Lightning Strikes (Hudson 2)

"Heather!" I heard him cry. It was his dead daughter's name. I paused and looked back to see him standing in the cottage doorway. It put an even colder chill in my heart and I hurried along to the house. As I made the turn toward the front door, I saw Boggs off to my left, standing like a grim statue, watching me.

I practically charged through the front door and down the hallway to my room where I quickly stripped off the foolish dress and threw it on the floor. Then I sat on my bed and tried to catch my breath.

Was it great madness or great sorrow that makes him do these things? I wondered. I didn't have much of a chance to think about it. My door was thrust open so hard, it strained on its hinges. Boggs stood there, gaping in at me. I covered myself quickly with my hands.

"Don't go saying anything nasty about Mr. Endfleld," he warned.

Then he closed the door.

"Oh, Mama," I moaned. "If you only knew the truth about what you hoped was my salvation. You might have left me to take my chances in the hell we at least understood."

13

Seize the Moment

.

Of course I was quite nervous about serving

Great-uncle Richard and Great-aunt Leonora breakfast the following morning. I was emotionally exhausted and almost immediately fell into a comatose state the moment I lowered my head to the pillow, but very soon I began to toss and turn so much in anticipation of waking that my legs and arms actually ached when I

woke. It felt like I had been swimming miles.

I don't think I really dreamed until shortly before waking. Just as the sun was coming up, I flitted in and out of nightmares, dreaming I was dressed like a baby in a giant crib. I wore only a diaper. Greatuncle Richard was a giant reaching in for me. His hands looked enormous and at the very ends of each finger, there were smaller versions of his head. I might have been screaming as I dreamed, but Boggs, if he heard it, didn't come to see what was wrong. I could hear myself crying and saw myself running in a forest in which tree after tree turned into Boggs, his arms stretched out toward me like great, thick branches.

After I rose and went to the bathroom, I gazed at myself in the mirror and saw eyes that looked glassy and still asleep, the lids drooping like flags on a day with no breeze. I didn't have the energy to make myself look much better and barely ran a brush through my hair. I let my legs carry me through the hallway to the kitchen as if the top half of me was yet not awake.

"Looks like I'm the only one chirpy this mornin'," Mrs. Chester commented the moment she set eyes on me. "Whatja do, get yourself good and sloshed yesterday?" she asked me.

"Sloshed? You mean, drunk?"

"Call it whatever yer want, the end's the same. You look like you turned yerself inside out and in again."

"No, I didn't get sloshed," I said sharply. "I don't get sloshed."

"Well, one .gander at you tells me yer candle was burned on both ends, dearie," she insisted.

She could be so infuriating, making my stomach feel like I had swallowed a handful of straight pins. I decided to ignore her and do my work. Mary Margaret came in from the dining room where she had been setting the table. She looked pale, her eyes foggy. She threw a quick glance at me and then turned away. I could see Mrs. Chester watching her out of the corner of her eyes.

"Get a move on," she ordered. "They'll be down in a minute," she said.

I was surprised Great-aunt Leonora came to the dining room after the way she had been late yesterday. She said she had to get up and get presentable because she had an important social affair, a luncheon, that she insisted she had to attend. The proceeds were marked for a charity. However, she let us all know how much of a sacrifice it was for her. She complained about her nose and her throat and how heavy her head felt.

"I just hope I can manage all right. So many people are depending on me," she claimed.

Great-uncle Richard said nothing. He read his paper and except for one look he gave me when I first entered the dining room, he didn't so much as glance at me while I worked. However, that one look was enough to turn my heart into a drum with a skin too taut. Every beat sent a heavy thump to my head and seized my breath as if a great and powerful hand was squeezing at my throat. Great-uncle Richard's look was strange and haunted and then, just as quickly as it had come, the look was gone and he was back to being his formal, stiff self with certainly no mention made of the cottage or what he had done.

Great-aunt Leonora hated long silences and talked incessantly as she nibbled on her toast. In my mind her words bounced off the back of Great-uncle Richard's newspaper, which he held up like a shield. If she asked a question, she had to do so twice and then he would lower his paper to growl his reply, which was usually something like "If you don't know what you're talking about, Leonora, it's better to remain silent."

"Well, I'm just saying," she'd reply, but then grow quiet until another topic came to mind.

After they had left, I helped Mary Margaret clear the table. All through breakfast, she had been very quiet. She barely answered me when I asked her how she felt and she kept her eyes down as if she thought I could see the truth in them. I thought she looked more afraid and fragile than ever, and I was working up the courage to tell Mrs. Chester I thought there was something seriously wrong with Mary Margaret, But Mary Margaret did it for me in a most dramatic fashion.

She had just handed a bowl to Mrs. Chester at the sink when she looked up as if something had flown by her head, turned and then folded to the floor like a body whose bones had turned to jelly. Neither Mrs. Chester nor I moved or spoke for a moment, both of us thrown into utter shock.

"Mary Margaret!" she finally screamed. She looked up and yelled for Boggs.

I thought Boggs must have been standing right outside the kitchen door to come in as quickly as he did. I always felt he was nearby, eavesdropping on our conversations. For once, I was grateful. Mary Margaret still hadn't moved a muscle and her face looked as pasty and white as a faded lily.