I grew sleepy, sleepier, unreal feeling. The orangey light from the gaslamps shivered, caught silver and gold threads in the wallpaper. All the colors in the room began to move, to sparkle like diamonds suddenly caught fire. The music of the cupola wind chimes was in my brain dancing, dancing, telling me of happy playtimes up there, slyly whispering of one terrible time up there. Who was flashing that crystal prism in my eyes? How did the wind get into the house to blow my hair when the windows were all down and locked? Were there drafts in the cupola, and ghosts in the attic? What made the hair on my head move, what?
Way back near the sane side of me, I wanted to believe all of this was hopeless and I’d never become an “empty pitcher” that would fill with everything wonderful. I truly didn’t want to be that First Audrina, even if she had been more beautiful, and more gifted, too. Still I rocked and sang, I couldn’t stop. Contentment was on the way, making me happier. My panicky heart slowed. My pulse stopped racing. The music I heard was beautiful as I heard behind me, or ahead of me, a man’s voice singing.
Someone who needed me was calling; someone who was in the future waiting, and dreamily, unquestioningly, I fuzzily saw the walls open as the molecules slowly, slowly separated, opened, and formed such grainy pores I could drift through them without difficulty. I was outside in the night that swiftly changed into day.
Free! I was free of the playroom. Free of my papa. Free of Whitefern!
I was skipping merrily home from school on my own special day. And I was me. Happily I danced along a woodsy dirt path. I’d just left school, and I didn’t question or wonder about this, even knowing I’d never been to school. Something wise was telling me I was inside the First and Most Wonderful Audrina, and I was going to know her as well as I knew myself. I was her, and she was me, and “we” were wearing a beautiful crepe de chine dress. I wore my best petticoat underneath it—the one with Irish lace and embroidered shamrocks near the hem.
It was my birthday and I was nine years old. That meant soon I’d be ten, and ten wasn’t so far from being eleven, and when I was twelve all the magic of becoming a woman was close at hand.
I spun in circles to see my accordian-pleated skirt flair up to my waist. I inclined my head and spun some mor
e to see my pretty petticoat.
Suddenly there was a noise on the path ahead. Someone giggled. Like black magic the sky abruptly turned dark. Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled deep and ominously.
I couldn’t move. Like a statue of marble I stood frozen. My heart began to beat wildly like a jungle drum. Some sixth sense woke up and screamed that something awful was soon to happen.
Pain, my sixth sense was beating out, shame, terror and humiliation. Momma, Papa, help me! Don’t let them hurt me! Don’t let them do it! I went to Sunday school every week, didn’t miss even when I had a cold. I’d earned my black Bible with my name on the cover emblazoned in gold, and I had a gold medal, too. Why hadn’t the rocking chair warned me and told me how to escape! God, are you there? Are you seeing, God? Do something! Do anything! Help me!
Out of the bushes they jumped. Three of them. Run, run fast. They’d never catch me if I ran fast enough. My legs unlocked, they ran … but not fast enough.
Scream, scream loud and louder!
I fought with kicks and scratches, I butted my head back against the teeth of the boy who pinned my arms behind me.
God didn’t hear me cry for help. Nobody heard. Scream, scream, and then scream again—until I could scream no more. Just feel the shame, the humiliation, the ruthless hands that ripped and tore and violated.
See the other boy who rose from behind the bushes and stood there paralyzed, staring at me with his hair pasted down on his forehead from the rain that came down hard now. See him run away!
My screams brought Papa flying into the room. “Darling, darling,” he cried, falling to his knees so he could gather me into his arms. He cuddled me against his chest and stroked my back, my hair. “It’s all right, I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
“You shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have,” I choked, still trembling from the shock.
“What did you dream this time, my love?”
“Bad things. Same awful thing.”
“Tell Papa everything. Let Papa take away the pain and shame. Do you know now why I warn you to stay out of the woods? That was your sister, Audrina, your dead sister. It doesn’t have to happen to you. You’re letting that scene into your head when all I want is for you to travel beyond the woods and take for yourself all the specialness she used to have. Did you see how happy she could be? How joyful and vibrant? Did you feel how wonderful it used to be for her when she stayed out of the woods? That’s what I want for you. Oh, my sweet Audrina,” he whispered with his face buried deep in my hair, “it won’t always be that way. Someday when you sit down to rock and sing, you’ll bypass the woods, forget the boys and find the beauty of being alive. Once you do, all the memories you’ve forgotten, the good things, will come flooding back and make you whole again.”
He was telling me, with good intentions, that I wasn’t whole now—and if that were so, what was I? Crazy?
“Tomorrow night we’ll do this again. I don’t think it was as bad this time as before. This time you pulled out of it and came back to me.”
I knew I had to save myself from this room and this chair. Somehow I had to convince him I had gone on beyond the woods and had already found the gifts the First Audrina no longer needed.
Tenderly he tucked me into bed, and on his knees he said a prayer to send me safely into sweet dreams, asking the angels on high to protect me through the night. He kissed my cheek and said he loved me, and even as he closed the door behind him I was wondering how I could convince him not to make me go to that room and sit in that chair again. How could I hate what he did to me, and love the idea of being what he wanted? How did I preserve me—when he was trying to turn me into her?
For hours I lay on my back staring up at the ceiling, trying to find my past in all the fancy swirls in the overhead plaster. Papa had given me many clues as to what would make him happiest. Papa wanted lots and lots of money, for himself, for Momma, for me, too. He wanted to fix up this house and make it like new again. He had to fulfill all the promises he’d made Lucietta Lana Whitefern, the heiress every worthy man on the lower East Coast had wanted until she married him. What a catch my mother had been. If only she hadn’t given birth to two Audrinas.
Tuesday Teatime
Christmas came and went, but I hardly remembered anything but a princess doll that had shown up under the tree, making Vera jealous, even though she often insisted she was much too old to play with dolls.
It scared me the way time moved along so swiftly, so that even before I knew what was happening, spring was on its way. Days were falling into the holes in my memory. Vera liked to torment me by saying that anyone who couldn’t keep track of time was insane.
Today was Tuesday, and Aunt Mercy Marie would visit again, even though it seemed to me only yesterday that Mercy Marie had been brought out for teatime.