Circle of Secrets (25 page)

I try to find the right words that won’t make her think I’ve gone loony. “Just trying to find Gwen. I showed you those notes before I ran away.”

“You dropped one of ’em on the kitchen floor after you shot out the door.”

I give a start, not realizing I’d left one behind. “Which one?”

“The note she wrote to me the night she died. I left it in its blue bottle. Never wanted to see it again long as I lived.”

“So you did see the note the night she drowned? And you were there on the pier, right?” There’s the most peculiar sensation in my gut when I think about seeing my own mamma when she was a girl shooting past me on the bridge as she ran away from the Truth or Dare game and those taunting kids.

I give a start and suck in my breath. If Mirage hadn’t run, she probably would have gone in the bayou that night. She might have drowned when she was only twelve. Instead, Gwen drowned.

“I remember every note Gwen and I used to hide in them blue bottles,” she whispers. “I was there that night. And I ran. I’ve hated myself ever since for deserting her. Night of the worst storm ever recorded on this part of Bayou Teche. Gwen’s parents came home to chaos and police boats and ambulances. The whole town was out there on the banks cryin’ and prayin’. I’ll never forget it long as I live.”

“Was that storm worse than tonight?”

I can feel her trembling. “Tonight’s a pretty close second.”

I wonder if she’d believe me that I saw it all happen. That I’ve seen Gwen as a ghost.

“Gwen’s parents were in New Orleans closin’ on the house they’d just bought. Her daddy got a new job over there. She and me were both heartsick that she had to move away. We was babies together. Our mammas were the best of friends, both of ’em
traiteurs.
I should never have left her there. I shoulda been there to help her. To grab her and pull her home with me. Or jump in the water when — when —” She stops for a moment and presses her lips together as tears start slipping down her face again. “I wasn’t there to save her. Or stop her from drowning.”

“She’s the girl who got hit by lightning, isn’t she? The night the bridge broke apart.”

Mamma leans back to look at me. “How do you know these things?”

“I’ve seen her,” I tell her, and I can’t help still being a little bit afraid that she’ll send me to a mental hospital. “In the graveyard, at her house.”

Her eyebrows draw together in a frown of confusion. “You mean that old house out on Deserted Island?”

“Yeah, I been there, too. It’s still there. I’ve seen her bedroom. Her sister’s room, too. Maddie.”

Mirage lets out a shocked gasp. “It’s so strange to hear you say Maddie’s name.”

“Did they find —?” I stop, hardly able to say the words. “I watched Gwen disappear. Did they find her —?”

“Yes, baby, they dragged the bayou and found Gwen. After the funeral, the DuMondes’ grief was so terrible they took Maddie and moved away fast as they could. That’s why the bridge is still broken all these years later. Never saw ’em again. Always wondered what happened to that family.”

My mamma pulls the wool blanket tighter up under my chin. “Thought I was gonna go crazy seein’ you in that water, prayin’ to God you could hang on. Never been so scared in my whole life.”

“I saw the lightning and felt like I was burning up. I watched the bridge fall into the bayou, too.” My own guilt starts rising up inside my chest, like I’m drowning, also. “I tried to save her before the lightning, but she just disappeared. I couldn’t save her.”

Mamma makes a choking sound. “Neither could I,
shar.
Neither could I.”

“But why did I see her?” I ask her. “Was I supposed to save her? Do something different to stop it?”

“I don’t know, Shelby Jayne. Never knew ghosts were real, but maybe they are. But I do know we can’t go back and undo things. Sounds like her spirit was restless, sad.” She gives a sudden, choked laugh. “Jest like me. Maybe she came to you because I wouldn’t never go out there again. Never have gone out to see her grave all these years, and I haven’t visited her
house, either. And yet she wanted to give me one last message.”

“She already did,” I tell her softly.

“What do you mean, baby?”

“One of the blue bottle notes in Gwen’s handwriting — handwriting that looks ghostly and different from all the other notes — says, ‘I can’t find you! Are you lost?’ I think she
has
been looking for you.”

“See why I gotta move, Shelby Jayne? My heart feels like it’s breaking all over again.”

“But, Mamma, she was always happy when she talked about you. She told me she had a best friend she loved more than anybody in all the world.”

“Really? I don’t understand then. What does she want me to do?”

“Maybe she wants you to know it’s not your fault. Maybe she don’t want you to move away. And maybe I had to help her cross that bridge one last time cuz she needed help finally crossing into heaven.”

My mamma wipes at her eyes. “If that’s true, then this time we know she made it.
You
found the notes, Shelby Jayne.
You
ran out there in that storm even though it was dangerous. Even when it meant you might drown yourself.”

“The notes didn’t make much sense at first, but I figured
out which were written by her, and which were written by you.”

My mind races as I suddenly think about the scrapbook locked away in the cupboard in Gwen’s old house. Odd prickles race along my skin. I wonder if it’s still there. Maybe I actually saw the
real
notebook, not just a ghost one.

Mamma shakes herself inside the wool blanket. “Maybe Gwen does want me to stop feeling guilty, Shelby Jayne. Maybe I been carryin’ somethin’ I shouldn’t a been all these years. Maybe —” Her voice drops low. “Gwen gave me a second chance. A chance to save you.”

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

T
HE
W
ATER
P
ATROL BOAT DROPS US OFF AT THE SWAMP
house, docking next to an Inter-coastal Ambulance that’s already arrived. A paramedic keeps trying to check Mamma’s cut and see if she needs stitches, but she keeps saying she’s fine and to go on.

One of the men on the patrol boat tells me to keep the blanket he gave me, so I keep it wrapped tight around me, since I’m shivering in my sopping clothes. Feels like I’ve been wet for hours and hours. Every muscle in my body aches and throbs.

Soon as I get off the boat, my legs give out and I slump right down to the grass. All my strength just leaks right out of me.

“I think we need to have the paramedics check you out, too, Shelby.”

“I’m fine. Just tired.” I think that cold water pounded at me so hard and for so long, it took all the life right outta me.

Before I can get up again and walk up the porch steps, another boat comes roaring up the bayou. It stops and docks right at our very own bank. It’s not a very big boat, just a small motorboat with only one person inside. The man jumps out, ties up the rope, and runs toward us.

It’s my daddy.

“Philip!” Mamma cries, letting out her breath in a big whoosh. “You made it.”

“Mirage,” he says, and his voice is scratchy and hoarse. “Drove as fast as I could from the airport.” Then he spots me all wrapped up in my blanket. “Shelby!”

I run toward him and jump right into his arms. His hug never felt so good in all my life.

While Daddy carries me up the steps, the paramedics take Mamma inside the living room on a stretcher and then transfer her to the couch.

“I’m good,” she insists over and over again. “So much better now that I’m home with my family.”

My family.
Except we aren’t really a family anymore. Just
the thought of all that’s happened the past year makes the knot inside my throat grow big and lumpy again.

After the ambulance boat leaves, Daddy insists on steeping lemon in hot water in the kitchen for all of us.

“It’ll chase away the chill from that bayou dunking you both got,” he says.

The teakettle is soon whistling and I’m feeling warm and sleepy. I got bruises all over from banging against that pier for so long and my skin is tender, my bones sore and achy.

Rain keeps drumming against the roof like it’s not gonna stop for forty days and nights.

Mamma declares, “I do believe we might float away like Noah’s ark. Going back into town tonight is out of the question, Philip. You can sleep right here on the fold-out couch.”

Watching them, Daddy pouring the hot lemon tea, Mamma curled up in a blanket, I get a funny feeling inside my chest. So many things are churning away in my mind, but I don’t know how to put them into words.

“You got some bad bruises, Shelby Jayne, but at least they’ll heal,” Mamma tells me. “Now that you and I are together, I hope we can heal
us.
You’re not running away from me anymore. I’m gladder than I’ve been in a long, long time.”

“You jumped in the water and saved me,” I say, and I don’t realize I’m thinking out loud until I say it. “You could have drowned, too. Those men didn’t want you going overboard.”

“Pretty sure they were afraid they’d be fishing two bodies out of the bayou the next day.” She shakes her head. “There wasn’t no time to wait or to throw a line. I could tell you were ready to slip right away from that piling. I’d do anything for you,
bébé.
Anything.”

I think I really do know that now for sure, and suddenly the swamp house grows fuzzy and blurry around me.

“You’re gonna have a bad scar, too,” I say, pointing to her forehead. There’s a little bit of red seeping through the bandage. “Do you have any healing recipes for that? I mean
traiteur
recipes. In that book. In the kitchen.”

“Oh, Shelby Jayne,” she says, looking at me, her eyes tearing up again. “I got a salve that moisturizes the skin. Like vitamin E oil. Good for preventing scars. Got some other things to speed up the skin’s healing, too.”

I nod, thinking about how I’d like to take a closer look at that
traiteur
recipe book. It always looked more interesting than I wanted to admit. Almost like she can read my mind, Mamma says, “I’d be honored to have you make me a healing spell.”

Raindrops chatter at the windows and my heart does a funny little jump inside my chest. A healing spell. My first one. For my own mother.

And then it hits me that I’ve just had the strangest thought in my whole life. My
first
healing spell. As though there might be a second.

“Shelby,” Daddy says, “why don’t you take a bath and get ready for bed, then come into Mamma’s room with us? I already started the water for you.”

After I collect my nightgown, clean underwear, and a pair of socks, I step into the bathtub filled with hot water and bubbles, eager to soak away the moldy, leafy bayou smell. It’s in my skin, my nose and mouth, even in my throat from swallowing so much of it and coughing it up again.

I scrub my arms and legs and wash my hair, then kneel underneath the faucet to let the clean water rinse out all the shampoo.

After I dry off and pull on my nightgown and socks, I stick my wet hair into a ponytail.

My heart skips two beats when I think about the charm bracelet I stuffed into the pocket of my wet, dirty jeans earlier. Snatching them off the floor, I dig my hand into both pockets, pulling out the soggy blue bottle notes and the charm bracelet which is intact. I sink to the edge of the tub, feeling
a huge sense of relief. What if I’d lost it? Lost Gwen’s notes, too?

The relief makes my eyes well up as I lay the notes out on my bed to dry. I smile at the baby gator charm as I put the bracelet around my wrist and make sure it snaps good and tight.

When I step into the hallway, Daddy says, “Come say good night to your mamma.”

“My two favorite people,” Mirage says when I walk into her bedroom.

I look at the black stitches on her forehead where the paramedics tended. Her hair is tangled and her face is pale, and my mind is bursting with a thousand thoughts. I keep seeing her jump straight into the bayou for me. No second thoughts, no fear. Just pure love.

Daddy sits in the chair next to the bed. “I do believe we gotta make us some shrimp gumbo tomorrow. It’ll cancel out all this cold rain tonight.” His voice is soothing and I just want to crawl onto his lap and cry for a while, I’m so glad to see him.

As I get up on the bed and sit close to Mamma on the pillows, she lifts the bracelet away from my wrist, fingering the delicate charms. “Remember when I said that every charm tells a story? This is the story of me. A story of you. A story of
Gwen. A story of friends and a story of mothers and daughters.”

I put my head against her shoulder and stare at the charms swinging on the beautiful old silver chain. The charms of a girl, of a friendship, and of a family that once loved one another. And then I can’t help hoping that maybe that family loves one another still.

Mirage wipes her tears, laughs at herself, and then suddenly her arms fold me up tight. “Oh, Shelby Jayne, I’m so blessed to have you. Blessed to be alive. Blessed to have my beautiful baby girl safe and here forever.”

Hot tears start rolling down my face.

Daddy leaves his chair and sits on the bed, scooting closer to me and Mamma. His arms go around both of us at the same time and then we’re all of us crying together.

I can feel their breaths close to mine, our hearts beating together. I’m warm and safe, and my heart swells up inside my chest, growing bigger like it’s going to lift me clear off the bed and I’ll start floating away.

“I’m sorry, Mamma,” I tell her, my voice all choked up. “I’m sorry for all the mean things I’ve done and said. I’m sorry for all that time hating you.”

She presses her forehead against mine and our eyes lock together. “Nothin’ to be sorry for,
shar.
It’s my fault for
leaving you, for not trustin’ in your daddy’s love. Not trustin’ in myself to keep us a family. But we’re all of us learnin’ to love again. First time in a long time.”

Daddy’s big arms squeeze us tighter still, and I see tears flowing out of his eyes, too. My heart feels like it’s going to burst for sure.