Flowers in the Attic

  I was restless, and soon enough I was supine, staring upward, and sensing the great silence of this huge house as it settled down, and went to sleep. I heard not a whisper of movement in the huge house; not the faint shrills of a telephone ringing; not a kitchen appliance could be heard switching on and off; not even a dog barked outside; nor did a car pass to throw light that might, hopefully, penetrate through the heavy draperies.

  Snide thoughts came and told me we were unwanted, locked up . . . Devil's spawn. Those thoughts wanted to lounge around in my head and make me miserable. I had to find a way to drive them out. Momma, she loved us, she wanted us, she'd try hard to be a good secretary to some lucky man She would. I knew she would. She would resist the ways the grandparents sought to turn her away from us. She would, she would.

  God, I prayed, please help Momma learn quickly!

  It was horribly hot and stuffy in that room. Outside, I could hear the wind rustling the leaves, but not enough of it came in to cool us off, only enough to hint that it was cool out there, and would be in here if only we could open the windows wide. Wistfully, I sighed, longing for fresh air. Hadn't Momma told us mountain nights, even in the summertime, were always cool? And this was summertime and it wasn't cool with the windows down.

  In the rosy darkness, Chris whispered my name. "What are you thinking?"

  "About the wind. It sounds like a wolf."

  "I knew you'd be thinking something cheery like that. Gosh, if you aren't the one to take the cake for depressing thoughts."

  "I've got another goodie--whispering winds like dead souls trying to tell us something."

  He groaned. "Now you listen to me, Catherine Doll (the stage name I planned to use one day), I order you not to lie there and think your kind of scary thoughts. We will take each hour as it comes, and never pause to think ahead to the next one, and by using this method, it will be much easier than thinking in terms of days and weeks Think about music, about dancing, singing. Haven't I heard you say you never feel sad when music is dancing in your head?"

  "What will you think about?"

  "If I were less sleepy, I would pour out ten volumes of thoughts, but as it is, I'm too tired to answer. And you know my goal, anyway. As for now, I'll just think of the games we'll have time to play." He yawned, stretched, and smiled over at me. "What did you think of all that talk about half-uncles marrying half-nieces, and creating children with hooves, tails, and horns?"

  "As a seeker of all knowledge, and a future doctor, is it medically, scientifically possible?"

  "Nope!" he answered, as if well-educated on the subject. "If so, the world would abound in freaks resembling devils and to tell you the truth, I would like to see a devil, just once."

  "I see them all the time, in my dreams."

  "Hah!" he scoffed. "You and your crazy dreams. Weren't the twins something, though? I was really rather proud of them when they faced up to that giant grandmother so defiantly. Gosh, they got spunk. But then I was afraid she'd really do something awful."

  "What she did wasn't awful? She picked Carrie up by her hair. That must have hurt. And she slapped Cory and sent him reeling, and that must have hurt. What more did you want?"

  "She could have done worse."

  "I think she's crazy herself."

  "You may be right," he mumbled sleepily.

  "The twins are only babies. Cory was only protecting Carrie--you know how he is about her, and she is about him." I hesitated. "Chris, did our mother and father do right by falling in love? Couldn't they have done something to stop it?"

  "I don't know. Let's not talk about that; it makes me feel uneasy."

  "Me, too. But I guess that explains why we all have blue eyes and blond hair."

  "Yeah," he yawned, "the Dresden dolls; that's us."

  "You're right. I've always wanted to play games all day long. And just think, when our mother does bring us that new deluxe Monopoly game, we will at last have time to finish a game." For we had never finished a game. "And Chris, the silver ballerina slippers are to be mine "

  "Right," he murmured, "and I'll take the top hat, or the racing car."

  "The top hat, please."

  "Right. Sorry, I forgot. And we can teach the twins to be bankers and count out the money."

  "First we'll have to teach them to count."

  "That will be no trick at all, for Foxworths know all about money."

  "We are not Foxworths!"

  "Then what are we?"

  "Dollangangers! That's who!"

  "Okay, have it your way." And again he said good night.

  Once more I knelt by the side of the bed and put my hands in prayer position under my chin. Silently I began: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. . . But somehow

  I just couldn't say those words about taking my soul if I should die before I wake. Again I had to skip that part, and again I asked blessings for Momma, for Chris, and the twins, and for Daddy, too, wherever he was in heaven.

  Then, when I was back in bed again, I had to go and think of the cake or cookies, and the ice cream the grandmother had half- promised last night--if we were good.

  And we had been good.

  At least until Carrie started cutting up--and still the grandmother hadn't come into the room with desserts.

  How could she have known that later on we would be so undeserving?

  "What are you thinking now?" asked Chris in a sleepy monotone. I thought he was already asleep, and certainly not watching me.

  "Nuthin' much. Just little thoughts of the ice cream, and cake or cookies the grandmother said she'd bring if we were good."

  "Tomorrow's another day, so don't give up on treats. And maybe tomorrow the twins will forget about outdoors. They don't have very long memories."

  No, they didn't. Already they'd forgotten Daddy, and he'd been killed only last April. How easily Cory and Carrie let go of a father who had loved them very much. And I couldn't let him go; I was never going to let him go, even if I couldn't see him so clearly now. . . I could feel him.

  Minutes Like Hours

  .

  All the days dragged by. Monotonously. What did you do with time when you had it in

  superabundance? Where did you put your eyes when you had already seen everything? What direction should your thoughts take, when daydreams could lead you into so much trouble? I could imagine how it would be to run outside, wild and free in the woods, with dry leaves crackling under my feet. I could picture swimming in the nearby lake, or wading in a cool mountain stream. But daydreams were merely cobwebs, easily torn into shreds, and I'd quickly be dropped back into reality. And where was happiness? In the yesterdays? In the tomorrows? Not in this hour, this minute, this second. We had one thing, and one thing only, to give us a spark of joy. Hope.

  Chris said it was a deadly crime to waste time. Time was valuable. No one ever had time enough, or lived long enough to learn enough. All about us the world was on the way to the fire, crying, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!" And look at us: we had time to spare, hours to fill, a million books to read, time to let our imaginations take wing. The creative genius begins in the idle moment, dreaming up the impossible, and later making it come true.

  Momma came to see us, as she promised, bearing new games and toys to occupy our time. Chris and I adored Monopoly, Scrabble, Chinese checkers, plain checkers, and when Momma brought us a double deck of bridge cards, and a book on how to play card games, boy, did we become the card sharks!

  It was harder with the twins, who weren't old enough to play games with rules. Nothing held their interest for long, not the many tiny cars Momma bought, nor the dump trucks, nor the electric tram that Chris hooked together so the tracks ran under our beds, under the dressing table, over to the dresser, and under the highboy. No matter where we turned something was underfoot. One thing for sure, they did hate the attic-- everything about it seemed scary to them.

  Every day we got up early. We didn't have an alarm clock, only our wristwatches. But som
e automatic timing-system in my body took over and wouldn't let me sleep late, even when I wanted to.

  As soon as we were out of bed, on alternate days, the boys would use the bathroom first, and then Carrie and I would go in. We had to be fully dressed before the grandmother entered--or else.

  Into our grim, dim room the grandmother would stalk, while we stood at attention, waiting for her to put down the picnic basket and depart. Seldom did she speak to us, and when she did, it was only to ask if we had said grace before every meal, said prayers before retiring and had read a page from the Bible yesterday.

  "No," said Chris one morning, "we don't read a page--we read chapters. If you consider reading the Bible a form of punishment, then forget it. We find it fascinating reading. It's bloodier and lustier than any movie we ever saw, and talks more about sin than any book we ever read."

  "Shut up, boy!" she barked at him. "I was asking your sister, not you!"

  Next she was asking me to repeat some quote I'd learned, and in this way we often had our little jokes, at her expense, for when you looked hard and long enough, you found words in the Bible to suit any occasion. I answered on this particular morning, "Wherefore have you rewarded evil for good? Genesis 44:4."

  She scowled and pivoted about and left us. It was another few days before she snapped at Chris, without looking his way, and keeping her back turned, "Repeat to me a quote from the Book of Job. And do not try to fool me into believing you read the Bible when you do not!"

  Chris seemed well prepared and confidant "Job, 28:12.--But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding? Job 28:28,-- Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. Job, 31:35--My desire is that the Almighty would answer me, and that mine adversity had written a book. Job, 32:9--Great men are not always wise." And he would have gone on and on endlessly, but anger colored the

  grandmother's face. Never again did she ask Chris to quote from the Bible. She eventually stopped asking me also, for I, too, could always come up with some stinging quote.

  Around six o'clock each evening Momma would show up, breathless, always in a great hurry. She came loaded down with gifts, new things for us to do, new books to read, more games to play. Then she'd dash off to bathe and dress in her suite of rooms for a formal dinner downstairs, where a butler and a maid waited on the table, and it seemed, from what she breathlessly explained, that often guests dined with them. "A great deal of business is done over lunch and dinner tables," we were informed.

  The best times were when she sneaked up fancy little canapes, and tasty hors d'oeuvres, but she never brought us candy to rot our teeth.

  Only on Saturdays and Sundays could she spend more than a few moments with us, and sit down at our small table to eat lunch. Once she patted her stomach. "Look how fat I'm becoming, eating lunch with my father, then saying I want to nap, so I can come up and eat again with my children."

  Meals with Momma were wonderful, because it reminded me of the old days when we were living with Daddy.

  One Sunday Momma came in, smelling fresh from outside, bringing a quart of vanilla ice cream and a chocolate cake from a bakery. The ice cream had melted almost to soup, but still we ate it. We begged her to stay all night, to sleep between Carrie and me, so we could wake up in the morning and we could see her there. But she took a long look around the cluttered bedroom, and shook her head. "I'm sorry, I can't, I really can't. You see, the maids would wonder why my bed wasn't used. And three in a bed would be too crowded."

  "Momma," I asked, "how much longer? We've been here two weeks--it seems like two years. Hasn't the grandfather for- given you yet for marrying Daddy? Have you told him about us yet?"

  "My father has given me one of his cars to drive," she said with what I considered evasiveness. "And I believe he is going to forgive me, or else he wouldn't be letting me use his car, or sleep under his roof, or eat his food. But no, I haven't had the nerve to tell him yet that I have four children hidden away. I have to time this very carefully, and you have to have patience."

  "What would he do if he knew about us?" I asked, ignoring Chris, who kept frowning at me. Already he'd told me if I kept asking so many questions, Momma would stop coming to see us everyday. Then what would we do?

  "God knows what he'd do," she whispered fearfully. "Cathy, promise me you will not try to make the servants hear! He is a cruel, heartless man, and one who wields a great deal of power. Let me time carefully the moment I believe he's ready to hear."

  She went away about seven, and soon after we retired. We went to bed early, because we got up early. And the longer you could stay asleep, the shorter were the days. We would drag our twins into the attic as soon as the hour of ten passed. Exploring the giant attic was one of the best ways to occupy our time. There were two pianos up there, uprights. Cory climbed on a round seat that twirled higher or lower, and round and round he spun. He banged on the yellow piano keys, cocked his head and listened attentively. It was out of tune, and the noise he made was so discordant it made your head ache. "Don't sound right," he said. "Why don't it sound right?"

  "It needs tuning," said Chris, who tried to tune it, but when he did, the wires broke. That was the end of trying to make music on two old pianos. There were five Victrolas, each with a small, white dog that cocked its head charmingly, as if enchanted to hear the music--but only one of these machines worked well. We'd wind up this one, put on a warped old record, and listen to the weirdest music we'd ever heard!

  There were stacks and stacks of Enrico Caruso records, but, unfortunately, they were not well cared for, just stacked on the floor, not even put in cardboard cartons. We sat in a semicircle to listen to him sing. Christopher and I knew he was the greatest of all male singers, and now was our chance to hear him. His voice was so high-pitched it sounded false, and we wondered what had been so great about him. But for some crazy reason, Cory loved it.

  Then, slowly, slowly, the machine would wind down, and would spin Caruso's voice into only a whine, and that's when one of us would race like mad to crank the handle so tight he'd sing fast and funny so he sounded like Donald Duck talking jibberty-junk-- and the twins would break up in laughter. Naturally. It was their kind of talk, their secret language.

  Cory would spend all of his days in the attic, playing the records. But Carrie was a restless prowler, ever discontented, an incessant seeker of something better to do.

  "I don't like this big bad place!" she wailed for the zillionth time. "Take me out of this baa-aad place! Take me out now! This minute! You take me out or I'm gonna kick down the walls! I will! I can! I can, too!"

  She ran to the walls to attack with small feet and flailing little fists that she managed to bruise severely before she gave up.

  I felt sorry for her, and for Cory. All of us would have liked to kick down the walls and escape. With Carrie, though, it was more likely the walls would tumble down just from the crescendo trumpet of her powerful voice, like the walls of Jericho tumbling down.

  Indeed, it was a relief when Carrie braved the dangers of the attic and found her own way to the stairway, and to the bedroom below, where she could play with her dolls, and her tea-cups, and her tiny stove, and her little ironing board with the iron that didn't heat up.

  For the first time, Cory and Carrie could spend a few hours separated from each other, and Chris said that was a good thing. Up in the attic was the music which charmed Cory, while Carrie would chatter on to her "things"

  Taking many baths was another way to use up excess time, and shampooing hair made it last longer--oh, we were the cleanest children alive. We napped after lunch, which lasted as long as we could stretch it. Chris and I made a contest of peeling apples so the skin came off in one long, long spiraling cord. We peeled oranges and took off every bit of white string that the twins detested. We had little boxes of cheese crackers that we counted out to divide equally into four portions.

  Our most dangerous and amusing game was to mimic the gr
andmother--ever fearful she'd walk in and catch us draped with some filthy gray sheet from the attic, to represent her gray taffeta uniforms. Chris and I were the best at this. The twins were too afraid of her to even lift their eyes when she was in the room.

  "Children!" snapped Chris while he stood by the door, holding an invisible picnic basket. "Have you been decent, honorable, proper? This room looks a terrible mess! Girl--you over there--smooth out that rumpled pillow before I crush your head in with the mere glare of my eyes!"

  "Mercy, Grandmother!" I cried, falling down on my knees and crawling to her with my hands folded under my chin. "I was dead tired from scrubbing down all the walls in the attic. I had to rest."

  "Rest!" snapped the grandmother at the door, her dress about to fall off. "There is no rest for the evil, the corrupt, the unholy and the unworthy--there is only work until you are dead, and hung forever over hell's eternal roasting fires!" Then he lifted his arms beneath the sheet in some horrible gestures that made the twins shriek from fright, and in a witch's way, the grandmother disappeared, and only Chris was left, grinning at us.

  The first weeks were like seconds turned into hours despite all we did to entertain ourselves, and we managed to do quite a lot. It was the doubts and the fears, the hopes and expectations that kept us so in suspense, waiting, waiting--and we were no closer to being let out and taken downstairs.

  Now the twins ran to me with their small cuts and bruises, and the splinters garnered from the rotten wood in the attic. I carefully plucked them out with tweezers, Chris would apply the antiseptic, and the adhesive plaster they both loved. An injured small finger was enough reason to demand cuddly-baby things, and lullabies sung as I tucked them into bed, and kissed their faces, and tickled where laughter had to be freed. Their thin little arms wrapped tightly about my neck. I was loved, very loved . . . and needed.

  Our twins were more like three-year-olds than children of five. Not in the way they talked, but in the way they rubbed their eyes with small fists, and pouted when they were denied anything, and the way they had of holding their breath until they turned magenta and forced you to give them what they wanted. I was much more susceptible to this kind of ploy than Chris, who reasoned it was impossible for anyone to suffocate themselves in such a way. Still, to see them purple was a terrifying sight.