Circle of Secrets

  “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.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE WATER PATROL 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 tha
t 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.

  “I almost lost both of you tonight,” my daddy says and his voice is rough around the edges, like the words are having a hard time coming out. “I’m thinking there’s some things I want to change about me, about this job that takes me across the world. Changes I want to make about our family.”

  He reaches out to clasp Mamma’s hand. They smile at each other and a peculiar tickling starts to rise in my stomach.

  Mamma says, “I have a present for you, Shelby. Been waitin’ for the right time to give it to you, and I think that time is finally here. Pull open that nightstand drawer and find the box with the purple water hyacinths painted on the side.”

  I lean over to open the drawer, pulling out the beautiful little jewelry box.

  “Open it,” Mamma says in an excited whisper.

  I snap back the lid and there’s a shiny new charm nestled inside. When I lift it out there are three silver hearts dangling from a tiny loop of chain.

  “See how the hearts all lock inside one another?”

  I nod, looking at it closely. All three of the silver hearts fit inside one another, like a puzzle. Except it’s not a puzzle at all. It’s beautiful and perfect, the hearts separate and distinct but linked together.

  “This here charm is our family,” Mamma tells me. “A heart for each of us. You, me, and Daddy.”

  “Let me help you attach those hearts to the bracelet,” Daddy offers.

  “Put it right in the middle,” I tell him.

  He fits the tiny silver hooks together so the three hearts dangle from the bracelet and then slips it over my hand again and snaps it closed. I hold up my wrist and watch the charms swing together.

  Mamma leans back into the pillows. Her face is starting to bruise and I’ll bet it hurts somethin’ fierce. Those knotted stitches show how my mamma saved my life.

  My heart stops racing and my stomach quits churning as I think about everything that’s happened. “I think it was those blue bottle notes that brought Gwen back.”

  Mamma gives me a wistful smile. “Charm bracelets and blue bottles are powerful things, shar, and anything’s possible. Memories and grief locked up for years and finally let loose.”

  I’m relieved to see that the charms are all safe, even the gator charm. Nothing got swallowed up by the bayou when I fell in, although there’s water in the tiny blue bottle and the rolled-up note looks soggy.

  The most important thing is that my charm bracelet is full of stories, full of faith, and full of my family and me.

  Most of all, it’s full of love.

  EPILOGUE

  After I jump out of the boat and tie the rope around a cypress knee, Mamma and me hold hands as we walk toward the Deserted Island house.

  “Can’t believe I’m actually here,” Mamma whispers as sunlight falls through the oak leaves and stains the path. “Used to come here every single day when I was a girl, but it’s been almost twenty years now.”

  “Does it look the same?”

  “Mostly, but the trees are bigger, the path weedy and overgrown.”

  Actually, the path seems more overgrown to me, too, and it’s only been a few days. Which makes me wonder. When I came here with Gwen was I going back to her time — or was she coming forward to my time?

  When we get to the clearing Mamma stops and just stares and stares.

  The house has aged years and years since I was here with Gwen just a few days ago. The walls have collapsed a little bit more, the porch is sagging in on itself, the paint on the clapboard peeling, the roof shingles moldy and caving in around the chimney.

  “Better be careful,” Mamma says as we pick our way through overgrown bushes and weeds that are taller than me. The air is filled with the thrum of crickets and clouds of gnats.

  We manage to get around the broken boards on the porch and push at the front door, which creaks as it swings wide. “If the fire department was here, they wouldn’t let us near. Stay together and watch your step so we don’t crash through a board.”

  Even though it’s the middle of the day with plenty of light, the interior of Gwen’s old house is a dusky twilight due to the filthy windows and dingy wallpaper.

  I watch Mamma staring around the living room, her eyes following the stairs leading up to the second floor; I see the memories and emotions flitting around on her face. Shock, disbelief, sorrow, and sadness. “This house used to be like my second home,” she says.

  I tug on her hand as we go up the staircase. The steps are actually in decent shape but we carefully creak up each one.

  Moments later, we’re standing in Gwen’s old bedroom, empty of furniture. Mildew stains drip down the corners from rain and the dormer window that’s open a few inches.

  “Probably some vagabond or hermit passin’ by,” Mamma murmurs. There were signs in the kitchen that someone had stayed here over the years. Trash and a ripped-up sleeping bag. Pieces of charred wood left in the stove. Coffee stains in the sink, crumbs, and mouse pellets.

  A peculiar shimmery feeling runs from my little toes all the way to the top of my head. I’d been to Gwen’s house with her right after her parents moved away, when the house had leftover furniture and dust.

  Somehow, she and I had straddled time, half in hers, half in mine. She really had been hovering between her old home and heaven, trying to leave, confused and lonely, but tethered like a deflating balloon to Bayou Bridge.

  “I remember Gwen’s secret cupboard,” Mamma says, walking over to the closet in the corner near the slant of roof. “We built it with her daddy’s help.”

  She opens the closet and peers inside, bumping her head against the low ceiling. “It’s smaller than I remember, but it’s there. Reach in, Shelby Jayne, and open it. I know it’s empty, but I jest have to look anyways.”

  I duck under her arm and pull at the little door with the brass knob. Pull and pull. “It’s stuck.”

  “Probably swelled up with all the damp.”

  Then I remember the trick Gwen used the day she showed the secret cupboard to me. I curl my hand into a fist and pound the edge of the frame. The door pops open.

  My mamma lets out a cry of surprise. “That’s right. The door never fit quite right in its frame.”

  She turns to gaze at me, a look of bewilderment on her face. “You really did see her, didn’t you?” She shakes her head in disbelief, and then her voice goes real soft. “Too bad Gwen’s scrapbook ain’t here to look at. I’d give anything to see it again. Probably her family took it with them when they moved.”

  She glances around the dusky room. “Better get on out of here now.”

  An odd feeling starts to rise deep inside my gut. On a whim, I
reach clear into the chamber, hoping there aren’t snakes or spiders. I feel dust and cobwebs, my fingers tangling up in the stuff.

  “Shoulda brought a flashlight, huh?” Mamma says, trying to peer over my shoulder.

  My fingers touch something hard. And real! The corner of a book and the corner of something else. A box of some kind.

  “Mamma! There is something! There really is!”

  “You ain’t jokin’, are you, Shelby Jayne?”

  I reach my arm in even farther, all the way up to my armpit, and inch it out. All at once, Gwen’s scrapbook is sitting in my hands. “Look! It really is here!”

  Mamma’s got tears in her eyes as I put the photo album in her hands. She blows dust off the decorated cover and peeks inside. “Oh, my, oh my, Shelby Jayne. I can’t hardly believe it. Why didn’t her family take it with them?”

  “Maybe they forgot about it in their hurry to move.”

  She goes quiet, looking into my face.

  “What are you thinking, Mamma?”

  “This has gotta be one of the reasons Gwen’s spirit stayed here, tied between her angel grave and the broken bridge and this house. She knew this was still here. And she wanted me to know it. This scrapbook was actually a project she was working on to surprise her parents for Christmas, but she died more than two months before. Wonder if it’s possible to find her family all these years later and take it to them….” Her voice trails off as I go to shut the secret chamber.

  But then I recall that I’d felt more than one item inside the cupboard, so I reach in again, my stomach leaping like a mullet. Inch by inch I wiggle my fingers to get around the corners and finally pull out a small box. Gwen’s jewelry box.

  “Oh, lorda mighty,” Mamma breathes, her face going white. “She always kept this in the middle drawer —”

  “— of her bureau,” I finish. “You open it.”

  “No, you open it. My hands are shakin’ somethin’ fierce, shar.”

  Slowly, I insert my small key charm to unlock the box and then lift the lid, expecting it to be empty. Surely, Gwen’s sister, Maddie, would have taken the few beaded bracelets and earrings that used to be in here.