Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

well. I could take it all up in one more trip. The armoire had some drawers in it. I pulled open the top drawer and paused. There was a pill bottle in it. How odd, I thought. All these years, there was a pill bottle in it. I didn’t remember it. How could I have missed it?
    Slowly, I put the jewelry down on the floor and then took out the pill bottle and turned it in my hand to read the label. It was a prescription for sleeping pills Dr. Moffet had written for Mother.
    Why was the pill bottle up there? It felt empty. Why keep it?

    I opened it and looked inside. There were capsules. How strange, I thought. I emptied some into my palm and stared at what was there. They were all empty capsules. There was something familiar about them. I plucked one between my fingers and studied it a moment. The realization of what it was, what they all were, brought so much heat into my face I thought I might go up in flames.
    They were Mother’s sleeping pills, emptied.
    How … why empty them? Like another clap of thunder, the possibility ripped through my brain, and then, suddenly, it was as if a cold breeze caressed the back of my neck. Slowly, I turned and saw Cassie in the attic doorway. With the light behind her and the illumination weaker in the attic, she was in shadows. She didn’t move. She looked more like a ghost. I blinked to see if she would disappear, but she didn’t.
    “What are you doing up here, Semantha?” she asked, still not moving in.
    I started toward her slowly. “I was bringing up Mother’s clothing for storage,” I began, “and her jewelry, when I opened the top drawer in the armoire and found this.”
    I held out the palm of my hand.
    “So?”
    “These are Mother’s sleeping pills, aren’t they?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “They’ve been emptied. Mother wouldn’t have emptied them to take them. She would have just taken them. Why are they hidden up here?”
    She was still silent, but now I clearly envisioned the horrendous scene that was emerging in my mind.

    “You emptied them into her drink.”
    I could see her face clearly now. She looked different, not angry, not sad. She looked like someone who was hearing voices and not hearing me.
    “Cassie!” I cried.
    She lowered her head a little and looked at me. “Mother was in terrible pain,” she said. “She had failed Daddy, failed the Heavenstones. She wasn’t getting any better, and she would never get any better, and she would never bring Asa into the world. She wanted to sleep, to sleep forever and ever.”
    “No!” I screamed, cringing. Tears were streaming down my face, tears for my mother, for my father, and for me. “You did a terrible, terrible thing!”
    She shook her head and smiled that smile of damn Cassie self-confidence again. “No, I didn’t.”
    “You know you did. Deep inside you, you know you did, otherwise you would have buried these, buried the evidence. Maybe you hoped they would be found. You hate yourself, Cassie Heavenstone. You’ll always hate yourself. Daddy will hate you forever!” I added, much louder.
    That wiped the smile off her face. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “He can’t. I love him too much, and everything I do is all for him. He can’t ever hate me. He loves me.”
    “Not anymore,” I said. “Not after he sees this.”
    Now anger rose to the surface of her face.“Give me those pills and that pill bottle. Do it now, Semantha,” she ordered holding out her hand.
    I shook my head.“He’s got to know everything, Cassie. You’ve got to tell him everything, even howI got pregnant. Everything. I’m going to call him,” I said, and started to the left of her.
    She blocked me and seized my arm. I formed a fist around the pills and the bottle.
    “Give it to me!” she demanded, and started to pry my fingers open, digging her nails into my palms. We struggled, but she was stronger than I was. She managed to get my fingers up. I pulled back as hard as I could, and she grasped the pill bottle, but she was pulling hard in the opposite direction, and when I let go, she went backward and flew off the top step. I saw her hit the edge of a step with the back of her neck and then flip over twice before slamming onto the floor below.
    I froze in disbelief. It had all happened so quickly that there was nothing I could do to stop it.
    Blood trickled out of the corners of her mouth and began to zigzag down her chin.
    “Cassie!” I screamed, and hurried down to her.
    Her eyes were open,