If There Be Thorns (Dollanganger Series #3) by V. C. Andrews

Author:V. C. Andrews
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Family secrets, Horror, General, Suspense, Suspense fiction, Horror fiction, Fiction, Adopted children, Horror tales
ISBN: 9780671729455
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 1990-11-01T05:00:00+00:00

"Nice."

The blonde hair in my hand felt silky and clean.

She laughed when I tugged at her hair and took the ribbon from the ponytail. "I'm not going to hurt you,"

I said, showing her my pearl-handled knife "So don't you scream . . . just sit quietly in the beauty parlor until I've finished."

In my room I had my list of new words. Had to pronounce them, practice spelling them, and use them at least five times in that same day—and from then on. Had to know big words in order to impress people, make them know I was smarter.

Intimidating. Got that—meant to make people scared of you.

Ultimately—had that down too. Meant sooner or later my time would come.

Sensuous—bad word. Meant thrills you got from touching girls. Had to do away with sensuous things.

Grew tired after a short while of big words I had to learn in order to gain respect. Grew tired of pretending to be Malcolm. But the trouble was, I was losing the real me. Now I wasn't Bart all the way through. And now that he was slipping away, suddenly Bart didn't seem nearly as stupid and pitiful as he once had.

I reread a certain page in Malcolm's book when he was the very same age I was. He'd hated pretty blonde hair like his mother's, like his daughter's—but he didn't know about his little "Corrine" when he wrote:

Her name was Violet Blue, and her hair

reminded me of my mother's hair. I hated her 192

hair. We attended the same Sunday school class, and I'd sit in back of her and stare at that hair that would beguile some man someday and make him want her, as that lover had wanted my mother.

She smiled at me one day, expecting a compliment, but I fooled her. I said her hair was ugly. To my surprise she laughed. "But it's the same color hair you have."

I shaved off all my hair that day—and the next day I caught Violet Blue and threw her down. When she went home crying, she was as bald as I was.

All that pretty blonde hair that used to be Cindy's was blowing on the wind. She was crying in the kitchen. Not because I'd scared her, or hurt her. It was Emma's shriek that told her something had gone wrong. Now Cindy's hair looked like mine. Stubby.

short and ugly.

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