Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

Somehow his lips found mine and we were kissing, kissing with so much passion he was aroused and tried to draw me into his room. "I just want to hold you, that's all. Nothing else. When I go away to school, I need to have something more to hold to-- give me just a little more, Cathy, please." Before I could answer he had me in his arms again, kissing me with such burning lips I became terrified--and excited too.

"Stop! Don't!" I cried, but he went on, touching my breasts and pushing my gown aside so he could kiss them. "Chris!" I hissed, angry then. "Don't love me, Chris. When you're gone, what you feel for me will fade away like it never happened. We'll force ourselves to love others so we can feel clean. We can't be our parents in duplicate. We can't make the same mistake."

He held me tighter and didn't say a word, yet I knew what he was thinking. There wouldn't be any others. He wouldn't let it come about. One woman had hurt him too deeply, betrayed him too monstrously when he was young and very, very vulnerable. There was only me he could trust.

He stepped back, two tears shining in the corners of his eyes. It was up to me to slice the bond, now, here. And for his own good. Everybody always did everything for someone's good.

I couldn't go to sleep. I f t hearing him calling me, wanting me. I got and down the hall and again got in his'where he lay waiting. "You'll never be free of me, &thy, never. As long as you live, it will be me and you."

"No!"

"Yes!"

"No!" But I kissed him, then jumped from his bed and raced back to my room, slamming and locking the door behind me. What was the matter with me? I should never have gone to his room and gotten into his bed. Was I as evil as the grandmother said?

No, I wasn't.

I couldn't be!

PART TWO Visions of Sugarplums

. It was Christmas. The tree touched the twelvefoot ceiling, and spread under it were gifts enough for ten children! Not that Chris and I were children anymore. Carrie was thrilled by everything Santa had brought for her. Chris and I had used the last of our stolen hoard of money to buy Paul a luscious red lounging robe, and a brilliant gown of ruby red velvet for Henny----size fifty-eight! Dazzled and pleased, she held it before her. Then she wrote a thank-you note, Make good church dress. Make all friends jealous.

Paul tried on his lavish new lounging robe. He looked divine in that color and it fitted him

beautifully.

Next came the biggest surprise of all. Paul strode over to me and hunkered down on his heels. From his wallet he pulled five large yellow tickets. If he had sat down for a year and thought about nothing but a way to please me most, he couldn't have been more successful. There, fanned in his large, finely shaped hand, were tickets to The Nutcracker, performed by the Rosencoff School of Ballet.

"It's a very professional company, I hear," explained Paul. "I don't know much about ballet myself, but I've asked around, and they say it is one of the best. They also teach beginner, intermediate and advanced lessons. Which level are you?"

"Advanced!" proclaimed Chris while I could only stare at Paul, too happy to speak. "Cathy was a beginner when she went upstairs to live. But something wonderful happened to her in the attic--the ghost of Anna Pavlova came and took over her body. And Cathy taught herself how to go on pointe."

That night all of us, including Henny, sat enthralled in the third row, center section. Those dancers on stage weren't just good--they were superb! Especially the handsome man named Julian Marquet who danced the lead. As in a dream I followed Paul backstage during intermission, for I was going to meet the dancers!

He led us toward a couple standing in the wings. "Madame, Georges," he said to a tiny woman sleek as a seal and a not much larger man by her side, "this is my ward, Catherine Doll, who I was telling you about. This is her brother Christopher, and this younger beauty is Carrie, and you have met Henrietta Beech before. . . ."

"Yah, of course," said the lady who looked like a dancer, talked like a dancer, and wore her black hair just like a dancer would, drawn back from her face and pinned up in a huge chignon. Over black leotards she wore a floating chiffon dress of black, and over that a bolero of leopard skins. Her husband, Georges, was a quiet man, sinewy, pale-faced, with startlingly black hair, and lips so red they seemed made of congealed blood. They were a pair, all right, for her lips were scarlet slashed too, and her eyes were charcoaled smudges in pale pastry dough. Two pairs of black eyes scanned me and then Chris. "You too are a dancer?" they asked of my brother. My, did they always speak simutaneously?

"No! I don't dance," said Chris, appearing embarrassed.

"Ah, the pity of that," sighed the madame regretfully. "What a glorious pair the two of you would make on stage. People would flock to stare at beauty such as you and your sister possess." She glanced down at small Carrie, clinging fearfully to my hand, and casually disregarded her.

"Chris plans to be a doctor," explained Dr. Paul. "Ha!" Madame Rosencoff scoffed, as if Chris must have taken leave of his senses. Both she and her husband turned their ebony eyes on me, concentrating with such intensity I began to feel hot, sweaty, selfconscious.

"You have studied the daunce?" (Always she said "daunce," as if it had a "u.")

"Yes," I said in a small voice.

"Your age when you started?"

"I was four years old."

"And you are now . . . ?"

"In April I will be sixteen."

"Good. Very, very good." She rubbed the palms of her long, bony hands together. "Eleven years and more of professional training. At what age did you go on pointe?"