The Grantville Gazette - Volume 4 Part 4

"Justine, what happened?" Brandy asked. Justine had run past her, crying and in a panic.

Justine stood at the washbasin, holding a wet cloth over her left eye. Her normally neat appearance wasn't in evidence today. One of her sleeves was torn, her hair loose from its usually neat braid and her face was flushed. Her right eye leaked tears and she appeared to be shivering with fright.

"What is going on around here?" Barbara Monroe boomed, causing both young women to jump. "What

on earth? Justine, what happened to you?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out, Mrs. Monroe," Brandy answered, "but Justine hasn't had a chance to answer me."

Barbara approached the shivering Justine and coaxed her to lower the cloth. The flesh around Justine's

left eye was beginning to show some spectacular color. It was going to be a remarkable shiner.

"Who did this, Justine? Tell me. I'm going to call the police right now." Barbara was outraged. "Who ever it was is going to spend a few days in jail."

"No, please," Justine cried. "Please do not, Frau Monroe. Do not, I beg you."

"Young lady, no one is going to attack you and get away with it. Who was it?"

Justine stubbornly refused to answer, until Barbara gave up her questioning. "Brandy, I don't know

what's going on, but if she won't let me call the police, why don't you take her to your house? She's in no state to work. Besides, I don't want anyone to see her this way. You'll both still get paid for today, I'll see

to that. Keep her with you for the weekend, even. Maybe by Monday she'll come to her senses and turn this person in. Wait here, while I go get Reardon Miller to walk you two home."

Brandy could tell that Justine had been a little afraid to leave the building, but the presence of Mr. Miller rea.s.sured her. The walk to Brandy's house was fairly short and no one bothered the girls. The streets weren't exactly deserted, but almost everyone in the neighborhood worked, so the area was nearly empty. Once they had entered the house and locked the doors, Mr. Miller headed back to the research center.

Brandy got Justine settled on the couch in the living room and made a couple of cups of mint tea. After serving Justine, she sat down and tried to organize her thoughts.

Brandy looked over at Justine, who sat quietly and seemed to be beginning to relax. "Who did this?"

Justine began crying quietly. Brandy was dismayed at how quickly the tears began. "Justine, just tell me.

I'm not going to call the cops. I just want to know so we can stay away from whoever did it."

Justine seemed to calm down and finally began to speak. "It was Arend. He was the man I would marry, if Magdeburg had not been destroyed, if we had stayed at home. My father, he brought him with us, when we fled. He has gone mad, Brandy. He did this when I told him I must come to work. He screamed that I have helped to destroy him, and that I am becoming too much like the Americans. He screamed that he would kill me, if I did not stop."

Brandy could tell that this wasn't the whole story. Her own experience left her feeling that Justine was leaving out a lot of details.

"What else did he do? This isn't all of it, Justine."

Justine couldn't answer at first, she was crying so hard. "Henning, he does not know. Arend, when we ran from the city, he . . . he . . ."

"He got you alone, when your brother and your father were doing something else, and he raped you, didn't he?"

Justine wept hysterically and it seemed a long while before she was able to speak."I have been so afraid. Arend swore to me that he would kill me if I told of this. He was to be my husband, he said, and I must obey. Mein brudder, Henning, Arend, he would kill him, too. Arend, he is mad. I fear to tell Henning. Arend will kill him and I will have no one. I do not want to be alone in the world. We have no home, no money, and now I am . . ."

When Justine shuddered to a halt, Brandy knew what words she had been unable to speak. "No, Justine.

You are not spoiled. You are not ruined. It wasn't your fault, and you didn't deserve it," Brandy a.s.serted.

"No matter what you think, no matter what he said, that much just isn't true."

"You do not understand . . . You do not. I feel so . . ."

Brandy's own tears started rolling down her face. "Dirty. You feel dirty and ashamed and you don't think

you'll ever be clean again. You feel so dirty that you can't imagine ever being worth anything to anyone.

Not even to yourself."

Justine's eyes widened in shock as she looked into Brandy's eyes, and understood what she saw there.

"You! It happened also to you?"

"Oh, yes, Justine," Brandy said. "It happened to me, and I don't even have the excuse that I was running from soldiers. I deliberately went somewhere I wasn't supposed to go and was doing something I wasn't

supposed to be doing . . ."

"Like at a certain frat party, with a certain young man I told you to stay away from, maybe?" Donna

knew she should have kept quiet. She hadn't been able to stop the words. Both young women stopped talking, exactly what Donna didn't want.

"How long have you been standing there, Mom?"

"Long enough, Brandy, long enough," Donna admitted as she walked into the room. "You two were so

intent that I guess you didn't hear me come in. I've thought for years now that something must have happened to you and that whatever it was, it had to be pretty ugly. You just wouldn't tell me and I wasn't sure what to do except wait. Go on, finish your story," she continued, as she sat down and put her arms around her daughter. "Get it out."

"I don't know all of it, Mom. I think he slipped me some kind of drug, maybe. I have flashes of memory, sort of pictures in my head." Donna held her daughter tightly as Brandy started shaking. "They're awful.

He did things, things that make me sick to think of. I couldn't talk about it. What would you have thought of me, if I told you? What would anybody think?"

All three women were crying, and talking at once. In Brandy's case, years of poisonous thoughts, self- recriminations, fears of betrayal and discovery poured out. For Justine, it was months, but the feelings of degradation weren't limited by the time. Eventually, the emotional storm began to wear down.

Gradually, over a s.p.a.ce of time, the weeping diminished. Finally, Donna stood and shook herself into some kind of order.

"Okay, you two. It's out. You can go on with life and we can make it better. There's not a thing we can do to the man who hurt Brandy, Justine, but there is something that can be done about this Arend person.

You need to tell your brother."

"Mein Gott, Henning! It is so late, he will be worried. I must go. He does not know where I am. He was to meet me after the work, and I am not there."

The knock on the door startled everyone. Donna was relieved to find Blake Haggerty standing on the porch, along with another young man in an MP uniform. Behind them stood another man who, judging from his looks, could only be Henning Drugen, Justine's brother.

"Mrs. Bates, do you know where Brandy is? We were pa.s.sing the research center and found Henning here going a little crazy trying to find his sister. Mr. Reardon said that Miss Drugen might still be with Brandy."

"They're both here, Blake. Gentlemen, come in," Donna answered. "There's a bit of a problem, and you're just the people we need to see."

* * * Mary Emerson smiled as Gannon sat down at the dinner table. For a change, all four of her family would have a chance to talk over dinner. The last two years had been incredibly hectic. Between Gannon working the "B" shift, her own work at the library, young David's birth, and the Ring of Fire, Mary sometimes felt like she had lost touch with her family.

"There's nothing like a dinner with two beautiful women to make a guy happy," Gannon joked. "A couple of gorgeous blondes, a bouncing boy, and a quiet dinner at home seems like heaven to me." Mary and Vicky both grinned at Gannon, pleased to be together. Even the two-year-old David gurgled happily in his highchair, chanting "Da, Da" sounds and making the usual mess with his food.

So much has been going on in our lives, Mary thought. The addition of the housekeeper and her daughter to the household, while relieving her child-care concerns and domestic responsibilities, had also added an element of reserve between Mary, Vicky and Gannon. Tonight, with Margrethe and Eva away, Mary had both the time and the privacy to pay attention to her husband and daughter.

"Vicky, I swear it seems like you've grown-up all of a sudden. I never noticed that outfit before tonight.

It looks really good on you."

Vicky blushed, a bit, and breezily answered, "Well, I haven't had it very long. All my old stuff was getting kind of short. I wonder if I'm ever going to stop growing up and start growing out."

Gannon looked a little embarra.s.sed suddenly. He hastily changed the subject, "All your investments must be going pretty well then. I was kind of surprised when I had to buy a new shirt. Just couldn't believe the cost."

"Oh, I'm in pretty good shape, Dad. I can afford a few things." "You know, Gannon," Mary said, "that reminds me about our own savings. That money is just sitting in the bank, not doing much. Don't you think that we should probably take advantage of having a financial genius in the house? Vicky, I used to think that you might be a little young for this, but now, with you so grown up and all, maybe you could recommend some investments for me and Dad." * * * Vicky sat at her desk and thought hard. "You've been stupid," she told herself, "You've been stupid, silly, jealous, and acting like a brat." The other girls might have a point. She had been a little extravagant lately. Maybe she hadn't really needed quite so many new things.

Still, Vicky knew she was good at this investing game. Not quite as good or as focused as Susan, but

certainly as good as Judy. She could be even better if she wanted to. And, suddenly, she did want to. If

Mom and Dad trusted her, she wasn't going to let them down.

Vicky reached for the phone and glared at the offending instrument. Making this call wasn't going to be easy. She had to stay in the consortium. She needed their input. She was going to have to talk to Judy.

"I'm sorry, Millie," Anita said. "I didn't realize you were in here."

Millicent blushed furiously as she wrapped the towel around herself. "I hate being called Millie, Mom. It sounds like a name from 'Little House on the Prairie.' It seems like I'm old enough that you could call me by the name you gave me."