Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes

Author:Jennifer Vanderbes [Vanderbes, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9780440334132
Google: 4trrOOfU6AMC
Amazon: 0385336748
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Published: 2003-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

“I like the boy,” Elsa whispers to Edward in the tent one night. “Very much. But I wonder why he’s alone.”

“Alice likes him too. I think you’ll have to let Alice have him. She seems to have won his heart.”

“I know.”

“Do you want . . . Elsa? I didn’t think you wanted children. . . .”

“No. Of course. I can’t.”

“You have Alice to take care of,” he says. “And you think of her . . . as your child.”

“No,” she says. “But I think of myself as her mother. It isn’t quite the same.”

Elsa closes her eyes. It is true. She cannot imagine looking after Aliceand a child of her own. But it is more than that. It is the memory of the midwife clutching Alice to her chest, of her father forbidding Elsa to open her mother’s door. “Your mother gave her life for our little Alice,” he had said, trying to mask his despair. “She sacrificed herself for a new child.” But this version of events wasn’t shared by Elsa. Behind that door Alice haddone something to their mother, and for this Elsa felt hate. For an entire year she cursed her sister, whispered angry words when her father was asleep. So when they began to notice the strange roaming of Alice’s eyes, the tantrums and the silences, Elsa believed her hate was the cause. That the curses, the prayers, and the whispered accusations had harmed her.

“Are you asleep?” she whispers.

“Not yet,” says Edward.

“Sometimes, I’ve thought, well, that Alice was my fault. I’m sure it sounds mad. But why should a thing like that happen to a child? To anyone? There must be . . . a reason.”

“Elsa.”

“My whole life I’ve wondered if . . .”

“Alice is a blessing.”

“I know that.”

“You mustn’t ever let yourself think it would be better if she were different.”

“Sometimes, Edward, you sound so very much like my father.”

“Your father,” says Edward, “was a wise man.”

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