We ambled through the woods after breakfast, using all the trails I followed when I jogged. Jory rode on Chris's shoulder. We looked at the world that was just outside Foxworth Hall, all the places we hadn't been able to see when we were on the roof or locked away. Together we stood and stared at that huge mansion. "Is Momma in there?" he asked in a tight thick voice.

"No. I've heard she's down in Texas in one of those beauty spas for very wealthy women, trying to lose fifteen extra pounds."

Alerted, he swiveled his head. "Who told you that?" "Who do you think?"

He shook his head violently, then lifted Jory down and set him on his feet. "Damn you for playing with him, Cathy! I've seen him He's dangerous--leave him alone. Go back to Paul and marry him if you must have a man in your life. Let our mother live out her life in peace. You don't believe for one moment, do you, that she doesn't suffer? Do you think she can be happy knowing what she did? All the money in the world can't give her back what she's lost--and that is us! Let that be enough revenge."

"It isn't enough. I want to confront her in front of Bart with the truth. And you can stay one hundred years and get down on your knees and plead until your what I must!"

The time Chris stayed with me he slept in the room that had been Carrie's. We did very little talking, though his eyes followed my every movement. He looked drained, lost . . . and, most of all, hurt. I wanted to tell him that when I'd finished what I had to do I'd go back to Paul and live a safe life with him, and Jory would have the father he needed, but I said nothing.

Mountain ni

ghts were cold, even in September when the days were warm still. In that attic we'd nearly melted from the sweltering heat, and I guess this was on both our minds as we sat before the guttering log fire on the night before Chris had to leave. My son had been in bed for hours when I rose, yawned, stretched wide my arms, then glanced at the clock on the mantel which read eleven. "It's time for bed, Chris. Especially for you who has to get up so early tomorrow.'

He followed me toward Jory's room without speaking and together we looked down on Jory, sleeping on his side, his dark curls damp and his face flushed. In his arms he cuddled a stuffed, plushy pony, much like the real one he said he had to have when he was four.

"When he's sleeping he looks more like you than Julian," whispered Chris.

Paul had said the same thing.

"Good night, Christopher Doll," I said as we paused by the door of Carrie's room, "sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite."

What I said made his face contort in pain. He turned from me, opened the door to Carrie's room, then swung back to face me. "That's the way we used to say good night when we slept in the same room," he said, then he turned and closed the door behind him

Chris was gone by the time I got up at seven o'clock. I cried a little. Jory stared at me with widened, surprised eyes. "Mommy 7" he asked fearfully.

"It's all right. Mommy just misses your uncle Chris. And Mommy is not going to work today." No, why should I? Only three students were due and I could teach them tomorrow when the class would be full.

My plans were moving too slowly. lb speed them up I asked Emma to come and stay with Jory while I jogged through the woods. "I won't be gone longer than an hour. Let him play outside until lunchtime, and by then I'll be back."

Dressed in a bright blue jogging outfit trimmed with white, I set off down the dirt trails. This time I used a right fork I'd never tried before and into a denser pine forest I ran. The trail was faint and jaggedly crooked, so I had to keep a keen eye on the ground for tree roots that might trip me up. The mountain trees that grew between the pines were a brilliant blaze of fall colors, like fire against the emerald green of the pines, firs and spruces. And it was, as I'd told myself long ago, the year's last passionate love affair before it grew old and died from the frosty bite of winter.

Someone was jogging behind me. I didn't turn to look. The crispy crackle of the dead leaves pleased my ears, so I ran faster, faster, letting the wind take my loose hair just as I let the beauty of the day take my grief, remorse, shame and guilt and make them transparent shadows that didn't hold up beneath the sun.

"Cathy, hold up!" called a man's strong voice. "You run too fast!"

It was Bart Winslow, of course. As it had to be sooner or later. Fate couldn't always outwit me, and my mother couldn't always win. I threw a glance over my shoulder, smiling to see him panting as he ran in his stylish jogging costume of maple-sugar tan, trimmed with bands of orange and yellow knit at the cuffs, neck and waistband. Two vertical lines of yellow and orange ran down the sides of the loose pants. Just what a local runner should wear when on the prowl.

"Hello, Mr. Winslow," I called back as I speeded up. "A man who can't catch a woman is no man at all!"

He took the challenge and put more speed into his long legs and I really had to put out to keep ahead! I flew, my long hair bannering behind. Squirrels on the ground scrounging around for nuts had to scamper to get out of my way. I laughed with the power I felt, then threw out my arms and pirouetted, feeling I was on stage playing out the best role of my life. Then from nowhere a knobby tree root caught beneath the toe of my dirty sneaker and down I fell, flat on my face. Luckily, the dead leaves cushioned me.

In a flash I was up and running again, but my fall had given Bart the chance to draw nearer. Panting, gasping, clearly indicating he didn't have nearly the stamina I had, despite the advantage of his longer legs, he cried out again, "Stop running, Cathy! Have mercy! This is killing me! There are other ways I can prove my manhood!"

I had no mercy! It was catch me if you can, or else I'd never be taken. I shouted this back to him and ran on, rejoicing in my powerful dancer's legs, my supple, long muscles and all that ballet training had done to make me feel a blue streak of light.

No sooner did this self-conceit flash through my mind than my stupid knee suddenly gave way and down I went again, on my face in the dead leaves. And this time I was hurt, really hurt. Had I broken a bone? Sprained an ankle, torn a ligament--again?

In a few moments Bart was beside me, down on his knees, rolling me over so he could see my face before he asked with a great deal of concern, "Are you hurt? You look so pale--what's paining?"

I wanted to say of course I was all right, for dancers knew how to fall, except when they didn't know they were going to fall--and why was my knee aching so badly? I stared down at it, feeling betrayed by a knee that was always the one to foul me up and hurt me in more than one way. "It was my stupid knee. If I bump my elbow on the shower door, my right knee hurts. When I have a headache, my knee hurts along with it to keep it company. Once I had a tooth filled, and the dentist was careless enough to let the drill slip and cut my gum, and my right knee shot right out and kicked him in the stomach. '

"You're kidding."

"I'm serious--don't you have anything peculiar about your physical makeup?"

"Nothing I'm going to speak of." He smiled and the devil made his dark eyes sparkle, then he assisted me to my feet and felt my knee as if he knew what he was doing. "Seems a good, functional knee to me."

Tags: V.C. Andrews Dollanganger Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net