Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

you tell Mamma what happened yet?" I asked Louella when she returned again.
    "Yes," she said.
    "Did you tell her I might have to cut my hair?" I asked, speaking as if in a daze.
    "I did, honey."
    "What did she say?"
    "She said she's sorry. She'll be up here to see you as soon as her guests leave."
    "Couldn't she come up before? Just for a moment?" "I'll go ask her," Louella said. A short while later, she returned without Mamma.
    "She says she just can't leave her guests right now. You should do what you have to do. Honey, that hair's going to all grow back and sooner than you think."
    "But until then, Louella, I'll hate myself and no one will think I'm pretty anymore," I cried.
    "Oh no, child. You've got a pretty face, one of the prettiest faces in these parts. No one's gonna ever say you are ugly."
    "Yes they will," I moaned, and thought about Niles and how disappointed he was going to be when he looked at me, how disappointed he was at this moment, waiting for Eugenia and me. But the stench seemed to radiate down from my head and drape me in skunk. My fingers trembling, I took hold of the scissors and pulled my hair out straight. I brought the scissors to the strands, but I didn't cut.
    "I can't, Louella!" I cried. "I just can't." I buried my face in my arms on the table and sobbed. She came over and put her hand on my shoulder.
    "You want me to do it for you, child?"
    Reluctantly, with my heart as hollowed out as a walnut shell, I nodded. Louella took the first strands into one hand and the scissors into the other. I heard the clipping begin, each snap, chopping into my heart as well, my body aching with sorrow.
    In her dark room, sitting in a corner under the light of her kerosene lamp, Emily read her Bible. I could hear her voice through the walls. I was sure she was finishing the part in Exodus she had wanted to read at breakfast before Mamma cut her off.
    "'. . . and the hail smote every herb of the field, and brake every tree of the field . . .'"
    I cried myself into a stupor under the sound of the scissors.
     
    When Louella finished, I crawled into bed, curled myself into a ball and buried my face in the blanket. I didn't want to look at myself or have anyone look at me, even for a moment. Louella tried to comfort me, but I shook my head and moaned.
    "I just want to close my eyes, Louella, and pretend it didn't happen."
    She left and then, finally, after the guests went home, Mamma came up to see me.
    "Oh Mamma!" I cried, sitting up and throwing the blanket away from myself as soon as she stepped into my room. "Look! Look what she did to me!"
    "Who, Louella? But I thought . . ."
    "No, Mamma, not Louella." My chest heaved. I swallowed and ground the hot tears out of my eyes with my hands. "Emily," I said. "Emily did this!"
    "Emily?" Mamma smiled. "I'm afraid I don't understand, honey. How could Emily . . ."
    "She hid Eugenia's wheelchair in the toolshed. She found a skunk in one of Henry's traps and kept it under a blanket. She told me to go to the toolshed. She said Henry put it there, Mamma. When I went in, she threw the skunk into the shed and locked me in the shed with it. She put a stick up against the door. She's a monster!"
    "Emily? Oh no, I can't believe . . ."
    "She did, Mamma, she did," I insisted, pounding my legs with my fists. I hit myself so hard that Mamma's face changed from disbelief to shock before she took a deep breath, pressed her hand to her chest and shook her head.
    "Why would Emily do such a thing?"
    "Because she's horrible! And she's jealous. She wishes she had friends. She wishes . . ." I stopped before I had said too much.
    Mamma stared at me a moment and then smiled.
    "It's got to be some sort of misunderstanding, some tragic combination of events," Mamma decided. "My children don't do such things to each other, especially Emily. Why, she's so devout, she makes the minister question his own actions," Mamma added, smiling. "Everyone tells me so."
    "Mamma, she thinks she's doing good things whenever she does something that hurts me. She thinks she's right. Go ask her. Go on!" I screamed.
    "Now, Lillian, you must not yell. If the Captain should come home and hear you . . ."
    "Look at me! Look at my hair!" I pulled on the roughly cut strands until it was painful.
    Mamma's face softened.
    "I'm sorry about your hair, honey. I really am. But," she said, smiling, "you'll wear a nice bonnet and I'll give you some of my silk scarves and . . ."
    "Mamma, I can't walk around with a scarf on