Authors: Kimberley Griffiths Little
Circle of Secrets (27 page)
I think about that. How Mirage ran away, afraid. And how I did the very same thing, even though I was brave enough — or scared enough — to grab my charm bracelet first when Tara snatched it away from me. How Larissa let herself get bullied. And how Gwen was the tough girl. She stayed when she should have run. Stayed and it cost her her life.
I never see Larissa with anybody else. No group of friends, not even one single, special, best friend. She glances down,
her hair sweeping the edge of the textbook she holds against her chest.
“Um, I’m Shelby. You know I moved here a couple of months ago.”
“I know. I was new last year. Used to live outside Jeanerette. My parents bought that old antique store. Bayou Bridge Antiques.”
I catch my breath, clutching my own textbook.
“I saw you come into the store with your mamma. Back when you first got here.”
“Really?” My heart starts to make a funny thumping in my chest.
“I was in the storeroom unpacking boxes.”
“That day I was there,” I began, “I saw the most wonderful doll collection.”
“Oh, I love those dolls! Although
some
people might think we’re too old for dolls.”
I shake my head, hardly able to speak, but remembering. Remembering Gwen’s house and the doll in her bookcase. “Oh, no,” I tell her in a rush. “I don’t think you can ever be too old for dolls!”
“My favorite is an old porcelain doll in a beautiful rose-colored lace dress,” Larissa says. “She has golden curls and a tiny chip on her chin. Sometimes I make up stories to explain
how she got that little chip. It’s my mamma’s doll. She got it when her sister died, but my mamma was only nine when it happened.”
I stare at her and my legs go weak. As I lean against the locker, the peculiar buzzing in my ears returns, stronger than ever.
Larissa says, “Sorry, once I get started talking, I end up telling my whole life story. My mamma said I can get the porcelain doll out one of these days and hold her. If I’m very careful. Um, would you like to come back to the store sometime?”
I can scarcely speak. “I’d love to come. I know that doll. I mean, I used to.” I stop, not sure how to explain.
Tiny frown lines wrinkle Larissa’s forehead. But then she smiles and her smile is one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen. “How could you know it?”
I take a deep breath. “I think we were meant to meet. I mean, it’s a long story.” I stop again, then ask, “Do you believe in best friends?”
Larissa nods, biting at her lips. “I think so. I hope so.”
“Do you believe in
traiteurs?”
“Of course. My grandmother is a
traiteur.
But she’s been gone a while now.”
I laugh and feel myself blush, tears filling up my throat.
“I’ve got an idea,” Larissa says, her voice growing less timid. “Would you like to come over one day this week? We could take the porcelain doll out of the case and look at her together.”
“I’d love to.” And all I can think about is showing Larissa and her mother Gwen’s hidden scrapbook and her charm bracelet and all the memories that have been lost for so long. “Um, can I ask you a question?” This is the hardest part and I’m not sure if Larissa will hate me for mentioning it.
She studies me carefully, waiting for me.
“Would you ever want to come over and let me and my mamma give you one of her special healing creams? For those scars, I mean. It’s not fair those kids did that….” My voice trails off. “Well, you know.”
“My parents want to take me to a special doctor one day. When we got some money again, that is.”
My heart twists inside my chest as I think about the new scar my own mamma has now after jumping into the bayou to rescue me. “I think she might have just the right healing spell for you. To erase scars, I mean.”
A slow grin starts to spread across Larissa’s face. “How about let’s make up a magical cream that will erase those girls?”
I start giggling at that, and I’m pretty sure I’ve just found my new best friend in Bayou Bridge.
Later the rain clears up and the sun comes out bright and lemon yellow. After I get home from school, I go out to the back porch while Mamma starts dinner.
Miss Silla Wheezy follows me as I jump down the steps, rubbing against my legs while Mister Possum Boudreaux chases a lizard down by the elephant ears.
Sunshine sprinkles across my shoulders as I walk over to the blue bottle tree, golden light bouncing off all that blue glass, making it sparkle like it’s got magic.
My eye catches one of the blue bottles at just the right angle — and there’s a note inside! My thoughts go crazy and my gut flips upside down. Could it be another one of those lost notes from Gwen?
Stretching up on my toes, I slip the blue bottle off its branch, then shake it upside down to get the note out.
Quickly, I unfold the slip of paper and smile. The words are written in my mamma’s familiar handwriting.
We’re having an early supper, shar, so hurry and wash up. Taking a glazed yam cake over to the Moutons’ down the bayou. I hear their mamma is sitting up and talking on her own now. It’s cause for a celebration — and I want you to meet their daughter, Livie.
A warm and exciting feeling washes over me — because I came out here with a blue bottle note of my own.
I slip the note from Mamma into my pocket, then take out the note I wrote a few minutes ago in my bedroom.
Frowning at the massive, sparkly blue bottle tree, I wonder which bottle to use to be sure she finds it.
I take out a piece of string with nine knots I found in one of the cupboards, put it around the neck of one of the bottles, then tie the ends good and tight so it don’t slip off. Finally, I hang the bottle with the string on the very front branch, just like a Christmas tree ornament. No way Mamma’ll miss that. I’ll bring her out here after we finish eating and nonchalantly walk her past the right bottle.
I know why she never put up those strings of Christmas lights she bought at Bayou Bridge Antique Store. She’d left all those notes from Gwen inside of the blue bottles, afraid to take them out, afraid to leave them, afraid to even go close. If only she’d known that Gwen was hovering on the edge of time and waiting for her best friend to set her free.
Think I’ll get my daddy to help me string them lights up as a surprise for her.
The cat’s throaty purring is driving me bonkers. “Okay, okay, Miss Silla Wheezy, I’ll pick you up, you lazy old thing.”
Holding the cat in the crook of my arm, I unfold the note I
wrote and double-check the message written in my neatest cursive.
Meet me at the Bayou Bridge Antique Store after school tomorrow. I have something wonderful to show you, and it’s the best surprise ever!
I fold the note back up and pop it through the neck of the blue bottle, then tap the glass so it sways through the air on its branch.
Mission accomplished. I can’t wait for tomorrow. Not sure I’ll sleep all night long.
Getting down on the cool grass, I lie under the shade of the blue bottle tree, the warmth of Miss Silla Wheezy curled on my neck. Drumming her raspy purr straight into my chest.
Mister Possum Boudreaux goes flying past me like he’s gone nuts. He darts through the elephant ears, rustles up the cattails. Then stands stock-still on the bank, staring out at the afternoon fog curling away across the water.
I sit up with a start as the shimmery image of a girl in a pirogue paddles across the water. Her golden hair is flying in an invisible breeze. My throat gets a huge lump and my eyes sting with tears. But in a good way. Gwen’s oar dips into the
water and she disappears into the fog. I know she’s gone for good. But there are more messages to find in the blue bottles. Other stories I’ll hear someday.
When I look up into the blue sky of all those bottles shimmering in the crack of sunlight overhead, I think about how bottles and messages and healing charm bracelets worked some mighty miracles.
I think about Larissa and my daddy and my mamma, and I know there are still more amazing things to come.
Most especially, I think about how bottles and charms worked the miracle of erasing my own scars. The scars I’ve been carrying too long on the edges of my heart.
A bayou full of love and thanks goes to my husband, Rusty, my sons, my mother, my sisters, as well as Tracey Adams and Lisa Ann Sandell for your endless support, love, and belief in me as I made it through the crazy-fast book deadline and came out smiling and sane on the other side.
I’m so grateful to the Scholastic team, including: the incredibly amazing art director Elizabeth B. Parisi; as well as my fantastic publicist, Amanda Vega; production editor extraordinaire Starr Baer; the fabulous associate editor Jody Corbett; and talented copyeditor Monique Vescia.
Huge thank-yous to my super helpful readers: my very wise and intuitive son Jared, wonderful friends Nancy Hatch, Marilyn Prewitt, and Cindy-Rae Jones who keeps me on my Southern toes and off the fainting couch.
I’m very grateful to the many special
traiteurs
I was privileged to meet and who spent hours talking to me. Deborah LeBlanc, Alan Simon at Vermilionville (Cajun & Creole Heritage Park), Becca Begnaud, Annie and E.J. Suier, Roberta Daigle, and Eula Berthelot, who keep faith, hope, and charity alive in the small towns of Louisiana.
Much appreciation to Glen Pitre and Michelle Benoit of Côte Blanche Productions whose amazing documentary,
Good for What Ails You
inspired me many times over and who welcomed me to their home with warm hospitality.
A heart full of love and affection goes to very special friends, Elward and Olive Stephens on Four-Mile Bayou, and to John Heald who introduced us.
Kimberley Griffiths Little is the author of
The Healing Spell,
as well as a dozen short stories that have appeared in numerous publications and the critically acclaimed novels
Breakaway, Enchanted Runner,
and
The Last Snake Runner.
She is the winner of the Southwest Book Award.
She grew up reading a book a day and scribbling stories, while dreaming of one day seeing her name in the library card catalog. In her opinion, the perfect Louisiana meal is sausage gumbo and rice, topped off with warm beignets, although crawfish étouffée runs a close second.
Kimberley lives in a solar adobe house near the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico with her husband and their three sons. Come visit her at www.kimberleygriffithslittle.com.
A
LSO BY
K
IMBERLEY
G
RIFFITHS
L
ITTLE
The Healing Spell
Copyright © 2011 by Kimberley Griffiths Little
Cover art © 2011 by Erin Maguire
Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.,
Publishers since 1920.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Little, Kimberley Griffiths.
Circle of secrets / Kimberley Griffiths Little. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A year after her mother has deserted the family, eleven-year-old Shelby goes to stay with her, deep in the Louisiana bayou, where they both confront old hurts and regrets.
ISBN 978-0-545-16561-7
[1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Guilt—Fiction. 3. Ghosts—Fiction. 4. Bayous—Fiction. 5. Louisiana—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.L72256Ci 2011
[Fic] — dc22
2011000889
First edition, October 2011
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e-ISBN 978-0-545-38802-3
