The Unloved (33 page)

Marguerite bit her lip, and took an unsteady step backward, her hands clasped behind her back. “I—I don’t have it,” she whispered. “Ruby has all the keys. I wasn’t ever allowed to have them.…”

Dear God, Kevin thought. What did Mother do to her? But he said nothing. Instead he stepped around Marguerite and hurried up the stairs.

In the kitchen he began rummaging through the drawers, searching for the ring of keys that Ruby always kept close at hand. And then he heard the door swing open and turned to see Marguerite, her eyes glistening strangely. Next to her, on a hook just behind the door, hung the ring of keys. He stepped forward and took it in his hand.

“No,” Marguerite begged, the word strangling in her throat. “Don’t go back down there, Kevin. Please don’t.”

Part of Kevin wanted to give in to his sister, to put the keys back on the hook and never go into the basement again. But he couldn’t do that. Whatever was down there, he had to see it. He shook his head and stepped around Marguerite, starting back toward the stairs.

His back was already to her when she took the butcher knife out of one of the open drawers, concealing it in the folds of her skirt.

As she started once more after Kevin, the burning pain from her hip washed over her in throbbing waves, each one worse than the last. Descending the stairs, she had to clutch tightly to the railing, for her right leg, totally numbed by the pain now, was almost useless.

Kevin fumbled with the keys, trying one and then another. Most of them wouldn’t go into the lock at all, and the ones that would, refused to twist as his fingers worked at them.

He was only vaguely aware of Marguerite now, only half sensing her presence as she stood behind him, her eyes, smoldering darkly, fastened on his fingers as he worked.

He tried the next to the last key, and suddenly the lock fell open in his hands.

He stared at it vacantly, a fragment of his mind wishing that none of the keys had fit.

Then, his hand trembling, he lifted the lock from its hasp and pushed the door open.

It swung slowly, creaking on its hinges, and from over his shoulder a shaft of light from the bare bulb above the stairs illuminated the tiny cell.

The first thing he saw was Ruby.

Propped up on the wooden cot, her eyes wide open and staring blankly at him, she still had the belt of Marguerite’s robe knotted around her neck. One arm was outstretched, and her fingers seemed to be reaching out to him, pleading with him for help.

On the floor, her body twisted, lay Jennifer Mayhew. Her eyes, too, were open, staring sightlessly upward. Her head was wrenched back against one of her shoulders, and her arms sprawled lifelessly outward, the fingers of her left hand barely brushing against one of Ruby’s legs.

“My God,” Kevin groaned, involuntarily stepping back, then turning to face Marguerite. “What have you done?”

Marguerite stared at Kevin, her eyes wild. “Ruby was going to tell,” she murmured. “She was going to tell on me, and make you go away. And Jenny was going to leave me. You understand, don’t you, Kevin? I would have been all alone.…”

Kevin stared at her, shock numbing him. Then he stepped toward her.

“You’re going to tell too,” Marguerite suddenly cried. “You’re going to tell, and take Julie away from me!” She raised her right arm, and the blade of the knife glittered evilly in the glare from the light. “I won’t let you!” she screamed. “I won’t let you take Julie. I won’t!”

She hurtled herself forward, and Kevin, his body refusing to obey his mind, stared at her mutely, watched helplessly as the knife arced through the air.

The blade slashed into his chest, but for a moment he felt nothing at all. And then, as hot blood began gushing out of the wound, a strange heat seemed to emanate from the hardness of the blade in his body. His eyes widened and he began to sink to his knees, then felt himself twist around as Marguerite jerked the knife free.

Then he felt it again, a searing pain this time as the knife stabbed into his back. He tried to roll away, tried to call out his sister’s name, but it did no good.

And then, as the knife slashed into him once again, he
remembered the dream—the dream he’d had when he was a boy, and then again only a few weeks ago.

The dream, in which his mother was going to kill him, and he’d tried to call out to his sister.

He looked up now, and saw his mother’s face looming above him.

Except it wasn’t his mother at all. It was Marguerite.

And he was calling her name, but no sound came out. Only a hot, salty stream of blood boiled from his lips.

His lungs were filling with blood now, drowning him.

He was dying, and there was nothing he could do to save himself.

As his life ebbed away, he thought about the dream once more, the dream he had been certain held some deep meaning.

But the meaning hadn’t been deep at all, for the dream had not even been a dream.

Instead, it had been a premonition, and now he was living it out.

It had been a premonition of his own death, down here in this dark and hidden room, and now it seemed as if he’d been waiting all his life for this moment when his mother would come to kill him.

Except it wasn’t his mother at all.

It was his sister, who had somehow in her own madness become his mother.

Become his mother, and now become his children’s mother too.

And as he died, he knew that she would kill them, just as she had killed him.

For him, the nightmare was over.

For his children, it had just begun.

Alicia Mayhew glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her car, then up at the lowering sky. It was nearly three o’clock, and she’d distinctly told Jenny to be home no later than two. They were due at Alicia’s brother’s home in Charleston in thirty minutes, and even if she found Jenny within the next couple of minutes, they would still be late. And the storm wouldn’t help, either. If Jenny got caught out in the rain—

She braked the car to a stop, for across the street Kerry Sanders and Julie Devereaux had gotten out of Kerry’s worn convertible and were struggling to put the top up. “Julie?” Alicia called. “Julie!”

Julie looked up, then smiled and waved to Mrs. Mayhew. “Hi!” she called back.

“Have you seen Jenny?”

Julie shook her head. “Not since this morning. She was going out to see Aunt Marguerite.”

Alicia frowned uncertainly. “But she said she was going out to see you—”

“We saw her on the road, right at the end of the causeway,” Julie explained. “But it was mostly Aunt Marguerite she wanted to see. Isn’t she home yet?”

Alicia’s lips tightened and she shook her head impatiently. “I guess I’d better run out there,” she sighed. She shifted into Drive, pressed the accelerator, and the car moved forward just as the first drops of rain began to fall. She waved to Julie and Kerry, but neither of them saw her as they struggled to get the torn top to Kerry’s car up before the rain began in earnest.

Why, she wondered as she started out onto the causeway, couldn’t kids ever learn to keep track of time?

*      *      *

It was going to be all right now, Marguerite Devereaux told herself as she gazed into the mirror of her mother’s vanity. Everything was going to be fine. Kevin wasn’t going to leave—not ever again—and she was safe. Sea Oaks was hers now. Sea Oaks, and Julie, and …

She paused.

And Jeff, she finished.

She mustn’t forget Jeff. But he wasn’t part of it—he didn’t belong here, any more than Kevin had belonged here. It should be just her and Julie. Herself and Julie, just as it had been her mother and herself for so many years.

She would have to decide what to do about Jeff. Perhaps she should ask her mother.

She gazed into the mirror once more, examining her carefully applied makeup. It had taken her nearly an hour to get it exactly right, but her brows were finally tweezed to a thin line and darkened nearly black with one of her mother’s eyebrow pencils. Her cheeks, heavily rouged, seemed to glow beneath a thick layer of almost white powder, and her lips were covered with a smear of bright red.

Carefully she wrapped one of her mother’s old rats into her hair so that it formed a thick roll over her forehead. The rest of her hair, cascading in soft waves down to her shoulders, softened her face, framing it so that the rouge-enhanced planes of her cheekbones stood out dramatically. At last satisfied, she went to the closet and selected one of her mother’s favorite dresses. Bright red, it had wide shoulder pads and a tapering bodice held snug by a wide, black patent-leather belt. As she slipped the dress carefully over her head, she remembered the last time her mother had worn it, more than forty years ago.

It had been a day much like today. A storm had been threatening, and her mother had been expecting guests for tea. Marguerite had hovered in a corner of the room, watching her mother dress, until Helena had finally noticed her and sent her upstairs to practice her dancing. “We have a recital tomorrow, and you want to be perfect, don’t you?”

Just as Julie should have been practicing her dancing today, she reflected as she inspected herself in the full-length mirror on the closet door, instead of running off with that boy. She would have to do something about that—

The sound of the front door bell drifting up the stairs interrupted her reverie. Marguerite waited for a moment, certain that Ruby would answer it. But then, shaking her head slightly as she remembered that for now, at least, she would have to take care of such things herself, she checked her reflection in the mirror once more and hurried toward the top of the stairs. The pain in her hip had eased once again, diminishing to an annoying ache, and as she started down the stairs, her right hand rested only lightly on the banister. As the bell sounded for the second time, she drew the door open and gazed out at her unexpected visitor. “Alicia,” she said, her lips widening into a smile of welcome. “Why, what a surprise. Won’t you come in?”

Alicia Mayhew stared at Marguerite. What on earth had she done to herself? Her face was covered with a harsh mask of makeup, and that dress …

Alicia hadn’t seen a dress like that since she was a little girl, when her mother and all her mother’s friends had worn the same kind of clothes that Joan Crawford had worn in the movies. “I—I just came out to see if Jennifer was still here,” Alicia stammered. Then, realizing she was staring at Marguerite, she self-consciously forced her eyes away, looking into the depths of the house. But Marguerite didn’t seem to notice that she had been staring.

“Jennifer?” she asked, her voice taking on a note of concern. “Here?”

Alicia nodded. “I just saw Julie and Kerry, and they said Jenny was coming out to see you. She was supposed to be home an hour ago.”

“Well, I don’t know what to say,” Marguerite replied, holding the door wider. “I’ve been here by myself all day, ever since Julie left.” She smiled, the understanding expression of one worried mother to another. “I don’t know what to do with her sometimes. There’s so much she needs to do, but she just seems to want to run off with Kerry all the time.”

Alicia shook her head distractedly, only half hearing what Marguerite was saying. “But Julie was so certain she was coming out here …”

“Well, I’m afraid she must have changed her mind,” Marguerite said. “But I’m certain she’ll be here tomorrow.”

“T-Tomorrow?” Alicia echoed. “I-I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“For the recital,” Marguerite told her. “You mean Jennifer didn’t tell you about it? But I’ve been planning it for weeks and weeks …”

Alicia cocked her head slightly. “I-I’m afraid Jennifer didn’t say a word about it,” she said. “And I don’t see how she can be here, since we’re supposed to be in Charleston tonight and tomorrow.”

Marguerite’s face crumpled in disappointment for a moment, but then her smile came back. “But I’m certain she’ll be here,” she said. “I know she was counting on seeing my little girl dance, and I can’t imagine she’ll miss it.” She reached out and squeezed Alicia’s hand reassuringly. “You come back tomorrow, and see if I’m not right.”

“But I need to find her today—” Alicia began, but Marguerite shrugged helplessly.

“Perhaps she went to visit Allison or Tammy-Jo,” she suggested. “You know how teenagers are—you never quite know what kind of trouble they’re going to get into.”

Alicia hesitated, and a small sigh escaped her lips. “I suppose you’re right,” she agreed. “Well, I’m sorry to have broken in on you like this—”

“But it’s all right,” Marguerite assured her. “You know I always love to have company.” She held the door a little wider and glanced anxiously up at the sky and the slanting rain. “You’re sure you won’t come in? It looks like it’s going to be pouring in a few more minutes.”

Alicia shook her head. “I’d really better not. I’ve got to find Jenny and get down to Charleston.” She hurried down the steps and across the driveway to her car, shielding herself from the rain as best she could. Slamming the door, she started the engine, turned on the wipers, and put the car in gear. But before she pulled away from Sea Oaks, she glanced
up once more at Marguerite still standing at the door. What on earth had gotten into her, dressing herself that way? She looked so strange.…