Wreath (4 page)

“My cousins don’t live far.” Wreath began to sweat, despite the air-conditioning blowing on her face. “This is good.”

“I can’t leave you here,” the woman protested. “You must be turned around. There’s nothing around here but a junkyard and the state park.”

Wreath practically leapt from the car, jerking on the back door and panicking when she realized it was locked. She couldn’t leave her backpack! “Just a second, honey,” Clarice said, hitting a button. “Now try it.”

Wreath yanked the back door open, dragging her pack out and catching the trash bag on the door, tearing it down the side. Her clothes and stash of food spilled into a ditch next to the road.

Humiliated, she scooped the items up, wrapped everything in the blanket, tied it into a knot, and stuck the trash sack, which was her tarp, rain cover, and suitcase, into her pack. At this point, she could afford to get rid of nothing.

She lifted her hand for a quick wave and felt a familiar lump in her throat. Her fear, along with Clarice’s kindness, air-conditioning, and the thought of a real meal, made the departure harder.

“Thank you for the ride,” she said through the open window. Something about the woman made her want to use her best manners.

“Are you sure you won’t let me take you to your kinfolks’ house?” Clarice asked.

“I’m good.” Wreath backed away from the car, tripping over her own feet.

“At least let me give you this.” Clarice held out a twenty-dollar bill.

“I’ve got plenty,” Wreath said. “Thanks anyway.”

She started walking purposefully, as though she had been here a thousand times and knew just where she was going. She fought the urge to look back.

“Godspeed, Wreath,” Clarice called out and slowly drove off. Wreath waited until the car disappeared and leaned against a tree, scooting away from a hill of ants.

She pulled out her map and tried to figure out where she was.

Clarice had mentioned a junkyard, and the teenager hoped that didn’t mean locals paid attention to the overgrown spot. She wished the woman didn’t know it existed, didn’t know
she
existed. She wished she’d taken the twenty dollars.
No, I don’t
.

Her thoughts whirled.

Stepping into dense woods, she squirmed to arrange the trash bag as a cushion and plopped down. She fished around for her notebook and a pen, her hand brushing against the crackers. She wanted to eat them, but they needed to last. She had so little of everything.

After making eye contact with Big Fun at the house and catching the eye of the old couple in their backyard—and, oh my, now hitching a ride—she wanted to add “avoid notice” to her list of goals. Her words were printed carefully in a small brown binder, bought for a quarter, including extra paper, at a garage sale. The journal was her treasure and felt like her only friend. In elementary school, she had named it Brownie—and at the moment it comforted her.

“It’s just you and me now, Brownie,” she wrote in the book, patting it as though it were a pet. “The journey has begun.”

She tried to remember the date. June 3, she decided it was, wishing she had brought a calendar. “A fresh start,” she scrawled, her hand shaking so hard the writing was almost illegible.

She flipped through the lined pages for the thousandth time. On the first page, she had written the word
CONFIDENTIAL
in matter-of-fact capital letters. On the second page, she had used big, loopy, bubble-shaped words:
Wreath Wisteria Willis! Plans, Goals, and Dreams! Get Ready, World!

She had felt full of hope when she started writing in the notebook, but now the words seemed silly. She looked back at the pages labeled
WHAT TO DO
. She had made note after note, most entries updated and expanded. She had written about the town of Landry and the abandoned junkyard where she would live. She had even sketched the way she wanted her future room to look, copying ideas from design magazines.

Her main list was basic:

And, today, her latest entry:

She glanced at the list of supplies she would require, studied her list of mean and interfering people who might decide they knew what was best for her, read over a short list of job skills.

Exhausted, she daydreamed about the books she wanted to read and the places she planned to travel, starting with New Orleans and ending with Nova Scotia, a place she had read about in Louisiana history in eighth grade, and Prince Edward Island, where one of her favorite books was set.

As Wreath started to close the little notebook, an unfamiliar entry near the back jumped off the page at her, and her heart leapt into her throat.

Lo, I A
M
W
ITH
You A
LWAYS
, it said.

Lo, I am with you always?

The words were printed precisely, in small block letters. The phrase sounded vaguely familiar, but the sight of it unsettled Wreath. Frankie must have made the entry, although it didn’t look like her handwriting, and Wreath couldn’t figure out how or when her mother had gotten her hands on the journal.

The wind blew.

“Mama?” she whispered.

Chapter 4

W
reath’s first glimpse of a rusted van thrilled her as she clawed her way through a wall of green vines. An ancient school bus and a half-dozen cars sat near the van, along with a storage shed, similar to where she had hidden her belongings in Lucky, and three or four abandoned mobile homes, their doors standing open and insulation hanging from the ceilings.

But the place was creepier—much creepier—than she had imagined, not nearly like the quaint fairy home she had fantasized about. She picked up a tree branch for protection. “Hello,” she called out in a low voice. “Anyone home?”

Relieved and terrified when no one answered, the combination of emotions burned most of her spurt of energy. The light faded quickly in the dense undergrowth, and she squinted to check the time on her cheap plastic watch. It was close to seven, and night noises were cranking up.

She hadn’t realized it got dark so fast. She slapped at an invisible mosquito that buzzed in her ear.

Wreath tried to talk herself into feeling safe here in the abandoned junkyard she had chosen for her home. This jumbled mess offered excellent protection from prying eyes. Only birds, insects, and frogs punctuated the quiet.

She could fix up a spot here to stay until she graduated in a year. This was her plan.

The idea evaporated as an owl hooted in the distance.

“What was I thinking?” she groaned out loud and wondered what the easiest way to get in touch with welfare people would be. She pulled out the piece of paper with the words
Foster Care
on it, written in her mother’s handwriting.

She walked up the broken stairs of one of the trailers, and a cat shot out from inside and brushed against her leg, causing her to scream.

No one appeared at the shrill sound. She was alone in this place, with the exception of who knew what kind of varmints.

She was alone in the world.

The collection of beat-up cars went on and on, scattered here and there, right up to a swampy area. The size of the junkyard swallowed Wreath up.

From the road, it looked like a few cars and then trees, but it was huge. A mass of metal, everything was rusted, dented, crumpled, or moldy. The discards spread across what she guessed were quite a few acres, but she couldn’t remember how big an acre actually was. She loved books and drawing, but didn’t particularly care for math. Was an acre something you studied in math? She couldn’t remember.

Wreath had finished her junior year only a week and a half ago, but the details disappeared in her tiredness, and she didn’t try to snatch them back. Her thoughts resembled the cars, piled up and rusty.

Only days ago she had been in charge at home, caring for Frankie, making sure food got cooked and clothes washed. She had taken care of her mother in one way or another most of her life, but she wasn’t as grown up as she had thought.

She was only sixteen. She wouldn’t even be seventeen for six months.

This new life was already an on-the-run fiasco.

No, Wreath had vowed to her mother she’d get an education. She’d earn money. She didn’t want to live in a run-down rent house with skuzzy people the rest of her life. She’d make her senior year work out somehow.

Big Fun hadn’t been
that
bad. Their old neighbor liked Wreath. Some of the cousins hadn’t been so bad when she was little. If not, someone else would take her in.

Take her in.

Wreath hated the way that sounded, like she was a stray dog waiting to be adopted at the pound, but she wouldn’t be a burden.

She was smart and strong and knew how to do all sorts of things around the house. Her mama used to say Wreath had always been a little adult, even though she was younger than most in her class.

Only one year stood between her and freedom.

She would rely on others until she graduated, and then she wouldn’t need anybody—not foster parents who’d feel sorry for her, not nice people like that woman Clarice or the old lady next door in Lucky.

NEW PLAN
, she wrote in big letters in the notebook and made another list:

Her stomach growled.

Tomorrow she could go into Landry and figure out how to get in touch with someone who could tell her what to do. She’d live like a normal girl—find someone to stay with, get a part-time job, go to school, graduate from high school, and grow up. She’d find a way to pay for college and make lots of money. She’d wear pretty clothes and have a handsome husband and sweet children who had lots of toys and books and were never left alone.

Never.

They would stay in one place, and she’d always be there for them. But tonight?

She could try to find Clarice’s house and admit she needed help. But the path back to where she had been dropped off had been a long walk in daylight. It’d be safer to stay put. Start fresh tomorrow.

She’d been on her own for only five days, and she already felt stuck.

That’s what she was. Stuck.

She was stuck in this weird place that had seemed so perfect. Or she was stuck with living with someone she didn’t like.

What kind of dream world had she been living in? She missed Frankie so much. She wanted to lie down and sleep.

Wreath tried to find the best place to make her room for the evening and looked for escape routes in case danger appeared. She picked up the stick again and gripped it like a club.

The memory of Big Fun made her rub her arm. She stuck the diary into the waistband of her jeans and took a few practice swings with the wood. Her arms felt weak and trembly.