Secret

By Mirika Mayo Cornelius

In a small, southern town, there is a scorned secret that has ripped through homes. Accursed is the whore that it came from, people around town say, but to a sassy, country girl named Secret, that's not all to it. She asks herself, what curse, and what does it have to do with me? That's when Secret takes matters into her own hands and attempts to solve the terrifying mystery of her family that roots from her own mother!

Will she ever uncover the curse that lives behind her name, or will Secret discover that all the hatred aimed her direction is truly deserved?

Be sure to read the second book in this saga titled COLORED LILY: POPPA TOOK MY INNOCENCE, the story of Jocelyn - SECRET's mother, and after that the final book from the pages of this successful series titled PATON

**Secret editorial review -- "a heart-wrenching story...the author cleverly speaks to the "taboo" issues ... through the eyes of an innocent child...gives great presence to the main character..." - Anna Bowman of Florence Morning News** 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Akirim Press
• Release date: Feb 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781507022689

Book preview

SECRET

MIRIKA MAYO

CORNELIUS

SECRET

This is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the rights of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. 

ISBN 0-9708517-1-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002090634

Copyright © Mirika Mayo Cornelius, 2002

Illustration by Lawrence J. Mayo and Mirika Mayo Cornelius

Acknowledgements

God has given me everything I need and want, and He is the source of all my blessings.  I thank Him for it all, especially for His begotten Son, my Savior, Jesus Christ.  Through him, I have my chance to live.

I thank God for my son.  He’s my little man and the most wonderful gift God gave me on this earth.  My love for him is endless, and will carry on forever.  I thank him for the laughter and love he has brought to my life.

Thanks to my husband and business partner for all he does, and thanks to my parents, siblings, the rest of my family and friends who have been with me from day one.  I give you all love.

To all my fans and followers, thank you and you rock! 

––––––––

A favorite scripture: Revelation 21:6-7

And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.

More Books By Akirim Press

Books by Mirika Mayo Cornelius

Secret

Colored Lily: Poppa Took My Innocence

Paton

The SECRET Novel Collection

Ain't Quite What I Thought!

Ain’t Quite What I Thought! 2

First Degree Sins

Inside the Gates of Doons

Sunny Sides of My Shade

Murders at Gabriel’s Trails: The Complete 5 Part Series plus bonus Sins of Bain

Murders at Gabriel’s Trails: An Alexis & Bain Love Story

Murders at Gabriel’s Trails II: A Son’s Sacrifice

Murders at Gabriel’s Trails III: Paths of Revenge

Murders at Gabriel’s Trails IV: Littered Deception

Murders at Gabriel’s Trails V: Lies in the Crossfire

Books by Rod Cornelius

Ugly

Diggin’ Gold

The Trusted

Single Again

Ghetto Eyes

The Best Kept Secrets

Books by Cyan Deane

Dead Man’s Mayhem

Execution’s Karma

Table of Contents

Beginning

Middle

End

More Books By Akirim Press

Preview Colored Lily: Poppa Took My Innocence, the prequel to the novel Secret

Preview Paton

Preview Single Again by Rod Cornelius

Beginning

I was born.  No, I don’t remember any of the drama that came along with my birth, but at one point in time, I thought that others might have.  The back of a building in a dark alley or something to that effect, some of my people claimed that’s how my mom brought me into this world.  They would say that just the same way she left home before her time, the same way her churn  gon’ come - too early and not nare one on time.  They always said that she was too fast for her fanny.  Those people I’m speaking of are my aunts.  My great aunts.  Grandmom, as the story goes, died on a railroad track down by the lake - of shock.  Of all things to die from, it was shock, and what scared her to death is still not discussed or is simply not known.  How my mom died, well, is she even dead?  Last thing I know about is that after she had me in that alley of mine, Jocelyn - that’s my momma’s name - picked me up and carried me to my aunt’s house.  One thing I had to do was  find her and the reason behind myself because when she left me, all she left me with is my name - Secret.  Secret Jones.

Secret.  Secret, girl, don’t you hear me calling for you?  Get in this here house and help me clean up some.  Your Uncle Junior and his new wife are gonna be here directly, and I need some help.  Get that mop over yonder.

Yes, ma’am.  I run up the cracked brick steps trying my best not to touch one of those cracks.  It’s bad luck if you step on cracks, at least that’s what my friend Lyz told me.

Aunt May, when did I get an Uncle Junior, and where’s he coming from?  I ask as I dunk the mop in a bucket of soapy water.

She leans over the rocking chair trying to fix a sheet around it real tight as to make it look stiff as a cardboard.  Chile, you always had an Uncle Junior, and you done certainly had your fair share of new aunts with him, too, she laughs.  You ain’t nothing but six, and he done had four.  This one here is number four.  He ain’t been down here from Boston in a good three years now.

I put the soaked mop on the floor.  I hate mopping because I can never get enough water out of the mop, and it be heavy.  My back hurts every time I have to carry this big oversized mop around from one side of the floor to the other side.

Secret.

Huh, ma’am?  Leaning over, I curl my head around to see her.

Ring out that water, chile, or else you gone fall and break your neck.  Like to make me break mine, too.

Aunt May, it’s too hard to ring out this mop, I tell her leaning my head on the handle with the bottom releasing water still yet, And my back hurts anyway, Aunt May.  This thing weighs more than me.

She laughs, Girl, if I had the energy, I’d cut your backside, but I don’t, so I won’t.  Gone over there to the kitchen and get that broom and pan.  I’ll finish up the moppin’.  Lord, Lord, I got to rest.  She sits down out of breath on the chair she just fixed up.  I drop the mop and go to her.

Aunt May, I’ll try to finish the floor.  You sit down, and the house’ll be spic and span before Junior gets here.

"Uncle Junior.  That is your uncle, my nephew, and your ma . . .."  Her sentence stops, and her eyes drop.

And what, Aunt May?  I ask leaning on the arm of the chair with my head in my hand.

And your butt cuttin’ if you don’t stop bothering wit me now.  Go on, these old bones just hurt a little, that’s all, Secret.  Don’t tell nobody.

I won’t tell.  Secret never tells.

That’s my girl.

Aunt May, she gets tired a lot.  When I say a lot, I mean all the time.  Just walking up the porch steps makes her lose all her breath.  I, sometimes, when I see her coming, have a chair waiting on her because it seems like she’s gonna pass over.  I’m too small to pick her up from the floor, so I’d rather have her pass over in a chair if that’s what she’s gonna do.  That way, I can make sure she don’t hit her head on anything sharp and bust it wide open.  She can drink a cup of water sitting up easier, too, than trying to do it on the floor.  I tried it one time, and water gets all over your face.  It’s a waste of time.  Top it all off, you gotta clean up everything you waste, and I hate cleaning up stuff off the floor.  I once saw this old lady, and it looked like her head was leading her to the ground.  Her back was slumping way over.  No lie.  I coulda’ sworn she was gonna fall.  I bet if I keep up all this cleaning, my back gone look like that, too.  We need to get a maid.  A good one, too, but I wouldn’t want our maid to end up looking like that old lady I saw that day slumping over.  My back hurts now, but, man, I bet hers hurts ten times more than mine.

Here, Aunt May, drink this.  I put some sugar in it, too, to give you some more energy.

I’ll sop it right down.

When I finish with all this chore stuff, can I go to Lyz’s house?

Only if Lyz’s momma is home.  You come right back here if her momma’s not there, hear me?

Yep!

Finally, I finish the floors, and, now, I have to carry this big bucket down the porch and to the bushes.  I’m not supposed to pour the water out on the bushes Aunt May said because it’s dirty water, but I figure that them bushes comin’ up out of dirt anyway.  They can’t get no dirtier than what they already are.  It’s hot outside, and I think that the bushes probably like this water - dirty or not.

I’m gone, Aunt May!  I scream while running down the dirt pathway around the house.  I turn around and see her watching every move I make.  She never lets me go over to my friend’s house if her momma’s not there.  She got this thing about men.  It’s not right for girls to be around them all the time, especially when there’s no lady around.  Just last week she told me how some men are a shame to manhood.  I don’t know what some man did to make her mad, but whatever it was musta’ been bad.

Is Lyz home?  It’s her father at the door.

Hello there, Ms. Secret.  Yes, Lyz is here.  Wanna come on in?

No, sir.  Can she come out?

Yep.  Lyz, Secret’s at the door.  He walks away with the screen wide open.  Lyz comes skipping to the door.

Hey, Secret. . .,

Is your. . .,

Yes, momma’s here, she drags.  Come on, let’s go.

Go where?  Shoot, I’m tired.  I ran all the way over here, and it’s two-hundred degrees out.

To the lake.  The screen door slams behind her.

I sit on the steps to tie my shoe.  That’s when I see Lyz’s flip flops.

Hey, Lyz, do you have some more of those shoes?

One more pair.  Got ‘em for my birthday.

Let me wear the other pair, and I’ll go to the lake.  My feet are hot.

Okay. She runs back in the house and brings the flip flops back out.  As soon as I get ‘em in my hands, I shove ‘em on. 

Now let’s go. I say staring at my new shoes.

On the way to the lake, we play a game called Mother, may I.  When we play it, whoever the momma is shouts way far away from the other person calling their name and telling them to do something.  The other person, I guess the child, gotta shout back and ask to see if it’s okay to do what the momma said to do by saying mother may I.  The momma will then say yes you may or no you may not.  When the child gets close enough, though, to touch the momma, then they go flippy flop, and the momma is the child.  Lyz was the baby last time we went to the lake, so that means I gotta be the baby this time.

Hurry up and say something, Lyz, before a train comes and knocks me off this railroad,  I shout to her standing in the middle of the tracks.   

My name is momma to you, Secret.

See, that’s why I don’t like for her to be the momma because she always has to really act like she’s somebody’s momma.  She knows that all she gotta do is tell me to take some steps, but noooo . . look at her over there acting like she’s in the grocery store taking things off of the shelf when all she really doing is picking some blackberries off the bush.

Besides, you gotta stay still while I finish doing my work.

You know that’s not how the game goes, so hurry up, Lyz!

She pretends to put a bucket down on the ground, then, she dusts her hands off.  Children, children, children.  Secret!

It’s ‘bout time. Yes, mother?

Take fifteen giant steps coming toward me, and after the last step, do a frog hop.

Mother, may I?

Yes, you may.

I stretch my legs as far as they can go.  Even try to do the splits, but I can’t make it that far down and get back up just as easy.

Don’t try to cheat either, Secret.  I see you all sneaky trying to take tiny steps in between them big steps.  I bet I’ll send you back to where you started from.

Oh, shut-up!  If I didn’t have on these new flip flops, I woulda’ already been able to touch you, but I’m trying not to dirty ‘em up yet, now.

Don’t blame it on my shoes.  You just can’t take bigger steps than me, that’s all.

When we get to the lake, I should push her dead in.  And throw these flip flops in after her.  She always trying to be funny.  Talking about I can’t take bigger steps than her.  That’s what she thinks.  If I can beat her in running, this ain’t nothing but a piece of cake to beat her in this game.

We get to the lake, and it’s so quiet out here, it seems like there’s still noise somewhere.  It’s just like being in the bed, and in the middle of the night, you wake up.  It’s real quiet at first but then, if you stay awake long enough, it’ll get noisy, and you don’t even know where the noise is coming from. 

Why do you like this lake so much? I ask Lyz.  There ain’t nothin’ in it but a bunch of bugs and mud, I say as I hop around on the roots of this one big oak tree.  When I come down here, one thing I like to do is play on the trees, and this one is my favorite because it has long limbs that don’t break off when you swing on them.

There’s little fish things, too.  See.

I go over and kneel down beside her. Them things are tadpoles, not no fish.

Whatever.

You know, I say getting up from beside the edge of the lake, I’m not supposed to be down here at this lake.  Aunt May says lakes ain’t nothing to play around.

So!  Your aunt thinks she knows everything about everything.  As long as you don’t go inside the lake, you don’t drown, Secret.  Anyway, is it true?

I look at her while she throws a rock into the lake trying to make it skip.  Is what true?

I heard some stuff when my mom was outside talking to a friend of hers.

Tugging at her shirt, I ask, "What stuff did you hear, Lyz?"

Don’t get scared.

Well then say it, Lyz, dog!

Promise you won’t get scared.

Promise.

I heard that somebody died at this lake, she says really quiet with her eyes slanted up at me one way while her head is turn down another way, And it wasn’t from no drowning neither.

What’s she talking about?  Ain’t nobody died at this stupid lake.

And who said that?  Ain’t nobody died here but these nasty tadpoles and fish and bugs.

You ain’t never wondered why your aunt don’t never want you down here?

Yeah, Lyz.  Because I can’t swim.  Everybody don’t know how to swim like you do.  My aunt sho’ don’t, so who gonna save me if I fall in - you?  You believe too much stuff, anyway.

I’m not gonna save you because you’ll pull me in, too.  I should make you walk all the way back home barefoot.

You gotta catch me first.  Since you know so much, why you down here if you think somebody died down here?

"I didn’t say I believed it, Secret, ‘cause look.  She twists her body around with her hands out to her sides.  I don’t see no dead body, do you?"

Nope.

Well, then.

We leave from the lake really quick because since we got there, we’ve been doing nothing but fussing about dead bodies, and it got scary.  Lyz let me keep her flip flops for another day since I told her that my uncle was coming down, and I didn’t want him to see my dirty, raggedy shoes.  I want to look pretty.

When I get back home, I see a dark blue car parked in the front yard.  I start dusting the dirt from my clothes that got on me from falling down on the way back home.  That car sho’ is pretty.  I go to look in the glass so I can see the inside.  Shiny seats and all.  There’s a pocketbook sitting on the rider’s side, and that means a woman is in the house, too.  I wonder what they look like.

I tip toe up the steps instead of running so they won’t hear me coming.  There’s a window that can let you see the whole living room when you get to the top of the steps.  I creep on over to the side of it and peep in.  There go my aunt, and right beside her is a lady.  I don’t see no man.  She’s pretty, though.  If that’s my aunt, too, I hope she’s nice.

Well, look at there.

I just about pee pee all on myself.  I fling myself around to see a man standing at the bottom of the steps.  He got a big ole smile on his face, and it looks like it’s getting bigger.  He is tall, real tall, and his shoes just as shiny as the seats in that car.  I look down at Lyz’s flip flops.  I’m glad she let me hold ‘em.

My shoes clean, too.  I hold out my leg so he can look at my flip flops.  He busts out laughing.  Why is he laughing at my shoes?  They’re clean and fine, too.

You gonna come down here and give U.J. a hug, or do I have to come get it from you?

U.J.?  This ain’t my Uncle Junior?

Go on, Secret.  That there is your uncle.

I look beside me into the screen door and see my Aunt May waving her hand to get me down the steps to give U.J. a hug.  I hold on to the rail and drag myself down the steps.  The closer I get, the taller he gets.

Now ain’t this something.  He yanks me up off the step and into the air.  All of my toes are holding them flip flops real tight on my feet so they won’t fall off.

Can you do me a favor?  He puts me down.

Depends on what you want.

Amen, he laughs again. If this gal ain’t smart, he says looking up at my aunt.  Why he keep laughing at me?

Can you tell me what your first name is Miss Jones?

Secret.

That’s a mighty fine name there, he says getting on one knee.  Miss Secret, will you be so kind as to welcome me as your Uncle Junior.  I ain’t seen you in a long time, and it would be right nice if I could hear you call me uncle because you are the prettiest niece I got.

The only niece you got, says that lady next to my aunt.

That, too.  Before you do, I got something for you, Secret.  He walks over to that dark blue car, and pulls out some yellow flowers.

I went and plucked all these flowers for you, Secret.  Pretty flowers for a beautiful girl.

I take the flowers. Thank you . . .Uncle Junior.

This here is my wife and your other aunt, Rubie.  She even got your last name.  Rubie Jones, U.J. says as she walks down the steps.  She’s long, too.  Her hair is pulled up in a fancy bun, and her smile looks like it’s growing, too.

Nice to meet you, niece.  Here.  She pulls a small red pocketbook from behind her back.

This is mine?  I ask too excited.  I never had a pocketbook before.

Yep, all yours.

I like her already. 

We go inside the house.  While I was gone, my aunt cooked a big spaghetti.  She always says when you don’t have enough time to cook something good, a good spaghetti is always great. 

Um, uhm.  Aunt May, you always been my favorite in the kitchen.  You got momma by a long shot.

Alright now, don’t you talk about my sista.  That girl could cook.  I’m the one taught her.

You talking about Grandma Rain?  I say trying to stuff my mouth as to not be the last person to finish eating.

Yep, that was your grandma alright,  U.J. says as he gets up from the table and grabs Aunt May’s plate.  I can already see that you and your Aunt Rubie got plenty in common, Secret.

And what is that, Junior? Aunt Rubie asks while wiping her mouth.

Y’all like new stuff, and you both eat slow as elephants.

Aunt Rubie leans over to my ear.  That’s alright because women aren’t supposed to stuff their mouths like hounds.

As soon as she says that, I swallow a mouth full of spaghetti.  My aunt didn’t tell me that before.  I bet I look real dumb with a mouth full of food. 

Oh, don’t you listen to her, Secret, he says gulping some water.  You’ll be a better girl if you just eat how you wanna eat . . . and keep men folk away from you who try and tell you how.

Everybody starts laughing.  I don’t get it.  So, do I eat like him or do I eat like her?  I put down my fork and stare at ‘em. 

Oh, gone and eat your food, chile, like you wanna eat it.  When you get old enough for a man, then you’ll know the difference.  Don’t pay your uncle here no ‘tention, Aunt May says getting up from the table.

Yes ma’am.

The next night, they start getting ready to leave.  I wonder how my Aunt Rubie does that thing with her hips.  When she walks, my uncle has a nice time looking at her.  I catch him all the time.  And when he looks, he always leans back and says ‘That’s my wife’ .  While she’s packing, I go into my room where they went to sleep last night.

Yes? she says with her back turned to the door. 

How did you know it was me?

You have tiny footsteps.  She still doesn’t turn around, so I go sit on the bed.

Aunt Rubie?

Um hum.

Why does U.J. love you so much?

She stands up straight, puts her hand on her hip and grins. Why?  You don’t think he should love me like he does?

Noooo!  I didn’t mean it like that.

Well?

Every time you walk by, he gets so happy.

She busts out laughing.  He’s supposed to, Secret.  I’m his wife.

I just stare at her.

She kneels down.  If you ever meet a man when you grow up that you think you can be happy and fall in love with and that loves you back, he’ll look at you like that, too.  There is no trick to it.  But right now, you don’t worry about the way your uncle looks at me. . . it’s a good thing when you’re married, she says tapping me on my leg while getting up from the floor.

How do you walk like that?

She turns back.  Like what?

Like this.  I get up and show her exactly how she walks around here.  Twisting her booty from side to side like it’s natural or something.  It looks like too much work.

Lord, have mercy, she says putting her hand on her chest and opening her mouth wide open.  Secret, come here, honey.

Yes, ma’am?

Do you really think I do that on purpose?

It looks that way to me because Aunt May don’t walk like that, and I don’t either.

See this.  She points to the bottom of her back.  Then she puts her hands on her waist.  This part of my body is smaller than the back part of my booty.  I also have what you call an arch in my back so it goes in a little bit.  And guess what?

What?

That means the way that I’m built makes me walk like I walk.  You’ll see when you get bigger like me.

The next day they leave, and my uncle gives me his address.

"Secret, here you go.  Now let