Whitefern (Audrina 2)

“Liked what?”

She looked like she wasn’t going to answer or didn’t know what to answer. I thought I knew what she meant.

“You shouldn’t like just anyone touching you, Sylvia. And whoever does it shouldn’t trick you into thinking he is doing something else, something you should let him do.”

She looked at me and nodded, but I had no false hopes about it. She didn’t have any idea what I meant, and maybe she never would.

The day would come when I would wish that this was all I had talked about until she understood.

But by then, it was too late for all of us.

Shadows Do Multiply

Despite how firmly and confidently Arden had de­clared that the incident in the cupola was over and should never be discussed or even thought about again, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of doom about Whitefern because of it. Old demons were roused from their sleep. The devil who liked to frolic about in our lives had paid us another visit. Shadows were darker. Every face in every painting looked angry and accusatory as I walked by. Every clock ticked as though every minute, every second, was heavier in this house than anywhere else. And no matter what anyone would tell me, what had happened to Sylvia was my fault.

“You don’t tend your garden, and weeds will grow. And it’s not the fault of the weeds!” Aunt Ellsbeth would tell both Vera and me. Her condemning voice echoed in the hallways. “Your father gave you one important responsibility, and you failed him. You failed him!”

Vera’s laughter naturally followed, resonating through the hallways in my house of memories. Sometimes I went about with my hands over my ears. But the voices were inside my head, haunting, pouncing, eager to remind me that I was all twisted and beaten down, forever poisoned by the lust of the boys who had killed the real Audrina in me, the little girl her father had cherished. No baths, no shampoos, not even sandpaper on my skin, could scrub away the disgrace. How could my father have any faith and confidence in me? Aunt Ellsbeth and Vera were always there to remind me of that question. They expected failure no matter what I did. Nothing made them happier, because it proved them right.

How did you kill ghosts?

There was nothing in Sylvia’s behavior to encourage this. She didn’t mope around looking lost and melancholy all the time like any victim of such abuse would. If anything, she seemed to have more energy than she had before. Absent from her psyche was any embarrassment. She was still very interested in her artwork and spent more time in the cupola experimenting with her watercolors the way Mr. Price had taught her. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help it. Whenever she mentioned something about drawing and painting, I didn’t react with the enthusiasm she expected. I would never ask her to stop her artwork, but it seemed contaminated in my mind now, as contaminated as I believed I was deep down inside. I knew she was surprised and upset by my subdued reactions to everything she showed me proudly. I hated flashing smiles and those terribly meaningless words, “That’s nice.”

At times, I thought Arden paid more attention to her at dinner and afterward than he did to me. Maybe I was imagining it, but she seemed to become more interested in the things he said. She laughed at his jokes even if she didn’t fully understand them, and when he addressed her now, she seemed to try harder to do whatever he asked. He asked nicely, too, not like before, when he would snap an order at her as if she was a pet hound. When I made a reference to his changed behavior toward my sister, he said, “We’ve got to do all we can to keep her from feeling guilty, Audrina, feeling like it was her fault. It’ll set her back years if we don’t.”

“Since when did her feelings matter so much to you?” I countered, annoyed at his tone. He sounded like I was the one who was making things more difficult, like I was trying to shift the blame from myself to her.

“Since I realized I was the head of this household and responsible for your and Sylvia’s welfare,” he replied. “That’s since when.”

He sounded so sincere that I couldn’t contradict him, challenge him, or accuse him of being sarcastic.

“I would have thought you, of all people, would be pleased,” he added.

“I am,” I said, now feeling a little ashamed. “I’m just . . . surprised.”

“Happily, I hope.”

“Yes, happily, Arden, happily.”

I left it at that, but despite how well both Arden and Sylvia were doing after what I considered a serious and terrible event at Whitefern, I could not simply forget it and go on the way they apparently were. To them, it was as though Mr. Price had never come to instruct her and had never taken advantage of her, while it haunted me. I shuddered to remember what I’d seen when I opened the cupola door. How much further would things have gone if I hadn’t made the discovery, if I had continued to avoid going to the cupola because I thought that would make Sylvia more comfortable?

Needless to say, what had happened to Sylvia revived my own gruesome memories. Were all the women of Whitefern under some curse to suffer at the hands of some man? In the days and weeks that followed, I moved about under a dark cloud. I dozed off more than usual and had no sooner finished with dinner than I announced that I was tired and would go up for a hot bath and bed. At first, Arden seemed not to notice the difference in me, but one night after dinner, he ordered me to come to the living room. I thought he was going to start on the paperwork, and I was ready to give in, but to my surprise, he was more upset about me, about the way I had been behaving.

“You’ve got to stop beating yourself up for what happened, Audrina. Nobody would have expected you to be suspicious of a retired schoolteacher apparently quite well liked at the school where he had taught. Don’t forget, the principal recommended him to you.”

“I know,” I said. “But I’m sure there were clues I missed.”

“What clues?”

“The way he spoke to her, admired her, smiled at her, and the little whispering I saw him do with her.”

“Ridiculous.” He thought a moment. “But I see how heavily your misplaced guilt is weighing on you. You’re sure to get yourself sick. Maybe you should see Dr. Prescott,” he suggested.

“Why? I’m not sick yet.”

“There are all kinds of sickness, Audrina. You might need some sort of medication for this . . . depression. I think they’re called mood enhancers. One of my clients was telling me about it the other day. His wife suffers from depression.”

“Any doctor would first want to know why I was depressed. He’d want to know why, and I’d be terribly embarrassed, Arden, even with Dr. Prescott, maybe especially with Dr. Prescott. He was here sometimes when Papa told me to watch over Sylvia closely and warned me time and time again how vulnerable she was. No, no, I’ll deal with it myself,” I said. “Give me time.”