“True,” Pensie said.
It was time to change the subject. “When are you coming to sleep over? It’s your turn, you know. You haven’t been over since I’ve returned to Cavendish.”
Pensie sniffed. “Your place is so dreary.”
Maud chortled. She thought the same thing, but would have never dared to actually say it out loud.
“Why don’t you ask about coming to stay with me? You know my mother won’t mind. She adores you.”
“I’ll ask Grandma,” Maud said.
An hour later, Maud returned to her grandparents’ homestead and was about to slip back upstairs to read Undine when Grandma called her into the kitchen. She found her grandparents sitting on opposite ends of the kitchen table with two half-finished cups of tea and what appeared to be a red leather book opened up in the middle of the table. It looked much like her journal, which was odd because her journal was locked in a drawer upstairs.
“We are astonished, Maud,” Grandfather said.
“Alexander—” Her grandmother’s sharp tone made the back of Maud’s neck prickle.
“What do you mean?”
“While I believe it is proper for a girl to keep a diary”—her grandmother’s hand shook as she picked it up and held it out to Maud—“I never considered you would write about us in such a fashion.”
Maud didn’t move. If she did, then it would be true. Could her grandparents have actually read her journal?
“If you think I’m going to send you to college after reading this.” Grandfather pointed. “A writer and a teacher.” He scoffed. “Where did you get such notions?”
“What if someone other than me had discovered it?” Grandma said. She still held the journal out to Maud, and for one desperate moment, Maud wondered if Grandma had read the most recent entries about Nate, but the line of questioning seemed to be going in a different direction.
“You went through my things?” Maud whispered.
Grandma’s dark collar accentuated her frown. “I would never go through your things. I was bringing up the linens and saw it open on your bed.”
Maud remembered leaving it open on her bed and Pensie coming. This was all her fault. She had forgotten to put it away.
Maud felt as if her grandparents had stepped on her heart. Shaking, tears running down her cheeks, she stood, waiting for one of them to apologize for betraying her. But no apology came. The only sound was the silence of disapproval.
Her hand trembling, she reached out to take the journal. “What are you going to do?”
“We don’t know,” Grandma said. “But we do think, given this new information and how much trouble you’ve had this past year, it is clear we aren’t equipped to handle you anymore.” She paused. “Please! Go to your room.”
As if watching herself from above, Maud left the kitchen, her beloved journal a heavy stone in her hands.
—
A few hours later, Maud stared out into the dark night and then at the picture of her jovial father and her angelic mother. What did Mother think of her now?
The crescent moon had risen past Maud’s window. She waited until she heard her grandparents go to sleep downstairs.
It wasn’t fair! Why did she have to suffer because Mother had died? Maud had never asked for this. Maybe she was so horrible even her own father didn’t want her.
Maud traced the frayed edges of her journal’s pages. Since she was nine years old it had been a constant companion on those tear-streaked nights of loneliness.
And now with one careless act, it was stained. Tarnished.
Under the low kerosene-lamp light, Maud crept downstairs to the kitchen and walked over to the wood-burning oven. Turning and lifting the stove’s element cover, she was glad to see the low embers of fire were still glowing. She threw in another log, and it caught quickly. The flames crackled and hissed.
The journal contained mostly nonsense anyway, trivial passages about the weather. Sure there were some overly romantic notions of stolen moments with Nate, and the dream of going to college, and the sad story of a girl banished to live with her aunt and uncle for six lonely months while an outsider lived in her home. But if she was ever going to show her grandparents and Father that she could be a proper lady, she was going to have to start a new story, create a new version of herself.
Without looking at the journal again, Maud stuffed the whole thing into the fire. It tumbled into a raging dance, twisting and twirling, pages curling and bending onto themselves. And, as the last page disappeared, burning to black cinders, she whispered, “Now no one will know the true secret of my heart.”
—
In the dawn’s light, Maud didn’t regret her dramatic action. The only thing she did regret was carelessly leaving the journal on her bed. It was a bitter lesson, but she would never do it again.
She hadn’t slept well. Her in-between dreams were haunted by images of her journal, burning. It wasn’t just the pages that burned, but a part of her soul too. It was probably wicked to even think of such a notion—burning souls—but for once, she enjoyed the idea that she could be wicked.
Maud slowly slid out of bed and reached for her chemise, but her body grew numb. She wasn’t ready to see her grandparents yet. She knew she would have to suffer through their disapproval and silence. But not this morning, maybe not even today.
She felt raw and red, like scraped earth. She couldn’t go to school today. Besides, didn’t Grandfather say he wouldn’t pay for school? If he didn’t even care to send her off to college, then he probably wouldn’t care if she didn’t go to school today.
Maud dropped her chemise to the floor and crawled back into bed, crying until she could push the singed memory far, far down, and fell into sleep.
Later, she shifted awake as she felt someone sit down beside her on the bed. She lay still, hardly daring to breathe. “You are so much like your mother,” Grandma whispered.
—
The weight around her heart threatened to drag Maud into the red clayed earth. What her grandmother said didn’t make any sense. Mother was a good woman who died too young. Maud was not good, she always seemed to be getting into trouble. What did Grandma mean?
—