The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (52 page)

Chris was in the rocker, fully clothed, and was strumming idly on Cory’s guitar. “Dance, ballerina, dance,” he softly chanted, and his singing voice wasn’t bad at all. Maybe we could work as musicians—a trio—if Carrie ever recovered enough to want a voice again.

On my wrist was a fourteen-karat-gold watch, made in Switzerland, that must have cost Momma several hundred dollars, and Chris had his watch, too; we weren’t penniless. We had the guitar, the banjo, Chris’s Polaroid camera and his many watercolors to sell—and the rings our father had given our mother.

Tomorrow morning held escape for us—but why did I keep thinking I was overlooking something very important?

Then suddenly I realized something! Something both Chris and I had ignored. If the grandmother could open our locked door, and stand quietly for so long before we noticed her . . . had she done this on other occasions? If she had, she might now know of our plans! She might have made her own plans to prevent our escape!

I looked over at Chris, wondering if I should bring this up. He couldn’t hesitate
this
time and find a reason to stay . . . so I voiced my suspicion. He kept picking on the guitar, apparently not disturbed in the least. “The minute I saw her there, that thought flashed into my mind,” he said. “I know she puts a great deal of trust in that butler, John, and she might very well have him waiting at the bottom of the stairs to prevent us from leaving. Let him try—nothing and no one are going to stop us from leaving early tomorrow morning!”

But the thoughts of the grandmother and her butler waiting
at the bottom of the steps wouldn’t go away and leave me peace. Leaving Carrie on the bed asleep, leaving Chris in the rocker and strumming the guitar, I wandered up to the attic to say good-bye.

Directly under the dangling lightbulb, I stood and looked around. My thoughts went flashing back to the first day we came up here. . . . I saw us, all four, holding hands, staring around, overwhelmed by the gargantuan attic and its ghostly furniture and clutter of dusty junk. I saw Chris up high, risking his life to hang two swings for Carrie and Cory to use. I ambled into the schoolroom, looking at the old desks where the twins had sat to learn to read and write. I didn’t glance at the stained, smelly mattress to picture us sunbathing there. That mattress put other memories in my head. I stared at the flowers with sparkling centers—and the lopsided snail, the menacing purple worm, the signs Chris and I had lettered and through all the maze of our gardens and jungle, I saw myself dancing alone, always alone, except when Chris stood in the shadows watching, making his ache my ache. For when I waltzed with Chris, I’d made him someone else.

He called up the stairs. “It’s time to go, Cathy.”

Quickly I raced back to the schoolroom. On the blackboard I wrote very large, using white chalk:

We lived in the attic,

Christopher, Cory, Carrie, and me,

Now there are only three.

I signed my name, and wrote down the date. In my heart I knew that the ghosts of the four of us would override all other ghosts of children shut away in an attic schoolroom. I left an enigma for someone in the future to unwind.

*  *  *

With Mickey in a paper sack along with two poisoned doughnuts stored in Chris’s pocket, he used that wooden key and
opened our prison door for the last time. We’d fight to the death if the grandmother and the butler were below. Chris carried the two suitcases filled with our clothes and other possessions, and over his shoulder he slung both Cory’s beloved guitar and his banjo. He led the way down all the dim halls, to the back stairs. Carrie was in my arms, partially asleep. She weighed but a bit more than she had the night we’d taken her up these same stairs more than three years ago. Those two suitcases my brother carried were the very same ones Momma had been burdened with on that terrible night so long ago, when we were young, so loving and trusting.

Pinned inside our clothes were two small bags holding bills stolen from Momma’s room, divided equally just in case something unforseen separated Chris from me—then neither of us would be left penniless. And Carrie was sure to be with one of us, and taken care of. In the two suitcases were the heavy coins, also put into two bags, to weigh them evenly.

Both Chris and I were very much aware of what lay waiting for us on the outside. We hadn’t looked at so much TV without learning the worldly and heartless lie in wait for the naïve and innocent. We were young and vulnerable, weak, half-sick, but no longer naïve, or innocent.

My heart stood still as I waited for Chris to unlock the back door, fearful every second someone would stop us. He stepped out, smiling back at me.

It was cold outside. Patches of snow lay melting on the ground. Soon enough the snow would fly again. The gray sky above foreboded that. Still, it was no colder than in the attic. The earth felt mushy beneath our feet. Strange feeling after walking so many years on hard, level wooden floors. I was not yet feeling safe, for John could follow . . . take us back, or try to.

I raised my head to sniff the clean, sharp mountain air. It was like sparkling wine to make one drunk. For a short way I kept Carrie in my arms. Then I set her on her feet. She wobbled uncertainly, stared around, disoriented and bedazed looking.
She sniffled, swiped at her reddened nose so small and finely shaped. Ohhh . . . was she going to catch cold so soon?

“Cathy,” called back Chris, “you two have to hurry. We don’t have much time, and it’s a long, long way. Pick up Carrie when she tires.”

I caught her small hand and pulled her along. “Take deep, long breaths, Carrie. Before you know it, the fresh air, good food, and sunshine will have you feeling strong and well again.”

Her small pale face tilted upward to mine—was that hope sparking her eyes at last? “Are we going to meet Cory?”

The first question she’d asked since that tragic day when we learned Cory had died. I gazed down at her, knowing her deepest yearning was for Cory. I couldn’t say no. I just couldn’t put out that flicker of hope. “Cory is in a far-far place from here. Didn’t you listen when I said I saw Daddy in a beautiful garden? Didn’t you hear when I said Daddy took Cory up into his arms, and now Daddy is taking care of him? They’re waiting for us, and someday we’ll see them again, but not for a long, long time.”

“But, Cathy,” she complained, puckering her fault brows, “Cory won’t like that garden if I’m not there, and if he comes back looking for us, he won’t know where we are.”

Earnestness like that put tears in my eyes. I picked her up and tried to hold her, but she struggled free to drag her feet and hang back, twisting halfway around so she could stare back at the huge house we were leaving.

“Come, Carrie, walk faster! Cory’s watching us—he wants us to escape! He’s down on his knees, praying we’ll get away before the grandmother sends someone to take us back and lock us up again!”

Down all the winding trails we tagged along behind Chris, who set a very fast pace. And just as I knew he would, he led us unerringly to the same little train depot that was only a tin roof supported by four wooden posts, with a rickety green bench.

The rim of the dawning sun peeked over a mountaintop, chasing
away the low morning mists. The sky turned lavender-rose as we drew nearer the depot.

“Hurry, Cathy!” called Chris. “If we miss this train, we’ll have to wait until four o’clock!”

Oh, God, we couldn’t miss this train! If we did, the grandmother might for sure have time to catch us again!

We saw a mail truck, with a tall, broomstraw man standing near three mailbags on the ground. He took off his cap, displaying a Brillo pad of reddish hair. Genially, he smiled in our direction., “You folks are sure up early,” he called to us cheerfully. “On your way to Charlottesville?”

“Yep! On our way to Charlottesville,” answered Chris, as, with relief, he put the two suitcases down.

“Pretty little girl you got there,” said the tall mailman, sweeping his pitying gaze over Carrie, who clung fearfully to my skirt. “But if you don’t mind my sayin’ so, she seems kinda peaked.”

“She’s been sick,” Chris confirmed. “But soon she’ll be better.”

The mailman nodded, seemingly believing this prognosis. “Got tickets?”

“Got money.” Then Chris added sagaciously, practicing for less reliable strangers, “But just enough to pay for the tickets.”

“Well, get it out, son, ’cause here comes the five-forty-five.”

As we rode on that morning train, headed toward Charlottesville, we saw the Foxworth mansion sitting high on the hillside. Chris and I couldn’t take our eyes from it, couldn’t help but stare at our prison from the outside. Especially we fixed our gazes on the attic windows with the closed black shutters.

Then my attention was drawn to the northern wing, riveted on that end room on the second floor. I nudged Chris as the heavy draperies parted, and the shadowy, distant form of a large old woman appeared there, staring out, looking for us . . . then vanished.

Of course she could see the train, but we knew she couldn’t see us, just as we’d never been able to see the passengers.
Nevertheless, Chris and I slipped down lower on our seat. “Wonder what she’s doing up there so early?” I whispered to Chris. “Usually she doesn’t carry up our food until six-thirty.”

He laughed, sounding bitter. “Oh, just another of her efforts to catch us doing something sinful and forbidden.”

Maybe so, but I wanted to know her thoughts, her feelings when she entered that room and found it empty, and the clothes gone from the closet and the drawers. And no voices, or steps overhead to come running—if she called.

*  *  *

In Charlottesville we bought bus tickets to Sarasota, and were told we had two hours to wait for the next Greyhound heading south. Two hours in which John could jump into a black limousine and overtake that slow train!

“Don’t think about it,” said Chris. “You don’t know that he knows about us. She’d be a fool to tell him, though he’s probably snoop enough to find out.”

We thought the best way to keep him from finding us, if he was sent to follow, would be to keep on the move. We stored our two suitcases and the guitar and banjo in a rented locker. Hand in hand, Carrie in the middle, we strolled the main streets of that city, where we knew the servants of Foxworth Hall came to visit relatives on their day off, and to shop, go to the movies, or pleasure themselves in other ways. And if this were Thursday, we’d have really been fearful. But it was Sunday.

We must have looked like visitors from another planet in our ill-fitting bulky clothes, our sneakers, our clumsily cut hair, and our pale faces. But no one really stared as I feared they would. We were accepted as just a part of the human race, and no odder than most. It felt good to be back in crowds of people, each face different.

“Wonder where everyone’s going in such a hurry?” asked Chris, just when I was speculating on the same thing.

We stopped on a corner, undecided. Cory was supposed to be buried not far from here. Oh, so much I wanted to go and find
his grave and put flowers there. On another day we’d come back with yellow roses, and we’d kneel and say prayers, whether or not it did any good. For now, we had to get far, far away and not endanger Carrie more . . . out of Virginia before we took her to a doctor.

It was then that Chris took the paper sack with the dead mouse and the powdered-sugar doughnuts from his jacket pocket. His solemn eyes met mine. Loosely he held that bag in front of me, studying my expression, asking with his eyes: An eye for an eye?

That paper sack represented so much. All our lost years, the lost education, the playmates and friends, and the days we could have known laughter instead of tears. In that bag were all our frustrations, humiliations, tons of loneliness, plus the punishments and disappointments—and, most of all, that bag represented the loss of Cory.

“We can go to the police and tell our story,” said Christopher, while he kept his eyes averted, “and the city will provide for you and Carrie, and you won’t have to run. You two might be put in foster homes, or an orphanage. As for me, I don’t know . . . .”

Chris never talked to me while he kept his eyes elsewhere unless he was hiding something—that special something that had to wait until we were outside of Foxworth Hall. “Okay, Chris. We’ve escaped, so out with it. What is it you keep holding back?”

His head bowed down as Carrie moved closer and clung to my skirt, though her eyes were wide with fascination as she watched the heavy flow of traffic, and the many people hurrying by, some who smiled at her.

“It’s Momma,” Chris said in a low voice. “Recall when she said she’d do anything to win back her father’s approval so she could inherit? I don’t know what he made her promise, but I did overhear the servants talking. Cathy, a few days before our grandfather died, he had a codicil added to his will. It states that if our mother is ever proven to have given birth to children by
her first husband, she will have to forfeit everything she inherits—and return everything she’s bought with the money, including her clothes, jewels, investments—everything. And that’s not all; he even had it written in, that if she has children by her
second
marriage, she will lose everything too. And Momma thought he had forgiven her. He didn’t forgive, or forget. He would keep on punishing her from his grave.”

My eyes widened with shock as I added up the pieces. “You mean Momma . . . ? It was Momma, and not the grandmother?”

He shrugged, as if indifferent, when I knew he couldn’t be. “I heard that old woman praying by her bed. She’s evil, but I doubt she would put poison on the doughnuts herself. She would carry them up to us, and know we ate the sweets, when all along she warned us not to eat them.”

“But, Chris, it couldn’t have been Momma. She was on her honeymoon when the doughnuts started coming daily.”

His smile came bitter, wry. “Yeah. But nine months ago the will was read; nine months ago Momma was back. Only Momma benefits from the grandfather’s will—not our grandmother—she has her own money. She only brought up the baskets each day.”