Secrets of the Morning (Cutler 2)

I couldn't recall when I had last put on lipstick or brushed my hair. I couldn't remember when I had last sprayed perfume on myself. And all my pretty clothes . . . my earrings and bracelets, even the locket Michael had given me . . . all of it was somewhere else. Perhaps Agnes Morris had sent it to the hotel and Grandmother Cutler had already disposed of most of it, just as she was disposing of me.

Look at me! I thought. Look at what Grandmother Cutler and Miss Emily have done to me. My face appeared bloated, even distorted. I stood there in this ugly shift which hung of my shoulders like a sack. I couldn't look at myself any longer and quickly turned off the kerosene lamp. I was grateful for the dark shadows that fell over my face immediately. As long as I was here, I wouldn't gaze into a mirror again, I vowed.

I rushed out of the sitting room and went up the stairs as quickly as I could, each high step an effort, for I was well into my fifth month and carrying heavy. Out of breath, I collapsed on my bed in the dark room and sobbed. I really was a prisoner here, I thought, a tormented prisoner.

"What's wrong?" I heard Charlotte ask and I stopped crying. I sat up and ground the tears out of my eyes. She was standing in my doorway with one of her needlework projects in her hands. She looked to her right down the corridor and then leaned in to speak in a conspiratorial stage whisper.

"Did Emily tell you your baby has pointed ears?" she asked.

"I don't care what Emily thinks," I said. "Least of all what she thinks about my baby." Charlotte stared at me a moment, the concept of defying Emily apparently too much for her, and then she smiled and approached me.

"Look at what I have made," she said proudly. I took a deep breath and leaned over to light my kerosene lamp. Then I looked at her work.

It was a very pretty piece done with pink and blue thread. She was filling in a picture of what clearly looked like a baby in a cradle swinging under a tree.

"Where did you get this pattern?" I asked.

"Pattern?" She turned the material toward her as if the answer were writte

n on it.

"The picture? Did Miss Emily buy this for you someplace?"

"Oh no, I drew the picture," she said, smiling proudly. "I draw all my pictures."

"That's very, very good, Charlotte. You have a talent. You should show your work to more people," I said.

"More people? I just show it to Emily. She wants me to keep doing it so I don't get in her way." Charlotte began to recite, "She says idle hands . . ."

"I know, I know. Make mischief. Well, what about the mischief she makes?" I retorted. Charlotte's smile widened. I could see the whole idea of Miss Emily being evil was so farfetched to her she couldn't even imagine it. Her sister had her brainwashed. "Emily's not an angel, you know. Not everything she does and says is right and good. She's unnecessarily mean, especially to you," I continued. "She speaks to you like you were some sort of lower animal and she keeps you locked up here, just as she's keeping me."

"Oh, no," she said. "Emily's only trying to help me. I'm the devil’s spawn and I've spawned the devil's child," she recited in a way that made me understand she had been forced to repeat it and repeat it until it was almost second nature for her to say it.

"That's a horrible lie. Wait, what do you mean, you've spawned the devil's child? What child?" I asked.

"I'm not supposed to talk about it," she said, backing up a step.

"She won't know," I coaxed. "I won't tell her. Can't we share a secret?"

She considered and then stepped toward me again.

"I made this for the baby," she confessed, holding up the needlework, "because sometimes, the baby comes back."

"Comes back? Comes back from where?"

"From hell," she said, "where it was sent to live because that's where it belongs."

"No one belongs in hell, Charlotte."

"The devil does," she replied quickly, nodding.

"Maybe just him . . . and Miss Emily," I mumbled. "Tell me about the baby," I asked, raising my head. "Was there a real baby?" She stared at me without replying. "Charlotte," I said, reaching under the bed to pull out the baby's rattle she had left for me one day. "Whose was this? Where did you get it?"

The wind made a loose shutter clack and the sound of it reverberated down the hall. Charlotte closed her eyes quickly and then stepped back, a shivering thought filling her eyes with terror.

"I have to return to my room," she said. "Emily will be angry if she knows I'm here bothering you."

"You're not bothering me. Don't go," I begged. The shutter clacked again. She turned quickly and walked out. "Charlotte!" I called, but she didn't return.