Lasher Read Online Free Page B

with his heart now at all, except that the doctors kept scaring him, and giving him much too much medicine, though he did now and then have those little pains, he’d told Ryan, which reminded him of what he could and couldn’t do. Well, Mona would find out what he could or couldn’t do.
    She stood by the pool for a long moment, thinking of all the bits and pieces of the story—Rowan run off, some kind of miscarriage in the front hall, blood everywhere, and Michael bruised and knocked unconscious in the pool. Could the miscarriage account for the smell? She’d asked Pierce earlier if he could smell it. No. She’d asked Bea. No. She’d asked Ryan. Of course not. Stop going around looking for mysterious things! She thought of Aunt Gifford’s drawn face as she stood in the hospital corridor on Christmas Night, when they’d thought Michael was dying, and the way she had looked at Uncle Ryan.
    “You know what’s happened!” she had said.
    “That’s superstition and madness,” Ryan had answered. “I won’t listen to it. I won’t let you speak of it in front of the children.”
    “I don’t want to talk about it in front of the children,” Aunt Gifford had said, her jaw trembling. “I don’t want the children to know! Keep them away from that house, I’m begging you. I’ve been begging you all along.”
    “Like it’s my fault!” Uncle Ryan had whispered. Poor Uncle Ryan, the family lawyer, the family protector. Now that was a fine example of what conformity could do to one, because Uncle Ryan was in every respect a super-looking male animal, of the basically heroic type, with square jaw, and blue eyes, and good strong shoulders and a flat belly and a musician’s hands. But you never noticed it. All you saw when you looked at Uncle Ryan was his suit, and his oxford-cloth shirt, and the shine on his Church’s shoes. Every male at Mayfair and Mayfair dressed in exactly this fashion. It’s a wonder the women didn’t, that they had evolved a style which included pearls and pastel colors, and heels of varying height. Real wingdings, thought Mona. When she was a multimillionaire mogul, she would cut her own style.
    But during that argument in the hallway, Uncle Ryan had showed how desperate he was, and how worried for Michael Curry; he hadn’t meant to hurt Aunt Gifford. He never did.
    Then Aunt Bea had come and quieted them both. Mona would have told Aunt Gifford then and there that Michael Curry wasn’t going to die, but if she had she would have frightened Gifford all the more. You couldn’t talk to Aunt Gifford about anything.
    And now that Mona’s mother was pretty much drunk all the time, you couldn’t talk to her either, and Ancient Evelyn often did not answer at all when Mona spoke to her. Of course when she did, her mind was all there. “Mentation perfect,” said her doctor.
    Mona would never forget the time she’d asked to visit the house when it was still ruined and dirty, when Deirdre sat in her rocker. “I had a dream last night,” she’d explained to her mother and to Aunt Gifford. “Oncle Julien was in it, and he told me to climb the fence, whether Aunt Carlotta was there or not, and to sit in Deirdre’s lap.”
    This was all true. Aunt Gifford had gotten hysterical. “Don’t you ever go near Cousin Deirdre.” And Alicia had laughed and laughed and laughed. Ancient Evelyn had merely watched them.
    “Ever see anybody with your Aunt Deirdre when you pass there?” Alicia had asked.
    “CeeCee, how could you!” Gifford had demanded.
    “Only that young man who’s always with her.”
    That had put Aunt Gifford over the edge. After that Mona was technically sworn to stay away from First and Chestnut, to never set eyes on the house again. Of course she didn’t pay much attention. She walked by whenever she could. Two of her friends from Sacred Heart lived pretty close to First and Chestnut. Sometimes she went home with them after school, just to have the excuse. They loved to have