The Blackstone Chronicles (26 page)

Now Andrea’s eyes were shining with tears. “It isn’t that at all, Rebecca. It’s just—” She struggled for a moment, but couldn’t hold the tears back. “Nobody’s given me a present for so long that I forgot what it feels like. And I don’t have anything for you. I—”

“Just open it,” Rebecca begged. “Please?”

Blowing her nose into the crumpled Kleenex once more, Andrea finally opened the bag and took out the tissue-wrapped object inside. Stripping the paper away, she gazed uncomprehendingly at the gilded dragon. “I—I don’t understand,” she stammered. “What is it?”

Instead of telling her, Rebecca took the dragon from her cousin’s hands and squeezed its neck.
Click!
And a tongue of fire shot from its mouth. Andrea laughed.

“I love it!” she said, taking the lighter back from Rebecca and trying it herself. “Where did you ever find it? It’s wonderful!” Rummaging in her purse, she found a package of cigarettes at the bottom, pulled one out, and lit it from the dragon’s mouth. “Now if anyone says I have dragon breath, at least they’ll be right!”

“You mean you really like it?” Rebecca asked. “It’s all right?”

“It’s perfect,” Andrea assured her. Then she glanced around. “Now I feel even worse about taking your room.”

“It’s not my room,” Rebecca reminded her. “It’s yours. And the one downstairs is fine for me. I don’t need much. I’ll bet I don’t have nearly as many clothes as you, and I won’t have to listen to Aunt Martha snore anymore.” She instantly clapped her hands over her mouth as she realized she’d once more spoken without thinking, but Andrea only laughed again.

“Is it really bad?”

Rebecca nodded. “Sometimes I have to wear earplugs in order to sleep.”

“Oh, Lord,” Andrea moaned, flopping back onto the bed. “Maybe I’m actually doing you a favor after all.”
She sat up again, then held the pack of cigarettes out to Rebecca. “Want one?”

Rebecca shook her head. “Smoking’s not good for you.”

Andrea laughed, but this time the sound was bitter. “Life hasn’t been very good for me. No job, no husband, no place to live, and pregnant. So where’s the good part?”

“You’re having a baby?” Rebecca asked. “But that’s wonderful, Andrea. Babies are always good, aren’t they?” Then her eyes fell on the cigarette from which Andrea was inhaling deeply. “But now you really shouldn’t smoke,” she went on. “It’s really bad for the baby.”

The last faint feeling of optimism that the gift had brought to Andrea dropped away. “What the hell would you know about it?” she asked. Then, unwilling to witness the pain her words inflicted on Rebecca, she stood up and went to the window, gazing out at the dark, rainy afternoon.

Rebecca, stinging from Andrea’s rebuff, went to the door. Hand on the knob, she turned back, hopefully, but when Andrea made no move even to look at her, she shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just—well, I just say things, that’s all. I’m really sorry.”

“Just leave me alone, Rebecca. Okay?”

A moment later Andrea heard the door open and close, and knew that she was once again alone in the room. She went back to the bed, dropped down onto it once more, and picked up the lighter.

Clicking it on and off, she watched the dragon’s flaming tongue flick in and out of its gilded mouth. As the flame flared then died away, flared and died once more, she thought about the baby growing in her womb.

Then, with a sharp
click
that made the dragon spit its flame again, she made up her mind what she was going to do.

M
artha Ward left her house at dawn the next morning. She hadn’t slept well, which she always took as a sign that her soul was troubled. This morning, her private prayer session in her own chapel wouldn’t be enough. Dressed in the dark blue suit she invariably wore to church, and with her hat and veil pinned carefully in place, she used her key to bolt the front door. Both Rebecca and Andrea were asleep inside the house, and though she was well aware that both of them were already steeped in sin, she was always mindful that there were men in Blackstone—just as there were men everywhere—whose hearts were filled with lust.

Satisfied that the door was firmly locked, she left the porch, buttoned her coat to her chin as the sharp wind cut into her, then made her way down Harvard Street. Her feet, misshapen from the arthritis that had been one of her crosses for the last twenty years, were hurting badly by the time she’d gone a block, but she ignored the pain, silently repeating her rosary. This morning she was saying St. Benedict’s—one of her favorite rosaries—and the rhythms of the Latin words eased her pain slightly. If her Savior had been able to bear His cross through the streets of Jerusalem with graceful dignity, surely she could carry the pain of her arthritis with dignified grace. When Charles VanDeventer stopped to offer her a ride, she barely acknowledged him before turning her head firmly away from temptation.

When she arrived at the Catholic church on the town square, she noted with satisfaction that the door was already unlocked despite the early hour. Indeed, since Monsignor Vernon had come to Blackstone several years ago, seven o’clock mass was celebrated daily. Though she well knew that there were those in town who felt that the monsignor’s Catholicism was out of step with their own, Martha Ward was not among them. From the day he arrived—from some small town out in Washington State, she recalled—Martha knew she’d found a kindred spirit. “I always leave the church open for prayer,” he’d told her, “and I’ll always be available to hear your confession.” Not that Martha had much to confess. She made it a point to live a life of virtue. Still, she often found it comforting to talk to Monsignor.

Inside the church, Martha dipped her fingers in the font of holy water, genuflected, then walked slowly down the aisle, her eyes fixed on the face of the crucified Christ that loomed above the altar. Genuflecting again, she slipped into the first pew, dropped to her knees and began the first of her prayers. A few minutes later, catching a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, she knew that Monsignor Vernon was in the confessional, waiting for her.

“Something is preying on you this morning,” the priest said softly when Martha’s confession was done and he’d handed down her penance, then absolved her. “I can feel that your heart is heavy.”

Martha sat silently for a few seconds, her fingers working at her beads, hesitant to reveal her shame. But what choice had she? “It’s my daughter,” she whispered, her voice quavering. “She is pregnant, Father. But she isn’t married.” Did she hear a shocked gasp? She was almost certain she did.

She clutched the beads more tightly.

“You must pray,” the priest said, his voice low but distinct. “Your daughter has committed a mortal sin, and
you must pray for her. Pray for her to see the error of her ways. Pray for her to turn away from sin and find her way back to the Church. Pray for her to find her way into the arms of the Lord so her baby may be saved.”

Martha waited, but no other words came to her from the other side of the screen. When she finally left the confessional, the church was once again empty, except for her. Returning to the pew, she dropped to her knees.

The words she’d heard in the confessional echoed in her mind.

Pray for her to find her way into the arms of the Lord so her baby may be saved
.

Over and over again the monsignor’s resonant voice echoed in her mind, until the words took on the cadence of a chant that resounded louder and louder, filling the entire church and penetrating to the very core of her being.

It was as if she’d been spoken to by the Lord Himself. Martha Ward felt transfigured.

The Lord would show her the way.

Andrea would be saved.

As soon as she was wide enough awake to remember where she was and why she was there, Andrea Ward felt her good intentions of the previous day evaporate. She reached over to the nightstand, felt for her cigarettes, and lit one with the dragon’s head lighter her cousin had given her yesterday afternoon. Sucking the first puff of smoke deep into her lungs, she choked, then fell victim to a fit of coughing. When the coughing finally subsided, she dropped back onto the single thin pillow that had been allotted to the bed—her mother had never believed that more than one could possibly be necessary—and wondered why she’d bothered to wake up at all.

Nothing had changed overnight. She was still pregnant, still jobless, and Gary had still run out on her. But
now she was back home in Blackstone, and her mother was condemning her for her sins, and Rebecca—

Rebecca! Christ! Though it was true that her cousin had tried to be nice to her, so what? Since her accident, Rebecca was even more useless than she’d been before, if that was possible. Sweet, maybe, but useless. Which meant Rebecca wasn’t going to be any good to her at all.

Stop it! Andrea commanded herself. None of this is Rebecca’s fault. You got yourself into this mess, so now it’s up to you to get yourself out of it!

Stubbing the cigarette out in the soap dish she’d commandeered from the bathroom to serve as an ashtray, Andrea slid off the bed, only to feel a wave of nausea break over her as she stood. Running to the bathroom, she made it just in time to throw up into the toilet. Groping, she found the handle on the side of the tank and flushed the bowl, but as she started to get to her feet, her stomach recoiled again, a foul mixture of acid and bile rising in her throat, and she sank again to her knees. Whimpering, she stayed crouched on the floor waiting for the nausea to pass, and after retching two more times, decided to risk standing up once again. She was turning on the water to rinse the residue of vomit from her mouth when she heard a tapping at the door, immediately followed by Rebecca’s voice.

“Are you all right, Andrea? Can I help?”

“No one can help,” Andrea groaned. “Just go away, okay?”

There was a silence, followed by the sound of her cousin’s footsteps retreating back toward the staircase. She stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her hair, darkening badly at the roots, lay against her scalp in a limp, oily tangle. To her own eye, she looked at least ten years older than she was. She looked worn. She looked the way she felt. Hopeless.

How on earth would she manage to keep all the promises she’d made yesterday?

Andrea went back to her room, put on the same blouse and faded jeans she’d worn the day before, and finally went downstairs. She found Rebecca in the kitchen. Two places were set at the table. As Andrea sank down into one of the chairs, Rebecca put a glass of orange juice in front of her, and a plate containing an English muffin thickly coated with butter and bright orange marmalade.

Just the sight of it made Andrea’s stomach churn again. “All I want is a cup of coffee,” she pleaded.

The welcoming smile on Rebecca’s face faded into a look of uncertainty. “Is that good for the baby? I think I read—”

Andrea glared at her cousin. “I have news for you,” she said. “I don’t give a good goddamn what you
read.”
As Rebecca’s eyes glistened with tears, Andrea felt a twinge of guilt. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But it hasn’t been a great morning so far. I didn’t sleep more than an hour, and then I started puking my brains out. Right now my life isn’t going real well, you know? Anyway, I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“It’s all right.” Rebecca picked up the plate and glass and moved them to the counter, then poured her cousin a cup of coffee.

“Where’s Mother?” Andrea asked. “She can’t be asleep—she always thought being in bed after six was some kind of sin.”

“Sometimes she goes to church,” Rebecca explained. “Especially when she’s worried about something.”

Andrea rolled her eyes. “Well, I think we can both guess what she’s praying about this morning, huh? What’ll you bet she starts in on me the minute she gets home?”

“Aunt Martha’s been good to me,” Rebecca said. “And she only wants what’s best for you too. She worries about you all the time.”

“Worries about
me?”
Andrea cried, her voice mocking. Her hands shaking with sudden anger, she lit another
cigarette. “Let me tell you something, Rebecca. Mother never worried about anyone in her whole life. All she worries about is who’s sinning, and whether she’s going to Heaven or not. Well, I have a news flash for her too—if Heaven is where nice, loving mothers go, then it’s way too late for her already!”

Rebecca recoiled from Andrea’s venom. “She’s not that bad.”

“Isn’t she?” Andrea shot back. “Let me show you something.” Standing so abruptly she nearly toppled her chair, Andrea left the kitchen and walked quickly through the house until she came to the closed doors to the room that had once been her father’s den. Shoving the doors open, she stepped inside. “Did you know this is where I grew up?” she asked. Using the dragon’s head, she began lighting the candles lined up on her mother’s small altar, then lit the ones that stood beneath the icons of the Holy Mother and half a dozen saints.

“This is the way it always was, Rebecca,” she said as the dark room began to glow with the shadowy light of the shimmering candle flames. “Ever since I was a little girl, this is how it was. I had to come in here and pray every morning, and every day after school, and every night before I went to bed. And you know what, Rebecca? I never even got to see what it looked like in real light. Well, let’s find out, shall we?”