Circle of Secrets (12 page)

I stand on the lumpy ground where the sod is pieced back together and feel a little guilty. My stomach is hollow, but maybe I’m just hungry.

I start walking again, glancing back at the little gravesite, my conscience pricking me in the center of my chest.

When I reach the last row of headstones, I start to hear music.

Someone is humming, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I head closer to the sound and suddenly a girl steps out from behind a white angel and leans against one of the angel’s beautiful white wings. She stares at me with the darkest brown eyes I’ve ever seen.

All the air leaves my lungs and I have to stop fast so’s I don’t skid right into her.

“I didn’t see you!” I stammer. “I’m sorry —”

“How you do?” she says, real friendly. Her blonde, wispy hair floats around her head even though there’s no breeze down here under the last big oak tree. “Been waitin’ for ya.”

I gulp past my dry throat. “You have?”

“Saw you coming up the grass,” she says. And then she smiles.

Her smile is like a sunbeam floating down from the sky. Her golden hair hovers on her shoulders, falling into place after a moment. Her smile is so different from Tara’s bossy smile, or even from Alyson’s smile that watches to see who’s gonna do what so she can follow the most popular person at the moment.

“I — I was just walking,” I say, wondering if she can tell I’ve been crying. “Actually, I was just leaving. Sorry to bother you.”

“You ain’t bothering me. It’s real lonely out here. Not
many people live on the edge of Bayou Bridge. And there hasn’t been a funeral in a few weeks.”

“Really? You go to all the funerals? You must really be bored.”

“I’m partial to the music, especially that song ‘Goin’ Up a-Yonder.’ I keep waiting to see what it’s like to go up a-yonder.”

“Hey,” I say. “That’s the song LizAnn’s mamma sings when she does the dishes. Practically tears out my heart. But why would you want to go to heaven? You’re only a kid.”

She lifts her shoulders. “I’d rather go to heaven than, you know, that other place.” She stage-whispers, “H-E double toothpicks!”

“Ain’t
that
the truth,” I agree wholeheartedly, then kick myself when I hear Grandmother Phoebe correcting me inside my head.
Isn’t, not ain’t.

The girl looks at me from under her wispy bangs. “Saw you up there, sittin’ on the grass by the gates. You ain’t happy, are you?”

I’m embarrassed she was watching me when I didn’t know it. Then I wonder if she’s truly being friendly — or if she’s one of the Truth or Dare gang that just showed up late.

“Why you so sad?”

I’m chewing so hard, I can taste blood again. “Because I don’t want to be here.”

“In the cemetery? Me neither.”

“No, I mean, Bayou Bridge.”

“How long you lived here?”

“Just a couple weeks. My daddy brought me and left me while he went off to some country by Russia.”

The girl’s eyes widen and I can see tiny flecks of green inside the black of her irises. “He left you all alone?”

“No. I mean, I just got here — to live with my mamma. She’s the
real
person who left me.” I pause. “It’s complicated.”

She nods sympathetically. “Know all about that. It’s hard to move someplace new when your heart is in your old home. That happened to me, too.”

“Really? I never moved to a new place before. And the kids from school — well — they — you know.” Since I have to go back to school tomorrow, I don’t want to be known for tattling or gossiping so I stop talking.

The girl nods her head and I notice that her eyes look older than her face. Old, like she’s full of knowledge or wisdom or something.

“Those kids’re
always
there. Hanging around on that broken bridge, playing jokes, getting into trouble.”

“I got that impression. Um….” I break eye contact and stare at the angel statue instead. “Did you used to be one of them?”

She pauses, like she’s wondering how much to tell me. Finally, she says, “Don’t know those kids I saw you with today, but that pier is a terrible place. Wish they’d tear it down and throw all them rotten boards and pilings away for good.”

I’m confused. “Why don’t the town just fix it?”

She sort of glares at me. “Because that pier ain’t no use no more! It’s supposed to go out to the island, but it don’t. All those broken planks and nails staring at you from under the water. Empty pilings rising out of the water like ghosts.”

“That’s exactly what I thought!”

“Never did like that bridge,” she adds. “Going by boat is much better. I should know. That island is where I live.”

“You
live
on the island?” I ask her. “Those kids said it was deserted.”

“Not no more. My family left, but I’m back. Those kids should pay better attention.”

My mouth lifts in a smile, thinking about Tara and Ambrose and T-Beau and their cruel games. “I guess they should, huh?”

Then we both burst into giggles and suddenly I’m bent over laughing. After a while I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard, it’s been so long.

A hazy memory barges right into my brain. Me and Daddy and Mirage driving somewhere, just the three of us, laughing in the front seat of the Chevy. Daddy was telling a corny joke and Mirage was teasing him. Me, I was curled up under the crook of her arm. Where was Grandmother Phoebe? A strange feeling comes over me as I realize part of the reason the joke was so funny. We’d escaped Grandmother Phoebe’s house and were off on an adventure, our own family, just us.

Up until now, I never remembered doing anything that didn’t include Grandmother Phoebe.

I shake my head and realize that the girl is watching me, her head turned to study my face. She’s wearing yellow shorts that match her yellow hair. Her smile is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

Without thinking, I reach out and touch a finger to her hair. The golden strands feel like spring sunshine, warm and soft.

Words pop out of my mouth. “Are you real?”

She pats her arms, laughing softly. “I think I’m real.”

“I was just thinking about a girl I saw a few nights ago in
the moonlight. By the edge of the swamp near our house. That wasn’t you, was it?” Even as I say it, I know it’s crazy. Who’d be out so late at night?

“Might a been me. I like to paddle my boat. Not much else to do. Other side of my island is the deep swamp. The Bayou Teche and the inlets and coves all curve around together and sometimes it all connects. I know all the shortcuts.”

“I figured you were a trick of the moon, maybe just a shadow from the tree bottles.”

“You have a bottle tree?” she asks.

“Hundreds of blue bottles. It’s gigantic.”

“I do know where you live! And yeah,” she says, glancing off toward the bayou, “probably me on my way back home. I love that tree, that house. Makes me not so lonely to go visit that swamp house.”

“Why would you be lonely?”

She puts a finger to her lips and her eyes dart around the cemetery, but the only sign of life is the oak tree branches swaying in the breeze. “My parents disappeared a while back. But don’t tell nobody! I could get in trouble. Kids aren’t supposed to live by themselves.”

My eyes feel like they’re bugging right out of my head. “Your parents disappeared?”

“I’m sure I’ll find ’em soon,” she says. “But the house with the blue bottle tree is comforting. My best friend used to live there.”

She keeps surprising me with practically everything she says. I didn’t figure nobody else had ever lived in Mirage’s swamp house.

“Why are
you
livin’ there?” she asks.

I roll my eyes. “My mamma lives there and I gotta live with her.”

“Well, my friend lived there a
long
time ago.” Swinging her arms, she starts walking up the hill toward the road.

A big shiver snakes down my arms, curling all the way to my toes.

The girl looks back over her shoulder. “You wanna come on to my house? My boat is over there at the bank.”

I can’t stop a grin from spreading over my face. “Yeah, I do. Even if I do gotta cross that bayou again.”

She waves a hand at my concerns. “Long as you don’t use that broken pier you’ll be okay. And don’t cross when it’s raining. That’s all I gotta say.” She reaches back and takes my hand in hers. Her palm is cool and soft and I wonder if six months in Bayou Bridge won’t be so bad after all. Meeting this new girl who’s so easy to talk to and knows what it’s like to be lonely means I don’t have to spend much time with Mirage, either.

“What’s your name?”

“Shelby. What’s yours? Besides Graveyard Angel Girl?”

She laughs at the nickname. “Gwen,” she answers simply. “Just Gwen.”

She squeezes my hand as we zoom back up the slope, then dart past the silent gravestones and tombs and plaques and pillars. Once we leave the cemetery gates, we climb through a hole in a hedge of prickly bushes and head for the bayou banks. Hidden among a cluster of cypress knees and elephant ears, there’s a pirogue tied to a tree trunk.

I glance down the water toward the bridge, wondering if Tara and Alyson and Jett are still around. They must have left while I was in the cemetery because there’s no sign of them now. Not even on the road. I’m so relieved I could spit with happiness.

Gwen steadies the boat while I slide onto the seat without making it tip too bad. Think I’m gettin’ better at climbing in and out of boats now. She unties the knot and picks up the paddles, handing one to me. “Jest head straight for that little cove on the left. My daddy named it Gwen’s Cove just for me. That’s where we’ll dock.”

“You sure it’s okay without a grown-up?”

“Sure I’m sure,” Gwen says. “My daddy made me this boat and I been boating my whole life. Takin’ a boat is safer than walking that pier, let me tell you!”

I laugh because her statement is so obvious when the bridge is half gone.

It only takes about fifteen minutes to cross the bayou and as we pass the halfway point, I can see the broken end of the long pier, water lapping at the pilings. Remembering what it looks like makes me feel like I got spiders crawling up my shirt.

Thrushes and whip-poor-wills flit through the trees as we tie up, using a cypress knee for our dock, then we jump onto the damp, squishy bank.

A strange feeling of joy spills over the afternoon as Gwen leads me through a maze of secret, weaving paths, like she owns her very own forest. Guess she actually does!

The ground grows firmer when we get to the clearing. The house sitting in the center of the meadow is almost like Mirage’s house, high up on stilts, rickety porch and all, with a tire swing hanging from one of the oak trees.

It’s all as real as the dirt under my feet, as real as the hot sunshine buzzing with mosquitoes and gnats.

A sprinkler waters the lawn, and a hose left running in the flower bed threatens to drown the marigolds. Gwen shuts off the spigot. “I’m starved, how about you?”

“Starved times two,” I tell her.

The house is small and cluttered. Old and musty.
Handmade doilies lie on the curved sofa and the armrests of the easy chairs, reminding me of Grandmother Phoebe.

“Up here is my room,” Gwen says, leading me up the stairs and down a dim hallway. When she opens the door, light pours through the dormer window. Her room faces the bayou and I can see the busted pier dangling like a broken arm across the murky water. I don’t like looking at it, and just then Gwen darts across the floor and pulls the curtains across the window as if she’s feeling the same thing.

A yellow quilt sits crookedly on the unmade bed and there’s an assortment of rocks and shells and Spanish moss on her dresser. A fishing pole leans inside a corner, and clothes and shoes spill out of the closet.

The next instant, I freeze right in the middle of the room, staring under the window.

“What is it?” Gwen asks, watching my face.

“Your bookcase,” I say softly. “I can’t believe it.”

In the center of Gwen’s bookcase sits the porcelain doll from the antique store. The very same one. I recognize the rose-colored lace gown and the pink ribbons on the bonnet perched on top of her long golden curls.

I crouch down in front of the case and just stare and stare at the doll. The blue eyes gaze back at me serenely. There’s even the same tiny chip on her chin.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Gwen says. “Her name’s Anna Marie and I got her when I was eight. She used to be my mamma’s doll. I dropped her the very day I got her. That’s why she has that chip on her chin. It was terrible, but jest an accident. I wish she was perfect and not damaged because of me.”

“She
is
perfect,” I tell Gwen. “No matter what.”

“Well, almost, I guess,” Gwen says.

“Anna Marie,” I whisper. The doll looks perfect here in Gwen’s bedroom, not dusty and fading like she was at Bayou Bridge Antique Store. Questions crowd my mind, mixing up inside my brain.

“She’s the kind of doll you keep for your whole life,” Gwen says.

“I would keep her forever, too,” I agree, my mind going crazy trying to figure out how the doll got from the store to here in just a couple of weeks. Was Gwen lying when she said that she’d had the doll for years already?

“I plan to keep her my whole life until I die,” Gwen says, flipping her buttercup-yellow hair over one shoulder.

I hold my breath as I reach out to touch the lace swirls on the edge of the rose dress.

All of a sudden, Gwen grabs my arm and shakes my wrist so that the charm bracelet jiggles loose from my sleeve.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, so alarmed I practically fall over.

Gwen stares at my arm. “You’re wearing a charm bracelet!”

I clutch my hand to my chest, afraid she’s going to take it like Tara did. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothin’! But it looks jest like
my charm bracelet
.”

“You have a charm bracelet, too?” It’s astonishing how much alike we are.

“My bracelet is one of my most prized possessions. Besides Anna Marie, of course.”

I hold up the bracelet so Gwen can see the individual charms. “Mir — my mamma used to have this bracelet. This one is our birthstone, a ruby for July, and here’s an owl. She actually has a pet owl, if you can believe it. And there’s this little carved box — and a locket without pictures. But who would have a locket without pictures?”