Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

"You were!"

"I was not."

She stepped closer to me, undaunted. Despite her thinness, Emily could be more intimidating than Miss Walker and certainly more intimidating than Mamma.

"Do you know what happens sometimes when you let a boy touch you in there?" she asked. "You break out into a rash all over your neck and it could stay for days. One of these times that will happen and Papa will take one look at you and see the blotches and he'll know."

"I didn't let him," I whined, and cowered back. I hated how Emily could glare. Her expression turned into a tight smile. She spoke with her lips so thin, I thought they would snap.

"It shoots out of them, you know, the seed. Even if it just lands on your panties, it could seep in and make you pregnant."

I stared at her. What did she mean, it shoots out of them? How could it? Was she right?

"Do you know what else they do?" she continued. "They touch themselves and make themselves swell up until the seed comes gushing out into their hands and then . . . they touch you there," she said, glancing at the space between my thighs, "and that can make you pregnant, too."

"No, it can't," I said, but not confidently. "You're just trying to scare me."

She smiled.

"Think I care if you get pregnant and have to walk around with a fat belly at your age? Think I care if you scream in excruciating pain because the baby's too big to come out? Go on, get pregnant," she challenged. "Maybe the same thing will happen to you that happened to your real mother and then we'll be rid of you finally." She turned and started away. Then she stopped and looked back. "Next time he touches you, you'd better be sure he hasn't touched himself first," she warned, and left me standing there in fear. I started to shake with anxiety and quickly put on my after-school clothes.

That night after dinner, I went quietly into Papa's office. He was away on one of his business trips so I could go in there without fear of his seeing what it was I wanted to do. I wanted to read from the book he had that explained the human body and reproduction, to see if there was anything written that confirmed the things Emily had told me. I couldn't find anything, but that didn't make me feel any easier. I was too frightened to ask Mamma about it and I didn't know anyone but Shirley Potter who knew anything about boys and sex. I thought I would eventually work up enough nerve to ask her.

The next day, after lunch, just as Eugenia and I had planned, I helped her into her wheelchair and we went out for our usual afternoon outing. Emily had gone upstairs to her room and Mamma was away having lunch at Emma Whitehall's with her other lady friends. Papa still hadn't returned from his business trip to Richmond.

Eugenia felt so much lighter to me when I lifted her from her bed and helped her into her chair. I could feel her bones protruding. Her eyes seemed to have sunk deeper into her skull and her lips looked so much paler than they had looked just a few days ago, but she was so enthusiastic that her shortage of strength didn't dissuade her and what she lacked in energy, she replaced with excitement.

I wheeled her down the driveway slowly, pretending interest in the Cherokee roses and wild violets. The buds of the flowering crab trees had burst into a deep pink. In the fields around us, the wild honeysuckle wove a carpet of white and rose. The blue jays and mockingbirds seemed just as excited by our venturing into their midst as we were. They flitted from branch to branch, jabbering and following us along the way. In the distance, a row of small puffy clouds floated in a cotton caravan from one end of the sky to the other.

With the air so warm and the sky so blue, we couldn't have chosen a nicer spring day for a walk. If ever nature could make us appreciate being alive, she could do it this day, I thought.

Eugenia seemed to feel the same way, taking in every sight and sound, her head moving from left to right as I rolled her forward over the gravel. I thought she was probably overdressed, but she clung tightly to her shawl with one hand and held down the blanket over her lap with the other. When we turned the corner at the bottom of the driveway, I paused and we both looked back and then at each other, smiling like co-conspirators. Then I moved her out on the road. It was the first time she had ever been wheeled there. I pushed her along as quickly as I could. A few moments later, Niles Thompson stepped out from behind a tree to greet us.

My heart began to race. I looked back again to be sure no one saw us meet.

"Hi," Niles said. "How are you, Eugenia?"

"I'm okay," she said quickly, her eyes dancing as she looked from Niles to me and then back to Niles.

"So you want to see my magic pond, huh?" he asked her. She nodded.

"Let's go quickly, Niles," I said.

"Let me push her," he offered.

"Be careful," I warned, and we started away. Moments later, we were turning Eugenia up the path. It wasn't really wide enough for the chair in places, but Niles pushed the wheels over brush and roots, stopping at one point to lift the front of the chair. I could see that Eugenia was relishing each and every moment of our secret trip. Finally, we were at the pond.

"Oh!" Eugenia exclaimed, clapping her small hands. "It's so beautiful here."

As if nature wanted the moment to be special for her, a fish jumped up and dove back into the water, but before we could laugh with joy, a flock of sparrows burst into the air, lifting so suddenly and with such synchronization from the branches, they looked like leaves taking flight. Bullfrogs leaped into the water and then out again as if they were performing for us. Then Niles said, "Look," and pointed across the pond where a doe had appeared and was drinking. She gazed at us for a moment. Unafraid, she took her drink and then casually turned to disappear in the forest again.

"This really is a magical place!" Eugenia cried. "I feel it."

"I did the first time I saw it, too," Niles said. "You know what you've got to do. You've got to dip your finger into the water."

"How can I?"

Niles looked at me.