Don't Tell by Elizabeth Chandler

Author:Elizabeth Chandler [Chandler, Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781439121047
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2000-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

ten

Aunt Jule looked up from her book, silent for a moment, surveying me. “Oh, dear.”

“I hope I haven’t embarrassed Holly,” I said, entering the river room.

“What happened? Where’s Jason?”

“I left him on the dance floor, sprawled on it.”

She laughed and pointed to the chair next to her. “Sit. Tell.”

I did. When I had finished, Aunt Jule smiled. “And you seem so sweet and innocent. I bet he was surprised.”

Not as surprised as Nick, I thought, recalling the expression on his face a few minutes before. I decided not to tell Aunt Jule that Nick had brought me home. She’d want every detail.

After cleaning the mud from my feet and wiping up the tracks I’d left in the hall, I headed upstairs, reliving in my mind Nick’s wonderful kiss. On the landing I stopped abruptly. Nora stood near the top of the stairway, as if waiting for me. Her hand gripped the banister, her fine bones exaggerated by the tension in her. The light shining from below threw Nora’s tall shadow against the wall, trapping it within the bars cast by the railing.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

Her voice shook: “Someone doesn’t like it when you wear that dress. Someone doesn’t like it when you wear that heart.”

“I’m taking off the dress,” I told her, “but not the heart.”

“Someone will be very angry.”

“Do you mean my mother?” I wondered if “Sondra’s” feelings were actually a projection of Nora’s.

“I won’t tell,” she whispered.

“Won’t tell what?” I asked loudly, and she drew back as if I’d threatened her.

“Don’t tell!” she exclaimed. “Don’t even think the words!” She lifted her hands and held the sides of her head. “Thinking can make it happen,” she moaned, then hurried down the steps.

I stared after her, trying to understand the darkness inside her. I’d lock my door again tonight.

Aunt Jule had laughed about the shoes stuck in the driveway and told me to leave them and trash them tomorrow. I had dumped my muddy stockings in the bedroom wastebasket and hung up the dress to dry. A long hot shower had washed away the last bits of mud and mascara, but not my apprehensiveness toward Nora.

I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t simply afraid for her but of her. The fact that Aunt Jule and Nick saw nothing in her to fear, and even Holly didn’t think her sister would harm others, made me feel alone. I worried that my own mind was playing tricks on me—perhaps I had never heard a voice like my mother’s.

I tried to read myself to sleep, but it was useless. When the bedroom lights of Aunt Jule and Nora finally went off, I pulled on shorts beneath my nightshirt and went downstairs again. On the garden side of the house, I restlessly walked the porch.

My thoughts shifted to Nick. I couldn’t believe I had kissed him, not just with my lips but my heart. Until now, it had been easy to blame my mother for her screwed-up life, labeling her as one of those girls who couldn’t live without a guy, who set herself up for disaster.

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