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“I already know how to spell ugly, Spencer Longtree,” I threw over my shoulder, “and that’s a description that fits you just F…I…N… E.”
“I’ll get you for that… and maybe when you’ve been had, you won’t feel so high and mighty just because you’re one of the Whiteferns who live in a fancy big house.”
Time to run, to skip, to hop and have fun in the woods where all the little animals hid. Look at the rainclouds overhead. They hid the sun and made it dark. Would the storm reach me before I reached home? Ruin my dress? Frizz my curls? Momma would throw a fit if I did
n’t look prettier than any other girl at my party—and this silly kind of dress water-spotted and shrank, too.
The rain came down.
I took the faint and winding path at full speed, feeling the silky whisper of my ruined dress as it clung to my legs. Yards ahead I thought I saw the bushes by the path move. I paused, ready to spin around and flee.
The thickness of the leaves above made a kind of canopy that caused the rain to fall in exceedingly large drops. They splashed down on the dirt before me, making dark polka dots that swiftly blended until all the dirt went dark and muddy.
Some people whistled when they felt afraid. I didn’t know how to whistle. I could sing. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me … happy birthday, dear Audrina … happy bir—
I broke off my song and froze. A definite movement in the bushes ahead. A muffled giggle. I turned to run the other way, then glanced back and saw three boys jump out from behind those thorny bushes that lined the faint path. Scratches bloodied their faces and made them seem fearsome. Yet they also seemed silly. Stupid, silly boys. Did they think they could catch me? I could run faster than Aunt Ellsbeth, who had boasted she could outrun anybody as 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 color 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 burn you with the fires of eternal hell while you still live!”
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 Shay and Hank Barnes! May the devil in hell claim all three of you for his own!”
For a moment they hesitated, making me think it was going to work. Looking from one to the other gave me the chance to run … but just then a fourth boy rose up from behind the same bushes they’d used to hide, and I froze and stared at him. His dark hair was wet and glued to his face, too. I swallowed and grew weak. All my blood turned to rainwater. Oh, no, not him, too, not him, too, never him. He wouldn’t do this. He’d come to save me, that’s why he was there. I called his name, pleaded with him to save me. He seemed in a trance, staring blindly ahead. What was wrong with him? Why didn’t he pick up a stick, a stone, hit them? Batter them with his bare fists … do something to help!
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. He was my friend. He stood there more petrified than I was. I cried out his name … and he turned and ran!
My mouth opened to call him back, but a dirty rag was stuffed inside.
“I was wrong, Audrina. You really are a pretty thing.”
They ripped off my clothes. My new dress was torn from neck to hem and hurled away to land on a bush under the golden raintree. Next my pretty petticoat with the Irish lace and the hand-embroidered shamrocks was ripped off and trampled in the mud. I fought like crazy when rough hands tried to pull down my panties, kicking, screaming, twisting, turning, trying to tear violating eyes from their sockets.
Then the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled. I was terrified of being outside in an electrical storm. I screamed again.
It happened fast, but not mercifully fast enough. My pretty underpants were yanked down and torn off. My legs were spread wide as one boy held me under my chin … and every one of those three participated in my desecration. Even as I was being despoiled I kept thinking of him. That coward who’d turned and run! He could have stayed to fight even if he lost, for then I could forgive him. Maybe they’d have killed him, like they were really killing me … better that than this …
I 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!
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.
