The Time of the Fireflies

  Daddy shook his head. “I don’t know what to say to that. Your family survived. We’ll survive. We haven’t been destroyed. These accidents were horrible and unfortunate, but you’ve got to get rid of the hate in your soul, shar. You’ve poisoned yourself — and now you’re going to poison Larissa.”

  Mamma whirled me around to stare straight into my eyes. “Are you going to stand there and tell me that you’re really and truly friends with Alyson Granger?”

  My stomach dropped. “’Course I’m not friends with her! I just saw her on the road. I’ll never be friends with her! I hate her just like you do, and I always will! Are you satisfied now?”

  My mother let out a cry, then whipped back around to the sink full of soap and dishes. Her body trembled, as if she was holding in a flood of emotion.

  I was beginning to believe my mother about Bayou Bridge. This town was cursed. Maybe we did need to move and go somewhere safer. If we hadn’t moved back, I wouldn’t be scarred. I’d still have my old friends, my old house, a normal face.

  A sick sensation spread through my stomach and up into my throat at everything I’d lost. ’Course, worse things could happen, I guess. I could get eaten by a gator. My parents could lose the antique store. They could sit me down one day and tell me they hated each other — and pull me apart in the process.

  Daddy slammed dishes off the table and into the sink. “Did you hear that, Maddie? You just proved my point. Larissa not only has a scarred face but a scarred heart. What do you think we can do about that now?”

  “It’s this town,” Mamma repeated quietly, her voice low and terrible.

  Daddy threw up his hands. “That’s ridiculous. It’s not the whole town. An accident. Two accidents, I guess, but accidents. Nobody was trying to permanently maim or kill Larissa. A prank by a bunch of kids that got out of hand. We have to forgive and forget and move on.”

  Mamma’s hands shook, but I wasn’t sure if she was boiling mad or still crying. “Gotta get rid of my ghosts,” she finally muttered, her voice raw as a skinned knee.

  Stiffly, Daddy walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Baby.”

  She brushed him off. “I need to be alone for a while.”

  He turned to me and said, “Grab a plate of food and skedaddle off to your room, Larissa. Give us some time, okay? And next time call us when you’re out somewhere, especially after dark. It makes us worry.”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Hurriedly, I grabbed a ham sandwich, a bowl of salad, and a slice of lemon pie. I was so relieved I had permission to go upstairs to peace and quiet.

  “Wait a minute,” Mamma told me, stopping me with her hand.

  I tightened my grip on my plate. Was she gonna take dinner away from me?

  “Don’t look so scared, Larissa. Just got a question for you. Besides ordering you to clean that dress.”

  “What, Mamma?”

  She chewed on her lip. “Have you been messing with those dolls upstairs lately?”

  A shock of surprise ran through me. I was not expecting that at all. “You mean the dolls in the glass case? The one that you keep locked?”

  “That’s the one.” Her dark green eyes held my gaze tight to hers.

  “No, I don’t open it without your permission.”

  “You sure? You don’t need to lie. You’re not in trouble. I’m just — just wondering because …” Her voice trailed off, a frown between her eyes.

  “You think someone’s been messing with the lock?” Daddy asked.

  Mamma shook her head. “No, the lock’s fine. It’s just, well, I can’t explain what I mean exactly. Just a funny feeling.”

  “I promise I haven’t opened the case. Sometimes I look at the dolls and, of course, I dust the case, but that’s all.”

  “Well, if you promise,” Mamma said, but she didn’t sound completely convinced.

  “Must be the baby coming so soon,” Daddy said. “You got nerves and jitters.”

  Mamma nodded. “Guess so.”

  But she didn’t seem satisfied. I wondered what was on her mind. Did Mamma suffer bizarre thoughts every time Anna Marie’s chilling blue eyes followed her around the second floor? I’d always thought it was just me.

  I took my plate, went upstairs, and shut the door. I was safe in my cozy room. No dolls’ eyes. No strange phone calls.

  Besides, I had to mull over the fact that the fireflies had escorted me back in time. Time slipping like sand through an hourglass. I’d just visited the summer of 1912. It was powerful. And perfectly real.

  I could still see Miss Anna taking the porcelain doll — minutes after Dulcie received her as a gift. I replayed the moment when Miss Anna, clutching the doll in her arms, touched me — and I was zapped back to my own time.

  Miss Anna wasn’t nice to take the doll and walk away with it. She hadn’t just admired it and given it back. She’d snuggled with it. Pressed that doll tightly in her arms like it belonged to her. She got a pony, for crying out loud. Anna probably already owned a whole room full of dolls. Dulcie was lucky to have a rag doll with strands of yarn for hair.

  Miss Anna was a little bit selfish. And Dulcie couldn’t say a thing because she was a servant. I hoped Miss Anna had given the doll back later that evening. But I wanted to know if she had really returned her to Dulcie. I was dying to know what was happening in 1912 right this minute.

  “Right this minute,” I repeated, laughing out loud and falling back on the pillow. “I want to know what happened this very moment in 1912, but it was more than a century ago. It’s already history.”

  I fiddled with the eyelet on my bedspread. Deep down, I already did know. Miss Anna never gave the doll back. Anna Marie remained with the Normand family. Passed along to my grandmother and my mother. Sitting in our very own doll case right below me.

  It gave me a terrible feeling knowing my own great-great-grandmother was so mean. A little thief. Hopefully, she’d grown up and gotten past her selfishness, but I’d never know.

  I was just finishing my last bite of sandwich and licking my fingers when I heard a phone start to ring.

  My heart beat fast inside my chest. I could tell that the ringing was coming from the main floor, not my parents’ room. It was the girl. I knew it. But did I want to talk to her?

  Two seconds later, I bolted off my bed. I ran down the narrow stairs and dashed on to the second floor. The phone continued ringing.

  The sound was coming from one of the black candlestick phones. The telephone rang twice more, and then I finally snatched it up. “Hello?”

  “Larissa? That’s you, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “I — you sound so young over a phone line. Well, I guess you are young. Just turned twelve, right?”

  “Yeah,” I slowly answered. How did this girl know so much?

  “Of course you just turned twelve. That’s why I’m calling. Because this is the summer. The summer you have to save your family.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean your mamma. Your baby sister.”

  “I don’t have a baby sister.”

  “Not yet, but you will.”

  “Are you some kind of fortune-teller? Maybe it’s a boy. The ultrasound could be wrong, you know.”

  “Nope, it’s a girl,” she said firmly.

  “How do you know so much, smarty-pants?” I was irritated by this mysterious, know-it-all girl. Irritated by my parents. Irritated by Miss Anna.

  “It’s hard to explain right now. Besides, even if I told you I doubt you’d believe me. Maybe you’ll figure it out eventually.”

  “I will,” I said defiantly. “You don’t have to make me feel like a dummy.”

  “You’re anything but stupid, Larissa. And, well, you know you have to go back.”

  “I was just thinking that before you called. I want to know what happened to Miss Anna. But why can I see her — why can I see all of them?”

  There was a pause. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s got
something to do with the curse.”

  “You mean the town curse?” I gulped. “It’s true that Bayou Bridge is out to get our family?”

  She didn’t answer that directly. “Let’s just say that I’m not joking when I say it’s a matter of life and death. So you have to go back. If you want to save your little sister. Just don’t let anybody touch you — and watch out for alligators.”

  “No kidding. Wait — how do you know about that? You got some kind of crystal ball?” I paused, wondering if someone truly had been spying on me as I crossed the bayou in the cloud of fireflies. It was too creepy to consider. The girl’s last words burst through my thoughts. “Hey, what do you mean save my little sister? What’s going to happen — ?”

  There was silence. I tapped the phone. Nothing. Jiggled the metal tab up and down. But it was no use. She was already gone.

  How could I save my little sister when she wasn’t even born yet? And, in a cruel and twisted way, it felt like history was repeating itself. My mamma had been the little sister when her older sister drowned. Maybe there was a connection and maybe there wasn’t. Either way I knew I was going back.

  The girl on the phone didn’t have to convince me. Not one little bit.

  A few nights later, Daddy declared he was going to take Mamma out to dinner. Get her away from all the store’s worries. Mamma tried to protest, saying we couldn’t afford it, but I could tell she was glad to leave.

  Which meant I was free.

  Fast as I could, I got through the routine of closing up the shop. Dusting, rolling down the desks, straightening pictures, and wiping fingerprints from the glass cases.

  I liked seeing the store pretty at night when it was clean again, all the lights blazing and making the china glow. Normally, I would have set myself up on a couch with a book and a bag of popcorn, but I had to take advantage of the time.

  I ran all the way to the bayou. It was a hot and heavy night. Summer was in full swing now. The lightning bugs were swarming, flying fast as if they were waiting for me.

  My feet squished in the mud as the tiny golden lights swirled. I stepped up onto the bridge. Crossing the broken bridge always made my stomach roll over like I was gonna throw up. What if it didn’t mend itself brand-new? What if I fell in again?

  I gritted my teeth and took the first slow, careful step. If I wasn’t supposed to slip through time, then why did the girl keep calling me? The idea had crossed my mind that the girl might be Miss Anna Normand. What if she was calling me from the past after she saw me hiding in her bushes? There were phones in 1912. What if one of the phones in the antique store was an old Normand telephone? But how would she know who I was or where I lived? The girl who kept calling knew about my family, my unborn sister. And she sounded so urgent when she told me I needed to go back in time to save my baby sister from dying. But that made no sense! Why was my sister in danger? From what, or from who? And who would know that anyway? Who cared enough and was motivated enough? The whole thing was a puzzle with too few pieces to fit together.

  A sudden shout behind me made me jerk around.

  A girl with brown, billowing hair ran toward me. I groaned. I guess Alyson lived down this road, but she was getting to be a nuisance.

  I didn’t want to answer her prying questions, so I ignored her shouts, ran down the wooden planks of the bridge, and was caught up in the lovely procession of dancing fireflies. It helped if I didn’t look down at the rushing water, and I hoped Alyson was too far away to see what I was doing.

  A thin spiral of smoke rose from one of the chimneys when I got to the clearing, but there was no sign of the Normand servants or family.

  I circled the whole yard, staying hidden in the woods, pausing to admire the grand white columns along the front of the house. Ivy and rose trellises climbed the walls. A humongous vegetable garden spread across a tilled clearing behind a gate. Perfect rows of leafy vegetables, probably weeded and hoed by T-Paul and Mister Lance.

  Every once in a while my feet disappeared into a mound of soft dirt near the biggest and oldest cypress trees. Looked like Mister Lance was still following Anna’s orders, digging up tree after tree as they searched for imaginary long-lost Civil War silver.

  After I circled the perimeter from the safety of the woods, I wiped at the sweat along my forehead, longing to sit in one of the rocking chairs on the porch. Have someone bring me cold lemonade. There was no movement anywhere. The coast was clear.

  I got to my feet, ready to spend ten minutes on the back porch, pretending I was a rich lady in 1912, when Miz Beatrice and Dulcie opened the back door. Quickly, they swished through, their long skirts sweeping the polished planks of the porch.

  I shot down behind a bush. That was a close call! Would I be jolted back to the present if they touched me as Miss Anna had? I didn’t want to find out.

  The mother and daughter strode across the lawns, their shoulders square and stiff like they were mad at the world, as they headed into one of the outlying buildings. Turned out the building wasn’t a shed or an outhouse but rather a summer kitchen. The windows didn’t have glass, so smoke and heat could escape. Rows of glass canning jars and a stack of big kettles sat on wooden shelves. Stacked underneath were frying pans for cooking large quantities during harvesttime when extra hands were hired.

  The open windows allowed me to hear everything. It was perfect. I hunkered down under the rear window.

  “Now we need this Dutch oven for baking the pineapple upside-down cake,” Miz Beatrice said, as if consulting a list. “Dulcie, fetch me some baking potatoes from the root cellar.”

  “But there’re spiders and snakes down there.”

  “Land sakes, child! It might be dry as a bone, but there ain’t no snakes. They stay down at the river for water.”

  “What about spiders?” Dulcie said next. “I hate spiders with a passion.”

  “You’re getting to be as melodramatic as Miss Anna.” I heard a trapdoor squeak. A pause, as if Miz Beatrice was peering down. “All I see is a few cobwebs. Tomorrow, I’ll get T-Paul to clean ’em up with the broom, but nothing is moving at the moment.”

  “Mamma!” Dulcie let out a grump.

  “I’ll shine the light and you get me an apron full of big potatoes.”

  “Why potatoes? It’s blazing hot to bake potatoes.”

  “Miz Julianna says she’s got a hankering to have them for supper tonight. Although why not a good, chilled potato salad is beyond me. We got us that new icebox contraption.”

  I heard the clip-clop of footsteps going down, then footsteps coming back up.

  “Got ten big ones, Mamma.”

  “They look good. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  I wiped my face with the hem of my shirt. Dulcie was right. It was blazing hot.

  Softly, Miz Beatrice said, “Think I know what’s still bothering you, sugar.”

  There were tears in Dulcie’s voice as she slowly said, “Mister Edgar gave me that doll.”

  “It’s not like we can march into Miss Anna’s bedroom and just take that doll out of her case.”

  “Why not? She belongs to me!”

  “Because we’d be accused of stealing, that’s why not,” her mother said indignantly. “We’re only servants, in case you forgot.” Miz Beatrice added hopefully, “Maybe she’ll give her back when she’s done with the doll.”

  “That’ll never happen. Miss Anna says the doll is safer in her room. Soon she’ll forget it was ever mine.”

  “Try to put it out of your mind, darlin’.”

  “I never owned anything like that doll. Never will, either. I hate her with all my heart.”

  Miz Beatrice gasped. “Don’t be talking about hating, child.”

  “She gets everything she ever wants,” Dulcie said darkly. “Makes me want to cut off her ringlets.”

  “I know it seems that way, sugar. But there ain’t nothing we can do about it. Just pray Miss Anna will remember us and grow some kindness. Meanwhile, we will forgive and
forget, and maybe one day you’ll get another doll just as pretty.”

  “Not a doll from the islands. They’re rare.”

  “That’s probably true, my girl. How often does someone go to the Island of the Dolls and bring back a trunkload to pass out?” Miz Beatrice laughed softly at the thought.

  But her daughter began to weep, and my heart tugged at her loss of something so wonderful and beautiful. Snatched away so quickly. I knew what it felt like to be treated so badly that all you could think of was revenge. You had to do something — anything — to turn that nasty, bitter feeling into something sweeter. I figured revenge could be like chocolate. Rich, dark chocolate mousse, with juicy strawberries and whipped cream on top. My mamma had wanted revenge on the town this past year and it had turned her sad and angry. She hadn’t been happy in a long time. I didn’t want to be like that, but I knew I had been, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Pain was real and it took time to heal. Just like the scar on my face.

  There was a rustling noise as if Miz Beatrice had pulled her daughter into her arms to comfort her. “There, there,” she murmured. “One day you and that smart brain of yours is going to college if I have to work the skin off my hands. You’re going to be happy. A doll is just a thing. Something nice and pretty, but not something to live and die over.”

  I bit at my lips, trying to think of the last time my own mamma had hugged me. And, Mamma owned the doll now, which made me feel guilty and peculiar. Miss Anna Normand had been cruel to Dulcie, and for no reason.

  The next instant, Miz Beatrice and Dulcie left the outdoor kitchen and walked briskly back across the lawns to the house. I rocked forward into a crouching position, ready to run into the trees if they turned around and saw me.

  As soon as they entered the back door, I followed, quiet as I could, exposed as I ran across the open lawns toward the house.

  Three seconds later I stood at the door, panting. I counted to five, and then twisted the door handle and peeked inside.

  No sign of anybody. The hall was empty — and gorgeous. Without a sound, I stepped through, drinking in the sight of high ceilings, crown molding, and ivory wall panels. Paintings hung everywhere. Fancy crystal lamps perched serenely on hall tables. And this wasn’t even the front entrance!