Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

stood.

    “We all should get some sleep. We’ll need our strength for the days to come,” he told us.
    Cassie rose and seized his left hand quickly. He pulled it free but put his arm around her shoulders.
    “Yes, Daddy,” she said. “Lean on me. Lean on me for as long as you like. I’m strong enough.”
    “That you are, dear Cassie. That you are.”
    They started toward the stairway, and then he stopped and turned back to me.
    “Come along, Semantha. You should go back to bed.”
    “She will,” Cassie said, her eyes narrowing.
    I started after them. I don’t think I shall ever forget Daddy walking up the stairway that night. He did lean on Cassie, and he lumbered along as though he had aged centuries. My handsome, robust daddy was reduced to a weak old man. For a moment, when he reached the middle of the stairway, he looked as if he might topple backward. I could see Cassie tightening her grip around his waist. She was strong. She was actually holding him up, helping him climb those stairs. I wanted to do more, but there was no room for me beside him. All I could do was remain as close behind them as possible, maybe to catch him or push him forward.
    When we reached the top of the stairs and Cassie had turned Daddy toward his and Mother’s bedroom, she paused and nodded at me.
    “You go to sleep, Semantha. I’ll help Daddy get to bed. Go on. Be a good girl, now.”
    Not only did she sound like Mother, she even wore Mother’s expression. They did look so muchalike. She didn’t wait for my reply. She continued to guide Daddy down the hallway and turned him into the bedroom as if he had forgotten where it was and was going to walk past it. I stood there until I heard her close the door.
    For a moment, it felt as if all the air had gone out of our house and I was suffocating. Images of both Daddy and Mother at the hospital and gruesome, sad thoughts were spinning in my merry-go-round brain. I had to hold on to the railing until the nausea and dizziness passed. Every face in every ancestral painting hanging on the walls was glaring down angrily at me. At least, that was how it seemed to me. The historical family was upset and disappointed. An heir had been lost, a Heavenstone had been discarded like just so much medical waste. Whatever blessings and protection the spirits had given us would be taken away. We were unworthy of their royal support. This was only the beginning of our downfall.
    I fled from those looks of condemnation, imagined or otherwise, as I fled from the tragedy that had just unfolded.
    After quickly closing my door, I slipped back under my blanket and stared into the darkness. Would Daddy, the strength and power of our family, be so broken and inconsolable that he would be unable to continue? I agreed with Cassie that Uncle Perry could not step into Daddy’s shoes. I should have been worrying solely about him and about Mother, but oddly, what I thought about was how pleased all those at school who were jealous of me would be, how pleased those who were frustratedby my not groveling for their friendship would be. I hated the thought of returning to school once everyone had found out that something so terrible had happened to the Heavenstones.
    How could I be thinking of myself when Daddy was suffering so and Mother was too weak and sick to speak to him? Look at how concerned and caring Cassie was, how eager, and strong enough to be there for Daddy when he needed support the most. I felt so inadequate being sent to my room. Did everyone still see me as a little girl, inconsequential, just another teenager who still had jelly beans for a brain? In their minds, I wasn’t yet capable of being or acting mature enough to handle such a crisis. I had to be protected like a child.
    When I thought about how happy Mother and Daddy had been when they had learned she was carrying a boy and Daddy would have his Asa, I broke into a fit of hysterical sobbing. It seemed it would never end. I tried to get hold of myself, but the more I tried, the harder I sobbed. Finally, exhausted, out of breath, my chest aching, I smothered my face in the pillow and forced myself to stop.
    I know I slept on and off, twice waking to what sounded like Cassie crying in the hallway. I was too tired and terrified to get up to see, and the crying stopped. I hoped it was a dream. I had never seen Cassie cry. I had seen her have a tantrum, but never cry or whine. Just the thought of her doing that frightened me. What more