Into the Garden (Wildflowers 5)

"What do you mean?" Misty asked.

"That I could toss all this into the fire and watch it go up in smoke."

They all stared at me, and then Star shook her head. "What?" Misty asked her.

"Just like Cat," she said, "to come up with a secret that none of us could top. Well, I guess that gets us off the hook."

"Yeah, Cat's secret makes anything I could come up with sound so stupid," Misty said, looking at Jade.

Jade sighed deeply. "I agree," she said finally, putting her stamp of approval on the decision.

4 True Confessions

The girls were shocked that I knew so little about my family and my origin. All I could say was "I don't know," and "I'm not sure," to every question they fired at me, making me feel like some criminal under the lights in a police station.

"If it was me, I'd be dying to know everything," Misty finally said. "I'd nag and nag until your mother, I mean half sister, told you every nitty-gritty detail. I'd give her no peace, not a moment."

"It's not that easy to talk to my mother," I said. "She can turn herself off like a light switch."

"I know what you said before, but I still don't understand how you can sit there and still call her your mother!" Jade cried. "You know now that she's not."

I shrugged.

"I know what she's told me, but it hasn't sunk in my head long enough I guess. It's all I've ever called her," I added when she widened her grimace.

"I wouldn't desecrate the word by calling her Mother." "You can't just erase all these years in a few minutes," I protested.

"From what you've been telling us about her," Star said, "you'd think you'd be glad not to have to call her Mother. What's her name?"

"Geraldine. I do think of her more as Geraldine since she told me the truth."

"She'd be lucky to have me call her that. I can think of a lot of better names for her. She's got no right to keep any of it secret," she added, "not now. Misty's right. You should want to know everything"

"I guess I do want to know. It's just that..."

"You're just afraid of her," Jade concluded. She thought a moment. "Did you ever think that maybe she's lying? Maybe she made it all up just to keep you under her thumb. Just from the little we know about her from what you've told us, I think she's capable of doing something like that."

Star nodded.

"What proof do you have that she's telling you the truth?" Jade demanded.

"Proof? Nothing," I said. "Except what she has told me."

"That's no proof, girl. Jade's right. First thing you do is snoop around, look for letters, documents, pictures, any- thing that will tell you something."

"You mean, go look through her personal things?" "Well sure, what else? They're your personal things too, right?"

"I don't know if I could do that. She guards her privacy religiously. I'm rarely in her room."

"You've got to find out more," Misty said, her face serious and determined. "You should be told who your real father is, for starters. It's not fair. It's not right." She looked at Star who nodded.

"Maybe she really doesn't know," I said.

"Maybe she does," Jade said. "All right," she added, straightening up and turning to them, "we have our first OWP project: to help Cat discover everything and anything about her own past."

They agreed quickly.

"What do you mean? What are you going to do?" I asked, my heart thumping. I was going to be in plenty of trouble as it was, sneaking out and coming here after Geraldine had specifically forbidden it.