I gasped as I shoved off Arden's hands that tried to take me from Papa. "The dream, Papa, the First Audrina . . ." My voice came raspy from disuse, funny sounding.
He sighed and held me closer, though I was fading away. I saw Arden run off, presumably to call the ambulance.
"Yes, my darling, but that was a long time ago, and you're going to be just fine. Papa will take care of you. And the rest of my life I'll go down on my knees and give thanks for God sparing you, just when I thought there was no more hope."
I don't remember what happened after that. But when I woke up I was in a hospital room with pink walls, and red and pink roses were everywhere. Papa was sitting in a chair near the window. "Let me talk to her," he said to the nurse, who nodded and told him not to take too long. "Mr. Lowe wants time to see his wife, too."
Sitting on the bed, Papa tenderly took me into his embrace and held me so I heard his heart thudding. "You've had a trying ordeal, Audrina. There were times when neither Arden nor I thought you'd pull through--and that was long before today. Today was a special kind of hell for both of us. We paced outside while the doctor worked on you--and now it appears you'll be all right."
But there was something I wanted to know, had to know. "Papa, you've got to tell me the truth this time . ." My throat hurt when I spoke, but I made myself talk. "Was Arden there when your First Audrina died? I saw his face in my dreams. He was there, wasn't he? The First Audrina tried to warn me against him, and I paid no heed, no heed."
He hesitated and looked toward the door that Arden had opened. He stood there looking as distraught as I'd ever seen him, except when he was a boy in the woods who had no courage whatsoever.
"Go on, Damian," said Arden, "tell her the truth. Tell her, yes, I was there, and I ran! Just as I'm going to leave now, for I see by your eyes that you hate me. But be back, Audrina."
In the torturous days that followed, I refused to allow Arden into my room. He came with flowers, with candy, with pretty nightgowns and bed jackets, but I sent them all back to him.
"Tell him to give them to Vera," I said to Papa, who looked solemn as he saw the tears roll down my cheeks.
"You're being very hard on him, although I can understand why. But you must hold on there, girl," ordered Papa when I wanted to sleep. "Since the night of your fall, Arden and I have been through hell. I admit I never wanted you to marry Arden Lowe, yet you did, and his mother made me understand something I hadn't understood before. And both you and I owe his mother a great deal. And if you owe her, you owe her son even more. Give Arden a chance, Audrina. He loves you. . . let him come in. . . please."
I stared at him disbelievingly. Papa didn't know that Arden had been planning to kill me and run off with Vera.
A gray-haired nurse opened my hospital door and stuck her head inside. "Time to go, Mr. Adare. I'm sure Mrs. Lowe will want to have a few minutes to spend with her husband."
"No!" I said firmly. "Tell him to go away."
I couldn't see Arden yet. He'd been unfaithful with Vera. And he'd failed my dead sister when he might have saved her . . . and there was something else I had to figure out. Something elusive that kept evading me even as it whispered that I still didn't know the whole truth about the First Audrina.
Days came and days went. I grew stronger as I was fed vitamins and high-protein food. Papa came to visit twice a day. I still refused to see Arden.
I was given physical therapy treatments to strengthen my legs and arms, and lessons on how to control all the muscles that had been so long unused. I was taught to walk again. In the three weeks I was in the hospital, not once did I allow Arden into my room. Then Papa came to take me home. Sylvia sat beside me.
"Arden wanted to come with us," said Papa as he turned off the main highway. "Really, Audrina, you can't put him off forever. You've got to talk this out with him."
"Where's Vera, Papa?"
He snorted in disgust. "Vera fell and broke her arm," he said indifferently. "Egg-shell bones if ever I heard of any. Lord, the hospital bills I've paid to keep her whole."
"I want her gone from our house." My voice was hard. What happened between me and Arden depended on what happened between Vera and Arden.
"She'll leave the day the cast comes off." His voice was as hard and determined as mine. "I think Sylvia made her trip. Sylvia's got a real hatred going for Vera." He shot me a shrewd glance. "You really can't blame Arden for what he did with her. Many a morning at breakfast, even before Vera came back, I noticed how unhappy he seemed. He'd smile when you were looking his way, but when you turned your head I could tell his nights with you left much to be desired--and it pleased me. I confess that."
It pleased me, too, that I'd made him unhappy. I hoped Arden never lived long enough to have another happy hour. Ugly thoughts welled up out of me as we approached that tall, splendid and restored house. Whitefern. What a laugh to have been so proud that my ancestry was dated back to those who'd come ashore to settle in The Lost Colony.
With Papa supporting me on one side and Sylvia on the other, we slowly ascended the porch steps. Arden threw open the front door and came rushing out. He tried to kiss me. I jerked away. He then tried to take my hand. I snatched my hand from his and spat, "Don't touch me! Go to Vera and find your solace--as you found it while I was in that coma."
Pale and miserable looking, Arden stepped back and allowed Papa to guide me inside. Once we were inside, I fell onto the purple velvet lounge, now with its golden tassels and cording bright and new and all its stuffing covered over.
Now came the moment I'd dreaded, when I was left alone with Arden. Wearily I closed my eyes and tried to pretend he wasn't there.
"Are you going to lie there with your eyes closed and say nothing? Won't you even look at me?" Then his voice grew louder. "What the hell do you think I'm made of? You were in a coma and Vera was there, willing to do what she could to help me survive. You lay on that bed stiff and cold--and how was Ito know that day by day you were gradually getting better when you never indicated in any way that you were?"
He got up to pace the room, never striding its full length but stalking back and forth the length of the chaise I lay on. With some difficulty I rose to my feet.
"I'm going upstairs. Please don't follow me. I don't need you anymore, Arden. I know you and Vera planned to kill me. I used to have such faith in you, such trust that I'd found the one man in this hateful world who would always be there when I needed him. But you failed me. You wanted me dead so you could have her!"
His face turned white and he was so shocked that his voice ran away and left him speechless, when he'd learned to be as garrulous as Papa. I used that opportunity to head for the stairs. In another moment he rushed to stop me, catching me easily since I moved so slowly.
"What's ahead for us now that you hate me?" he asked hoarsely. Without answering I passed on by the room we'd shared, though when I looked in there I saw my regular large bed was back, and the narrow one had been carted away. Everything had been refurbished, so there was nothing left to remind me of all those dreadful days when I'd lain there unmoving and waiting to die.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
What right did he have to ask me anything? He didn't belong in my life now. Let him have Vera. They deserved each other.
Painfully, but gaining strength with each step I took, I headed for other stairs that soon took me into the attic. Arden started to follow. I whirled around and flared at him in a hot burst of temper.
"No! Let me do something I've been trying to do most of my life! When I lay on that bed and heard you and Vera plotting to end my life, do you know what bothered me most? Well, I'm going to tell you. There's a secret about me that I've got to find out. It's more important than you, than anything else. So leave me alone and let me finish something that should have been finished a long time ago. And maybe when I see you again, I can bear to look at your face. . . for right now, I don't think I ever want to see you again."
He drew back and stared at me bleakly, making my heart ache as I saw him again as a boy, when I'd loved him so much. I thought of Billie, who'd told me once everybody made mistakes, and even her son wasn't perfect. Still, I headed for the attic, for the spiraling iron stairs that would take me into the cupola where even now I could hear the wind chimes tinkling, tinkling, trying as they'd always tried to fill the empty holes in my memory bank.
The Secret of the Wind Chimes
.
Laboriously I managed to climb the iron stairs
that had led me away from Vera so many times. The sun was shining brightly through all the stained-glass windows, and on the patterned Turkey rug they threw myriad confusing patterns. . . turning this room as the sunlight did into a living kaleidoscope. And I was the center of all the colors, making everything happen, as the colors caught in my chameleon-colored hair and made it a rainbow, too. My arms were tattooed with light, and in my eyes I felt the colors that patterned my face as well. I looked around at the scenes my childish eyes had loved so well and saw high above the long slender rectangles of painted glass suspended on their faded scarlet silken cords.
I looked around, trembling as I did, expecting childhood memories to rise up like specters and scare me off, but only soft memories came, of me all alone, wishing, always wishing to go to school, to have playmates, to be allowed the freedom other children my age had.
Had I made so much effort to gain no new knowledge? "What is it?" I screamed at the wind chimes high above. "Always I hear you blowing and trying to tell me something--tell me now that I'm here and willing to listen! I wasn't willing before, I know that now! Tell me now!"
"Audrina," Papa's voice came from behind me, "you sound hysterical. That's not good for you in your weakened condition."
"Did Arden send you up here?" I yelled. "Am I never to know anything? Must I go into my grave with my mind full of holes? Papa--tell me the secret of this room!"
He didn't want to tell me. His dark, fugitive eyes quickly dodged away, and he started talking about how weak I was, how I needed to lie down and rest. I ran to him to batter his chest. Easily he caught both my fists and held them in one hand as broodingly he stared down into my eyes.
"All right. Perhaps the time has come. Ask me what you will."
"Tell me, Papa, everything I need to know. I feel like I'm losing my mind by not knowing."
"Okay," he said, looking around for something to sit on, but there was nothing but the floor. He sat down and leaned back against a window frame and managed to pull me down with him. Holding me in his arms, he began to speak in a heavy voice.
"This is not going to be easy to say, nor is it going to be pleasant for you to hear, but you're right. You do need to know. Your aunt told me from the beginning you should know the truth about your older sister."
With bated breath I waited.
"The vision you had when first you went into the rocking chair, where the boys jumped out of the bushes--I'm sure now you realize that those three boys raped my Audrina. But she didn't die as I told you."
"She's not dead? Papa . . . where is she?"
"Listen and hear, and don't ask more questions until I'm finished. I told all those lies only to protect you from knowing about the ugliness that could have spoiled your life. That day when Audrina was nine, after the rape, she staggered home clutching the remnants of her clothes together, trying to hide her nudity. They had humiliated her so, she had no pride left. Muddy, soaking wet, bruised and scratched and bleeding, she was filled with shame, and in the house twenty children were waiting for the birthday party to begin. She came in the back door and tried to steal upstairs without anyone seeing her, but your mother was in the kitchen, saw Audrina's shocking state and raced to follow her up the stairs. Audrina was able to say only one word, and that was 'boys.' That was enough for your mother to realize what had happened. So your mother took her in her arms and told her it would be all right, that those awful things did happen sometimes, but she was still the same wonderful girl we both loved. 'Your papa doesn't have to know,' she told Audrina . . . and what a mistake that was. Those words clearly told Audrina that I would be ashamed of her, and that what those boys had done had ruined her value for me. She started screaming that she wished the boys had killed her and left her dead under the golden raintree, for she deserved to die now that God had deserted her and failed her when she had prayed for Him to help."
"Oh, Papa," I whispered, "I know how she must have felt."
"Yes, I'm sure you do. Then your mother made her second mistake, an even worse one. She took Audrina into the bathroom and filled the tub with scalding hot water, then forced my girl into that hot water. With a hard brush she began to scrub off the contamination of those boys. Already she was sore and cut and bruised, and her body had endured shock enough, but Lucietta went wild with rage and wielded that harsh brush with no mercy, as if she was ridding the world of all filth, all boys, never realizing what she was doing to her own daughter. It was degradation your mother was trying to remove, and if that brush took off a great deal of Audrina's skin, she didn't seem to notice.
"Downstairs, the kids who had come for the party were clamoring for ice cream and cake, and Ellsbeth dished it out, and told the guests that Audrina had come down with an awful cold and she wouldn't be attending her own party. Naturally this didn't go over very well, and soon the guests departed. Some left their gifts, others took theirs back, as if they thought Audrina was slighting them.
"Ellsbeth called me at my office and told me briefly what she thought had happened. My rage was so huge I felt I might have a heart attack as I ran to my car and drove home so fast it's a wonder the police didn't stop me. I reached home just in time to see your mother pulling a white cotton nightgown down over Audrina's head. I glimpsed that small raw body, so red it seemed to be bleeding all over. I could have killed those boys and beaten your mother for being so cruel as to use that damned brush on that tender skin that had already endured enough. I never forgave her for doing that. I had little mean ways of throwing it back in her face later on. When she scrubbed Audrina down with that brush, she implanted the idea in her head that the filth would never come off, that she was forevermore ruined in my eyes, in everybody's eyes. Then your mother went to the medicine cabinet and came back with iodine . . . not the kind we use nowadays, but that old-fashioned kind that stung like fire.
"I screamed at Lucietta, 'No more!' and she dropped the iodine, and Audrina broke away from her mother. She seemed terrified to see me, the father she'd always loved so much, and on bare feet she went flying up to the attic. I chased behind her and so did your mother. Audrina screamed all the way, no doubt from pain as well as from shock. She ran up these spiraling stairs to this room we're in right now. She was young and fast, and when I came into the cupola she was standing on a chair and had managed to open one of those high windows."
He pointed to the one. "That's where she was, and the wind was howling in, and the rain, and the thunder was cracking, the lightning was flashing, and the colors in here were mind-boggling with the brightness the lightning caused. The wind chimes were beating frantically. It was pandemonium up here. And Audrina on that chair had one leg outside the window and was preparing to jump when I raced up and seized hold of her and pulled her back inside.
She fought me, clawed at my face, screaming as if I represented to her all that was evil in every male, and if she harmed me, she'd succeed in harming them . . the ones who'd stolen her pride when they ravished her body."
I twisted about to stare up at the wind chimes that hung so still on their silken cords, yet I thought I could hear them faintly tinkling.
"There's more, darling, much more. Do you want to wait for another day when you feel stronger?"
No, I'd waited too long already. It was now, or it was never. "Go on, Papa, tell it all."
"I told your mother time and again she shouldn't have given Audrina a bath. She should have comforted her, and later we could have gone to the police. But your mother didn't want her shamed and humiliated by more men who would have asked her all sorts of intimate questions a child shouldn't have to answer. I was so enraged that I could have killed those boys with my bare hands, wrung their necks, castrated them, done something so terrible no doubt they would have put me in prison for life. . . but my Audrina wouldn't name them. . . or else she couldn't name them for
-
fear of their reprisal. Maybe they threatened her, I don't know."
And Arden had been there, too. Arden had been there and she had pleaded to him for help--and he'd run away. "Where is she, Papa?"
He hesitated, turning me so he could look into my eyes, and up above the wind chimes began to clamor more, and I knew instinctively they'd keep on doing that until I knew the secret.
I stood in the circle of Papa's powerful arms in the middle of the Turkey rug, where he'd pulled me so I wouldn't stand too near the glass. "Why did you pull me from the windows just now, Papa?"
"The sky. Didn't you notice the dark clouds? A storm is brewing, and I don't like being up here when storms come. Let's go downstairs before I tell you the rest."
"Tell it now, Papa. This is where she always came to play. I always knew those paper dolls were her dolls."
He cleared his throat, as I needed to clear mine. It was constricting, making me breathe too fast, making me feel panic was soon to make me scream. It was like being in the rocking chair again when I was seven, and I was scared, so scared.
Papa sighed heavily, releasing me long enough to put his large hands to his face, but only briefly, as if afraid to let go of me for too long. "I loved that girl, God how I loved her. She gave so much to those she loved, gave so much trust to me. She was really the only female who ever trusted me fully and I promised myself I'd never disappoint her. And it wasn't only that she was an exceptionally beautiful child; she also had the ability to charm everyone with her warmth, her friendliness, her sweetness. She had something else, too, some indefinable quality that made her seem lit up from the inside with happiness, with a contagious exuberance for living that so few of us have. To be with her made you feel more vitally alive than you felt with anyone else. A trip to the beach, the zoo, the museum, a park, and she'd light up your life and make you feel a child again, too, seeing
everything through her eyes. Because she saw wondrous things, you saw them as well. It was a rare gift worth more than anything money can buy. The least little present and she was delighted. She loved the weather, the good and the bad. Such rare qualities she had, so very rare." He choked then, lowered his eyes briefly and met mine, then quickly looked away.
"Even your mother was happy when Audrina was near, and God knows Lucky had reasons enough to be unhappy; Ellsbeth did, too. I loved both of them. And I tried for both of them to be everything they needed. I don't think I ever succeeded in making either happy enough." His voice faded small then as his eyes swam with unshed tears. "But she should have obeyed our instructions. Time and time again we told Audrina not to take the shortcut . . she should have known better."
"Don't stop now," I said nervously.
"After your mother washed away all the evidence of the rape, we thought we could keep Audrina home and the secret would stay in this house. But secrets have a fast way of leaking out no matter what you do to keep them hidden. I wanted to find those boys and smash their stupid heads together. As I said before, she wouldn't tell us who they were, nor would she return to school, where she might see them again. She didn't want to go to any school. She refused to eat, to leave her bed, nor would she look in a mirror. She got up one night and broke every mirror in this house. She'd scream when she saw me, not as her father anymore but as another man who might harm her. She hated anything male. She threw stones and drove her poor cat away. I never allowed her to have a cat again, fearful of what she might do if it was male."
Numb, I stared at him incredulously. "Oh, Papa, I'm so confused. Are you trying to tell me that Vera is truly the First Audrina, the one I've envied all my life? Papa, you don't even like Vera!"
The strange light in his eyes frightened me. "I couldn't let her die," he went on, his eyes riveted to mine, pinning me to him like butterflies were pinned to a board. "If she died, part of me would have died, too, and she'd take that gift of hers into-her grave and never again would I have known one second of happiness. I saved her. Saved her in the only way I knew how."
Like water sinking into concrete, something was trying to filter into my brain, some knowledge that hovered on the brink of being born. "How did you save her?"
"My sweet Audrina . . . haven't you guessed yet? Haven't I explained and explained and given you all the clues you need? Vera is not my First Audrina .
you are."
"No!" I screamed, "I can't be! She's dead, buried in the family cemetery! We went there every Sunday."
"She's not dead, because
you are
alive. There was no First Audrina, because you are my first and only Audrina and if God strikes me dead for telling a lie, then let him strike me dead, I'm telling you the truth!"
Those voices I heard in my head, those voices that said,
Papa, why did they do it? Why?
It's only a dream, love, only a dream. Papa will never let anything bad happen to his Audrina, his sweet Audrina. But your older dead sister had the gift, that wonderful gift that I want for you now that she doesn't need it any longer. Papa can use the gift to help you, to help Momma and Aunt Ellsbeth.
God wanted the First and Best Audrina dead, didn't he? He let her die because she disobeyed and used the shortcut. She was punished because she liked feeling pretty in expensive new dresses, wasn't she? That First Audrina thought it was fun for the boys to run after her and she could prove to them she could run faster than Aunt Ellsbeth. Faster than any other girl in school. She thought they'd never, never catch her, and God was supposed to be looking out for her, wasn't he? She prayed to him and he didn't hear. He just sat up there in his heaven and pretended everything was just fine in the woods, when He knew, He knew. He was glad another proud Whitefern girl was being assaulted because God is a man, tool God didn't care, Papal--and that's the truth of it--isn't it?
God is not that cruel, Audrina. God is merciful when you give him a chance. But one has to do what's best for oneself when He has so many to take care of
Then what good is He, Papa, what good?
I screamed and tore myself from his grasp. Then I raced headlong down the stairs at breakneck speed, not caring if I fell to my death.