Daughters of Eve Read online

  “That’s okay, Dad,” Jane broke in quickly. “I don’t want to join anyway.”

  “Sure you do. Why else did you haul out that damned invitation and shove it at me? You could hardly wait till I was in the door before you started raving about it. ‘I’ve been asked to join a club!’ you yelled, all excited.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Well, I haven’t changed mine. Your mother is going to sing for us. I mean it, Ellie. There’s an issue at stake here. I’m going to hear that song from beginning to end if I have to—”

  No, no, no! Silently screaming, Jane jumped to her feet. Her parents didn’t seem to notice. Her mom sat scrunched back in her chair, her eyes wide and dark in the pale oval of her childishly unlined face. Her dad was flushed with anger, and a vein in his forehead was beginning to throb bright purple. One hand tightly clutched the martini glass, and the other was clenched into a fist.

  “I don’t want to join the stupid club!” Jane screamed at them. “I wouldn’t join it if they paid me to!”

  She whirled on her heel and ran from the room, up the stairs to the second-floor hall. She’d left the bedside lamp on in her room, and the soft pastels of peach and lime green beckoned to her from the half-open door at the end of the hallway. She burst through the doorway, slamming the door behind her, and threw herself facedown on the flowered spread.

  It was always, always this way on Fridays. How could she have thought tonight would be any different? The “end-of-the-week letdown,” her dad called it, when he called it anything, and her mom would say, “That’s just the way men are, dear. You have to accept it. Your dad works hard, and he gets so wound up and tense. It makes him happy to have me taking care of things at home; otherwise he’d have even more to worry about.”

  But other people’s fathers didn’t get that wound up, did they? Did Ann Whitten’s gentle, soft-spoken dad break character each Friday night to become a raging tyrant? Tammy Carncross’s dad taught science at the school. Did he arrive home at the end of the week shouting for his gin bottle? Well, maybe they did. How could she know?

  How could anyone know for sure what went on in all the neat white houses that lined the streets of a pleasant and sleepy little town like Modesta? Behind each door there was a family, and every family held its own secrets, clutched tightly away from the eyes of the rest of the world. You didn’t dishonor your family by discussing problems with others—everything here in Modesta was very… polite.

  I wish it were Monday, Jane thought wearily. I wish I were back in school again. Walking down the hall. People laughing and shoving. Lockers clanging. Smelling chewing gum and tennis shoes and perfume and chalk dust….

  Jane pressed her hands against the sides of her face to control the twitching. From the room below there came a thud and a high-pitched cry.

  A moment later, a thin, wavering voice began to sing.

  Chapter 2

  “The meeting will now come to order.” Erika Schneider raised the small wooden gavel and brought it down on the tabletop with a sharp click. She nodded toward the partially open door. “Will somebody shut that, please? Thank you, Tammy. Now, everyone join hands and repeat the club pledge.”

  Hands reached out on all sides around the art-room table and closed around other hands, and a chorus of solemn voices rose softly to recite the words:

  “I pledge myself to the spirit of sisterhood—and to the warmth of friendship. I promise to do my best—as a member of Daughters of Eve—to follow the code of loyalty, love and service—laid out for womankind since time’s beginning—and to divulge to no one words spoken in confidence—within this sacred circle.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then the hands released each other, and there was a shuffle of bodies shifting position to sit back more comfortably in the hard, straight-backed chairs.

  Erika glanced around the table, taking a silent roll call. Everyone was here, including the three new members. An odd trio they are, too, she thought as her eyes lingered momentarily upon their faces—Jane Rheardon, with the delicate, porcelain features and the incredible corn-silk hair; freckled, snub-nosed Kristy Grange; and Laura Snow. Erika still had reservations about Laura. The vote on her name had been close, and it’d been only because of Irene Stark’s strong support of her that she’d been offered membership.

  “We aren’t selecting candidates for a beauty contest,” Irene had said in that firm, decided way she had. “We’re a school-sponsored service club, not a snobby sorority. We’re extending an offer of sisterhood to people we feel would benefit from our supportive friendship. As your sponsor and adviser, it’s my definite opinion that Laura Snow is one of those people.”

  Well, she probably is, Erika conceded silently. It was also true, of course, that beauty wasn’t a criterion for membership. If it had been, Erika herself would’ve been an unlikely candidate. When she looked at herself in the mirror and saw a long, pointed nose and small, nearsighted eyes set close together in a narrow face, she was often reminded of a giant mosquito. When she put on her glasses, it really completed the picture, for the thick lenses exaggerated her eyes until they did, indeed, resemble insect eyes.

  “I wish you’d let us get you contact lenses,” her mom said repeatedly. “They’d make such a difference, Erika. Don’t you want boys to ask you out?”

  “Not particularly,” Erika answered, and meant it. The senior boys at Modesta High were of little interest to her. The only one with even a smattering of intelligence was Gordon Pellet, and he was too lazy to do anything with it.

  “Don’t you ever want to get married?” was her mom’s second question, delivered always with a soft little sigh of exasperation. “You’ll never get married, Erika, if you don’t start going out with boys.” Erika seldom even bothered to answer. Marriage, for what it was worth, lay a million miles in the future, if it was there at all. First there was graduation with, she hoped, a science scholarship. Then there was college, and after that, med school. On the side there would be studying, which was something she enjoyed, and probably a series of mundane jobs to help cover expenses. When love came, if it did, there would be time enough to discard her glasses in favor of contacts, but she didn’t intend to find romance among the boring, unambitious males who attended Modesta High.

  No, Erika wasn’t pretty, and she accepted that fact. Facial construction was something that God gave you. Being overweight was another thing entirely. She could think of no reason in the world for people to let themselves become unhealthy. To Erika, all it took was some discipline and exercise to stay in shape.

  Still, what was done was done. The vote had gone through, just barely, and here sat Laura, looking eager and nervous and happy. She’d dressed for the occasion in a blue knit top that was pulled so tight across her chest that it looked as though it might split at any moment, and her head was squished down, giving her the illusion of extra chins that rested on her chest like a stack of saucers on a sky-blue tablecloth. On Laura’s right sat Kristy Grange. There’d been no dissension over voting in Kristy; everyone at Modesta High knew the Grange boys, Niles and Peter. On her left was Jane Rheardon, a no-doubter. Besides her straight-A record from middle school, Jane was a legacy, her mother having been a member of the Modesta chapter back when it had first been established.

  Erika drew a long breath and addressed herself to the three of them.

  “It’s my honor as president of the Modesta chapter of Daughters of Eve to welcome you—Jane, Laura and Kristy—to our meeting and to extend a formal invitation to you to become members of our sisterhood. I’m Erika Schneider, and here on my left is our faculty sponsor, Irene Stark. She was sponsor of the Jefferson chapter in Chicago before she moved here the middle of last year, so she has a real background working with this organization. Do you want to say anything, Irene?”

  “Well, I’ll add my welcome to yours, Erika,” Irene Stark said in a low, rich voice. “I want you girls to know how pleased we are to have you with us. You all know me as your art t
eacher, and, of course, I’m ‘Ms. Stark’ to you in class, but within our sisterhood I just want to be ‘Irene.’ I want you to feel free to come to me at any time with your problems, and to consider me a friend and, if you can, a sort of older sister.” She turned to Erika with a smile. “Is there more I should be telling them, Madam President?”

  “I think you covered it, Irene.” Erika gently stressed the use of the given name. Of all the teachers with whom she’d had contact during her school years, Irene Stark was the only one who’d ever made her feel like a contemporary.

  “Will the secretary please read the minutes of the last meeting?” Erika asked.

  Ann Whitten got to her feet.

  “The September eighteenth meeting of the Modesta chapter of Daughters of Eve was held in the high-school art room,” she read carefully, frowning down at her own handwriting. “Seven members were present. The minutes of the final meeting in May were read and accepted, and the treasurer’s report was given.

  “As there was no old business, the president opened the meeting with the discussion of new members. Six names were suggested and voted upon. The girls elected to membership were Jane Rheardon, Kristy Grange and Laura Snow. It was decided that invitations be issued immediately so the member-elects could be initiated at the next meeting.

  “As there was no other business, Tammy Carncross moved that the meeting be adjourned. Paula Brummell seconded the motion. The meeting was adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Ann Whitten, secretary.”

  Ann raised her face from her notes, looking flushed and a trifle embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry that didn’t sound very businesslike. I’ve never taken minutes before.”

  “They were fine,” Erika said. “Are there any additions or corrections? Paula?”

  “This isn’t exactly an addition or correction,” Paula Brummell said. “I just wanted to ask a question. Why is it we were only able to vote in three members? Is there some special reason why our number has to be kept to ten?”

  “Is there, Irene?” Erika asked, turning to the teacher.

  “I think the ruling is based on the size of the student body,” Irene said. “The school in Chicago was quite a bit larger than Modesta High, so we were allowed seventeen members in our Jefferson chapter. The bylaws were formed at the national level, so we really don’t have much to say about them.”

  “I think they’re stupid,” Paula said. “We wanted six girls as members, but we could only vote in three of them. What would be the problem with increasing our membership to thirteen?”

  “Then the club wouldn’t be as exclusive,” said Holly Underwood. “Daughters of Eve has a reputation. We’re not just any group that anybody can get into—we’re the group. If we started taking in a bunch of extra people, it wouldn’t mean as much to be a member.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Irene said. “The importance of our group is the quality of sisterhood we offer each other, and that quality shows itself in what we do for the school. Each member’s problems are the problems of all of us; we relate closely to each other with trust and loyalty and caring. When you expand membership, that personal element lessens. Pretty soon the group splits into subgroups who care more about themselves than about the membership as a whole.”

  “That makes sense,” Erika said. “And now, I wonder if our prospective members have any questions before their initiation.”

  There was a pause. Then Kristy raised her hand.

  “I’ve got sort of a problem about the meeting time,” she said. “Is it always after school on Mondays?”

  “It always has been,” Erika told her. “Do you have a conflict?” Erika was surprised—she wasn’t aware of Kristy being involved in any sports or other extracurricular activities. “Would another afternoon be better?”

  Kristy hesitated, then shook her head. “No, not really, I guess. It’s okay. I’ll work things out.”

  “Do you have any questions, Laura?”

  “No,” Laura Snow said softly. Her eyes were glowing.

  “Jane?”

  Jane Rheardon gave a little start, as though her mind had been somewhere else. “I’m sorry, I missed the question.”

  “Do you have any questions about the club?” Erika asked patiently.

  “No,” Jane said. “I don’t have any questions at all.”

  Something is wrong.

  Wrong how?

  I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.

  Then it can’t be very important.

  It was a habit of Tammy Carncross’s to have discussions with herself inside her head. Sometimes she felt there must really be two parts of her, two distinct personalities; one was the thinking part, and the other one went strictly on emotions. As she sat now, silent, watching the initiation take place, the two voices within her head went back and forth at each other like bickering children, and Tammy longed to tell them, Shut up! Be quiet. I’m trying to enjoy the ceremony.

  The shades in the art-room windows had been closed, and three white candles had been lit. Before them, Erika had placed an open Bible from which she read aloud:

  “And Ruth said, ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.’ ”

  It was a moving ceremony. At last year’s initiation Tammy had found her eyes filling with tears at the beauty of the ancient words as they described the devotion of one woman to another and her decision to follow her friend to a strange and foreign land rather than let her journey there alone. They were no less beautiful now. The three new members stood with bent heads, and the light from the candles flickered softly upon their faces and threw leaping shadows on the far wall.

  “Such is the spirit of sisterhood—”

  Something is wrong.

  You have no reason for thinking that.

  I have this feeling—

  At home they joked a lot about Tammy’s “feelings.” “Our oracle,” her father called her, in the same fond way he called Tammy’s older sister, Marnie, “our brain.” It was a form of teasing, but there was just enough truth behind the nicknames to make them more than casual. Marnie had aced her way into a scholarship to Northwestern, the same college from which their father had graduated, and when Tammy had feelings, her family listened even when they laughed. Her mother liked to tell about a time when her younger daughter was three and had a “funny feeling” about the toilet in the ground-floor bathroom. “It feels mad at us,” she’d announced with great earnestness. The next morning they had woken up to find that the toilet had backed up overnight and the entire first floor was inches deep in water, and Mrs. Carncross, who was a writer, had written the incident up as a short feature for the “Out of the Mouths of Babes” section of a national parenting magazine.

  Tammy herself couldn’t remember that occasion, because she had been too little, but over the years she’d come to accept her feelings as a natural extension of her thought process. When she took a school exam, she would think through each problem to a logical answer, and then, before writing it down, she would ask herself, But what do I feel? If the thought and the feeling weren’t compatible, she would redo the problem.

  Tammy also had feelings about people. These didn’t come to her often, but when they did occur, they were rarely misleading. Two years ago she’d been one of the girls standing before the row of candles, listening to the biblical story of Ruth. Four girls were being initiated, and Tammy had known none of the others. Shy by nature, and awed by the solemnity of the occasion, she’d been standing with lowered eyes, with her full attention on the reading, when she’d become suddenly hyperaware of the girl standing next to her and of another girl at the end of the row just outside the circle of light.

  They will be my friends, Tammy had thought.

  The knowl
edge had come to her with such certainty that her lips had curved involuntarily into a smile, and Marnie, who was then president, had paused in her reading and frowned at her reprovingly. “You were laughing during the Bible reading,” she accused later, and Tammy had said, “No, I wasn’t, Marn. I was just feeling happy.”

  It hadn’t happened overnight. The bonds between them had grown slowly. But now, in their senior year, Ann Whitten and Kelly Johnson were her closest friends.

  Today, with the same intensity of feeling, Tammy knew that something was very wrong. There was an alien presence in the room. It moved like a shadow between her eyes and the flickering candles, and though the room was warm, actually quite hot with the windows covered and the people within it gathered so close together, Tammy shivered.

  What is it—?

  And then she saw it, thick and dark, dripping from one of the candles like melted wax. The word flashed through her mind like a high-pitched scream—BLOOD!

  Did nobody else see it? Evidently not. Or perhaps they simply didn’t want to see.

  Erika had laid the Bible aside now and was explaining the meaning of the pledge. “It shows us in the Bible that Eve was the universal mother, so we are all, in a sense, her daughters, and by acknowledging this we claim each other as sisters. Just as Ruth was willing to sacrifice her personal comfort, her ties to home and her chance for remarriage in order to be supportive of Naomi when she was lonely and in need, so do we, within this sisterhood, promise to make the same sacrifices for each other. Do you so vow?”

  Three voices—softly—“I do.”

  “Then let us welcome our three new sisters into the light!”

  Someone switched on the overhead lights. The room leaped into brilliance.

  The candle shafts gleamed white and pure.

  Tammy closed her eyes and pressed her hands against the lids. It hadn’t been real; there was no blood. Her mind had been playing a trick on her. But there in her self-created darkness, the bleeding taper reappeared, etched against the inside of her lids, and a terrible warning kept shrilling through her brain.