LOOK FOR THE FIRST NOVEL
IN THE SHATTERING
HUDSON SERIES FROM
VIRGINIA ANDREWS®
RAIN
AND BE SURE TO READ THE NEXT
NOVEL IN THE HUDSON SERIES
EYE OF THE STORM
I started up the stairs. . . .
When I drew close to the bedroom door, I heard what sounded like someone humming a children’s song. . . . I stood there a moment longer and knocked.
“Mrs. Endfield? Mrs. Endfield, it’s Rain. May I speak with you a moment, please?” I asked through the door.
The humming stopped. I waited and then I knocked softly again. “Mrs. Endfield?”
The silence was confusing. I knew I had heard a voice on the other side of the door. I waited, and then I decided to knock once more, a little harder. When I did, the door opened a few inches. “Mrs. Endfield?”
Again I was greeted with silence. I leaned forward and peered into the room. My great-aunt was sitting in a rocking chair with her back to me. Her head was down, and she was holding something in her arms.
I was about to call out her name when I felt a large, strong hand grab my shoulder and spin me around. . . .
Virginia Andrews® Books
The Dollanganger Family Series
Flowers in the Attic
Petals on the Wind
If There Be Thorns
Seeds of Yesterday
Garden of Shadows
The Casteel Family Series
Heaven
Dark Angel
Fallen Hearts
Gates of Paradise
Web of Dreams
The Cutler Family Series
Dawn
Secrets of the Morning
Twilight’s Child
Midnight Whispers
Darkest Hour
The Landry Family Series
Ruby
Pearl in the Mist
All That Glitters
Hidden Jewel
Tarnished Gold
The Logan Family Series
Melody
Heart Song
Unfinished Symphony
Music in the Night
Olivia
My Sweet Audrina
(does not belong to a series)
The Orphans Miniseries
Butterfly
Crystal
Brooke
Raven
Runaways (full-length novel)
The Wildflowers Miniseries
Misty
Star
Jade
Cat
Into the Garden (full-length novel)
The Hudson Family Series
Rain
Lightning Strikes
Eye of the Storm
The End of the Rainbow
The Shooting Stars Series
Cinnamon
Ice
Rose
Honey
Falling Stars
The De Beers Family Series
Willow
Wicked Forest
Twisted Roots
Into the Woods
Hidden Leaves
The Broken Wings Series
Broken Wings
Midnight Flight
The Gemini Series
Celeste
Following the death of Virginia Andrews, the Andrews family worked with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Virginia Andrews’ stories and to create additional novels, of which this is one, inspired by her storytelling genius.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
A Pocket Star Book published by
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
Copyright © 2000 by the Vanda General Partnership
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce
this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue
of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
ISBN -13: 978-0-671-00769-6
ISBN -10: 0-671-00769-6
ISBN -13: 978-0-671-00769-0
eISBN -13: 978-1-451-63709-0
First Pocket Books paperback printing July 2000
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
V.C. ANDREWS and VIRGINIA ANDREWS are registered trademarks of the Vanda General Partnership.
POCKET STAR BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Cover design by Jim Lebbad
Stepback illustration by Lisa Falkenstern
Printed in the U.S.A.
Contents
Prologue
1: A Grand Adventure
2: Visitors in the Night
3: The New Girl, Again
4: The Forbidden Cottage
5: Outcasts in London
6: Joie de Vivre
7: The Hand of Fate
8: Disturbing Revelations
9: A Difficult Decision
10: Denied Again
11: On Shaky Ground
12: A Father’s Hope
13: Seize the Moment
14: Bring on the Day
15: Last Wishes
Epilogue
LIGHINING
STRIKES
Prologue
Sometimes in the early evening when the shadows deepened and thickened in the corners of rooms within Grandmother Hudson’s mansion, I would hear soft whispering. It wasn’t something I heard when I first arrived, but it was something I was hearing more and more now. The whispers sounded like voices warning me, but about what, I wondered. What?
Back in Washington, D.C., Mama had finally revealed the truth of my birth: my real mother was a rich white woman who had gotten pregnant with me in college. Her boyfriend at the time was a black man named Larry Ward, and after I was born my real mother’s father had made the arrangements for me to live with Ken and Latisha Arnold. Ken had been paid well for it. I grew up thinking Beni Arnold was my younger sister and Roy Arnold was my older brother.
After Beni had been murdered by gang members and Mama had told me the truth about myself, she forced my white mother Megan Randolph to meet with us and then pleaded with her to help her get me out of the ghetto world. I thought Mama was trying to get me to live with my real family because she was worried more than ever about the drugs and the gang violence, but there was another reason, one I wouldn’t learn until much later. Mama was dying from cancer and she wanted to be sure I was safe and had the opportunities she would never be able to give me.
My real mother was reluctant. She simply wanted to give Mama more money. She said it was the worst time for all this because her husband was being considered for political office. Finally, as a compromise which would still keep my true identity a secret, my real mother arranged for me to come here and live with her widowed mother, Frances Hudson. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, it was supposed to be an act of charity: taking in a poor girl who showed academic promise. Rich people had so many charitable causes and organizations to list under their names that adding one more, fictional or otherwise, was no problem.
In the beginning I thought I wouldn’t last long in this rich, rural Virginia world attending Dogwood, a private school populated mostly by wealthy kids, but not because I wasn’t up to the academic challenge. I had, despite my poor school, always been a good student, a reader. And I wasn’t worried about being treated badly. None of these snobby kids could star
e me down or make me feel bad with their remarks and looks. I had been through far worse.
No, what worried me was my real grandmother. She was a stern elderly woman who liked to lecture and rail at her doctor, her lawyers and accountants, and especially my mother’s younger sister Victoria who had taken over management of the family businesses. Grandmother Hudson and I confronted each other like two prize fighters during those early days and weeks. I refused to permit her to get away with even a single innuendo, a single nasty remark about my life with Mama, Roy, Beni and even my adoptive father Ken Arnold.
Although we had lived in the projects of Washington, D.C., Mama had never given up her high hopes for all of us. She wanted me to have an education and become something. I was no slum girl, no ghetto bad girl, and Grandmother Hudson wasn’t going to be allowed to paint me into that stereotyped picture.
She realized it soon enough, and soon enough we agreed to a truce and then, after time, we even developed a warm affection for each other. One day I learned she had even included me in her will. It enraged her younger daughter Victoria who didn’t find out the truth about me until I was nearly finished with my school year at Dogwood. She wanted to blackmail my mother and force her to help get me out of the will.
I suspected this was the real reason I was given the opportunity to attend a prestigious drama school in London. It was just a way to get rid of me, a sort of compromise. However, Grandmother Hudson insisted that wasn’t so.
“Do you think I would ever let my daughter dictate an important decision to me?” she bellowed at me when I so much as suggested it.
“No,” I said.
“You’re right about that. Not as long as there is still breath in these old lungs, she won’t, so don’t go feeling sorry for yourself or for me,” she warned. “People who accept pity have thrown in the towel. On my tombstone, I want it written that here lies a woman who never accepted pity. Understand?”
“Yes,” I said, laughing at her. She muttered and fumed but kept a smile under that mask of outrage, a smile only I could see.
Now, with the school year over, I was days away from leaving for England. Mama had died. Ken was in prison where he belonged. Roy was in the army, and poor Beni was gone. I really had no one but myself, for my real mother had managed to keep intact the secret of who I was, and now it looked like she would be able to continue keeping me without a name just to maintain peace in her own precious, perfect world. Her excuse was always the same—that she had to protect her husband Grant who was trying to become a politician.
Her own children, Brody and Alison, had no idea they were my half brother and half sister. I really didn’t want to be related to Alison anyway, but Brody had become too attentive and my mother was worried that he was developing a romantic attachment. Brody was a football star and an advanced-placement student. My grandmother worried about the way he took to me, too.
I suspected that was another reason she was so eager to have me go off to London. She made plans to accompany me on the initial journey, but her doctor, who had managed, with my help, to have a pacemaker implanted in her, strongly advised against her making the trip. The pacemaker wasn’t quite right yet. Naturally, Grandmother Hudson threw a tantrum and vowed to defy her doctor. I had to stand up to her and tell her that I wouldn’t go if she came along.
“I’m not going to be responsible for what might happen to you,” I told her firmly. She could bluster and wave her hands at the air between us, and I wouldn’t flinch.
“That’s nonsense.” She paced the room, gesticulating wildly. “And just whom do you think you’re speaking to?”
“I was hoping a mature adult,” I said. Her lips moved for a moment without a sound emerging. Her tongue was so eager to lash out her words.
“You know you are an infuriating young lady, don’t you?” she finally managed.
“I wonder from whom I’ve inherited that,” I replied.
“Not your mother, that’s for sure,” she said. “Give her a crisis and she’ll go out and buy a new dress.”
She flopped in the big chair in her bedroom and sat back with her arms over the cushioned sides.
“I’m warning you. My sister Leonora, who agreed to let you live with her, is not anything like me.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Don’t be rude,” she snapped. She took a breath, looked out the window, and turned back to me. “She’s very stuffy. She and her husband Richard are quintessentially English. Their lives are filled with codes of behavior that make the rules I live by look like chaos. On top of that, you’ll be living like one of her domestics, fulfilling chores. You might not be able to face them alone. Every day they’ll remind you of how lucky you are to be able to serve them.”
I retorted, “Lucky. I wonder every day what I did to be this lucky.”
“You are a sassy child. Well,” she said with a sigh, “they can’t expect that I purged you of all your willful ways in the short time you’ve been living here with me. There is only so much a person can accomplish, even someone like me.”
“Why, Grandmother, you are admitting limits?”
“Do you want to give me a heart attack? Is that why you’re being so impudent?”
I smiled.
She turned away to hide her own smile behind her hand and then shook her head.
“I just can’t imagine you living with Leonora. It was a bad idea.”
“I’m sure it will be nothing compared to where I lived in Washington, D.C., Grandmother. Are there people being shot on the street in front of her home? Does she have dope addicts in the hallways and gang members standing on the corner ready to terrorize me?”
“She has her own hurdles for you to jump,” she countered. “She believes she belongs with English royalty. All right,” she said, nodding, her eyes small. “You’ll see for yourself.” She sighed deeply. “You’ll be spending most of your time at the school, anyway, I suppose. After my ogre of a doctor signs me off, I’ll join you and see that you’re not being exploited.”
“I think I can see to that myself,” I said.
“Don’t be arrogant, Rain. It’s not becoming, and it will only lead to trouble.”
“I’m not being arrogant. I’m being. . .confident,” I said. “Do you think it’s easy for me to agree to pick up and go to another country?” I asked, holding my hands out.
She laughed.
“I suppose you have a point. All right, let’s not beat a dead horse. Get me my pills, please,” she said, gesturing toward the nightstand by her bed. I got one of her tablets out and gave it to her with a glass of water. “Your mother claims she will be here tomorrow to say good-bye. Don’t hold your breath,” she told me. “I’m sure she’ll come up with some convenient excuse like she has to attend some political function with Grant.”
“When it comes to my mother,” I said, “I’ve grown accustomed to disappointment.”
She nodded sadly.
“On the other hand,” she said, suddenly smiling, “Victoria would be eager to help load your suitcases and see you off.”
“I know.”
Her smile softened and disappeared.
“Maybe you’re the lucky one after all. I have to stay here with my children and grandchildren, not that they’ll visit me much. I don’t expect I’ll see much of Brody with you gone,” she added with a suspicious look in her eyes.
“He hasn’t called or written to me if that’s what you’re asking, Grandmother.”
“Good,” she said. She shook her head. “Your mother has to face up to the truth one of these days.”
“Why?” I asked dryly.
She stared at me. I wanted her to say because it was the right thing to do, despite the danger and the consequences. Blood used to be thicker than water.
When I first met my real mother, I had hoped we would become close. I had looked forward to having a mother-daughter relationship. However, she was still quite a stranger to me and the chance of that ever changing seemed unlikely.<
br />
“I’m taking a short nap,” Grandmother said rather than continue the discussion.
I fetched a blanket and put it over her legs and she closed her eyes. I hated seeing her so weak and fatigued. In a strange turn of circumstances, she had become my only real family. Six months ago, she wouldn’t have even noticed me on the street nor I her. How fate toyed with us, I thought as I left Grandmother Hudson’s room.
When I walked through the house, I heard the whispers grow louder in the corners. Perhaps they came from the ghosts of Grandmother Hudson’s ancestors, wondering what their world had become to have someone with my background living here. Maybe the warnings I imagined came from that. Here a girl with black blood, a girl who had an African-American for a father, was living like a true grandchild, given the best of everything and was even included in this old, distinguished white family’s legacy. The ghosts of this family’s past might think we were tempting fate with such behavior.
I left the house and went down to the lake. Two rather large crows were perched on a rock. They stared at me with cautious interest. I wondered if any other species but man made a thing of color. Did other birds look down at the crows because they were black? They were quite beautiful, more glossy ebony than black, and their eyes looked bejeweled in the twilight sun. Roy had beautiful dark eyes like that, I thought, remembering.
I wondered how he was doing in the army. He had already been transferred to Germany and we had talked about his coming to see me in England. Surely, I thought, Roy must feel like an orphan too, for he was never close to his father and now, with his father in prison and his mother gone, he had only the army. At least I had Grandmother Hudson.
The sound of a car’s horn sent the crows skyward. They passed over me, their wings flapping simultaneously making them seem almost like one bird. With their beaks slightly open, they looked like they were laughing as they sailed over the lake toward the safety of the pockets of darkness in the woods.
“Good-bye,” I whispered and turned to wave to Jake, my grandmother’s chauffeur. He had picked up my airline ticket and was holding it up like the winning lottery ticket. I hurried up the path.
Lightning Strikes Page 1
