Part 15 (2/2)

”Well, what do you think?”

Kelly gazed into the mirror. She could barely recognize the image that stared back at her.

Her features hadn't changed, but she looked like a different person. Barbara Sheffield had trimmed her hair as well as changed its color, and it was much shorter now, no longer hanging around her face the way it used to. Instead it was brushed back and seemed to have taken on a glow all its own. The new color, a light honey shade with a few darker streaks in it, didn't look dyed at all, and made her skin look healthier and her eyes bluer. She reached out for the earrings that she'd piled on the ledge above the sink before they'd started the project, then hesitated.

”What's wrong?” Barbara asked, frowning. Then she thought she understood. ”Oh, dear, you don't like it, do you?”

”No!” Kelly protested. ”I like it fine. It's just...” Her voice trailed off. The truth was that she did did like her hair, but now all of a sudden her clothes looked wrong, and so did her jewelry. like her hair, but now all of a sudden her clothes looked wrong, and so did her jewelry.

”It's what?” Barbara urged. ”I think you look very pretty. Doesn't she, Jenny?”

Jenny, who had been kibitzing through the whole session, bobbed her head enthusiastically. ”She looks just like cousin Tisha.”

Kelly frowned. ”Who's cousin Tisha?”

”My sister's daughter,” Barbara replied. ”They live in Tallaha.s.see.” She c.o.c.ked her head. ”Jenny's right-you do look a lot like Tisha. I think I must have subconsciously cut your hair like hers, because she's my favorite niece.” When Kelly made no reply, Barbara sighed. ”Well, I guess this wasn't such a good idea after all. I'll tell you what-as soon as it grows out a bit, we'll put it back the way it was.”

Kelly shook her head. ”But I do like it,” she said at last. ”What I don't like is my clothes and stuff. W-Would you help me go shopping sometime? I mean, just to help me pick out the right things?”

Barbara felt her eyes dampen slightly. ”Well, I don't know,” she said, feeling uncertain. ”What about your mother? Wouldn't she like to take you shopping?”

Kelly took a deep breath. ”I don't like to go shopping with her,” she said. ”She never likes what I like, and always wants to choose everything herself. And now-” She hesitated, not sure how much Michael's mother might know about her. ”Well, she acts real nervous all the time. Now, if I said I liked something, she'd say it was wonderful, even if she hated it.”

Barbara, standing behind Kelly, laid a hand on her shoulder. ”That's probably because of what happened last month,” she said softly. ”She'll get over it.”

Kelly stiffened. ”You know about that?” she asked.

Barbara shrugged. ”Yes, Kelly, I know. But I also know you're going to be fine.”

For a moment, neither of them spoke. Even irrepressible Jenny, sensing something happening between her mother and this girl, was silent. Finally, hesitating, Kelly asked, ”You mean you don't think I'm crazy?”

Barbara took a deep breath. ”No, I don't,” she said. Her hand remained rea.s.suringly on Kelly's shoulder. ”Do you think you're crazy?”

Kelly considered her answer for a long time before she turned and faced Barbara. ”I don't know,” she admitted for the first time, to anyone. ”Sometimes I'm afraid I might be.”

Barbara slipped her arms around Kelly and gave her a gentle hug. ”Sometimes, Kelly, we're all afraid we're crazy,” she told her. ”But you don't seem crazy to me. You just seem like a sixteen-year-old girl who isn't quite sure who she is yet, and is spending entirely too much time worrying about it. And,” she added with a wide smile, ”I'd love to go shopping with you sometime, and I promise you I'll tell you exactly what I think of everything.”

But as she gazed at Kelly's reflection in the mirror, a thought came into Barbara's mind: This is what Sharon would have looked like. If she'd lived, this is how old she'd be, and this is how she'd look.

As quickly as the thought rose, she tried to put it aside. Kelly was someone else's daughter, not her own. Her own daughter was long dead, her body locked in a crypt in the family's mausoleum in the cemetery.

Yet even an hour later, after Kelly had left, the thought still clung to Barbara's consciousness, flitting around the edges of her mind like a persistent bee, impossible to get rid of.

As she waited for the water on the stove to heat to exactly the right temperature-hot enough to feel warm when she dipped her finger into it, but not hot enough to scald her-Lavinia Carter looked admiringly around the kitchen. She never tired of it, even after two years. Like the rest of the house, it was so different from where she'd grown up that she still marveled at all the wonderful things it contained. At home in the swamp there'd been nothing but the squat little stove in the corner, which her parents had always insisted she keep lit, even when finding wood dry enough to b.u.m was almost impossible. Worse, no matter how low she kept the fire behind the sooty iron door, the stove kept the house so hot it was unbearable most of the time.

House.

It hadn't been a house at all, except that until she'd come here, she hadn't really known it was any different from anything else, because until she was fifteen, she'd never been out of the swamp at all.

Her parents had kept her at home, and she'd always known what her life would be like. She would help her mother raise her sisters and brothers-some of whom her mother had birthed herself, and some of whom had come from the Dark Man, brought to her mother by Clarey Lambert.

Lavinia herself had been brought by Clarey Lambert, when she was so small she couldn't remember it. But as she'd grown up, her mother had told her she was special-that she was one of the Dark Man's children, and that someday she would marry another one of his children.

”You and the rest of his kids be different,” her mother had explained to her. ”The day you was born, the Dark Man chose you. You be special, and there's things the Dark Man can do for you.”

But she hadn't felt special.

She hadn't felt anything at all, really.

She'd just grown up, doing as she was told.

And on some nights, when she felt the silent call summoning her, she'd gone out into the swamp and stood in the Circle with the rest of the children watching the ceremonies.

Watching the weddings.

Witnessing the inductions of the babies into the Circle.

And giving the gift.

Unconsciously she fingered the mark on her chest, the scar that bore witness to the gift she'd given, and the needles that had painlessly penetrated her body so many times when she was a little girl.

Then, two years ago, the Dark Man had singled her out for a special ceremony.

She had been dressed all in white that night, and when she'd been called to the altar, she had at first thought she was going to be married.

But that wasn't possible, for she wasn't pregnant yet. Indeed, the Dark Man had not even selected a boy for her to live with.

But she had obeyed the summons-as all the children obeyed the Dark Man-and gone to the altar, where the Dark Man had spoken only to her, his voice reaching into her mind, putting her slowly to sleep.

When she had awakened, her life had changed.

She was no longer in the swamp.

She was here, in this house where she'd been ever since.

And she could no longer speak.

During the ceremony, her voice had been taken from her.

The Dark Man had explained it to her, telling her that of all the children, she was the most special. Out of all of the children, he had chosen her to look after the babies.

Lavinia had accepted the loss of her voice as she accepted all things.

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