Circle of Secrets

  There’s a distinct, terrible smell of burning wood and I know that the lightning struck the bridge. That bolt was so violent, there’s no way it would have missed, heading straight out of the clouds for the water like it did.

  Wobbling and dizzy, I finally get to my knees, grab the splintery wood of the broken pier with one hand, and search the water for Gwen.

  I know I saw her right here two minutes ago on the pier, right where the lightning hit. Most likely, she would have gone down with the bridge, but I don’t see her now at all.

  I rub the rain out of my eyes, and search the darkness. No sign of her golden hair. No screams or cries, just silence. It’s suddenly quiet, peaceful, even as the rain continues to pound the surface of the water.

  My heart slows its thumping inside my ribcage.

  I think I just watched Gwen’s ghost, her spirit, finally cross over to heaven.

  Before I can take it all in the pier begins to groan.

  Several more wooden planks drop away like toothpicks, disappearing into the swirling whirlpool of muddy water. The pier shudders, and as I try to stand and run back to shore, the board I’m standing on splinters and breaks clean away from the piling.

  I plunge into the cold water, screaming as I hit the surface, then gurgling as I sink below into the deep darkness of the bayou.

  The water is thick and murky, but I manage to grab hold of one of the pilings before I’m sucked away by the vicious current. My hands claw at the wood and my head breaks the surface. I’m coughing and spluttering, terrified to be in the water. Right along with a torn-up bridge whipping past me, cypress boards full of nails tearing at my skin.

  Out of the rushing blackness, something grabs at my legs. I kick at it, thinking it’s a snake or a gator, and scream at the top of my lungs.

  Taking in gulps of air and water, I flail my hands, searching the current rushing past me, treading water to stay afloat.

  Something bumps into me and I grab hold of it, sobbing with relief at a branch being swept downstream.

  The branch is thicker than I first realize and wedges itself between two of the broken planks. I hold on, even though the water is roaring so fast I can hardly keep my grip.

  I’m tired and sore and bruised. It hurts so bad to hang on and the muscles in my arms scream at me to just let go and float away.

  Rain pounds the surface of the dark water relentlessly, brown whirling water foaming over and over on itself.

  I wonder if I can climb back up to the bridge, but as soon as I try to lift myself higher on the piling, I can’t hardly keep myself from going under. The water is too strong, too fast.

  The tiny sliver of hope that Gwen is still out there somewhere dies inside my chest.

  I lower my head to the knotty branch and sob. Gwen is truly dead, and now, even her ghost is gone. I miss her already, and it don’t make much sense to miss a ghost, but it’s true. I can’t get her face and that floating golden hair out of my mind.

  Knowing I’ll never see her again feels unbearable, and I know why my mamma agreed to leave the swamp and live in New Iberia with my daddy all those years. And why she wants to sell the swamp house now.

  She’s dead. She’s dead! I’ll never forgive myself long as I live.

  Gwen has been haunting the blue bottle tree and the graveyard, waiting for her friend who never showed up. She wrote the message:

  I can’t find you! Are you lost?

  Written in that spidery, ghostlike handwriting. Written after she died.

  Those blue bottles really did capture a ghost.

  My breath catches at my throat as I realize that Mirage never saw Gwen’s note calling out to her, looking for her. Because Mirage won’t go near that tree no more. I think about how she always stays on the porch. How she skirts the tree to do her chores or tend to the cats. That tree is filled with sad memories and real ghosts, Mirage’s ghosts, so she tries to ignore it.

  Rushing, dank water pours into my mouth and I start choking. It’s pitch-black now and the awfulness of my predicament hits me like a hammer between the eyes. I don’t have the strength to climb up out of the water. The slimy planks are slippery and too high to get a grip on.

  Cold water pounds at my arms and my legs.

  And nobody knows where I am.

  That thought scares me like crazy.

  “Mamma!” I scream, clawing my fingernails at the planks to get a better grip. Pain shoots straight up my arms. “Mamma!”

  The water is a monster tearing at me to let go. A few minutes later, I can’t feel my legs no more.

  “Mamma!” I scream over and over again. I don’t know how long I been hanging on to the cypress branch and the piling. Feels like hours and hours. Water shoots up my nose and down my throat, choking me, but I keep screaming so someone can hear me. Hoping someone’s passing by on the road.

  Then, like a dream, I hear my name come floating out of the darkness. “Shelby Jayne!” Is it real or are my ears playing tricks on me? Then I hear it again and I start crying, but I can’t tell who it is.

  “Mamma!” I scream again, but I’m gettin’ a sore throat and can hardly get the word out.

  Through the blinding rain, I catch a glimpse of something yellow. Like the light from a lantern.

  Now someone’s yelling my name over and over and I try to shout again, but nothin’ comes out but a whisper.

  The lantern gets closer and closer, and now I hear the sound of a boat engine. From out of the rain and the darkness the lights on the prow of a flat-bottomed fishing boat come into view and I watch as the boat turns and runs alongside the pier.

  Another lantern is lifted high, swinging along the railing of the boat and searching the water. That’s when I start sobbing harder. Behind the lantern is Mirage, my mamma, hanging over the side of the boat. Rain drums against the lantern, trickles down her face. Her eyes are dark, her skin white as a sheet. “Shelby Jayne, Shelby Jayne!” she screams. “I see her! Down there! Stop the boat!”

  As soon as she spots me, my mamma don’t wait for nothin’. She thrusts the lantern at someone in a yellow rain slicker and throws a ladder over the edge. The boat shudders as it scrapes along one of the bridge pilings.

  For a split second, I see Mirage in the glow of the lantern as it swings crazily in the wind. Then she climbs up on the boat’s railing and throws her legs over the edge.

  A man’s voice shouts, “Hey, stop! Stop! She’s goin’ in the water!”

  Before anybody can pull Mirage from the edge, she leaps right off the side of the boat and into the water with a splash. Her head goes under, and then comes back up immediately. Her arms slice through the water as she comes toward me. Never knew she could swim.

  “She’s gone overboard!” yells the man through the fog. “That woman jumped! Man overboard! Two down! Two in the water!”

  “Mamma!” I yelp as my cold, numb hands suddenly slip from the branch.

  Instantly, I start to float away, screaming again, but Mirage grabs my hand and pulls me through the water toward her. The grip of her arms is fierce and tight and I melt like butter against her chest. The rushing water pounds against me and I feel so limp, my arms and legs swirling in the water like they don’t even belong to me no more.

  “Shelby, baby,” Mamma murmurs in my ear. “I got you, I got you. Hold on to me. I’m gonna get us over to this other piling. These broken planks you been hanging on to are about ready to go.”

  I reach up and put my arms around her neck. The water is whipping fast and strong, but I’m in the crook of her neck. Her arms encircle me as she moves us along the branch to a firmer piling down the pier and away from the broken planks.

  When I look up, two men in yellow slickers and hats lean out over the side of the boat to throw two life preservers out to us. As soon as the rope reaches Mirage’s outstretched hand and she wraps it around her fist, a second boat pulls up on the other side of the pier. This boat is huge and its horns are blaring into the night. Suddenly, there are blazing lights
everywhere and people shouting.

  It’s the Coast Guard or the Water Patrol or something.

  Mamma puts the second life preserver over my head and helps me adjust it. One-handed, she ties the length of rope around my waist, tugging the knot to make sure it’s tight. “I’m gonna let them pull you up, shar. You okay?”

  “I’m scared,” I tell her because I don’t want her to let me go. I want her to stay with me forever.

  “You can do it, baby, you’re all right. Just let the rope carry you. You don’t gotta do nothing; they got you. The rope’s tied to that big boat. You ain’t goin’ nowhere but inside that boat.”

  Her dark eyes look into mine, and I see her lips trembling, and I can’t help starting to cry all over again.

  She presses her cheek against mine and whispers in my ear, “You okay, bébé?”

  I nod again, but just cry even harder.

  She hugs me tight and cold water pounds between us, blasting right up my neck. “I love you, bébé girl, I love you. Always have, always will.”

  “I love you, too, Mamma.” Next thing I know, I feel the pull of water rushing over my whole body as I’m sucked out of the bayou. I’m in the air, over the edge of the boat, and a minute later I’m lying on a bench. People rush around putting blankets on me and shouting but I can’t understand a word they’re saying.

  My stomach lurches and water comes dribbling up out of my mouth. Feels terrible, but a minute later I start to feel more normal, even if the boat is rocking side to side.

  Rain’s coming down in great sheets, but not too much later, Mamma is lying next to me on some sorta table or bench. She’s got a gash on her head that’s bleeding, trickles of red running down the left side of her face, but she reaches out her hand to mine and squeezes my fingers, then holds my hand to her cheek.

  She’s smiling and crying at the same time. “Shelby,” she whispers, and her voice is raw and croaking. “You could have drowned so easy. What were you doin’ on that pier?” She stops to gulp back a sob and I can’t stop myself from watching her, studying her face, memorizing her features. I know for certain that she really is the girl in the locket.

  Mamma strokes my face with her fingers. “This afternoon,” she starts to say, “you mentioned a girl named Gwen. I know who you’re talkin’ about. She was my best friend in all the world. My friend for life. That pier is where she drowned years and years ago.”

  “I know,” I say, thinking about Gwen’s golden hair floating in sunlight. I think about her smile as she popped out from behind the angel. And then I see her disappear in that crack of lightning and I know that she didn’t have to drown again. That she made it. She is gone, crossed over at last to where she won’t be lost any longer.

  “Oh, baby,” Mirage says. “Seein’ you holding on to that branch as the boat came up, I thought I was gonna break apart into pieces if I watched you go under.” My mamma’s eyes look old and sad and relieved all at the same time. Her arms shield me from the storm, and then we’re crying together, rain and tears mixing up.

  “It’s a miracle we found you, a blessed miracle. But you’re gonna be fine, bébé. You breathin’ okay?” Her hands rub my back and I cough again, more water dribbling out. There’s a nasty taste in my mouth.

  “My stomach hurts.”

  “Expect it does, but you’re gonna be fine.”

  “You’re bleeding,” I tell her, looking at her face in the dim glow of the lanterns.

  She wipes at her forehead, and blood comes away on her fingers. Just then one of the Water Patrol men comes up with a medical bag with a red cross on it. He opens it up and gets out disinfectant and bandages.

  “Couple a stitches, ma’am,” he tells Mirage. “Even after I clean this up you need to get checked out by a doctor. No signs of concussion, but I think you should make sure.”

  “I’m not worried about myself, jest my daughter.”

  “We took her temperature and blood pressure and she’s already gettin’ that water out of her stomach. Other than that, she’s a tough little girl. Survived all that time in the water and hardly a scratch on her. No signs of hypothermia, either.”

  “She’s brave and strong,” Mirage says, gazing at me. She hasn’t stopped looking at me since she jumped into the bayou and kept me from going under. I give a shudder when I think about how I’d let go right when my mamma jumped in. Right now I hurt so bad I can hardly move a finger underneath all the blankets. But I’m finally warm.

  One of the officers shouts back at us, “We’re ready to move out of here. You all sitting tight, ma’am?”

  The medic doctoring Mirage shouts back, “We’re good. Go on!”

  I feel the surge of the boat’s engines and the bulk of the ship turning away from the broken pier.

  As we lie on the bench together, Mamma pushes the damp hair off my face. “Who were those men in that other boat? The one you jumped overboard?”

  “Couple hours ago when you disappeared ’round the bend in my boat, I ran back in the house and called a neighbor a few miles down the swamp. Always offers help in case I have an emergency. Never had to take him up on it before now. I was terrified I was going to lose you all over again.”

  Her voice chokes up and I feel her arms tighten. “Tell me why you run off like that, Shelby Jayne! What were you doin’ comin’ out here in this storm? You made me crazy with worry.”

  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.”