The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  “When you brought the doll to school, Citrine, I knew I needed to give this one back. I knew they belonged together.” Miss Dale peeled back the last corner of cloth to reveal a small porcelain doll dressed in black trousers and a white shirt. The doll had a dark brown mustache to match his dark hair.

  “Augustine’s father,” Trina whispered. Augustine had a whole family again. Just like that.

  Miss Dale handed the doll to Trina. “I kept him in a drawer and never played with him. I was afraid he might break.” Miss Dale placed her hand on her chest as if to slow down her heart. “I have to admit, I feel a lot better now that I know he’s home where he belongs.”

  Trina cradled the fine gentleman in her hands as if he were a soap bubble that might pop and vanish into thin air, and then she set him down safely in the middle of the dining room table.

  “Have you had a lot of bad luck, Miss Dale?” Edward asked.

  “Just with basement steps, apparently,” Miss Kitty said, patting Miss Dale’s bandaged arm ever so gently. “And boyfriends.”

  Miss Dale’s face turned pinker than her nail polish. Charlotte giggled, Edward gave a little snicker, and Trina’s dad looked down at his feet. But Trina felt embarrassed for the nicest teacher she had ever known.

  Before Miss Kitty could say anything more, Miss Dale jumped in. “Aunt Kitty, why don’t you take your turn, and then we should get going. The storm seems to be over.”

  Miss Kitty pointed across the room. “Edward, grab me that flour sack.” Then she patted her knees. “Put it right here.”

  Edward jumped up to obey Miss Kitty. “This is heavy,” he said, lugging it across the room and hoisting it into Miss Kitty’s lap. He tried to open the drawstring.

  “Don’t go peeking in it,” Miss Kitty said. “It’s not yours.” She opened up the flour sack and reached inside. “I didn’t take this, I’ll have you know,” she said as she pulled a book from the sack. “Jerry Binty did, rest his soul. He gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday, but I know it came from here. Got Annie Roy’s name right inside the cover.”

  Trina leaned in and read the title: Andersen’s Fairy Tales. Augustine would be thrilled.

  “And then there’s this,” Miss Kitty said, pulling out a red coffee can with both hands. “Me and Hank and Evvie and Pete and those of us who are left from the Dare Club, we got to talking.” She looked at the coffee can fondly. “We figured you’re the first kid ever to spend a whole night here.” With a deep breath, she stood up and held the coffee can out to Trina. “That’s $329 even. And it’s all yours, Miss Citrine, fair and square.”

  Trina didn’t know what to do. She didn’t feel right accepting the money, but Miss Kitty stepped forward and practically shoved it in her arms. The can was so heavy, Trina almost dropped it, and as soon it was in Trina’s hands, Miss Kitty exhaled mightily and plopped back down in her chair.

  “Wow,” Edward said, scooping a handful of coins and letting them clink back into the can. “Look at all this loot, Charlotte.”

  But Charlotte hung back.

  Trina could feel Charlotte’s anger growing as heavy and as stifling as the old packing blanket. Of course Charlotte was mad. Trina didn’t grow up in New Royal. She had no right to the prize. But Trina also knew Charlotte couldn’t argue with her grandmother.

  “All that? Just for her?” Trina’s dad asked.

  “Yeah,” Charlotte said smiling her familiar mean smile. “Fair and square.” And then she sneered at Trina when no one was watching and mouthed the word Latrine.

  But Charlotte’s insult didn’t bother Trina this time. Not now that guilt was eating at her. The money didn’t belong to Trina. She and her dad had moved into Goldenrod because they signed a contract. She had to sleep there. And she didn’t know a thing about the Dare Club. But the money didn’t belong to Charlotte either. If it belonged to anybody, it belonged to Goldenrod. But what would Goldenrod do with a coffee can full of money? She set the can of money on the floor and rubbed the creases it had left in her palms.

  Miss Kitty pushed back in her chair and stood up. “Now that we’ve made amends, we’d better go. Don’t want to wear out our welcome,” she said. “Saturdays are my busiest days at the diner and they start plenty early.” She waggled her finger at Edward. “Don’t worry. I’ll do the talking for you.”

  “That’s it?” Trina’s dad shook his head, bewildered. “That’s what I pulled the two of you out of the mud for? An old doll, a book, and a can of money?” He took a few paces around the dining room. “I darn near yanked the transmission right out of my truck.”

  Miss Kitty was already ushering Charlotte and Edward to the foyer. Miss Dale gave Trina and her dad a helpless look. Miss Kitty laughed a little shakily as she reached the front door. “Don’t tell me you thought we came for a cup of tea.” She turned the knob, pulled open the front door, and marched onto the porch. Charlotte, Edward, and Miss Dale followed behind her. Trina was sad to see Miss Dale and Edward go. She was even sorry to see Charlotte and Miss Kitty go. She liked having company.

  “Wow!” Edward said from the porch, followed by a huge whistle. “I knew that big bolt of lightning would get something. Just think if we’d run out this door. We would have been killed for sure.”

  Trina hurried onto the porch to see what Edward was talking about. The old oak tree was sprawled across the yard, its limbs reaching for the porch like a monstrous hand. Leaves and branches blocked the parlor windows like a black curtain. No wonder she had never seen her dad’s headlights. And no wonder Goldenrod had looked so eerily different in the moonlight when they found Annie’s grave. “Poppo, look,” she said sadly as he stepped next her. “It was here forever.”

  He put his arm around her and hugged her close. “I know,” he said.

  “Thank you for your hospitality, Mr. Mike,” Miss Kitty said, as though they really had just come for a social visit.

  From the top of the steps, Miss Dale looked over her shoulder and gave a little wave. “Thank you,” she said to Trina’s dad.

  “My pleasure,” he said.

  “And, Citrine, we’ll see you in school on Monday, right?”

  “That’s right,” her dad said before Trina could answer. “And you be careful going down any stairs, okay?”

  Miss Dale nodded as she grabbed the railing. It was too dark to see the color of her cheeks, but Trina was pretty sure they had flushed bright pink again.

  “And, Miss Kitty, you take my advice and stay on the road next time you come for a visit.”

  “There won’t be a next time. I’ve had my fill of haunted houses, Mr. Mike. We came to settle up. That’s all.” Miss Kitty had to lead the group to the far end of the house to circle the tree, and then they all disappeared. Four car doors slammed shut, a motor started, and the rumble of an engine faded into the distance.

  Trina plucked a leaf from a tree branch that hung within an inch of the new balustrade and twirled it between her fingers as the realization sank in: she and Charlotte and Edward had been just moments away from being hit by a falling tree. And they were nearly struck by lightning. Now she was surer than ever that Goldenrod was looking out for her. And Mr. Kinghorn was wrong: what happened this night had nothing to do with coincidence. But he was right too: luck did seem to be coming back to New Royal little by little.

  When Trina closed the front door, the house lights popped on and the refrigerator whirred. Goldenrod hummed with electricity. Trina recognized this feeling that made the house seem so alive. The feeling was hope. She walked into the dining room and picked up the father doll, hopeful for Goldenrod and hopeful for Augustine. Even a little hopeful for herself. But when Trina entered the foyer and there was her dad, standing at the bottom of the stairs with a we-need-to-talk look on his face, hope was no longer what Trina felt.

  “Citrine,” he began.

  “In the morning,” Trina said. “I have to take the father doll upstairs so they can all be together again.” She circled around her dad and went up the s
teps, wincing at how serious he sounded when he called her Citrine. As if he knew she wasn’t a little girl anymore, and that things between them had changed forever.

  She closed her bedroom door and tiptoed to the dollhouse. Augustine was sound asleep in bed, but the mother doll was sitting alone in the parlor in one of the blue velvet chairs by the hearth.

  Trina walked the father doll into the little parlor and helped him stroll up to the fireplace so the mother doll could see him. She imagined the mother doll leaping from her chair with joy and throwing her arms around the father doll and him hugging her so tightly she would be afraid she might break. “I’ve missed you so much,” she would say. “I’m never leaving your side again,” he would say. Moments later he would ask, “How is our daughter?” And the mother would say, “Wonderfully happy. She is all grown-up. And she has made a new friend.”

  And then Trina sat the father down next to the mother in the biggest of the blue velvet chairs and placed his porcelain hand on hers. Augustine’s family was back together again.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Trina woke up before it was light out. She couldn’t wait for Augustine to wake up and find her father sitting by the hearth, so she sat on the floor and watched as the morning sun lit up the dollhouse, window by window, until it made Augustine’s face sparkle. Her eyes opened, her quilt rippled, and then her tiny porcelain hand slipped from under the covers and reached for her silver hairbrush on the bedside table.

  “Good morning, Augustine,” Trina whispered, startling the little doll.

  The silver hairbrush fell to the dollhouse floor with a tiny tat.

  “Augustine,” Trina said a bit louder, “I have a surprise for you.”

  Augustine sat right up. “Oh, Citrine! It’s you! You have returned from your great adventure. Tell me, did you find your mother? Is that the surprise you speak of?”

  Trina picked up the hairbrush, handed it to Augustine, and shook her head. “I think I’ll just have to wait for the golden bird to bring my mother home too,” she said, keeping her sudden tears at bay. She didn’t want her own woes to ruin Augustine’s real surprise.

  Augustine brushed her hair. “Is it my prince? Has he come for me? Is that the surprise?”

  “I think it’s better than a prince, Augustine. But you must close your eyes. Here, take my finger.” The doll’s cool hand was as gentle as a butterfly leg on Trina’s fingertip. Trina guided her from her bedroom down the staircase and into her parlor.

  Augustine danced on her bare tiptoes. “When may I open my eyes, Citrine?”

  Trina let go of her hand when they arrived at the hearth. “Now.”

  When Augustine spotted her father, her smile glistened from one porcelain ear to the other. “My father is no longer lost to me. Look, Mother. Father is home!”

  Trina’s breath clutched in her chest. Her happiness for Augustine was overwhelming, but so was the ache in her heart. Augustine had something Trina didn’t. “You’re a whole family again,” Trina said, trying to sound happy for Augustine. Trying not to be jealous of a doll. “Now you can live happily ever after.”

  Augustine placed one of the little newspapers in her father’s stiff hand. “Tell me, Citrine, wherever did you find him?”

  “Remember Miss Dale? My teacher? She’s had him for years. But don’t worry. She kept him wrapped up and safe in a drawer. She never played with him.”

  “In a drawer? Never played with him?” Augustine covered her ears in horror. “What an indignity! A doll should be played with. Please, do not speak of this again.” She knelt by her father’s chair and clasped his hand in both of hers.

  “But you said you didn’t like it when Annie played with you. You said she put you places you didn’t want to be.”

  “That is true, Citrine.” Augustine got up from the floor and slipped out the front door in her nightgown. She strolled along a thin strip of wood flooring in Trina’s room as if it were a sidewalk. “Sometimes I long for Annie to play with me now.” She gave a little sigh.

  Trina felt a twinge of regret. She wasn’t very good at playing with the doll. And except for taking her to school, she hadn’t had much time for their adventures. “Would you like to have a tea party? We could celebrate your father’s homecoming. Would that make you feel better?”

  Augustine chortled. “Oh, no. My father does not think much of ladies’ tea parties.” Then she put her forefinger to her temple and her eyes lit up. “Perhaps you would place me on my pony. I think I should enjoy such a diversion on this fine sunny day. I believe my mother and father would like to watch.”

  Trina wished her mother were there to watch her do something—anything. But her mother was gone. And the hope of someday was gone too. And things would never be the same with her dad.

  “I can see you still long for your mother,” said Augustine, patting Trina’s hand. “Tell me, how is it you found my father but not your mother?”

  Trina looked down at Augustine, wondering how in the world she could explain that it was easier to find a doll mother stuck in a bathtub drain, or a doll father hidden away in a drawer for a hundred years, than it was to find a real mother who wasn’t really missing. “It’s a long story, Augustine.”

  Augustine sat down cross-legged and rested her pointy little chin in her hands. “You know how I love stories.”

  Of course Trina would tell Augustine the whole story. She was her best friend.

  Trina started with the postcards. She told Augustine that her father’s friend, who flew golden birds all over the world, had sent the postcards, and her father only pretended they were from her mother. When she told Augustine her mother was never coming back, Augustine covered her ears. “But, Augustine, listen. There’s more,” Trina said.

  She told Augustine about running away but getting only as far as the flooding creek and having to turn around, and how Charlotte and Edward sneaked into the house. “I’ll tell you later how I revenged upon Charlotte,” she said. And then she told Augustine about finding Annie’s grave and how it would have to be moved before the workmen came, and finished up with how her dad had driven off to find her and had come home filthy after pulling Miss Dale and Miss Kitty’s car out of the mud. “I’m afraid he’s going to be really mad at me for running away,” she concluded, dreading the moment they would have their serious talk.

  Augustine, who had barely blinked through the whole story, said very purposefully, “I trust you are right, Citrine, for fear and anger can be very confusing. But mostly I believe your father was worried about you, much like the woodcutter worried about his Hansel and Gretel. I no longer believe your father is a trickster.”

  “But he lied to me,” Trina said. “How do you explain that?”

  “So you are still angry with him?”

  Trina nodded, feeling herself heat up with anger all over again.

  “Is it possible you blame him for something he did not do?” asked Augustine.

  Trina didn’t like this question. She felt as if Augustine didn’t believe her, as if she were the one who had done something wrong. And she knew her anger showed in her face.

  “Please, Citrine, tell me again what your father did.”

  “He told me stories about my mother. He lied to me. He made me think she was going to come home.”

  “To make you happy?”

  “Yes,” Trina said. “But it didn’t work.”

  “But it did,” said Augustine.

  “Not after I found out the truth.”

  Augustine became pensive. Trina wondered what the doll knew that she didn’t. And she was getting more and more frustrated waiting in the silence. “I don’t understand, Augustine. How am I blaming him for something he didn’t do?”

  Augustine raised one porcelain eyebrow. “Tell me, where is your father now?”

  Trina turned her head toward the door of her room. “I think I heard him go downstairs.”

  Augustine tapped Trina on her fingernail until she turned her head. “My dear Citrine, if
your father is still here with you, and your mother is not, perhaps it is your mother who is the trickster.”

  It took a few minutes for Augustine’s words to make sense. As they did, a new storm surged inside her. “How can you say that? You don’t even know her.”

  “Nor do you,” the little doll said.

  Trina didn’t want to talk to Augustine anymore. What kind of friend would be so mean? She scooped up the doll and stomped around her room. Maybe she would put the doll back in her dollhouse and lock her up in the turret room and never let her out. And then she’d run away again. As far away from her dad as she could get.

  “Help! Help!” The little muffled voice called Trina to her senses. Trina opened her fist and looked at the doll trembling in her hand. Trina was shaking now too, beginning to understand what Augustine had meant about fear and anger being confusing.

  “I’m so sorry, Augustine. I don’t know what came over me. It’s not your fault.”

  “It is quite understandable,” the doll said breathlessly. “You thought you were angry with me.”

  Trina had never been more grateful for Augustine than she was at this moment. Grateful for a friend to tell her secrets to. And grateful for someone who really understood her. But mostly she was grateful that Augustine had pointed out the truth. A terrible truth Trina didn’t want to believe: Her father wasn’t the only one who had betrayed her. Her mother had betrayed her too. At least her father had tried to make her happy. In Augustine’s own way, she made Trina realize there might be two sides to the story. And then a new worry set in.

  “But why, Augustine? Why did my mother leave me?”

  “I do not know why, Citrine. I believe you will have to ask your father.”

  Only now, holding onto Augustine, could Trina muster the courage to admit what had been on her mind since she ripped up the postcard of the Taj Mahal the night before. “Augustine, I’m scared to hear the rest of the story. I’m afraid this one won’t have a happy ending.”