Flowers in the Attic

Book : Dollanganger

by V.C. Andrews

Genres: Classics; Coming of Age; Gothic

Synopsis

This best-selling thriller has captivated over 4.5 million readers of all ages; V.C. Andrews' fans know her mixture of vivid characters and ominous moods is highly addictive. Flowers in the Attic is the first book in a gripping series featuring the Dollangagers-a family haunted by a remorseless, demonic history. This tale of obsession, also made into a haunting movie, has made V.C. Andrews' name synonymous with the best in dark suspense.

Publisher: Pocket Books

Print pages: 416

Sample

Prologue

It is so appropriate to color hope yellow, like that sun we seldom saw. And as I begin to copy from the old memorandum journals that I kept for so long, a title comes as if inspired. Open the Window and Stand in the Sunshine. Yet, I hesitate to name our story that for I think of us more as flowers in the attic. Paper flowers. Born so brightly colored, and fading duller through all those long, grim, dreary, nightmarish days when we were held prisoners of hope, and kept captives by greed. But, we were never to color even one of our paper blossoms yellow.

Charles Dickens would often start his novels with the birth of the protagonist and, being a favorite author of both mine and Chris's, I would duplicate his style -- if I could. But he was a genius born to write without difficulty while I find every word I put down, I put down with tears, with bitter blood, with sour gall, well mixed and blended with shame and guilt. I thought I would never feel ashamed or guilty, that these were burdens for others to bear. Years have passed and I am older and wiser now, accepting, too. The tempest of rage that once stormed within me has simmered down so I can write, I hope, with truth and with less hatred and prejudice than would have been the case a few years ago.

So, like Charles Dickens, in this work of "fiction" I will hide myself away behind a false name, and live in fake places, and I will pray to God that those who should will hurt when they read what I have to say. Certainly God in his infinite mercy will see that some understanding publisher will put my words in a book, and help grind the knife that I hope to wield.

Chapter 1: Goodbye, Daddy

Truly, when I was very young, way back in the Fifties, I believed all of life would be like one long and perfect summer day. After all, it did start out that way. There's not much I can say about our earliest childhood except that it was very good, and for that, I should be everlastingly grateful. We weren't rich, we weren't poor. If we lacked some necessity, I couldn't name it; if we had luxuries, I couldn't name those, either, without comparing what we had to what others had, and nobody had more or less in our middle-class neighborhood. In other words, short and simple, we were just ordinary, run-of-the-mill children.

Our daddy was a P.R. man for a large computer manufacturing firm located in Gladstone, Pennsylvania: population, 12,602. He was a huge success, our father, for often his boss dined with us, and bragged about the job Daddy seemed to perform so well. "It's that all-Amarican, wholesome, devastatingly good-looking face and charming manner that does them in. Great God in heaven, Chris, what sensible person could resist a fella like you?"

Heartily, I agreed with that. Our father was perfect. He stood six feet two, weighed 180 pounds, and his hair was thick and flaxen blond, and waved just enough to be perfect; his eyes were cerulean blue and they sparkled with laughter, with his great zest for living and having fun. His nose was straight and neither too long nor too narrow, nor too thick. He played tennis and golf like a pro and swam so much he kept a suntan all through the year. He was always dashing off on airplanes to California, to Florida, to Arizona, or to Hawaii, or even abroad on business, while we were left at home in the care of our mother.

When he came through the front door late on Friday afternoons -- every Friday afternoon (he said he couldn't bear to be separated from us for longer than five days) -- even if it were raining or snowing, the sun shone when he beamed his broad, happy smile on us.

His booming greeting rang out as soon as he put down his suitcase and briefcase. "Come greet me with kisses if you love me!"

Somewhere near the front door, my brother and I would be hiding, and after he'd called out his greeting, we'd dash out from behind a chair or the sofa to crash into his wide open arms, which seized us up at once and held us close, and he warmed our lips with his kisses. Fridays -- they were the best days of all, for they brought Daddy home to us again. In his suit pockets he carried small gifts for us; in his suitcases he stored the larger ones to dole out after he greeted our mother, who would hang back and wait patiently until he had done with us.

And after we had our little gifts from his pockets, Christopher and I would back off to watch Momma drift slowly forward her lips curved in a welcoming smile that lit up our father's eyes and he'd take her in his arms and stare down into her face as if he hadn't seen her for at least a year.

On Fridays, Momma spent half the day in the beauty parlor having her hair shampooed and set and her fingernails polished, and then she'd come home to take a long bath in perfumed-oiled water. I'd perch in her dressing room, and wait to watch her emerge in a filmy negligee. She'd sit at her dressing table to meticulously apply makeup. And I, so eager to learn, drank in everything she did to turn herself from just a pretty woman into a creature so ravishingly beautiful she didn't look real. The most amazing part of this was our father thought she didn't wear makeup! He believed she was naturally a striking beauty.

Love was a word lavished about in our home. "Do you love me? -- For I most certainly love you; did you miss me? -- Are you glad I'm home? -- Did you think about me when I was gone? Every night? Did you toss and turn and wish I were beside you, holding you close? For if you didn't, Corrine, I might want to die."

Momma knew exactly how to answer questions like these -- with her eyes, with soft whispers and with kisses.

One day Christopher and I came speeding home from school with the wintery wind blowing us through the front door. "Take off your boots in the foyer," Momma called out from the living room, where I could see her sitting before the fireplace knitting a little white sweater fit for a doll to wear. I thought it was a Christmas gift for me, for one of my dolls.

"And kick off your shoes before you come in here," she added.

We shed our boots and heavy coats and hoods in the foyer, then raced in stockinged feet into the living room, with its plush white carpet. That pastel room, decorated to flatter our mother's fair beauty, was off limits for us most of the time. This was our company room, our mother's room, and never could we feel really comfortable on the apricot brocade sofa or the cut-velvet chairs. We preferred Daddy's room, with its dark paneled walls and tough plaid sofa, where we could wallow and fight and never fear we were damaging anything.

"It's freezing outside, Momma!" I said breathlessly as I fell at her feet, thrusting my legs toward the fire. "But the ride home on our bikes was just beautiful. All the trees are sparkled with diamond icicles, and crystal prisms on the shrubs. It's a fairyland out there, Momma. I wouldn't live down south where it never snows, for anything!"

Christopher did not talk about the weather and its freezing beauty. He was two years and five months my senior and he was far wiser than I; I know that now. He warmed his icy feet as I did, but he stared up at Momma's face, a worried frown drawing his dark brows together.

I glanced up at her, too, wondering what he saw that made him show such concern. She was knitting at a fast and skilled pace, glancing from time to time at instructions.

"Momma, are you feeling all right?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," she answered, giving him a soft, sweet smile.

"You look tired to me."

She laid aside the tiny sweater. "I visited my doctor today," she said, leaning forward to caress Christopher's rosy cold cheek.

"Momma!" he cried, taking alarm. "Are you sick?"

She chuckled softly, then ran her long, slim fingers through his tousled blond curls. "Christopher Dollanganger, you know better than that. I've seen you looking at me with suspicious thoughts in your head." She caught his hand, and one of mine, and placed them both on her bulging middle.

"Do you feel anything?" she asked, that secret, pleased look on her face again.

Quickly, Christopher snatched his hand away as his face turned blood-red. But I left my hand where it was, wondering, waiting.

"What do you feel, Cathy?"

Beneath my hand, under her clothes, something weird was going on. Little faint movements quivered her flesh. I lifted my head and stared up in her face, and to this day, I can still recall how lovely she looked, like a Raphael madonna.

"Momma, your lunch is moving around, or else you have gas." Laughter made her blue eyes sparkle, and she told me to guess again.

Her voice was sweet and concerned as she told us her news. "Darlings, I'm going to have a baby in early May. In fact when I visited my doctor today, he said he heard two heartbeats. So that means I am going to have twins...or, God forbid, triplets. Not even your father knows this yet, so don't tell him until I have a chance."

Stunned, I threw Christopher a look to see how he was taking this. He seemed bemused, and still embarrassed. I looked again at her lovely firelit face. Then I jumped up, and raced for my room!

I hurled myself face down on my bed, and bawled, really let go! Babies -- two or more! I was the baby! I didn't want any little whining, crying babies coming along to take my place! I sobbed and beat at the pillows, wanting to hurt something, if not someone. Then I sat up and thought about running away.

Someone rapped softly on my closed and locked door. "Cathy," said my mother, "may I come in and talk this over with you?"

"Go away!" I yelled. "I already hate your babies!"

Yes, I knew what was in store for me, the middle child, the one parents didn't care about. I'd be forgotten; there'd be no more Friday gifts. Daddy would think only of Momma, of Christopher, and those hateful babies that would displace me.

My father came to me that evening, soon after he arrived home. I'd unlocked the door, just in case he wanted to see me. I stole a peek to see his face, for I loved him very much. He looked sad, and he carried a large box wrapped in silver foil, topped by a huge bow of pink satin.

"How's my Cathy been?" he asked softly, as I peeked from beneath my arm. "You didn't run to greet me when I came home. You haven't said hello; you haven't even looked at me. Cathy, it hurts when you don't run into my arms and give me kisses."

I didn't say anything, but rolled over on my back to glare at him fiercely. Didn't he know I was supposed to be his favorite all his life through? Why did he and Momma have to go and send for more children? Weren't two enough?

He sighed, then came to sit on the edge of my bed. "You know something? This is the first time in your life you have ever glared at me like that. This is the first Friday you haven't run to leap up into my arms. You may not believe this, but I don't really come alive until I come home on weekends."

Pouting, I refused to be won over. He didn't need me now. He had his son, and now heaps of wailing babies on the way. I'd be forgotten in the multitude.

"You know something else," he began, closely watching me, "I used to believe, perhaps foolishly, that if I came home on Fridays, and didn't bring one single gift for you, or your brother, I still believed the two of you would have run for me like crazy, and welcomed me home, anyway. I believed you loved me and not my gifts. I mistakenly believed that I'd been a good father, and somehow I'd managed to win your love, and that you'd know you would always have a big place in my heart, even if your mother and I have a dozen children." He paused, sighed, and his blue eyes darkened. "I thought my Cathy knew she would still be my very special girl, because she was my first."

I threw him an angry, hurt look. Then I choked, "But if Momma has another girl, you'll say the same thing to her!"

"Will I?"

"Yes," I sobbed, aching so badly I could scream from jealousy already. "You might even love her more than you do me, 'cause she'll be little and cuter."

"I may love her as much, but I won't love her more." He held out his arms and I could resist no longer. I flung myself into his arms, and clung to him for dear life. "Ssh," he soothed as I cried. "Don't cry, don't feel jealous. You won't be loved any the less. And Cathy, real babies are much more fun than dolls. Your mother will have more than she can handle, so she's going to depend on you to help her. When I'm away from home, I'll feel better knowing your mother has a loving daughter who will do what she can to make life easier and better for all of us." His warm lips pressed against my teary check. "Come now, open your box, and tell me what you think of what's inside."

First I had to smother his face with a dozen kisses and give him bear hugs to make up for the anxiety I'd put in his eyes. In the beautiful box was a silver music box made in England. The music played and a ballerina dressed in pink turned slowly around and around before a mirror. "It's a jewel box, as well," explained Daddy, slipping on my finger a tiny gold ring with a red stone he called a garnet. "The moment I saw that box, I knew you had to have it. And with this ring, I do vow to forever love my Cathy just a little bit more than any other daughter -- as long as she never says that to anyone but herself."

There came a sunny Tuesday in May, when Daddy was home. For two weeks Daddy had been hanging around home, waiting for those babies to show up. Momma seemed irritable, uncomfortable, and Mrs. Bertha Simpson was in our kitchen, preparing our meals, and looking at Christopher and me with a smirky face. She was our most dependable baby-sitter. She lived next door, and was always saying Momma and Daddy looked more like brother and sister than husband and wife. She was a grim, grouchy sort of person who seldom had anything nice to say about anybody. And she was cooking cabbage. I hated cabbage.

Around dinnertime, Daddy came rushing into the dining room to tell my brother and me that he was driving Momma to the hospital. "Now don't be worried. Everything will work out fine. Mind Mrs. Simpson, and do your homework, and maybe in a few hours you'll know if you have brothers or sisters...or one of each."

He didn't return until the next morning. He was unshaven, tired looking, his suit rumpled, but he grinned at us happily. "Take a guess! Boys or girls?"

"Boys!" chimed up Christopher, who wanted two brothers he could teach to play ball. I wanted boys, too...no little girl to steal Daddy's affection from his first daughter.

"A boy and a girl," Daddy said proudly. "The prettiest little things you ever saw. Come, put your clothes on, and I'll drive you to see them yourselves."

Sulkily, I went, still reluctant to look even when Daddy picked me up and held me high so I could peer through the nursery room glass at two little babies a nurse held in her arms. They were so tiny! Their heads were no bigger than small apples, and small red fists waved in the air. One was screaming like pins were sticking it.

"Ah," sighed Daddy, kissing my cheek and hugging me close, "God has been good to me, sending me another son and daughter as perfect as my first pair."

I thought I would hate them both, especially the loud-mouthed one named Carrie, who wailed and bellowed ten times louder than the quiet one named Cory. It was nearly impossible to get a full night's rest with the two of them across the hall from my room. And yet, as they began to grow and smile, and their eyes lit up when I came in and lifted them, something warm and motherly replaced the green in my eyes. The first thing you knew, I was racing home to see them, to play with them, to change diapers and hold nursing bottles, and burp them on my shoulder. They were more fun than dolls.

I soon learned that parents have room in their hearts for more than two children, and I had room in my heart to love them, too -- even Carrie, who was just as pretty as me, and maybe more so. They grew so quickly, like weeds, said Daddy, though Momma would often look at them with anxiety, for she said they were not growing as rapidly as Christopher and I had grown. This was laid before her doctor, who quickly assured her that often twins were smaller than single births.

"See," said Christopher, "doctors do know everything."

Daddy looked up from the newspaper he was reading and smiled. "That's my son the doctor talking but nobody knows everything, Chris."

Daddy was the only one who called my older brother Chris.

We had a funny surname, the very devil to learn to spell. Dollanganger. Just because we were all blond, flaxon haired, with fair complexions (except Daddy, with his perpetual tan), Jim Johnston, Daddy's best friend, pinned on us a nickname, "The Dresden dolls." He said we looked like those fancy porcelain people who grace whatnot shelves and fireplace mantels. Soon everyone in our neighborhood was calling us the Dresden dolls; certainly it was easier to say than Dollanganger.

When the twins were four, and Christopher was fourteen, and I had just turned twelve, there came a very special Friday. It was Daddy's thirty-sixth birthday and we were having a surprise party for him. Momma looked like a fairytale princess with her freshly washed and set hair. Her nails gleamed with pearly polish, her long formal gown was of softest aqua color, and her knotted string of pearls swayed as she glided from here to there, setting the table in the dining roorn so it would look perfect for Daddy's birthday party. His many gifts were piled high on the buffet. It was going to be a small, intimate party, just for our family and our closest friends.

"Cathy," said Momma, throwing me a quick look, "would you mind bathing the twins again for me? I gave them both baths before their naps, but as soon as they were up, they took off for the sandbox, and now they need another bath."

I didn't mind. She looked far too fancy to give two dirty four-year-olds splashy baths that would ruin her hair, her nails, and her lovely dress.

"And when you finish with them, both you and Christopher jump in the tub and bathe, too, and put on that pretty new pink dress, Cathy, and curl your hair. And, Christopher, no blue jeans, please. I want you to put on a dress shirt and a tie, and wear that light blue sports jacket with your cream-colored trousers."

"Aw, heck, Momma, I hate dressing up," he complained, scuffing his sneakers and scowling.

"Do as I say, Christopher, for your father. You know he does a lot for you; the least you can do is make him proud of his family."

He grouched off, leaving me to run out to the back garden and fetch the twins, who immediately began to wail. "One bath a day is enough!" screamed Carrie. "We're already clean! Stop! We don't like soap! We don't like hair washings! Don't you do that to us gain, Cathy, or we'll tell Momma!"

"Hah!" I said. "Who do you think sent me out here to clean up two filthy little monsters? Good golly, how can the two of you get so dirty so quickly?"

As soon as their naked skins hit the warm water, and the little yellow rubber ducks and rubber boats began to float, and they could splash all over me, they were content enough to be bathed, shampooed, and dressed in their very best clothes. For, after all, they were going to a party and, after all, this was Friday, and Daddy was coming home.

First I dressed Cory in a pretty little white suit with short pants. Strangely enough, he was more apt to keep himself clean than his twin. Try as I would, I couldn't tame down that stubborn cowlick of his. It curled over to the right, like a cute pig's tail, and would you believe it? -- Carrie wanted her hair to do the same thing!

When I had them both dressed, and looking like dolls come alive, I turned the twins over to Christopher with stern warnings to keep an ever observant eye on them. Now it was my turn to dress up.

The twins wailed and complained while I hurriedly took a bath, washed my hair, and rolled it up on fat curlers. I peeked around the bathroom door to see Christopher trying his best to entertain them by reading to them from Mother Goose.

"Hey," said Christopher when I came out wearing my pink dress with the fluted ruffles, "you don't look half-bad."

"Half-bad? Is that the best you can manage?"

"Best I can for a sister." He glanced at his watch, slammed the picture book closed, seized the twins by their dimpled hands and cried out, "Daddy will be, here any minute -- hurry, Cathy!"

Five o'clock came and went, and though we waited and waited, we didn't see our father's green Cadillac turn into our curving drive The invited guests sat around and tried to keep up a cheerful conversation, as Momma got up and began to pace around nervously. Usually Daddy flung open the door at four, and sometimes even sooner.

Seven o'clock, and still we were waiting.

The wonderful meal Momma had spent so much time preparing was drying out from being too long in the warming oven. Seven was the time we usually put the twins to bed, and they wen growing hungry, sleepy and cross, demanding every second, "When is Daddy coming?"

Their white clothes didn't look so virgin now. Carrie's smoothly waved hair began to curl up and look windblown. Cory's nose began to run, and repeatedly he wiped it on the back of his hand until I hurried over with a Kleenex to clean off his upper lip.

"Well, Corinne," joked Jim Johnston, "I guess Chris has found himself another super-broad."

His wife threw him an angry look for saying something so tasteless.

My stomach was growling, and I was beginning to feel as worried as Momma looked. She kept pacing back and forth, going to the wide picture window and staring out.

"Oh!" I cried, having caught sight of a car turning into our tree lined driveway, "maybe that's Daddy coming now!"

But the car that drew to a stop before our front door was white, not green. And on the top was one of those spinning red lights. An emblem on the side of that white car read STATE POLICE.

Momma smothered a cry when two policemen dressed in blue uniforms approached our front door and rang our doorbell.

Momma seemed frozen. Her hand hovered near her throat; her heart came up and darkened her eyes. Something wild and frightening burgeoned in my heart just from watching her reactions.

It was Tim Johnston who answered the door, and allowed the two state troopers to enter, glancing about uneasily, seeing, I'm sure, that this was an assembly gathered together for a birthday party. All they had to do was glance into the dining room and see the festive table, the balloons suspended from the chandelier, and the gifts on the buffet.

"Mrs. Christopher Garland Dollanganger?" inquired the older of the two officers as he looked from woman to woman.

Our mother nodded slightly, stiffly. I drew nearer, as did Christopher. The twins were on the floor, playing with tiny cars, and they showed little interest in the unexpected arrival of police officers.

The kindly looking uniformed man with the deep red face stepped closer to Momma. "Mrs. Dollanganger," he began in a flat voice that sent immediate panic into my heart, "we're terribly sorry, but there's been an accident on Greenfield Highway."

"Oh..." breathed Momma, reaching to draw both Christopher and me against her sides. I could feel her quivering all over, just as I was. My eyes were magnetized by those brass buttons; I couldn't see anything else.

"Your husband was involved, Mrs. Dollanganger."

A long sigh escaped from Momma's choked throat. She swayed and would have fallen if Chris and I hadn't been there to support her.

"We've already questioned motorists who witnessed the accident, and it wasn't your husband's fault, Mrs. Dollanganger," that voice continued on, without emotion. "According to the accounts, which we've recorded, there was a motorist driving a blue Ford weaving in and out of the lefthand lane, apparently drunk, and he crashed head-on into your husband's car. But it seems your husband must have seen the accident coming, for he swerved to avoid a head-on collision, but a piece of machinery had fallen from another car, or truck, and this kept him from completing his correct defensive driving maneuver, which would have saved his life. But as it was, your husband's much heavier car turned over several times, and still he might have survived, but an oncoming truck, unable to stop, crashed into his car, and again the Cadillac spun over...and then...it caught on fire."

Never had a room full of people stilled so quickly. Even the young twins looked, up from their innocent play, and stared at the two troopers...

"My husband?" whispered Momma, her voice so weak it was hardly audible. "He isn't...he isn't dead...?"

"Ma'am," said the red-faced officer very solemnly, "it pains me dreadfully to bring you bad news on what seems a special occasion." He faltered and glanced around with embarrassment "I'm terribly sorry, ma'am...everybody did what they could to get him out...but, well maam...he was, well, killed instantly, from what the doc says."

Someone sitting on the sofa screamed.

Momma didn't scream. Her eyes went bleak, dark, haunted. Despair washed the radiant color from her beautiful face; it resembled a death mask. I stared up at her, trying to tell her with my eyes that none of this could be true. Not Daddy! Not my daddy! He couldn't be dead...he couldn't be! Death was for old people, sick people...not for somebody as loved and needed, and young.

Yet there was my mother with her gray face, her stark eyes, her hands wringing out the invisible wet cloths, and each second I watched, her eyes sank deeper into her skull.

I began to cry.

"Ma'am, we've got a few things of his that were thrown out on the first impact. We saved what we could."

"Go away!" I screamed at the officer. "Get out of here! It's not my daddy! I know it's not! He's stopped by a store to buy ice cream. He'll be coming in the door any minute! Get out of here!" I ran forward and beat on the officer's chest. He tried to hold me off, and Christopher came up and pulled me away.

"Please," said the trooper, "won't someone please help this child?"

My mother's arms encircled my shoulders and drew me close to her side. People were murmuring in shocked voices, and whispering, and the food in the warming oven was beginning to smell burned.

I waited for someone to come up and take my hand and say that God didn't ever take the life of a man like my father, yet no one came near me. Only Christopher came to put his arm about my waist, so we three were, in a huddle, Momma, Christopher, and me. It was Christopher who finally found a voice to speak and such a strange, husky voice: "Are you positive it was our father? If the green Cadillac caught on fire, then the man inside must have been badly burned, so it could have been someone else, not Daddy."

Deep, rasping sobs tore from Momma's throat, though not a tear fell from her eyes. She believed! She believed those two men were speaking the truth!

The guests who had come so prettily dressed to attend a birthday party swarmed about us now and said those consoling things people say when there just aren't any right words.

"We're so sorry, Corinne, really shocked...it's terrible.

"What an awful thing to happen to Chris.

"Our days are numbered...that's the way it is, from the day we're born, our days are numbered."

It went on and on, and slowly, like water into concrete it sank in. Daddy was really dead. We were never going to see him alive again. We'd only see him in a coffin, laid out in a box that would end up in the ground, with a marble headstone that bore his name and his day of birth and his day of death. Numbered the same, but for the year.

I looked around, to see what was happening to the twins, who shouldn't have been feeling what I was. Someone kind had taken them into the kitchen and was preparing them a light meal before they were tucked into bed. My eyes met Christopher's. He seemed as caught in this nightmare as I was, his young face pale and shocked; a hollow look of grief shadowed his eyes and made them dark.

One of the state troopers had gone out to his car, and now he came back with a bundle of things which he carefully spread out on the coffee table. I stood frozen, watching the display of all the things Daddy kept in his pockets: a lizard-skinned wallet Momma had given him as a Christmas gift; his leather notepad and date book; his wristwatch; his wedding band. Everything was blackened and charted by smoke and fire.

Last came the soft pastel animals meant for Cory and Carrie, all found, so the red-faced trooper said, scattered on the highway. A plushy blue elephant with pink velvet ears, and a purple pony with a red saddle and golden reins -- oh, that just had to be for Carrie. Then the saddest articles of all -- Daddy's clothes, which had burst the confines of his suitcases when the trunk lock sprang.

I knew those suits, those shirts, ties, socks. There was the same tie I had given him on his last birthday.

"Someone will have to identify the body," said the trooper

Now I knew positively. It was real, our father would never come home without pr