Secret Keeper (My Myth Trilogy - Book 2): Young Adult Fantasy Novel Read online

  Who am I kidding? I can’t sleep. My eyelids twitch like an electrocuted hamster’s, and I need to pee SO BAD, even though I’ve peed at least five times this morning.

  I need a plan. We’ve been staying with Mom’s Uncle Ian and Aunt Meg at the Vineyard since she overdosed on pain pills. Her brothers and their wives—Uncle Marcus and Aunt Lizzy, and Uncle Jack and Aunt Kaye—all live in Scotts Valley, too. I have to tell them the truth about Dad so they can intervene. Because I do think he’ll do it again. Or at least I can’t know for sure that he won’t. Claire looks just like me when I was her age. She emanates a pure, strawberry-blonde sweetness. Her unquestioning eyes are so full of love and trust. She’s a dream for a monster that thrives on ravaging innocence.

  Even though Mom’s family has never been Dad’s biggest fans, I doubt they’ve so much as imagined that he’s a child molester. This isn’t the kind of news you just drop out of the blue.

  I’m terrified. I don’t know how to tell them.

  An outline appears on the whiteboard of my brain, complete with roman numerals and sub-headings in order of importance. I’ve erased and rewritten so many times that the board is smeared gray and my mental markers are running out of erasable ink.

  I started out with matter-of-fact black, switched to a pleading green, and even kept determined blue going strong for a while. Now uncertain orange is the only color left that works.

  I blast the whiteboard clean one more time with a scouring spray of frustration and start over.

  TELLING MY RELATIVES ABOUT MY MOLESTATION Who to tell: Uncle Ian and Aunt Meg. That’s IT.

  Keep it simple: Only the facts

  When to tell: ASAP (like, yesterday)

  But an invisible hand scribbles through my outline, scrawling a new one in a non-negotiable red:

  THESE ARE THE REASONS EMILY WON’T OPEN HER MOUTH: No one will believe her They already think she’s crazy

  They’ll think she just wants attention

  They’ll think she’s lying If it were true, why did she wait so long to say anything?

  They’ll be angry They’re tired of dealing with her problems

  They’ll think she’s a threat to her younger siblings and can’t be trusted around people in general Because she’s broken.

  Because of what He did.

  Because maybe she wanted it.

  My life revolves around keeping my siblings healthy and safe. For so long, that was core to my identity. Now, upon realizing what Dad did to me, how deeply it impacted me, I don’t know what evil might be a part of me, too. The pills were a toxicity that could be traced, but what if there’s something sinister that Dad passed on to me that can’t be detected? I read somewhere that victims of abuse are more likely to grow up and abuse others, in one form or another.

  Claire pokes me with her finger, asking with her eyes if she can lean against me. I want to say yes. She’s warm and solid and real. She smells like syrup. They must have had a pancake breakfast before driving to the hospital.

  But I can’t. I can’t say yes. Protecting her is more important to me than my own personal comfort. I have to make sure Claire is safe. From Dad and from me.

  I shake my head at her and retreat from her as a pale flush of surprise and betrayal race to fill the space between the freckles on her cheeks.

  Oh God. Rejecting my sister hurts worse than the time I stepped on that rusty nail in the garden.

  I don’t need a stupid outline. I just need to tell the truth and fix this. That’s my plan.

  What’s the worst thing that can happen? I try to reason with myself.

  The worst thing that can happen, my brain answers without missing a beat, is they don’t believe you and load you all up in the rental car with Dad and Mom and send you off to Dallas and then join the Witness Protection Program so you can never bother them again.

  Yep. That sounds like the worst thing.

  What will I do if they don’t believe me?

  Nancy turns around from the row in front of me like she can hear the markers squeaking across my mental whiteboard. She smiles at me over the rims of her reading glasses with her ancient jade eyes. Goosebumps crop up over my entire body. Nancy nods and taps her wrist three times.

  This is my cue. I rotate my own wrists face up on my lap, and there they are, staring up at me: a crude marker drawing of Xander the dragonfly on my right wrist, and Toad on my left.

  When Nancy asked me in one of our sessions if there was anyone real or imagined in any of the Realms who had comforted me, I immediately answered: Xander and Toad. I told her how Xander and her twin sister Twist had always been there for me, guiding me and showing me things from a different perspective. I told her how Toad has a lush green meadow in his belly where he kept impossibly beautiful secrets, among them: that Princess Nissa is my mother and I was born to be a warrior of the Fae.

  I drew a basic sketch of what my fantastical friends looked like and then Nancy replicated them on my wrists with a fine point Sharpie. Whenever I’m lonely or overwhelmed, I look at them for a quick boost of confidence.

  In a puff of sulfur smoke the whiteboard disappears, teasing my nostrils with the faint wisp of a matchbook strike pad.

  Closing my eyes, I’m in the Third Realm again with my giant warty Secret Keeper and my dragonfly Guide. Beneath the three-pronged branches of the ancient sentinel Tree, Toad’s hideous mouth hangs open, his long fleshy tongue a waggling welcome banner in the acrid breeze. Xander sits at the tip of Toad’s tongue just like I remember her—resplendent in royal blue, enjoying the ride. My wings unfurl, and the gauntlet wraps around my right arm. The shield rests on my left arm; the dagger is belted low around my hips.

  I am a warrior. I am strong enough to do this impossibly hard thing.

  My love for my brothers and sister gives me strength, hope, and courage. Even if no one believes me, I believe myself. Even if they shake their heads and cover their ears I won’t shut my mouth. I’ll make them believe me.

  But that isn’t going to happen. You won’t have to convince them, Ava whispers in my ear. And suddenly she sits in the cup of my palm, a tiny wingless faerie with glittering white skin and scarlet curls cascading down her back. Ava, my True Voice.

  How can you be so sure? I ask.

  It’s just something I know. I KNOW that if you’re strong enough to say the words, they’ll believe you. Just like Toad and Xander and Twist believe in you.

  But Ava’s words gnaw in my stomach. The vision of Xander riding on Toad’s tongue burns away with the smell of rotten egg salad and tar. Nancy was so excited to draw the dragonfly and toad as talismans of peace and comfort on my wrists that I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  But Ava knows the truth: Xander doesn’t believe in me. She doesn’t believe in anything anymore. She can’t.

  Because Xander is dead, and I’m the one who killed her.

  Chapter Four

  “Emily, wait!” Gabe waves from the passenger seat of Dad’s rented Nissan as I’m heading toward the house from the van. His thousand-kilowatt grin stops me dead in my already slow tracks.

  Kaillen pulls the sliding door of the van shut with a slam, acknowledging my dutiful compliance to Gabe’s command with a grimace. Without a word or another glance at me, he walks briskly past me to the Nissan to help Mom out.

  Gabe leans back into the car through his window after shutting the door. He says something to Dad and slaps the hood affirmatively. When Kaillen emerges from the back with Mom and Jacob, Gabe rushes to hold the door open for them. With exaggerated chivalry he bows to Mom, then claps both Kaillen and Jacob on the back like they’re all best friends, which they definitely aren’t. Do Kaillen’s shoulder’s stiffen at Gabe’s touch, or is it just my imagination? Jacob shoots Gabe the first genuine smile I’ve seen on his face in months as he and Kaillen assist Mom up the front porch steps.

  Through the windshield Dad winks at me with a knowing smirk as he backs the car out of the driveway.

  Revulsion wrigg
les through me, making me squirm. A memory from the diner of his wet tongue licking his chapped red lips and his charged hungry breath coils around me, making me shudder. I try to scrub the sensation off by scrubbing at my arms with my palms and turn to focus on Gabe, but on the inside I’m running away. From Dad’s jeering. From what Gabe is going to say. From every bad and real possibility I know exists.

  Please let whatever Gabe wants to talk to me about be good news, I silently pray. Or something funny he heard. Please, please, please don’t let it be something screwed up and awful.

  Gabe speeds up the closer he gets to me. Before I can blink he grabs me by the waist with both hands and the next thing I know I’m in the air, twirling in circle after circle as he spins me around and around. The world continues to rotate even after he plants me back on the ground. Clumsy and helpless, I topple against his chest.

  He holds me tight, kissing my forehead and lifting my face to kiss both my closed eyelids.

  And then he says it: “Everything’s been decided, Emily. We’re going to go and get everything ready. It will be better than perfect, I promise.”

  He kisses me breathless and I cling to him, dizzy, unable to speak.

  “You’ll be brave, won’t you, Emily?”

  Brave? I don’t feel brave. I want to sew my ears shut so I don’t have to hear him explain what he’s talking about. I have a very strong sense I don’t want to know.

  When I don’t answer his question, he pulls away to sum me up at arm’s length, hands still locked around my waist.

  “It’s been intense lately,” he says. “I know you’ve been processing a lot, and I’m sorry I have to leave just when you’re getting out of the hospital, but we’ll be back in less than a week. Until then, I need you to promise you won’t do anything stupid again.”

  “Stupid?”

  He tucks my hair behind my ears like he’s putting me all back together. “Well, you have to admit, overdosing on other people’s pills isn’t very smart. But, hey.” He rests his wrists casually over my shoulders. “I think you’re brilliant. I do. Come on!” He bonks me playfully on the nose. “You have to admit you can be a little dramatic sometimes, can’t you?”

  I’m pissed that he’s dismissing my pain—what little he knows about it—writing it off as some histrionic plea for attention. Calling my actions stupid (not that I don’t agree). But it’s his cryptic urgency that spikes alarm in my pulse until finally my anxiety eclipses my willful ignorance and I grab his hands off me, looking him sharply in the eye.

  “Gabe. What are you talking about? What do you mean, ‘Everything’s been decided’? Where are you going and what are you getting ready?”

  “Sorry, Babe. Guess I got a little ahead of myself.” He chuckles, easily breaking his hands free from my grasp to grip my waist again. “We decided everything on the ride back from the hospital, your dad and mom, Jacob and I. I’m going to drive back to Dallas with your dad and Jacob to get things ready for when you all come home next week. Jacob needs to get his shots for school, and we’ll need to get each of you kids registered. First day is in less than two weeks. Plus we’ll buy groceries, do some cleaning, even make a ‘Welcome Home’ sign…you know, stuff like that. We want everything to be just right.”

  I squint up at him. Behind him, the sun shines through his golden hair like a halo, blinding me.

  Oh God. I was better off not knowing.

  “Are you alright, Babe?”

  When did he start calling me ‘Babe’?

  “You look a little gray, Emily. You didn’t take anything in the van, did you?”

  “Yes, Gabe.” My voice is empty. “I had some narcotics hidden under the floor mats.”

  He chuckles adoringly at my hollow sarcasm as he leads me onto the porch and deposits me in the weathered blue rocking chair.

  “Here, let me get you a drink of water.” He reaches for the screen door, but I snatch at his arm, all my urgency finally focused in one question.

  “Gabe, when are you leaving?”

  He’s unfazed.

  “ASAP. Your dad went to get gas and buy some snacks. Jacob and I just need to pack a few things and then we’re going to hit the road, try to catch as much daylight as we can. If your dad and I take turns driving and don’t stop to sleep overnight, we can make it to Dallas in twenty-four hours.”

  “Gabe, no! Please,” I beg, my eyes welling with tears.

  “Don’t worry, Babe,” he soothes. “We’ll be careful. I promise, if we get too tired we’ll pull over.”

  Oh God. I wasn’t even thinking about the dangers of them driving halfway across the country through the night on no sleep with Jacob in the backseat, but now I’m crying about that, too. I’m crying for more reasons than I know.

  Jacob’s leaving me.

  He knows I don’t trust Dad, but he’s going with him anyway.

  How can he leave me? And yes, what if there’s an accident? It happens even to the best drivers. You get tired and you think ‘I’ll just close one eye for three seconds,’ and when nothing bad happens you think, ‘I’ll just close both eyes for two seconds,’ and the next thing you know your rented Nissan Altima is wrapped around a tree.

  I stand up, sending the rocking chair slamming back against the siding. I need to tell Jacob I love him.

  “Emily, what’s wrong? Why are you so upset?”

  “You barely know my dad,” I say. “You’ve met him what, twice, before today? But you’re ready to drive off to Dallas with him like you’re part of our family.”

  He sighs and comes closer to me, gathering my hands in his and pulling them to his heart. “We belong together. I want to take care of you, Emily.” He brushes the hair from my eyes. “I love you.”

  He loves me? There was a time not so long ago when the simple touch of his fingers grazing my shoulder sent miniature bolts of lightning blazing through me. Now I feel a mounting horror as he continues.

  “Your dad and I are going to start a home remodeling business together,” he says. “I have a friend who’ll let us use his contractor’s license…”

  “You want to take care of me?” I cry. “You didn’t even come to see me once while I was in the hospital!”

  “I’m sorry, Babe. Your dad and I had a lot of planning to do.”

  I’m talking like I’m actually upset that Gabe is paying more attention to my dad than he is to me, which is ridiculous. He couldn’t have visited me if he’d wanted to, no one besides Nancy was allowed. But I’m grasping at straws, throwing them like they’re weapons because I’m losing it completely. And I realize with absolute certainty: I don’t have the luxury of making self-indulgent whiteboard pros and cons lists, or caring what anybody thinks of me anymore. If I don’t say something now—today—I’m basically signing death warrants. Maybe even my own.

  Chapter Five

  The afternoon rustles, a featherweight floral blouse dipped in an ice-cold stream, scrubbed against a smooth-water stone, gently rung and hung to dry in the softest whispering breeze beneath a mellow sun. An undercurrent of sapphire saturates everything the light touches…crisp violet on top, dusky plum beneath…the way the richest juices settle in the underside of ripe merlot grapes.

  I sit on the top step of the back porch, becoming still at the very center of my being. No emotion, just a catalogued review of what happened.

  I did what had to be done.

  I held Jacob before he left, even though he was about as responsive as a brick wall, and told him I love him, even though I knew he wouldn’t say it back.

  He didn’t say it back.

  After the Nissan backed down the drive, I went inside and found Nancy and told her it was time. I asked if she would come with me and she said yes. Then we went to the kitchen where Ian and Meg and my aunts and uncles and Kaillen were all sitting around the table. It wasn’t the ideal setup; I certainly didn’t imagine telling Kaillen. But I couldn’t justify waiting for the perfect moment that would never come.

  I said I was sorr
y to be so much trouble but that there was something I needed to say.

  And then I told them.

  Nancy stood next to me the whole time. Did they gasp? Did they scowl? Did they frown? I don’t know. I stared out the window, my focus coming to rest on the motionless birdfeeder hanging off the front porch. I talked too fast and probably sounded like a robot, but I did the best I could.

  When I stopped talking, nobody said a word. Nancy put her arm around me and kissed me on the cheek. I muttered another apology at the floor, then walked out through the mudroom, making sure not to let the back porch screen door slam behind me.

  After I revealed the horrible truth to Nancy in the hospital, she sat next to me and told me I was strong and brave and worthwhile and that she was lucky to have me in her life. She told me she would keep my secret sacred and stay by me and help me heal.

  She also said that the vast majority of victims never speak their secrets because they’re so afraid of how people will react, and that the reaction of the first person you self-reveal to has a huge impact on the way you frame your trauma. I’m lucky I chose to tell Nancy first. But even after having told her, I wasn’t prepared for how vulnerable and exposed I’d feel upon telling my family.

  Maybe that’s what’s happening to me right now. Maybe this void—this terrible sense of nothing—is because I didn’t see or hear them react at all. In the absence of input, I don’t know how to feel.

  The screen door creaks open and then clicks shut again, interrupting the late afternoon chirr of insect song. The delicate tinkling of wind chimes fills the silent pause as Kaillen reaches for me. I allow him to pull me up from the faded wooden porch step and lead me silently down the path that carries us away from the house, past the goat shed and into the swaying purple-green ocean of rippling alfalfa.