Dollenganger 06 My Sweet Audrina (30 page)

portion of my life trying to teach her how to hold her
head high, Sylvia's head lolled on a rubbery neck,
rolled from side to side as her eyes went unfocused
and her lips ped. She grunted, quivered, tried to speak,
but in the end nothing came out that could be
understood. She seemed just as stupid as when she'd
come home for the first time.
Immediately guilty and feeling ashamed, I
hurried to take her into my arms. She shrank away.
Her vacant eyes appeared huge in her pale and
frightened face.
"Sylvia, forgive me, I'm sorry, sorry. . . even if
you didn't like Billie, you wouldn't hurt her, would
you? You didn't push her down the stairs . . . I know
you wouldn't do that."
"What's going on here?" Vera called from the
top of the stairs. A lilac towel was wrapped about her
naked body, another swathed about her wet hair. She
held her hands away from her as if she'd just finished
a manicure and didn't want to smear the wet polish. "I
thought I heard someone scream. Who screamed?" With teary eyes I stared up at her and then
pointed down at the floor. "Billie fell," I said weakly. "Fell . ?" said Vera, coming slowly down the
stairs, holding onto the bannister. Reaching the
bottom step, she leaned to peer into Billie's face. I
wanted to shield Billie from that kind of cruel
curiosity. "Oh . ." sighed Vera. "She's dead. I know
the look, seen it a hundred times. First time I saw it, I
could have screamed myself. Now sometimes I think
some are better off dead. When I was in the tub, I
could swear I heard Sylvia screaming, too." My breath caught. I looked at Sylvia, who was
again riding on Billie's little red cart. With a rapt look
of intense enjoyment, as if knowing that the cart was
hers forever now, she rolled happily along, softly
singing the playroom song to herself. I felt almost
sick. "What else did you hear, Vera?"
"Billie, shouting something at Sylvia. I thought
she was telling Sylvia to leave her cart alone, but, as
you know, Sylvia can't seem to leave it alone. She
wanted it--now she has it."
When I looked again, Sylvia had disappeared. I
ran to search the house and find her, as Vera called
Papa's office. What had Sylvia done?

Breaking Through
.
Sylvia was nowhere to be found. Hysterical, I

ran outside in the rain, searching for her. "You come out! Don't try to hide! Sylvia, why did you do it? Did you shove Aunt Ellsbeth, too? Oh, Sylvia . . . I don't want them to put you away, I don't . . ."

I tripped and fell to the ground and just lay there crying, not caring anymore. No matter what I did, or how hard I tried, everything went wrong. What was wrong with me, with Whitefern, with Papa, with all of us? It was useless to try to find happiness. Whenever I had it just within my grasp, it slipped from my hand and shattered.

It just wasn't fair what had happened to my mother, to my aunt, and now to Billie. I beat at the ground and screamed at God for being unmerciful. "Stop doing this to me!" I yelled. "You killed the First Audrina are you trying to kill me, too, by killing all those I love?"

. A small touch on my arm brought me back to myself.
Through my tears I turned to see Sylvia above me, pleading with eyes that had focused again. "And . . . dreeen . . . naaa," she said in her slow way.
I sat up and with relief pulled her into my arms. On the wet grass she slumped against me. "It's all right," I crooned, "I know you didn't mean to hurt Billie."
Gently I rocked her back and forth, thinking, despite myself, of her dislike for Billie and how she coveted that red cart. Several times she'd shone the colors the prisms made into my own eyes. An accident? Deliberately? Of course, whatever Sylvia had done, it had to be done without intent to kill. She'd shoved Billie off the cart, and when she had, both Billie and the cart had clattered down the stairs.
But not deliberately planned--for Sylvia couldn't think ahead.
Sylvia started to speak, but speech didn't come easily to her. As she struggled to say the right words, with the rain soaking us both to the skin, Arden came running to me.
"Audrina, Vera called. What's wrong? What are the two of you doing out here in the rain?"
How could I tell him? Thank God Vera hadn't made the effort. Death seemed as nothing to her, an everyday occurrence that made her only curious, not sad.
"Let's go inside, darling," I said as he helped me to stand. Holding fast to Sylvia's hand, I guided him to the side door and into the hall that led to the dining room. I stood and allowed him to dry my hair with a towel taken from the powder room behind him. I saw my pale reflection in the mirror.
"It's your mother, Arden," I said falteringly.
"What about my mother?" Immediately he was alarmed. He ran a nervous hand through his hair. "Audrina, what's wrong?"
"Sylvia and I went down to the river . . or at least I thought Sylvia was behind me . ." I floundered, and then I had to let it gush out. "When I went back the storm had started. The front hall was dark. Something came crashing down the stairs. I stumbled on whatever it
was.
Then, Arden . . it was. . . it was . Billie. She fell down the stairs. The cart came with her. Arden . . . it's just like what happened to Aunt Ellsbeth . ."
"But, but--" he said, dropping the towel and searching my eyes. "Your aunt died . . Audrina . Mom . . she's not . . . not dead?"
My arms went around him as I pressed my cheek against his. "I'm so sorry, Arden, so sorry to tell you. She's gone, Arden. She fell all the way to the bottom. I think she broke her neck just as my aunt did . . ."
His face crumpled. His eyes went void with pain he didn't want me to see, then he pressed his face into my hair and cried.
Just then a loud roar jolted us both. Papa's voice screamed at Vera, "What are you saying? Billie can't be dead!" His heavy steps came running down the hall. "Billie can't have fallen down the stairs! Things like that don't happen twice."
"They do when Sylvia is on the loose!" yell
^,
A Vera, limping to where we were. "She wanted Billie's red cart--and shoved her so she fell down the stairs. I was in the bathtub. I heard the screams."
"Then how do you know it was Sylvia?" I yelled. "Can you see through walls, Vera?"
In the foyer, Papa knelt beside Billie's still form and tenderly took her into his arms. Her dark head lolled backward, much in the way Sylvia's did. "I was having artificial legs made," he said in a flat way. "She told me she couldn't ever use them to walk, but I thought she could have pretty legs just for showing off when I took her into town. They would have fit over the stumps and looked good. Then she wouldn't have had to wear all those long, hot dresses to . . . oh, oh, oh . ." He sobbed. Carefully he put Billie back on the floor, and then he jumped to his feet and made a grab to seize Sylvia. "Damn you!" he screamed as he came at me to get to her.
I shoved Sylvia behind me and heard her whimper of fright. "Wait a minute, Papa. Sylvia was with me all the time. We went down to the river, and when we carne back, Billie was dead on the floor."
"But Vera just said--" he shouted, then stopped, looking from me to Vera.
"You know what Vera is, Papa. She lies."
"I did not lid" yelled Vera, her pale face very white, her apricot hair flaming like wildfire. "I heard Billie yelling at Sylvia, and then I heard Billie scream. Audrina is the liar!"
Papa's eyes narrowed as he tried to guess who was telling the truth. "All right, both of you tell different tales." He sniffled and wiped away his tears, shrugged and turned so he couldn't see Billie. "I know for a fact that Vera is a liar, and I also know that Audrina would do anything to protect Sylvia. Regardless of how Billie died . . . I cannot bear to look at Sylvia now. I am going to have her put away so she can never harm anyone else."
"No!" I screamed, pulling Sylvia into my arms and holding her protectively. "If you put Sylvia away, then send me with her! Whatever happened, it was an accident."
His hard eyes became slits. "Then Sylvia was not with you all the time?"
Something came to me then and lifted a burden from my heart. "Papa, Sylvia would never go near Billie. She refused to let Billie touch her, and never would she willingly touch Billie, even to get her cart. Her way was to sneak Billie's cart from her when Billie wasn't looking."
"I don't believe you," said Papa, looking at Sylvia with loathing. "I only hope for your sake that the police will. Two deaths from falls down the same stairs is going to be rather difficult to explain."
It was Papa who called the police, and by the time they arrived, we'd all gained some control of our emotions. With Billie photographed a dozen times first, the police ambulance drove her away.
Pacing before the ornate fireplace covered by tooled leather, Papa made a formidable, impressive opponent for the detective who came with the same two policemen who'd investigated my aunt's death. He told his story straight.
Then it was Vera's turn. I marveled at how protective she was of Sylvia, never mentioning the shouts or the screams she'd heard. "I was taking a bath, shampooing, doing my nails, and when I came out I heard my cousin down in the foyer crying. When I went down, I saw Mrs. Lowe at the bottom of the steps."
"Wait a minute, miss. You are not Mrs. Lowe's sister?" "We were raised as sisters in this house, but we are really first cousins."
Papa scowled darkly but at the same time seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
It was then my turn to repeat what I knew. I weighed each word I said carefully, doing my utmost to shield Sylvia, who crouched in a distant corner with her head hanging so low her long hair completely concealed her face. She seemed like a small puppy cowering in the corner after misbehaving.
"My mother-in-law had a way of lowering herself down the stairs one step at a time. As she went, she'd take the cart with her, putting it on the next lower step first. She went up the stairs in the same way. Her arms were very strong. She had a splinter in one finger. She must have put too much weight on that hand and lost her balance and fell. I can't be positive, for I wasn't there. I had taken my sister Sylvia down to the river with me."
"The two of you stayed together all the time?" "Yes, sir, all the time."
"And when the two of you came back, you found your mother-in-law dead on the floor?"
"No, sir. Soon after we came in the door, before I had the chance to light the lamps, I heard her falling down, and the cart, too."
Vera was watching the younger policeman, about thirty, who kept staring at her. Oh, my God! She was flirting with him, crossing and uncrossing her legs, fiddling with the neckline of her half-open robe. The older policeman didn't seem nearly as interested but rather disgusted. "Then that means, Miss Whitefern," he said quietly, "that you were the only one in the house when Mrs. Lowe, senior, fell."
"I was taking a bath," repeated Vera, throwing me a hard glare. "I sunbathed this morning, and that made me to, feel hot and sticky. I came inside to wash my hair, and, as I always do, I soaked and did my nails. Did my toenails, too," she said. She thrust forth her expertly manicured nails. Her gleaming toenails peeked through her sandals. "If I had struggled with Mrs. Lowe, I would have smeared my nail polish."
"How long does it take for nail polish to dry?" He asked me this, not Vera.
"It all depends." I tried to remember. "One coat dries in a hurry, but the more coats you use the longer it takes to dry. I try to be careful with my nails for at least thirty minutes after the last coat."
"Exactly!" said Vera, looking at me gratefully. "And if you know anything at all about nails you can see I put on five coats, counting the base coat and the top sealing coat."
The policemen seemed lost in the complexity of feminine toiletry.
In the end, it was decided our front stairs were highly dangerous to everyone, especially after they were examined and a loose place in the carpeting was found. "Easily that could have tripped her up," said the younger officer.
I stared down at the red carpeting, trying to remember how that could have happened when our house had been refurbished from top to bottom and new carpet had been laid on the stairs. How could a woman with no legs trip, anyway? Unless somehow she'd started to move her hand and it had ma: :ed beneath the loose place, or her clothes had caught on something. . . or a prism was flashed in her eyes to blind her. But the : had been dark after the sun went away.
Maybe we all looked too grief-stricken to be murderers, or Papa had strings he pulled, for again another death at Whitefern was called accidental.
I was uneasy in Sylvia's presence now. She hadn't liked Aunt Ellsbeth, either. I began to watch her covertly, again realizing, but with more impact, that Sylvia resented anyone who might be a threat to her place in my heart. It was in her eyes, in her every reaction, that I was the only one who mattered in her life, and to me she was going to cling. I had done that to her myself--with a little urging from Papa.
The day of Billie's funeral I was deathly sick with the worst cold of my life. Feverish and
depressed, I lay on my bed as Vera tended me, seeming happy to show off her professional skills. Tossing and turning, burning with fever, I hardly heard her when she spoke of how handsome Arden had become. "Of course, he was always good-looking, but when he was a boy I thought him weak. He seems to have taken on a little of Papa's strength and personality. . . have you noticed?"
What she said was true. Arden was as
ambivalent about my father as I was; he loathed him and admired him. And, bit by bit, he was picking up Papa's mannerisms, his walk, his firm, resolute way of talking.
Dreamlike, I saw Billie behind my eyes sitting at the cottage window, passing goodies out to Arden and me when we were children. I saw her as she'd looked the last week of her life, radiant with happiness because she was in love. But why had Billie tried to use the front stairs when the back ones were so much closer to the kitchen? Just like Aunt Ellsbeth, who had also spent most of her days in the kitchen. Could it be that because the front stairs led straight down to the marble floor, without the sharp turns and carpeted landings of the back stairs, they were the only "deadly" stairs? Then that meant someone had deliberately pushed both my aunt and Billie.
I lived that day of Billie's death over and over again, hearing her scream, then the clatter and thuds of both Billie and the cart crashing down the stairs.
"Stop crying!" ordered Vera harshly as she thrust a thermometer in my mouth. "Remember when my mother told you that tears never did any good. They don't, never have, never will. You take from life what you want and don't ask permission, or else you get nothing."
As sick as I was I cringed from the harshness of her loud voice when there was no man around to hear her speak.
She threw Sylvia, who was crouched in the corner, a malicious glance.
"I despise that little monster. Why didn't you tell the truth to the police and rid yourself of her? She's the one who killed my mother, just as she killed Billie." She strode over to stand in front of Sylvia, making me shove up on my elbows to try to prevent what might happen next. "Get this, Sylvia," shouted Vera, prodding Sylvia with her foot. "You are not going to sneak up behind me and shove me down the stairs, for I'll be on my guard--and it's not going to happen, understand?"
"Leave her alone, Vera." My voice was weak, my vision fuzzy, but it seemed Sylvia was more terrified of Vera than Vera was of her . . so terrified of Vera that she crawled under my bed and hid there until Papa and Arden came home.
Life went sour after Billie died. Perhaps because all of us (but Vera and Sylvia) missed her so much, perhaps because I was suffering a double loss now that I doubted and mistrusted Sylvia. I gave up on Sylvia and no longer bothered to try to teach her anything. Often when I turned suddenly I caught Sylvia staring at me wistfully, a yearning in her expression. It was not so much in her eyes as it was in her attitude as she tried to catch hold of my hand and tried to please me with wildflowers she brought in from the woods.
My cold lingered and lingered, keeping me coughing through most of the summer. I was nineteen still and looking forward to that birthday that would make me twenty. I'd feel safer then, with no nine to curse me. Life seemed too cruel, taking both my aunt and Billie in only one year. And Vera was still with us, taking over the household chores with a
willingness that both surprised and pleased Papa.
I lost weight and began to neglect my appearance. My twentieth birthday came and went and the relief of escaping a year with a nine in it didn't bring me happiness. I clung more to the shadows near the wall and eyed all colors with fear. I wished now my memory still had holes into which I could drop my anguish and my suspicions of Sylvia. But the Swiss cheese memory belonged to my childhood, and now I knew only too well how to hold on to that which grieved me.
Another autumn passed, another winter. There were nights when Arden didn't come home at all, and I didn't care.
"Here," said Vera one spring day, near the anniversary of Billie's death, "drink this hot tea and put some color in your cheeks. You look like death warmed over."
"I like iced tea better," I said, shoving the cup and saucer away. Angrily she shoved it back at me. "Drink the tea, Audrina. Stop behaving like a child. Didn't you just say a few minutes ago you had a chill?"
Obediently, I picked up the cup and started to put it to my lips when Sylvia came running forward. She hurled her full weight against Vera, who fell forward and grabbed for me. In so doing she knocked the cup from my hand. It fell to the floor and broke and both Vera and I tipped over in the chair.