Daughter of Darkness (6 page)

“I am? Oh, that’s terrific, Ava.” I clapped my hands and bounced on my heels.

She shook her head and made a ticking sound with
her lips the way Mrs. Fennel sometimes did. “I don’t remember being as naive and as innocent as you are. When Brianna took me with her for the first time, I didn’t gawk and gape and squeal like a tween or something.”

“I won’t do that. I promise.”

“We’ll see,” she said, and turned to leave, but then she paused to look at me again. “Daddy doesn’t see it in you, but I do.”

“See what?”

“Fear,” she said.

“Fear? Fear of what?” I asked.

“Yourself,” she said. I watched her walk out.

Fear
wasn’t a word we used in this family. As far as I could see, there was nothing either Daddy or Mrs. Fennel feared, and Ava acted as if she could face down a stampede of elephants. Was I that different from her, from everyone else? How could I be afraid of myself, anyway?

I thought a moment, worried, and then I shook my head. No, she was wrong. To claim that she could see something Daddy couldn’t see was ridiculous. If Daddy didn’t see it, it wasn’t there. It was just jealousy, I concluded. Lately, Daddy was spending more time with me and giving me more of his attention, and I could tell she didn’t like that. It was the sibling rivalry at work, just as he had described it. It flattered me to think that Ava could ever be envious of me, but if anything also could frighten me, that might be it.

Happy again, I put on my nightgown and slipped under the blanket. Just as I was about to reach for the light switch, I heard a gentle knock on my door.

“Yes?”

Daddy entered. He hadn’t come to my bedroom for quite some time. As far back as I could remember, no one really tucked any of us in. There were no bedtime stories. Mrs. Fennel certainly wasn’t going to do anything like that. One thing we were taught especially was never to fear the dark. Even when I was a very little girl, Daddy told me the darkness was our friend.

“We exist because of the darkness,” he told me. “All of you are daughters of darkness.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that back then, but I was sure now. Darkness, secrets, and anonymity were tools that helped keep us alive and safe.

Maybe that was why Ava thought I was different, why she thought I might be afraid of myself or for myself. She knew that I was never completely comfortable in the dark, or at least as comfortable as she and, apparently, Marla were.

“How’s my new beauty?” Daddy asked, and sat at the foot of my bed.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Ava just told me I’m to go out with her this weekend. Only to observe, but at least I’m going out, going to exciting places, and I’ll be able to wear the beautiful new dress you bought me. Do you think I’ll do all right?” I asked, this time admitting to myself that I was fishing for a compliment.

He laughed. “I know you will. When I first set eyes on you, I knew you were one to drink deeply of every pleasure this world has to offer us. When you were an infant, I saw the way you ate and drank, enjoyed a bath
or simply being comfortably wrapped in a blanket. Even the way you slept told me you were soaked in pleasure.”

“Really?”

“Of course, but none of this will be anything close to what you will be experiencing in the time to come, Lorelei. In fact, consider it all to be nothing more than a taste.”

“A taste? Now that you’ve told me all that, I surely won’t be able to sleep, Daddy,” I said, and he laughed.

“You’re a delight, Lorelei. You are, in fact, one of the brightest little girls I’ve ever had. You were precocious at the age of two. I see how well you do in school, and I see how curious you are about everything. Just be patient and never frustrated with time or the care taken to educate you properly, okay?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll fall asleep,” he said. “Mrs. Fennel always includes something in our food to help my little girls sleep and grow more beautiful.”

“What does she put…”

He put his finger on my lips. “Don’t ask for details. Just enjoy,” he said, then leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. The aroma of his cologne filled my nostrils and made my head spin. Like almost everything in a bottle in this house, it was surely something Mrs. Fennel had prepared, some magical scent that would stir any woman’s libido. Where did she learn how to do all these things? Where did she live when she was my age? Who taught her all that she knew?

Sometimes I wondered if she was ever my age. Maybe she was created in some laboratory like Frankenstein’s
monster. I knew I could think these thoughts, wonder, but never voice them unless Ava voiced them first. Daddy certainly wouldn’t. It was because of how much he obviously respected and depended on Mrs. Fennel that I did all I could not to cross her. It certainly wasn’t because I had great affection for her. I did everything for Daddy. Sometimes I thought I was breathing only for Daddy.

He rose slowly. I held his hand until it slipped softly from mine. His smile fell on me like soft, warm rain, and I snuggled in my blanket. I watched him leave the room. He slipped out as if he walked on the darkness itself and softly closed my door.

There was no moonlight tonight, but the sky was clear and the stars as brilliant as a full moon. I listened to the breeze licking at the windows and closed my eyes. He was right; I did fall asleep. But sometime later, I woke with a shudder and listened. It sounded like howling right outside my window. It didn’t stop, so I rose slowly and went to my window.

When I looked out, I saw what looked like dozens of young men. They were all looking at my window, and they weren’t just howling some horrendous sound.

They were howling my name, stretching it out as if the sound of it were caught on the wind. Their faces were pale yellow, their eyes black, tears spilling out and down their cheeks like streams of tar.

“Loreleiiiiiiiii.”

In unison, they all reached out toward me and then took a step closer, slowly turning their heads to show me their opened necks, as if they hoped I would do something about it, something to help them.

I gasped and quickly stepped back from the window, my heart pounding. After I caught my breath, I waited and listened hard. The howling stopped. Slowly, I returned to the window and looked out again.

There were no young men there.

I looked as far to the right and the left as I could, but there were just shadows, twisting and turning as if the wind were toying with them.

Was I in a dream? Was I walking in my sleep? Was my imagination running wild?

I hurried back into bed and listened for the howling until I was too sleepy to keep my eyes or my ears open.

I remembered it all when I awoke, but I dared not mention it to anyone.

It was another mystery, another secret to add to the dozens and dozens in this family. Only for now, it would be my own.

3
 
Best Daughter

Of course, I knew why I had that nightmare. Its origin went back years. It had been festering inside me like a bad boil, and its time to burst had come, perhaps because I was so close now, so close to being Daddy’s best daughter.

There was never a doubt that I was not supposed to learn the first and most important secret of all as early as I had learned it. From what I understood, none of Daddy’s daughters had ever learned it as early as I had. No one had time to prepare me for it as his other daughters had been prepared, and later, because this happened when it did, Daddy was furious at Brianna, blaming her. It was practically the only time I could remember him losing his temper and raging at any one of us until then. I think it was because of what happened that night that Brianna was really not as friendly or as loving as a sister should be toward me. She blamed me for Daddy’s reprimanding her so vehemently. I know it frightened her as much as it frightened me.

I was only four at the time. We were living in upstate New York. Brianna was assigned to tutor me, give me what was called preschooling. I remember she wasn’t
happy about having to do that, but making progress with me pleased Daddy so much that she tried very hard. She didn’t have to try that hard, actually. I was always a good student, eager to learn new things even at that young age. But I saw how important it was for her to take credit, to collect Daddy’s compliments and approval. I saw the pleasure it gave her, and I knew that pleasure was awaiting me.

Back then, she would have me recite math problems and solutions, word meanings, and scientific information before we all sat to have dinner. She gave me piano lessons and taught me songs to sing and play. She wanted me to look at her when I recited something or sang, but I always looked at Daddy, for it was his approval I sought, not hers.

Ava would sit with a smirk on her face, obviously displeased with all the attention Daddy was giving to me. I could almost hear her thinking,
What about me? What about my singing, my playing the violin?
The problem was that she didn’t have as good a singing voice as I had even at four years old. She didn’t play the violin with as much passion and enthusiasm as I had playing the piano. I had the impression, even at that young age, that Brianna didn’t sing or play the piano as well as I did when she was my age, either. Even back then, I had the suspicion, the hope, that Daddy might love me better than any of his other daughters because he saw that I was truly the special one in our family.

I wasn’t all that surprised at what Daddy had said about sibling rivalry the night I wore the new dress. I always had the feeling that he encouraged it. He wanted us
to be jealous of each other and especially covet the compliments he might give to one or the other of us. It was truly as if we were being taught to resent, to dislike, even to hate each other, just so we would be more competitive when it came to gaining his compliments, but then he would have his warm family moments during which he would remind Ava and me that we were sisters and had to look out for each other.

“You’re both very special,” he would say. “No one will appreciate you out there as much as you will appreciate each other. Never forget that. In the end, you must be willing to die for each other.”

I saw the way Ava looked at me. Fatal sacrifice?
Not hardly
, her eyes said.

“You will never die for each other,” he said. “It will never be necessary.”

Ava relaxed.

“But you must live as if it could be necessary,” he warned, losing his smile quickly. “We have no one but ourselves. Never forget that.”

Whenever he made pronouncements like that, it felt as if he had stamped the words on my brain and in my heart. I could feel the way they thundered inside me and quickly became part of who and what I was to be. I fed on his words the way most people fed on food. Nothing made me feel more special than Daddy talking directly to me and to me only.

When I attended a private elementary school, I listened closely to other students to see how different their family lives were from my own, especially girls with older sisters. I was interested in how much sibling rivalry went
on in their houses and what their fathers or mothers did to encourage or discourage it. From what I had heard, no other parents wanted such resentment or competition between their children. They did their best to keep one or another of their children from feeling favored, but it seemed natural that sisters and brothers felt that their parents treated one or the other more favorably. It was inevitable, so maybe it was inevitable with us as well.

Eventually, I decided that Daddy was being more honest, perhaps, by admitting and even encouraging sibling rivalry. Why pretend that it doesn’t exist in all families? Some of us might not know all of the secrets another one knows, but lying to each other was a form of betrayal, and betrayal was as big a sin as any in our world. We had our own religion, our own holy trinity: obedience, loyalty, and sacrifice. So when it came to facing the truth about each other, Daddy was most encouraging and continued to stress why sibling rivalry was a good thing in our world.

“Not wanting it is like not wanting one or the other horse to win in a race,” he said. “How foolish is that? Someone, something, always has to be at least a little better, a little stronger, a little faster. It’s what nature teaches us and expects us not only to accept but to cherish and to embrace.”

Who among us, then, would be a little better, a little stronger, a little faster? Who would indeed be Daddy’s best daughter? Who would serve him best? Who would give him the assurance he needed that he would live on? For our whole purpose in life was to do just that.

I had no idea that was the reason for my being
brought to live in Daddy’s home, even after I accidentally made that first discovery. I was too young yet to appreciate the full meaning of what I had seen and heard and how it all related to me. Even now, I didn’t think I understood it completely, but that would come. There was no doubt. That would come.

Something had awakened me that night. Usually, I fell asleep easily. Maybe, now that I knew about it, it was because of what Mrs. Fennel put in my dinner. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe she had forgotten to do it that particular night. However, even back then, I couldn’t imagine Daddy ever getting angry with or reprimanding Mrs. Fennel. Whatever the reason for it, my eyes just popped open, and I felt wide awake. I tried to go back to sleep, but suddenly, I heard Brianna’s laughter. It was obviously very late, but she was very loud. It sounded as if she was right outside my window. What was she doing right outside my window? And what was so funny so late at night?