The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt!

by Andrews, V. C.

  “I know,” she said, her voice so sad sounding. “I’ve never won any game I’ve tried to play. I’ve always gone down in defeat even when I thought I held the winning cards.”

  Just like me! Made me feel sorry for her. “Lady, you play your cards right and I’ll come over every day and pay you a visit—or even two or three.”

  “Thank you, Bart. You just tell me what cards to play and I’ll have them on the table waiting for you.”

  Had me an idea then. Lots and lots of things I wanted and never got. Didn’t want books, games, toys, or other ordinary stuff. One thing I had to have, and hopefully I stared at her . . . maybe she’d be the one to give it to me. “What’s your name?”

  “Come again and I’ll tell you.”

  I’d be comin again. Darn if I could stay away now.

  * * *

  Went home and nobody even noticed I was there. Momma went right on talking about that baby girl she had to have if her favorite student Nicole died. God, don’t let Nicole die, I silently prayed.

  “Jory, let’s play ball.”

  “Can’t. Mom’s driving me to afternoon class. Melodie’s parents are taking me to dinner tonight, then to a movie.”

  Nobody ever took me anywhere—except my parents. No friends. No pet of my own. Dratted Clover liked Jory better, squealin like he was hurt when I stepped on his tail by accident, or stumbled over him, and he was always underfoot.

  A few days later I again headed for the back door. “Where are you going?” asked Momma, who had been starin at a picture of that little girl she wanted for her own. Weren’t enough she had two boys—had to have a daughter too. Sissy-silly girl.

  “Bart, answer me. Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “Every time I ask you what you do, and where you go, you say you haven’t been anywhere and haven’t done anything. Now I want to hear the truth.”

  Jory laughed and hugged her. “Gee, Mom, you oughta know him by this time. When Bart steps out the back door he’s everywhere. You never saw a kid so crazy about pretending. He’s this, he’s that, and the only thing he never is . . . is himself.”

  The power I poured into my mean, piercing eyes should have shut Jory up—but he went right on. “He prefers fantasy to reality, Mom, that’s all.”

  Weren’t so. Was bored, that’s all. Didn’t get enough of what I wanted in real life, and in my pretend games I did everything right—and got everything I wanted. Then he and Momma were laughing, and I was shut out again. Mad. They were makin me mad.

  Drat everybody who made fun of me! But hatin everybody made me feel bad, and pretendin made me happy. What did I have to lose if I went over to her place? Nothin, nothin at all.

  Riskin my life in the darkest of dangerous jungles, I fought my way over to her place. Bravely I struggled onward, facin death over and over just to get to her . . . climbin that slippery tree that wanted me to fall. Scalin that high wall to get to her. Through the wind and snow, through the sleet and rain, freezin my feet, blindin my eyes, I struggled onward to her.

  I stumbled to her house for the fifth time in three days. And there she was, smilin beneath her veil, lovin me as no one else did. I felt happy and warm all over as she called and opened her arms wide. I went flyin into them, huggin her, eager to sit on her lap and be petted and pampered. She needed me. She wanted to love me like her own. Her lap didn’t burn me as I was afraid it would. It didn’t feel so awful to be kissed on my cheeks—but it did feel dry. Drat that veil!

  Because she loved me, and I loved her now, she’d given me a room of my own to hold all the things she gave me. Two miniature electric trains with all the accessories, toy cars, trucks, and games. All this stuff for me to play with—in her house, not mine.

  Time went by. I was gettin to love her more and more each day. Then one Tuesday I found that creepy ole butler John Amos in her favorite room, messin around with her things, mutterin to himself about a fool and her money bein soon parted. Didn’t like him touchin her things. Didn’t like him talking mean about her behind her back.

  “You get out of here!” I said in my big man voice. “You tell my lady I’m here, and tell your chef I want chocolate ice cream today with Oreo cookies, not brownies.”

  He was an awful sight. “You can trust a few some of the time, and most none of the time. Feel lucky if you have even one to trust all of the time.”

  What was that supposed to mean? I scowled and tried to draw away. Didn’t like his false teeth that kept slippin so he had to push them back, and they clacked too, as if they didn’t fit his mouth.

  “You like her, don’t you?” he asked, slyly smilin, noddin his head up and down, from side to side, so I could be confused if I wanted. “When you want the full truth about who you are—and who she is—come to me.” The lady’s steps on the stairs sent him scurryin off.

  Creepy. He made me feel creepy and scared. I knew who I was—most of the time.

  All alone now. Nothin to do. I sat down and crossed my legs like my daddy did, then leaned back to light up an expensive cigar, which Daddy never did. (Momma didn’t like men who smoked.) Nothin wrong with smokin as far as I could tell, I thought, as I blew four perfect smoke rings into the air . . . and away they sailed toward the Pacific. They’d end up in Japan over Mt. Fugi.

  “Good morning, Bart darling. I’m so glad to see you.” She came in and sat in the rocker.

  “You got my pony yet?”

  Her voice sounded worried. “Sweetheart, I know I promised you a pony as your heart’s desire, but I did that without knowing how much trouble a pony can be.”

  “You promised!” I cried. Was I puttin my trust in the wrong person? One who failed to deliver what she promised.

  “Sweetheart, a pony needs a stall, and ponies make you smell bad. When you went home your parents and Jory would guess you had a pet over here.”

  Instead of answerin, I began to cry. “All my life I been wantin a pony,” I sobbed. “All my livelong life, and now I’ve got to grow old without havin one . . .” Sobbed some more, then hung my head and headed for home, never to return.

  “Bart . . . there is a beautiful big dog that won’t smell and betray your secrets. A St. Bernard—a dog so big you can ride it like a pony. If you keep him clean and fluffy he won’t betray you with his odors . . .”

  Slowly I turned to glare at her. “Ain’t no dog as big as a pony!”

  “Isn’t there?”

  “NO! You’re tryin to make fun of me. I don’t like you anymore! I’m goin home and never comin back—not until you have a pony I can name Apple.”

  “Darling, you can call your puppy Apple—but he won’t eat them—and just think how jealous Jory would be if you have a dog more marvelous than his.”

  Turned to the door. Disgusted.

  “Only the super rich can afford to feed a St. Bernard, Bart!”

  Like I was a pin and she was the magnet, I turned back to her unwillingly. She lifted me up on her lap and cuddled me there, and it wasn’t so awful after all. “You can call me Grandmother.”

  “Grandmother.” Felt good to have a grandmother at last. I snuggled closer and waited for her to call me Baby, but she just went right on rockin and singin a lullaby. I put my thumb in my mouth. Nice to be hugged and kissed and made to feel helpless and loved. And she didn’t smell like mothballs after all.

  “Are you ugly under that veil?” I asked, always curious about what she looked like. The veil was almost transparent, but not enough.

  “I guess you would think so, but once I was very beautiful—like your mother.”

  “You know my mother?” I asked.

  The door opened and my favorite pretty maid came in with a dish of ice cream and hot brownies fresh from the oven. “Now only eat one brownie, and let this little bit of ice cream be enough so you can come over after lunch.” She went on to tell me not to shove in such huge mouthfuls because it was not good manners, and was also a shock to my digestive system.

  I had go
od manners. My momma taught me all the time. For some reason I was angry enough to jump down from her lap, wonderin just what it was John Amos had to tell me. As I stumbled toward the door, all of a sudden John Amos was there in the hall, smiling at me spooky-like. He bowed a little and put a small red-leather book in my hands. “I sense you’re not very confident about yourself,” he whispered, making lots of hissin sounds like a snake. “It’s time you knew just who you really are. That lady who told you to call her grandmother is really your true grandmother.”

  Oh, good golly! I didn’t know I had my own true grandmother. I thought my grandmothers were either dead or in the looney bin.

  “Yes, Bart, she’s your grandmother, and not only that, once she was married to your father. Your real father.”

  Didn’t know what to think, except I was awful happy havin a genuine true grandmother of my very own, just like Jory had his own. And she wasn’t dead, or crazy.

  “Now you listen to me, boy, and you will never feel weak and ineffective again. You read a little of this book every day and it will teach you to be like your great-grandfather, Malcolm Neal Foxworth. Never on this earth did there live a man who was smarter than your own great-grandfather—the father of your grandmother who sits in that rocker and wears that ugly black veil.”

  “She’s pretty underneath,” I said. I didn’t like what he was sayin and the way he was lookin. “Never have seen her face, but I can tell from her voice that she’s pretty—prettier than you!”

  He sneered, then quickly changed his expression to smilin.

  “All right, have it your way. But after you read this book written by your own dear great-grandfather, you will understand that women are not to be trusted, especially pretty women. They have ways, cunning ways, of making men do what they want. You’ll find that out soon enough when you become a man. A man as handsome as your own father was, and she took him and made him her slave, made him her lap dog like she’s making you.”

  Wasn’t no lap dog, wasn’t!

  “He was her second husband, Bartholomew Winslow, and eight years younger than her, and he didn’t know any better. He thought he could use her—but she used him. I want to save you from her so you won’t end up like your father did—dead.”

  Dead. Almost everybody was dead in our family. Wasn’t really surprised by nothin he said, except I hadn’t known women were that bad. Always suspected they were, but never really knew. I should warn Jory.

  “Now, if you want to save your everlasting soul from the fires of eternal hell, you will read this book and grow strong and powerful like your great-grandfather. The women will never rule you again. You will rule them.”

  I looked up into his long gaunt face, seein his skinny mustache and his yellowish teeth through which he not only hissed but sometimes whistled. He was uglier than anyone I’d seen before. But I’d heard Emma say more than once that pretty was as pretty did. So I guessed I might as well give my powerful great-grandfather a try, and read his little red-leather book with its sprawly handwritin.

  Didn’t take much to readin. Wasn’t my kind of thing to do at all. But when I was in the barn near the stall that would soon be a home for my pony, I snuggled down in the hay. Wanted that pony so bad it hurt. Didn’t really care if it smelled bad and was lots of trouble. I opened the book, which looked mighty old.

  * * *

  I am beginning this journal with the most bitter day of my life, the day my beloved mother ran away and left me for another man. She left my father, too. I remember how I felt when he told me what she’d done, how much I cried, how lost I felt without her. How lonely to go to bed and have no mother to kiss me good night and hear my prayers. I was five years old. And until she left, she’d always said I was the most important person in her life. How could she have left me, her only son? What evil thing possessed her so she could turn her back on a loving son?

  I was so innocent then, so unknowing. When I read the words of the Lord, I began to realize that ever since Eve women have betrayed men in one way or another, even mothers. Corrine, Corrine, how I began to hate that name.

  * * *

  Funny. Felt strange as I lifted my eyes from that red journal with its small, cramped handwriting that sometimes sprawled larger at the bottom of the page, as if he had to use every bit of space.

  I too had always been scared my momma might up and go for no reason except she didn’t want to be near me anymore. And I’d be left alone with a stepfather who couldn’t possibly love me as much as if I’d been his own true son. Jory would be all right, for he had his dancin and that was all that really mattered to him.

  “You like that book?” asked John Amos, who had sneaked into the barn and was standing still in the shadows and watchin me with small, glittery eyes.

  “Sure, it’s a good book,” I managed to say, though it made me feel bad inside, and so afraid Momma might run away too with some man who wasn’t a doctor. All the time she was wishin Daddy wasn’t a doctor and could stay home more.

  “Now, you keep reading that book each day,” advised John Amos, who might really like me, even though his face was mean, “and you will learn all about women and how to control them.” I could listen better when I couldn’t see him very good. “And not only will you learn how to control women, but also all people. That small red book in your hands will save you from making the mistakes so many men make. You remember that when you grow tired of reading. You remember it is the god-given duty of men to dominate women who are basically weak and stupid.”

  Gee, I hadn’t guessed Momma was weak and stupid. I thought she was strong and wonderful. Just like my grandmother was generous and kind . . . and in some ways, much better than my own mother, who always seemed too busy to bother with me.

  “Malcolm was the kind of man other people looked up to, Bart. The kind of man everyone respected and feared. When you can inspire that kind of awe it makes you revered—like a god. You don’t have to tell your grandmother about this book. It would be better if you didn’t, and just went on pretending to love her as much as before. Never let women know what you’re thinking. Keep your honest thoughts to yourself.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe if I read this book to the very end I’d end up smarter than Jory, and the whole world would look up to me.

  I smiled that night in my bed, hugging the journal of Malcolm close to my heart. Here I had the tool to use to make me the richest man in the world—just like Malcolm Neal Foxworth, who used to live in a faraway place called Foxworth Hall.

  I had two friends now. My lady grandmother in black and John Amos, who talked to me more than my daddy ever did. Boy, sure was funny how strangers came into my life and started givin me more than my parents.

  Sugar and Spice

  Mom had purchased a ballet school that still bore the name of the original owner. She adopted that name, Marie DuBois School of Ballet, and led her students to think she was Marie DuBois. She explained to me and Bart later that it was easier than changing the name of the school and more profitable, too. Dad seemed to agree.

  Her school was located on the top floor of a two-story building in San Rafael, not far from where Dad had his medical office. Often they ate lunch together or spent the night in San Francisco so they could see a ballet or go to movies and not have to drive back and forth. Emma was with us, so we didn’t really mind too much, except sometimes I felt left out to see them come home so happy and glowing. It made me think we weren’t as important to them as we liked to believe.

  One night when I was restless and couldn’t sleep, I silently stole out of my bedroom with the idea of a midnight snack on my mind, nothing else. The second my feet hit the hall near the living room I could hear the sound of my parents’ voices. Loud. They were arguing, and they seldom even spoke crossly to one another.

  I didn’t know what to do, to stay or to return to my room. Then I remembered that scene in the attic, and for my protection and Bart’s, too, I felt I had to know what this was all about.

  Mom sti
ll wore the pretty blue dress she’d worn out to dinner with Dad. “I don’t know why you keep objecting!” she stormed, as she paced back and forth, throwing Dad furious looks. “You know as well as I do that Nicole isn’t going to get well. And if we wait until she’s buried, then the state will have custody of Cindy, and we’ll have a devil of a time getting her away from them! Let’s move now. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and that landlady doesn’t want to be bothered any longer. Chris, please make up your mind!”

  “No,” he said coldly. “We have two children and that’s enough. There are other young couples who will be delighted to adopt Cindy. Couples who don’t have as much to lose as we do when the adoption agency starts to investigate . . .”

  Mom threw her hands wide. “That’s what I’m saying! If we have Cindy before Nicole dies, the agency won’t have any reason to investigate. I’ll go tonight and tell Nicole what I plan. I’m sure she’ll agree and sign whatever legal papers are needed.”

  “Catherine,” said my stepfather in a firm voice, “you can’t have everything the way you want it. Nicole may very well recover in a few weeks, and even if she is permanently crippled, she’ll still want her child.”

  “But what kind of mother will she make?”

  “That’s not for us to decide.”

  “She can’t recover! You know it, and I know it—and what’s more, Christopher Doll, I have already gone to the hospital and talked to Nicole, and she wants me to have her daughter. She signed the papers I took, and I had Simon Daughtry with me. He’s an attorney, and had his secretary along—so what can you do now to stop me?”

  Appearing shocked, my stepdad put his hands to his face, while my mother railed on and on:

  “Christopher, stop cringing behind your hands. Show your face, and recognize what you made me do. You were there the night Bart was born—there with your pleading eyes telling me Paul wouldn’t be enough, and it would be you in the end who won. If you hadn’t been there, pleading with those damned blue eyes, I wouldn’t have let the doctors talk me into signing those papers and allowing the sterilization! I would have borne another child even if it did kill me. But you were there, and I gave in—for your sake, damn it! For your sake!”