The Glass Secret (Chain of Secrets), page 12
“But, why Mommy?” I asked, pursing out my bottom lip.
“Now, Brielle. Tell them to go away.”
“Fine then.” I sluggishly crawled out of her lap. “Go away!” I yelled as loud as I could, jutting out my hip to one side in what I imagined was a very fierce manner. There was no answer. I waited. My mother’s eyes were glued to me in a hard-pressed stare. I rolled my eyes around, upward, then side to side. “I guess they’re gone.” I shrugged, arms wavering at the elbows, fingers curled in and palms facing up.
She pursed her lips and said, “Thank goodness,” as she lifted herself from the rug.
“You are mean. You made them go away,” I shouted, throwing myself face down on my bed. “I like it when they sing to me.”
“They sing?” Her words vibrated as she said them and an intense expression of concern filled her eyes. “What do they sing to you?” She crawled across my bed, and positioned herself on her side next to me, curious about my answer.
I anchored my shoulders, leaning up toward her. “I don’t know.” I paused, contemplating as children do, while I caressed one of my mother’s pink cheeks softly with my small polished fingertips. Pink fingertips.
“Do you remember Papa Grant, Mommy?”
“Of course I do. He was my grandfather, but I am surprised you still remember him.”
“I do. Kind of...he was really old, with a bald head, right?” I asked, and she responded by nodding, yes.
“Did you know that I called him Papa Shark?” she asked, smiling.
“Nope. Did you call him that because he had no hair like a shark?” I asked, and then chomped my teeth up and down imitating a shark’s bite.
“No, because he used to pretend to be a shark—he would chase me around the pool like a big mean shark and acted like he was going to gobble me up. I always acted like I was scared and screamed at the top of my lungs, but I really loved it. I sure do miss him.” Her voice trailed, and her gaze fell distant for a moment. The lines on her forehead relaxed, she looked peaceful.
“That’s a nice memory, Mommy.”
“Yes it is...he was a wonderful man.” She paused, sitting up, still reflecting on her memories. “I think I heard Daddy come in downstairs.” She listlessly wandered towards the doorway.
If I had known better, I would have just let her leave my room. But instead, I just kept rambling on about the voices. I’m not sure what triggered me to go on about them. I guess I was making a point.
“Well, Mommy, the voices—they sing songs like Papa Grant did. Those funny olden day songs.”
In my eyes, my mother was the sweetest person that walked the face of the earth. Aside from my grandmother, my mom was my best friend. However, on that particular evening she turned on me, and her understanding nature disappeared. At the mere mention of the voices, she whipped back around, and I could have sworn that her pale complexion turned to a whiter shade; it was as if she had seen a ghost. She grabbed me tightly by the forearms and scolded me, harshly.
“I don’t like you having voices in your head. This is bad, Brielle. We will not talk about them ever again! I mean this...do you understand me?” Her voice pierced my eardrums.
“No. I don’t. I don’t understand, Mommy,” I stammered, stomping my foot for effect. My eyes pulled together tightly, piercing into hers. I could feel my cheeks turning red.
My mother rivaled blueberry punch stains everyday, which are stubborn, but not as stubborn as I was. Certainly, I was my mother’s cross to bear, at times, but she never accused me of being such a demanding child.
“Do not challenge me, Brielle. You do not need to understand everything right now, except for, there are no such things as voices in your head—people will call you terrible names if you talk about—No more voices...make them go away or—or a doctor will...” Her words had sharp edges.
A doctor? What would the doctor do to me? The threat of a doctor was enough to scare me into obeying.
“Okay, no doctors. But why?” I cried. Tears dampened my cheeks. My mother offered no explanation, of course, I was four years old at the time so why should she?
“Because I said so...don’t ask me any more questions. Just obey me or—or I will—I will spank you.” Her tone was fuming.
She bit her bottom lip, hard, as if even she was shocked by her own threats. My mother had never threatened to spank me prior to that day. This was also the one and only time in my life she used the lame phrase, as many parents do, “Because I said so.”
I stood there shaking like a leaf. Tears welled in my eyes. The grave seriousness in her voice, in that moment, caused me to fear her for the very first time. She paced my room, back and forth, speechless. Then she suddenly buckled to her knees and began sobbing.
“Please, it’s okay...I would never spank you. I promise but—” She hung her face to hide her tears from me.
I dried my tears with my tiny fingers. I assured her that my invisible friends would never hurt me. This made her emotional angst worsen; she burst into uncontrollable cries. This frightened me to death. I was afraid she would never stop crying, and I would be the one to blame.
“Mom...mie, I promise too, I will never talk to them again. Don’t cry, Mommy,” I pleaded with her. Between her cries, she pleaded with me too, reinforcing once again, that I was to never speak to the voices in my head ever again.
My mother held true to her promise and, through the years, she had never paddled me. Over time, the voices disappeared and life went on as usual. Well, until it did not anymore.
-17-
An Understanding
On a rainy night, long after the voices had vanished, I crawled into my bed. My troop of stuffed animals stared back at me in my dimly lit room. The shadow from the moon shining through my window, distorted the images of my dolls, making them look haunted in the dark. I shut my eyes, pulling the blanket over my head and hummed my favorite song: Hush A Bye Mountain. I knew every word. I learned it from watching the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang over and over again.
The movie and my repetitive watching of it often helped me to fall asleep. Then, like magic, the music and the words manifested into something much more than just the music that lulled me to sleep every night.
The song grew louder and louder, mixing with my voice. My eyes batted open, and I sprung up to investigate the change. The lullaby was not playing on the radio or on the television, and instead, it suffused in my head.
“You’re back,” I blurted out. I covered my mouth, trying to stifle my words. I could not talk to them; I promised. I had to obey my mother. But, the voices continued to sing. They sounded so lovely together, so I leaned back against my pillow and listened. Before I knew it, I had fallen asleep.
Night after night, they sang to me. I loved all their voices and their songs. I pretended I could not hear them. This wasn’t easy. I had to keep my promise to my mother, so I just listened and refrained from singing along. I was also careful not to speak to anyone about them. In order to keep my word, I refused to communicate with them for the longest time.
Days and weeks and months passed by without uttering a word, or even acknowledging the voices, other than by listening to their magical tunes. I honestly did my best to ignore them.
“Brielle—Brielle—Brielle. Talk to me. No. Talk to me. Brielle, you only need to talk to me for now.” They all spoke in tandem—at once. I found it funny—their parents must not have taught them any manners.
Without thinking I blurted out, “You’re going to get me in trouble. I’m not allowed to talk to you guys anymore,” I firmly said, and then hoped that they didn’t hear me.
It was too late; I had broken the ice. They knew I could hear them now. This ignited a rampage of banter between them. It seemed that they were all pining for my attention.
I did the best that I could to ignore all of their buzzing, but they were overwhelming. I had good intentions to obey my mother, but you know what they say about ‘good intentions’—yep, they pave the road to Hell.
All of my good intentions were of no use. The voices would not retreat to where they had come from, which of course, forced me to talk to them. After all, I could not tell them to go away without speaking to them, now could I?
Still, I would not dare yell at them, as my mother had demanded me to. Sometimes, I could hear them chatting amongst themselves in corners of my brain, and their words were sad, morose and filled with pain. So, to holler at them would have been mean and cruel.
I contrived a simple plan. The voices and I would make a pact that they could hang out in the rooms of my mind, on one condition—they could not talk to me when my family and friends were around. They agreed half-heartedly. From that point on, I learned to coexist with them, and they lived by my rules. Hey, it was my head. Poor things, I was a bossy kid.
I never asked why they existed in the first place, at least not during my yearning years. At the time, it just did not seem important to me. In the end, I liked them and they seemed to like me. They became a part of my daily life. However, as the years passed by, there were times they made it easy for me to holler at them, and I did. They could be moody, disruptive and devil-like. But hey, it takes one to know one. I could be an angel or the dickens too!
Often, I was bored with nothing better to do; eavesdropping became one of my favorite childhood pastimes. Actually, eavesdropping was something I continued to do most of my life. I found that you could certainly learn a lot from people when they have no idea you are listening. It became a sneaky occurrence that I mastered. I believed that this was what led me to write books about mysteries years later. Mysteries were, after all, my favorite genre.
From the dining room adjacent the kitchen, I hid behind the door, barely breathing, so that I could listen to a conversation between Grandmother Katie and my mother.
Grandmother Katie, my favorite and only grandmother was my mother’s mom. My father’s mother passed away when he was seventeen years old. While I typically loved listening in on conversations I was not intended to hear, this was a conversation that I wished I had missed.
“Mom, I caught her talking to them again. I can’t deal with this again...once was enough. I begged her to stop years ago. It is now apparent to me that Brielle has the curse. The same one you have and the same one—” My mother’s words suspended in mid air.
The same curse as who? I wondered.
What the—what was she talking about? I had inherited a family curse! That was what she called it. A sudden feeling of guilt swept through me for spying on them in the first place. But, just as much as I felt guilty, I wanted to burst through the door and demand to know what the curse was. Instead, I waited quietly, hoping that I would hear more.
I felt very confused. My mother was crying, and it hurt me terribly to see her crying again over me. From what I could overhear, she feared that if people knew that I talked to unknown voices in my head, I would be labeled a freak, crazy, or, worse yet, I would get locked up one day. I had heard most of this from her lips before, but I had never heard that I was at risk of being locked up.
“Brandy, she is not cursed. How can you even say this? You know this is not the case—there’s absolutely no truth to what you are saying and you must know this, sweetheart,” Grandmother Katie said calmly. My mother just shook her head. “People understand things of this nature now-a-days. These kinds of things are acceptable. Can I have some more tea, dear?” Grandmother lifted her teacup slightly from the table.
“Truth? What did the truth get us when we—oh Mother, they will say she is practicing witchcraft or, worse yet, that she is mentally ill...like—” My mother’s words shattered into tears, and her hands shook, as she filled their teacups.
“No. This is not the same situation; that’s a bad example. It’s not the same and you know it,” Grandmother said then sipped her tea. I loved how she held her pinky finger, pointed elegantly in the air beside the teacup. “It’s a gift,” she added.
“Mother, please. Do not support this ‘gift’ or whatever you choose to call it. It’s not normal. You know how this will end, and it’s not good,” my mother hissed. She slapped her hands into her lap. She was trying to win an argument where there clearly would be no winner.
Grandmother Katie repeated to my mother there was no harm in inheriting the gift. A gift was what Grandmother called it.
“Brandy, this isn’t about Brielle, is it...?” she asked. “What is really bothering you? Is this really about—” My mother interrupted Grandmother, Katie.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Mother. Please, do not take me—us, there. You need to promise me that you will not encourage Brielle to develop any of these so called gifts.” She hesitated. And, I suddenly felt bad for not keeping my promise to her. I cringed. “And don’t tell her the voices are—are—”
“Ghosts?” Grandmother’s eyes sharpened.
Did she say Ghosts? No way. The voices are not ghosts. Grandmother wouldn’t communicate with ghosts and neither would I.
“Ghosts, angels—whatever. Do not try to excuse the truth...please stop, Mother.”
“How do you know that they’re not?” Grandmother raised a brow pointedly.
“That is absurd and you know it. We know what’s going on here. I can’t talk about this anymore, so please, stop!” My mother begged her.
“Well, I never said they were ghosts, did I?” Grandmother Katie glowered, narrowing her eyes and said, “But, what if they—”
“Mother, please,” my mother stammered.
“Fine, have it your way,” Grandmother said, conceding, but she was clearly offended. She folded her napkin politely and stared past my mother’s stern gaze. “But, if Brie-Brie ever asks me about them, what am I supposed to say to her? Do we just sweep this under the rug and ignore what might be going on?”
“If she does just tell her that it is her imagination. You have a way with Brie,” she admitted, frantically wiping the counters as if she wanted to wipe away the conversation. “Brielle will listen to you, and she will make them go away if you encourage it. If you really wanted to, you could heal this curse.”
“Brandy, I am not going to listen to this anymore. It’s not a curse, so stop with this nonsense!” Grandmother raised her voice to a titter. Her face flushed pink. She raised her fingers and rubbed her temples, exhaling long. I wanted to run into the room and tell them to stop arguing over me. Grandmother was old, and she wasn’t in the best of health.
“That’s what it is to me. A curse,” my mother said with conviction. As her palms hit hard against the granite countertop, her eyes pooled with tears.
Although I didn’t understand the entire conversation between my grandmother and my mother, somehow, I felt it was my fault they were arguing.
Grandmother pulled out a large yellow deck of cards. “She is a child, don’t do this to her. I feel she needs guidance. The truth could help her understand the gifts she was born with. And, if you accept her—this as a gift, instead of a curse, it might also help you to heal once and for all.” Grandmother’s aging hands gracefully shuffled through the cards.
“Mom, please, I have asked so many times do not read those in my home,” my mother said as she tossed a kitchen towel over the cards. “I need to take a bath. Please, keep an eye on the children. And, no tarot cards; I mean it.”
“Fine, I will read them later at home. Brandy, I think you are over-reacting to all of this. I am sure Brielle is just lonely and has made up some imaginary friends to keep her company.” Shockingly, my grandmother relented. Even, I knew the voices were real. “Why don’t you think about having another baby?”
Wow, nothing like changing the subject.
I would love a little sister!
“That’s insane and you know why!” My mother threw her arms into the air and exited the kitchen.
I stayed hidden in the dining room until I heard her marching up the stairs like a spoiled teenager.
-18-
I spy
I hesitantly peered around the corner of the kitchen, making sure the coast was clear. There was no sign of my mother around. Grandmother Katie was sitting at the table, staring out the window.
“Grandmother, whatcha doing?” I ran to her and gave her a big hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Hello, Angel. Look at me...every time I see you, it looks like you’ve grown another inch.” She placed her palms firmly on each side of my face and aligned it with hers. “A kiss, a peck and a hug around the neck.” She kissed my cheek, pecked the end of my nose with hers and then hugged me.
“Grandmother, that’s for little kids, and I’m twelve and three quarter years old now. I am practically an teenager.”
“So you are. Hmm, did you know I was almost a child bride, and not much older than you?” I nodded, no, as my reply. “Well, it almost happened when I was sixteen years old.” She smiled suspiciously. “I told him to take a hike when he tried to get fresh with me.”
“You mean like, he tried to kiss you or something?”
“Yes, he did.” My grandmother nodded.
“Yuck, tell me more,” I said, wide eyed, my curiosity growing.
“Well, the wedding was a few weeks away; it had all been arranged by his snooty parents. I didn’t like them much. Anyway this one night, a few weeks before our wedding date, he took me to a fancy dinner. Then, afterward, he surprised me with tickets to a show. I was very excited because I had never been to a show before. He bought me all the popcorn I wanted. But, when the lights went down in the theater. Oh boy. I figured out why he was being so nice,” her tone rose to a higher pitch.
“Why?” I interrupted. She looked at me and leaned back in her chair and sighed.
“Maybe we should wait until you’re a little older to have this conversation.”
“No, Grandma...I’m almost thirteen. If it’s about the birds and the bees, I already know things. We are learning all about sex in health class,” I blurted out.
