Christopher's Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

“I told you, I don’t have that much, and besides, I’ll do it when I get home.”

I looked at my watch. “I’m going down to start on dinner. We’ll eat in about a half hour. I hope you can tear yourself away. You’re not bringing it to the dinner table,” I warned.

He didn’t respond. He was already back into the diary so much that he didn’t hear me. I paused in the doorway and looked at him, with the book up and his face blocked. I thought of Cathy, bored in that attic, looking at Christopher and seeing him deep in one of his science books, in his own world. That was probably his only escape, but it had to be frustrating for her. She had no one else to talk to but the twins.

I didn’t know why exactly, but Kane’s attraction to the diary was making me irritable. Anyone might think I was jealous of how passionate he had become about it. It was as though he appreciated it more than I did or something. I banged things around a bit more than necessary and mumbled under my breath as I set the table.

Kane came down exactly thirty minutes later. I turned, surprised.

“Wow! You could break away, after all.”

“Smelled the aroma and got hungry,” he said. “How can I help?”

“Take this jug of water to the table. Everything else is done,” I told him.

I began to bring in the food.

“It looks terrific,” he said.

I began to serve him. Then I served myself and sat.

“How did you like how their grandmother fed them?” he said. “It was like leaving crumbs out for birds. I think the servants knew what was going on, or at least one or two did.”

“Why?”

“Think about it. She’s making food, putting together food, and taking it to them. She doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would slink about. If any of them saw her, she would tell them to buzz off.”

I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe it was good to have someone else reading it at the same time after all.

I started eating and so did he. “This meat loaf is the best I’ve ever had,” he said.

“My father will be happy to hear it. I tried making it a few times, but it’s never as good. He has little secrets he keeps even from me. He promises he’ll reveal all when I get married.”

Kane paused and looked thoughtful again.

“What?”

“There were so many secrets going on in that mansion that it’s a wonder it didn’t explode before it burned down. What’s really going on between Corrine and her parents? Christopher is limited in what he can write, so we might not discover that. He doesn’t really know what’s happening in the rest of the mansion. He’s never even seen the grandfather. Who knows if the old goat is really that sick?”

“You think their mother deliberately lied about that? Why?”

“I don’t know.” He was thoughtful for a few moments and then said, “The jury’s not in on it, and maybe it will never be. As you said, we’re getting it from Christopher only. Even with only what I’ve read until now, I can’t imagine him ever calling his mother a liar. And not only because he’s a respectful, obedient kid. I’d like to read her diary. That would be a page-turner, I bet. We’d learn a lot more if we could compare.”

“I do have one other source of information,” I said.

He looked up sharply. “What? Your father?”

“No, especially not him. I told you, he doesn’t like me reading it, and he doesn’t like talking about it.”

“So?”

“It’s my uncle Tommy, my father’s younger brother. He met someone who claimed he had known a servant who worked at the original Foxworth Hall.”

“No kidding. And?”

“He said this man told him the servant claimed their grandfather knew they were up there.”

“See? Like I said, the servants probably saw the old hag carrying food and told the old man, or maybe he and the Friday the Thirteenth grandmother plotted together.” He thought a moment and then brightened and asked, “Did your uncle say Corrine knew that her father knew?”