Circle of Secrets

  Had I fallen asleep and dreamed the girl? Was it only a trick of the moonlight and the bottle tree? No, I’d swear I saw her. But where’d she go?

  Shivers of excitement run up and down my neck, and raindrops keep plinking down from the blue bottle tree onto my head. I run fast as I can back to the safety of the kitchen, the sound of the bottles clinking together like they’re talking to one another behind me.

  When I jump back in bed, I wrap the hem of my nightgown around my damp toes, thinking about the girl, the note, the charm bracelet, and lie wide awake for hours.

  The next morning I huddle on the bank and wrap my arms around myself while Mirage bails three inches of rainwater from the bottom of her boat. Mist rises from the surface of the bayou. Rain drops from the cypresses and oaks, plopping on the metal boat, the elephant ears, and the metal roof of the swamp house.

  My stomach clenches and the grits I ate settle in my gut like concrete. The fog is eerie, and it feels like the real world is a million miles away.

  “Is the boat going to sink?” I ask.

  “We’ll be jest fine. Long as no gators got lost after that rain last night and ended up in my cove.”

  “Gators? We’re going to be followed by alligators? Do you have a gun? Grandmother Phoebe says you shouldn’t live in the swamp without a gun.”

  Mirage glances up at me, her hair hanging wildly in her eyes. “Jest teasin’, Shelby Jayne. Actually, me and alligators have a Mutual Admiration Society out here. We admire each other and stay as far away as possible. Only critter you might see is Harvey.”

  “Who’s Harvey?”

  “Well, looka there! He’s speeding past right now.”

  I watch an animal, sort of like a big beaver, beelining through the water, ducking under a spread of hyacinth, and then popping back up again. “That’s Harvey?”

  “Yep. He’s a nutria and he knows his name, too. Looks up when I call to him. Nutria are pretty smart.”

  “You’re not going to call him over here, are you?”

  “Nope, not today. Now jump in and grab that oar.”

  I can’t believe we’re going to town in a boat. I know there’s no road out here, just water, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

  “Is anybody going to see us when we get there? To town, I mean.”

  Last night she was barefoot, but today she’s wearing homemade socks inside a pair of hiking boots and a crazy-colored skirt with a man’s windbreaker to keep off the rain.

  “You look like a swamp witch wearing those clothes.”

  She purses her lips and gives me one of those pinched mother looks, like Grandmother Phoebe does when I don’t hurry fast enough or comb my hair for dinner.

  “Thought we’d gotten that whole swamp witch thing outta the way last night. I may live in the swamp,” Mirage says quietly, “but that don’t mean I’m uneducated, Miss Smarty-Pants.” Her face is red as she gets busy untying the rope around the dock piling while I gnaw on my cheek.

  Folding my arms across my chest, I look down at the boat.

  I look at the water.

  I don’t look at her.

  Mirage leans over to pick up the oars, not looking at me, either. “Jump on in,” she finally says.

  I sloooowly count to five, then put one foot inside the wobbly boat and perch on the damp seat, then the other foot, trying not to tip the boat and fall into the murky water. Everything’s wet and muggy, and the moisture seeps through my jeans in ten seconds flat, making me feel all sticky.

  Mirage pushes off from the dock and pulls her paddle through the flat brown water.

  I glance behind to see which side she wants me to paddle and find that Mirage is staring right at me. Her dark eyes hold mine, but she doesn’t say anything. A breeze moves through her long hair like invisible wings.

  I turn around, pulling my windbreaker closer, then touch the folded note deep inside my pocket. The blue bottle note was real, not a dream. Was the girl from last night real, too? Where did she live? Why didn’t she stay and talk to me? Why’d she run away? She must have had a boat. A boat I couldn’t see on the other side of the cove.

  Mirage’s boat cuts through the water with a slurping noise. Herons and egrets rise from the rushes. Wind tickles the hanging Spanish moss and breathes down my neck. Seems like there’s not a soul in sight for a hundred miles.

  Finally, I dip my own oar into the bottomless water. “You ever get lonely out here?”

  When Mirage doesn’t answer, I sneak a peek over my shoulder.

  She gives me a shaky smile. “I’m only lonely for you, bébé.”

  “Don’t seem like it to me,” I mutter, still feeling hurt over her calling me a smarty-pants. I’m not the one who moved away and stayed away. I never left. I’d stayed right at home where we’d always been.

  “It’s true, Shelby Jayne,” she goes on softly, almost cautiously. “I miss you terribly. I know you don’t believe me. You got a lotta stuff in your head. Stuffed in there by other people. Maybe some of it’s true, but some of it ain’t. I did some stupid things. Like staying away for your grandmother Phoebe’s sake. It was easier for her if I wasn’t around — easier for me, too — but that don’t excuse the fact that I got chicken and didn’t come visit you enough or send for you after your grand-mère passed.”

  My face flushes and I squirm when she says that. I don’t want her talking pretty about her feelings for me. I don’t want to believe her. And I don’t want her to be right, either — about Grandmother Phoebe, whom I love, but who does have a hankering for gossip.

  My ears burn thinking about all the things Grandmother Phoebe has said since Mirage left. Her voice keeps filling my head fatter and fatter, so I think about the mysterious folded note instead and the words written on the lined paper:

  Don’t forget! Tonight’s the Night!

  Come to the bridge — And hurry!

  Mirage said people put blue bottle trees in their yard to keep away bad spirits. Was one of those evil spirits trying to lure me into the swamp?

  I’m sitting in a canoe in the middle of the bayou, too far from shore, and I start sweating. Maybe those blue bottles were actually working! The note had been inside the bottle, trapped, but I’d let it loose by taking it out. Had I let out an honest-to-goodness haunt or ghoul or imp?

  What would that evil phantom do — tip the boat over and dump us into the water? I just know there’s gators roaming right underneath us, crawfish snapping their claws, nutria, and all kind of fish I can’t even see.

  My brain starts running wild as I keep rowing in the prow while Mirage steers. Feels like all the rowing will never end, but I’m eager to get somewhere safe — and the faster the better. I start counting how many times I pull that oar through the water and lose track after a hundred. My muscles ache something fierce and the burning makes me want to cry, but I suck it down.

  By the time I finally see the edge of town I can hardly lift my arms they’re trembling so bad. All kind a houses are set back inside groves of oaks and cypress. The streets are lined with older buildings and storefronts, Ozaire’s Laundromat and the post office and Sweet Ellen’s Bakery.

  Mirage ties up at one of the city piers on the edge of the bayou. I crawl up the elephant ears and try to catch my breath.

  Mirage stares down the main streets of town, not saying a word. Finally, she says, “Head on this way, Shelby Jayne.” She tramps up Main in her boots, turning a couple of corners until a weather-beaten three-story frame house comes into view.

  A wide, cluttered porch runs the length of the house. Nailed across the front hangs a board that had once been painted white. The name BAYOU BRIDGE ANTIQUES is cut into the sign, the letters edged in archaic, flaky paint.

  “Let’s find us some Christmas lights,” Mirage says as we climb up the wooden steps.

  “But it’s August!”

  She either doesn’t hear me or ignores me.

  Two floors and an attic bulge with old furniture, tools, and clothing. The pla
ce smells musty with a moist, earthy scent. A few people browse racks of baby clothes and dig through boxes of outdated Life and National Geographic magazines.

  A man in overalls sits in a rocking chair in one corner smoking a pipe, with a baseball cap stuck on his head. I figure he must be the store owner from the way his hawk eyes watch the customers.

  A woman with plain black clips holding back her flyaway hair stands behind a counter ringing up a sale on an old-fashioned cash register.

  Never seen a place like this before in my life. The antique stores Grandmother Phoebe goes to have fancy, polished furniture and paintings in gold frames and statues and figurines.

  I wander down the cramped aisles, past wooden barrels and ancient farm equipment. There’s even one of those monstrous sugar pots they used to use on plantations in the olden days to cook the cane syrup.

  I leave Mirage digging through some old chests for secondhand women’s clothing and climb to the second story. When I reach the landing, there’s a set of open suitcases, filled with dirt — a garden of wildflowers planted right into the dirt.

  Grandmother Phoebe would probably laugh and roll her eyes, but I think the garden suitcases are pretty, like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I can imagine Mirage doing something like this. I wonder if she’d let me dig up some of her flowers to put into a suitcase. Then I wonder what’s wrong with me. I’d never plant flowers in a suitcase at home!

  I skirt around some antique furniture, a bin full of old bedding, and a bookcase stuffed with ancient paperbacks, their covers dusty and ripped.

  Behind a massive cherrywood wardrobe, I stop walking and just stare and stare and stare.

  A glass case has been pushed into the corner, almost forgotten, and it’s overflowing with dolls: rows of chubby baby dolls, rag dolls, antique porcelain dolls, and old stiff-legged Barbie dolls.

  In the center of the case, a little apart from the rest of the dolls, sits the most exquisite porcelain doll I’ve ever seen. She’s got perfect features in a heart-shaped face and big blue eyes with super-long black eyelashes.

  I get on my knees to look closer, amazed at how beautiful she is in her rose-colored lace dress and a feathered hat tied under one ear with pink ribbon.

  She’s got a tiny chip on her chin, but otherwise the doll is in perfect condition. A piece of cardboard sitting in her lap states that she’s about one hundred years old and not for sale. How could they have a doll sitting in a case and not let anyone buy her?

  I crouch on the floor, my nose almost touching the glass.

  For one crazy second, the doll’s crystal-blue eyes seem to look right into mine. A funny tickling runs up and down my arms and I glance around, wondering if someone is watching me.

  Finally, I tear my eyes away and go look for Mirage. It’s hard not to get lost as I end up winding my way through heaps of stacked chairs and tables, and bumping into a blackened woodstove just like the one Mirage has in her kitchen.

  I find her next to an oval-shaped bathtub with huge claw feet, an inch of dirt and dead bugs covering the bottom. Then Mirage holds up a box of white and blue Christmas lights like she’s just won the jackpot. Her hair is messy and there’s dirt on her face.

  I gnaw on my cheek and try not to tell her how crazy she looks.

  “Since I was a girl I been wanting to hang real lights in my blue bottle tree. They’re solar lights, too. The sun’ll heat ’em up all day and then, after dark, they’ll make a spectacular show for us while we eat our supper on the porch.”

  “Oh,” I say slowly. “I get it now. I guess that could be okay.”

  “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud, Shelby Jayne.”

  “I ain’t a stick-in-the-mud!” I protest, and then stop, Grandmother Phoebe’s voice ringing out rules of grammar in my head. “I mean, I’m not a stick-in-the-mud.”

  Mirage murmurs, “Well, I’m doin’ my best to move past the pain. Look to the future, so to speak. Do something I always planned to do with — well, never you mind. I’m probably not makin’ much sense.”

  “You mean Grand-mère? Before she died?”

  She gives a little shake of her shoulders like a devilish imp is creeping up her neck right then and there. “Somethin’ like that.”

  “Where’s she buried?” I ask, wondering if it was okay to ask or if she’d get mad at me talking about it.

  “Bayou Bridge Cemetery.”

  I swallow hard and slowly edge the question out of my mouth. “What’d she die of that was so bad you had to leave me?”

  Mirage flicks her eyes at me. “Cancer, Shelby. Spread through her whole body. Never seen somebody suffer so much in all my life. Had to bathe her, carry her from room to room, her body just a bag of bones and skin, like a skeleton.” She stops and looks around, lowers her voice. “Let’s not talk about this here in public. But I hope you’ll know why I had to come out here. My mamma was all alone, only had me in all the world.”

  “Grandmother Phoebe only has Daddy and me, too.”

  Mirage holds herself real still for a minute. “That’s true. And I never begrudged Phoebe her son or her granddaughter in all these years, but sometimes enough is enough.”

  “Is that why you seem so mad?” Even as I say the words, I think about how, mostly, she seems sad and gloomy.

  “I ain’t mad, Shelby. I’m glad you’re here, more than anything. But I am tired. Watching my mamma die, gettin’ through the funeral. I’m exhausted and it’s been hard being back here again. Too many memories … sad memories. And it’s lonely out here, like I told you. Thinkin’ ’bout selling the house, but don’t know where I’d go.”

  “You mean you’d sell that swamp house?”

  She eyes me. “Guess you’d like that, huh?”

  I shrug like I don’t care one way or the other, but she shakes her head like it’s too much to think about.

  After Mirage makes the purchase, she says, “Now that I have these lights, they’ll probably jest sit in a box on my own back porch. Don’t have the energy to put them up. Maybe you could.”

  “Me?” I have no idea why she’d buy them and then not put them up, but I’m too tired to ask. The rowing from earlier this morning hits me hard and all I want to do is sit down. Mirage doesn’t make much sense most of the time and that just makes me feel mad all over again.

  Then again, if I put up the lights, maybe I’d find more notes in the bottles.

  I suffer through a few more errands, but Sweet Ellen’s Bakery beignets sort of make up for my suffering as I lick the sugar off my fingers when we pull up at our own dock again. The sun is finally out, blue sky breaking through the clouds.

  I jump out, and the boat teeters dangerously as I hit the bank.

  “Tie up the line please, Shelby,” Mirage calls.

  Quickly, I tug at the rope, jerk it around the piling bobbing up and down in the water, then run around the side of the house, past the rickety porch and the woodpile, scaring Miss Silla Wheezy and Mister Possum Boudreaux out of their afternoon naps. They stretch and yawn and arch their backs, then settle back down, eyes half closed, watching me.

  I stop running when I get underneath the blue bottle tree. I just have to be alone for a little while. I’m tired of answering Mirage’s mother-y questions.

  Nothing’s gonna help. I think it’s too late. I lost my real mamma a year ago. I used to have a mamma that went to college classes and wore her hair in a ponytail with butterfly clips. She used to fix fried chicken and mashed potatoes for dinner on the nights Grandmother Phoebe was gone to City Council meetings, then got her homework done in front of the television while I did mine.

  She’s not the same person I used to know at all. Now her hair is loose and wild, she has animals for pets in the house, and heals people like a swamp witch — even if she calls herself a fancy name like traiteur.

  Tears start coming on and I wipe them away with the back of my hand. Then my nose starts running and I rub my face with my sleeve. I’m not going to cry over her. If she didn’t wa
nt me back a year ago then she can’t change her mind now and make the whole year just disappear like it didn’t happen.

  Seems like the swamp stole her away. Made a new person called Miz Mirage Allemond. A healer who talks to God and owls and has dirty toes to boot.

  A sob fills up the corners of my throat.

  Then I hear her calling my name. I don’t want her to see me crying so I pretend I’m deaf and press my forehead against the cypress trunk. Closing my eyes, I listen to the wind whistle across the open mouths of all those blue bottles above my head.

  After a minute, I wipe my face and lean back. The bottles are dancing and swaying and the sun shines right through them, making them glow.

  Some of the bottles have rainwater still inside, but three branches over my head, there’s a bottle with something besides rain lying in the bottom.

  Something white and folded.

  My heart hammers at my ribs and my breath catches like a frog leaped into my throat.

  I glance around. No sign of Mirage. I guess she gave up — or is she spying on me from the kitchen window? Maybe she’s ignoring me because I ignored her.

  Turning, I look for something to stand on. Aha! I run to the porch and grab an old folding chair from a stack behind the old hot water heater standing in the corner. Then I run back to the tree. After I make sure the chair is steady, I scramble up and reach as high as I can to grasp the branch with the bottle.

  Once the blue bottle slips off, the branch pops back like a whip, almost cracking the bottle next to it. I hold my breath waiting for a shatter of glass to rain down, but it doesn’t break.

  First I close one eye, peering into the bottle’s mouth, then the other eye. Sure enough, there’s a folded piece of paper inside.

  It’s harder to get out than the first, the paper slipping back down every time I think I’ve got my fingers pinched around it.

  “Oh, heck!” I grumble as I try for the fiftieth time. Tilting, tilting, tilting, the paper finally slips out at just the right angle and I hurriedly unfold it.

  I’m breathing so hard with anticipation, I’m practically gasping.

  I can’t find you! Are you lost?