Dollenganger 02 Petals On the Wind (13 page)

rituals, our secret parties, our secret hoards of
goodies."
"Ohhh," moaned Carrie, "go away, leave me
alone, go away, leave me alone."
"Quiet!"
ordered the shrill voice of the hidden
speaker, "you have no chance to become one of us
unless you sacrifice your
most
beloved and precious
possessions. It is either that or suffer our trial." Crouched in the corner, Carrie could only stare
at the moving shadows behind the white witches who
threatened her. The glows from the candles grew
larger, larger, turning her world into one of yellow and
scarlet fire.
"Give to us what you dearly cherish or you must
suffer, suffer, suffer."
"I have nothing," whispered Carrie honestly. "The dolls, the pretty little china dolls, give us
those," intoned the austere voice of the speaker. "Your
little clothes won't fit us; we don't want those; give us
your dolls, your pretty man, woman and child dolls." "They're gone," cried Carrie, fearful they would
set fire to her. "They turned to wooden sticks." "Ho-ho! A likely story! You lie! So now you
must suffer, little owl, to become one of us--or die.
Take your choice."
It was an easy decision. Carrie nodded and tried
not to sniffle.
"All right, from this night forward you, Carrie
Dollanganger, funny name, funny face, will be one of
us."
It hurts to write of how they took Carrie and
blindfolded her, then tied her small hands behind her
back, then pushed her out into the hall, then up a flight
of steep stairs, and suddenly they were outside. Carrie
felt the cool night air, the slant of the support beneath
her bare feet, and guessed correctly the girls had taken
her onto the roof! There was only one thing she feared
more than the grandmother and that was the roof--any
roof! Anticipating her bellowing screams the girls had
gagged Carrie. "Now lie or sit still as a proper owl should," said the same harsh voice. "Perch here on the roof, near the chimney under the moon, and in the
morning you will be one of
us."
Struggling and frantic now, Carrie tried to resist
the pull of so many who forced her to sit. Then, even
worse, they suddenly took away their hands and left
her there in the darkness on the roof--all alone. Far
away she heard the whispering titters of their retreat
and the slight click of a door latching down.
Cathy, Cathy,
she screamed to herself,
Chris,
come save me! Dr. Paul, why did you put me here?
Don't nobody want me?
Sobbing, making small
mewing sounds while blindfolded, gagged and bound,
Carrie braved the steep incline of the huge, strange
roof and began to move toward where the latching
sound had come from. Inch by inch, sitting up and
sliding along on her bottom, Carrie moved forward,
praying every time she moved an inch not to fall. It
seemed from her faltering report that she gave me
much, much later that she was not only guided by
instinct, but she could hear, above and from behind the
oncoming spring thunderstorm, the sweet and distant
voice of Cory singing as he strummed his melancholy
song of finding his home and the sun again.
"Oh, Cathy, it was so strange way up there high, and the wind started to blow, and the rain began to fall, and the thunder rumbled and the lightning struck so I could see the brightness through the blindfold-- and all the time Cory was singing and leading me to the trapdoor that opened when I used my feet to force it upward, and somehow I wiggled through. Then I fell down the stairs! I fell into blackness and I heard a bone break. And the pain, it came like teeth and bit me so I couldn't see or feel anything or even hear the rain
anymore. And Cory, he went away."
.
Sunday morning came and Paul, Chris and I
were at the breakfast table eating brunch.
Chris had a hot, homemade buttery roll in his
hand, his lips parted wide to put at least half inside
with one bite, when the telephone in the hall rang.
Paul groaned as he put down his fork. I groaned too,
for I had made my first cheese souffle and it had to be
eaten right away. "Would you mind getting that,
Cathy?" he asked.
"I really want to dig into your souffle. It looks
delicious and it smells heavenly."
"You sit right there and eat," I said, jumping up
and hurrying to answer, "and I'll do what I can to
protect you from the pesky Mrs. Williamson. . . ." He softly laughed and flashed me an amused
look as he picked his fork up again. "It may not be my
lonely widow lady with another of her minor
afflictions." Chris went right on eating.
I picked up the phone and in my most adult and
gracious way I said, "Dr. Paul Sheffield's residence." "This is Emily Dean Dewhurst calling," said the
stern voice on the other end. "Please put Dr. Sheffield
on the phone immediately!"
"Miss Dewhurst!" I said, already alarmed. "This
is Cathy, Carrie's sister. Is Carrie all right?"
"You and Dr. Sheffield are needed here
immediately!"
"Miss Dewhurst--"
But she didn't let me finish. "It seems that your
younger sister has disappeared rather mysteriously. On
Sundays those girls who are being punished by
weekend liberty denial are required to attend chapel
services. I myself called the roll and Carrie did not
respond to her name." My heart beat faster,
apprehensive of what I was to hear next, but my finger
moved to push a button that would put Miss
Dewhurst's message onto the attached microphone so
Chris and Paul would hear even as they ate.
"Where was she?" I asked in a small voice,
already terrified.
She spoke calmly. "A strange hush came in the
air this morning when your sister's name was called
and when I asked where she was. I sent a teacher to
check your sister's room and she wasn't there. I then
ordered a thorough search of the grounds and the
entire school building from basement to attic, and still
your sister wasn't found. I would, if your sister was of
a different character, presume she'd run off and was on
her way home. But something in the atmosphere
warns that at least twelve of the girls here know what
has happened to Carrie and they refuse to talk and
incriminate themselves."
My eyes widened. "You mean you still don't
know where Carrie is?"
Paul and Chris had stopped eating. Now both
stared at me with mounting concern. "I'm sorry to say
I don't. Carrie hasn't been seen since nine o'clock last
night. Even if she walked all the way home she should
have reached there by now. It's almost noon. If she is
not there and she is not here, then she is either injured,
lost or some other accident has befallen her. . . . I could have screamed. How could she speak so
dispassionately! Why, why every time something
terrible came into our lives was it a flat, uncaring
voice that told us the bad news?
Paul's white car sped down Overland Highway
toward Carrie's school. I was sandwiched in the front
seat between Paul and Chris. My brother had his bag
so he could catch a bus and go on to his school after
he found out what had happened to Carrie. He had my
hand squeezed tight in his to reassure me that
this
child of ours was going to live! "Stop looking so
worried, Cathy," said Chris as he put an arm about my
shoulder and drew my head to his shoulder. "You
know how Carrie is. She's probably hiding and just
won't answer. Remember how she was in the attic?
She wouldn't stay even when Cory wanted to. Carrie'd
take off to do her own thing. She hasn't run away.
She'd be too afraid of the dark. She's hiding
somewhere. Somebody did something to hurt her
feelings and she's punishing them by letting them
worry. She couldn't face the world in the dead of
night."
Dead of night! Oh, God! I wished Chris hadn't
mentioned the attic where Cory had almost died in a
trunk before he went on to meet Daddy in heaven.
Chris kissed my cheek and wiped away my tears.
"Come now, don't cry. I said all of that wrong. She'll
be all right."
"What do you mean you don't know where my
ward is?" fired Paul in a hard voice as he coldly eyed
Miss Dewhurst. "It was my understanding the girls in
this school were properly supervised twenty-four
hours a day!"
We were in the posh office of Miss Emily Dean
Dewhurst. She was not seated behind her impressive,
large desk, but restlessly pacing the floor. "Really, Dr.
Sheffield, nothing like this has ever happened before.
Never have we
lost
a girl. We make a room check
every night to see the girls are tucked in bed with
lights out, and Carrie
was
in her bed. I myself looked
in on her, wanting to comfort her if she'd let me, but
she refused to look at me or to speak. Of course it all
began with that fight in your ward's room and the
demerits that resulted in their loss of their weekend
liberty. Every member of the faculty has helped me
search and we've questioned our girls who profess to
know nothing about it--which I imagine they do--but
if they won't talk, I don't know what to do next." "Why didn't you notify me when you first found
her missing?" Paul asked. I spoke up then and asked to
be taken to Carrie's room. Miss Dewhurst turned
eagerly to me, anxious to escape the doctor's wrath. As
we three followed her up the stairs she spilled forth lengthy excuses so we'd understand how difficult it was to handle so many mischievous girls. When we finally entered Carrie's room several students trailed behind us, whispering back and forth about how much Chris and I looked like Carrie, only we weren't "so
freakishly small."
Chris turned to scowl at them. "No wonder she
hates it here if you can say things like that!"
"We'll find her," assured Chris. "If we have to
stay all week and torture each little witch here we'll
make them tell us where she is."
"Young man," shot out Miss Dewhurst,
"nobody tortures my girls but me!"
I knew Carrie better than anyone and around the
grooves of her brain I ambled. Now, if I were Carrie's
age, would I try to escape a school that had unjustly
kept me from going home? Yes!
I
would do exactly
that. But I was not Carrie; I would not run away in
only a nightgown. All her little uniforms were there,
custom sewn by Henny, and her small sweaters, skirts
and blouses, and pretty dresses, all there. Everything
she'd brought to this school was in its proper place.
Only the porcelain dolls were missing.
Still on my knees before Carrie's dresser, I sat
back on my heels and looked up at Paul and showed him the box that contained nothing but cotton wadding and sticks of wood. "Her dolls aren't here," I said dully, not comprehending the sticks at all, "and as far as I can tell the only article of her clothing that's missing is one of her nightgowns. Carrie wouldn't go outside wearing only her nightgown. She's got to be
here--someplace no one has looked."
"We have looked
everywhere!"
Miss Dewhurst
spoke impatiently, as if I had no voice in this matter,
only the guardian, the doctor, whose favor she sought
even while Paul turned on her another of his stern,
hard looks.
For some reason I can't explain I swiveled my
head about and caught a cat-who's-eaten-the-canary
look on the pale and sickly face of a frizzled, rusthaired, skinny girl whom I detested merely from
hearing the little Carrie had told me about her
roommate. Maybe it was just her eyes, or the way she
kept fingering the big square pocket of her organdy
pinafore that narrowed my own eyes as I tried to
pierce the depths of hers. She blanched and shifted her
green eyes toward the windows, shuffled her feet
about uneasily and quickly yanked her hand from her
pocket. It was a lined pocket and it bulged
suspiciously.
"You," I said, "you're Carrie's roommate, aren't
you?"
"I was," she murmured.
"What is that you have in your pocket?" Her head jerked toward me. Her eyes sparked
green fire as the muscles near her lips twitched. "None
of your business!"
"Miss Towers!" whiplashed Miss Dewhurst.
"Answer Miss Dollanganger's question!"
"It's my purse," said Sissy Towers, glaring at me
defiantly.
"It's a very lumpy purse," I said, and suddenly I
lunged forward and seized Sissy Towers about the
knees. With my free hand, as she struggled and
howled, I pulled from her pocket a blue scarf. From
that scarf tumbled Mr. and Mrs. Parkins and baby
Clara. I held the three porcelain dolls in my hand and
demanded, "What are you doing with my sister's
dolls?"
"They're my dolls!" said the girl, her gimlet
eyes narrowing to slits. The girls gathered around
began to snicker and made whispering remarks to one
another.
"Your dolls? These dolls belong to my sister."
"You
lie!" she fired back. "You are stealing
from me and my father can have you thrown in jail!" "Miss Dewhurst," ordered the small demon, her
hand reaching for the dolls, "you make this person
leave me alone! I don't like her, no more than her
dwarf
sister!"
I got to my feet and towered threateningly
above her. Protectively I put the dolls behind my back.
She'd have to kill me to get to them!
"Miss Dewhurst!" shrieked the imp as she
attacked me.
"My mommy and daddy gave me those
dolls for my Christmas!"
"You lying little devil!" I said, itching to slap
her defiant face. "You stole those dolls and the crib
from my sister. And because you did Carrie is at this
very moment in extreme danger!" I knew it. I felt it.
Carrie needed help and fast. "Where is my sister?" I
raged.
I stared hard at that red-haired girl named Sissy,
knowing she had the answer to where Carrie was but
knowing she'd never tell me. It was in her eyes, her
mean, spiteful eyes. It was then that Lacy St. John
spoke up and told us what they'd done to Carrie the
night before.
Oh, God! There was no place in the world more
terrifying to Carrie than a roof--any roof! I went reeling back into the past, when Chris and I had tried to take the twins out on the roof of Foxworth Hall so we could hold them in the sunlight and keep them in the fresh air so they'd grow. And like children out of
their minds from fright they'd screamed and kicked. I squeezed my eyelids very tight, concentrating