Buried Secrets

By Ginna Wilkerson

When Emelia Behrends is caught in bed with her girlfriend Taylor by her strict Southern Baptist mother, she thinks nothing worse could ever happen. But when she’s sent to a small town in Kentucky to live with her aunt, stranger things do indeed happen. An incident in the gym locker room starts tongues wagging, and soon the popular crowd are spreading rumors.

Thankfully, Emelia meets would-be witch Hillary and the two band together as misfits and friends. Then Mariah enters the picture, and Emelia is instantly attracted. Mariah is entranced with Emelia’s beautiful smile and silky red hair, but she harbors deep secrets that might make all the difference between romance and tragedy.

The mystery begins to unravel when the topic of the Salem witch trials is introduced at school. Who is Mariah, and where did she really come from? And will Mariah’s buried secrets mean another love lost for Emelia?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Jul 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781634864237

Ginna Wilkerson

Ginna Wilkerson has been writing almost since she could read, and often teaches writing as an adjunct professor. She has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and discovered a love of travel later in life. She has long been fascinated by the supernatural as it appears in ordinary life. Ginna has two adult children and one grandson, and lives with her partner and their cats.

Book preview

Epilogue

Chapter 1: Caught

We’re lying together in my bed. The August sun slants through the blinds and Taylor opens her eyes. I smile at her, and reach a hand to her warm cheek. I can see by the question blazing across her face that she’s frightened after what we did last night.

It’s okay, Tay—really. It’ll be okay, I whisper.

Taylor moves her head in my out-stretched hand like a snuggly kitten. I feel some of my own fear subside. We’ve both wanted this for what seems like forever. I want to take the time to just lie there together in comfort. Still, my mom’s text from yesterday haunts my conscious mind: be home sometime tomorrow afternoon. Does that mean noon, dinner time, or something in between? I imagine Taylor is thinking the same thing.

Still, she moves closer, so our bodies are touching. The feel of her skin on mine is intoxicating.

Then Tay tenses, her body still and listening. Em, did you hear something?

No—I don’t think so. Like what?

I honestly hadn’t heard anything except the pounding of my heart in my ears.

We look at each other, hands clasped over the quilt. It’s not her imagination. There’s a sound of movement from the entry way. I start to get out of bed, but then remember I only have on panties. Maybe I’m better off staying put. Maybe Mom won’t even realize I’m home and go put away her stuff first. Then there is the unmistakable sound of a suitcase landing on the tile floor. Footsteps coming toward my bedroom door. My heart drops through my stomach. My cat, Mr. Strange, scuttles under the bed to hide.

Emelia? my mom’s voice calls out.

I look over at Tay. She looks like the sky has just fallen on the two of us. Pure panic.

There’s absolutely no time to move far enough from where we now are to make this scene look innocent. We freeze.

The shocked face of Andrea Behrends, elder of the Daytona Beach Southern Baptist congregation (and my mother), appears in the doorway of my bedroom. Seeing the anger, even hatred, in her eyes, I know the worst has happened.

* * * *

The next few minutes or so is a blur of anger, shock, fear, and bigotry. I think each of these flashes over all three of us at one moment or another. Taylor and I have waited all summer to be together because of our own internalized homophobia. It’s hard to shake when you grow up in the Baptist Church…

Taylor gets out of the bed, wrapping my quilt around her and inching toward the door. Mom stops this retreat with a word, No! Taylor stops and stands wrapped in the quilt as if turned to stone, or that pillar of salt woman in the Bible. My mother stares at me while I struggle to cover my nakedness with the thin sheet.

You filthy whore! Get out of that bed right this minute. Go into the bathroom and cover yourself.

Hearing these words destroys me in an instant. Everything horrible I had been thinking about myself for the past few months is now out in the open. I slip out of the bed and dash into the bathroom, praying that there is some item of clothing there that will do. From inside the bathroom, I can hear the muffled sounds of Mom yelling at Taylor, with the words slut and unnatural standing out. I feel responsible for putting Tay in this position. Nobody should have to get this treatment from my mom but me.

I stall as long as I can. By the time I come out dressed in sweatpants and tank top, Taylor is gone and my mother is in the kitchen drinking a cup of tea. She ignores me as I come in the room. I figure she has to speak to me some time, so I try to be quiet and patient, knowing that the offensive position never succeeds with this woman.

I go to the fridge and get a glass of milk, then sit down silently and wait. I have played this impossible scene over and over in my mind since I knew Taylor was more than a friend, but now I feel stiff and speechless. I sit at the kitchen counter, looking down at the patterns of scratches on the fake marble. Finally, she opens her mouth to speak, still not looking at me. I brace for the fall-out of last night’s pleasure.

Emelia. You’ve always had a wild spirit, but thank the Lord you’ve usually kept it in check. I can’t believe you let it go to this extent. I’m physically sick at the picture of my child in bed with that…This isn’t a game. You choose the homosexual lifestyle and you’re choosing to align with the forces of evil—those who reject the word of God. How can you do that, Emelia?! After the way you were taught…?

I wish I had more time to think of how to approach this. I’d been so focused on hating myself for my feelings I never even thought about presenting being gay in anything close to a positive way. I feel totally trapped. No matter how I act today, in this conversation, the Bible Baptist Church of Daytona, which includes most of my friends, will now always think of me as someone who has fallen from grace—the worst kind of sinner. As I sit there at the familiar kitchen counter where I have eaten my breakfast before school about a million times, I feel like I’m now a different person to my mother—a bad person. A person she doesn’t want anything to do with. She’s the only family I have…hot silent tears seep out and roll down my cheeks.

Mom looks at me as if I have no right to cry or be upset. I’ve seen that look when she’s giving a testimony in church, calling out the devil from some poor sinner. Sometimes it isn’t that hard to understand why my father left.

Alright. I’ll give you one chance to explain to me what I think I saw in your bedroom. Do you have anything to say for yourself? You and that despicable girl?

This gets me. She’s my mother, and I guess she does have some right to say what I do while I’m still at home. But calling the most kind-hearted and gentle girl I’ve ever met despicable is not okay. I stand up and open my mouth to speak. Mom pushes me back into my chair.

Mom, please…There’s nothing wrong with Taylor! She…

Nothing wrong?! There certainly is something wrong—to lead a nice Christian girl like you down the path of sin and abomination… At this point, Mom starts pacing, her heels making a staccato tapping sound on the kitchen floor. She reminds me of the white tigers we saw at Busch Gardens, endlessly circling their tiny island.

You know what needs to be done, don’t you? I have to call Pastor Montes. We’ll get a prayer circle in place, and maybe a laying on of hands tonight.

I was afraid this would happen. Only worse. I would rather Mom just kill me and get it over with. But that would be too easy. What is in store for me is much more complicated.

Chapter 2: Would-Be Witch

It’s another typical Saturday morning in Shively, Kentucky, and I’m rifling through my closet full of drab and repetitive school uniforms, searching for my black embroidered dress. It’s the only garment I’ve managed to get that makes me feel like a real witch. I have a feeling Mama swiped it again and hid it in the laundry room. My family is so hopelessly conventional! How can I ever hope to become a real devotee of Diana?

Not that there are any other real Italian witches in this backward town; there are hardly any Italians, much less those who were born into the Stregha tradition. I am a lone wolf, a solitary practitioner. Or at least I will be, once I get all my ritual tools in place and officially call down the Moon.

I finally find the dress, and shrug off my nightgown as fast as possible in order to get into the spirit of witchcraft. As I stand there naked between garments, I hear the familiar sound of small footsteps in the hallway.

Hill! Mama wants you to come down to breakfast. She says no kidding or you can’t go to the thrift store with us later. And I know you want to…

I refuse to answer a pest of a four-year-old, even one as smart as my sister Patrice.

Hillary Calvano! I see you naked, and I’m telling Mama you’re not wearing panties if you don’t come down to breakfast…

"Alright! Get out of my room, Ri-ri. I’m not kidding either."

A small head of curly auburn hair appears in my doorway. Patrice makes what she calls her monster face and then runs noisily back down the stairs.

It is Saturday, after all, and I should have time to myself. I should be able to wear what I want and read what I want without interference. But in this family, I know that’s a hopeless fantasy. Even more far-fetched than the possibility that I will figure out how to cast spells and incant charms, stranded here in Middle America as I am. Even though I am the granddaughter of a real Stregha-Nona, a witch of the Old Religion.

My grandmother was my only thread of connection to my Italian heritage, since my dad determined years ago that he was an ‘upwardly mobile professional’ and a true-blue American. Which is weird, because he looks stereotypically Italian, dark hair, olive skin and all. I seem to be an exact mixture of his genes and my mom’s, whose ethnic heritage is English and Dutch (she says). Anyway, Pop doesn’t want to hear anything about anything Italian, and now that my Nona has died, I am more determined than ever to preserve my pagan Italian roots.

I found a book that might set me on the right path to being a neo-pagan witch; it came from a library book sale at the University of Kentucky. This past summer, Pop had a consulting job at UK and he let me go with him for a couple of days—he wanted me to see how wonderful college life could be (a direct quote). Mostly the trip was boring and awkward, but I did find this incredible guidebook at the book sale: Italian Witchcraft by Raven Grimassi. I bought it for fifty cents, and then looked up the author online. Grimassi is apparently the head guy for passing on Stregheria in the 20th Century. Of course, this is now the 21st Century, but whatever…much better than anything I could find in Shively with my parents breathing down my neck all the time wanting me to be normal.

I bring The Book to school every day in my backpack, because it seems safer to keep it near me. Sometimes I have a chance to read in classes that I’m hopeless in anyway. Chemistry and math definitely fit this category. Not that I’m stupid or anything—I just tend to think more creatively rather than logically—at least that’s what I try to tell my math and science teachers.

Chapter 3: Stranded in Kentucky

If I have to be exiled from Daytona for my sinful behavior, at least my warden is my favorite aunt. When you come right down to it, though, the whole thing sucks. I’ve been in Shively for three weeks, and I still expect to open my eyes in the morning and see the familiar pink and black walls of my tiny bedroom in our house in Daytona. I expect to hear my mom moving around in the kitchen, and to feel my cat, Mr. Strange, batting my cheek to wake me up. But then I open my eyes for real and realize, with a sinking sadness, that I’m now one of approximately nineteen thousand residents of Shively, Kentucky. Against my will, I might add. And the noises I hear from the kitchen come from my Aunt Penny fixing breakfast and packing my lunch. And Mr. Strange is back in Florida in the care of my friend Jess. And the walls of this room are a dull, putrid green.

Penny’s voice echoes up from downstairs, Emelia! Look alive, now!

At least Penny is a better cook than Mom, who tended to give me a pop-tart or dry cereal most mornings. Not that she didn’t care or anything; it just isn’t her thing to cook in the morning. Still, I like Aunt Penny’s cooking.

Another drastic change is the dress code at Butler. Khaki pants (no jeans), red or white polo shirt, a belt, close-toed shoes, no weird hair colors, etc., ad infinitum. No sweaters except for uniform sweatshirts. So bizarre! But I do get a tiny bit of satisfaction, vindictive as it may be, from the knowledge that my mom had to fork over the money for school uniforms. Thank the Lord they don’t make me wear a skirt!

I throw on my uniform (fast—no decisions), and grab my make-up bag; I’ll complete my minimal beauty routine while I gulp down my breakfast. The clock reads 7:05, and I’m already running late. It takes about half a minute to twist my straight red hair into a ponytail, then I scramble down the carpeted stairs. Stairs: another weird change to get used to. Not many houses in Daytona have two stories.

By the time I’d taken several bites of the breakfast casserole and gulped down orange juice, Aunt Penny has my bag lunch ready.

Thanks, Penny—can you pick me up at 3:30 today? It’s the first meeting of the Creative Writing group after school.

Penny thinks for a moment, Sure, that’s fine. My last appointment is at 1:30. So see you then—3:30. Have a good one, Em.

This is what she says every morning when I leave for school. Even though this entire exile business is pretty much horrible, Aunt Penny’s house is not such a bad place to be.

* * * *

After these first few weeks, English class is the bright spot in my otherwise rather bleak days at Butler. Ms. Schell is definitely my favorite teacher here; she looks young enough to be a college student except for the tinge of grey in her funky short hair. She wears bright-colored tank tops under her uniform shirt, writes outrageous poetry, and insists that her students speak their minds. She also tells lame grammar-related jokes, but all the kids laugh because she’s trying so hard.

Ms. Schell seems to like poetry as much as I do. I guess this is another reason why I’m so comfortable with her. Writing poetry, for me, sometimes feels like a life preserver when I’m drowning (which has been most of the time since that day last August.)

Right now in English we’re working on traditional poetry forms, both reading them and attempting to write them. Of course, there are only a select few who even try to take the writing part seriously. Recently, we read some haiku and other traditional Japanese forms written by Americans in internment camps during World War II. It’s creepy what the US government did; those Japanese Americans hadn’t done anything, they were just different. And they were exiled without a second thought. Kind of like me with my mom sending me to Kentucky for my whole junior year.

So I tried writing a couple of tanka poems for Taylor. The tanka is about expressing emotion, and is the oldest kind of Japanese poetry. Here are the two poems I turned in:

here in Kentucky

the landscape is lovely, but

my heart