Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

my head all day long, especially in school. The teacher won't allow it and—"
    "Of course, you can, dear. Miss Walker will understand, I'm sure." She smiled again and sniffed the air between us. "I don't smell a thing. Louella's done a fine job. You'd never know anything bad happened."
    "You'd never know?" I pressed my palms against my shortened hair. "How can you say that? Look at me. You remember how beautiful my hair was, how you liked to brush it for me."
    "The worst is over, dear," Mamma replied. "I'll see to it that you get my scarves. Now you just rest, dear," she said, and turned to leave.
    "Mamma! Aren't you going to say anything to Emily? Aren't you going to tell Papa what she did to me?" I asked tearfully. How could she not see how awful this was? What if it had happened to her? She was just as proud of her hair as I had been of mine. Didn't she spend hours and hours brushing it and wasn't she the one who told me I had to care for it and nurture it? Hers was like spun gold and mine was now like the stems of sliced flowers, jagged and stiff.
    "Oh, why prolong the agony and make everyone in the house suffer, Lillian? What's done is done. I'm sure it was just one of those unfortunate little accidents. It happened and it's finished."
    "It wasn't an accident. Emily did it! I hate her, Mamma. I hate her!" I felt my face flush with anger. Mamma stared at me and then shook her head.
    "Of course you don't hate her. We can't have anyone hating anyone in this house. The Captain wouldn't stand for it," Mamma said as if she were constructing one of her romance novels and could simply rewrite or cross out the ugly and the sad things. "Now let me tell you about my party."
    I lowered my head like a flag of defeat as Mamma, behaving as if nothing unusual had happened to me, began to tell me some of the tidbits of gossip she and her guests had been feeding on all afternoon. Her words went in one ear and out the other, but she didn't seem to notice or care. I dropped my face to the pillow and drew the blanket up around me again. Mamma's voice droned on until she ran out of stories and then she left to find some of her scarves for me.
    I took a deep breath and turned over in bed. I couldn't help but wonder if Mamma would have felt more sympathy and anger over what had happened if she were really my mother instead of my aunt. Suddenly, for the first time, I truly felt like an orphan. I felt worse even than I had the first time I learned the truth. My body shook with new sobs until I was too tired to cry. Then, remembering poor Eugenia, who I was sure had gotten only bits and pieces from Louella and Tottie, I rose like a somnambulist and put on my bathrobe, all my actions mechanical. I avoided looking at myself each time I passed the mirrors. I slipped my feet into my small, ribbon-laced slippers, and walked slowly out of my room and down to Eugenia's.
    The moment I entered and she saw me, she started to cry. I rushed into her arms which folded around me with a birdlike fragility and cried on her little shoulder for a few moments before pulling back to relate all the horrid events to her. She listened, wide-eyed, shaking her head to wipe away the details. But she was forced to accept them every time she looked at my cropped off hair.
    "I'm not going to school," I vowed. "I'm not going anywhere until my hair grows back."
    "Oh, but Lillian, that could be a long time. You can't miss all that work."
    "I'll die as soon as the other kids look at me, Eugenia." I shifted my eyes to the blanket. "Especially Niles."
    "You'll do what Mamma said. You'll wear scarves and a bonnet."
    "They'll laugh at me. Emily will see to that," I declared. Eugenia's face saddened. She seemed to shrink with every passing moment of sadness. I felt terrible because I wasn't able to cheer her up or make the sorrow go away. No amount of laughter, no jokes, no distractions could cover up the agony or make me forget what had been done to me.
    There was a knock on the door and we turned to see Henry.
    "Hello, Miss Lillian, Miss Eugenia. I just come by to tell you . . . well, to tell you your wheelchair's going to need a day or so of airing out, Miss Eugenia. I washed it down best I could and I'll bring it back as soon as it's free of that odor."
    "Thank you, Henry," Eugenia said.
    "Damned if I know how it got into the toolshed," Henry said.
    "We know how, Henry," I told him. He nodded. "I found one of my rabbit traps nearby," he said.
    He shook his head. "Mean