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 at 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, I guided his penetration. This time, this marvelous first time, I really allowed myself to enjoy the feel of him inside me, lifting me with him into the kind of paradise I'd read about but never experienced.
And when his arms finally clasped me, I groaned from the pure ecstasy of having made him one with me at last.
"You're crying," he said when it was over. "It was so wonderful. I've finally reached you, Audrina. After trying so long, I've broken through that barrier you put up a long time ago."
Yes, he was right. A barrier that Papa had constructed to keep me always bound to him.
"Sometimes I thought it was because you just didn't love me as a man, only as a companion."
"And still you kept right on loving me?" I asked with wonder.
"I could never stop loving you, no matter what." His voice was hoarse, gritty with emotion. "You're in my blood, part of 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 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, almost 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 my way of saying I have to have you and no one else."
It was sweet to hear him say that and I easily shook of the sudden chill of apprehension and forced some leaden weight away from my soul, from my heart and conscience. Young and joyous as I'd never been, I laughed and turned to him again. I teased him with kisses and small touches, and wantonly I explored 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. Darn 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 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 colors reflected on the water, different from the colors 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, manmade colors 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 the playroom . . .
her
bedroom. Was she jealous because now I'd found a man who loved me more than anyone had loved her?
I had to go to the playroom. I had to go and face up to her terror, which had always prevented me from enjoying Arden as I should have. It was in that rocking chair that I'd seen the three boys assault the First Audrina, and that had been the first step to force me away from normalcy. The second step to take me even further away from ever enjoying sex was Papa and all the things he'd done to Momma, and said to me. And the third step, taking me miles and miles away, was Papa's indifference to how he hurt my aunt. But it wasn't my horror, I told myself. It was Papa's, it was hers, too, that first daughter who'd died before 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 forever 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 watercolor printed voile dresses that fluttered in the breezes cooled by the river. All her favorite colors and mine were in that dress. Shades of green, blue, violet, aqua and rose. Her beautiful hair was loose and bannering out. 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 schoolbus home."
But Spencer Longtree rode the school bus with his gang of roughneck buddies. They said such nasty, ugly things to me. I couldn't tell her the awful things they said.
"U . G. . . L . . Y. . ." shrilled Spencer Longtree, who hadn't taken the school bus home. Risking the woods wasn't sparing me his awful presence. "Audrina Adare has got ugly hair . . . spelled--"
"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 didn'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.
"N000," 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 Spider-legs. 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 anus 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.
Ardent
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.
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 toward my room, determined to wake Arden and face him with the truth, a gaslamp came on. Next a flashlight was 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. Colors refracted in my eyes. I staggered backwards, throwing up my hand to shield my eyes from the light. Then I turned to run. Someone followed. I heard the thump of footfalls. I screamed, whirled around and shouted, "Arden, have you come to finish what they started? What are you trying to do to me?"
More lights came on. Strung down the main upstairs corridor were hundreds of crystal prisms, catching colors, sparkling, stabbing and blinding me, threatening me. I spun about, confused and
disoriented, unable to find the direction of my bedroom. Then the hands. . . hands that struck me on the shoulders from behind. Hard, strong hands that sent me pitching forward into space. . . and down, down, down. . hurting all the way until my head struck . . . and then blackness.
Whispering, whispering, on the shallow waves of evening tide voices drifted. They called. Forced me back from a place I couldn't name. Was this me, this tiny pepper dot in the sky? How could I see above, below, behind and before? Was I only an eye in the sky seeing everything, understanding nothing?
Whose name was that I heard spoken so softly? Mine? Whose room was this? Mine? On a narrow bed I lay, staring up at the ceiling. Fuzzily I made out the dresser across the way with its wide mirror that reflected what was in back of my bed. My vision cleared more so I could see the white chaise lounge that Arden had wanted me to have. Whitefern, I was still in Whitefern.
In the adjacent room Vera's voice drifted to me as she spoke softly to Arden. I cringed, or tried to. Something was wrong with me, but I didn't have time to dwell on that. I had to concentrate 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 know she'd want it that way."
What way?
"Vera," answered the unmistakable voice of my husband, "you have to give me time to make a decision like that--an irreversible decision."
"I've had about all I can take from you and from her," said Vera. "You have to decide just who you want, her or me. Do you think I'm going to hang around here forever 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 . . never consent. . ." He paused, sobbed, choked out, "Even as she is, I don't want her to die."
But Vera did. I knew now that somehow Vera was responsible for this situation, as she was responsible for the most disastrous events in my life.
"All right!" shrilled Vera. "If you still love Audrina, then you cannot possibly be in love with me. You have used me, Arden, used me! Stolen from me, too! For all I know I may I- carrying your child again--as I carried your child once before and you didn't know it."
"One time between us then, Vera, only one. You don't know that I was the
-
one responsible. The odds against it were too great. You came to me, too, and let me know you wanted me, and were willing to do anything, and I was young, and Audrina was still a child."
"And she will always be a child!" Vera shrilled. Then her voice dropped an octave as she continued to persuade. "You wanted me, too. You took me and you enjoyed it, and I had to pay the price."
Oh. God, oh, God . . . on and on all of us kept paying prices, I thought, my mind going in circles as I tried to grasp at something stable.
"But if you love her, Arden, then you keep her. And I hope her arms will give you comfort when you need it and her kisses will warm your lips and her passion will satisfy your desire. Lord knows I've never known a man who needs a woman more than you do. And don't you stand there and think you can hire another nurse to take my place. You may not know this, but Audrina needs me. Sylvia needs me, too. Somehow, despite all you've said about Sylvia not responding to anyone but your dear wife, I've managed to make Sylvia trust and even like me."
"Sylvia doesn't trust or like anyone but Audrina," Arden said.
I stared at Vera. Her shining apricot hair peaked out below a starched white cap. Every strand was perfectly in place. Her pale complexion appeared as soft as putty, but even so, she was very pretty wearing white, with those glittering black eyes of hers. Hard, cruel, spider eyes, I thought.
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 toward my bed as if to shield me. Poor Sylvia, all I wanted 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 she'd 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. . .