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I looked up at her in shock, my heart pounding.

"That's what Emily said." I rubbed the tears off my cheeks. "What does it mean?"

"It means," Mamma said with a sigh, "you're going to be a woman sooner than I expected. Come along, dear," she said, holding out her hand, "and we'll clean you up and get you prepared."

"But I left my books on the road, Mamma."

"I'll send Henry back for them. Don't worry. Let's take care of you, first," she insisted.

"I don't understand. It just happened to me . . . my stomach hurt and then I started bleeding. Am I sick?"

"It's a woman's sickness, Lillian dear. From now on," she said, taking my hand and telling me something that would leave me horrified, "you're going to have the same thing happen once a month, every month."

"Every month!" Even Eugenia didn't have the same terrible things happen each and every month. "Why, Mamma? What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing's wrong with you, dear. It happens to all women," she said. "Let's not dwell on it," she insisted with a sigh. "It's too unpleasant. I don't even like thinking about it. Whenever it happens, I pretend it hasn't," she continued. "I do what I have to do, of course, but I just don't pay any more attention to it than I have to."

"But it hurts so much, Mamma."

"Yes, I know," she said. "Sometimes, I have to stay in bed for the first few days."

Mamma did stay in bed from time to time. I had never given it much thought before, but now, I realized there was something of a regularity to her behavior. Papa seemed so impatient with her at those times and usually stayed away, finding it necessary to take one of his special business trips.

Upstairs in my room, Mamma gave me a quick little explanation as to why the pain and the bleeding meant I was entering womanhood. It terrified me even more to know that my body had changed in such a way as to make it possible for me to have a baby of my own. I had to know more about it, but any questions I asked, Mamma either ignored or grimaced after and pleaded for us not to talk about such dreadful things. Mamma introduced me to womanly protection and quickly ended our discussion.

But my curiosity had been aroused. I had to have more information, more answers. I went down to Papa's library, hoping to find something in his medical books. I did find a small discussion about a woman's reproduction system and I learned in more detail about what made the bleeding occur monthly. It was so shocking to have this just happen. I couldn't help but wonder what other surprises lay in waiting for me as I grew older and my body developed more and more.

Emily poked her head into the library and saw me on the floor, submerged in my reading. I was so involved, I didn't hear her step up to me.

"That's disgusting," she said, gazing down at the illustration of the female reproduction system. "But I'm not surprised you're looking at it."

"It is not disgusting. It's scientific information, just like in our books at school."

"It is not. That sort of thing wouldn't be in our school books," she replied with assurance.

"Well had to learn what was happening to me. You wouldn't help me," I snapped back. She glared down at me. From this angle on the floor, Emily looked even taller and leaner, her narrow facial features cut so sharply that she looked like she had been carved out of a slab of granite.

"Don't you know what it really means, why it happens to us?"

I shook my head and she folded her arms under her chest and lifted her face so her eyes gazed toward the ceiling.

"It's God's curse because of what Eve did in Paradise. From then on everything to do with childbearing and childbirth was made painful and distasteful." She shook her head and looked down at me again. "Why do you think the pain and the disgustingness has happened to you so early?" she asked, then answered her own question quickly. "Because you're exceptionally evil, you're a living curse yourself."

"No, I'm not," I said weakly, the tears misting over my eyes. She smiled.

"Every day another proof is shown," she said triumphantly. "This is just another. Mamma and Papa will come to realize it and send you off to live in a home for wayward girls someday," she threatened.

"They won't," I said without great confidence. What if Emily was right? She seemed to be right about everything else.

"Yes they will. They'll have to or else you'll bring one curse after another on us, one disaster after another. You'll see," she promised. She looked at the book again. "Maybe Papa will come in here and see you reading and looking at that disgusting stuff. Keep it up," she said, and spun around to march confidently out of the library. Her final words filled me with more dread. I closed the book quickly and placed it back in its space on the shelf. Then I retreated to my room to contemplate the horrible things Emily had spit down at me. What if she was right? I wondered. I couldn't help but wonder.

What if she was right?

My cramps remained so intense, I didn't want to go down to dinner, but Tottie came by with my books and notebooks to tell me Eugenia had been asking after me, wondering why I hadn't stopped in after school. The desire to see her gave me new strength and I went to her to explain. She lay there, as wide-eyed and as amazed as I had been, and listened. When I was finished, she shook her head and wondered aloud if it would ever happen to her.

"Mamma and the books I read said it happens to all of us," I said.

"It won't happen to me," she said prophetically. "My body will stay a little girl's body until I die."