Daughter of Darkness Read Online Free PDF

sisters had yet commented.
    “Yes, Daddy, it does fit her well,” she said rather flatly. She could have easily added, “Big deal.”
    He looked up at her. “It’s more than just the dress. She’s grown wonderfully. I’d say there’s been a remarkable maturing, wouldn’t you?”
    “There has been, Daddy. Remarkable,” Ava replied dryly. I saw how Daddy held his gaze on her. There was nothing in his face to reveal his displeasure, but just that extra moment was enough. “I mean, she’s blooming into someone very beautiful right before our very eyes,” Ava quickly added.
    “Exactly,” Daddy said, now pleased with her response. “I expected nothing less.”
    He put his left hand on Marla’s head, stroking her the way he might stroke a dog. Maybe he could feel her jealousy through his legs. She clung to him as if her life depended on it.
    “Don’t worry, Marla,” he said. “You’re next. We will see similar beauty appearing in you as well when your time comes.”
    “When’s that, Daddy?” she asked, looking up at him hopefully and excitedly.
    “Patience,” he said. “Everything comes to those who wait. Ava was the same way, weren’t you, Ava?”
    “I didn’t have to be as patient. I bloomed a little bit earlier, Daddy,” she said softly.
    He glanced at her wryly, his lips pursed for a moment. “Our Ava,” he said, “is a little insecure yet.”
    Insecure? Ava? None of Daddy’s daughters could be insecure, especially by Ava’s age and doing the things Ava was now required to do. I was more surprised than she was at the obvious criticism, but she took it harder. She looked as if she might break out in hysterical sobs. I almost felt sorry for her, even though a bigger part of me took pleasure in seeing her knocked off her pedestal.
    “It’s nothing,” Daddy quickly added. “It’s quite normal, in fact. It always comes with some sibling rivalry, and there’s nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned sibling rivalry.” He laughed and then added, “I have every confidence that Ava will prove to be one of my best little girls, if not the best.”
    That pulled her back from the cliff of dark sorrow, and she looked happy again. As if our lives were a play being enacted on some grand stage, right on cue, Mrs. Fennel came to the doorway that opened to the dining room before anything more could be said about who would be Daddy’s best daughter and who wouldn’t.
    “Everything’s ready,” she announced. The manner in which she spoke and the way she stood there, her body stiff, her shoulders back, made it seem as if one of us was about to go to an execution and not our dinner.
    “Well, then, let’s go to the table,” Daddy said, and stood. Marla leaped to her feet. Ava moved forwardquickly. She expected him to put his arm around her shoulders, as he often did, and lead her into the dining room, but he reached out for my hand instead. I looked at Ava. Her eyebrows lifted, and her eyes flashed anger and disappointment in my direction, but then she quickly looked away and started for the dining room so she wouldn’t see Daddy kiss my cheek. However, I was sure she heard him whisper, “You’re a diamond now out of the rough. How complete and confident I feel just looking at you.”
    Could my heart be fuller? I glanced at myself in the wall mirror in our dining room and saw the glow in my face. The flame inside me that my happiness fueled could light a room, I thought. I was filled with the sin of pride but completely unconcerned. In our world, the deadliest sin was not pleasing Daddy. Everything else was more a misdemeanor than a felony.
    “Tell us about your trip to France, Daddy,” Marla said after the four of us had sat.
    Mrs. Fennel never ate with us. She served our dinners, breakfasts, and lunches and ate by herself in the kitchen. Ava said we should be grateful about that. “Watching her eat is like watching a starving dog go at food.”
    “I visited friends outside of Paris near