The Time of the Fireflies Read online

  Before I latched the doors of the tall Victorian wardrobe, I ran my hand over the taffeta and calico old-fashioned dresses.

  Shelby Jayne and I loved to put on the flowing dresses, swishing the skirts around our legs; pin a hat on our heads; and strut around the antique store. It was our secret, and we only did it when no one was around. After all, middle school was coming up this year, and we didn’t want anyone seeing us.

  Some days I still wanted to turn back the clock to when we lived in Baton Rouge. Before the accident on the broken pier when I got scarred for life.

  The year I died.

  One minute I was standing on the broken bridge over the river, trying to stay upright as I inched to the edge, my toes gripping the rickety wooden planks so I wouldn’t fall in.

  The second minute, Alyson Granger’s voice rang out: “You’re cheating.”

  I stared at the black, eerie bayou water below the pier. My throat knotted up; my stomach was about to heave. The pilings swayed, loose and ancient, as wind tore at my hair.

  “I’m not cheating!” I cried. I was merely taking my time getting to the edge as I answered questions in their stupid Truth or Dare game.

  “Wrong answers mean bigger steps, not baby ones,” Tara Doucet added in her prissy, grown-up voice.

  The third minute, my face burned as a few of the boys from my class showed up, laughing from their perches on the pilings. I was new in town. I didn’t know what spots on the broken bridge were safe and which were deadly. Of course, the most deadly spot was where I was hovering, trying to stay on top of the wooden planks. The spot where the bridge dropped away after lightning had struck decades earlier.

  The fourth minute I wobbled on the edge of the precipice over the frothing black water. Before I could answer another Truth or Dare question — or run away — I suddenly fell straight down to my death — pushed into the bayou by Alyson Granger, the sheriff’s daughter, and Tara Doucet, the richest girl in town.

  They’d followed me home from school, talking behind my back. I’d pressed my backpack tight against my chest trying to ignore them, but every word seared into my brain.

  They were discussing the tea party Alyson’s mamma was giving in a few weeks to celebrate the first day of summer. The tea party I wasn’t invited to. Leave it to my parents to move to a new town where school only had three weeks left.

  “Did you get that new Victorian dress and hat to wear?” Tara asked.

  “I can’t wait to show you! I look five years older at least,” Alyson said.

  “The catalog picture looks perfectly divine,” Tara said.

  I rolled my eyes, waves of envy rippling through my stomach.

  “Mamma’s making orange-blossom tea and English scones with clotted cream. And finger sandwiches,” Alyson went on. “And sugared fruit and iced lemon squares.”

  “Hope you pig out until you bust a gut,” I’d muttered.

  “What did you say?” Tara Doucet said, reaching out a hand to yank me to a stop on the bayou road.

  My heart thumped a hundred miles an hour as Tara’s big green eyes stared holes into my face. Her long, silky, waterfall hair swished around her shoulders.

  “Nothing,” I answered, wiping my sweaty hands on my shorts. “I didn’t say nothing.”

  Her eyes narrowed like she could read my mind. “Hey, Alyson, let’s show Larissa the bridge. She’ll like that.”

  “T-Beau and Ambrose aren’t here yet. We can’t play Truth or Dare.”

  “We’ll just do a little preview,” Tara said. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

  As soon as I hit the water I couldn’t breathe. Water filled my mouth, my nose. I couldn’t see a thing.

  My body collided with one of the pilings. My head crashed against the slimy, waterlogged beam, green with algae. The jolt shuddered down my spine. I didn’t know which direction was up or down.

  An alligator must have come looking for lunch because I was sure I felt his sharp, pointy teeth scraping against my face. Trickles of blood swirled in the water. I screamed and water rushed down my throat, cutting off the air I had left.

  I was a goner.

  Guess that was my punishment for choosing the wrong girls at school to try to be friends with. What kind of person talks about the best party of the summer right in front of the new girl and never invites her?

  They were either clueless or the meanest girls in town.

  When I fell into the bayou and saw the lights of heaven beckoning me — or the lights of the Gulf sucking me out to sea — I knew the answer.

  And I vowed that if I lived, I’d never to speak to Alyson Granger again.

  Blackness yawned before my eyes as I heard my daddy rustling with some furniture on the other end of the second floor.

  “Stop being such a silly-nilly,” I scolded myself, shaking my head to erase the memory of last year. “There’s no such thing as broken telephones that can talk.”

  But then, why could I hear the girl’s voice so clear and real in my mind? I knew deep down the voice didn’t belong to Alyson Granger. The voice on the old telephone had been much more serious. Intense, not high and whiny.

  I willed the wooden box phone with its metal bell on top to make a sound. I dared it to ring. Dared it!

  It didn’t make a peep.

  “See?” I hissed at the phone. “You can’t make phone calls! Your cord doesn’t go nowhere!” I picked it up again, just to be sure, and the telephone wire drooped from my hand. Useless as a bent nail or a broken teacup.

  I flung the cord away, shivers racing down my neck.

  Then I froze to my spot on the hardwood floor.

  I could feel someone watching me.

  Slowly, I turned and scanned the windows, my neck prickling. My heart hammered at my throat so hard I thought I was gonna choke right then and there.

  Far on the horizon a small golden moon rose above the cypress groves along the bayou.

  There was nobody down below in the yard, but I could swear another pair of eyes was focused on me — and I couldn’t seem to move my legs.

  “Daddy —” I started to croak, but just then there was a sharp whine on the other side of the big room as he shoved a piece of furniture up against the wall.

  The noise seemed to break me from my frozen state.

  My gaze landed on the doll case where the most valuable dolls were locked up.

  “Supper’s ready,” Mamma called from the foot of the staircase. “Where are you two?”

  My stomach growled again as I skirted a bin full of bedding and a bookcase stuffed with ancient paperbacks.

  Next to a massive cherrywood wardrobe, I kneeled down in front of the case overflowing with dolls: rows of chubby baby dolls, rag dolls, antique porcelain dolls, and stiff-legged Barbie dolls that were so old they were collector’s items now.

  In the center of the case sat the most exquisite porcelain doll we owned. Perfect features in a heart-shaped face and big blue eyes with super-long black eyelashes. She was amazingly beautiful in a rose-colored lace dress and a feathery hat tied under one ear with pink ribbon.

  She had a tiny chip on her chin, but otherwise the doll was in perfect condition. A piece of cardboard sitting in her lap stated that she was about one hundred years old. In thick black marker, it also read: NOT FOR SALE. That was Mamma’s doing. But she’d never tell me why. How could we have such a valuable doll and not let anyone purchase her?

  Months ago, Mamma about lost her eyeballs when I told her Shelby Jayne was coming to our house to pay a visit and see the doll.

  “That’s Gwen’s doll,” she’d told me, all stiff and blinking.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I said. “I want to show it to her.”

  Mamma pressed her lips together. “You leave the doll in the case and don’t touch her.”

  I begged for a solid week, and Mamma finally let me and Shelby Jayne get her out — exactly once — to hold her.

  “This doll is fragile and only for show,” Mamma had told us sternly.
After three minutes, Mamma placed her back in the case, stuck the NOT FOR SALE sign on her lap, and snapped the key in the lock.

  Mamma’s older sister, Gwen, had owned the doll. When she drowned in the bayou, Mamma inherited the antique, so she was like a family heirloom. Except I didn’t know where she’d originally come from, or how Gwen had come to own her.

  I crouched on the floor, my nose almost touching the glass.

  For one crazy second, I knew that the doll’s crystal-blue eyes had been studying me. She was staring at me that very instant. Her eyes locked onto mine, and I shuddered with the sensation of ice cubes on my skin.

  Mamma always said, “When you get the shudders it means someone’s been walking on your grave.”

  I usually ignored her silly superstitions.

  “Anna Marie,” I said, speaking the doll’s name out loud. I didn’t usually say it, but I knew what her name was. What I didn’t know was whether Gwen had named her or someone else. I’d probably never know. Most likely, she came with that name from the store where she was purchased.

  A moment later, the scar on my face began to burn something fierce. I rubbed my fingers along the ridge on my cheek as it throbbed. My eyes stung and I bit my lips to keep from crying. Guess I needed to put on some of that cream Shelby’s mamma gave me to help it heal.

  Still rubbing at my face, I started to turn away, and the doll’s eyes seemed to move with me.

  Quick as a flash, I jerked my chin to gawk at her again. The doll smiled a perfect, serene smile.

  I’d never understood why Shelby loved this doll so much. Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was exquisite and lovely and her dress was made of real silk from India. But my dead aunt Gwen’s doll gave me the creeps. Her facial expression made it seem as though actual thoughts were running through her porcelain brain. Under the flouncy dress and bows and pearls in the ringlets of her glossy blond hair, it was almost like the doll had a secret.

  I shivered again as her icy blue eyes pierced mine. Almost like she was looking straight at me and was about to speak.

  I backed away from the doll case, my legs jiggly.

  “It’s only my imagination,” I whispered under my breath. “Because of that stupid phone call. The one I probably imagined.” Maybe part of my brain had exploded after all the homework and tests of the last couple of weeks of school.

  Maybe I was just missing Shelby Jayne, who was in Paris with her grandmother Phoebe. But as I turned to run downstairs, I swore the doll’s eyeballs were shooting needles into my back. I could feel it.

  I was still rubbing at the scar on my face when I burst into the kitchen, bright and normal and ordinary.

  Mamma was tasting the gumbo on a spoon, while a pan of corn bread sat steaming on top of the stove. She glanced at me, sweat dribbling down the side of her face, her hair tied back in a ponytail after the long day. Tendrils of hair escaped the blue elastic tie, flyaway and messy.

  “Set the table, please, Larissa,” she said, tsking her tongue at me.

  “Why you tsking me? I ain’t done anything wrong.”

  “You need to quit ducking your head every time someone looks your direction. I can hardly see your eyes most of the time the way your hair covers up your face.”

  I got out the plates and laid them on the table. “It hurts,” I whispered.

  “What hurts?” she asked, pressing a hand against her growing belly when the baby kicked. “I know my own legs hurt,” she went on, not waiting for my answer. “All I want to do is fix sandwiches for supper and put my swollen feet up. But your daddy eats like a horse and always wants a full dinner end of the day. I suppose he’s earned it,” she added with a sigh. “Never get no time for a decent lunch.”

  I finished setting out spoons, and then mixed up a pitcher of frozen lemonade.

  Mamma didn’t want to hear that my scar hurt. She didn’t like to be reminded. Not that she needed any reminding. That scar stared at me every single day of my life in the mirror — and every time Mamma looked at me, all she saw was the ugly scar.

  The pot of gumbo went on the table with a thunk, and then Mamma brought over a plate filled with squares of corn bread.

  “All shut up tight,” Daddy announced as he walked to the sink to wash up. “Alarms are on, too. Not that I really think we need them. Not in Bayou Bridge.”

  “Hmm,” Mamma said, collapsing into a chair.

  Daddy laid his LSU cap on the tablecloth next to him, swigged down a whole glass of lemonade, and then clasped his hands for grace.

  Soon as I mumbled an “Amen,” Daddy was gulping big spoonfuls of the boudin sausage, okra, and rice in the gumbo fast as he could.

  “I’ll get the honey,” I said, fetching it from the pantry in the corner.

  “Thank you, shar. You read my mind.”

  Just like that doll, Anna Marie. She seemed to read my mind, too. I swallowed hard, wondering why I’d thought such an odd thing. Like the words popped into my brain.

  While Daddy drizzled honey on his corn bread, Mamma leaned over, tilting my face to the overhead light. “Let me see you.”

  I thought she’d forgotten about me, so I flinched at first when she ran her hand lightly down my cheek. “Does it really still hurt?”

  I shrugged. “Not much now, but it did a little while ago. When I was upstairs with Daddy closing up.”

  A frown creased her brow. “How often does that happen?”

  “Maybe I bumped into something without knowing it.”

  She studied my face, brushing back my hair. “It’s a bit red and swollen. More than I’ve seen in months. Maybe I need to take you to the doctor.”

  “Don’t want to go to the doctor. I stopped using Miz Mirage’s medicine cream. I’ll just start up again.”

  “Hmm.” Mamma touched my chin. “You’re a pretty girl, Larissa. Don’t forget that.”

  “Mammas have to say that. It’s a rule to love your own children.” I draped my hair over my face, staring down at the lumps of rice in my bowl.

  Mamma drew in a breath. “I don’t love you because of any rule, Larissa! And you are beautiful. I just wish you’d stop hiding your face. Stand up to those bullies.”

  I set down my spoon, bracing for the argument we’d had a million times. “They don’t bother me anymore. I’ve told you that over and over again. It happened once. That’s it.”

  Mamma pushed back her chair, her eyes wild. “Once was more than enough! Luke,” she said, addressing my daddy, who was buttering his third piece of corn bread.

  He eyed her. “What, Maddie?”

  “I told you we should have moved. This town protects those kids. Kids who push other kids into the bayou. They still play that stupid game! Ever since I was little and Gwen drowned —”

  “Can we talk about this later?” Daddy glanced at me, then back again at Mamma.

  “You always say that! And we never do! Here we sit, pretending it never happened. We should have pressed charges. Written editorials in the newspaper. Brought all those kids to justice. This is unacceptable. Our daughter is scarred for life, and we pretend it never happened!”

  I inhaled and a piece of bread plugged up my throat. My eyes turned watery and I started coughing. Daddy reached over to rub my back, then got up to get me a glass of water.

  “You’re making Larissa feel worse,” he said, his voice low. “The way you go on about it. Will you just be quiet? At least at the dinner table?”

  Mamma made an angry noise, and then flung a dish towel across the counter. “You’re always too tired to talk later. I am, too, but at least I care.”

  “Talking about it won’t undo the past, Maddie. It won’t bring back your sister, and it won’t take away what happened to Larissa. You planning on hating everybody here for the rest of your life — even folks who had nothing to do with Larissa’s accident? Is that your plan?”

  Mamma gasped and her face turned red. I pushed away my plate, sick to my stomach. Third day of summer, and all the ugly memories from last year
washed over us again like a tidal wave from the Gulf.

  “We should never have come back to Bayou Bridge!” Mamma said, bending over to cradle her big stomach.

  “You said you wanted to come back to Bayou Bridge. Try to make peace with Gwen’s death. Do something about your parents’ old house across the bayou. Your family was here for almost two hundred years, but that property is about to get condemned. The authorities have only given us a little more time to do something about it. Tear it down, sell it, whatever. Don’t matter to me.”

  Mamma’s face got splotchy. “Bad luck follows us wherever we go. You just don’t seem to care!”

  “What do I gotta do to show I care? Take my shotgun and go wave it around? Get hauled off to jail?” My daddy’s voice kept rising, louder and louder.

  “I’m not saying that!”

  “Then what are you saying, Maddie?” Daddy’s neck turned crimson, the pulse in his throat beating hard.

  I covered my ears with my hands. “Stop it,” I said, but my parents didn’t hear me.

  “We could sue. Hire a lawyer —”

  “With what money? We’re barely bringing in enough to cover groceries and the light bill.”

  “Then I want to move again,” Mamma said, staring so hard at the salt and pepper shakers I thought she was going to make them explode with her eyes.

  “We can’t afford to move again!” Daddy spat out, slapping a hand against the table. “We got a mortgage and a big, fat loan on this store, and I’m not going to do bankruptcy. Not gonna do it —”

  “But, Luke! Those kids — they just got away with — my own sister died because of that awful game —” She flung her hands up, pressing them against the sides of her head as her reddish-brown hair flew helter-skelter, held back by stupid, ugly, black pins.

  Across the kitchen, I saw myself reflected in the dark glass of the window. The same flyaway hair, the same black bobby bins. I was almost the spitting image of my mamma, except for the scar. The big, ugly, white ridge of scar slashing down my face.