dee ... and
I remember visiting the First Audrina's grave ... and I was seven then,
Papa, only seven!"

Cynically he smiled.

"You were a clever little girl I had to outsmart.  But as clever as you
were, you were only a child.  It's not difficult for an adult to tell a
child anything and make her believe.  And I wanted you to retain a few
memories, so I planted them in your head piecemeal.  You were seven the
first day you met Arden; I let you keep that memory I took you on my
lap and as I sat in the rocking chair, I talked to you and told you
about your older sister, and I re moulded you, reshaped you into what
you'd been before clean and pure, sweet and loving.  Yes, it was I who
planted a great many notions in your head.  I considered you an angel
too good for this world where innocence is abhorred.  You were to me
everything that was sweet and feminine and to have you raped was an
abomination I couldn't live with.  I did what I did for myself, too, to
convince myself that it wasn't my daughter who'd been raped, not my
beautiful, gifted, innocent child.  you well, didn't I?  I did save you
from thinking didn't I?  If I hadn't done what I did, what become of
you, Audrina?  What?  pride in yourself had vanished.  You cringed in
the You tried to live in them.  You wanted to die, and die have if I
hadn't reconstructed you.  I told you the about your life, and forced
you to forget all the bad a few.  We need a few bad experiences to
appreciate You weren't stupid; perhaps in your own way you clever."
ded, almost absently, reliving it all over again.  How e his best to
take away the horror of what those boys e to me on that awful day.  in
the rain.  It I wash it from your memory?"  he pleaded, his eyes with
tears.

"Wash it clean away?  Didn't I build for you tale cast leto live in,
and around you I put only the best?  your mother, Audrina, but for you
I stole and cheated, you everything to make up for what had been
stolen.  it I do enough?  Tell me what I didn't do.  "He swiped with t
at his tears of self-pity, as if he'd suffered more than y after day I
held you on my lap and told you over and again, it hadn't happened tq
you but to your older sister, they killed the First Audrina and left
her on the mound r the golden rain tree  I even tried to make her death
ty.  Not you, I said over and over, it was the other Audrina, dead in
the grave.  After a while you did seem to forget, in your own mind you
did something that surprised even You forgot the rape, and made it seem
something terious had killed the First Audrina in the woods.  On your
you banished the knowledge of the rape from your ory.  shivered, then
looked away from Papa, who was still ng.

"I rocked you, cradled you in my arms, and told you as all a nightmare
and you stared at me with those huge, ured eyes, so hopeful, so wanting
to believe it hadn't ned to you.  I guessed I was on the right track so
I kept day after day ... in my own way I did for you the best Id.

The best he could, the best he could... "Are you listening, darling? I
made you into a virgin again.  Maybe I confused things for you a bit,
but it was the best I could do."

The rain on the pointed copper roof of the cupola made a loud steady
staccato beat, drumming into me acceptance, telling me time and again
that deep inside me I'd known all the time.

"Was it easy to shift time about, Papa, and make me forget even my
right age?"

"Easy?"  he asked hoarsely, rubbing at his tired eyes.

"No, it wasn't easy.  I did everything to erase time, to make it
unimportant  Bemuse we lived so far from others, I could fool you.  I
had all the newspapers stopped.  The newspapers that came were old ones
that I stuffed in the mailbox.  I made you two years younger.  I put
away all the calendars and told your aunt not to let you look at her
television set.  I set all the clocks in this house so they told
different times.  We gave you tranquillisers for your headaches and you
thought it was only aspirin, so you slept often.  Sometimes you woke up
from a nap and you'd think it was a new day, when only an hour had
passed.  You were confused, and ready to believe anything I said that
would give you peace.  I made Vera swear she'd never tell you the truth
or she'd be punished so severely that she'd never want to look in a
mirror again and not one red cent she inherit if she betrayed what I
was doing.  Your mother and your.  aunt held Tuesday "teatimee' twice a
week so you'd think time really did move along swiftly.  You kept
asking always what day it was, what week, what month.  Even what year.
You wanted to know your age, why you didn't have birthday parties, why
Vera didn't have them.  We lied and told you anything to make you
unaware of time.  Then a week later wed convince you months had passed.
And in seventeen months we convinced you there had been an older sister
who died in the woods that's all the tune it took.  And your aunt and
your mother tutored you and kept you up with your schoolwork, though
I'd told you you'd never been to school at all.  It seemed
saferthatway.  Whenyou went back, we sent you to a new school where no
one knew your history."  in my eyes.  No First and Best Audrina, only
Papa," I whispered, feeling very weak, very strange, my eyes on him as
if to pull every speck of the truth while I had him.  it was Eke
reliving it, and none of it was pleasant for ther.

"Audrina, I lied and deceived only to spare you g. I would have told
amp lie done anything to turn you into that wonderfully self-confident,
friendly girl who nothing.  And if you wonder now about certain
incidents 't remember, remember you were suicidal, trying to yourself.
In my own way, I think I saved not only your t also your sanity." heart
was pounding.  Something was going on in my but the revelations coming
at me like blows kept me questions when I should have guessed what was
wrong.  stood at the grave of the First and Best Audrina, and I'd her
because he'd loved her first, and better than he'd love me.  I had
wanted to be her, just to have known that of love.  It seemed wild and
insane that I had been her all time, the first, the best ... not the
second, the worst.

ars coursed down my cheeks as I crumpled to my knees re Papa could
gather me into his arms.  As if I were that nine-year-old girl, he
rocked me back and forth.

"Don't cry, my darling, don't cry.  It's all over and you're still same
sweet girl you always were.  You're, not changed.  thing dirty can
touch some people.  You're that kind."  Still, up there in the cupola I
felt nine years old again, i he'd, degraded and not quite human.  Only
then did I look towards the opening in the floor to see standing there.
Her dark, glittering eyes showed such , such malice that it made her
lips quiver.  Her sump ge hair seemed alive with electricity as she
glared at me.  and pieces of the past began to flash behind my eyes.
That look of envy on Vera's face ... the way I'd felt when thought
about the First Audrma.  Gladly Vera would see me as I'd been glad the
First Audrina was dead.  Now I I my ninth birthday.  I remembered that
morning, ready for school.  I hadn't finished dressing.  Vera and I
used the same bathroom to bathe and dress for school.  Vera kept
glancing at me as I stepped from the tub.

"Wear your prettiest petticoat today, Audrina.  The One with that
handmade lace and the little shamrocks that YOU love so much.  Wear the
matching pants, too."

"No, I'll put those things on after I come home.  I hate school
restrooms.  I hate Momma forcing me to wear my best dress to school
when all the girls will be jealous and hate me for Oing iC "Oh, silly,
it wasn't Momma's idea, it was mine.  It's time the village girls know
just what kind of beautiful clothes you have.  She thought it was a
wonderful idea to show them the Whitefem girls still do wear silk
dresses and everything else."

On the porch I stood and watched as Vera headed for where the school
bus would pick her up.  She twisted round and called back, "Enjoy your
pedestal for the last time, Audrina.  For when you come home you're
going to be just like the rest of us not so pure any more."

I jolted with that memory and stared at Vera with new awareness.  No, I
tried to convince myself, Vera wouldn't have set those boys on me ..
would she?  She was the only one who knew which paths I always used.
There were many vague meandering paths in our patch of woods that
spread for hundreds of acres.

It was those dark eyes that.  betrayed her, the cunning way she looked
me up and down, smirking, laughing at me silently inside, as if even
she'd get the better of me no matter what I did.

"It was you who set me up, wasn't it, Vera?"  I asked, trying to keep
my voice calm, my thoughts rational.

"You hated me, and envied me so much you wanted Papa to hate me, too. I
cried with my head in Momma's lap, thinking something I'd done had made
those ugly boys think I was wicked.  I blamed myself for teasing them. 
I thought I'd done some, innocent dung that gave them evil ideas, when
I couldn't remember anything I'd said or done to make them think I
wasn't the nice kind of girl Papa wanted me to stay.  It was you who
told them which path I tookVmy voice was rising, taking on an
accusatory then took several steps closer to her.  it!"  she yelled.

"It's all over and done with, isn't could I know you'd disobey and use
the shortcut?  It fit ult it was your own!"  a minute!"  bellowed Papa,
jumping to his feet and to my side even as Arden came closer, too.

"Many ve overheard whispers in the village drugstore about in this
house who betrayed my daughter.  I thought boy who used to trim our
shrubs and mow our lawn.  course, it had to be you!  He wasn't of this
house, or house ... we bred a viper in our midst.  Who else here want
Audrina harmed more than the unwanted child n't know who her father
was!"  .  ring terrified, Vera backed away more.  your soul rot in
everlasting hell!  "roared Papa, stepping threateningly as if he'd
finish off Vera and she'd never again.

"I thought at the time it was too much of a idence.  On her birthday
but your mother kept saying were innocent.  Now I know.  You arranged
with those boys ve my Audrina raped!"  ra put her hand to her throat
and tried with her broken to feel behind her.  There was terror in her
large dark eyes much like Papa's.  he screamed at him, "I'm your
daughter and you know it!  ny it all you want, Damian Adare, but I am
like you!  I'll do thing to get whff I want the same as you will.  I
hate you, , really hate you!  I hate that woman who bore me!  I've
every day I've lived in this hellhole you call Whitefern!  gave my
mother a cheque when she wanted to come to York and be with me ... and
it was no good.  A damned good cheque to pay for all those years when
she was nothing a slave in this house."  Papa took another threatening
step closer to Vera.

"Don't more word to me, girl, or you'll regret the day you say one Vere
born!  You've been nothing but a burr in my side since 'the day your
mother brought you here.  And you were the one who came and volunteered
the information that Arden Lowe had been at the scene of my daughter's
rape, and he had done nothing to save her.  You laughed when you told
me he'd run away.  You gloated then, Vera.  If you hadn't reminded me
just now, I might have forgotten."

Papa's eyes narrowed dangerously.  Like a tigress Vera sprang forward
to confront Papa, seeming to forget her broken arm, forgetting she was
a woman and he was a huge, powerful man who could be merciless when it
came to her.

"You!"she spat.  "What the hell do Icarewhatyou think?  You gave me
nothing after Audrina was born.  You treated me as if I didnt exist
once sweet Audrma came home from the hospital.  I was shoved out of the
pretty room you'd had fixed up for me, and it was turned into a nursery
for her.  It was sweet Audrina this, and sweet Audrina that, until I
could have vomited.  Not one land word did you ever say to me.  The
only time you took notice of me was when I was sick or 'injured.  I
wanted you to love me, and you refused to love anyone but Audrina ..
."

She sobbed then and hurried to press her face against Arden's chest.

"Take me away from here, Arden ... take me away.  I want to feel loved.
I'm not bad, I'm not really bad ... 2 Papa roared then like a bull and
charged.  Screaming, Vera released Arden, wheeled round and ran for the
sum.  But she'd forgotten -she wore those shoes with the lift and she
should never have run in those shoes.  The built-up so leon her left
shoe caused her ankle to turn over.  She lost her balance and started
to fall ... and the opening of the spiral stairs gaped like a huge
square mouth behind her.

Like a doll caught in a time-lapse film, she fell headlong down the
spiral stairs.  Her screams ripped the air in short, horrible spurts.
First her shoulder struck against one side of the iron balustrade, then
she ricocheted to strike the opposite side.

Turning over and over, striking again and again against the hard metal
until her last scream was cut off in mid-air and she thudded to the
bottom and just lay there.

In a flash Arden tore down the stairs to her side, kneeling there as
Papa, Sylvia and I hurried down, too.  She lay there, stun ned, her
dark eyes unfocused and already beginning to held her, head on his
stared towards Arden, who me away, Arden," she croaked in a small
whisper.  me far from this place where everyone has always hate-Ad me
from here, Arden ... take me .. lapsed into unconsciousness then. 
Arden eased her head floor, and without a glance my way, raced to call
an to rush Vera to the hospital ... again.  passed before I heard a far
away door bang shut, me Arden was back from the hospital emergency
roomed the gas lamp by my bed and closed my eyes, hoping go away and
not bother me with tales of all Veas broken that would heal.  I was
afraid to hear his sympathy for afraid he'd agree to take her far from
here.  Like a child still afraid of total darkness, without some fight
It defenceless.  Yet total darkness was what I wanted when came to me
with his news.  Softly my bedroom door opened closed.  Arden's scent
wafted to me.  Sve just spent some time with Damian, telling him about
ra ... may I talk to you now about her?"  he asked, coming perch on the
side of my bed.  His'tired eyes moved my heart compassion.  Unwanted
sympathy tried to steal my determiion not to let him dissuade me from
what I'd determined do.  What I had to do.  'No need to shrink away,
"he said with weary impatience.  11 n't plan to touch you.  Vera died
about two hours ago.  She too many internal injuries to survive; just
about every bone er body was broken."  I began to tremble Some part of
me had always strived to chout to Vera and make her my sister.

"I know what you're f 'said Arden wearily.

"Some part eeling, of us always seems diminished when someone dies.
Vera gifted us with something before she died, Audrina.  Three deaths
'from accidental falls in this house caused the police to raise some
eyebrows, and they were ihere questioning me when Vera Whispered she'd
tripped and fell ... and it was her own fault."

I turned on my side, my back towards him, and began to quietly sob. 
In the darkness I sensed he was starting to undress, with the notion of
holding me all night, but quickly I spoke.

"No, Arden.  I don't want you in my bed.  Go to another room and sleep
until I have time to think this out.  If Vera said she was to blame for
her fall, she was, wasn't she?  Nobody pushed her ... but it was she
who pushed me, and as I think about it more and more, and remember the
door that closed softly soon after I found my aunt dead ... it had to
be Vera who pushed her own mother down the stairs and took that blue
cheque from the cork board where I pinned it.  And then there's Billie,
who fell, too.  She and Papa might have married, and that would have
given Papa another heir to his fortune, for all along she must have
planned to do away with me."

There was no answer from him, except when he closed the door.

Only then did I get up and pull on a robe before I went to check on
Sylvia.  But she wasn't in her room.  I found her in the playroom that
had once been mine.  Gently she was rocking to and fro, singing her
strange little ditty.  I knew that now as I looked around with new
insight and recognized the dolls Papa had won at many a carnival from
shooting the moving ducks And all those stuffed, plush animals, more
prizes that he'd won for me.

I stared at Sylvia's pretty young face, innocently singing like one of
the witches from Papa's tales of his ancestors.  Those tales that had
once made me shout a witch's curse to stop boys who weren't afraid ...
Little dolls appeared in Sylvia's hands, apparently taken from the
pockets of her loose garment.  Tiny dolls I myself had bought to please
her.  Neutered dolls of no sex, but somehow they seemed more boyish
than girlish.

Arden had come in behind me, and stood there watching.  Sylvia hung
back, staring at us, then slowly shuffled out of the room.

"Sit down," Arden growled, pulling me into the playroom and shoving me
into the rocking chair.  He went down on his knees beside me and tried
to capture my hands.  I sat on them to keep them from him.  He sighed
and I thought of Billie, and hints shed tried to give me, to tell me
her son perfect.  But I'd wanted him perfect.

that was in my eyes as I glared at him, and accused as a child of nine,
outraged and devastated at how he'd me when I needed him most.  Sadness
and guilt shone in so that I could almost read his thoughts.  He'd put
up so much from me to make up for that shameful day.  Even .1 loved
him, even as I scorned his weakness.

s is the moment I've dreaded since that day of your ninth .  I was
hurrying home, planning to race on to your and be there for your party.
I'd never been inside , and it was a big day for me.  On the way
through woods to the cottage, three boys hailed me and told me to
around and enjoy- some fun.  I didn't know what they t. My free time,
what I had of it, was spent working, and fun with older boys was
something I'd never done.  It me that finally I was being invited to be
one of them, I joined them when they told me to crouch down behind the
us lies  Then you came skipping along the dirt path, i i yourself.  No
one said a word.  When they jumped out and to catch you, and I heard
them yell out all they planned to to you, it was like a nightmare.  My
legs and arms went numb .  and I couldn't move.  Audrina, I forced
myself to stand up ... and you saw me.  You pleaded with me with your
eyes, with your screams before they stuffed something into your mouth
... and shame for being paralysed made me even weaker.  I knew you'd
despise me for doing nothing, as I still despise myself for doing
nothing but running for help.  That's why 1. ran, for I didn't stand a
chance of winning in a fight against them ... one to one, I might have
had a chance, but three.  Audrina, I'm sorry.  It's not enough to say,
I know that.  Now I wish I'd stayed and tried to defend you and then
you wouldn't be staring at me now with so much scorn on your face and
in your eyes."

He paused and reached to gather me into his arms, and with his kisses
perhaps he thought he could build another fire like he had in the
graveyard, and I'd be his again, and forgiving.

"Forgive me for failing you then, Audrina.  Forgive me for failing you
every tune you've needed me ... give me another chance and you'll
never need to forgive me for failing to act when I should."

Forgive him?  How could I forgive him when I could never forget?  Twice
he did nothing to save me from people who wanted me destroyed.  I
didn't want to give him a third chance.

The Last Spin of the Webfine spring day we laid Vera to rest beside
Aunt Ellsbeth.

that I'd be at this funeral, when I'd missed Aunt.  this and Billie's.
I had loved those other two, yet it was s coffin that I saw lowered
into the ground.  As I said e to Vera, I understood her.  Maybe in
understanding day I'd forgive her and remember only the moments of I
had for her.

came home from the funeral, and immediately after I Sylvia out of her
funeral garb, Papa suggested a game in the garden would help us
overcome the.  depression seemed to be on us like a thick blanket of
fog, oppressive, .  I had hardly spoken to Arden since the night Vera
and now, three days later, I made my plans, while Papa in a chair
across from mine and tried as always to r my innermost secrets.

Sylvia entered the foyer trailed by Arden, her Ong gait seemed much
unproved.  Fresh air and sunshine giving her a bit of colour, and those
lovely aqua eyes an ned to find me before she smiled.  I left before
Arden had the chance to appeal to me again, and rried up the stairs. In
my bedroom I sat on my bed, trying think ahead so I could do the right
thing for myself and for i .  Papa came to the door and stood there,
pleading for me not to leave him.  Could he read my mindi, "I'm going,
Papa," I said tiredly.

"I promised not to leave you when I was a child and didn't understand
what you wanted from me, but I can't stay.  There's something wrong in
this house.  Something rules here that keeps everyone from being normal
and happy.  I want out."

"Think of Sylvia," cried Papa.

"Though she's better, she'll never speak with confidence or fluency.
She'll never be normal enough to perform any difficult mental tasks
how is she going to survive if I die?"

I didn't plan to leave Sylvia here, but I didn't want to tell him that.
Not yet.

"How will Sylvia survive when you're gone?"  His dark Arab eyes
sparkled with what I took for cunning.

"And so you did lose the gift, after all.  They killed that special
ness in you, ability to love selflessly, the sensitivity that would
always call you when someone needed you.  You are no longer that
special girl with the rare and precious gift."

I said with hard scorn, "There is no gift, Papa.  I don't believe you
any more, Papa.  It's the process of sitting and rocking and sort of
hypnotizing yourself into believing anything-I pity the girl I used to
be for believing so wholeheartedly in you."

"All right," he said.  Another of those long, penetrating looks he gave
me, forcing me to cast my eyes downward.  Then he got up to leave,
staring at me from the doorway with such sadness I had to turn my back
so twouldn't yield to his unspoken pressure.

Now it was even clearer ... I had to leave this place.  He left and
shimmed the door shut behind him.  I fell on my bed and stared at the
ceiling.  To sleep, I thought, never to dream again.  That's the way I
wanted it to be.  I didn't need Arden now.  I had Sylvia and that was
going to be enough.  Yet all night long Arden flitted in and out of my
nightmares so that in the morning I woke up fuzzy-headed,
thick-tongued.  At the breakfast table Papa didn't speak.  Usually he
entered the kitchen talking and went out the same way.  No taknt but
for running his ntouth all day long, I heard my motheesghostly whisper
say.  Most of the time he was M of good spirits, always undaunted by
tragedy, always a winner, but I had managed to bring him low.

Finally he spoke as Sylvia shoved food into her mouth, and Arden ate
silently, without appetite.

"Vera must have been there the night Ellie andrI had our last argument.
It was Vera who dressed her in that travelling suit, and Vera who
threw -those clothes into the suitcase to make us think Ellie planned
to leave me His head bowed down into his hands and for a moment
hisIders dropped, as if tragedy could touch him after knew Ellie would
never leave me.  I could have given her dollars and still she would
have stayed on.  To live for in one place puts roots deep into the
ground, even when don't want that to happen.  One day Ellie would tell
me be happier somewhere else, but whenever she tried to she found she
couldn't.  She used to say she made the t mistake of her life when she
came back here."  didn't look my way again, but I knew what he was
trying brainwash me into thinking I couldn't exist outside of , away
from his tender loving care.  Telling me how needed and wanted me to
stay on, without saying it tly.

many clocks in the house ticked away the time, each k face now
synchronized with all the others.  The kitchen tap dripped-dropped,
dropped-dripped... Sylvia firdshedeating and took out her prums and the
in the cupola began to tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.  I shook my head to rid
it of the mesmerizing spell being cast, only by the colours.  but also
by the familiar sounds.  Papa ruined my life by considering me a
weakling unable to cope the truth, when it was he who wasn't able to
cope.  He'd to brainwash himself as much as me.  And he'd ruined Vera's
life as well by disliking her from the because she filled turn with
guilt every tune he at her black, conniving eyes so like his own.  But
I was ing to prove to him what I was made of.  In this house I still
clung to the shadows near the walls, and avoided the colourful patterns
of the floor.  Still a child, ted at the age of nine.  I'd prove to
Papa and Arden that could yank up my roots no matter how much it hurt,
and I'd from this house.  I forced myself to pull the suitcases from
cupboard shelves and with mad determination I began to about, flinging
garments into the bags open on my bed.  I 't fold anything neatly, just
hurled in sweaters, skirts, , and I packed for Sylvia, too.  Heedlessly
I threw in my underwear, stuffed in stockings, shoes, handbags,
cosmetics ... just like Aunt Ellsbeth had done  The clock on my night
table read ten after ten, and I set my watch by that.  By noon I'd be
on my way with Sylvia.

"Audrina," said Arden, coming into my room to stand close at my side,
his arms trying to enfold me, 'don't turn from me."  He pulled me
against his chest and tried to put his lips on mine.  I moved my head
to avoid his kiss.

"I love you," he said fervently, "I've always loved you.  Terrible
things, worse things happen to many people and still they stay
together.  They fimnd 'happiness again.  Help yourself, Audrina.  Be
brave.  Help me.  Help Sylvia."

But I didn't need Arden now.  He'd failed me twice, and it stood to
reason he'd fail me a third time, and would perhaps always fail me when
I needed him most.

Sobbing, I jerked free of his arms and pushed him away.  "I'm leaving
you, Arden.  I think you are no better than Papa.  Both of you should
have known better than to try to base my life on lies., No words from
him this time.  Nothing to say as he watched me finish packing.  One
suitcase full, I struggled to close and lock it.  A bit of blouse
sleeve showed, but I didn't care.  Arden did nothing to help me as I
bore down with all my strength, trying to force it to close.  Finally I
had it locked.  I locked all my bags, five of them.  Arden sighed
heavily.

"So, now you plan to run off to God knows where.  You don't ask me what
I want.  You don't care what I want.  You won't listen to reason or
explanations.  Do you call that justice?  Or do you call it spite?  Or
revenge?  Your love is a capricious thing, Audrina.  Don't you owe it
to me to stay and see if our marriage can't be salvaged?"

I didn't look his way.

"I can't let Sylvia stay here.  Theres something strange in this house
that holds all memories and makes them part of the future.  This house
contains too many sorrows to ever let any of us have any joy.  Be glad
I'm leaving you.  Tell yourself each day of your life that you escaped
by the skin of your teeth from becoming exactly what my father is, a
fraud, a cheat out to steal even from his own daughters."

He gave me a long, hard look, turned from me and stalked to the door.
From there he had to say one last painful thing.  say right now that
Damian did try to help you, but I it's too late to say that."  picked
up an expensive paperweight and hurled it at his .  It missed and fell
to the floor.  He slammed out of the room door.  .minutes later the
dooeopened slowly.  Quietly, on pussycat Sylvia slipped inside the room
and stood silently watching es, Sylvia, I'm leaving and taking you with
me.  I've ked your clothes, and I will buy you new, pretty clothes we
get to where we're going.  This is not a healthy house you to live out
your life in.  I want to give you school days, to play in, friends your
own age.  Momma left us both share of this house so if ever we wanted
to leave Papa would "have to give us our share or sell the house.  So,
let's happily say goodbye to Whitefern, and hello to much better lives
ilsewfiere."

Her aqua eyes widened as she inched away from me.  Violently she shook
her head.

"Nooo,"she breathed, putting up hands as if to ward off an enemy.

"Sm ... stay here.  Home."

Again I spoke to her about leaving with me, and just as violently as
before, she told me in all ways possible without speaking that she
would never, never leave Papa, or Whitefern.

I backed away this time.  I wouldn't let her devotion to Papa undermine
my determination to go my own way for the first time in my life.  Let
her stay on with Papa in Whitefern ... perhaps they deserved one
another, too.

"Goodbye, Papa," I said an hour later.

"Take good care of yourself.  Sylvia is going to need you even more
after I'm gone.1 Tears coursed down his full cheeks and fell onto his
clean shirt.

Papa's voice followed me as I moved towards the door.  I carried only
one small bag.  I'd come back for the others.

"All I ever wanted out of life was one woman to see me as fine and
noble.  I thought it would be you.  Audrina, don't go.  I'll give you
all I possess, everything..."

"You have Sylvia, Papa'I answered with a tight smile.

"Just remember this when I'm gone from this house.  You made Vera what
she was, as you made me what I am, as you've also shaped Sylvia's
destiny.  Be kind to her, Papa.  Be careful what trail you put her feet
upon when you begin to tell her tales.  I'm not truly convinced-2 Here
I bit down on my tongue, hesitating when I saw that Sylvia had come to
pause in the foyer, just outside the Roman Revival salon.

Terror lit up Papa's dark eyes for a brief second.  As if he knew
Sylvia had mimicked me just once too often, and rocked in that chair
many more times than I would let him force me.

Now she had the gift whatever it might be, and if it could be.

"I'm going to drive your Mercedes, Papa.  I hope that's all right."

Numbly he nodded.

"Cars mean nothing to me fiow," he mumbled.

"My life is finished when you go.  "He stared over my shoulder at
Sylvia, who came to stand in the doorway.  Something in her now
formidable stance reminded me of Aunt Ellsbeth.  There was a hint of
Momma in her faint sardonic smile.

Oh, ipy God!  My head began to ache, as I feared it would always ache
in this house of spindles, bobbins and knobs, with its gold and brass
gleaming, with its myriad colours confusing my thoughts and taking me
away from other much more important things.

We were all a strange lot, the Whitefern girls.  Daring to be different
in the oddest ways.  Words I'd heard Aunt Ellsbeth -say to Momma and to
that portrait of Aunt Mercy Marie that had made Tuesday tea times a
memorial service not to be enjoyed.

As I prepared to leave Arden and never see him again, Papa was pleading
with his dark, dark eyes, even as he tried to deny Sylvia the right to
take my place.  Let him suffer the consequences of making her what she
is ... and God alone knew if it was Vera or Sylvia who hated Papa most.
I suspected Sylvia would destroy any woman but me who came into Papa's
life when I left if ever he wanted another woman.  luck and goodbye,
Sylvia.  If ever you need me, r1l to take you home with me wherever my
home may Again I nodded to Papa, who sat on, glumly grim.  I refused
look at Arden, who came down the stairs, dressed and ready leave for
his office.  I thanked Sylvia again for being them I needed her.  Some
kind of strange wisdom was in her eyes as she nodded out trying to
speak.  Then she turned and nailed Papa to chair with her penetrating
stare.  I shivered, with the pi cion that Papa was not going to enjoy
his youngest ter, who, with her flashing prism lights, controlled the
"nies of those who tried to dominate her.  ith great reluctance, his
face showing his misery, Arden d my bags to the car and carefully
stacked them in the while I sat behind the wheel and prepared to go.
oodbye, Arden.  I'll never forget all the fun we used to have en I
believed you loved me.  Even if I didn't respond sexually way you
wanted all the time, I loved you in my own He winced from the pain of
my casual parting before he said erly, "You'U'come back.  You think you
can say goodbye to to Whitefern, to Sylvia and to your father, but
you'll come My hands gripped the steering wheel more forcefully, ..g
that this was Papa's last and most expensive gift to me.  looked around
to see the three-day storm was over and the was washed clean and
bright.  All the world seemed to smell , fresh, inviting.  I breathed
deeply and felt suddenly very ppy.  Free, at last, free.  Free of that
stale wedding-cake house with its cupola empty the bride and groom.  It
was the dimness inside that house made the colours too dominating. Some
place far from I could become a real person and find out who I was.

t commanded me against my will to turn my head and have second thoughts
about leaving?  I didn't want to stay!

Slowly, slowly, my head turned so soon I was facing the My eyes lifted
to that window on the second floor- that room rd always presumed was
her room, and through the cloudy glass I saw a pale small face, staring
out a face that looked so much like my own I gasped.  Framed in a mop
of thick hair of an uncertain colour that could change and blend with
its surroundings, her wan face neared, retreated, neared, retreated.  I
could see that her lips moved, saying something perhaps singing
something.  My hand shook as I tried to turn the ignition key.  What
was wrong with my hand?  I couldn't make it obey!

No!  I screamed mentally.  Don't Sylvia!  Let me go!  I did the best I
could for you!  I gave you years of my life, years and years and years.
Give me my chance to live, please!

Louder sounded the wind chimes, clamouring, making my head ache so
badly I wanted to scream, scream, but I had no voice!

Behind my eyes a premonition flashed.  Something awful was going to
happen to Papa!  When it did, they'd put Sylvia away and she would
never see the sunlight again.

I let go the ignition key and opened the car door, then stepped out and
hurried to Arden whose eyes lit up as he held out his arms to embrace
me.  With a sob his face bowed into my hair as my arms held him just as
tightly as he held me.  We looked deeply into each other's eyes, then
together we tugged my suitcases from the boot of the Mercedes.

My suitcases we left on the drive.  Like Papa's love for me, I'd just
done the most noble deed of my life.  I was the First and Best Audrina
who had always put love and loyalty first.  There was no plac for me to
run.  Shrugging, feeling sad, yet cleaner than I had since that rainy
day in the woods, I felt a certain kind of accepting peace as Arden put
his arm about my shoulders.  Automatically my arm encircled his waist,
and together we headed back to the porch where Papa and Sylvia had come
to watch.  I saw happiness and relief in both pairs of eyes.

Arden and I would begin again in Whitefem, and if this time we failed,
we'd begin a third time, a fourth...