Dollenganger 01 Flowers In the Attic (36 page)

Chris sat in the rocker and held out his arms to Carrie and me. We both sat on his lap as he rocked slowly back and forth, back and forth, creaking the floorboards.
I don't know why Chris's legs didn't grow numb; we sat on him for so long. Then I got up to take care of Mickey's cage, and gave him food to eat and water to drink, and I held him, and petted him, and told him soon his master would be coming back. I believe that mouse knew something was wrong. He didn't play cheerfully in his cage, and even though I left the door open, he didn't come out to scamper all over the room, and head for Carrie's dollhouse that enchanted him the most.
I prepared the pre-cooked meals, which we hardly touched. When the last meal of the day was over, and the dishes were put away, and we were bathed and ready for bed, we all three knelt in a row beside Cory's bed, and said our prayers to God. "Please, please let Cory get well, and come back to us." If we prayed for anything else, I don't recall what it was.
We slept, or tried to, all three in the same bed, with Carrie between Chris and me. Nothing gross was ever going to happen between us again. . . never, never again.
God, please don't punish Cory as a way to strike back at Chris and me and make us hurt, for already we hurt, and we didn't mean to do it, we didn't. It just happened, and only once. And it wasn't any pleasure, God, not really, not any.
A new day dawned, grim, gray, forbidding. Behind the drawn draperies life started up for those who lived on the outside, those unseen by us. We dragged ourselves into focus, and poked about, trying to fill our time, and trying to eat, and make Mickey happy when he seemed so sad without the little boy who laid down trails of bread crumbs for him to follow.
I changed the mattress covers, with the assistance of Chris, for that was a very hard thing to do, to slip a full-size mattress in and out of one of those heavy quilted things, and yet we had to do it often because of Cory's lack of control. Chris and I made the beds up with clean linens, and smoothed on the spreads, and tidied up the room, while Carrie sat alone in the rocker and stared off into space.
Around ten, there was nothing left to do but sit on the bed nearest the door to the hall, with our eyes riveted upon the knob, willing it to turn and admit Momma, who would bring us news.
Shortly thereafter, Momma came in with her eyes rimmed red from crying. Behind her was the steeleyed grandmother, tall, stern, no tears.
Our mother faltered near the door as if her legs would give way and spill her to the floor. Chris and I jumped to our feet, but Carrie only stared at Momma's empty eyes.
"I drove Cory to a hospital miles away, the nearest one, really," explained our mother in a tight and hoarse voice that choked from time to time, "and I registered him under a false name, saying he was my nephew, my ward."
Lies! Always lies! "Momma--how is he?" I asked impatiently.
Her glazed blue eyes turned our way; void eyes, staring vacantly; lost eyes, seeking something gone forever--I guessed it was her humanity. "Cory had pneumonia," she intoned. "The doctors did all they could. . . but it was . . . too. . . too late."
Had pneumonia?
All they could?
Too late?
All past tenses!
Cory was dead! We were never going to see him again!
Chris said later the news hit him hard in the groin, like a kick, and I did see him stumble backward and spin around to hide his face as his shoulders sagged and he sobbed.
At first I didn't believe her. I stood and I stared, and I doubted. But the look on her face convinced me, and something big and hollow swelled up inside my chest. I sank down on the bed, numb, almost paralyzed, and didn't even know I was crying until my clothes were wet.
And even as I sat and cried, I still didn't want to believe Cory was gone from our lives. And Carrie, poor Carrie, she lifted up her head, threw it back, and opened up her mouth and screamed!
She screamed and screamed until her voice went, and she could scream no more. She drifted to the corner where Cory kept his guitar and his banjo, and neatly she lined up all his pairs of small worn tennis shoes. And that's where she chose to sit, with the shoes, with the musical instruments, and Mickey's cage nearby, and from that moment on, not a word escaped her lips.
"Will we go to his funeral?" Chris asked in a choked way with his back still turned.
"He's already been buried," said Momma. "I had a false name put on the tombstone." And then, very quickly, she escaped the room and our questions, and the grandmother followed, her lips set in a grim, thin line.
Right before our horrified eyes, Carrie shriveled more each day. I felt God might as well have taken Carrie, too, and buried her alongside Cory in that faraway grave with the wrong name that didn't even have the comfort of a father buried nearby.
None of us could eat much. We became listless and tired, always tired. Nothing held our interest. Tears--Chris and I cried five oceans of tears. We assumed all the blame. A long time ago we should have escaped. We should have used that wooden key and gone for help. We had
let
Cory die! He'd been our responsibility, our dear quiet little boy of many talents, and we had let him die. Now we had a small sister huddled in a corner, growing weaker each passing day.
Chris said in a low voice so Carrie wouldn't overhear, just in case she was listening, though I doubted she was (she was blind, deaf, mute . . . our babbling brook, damned), "We've got to run, Cathy, and quick. Or we are all going to die like Cory. Something is wrong with all of us. We've been locked up too long. We've lived abnormal lives, like being in a vacuum without germs, without the infections children usually come in contact with. We are without resistance to infections."
"I don't understand," I said.
"What I mean is," he whispered as we huddled in the same chair, "like the creatures from Mars in that book
The War of the Worlds
we could all die from a single cold germ."
Horrified, I could only stare at him. He knew so much more than I did. I turned my gaze on Carrie in the corner. Her sweet baby face, with eyes too large and shadowed underneath, stared blankly forward at nothing. I knew she had her vision fixed on eternity, where Cory was. All the love I'd given Cory, I put into Carrie now . . . so afraid for her. Such a tiny skeleton body, and her neck was so weak, too small for her head. Was this the way all the Dresden dolls were going to end?
"Chris, if we have to die, it's not going to be like mice in a trap. If germs can kill us, then let it be germs--so when you steal tonight, take everything of value you can find and we can carry! I'll pack a lunch to take along. With Cory's clothes taken from the suitcases, we'll have more room. Before the morning comes, we'll be gone."
"No," he said quietly. "Only if we know Momma and her husband have gone out--only then can I take all the money and leave, and all the jewelry in one fell swoop. Take only what we absolutely need--no toys, no games. And Cathy, Momma may not go out tonight. Certainly she can't attend parties in her time of mourning."
How could she mourn when she had to keep her husband always in the dark? And no one came but the grandmother to tell us what was going on. She refused to speak to us, or look at us. In my mind we were already on our way, and I looked at her as if she were already part of the past. Now that our time to depart was so near, I felt frightened. It was big out there. We'd be on our own. What would the world think of us now?
We weren't beautiful like we used to be, only pale and sickly attic mice with long flaxen hair, wearing expensive but ill-fitting clothes, and sneakers on our feet.
Chris and I had educated ourselves from reading so many books, and television had taught us much about violence, about greed, about imagination, but it had taught us hardly anything that was practical and useful in preparing us to face reality.
Survival. That's what TV should teach innocent children. How to live in a world that really doesn't give a damn about anyone but their own--and sometimes, not even their own.
Money. If there was one thing we'd learned during the years of our imprisonment, it was that money came first, and everything else came after. How well Momma had said it long ago: "It's not love that makes the world go 'round--it's money."
I took Cory's small clothes from the suitcase, his second-best sneakers, two pair of pajamas, and all the time tears fell and my nose ran. In one of the side pockets of the suitcase, I found sheet music he must have packed himself. Oh, it did hurt to pick up those sheets, and see the lines he had drawn by using a ruler, and his little black notes, and half-notes so crookedly done. And beneath the musical score (he had taught himself to write down the music from an encyclopedia Chris had found for him) Cory had written words to a half-completed song:
I wish the night would end,
I wish the day'd begin,
I wish it would rain or snow,
Or the wind would blow,
Or the grass would grow,
I wish I had yesterday,
I wish there were games to play. . . .
Oh, God! Was there ever such a sad, melancholy song? So these were the lyrics to a tune I'd heard him play over and over. Wishing, always wishing for something he couldn't have. Something all other little boys accepted as a normal, unremarkable part of their lives.
I could have screamed the anguish I felt.
I went to sleep with Cory on my mind. And, like always, when I was most troubled, I fell into dreams. But this time I was only me. I found myself on a winding, dirt path with wide, flat pastures that grew wildflowers of crimson and pink on the left, and on the right, yellow and white blossoms swayed gently in the soft, warm kind breezes of eternal spring. A small child clung to my hand. I looked down, expecting to see Carrie--but it was Cory!
He was laughing and happy, and he skipped along beside me, his short legs trying to keep pace with mine, and in his hand he held a bouquet of the wildflowers. He smiled up at me and was about to speak when we heard the twitterings of many brightly colored birds in the parasol trees ahead.
A tall, slim man with golden hair, his skin deeply tanned, wearing white tennis clothes, came striding forward from a glorious garden of abundant trees and radiant flowers, including roses of all colors. He paused a dozen yards away and held his arms out to Cory.
My heart, even in my dream, pounded in excitement and joy! It was Daddy! Daddy had come to meet Cory so he wouldn't have to travel alone the rest of the way. And though I knew I should release Cory's small hot hand, I would hold him forever with me.
Daddy looked at me, not with pity, not with reprimand, but only with pride and admiration. And I let go of Cory's hand and stood to watch him joyfully run into Daddy's arms. He was swept up by powerful arms that once used to hold me and make me feel all the world was a wonderful thing. And I would step down the path, too, and feel those arms about me once again, and allow Daddy to take me where he would.
"Cathy, wake up!" said Chris, sitting on my bed and shaking me. "You're talking in your sleep, and laughing and crying, and say ing hello, and then goodbye. Why is it you dream so much?"
My dream spilled from me so fast my words were garbled. Chris just sat there and stared at me, as did Carrie, who had awakened to hear as well. It had been so long since I last saw my father, his face had faded in my memory, but as I looked at Chris, I grew very confused. He was so very much like Daddy, only younger.
That dream was to haunt me many a day, pleasantly. It gave me peace. It gave me knowledge I hadn't had before. People never really died. They only went on to a better place, to wait a while for their loved ones to join them. And then once more they went back to the world, in the same way they had arrived the first time around.

November tenth. This was to be our last day in prison. God would not deliver us, we would deliver ourselves.

As soon as the hour passed ten, tonight, Chris would commit his final robbery. Our mother had visited to stay but a few minutes, ill at ease with us now, very obviously so. "Bart and I are going out tonight. I don't want to, but he insists. You see, he doesn't understand why I look so sad."

I bet he didn't understand. Chris slung over his shoulder the dual pillowcases in which to carry back heavy jewels. He stood in the open doorway and gave Carrie and me one long, long look before he closed the door and used his wooden key to lock us in, for he couldn't leave the door open, and in this way alert the grandmother, if she came to check. We couldn't hear Chris steal along the long dark northern corridor, for the walls were too thick, and the hall carpet too plush and sound-proofing.

Side by side Carrie and I lay, my arms
protectively around her.
If that dream hadn't come to tell me Cory was well taken care of, I would have cried not to feel him close still. I couldn't help but ache for a little boy who had called me Momma whenever he was sure his older brother wouldn't overhear. Always he'd been so afraid Chris might consider him a sissy if he knew how much he missed and needed his mother, so much so, he had to make do with me. And though I'd told him Chris would never laugh, or jeer, for he had been very needing of a mother too, once upon a time, still Cory would keep it a secret just between him and me--and Carrie. He had to pretend to be manly, and convince himself it didn't matter if he had neither a mother, nor a father, when all along it did matter, a great deal.
I held Carrie tight, tight against me, vowing that if ever I had a child, or children, they'd never feel a need for me that I didn't sense and respond to. I'd be the best mother alive.
Hours dragged by like years, and still Chris didn't return from his last foray into our mother's grand suite of rooms. Why was it taking so long this time? Wide awake and miserable, I was filled with fears, and envisioned all the calamities that could stay him.
Bart Winslow . . . the suspicious husband . . . he'd catch Chris! Call the police! Have Chris thrown in jail! Momma would stand calmly by and mildly express shock and faint surprise that someone would dare steal from her. Oh, no, of course she didn't have a son. Everybody knew she was childless, for heaven's sake. Had they ever seen her with a child? She didn't know that blond boy with blue eyes so very much like her own. After all, she did have many cousins scattered about--and a thief was a thief, even if he were blood kin, some fifth or sixth distant relative.
And that grandmother! If she caught him--the worst possible punishment!
Dawn came up quickly, faint, shrilled by a cock's crow.
The sun lingered reluctantly on the horizon. Soon it would be too late to go. The morning train would pass on by the depot, and we needed several hours' head start before the grandmother opened the bedroom door and found us gone. Would she send out a search party? Notify the police? Or would she, more likely, just let us go, glad, at last, to be rid of us?
Despairing, I ascended the stairs to the attic to stare outside. Foggy, cold day. Last week's snow lay in patches here and there. A dull, mysterious day that seemed incapable of bringing us joy or freedom. I heard that rooster cockle-doodle-doo again; it sounded muffled and far away as I silently prayed that, whatever Chris was doing, and wherever he was, he heard it too, and would put some speed in his feet.
I remember, oh, how I remember that chilly early morning when Chris stole back into our room. Lying beside Carrie, I was tentatively on the edge of fretful sleep, so it was easy for me to bolt widely awake when the locked door to our room opened. I'd lain there, fully dressed, ready to go, waiting, even in the fitful dreams that came and went, for Chris to come back and save us all.
Just inside the door, Chris hesitated, his glazed eyes staring over at me. Then he drifted in my direction, in no great hurry, as he should be. All the while I could only stare at the pillowcases one inside the other--so flat! So empty looking! "Where are the jewels?" I cried. "Why did you stay so long? Look out the windows, the sun is rising! We'll never make it to the train depot on time!" My voice turned hard, accusing, angry. "You turned chivalrous again, didn't you? That's why you've come back without Momma's precious jewelry!"
He had reached the bed by this time, and he just stood there with the flat, empty pillowcases hanging from his hand.
"Gone," he said dully. "All the jewelry was gone."
"Gone?" I asked sharply, sure he was lying, covering up, still unwilling to take what his mother so cherished. Then I looked at his eyes. "Gone? Chris, the jewelry is always there. And what's the matter with you, anyway--why do you look so queer?"
He sagged down on his knees beside the bed, gone boneless and limp as his head drooped forward, and his face nestled down on my breast. Then he began to sob! Dear God! What had gone wrong? Why was he crying? It's terrible to hear a man cry, and I thought of him as a man now, not a boy.
My arms held him, my hands caressed and stroked his hair, his cheek, his arms, his back, and then I kissed him, all in an effort to soothe whatever awful thing had happened. I did what I had seen our mother do for him in times of distress, and intuitively I had no fears that his passions would be aroused into wanting more than just what I was willing to give.
Actually, I had to force him to talk, to explain.
He choked off his sobs, and swallowed them. He wiped away the tears and dried his face with the edge of the sheet. Then he turned his head so he could stare at those horrible paintings depicting hell and all its torment. His phrases came broken, disjointed, stopped often by sobs he had to hold back.
This was the way he told it, while on his knees beside my bed, while I held his shaky hands, and his body trembled, and his blue eyes were dark and bleak, warning me I was about to be shocked. Forewarned as I was, I still wasn't prepared for what I heard.
"Well," he began, breathing hard, "I realized that something was different the second I stepped into her suite of rooms. I beamed my flashlight around without turning on a lamp, and I just couldn't believe it! The irony of it . . . the hateful, despicable bitterness of making our move too late! Gone, Cathy-- Momma and her husband have gone! Not just to some neighbor's party, but really gone! They had taken with them all those little mementos that made their rooms personal: the trinkets gone from the dresser, the geegaws from that dressing table, the creams, lotions, powders, and perfumes--everything that once was there, gone. Nothing was on her dressing table.
"It made me so mad, I ran about like someone demented, dashing from here to there, pulling open drawers and ransacking them, hoping to find something of value that we could pawn . . . and I didn't find anything t Oh, they did a very good job-- not even a little porcelain pillbox was left, or one of those heavy Venetian-glass paperweights that cost a fortune. I ran into the dressing room and yanked open all the drawers. Sure, she had left
some
things--junk of no value to us, or anyone: lipsticks, cold creams, and stuff like that. Then I pulled open that special bottom drawer--you know the one she told us about a long time ago, never thinking we'd be the ones to steal from her. I pulled that drawer all the way out, like you have to, and set it aside on the floor. Then I felt in back for the tiny little button you have to push in a certain combination of numbers--her birthday numbers, or else she would herself forget the combination. Remember how she laughed when she told us that? The secret compartment sprang open, and there were the velvet trays where dozens of rings should have been fitted into small slots, and there wasn't a ring there--not one! And the bracelets, necklaces, and earrings gone, every last thing was gone, Cathy, even that tiara you tried on. Oh, golly, you don't know how I felt! So many times you pleaded with me to take just one little ring, and I wouldn't, because I believed in her."
"Don't cry again, Chris," I begged when he choked up, and he put his face down on my chest again. "You didn't know she'd go, not so soon after Cory's death."
"Yeah, she grieves a lot, doesn't she?" he asked bitterly, and my fingers twined in his hair.
"Really, Cathy," he went on, "I lost all control. I ran from closet to closet, and threw out the winter clothes, and soon found all the summer clothes were gone, along with two sets of their fine luggage. I emptied shoe boxes, and rifled the closet drawers, and looked for the tin of coins he keeps, but he'd taken that, too, or hidden it away in a better place. I searched everything, and everywhere, feeling frantic. I even considered taking one of the huge lamps, but I hefted one and it weighed a ton. She'd left her mink coats, and I thought about stealing one of those, but you'd tried them on, and all were too large--and someone on the outside would be suspicious if an adolescent girl was wearing a too-large coat of mink The fur stoles were gone. And if I took one of the fulllength fur coats, it would fill all of one suitcase, and then we wouldn't have room for our own things, and the paintings I might be able to sell--and we need what clothes we have. Really, I almost tore out my hair, I was that desperate to find something of value, for how would we ever manage without enough money? You know, at that minute, when I stood in the middle of her room and thought about our situation, and Carrie's poor health, it didn't matter a damn to me then whether or not I became a doctor. All I wanted was to get us out of here!
"Then, just when it seemed I wasn't going to find anything to steal, I looked in the lower drawer of the nightstand. I'd never checked that drawer before. And in it, Cathy, was a silver- framed photograph of Daddy, and their marriage license, and a small velvet box of green. Cathy, inside that little green velvet box, inside was Momma's wedding band, and her engagement diamond--the ones our father gave her. It hurt to think she would take everything, and leave his photograph as valueless, and the two rings he'd given her. And then the strangest thought fleeted through my mind Maybe she knew who was stealing the money from her room, and she left those things there deliberately."
"No!" I scoffed, tossing that gracious
consideration away. "She just doesn't care about him anymore--she has her
Bart."
"Regardless, I was grateful to find something. So the sack isn't as empty as it may appear. We've got Daddy's photograph, and her rings--but it's gonna take an awful, unbearable crisis to make me pawn either of those rings."
I heard the warning in his voice, and it didn't sound the least sincere, like it should have. It was as if he was putting on an act of being the same old trusting Christopher Doll, who saw good in everyone. "Go on. What happened next?" For he'd stayed away so long, what he'd just told me wouldn't have taken all the night.
"I figured if I couldn't rob our mother, then I would go on to the grandmother's room and rob her."
Oh, my God, I thought. He didn't . . . he couldn't have. And yet, what perfect revenge!
"You know she has jewels, lots of rings on her fingers, and that damned diamond brooch she wears every day of her life as part of her uniform, plus she has those diamonds and rubies we saw her wear at the Christmas party. And, of course, I figured she had more loot to be taken, as well. So, I stole down all the long dark halls, and I tiptoed right up to the
grandmother's closed door."
Oh, the nerve to do that. I would never . . .
"A thin line of yellow light showed underneath, to warn me she was still awake. That made me bitter, for she should have been asleep. And under less driven circumstances, that light would have made me stay my hand, and act less foolhardy than I did--or maybe you could call it 'audacious' now that you're planning on being a woman of words one day, after you've been a woman of action."
"Chris! Don't meander from the subject! Go on! Tell me what crazy thing you did! If I had been you, I would have turned around and come straight back here!"
"Well, I am not you, Catherine Doll, I am
me. . . .
I used some caution, and very carefully eased open her door just a slot, though I feared every second it would creak or squeak and give me away. But someone keeps the hinges well-oiled, and I put an eye to the crack without fear of her being alerted, and I peered inside."
"You saw her naked!" I interrupted.
"No!" he answered impatiently, annoyed, "I didn't see her naked, and I'm glad I didn't. She was in the bed, under the covers, sitting up and wearing a longsleeved nightgown of some heavy material, and it had a collar and was buttoned down the front to her waist. But I did catch her naked in a small way. You know that steel-blue hair we hate so much. It
wasn't
on her head! It was perched crookedly on a dummy head on her night- stand, as if she wanted the reassurance of having it near in case of an emergency during the night."
"She wears a wig?" I asked in total astonishment, though I should have known. Anybody who persistently took their hair and skinned it back from their face so tightly would sooner or later go bald.
"Yeah, you bet, she wears a wig, and that hair she had on during the Christmas party, that must have been a wig, too. What hair she's got left on her head is sparse and yellow-white, and there are wide pink places on her scalp with no hair at all, but short baby fuzz. She had rimless glasses perched on the end of that long nose, and you know we've never seen her with glasses on. Her thin lips were pursed up in a disapproving line as she moved her eyes slowly from line to line of the large black book she was holding-- the Bible, of course. There she sat, reading of harlots and other wicked deeds, enough to put a terrible frown on her face. And as I watched, knowing I couldn't steal from her now, she laid aside the Bible and marked the place with a post- card, then put the Bible on the nightstand, then left the bed and knelt beside it. She bowed her head, templed her fingers under her chin, just the way we do, and she said silent prayers that lasted and lasted. Then she spoke aloud: 'Forgive me, Lord, for all my sins. I have always done what I thought best, and if I made mistakes, please believe I thought I was doing right. May I forever find grace in thine eyes. Amen.' She crawled back into bed, and then she reached to turn out the lamp. I stood in the hall and wondered what to do. I just couldn't come back to you empty-handed, for I hope we never have to pawn the rings our father gave our mother."
He continued, and now his hands were in my hair, cupping my head. "I went to that main rotunda, where the chest is near the staircase, and found our grandfather's room. I didn't know if I would have the nerve to open
his
door, and face up to that man who lies perpetually dying, year after year.
"But, this was my only chance, and I would make the most of it. Come what may, I raced down the stairs noiselessly like a real thief, carrying my pillowcase sack. I saw the big rich rooms, so grand and fine, and I wondered, just as you have wondered how it would be to grow up in a house like this one. I wondered how it felt to be waited on by many servants, and catered to hand and foot. Oh, Cathy, it is one beautiful house, and the furniture must have been imported from palaces. It looks too fragile to sit on, and too lovely to feel comfortable with, and there are original oil paintings, I know them when I see them, and sculptures and busts, mostly on top of pedestals, and rich Persian rugs and Oriental rugs. And, of course, I knew the way to the library, since you had asked so darned many questions of Momma. And you know what, Cathy? I was darned glad you had asked so many questions or else I may well have gotten lost; there's so many halls that shoot off right and left from the center stem.