Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

retorted. Emily shook her head.
    "You deserve what you get," she spit. "You deserve whatever suffering and hardship she brings you."
    "Get away from us!" I ordered. "Get away." I reached down and picked up a stone. "Or I swear, I'll hit you with this. I will," I said, raising my arm.
    Emily amazed me by stepping forward defiantly, not an iota of fear in her face.
    "Do you think you could harm me? I have a fortress around me. My devotion has built strong walls to keep you from touching me. But you," she said, directing herself at Niles, "you have no such fortress. The fingers of the devil are curling around your very soul as we speak. God have mercy on you," she concluded, and turned to walk away.
    I dropped the stone and began to cry. Niles embraced me quickly.
    "Don't let her scare you," he said. "She doesn't scare me."
    "Oh Niles, what if she's right?" I moaned. "What if I am a curse?"
    "Then you're the prettiest and nicest curse I know," he replied, and wiped away my tears before kissing me on the cheek.
    I looked into his soft dark eyes and smiled.
    Emily couldn't be right; she just couldn't, I thought, but as Niles and I walked back to the house, I couldn't completely drive away the shadow of doubt that lingered in the corner of my mind and made all that had happened-and would happen seem part of some dark destiny decided long before I was born and not to be over until the day I died.
    In a world that had taken little Eugenia to an early and undeserved death, nothing too cruel or too unjust seemed impossible.

 
    8
MAMMA GETS STRANGER
     
    During the months that followed Eugenia's passing, the plantation house grew darker and darker for me. For one thing, I no longer heard Mamma up early ordering the chambermaids to open the drapes, nor did I hear her singing out how people, just like flowers, needed sunshine, sunshine . . . sweet, sweet sunshine. I didn't hear her laughter when she said, "You don't fool me, Tottie Fields. None of my maids do. I know you're all afraid of opening the curtains because you're afraid I'll see the particles of dust dancing in the beams of light."
    Before Eugenia's death, Mamma would have all the household help scurrying about, pulling cords to let the daylight in every morning. There was laughter and music and a feeling that the world was really awakening. Of course, there were sections of the house that were too deep or too far from a window to be brightened by either the morning or afternoon sun, or even our chandeliers. But when my little sister was alive, I would walk through the long, wide corridors, oblivious to the shadows, and never feel as cold or as depressed for I knew she was waiting for me to say good morning, her face full of smiles.
    Right after the funeral, Eugenia's room was stripped clean of as many traces of her as possible. Mamma couldn't stand the thought of setting her eyes on Eugenia's things. She ordered Tottie to pack all of Eugenia's clothes in a trunk and then had the trunk carried up to the attic and stuffed away in some corner. Before Eugenia's personal things—her jewelry box, hair brushes and combs, perfumes and other toiletries—were packed away, Mamma asked me if I wanted anything. It was not that I didn't. I couldn't take anything. This time I was like Mamma, at least a little. It would have shattered my heart even more to see Eugenia's things in my room.
    But Emily suddenly showed interest in shampoos and bubble-bath salts. Suddenly, Eugenia's necklaces and bracelets weren't silly trinkets designed to encourage vanity. She descended on Eugenia's room like a vulture and ransacked drawers and closets to claim this or that,- spitefully, I thought. With a crooked smile, she paraded past me and Mamma, her long, thin arms loaded down with Eugenia's books and other things that were once very precious to my little sister. I wanted to peel off Emily's smiles like bark from a tree so she would be revealed for what she was—an evil, hateful creature who feasted on other people's sorrow and pain. But Mamma didn't mind Emily's taking Eugenia's things. Putting them in Emily's room was as good as putting them up in the attic, for Mamma rarely went into Emily's room.
    Soon after Eugenia's bed had been stripped, her closets and drawers emptied and her shelves made bare, the window shades were drawn and the curtains closed. The room was sealed and locked as tight as a tomb. I saw from the way Mamma gazed one last time at Eugenia's door that she would never set