I told John Amos about my dreams. He nodded his head and told me he used to dream when he was young about girls and how much he could love them, if only they wouldn't see how long his nose was. "I had other attributes I couldn't show them, but they never gave me a chance, never a chance."
Whispering Voices
. Questions, questions, all they did was ask me questions.
Didn't know nothing, nothing. Wasn't guilty, wasn't. Why ask me? Crazy kids didn't give straight answers. "Momma's gone 'cause she always hated me, even when I was a little baby."
That night whores, harlots and strumpets came to dance in my head. Woke up. Heard the rain beating on the roof. Heard the wind blowing at my window.
Fell asleep again and dreamed I was like Aunt Carrie who didn't grow tall enough. Dreamed I prayed and prayed and one day God let me grow so tall my head touched the sky. Looked down and saw all the little people running around like ants, afraid of me. I laughed and stepped in the ocean, making tidal waves rise up and wash over the tall cities. More pipsqueak screams. All the people I didn't squash were drowned. Sat in the ocean then that came to my waist and cried. My tears were so huge they made the ocean rise up again--and all I could see all around me was my reflection, and how handsome I was now. Now that there wasn't a girl or woman left alive to love and admire me, I was handsome, tall and strong.
Next morning Jory left with Daddy. Easy to slip away from Emma and Madame Marisha, for they had to fool around with Cindy so much. But it gave me the chance to steal into the mansion next door. I sneaked around to find John Amos. He was packing all the beautiful lamps, paintings and other valuables in boxes. "The silver should be wrapped in tarnish-proof papers," he said to one of the maids, "and be careful with that china and crystal. When the movers show up, have them put in the best furniture first, for I may be busy elsewhere."
The prettiest maid was young, and she frowned. "Mr. Jackson, why we go? Thought Madame liked it here. She never say we moving."
"Your mistress is a woman of changing moods
-it's that nutty boy next door. That little one who keeps coming over here. He's gotten to be a real nuisance. He killed the dog she gave him I suppose none of you know that?"
I stared in the room and saw the maid's lips part in horror. "No . . . thought the dog went over to boy's home . ."
"The brat is dangerous! That's why Madame has to move--he's threatened her life more than one time. He's under the care of a psychiatrist."
They looked from one to the other and made circles above their heads. Mad! Mad as hell at John Amos, telling lies about me.
Waited until he was alone, sitting at the fancy desk where my grandmother kept her checkbook. He jumped when I came in. "Bart, I wish you wouldn't sneak around like that. Make some noise when you enter, clear your throat, cough. . . do something to announce you are there."
"I heard what you told the maids. I'm not crazy!"
"Of course you're not," he said, his S's hissing as always. "But I do have to tell them something, don't I? Otherwise they might become suspicious. As it is, they think your grandmother has gone on a trip to Hawaii . . ."
I felt sick inside, standing there, toeing in my sneakers, and staring down at them. "John Amos . . . can I give my momma and granny sandwiches to eat today?"
"No. They can't be hungry already."
Knew he would say that.
He forgot me then. He was reading over her bankbooks, her savings accounts, her receipts and giggling to himself. He found a little key and opened a tiny drawer way back behind another door. "Stupid woman, thought I didn't notice where she hid her key . . ."
I left him having his fun with my granny's things, and I stole down to where my caged mice were. Made me feel better to think of them as only mice.
My momma was groaning, half crying from the cold as I peeked inside and saw they had the little stub of candle lit. I'd shoved in the candle along with some matches so I could see what they were doing. Momma looked little and white, and still my granny held her head in her lap, and wiped her face with a rag she must have torn from her slip, for it had lace on one ragged edge.
"Cathy my love, my only daughter left, please listen to me. I have to speak now for I may never have another chance. Yes, I made mistakes. Yes, I allowed my father to torment me until I didn't know right from wrong, or which way to turn. Yes, I put arsenic on your sugared doughnuts thinking each one of you would get only a little sick, then I could slip you out one by one. I didn't want one of you to die. I swear I loved you, all four of you. I carried Cory out to my car where he breathed his last breath just as I laid him on the back seat and covered him with two blankets. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't go to the police, and I was so ashamed, so guilty."
She shook my mother, while I trembled too.
"Cathy, my daughter, please wake up and listen," she pleaded. Momma had awakened and seemed to be trying to focus her eyes. "Darling, I don't think Bart killed the dog I gave him. He loved Apple. I think John did that hoping Bart would be blamed and considered crazy and dangerous so the police would put the blame on Bart when you and I disappeared. I think John strangled Jory's little pet poodle too, and killed my kitten as well.
"Bart is a very lonely, confused little boy, Cathy, but he's not dangerous. He likes to pretend he is, and in that way he can feel like he's going to be a powerful man. But it's John who is dangerous. He hates me. I didn't know until a few years ago that if I hadn't returned to Foxworth Hall after your father died, John would have inherited all the Foxworth fortune. My father trusted John as he trusted no one else, perhaps because they were so much alike. But when I came back, he forgot John. He wrote John out of his will and put me back in as his sole heir. Cathy, are you listening?"
"Momma, is that you, Momma?" asked my mother in a small voice that sounded like a child in trouble. "Momma, why don't you look at the twins when you come in to see us? Why don't you notice that they don't grow as they should? Are you deliberately not seeing?--just ignoring them so you won't feel guilty and ashamed?"
"Oh, Cathy!" cried Grandmother, "if only you knew how much it hurts to hear you say those things after all these years. Did I hurt you so deeply you can never heal, you and Chris too? It's no wonder you and your brother--I'm sorry, so sorry I could die." But in a moment or so she pulled herself together and went on with what she called a "desperate urgency."
"Even if you are delirious and can't fully understand now, I must speak, or I may not live to tell you everything. When John Amos was a young man, about twenty-five, he lusted after me, though I was only ten. He'd hide in corners and spy on me, then hurry to my father and make the worst of innocent deeds on my part. I couldn't tell my parents that John told lies for they never believed me--they believed him. They refused to recognize a young girl is often preyed upon by older men, even older relatives. John was third cousin to my mother, the only member of her family my father could stand. I think my father put it in his head after my older two brothers died, that if ever I fell out of his favor, John would benefit. That was my father's way of extracting the most out of everyone--dangling his sugar plums that would vanish when reached for. John wanted my mother's wealth too. They encouraged him to think he might inherit. They thought him a saint. He wore a pious look all the time, he acted godly, and all the while he was seducing every pretty young maid who ever came into Foxworth Hall. And my parents never suspected. They couldn't see any evil but what their children did. Can you understand now why John hates me? Why he hated my children too? He would have been the beneficiary if I had stayed in Gladstone.
"One day I heard him in the back hall