The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove (18 page)

moonlight, it looks like a black and white photograph.”

“How did you find your way here in the dark?”

“I know the paths and besides my night vision is great.”

We sat quietly, listening to the rustling of the trees and feeling the crisp

night air on our skin. Then Hattie said, “Whenever you want, you can talk to me,

you know.”

“Thanks.”

She laughed. “Like MV’s offer to share sexual details, you don’t
have
to,

but you can if you
want
to. I wouldn’t tell anyone else unless you said it was

okay. I know things are different for you here…” Her voice trailed off.

“It’s been so long since I’ve had someone I could really talk to that I forget

that it’s normal for most people,” I said. “I had a friend, Hosea, when I was

fourteen and I could talk to him.”

“Did he get adopted?”

“No, he got mono and died. He was the best person I ever knew. Everyone

says ‘patience is a virtue,’ but it doesn’t mean anything until you know someone

who has such calmness. The gift of grace.” I still missed him so much that now I

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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

had to stop talking.

When I had my emotions under control, I said, “Yesterday, when I came

out of the house, someone had written ‘go away’ in the dirt.”

“No!” Hattie said, turning to me with wide eyes.

“Could it have been hazing?”

“No, seniors sometimes haze frosh by stealing clothes from the gym lockers

and throwing them from the third-floor into the trees. We’d be suspended for

anything else.”

“Catalina is the only girl who’s been nasty to me, but she’s direct about it.”

“Catalina would have signed her name if she’d done it. Not that she’d

touch dirt,” Hattie said.

“You haven’t heard about anyone mad that I’m here?”

“No one’s said anything to me. We should report it to Mrs. Monroe.”

“No way,” I said. “I’m not going crying to her every time I get my feelings

hurt. Please don’t say anything to her.”

“It’s your decision.” Hattie watched the shifting shadows of the birch

branches. “On to other subjects. You didn’t tell us about your tutoring Lucky

today.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I said carefully. “Lucky solved the problems

fairly easily, but he claims that he can’t understand.”

“Lucky pretends to be incompetent and then people do things for him

because he’s gorgeous,” she said a little bitterly. She saw my expression and

added, “I’ve known him forever. We used to tell people we were getting married

when we were in kindergarten.”

“I guessed that there’s more to him than what’s on the surface.”

“Yes, but it’s too easy for him to let people adore him and how’s he ever

going to ever grow up that way? He’s so spoiled.”

“Attractive people always get special treatment. So do rich people.

Everyone at Birch Grove gets special treatment.”

Hattie smiled and said, “We must
all
seem pretty spoiled to you?”

“You seem…fortunate.”

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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

“We are. I’ll try to remember that more often,” she said. “I guess I just

hope that Lucky will find friends who’ll bring out the best in him, instead of

encouraging his egotism. Because he
is
good and smart and… Why are we

talking about Lucky anyway? I’d rather talk about Jack. He watches out for me

and he can make me laugh when I get riled.”

He sounded more like a big brother than a boyfriend. “I can’t imagine you

mad about anything. What sets you off?”

“The usual stuff. Being treated like my opinions don’t matter. Being

treated like I’m just a girl.
Just a girl.
Whenever anyone says that it makes me

want to slap them.”

She sounded as if she had someone specific in mind. “I hate that, too. It’s

as if our opinions mean nothing because we’re young, and I always think that if

I’d said the same thing but I was big and male, people would listen.” A breeze

gusted and I shivered.

“You’re cold,” Hattie said. “Let’s go back.”

I used the flashlight to find my way, but Hattie didn’t need the light. She

walked as gracefully as a cat on the pitch-black path.

She stopped once to say, “You’ll tell me if anything else happens, like that

message, won’t you?”

“I’ll tell you if something worse happens.”

Before we went back into the cottage, Hattie put her cool hand on my wrist.

“I get this feeling that I could tell you anything and that you’d understand.”

“I’d try.”

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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

“Third and fourth-year Peer Advisors are trained to assist fellow students on

personal, academic, social, and health issues. All conversations are

confidential, with the exception of those situations when a student is

endangered or a crime has been committed.”

Birch Grove
Student Handbook

AFTER I TOLD HATTIE
about the message, after the sleepover, after Lucky’s

visit, I began to feel as if I was settling in at Birch Grove. I didn’t push the sofa

against the wall the next night and I was familiar with my class schedule.

My life at the group home seemed unreal now, and I realized how bizarre it

was to worry about every move and every word.

But I was still amazed at the things other students took for granted, though.

They expected competent teachers, pleasant classrooms, and clean bathrooms.

They’d leave their bags around as if they were at a friend’s house, not at a school.

They thought it was normal to drive a new luxury car to Birch Grove.

It took me a while to identify the cliques. The fashionistas displayed their

handbags and took out TSAs when teachers weren’t around. The jocks hauled

their gear into classrooms. The partyers snuck off campus more. Emo girls wore

thin lines of black eyeliner and subtly dyed their hair.

Hattie and her friends were part of the popular crowd. Hattie was the

leader, but low-key, cynical Constance had the most friends because she hung out

with everyone. Mary Violet was split between the fashionistas and the arty girls

who wrote the literary magazine. I was on the periphery of the group, and their

friends were nice enough, if a little impersonal.

Catalina either ignored me in Latin class, and I stopped paying any

attention to her, too, because keeping up with Latin took all my concentration.

Western Civ was a chore, and Expository Writing became easy because I liked the

straight-ahead recitation of facts.

My most difficult class was Mrs. Monroe’s seminar. We had to write an

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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

essay on “Wake Not the Dead” and I struggled with it. The day after I handed it

in, Mrs. Monroe stopped me as I was leaving class.

“Jane, I read your essay last night.” She came from behind her desk and

smoothed her long, straight navy skirt with her pale, elegant hands. “Was the

archaic language of the story a challenge for you?”

“I was able to understand it with the footnotes and glossary.”

“I asked because your essay seemed constrained. I know that literature

isn’t your favorite subject, but I wish you’d give it a chance.”

I sighed and said, “I’ll try, but I don’t see the point.”

She smiled in an encouraging way. “The point is that fiction connects with

our emotional lives. I’d like you to bring your personal perspective into your

essay. Don’t just tell me what happened in the story, but how you felt about what

happened and the characters.”

She handed me my ungraded essay and said. “Please try again.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, annoyed that I’d have to do the work again.

“Your paper wasn’t bad, Jane, but I have expectations of you ---of all my

girls –-and I know you won’t disappoint me.”

That night, I started the essay three times, getting more irritated with each

failed effort. Finally, in my clumsy cursive hand, I wrote, “’Wake Not the Dead’

is not a story about love. It is about one man’s stupid and cruel selfishness, which

leads to the ruin of everyone around him.” The rest of the essay came rushing

out.

When I handed it in, Mrs. Monroe smiled and said, “We can talk about it

when you come to dinner on Sunday.”

I left the classroom already regretting what I’d written. At least I’d see

Lucky in a few days. I thought about the different shades of gold in his hair, the

jut of his shoulders in his shirt, and his long legs. I played over and over again the

way he had held my arm and touched my wrist. Would he do anything more, or

act as if it had never happened?

Friday night, Mary Violet invited Hattie, Constance, and me to her house

with a few other girls from school. I got to meet Agnes, MV’s little sister. She

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was a tomboy about my size, with Mary Violet’s big blue eyes, but with brown

hair.

“Are you trying out for any of the teams?” Agnes asked.

“I don’t play sports.”

“Even MV can hit a softball,” she said, “although she always giggles

afterward.”

“That’s because I pretend I’m hitting you,” Mary Violet said.

The other girls went home late, but Mrs. Heyer had asked me to stay the

night. It was a mild night, and we slept on cots on the second-floor balcony. I

thought it must be like camping as I looked up into dark sky, the stars hidden by a

layer of clouds.

Mary Violet said, “Are you seeing Lucky soon?”

“I’m tutoring him Sunday.” I was glad that she had brought him up.

“If I never meet anyone outside this stupid town, I’ve got dibs on marrying

Lucky. Try to find out if he likes me. We would have blonde children. Or see if

he talks about someone else. Hattie says he’s not seeing anyone, but maybe he’s

seeing someone at Birch Grove and she doesn’t know.”

“Why would it be a secret from her?”

“Not from her, from Jack. Lucky’s always competing with him. Sibling

rivalry, although I don’t think I’m going to have to worry about Agnes stealing

my boyfriends.”

“Mary Violet, it’s always an effort keeping up with your train of thought.

Why are you only interested in finding out about Birch Grove girls? What if

Lucky’s seeing someone from another school?”

“It wouldn’t be serious. Monroe men only marry Birch Grove girls, and

Monroe girls only marry Evergreen boys.”

“That must be very convenient for them.”

“So far it is. At some point the inbreeding is going to show up in rare blood

disorders or prehensile toes.”

I said, “I’ll tell you if I see any genetic mutations. Goodnight, MV.”

“Goodnight, JW.”

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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

THE NEXT DAY
I had breakfast with the Heyer family while Mary Violet

squabbled with her siblings over who ate more bacon.

Mr. Heyer, whose hair was even paler than his daughter’s, asked me

questions adults always ask: Where did you go to school? What are your favorite

subjects? Where do you want to go to college? What are your career plans?

At one point, Mr. Heyer glared at his kids and shouted, “Will you
stop

fighting over the damn bacon? No wonder I’m losing my hair.”

Whenever I heard shouting, I tensed, waiting for a blow to follow. But his

kids started making funny faces at each other, and Agnes sat on her father’s lap

and stole his slices of bacon. The rest of the family started laughing and even Mr.

Heyer laughed.

Mrs. Heyer told me that she thought I had an artistic soul, which set Mary

Violet to giggling. “She wants to suck you into her loony painter world,” she

whispered to me. “Run while you can!”

Mrs. Heyer took me into her studio and handed me a large package

wrapped in brown paper. “It’s one of my
Lady of the Woods
paintings, Jane.”

I looked at her, astonished. “You’re really giving this to me?”

“Art isn’t not alive unless it’s seen and loved. Enjoy it.”

She ruffled her short locks and looked at me for a moment. “Life is not

merely survival, Jane. Make sure to take the time to look inward and understand

who you are.”

“’The proper study of mankind is man,’” I quoted back to her. “I don’t

know if I agree.”

“You don’t have to agree with a concept immediately. Place it on a shelf in

your mind, where you can think of it now and then. When you need it, it will be

there waiting for you.”

She looked at me with her grave gray eyes and I thought that maybe she did

know things I couldn’t understand. “I’ll try. Thank you for the painting.”

I stayed at the Heyers’ house until Saturday afternoon. After we had

finished our chem homework, she said, “Jane, why don’t you ever wear any

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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta

lipgloss, or mascara to bring out your eyes?”

I told her part of the truth. “It costs money and I didn’t have any.”

“I get oodles of gifts-with-purchase, and I never use the ones that don’t go

with my coloring. Do you want some?”

When I hesitated, unsure of how to accept this gift, she said, “Of course, I