Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

made painful and distasteful." She shook her head and looked down at me again. "Why do you think the pain and the disgustingness has happened to you so early?" she asked, then answered her own question quickly. "Because you're exceptionally evil, you're a living curse yourself."
    "No, I'm not," I said weakly, the tears misting over my eyes. She smiled.
    "Every day another proof is shown," she said triumphantly. "This is just another. Mamma and Papa will come to realize it and send you off to live in a home for wayward girls someday," she threatened.
    "They won't," I said without great confidence. What if Emily was right? She seemed to be right about everything else.
    "Yes they will. They'll have to or else you'll bring one curse after another on us, one disaster after another. You'll see," she promised. She looked at the book again. "Maybe Papa will come in here and see you reading and looking at that disgusting stuff. Keep it up," she said, and spun around to march confidently out of the library. Her final words filled me with more dread. I closed the book quickly and placed it back in its space on the shelf. Then I retreated to my room to contemplate the horrible things Emily had spit down at me. What if she was right? I wondered. I couldn't help but wonder.
    What if she was right?
    My cramps remained so intense, I didn't want to go down to dinner, but Tottie came by with my books and notebooks to tell me Eugenia had been asking after me, wondering why I hadn't stopped in after school. The desire to see her gave me new strength and I went to her to explain. She lay there, as wide-eyed and as amazed as I had been, and listened. When I was finished, she shook her head and wondered aloud if it would ever happen to her.
    "Mamma and the books I read said it happens to all of us," I said.
    "It won't happen to me," she said prophetically. "My body will stay a little girl's body until I die."
    "Don't say such terrible things," I cried.
    "You sound just like Mamma," Eugenia said, smiling. I had to admit that I did, and for the first time since I had come home from school, I smiled.
    "Well, I can't help but sound like her, when you say dark and dreary things."
    Eugenia shrugged.
    "From what you're telling me, Lillian, it doesn't sound so dark and dreary not to have my first period," she replied, and I had to laugh.
    Leave it to Eugenia, I thought, to help me forget my own pain.
    At dinner that night Papa wanted to know why I didn't have much of an appetite and why I looked so pale and sickly. Mamma told him I had begun my woman's ways and he turned and looked at me in the strangest way. It was as if he were seeing me for the first time. His dark eyes narrowed.
    "She's going to be as beautiful as Violet," Mamma said with a sigh.
    "Yes," Papa agreed, surprising me, "she is."
    I glanced across the table at Emily. Her face had turned crimson. Papa didn't think I brought curses and disasters to The Meadows, I thought happily.
    Emily realized that too. She bit down hard on her lower lip.
    "Can I choose the Bible passage tonight, Papa?" she asked.
    "Of course, go on, Emily," he said, folding his large hands on the table. Emily gazed at me and opened the book.
    " 'And the Lord said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
    " 'And the man said,' " Emily continued, lifting her eyes toward me, " 'the woman whom thou gayest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat.—' "
    She looked at the Bible again and quickly read how God would punish the serpent. Then, in a louder, clearer voice she read, " 'Unto the woman the Lord said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children . . .' "
    She closed the book and sat back, a look of satisfaction on her fade. Neither Mamma nor Papa spoke for a moment. Then Papa cleared his throat.
    "Yes, well . . . very good, Emily." He bowed his head. "We thank thee Lord for these gifts."
    He started to eat vigorously, pausing occasionally to glance at me, adding just a little more of confusion to what had been the strangest and most confusing day of my life.
    The changes in me that followed were a great deal more subtle. My bosom continued to sprout a little bit at a time until Mamma remarked one day that I had cleavage.
    "That little dark space between our breasts," she told me in a whisper, "fascinates menfolk."
    She went on to tell me about a female character in one of