Circle of Secrets Read Free

a pet owl.
    Doctoring him up at the kitchen table no less.
    Grandmother Phoebe would have a first-rate hissy fit.
    “Mister Lenny is a barred owl, Shelby,” Mirage tells me, like we’re having a science lesson and I’m her C+ student. Her eyes come alive for the first time since I got here.
    “A barn owl?”
    “Nope, a barred owl. Instead a spots, he has stripes along his neck, like bars of color. And he’s jest a bébé. Look how sweet, like a teddy bear.”
    “Um, yeah, I can see the fluffiness.”
    “Found him this spring, fallen from a nest, his mother disappeared. I hate to think hunters might have got him….”
    I know all about mothers disappearing. “What are you doing to his wing?” I ask as Mister Lenny starts making a strange barking noise.
    Mirage smoothes the bird’s feathers with her fingers and Mister Lenny cocks his head, then pecks her on the nose. Mirage just laughs. Then that owl starts hooting and gurgling.
    I grip the table like I’m clinging to a life preserver. “He isn’t choking, is he?”
    “Nope, jest wants in on our conversation. He gets jealous.”
    “Never heard of no jealous bird before,” I tell her, rolling my eyes. I hear my own voice and wonder at how easily I’m talking like Mirage again. Grandmother Phoebe’s been trying to squeeze the swamp speech out of me all year long, teaching me how to speak more proper like ladies in the big cities instead of a bayou girl. Even though I lived out here when I was real young — before my memories kicked in. And grew up with a mother like Mirage. “So what’re you doing?” I ask again.
    “He got a broken wing, and I been usin’ my healing spells on him.”
    “Healing spells ?” I wonder if she does that hoodoo magic stuff like folks in New Orleans. Does my daddy know where he’s dumped me? My gut starts to jump around like I got a mullet in my belly.
    I want to grab a boat and follow him back up the bayou, but I don’t know how to row. Or which direction to point the boat. He’s probably getting soaked in all this rain. I start worrying that he’ll catch pneumonia and die before he can come back and get me.
    “Today is Mister Lenny’s last prayer day.”
    Mirage closes her eyes, puts her hands on top of the owl’s fluffy little head, and begins to pray, murmuring French words in a soft, quiet jumble.
    At first I bow my head like for Mass, but then I peek through my hair so I can watch. If she goes into a trance and the owl starts pecking my eyes, I better stay alert.
    But there’s no trance or candle lighting or incantations at all. When Mirage finishes praying, she lifts her head. “You ready for supper, shar ? We’re havin’ crawfish gumbo. Winifred is quite excited. She loves crawfish, and I left some raw ’specially for her.”
    “Thought it was chicken and sausage.”
    “Caught some crawfish today and couldn’t help throwing it in, too.”
    I lick my dry lips, rubbing my hands against my jeans. “What was that — that praying stuff? Are you really a swamp witch?”
    Her black eyes turn dark and stormy. “Who said I was a swamp witch?”
    “Um, I don’t remember.”
    “Grandmother Phoebe, I s’pose,” she says, and I get the feeling it bothers her, but I’m pretty sure she and Grandmother Phoebe haven’t spoken two words in the past year. She always makes me answer the telephone when Mirage calls.
    I think about all that icy silence in our house before Mirage left for good, and I can’t help shivering. After Daddy started traveling more with his new job, the house was dead quiet. We even started eating dinner separately.
    Then Mirage started taking trips out here to the swamp to tend her own mamma, my grand-mère, who got sick. I’d always heard my grand-mère was a traiteur, too. I guess she couldn’t heal herself like she could other people.
    After that last terrible fight, Mirage just never came back.
    Grandmother Phoebe pretended Mirage never existed.
    I was supposed to act like everything