Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

party.”
    “What?” Cassie looked at me. “When?”
    “After the big ball game. I know the people well. Very respectable,” Daddy said, as if he thought she had to be the one to grant me permission.
    “You’re going to a party after the game?”
    I nodded, almost too slightly to notice.
    “How come you never told me?”
    “It just happened.”
    She looked annoyed but then turned to Daddy and smiled. “Well, if you and Mother approve, I’ll be happy to take her and pick her up.”
    “Apparently, all the transportation has been arranged to and from the party. You need only take her to the game, Cassie,” Daddy said.
    “It has?” She looked at me again. This time, the smile on her face was one of her masks. It was a smile that gave me the feeling there was no one under it. “Who’s taking you?”
    “Kent Pearson’s father,” I said.
    She held the smile, but her eyes darkened.
    “My two grown-up daughters,” Daddy said. He lifted his wine glass. “Here’s to you both.”
    Cassie continued to smile and look pleased, butthat didn’t stop me from trembling inside. Afterward, I expected she would say something to me in the kitchen when we cleaned up, but she worked silently.
    “You can go up,” she told me. “Spend some time with Mother, but not too much. We aren’t supposed to make her tired. Then go to your room and finish whatever you have to do for school.” She looked down at the sink and not at me.
    “Okay.” I started to turn away.
    “And then,” she said, “I’ll come talk to you.”
    “About what?” I asked.
    “Sex,” she said.
    “Sex?”
    “Apparently, I have to do it. It is something a mother is supposed to have done by the time a girl reaches your age.”
    How did she know our mother hadn’t, even though that was true? What I knew came from other girls and from what I had learned in school and had read myself.
    I was going to say something, to tell her it really wasn’t necessary, I knew enough, but she looked away, and I thought retreat was much easier.
    I always did.
    Maybe that was why all that happened to me happened. Maybe I had no one to blame but myself.

The Talk
    I LOOKED UP from my homework the moment I heard my door being opened. I was so full of nervous anticipation I had trouble concentrating on my assignments, anyway. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of Cassie teaching me about sex, but I couldn’t help wondering if she knew something very important about it that I didn’t know. After all, she seemed to know about anything and everything adults were supposed to know. What good was it for me to have a sister like her if I didn’t appreciate her and take advantage of what she could offer me?
    She slipped in as if she were sneaking into my room and closed the door very softly behind her.
    “Did you go to see Mother?” she asked softly but not quite in a whisper.
    “Yes. She kept closing her eyes, so I didn’t stay long. She didn’t eat all her dinner.”
    “I’m not surprised,” she said, and sat on my bed. She gave me one of her small-eye studied looks as if I had already done something terrible. “Now I want you to be absolutely, completely truthful with me, Semantha. If you’re not, it will only come back tohaunt you, and by then, I might not be able to help you at all.”
    “Truthful about what?”
    “What you’ve already done with boys, Kent Pearson in particular,” she replied.
    “I haven’t done anything with boys. When could I have done anything?” I followed, because now she wore a skeptical expression.
    “Don’t try that sort of an excuse, Semantha. I know how girls your age behave nowadays, and believe me, boys can find the time and the place when they’ve a mind to. I know most girls go along, either because they don’t want to be considered immature or because they let their own curiosity get the best of them. Do you know what willpower is?”
    Girls my age? I thought. She’s only two years older than I am, but, just like always, she makes it sound like two decades.
    “Willpower? I think so.”
    “In this case, it means having the strength to resist not only the boy but yourself, Semantha.”
    “Myself?” I shook my head. “How—”
    “Don’t sit there and tell me you haven’t had sexual thoughts and haven’t touched yourself and discovered … pleasure.”
    I felt the blood rush up my neck. Had she been spying on me?
    She smiled. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s natural to a point. If Mother had done