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Now she had the gift—whatever it might be, and if it could be.

“I’m going to drive your Mercedes, Papa. I hope that’s all right.”

Numbly he nodded. “Cars mean nothing to me now,” he mumbled. “My life is finished when you go.” He stared over my shoulder at Sylvia, who came to stand in the doorway. Something in her now formidable stance reminded me of Aunt Ellsbeth. There was a hint of Momma in her faint sardonic smile.

Oh, my God! My head began to ache, as I feared it would always ache in this house of spindles, bobbins and knobs, with its gold and brass gleaming, with its myriad colors confusing my thoughts and taking me away from other much more important things.

We were all a strange lot, the Whitefern girls. Daring to be different in the oddest ways. Words I’d heard Aunt Ellsbeth say to Momma and to that portrait of Aunt Mercy Marie that had made Tuesday teatimes a memorial service not to be enjoyed.

As I prepared to leave Arden and never see him again, Papa was pleading with his dark, dark eyes, even as he tried to deny Sylvia the right to take my place. Let him suffer the consequences of making her what she is … and God alone knew if it was Vera or Sylvia who hated Papa most. I suspected Sylvia would destroy any woman but me who came into Papa’s life when I left—if ever he wanted another woman.

“Good luck and goodbye, Sylvia. If ever you need me, I’ll come to take you home with me—wherever my home may be.”

Again I nodded to Papa, who sat on, glumly grim. I refused to look at Arden, who came down the stairs, dressed and ready to leave for his office. I thanked Sylvia again for being there when I needed her.

Some kind of strange wisdom was in her eyes as she nodded without trying to speak. Then she turned and nailed Papa to his chair with her penetrating stare. I shivered with the suspicion that Papa was not going to enjoy his youngest daughter who, with the flashing prism lights, controlled the destinies of those who tried to dominate too much.

With great reluctance, his face showing his misery, Arden carried my bags to the car and carefully stacked them in the trunk while I sat behind the wheel and prepared to go. “Goodbye, Arden. I’ll never forget all the fun we used to have when I believed you loved me. Even if I didn’t respond sexually the way you wanted all the time, I loved you in my own way.”

He winced from the pain of my casual parting before he said bitterly, “You’ll come back. You think you can say goodbye to me, to Whitefern, to Sylvia and to your father, but you’ll come back.”

My hands gripped the steering wheel more forcefully, thinking that this was Papa’s last, and most expensive gift to me. I looked around to see the three-day storm was over and the sky was washed clean and bright. All the world seemed to smell new, fresh, inviting. I breathed deeply and felt suddenly very happy. Free, at last, free.

Free of that stale wedding cake house with its cupola empty of the bride and groom. It was the dimness inside that house that made the colors too dominating. Some place far from here I could make it on my own and become a real kind of person who knew what she was.

What commanded me against my will to turn my head and have second thoughts about leaving? I didn’t want to stay!

Slowly, slowly, my head was forced to turn so that soon I was facing the house. My eyes lifted to that window on the second floor—that room I’d always presumed was her room, and through the cloudy glass I saw a pale small face staring out—a face that looked so much like my own I gasped. Framed in a mop of thick hair of an uncertain color that could change and blend with its surroundings, her wan face neared, retreated, neared, retreated. I could see that her lips were moving, saying something, perhaps singing the playroom song. My hand shook when I looked away and tried to turn the ignition key. What was wrong with my hand? I couldn’t make it obey!

NO! I screamed mentally while Arden stared at me as if I were crazy. Don’t, Sylvia! Let me go! I did the best I could for you, gave you years and years of my life, years and years! Give me the chance to live and find myself, please!

Louder sounded the wind chimes, clamoring, making my head ache so badly I wanted to scream, scream—but I had no voice.

Behind my eyes a premonition flashed. Something awful was going to happen to Papa. When it did, they’d put Sylvia away and never would she see the sunlight again.

I let go the ignition key and opened the car door, then stepped out and hurried to Arden whose eyes lit up as he held out his arms to embrace me. With a sob his face bowed into my hair as my arms held him just as tightly as he held me. We looked deeply into each other’s eyes, then together we tugged my suitcases from the trunk of the Mercedes.

My suitcases we left on the drive.

Like Papa’s love for me, I’d just done the most noble deed of my life. I was the First and Best Audrina who had always put love and loyalty first. There was no place for me to run. Shrugging, feeling sad, yet cleaner than I had since that rainy day in the woods, I felt a certain kind of accepting peace as Arden put his arm about my shoulders. Automatically my arm encircled his waist, and together we headed back to the porch where Papa and Sylvia had come out to watch. I saw happiness and relief in both pairs of eyes.

Arden and I would begin again in Whitefern, and if this time we failed, we’d begin a third time, a fourth …

Now turn the page for a sneak peek of

Whitefern

The sequel to My Sweet Audrina

By V.C. Andrews®

Available Summer 2016 from Pocket Books

Prologue

Papa died with my name on his lips. I would have thought his final words would be a call for my sister, Sylvia, or for Lucietta, our mother, who had died giving birth to Sylvia. For years afterward, I would think about the way he had said my name in those final moments. Was he calling to me asking for help, or was he asking for forgiveness? Was it merely pleasure at having his last thoughts be about me? Did he see my much younger face before him?

Arden, Sylvia, and I were there in his bedroom when he took his last breath. Sylvia and I were sitting beside the bed. Sylvia held his hand, and my husband, Arden, standing beside me, had his hand on my shoulder, his fingers drumming with impatience. He had been on his way out the door to go to work when Papa took a sudden turn for the worse. Of course, he’d thought it was another false alarm, but he quickly returned and saw that this time, it was very, very serious.