DISCLAIMER: All of these characters belong to VC Andrews and her estate. This is just for fun.
SUMMARY: Deidre and Darren, Jory's beloved twins, have grown up with no memory of their birth mother, Melodie, or the horrors of Foxworth Hall. One fateful summer will change all of that.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've hade this idea for a while and just decided to write it.
PROLOGUE: Veiled in Shadow
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My twin brother Darren and I had no memories of Foxworth Hall, or the events that had taken place there. Our minds, I had once overheard Dad telling our step-mother Toni, had been mercifully wiped clean. Often Darren and I had paralyzing nightmares, and woke up in cold sweats, our hearts pounding in our ears and sweat pouring down the sides of our faces. Even then, though, we could not recall the images from our dreams.
Our minds were our greatest allies, along with our father and step-mother, against those traumatic early years.
The summer of our fourteenth year, Dad received a message from his brother Bart, whom we'd not seen in many years. Uncle Bart had been a televangelist when he was much younger, traveling the world and spreading his message of peace and God's redeeming love. Now, Uncle Bart lived alone at Foxworth Hall, focusing on his charity, the Bartholomew Foxworth Trust.
Dad refused to visit Foxworth Hall, and blocked all of Uncle Bart's invitations.
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"I don't care, Antonia, I'm not going back there," he'd raged at our step-mother after Uncle Bart called him to invite us out. "I left Foxworth Hall behind. I'm not going back. That place holds too many bad memories for me."
"Oh Jory," Toni had begged, "it's in the past. It's not as if Foxworth Hall is haunted. There are no ghosts lurking the halls and rattling their chains."
Dad had refused to listen though, and rejected Uncle Bart's invitation yet again.
Our family consisted of Dad, his second wife Toni, Darren and myself, and the baby of the family, Catherine. The five of us lived comfortably in Virginia, where Dad was a well-known painter and Toni was a physical therapist. We Marquet children wanted for nothing growing up, cherished and, perhaps, even spoiled by loving parents.
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Although Toni was not our biological mother, Darren and I loved her as if she was. Our birth mother, Melodie, had fled shortly after we were born, with no explanation. Dad didn't like to talk about her; whenever her name was raised, his usually warm, soft blue eyes would become cool and distant, fogged over glass.
Melodie, as Darren and I referred to her, was never to be mentioned in front of our father. He was of the philosophy that "out of sight, out of mind," meant exactly that. He even forbade us to think of her, although at times, we couldn't help ourselves.
Although Dad had been quite meticulous in removing Melodie and any reference to her from our lives, he was still human. One time, while digging through Grandmother's papers in the attic, Darren and I found an article clipping mentioning Melodie's wedding to a second husband, a dancer in her troop. There was a tiny accompanying picture, grainy and ill of quality, but unmistakably Melodie, delicate and beautiful, with fair curly hair that fell over her shoulders, and a thin, knowing smile. What she knew, neither Darren nor I could even guess. I tucked the picture and article away in my drawer as a memento I could never let Dad find. He had tried to destroy her memory, but he could never completely get rid of her as long as we dreamed and imagined.
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Despite his missteps, Dad was a wonderful, caring father and Toni an attentive, loving step-mother. Although it was never said aloud, Darren and I always suspected Dad and Toni spoiled us a bit to keep us from wondering about Melodie, and why she had abandoned us.
We couldn't help but wonder though, just as we couldn't help but wonder about Foxworth Hall and all that Dad and Toni refused to talk about.
Little did we know, we'd learn all about Foxworth Hall and more that summer, much, much more.
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TBC