think of something to say. It was pre-set to a news station, and we listened to the
entire broadcast twice as Jimmy drove on a series of freeways that led away from
the group house, through the city, and beyond.
The sun, already low in the sky, disappeared behind heavy clouds when we
finally arrived at the town of Greenwood. It was set in a small valley below low,
green hills.
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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta
Jimmy flipped on headlights and said, “This place is in a fog belt. It’s
never summer here.”
I’d never been anywhere as beautiful as this town. The clean roads were
quiet, and I saw magnificent old buildings that were so big that I thought they
were apartments at first. After seeing the addresses and the garages, I realized
they were homes.
Jimmy took a street up a hill and then turned at a private drive marked by a
gray stone pillars and a lacy black ironwork archway that reminded me of the
scrolling designs Wilde used to draw.
The gravel drive wound through a lush garden. It looked like a park for
rich people, with flawless green lawns, flowering borders, and wide pond with a
fountain.
As the car turned around a curve, I saw it for the first time: Birch Grove
Academy for Girls. The main building was a dark pink-rose color, framed by
enormous dark green trees, and stretching three stories against the gray sky.
As we got closer I could see wide steps leading to arched carved wooden
doors, above which were pale stone angels.
Jimmy parked the car in front of the steps. I got out as he was about to
open the door for me. While he took my cheap bag from the trunk, I stared at
school crest, which was carved in darker stone above the entrance.
Birch Grove Academy
was carved into an arch over a shield with a lantern,
a fox, and branches. Beneath the shield was the motto,
Ut incepit fidelis sic
permanet
. A few of the Alphas and I had taken Latin, and now I translated the
motto to mean, “As loyal as she began, so she remains.”
To the right of the main building were sprawling sports fields and tennis
courts. To the left was a slightly newer building.
“There you go,” Jimmy said, handing me the bag.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, and he gave me a second look.
“Sir!” he said with a grin. “I don’t usually get that. Good luck, Miss.”
The car drove off and I stood there alone in the fog. I didn’t intend to
depend upon luck, which was more often bad than good from what I could tell.
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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta
Then someone called, “Hello, Jane!”
I turned to see Mrs. Monroe walking from around the building, carrying a
basket filled with branches. Despite the fog, she wore a wide straw hat with a
crisp white blouse, navy sweater, and navy slacks. Later I learned that she almost
always wore navy and white, the school colors.
“Hi, Mrs. Monroe.”
“You arrived early. Let me put these inside. Then I’ll give you a tour of
the school and show you the cottage.”
I wanted to see the cottage right away, but I smiled and said, “That would
be great,” and we went up the white marble steps and into the building.
“How was your drive here?”
“Fine, ma’am. It’s a long way.”
“Yes, I don’t suppose you’ll be able to visit your old friends.” She led me
down a hallway with shiny dark blue linoleum. Awards and trophies filled glass
cases, and portraits of white-haired women hung on the walls. “You’ll make new
friends here soon enough though.”
Mrs. Monroe opened a door that had
Administration
in old-fashioned gold
letters on the glass inset. A counter separated the front reception area from desks
and file cabinets. She took me around the counter and said, “This is my office,”
as she opened a door.
It looked like a room from one of the “Masterpiece Theatre” movies we’d
watched in English class. It was decorated with antique dark wood furniture and
Oriental rugs, lamps with glass shades, and gold-framed certificates.
As interesting as the room was, my attention kept going to the branches in
Mrs. Monroe’s basket.
She saw me looking and said, “This is
betula pendula
, or the European
White Birch. Our school’s founder planted a grove of birch to remind him of his
family home in Romania. That’s the origin of our school’s name. Excuse me
while I put these in water.” She went through a doorway, and I heard running
water.
Rows of yearbooks were on a nearby shelf and one was open on a polished
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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta
table. I flipped through it and saw photos of girls with old-fashioned names, like
Emily, Mary Helen, Grace, Roselyn. I was about to check the date of the
yearbook when Mrs. Monroe returned with the branches in a vase.
“There,” she said. “Now let’s take a walk through the school.”
She showed me homerooms, the teachers’ lounge, and the nurse’s room.
We came to a series of tall doors, and she said, “Here’s the auditorium, where we
hold assemblies and student performances.”
The auditorium at City Central had looked and stunk like a prison hall.
This one had pale wood-paneling on the lowest section. The upper walls had
murals of white-barked trees that stretched all the way to the curved balcony.
Midnight blue velvet curtains on the stage matched the blue leather seating.
“The paneling here is birch wood,” Mrs. Madison said, “and when we meet
here, it’s as if we’re in a forest.”
Mrs. Monroe then took me to see the classrooms, which were old and
perfectly clean, and the gym. I’d never seen anything like the locker room, which
had individual shower cubicles and private dressing rooms.
Mrs. Monroe saw my confusion and smiled. “Young ladies were quite
modest in the days when this school was built. We try to continue the tradition of
modesty. Too often people equate exhibitionism as self-esteem.”
She also showed me a small chapel. It was a simple room with cream walls
and a row of arched windows with yellow glass that let in golden light. “Services
were held here decades ago when most of our faculty lived on campus. Although
Birch Grove is not a religious school, we encourage spiritual development.”
Hosea would have liked the chapel. He could have sat in one of the
varnished wooden benches and studied his Bible without being disturbed by the
shrill voice of Mrs. Richards, or the cacophony of the school cafeteria.
I thought of Hosea telling me that my reward would come, but what had I
done to deserve Birch Grove? What had
anybody
ever done to deserve this luxury
when girls like Wilde lived on the street?
Mrs. Monroe led me out of the main building to the more modern building,
which held classrooms and art studios. After touring the building, we went
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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta
outside and I took a deep breath. Even the air here was better --damp and fresh
and clean.
“Let’s go to your cottage,” Mrs. Monroe said, leading the way around the
art building. I was so excited about living on my own that I didn’t care if the
cottage was an old crate.
“Here’s the grove I told you about,” the headmistress said.
I shivered and thought it was because of the evening breeze, but now I
know it was the trees. The towering birches were clustered close together. Their
trunks were ghostly white with black markings and their branches gracefully
swayed and rustled. I reached out to touch a low branch and then ran my fingers
over the delicate layer of bark, as thin as parchment that peeled away from the
trunk.
We took a shadowy dirt path through the grove. Mrs. Monroe told me that
registration would take place on Monday and classes would begin Tuesday, but I
was listening to the gentle shush, shush, shush of the branches.
“My house is right up the hill there,” she said, pointing to a trail that
continued through the grove. “Please come by if you need anything or want
company. Here we are.”
The little white house had a porch with two wooden chairs and a pot of red
geraniums. Mrs. Monroe opened the door and I followed her inside to a living
room with grayish blue walls and white trim.
“It’s so pretty!”
A loveseat and two chairs with floral cushions faced a fireplace and built-in
bookcases. A wooden desk with a vase filled with pink daisies was placed by a
window looking onto the grove. A small television was tucked into the corner of
the room.
“I told you it was small, and we’ve tried to make it cozy. Here’s the
bedroom.”
Through the doorway was a pale yellow room that was barely big enough to
hold a twin bed with a white headboard and a white dresser. Next to it was a
blue-and-white tiled bathroom with a deep white tub.
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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta
On the other side of the cottage was a tidy kitchen with a narrow stove,
economy-size refrigerator, a microwave, and a square table and two chairs.
Mrs. Monroe opened the refrigerator and said, “You’re stocked up with the
basics. Milk, juice, eggs. Well, you’ll see. Do you know how to cook, Jane?”
“I learned at my group home.”
“What do you think?” she asked. “Will it do?”
I smiled and said, “It’s amazing. Thank you, ma’am.”
“It’s no more than you deserve, Jane,” she said, smiling back at me.
“Please come to dinner at my house tomorrow, six o’clock. If you follow the path
up the hill, you’ll see it. Will you be all right by yourself tonight?”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“My home number is programmed in the phone if you need anything. I’m
really happy you’re here.”
“Me, too. Goodnight, Mrs. Monroe.”
When she left, I went from room to room, astonished that this was mine.
Then I examined the cottage all over again. I discovered lavender-scented sachets
in the closet, brand-name shampoo and tampons in the bathroom, and cupboards
filled with good food.
The desk drawers were stocked with new packages of college-ruled binder
paper, notebooks and journals, two dozen pencils, pens, and a calculator. A navy
canvas book tote with the school emblem hung from the back of the chair.
There was a tiny room behind the kitchen with a stacked washer and dryer
and a rack to dry small items.
I couldn’t understand why my heart was racing and my throat constricting.
It was only when I began crying that I realized: I’d never been so happy.
When I unzipped my vinyl bag to unpack my clothes, I saw my stash of
personal items. There was no snooping foster mother here, or klepto roomies,
though, and I resisted my urge to hide my valuables. I placed Hosea’s Bible on
the bookshelf and my money in a dresser drawer with Wilde’s tarnished earrings.
Someday I’d get my ears pierced and wear them.
There was one thing left in my stash: the mangled bullet that had torn into
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The Shadow Girl of Birch Grove – Marta Acosta
my flesh. I didn’t remember the night I was shot and I didn’t want this gruesome
memento. I went outside and threw the bent chunk of metal as far into the grove
as I could. I heard it fall somewhere in the distance.
The simple meal I ate – a grilled cheese sandwich, grapes, and chocolate
chip cookies – seemed fantastic because I was the one who decided what and
when to eat. I turned on the television and surfed the channels, watching all the
junk celebrity shows that my classmates talked about, and staying up until two,
when I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.
After washing up, I slipped between the crisp sheets, moving my legs to
feel the smoothness that was so different than the pilled, nylon-blend sheets at
Mrs. Richards. I pulled the comforter up to my chin and closed my eyes and
listened to the trees outside.
The branches shifting and brushing against the roof sounded as if they were
whispering to me. A strange sensation ran through me, a memory of something
too vague for me to recall.
I got up once to look out the window. There was nothing but darkness and
the lovely shadows of branches moving. Suddenly realizing how isolated I was, I
checked the locks on the windows and the door before going back to bed.
AT THE GROUP HOME
, we were allowed five-minute showers every other
day. If others cut in front of me in line, like the boys always did, the water was
tepid and the spray too weak to wash the cheap shampoo out of my hair. Now I
filled the bath tub with steaming water. The tub was so deep that I could have
submerged myself completely.
I smoothed my hands over my skin feeling for any indications of damage
besides the obvious. I remembered almost nothing about my past and I wondered
if I’d been abused as Wilde had been. But the skin on my legs and arms was
unmarked and my fingers slipped over my skin without catching the thickness of
scar tissue.
I dried off with a thick, soft towel, and then examined my body in the foggy
full-length mirror on the bathroom door. I rubbed hard at the scar with my thumb,