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“I hope not. Husbands have a way of not wanting parents around. Nobody wants old people around to clutter up their lives and create more expenses. That’s why I have to make more and more money, to save for my old age and your mother’s.”

Staring up at him, I felt old age would never touch him. He was too strong, too vigorous for age to gray his hair and put wrinkles on his face and sag his jowls.

“Are old ladies unwanted, too?” I asked.

“Not your mother’s kind,” he said with a bitter smile. “Somebody would always want your mother. And if no man wants her, she’d turn to you … so be there when or if she needs you. Be there when I need you, too.”

I shivered, not enjoying this kind of serious, grown-up talk when I had just met the first boy I could like. We neared the edge of the woods now, where the trees began to spread out and the lawn began. Papa was still talking.

“Sweet, there’s an old lady at the house whom you’ve never met. Your mother and I both want a boy so much that we feel we can’t wait until the birth to find out what sex we’re going to have. And I’ve been told this lady, Mrs. Allismore, has a talent for predicting the sex of an unborn child.”

As we neared the house, I paused to stare up at our grand old house that I saw as a stale and timeworn wedding cake; the cupola was where the bride and groom should have been but weren’t. I saw the tall narrow windows as sinister, slotted eyes looking out. When I was inside, I saw the windows as looking inward, keeping an eye on everyone, especially me.

Papa tugged me on. A strange little black car was parked on the long curving drive that needed repaying. Weeds shot up in all the many cracks that I was careful to step over, not wanting to break my mother’s back. I tried to pull my hand free from Papa’s so I wouldn’t have to be there and watch something that might be scary, but Papa pulled me through the front door, giving me no opportunity to run to my hideaway in the cupola. Once the doors were closed behind us, I was released. Adroitly, I avoided putting my feet on any rainbowed design the sun made through the stained-glass windows in the doors.

In the best of the front salons, my mother, Aunt Ellsbeth, Vera and an old, old woman were gathered together. Momma was lying on the purple velvet chaise. The old woman leaned above her. The moment she saw us come in, she took the wedding band from my mother’s finger and tied it to a piece of string. Vera leaned closer, looking very interested. Slowly, slowly, that old woman began to swing the ring tied to a string over my mother’s middle.

“If the ring swings vertically, it will be a boy,” muttered the old woman. “If it swings in a circle, it will be a girl.”

At first the ring moved irratically, terribly undecided; then it paused and changed course, and Papa began to smile. Soon his smile vanished as the ring tried to make a circle. Papa leaned forward and began to breathe heavily. Aunt Ellsbeth sat very tall and straight; her dark eyes held the same intense expectancy as Papa’s eyes. Vera drifted closer, her ebony eyes wide. Momma lifted her head and craned her neck to see what was going on and why nothing was being decided. I swallowed over the lump that closed my throat. “What’s wrong?” Momma asked in a worried way.

“You have to stay calm,” croaked Mrs. Allismore. Her witchlike face screwed into a tiny wrinkled prune. Her miniscule mouth pursed into a crudely stitched buttonhole. Hours seemed to pass instead of seconds as that ring on the string kept changing directions, settling nothing. “Has your doctor mentioned twins?” asked the old crone with a perplexed frown.

“No,” whispered

Momma, appearing even more alarmed. “He said the last time I went that he heard only one heartbeat.”

Papa reached to take her hand in his, then raised it to his cheek, rubbing it against his faint stubble. I could hear the slight raspy sound. Then he leaned to kiss Momma’s cheek.

“Lucky, don’t look so concerned. This is all tomfoolery anyway. God will send us the right child; we don’t have to worry.”

Yet Momma insisted that Mrs. Allismore try for a while longer. Five excruciating minutes passed before the old woman grimly untied the string from the ring and handed Momma her wedding band. “Ma’am, I hate to say this, but what you’re carrying is not male or female.”

Momma let out a small terrified cry.

Never before had I seen Papa fly into such a rage. “Get out of here!” he yelled. “Look at my wife! You’ve scared her half to death.” He shoved the old woman toward the door, and to my utter amazement he shoved a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. Why was he paying her so much money?

“It’s fifty dollars, sir.”

“It’s twenty or nothing for a report like that,” barked Papa, shoving her outside and locking the door behind her. When I entered the salon again, Vera had moved into the shadows to stare at Papa with hard eyes. She had a huge chunk of chocolate cake in her hands, left for me to eat for dinner dessert… and she’d eaten twice as much last night.

Catching my glare, she grinned and licked chocolate from her fingers. “All gone, now, sweet Audrina. None left for you, because you had to steal away. Where did you go, sweet Audrina?”

“Shut up!” ordered Papa, falling on his knees beside the couch where Momma lay crying. He tried to console her by saying it was a crackpot idea in the first place. Momma threw her arms about him and really bawled. “Damian, what could she have meant? Everyone says her predictions come true every time.”

“Well, not this time.”

Vera balled up the wax paper that had held her cake and shoved it into her pocket. “I believe Mrs. Allismore is one hundred percent right. Another freak is about to come into this Whitefern house. I can smell it in the air.” With that she headed toward the foyer—but not quickly enough. In a bounding flash Papa was on his feet and she was over his knee. He yanked up her skirt and began to spank her so hard I could see through her transparent white nylon panties how red her buttocks grew. She screamed and fought him, trying to wiggle free, but in no way could she match his strength.

“Stop it, Damian!” screamed my mother and my aunt simultaneously. “That’s enough, Damian,” Momma finished, raising up on one elbow and looking very weak.

Ruthlessly, Papa shoved Vera off his lap so that she fell on the floor. She began to crawl away, trying to tug down her skirt and cover her panties. “How could you, Damian?” asked my aunt. “Vera is a young woman—much too old to be spanked. I wouldn’t blame her if she never forgives you.”

After that, we ate dinner. Everyone was so angry that only Vera and my aunt managed to clean their plates. Later that night I heard Momma sobbing in Papa’s arms, still worried about her unborn baby. “Damian, something is wrong with this baby. Sometimes it moves constantly, keeping me awake, and other times it doesn’t move at all.”

“Sssh,” he comforted softly. “All babies are different. We’re two healthy people. We’ll have another healthy baby. That woman has no more divining power than I do.”

What could have been a wonderful summer was spoiled because Vera insisted on following me everywhere. Time and again I tried to slip through the woods without Vera knowing, but she seemed to smell my thoughts and, like an Indian, she was on my trail. Though Arden’s mother insisted that we call her Billie, this felt strange. When she kept insisting, finally I did. She was the only adult I’d ever met who was ready to share her adult knowledge with me in a way I could understand. I liked it best when I could steal over without Vera, who had a way of dominating all conversations. Every time we visited, we both went away wondering why Billie didn’t invite us into her cottage. I was too polite to say anything. Vera was pretending to be mannerly, so she didn’t mention it either.