When Dad started to follow me up the attic stairs, Cindy let out a loud wail of fright. Quickly he returned to the hall and picked her up
as if to take her with us.
Bart pulled out a new pocketknife and began to whittle on a long tree branch. It seemed he was going to skin off all the tree bark and make a smooth switch. Cindy couldn't take her eyes off of that knife or switch.
Dad, Cindy and me looked all over our house, in the attic, in the closets, under the beds, everywhere. Mom was nowhere to be found. "It's just not like Cathy to do anything like this," Dad said worriedly. "Especially I know she wouldn't leave Cindy alone with Bart. Something is very wrong."
Yeah, I thought, if there was a fish in the house, it was watching us and whittling away on a limb that should be used on his bare bottom.
"Dad," I whispered as he stood in the middle of his bedroom again, looking around with bleak eyes, "why don't we presume Bart knows where she's gone? He's not the most honest kid ever born. You know how crazy he's been acting lately."
We set off together, Dad still carrying Cindy, and hunted now for Bart. Now we couldn't find him. He was gone.
Dad and I stared at each other. He shook his head.
I stared around, knowing Bart had to be hiding behind a chair, or was crouched down low in some corner that was dim, or perhaps out in the rain, acting like an animal.
But the storm was getting worse. His cave in the hedges wouldn't keep him dry. Even Bart had more sense than to stay out in the cold and wet.
My thoughts in a turmoil, I felt wild inside, like the storm. I hadn't done anything to deserve all this trouble--yet I was in the midst of it, suffering along with Dad, with Mom, with Cindy. . . and maybe Bart too.
"Are you hating me now, Jory?" asked Dad, looking at me squarely. "Are wheels churning in your head saying your mother and I brought this all on ourselves and we deserve to pay the price? Are you thinking you shouldn't have to pay any price? If that's what you're thinking, I'm thinking the same thing. Maybe your mother's life would have turned out better, and yours and Bart's too, if I had gone away and left her to live in Paul's home until she found another man. But I still loved her. I love her now, tomorrow and forever. God help me for not being able to think about life without her."
Dully I turned away. So that was what everlasting burning love was like, destroying everything that got in its way.
On my bed I lay down and sobbed.
Finally, I sat up and wondered again where Mom was. For the first time it really hit me--she might be in danger. She wouldn't leave Dad. Something terrible must have happened or she'd be here, setting the table as she did every Thursday when Emma had her day off. Thursdays were very special to them for reasons I was just beginning to
understand.
Thursday, the day the maids of Foxworth Hall went into the city. Thursday, the day Mom and Dad could climb out the attic dormer window and lie on the roof and talk, and as they talked, as they looked at each other in their high and lonely place, they fell mindlessly, uncontrollably in love.
For now I knew why Mom had married one man after another. Trying always to escape the sinful love she felt too.
I got up. Decided. It was up to me to find Bart. When I found Bart, I'd find my mother.
My Attic Souvenirs
. In the huge kitchen of the mansion John Amos had everything under control. The maids and cook were scurrying about. "Madame had to leave early," he told them. "Now you are to pack up what clothes she'll need for her trip to Hawaii, and be quick about it. Lottie, I want you to drive her bags to the airport and put them on the plane. Don't just stand there and stare at me with your blank face looking so stupid. You understand English. Do as I say!"
Boy, he could act mean when he wanted to. They scattered like scared birds, one this way, one that, and then we were alone and he was grinning at me with his cracked teeth. "How did your end go?"
Just like the movies, him and me. I swallowed over some lump that stayed in my throat and wouldn't go away. "They don't know where Momma is. They're worried, and keep asking, where is she?"
"Never mind about them," he said in his funny old voice that made me wonder why God had chosen him for such a special job, "I'll take care of everything until God sends his signal that your mother and grandmother have been redeemed, and saved from hellfires. You just go home and keep quiet."
Fire in my mind, growing bigger, hotter. "You told me my momma would be my attic souvenir. And now you won't even tell me where you put her. I've looked in the attic and they're not up there. You tell me where they are, or I'll go home and tell my daddy what you've done."
"What I've done?" he asked with a curling sneer. "It's what you have done, Bart Winslow Sheffield. Do you think for one moment, with your violent psychiatric history that you can be believed and not blamed? The law will take you and find you guilty, and you will be locked away."
When he saw the red Malcolm anger in my eyes he tried to smile. "Come now, Bart, I was only testing you, trying to see if you'd break and lose your courage. But you're strong and full of the righteous power, the same as your great-grandfather, Malcolm. Every power he had you have. And now is your chance to use those powers. For now you'll be in charge of the adults--your mother and grandmother. You will control their lives, and feed them--if you will--or let them starve if you are so inclined. But you have to be careful. You must keep them a secret until . . . well, remember always your father and brother will be suspicious, and they may betray you if you give them the least hint of what you're up to."
People always suspected me. If something was broken it was always my fault. If the toilet stopped up and overflowed it was always because I'd thrown down too much paper. If Momma lost her jewelry, that was my fault too. Whatever bad thing happened in our house, they said it was my fault. I'd show 'em now how wrong it was for them not to love me.
"Bread and water," I said. "Bread and water is good enough for women who are unfaithful to husbands and sons."
"Fine, fine," mumbled John Amos. Down, down the narrow cellar steps John Amos led me, carrying a small flashlight. Made eerie shadows on the walls, felt clammy. Long time ago when this house belonged to Jory and me we'd found every nook, every cranny. But this was where ghosts lived, where I'd never felt comfortable, so I stayed close at the heels of John Amos, terrified if he moved more than a yard ahead of me. "They'll look down here," I whispered, scared of waking up things that might be sleeping. "No, they won't look where I have them hid," answered John Amos. He chortled. "Your father will be sure they are in the attic, and why not? That would be the perfect revenge. But they'll nevernever find the snug little cage the workmen made when they put up a new brick wall to reinforce the wine cellar."