"Oh Luke," I said smiling at his determination to hold on to our precious, secret fantasies, "I hope you will always be nearby when I need someone to cheer me up."

"Of course I will," he promised.

But I couldn't help wondering if that too was just another one of our childhood fantasies.

THREE.

Crossroads.

Drake couldn't return from college until after the end of June because he had finals to take, but he phoned me a few days after he had mailed his letter to be sure I had received it and to tell me more about Farthy.

"Tony Tatterton showed me what was once Heaven's room when she first came to Farthy to live," Drake said in a voice lowered in confidence.

"He did!" My heart beat faster, louder, at just the thought of his being there, being where so many secret things involving our family had taken place. Of all of us, Drake had been closest to the answers to the questions that haunted. Were there any clues he might have missed that I would have seen?

"Or what was also your grandmother Leigh's room. I got a little confused about that because one moment he was telling me about Heaven and the next he was talking about Leigh."

"Maybe he's the confused one; maybe he's senile," I suggested.

"I don't think so. He still handles some of the business affairs for the Tatterton Toy Company, and when we began to talk. about my career and the economy, he seemed very sharp and up on everything."

"How does he look? Like he did in the pictures?"

"Not anymore. He's completely gray, and when I saw him, he obviously hadn't shaved for a few days. He was wearing what looked to be expensive clothing, but his jacket needed pressing, as did his pants, and his tie was stained. I don't think the butler, a man called Curtis, is much good any longer. His eyesight is apparently poor and it takes him ages to move from one room to another."

"Weren't there any maids?" I asked, a little astounded. I would have thought a man as rich as Tony Tatterton was surrounded by a staff of servants.

"I didn't see any, but I'm sure there must be at least one to clean up the areas he lives in. I met the cook because he helped serve the meal. His name is . . get this . . Rye Whiskey."

"Oh, I remember hearing Mommy mention that name," I squealed with excitement. Just hearing the name made the few stories from the forbidden past come alive for me. "He must be very old, too."

"Probably, but he doesn't show his age as much as the butler does. He was so grateful for another mouth to feed, he piled enough food for three on my plate. I liked him. He has a great sense of humor, and I could see he cares a great deal about Tony."

"How I wish I had been there too," I cried. Every moment would reveal a discovery and a new and better understanding of my family's past, I thought. To walk up those stairs and step into what had been my grandmother's and my mother's room! Perhaps I would have seen something that would immediately solve the mystery of why my mother disliked Tony Tatterton so much and refused to go back, even for a visit.

Most of all I would be in Luke's and my dream world. Would it prove to be anything like we imagined? Would it be the place where we could be free and true, where we would be isolated and protected from all the harsh, nasty, ugly, and distorted things that make life a burden sometimes?

To paint it as it really was! How exciting that would be. I could see myself set up on the big front lawn, the enormous building spread before me.

"You wouldn't want to be there," Drake said in a tone of discouragement. "Believe me. It was too sad. I promised I would keep in touch with him, so I think I'll phone him in a few days. I rather like the possibility of working in his company, as an executive, of course. But don't tell Heaven I said that."

"Of course not." Once again I was surprised at Drake's willingness not only to keep all this from my mother but to pursue a relationship with Tony Tatterton, something which she would despise intensely. What sort of a man could Tony Tatterton be, I wondered, that he could have such a dramatic effect on Drake and be such a strong influence, even now?

"Well, anyway, I'll see you in a few weeks. I'm afraid I will have to miss f.a.n.n.y's big birthday party, which is something I regret. She wrote to tell me she's going to have a band, and that she's having it catered. She's invited loads of people, many of your parent's friends, too. She even hired people to decorate her house and grounds. Can you imagine throwing yourself such a big celebration! I just know she's setting up her own audience for one of her outlandish shows. Take notes so you can tell me all the ridiculous and embarra.s.sing things she does. I imagine she will invite all her young boyfriends, who will gather around her like suitors at the feet of a queen. I laugh just thinking about it."

"It's not funny for Luke," I said, sorry to see that even Drake had to make fun of f.a.n.n.y. "He doesn't even want to go! He dreads it!" I exclaimed.

"So?" Drake said with surprising indifference and insensitivity. "Tell him to hide in his room. I'll call you again after I speak with Tony again, and let you know anything else of interest."

I couldn't stop thinking about what he had seen and what he had done.

"Oh, Drake, you were the only one of us who was ever there and now you've been back and will go again," I whined like a jealous little girl. I couldn't help it.

"You'll be there, too, through me," Drake promised, his voice softer, kinder, "and it won't be any fantasy game. Talk to you soon. Bye."

I couldn't wait for our lunch break the following day at school, so I could tell Luke all about Drake's phone call. I never expected him to be as excited as I was, because he didn't have family roots at Farthy and wasn't as concerned about the ancestors and the mysteries surrounding my mother's past, but he usually got involved because of our fantasies. He sat munching on his sandwich listlessly and listened, but I could see he was terribly distracted and troubled. Unlike his usual self, he refused to talk when I questioned him. I thought about him all the rest of the school day, and after it ended, asked him to walk me home, just so I could question him some more.

It was one of those late spring days that was more like the peak of summer, with puffy, fat white clouds sliding lazily across the turquoise sky. As Luke and I walked along, we heard the clink and clank of ice in pitchers of lemonade. Elderly people sat out on their porches and stared out curiously. Once in a while we could hear someone say something like, "That's the Stonewall girl," or "Ain't that a Casteel?"

I hated the way they p.r.o.nounced "Casteel," making it sound like a curse word, like a family less than human. I knew much of why people saw the Casteels the way they did was because of my aunt f.a.n.n.y's behavior over the years, and the fact that the Casteels were people from the w.i.l.l.i.e.s, mountain people who were not as educated and had a fraction of the wealth town people had. Town people were disdainful of the way w.i.l.l.i.e.s people dressed and lived, and a lot of that was understandable, but why couldn't they see how wonderful Luke was and how much he had overcome? He was right. "Go for the tall ones!"

I especially loved this walk home from school in spring because the streets were lined with flowering trees and shrubs, lawns were fresh and kelly green, tulips, irises and azaleas were blossoming, walkways and patios were scrubbed clean. Starlings sat like sentinels on telephone lines, watching the traffic of cars and people below. Robins, perched on branches, peaked out with curious eyes between cool, rich green leaves. Only an occasional hummingbird flew nearby. They seemed to have endless energy no matter how hot it was. The world looked fresh and alive.

For most of the walk home, Luke was closedlipped and walked with his head down. When I stopped at the entrance to the walk of Hasbrouck House, I could see he was unaware we had arrived.

"Do you want to sit in the gazebo for a while?" I asked hopefully, for I wanted to keep him with me until he told me exactly what was bothering him.

"No, I'd better get home," he said, his voice filled with melancholy.

"Luke Toby Casteel!" I finally exclaimed, my hands on my hips. "You and I are not in the habit of keeping secrets from one another, even if they are painful ones."

He stared at me a moment, looking as if he had suddenly woken up and realized I was there. Then he shifted his eyes away.

"I was accepted to Harvard yesterday on a fully paid, tuition scholarship," he said with a surprising absence of feeling and excitement.

"Oh, Luke, how wonderful!"

He put his hand up to indicate that wasn't all he was going to say about it, and then looked down again and gathered his strength to continue as I waited with a lump in my throat.

"I never even told my mother I had applied to Harvard. Every time I used to mention it, she would go into one of her tirades about the blue bloods and this ungrateful family that thinks it's so much better than her. She would rant and rave about Uncle Keith and Aunt Jane and how they won't ever call her or write her or acknowledge her existence. It bothers her that she was never invited to Farthinggale, not even to your parents' wedding reception. In her mind she links it all together: Harvard, the Tattertons, wealth, and those she calls "Bean Town Sn.o.bs."

"But Luke, that's so unfair to you," I consoled him. He nodded.

"Anyway," he continued, "I didn't tell her about my application. Yesterday the acceptance announcing the scholarship came in the mail and she opened it. Then she got drunk and ripped it up. I found the pieces on the floor in my room."

"Oh, Luke, I'm sorry." I cringed just thinking what it must have been like for him to walk into his room and discover such an important piece of mail scattered all over the floor.

"That's all right. Her ripping it up won't stop me from going. It was the ugly things she said while she was in one of her drunken states."

Without his having to tell me, I knew what direction her ugly words had taken.

"About my father?" He nodded. I took a deep breath to prepare myself. "You might as well tell me." I closed my eyes and winced at the antic.i.p.ated ugliness.

"I won't tell you all of it because some of it was so vicious and hateful, I don't want to remember it myself, much less repeat it to you. The worst part was when she accused me of being more like Logan than her, being more loyal to his goody-two-shoes side of the family than to her, but really, Annie, your parents treat me better than she does. She's hardly ever home to make dinner, but she hates me for spending so much time at your house!"

"Oh, she doesn't hate you, Luke."

"She hates half of me, the Stonewall half, so she gets drunk and runs off with one of her young boyfriends and then chastises me because I don't like her when she's drunk and with them!"

"I'm sorry, Luke, but soon you'll be going off to college and you'll be away from all this," I promised, even though I hated the thought that he and I would be separated.

"The thing is, I don't hate her, Annie. I hate what she does to herself sometimes, and I feel sorry for her and the life she's had. So I worked hard and did well and made it possible for her to be proud and walk with her head high, not that she wouldn't anyway," he added. I smiled. Aunt f.a.n.n.y wouldn't hesitate to flaunt any of her success to anyone in Winnerrow. "But instead of being happy I was accepted to Harvard on a full scholarship, she accuses me of deserting her."

"She will change her mind," I a.s.sured him. Poor Luke, I thought. He had worked so hard to make us all proud of him and his mother had torn that pride into pieces and left it lying like garbage on the floor. How his heart must have broken. I wanted to comfort him, to soothe his mental anguish, to hold him in my arms and help him to feel content and happy once again. I could do it, if only . . . if only there wasn't so much preventing me.

"I don't know. Anyway, I'm not looking forward to her birthday party. She has invited every man who's taken her out and some of her low-cla.s.s friends, just so she could rub it into the family." He shook his head. "It's not going to be nice or any fun for us."

"My mother will handle it; she always does," I said as my admiration for my mother brightened my spirits. "She can be a lady no matter what. I hope have half her strength when I'm her age."

Luke nodded knowingly, that deep a.n.a.lytical look in his eyes as he came to his conclusion.

"You will. You're just like her."

"Thank you. There is no one I would rather be like. And don't worry about the party. I'll be there with you to help if Aunt f.a.n.n.y gets out of hand," I a.s.sured him, my eyes as intense and my face as determined as Mommy's could be when she was decided about something.

"You haven't seen her really out of hand, Annie," Luke warned. Then he shook his head and smiled, his face brightening. "Anyway, thanks for listening. You've always been there when I've needed you and it's always made a difference. You don't realize how much of a difference, Annie. Just knowing you were there for me helped me to go on, to climb those taller mountains, to want to see that view. When I was accepted to Harvard, I thought to myself, Annie will be proud and it's because of Annie that I want this so much, want to make so much of myself. Sometimes, I feel you're the only real family I have. Thank you, Annie."

"You don't have to thank me for that, Luke Toby, Jr." I didn't like the way it sounded, like I was just a good friend. I was more; I had to be more. I wanted to be more. "You have often listened to my troubles, too."

He smiled at my reminder, his blue eyes turning as soft and warm as the sky above us.

"I'll miss you when you go off to Europe to study art. I know how important it is to you, though," he added softly. "And I know it's going to help you become the wonderful artist you are meant to become."

"I'll write to you all the time, but I'm sure after the first week, you'll have yourself a "bean town" girlfriend." How I wanted to tell him that I would always be his girlfriend, but how could I? We were brother and sister and it seemed as if the whole world stood between us and what we really wanted, for I knew in my heart that he felt some of what I felt and there was a part of both of us that cried and mourned and wished we could stay together forever and ever.

So we had to pretend, to talk about each other finding someone else, even though in our hearts, we hoped and prayed it would never happen.

His smile disappeared and he turned as serious as a deacon on Sunday.

"I don't know. After having you for a friend all my life, she's going to have to be pretty perfect whoever she is." His shiny blue eyes swung my way again, filled with warmth and affection, but it was more than just a brotherly affection. He looked at me with such longing I felt a flush move up my neck and settle into my cheeks. He was looking at me and I was looking at him the way two young lovers would.

There was no denying it. Every part of me cried out to embrace him; I could almost feel his lips against mine. He waited, looking for some encouragement. I had to stop it before it went too far.

"I'll call you later," I whispered in a breathy voice, and ran down the walkway to the front entrance of Hasbrouck House. When I looked back, he was still standing there. He waved and I waved back. I slipped into the house and rushed up to my room quickly, my heart thumping harder than ever. Why did Luke have to be my half brother, closer to me than anyone my age could be? We shared so much, our happiness and our sadness.

How I wished that he was a stranger going to Harvard, and I was visiting Tony Tatterton at Farthinggale, and Luke and I had just met in Boston. Perhaps we would meet in a department store. He would come up beside me and say something like, "Oh that's not your color. Here." He would reach for the aqua shawl. "You want to bring out the blue in your eyes."

I would turn and look into the most handsome face I had ever seen and instantly fall in love.

"Forgive me for being so forward, but I couldn't stand by and watch you make a mistake." He would speak with his familiar self-confidence and sweep me off my feet. I always felt more secure when I was with Luke.

"Then I'll have to thank you," I would say, batting my eyelashes coquettishly. "But first I have to know your name."

"Luke. And your name is Annie. I already took the trouble to find out."

"Really?" I would be flattered, impressed. Afterward we would go for coffee and talk and talk. We would go to movies and dinner every time I came to Boston. Then, he would come to see me at the estate and we would get to know one another in that palatial setting, only it wouldn't be the way Drake had described it; it would be the way Luke and I had fantasized: a castle filled with rainbow rooms of dreams. If only I could go to sleep and when I woke up, the fantasy be a reality.

But that couldn't be. Time was like a roller coaster and we were approaching the peak of the steepest hill. We were both about to graduate high school and then we would go rushing downward into our futures that might easily take us into far different directions. We couldn't even turn around to look back.

After I stood by my bedroom window and watched him walk off, I lay there on ray bed, staring out the window through the pink and white curtains, hearing the birds serenade each other and listening to the thumping of my own heart. It made me so sad that I cried for what seemed like hours. Mother's soft, concerned voice rescued me from my own tears.

"Annie, what's wrong?" She came in quickly and sat beside me on the bed. "Honey?" I felt the comfort of her hand on my hair, stroking the long, dark brown strands with concern. I turned my tearfilled my eyes toward her.

"Oh Mother, I don't know," I moaned. "Sometimes, I just can't help crying and feeling just terrible. I know I should be happy. Soon I'll be graduating and going off for an extended visit to Europe, seeing all those wonderful places most people only read about or see pictures of, and I have so many things other girls my age don't have, but . ."

"But what, Annie?"

"But suddenly everything seems to be happening too fast. Luke is getting ready to go off to college and become someone else. We'll probably hardly ever see each other again," I cried.

"But this is what it means to grow up, honey." She smiled and kissed my cheek.

"And all the things that used to look so big and important to me look small and . . . and simple. The gazebo . . ."

"What about the gazebo, Annie?" She waited with her smile frozen on her lips as I tried to find words that made any sense to me as well as to her.

"It's just a. . . gazebo now," I protested. "Well, that's all it ever was, Annie."

"No, it was more," I insisted. So much more, I thought. It was our dream place and dreams were falling away too quickly.

She shook her head.

"You're just going through something everyone your age goes through, Annie. Life can be scary when it comes to these crossroads. All this time you've been a little girl, protected and loved, and now you're being asked to be grown up and responsible."

"Did this happen to you, too?" I asked.

"A lot earlier, I'm afraid."

"Because your father sold you and your brothers and sisters?"

"Even before that, Annie. I didn't have much of an opportunity to be a little girl. Before I knew what was happening, I had to be a mother to Keith and Jane."

"I know. And f.a.n.n.y was no help," I repeated. I had heard this before and was afraid it was all I would hear now.

"No." She laughed. "Hardly. f.a.n.n.y has always been able to discard her frustrations like a garment easy to rip off. But your uncle Tom was a great help. Tom was wonderful and strong and very mature for his age. How I wish you could have known him," she added wistfully, her eyes, so much like my own, taking on a faraway look.

"But your life got so much better after you went to live at Farthy, didn't it?" I prompted, hoping she might tell me more. She appeared startled, as if she really had been in some other world.

"Not right away. Don't forget I was a girl from the w.i.l.l.i.e.s suddenly going to live in a fancy, sophisticated, luxurious world, sent to a posh school attended only by rich, sn.o.bby girls who made me feel unwanted." Her face hardened as she remembered. "Rich girls can be very cruel because their money and wealth protects them like a coc.o.o.n. Don't ever be inconsiderate and unsympathetic to those who have less than you do, Annie."

"Oh I won't," I insisted. Surely Mother had instilled that in me from the time I was old enough to talk.