Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

remember?”
    “She’s not a Heaven-stone yet,” Cassie would reply and leave it at that, whatever it meant.
    I could hear them bantering so clearly. It really was as if no time had passed.
    Oh, please, please let it be true, I prayed.
    “Don’t be an idiot,” Cassie muttered in my ear. “Open your eyes and look at Daddy and his Lucille. We have no time for dreaming.”
    Cassie was right. They were behaving like two teenagers, giggling and whispering and sitting so tightly against each other that they could surely feel the blood moving in each other’s veins. I looked at Uncle Perry to see what he thought of them. He smiled and shook his head. Then he leaned over to whisper in the ear Cassie favored.
    “Your dad’s finally coming back to life, Sam,” he said. “That’s good. Things will be better for you, for us all, if he’s happy again.”
    I looked at him with surprise. Didn’t he see what I saw? Didn’t he see how controlling Lucille was, and how self-centered?
    “See?” Cassie said. “I told you he was a lamebrain.”
    For most of the remainder of the trip, Uncle Perry was the only one talking to me. Daddy was on the phone with some of his store managers, and when she wasn’t talking with him, Lucille read fashion magazines. Uncle Perry described some of the changes he had been making in the Heaven-stone fashion line. Despite some cutbacks Daddy had made when Cassie was working with him, Uncle Perry had held on to what interested him most and eventually brought it back to where it was.
    “Maybe you’ll come work with me,” he suggested a little before we landed. “I always welcomed your opinion and advice, Sam, and it’s a lot more interesting than the work your father does.”
    “Maybe,” I said.
    I thought Uncle Perry might stay over after we landed, but he said he had work to do in the morning and promised he would try to get up on the weekend.I expected Daddy would want to take Lucille home first, but nothing was said, and he didn’t give any other directions to our driver.
    I really hadn’t given much thought at all to what I would do now. Once I had thought I might go into teaching, but the idea of facing so many different personalities and dealing with them all had turned terrifying. I didn’t want to be in front of any audience, no matter how small or how young.
    I was tired from the day and the journey, but the sight of our historic family home silhouetted against the night sky bright with stars filled me with new energy. Daddy wasn’t exaggerating when he carried on about our heritage and our ties to our past through this grand house, our Heaven-stone. It was comforting and safe, a world unto itself. The voices, laughter, and even tears of sadness and tears of joy still echoed within, as did the footsteps of our grandparents, great-grandparents, and what Cassie used to call our triple great-grandparents.
    Growing up there, I often felt as if the house were truly alive, beating with a heart of its own, its lifeblood flowing through the pipes and wires. Every light was another eye, every creak in the stairways or floors another moan. Both Cassie and I had always felt guilty and ashamed if we scratched a wall or a floorboard, broke a dish or a glass. Repairs were like medical treatments. It was never permissible to injure Heaven-stone in any way. Few, if any, of our peers had similar feelings about their homes. Most families in our school moved from place to place, house to house, periodically, their parents viewing their homes as investments and not gardens in which to grow families.
    I always felt closer to Mother and even to Cassie in the house than I did at the cemetery. I vividly remembered where my mother had stood or sat when she had said something wonderful or when she hadlooked beautiful and happy. I loved to sit in her favorite chairs or look out the windows she had looked out to see the world through her eyes. Being there, touching things she had touched, holding things she had held, and using things she had used helped me to feel her presence even now. She was still in our mansion and still giving me a sense of security and a sense of great love. I could never, ever be alone in Heaven-stone. The memories would always surround me and comfort me. Lucille Bennet wouldn’t understand this, I thought. Cassie wasn’t all wrong. How could anyone but a Heaven-stone understand?
    Of course, there were other, darker memories that were continually resurrected in our house.