Circle of Secrets

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  I’m shocked. “Someone dying can’t be your fault.”

  “Oh, yes, it can,” she says tightly. “I wasn’t there when she needed me.”

  I watch her rub at her eyes, then fold her arms against herself like she’s cold even though it’s been one of those steamy hot days. “But what can you do about it now?”

  “I’d give anything in this world to do that day all over again. Jest about anything. Wish I could have a chance to redeem myself and get rid of the guilt, but I gotta live with it and it gets me down. Too bad the Good Lord don’t give us do-over days, huh? Got a few of ’em I’d like to do over. Like the day I left Grandmother Phoebe’s house.”

  I get up my courage to speak, wanting to know what she’ll say, but dreading the answer, too. “What would you do over that day? Would you have stayed?”

  She shakes her head. “No, I’d still leave because I had to get out of there. Plus my mamma needed me. But if I got a do-over I’d take you with me, shar. In a heartbeat.”

  I breathe a sudden sigh of relief as the porch goes quiet. I can hear owls hooting as they skim above the trees, the hum of a bat zipping over the house. Water laps at the dock down by the elephant ears, but mostly it’s tranquil and calm except for the summer crickets in the bushes. “That why you want to move away? Because of today. What happened, I mean? The person who died.”

  “Yeah, Shelby Jayne, that’s why it’s so hard to be out here again. Didn’t like New Iberia much because it was too much city. But out here there’s just so many sad memories.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “Don’t know. Guess I better get a plan together, eh?” She looks out at the water where dusk is turning the swamp black, then leans forward in her chair. She gazes at me full and deep, and I try not to squirm. “Wherever I go, Shelby Jayne,” she asks softly, “will you come with me?”

  My stomach turns upside down. I don’t know what to say. All the hurt I’ve been thinking in my head about her and me and Gwen starts shifting again. All the plans between her and me and Daddy shift, too. Me thinking I could get him to live out here with us.

  “You don’t gotta answer right now,” Mirage adds. “But will you think about it?”

  Silently, I nod, not sure what I’m going to do, not sure how I feel. Moving is grown-up stuff. Parents are supposed to stay together and tell everyone in the family where they’re going to live. And make it all good and right.

  After we say good night, I slip into bed, putting my hand under my pillow to pull the charm bracelet out from where I place it each night for safekeeping.

  The bracelet isn’t there.

  I switch on the light, flip over the pillow, and stare at the empty space underneath. Where’d it go? Didn’t I put it there when I got my nightgown on?

  Now I can’t remember for sure. Maybe I left it on the bureau. Maybe it’s in my pockets. Quickly, I jump up and search all the spaces in my jeans and backpack. Nothing. And it’s not in any of the dresser drawers or sitting on top.

  I’ve lost Mirage’s bracelet! She’ll never forgive me, never. She’ll change her mind about taking me with her wherever she ends up going. I came so close to losing the charm bracelet that day at the bridge during Truth or Dare and now I’ve lost it right here at the swamp house.

  It might have fallen out somewhere else. It could be anywhere. School. The graveyard, the road, the swamp, the boat.

  How can I tell Mirage that all her charms and the antique bracelet from her great-grandmother is gone? Just when I start thinking maybe I want to move away with her. When she finally asked me for the first time.

  Clutching my stomach, I head to the bathroom, flush the toilet, then go into the kitchen for a drink. Before I give up, I’ll search the house and the yard, the boat, the dock, everywhere I can think of.

  There are so many places to look I feel knocked over. I fill a glass of water at the sink, my mind running a dozen different directions. Maybe I should make a list of places to look.

  Mirage’s conversation on the porch earlier interrupts my brain, too. Today is the day someone died. Someone real important. Someone special. Grand-mère only died a few months ago so it’s not her. What did Mirage do that caused the “her” to die? How was it her fault?

  Mirage wrote that note:

  She’s dead. She’s dead! I’ll never forgive myself long as I live.

  Mirage has secrets I’d never dreamed of.

  Gwen has secrets, too.

  I guess, I do, as well. Cutting school. Lying. Wearing the bracelet when I’m not supposed to. Going to the cemetery and bridge pier when Mirage told me not to. Hiding the blue bottle notes. Notes that don’t belong to me.

  After I drink my water, I push the curtain back and stare through the window at the blue bottle tree. Silver beams of moonlight catch the glass. Gwen said that she and her friend wanted to fill up all the bottles with notes, so there had to be more of those notes out there, right?

  I’d have to plan a time to find them.

  Just as I let the curtain fall back into place, the moonlight catches the glint of something overhead. Jerking my chin up, I stare at Mister Lenny blinking at me from his perch on the mossy branch.

  “You scared me!” I whisper at him, just as I see the charm bracelet hanging from the end of his branch. “You took the bracelet! You little thief!”

  I reach up to grab it, but Mister Lenny curls his claws around the chain and flies away, ducking through the doorway and heading for the front room.

  “Give it back to me,” I cry as soft as I can under my breath, chasing after him.

  He flits through the house, the bracelet dangling from his feet.

  “I guess your broken wing is all better,” I hiss at him.

  Mister Lenny zips back to the kitchen as I jump up, trying to get him to drop it. My fingers grasp at the charms and he nearly crashes into the refrigerator, finally dropping the bracelet on the stack of papers and junk by the stove.

  The bracelet slips off the teetering stack of papers and disappears behind the stove, but I dive for it, snatching it just in time.

  Relief floods through me as I clutch the bracelet to my heart, realizing for the first time just how much I love the charm bracelet. Catching my breath, I count up the charms, making sure all eight are still there.

  The heirloom bracelet from the Civil War is different from Gwen’s chain, but the charms are exactly alike.

  Matching charms. Matching handwriting on the blue bottle notes. The handwriting of Gwen and Mirage. Did Gwen copy Mirage’s bracelet? Or did Mirage give Gwen matching charms as a sign of their friendship and love?

  I wish I hadn’t thought of that because those sorry imps are back at it. Eating into my head, making me crazy with jealousy.

  The photo albums Mirage took from Grandmother Phoebe’s house are still sitting on the kitchen counter. All the good feelings I had when I was looking at them seem to be falling apart. I know it’s stupid, but Mirage is my mamma, not Gwen’s.

  I guess I’m not a very generous person. Here Gwen lost her whole family, can’t find them nowhere, and I can’t even share Mirage with her — the mamma that, for more than a year, I’ve told everybody I hate.

  Suddenly, I pull one of the photograph albums closer. The one that has the pictures from when I was a baby. The years Mirage was younger, just out of high school, just married.

  Quiet as I can, I flip on the kitchen light and bend over the pages, studying Mirage in the photographs in a whole new light.

  Every piece a my body starts to feel weak, like I’m gonna faint. I’m hot and cold at the same time. My thoughts go wild as I realize that Mirage is the girl in the tiny photo in Gwen’s locket. Eleven years ago when she had me she looks so young. Still like a teenager. Now I see the similarities in the hair and her nose. The look in the girl’s eyes is so much like Mirage’s eyes are now. I wasn’t looking for it before, but it’s there. It’s there!

  All this time I’ve been thinking that Mirage and Gwen are curr
ently friends, slipping secret notes into the blue bottles, having fun together without me. Mirage not actually missing me at all.

  But if Mirage is the best friend in Gwen’s locket — the girl in the photo with the dark hair and shy eyes — that makes everything all crazy again!

  Because the picture of Mirage in the locket is when she’s only eleven years old.

  But Mirage grew up, got married, and had a baby. Me.

  But Gwen is still only eleven.

  When I get to school the next day, I know I’m gonna ditch again, but I have to go to the bathroom first. I sneak in the back door of the first hall and hit the restroom before the bell rings. The sound of lockers slamming comes through the open outer door and the smell of Lysol makes my nose hurt.

  I cover my face with my hands, thinking about Gwen, thinking about Mirage. The charms and the pictures swirl in my gut. Nothing makes sense. Does Gwen have some sort of disease that makes her never grow up? Is she a time traveler?

  Suddenly, someone pummels the stall door, shaking the hinges. “Hey, who’s in there? You stuck or somethin’? It’s been ten minutes.”

  My stomach jumps into my throat. Those voices sound familiar.

  “I can see her feet,” someone else giggles.

  “Yeah, there’s a backpack on the floor.”

  “Looks fresh brand-new,” the first one speaks again. “Hey,” she cries with sudden meaning. “I bet it’s that new girl, Shelby, the one with the frizzy hair.”

  My stomach sinks like a rock to the floor.

  I blow my nose, then flush the toilet and brace myself. When I push the stall door open, I pretend not to care if it hits the girls on the other side.

  Alyson and Tara are standing there rolling on lipstick in front of the mirror.

  I brush past, swinging my pack over my shoulder. “Excuse me,” I murmur, but the sound of my voice is deafening.

  “Excusez-moi?” Tara says, fake sugar dripping from her lips.

  As if on cue Alyson casually moves in front of my path, blocking the door to the corridor.

  Tara folds her arms in front of her chest. “You can’t go anywhere unless we give our permission. From now on you’ll take orders from us.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say, cursing the way my voice shakes so bad.

  “You never finished our game on the pier. We can’t release you until the game has been declared over.”

  Alyson turns to Tara. “How will we do that? We can’t watch her all the time.”

  “Won’t be that hard. We’re in the same class. And there’s only one lunch hour for sixth graders.”

  “We can give her assignments with deadlines!”

  I watch their excitement grow as they get caught up in their plans to make my life miserable. The bathroom is stuffy and warm. I can feel my pulse in my throat.

  “What’ll we make her do first?” Alyson asks, sounding more curious than vindictive.

  Tara taps her foot, and I notice that her gold sandals are beaded and sparkly like they cost a lot of money. “Your first assignment,” she drawls, building suspense, pretending to think real hard. “Your first assignment is to cut your hair!”

  Alyson squeals like she can hardly believe her best friend actually suggested such a horrible idea.

  Tara goes on, “Cut it off above your ears by Friday. That gives you two days.”

  I break into a sweat. “You’re crazy.”

  “Don’t talk back,” she orders. “Since you won’t play Truth or Dare like every other new kid who comes to this school, you won’t be allowed to speak unless we give you permission. Or a teacher asks you a direct question.”

  “You’re brilliant, Tara,” Alyson tells her.

  Panic rises like I’m havin’ a heart attack. If I do even one of their ugly requests, they’ll make me their slave for the whole year. But how do I get outta here alive?

  Sweat drips down my neck. I’m picturing hair pulling and scratching and my backpack dumped in the bayou if I try to fight them. I gotta come up with some way to catch them off guard. Do something so I can get outta here.

  Tara surveys the dirty floor where gum is stuck between the tiles and toilet paper litters the corners. “Before first period starts you can clean up this bathroom. Scrub it good because this is where we always meet in the mornings. I’m the leader here and I want this place to look real fine.”

  I cross my fingers behind my back and put on a fake smile. “Yeah, that’s because you’re the queen, right?”

  Tara smiles, obviously pleased at the title I just gave her. She turns to Alyson. “She’s catching on.”

  I brace myself, hoping my sudden plan works. “I understand perfectly. You’re the Queen of the Latrine, and you, Alyson, are Princess of the Potties!”

  The girls drop their jaws. The next instant, squeals of outrage echo off the tile ceiling. Before they can do anything else, I hold tight to my backpack and plow through them both, racing into the corridor and almost colliding into a group of kids on their way to class.

  “Get her!” I hear Tara cry out behind me.

  I keep running. Flying past homeroom and pushing my way through the double doors at the end of the hall.

  After the dingy school restroom, the sun glares so bright I don’t see the person walking toward me and crash right into her, banging my elbow.

  We both cry “Ouch!” and then I’m staring straight into the face of the scarred girl.

  Neither of us says a word, but I take note of the grubby jeans, the plain brown hair, and the girl’s shy, hesitant look.

  She’s alone, and I’m suddenly sorry I don’t have time to talk to her. But it’s urgent I get off the school grounds.

  “Sorry I ran into you,” she apologizes, her hair hanging in her face like she’s trying to cover up what she looks like.

  “No, I ran into you. But I — I gotta go. Sorry!”

  I keep running, praying the girl won’t say anything to Mrs. Daigle about me leaving school.

  In less than a minute, I’m running down the dirt road to the bayou. After a few hundred yards I get a stitch in my side. My pack is heavy, too, the math textbook jabbing me between the shoulder blades.

  The second bell rings and I know that class has just started.

  I’m late.

  I’m more than late.

  I’m going to be absent again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A TRUCK HAULING THE FIRST OF THE CUT SUGARCANE ZOOMS past, kicking up dust. A flock of migrating birds skims over the trees and their wings look dark pink against the sky. The road feels lonelier today. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. My throat is parched and scratchy and the sun is beating down so hard, feels like my hair’s burning up.

  Turning back the way I came, I run down the fence line, crossing the street for Pete’s Gas-Up Station. If I get marked absent again today, the school will call Mirage. In the phone book at the gas station, I search for the number in the crumpled, dirty pages. When I find the school’s number, I deposit the coins I have in my pocket and punch the buttons.

  Taking a deep breath, I try to make my voice sound like a grown-up’s. “This is Miz Allemond. Please excuse my daughter, Shelby, from classes today. She’s been absent due to the flu.”

  School noise and chaos hovers in the background as Mrs. Benoit says, “When she returns, have her bring a note.”

  I replace the receiver, my head buzzing with the lie, but for now I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m free the rest of the day.

  Pumping my legs, I run all the way down the long dirt road until I reach the gates of the cemetery. I smell grass and sugarcane and wet fur like a dog’s passed through here recently.

  Dust motes float through pillars of yellow sunshine. Shining down like columns on the headstones.

  I keep running, gulping in air, as I race across the graveyard, jumping around headstones. Then I hear Gwen’s melancholy humming, and an instant later she drifts out from behind the angel. She’s not smiling today. Her
eyes seem even darker and sadder than ever.

  We hug each other, but her gloom seems to infect the day as though a curtain of dreary clouds hangs over it.

  “I think I’ve been waiting for you for a long time,” Gwen tells me. “Maybe years. I’m not sure. Time is strange, like it speeds up and slows down. Like my whole life keeps happening over and over again. That probably sounds like crazy talk.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I know some crazy things, too,” I tell her, thinking about the picture of Gwen and Mirage when they were girls. I want to ask all the questions multiplying in my brain, but I’m also afraid. Instead I ask, “What do you mean that you’ve been waiting for me for a long time? How did you know I’d be coming here to Bayou Bridge?”

  “I knew someone would come. I just had to wait long enough.”

  She makes the strangest statements.

  “I’m so thirsty I think I’m going to pass out,” I tell her, feeling jumpy and nervous. “Want to go back into town and get a drink?” I wonder how to tell her about the things I’ve discovered. I’m not sure how to ask the questions I need to ask.

  Cicadas buzz in the trees overhead, making such a racket we can hardly talk. Sunlight swirls in lazy yellow patches across the bayou, and mosquitoes and dragonflies skim across the shallow water along the banks like they’re swimming.

  “Okay,” Gwen finally says. “Let’s go to Verret’s Café.”

  The café sits behind the post office, a little place with picture windows and a bell above the door that jangles when we walk in.

  A college-aged girl seats us at a wrought-iron table by the window and takes our order.

  I have a little bit of pocket money from my daddy so I treat us to root beer floats with extra ice cream.

  After the waitress leaves, we watch a couple gazing at each other over a milk shake with two striped straws.

  “You can almost see the cupid hearts circling their heads,” I whisper to Gwen.

  The waitress deposits two root beers in great glass mugs on our little table, whipped cream brimming over the tops. She lays down napkins and straws and skinny spoons with a flair — like we’re young ladies instead of two almost-twelve-year-olds.