Free Dollenganger 01 Flowers In the Attic by V. C. Andrews Page B

under the highboy. The servants who made the beds, and tidied up in the upstairs rooms of other wings, must surely have departed for lower sections, and they would not see this floor again for another twenty-four hours.
We were, of course, already tired of that room, and very eager to explore the outer confines of our limited domain. Christopher and I each caught hold of a twin's hand, and we headed silently toward the closet that held our two suitcases with all the clothes still inside. We'd wait to unpack. When we had more roomy, pleasant quarters, the servants could unpack for us, as they did in movies, and we could take off outdoors. Indeed, we wouldn't be in this room when the servants came in on the last Friday of the month to clean. We'd be set free by then.
With my older brother in the lead, holding onto the small hand of my younger brother so he wouldn't trip or fall, and with me close at Cory's heels, as Carrie clung to my hand, we headed up the dark, narrow, steep steps. The walls of that passageway were so narrow your shoulders almost brushed them.
And there it was!
Attics we'd seen before, who hasn't? But never such an attic as this one!
We stood as if rooted, and gazed around with incredulity. Huge, dim, dirty, dusty, this attic stretched for miles! The farthest walls were so distant they seemed hazy, out of focus. The air was not clear, but murky; it had an odor, an unpleasant odor of decay, of old rotting things, of dead things left unburied, and because it was cloudy with dust, everything seemed to move, to shimmer, especially in the darker, gloomier corners.
Four sets of deep dormer windows stretched across the front, four sets across the back. The sides, what we could see of them, were without windows-- but there were wings where we couldn't see unless we dared to move forward and brave the stifling heat of the place.
Step by step we moved as one away from the stairwell.
The floor was of wide wooden planks, soft and rotting. As we inched along cautiously, feeling fearful, small creatures on the floor went scuttling off in all directions. There was enough furniture stored in the attic to furnish several houses. Dark, massive furniture, and chamber pots, and pitchers set in larger bowls, perhaps twenty or thirty sets of them. And there was a round wooden thing that looked like a tub banded with iron. Imagine keeping a bathtub like that!
Everything that seemed of value was draped over by sheets where dust had accumulated to turn the white cloth dingy gray. And what was covered by sheets for protection shivered my spine, for I saw these things as weird, eerie, furniture ghosts, whispering, whispering. And I didn't want to hear what they had to say.
Dozens of old leather-bound trunks with heavy brass locks and corners lined one entire wall, each trunk stuck all over with travel labels. Why, they must have been around the world several or more times. Big trunks, fit for coffins.
Giant armoires stood in a silent row against the farthest wall, and when we checked, we found each one full of ancient clothes. We saw both Union and Confederate uniforms, giving Christopher and me much to speculate upon as the twins cringed close against us and looked around with big, scared eyes.
"Do you think our ancestors were so undecided during the Civil War they didn't know which side they were on, Christopher?"
"The War Between the States sounds better," he answered. "Spies, you think?"
"How would I know?"
Secrets, secrets, everywhere! Brother against brother I saw it--oh, what fun to find out! If only we could find diaries!
"Look here," said Christopher, pulling out a man's suit of pale cream-colored wool, with brown velvet lapels, and piped smartly with darker brown satin. He waved the suit. Disgusting winged creatures took off in all directions, despite the stench of mothballs.
I yelped, as did Carrie.
"Don't be such babies," he said, not in the least disturbed by those things. "What you saw were moths, harmless moths. It's the