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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta
The visitor had dark curly hair, hooded eyes, and a broad chest, and he
wore a flawless black suit and snowy white shirt. He emanated power even as he
stood casually with a glass of red wine.
“This is Jane,” Mrs. Monroe said, but didn’t introduce him to me.
“Hello, Jane,” the man said. His disarming smile made me feel as if we had
just shared a joke. “Hyacinth and Tobias, do you mind if I talk to Jane alone?”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Monroe said, blushing. I’d never seen her nervous
before.
When they left, the man said, “Would you like a drink, Jane?”
“No, thank you, sir,” I said. “You know my name, but I don’t know who
yours.”
“I’m Ian Ducharme. I represent this region on the Council. Not that
Hyacinth gives me much to do. She’s likes to control every detail of her school.”
Although his English was perfect, he seemed foreign. “Shall we sit?”
He waited until I sat on the sofa and then sat near me, making the hair on
the back of my neck rise. Despite his elegant exterior, I sensed that Ian Ducharme
was an extremely dangerous man.
“Jane, you’re too young to fully comprehend how long a life-long
commitment is. A Companion may come to regret her decision, but she rarely
regrets her compensation.” He smiled cynically. “We buy loyalty, Jane. Most
people are so very eager to sell it.”
I studied him and he studied me.
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
“You remind me of Jack Monroe,” I said. “He likes to say things to
unnerve me. There’s a physical resemblance, too.”
Mr. Ducharme laughed. “So I’m of a type? Now I’ll have to get to know
Jack better to discover if you’ve given me a compliment or not.”
“It wasn’t meant one way or the other.”
“Why not? Don’t you desire to cultivate my favor? I’m very powerful, you
know, and quite rich. Women find me extremely attractive.”
“Wealth and power are usually considered synonymous with
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attractiveness.”
“Indeed they are, Jane. The very people who find me so handsome might
realize they are quite mistaken should I suddenly lose my fortune and position.”
I liked him because he treated me like an equal and I found myself smiling.
“I think you’d survive.”
He had a rich, low laugh. “Now it’s my turn to tell you what I think about
you. I think that perhaps Hyacinth may have miscalculated. I don’t think you are
someone who is eager to please. Are you someone who will be loyal for a price?”
“Loyalty that can be bought isn’t loyalty. I’ve already promised Lucky that
I’ll be his Companion. I’m going to follow through on my promise.”
“That’s what Hyacinth says and she’s made a profession of being
infallible,” he said. His deep brown eyes looked into mine and he said, “I read
your files, even those closed off to your headmistress. Tell me, how did you get
so high in that tree when you were shot?”
“I wouldn’t want to remember, even if I could,” I said. “I was told that I
must have climbed.”
“How does a seven-year-old climb almost thirty feet with a lethal gunshot?
You were dead when they found you. The paramedics gave up trying to
resuscitate you.”
I shook my head and said, “They must have made mistakes in the report.”
“I think not, Jane. One only has to look in your eyes to see that you’re not
the young, simple girl you appear to be,” he said, giving me an eerie feeling that
he knew more about me than even I knew.
“Having survived a murder attempt doesn’t make me special. It makes me
unfortunate. I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t want them to pity me.”
“As you wish,” he said and finished his glass of wine. “I’m rarely
contacted in these petty domestic affairs, but the Monroes asked me to interview
you on behalf of their son. What do you want me to say?”
I answered, “What I
want
you to say doesn’t matter, does it?”
“No, I wanted to see if you would try to plead your case, though,” he said
with a sly grin. “You remind me of someone, too, a young friend of mine who is
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more than what she seems.”
He stood and so I stood, too.
“Jane, a word of warning – this branch of the Family does not take betrayal
lightly. You can go now.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Ducharme.”
“Until we meet again, Jane.”
Mrs. Monroe asked me to wait in the family room, and a little later she
came to tell me that Mr. Ducharme had been satisfied with me. Why had he told
her that when he didn’t believe it?
Hattie stopped by soon afterward, and we walked to the amphitheatre.
“So what did you think of Ian Ducharme?” she asked.
“I liked him, even though he scared the hell out of me.”
“He does that with everyone. Not that I’ve never talked to him personally,
but Mary Violet would say that he seems deliciously depraved – and she’d be
right. Mrs. Monroe won’t say a word about what he actually does for the
Council.”
Hattie showed me where I would wait at the beginning of the initiation
ceremony, how to circle the clearing before walking to the center, and where to
stand. She taught me the strange words I’d have to say and rehearsed them with
me.
The language was full of sharp angles, like broken glass in my mouth, and I
struggled over the few sentences.
“Don’t worry. Nobody can pronounce it,” Hattie told me. “I’m pretty sure
that’s why it died out. As long as you try, you don’t have to get it exactly right.
Once you say your lines and Lucky says his lines, there’s a small cutting of your
fingertip.”
“I thought that that was private.”
“It is, except for this official event. It’s a tiny jab, enough to get a few
drops for symbolism. The worse part is this awful green liquor made with herbs.
You and Lucky each have to take a drink. The Monroes will make sure it’s
watered down and sweetened so you don’t automatically spit it out.”
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“What do I have to wear?”
“You’ll get a robe. Eunice will make it the right length so you don’t trip.”
“That’s good because wearing a toga at the Latin Skit Night was harder
than I thought it would be,” I said. “MV would say that it’s my tragic fate to wear
crazy gowns and speak in dead languages!”
Hattie and I laughed and she said, “Anyway, whole thing takes fifteen
minutes and then you and Lucky will be able to suck your blood happily ever
after.”
Although she smiled, she had a bitter tone.
“Hattie, are you absolutely sure this okay with you?” I thought of all that
I’d been offered and I thought about how much I liked this lovely, kind girl. “If
you don’t want me to do it, I won’t.”
She pressed her lips together and her hazel eyes turned to the ground. After
a moment she said, “I’m doing it again – letting my own problems with The
Family interfere with others’ decisions. Don’t lose something important because
I’ve got issues.”
“If there’s anything I can do, Hattie…”
Her smile was sorrowful. “Thanks, but I have to accept that things are the
way they are.”
I stayed quiet so she could talk more, but she changed the topic to a new
store at the Millerton mall.
The Monroes gave me my own cell phone and told me that they would take
care of all the bills. The sleek silver phone was pre-programmed with the
Monroes’ numbers, and I could use it to call any of my friends, too.
I wanted to call the Alphas, but even if I could find out their phone
numbers, there was so much that I
couldn’t
tell them. There was so much I
couldn’t tell anyone other than Hattie.
Constance had us over to study, and her mother seemed as sensible and
sharp as she was. Her ten-year-old twin brothers were noisy and kept running
into her bedroom while we quizzed each other for
Night Terrors
.
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When the boys jumped on her bed and began wrestling, Constance said to
me, “This is why I like to hang out at MV’s.”
Mary Violet often asked me over, too. One afternoon as we were studying
out on the lawn, I asked, “Have you ever been to Hattie’s house?”
“Only a few times and I’ve known her forever. I don’t even want to go
since Mrs. Tyler is a terrible horrible snob and she said something mean about
Mom’s paintings,” Mary Violet said. “No one’s allowed to say how appalling
they are, except us, you know, and that’s because we know they’re actually very
good. Besides I think Hattie argues with her parents all the time.”
“She told me they don’t get along very well.”
“Her family is so uptight that I wouldn’t be surprised if Hattie ran away and
joined the circus. One of the surrealistic European circuses, though, not the tacky
freak show kind.”
“Hattie’s not snobby at all, though,” I said.
“No, she is, as Mrs. Monroe says, an exceptional girl.” Mary Violet looked
more serious than I’d ever seen her and said, “Hattie’s so friendly, but it’s hard to
get below the surface. I always feel like she’s keeping some deep dark secret, like
you and your mysterious past.”
“MV, my past isn’t mysterious…” I stopped. “My life was really
depressing. It was like I’d been looking at the world through a filthy window and
everything was murky and ugly. When I came here, everything changed. Colors
were so bright, sounds so clear, and I don’t feel numb anymore. I don’t feel so
alone.”
Hattie leaned against me, her golden curls brushing against my face. “You
can share my family if you share the shame of the paintings, too.”
“I love your mom’s paintings.”
“Pants on fire!” she said and started tickling me.
“I love the
birch
paintings!” I said before laughter overtook me.
SIX DAYS BEFORE
the initiation, Hattie met me in the hallway by the lockers
and said, “I have something for you.” We went to an empty music practice room
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and she took a small black velvet box from her book bag. “It’s from The Family.”
I opened it and saw a gold ring with three small dark red stones, similar to
the ring Ms. Rector had worn.
Hattie said, “It’s a Companion ring. The gold was mined from the Apuseni
Mountains and the garnets come from the Banat Mountains in Romania.”
The inside of the ring was inscribed with an L over a J in curlicue script.
Lucien and Jane.
“Try it on,” Hattie urged. “It goes on your right-hand ring finger.”
It fit perfectly. “Is this why you made me try on rings?”
She smiled. “Smart Jane. You’ll need it for your initiation and you can
wear it after that. Take good care of it.”
“I will. Thanks, Hattie.” I placed it in my locker hidden behind a stack of
books.
My last class that day was Expository Writing in the basement of Flounder.
We were compiling a special sports edition of the paper, and I’d been assigned to
write about the modern, ballet, and jazz dance classes.
The editor, a senior, came to my desk and said, “I need you to cut another
250 words.”
“I’ve already cut it to the bone,” I said, repeating a phrase I’d heard from a
junior.
Ms. Chu came over and said, “How are we doing?”
“Jane’s article is too long and we need the inches.”
“I’ll lose important content if I cut any more any more,” I said. “And dance
deserves the space. A larger percentage of students study dance than any single
sport.”
“Sorry, we don’t have the room,” the editor said.
We both looked at Ms. Chu. I expected her to take one side or another.
“I know you can work it out,” she said and left us there.
The senior blew out an exasperated breath and said, “It’s too long and I
don’t want to bump someone else’s article, but you’re right about dance being a
big deal here. Got any suggestions?”
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I thought for a second and said, “What if we do my article in two-parts?
Part one, in this edition, can be on jazz and modern, and part two in the arts
edition can be about the history of the dance program and ballet. That will give
you more space than you need.”
“Not a shabby idea for a girl from public school,” she said with a grin.
“You’re on.”
After I finished my rewrite of section one, I submitted it to the editor and
also filed a copy in the archives. Then I helped proofread the other articles. The
sun had almost set by the time I walked back to the main building to get my
books.
The building was as dark and empty has it had been the other time I’d been
here this late. Because of that experience, I peered around the corner to the hall
with my locker anyway.
The student in the hooded sweatshirt was moving in the shadows. My
locker door was open and she was rummaging inside. Her head was ducked and
hidden, and I caught a glimpse of brightness from a flashlight.
Staying close to the wall, I edged forward. My elbow brushed against a