The Unwanted (10 page)

“What is it, Punkin?” Keith asked when he was alone with Cassie. “Can you tell me about it?”

Cassie shook her head and turned away. “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I just … I just need to be left alone. Please? Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Keith hesitated, certain there was something he should say, something he should do. But finally, feeling helpless to console her, he shrugged and patted Cassie’s leg. “All right, Punkin,” he said gently. “Whatever you want. But if you want to talk, just remember that I’m here, all right?” He waited for a response from Cassie. When there was none, he got up and quietly left the room. Maybe that was all she needed, he told himself as he went back downstairs. Maybe all she needed right now was to be left alone.

Rosemary was waiting for him downstairs, her face ashen. “Is she all right?” she asked as he came into the den.

Keith gestured helplessly with his hands. “All right?
How can she be all right, given what she’s been through? What happened up there?”

As best she could, Rosemary recounted what had happened in Cassie’s room. “She wouldn’t even talk to me,” she finished. “She says no one loves her and no one understands her. I was only trying to help.”

“I know,” Keith replied. “But maybe the best way we can help her right now is simply to leave her alone so she can work things out for herself.”

Rosemary’s eyes widened. “Keith, she’s only a child—”

“She’s almost sixteen,” Keith pointed out. “She’s not a child, and we can’t treat her like one.”

“But if she thinks no one loves her—”

“She doesn’t,” Keith interrupted. “For heaven’s sake, Rosemary, I’m her father. She knows I love her. She’s just upset right now, and she has a right to be. But she’ll get over it.”

But what if she doesn’t? Rosemary thought. What if she truly believes no one loves her? What will happen to her? But she said nothing, for Keith’s jaw had taken on the stubborn set that told her that for tonight, at least, the discussion was over.

Cassie lay on her bed, trying to sort things out. She hadn’t meant to yell at Rosemary, not really. But how could she explain to this woman the real reason why she’d torn up the picture of her mother? How could she tell her that when she’d gotten up that morning and seen the picture, a wave of cold anger had washed over her and she’d ripped the picture to shreds before she’d even thought about it.

It wasn’t that her mother had died—that wasn’t it at all. It was all the things that happened while she was still alive.

It was her mother’s voice, constantly correcting her.

It was her eyes, constantly accusing her.

It was all the other things—the things she would never tell Rosemary about, never even tell her father about. And so she’d torn the picture out of its frame and ripped it to pieces.

She couldn’t explain it to Rosemary—she never would have understood.

Then she remembered Miranda, remembered the look that had passed between them in the square that morning.

Miranda would have understood. Miranda would have listened to her and nodded. Hadn’t Miranda smiled gently at her this morning? Cassie was certain now that the woman had.

Miranda. Cassandra.

The names almost rhymed, almost sounded like music.

The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that Miranda was, indeed, the woman she’d seen in her dreams, the woman who had stood among the flames and wreckage and beckoned to her.

But who was she, really?

Cassie felt a sensation sweep over her, a feeling of yearning—of need—that was so intense it made her shiver. She pulled the quilt on the bed up tight around her neck. She had to see Miranda again, had to know who the woman in black was. She closed her eyes, seeing again the woman in the street, the woman of the dream. Once again, as she drifted toward sleep, she heard Miranda call her name.

She was almost asleep when the first faint scratching sounds intruded on her. She curled deeper into the mattress and pulled the covers closer.

The sounds came again, an odd rasping, as if something were brushing up against the window screen.

She tried to ignore it. She switched on the radio and focused her mind on the soft music. But the sound persisted. Finally she sat up and looked at the window.

At first she saw nothing. Then, in the darkness outside, a shadow moved.

Cassie’s heart began to pound and she felt the first stirrings of panic as the darkness in the room began to close around her. Instinctively she reached out, fumbling to find the lamp that stood on the nightstand.

At the window a pair of feral eyes suddenly glowed yellow in the blackness outside.

Cassie gasped as an icy finger of fear played along her spine. The eyes, unblinking, stared in at her.

Slowly she reached out to turn off the radio, and the click seemed to echo loudly in the room. Then the only sound Cassie could hear was the pounding of her own heart.

At last, from the window, another sound came.

The same rasping scratch as before, but this time the yellow eyes blinked, and there was a soft mewing sound.

A cat. It had been nothing more than a cat scratching at the window.

Suddenly feeling foolish, Cassie got out of bed and went to the window. The cat, clinging to a branch of an elm tree, meowed again as she approached, then reached out with one of its forepaws and scratched once more at the screen.

“Hello, cat,” Cassie said softly, half expecting the creature to bolt at the sound of her voice. “Do you want to come inside?”

As if it understood her words, the cat reached out and raked the screen yet again.

Cassie groped in the darkness for the hooks that held the screen in place, released them and pushed the screen outward. As soon as the crack was wide enough, the cat leaped from the branch to the windowsill and slithered through. Dropping to the floor, it rubbed up against Cassie’s ankles, its long tail twining around her left leg. Then, as Cassie refastened the screen, it bounded across the room and up onto the bed.

Returning to bed, Cassie switched on the lamp again and in the dim light looked more closely at the cat.

It seemed nothing more than an alley cat, its grayish fur marked across the shoulders and down its back with two stripes which were almost black. It sat on the bed, the tip of its tail twitching nervously, staring back at Cassie with eyes so bright that they looked almost golden in the soft light of the lamp.

“Who are you?” Cassie asked. “Do you live here?”

The cat mewed softly, then crept close and began purring as it licked at Cassie’s hand.

As Cassie slid back under the quilt, the cat did, too, and as she reached out to switch the light off, she felt it curling up around her feet.

A few minutes later, with the cat purring quietly at the foot of her bed, Cassie finally fell asleep.

That night she saw Miranda in her dreams once more. Miranda smiled at her, then reached into one of her shopping bags and brought forth a wriggling creature, which she handed silently to Cassie.

“This is for you,” Miranda said as she placed the animal in Cassie’s arms.

Cassie looked down into the cat’s eyes. “What’s its name?” she asked.

For a long time Miranda said nothing. Then, still smiling, she reached out and stroked the cat. “He has no name,” she said. “He is a gift, and it is for you to decide what to name him, and how to use him.”

The image of Miranda merged into the blackness, disappearing. For a moment Cassie was startled back into wakefulness.

At her feet the cat stirred restlessly.

And deep in Cassie’s subconscious a long-forgotten memory also stirred.

Monday morning dawned bright and clear, but with a snap to the air that reminded Cassie immediately that she was no longer in southern California. At home on a day like today the temperature would reach eighty degrees before noon, and by lunchtime she and her friends would be talking about cutting the rest of their classes and going to the beach. But here the morning was still far too chilly even to think about the beach. Cassie got out of bed, pulled on the same pair of red jeans she’d been wearing all weekend, and found a clean white shirt to wear under her black sweater. The cat, emerging from under the quilt, sat at the foot of the bed watching her dress, then bounded over to the windowsill. A moment later it looked expectantly back at Cassie.

“You want to go out?” Cassie asked. Crossing to the window, she unhooked the screen and pushed it open. The cat leaped into the tree, jumped from branch to branch, then dropped to the ground and slipped through the fence into the graveyard. Cassie watched it until it disappeared, then frowned thoughtfully. Finally she went to her closet, found a wire coat hanger, and worked it into a brace to hold the window screen open a few inches. Then, leaving the window open, too, she went downstairs.

Her father and Jennifer were already at the table in the corner of the kitchen, eating scrambled eggs and pancakes. From the stove Rosemary smiled at her uncertainly. “Are you
all right, Cassie?” she asked. “Maybe … maybe you’d rather wait a few days before you start school. I mean …”

It took a moment before Cassie understood, but then her eyes met Rosemary’s. “You mean because of last night,” she said calmly.

Rosemary hesitated for a fraction of a second, then nodded.

“It’s okay,” Cassie told her. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I just … well, I guess things just sort of got to me, that’s all.”

Rosemary smiled in relief. She’d lain awake for hours last night, turning the scene with Cassie over in her mind again and again and dreading the coming of morning, certain that when Cassie appeared at the breakfast table—
if
she appeared—she would be sullenly silent. But Cassie seemed to have put the incident behind her. Yet Rosemary still felt uneasy. “Are you sure you want to go to school today? It just seems like it might be too much for you. I mean, you don’t really have anything to wear—”

“What’s wrong with what I have on?” Cassie asked, frowning. “At home everyone wears jeans to school.”

“That’s what they do here too,” Keith put in. “I think Rosemary’s just wondering how clean they are.”

Cassie’s face clouded. “They’re clean enough. Besides, the only other thing I packed was a dress. And nobody wears dresses to school!”

Jennifer snickered, then fixed her eyes gleefully on her mother. “See? I told you so. How come no one ever believes what I say?”

“Because you’re eight years old, and everybody knows that eight-year-olds named Jennifer lie their heads off all the time,” Keith replied, then ducked away from Jennifer’s pummeling fists. “Anyway, even if she wanted to change her clothes, there isn’t time. You want some eggs, Cassie?”

Cassie shook her head. “All I ever have in the morning is orange juice and coffee.” As her father and stepmother exchanged a glance, she shrugged. “That’s all Mo—” She stopped abruptly, then went on. “That’s all Diana and I ever had. Neither of us ever ate breakfast.”

At Cassie’s use of her mother’s name, Keith glanced up, but Rosemary shot him a warning glance. “Suit yourself,” she said quickly. “But if you get hungry before lunch, don’t blame us.” As she poured Cassie a cup of coffee there was a
soft rap at the back door. Rosemary put the coffeepot down and went to the service porch. A moment later she came back with Eric Cavanaugh behind her. Keith stared at the boy in surprise.

“Eric! What brings you over so early?”

Eric flushed slightly. “I … I just thought maybe Cassie might want to walk to school with me. I mean, since it’s her first day and everything.”

“I was going to drive her—” Rosemary began, but Cassie was already on her feet.

“It’s okay. I’d really rather walk. I mean—” Her voice faltered, and she flushed even redder than Eric had a few seconds earlier.

Rosemary’s brows arced knowingly. “You mean you’re not sure that being driven to school by your stepmother is quite the thing to do?” she asked.

Cassie’s flush deepened. “I—I didn’t really mean that—”

“It’s okay. Really,” Rosemary assured her. “In fact it was kind of stupid of me not to have figured it out for myelf. I guess I’m not very good at being a mother to a teenager yet.”

“But you’re not—” Cassie began, then stopped. For a moment there was an awkward silence, broken finally by Jennifer, who looked up at Eric, her eyes wide.

“Cassie’s mother died,” she announced. “And that makes my mom her stepmother, and me her halfsister. Isn’t that neat?”

Keith stiffened. “Jennifer! I’m sure Eric already knows what happened to Cassie’s mother, and I’m sure we don’t need to talk about it right now! And from now on your mother is going to be Cassie’s mother too. Understood? We don’t need any of that ‘step’ or ‘half’ nonsense around here.”

At the anger in her father’s voice, Jennifer’s expression froze and her eyes filled with tears. Wordlessly, she looked to Cassie for help.

“It’s all right,” Cassie said. “Jennifer didn’t mean anything, did you, Jen? She was just telling Eric the truth.”

Keith hesitated, then nodded. But his expression remained serious. “Okay. But I won’t have either of you getting the idea that Rosemary cares more for Jennifer than she does for you.”

Cassie stared at her father for a moment, and Rosemary
braced herself for another outburst. But instead of saying anything, Cassie merely bobbed her head and followed Eric out the back door. Only when Jennifer had disappeared up to her room in search of her school bag did Rosemary speak.

“I wish you hadn’t said that,” she said quietly. “Cassie didn’t believe you, and there’s no reason why she should have.”

“I just don’t want her to feel like she’s a second-class member of this family,” Keith insisted.

“She’s not,” Rosemary agreed. She smiled wryly. “I guess I’m going to tell you what you told me. Leave her alone, Keith. Let her fit herself in. You can’t force her.”

Keith reddened slightly. “I’m not—” he began. But he knew that his wife was right. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I just want her to feel that she’s at home here.”

“She will,” Rosemary promised. “In time she will.” But even as she spoke the words, she wondered if they were true. Remembering Cassie’s words from the previous night, she wondered if Cassie had really ever felt at home anywhere, wondered if that was the reason for the pain that seemed constantly to linger in the depths of her eyes.