“And what if it’s a girl?” she asked, careful to keep her tone as lightly bantering as his had been.
“Then I’ll spoil her,” Phillip assured her. “I’ll give her everything she wants, and treat her like the princess she’ll be, and she’ll be the happiest little girl who ever lived.”
But she’ll be a girl, Carolyn said to herself. And to the Sturgesses, girls just aren’t quite as good. Nice to have around, but just not quite as good.
She kissed Phillip on the cheek, and stood up. “Well,” she said as blithely as possible, “I shall certainly do my best to produce a boy for you. But if I fail,” she added, “it will be your own fault. As I understand it, the gene that determines sex comes directly from the father. If the Sturgesses want boys, their chromosomes better be able to handle it.”
Phillip nodded affably, and his eyes once again took on the gentleness that Carolyn had fallen in love with. There wasn’t a trace left of the cold anger with which he had told his mother that she was little more than a guest in her own home. “And what about the mill?” he asked. “Are you really planning to form some kind of unholy alliance with my mother?”
Carolyn hesitated, then shook her head. “I suppose not,” she said. “For one thing, in their own way, my reasons for keeping it closed are just as superstitious as hers. And I have a feeling that she’d change her position before accepting support from me anyway. So I’ll just stay out of it, bite my tongue, and hope for the best.”
But as she slowly climbed the stairs and started toward the master suite at the end of the hall, Carolyn wondered, once more, what the best would be. Perhaps, indeed, she had been right in her hysterical outburst, and the marriage — no matter how much she and Phillip loved each other — was doomed to failure already.
Or perhaps (and much more likely, she told herself) she was simply suffering from her pregnancy, which, despite her insistence that she was feeling fine, was beginning to bother her. Though she wouldn’t admit it to Phillip, she was secretly glad that Dr. Blanchard had insisted that she get at least two hours’ rest every day.
If nothing else, at least it provided her with an escape from the tensions of the house.
She slipped into the bedroom, and closed the door behind her. Lying down on the bed, she stretched luxuriously, and then let her eyes wander out the window to the enormous maple that stood a few yards away, its leaves completely blocking out the sunlight.
Concentrating on the cool peacefulness of the greenery, she drifted into sleep.
At the other end of the house, in her rooms that were almost an exact mirror image of those her daughter- in-law occupied, Abigail Sturgess was wakeful and wary. She was staring out the window, her eyes focused angrily on the forbidding building that had represented so much tragedy for her family.
More and more, she was becoming convinced that her husband had been right.
There was something evil about the mill, and though she wasn’t yet sure what it was, she had made up her mind to find out.
Beth pedaled away from the mill, but instead of heading out River Road to start the long climb back up to Hilltop, she turned the other way, riding slowly along Prospect Street, then turning up Church toward the little square in the middle of the village. Once there, she slowed her bike, looking around to see if any of her old friends might be playing softball on the worn grass. But the square was empty, and Beth rode on.
Almost without thinking about it, she turned right on Main Street, then left on Cherry. A minute later she had come to a halt in front of the little house in which she’d lived until she had moved to Hilltop.
The house, which had always seemed big to her, looked small now, and the paint was peeling off its siding. In the front yard, weeds were sprouting in the lawn, and the bushes that her mother had planted along the front of the house didn’t have the neatly trimmed look of the gardens at Hilltop.
But still, it was home to Beth, and she had a sudden deep longing to go up to the front door, and ask whoever lived there now if she could go into her own room, just for a few minutes.
But of course she couldn’t — it wasn’t her room anymore, and besides, it wouldn’t look the same as it had when she had lived there. The new people would have changed it, and it just wouldn’t feel right.
She got back on the bike, and continued down the block, looking at all the familiar houses. At the corner, she turned right again, then left on Elm Street.
In front of the Russells’ house, Peggy was playing hopscotch with Rachel Masin, and Beth braked her bike to a stop.
“Hi,” she said. “What are you guys doing?”
Peggy, whose lager was in one corner of the number-four square, was concentrating hard on keeping her balance in the number-five, while she leaned down to pick up the key chain she had won from Beth herself last summer. Finally, snagging the chain with one finger and taking a deep breath, she hopped quickly down the last three squares and out of the pattern.
“Playing hopscotch,” she announced. “And I’m winning. Rachel can’t even get past number three.”
“But I’m using a rock for a lager, like you’re supposed to,” Rachel protested. “Anybody can do it with a key chain. They always stay right where you throw them.”
“Can I play?” Beth asked. She leaned the bike against a tree, and fished in her pocket for something to use as a lager. All she came up with was the key chain — identical to the one she had lost to Peggy — that held her house key. “I’ll start at one.”
Peggy looked at her with open hostility. “How come you’re not out riding your horse? Peter says you go out every day now.”
Beth’s heart sank. Why couldn’t Peter have kept his mouth shut? Now Peggy thought she was just like Tracy. “I don’t have a horse,” she said. “It’s Uncle Phillip’s horse, and all he’s doing is teaching me to ride it. And we don’t go out every day. In fact, we’ve only been out a couple of times.”
“That’s not what my brother says,” Peggy challenged, as if daring Beth to contradict her big brother.
“Well, I don’t care what Peter says,” Beth began, and then stopped, realizing she sounded just like Tracy Sturgess. “I … I mean we don’t really go out every day. Just sometimes.” Then she had an idea. “You could go with us sometime if you want to.” Peggy said nothing, but her face blushed pink, and Beth belatedly remembered what Peter had told her. “Uncle Phillip wouldn’t fire Peter,” she blurted out. “Really he wouldn’t.”
The red in Peggy’s face deepened, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “Why don’t you just go away?” she demanded. “We were having fun until you showed up!”
“But we’re supposed to be friends,” Beth protested. “You’re supposed to be my best friend!”
“That was when you lived on Cherry Street. You were just like us then. But now you live up on the hill. Why don’t you be friends with Tracy Sturgess?”
“I hate Tracy!” Beth shot back, on the verge of tears herself now. “I hate her, and she hates me! And I’m not any different than I ever was! It’s not fair, Peggy! It’s just not fair!”
Rachel Masin, looking from Peggy to Beth, then back to Peggy, suddenly stooped down and picked up her lager. “I gotta go home, Peggy,” she said hurriedly. “My—” She searched around for an excuse, and seized on the first one that came to mind. “My mom says I have to baby-sit my little brother.” Without waiting for either of the other girls to reply, she ran off down the street and around the corner.
“Now look what you did,” Peggy said, glowering at Beth. “We were having a good time till you came along.”
“But I didn’t do anything. How come you don’t like me anymore?”
Peggy hesitated for a moment, then planted her fists on her hips, and stared at Beth.
Beth stared right back.
The two girls stood perfectly still, their eyes fixed on each other, each of them determined not to be the first to blink. But after thirty seconds that seemed like ten minutes, Beth felt her eyes beginning to sting.
“You’re gonna blink,” Peggy said, seeing the strain in Beth’s face.
“No I’m not!”
“You are too. And if you do, you owe me a Coke. That’s the rules.”
Beth renewed her concentration, but the harder she tried not to blink, the more impossible it became. Finally giving up, she closed her eyes and rubbed at them with her fists.
“You owe me a Coke,” Peggy crowed. “Come on — you can ride me down to the drugstore.”
