Seeds of Yesterday
V. C. Andrews
 The story begins fifteen years after the events in If There be Thorns. Cathy and Chris arrive at the house of their son, Bart, which was entirely built to replicate Foxworth Hall (which burned down in Petals on the Wind) to celebrate Bart's twenty-fifth birthday. They are planning on moving to Hawaii after the birthday celebration. When they arrive, they meet Joel, who they soon learn is their uncle, Corrine's brother, who was long thought dead. He claimed he spent several years in an Italian monastery, and contacted Bart after learning of Corrine's death and now works as the head butler at Bart's request. They soon learn that he is feeding Bart false information about God and punishment. Bart also begins to look at Joel as a father figure; a fact that troubles Cathy greatly. Bart is still bitter towards his mother and Chris for their incestuous relationship, so their stay is not pleasant. He has grown into a handsome young man, who is extremely jealous and power hungry, and bitter that Chris is the guardian of his money until his twenty-five birthday. Eventually Jory and Cindy move into Foxworth Hall, which adds to the tension in the household. Jory, who is almost thirty, has been married to Melodie, his childhood sweetheart and ballet partner, for nine years. They announce that Melodie is pregnant with their first child, and Cathy is happy of becoming a grandmother. When they move in, however, Bart exhibits jealousy towards Jory, whom he always believed was Cathy's favorite child. Bart also shows an unhealthy interest in Melodie. Days later, Cindy, who is now sixteen, arrives and it becomes clear that Bart still has disdain towards her. Cathy tries to make the best out of the situation until Bart's party. The happiness ends during Bart's birthday party, when Jory gets into an accident, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down and unable to dance again. Melodie cannot deal with Jory's disability and withdraws from Jory. She turns to Bart for comfort and passion, and the two begin an affair. Although he believes he loves Melodie and she reciprocates his feelings, Bart soon realizes it is an empty relationship and he is just a replacement for Jory. Despite this, the affair continues, and Cathy is enraged when she finds out about it and tries with no success to keep them apart. Jory finds about the affair, and although angry, he tries to reconcile with Melodie, but she rejects him. Melodie goes into labor on Christmas Day, although she tells no one, and gives birth to twins, Darren and Deirdre, whom Cathy says resemble her twin brother and sister. Left with two children to care for, as well as a disabled husband, Melodie abandons Jory and the children. Cathy tries to console both her sons and tries to keep a firm hand on the pretty and free-spirited Cindy, who has a knack for finding boys. Bart, under the influence of Joel, hypocritically bans Cindy from premarital sexual acts under his roof even though he repeatedly slept with his brother's wife. In one incident Bart beats up a boy, Lance, when he finds Cindy having sexual intercourse with him in her room; in another, he comes across Cindy and another boy, Victor, making out in a car and again assaults the boy. Cindy later mentions to her mother that in her fear she kneed Bart in the crotch to make him stop but his rage was so great that he didn't even flinch at the supposedly crippling pain. This shows Bart's belief that what Cindy was doing was truly evil and his determination to stop her. When confronted about his hypocrisy a number of times throughout the story, Bart never attempts to justify his actions but instead responds with anger and resentment. After a long period of torment from Bart, and later Joel who disapprove of her ways, Cindy leaves to go to a school in New York. Cathy and Chris hire a beautiful nurse, named Antonia "Toni" Winters, to help Jory recuperate. She soon starts an affair with Bart. Bart is deeply infatuated with Toni, who seems to be in love with him. Cathy notices a change in Bart as a result of his relationship with Toni, such as withdrawing from Joel. Cathy, however, discovers that Jory has feelings for Toni and that he deserves her love more than Bart. Eventually, Toni sees the dark side of Bart after he becomes possesive to her, and she ends their relationship. Soon after, Toni falls in love with Jory and they begin a relationship, which brings Jory out of his depression from his divorce with Melodie. Cindy later comes home for a visit and tells Cathy of how she ran into Melodie in New York, who had apparently remarried immediately after her divorce from Jory was final and resumed her dancing career. Bart builds a chapel, in which he commands the family to attend Sunday sermons, presided over by Joel. Cathy and Chris eventually become disgusted by the "fire and brimstone" sermons and tell Bart that they will no longer attend. Bart secretly starts bringing the twins to the chapel, where they are made to pray for forgiveness for being the "Devil's Issue", which Cathy overhears, reminding her of Cory and Carrie. She confronts Bart with this, and tells him to leave the twins alone, telling Toni never to let them out of her sight, unless she knows they are with Jory or herself. After catching Bart bring the twins back to the chapel, Cathy decides it is time to leave, after two years in Foxworth Hall. Chris agrees it is time to leave and take Jory, Cindy, and the twins with them. Cathy tells Bart of her plans, and tells him that while she loves him, she cannot deal with the kind of person he has become. A furious Bart acts as if he wants nothing more and says her leaving him again is proof that she never understood him. Hours later, Cathy is waiting for Chris to come home from work so they can leave, but he never shows up. Joel comes and quite happily tells them that he heard on the radio of a car accident, in which a man was killed. Cathy's worst fear is confirmed later when she finds out that that man was Chris. She realizes how similar it was when their father was killed. With the loss of Chris, a big part in Cathy dies and she loses the will to live. Bart soon realizes how much he really loved Chris and gives a moving eulogy at his funeral, and soon after finds his place as a televangelist who travels the world. Bart and Cindy also make peace with each other. Toni and Jory have gotten married, and Toni becomes pregnant; Jory tells Cathy that if they have a boy they will call him Christopher, and if it is a girl they will call her Catherine. Despite all these good things and the family becoming closer than before, Cathy is depressed and longs to see Chris again. On her last night, Cathy goes up to the attic and sits by the one of windows and, after decorating the attic with paper flowers, dies. As she passes away, she remembers Chris, her mother, grandmother, and siblings, and how she lost her innocence to the world. Jory and a servant find a letter in Cathy's hand that she wrote, saying that no one needs her more than Chris does, that her final manuscript (the one she wrote during the course of Seeds of Yesterday and would later become that same novel) is in her private vault and anyone can do with it what they will, and that it was never too late for Bart to realize that he had the right father. It is determined that Cathy died of natural causes, but it is likely that she died of a broken heart.