The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  A flurry of feet and laughter resounded in the hallway. Pound, pound, pound across the hall. Pound, pound, pound at her door. Trina held as still and silent as Augustine, hoping no one would come barging in.

  “Hurry up, Citrine!” Edward yelled. “Everyone will be here soon.”

  “What’s taking you so long?” Charlotte shouted.

  Augustine raised one fine eyebrow. “The giant. I would know her voice anywhere.”

  Trina put her finger to her lips to hush Augustine. “I’m almost ready,” she hollered. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Okay!” Edward yelled before his feet and Charlotte’s pounded down the stairs.

  “Should you not hurry, Citrine? Do they not need you?”

  Trina didn’t care about Charlotte or Edward or anybody else. All she cared about right now was Augustine. She cradled the little doll close to her face. “I don’t want to put you away,” Trina said as tears welled in her eyes. “I need you.”

  Augustine cocked her little head. “But do you, Citrine? You have friends now. Real friends, just as you wished. It is time to put me away. You are ready, and so am I. I belong in my world, and you belong in yours.”

  A single tear slipped down Trina’s cheek. Augustine reached out and caught the tear in her hands. “This is sadness I am touching, is it not?”

  Trina’s voice cracked. “Yes.”

  “I feel this sadness too. It is very heavy and I cannot bear it another moment. Please, Citrine.” She squeezed Trina’s finger with one hand and gestured toward the dollhouse with the other.

  Trina looked into Augustine’s trusting eyes. She had no choice but to keep her promise. She laid Augustine, in her elegant dress, on top of her covers so her prince would see she was a princess. She made sure the little pointed hat was sitting on her head, tucked the veil beneath her, and laid her hair over her shoulders just so.

  “I will never forget you,” Trina said.

  “I know you will never forget me, Citrine, for I will always be part of your memories and stories. And someday a little girl will find me and I will be played with again.”

  Someday. It was a word Trina had clung to until she couldn’t trust it, but now she heard the hope in it again. Someday.

  “Now, please, the story. It is my favorite.”

  Trina picked up Grimm’s Fairy Tales and sat down on the floor outside Augustine’s bedroom.

  “Citrine?”

  Trina leaned forward. “Yes?”

  “Promise me you will always believe in happy endings.”

  Trina wanted to make the promise, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine the sun coming up without it waking Augustine. What would she do tomorrow morning? And the day after that? She was too sad thinking she would never hear the little doll’s voice ever again to believe in happy endings.

  “Promise me,” Augustine insisted as she sank into her little white pillow.

  “I promise to try.” That was as much as Trina could say, but it seemed to please the little doll.

  “Citrine,” she whispered, “I feel something more. Something I do not understand.”

  Trina leaned in closer. “What is it?”

  “It is right . . . here.” Augustine placed her hand on the center of her chest. “But I do not feel broken. I believe I have felt it before. A long time ago.”

  Trina placed her hand over her own heart. “It’s love, Augustine. I feel it too. I love you, Augustine.”

  Augustine kept her hand at her heart. “So this is love. I am glad to have known love in your world once more. I also love you, Citrine.”

  With those words on her tiny lips, Augustine closed her eyes. There was nothing more Trina could say, so she opened the book to page fifty-seven and began to read. “Once upon a time there lived in a distant kingdom a very lonesome king and queen. ‘If only we had a child,’ they wished, but for many years they remained alone.”

  Trina read on and on, pausing at the point when Briar Rose pricked her finger on the spindle and fell asleep. No wonder Augustine loved this story. It was the story of a very happy house until the house fell under a wicked spell. Then it became a very sad house that went to sleep with everything in it. And its princess, who lay as still as a doll, waited a hundred years for a prince to kiss her and wake her and for all happiness to return. It was a story about love and patience. But most of all, it was a story about hope.

  Trina finished reading the story, and when she looked up, Augustine was fast asleep.

  Trina closed the book.

  Slowly and carefully, she dragged the dollhouse from her bedroom into the turret room. She couldn’t bear to shove the dollhouse deep beneath the shelf, dark and hidden, so she pushed the dollhouse to a stop in the center of the playroom, certain a prince would find Augustine more easily if she weren’t tucked away.

  Then she shut the shutters one by one and the room became as dark and as still as the day Trina discovered it. As she pulled the mirrored door closed behind her and heard the latch click, it was as if the princess had pricked her finger on the spindle one more time.

  If Trina could believe in a happy ending, she hoped Augustine wouldn’t have to wait another hundred years for a little girl to open the door and play with her.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Trina wiped her eyes and stared at herself in the tall mirror. A sad Hermione Granger stared back at her. She would need nothing short of magic to look happy.

  When a car honked outside, Trina pushed open her bedroom window to chaos. The road leading up to the house was filled with parked cars and strangely dressed people. She swore she heard someone say, “Be brave and valiant,” just as Augustine would say. But all she saw was Ben, running through the gate dressed as Luke Skywalker, waving his light saber. “What?” he hollered at his mother, who was a few yards behind him.

  “I said, behave and help out,” she shouted.

  The idea that she might always hear Augustine’s words of wisdom made Trina feel better about joining the party without her. She put her witch hat back on her head, waved good-bye to the mirrored door with her wand, and arrived at the bottom of the stairs just as Miss Kitty, in a black witch costume, barged through the foyer on her way to the kitchen. “I’m the Wicked Witch of the East. The nice one,” she cackled.

  “I’m a witch too,” Trina said, waving her wand at Miss Kitty’s back, thinking a little good magic wouldn’t hurt her.

  Miss Dale came down the stairs and stopped on the landing. Her hair was in braids and she was wearing a blue gingham dress. On her right arm she carried a wicker basket with a little stuffed dog in it. Charlotte followed with her red hair in braids too, braids that stuck straight out from her head. Her striped leggings clashed with her plaid dress.

  “Guess who?” Charlotte said.

  “Miss Dale is Dorothy and you are not Princess Leia,” Trina said.

  “You’re Pippi Longstocking!” Prissy Missy shouted, coming in the front door dressed as Little Bo Peep—just in time to scream when a gorilla bounded out of the library into the foyer, pounding its chest.

  “Who are you?” Prissy Missy asked the big gorilla.

  “King Kong,” the low, gruff voice answered. The gorilla removed its furry head to reveal Edward. He scratched his scalp, looking at Trina in her skirt, blouse, and cloak. “You should dress like a girl more often,” he said.

  Trina pointed her wand at Edward. “And you, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, are now a gorilla.”

  Upstairs something clanged.

  Charlotte gasped, “What was that?”

  Whatever it was clanged again.

  Trina had no idea what the sound was, but she knew it was nothing to be afraid of. And so did Miss Dale, it seemed, because she was doing everything possible not to laugh.

  A door creaked open in the upstairs hallway and the clangs got louder. “I can’t walk in this thing,” Trina’s dad shouted. A clang was followed by a stomp, followed by another clang. Slowly Poppo clanged and stomped down the stairs and
appeared on the landing next to Miss Dale. He was wearing stacks of coffee cans wired together as pants and sleeves, most of a garbage can for a shirt, and a funnel as a hat.

  The cans were sprayed with sparkling silver paint and his hands and face were smeared with creamy silver makeup. A black rubber washer was stuck to the end of his nose, which made his costume perfect. Trina laughed so hard at her Tin-Man dad that tears came back to her eyes. But this time they were happy tears.

  Right then Mr. Kinghorn strode through the front door wearing a tuxedo. “Every British novel of any worth has a butler,” he explained. He had draped a white dish towel across his arm and insisted on answering the door the rest of the night.

  When Mr. Hank arrived with his wife, wearing matching plaid shirts and carrying inflatable plastic axes, Mr. Kinghorn said, “May I present to you Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bunyan.” Trina had to laugh again because, at least for Mr. Hank, a plaid shirt wasn’t much of a costume.

  Mr. Shegstad came alone, dressed as an angel with a foil halo taped to his shiny bald head. “May I present to you the angel Clarence.” Trina had no idea who Clarence was, but Mr. Shegstad made a perfect angel anyway.

  Miss Lincoln and Mr. Bert stepped in behind Mr. Shegstad. Miss Lincoln was wearing a tattered dress and a big hat, and Mr. Bert was dressed in a cape and top hat. “May I present to you Mrs. Whatsit and the honorable Sherlock Holmes,” Mr. Kinghorn said.

  Every time the door opened, Trina was on pins and needles, waiting for Mr. Kinghorn to announce the arrival of her mother, Caroline Adams, who probably didn’t have time to find a costume. But that was okay. Maybe she was famous enough to come as herself.

  Goldenrod filled with vampires, villains, sci-fi monsters, cowboys, and gentlemen and ladies in old-fashioned clothes, so fast that soon it was hard to move from room to room. People laughed and talked and told stories. More than once Trina overheard someone say, “The night I snuck in here . . .”

  All the sandwiches had been unwrapped and the hot dogs, baked beans, and apple cider were piping hot. Miss Kitty’s cookies and brownies were arranged around a giant bouquet of mums and goldenrod and a big tray of caramel apples sat at each end of the table. Everything was perfect . . . except something was missing. Not just her mother, of course, but something else. The music!

  Trina remembered the old record player. She ran into the parlor, opened the top, and recognized the turntable because she had seen a record player once at a school party. She gave the crank a few turns and the turntable went around and around. She picked out a record and laughed at how big and heavy it was. The record held only one song, and no song she had ever heard of had such a strange name: “Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms.”

  She placed the record on the turntable and lowered the needle. The raspy music crackled through the metal morning glory, sounding at first like radio static. Trina’s heart sank. And then the noise evened out and a man with an Irish accent, accompanied by a violin, slowly sang the words in the title.

  As the music filled the house, older men took the hands of older women and waltzed them from the parlor into the foyer, twirling them and occasionally bumping into another couple, causing shouts of laughter. Some of the teenagers slow-danced and most of the younger kids danced in groups.

  Even tall Mr. Kinghorn took a break from answering the door to dance with stout Miss Kitty. They looked at each other with love in their eyes and Trina was certain she saw Miss Kitty smile. No wonder Mr. Kinghorn called her Katherine. Trina figured their romance was another secret everyone knew about and no one mentioned.

  Trina found herself humming along to the lilting melody and then a crazy feeling of déjà vu swept through her. Everything was wonderfully new and yet strangely familiar at the same time. Hadn’t she thought Mr. Kinghorn looked like a butler when she first met him? And didn’t she picture the dining room table set with white dishes and flowers and the parlor filled with people all dressed up and laughing and talking? And this song, this ancient song she shouldn’t know—but she did. It was the song Augustine was always humming. Trina closed her eyes and imagined the music floating up through the floor and into the turret room, just the way it would have a hundred years ago. She pictured Augustine’s mother and father dancing in their parlor while Augustine dreamed of her prince.

  Edward took off his gorilla head and came up to Trina shyly. It seemed like he wanted to ask her something—to dance?—when the song crackled to a stop and Trina’s dad shouted, “Everyone to the porch! It’s time for the piñata.”

  “Next time,” Trina said, so Edward wouldn’t be embarrassed and then they hurried outside together. Naturally, Edward managed to be first in line.

  Charlotte’s lanterns were glowing, warm, and welcoming, but the temperature had dropped so far the flowers were drooping. Trina pulled her cloak around her. “It’s freezing out here, Poppo.”

  “Looks like I’ll have to turn the furnace on tonight,” he said.

  “Get ready for an early winter, heh-heh,” Mr. Hank said as he untied the piñata and gave it a yank. “Farmer’s Almanac predicts lots of snow too.”

  “I can see my breath,” Charlotte said, standing next to Trina for a turn at the piñata. “I guess summer is really over,” she sighed, but then she added brightly, “At least we can look forward to big snowball fights!”

  “And we can go sledding,” Edward said. “And ice skating.”

  Trina was glad to be included in Charlotte’s plans, but she liked Edward’s ideas best.

  Miss Dale tied an old scarf around Edward’s eyes. He took a swing at the rainbow piñata with one of Trina’s softball bats, and bumped it, but then Mr. Hank made the rainbow swing high and out of reach. Charlotte was next. She swung the bat and spun around in a full circle, missing the piñata completely. And just before it was Trina’s turn, a little boy from one of the younger grades cracked it open.

  Candy and trinkets fell like rain and all the kids lunged across the porch to grab the goodies. Trina ended up with a bunch of baby suckers—just what she wanted—and a plastic packet labeled “Exotic Sea Creatures.” The little bag contained a whale, a jellyfish, a shark, and a green frog. “Charlotte,” she said, laughing about the dollar-store purchase, “frogs aren’t sea creatures!” And then she shoved the packet into the front pocket of her shorts for safekeeping.

  Most of the guests went back into the house except for Tyler, Miss Lincoln’s great-nephew, and a bunch of his friends. They hung around the water trough, bobbing for apples and sitting on the tree stump talking.

  Trina wandered from room to room, savoring every moment of the party. In the parlor, voices blended into a chorus of excitement about how beautiful the house was. Edward was trying to juggle apples in the kitchen, Miss Dale and her dad were standing in the bay window, talking and eating caramel apples, and Mr. Kinghorn was carrying a tray of brownies from guest to guest.

  Trina cranked up the music again and the party went on and on until the food was almost gone. No wonder Augustine said Goldenrod was the happiest when there were parties. Parties made happiness feel as if it could last forever—until people started to leave. Edward’s big ape paw waved at Trina all the way from the foyer as his mother pulled him out the door. “See you Monday, Citrine.”

  Trina waved to Edward, but as more and more guests said good-bye, she started to get worried. Couldn’t everyone please stay a little longer? Her mother might be here any second. She walked through the emptying rooms, on the lookout for any character she might have missed. A lost Cinderella or a Mary Poppins. What if her mother really was lost? What if she took a wrong turn? What if she had veered off the road and was stuck in a cornfield?

  Trina arrived in the kitchen just as Miss Kitty took off her witch hat and rolled up her black sleeves to start washing the dishes. In the parlor, Mr. Kinghorn reached up and pulled down a handful of streamers. Then her dad slipped out of his tin cans and washed the silver paint off his hands so he could help reload Mr. Hank’s truck. The whole
place was cleaned up in one of Mr. Hank’s quick jiffies.

  “C’mon, Charlotte, you’re riding home with us,” Miss Kitty said, following Mr. Hank and his wife down the path carrying a box of clean plates. The candles had mostly burned out, which made Trina even sadder.

  “Hey, where’s your mom?” Charlotte asked, hanging behind as Trina held the door open.

  Trina glanced around, pretending she hadn’t noticed her mother’s absence, and hoped Charlotte wouldn’t see the quiver in her lips. “Something must have come up.”

  “Maybe next time,” Charlotte said.

  “For sure,” Trina said as sturdily as she could. When she closed the door behind Charlotte, she knew the party was officially over and her mother had officially not come. Poppo had told her not to count on her mother coming, but she hadn’t listened. All the happiness Trina had felt during the party had drained out of her. She felt like the flowers in the vases outside, wilting in the cold.

  She walked slowly into the dining room where she could hear a murmur of voices. Mr. Kinghorn, Mr. Shegstad, and Miss Dale were sitting at the dining room table. Except for their costumes, and a few leftovers Miss Kitty had set on the blue plates, and her dad’s silver face, it looked like the party had never happened.

  “Come join us,” her dad said, spreading out the old blueprints on the dining room table. “I thought I’d build a fire. Carrie wants to see the drawings, and Peter and Jerry have agreed to tell a few old stories before we call it a night.”

  Everything had gone perfectly for her dad. Carrie, Peter, Jerry. Trina felt like giving him one of Charlotte’s mean old sneers. He had made new friends, but her own mother hadn’t bothered to come to the party.

  “No, thanks,” Trina said and left the room.

  She took the stairs one slow step at a time and went into her bedroom. “Be brave and valiant,” she whispered to her reflection as she threw her wand on the bed and hung the cloak and hat on a hook next to her baseball caps, followed by Miss Dale’s white shirt and skirt. Now she was down to her same old tomboy self in her shorts and a T-shirt. Shivering, she pulled on a sweatshirt and sat on the edge of her bed. Without the dollhouse, her room felt empty and lonely. If only she could talk to Augustine and tell her how her mother hadn’t come to the party. It was her biggest woe yet.