Circle of Secrets (22 page)

There’s a pause while she listens.

“Yeah, Philip. Like I told you the other day, she’s actin’ real funny. Jest heard from the school. She’s been cuttin’ class. Playin’ hooky or whatever they call it nowadays. No, I don’t know where she’s goin’ all them hours.” Pause. “No. Yes. No.” Pause.

Dern, I wish there was another extension I could listen on.

“Didn’t think it was this bad. Got a disturbing phone call this morning. Seems like someone on Main Street saw her talking to herself. Yeah, like Shelby Jayne’s goin’ senile, like an old crazy lady. You didn’t believe me the other day when I said she’s been acting peculiar, but it’s true. I got witnesses now.”

What is she talking about? I don’t talk to myself! I’m not crazy! And I had a good reason to cut school today. Those girls in the bathroom drove me out of there. They’re the crazy, mean ones. I’m just trying to survive.

“Philip, we gotta do something … what? Already? You are?”

Long, long, long pause …

I’m about ready to wet my pants.

“Yeah, is what I got here right?” Mirage repeats a series of ten numbers, like my daddy got a new cell phone number.

She pauses again and this time she listens so long I can’t imagine what my daddy is saying to her, but I can hear her scribbling down a bunch of stuff with a scratchy pencil.

I feel the heat rise in my face, feel my gut twist into a big fat knot. I hold my hands against my thighs to keep them from trembling. I’m nervous, scared, and I wonder if I’m going to get detention. Do they have a jail for kids who skip school over and over again?

If Mirage sells the house and leaves, what will happen to me? What if she can’t take me with her? I don’t want to go back to New Iberia alone and live there by myself. Not anymore.

Mirage’s soft way of talking starts up again. I listen to the pretty melody of the up and down way she says her words, even if she is talking about me.

“I think Shelby’s lyin’ to me, and you know how I feel ’bout that. I think she’s disobeying me about goin’ down to that old pier —”

I put my hands to my face and double over, feeling my stomach churn like never before. Is that all she cares about, her rules? And she’s selling the house
while I’m here,
and moving away. Going away again. Just when I get here.

“Never knew we’d have such troubles with her,” Mirage adds. “Think I’m gonna call a doctor, get an appointment for her. Mebbe the school has a recommendation —”

I can’t stand them whispering about me anymore. I jump up from the floor and charge into the kitchen, even if it means I’ll be in worse trouble for eavesdropping. I want to find out who’s been saying all this stuff about me.

“I ain’t sick!” I yell at Mirage. “I don’t need no doctor! I don’t talk to myself. Whoever said that is lying!”

Mirage drops the phone to the floor with a crash, then reaches down to pick it up. “What’re you talkin’ about, Shelby Jayne? You shouldn’t be listening in on a private conversation.”

“Why didn’t you let me talk to Daddy? He don’t belong to you anymore.
You
left.
You
didn’t want us.” I’m chewing on my cheek so hard my mouth feels like raw meat.

Mirage holds her hand over the receiver. “I didn’t let you talk to him because me and him are talkin’ first.” She moves her hand away. “Philip, I’ll let Shelby call you back in a bit, okay?”

I watch her hang up and I’m shaking I’m so angry. “How much do you and Daddy talk like that? Talk about
me?”

“Couple times a week after you go to bed. Sometimes he calls during the day while you’re at school.” She arches an eyebrow. “Or mebbe I should say, while you
pretend
to go to school.”

“You don’t know what that school is like! You have
no
idea. You have
no
heart!”

“And you have a lot of explainin’ to do, young lady. Lyin’ on the phone, lyin’ to your teachers, running away to who knows where. You’re goin’ to be grounded for a long, long time, believe you me. Although skipping school for a few days isn’t going to permanently stunt your growth.” Mirage lets out a big sigh. “And we don’t always talk about you,” she adds, folding up a note card and stuffing it into her skirt pocket.

My parents talk to each other that often? I had no idea and the knowledge makes me feel like I don’t even know my own parents. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing to her hand slipping into the pocket of her skirt. “Is that a secret message to put into one of those blue bottles?”

Mirage looks startled. “Blue bottles? What are you talkin’ about,
shar?
You’re makin’ no sense.”

“I know all about the secret notes! I know all about Gwen!”

Mirage steps back as though I’ve just hit her. Her face drains white. “How do you know about Gwen?”

I hold myself rigid as I try to keep back the wall of tears behind my own eyes. “I want to talk to my daddy.”

“Me, too,” she whispers, still staring at me like she don’t know me, either. “But how could you know anything about Gwen? She’s — I can’t make head or tail of this conversation.”

“She’s in the locket! I turned the pictures over in my room just now. And she’s in the cemetery. And the island. And inside the blue bottles. All them notes. I saw ’em. I have them.”

Mirage stands still as a statue. The expression on her face scares me. “Show me,” she demands, and then adds, “please.”

I edge toward the kitchen door, tugging a couple notes out of my jeans. I want to go find Gwen. It’s been almost an hour. I have just enough daylight to get there. She was so upset when she ran from the graveyard. I’m worried she’s not safe on that island by herself. I’m worried about who she really is and why she’s stuck here in Bayou Bridge all alone. All the pieces are clicking into place, the notes, the clues, the friendship between Gwen and Mirage. I think I know who she is. I don’t like it. The thought makes me want to bawl my eyes out, but I gotta find out for sure.

I’m afraid the stories Mirage told me about blue bottles that keep away imps and ghouls and phantoms and haunting spirits were right. The evil phantoms might not come inside the house. They might stay on the edge of the bayou, but Miss Silla Wheezy knew they were there. That peculiar cat knew about the notes. And when I opened up the very first message I’d let loose a haunting spirit. I’d released the secrets that keep circling Mirage’s swamp house and the blue bottle tree.

I think I’m the only one that can help Gwen. Even if I have no idea what to do.

I stare down at the notes in my cupped hands, afraid Mirage will take them away from me. I need them to find Gwen. “The notes summoned her from the graveyard,” I whisper to myself, realizing for the first time how the notes and the bottles and Gwen all work together, but Mirage hears me.

She takes a step forward, sees the handwriting on the notes, and chokes out, “Oh, Shelby Jayne.” Then she starts crying like I’ve just said the worst thing in the world.

“I gotta find her,” I say, urgency hitting me like a brick in the head. “I gotta go.”

Stuffing the messages back into the pocket that doesn’t have the hidden charm bracelet, I race through the front room, past Mister Lenny perched on the lamp shade, and
slam through the front door, taking the porch steps two at a time and running straight for the dock.

“Shelby Jayne!” Mirage screams behind me.

I don’t look back, just jump into the boat, unloose the rope, pick up a paddle, and plunge the oar into the muddy water, rowing like crazy.

The wind whips my hair, stinging my eyes, but I dig that paddle into the water, even though the swamp is getting choppy and frothy, the water higher than I’ve ever seen it.

Storm clouds loom in the distance, but rain never hurt nobody. I don’t care about getting wet.

“Shelby!” Mirage screams again.

I finally glance back and see her standing in the middle of the elephant ears, shirt whipping against her body, hair flying straight in the air, and up to her ankles in water. Like she’s going to swim out to me. But I’m too far away to swim to. I’m almost around the first bend headed to town.

“Come back!” she yells, and I can hear fear in her voice. “It’s not safe!”

“I’ll be back!” I yell back. “I’m okay.”

Mirage is shaking her head and still screaming. “No, no,
no
!”

And then she’s gone. I face forward and keep my mind on Gwen.

Rowing by myself is harder than I ever dreamed. The boat keeps veering right, then left, bangs up against the cypress knees, then starts heading straight for the deep water in the middle.

“Dang it!” I yell. I’m not sure I’ll make it back. Probably have to spend the night at Gwen’s house. I’ll telephone and tell Mirage where I am. Spending the night on the island is better than rowing back in the dark, right?

Besides, Mirage thinks I’ve gone loony. She wants to take me to a doctor, maybe put me in the mental hospital. She thinks I’m a crazy lady who talks to herself on the streets.

I glance behind me, half fearing and half hoping I’ll see Mirage in a second boat, but there’s only empty water and a sky full of black clouds and a forest of cypresses, moss whipping the branches with a fury.

If Gwen’s on the water somewhere, I can only imagine how scared she is because I’m more terrified by the minute. Alone on the bayou, night coming on, is spooky. I think about gators, their red eyes following me. Or snakes slithering through the water, ready to crawl up the sides of the boat.

Instead of the left turn that heads to town and the docks along Main, I head right at the T, which loops around a different way and comes out along the south side of
Bayou Bridge. Right where the cemetery is across from Gwen’s island house. I figure it’ll save me time, but I hope I made the correct turns because it starts to drizzle and it’s getting darker. Light raindrops hit my forehead and neck and shoulders.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” I mutter. Why didn’t I grab a jacket?

Getting wet doesn’t affect my rowing, but I start slowing down because my arms are getting tired real fast.

The swamp finally becomes Bayou Teche proper and the last curve of the waterway opens up along the road. I can see the bridge and the little island, its forest of trees dark and dense in the storm.

Blisters form along my thumbs and I stick one in my mouth, feeling the scars and tender skin along the inside of my cheek where I’ve been chomping the past year.

Wish I had a drink of water.

Wish I knew what was written on that note Mirage stuck in her pocket. I know that there are numbers. A whole bunch of them that my daddy gave her. I wonder what they mean. Phone numbers to a doctor or a hospital for me?

I pull up closer to the island and see right away that there’s no boat tied up along the cypresses. Where’d Gwen go? Is she trying to find me — or is she hiding out at the graveyard where she feels safer?

My shoulders ache like my arms are gonna fall off. My palms are so red and sore they’re burning. I stick them in the water to cool them off, but I wish I had a pair of gloves.

Cold rain shoots down like pellets from the sky. My boat’s gonna fill with water if I don’t get to shore soon. Then I spot a boat tied up to a tree just a little ways down from the broken pier. A tree right across from the cemetery. Gwen’s boat.

But she’s nowhere in sight.

I think about the dark circles under Mirage’s eyes, wanting to sell the house, her all-the-time sadness, the secret she’s hiding about someone who’s dead — and the secret guilt she has that she caused the death. And I think about those pictures in both them lockets. Mirage and Gwen being friends when they were
both
eleven.

Queer prickles race along my spine. Gwen has been lurking in the graveyard not just for a few weeks or a few months but for
years.

I’m drenched by the time I pull up to the banks. Wrapping my boat line to one of the bigger cypress knees, I jump out, making sure I don’t fall into the water when the boat wobbles.

The ground is real mushy and the rain is a steady downpour now.

“Gwen!” I call, but there’s no sign of her. “It’s me, Shelby!”

I run past the cemetery gates and head straight down the sloping lawn. Rain thumps the headstones, filling in the etched names with little dribbles. Puddles are forming along the low spots, creating mud pockets and hollow lakes in the grass.

“Gwen!” I whirl in circles, trying to catch sight of her. No golden hair, no pink shorts or beaded shirts. No humming or giggles as she pops out from behind the angel.

Maybe that’s not Gwen’s boat on the bank at all. Maybe she’s somewhere safe and warm — and I’m the silly one who’s not. Maybe I’m actually making up weird stories in my head. I might be wrong about everything. Am I crazy like Mirage thinks?

“Gwen, come on, where are you?” I whisper, rain coming down harder, darkness wrapping like cold fingers around my neck. “I should have brought you home with me long time ago. I have a feeling you’d like Mister Lenny and Miss Silla Wheezy.”

I have a feeling I’m talking to myself. Like a certified crazy lady. What other kind of person would be creeping around a graveyard in the rain, in the dark, trying to find the ghost of a blue bottle tree?

All at once, I get the feeling someone is watching me.

When I reach the bottom slope of the grass, I know for positive certain that I really do
not
want to be here. The murky
oaks and cypresses crowding around the graves are like lurking monsters. Wind whistles around the tombstones, scattering leaves across gloomy headstones and family crypts.

I peek around the angel statue, but, just like I thought, Gwen isn’t sitting on the ground waiting for me like I’d been hoping.

A tear slips out of my eye, but maybe it’s just the rain. Now I gotta row all the way home by myself. I’m so tired, I’m not sure I can lift my arms for more than ten strokes.

Nobody knows I’m here, either.

School’s closed down for the day and I have no idea where anybody else lives.

Most of the shops are closed up now, too. It’s getting really late, and really dark.

I want my parents, my daddy, someone to help me get back home.