Circle of Secrets, Page 3

  Then I see something very peculiar. One of the bottles has something inside. Maybe it’s just a trick of the light and the rain. I figure it’s a bug or some dirt, a rock, maybe, but the closer I look I’d swear there’s a piece of paper inside there. Like a note. Like in a movie when a bottle washes in from the ocean with a note that turns out to be a map for a treasure hunt.

  The telephone stops ringing. “Shoot!”

  I do want to talk to my daddy. I wonder if he’s already in New Orleans checking in for his flight. I’m surprised that much time has already gone by. He’ll probably call right back, but that means I only have a few seconds.

  Stretching as tall as I can, I grab the branch overhead and pull it down, my arm practically popping a tendon, it’s so high up. My toes are cramping by the time I slip the blue bottle off the branch and peek inside. Sure enough, there’s something in there.

  I put my eye to the opening, and then shake it. A piece of paper, all folded up, is inside that bottle, but the neck is so narrow, it’s tricky.

  I angle the bottle this way and that, slipping that paper all over the place.

  The phone starts to ring for the second time.

  Holding my breath, I slowly tilt the bottle just so and the note slips down right through the mouth. I grasp the end with my fingers and pop it out. The phone stops ringing and I hurry to stick the blue bottle back onto its branch fast as I can.

  My heart’s beating so loud I can hear it in my ears.

  “Shelby Jayne!” Mirage calls from the screen door. “It’s your daddy!”

  “Coming!” I gulp as my heart keeps whopping inside my eardrums like an echo. I want to read that note bad, but I want to talk to my daddy just as bad. Maybe he’s decided he’ll miss me so much he’s gonna come and get me. I mean, going to come and get me.

  I’m trying to remember all those words Grandmother Phoebe taught me to swap out for better ones, but here in the swamp it’s harder than I thought it would be. It’s like all my growing-up language got programmed into my brain permanently and I’m short-circuiting.

  The shadow of Mirage’s figure moves away from the door. I keep my back to her and quickly unfold the paper.

  There are words, written on yellowing notebook paper, fading like it’s old.

  Don’t forget! Tonight’s the night!

  Come to the bridge — and hurry!

  A note in a bottle! How strange, and exciting. My head fills with a bunch of questions. What does the note mean, and who’s it for, hanging up in that bottle in the tree?

  The lettering is partly squiggly, partly printed, like someone writing in a hurry. I shiver with the mysteriousness of it, and the knowledge that blue bottle trees are meant to trap evil gremlins or imps or fairies.

  I fold up the note again, stuff it into the pocket of my jeans, and run for the porch, darting around Miss Silla Wheezy and Mister Possum Boudreaux.

  An ancient, green, rotary dial phone is off the hook and lying on the yellow tablecloth. A long cord runs along the floor and up the wall, like a phone out of an old movie.

  Mirage already answered it and left the receiver on the table for me. I can tell she’s with someone in the front room. She really does have a customer.

  Instead of talking in the kitchen where they can hear me, I grab the phone and slip around the corner of the hall, using every inch of that twisty old-fashioned telephone cord. I go into the bedroom Mirage stuffed my suitcases in and perch on the edge of the patchwork quilt. “Hello?”

  “Shelby, you there?” My daddy sounds happy, relaxed, and I get a funny tickle in my throat. He’s supposed to miss me dreadfully, and tell me he’s coming straight back to get me. Instead he asks, “Are you getting settled at your mother’s house?”

  “Um, sort of.” I glance at the unopened suitcases and the box of books and school stuff still sitting on the floor.

  “Bet you had some of Mirage’s famous chicken-and-sausage gumbo, huh?”

  “Nah. Crawfish,” I tell him, half lying to make him feel sorry for me.

  Mirage and the visitors drift into the kitchen. I want to spy on them something fierce. Will she make her customer drink potions out of a cauldron? Or wave a wand over their head? I can’t seem to concentrate on my conversation with Daddy.

  “What did you say, honey? The connection suddenly went full of static.”

  “Crawfish,” I say. “I said crawfish.”

  He gives a laugh. “Crawfish is probably easier to come by out there than boudin, shar.”

  “I guess.” I bend over to look for critters or bugs hiding under the bed. All I see are dust balls of crud.

  “What I mean, Shelby, is that Mirage sets traps below the water in the mud and hauls some up every couple days. Easy eating.”

  “How do you know all that?” And why was my daddy talking about her and not me? I thought they hated each other.

  “She and I used to go fishing all the time. We lived at that house when we first got married and had you; we moved in with Grandmother Phoebe when we decided we better go to college. And, then, well, we just never left.”

  “How come you didn’t stay out here and go to college?”

  “Well, lots of reasons. First, the school was a mighty long commute, more than two hours. Your grandmother was lonely, too. And sick a lot. Plus, well, this is all grown-up stuff not to worry about, but my daddy’s money ran out and I helped keep up the mortgage for my mamma. Never had enough money to pay for two mortgages, and while that old house I grew up in was in a nice neighborhood, it needed so many repairs I thought it was gonna kill us for sure.”

  “Never knew all that, Daddy,” I whisper, but I’m not sure he hears me.

  Storm clouds move across the sky, covering up the sun. A lone trickle of rain dribbles down the bedroom window, making the bedroom gloomy and depressing.

  “I’m sorry you’re unhappy there, shar. I wish this assignment wasn’t going to be so long, but I do miss you very much. Good news is, this better job is helping get us out of debt and save up for our own place. If I can pry you out of Grandmother Phoebe’s hands.”

  I think he’s right, although I never thought about it like that before. I don’t think my grandmother would like the idea of us leaving. In fact, I think she’s gonna fight it hard.

  “I miss you, too,” I whisper. I picture him in the bright, cheery airport, people overflowing with luggage as they check in for flights to the Bahamas or Egypt or Rome. And me left behind.

  After Daddy tells me he loves me, I return the phone to its cradle then tiptoe back to my room, and stare at a big old wardrobe standing under the corner eaves. It’s dark and sinister-looking, like something out of medieval times.

  I wonder if I should start unpacking and whether my clothes will fit in that thing. It looks like the wardrobe from the Narnia books. I wonder if it could take me back home or someplace more interesting than this swamp.

  The phone starts ringing again, and the sound makes me jump.

  “Can you answer that, Shelby Jayne?” I hear Mirage call from the front room.

  My stomach skitters as I run back to pick up the receiver and say hello.

  “Shelby, is that you?”

  My breath goes out in a whoosh. It’s Grandmother Phoebe.

  “Darling girl, I just wanted to see if you were settling in down there.”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Not really, but I probably shouldn’t complain to my grandmother. She doesn’t hold with whining.

  “We will have to make the best of it, all of us. Unfortunately,” she adds.

  I don’t want to think about making the best of it, so I ask, “How’s your hospital room?”

  “Adequate. The food is terrible. I think I’m living in a cafeteria.”

  “Are you scared about the surgery?”

  “Surgery is a necessary evil, I guess. I do want my hips back in working order so I’ll do what the doctors tell me and live with the consequences.” She pauses, and then says, “I suppose we both have to live
with less-than-pleasing consequences. I’m sorry you have to be there, Shelby darling. You used to have this fantasy where everything worked out again between your parents, but it’s time to stop living with make-believe and face reality — and the reality of who your mother really is.”

  I take a gulp as my throat burns and tears spring to my eyes. “Why?” I whisper, stubbing my toe into the rug as I clench the phone.

  Grandmother Phoebe sniffs. “Under the circumstances, I think this past year our family is working out for the best. Chin up, now. This little setback of your living with Mirage is just temporary.”

  “Okay,” I tell her, and nod my head even though she can’t see me.

  My grandmother harrumphs. “I’m afraid I didn’t hear you correctly, Shelby.”

  My face burns. “I meant, yes. Yes, ma’am.”

  After we say our good-byes I hang up the telephone for the second time and go back to my room, throwing myself across the bed. The bedroom is shabby and musty and the floor slants at an angle, almost like it’s running downhill. Feels like this house will break into pieces during the next bad storm.

  Our house in New Iberia may be old, too, but at least it’s been kept up and Grandmother Phoebe makes me dust and vacuum every week.

  I lie on the bed wishing I’d run away to LizAnn’s house. She and I should have planned my getaway before I got dragged here.

  I hear a noise come from the kitchen, which makes me curious to see what’s going on out there. This might be a good chance to see Mirage in action.

  I take off my shoes so I won’t make any noise, then flatten myself against the wall as I tiptoe down the hall and peer around the corner.

  A black umbrella lies drip-drying in the sink while a young woman wearing damp jeans and a wet hooded sweatshirt sits at the table. She’s biting her fingernails while a small boy perches in her lap. He looks about three or four years old and he’s wiggling like he’s got ants in his pants and whimpering.

  Mirage is arranging bottles of various ointments on the table. A carved wooden box sits next to the pile of medicine bottles. There’s also a crusty-looking book with rough-edged pages and stuff spilling out of it, leaves and pieces of string and jotted notes on scraps of paper. The binding is cracked and ready to fall apart. Like a witch’s book of spells.

  The boy’s got a hundred red spots all over his face and arms and he’s scratching something fierce. I’m pretty sure it’s the chicken pox.

  Mirage rubs her hands over his hair, murmuring soothing noises.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am, Miz Mirage,” the woman says. Her face is pale, and there are dark smudges under her eyes like her mascara dripped from the rain on the boat ride over. “Don’t got no money for a doctor.”

  “You come on any time,” Mirage tells her. “I’m most always here.”

  Then she goes quiet as she bends over the little boy, making a circling motion around all those angry red spots. One by one, Mirage circles each red blister, murmuring the whole time in French. Then she lays her hands on his head, closes her eyes, and says a prayer, in French. I have to admit, Mirage’s French words are so beautiful, it almost sounds magical.

  After she’s done praying, she picks up one of the bottles of pinkish liquid. “Now put this ointment on before bedtime and I promise you he’ll be feelin’ better by mornin’.”

  “Oh, Miz Mirage, you are so good,” the boy’s mamma tells her, rising from her chair. “What would we do without you? His itchin’ and scratchin’ get so bad, they start to bleed. Didn’t get no sleep last night at all.”

  I start remembering the stories I’d heard at school about traiteurs. They could cure warts and rashes and sunburns. Sometimes they could pray a fever right out of your body. But sometimes all you got was smelly medicine to drink.

  Now I wonder if all those stories are actually true. Did Mirage do that circling with her finger and praying when I had chicken pox? I think I was only three years old, too, so I don’t remember.

  It’s a good thing I’m healthy now and don’t need no healing. Grandmother Phoebe doesn’t put any store in all that “mumbo-jumbo,” as she calls it. She’s much too prim and proper. A regular Garden Club lady, getting her hair washed and set every Friday morning like clockwork.

  My grandmother’s words bounce around my brain like popcorn on a hot skillet. How in the world did Grandmother Phoebe and Mirage ever live together for all those years? They are total opposites. Like Hot and Cold. Salty and Sweet. Pickles and Candy.

  Safe and Mysterious.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHEN THE CHICKEN POX BOY AND HIS MAMMA GET UP to leave, I run back to my room and lock the door, balancing on the edge of the fraying quilt. The blanket is made up of patches of material with faded azaleas and hyacinth, stripes and circles, stitched together probably a hundred years ago.

  I grip the edge of the mattress and stare under the dark recesses of the bed again to double-check. There’s those same clumps of dusty crud, but at least no spiders or cockroaches scuttling around. I have a lamp, but the bulb is so dim, the room feels not only old and shabby but spooky, too. I’d never admit that to anyone but LizAnn, though.

  LizAnn’s mamma is the kind of mother that pulls warm cookies out of the oven after school and lets us play hide-and-seek in the house on rainy days. Mirage was always at class or studying — or avoiding Grandmother Phoebe.

  A scratching noise slashes across the window and I jump two feet in the air, my heart grabbing at my throat. Quickly, I shut off the light and sneak up to the glass panes so I can see better. Mirage doesn’t have neighbors. I hope it’s just a branch from the cypress squirreling too close.

  An orange haze glows above the cypress as the sun sets. I can still make out the giant blue bottle tree standing in the center of the yard, all those hundreds of bottles quivering on their branches.

  Jerking the curtains shut, homesickness jabs me right in the heart. I wish I could shut my eyes and wake up in my own bed in my own room. I miss the bright lamps and my glossy white bedroom furniture with gold trim. I miss the gardens and I’ll miss getting it ready this year with my grandmother for the Spring Show. I even miss Grandmother Phoebe making me practice the piano, but that only lasts about five minutes.

  Digging into my box of stuff, I try to find the book LizAnn gave me for my birthday. We always shop at Books Along the Teche, searching for the funny parts, the romantic parts, giggling like we’re off our rockers. When I find the shiny book that smells like new paper and glue, I press it tight against my chest.

  Missing LizAnn is the worst. I think the lump in my throat is going to burst into a hundred pieces.

  Setting the volume on the bed, I peek out the bedroom door. Silence fills the hallway. Taking quick, careful steps, I glance into the kitchen. Empty. The front room is empty, too. Don’t know where Mirage went to. Guess her bedroom. I grab the phone again, cursing the long cord that twists around my legs as I scramble back to my bedroom.

  After I dial LizAnn’s phone number, I listen as it rings four times. Finally, she picks up and my breath goes out in a whoosh. “LizAnn, that you?”

  “Shelby!” She sounds excited. “Where you callin’ from?”

  It’s so good to hear her voice, I feel weepy. Feels like weeks instead of just a day since we said good-bye.

  “I’m out in this dumb swamp.”

  “With your mamma?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it weird?”

  “I can’t even begin to tell you all the strange things out here. Like she has a pet owl.”

  “A real live owl?” LizAnn sounds much too interested. “Does she let you hold it?”

  “No!” Leave it to LizAnn to get excited about a wild animal. “It’s got a broken wing. And she’s got cats with funny names.”

  “So does half my neighborhood.”

  “Well, she’s got a gigantic blue bottle tree, too. Takes up practically the whole yard.”

  “Oh, I like those bottle trees. My a
unt in Mississippi has one. She makes it ‘grow’ every summer by adding branches and bottles she finds in the trash. Think I could come see your mamma’s tree sometime?”

  “You mean Mirage? But you’d be coming to see me, right?”

  “You silly, of course. The bottle tree would just be a nice extra.”

  I keep trying to impress her with Mirage’s weird way of dressing and her broken-down house and bizarre pets and going to school in a boat, but LizAnn just takes it all in stride. Maybe Mirage should have been her mamma.

  When LizAnn has to go do the dishes, I hang up the phone feeling more depressed than ever. I’m stuck. And nobody seems to care how terrible it is.

  I want to get out of this room, but it’s coming down crawfish and lobsters again, rain smacking against the window so hard I wonder if it’ll crack the glass. If I ran outside, I’d probably end up with pneumonia and Mirage would pin me down to do a healing on me.

  I wonder if this little island inlet will get so soggy it’ll float down the swamp while I’m sleeping and nobody will ever be able to find us again. Especially my daddy.

  Finally, I start unpacking, putting socks and underwear in the empty dresser drawers, my brush and comb and mirror on top of the doily sitting on the bureau like I’m at a little old lady’s house. Maybe the doily belonged to my grand-mère.

  I zip open my backpack of school supplies just as a screeching “Mreowww!” yelps behind me. Papers and notebooks spill out, pencils rolling into the corners, my ruler, calculator, and pack of brand-new colored pencils tipping over one another.

  Miss Silla Wheezy and Mister Possum Boudreaux go flying around the bedroom like wild things, then race into the hall, slipping on the loose carpet runner. Miss Silla Wheezy darts back inside for safety, stopping dead at my feet. Her white fur seems to light up the room.

  “What’re you doin’, little Miss Silla Wheezy?” I say, scooping her up in my arms. When I scratch behind her ears, she begins to purr, sounding just like a jet engine. “Do you want to help me unpack?” I ask, trying not to agonize over Daddy flying across the Atlantic Ocean, and Grandmother Phoebe in the hospital waiting for surgery. I have no idea what Mirage is doing right now. Talking to that owl, Mister Lenny? Conjuring up a spell from her magic book?