Circle of Secrets

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  KIMBERLEY GRIFFITHS LITTLE

  CIRCLE

  OF

  SECRETS

  To my lovely nieces, Tehya, Eden, Avery, Casey, Brandilyn & Alexis. May there always be a touch of magic and the miracle of love in your lives.…

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  Copyright

  The summer I turned eleven, I found out that ghosts are real.

  Guess it’s hard to rest nice and easy in your coffin if you got stuff on your mind. Your soul stays chained to Earth instead of zipping up to heaven to sing in one of the angel choirs.

  Sometimes ghosts show up in the most peculiar places.

  Sometimes ghosts fool you.

  Then there are those ghosts that hang around because we have unfinished business. Business that stinks like old crawfish left in a bucket for a week. That’s some nasty smell, let me tell you.

  But the most important thing I learned is that ghosts can help you spill your guts before guilt eats you up and leaves a hole that can’t never be fixed no matter how many patches you try to steam iron across it.

  CHAPTER ONE

  SOON AS MY BIRTHDAY PRESENTS ARE UNWRAPPED AND THE chocolate raspberry cake gulped down, Daddy packs my stuff in the Chevy and slams the trunk. Inch by inch, I slowly slide into the front seat, waiting until he tells me to buckle up before I snap the seat belt.

  Then he drives sixty miles to Bayou Bridge — where we rent a boat that takes us deep into the swamp. I sit in the prow of the motorboat, worms jiggling my gut the whole way, fat and sassy on all that cake I just ate.

  When we get to the swamp house, I watch my daddy tie the rope around the dock piling, get my suitcases out, and set them on the scraggly lawn. Wind moans through the giant cypress trees surrounding the house, making the Spanish moss float in the air like mermaid’s hair.

  Daddy holds out his hand for me to take, but I just stare at it and don’t budge from my seat.

  “Come on, Shelby, you gotta get out of the boat.”

  I’d suffered through miles of dark, scary swamp, past a spooky abandoned beaver dam and cypress stumps lurking like monsters under the water, and I wasn’t about to get out of that boat.

  “Your mamma’s expecting us.”

  “I didn’t ask to come here.” I peek through my hair at the weather-beaten house sitting on stilts, the windows blank and empty. What if I got left here for the rest of my life? What if I never saw my daddy again long as I lived?

  “No, but where you going to go instead? Our house is closed up, locked tight, until Grandmother Phoebe gets out of the hospital.”

  “You could quit that job clear over there by Russia. Whatever it’s called.” I’d made a point of not remembering exactly which country because I didn’t want my daddy’s leaving to be real.

  “The timing is bad, but you know I gotta go. It’s only for six months, and it’s the best job offer I’ve had in ten years.”

  “I heard Grandmother Phoebe calling her a swamp witch.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Shelby Jayne, and you know it. ’Course, that might be better than calling her nothing,” he adds pointedly. “It’s harder to pry ‘Mamma’ out of your mouth than to open a trap sealed with Krazy Glue.”

  I stopped calling her Mamma when she left a year ago. Then I started calling her Mirage like we were both grown-ups. Now I don’t call her anything.

  I stare down at the muddy water, wondering what lives underneath that I can’t see. I want to curl up in the bottom of the boat and never get out. Make my daddy turn it around and head right back to dry land where the Chevy’s parked at the town docks.

  I haven’t seen Mirage in three months.

  Haven’t lived with her for a year.

  When she walked out of the house right before my tenth birthday with only a single suitcase, I got so mad it felt like sucking on sour grapes all day long.

  When she telephones I listen because Grandmother Phoebe taught me manners, like how to be a proper young lady by bringing in the lemonade and cookies during Garden Club meetings, but sometimes I watch the clock to see how long I can go without answering any of Mirage’s questions.

  Folding my arms across my chest, I wonder how long I can sit here before Daddy physically hauls me out himself. Then I notice that there’s an inch of dirty water floating in the bottom of the boat. Finally, I climb out, sighing a lot so he knows for sure I’m still mad.

  “That’s gotta change, Sweetie Pie,” Daddy goes on as we climb the porch steps to the swamp house. Cypress trees drip so much Spanish moss the stuff sweeps the ground like those plantation draperies that lay in folds on the floor to show just how rich a family used to be before the Civil War. Grandmother Phoebe likes to point them out when we go on plantation tours along the Mississippi River Road.

  “What, Daddy?” I ask, pretending I’ve forgotten what he’s talking about.

  “You’re being silly with all this ‘Miz Mirage’ or ‘Yes, Miz Allemond,’ on the phone. Allemond is your name, too, you know. She’s not a stranger.”

  I gnaw on the inside of my cheek where I have a permanent scab embedded there. My throat gets all hot and scratchy as my feet move slower and slower up the steps. “Just being polite, Daddy,” I manage to whisper. I stare at the boat bobbing up and down at the dock so he can’t see my face as I try not to cry.

  It hits me real bad that I’m not going to see him for six whole months. Might as well be forever. All kind of worries mix up inside my brain. What if Grandmother Phoebe dies in the hospital? What if my daddy decides he doesn’t miss me or forgets to come back for me? My chest squeezes so tight I can’t suck in any air. Little black spots float across my eyes and I get dizzy.

  Mirage left me. What if my daddy leaves me, too?

  He lets out a sigh, and I can tell he doesn’t want to get mad when we’re saying good-bye. “Well, it ain’t polite to say ‘Miz Allemond’ when it’s your own mamma.”

  I fight real hard to keep my voice normal but it’s not cooperating. “Tell those embassy people you can’t go because you have a crippled child who needs you.”

  He lowers a knee to the rickety porch where the cypress boards don’t meet quite right and looks me in the eye. “You aren’t crippled, Shelby Jayne. And you’re gonna be just fine.”

  I finally tell him the thing I’ve been worrying about ever since Mirage left that night in the rain, leaving me on the front porch all by myself. “What’d I do wrong?”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  I look into his dark blue eyes, wondering if I can really tell him the truth. “I must have done something to make her go away and never come back. Maybe she never really loved me.”

  He opens his mouth in surprise. “Shelby — I don’t know what to say — no, it was never your fault. It was mine. Mostly mine. Nope, all mine. So you can just quit your grudge against your mamma, you hear?”

  I glance away from him and swallow hard. I’m out in the middle of nowhere with only water far as
I can see. Soon there’s going to be a million miles between me and my daddy. The fear that I’ll never see him again closes around my heart in a death grip. “Then why don’t you fix it?”

  “It ain’t so easy, Sweetie Pie.” He looks down at the porch planks and the gooey, squishy mud swirling below. I don’t like how those planks aren’t fitted right. Any second I might fall right through.

  Daddy takes my shoulders and looks me straight on. “Mirage — your mamma — loves you and she’s gonna take good care of you.”

  I’m not so sure about all that love and stuff. “How many mothers leave their children to go live in a swamp? Isn’t that proof she don’t want me?”

  His eyes drop away to stare at his shoes. “There’s more to the story, but it’s tangled up and hard to explain.”

  “And,” I spit out, “my heart does too feel crippled! Like it has two broken legs and a stomach disorder.”

  My daddy starts to laugh, then turns it into a cough.

  Right then, the front door cracks open.

  Mirage is standing in front of us, but all I can see is wild black hair writhing in the wind like serpents.

  My pulse goes so fast I swear that heart attack’s gone full blown. Maybe Daddy should take me to the hospital and I can get a room next to Grandmother Phoebe. But he isn’t paying attention no more.

  Mirage looks so different, like she really is turning into a swamp witch. I remember her wearing slacks and blouses to classes at the college, and her hair up in a ponytail. Sometimes she wore glasses to read the tiny print in the textbooks better.

  Now her black eyes sink into mine like she can read my deepest thoughts. Like she has a crystal ball and uses it regularly. Maybe my grand-mère, the old traiteur, gave her one. She was ancient and always smelled like icky medicine, so she scared me. Don’t think I’d seen her since I was eight or nine so my memories are sort of mixed up and jumbly.

  A shivery ribbon of fear runs down my spine and curls my toes. Meeting at a restaurant is easier with other people around. Now it’s just going to be Mirage and me — alone. For months on end until I shrivel up like one of those prunes Grandmother Phoebe cooks for breakfast.

  I turn around to see how fast I can run back to the boat, but the porch is missing a plank. A pair of beady red eyes lurks in the mud underneath.

  I almost fall right over my suitcases. “What’s that?”

  Daddy says, “It’s only a frog, Shelby.”

  Instantly, those creepy red eyes jump away, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.

  “Hey, Mirage,” he says as she pulls the door wider.

  She sticks her hands into the pockets of a purple gypsy skirt like she’s nervous, but I have no idea why she’d be jumpy. “Hey, Philip.” Silver earrings in the shape of herons look ready to take flight as they brush against her neck in the gusty wind. I like those herons, and I wonder if they tickle. I want a pair of earrings like that, but Grandmother Phoebe won’t allow pierced ears until I’m eighteen. She says I could get an infection — and “why would you want to put holes in your body anyway?”

  My daddy and Mirage eye each other. This is the first time I’ve seen them face-to-face in a year, but they don’t do a thing. Just stare at each other for a really long time. All kinds of stuff is clunking around in their minds like rusted cans on an empty road — I can practically hear their invisible thoughts — but they don’t say a thing. I notice that Mirage has dark circles under her eyes, like she’s sick or been crying.

  “Last time I saw you was at the funeral,” Daddy finally says in a somber voice.

  She nods and runs her hands through her wild, curly hair like she’s tired. “Still trying to get everything together out here. It’s all so much. Some days too much.”

  “I’m sorry,” Daddy says. “You two going to be okay?”

  She tries to put on a smile. “’Course we are. Shelby comin’ has been somethin’ good to look forward to.”

  Maybe to her, but not to me.

  When Mirage left, it was the worst day of my life. Today is the second worst day. Thinking about staying out here alone without my daddy makes my palms itch and my throat tickle. I don’t know what she’s going to do or say and I don’t feel like talking to her. I don’t know what to believe when she says one thing, like she loves me, then does something entirely different.

  “So here’s your stuff, shar,” Daddy says, setting my box of books inside the door and pushing the suitcases in after it. He kisses me on the cheek, whispers good-bye, and I close my eyes, squeezing back all the hot tears so Mirage won’t see.

  I throw my arms around him, sticking to him like a leech as he tries to leave. I hold on so tight, he ends up lifting me off the ground. My feet dangle in the breeze. With my face buried in his neck I can feel his scratchy cheek and smell the aftershave he put on before we left home. He gives a laugh and tries to set me down.

  “Okay, Sweetie Pie, you can’t keep doing this,” he says in my ear. “You’re so clingy these days, it’s embarrassing.”

  “Please, Daddy!” I whisper right back. “Don’t leave me here! Don’t go so far away without me.”

  “Sweetie Pie, I gotta go, you know that. That’s how the bills get paid.” He leans over, me still dangling from his neck as I hang on tighter than ever, my sneakers bumping his bony knees. Maybe if I just never let go, he’ll have to take me with him.

  My chest gets a queer bubble of anxiety as he pulls my arms one by one from around his neck. Setting me firmly down on the porch, he takes a step backward, looking at me with his serious eyes.

  My throat is closed up so tight, I can’t even speak.

  I’m partway going on twelve now, but I’m tempted to wrap my arms around his legs so he can’t walk down the steps and back to the dock without me.

  While I’m debating the pros and cons of doing that, Daddy digs into the front pocket of his jacket and pulls out a white envelope. “Here, Mirage.”

  She takes the envelope and tucks it into one of her deep skirt pockets. “Appreciate that, Philip.”

  “Let me know if you need more,” he adds, glancing up at her face.

  Their eyes lock and it’s like their secret conversation starts up all over again. I know there’s money in that envelope. Money for taking care of me.

  Daddy gives me another quick hug — so fast I can’t even get a good grip this time — then clomps down the porch steps. “I’ll call you every night, shar, or as often as I can get through on the phones.”

  The lump in my throat has grown to humongous proportions.

  Just then, a monster wind comes roaring down the bayou. Empty cans, pieces of fishing line, and bits of rope rattle across the yard and scoot underneath the house to get buried in the mud when it floods. I’ll bet there’s all kinds of things the wind’s blown under that house. I try not to think about nests of snakes and spiders hiding there, too.

  Stiffly, I stare out toward the water, at my daddy climbing back into the boat, rain clouds inching closer every second.

  “Best hurry back to town,” Mirage calls out. “Storm comin’.”

  Daddy nods and rips the cord on the boat engine. He lifts his hand and a rush of panic comes over me like I got sucked into a tidal wave.

  As I finally wave back, the tail of the boat starts to disappear around the bend of the cove. “Daddy!” I shriek, but he doesn’t hear me.

  Two seconds later, he’s out of sight. Just like that. Gone. Until Christmas.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I WATCH THE BOAT’S CHOPPY WAKE FLATTEN OUT ACROSS THE water, looking almost like it sucked my daddy under, and I try not to burst into tears.

  “Come on in out of that wind, Shelby Jayne,” Mirage tells me, scooting my belongings into the front room next to several racks of drying Spanish moss.

  I force my feet across the threshold and the front door closes. We stare at each other, but I drop my eyes real quick, wondering if she can read my thoughts.

  After she moves my suitcases and box
es into the spare bedroom, raindrops start tapping overhead. Guess the storm caught up with us because within seconds, they’re coming down loud and fast, like tiny fists beating at the tin roof.

  Slowly, I follow Mirage into the kitchen where the curtains over the sink are flapping wildly, letting in a spatter of raindrops.

  “Hope you’re still partial to gumbo,” she says, peering into a pot of okra roux filled with chunks of chicken and sausage. I’ve always liked her gumbo real good, but I don’t say a word. I can’t tell if she’s trying to bribe me into loving her again, or if tonight’s supper is just a coincidence. Like fixing your relative’s favorite foods when they come to visit. Even if you’re mad at ’em.

  “Go ahead and take a load off, Shelby Jayne. Rice is ’bout ready, but I gotta doctor up Mister Lenny first.”

  “Mister Lenny?” I echo, glancing around for someone else in the room. But it’s just us. All I see are dingy walls that need painting and the old-fashioned refrigerator in the corner.

  “Sit yourself right there,” Mirage says. A breeze full of rain swirls through the window before she leans across the sink and slams it shut.

  Something suddenly dive-bombs at my head.

  I let out a screech. “What’s that?”

  “That’s jest Winifred. She won’t hurt you.”

  “What is it?”

  Mirage holds out her palm and a sparrow flits down and grabs hold of her finger, cocking her head at me like I just landed from Pluto.

  I wonder if Grandmother Phoebe packed my bottle of hand sanitizer.

  I wonder if the forks are clean.

  “Ma petite shar,” Mirage coos, releasing the sparrow, which flits back into the front room and disappears behind a bookcase. Next, she reaches up to a branch above the sink and brings down a blinking owl.

  “Mister Lenny,” Mirage says, “meet Shelby Jayne.”

  I don’t say a word.

  My mamma has a pet owl.

  Doctoring him up at the kitchen table no less.

  Grandmother Phoebe would have a first-rate hissy fit.

  “Mister Lenny is a barred owl, Shelby,” Mirage tells me, like we’re having a science lesson and I’m her C+ student. Her eyes come alive for the first time since I got here.