The Glass Secret (Chain of Secrets), page 16
“Yeah Mom, this is all really fascinating to me...” My tone was dripping with sarcasm. As I stroked down the plush fur on the cat’s back, I pretended to be interested in my mother’s plans,
I cannot stay here for a week…someone, find one of those old guns and shoot me!
Just then, a short chubby lady burst through the door. Her hair stacked high in a bun with perfect shaped tendrils hanging down her back. She dressed as if she stepped out of the past. When she approached us, I could detect a cloud of bacon, eggs and the sweet scent of waffles. It was obvious she liked to cook and eat. Her body looked like a little squatting cherub, but her face resembled a cute little elf: big blue eyes, pudgy wide cheeks and pointy chin.
My eyes did a quick up and down, she wore a yellow floor length gown, clinched in at the waist by a brown leather corset, despite her thick waistline. Overall she seemed meticulously put together. Until my eyes dropped to her feet, hidden beneath her ruffled hemline she wore bright orange flip-flops with daisy appliqués on them. I grimaced when I saw her fat dirty toes with blue—blue chipped nail polish. God, who was I back then, Joan Rivers in the making?
“Welcome—welcome. I am Lady Tara, your hostess.” She flashed us a little impish grin and her face crinkled like an old leather purse when she spoke.
“Thank you,” my mother replied. “We are the Eden family.”
“Of course you are...you are Brandy,”—she turned to me—“and you must be Brielle, such a pretty young lady. Your father asked me to give you one of my best rooms—fit for a princess.” Her eyes scanned me up and down. “He was right, you do resemble sleeping beauty.” Her voice bubbled over with excitement.
I wish…you could put me to sleep for the next seven days. I thought inwardly.
“Thank you,” I said reluctantly.
“Let me show you two around.” Lady Tara bustled around behind us, motioning that we go ahead of her.
Mom opened the screen door and glanced over her shoulder toward Dad. He was trying to keep Brett from chasing after a stray dog while struggling to get our luggage from the trunk.
Good luck, Dad. I thought.
The cute valet boy did not seem to be providing any help to my father. He just stood there staring at me as if I was from another planet; maybe I looked as if I was. After being in the car for two days, I felt scaly and in need of a bath. So far, he was the only real one of interest around here that caught my attention.
“Mitchell, do you need any help from us?” My mother called to him. He glanced up at her and waved us on inside.
“They will be fine.” Lady Tara the innkeeper laughed heartily. “Men have the brawns, and we got the brains, the beauty and everything else to boot. So, I think they can handle the suitcases.”
I thought her comment was kind of feministic, especially since she was supposed to have stepped out of the past. At least that was the character she was dressed like. As for her beauty, in my humble opinion, well let me just say, it was not on the surface. I questioned where it might be. Perhaps it was lying dormant on the inside.
In the reflection of the window, I could see by the grimace on my mother’s face that we shared the same opinion about Tara. She was over the top and bossy. My mother and I thought alike about things such as this. Of course, she would never admit it; she was too nice for that. I, on the other hand, didn’t care what anyone thought about me back then, and as a result I sprung a leak in my filter. It was time to bite my tongue again. As much as I knew I should filter my spoken thoughts, it was nearly impossible to hold back my words.
Hey lady, if my mother wants to help my dad, let her. I reamed her out inwardly.
Tara scurried us through the parlor area, which looked pleasant enough.
“Would you care for some lemonade and cookies?” Tara asked.
“No thanks,” my mother and I said in tandem.
“They’re homemade; I made them myself...they’re a very special recipe.” Tara beamed as she shoved a cookie into her mouth. “I think you both should have one, or more. You two need to fatten up. After all, men don’t like rail-thin women. You need to have curves, girls.” She wiggled her hips.
“Curves...really?” I grabbed a cookie.
“My special cookies will put curves in the right places. Forget surgery,” Tara said convincingly. “Here, you can afford two.” She eyed my bosoms.
Her generosity could have been mistaken as an insult, but I didn’t care. God knows I needed more curves in the right places.
“I hope you’re right,” I replied, biting into the second cookie. My mother’s eyes shifted on Tara then toward me, raising a single brow, donning a skeptical smile. I knew what she was thinking. Nonetheless, I quickly grabbed two more cookies.
Yes, mom, I want big boobs.”
“Both of you are bone thin.” Tara picked up several more cookies and put them in our hands. “Eat, I promise in several weeks you will see the difference, they’re good, right?”
“Mmm, pretty good,” I mumbled between bites of her magic cookies, hoping I would not live to regret eating them.
If I had been honest, the cookies were the best I had ever tasted. Beyond delicious. I guessed if I changed my attitude Tara might share her curve-producing recipe with my mom. We walked, talked and ate cookies as she led us up a beautiful wooden polished staircase.
My parents set me up in my own private room; it was named, Queen Ann’s Lace.
The second the Innkeeper opened the door to my room, my eyes widened, my heart leapt and a discreet smile traversed across my face, totally betraying my bad mood.
The room was a dream, complete with Victorian ambiance and expressions from another era. The room boasted an attached balcony. It was very romantic. I wanted to hate the accommodations and my determination rose in me.
“It’s not what I expected,” I sarcastically announced. See, no filter.
“You don’t like the room?” Tara asked me, frowning.
I muttered rudely, “It’s okay.”
“Brielle, please.” My mother glared at me. “I am sorry. She’s having a bad day. It was a long ride. Don’t worry, she will love the room after she gets out of these crumpled clothes and has a chance to settle in,”—My mother pressed the back of my shirt down—“once she freshens up, all will be fine.” She smiled, excusing my cross behavior to Tara. “Why don’t we leave Brielle here to look around, and you can show me our room next.”
They backed out of the room and closed the door behind them. I could hear their laughter through the walls.
My parents stayed in a beautiful room called Memories, although I didn’t know how they were going to make any memories with my little brother sleeping on a roll out bed in their room. Looking back, I realized that they had sacrificed any chance for romance on this trip just for my sake. They tried their best to make me like the place and to get me to enjoy the vacation.
I was finally alone. I scanned the room, shrugged and then jumped on the bed.
“Yes. Alone finally,” I said out loud. The long drive down really did wear me out.
I sighed heavily. Alone, no friends and stuck here for seven days with my bratty brother and my boring parents. I wondered where Storm had drifted off to. I had no idea. He was probably on a long sabbatical the minute he heard we were going to St Augustine. Who could blame him? Just like me, I am sure he didn’t want to be trapped in St. Augustine. More than likely, he was probably at the beach soaking up the sun in someone’s warm head. Thanks, Voice.
My eyes fell to the French doors that lead outside. For one long minute, I contemplated throwing myself over the balcony but, luckily, I thought twice about it. It was not a long way down, and with my luck I would break my neck and end up paralyzed, becoming even more of a burden to my parents. Either way, it wasn’t worth the pain or the risk.
Reluctantly, I decided to surrender to the fairytale setting with its opulent “fit for a princess” queen lace canopy bed that was fit for sweet dreams. I even had a huge soaking tub in my own private bathroom. As much as I hated to admit it, maybe the room wasn’t so bad. At the very least, it was far better than the pull out in my parent’s room.
There was a knock on the door. Who could it be, I thought. Of course, it was my dad and Brett with my luggage. Who else?
“Here’s your share of the load. Change for lunch and meet us down stairs in the parlor”—he flashed at his watch—“in one hour.”
“Dad, my plan was to order pizza and watch direct TV for seven days straight,” I pouted. He warned me, not so much with his words but more with his look, if that was my plan then Brett would have to sleep in my room for the duration of our stay.
I glared down at Brett, his little hands were greasy, and he had Tara’s chocolate chip cookies smeared all over his face. I took a few deep breaths while I considered my options. Smell alert. What stinks? Clear the building. The stench of wet dog filled my nostrils. It was radiating off of my brother, Brett. No thanks. One whiff of Brett, and I nipped my bad attitude in the bud. But, it didn’t go far as I was saving my bad attitude up for a raining day. I made sure that I wasn’t one-minute late meeting my family down in the parlor.
-23-
Touched!
Perusing through dark musty old museums was not my idea of a chillin’ spring break. Believe it or not! Between my parents, Brett, and the smell of horse’s shit burning two more holes in my nose, I wanted to scream. My parents insisted on traveling via horse and buggy for our cultural experience. They claimed they wanted to experience what it was like to travel back in those days. This kind of thing thrilled them, but to me it was another boring, timeless tourist attraction that took forever to get from place to place. I was feeling suffocated by the whole experience. Literally! I needed room to breathe. While my family was busy buying trinkets in a gift shop, I left them to their own vices. Certainly they would not notice I was gone.
I exited the gift shop and wandered across the street into what was deemed to be the oldest schoolhouse in the United States. Even though there wasn’t a tour guide on duty, I took the liberty of going inside. After all, the door was wide open.
I was there alone. I found myself observing the antique furnishings and marveling at how much smaller the delicate pieces were in comparison to modern furniture.
It’s well documented that people from this time period were also much shorter than people are presently. This made me consider that evolution was probable. Ponce de Leon, the man who searched for the fountain of youth, was barely five foot two, and at fifteen years old I was already five-six. Perhaps there was something to the notion.
While I wandered around, I was drawn to the nostalgic relics from long ago. I closed my eyes and imagined what it would have been like to attend the little schoolhouse. No computers, calculators, or hot lunches—that seemed almost wrong.
Suddenly, I felt a light touch, it felt as if someone’s fingers traced down the side of my bare arm from directly behind me. I pivoted in a circle, quickly scanning the small room. A spine tingling energy, the kind that makes the hairs stand straight up on the back of your neck like porcupine quills, raced across my skin. Cold-chills ran the length of me, even in the cracks of my body. I was acutely aware of an otherworldly presence, which had to have been a ghost. Who else touched me?
My heart rate accelerated, and in one swift movement, I bolted through the little room, burst through the screened door and leaped off the porch. I stumbled over my two left feet and hit into what I thought was a brick wall, but turned out to be the chest of a male tour guide.
He was handsome and, perhaps, five to seven years older than me. He had dark hair hanging down into his contrasting light green eyes. What a dreamy combination, I thought.
I could not think straight nor could I stand straight either. I was simply flabbergasted and tongue-tied. He grasped his long fingers over the top of my shoulders and saved me from falling over. My legs felt like rubber bands, but I was pretty sure it was not the near fall that caused me to feel weak in the knees.
“You are as white as a sheet. You look like you just saw a ghost.” His words teased me. “Never fear, I am here.”
“I...oh yeah...it touch...me...here.” I reached to the back of my arm. Talk about an embarrassing moment; I felt my face turn fifty shades of red. My entire body felt electrified, and I spoke broken English—mouth gaping open and panting as I twisted out of his secure grip and quickly ran to find my parents.
“Come back for the tour later,” he called out to me, half-laughing.
-24-
Hey Jude!
Saved by a cute guy named Jude (I noticed his name tag) and touched by a ghost—these events certainly added some excitement to the trip. Needless to say, my ghost encounter became the biggest topic of conversation for the rest of our vacation. Of course, my mother wasn’t comfortable with all of the ghost stories, but I was. I enjoyed being center stage for a change.
As always, my brother Brett had to try and top my genuine ghost story. When we visited the oldest house, the tour guide announced to the crowd that the house was known to have been haunted. The tour guide was an older man and very cheesy; the tour would have been much more entertaining if Jude had been there instead.
Nonetheless, right in front of the entire crowd, Brett said he had seen a ghost. He crossed his heart and hoped to die that he was telling the truth. For a second it freaked me out, until I noticed a wryly smile on his face. He went as far as saying that the ghost was a man with black hair and scary piercing eyes. Apparently, at least according to Brett’s opinion, the ghost hovered over me. What a laugh that was. My parent’s knew Brett was fibbing and was just trying to steal my limelight. However, the crowd wooed him on. They probably thought he was part of the “tacky tour.”
After I met Jude it seemed as if my parents were giving me a lot of attention, more so than Brett, which was unusual. They were definitely keeping a closer eye on me. Surely, they had noticed how I laced Jude’s name into most of my banter.
Dad’s choice to visit St. Augustine turned out to be a great idea after all. The old things from the past intrigued me, which marked a pivotal point in my life. Vacationing in St. Augustine culminated new interests within me—my love for vintage furniture, history and ghost stories. Not to mention that the trip, both trips, in fact, provided me with my first taste of romance, at least, as much as I would dare to experience at that young of an age. I actually fell for that quaint little town by the water and falling for an older, a much older boy, definitely set the stage for my future and then some.
That spring I blossomed from an awkward fifteen-year old girl into a young woman, and as my image changed, so did my feelings about many things. With all of this, I began to enjoy my time in St. Augustine and stopped making everyone else so miserable.
Surely, my parents espied that my attitude changed one hundred and eighty degrees overnight when they noticed the elaborate effort to pump up my grooming habits. Every morning I woke up with the sun, rather than my typical pattern of sleeping in past noon. I took a bath and styled my hair. I also snuck into my mother’s makeup and dabbed on a dollop of her pink blush and some lip-gloss. Less is more, I thought. Nothing too over-done or too noticeable, no more European baths for me on this trip, and no more hobo rumpled up outfits.
It was so apparent that I was experiencing my first crush. Surely, it showed on my face, in my eyes and in my smile. I tried to keep my feelings hidden, but the chemicals inside me were bursting at the seams. I even put a new swing in my walk.
“Brielle, you are going to slip a disc if you keep walking like that,” my mother said.
“Do you think it’s too much?” I asked.
“Not if you are practicing to be stripper.” Ouch, nothing like your mother being blunt. Thank God, she noticed before I took my va-va-voom walk into public; that would have been disastrous.
I picked up an iron for the first time in my life in St. Augustine and made my way toward the old schoolhouse. There was no way I would be caught dead by Jude in wrinkled clothes. As much as I wanted him to notice me, I hoped he didn’t recognize me from our first encounter. He didn’t and if he did he never rubbed it in my face.
How ironic—I was on spring break, but spending half my vacation at the old schoolhouse. What gives? Although I made sure to see Jude everyday, I never stepped inside the haunted place ever again. I wasn’t going to risk another encounter with a ghost. Rather than going inside, I would listen to Jude’s spiel from the porch as he gave the tours to crowd after crowd.
His voice was music to my ears. I floated on air every time I heard him speak; he was so well spoken. I actually suffered from physical reactions when he was close to me. When he would approach me, lumps in my throat stifled my words, knots twisted in my stomach and my palms would sweat profusely. Dang, it felt like I had the flu. He took my breath away. I was in love.
Between each tour, he would sit with me on the steps of the old schoolhouse. I would fetch us old fashion cream sodas from the nearby gift shop, and we would talk for hours. During our conversations, I learned that he was attending college and studying to be a teacher.
“How ironic, my father is a professor at NYU,” I told him. I was careful not to refer to him as my dad and instead used formal terminology. I felt like this made me sound older.
Jude was a linguist; he spoke five languages. I absolutely loved it when he used a French accent. It was very romantic. It was his dream to teach English abroad one day.
As I had originally estimated, I discovered he was much more than five years my senior. On his next birthday, he would be twenty-two years old, March twenty-second—I told him it would be his luckiest birthday. He just smiled. It was my secret wish that we would spend his birthday together.
I also learned that Jude had a twin sister. Unfortunately, she passed away from a terrible illness when they were very young. He told me that I reminded him of her and with that it settled in my mind that he saw me as a mature young woman. Therefore, I did my best to talk about smart topics around him. I wanted to prove to him that I was old enough to be his girl one day. He shared that he had a tattoo of his sister’s name, Jacquie, on the back of his neck. How sweet was that? He said that he could feel her spirit sometimes with him still. This gave me chills. What if the ghost I felt was her spirit? Perhaps she was trying to tell me something. Maybe it was a warning or a sign. I kept these thoughts to myself and from Jude. I didn’t want to upset him. They were very close. They say twins are very connected in this way. I felt I knew everything about Jude, or so I thought.
