The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  “You can’t fool me,” Charlotte sneered. “All you want is your precious doll.”

  Trina couldn’t let on that Charlotte was right, so she pretended she didn’t care about Augustine. “That’s okay. She’s just a stupid doll. Besides, the gum in your hair and the brownie falling on your shirt was just a little bad luck. I’m sure it had nothing to do with Goldenrod. I mean, if you don’t believe the legend, it wouldn’t matter if you kept something that belonged to the house.”

  Charlotte didn’t respond, so Trina said as calmly as possible, “See you next week,” and then she turned around and walked up the aisle. As she got to the door she looked over her shoulder and added, “Maybe.”

  With one ear on Charlotte, Trina walked very slowly. Augustine’s life could be on the line. Every second mattered. But her plan didn’t seem to be working.

  Trina was headed down the steps when Charlotte shouted, “Not so fast, Latrine.” Trina stopped cold and turned around. Her insides churned and bubbled as Charlotte caught up to her.

  “Hold out your hand, Latrine.”

  Could her idea be working after all?

  Faking confusion, Trina extended her hand and held it steady with all her might as she watched Charlotte unzip the pouch of her backpack.

  “Dolls are for babies,” Charlotte said with disgust as she pulled out a messy Augustine and dropped her into Trina’s sweaty palm.

  “Oh, thanks,” Trina said as if she hadn’t been the least bit worried. But she closed her hand around Augustine before she let herself relax. Then she watched Charlotte’s eyes flicker—as if a fuse had popped in her brain from thinking so hard when she figured out that Trina had outsmarted her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Augustine, I was so scared my idea wouldn’t work,” Trina said, skipping down the steps of the school as the doll bobbed in her pocket. The wind was so strong that Trina clamped her hand around her pocket to keep Augustine safe. “I was afraid the giant would keep you.”

  “You gave her no choice. Now you are the heroine, Citrine, for you did not give up.”

  “But I’m sure she’s madder than ever, now. If she wants revenge, I’ll need an escape plan.”

  Still, every time Trina thought of the bubble gum in Charlotte’s hair, she started to laugh. As she got into her dad’s idling truck, glad to be out of the wind, she knew she couldn’t say much about the best worst day ever, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Bubble gum, Mr. Nubby, and Prince and the frog kiss.

  “How was your day?” her dad asked.

  “Great,” Trina said, giggling.

  “What’s so funny?” he said.

  “Nothing.” How could she tell her dad about Augustine kissing Prince, or how Augustine revenged herself on Charlotte, or how Trina herself had tricked Charlotte into handing over Augustine, without telling him everything about the little doll?

  “Look at that.” Trina said, pointing at a big gray cloud hanging just above the cornfields. It was a really big cloud, but mostly she wanted to change the subject.

  “And look at this,” he said. He pulled a postcard from the stack of mail sitting next to him and sailed it into Trina’s lap. Then he leaned forward for a better view of the bulging cloud. “Looks like another big storm.”

  Her mother’s timing was perfect. Trina’s escape plan had landed right in her lap. She hoped for a picture of the Statue of Liberty or the Golden Gate Bridge—anything in the United States, one short plane ride away, just in case Charlotte came after her and she needed to get out of New Royal fast.

  But the stamp, a white tiger, was too fancy and too foreign to be from anywhere local, and the postcard was a picture of the Taj Mahal. Shoot. India was halfway around the globe. Her mother would never make it to New Royal in time. At least it was Friday. Maybe Charlotte would forget the whole thing over the weekend and Trina wouldn’t need an escape plan.

  “She sure gets around fast.” Trina sighed and then read the postcard to herself.

  Dear Citrine,

  India is a swirl of colors and music and home to the world-famous Taj Mahal. Imagine living in a house like this someday.

  Love, Mom

  The wind whipped so hard the truck swayed. “Man, when this storm hits, it’s really going to be something.” Her dad rolled up his window. “Where is she now?”

  “India, but it seems impossible. Last time she was in Antarctica.” All Trina had to do was look at the stamp to know her mother was in Asia. But something about this postcard didn’t feel right.

  “Nothing’s impossible if you . . .” her dad said, switching on his headlights. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for a response. And then he nudged her along, “put . . . your . . . mind . . .”

  “. . . to it.” Trina finally finished his sentence, but she said it out of habit. She was thinking about all the other postcards her mother had sent her over the years—skydiving over the Pacific Ocean, walking a tightrope in Russia, and mountain climbing in Africa—and picturing their colorful stamps. Her mother had been writing to her about doing crazy things all over the world and Trina had believed every single word.

  Until now.

  Trina looked out on the cornfields swaying in the wind. The brewing storm was nothing compared to the tornado churning inside her. She could feel its force sucking her up and turning her inside out.

  Her dad glanced in the mirror as he shifted lanes to pass a slow-moving cattle truck. “What does she have to say?”

  His voice sounded a million miles away. When the words finally reached her, Trina turned the postcard so he could see the picture. “It’s the Taj Mahal. She says, Imagine living in a house like this someday.”

  “She’s got us there.” He slapped the steering wheel, chuckling. “We’ve lived in a lot of houses, but we’ve never lived in one like that!”

  Trina bit down on her lower lip and tried to hold her hands steady in her lap. She had written a report on the Taj Mahal last year. She knew all about it. And she knew it wasn’t a house. It had never been a house. If her mother had really visited the Taj Mahal, she would know that too.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” her dad said. “Maybe someday we should take a job in Timbuktu and really see the world.”

  No, that wasn’t what she was thinking. As far as she was concerned, they already lived in Timbuktu. “Sure,” she said, trying to remember something else. Trying to picture the stamp on the first postcard she ever received from her mom. The one of the Eiffel Tower. The one she got when she was three years old.

  The sky grew darker and darker as they got closer to home, and lightning shimmered on the gray-green horizon. As they pulled up to Goldenrod, a jagged vein of light cracked the sky and lit up something bright and shiny in the yard.

  Her dad shifted into park. “Look, it’s an old oil lamp. And a table! Help me get them inside before this storm cuts loose.”

  “I can’t, Poppo. I have to use the bathroom.” She got out of the truck, tucked herself against the wind, and ran past the oil lamp and the fancy table it sat on and went straight into the house and up the stairs to her room. She slammed her door, dropped her backpack by her bed, set Augustine on the floor of her parlor, and gathered the postcards from the mantel.

  She flicked through the thick pile as fast as she could: Beijing, Moscow, London, Lima, the rain forest in Costa Rica. Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Be My Valentine. One by one she tossed the postcards with postage stamps of exotic animals and flowers to the floor like playing cards until she found the picture of the Eiffel Tower and turned it over. The stamp had nothing to do with France. It was the Liberty Bell. A US stamp with a US postmark. The postcard she thought she got from France had been mailed from Wisconsin.

  Dear Citrine,

  I wish you were here with me, chasing doves and eating pastries. Someday I’ll teach you how to speak French.

  Love, Mom

  Trina picked up the postcard from Costa Rica. And then the one from Antarctica. The handwriting on those postc
ards matched. But the handwriting on the postcard of the Eiffel Tower was different from the handwriting on all the others. That postcard, she now realized, was in her dad’s printing. It looked just like his scribbles in his notebook. What did it all mean?

  The storm surged inside her. She kicked the pile of postcards on the floor with the sudden realization that not a single one had come from her mother. All those promises . . . No wonder “someday” never happened. Someday was never going to happen. She had read the postcards hundreds of times, but now the real message was as plain as day: her mother was never coming home. And she had never, ever written to her. Not once in almost eight years.

  But why?

  And how could Poppo do this to her?

  Trina’s head filled with questions until her thoughts were tied up in knots. She flopped down on her bed, buried her head in her pillow, and let the tears come, crying and crying until she felt the gentlest brush of her hair.

  “What are you doing?” Augustine asked, standing on Trina’s pillow, reaching high over her head to touch Trina’s forehead.

  Trina sniffed. “I’m crying.”

  “So this is crying?” Augustine craned her neck, curious to see more.

  “Yes, this is crying,” Trina said harshly to the doll, growing tired of having to explain everything she did. “Please leave me alone. I’m sad.”

  Augustine nodded a very knowing nod. “Ah, yes. I remember sadness. Sadness is when your things are taken away and everything becomes dark and quiet. Have you lost something important to you?”

  Trina hugged her pillow tight and rocked. “Just my mother.”

  “Did you not receive word from your mother moments ago? Is she not living in a grand house? Is that not the story I heard from your pocket?”

  “It’s a story, all right. All those things she was supposed to be doing. The hot-air ballooning. The mountain climbing. That’s all they were. Just stories.”

  “Do they have happy endings, these stories?”

  Trina shook her head.

  “Perhaps your mother is locked away in a castle and cannot escape. You must rescue her.”

  “Trust me,” Trina said, wiping her eyes. “She is not locked up in a castle.”

  “Until you are certain your mother is lost to you forever, you must search for her. Remember, no stone unturned. Think of my own mother’s return to me.”

  “You don’t understand, Augustine. Everything I thought I knew about my mother is a lie. My father lied to me.”

  Aghast, Augustine clutched her chest. “Do you mean to tell me he betrayed you?”

  Trina’s eyes burned with tears. “Yes. For years.” Her voice cracked as she said the words.

  Augustine crouched and whispered in Trina’s ear, “He is a trickster who cannot be trusted.” Then she stood tall and put her hands on her hips. “I know of only one thing you can do.”

  Trina looked up, desperate for help, desperate to hear what the doll would say. Maybe she could help her. For someone so little, sometimes she was awfully wise. “You must run. Run to escape. Run to find your mother. Run like the Gingerbread Man. Run, run, as fast as you can.”

  Trina sniffed hard and wiped the tears from her eyes. Augustine was right. How could she trust someone who had told her lies her whole life? She had to run away. It was the only option.

  Augustine pointed at the window as lightning snapped across the cornfield. “Be brave and valiant! Go!”

  Trina no longer felt sad. She felt determined. She grabbed her Brewers baseball cap and pulled it on tight. Then she picked up the postcard of the Taj Mahal and stormed downstairs into the parlor, past the new oil lamp glowing on top of the fancy new table, and into the dining room, where she found her dad sitting at the big table, writing on a pad of paper.

  “We need groceries,” he said without looking up. “I should have picked them up while we were in town, but I didn’t think of it. You want anything?”

  Trina didn’t answer. As the parlor window hummed in the strong wind, she slapped the postcard of the Taj Mahal in front of him, picture-side up.

  “Isn’t it something?” He turned it over, read the note, and smiled. But when he looked up at Trina and saw her wet eyes and runny nose as she stood there, waiting for an explanation, his smile disappeared.

  He set down his pencil and put head in his hands.

  “No one has ever lived in the Taj Mahal, Poppo. The emperor built it for his wife after she died. The Taj Mahal isn’t a house. It’s a tomb. Everyone knows that.” She reached in front of him and jabbed the postcard in its corner. “It even says so.” The tears welled again. “My mother wasn’t there. She didn’t write this. I don’t understand.” She choked on her words. “How—?”

  Her dad didn’t move a muscle. Eventually he took a deep breath. “I sent the first one. And then my buddy, Matt, the pilot, remember how he—”

  “I don’t mean how you mailed the postcards, Poppo. I mean, how could you do this to me? Why?”

  “Because . . .” He looked down at his grocery list for the longest time before he raised his eyes to meet hers. “Because you missed her. And you loved to get mail. You were so little . . .”

  He stood up, reaching for her.

  But Trina stepped back. “All this time. You made me think she was coming home.”

  “I know. I’ve been meaning to tell you. I just didn’t know—”

  “You lied to me!” Trina shouted as the tears returned. “Is anything I know about my mother true? Is her name really Caroline? Is her favorite color yellow? Were you really going to build her a dollhouse?” She caught her breath and looked back at the picture of the Taj Mahal, the most famous tomb in the whole world.

  All at once the room started to spin. She could feel her mouth open, but she was unable to form any words. Was her mother lost to her forever? She had to know. “Is she . . . dead?”

  Her dad’s face turned white. “Oh, no, Trina. No, she’s not dead. I never meant for you to think . . .”

  Trina shook with anger. “Then why skydiving over the ocean? Why hot-air ballooning in New Zealand? Why such crazy ideas?”

  He closed his eyes and hung his head. “Because all I know is carpentry.” When he finally looked up he was fighting his own tears. “I wanted you to grow up thinking you could do anything.”

  Her dad was a master carpenter who could fix broken things, but he could never fix any of the things she really wanted—a home and a whole family and friends and a mother. “But you lied to me. How could you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t look at it like that. You were little—”

  “But I’m not little anymore!” Trina shouted. “And I want to know where she is!”

  He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head again and again. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  Trina glared at him. “Are you at least trying to find her? Is that why we keep moving?”

  His shoulders slumped. “No, Trina. It’s not like that. I was just used to moving around, I guess. But I’m trying to change that now. For you. That’s why I took this job. For once we get to put down roots. Make it our own . . . at least for a while.”

  “Roots?” Trina screamed. She couldn’t stop herself. “Who’d want to put down roots in the middle of nowhere? Besides, Goldenrod doesn’t belong to us, remember?” She picked up the postcard of the Taj Mahal, ripped it into pieces, and threw them at her dad. Then she stomped to the front door and turned the knob.

  But the door wouldn’t open.

  “Trina, where are you going?”

  “I don’t want to live here anymore.” Trina jiggled the lock and twisted the knob again, but the door still wouldn’t open.

  “Trina, please,” her dad said.

  “And don’t call me Trina,” she said, gripping the doorknob with both hands and giving it everything she had. But it still wouldn’t budge. Now she wasn’t mad at just her dad—she was mad at the house too. “Goldenrod, if you want me to help you, open this door!”
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  The wind gusted outside and the house creaked. Air gasped in the chimney. And then all the lights went out except for the new oil lamp sitting in the parlor window. Trina jumped at the sudden darkness, but she wasn’t going to give up. Not now. “Please, Goldenrod. Help me!” With one more jiggle and pull, the door finally opened. “Thank you,” she whispered, stepping outside, and then she closed the door behind her until it clicked shut.

  She stood on the front steps, clinging to the banister to stay upright in the wind. The porch swing rocked and squeaked. Leaves on the old oak tree turned their silvery sides to the wind as others fell like heavy rain. Behind her the doorknob twisted and clinked, and then the door thunked with the heavy clunk of her dad’s boot. She knew he was trying to follow her, but the door wouldn’t open for him. “Thank you, Goldenrod,” she whispered again.

  Run, run as fast as you can.

  Trina dashed down the steps, across the yard, through the gate, and into the sliver of black dirt road that ran between the swaying cornfields, running straight into the oncoming storm. The heavy sky opened and cold rain slammed her skin. Cornstalks swished all around her, and her tennis shoes, instantly wet, squeaked with every slippery step. If she were racing Edward now, she’d lose for sure.

  “Tree-nah!” she heard her dad call. And then, “Ci-tree-een!”

  But she didn’t turn back. She ran until Goldenrod was far behind her and the road was turning into mud. Panting as she neared the wooden bridge, she stopped to catch her breath. The creek was rising fast. Water was already pooling at the base of the bridge. When she took a step forward, her foot sank in the mud. When she pulled it out, the other pushed in deeper, and she sank nearly to her knee.

  Afraid she’d sink to her waist with the next step, she sat down. As the sludge released her ankles, she crawled backward as fast as she could beyond the reach of the flooding creek. The dark sky flashed with spears of light and the ground rolled with thunder. She looked from the bridge to the swaying walls of corn. Maybe the Gingerbread Man could get away, but she was trapped. She had no choice but to turn around.