Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

"Oh, she's just frightened, Jed," Darlene said, coming up to him and putting her hand on his shoulder. It seemed to calm him some and he stood up straight.

Darlene Scott was one of the prettiest young ladies in the area. She had thick, strawberry blonde curls and cornflower blue eyes. There wasn't a young man of courting age who didn't spin his head around to gaze at her cream complexion when she strolled past.

I looked from Papa to Darlene, who smiled down at me and straightened her dress.

"Well?" Papa repeated.

"I was with Eugenia until she fell asleep, Papa," I said. "Now I'm going out to play."

"Go on then," he said, "and don't let me catch you poking your head in rooms to spy on adults, hear?"

"Yes, Papa," I said, and looked down because the fire in his eyes burned through me and made me tremble so ha

rd my knees knocked. I had never seen him so angry. It was as if I were standing before a complete stranger.

"Now get," he commanded, and clapped his hands sharply. I spun around and fled through the doorway, Darlene's giggle behind me.

Outside, on the stoop, I caught my breath. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would beat a hole in my chest. I was in such a state of turmoil, I couldn't swallow. Why had Papa put his hand underneath Darlene Scott's skirt? Where was Mamma? I wondered.

Suddenly, the door behind me opened. I turned about, my heart thumping even harder in anticipation of finding Papa there, still angry and remembering something else he wanted to do or say to me. But it wasn't Papa; it was Emily.

She narrowed her eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"Papa doesn't want any children brought into the house," she said.

"I didn't bring anyone into the house. I was just with Eugenia."

She fixed her penetrating gaze on my face. She had been behind me; she had come through the house, too, making one of her patrols. Surely, she had seen or heard Papa and Darlene Scott, I thought. There was something in her face that told me so, yet I didn't dare ask her. For a moment she looked as if she might ask me and then that look passed.

"Go on then and join your little friends," she commanded with a sneer.

I hopped of the stoop and hurried away from the house so quickly, I tripped over a tree root. I broke my fall and when I turned to look back, I expected to see Emily laughing at me. But she was already gone, popped out of the air like a ghost.

That afternoon, at the start of that summer, I realized in my own childlike way that there were many ghosts dwelling in The Meadows. They weren't Henry's ghosts, the kind that howled on moonlit nights or paced back and forth over the attic floors. They were the ghosts of deceit, the darker ghosts that lived within the hearts of some and haunted the hearts of others.

For the first time, since I had been brought to this great plantation with its proud Southern history, I felt afraid of the shadows inside. This was supposed to be my home, but I would not venture about it as freely and innocently as I had before.

Looking back now, I realize we lose our innocence in many ways, the most painful being when we realize those who are supposed to love us and care for us more than anything, really care for themselves and their own pleasures more. It's painful because it makes you realize how alone you really are.

I walked on that afternoon, eager to submerge myself in the laughter of other children and for the time being, for as long as I could, put off the disappointments and hardships that accompanied growing up. That summer, years before my time, perhaps, I lost a precious piece of my childhood.

4

FROM JONAH TO JEZEBEL

Now that I look back, it seems to me that summer slipped into fall and fall into winter so quickly those days. Only spring took longer and longer to show its budding face. Maybe it appeared that way to me because I was always so impatient and winter always seemed forever. It teased us with its first snowfalls, pledging to turn the world into a dazzling wonderland in which tree branches glistened.

First snowfalls always made us think of Christmas, a roaring fire in the fireplace, delicious dinners, piles of presents and the fun of decorating our tree, something usually left for Eugenia and I to do. Over the rolling meadows, winter spread her soft white blanket of promise. On those early winter evenings, after the clouds had slid across the glassy surface of a dark blue sky, the moon and the stars would make the snow gleam. From my upstairs window, I could look out at what was magically transformed from a dry yellow field into a sea of milk in which tiny diamonds floated.

The boys at school were always eager to see winter make its grand entrance. How they could dip their naked hands into the freezing snow and laugh with delight amazed me. Miss Walker was always laying down stern warnings about throwing snowballs. The punishments for being caught doing so on or near the school grounds were severe, and it gave Emily another sword to hold over the heads of those who defied her.

But for the boys especially, snowfalls guaranteed the endless hours of pleasure that would come with their sleigh riding and snowball fights and ice skating when the lakes and ponds were considered frozen solidly enough. The pond on The Meadows, which would never be the same to me since it willingly embraced poor Cotton, crusted over, but because of the rapid stream that fed it, its layer of ice was always thin and treacherous. All the streams on our land ran faster and heavier in winter, the water looking very cold, yet clear and delicious.

During the winter our farm animals were more subdued, their stomachs seemingly filled with icy air that leaked out of their nostrils and mouths. Whenever it snowed hard and fast, I felt sorry for the pigs and the chickens, the cows and the horses. Henry told me not to worry because their bodies had thicker skins and thicker feathers and hair, but I couldn't imagine being warm in an unheated barn while the biting winds whipped down from the north and circled the house until they found each and every crack.