Sage's Eyes by V.C. Andrews Page A

parents, but I might have been wrong about that. My mother knew some of the other mothers. Maybe that was part of the reason my parents had decided to move me to a new school. Whatever the reasons, it did surprise me when they said they wanted me to leave the public school I was in and attend a charter school instead.
    â€œWhy?” I asked.
    â€œThis school has a much better reputation. It has smaller classes. You’ll get more attention from your teachers, and it’s closer,” my mother explained.
    Either she or my father would still have to drive me there and pick me up after school. “It’s not that much closer.”
    â€œIt’s closer,” my mother insisted. We were all in my father’s office. He sat behind his desk, and she stood beside him, looking down at me on the settee.
    â€œBut I like my teachers. My grades aren’t bad. I’ve always been on the honor roll, and my teachers tell me I have top reading scores.” Usually, I never questioned a decision they made for me, but I couldn’t accept their reasons this time.
    My father looked up at my mother. She sigheddeeply but seemed calmer. “You’re getting to that age now,” she said. “Things are . . . well, things are just more delicate, actions more consequential. We hope you’ll make better friends, too.”
    Better friends? I thought. Better than what? I never had what most girls would call best friends at my old school, but I did have some classmates who could have grown into real friends if my parents would have let me do more with them. Now I would never see them much anymore, if at all. I thought I would be even more alone.
    There was no more discussion about it. Arrangements were made, and I was moved to the school they had chosen.
    If they knew about the incident at my old school, they still hadn’t mentioned anything about it by the time we celebrated my fifteenth birthday. Whether my birth certificate was authentic or not, I had always been told that my birthday was on September 15, and what I had seen in the file confirmed it.
    I say “celebrated,” although I’m sure anyone my age would question whether this was really a celebration. It was just the three of us. Uncle Wade was somewhere in Europe, and they hadn’t invited any of their friends. They never did when it came to one of my birthdays. It was as if they had always wanted it kept a secret in a house bulging with secrets. We had dinner, but it wasn’t anything extra special. My father liked pot roast with grilled rosemary potatoes. I liked it, too, but there were so many other things I liked more, and they never took me to a restaurant and had thewaiter or waitress bring a cake with candles. Neither of them asked me what I wanted for my birthday dinner. My mother did put out the better dishes.
    As always, I helped set the table, but just like on all my previous birthdays, it wasn’t just candles on a cake. We had a candelabra in the center of the table with four tall white candles like the ones in churches. They were lit at the start of the dinner, and the lights were turned lower. All the window curtains were closed, too. I couldn’t help feeling like we were doing something we shouldn’t be doing, but what? It was my birthday, but it felt more like we were at a séance.
    My mother began with the same questions she had asked at every birthday for as long as I could remember. It was almost like the questions asked of children at religious dinners. They had a spiritual air about them.
    â€œHow do you feel tonight, Sage? Do you feel any different? Special?”
    â€œI don’t feel that different,” I said. I always tried to give her the answer I thought she wanted or to avoid the answer she didn’t want, but I was too unsure. This time, I was very matter-of-fact. “I’m hungry, but I’m usually hungry.”
    She grimaced and turned to my