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“Wear your prettiest petticoat today, Audrina. The one with that handmade lace and the little shamrocks that you love so much. Wear the matching panties, 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 doing it.”
“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 Whitefern 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 around 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 anymore.”
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 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 thing 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 took!”
Despite myself my voice was rising, taking on an accusatory tone. I stood, then took several steps closer to her.
“Oh, stop it!” she yelled. “It’s all over and done with, isn’t it? How could I know you’d disobey and use the shortcut? It wasn’t my fault—it was your own!”
“Wait a minute!” bellowed Papa, jumping to his feet and hurrying to my side even as Arden came closer, too. “Many times I’ve overheard whispers in the village drugstore about someone in this house who betrayed my daughter. I thought it was the boy who used to trim our shrubs and mow our lawn. But, of course, it had to be you! He wasn’t of this house, or in this house… we bred a viper in our midst. Who else here would want Audrina harmed more than the unwanted child who didn’t know who her father was!”
Appearing terrified, Vera backed away more.
“May your soul rot in everlasting hell!” roared Papa, stepping forward threateningly as if he’d finish off Vera and she’d never breathe again. “I thought at the time it was too much of a coincidence. On her birthday—but your mother kept saying you were innocent. Now I know. You arranged with those boys to have my Audrina raped!”
Vera put her hand to her throat and tried with her broken arm to feel behind her. There was terror in her large dark eyes so much like Papa’s.
She screamed at him, “I’m your daughter and you know it! Deny it all you want, Damian Adare, but I am like you! I’ll do anything to get what I want—the same as you will. I hate you, Damian, really hate you! I hate that woman who bore me! I’ve hated every day I’ve lived in this hellhole you call Whitefern! You gave my mother a check when she wanted to come to New York and be with me … and it was no good. A damned no-good check to pay for all those years when she was nothing but a slave in this house.”
Papa took another threatening step closer to Vera. “Don’t you say one more word to me, girl, or you’ll regret the day you were 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 I care what you think? You gave me nothing after Audrina was born. You treated me as if I didn’t exist once sweet Audrina 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 kind 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 …”
Papa roared then like a bull and charged. Screaming, Vera released Arden, wheeled around and ran for the stairs. But she’d forgotten she wore those shoes with the lift, and never should she have run in those shoes. The built-up sole on her left shoe caused her ankle to turn over. She lost her balance and started to fall… and the opening of the spiraling stairs gaped like a huge square mouth behind her.
Like a doll caught in a time-lapse film, she fell headlong down the spiraling 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, stunned, her dark eyes unfocused and already beginning to glaze as she stared toward Arden, who held her head on his lap.
“Take me away, Arden,” she croaked in a small whisper. “Take me far from this place where everyone has always hated me. Take me from here, Arden … take me—”
She lapsed into unconsciousness then. Arden eased her head to the floor, and without a glance my way, raced to call an ambulance to rush Vera to the hospital… again.
Hours passed before I heard a faraway door bang shut, telling me Arden was back from the hospital emergency room. I dimmed the gaslamp by my bed and closed my eyes, hoping he’d go away and not bother me with tales of all Vera’s broken bones that would heal. I was afraid to hear his sympathy for her, afraid he’d agreed to take her far from here.
Like a child still afraid of total darkness, without some light I felt defenseless. Yet total darkness was what I wanted when he came to me with his news. Softly my bedroom door opened and closed. Arden’s scent wafted to me.
“I’ve just spent some time with Damian, telling him about Vera … may I talk to you now about her?” he asked, coming to perch on the side of my bed. His tired eyes moved my heart to compassion. Unwanted sympathy tried to steal my determination not to let him dissuade me from what I’d determined to do. What I had to do.
“No need to shrink away,” he said with weary impatience. “I don’t plan to touch you. Vera died about two hours ago. She had too many internal injuries to survive; just about every bone in her body was broken.”
I began to tremble. Some part of me had always strived to reach out to Vera and make her my sister.
