Free Dollenganger 03 If There Be a Thorns by V. C. Andrews Page B

Just repeating something I overheard Bart saying to himself last night. He cries in his sleep, Mom. He calls for you, screaming because you've run away with your lover." I grinned and tried to look lighthearted. "And I didn't even know you play around."
She ignored my facetious remark. "Jory, why didn't you tell me before that Bart has nightmares?"
How could I tell her the truth?--that she was much too taken up with Cindy to pay attention to anyone else. And never, never should she give anyone more attention than Bart. Even me.
"Momma, Momma!" I heard Bart cry out in his sleep that night. "Where are you? Don't leave me alone! Momma, please don't leave me. Don't love him more than me. I'm not bad, really not bad . . . just can't help what I do sometimes. Momma
Momma .
Only crazy people couldn't help what they did. One crazy person in our family was enough. We didn't need another living under our roof.
So . . . it was up to me to save Bart from himself. Up to me to straighten out something crooked that had begun a long time ago. And way back in the shadowed recesses of my brain, there were vague, unsettlingmemories of something that had troubled me years ago when I was too young to understand. Too young to put the jigsaw pieces together.
Trouble was, I'd been doing so much thinking about the past, that now it was waking up, and I could remember a man with dark hair, a man different from Daddy Paul. A man Mom used to call Bart
Winslow-- and those were my half brother's first and second names.

My Heart's Desire
.
    Wicked little girl, that Cindy. Didn't care who saw her naked. Didn't care who saw her sit on the potty. Didn't care about being decent or clean. Took my toy cars and chewed on them.
    Summer wasn't so good no more. Nothin t'do. No where t'go but next door. Ole lady kept promising that pony and never did it show up. Leading me on, teasing me. I'd show her. Make her sit over there all alone, wouldn't visit. Punish her. Last night I heard Momma telling Daddy how she saw that ole lady in black standing on a ladder propped against the wall. "And she was staring at me, Chris. Really staring!"
    Daddy laughed. "Really, Cathy. What harm can her stares do? She's a stranger in a strange land. Wouldn't it have been friendly of you to wave and say hello-- perhaps introduce yourself?" I snickered to myself. Grandmother wouldn't have answered. She was shy around all strangers but me. I was the only one she trusted.
    Another day of being mean to Cindy had caused everywhere to be named off-limits to me. But I was clever and stole outside and snuck quickly away, to next door, to where people liked me.
    "Where's my pony?" I screeched when I saw the barn still empty. "You promised me a pony--so if you don't give me one I'll tell Momma and Daddy you are trying to steal me away!"
    She seemed to shrink inside her ugly black robe while those pale, thin hands of hers fluttered to the neckline so she could tug out a heavy rope of pearls she usually kept hidden.
    "Tomorrow, Bart. Tomorrow you get your heart's desire."
Met John Amos on the way home. He led me into his secret cubbyhole and whispered of "mandoings." "Women like her are born rich and they never need brains," said John Amos, his watery eyes hard and slitlike. "You listen to me, boy, and never fall in love with a stupid women. And all women are stupid. When you deal with women you have to let them know who is boss right from the start--and never let them forget it. Now, your lesson for today. Who is Malcolm Neal Foxworth?"
"My great-grandfather who is dead and gone but powerful even so," I said, not really understanding even as I said it.
"What else was Malcolm Neal Foxworth?"
"A saint. A saint deserving of a lordly place in heaven."
"Correct. But tell it all, leave nothing out."
"Never was there a man born smarter than Malcolm Neal Foxworth."
"That's not all I've taught you. You should know more about him from reading his journal. Are you reading it daily? He wrote in that book