Echoes in the Walls

by V. C. Andrews

  “Whose robe is that?” Samantha asked my mother, ignoring him. “It’s not Ryder’s, is it?” she demanded.

  Despite how motherly my mother had always been to her, Samantha couldn’t drop that master-to-servant attitude, quite condescending. It annoyed me that my mother let her get away with it most of the time.

  “It’s a guest robe, Samantha. You should know that we have robes and slippers in every one of our guest rooms. Even if they are not used, they are periodically washed. Ryder’s robe has his initials embroidered on it. But Ryder has never been selfish about his things,” she added pointedly.

  Samantha smirked and then leered at me. “Did you have pizza? Where did you go?” she fired at me as if I was on the stand giving testimony.

  “I doubt I could eat pizza and then Mrs. Marlene’s Irish stew, Samantha. We had to rush back. We just told you that a serious storm has arrived. Didn’t you notice?”

  “No,” she said. “I was watching Moment to Moment. Are you in Fern’s class?” she asked Dillon.

  “He’s a senior, Samantha,” I said calmly. What I wanted to do was slap her because of her attitude.

  “I’m not allowed to have friends sleep over,” she said with the corners of her lips drooping. “But you can just because your mother is in charge of the house and stuff? It’s not fair.”

  “Actually, Mother Nature invited me,” Dillon said.

  “What? That’s stupid. There is no Mother Nature.”

  “But I can be your friend, too,” Dillon said before either my mother or I could respond to the sharp way she had spoken to him. “That would be fair, wouldn’t it?”

  “No. You are not going to spend any time with me,” she retorted.

  “Well, I don’t know. What do you suggest we do since we’re all stuck in the house because of the storm?” he asked.

  She looked at me to see if I was going to object.

  “Good question,” I said. “Can you think of anything fun, Samantha?”

  Her nasty attitude dissolved. “That’s easy,” Samantha said. “There’s pool, ping-pong, cards, board games,” she rattled off. “But I’m not very good at either ping-pong or pool.”

  “You’re getting better at checkers,” I said.

  “I’m not good at checkers,” Dillon said. “My father doesn’t play, and my mother hates board games. I don’t think I’ve played checkers with anyone since I was ten.”

  “Okay, we’ll play checkers,” Samantha said. “You and me first.”

  She sat back, obviously not sure she shouldn’t continue whining and complaining about not having her own friends for a sleepover. Mrs. Marlene entered with her pot of Irish stew and put it on the rack at the center of the table.

  “This is Dillon Evans, Mrs. Marlene,” I said. “Dillon, this is Mrs. Marlene.”

  “Hi. That smells delicious.”

  Mrs. Marlene smiled. “Dillon?” She looked at my mother. “Am I right to think that’s an Irish name?”

  “Irish it is,” my mother said. “Means loyal and true.”

  “Then you’ve come for the perfect dinner, I hope,” Mrs. Marlene said. “I put a little variation in the basic recipe, so you might find it a little different from what you’re used to in Irish stew. Don’t ask what it is,” she warned with a scowl. “It’s my secret.”

  “My mother’s Irish,” Dillon said. “That’s why they named me Dillon, but she’s never made this. Thank you.”

  He looked at me. Only I knew why he was smiling. It didn’t matter that his mother was Irish. He had no idea what he was, having been adopted. A name didn’t make you Irish. I was sure we were both thinking the same thing.

  Mrs. Marlene nodded and left. My mother served the stew.

  Samantha grimaced at the sight of it on her plate. “This looks blah. I’d rather have pizza,” she said.

  “I’d rather be in Hawaii today,” Dillon said. “Especially today.”

  I laughed the loudest.

  Samantha pursed her lips and then started to eat. Maybe, I thought, my half sister had met her match.

  After dinner, we went to the game room, and while Dillon and Samantha played checkers, I fiddled around with pool balls. Ryder and I used to play pool occasionally when Bea was gone for the day or out for a night and wasn’t around to complain about my crossing her precious border into the main house. Usually, Ryder would have one or more of his friends over as well.

  It was obvious to me that Dillon was deliberately losing to keep Samantha happy. Cleverly, he complained about being distracted so he could convince Samantha she was really winning. After she won two games in a row, she was okay with Dillon and me playing some pool. He knew how to play eight ball. When I did well, he said it was because he was wearing the heavy terry-cloth bathrobe and slippers and couldn’t maneuver well.

  “The boy with all the excuses,” I said, directing myself to Samantha. To my surprise and Dillon’s obvious amusement, she agreed with him. He let her take the next shot for him and praised her.

  “If I practiced, I could be better than Fern,” she said.

  My mother appeared with his dried pants and socks. “There’s a brand-new pair of pajamas in your room,” she said. She looked at me. I knew they had been given to Ryder on Christmas, one of his many gifts unused, untouched. “Everything else you’ll need is in the bathroom cabinet. The storm is in full swing,” she added. “Mr. Stark has told me that the county highway department has not yet been able to go after the roads. It’s blowing a gale out there. It looks like it will continue into the morning.”

  “Thank you very much,” Dillon said, taking his pants and socks.

  “You’re welcome. You called your mother, I assume?”

  “I did. She’s fine with it all and asked me to thank you.”

  My mother smiled and nodded.

  I looked at Dillon. I didn’t think he was telling the whole truth. He had a bit of a mischievous look in his eyes. He was successfully playing everyone so far: Samantha, Mrs. Marlene, and now my mother.

  She turned to me. “Dr. Davenport will be staying at the hospital, of course. I’ll be retiring for the evening soon. Samantha, do not stay up past ten.”

  “Why not? There won’t be any school because of the storm,” she whined.

  “Your father does not like you moping about because you’ve stayed up too late. He’s asked me to tell you that if you don’t go to bed when you should, you will not be permitted to go out with your friends to the movies on the weekend. There will be no arguing about it.”

  “Ten sounds just about right to me,” Dillon said. “I’m sure I’ll be shoveling out my car tomorrow, so I’ll need a good night’s rest.”

  “Exactly,” my mother said, gave Samantha a look of warning, and left.

  “This is stupid,” Samantha said. “If we’re not going to school, why do we have to go to sleep the same time as usual? I don’t go to sleep that early on weekends. On weekends, I can stay up to midnight sometimes, and twice I was up until one in the morning,” she added to impress him.

  “I’ll play you checkers for it,” Dillon said. “If you win, we’ll keep your staying up past ten a secret; if you lose, we all go to bed at ten.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  He was smart enough not to beat her too quickly. For a moment, I actually thought she might win. So did she.

  “You’re pretty good. That took a lot of thinking,” he told her after he won. She was already pouting. “It was fun,” he added. “I like checkers now. Don’t mind if we play again next time I’m here.”

  She brightened. “We’ll play again tomorrow if you have to stay,” she told him.

  “Deal,” he said. He held up his hand for her to slap five. She did and then gave me one of her See? I’m better than you looks.

  “Care to consider a full-time nanny job here?” I whispered as we started out together with her moping along behind us.

  “If it means I’ll see you every day, yes,” he replied.

  I felt my
ears get warm before anything else.

  We looked at each other. I knew he wanted to take my hand as we went up the stairs, but with Samantha on our tail, I thought it best to be discreet. However, that was not Samantha’s way.

  “Are you going to be Fern’s boyfriend now?” she asked him when we were all at the top of the stairway.

  “I haven’t decided yet. What do you recommend?” he asked her, folding his arms and looking like her opinion really mattered to him.

  She studied me a moment to see if I would laugh. The gleam of jealousy built the familiar cold, green light in her eyes. I was smiling at the way Dillon was handling her, and I was sure she interpreted that as being happy about Dillon.

  “Ryder will be upset,” she said, then turned and hurried off to her bedroom, just like someone who had dropped a time bomb on an unsuspecting person.

  I stood there looking after her. Dillon was silent.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I said. “That was a dumb thing to say. She’s just spiteful, spoiled.”

  “She’s a piece of work. Now, there goes someone who’s a good potential victim of a vampire,” he said, nodding in her direction. “On the other hand, I don’t know if he’d want her blood. It could end his immortality.”

  “Exactly.”

  We started toward the bedrooms. No matter how he joked about it, I thought, he had to be wondering why she would say what she had said about Ryder. It took me by surprise, because she knew nothing about the budding romance developing between Ryder and me before the accident. What had she sensed between us now? Or did she sense something only in him because of what she claimed she had witnessed him do with the photo? Had he said something to her when I wasn’t there, something she was keeping secret? Lately, Samantha could be like a hot coal rolling around under my heart.

  Dillon walked with his head down. I could feel how hard he was trying to avoid any questions or comments about what Samantha had said, but it lingered in the air.

  “Don’t pay any attention to what Samantha says about Ryder. My brother is obviously quite confused,” I said, pausing at the door to the guest room. “He doesn’t know whom to trust. Samantha hasn’t been making things easier. Sometimes she deliberately says things that will add to that confusion. If anyone needed therapy . . .”

  “Sure. Forget it. Your mother is quite a lady,” he said, moving to change the subject. “Can you imagine Ivy’s mother inviting me to stay because of a storm if I didn’t live so close by to them? My mother would have had a breakdown if she was faced with such a decision involving you. You’re a lucky girl, Fern.”

  “When it comes to my mother, I never thought otherwise.” I turned to the bedroom doorway. “This is where you sleep. I’m a door down behind us.”

  He looked up and down the hallway. “It seems endless. Anyone use the hall as a bowling alley?”

  I snapped on his light, and he whistled at the sight of the room, the king-size bed and its matching furniture, as well as the lamps and the oil paintings of rural settings. My mother had obviously been in here and had turned down the bedding. The pair of new pajamas still in clear plastic wrap was on the bed.

  “A guest might not leave. How many bedrooms in this house again?”

  “Seventeen,” I said. “The bathroom is on the right. You’ll find a new toothbrush and toothpaste, even shaving cream and new razors if you want to shave.”

  “It’s like a first-class hotel.”

  “Haunted hotel,” I said.

  We could hear what sounded like hail striking the windows now. This bedroom, like mine, looked out on the front of the mansion.

  “Quite a storm,” he said. “Rain to snow to ice. The roads are probably like glass.”

  “The wind can find cracks and crannies. If you need another blanket, it’s on the shelf in the closet.”

  He smiled and nodded. We were alone now; the house was quite still. Mrs. Marlene would be staying over in one of the other guest rooms, and Mr. Stark would probably stay in what had been my mother’s room in the help’s quarters. He often did, even when there was no storm.

  “Well, I guess, good night,” I said.

  He nodded, smiled, and leaned in to kiss me softly. When our lips touched, static electricity snapped around us, and we both laughed.

  “Something tells me your mother had something to do with that,” he said. “Did she really go to sleep?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s try again,” he said, and kissed me, this time without any static, except for the electricity that lit a spark in my heart. A sweet peace stole over me, quivering my breasts with a tingling sensation.

  “ ’Night,” I whispered, turned quickly, and walked away, afraid that if I didn’t, I might not.

  “Watch out for Dracula, even in a storm,” he called after me in a loud whisper.

  I smiled to myself but kept walking.

  When I had crawled under my blanket, I lay back on my pillow with my eyes wide open. I was afraid that when I closed them, I would see Dillon’s eyes looking deeply into my very soul, uncovering the secrets snuggled in what were supposed to be safe places, passionate secrets all wrapped and knotted with streaks of deep, sexual fantasies. Sometimes they came to me in waves, and sometimes they flashed before my eyes and were gone like shooting stars. Shame, fear, and guilt lost their grip on the ever stronger emerging woman within me.

  Gradually, sleep crawled up my bed and put weight on my eyelids. I closed them and drifted off to the sound of the wind and the freezing rain splashing against my windows. I wrapped my blanket tighter around me, weaving the warmth into a cocoon, a nest in which to hatch my dreams. Hours later, I opened my eyes with a start because I sensed someone was in my room.

  I sat up quickly and gasped. For a moment, I thought it was Ryder standing there in a dark silhouette. His name was on my lips.

  “Hey,” Dillon said, drawing closer. He was standing with a lit candle in a holder, the light casting a fine, yellowish glow over his face. “I thought you might have woken. Apparently, the electricity has gone off. I saw this on the bedside table. There were matches in the drawer. I guess this happens a lot out here, especially with a storm like this, huh?”

  “Not that often, no. Anyone else up?”

  “I didn’t hear anyone. The hall is a sea of black ink. The lights outside are off, of course, and it’s still coming down hard out there. I opened the window to check.”

  “What time is it?”

  He brought the candle to his wrist. “Two twenty. You have a candle in case you need to get up?”

  “Yes. Every room in this house has candles, some probably fifty years old.”

  “Yeah, sure. I thought so. Sorry I woke you,” he said. He turned to leave.

  “Wait. You forgot to help me light one.”

  “Oh, yeah. Dumb.”

  I sat up and opened the night-table drawer. He brought the light closer so I could find the matches and then light my own candle in its holder.

  Candlelight had always been soft and mysterious to me. The glow it cast around us at this moment gave me the sense of our being cut away from the world and left in our own private place where we were free to be ourselves. I sat back. I was wearing a sheer nightgown. He stood there staring at me so intently that it brought a warmth into my face. I felt naked; I practically was, but I didn’t move to cover myself. There was no need for words. The way we were touching each other with our eyes said enough. I knew what he was asking, and I knew what I wanted to say.

  I shifted over to my right, creating enough room for him.

  He put his candle on the table beside mine, and then he slipped in beside me gracefully. It was silent enough to be a dream. For the first few moments, we both lay there, equally hesitant, almost stunned by how events had brought us so quickly to this place, him beside me in my bed, the warmth from our bodies drawing us even closer, and the passion within us slipping out of its shackles.

  Slowly, he turned to me. My hands were at my side
s. He drew the blanket back and braced himself over me, hesitating. My breath quickened as he gradually lowered himself, bringing his lips to mine. The light from our candles brightened his eyes.

  His lips lifted off mine only slightly before he kissed me again. Before the accident on the lake, Ryder and I had gone this far until we had turned back, both of us afraid of how demanding our bodies were being. A little further, and we would not have stopped, but that memory did not distract me or make me more cautious now.

  Dillon slipped my nightgown over my shoulders. He kissed me at the curve of my neck and then kissed my shoulder. I lifted my arms and sat up a little so that he could bring my nightgown up and over my head. He took off the robe he was wearing and kissed me again, fondling my breasts, bringing his lips to my nipples, and then kissing me around my neck before grazing my lips with his. He was so quiet, so gentle, it did seem more like a fantasy.

  A fleeting thought reminded me that he was wearing Ryder’s Christmas present, his pajamas. Was I kissing Dillon or the memory of Ryder? I was thinking so much of our intimate times together. Was this unusual? Was it common for a woman to have flashbacks of earlier romantic moments with men she had been with while she was being intimate with someone new?

  I didn’t stop him when he brought his lips below my breasts and to my stomach. Then, before going farther, he returned to my lips and brought his body against me. I was holding him tighter, kissing him as hard and as demandingly as he was kissing me, raining down those kisses over every part of my body. I heard my own moaning as if I was listening to someone else.

  Suddenly, he paused, lifted himself away from me, and took a very deep breath. “We’re going to go too far,” he whispered. “I won’t be able to stop.”

  Ryder had once said that to me. The words were branded in that place in my memory. Should I be ashamed that I wasn’t the one saying them now? Why was it always the girl’s responsibility to stop before it was too late?

  Would I have stopped if neither Ryder nor Dillon had spoken?

  Dillon turned over onto his back beside me. I put my hand on his chest. This was unfair to him. I had invited him in beside me. I had wanted what had almost happened inside me to happen. I still did. I had read enough and I knew enough about the ache when you brought your sexual pleasure to this point of explosion and then stopped abruptly. The frustration crashing down beside us was maddening. We were both crying inside.