Child of Darkness by V. C. Andrews Read Free Book Online

anyone just look at me and love me, or was that just another one of the lies that trailed adults like so many ribbons caught in the wind?
I helped her set the table, and then I went up to my room and looked at the books on the shelf, children's book and young adult books their daughter Michelle had read and kept. Some of them I had read, too, but others attracted my interest. Strangely, I felt guilty every time I saw something I liked or took pleasure in anything that would be mine.
At dinner, Nana Prescott bragged to Papa Prescott how much I had helped her. I had done very little, but I could see she thought exaggerating would make me feel good. I did enjoy the dinner she made. It was tastier than the food at the orphanage, and there was her homemade blueberry pie and ice cream for dessert. Papa Prescott talked about his golf game, even though it was pretty clear Nana Prescott had no interest and thought he should be talking about something that would interest me. It was as if he didn't see her, or me, for that matter. At times it was more like he was talking to himself aloud.
Is this what happens to people when they grow old together? I wondered. Do they begin to separate in lit- tle ways until they wake up one morning and discover they are all alone again? They didn't have what I had, I thought. They didn't have the something wonderful that held us all together, all of us tied together by whispers and shadows. Yes, that was what I missed the most now. Just thinking about it made me sad.
"Are you all right, dear?" Nana Prescott asked me. She saw the expression on my face, I guess.
I nodded.
"She's just tired," Papa Prescott said, smiling at me. "It's been a big day for her."
Why didn't he say you? It's been a big day for you? I wondered. He made me feel like we were all talking about someone else, or like I was in a glass case and they were observing me.
Finally, I went up to bed.
The first night I went to sleep in my new room, I continued to have a battle with myself. One part of me wished I was back in the orphanage, even under the control and terror of Madame Annjill. Once again, I was reminded about betraying my real family. Another part of me didn't want to feel that way. It wasn't a rich and ornate bedroom, but after spending the last six years in a room with three other girls, each of us confined to a small space for our possessions and schoolbooks, I was excited.
This was the first night I had slept anywhere but the orphanage for nearly four years. I couldn't keep my eyes closed, even though I was so tired. Every sound in the house made my lids snap open. I would wait and listen for the next tinkle, the next creak. Was that the sound of the front door opening? A window? Were those footsteps on the stairway? Was that my bedroom door being opened?
At one point it was opened. Nana Prescott had come to my room to look in on me and see if I was all right. I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. She stood there for a few more moments and then quietly closed the door.
Immediately afterward, I heard Noble say, "Hey."
I turned and saw him standing there. He didn't look happy, even though I was overjoyed to see him.
"I was afraid you wouldn't know where I had gone," I said. "I haven't seen you for so long."
"That's not my fault. You stopped looking for me. You even stopped thinking about me."
"No, I didn't."
"It doesn't matter. I'll always know where you are," he told me. "And I'll always see you."
I watched him walk around the room, looking at everything.
"It's a nice room, isn't it?" I asked him.
"No," he said. "You have a nicer room waiting for you at home. This room smells like a laundry. Whoever cleans it uses too much soap and polish. It reminds me of a hospital room. And what are you looking out at here?" he continued after he went to the window. "Another house and a busy street. I've already checked their backyard. They don't have a garden; they've never had a garden, and that swing set is pathetic."
"Papa