Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

In her dark room, sitting in a corner under the light of her kerosene lamp, Emily read her Bible. I could hear her voice through the walls. I was sure she was finishing the part in Exodus she had wanted to read at breakfast before Mamma cut her off.

"'. . . and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field . . .'"

I cried myself into a stupor under the sound of the scissors.

When Louella finished, I crawled into bed, curled myself into a ball and buried my face in the blanket. I didn't want to look at myself or have anyone look at me, even for a moment. Louella tried to comfort me, but I shook my head and moaned.

"I just want to close my eyes, Louella, and pretend it didn't happen."

She left and then, finally, after the guests went home, Mamma came up to see me.

"Oh Mamma!" I cried, sitting up and throwing the blanket away from myself as soon as she stepped into my room. "Look! Look what she did to me!"

"Who, Louella? But I thought . . ."

"No, Mamma, not Louella." My chest heaved. I swallowed and ground the hot tears out of my eyes with my hands. "Emily," I said. "Emily did this!"

"Emily?" Mamma smiled. "I'm afraid I don't understand, honey. How could Emily . . ."

"She hid Eugenia's wheelchair in the toolshed. She found a skunk in one of Henry's traps and kept it under a blanket. She told me to go to the toolshed. She said Henry put it there, Mamma. When I went in, she threw the skunk into the shed and locked me in the shed with it. She put a stick up against the door. She's a monster!"

"Emily? Oh no, I can't believe . . ."

"She did, Mamma, she did," I insisted, pounding my legs with my fists. I hit myself so hard that Mamma's face changed from disbelief to shock before she took a deep breath, pressed her hand to her chest and shook her head.

"Why would Emily do such a thing?"

"Because she's horrible! And she's jealous. She wishes she had friends. She wishes . . ." I stopped before I had said too much.

Mamma stared at me a moment and then smiled.

"It's got to be some sort of misunderstanding, some tragic combination of events," Mamma decided. "My children don't do such things to each other, especially Emily. Why, she's so devout, she makes the minister question his own actions," Mamma added, smiling. "Everyone tells me so."

"Mamma, she thinks she's doing good things whenever she does something that hurts me. She thinks she's right. Go ask her. Go on!" I screamed.

"Now, Lillian, you must not yell. If the Captain should come home and hear you . . ."

"Look at me! Look at my hair!" I pulled on the roughly cut strands until it was painful.

Mamma's face softened.

"I'm sorry about your hair, honey. I really am. But," she said, smiling, "you'll wear a nice bonnet and I'll give you some of my silk scarves and . . ."

"Mamma, I can't walk around with a scarf on my head all day long, especially in school. The teacher won't allow it and—"

"Of course, you can, dear. Miss Walker will understand, I'm sure." She smiled again and sniffed the air between us. "I don't smell a thing. Louella's done a fine job. You'd never know anything bad happened."

"You'd never know?" I pressed my palms against my shortened hair. "How can you say that? Look at me. You remember how beautiful my hair was, how you liked to brush it for me."

"The worst is over, dear," Mamma replied. "I'll see to it that you get my scarves. Now you just rest, dear," she said, and turned to leave.

"Mamma! Aren't you going to say anything to Emily? Aren't you going to tell Papa what she did to me?" I asked tearfully. How could she not see how awful this was? What if it had happened to her? She was just as proud of her hair as I had been of mine. Didn't she spend hours and hours brushing it and wasn't she the one who told me I had to care for it and nurture it? Hers was like spun gold and mine was now like the stems of sliced flowers, jagged and stiff.

"Oh, why prolong the agony and make everyone in the house suffer, Lillian? What's done is done. I'm sure it was just one of those unfortunate little accidents. It happened and it's finished."

"It wasn't an accident. Emily did it! I hate her, Mamma. I hate her!" I felt my face flush with anger. Mamma stared at me and then shook her head.

"Of course you don't hate her. We can't have anyone hating anyone in this house. The Captain wouldn't stand for it," Mamma said as if she were constructing one of her romance novels and could simply rewrite or cross out the ugly and the sad things. "Now let me tell you about my party."