Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

A brief summary of what has transpired thus far. (To get a more detailed breakdown of the earlier chapters, please see Pages From a Diary Chapter Links )

Eleven-year-old Mallory is a bright but lonely girl with strict fundamentalist Christian parents whose marriage is going through a rough patch. One day, Mal gets acquainted with a girl named Julie, who lives with her father Jason and his girlfriend Lisa. Soon, the girls become fast friends, and before very long, more than friends. Mallory has a difficult time reconciling her emerging sexuality with her faith, but soon finds her desire for Julie and her interest in sex getting the upper hand, especially once she learns to masturbate.

Meanwhile, her parents’ relationship is really starting to founder. By then, Mallory and Julie are beginning to experiment sexually, but don’t really know what they’re doing. Julie’s dad’s girlfriend Lisa finds out about their curiosity and offers advice, then the girls persuade her to undress and join them in bed. Mal and Julie have full-on sex for the first time, then Lisa gets involved. 

Soon thereafter, Mallory and Julie are confronted by a fifteen-year-old girl from their school named Megan, who tells them she recognizes their feelings for each other, admits to being gay herself, and invites them to drop by her place a few days later. Megan only wants to hang out and chat, but Mallory casually takes charge of the situation, and soon the three of them are naked and having sex.

Mallory’s mother Sharon is spending more and more nights away from the home, supposedly staying with her own mother. So she isn’t there when Mal’s father Dan collapses and nearly dies from alcohol poisoning. Only Mallory’s quick thinking and immediate response saves his life. Once Dan is taken to the hospital, Mal learns that her mom isn’t really at Grandma’s house, but out with another man.

Not long after her father is released from the hospital, Mallory is taken out on a shopping trip by her mother. During the lengthy drive, Sharon explains her side of the story, treating her daughter more like an adult than she ever has before. Mal finds herself feeling sympathetic… but then she’s startled to catch herself having sexual thoughts about her mother, and gets flustered and confused. Those thoughts won’t go away, either.

A few days later, Mallory gets an inspired notion: since their friend Megan has guessed that the girls are fucking Lisa, why not invite her over to make their threesome a quartet? The others agree, and much fun is had.

In the meantime, Mal’s mother Sharon gets a job at a senior center, and she is making plans to go back to school. Needless to say, Mal’s father is most unhappy with this development. On the other hand, Mallory is quite pleased for her mom, and takes the opportunity to get in her lap and give her playful, but subtly flirtatious kisses. Sharon soon excuses herself to take a bath, but Mal feels certain that she’s also masturbating. More then ever, Mal suspects that her mother is secretly gay.

Mal is gradually becoming more popular at school. One result is that she and Julie are invited to a sleepover with Emma and Cindy, a couple of Julie’s friends. Once the parents are asleep, the girls get into a discussion concerning masturbation, which leads to everyone getting naked and engaging in mutual touching. Emma and Cindy love it, and the four of them get together for more fun a couple of weeks later.

Mallory finds a new student project: playing keyboards in a rock band of high school students supervised by Jason, who has also been teaching his daughter Julie how to do mixing work. Mal is much younger than the other members, but her skills soon win the others over. One of the band members is a sweet hippie girl named Jamie, and Mal is immediately attracted to her.

A couple of unhappy developments occur. First, Mallory’s parents make it official: they are to divorce. Mal is utterly disgusted with them both. Second, two of Julie’s cousins, eleven-year-old twin girls named Anna and Nettie, have vanished without explanation. A search is underway, but the twins have yet to be found. Mallory has never met these girls, but she prays as best she can for their safe return.

And now we rejoin our story, which is currently in progress. Do enjoy!

by Rachael Yukey

January 12th, 2006

Julie’s cousins are still missing.

The last time I wrote, I had what I guess you’d call an incomplete picture of the situation. On one side there was Julie sobbing on the phone, and on the other there was the TV news, which was turned down so I could give Julie most of my attention. I’ve picked up more of the details since then, some from Julie, some from the news.

The boy who was babysitting the girls is their seventeen-year-old cousin, and he’s the main suspect. Mostly because he’s a boy, I bet. If it was a girl, they’d figure she’d been kidnapped, too. But it wasn’t the first time he’d watched them, and he’s also missing. None of the people he hangs out with has any idea where he is. Julie doesn’t know him well, and has no opinion.

Also, Antoinette (who everyone calls Nettie) was sick. Like, sick enough to be stuck in bed. She’d been to an urgent care clinic the day before she was taken, and the doctors who saw her are worried that if she’s not getting the medicine they prescribed, she could get sicker. Maybe even die.

Julie showed me pictures of the girls. They’re twins, but not identical. Annamarie (who usually just goes by Anna), is pretty normal height for her age and has brown hair. Nettie is tall with thick black hair and honestly looks so much like Julie it’s a little spooky. Julie has a picture of the sisters standing side-by-side, and Nettie is half a head taller than Anna.

I guess you could say that I’m dealing with this secondhand. I mean, I don’t know either of the girls. But I know someone who knows them. The thing is, you never think terrible things like that are going to come this close to you until they do. I hope that makes sense. And now that it’s happened, what blows my mind is the way life just kinda keeps going on.

Julie and I went to school the next day. She didn’t want to, but Lisa told her it would be better than pacing around the house for hours waiting for news. Everyone had heard about what happened and somehow it got out that the missing girls were related to Julie, so most people were extra nice to her. Other than that, it was a normal first day back from Christmas vacation.

Actually, there was one other thing that happened. We had recess in the gym because it’s like twenty below outside, and there was this boy sitting to the side with his buddies, telling a story about a man in a black mask who snatches little girls from their homes, then kills and eats them. He was telling it in a really dramatic, spooky voice. When Julie overheard she stopped in her tracks, went pale, then marched right up to the boy and kicked him in the shin. Normally she would have got detention for that, but the teacher just led her away, tears streaming down her cheeks.

We went to A.L. on Wednesday. That was submission day for the art projects that were going to the competition, and I had my tree mushrooms in a box, wrapped up in heavy towels. I’m glad to be done with the project, to be honest. I love doing art, but right now I really want to focus on my music.

By that time Julie was getting back to her old self. She’s still worried about her cousins, but I don’t think you can stay panicked forever. Today we had a pretty normal bus ride there and back, reading to each other from our books and discussing our projects.

Jason came home yesterday. He was part of a large-scale search of the forests when he first got to Bronning, and had the scratches on his hands to prove it. After the search was called off, there wasn’t really much for him to do. His sister and her husband, he said, pretty much ordered him to go home and get some rest. So he told them to call if they needed any little thing, and drove home.

I was glad to see him, partly because it did Julie a world of good to have her dad back, and partly because yesterday evening was the first rehearsal for our student band. The other bands had their rehearsals earlier in the week, with Mr. Benson from the school filling in for Jason.

The rehearsal was a lot of fun. Everyone did what they were supposed to and got the songs learned. “Heat of the Moment” (by the way, I found out you’re supposed to put song titles in quotation marks) went almost perfect on the first try… or at least we thought so. We were feeling all smug, and then Jason told us we needed backing vocals.

“I’m not bothering with it for most of the bands,” he said, “but you guys are too advanced to half-ass it.”

So we spent about twenty minutes figuring out who was going to sing what harmony parts. Nobody told me I’d have to sing! But we got it sorted out, and hopefully we’re gonna have the vocals down by next week.

Toxic was harder, because there’s so many breaks, and we weren’t always in sync coming back in. But we finally got it. “Destruction Preventer” is where we really hit a wall, and that’s because Katie isn’t very experienced with the double kick drum technique and kept getting all tangled up. Everyone was nice about it and said we could just pick a different song, but Katie said no. When she said it her eyes were narrow and she looked a little angry. It surprised me; I had her pegged as the ultimate shrinking violet. She promised she would get it, and she said it with such intensity that we all believed her. I found myself liking her more.

We didn’t get time to work on the songwriting part of it, but Jason didn’t seem worried. He said we’d got most of the snags in the cover songs figured out, so that would give us lots of time to work on writing a song in the next rehearsal.

Jamie gave everyone hugs again before we left. That’s what she does; gives hugs and calls everyone brother or sister. Not that I mind; my face smushes right into her tits when she hugs me! There’s kind of a sweet, smoky aroma about her. It’s something I’ve smelled before, but I can’t quite place it.

In other news, I’m spending half my time at Grandma’s house, because that’s where Mom is until the new apartment is ready, and half at home. I think that’s really good for Mom, cause Grandma isn’t very religious. In fact, she thinks our church is totally out to lunch. When she was at Jason’s house on Halloween, I overheard her telling Lisa that Dickson Evangelical worships in a way that’s halfway between holy rolling and snake handling, and I think I kind of get what she means.

 

January 16th, 2007

Julie’s cousins have been found. That sounds like good news, right? They also arrested the guy who took them, and when they did that, they put a stop to an interstate killing spree that’s been going on for over a decade. Great news, huh?

Except that it isn’t, not really. Annamarie is dead. She was beaten, and this horrible, evil creep made Nettie watch. She’d have been next, if they hadn’t caught the guy when they did. The boy who was babysitting them is dead, too. The creep killed him right in front of both girls the day he kidnapped them.

To make matters worse, Nettie is still sick. She’s got pneumonia, and is in the hospital. God. I’m glad they found her while she still has a chance, and I’m also glad they caught that… that FUCKER who’s been torturing and killing young girls for at least ten years. He’s done it twelve times that they know of, and now he’ll never hurt anyone ever again. But it sure isn’t the happy ending we were hoping for, is it? This sucks so bad. I never even met those girls, and I’m crying for them.

Anyway, Jason is on his way up north again, and this time he’s taking the whole family. There’s going to be a funeral, and he figures his relatives up there are going to need lots of help dealing with everything. Because of all this, Jason and Lisa are pushing their wedding back a few months. That means they won’t get to have a honeymoon until Jason is done with school, but as Lisa said, some things are just more important.

***

Had to dash downstairs just now to get the phone, cause Dad can’t hear it when he’s in his shop. The call was for me, anyhow. It was Jamie, from the band. Jason called to tell her we can get together as scheduled on Thursday and rehearse if we want to, and she should act as bandleader if we do. I told her I’d be there if everyone else was coming.

I’m thinking about the word perspective. That’s what a situation like this does; puts things in perspective. All the stuff I worry about, all the times I get upset… it just seems so petty when something like this happens. I mean, so what if my parents are separated? I’m alive and I’m safe. Julie’s alive and safe. We get to sleep in warm beds and eat good food and have parents who love us, even if they’re messed up in some ways.

My new mission in life is to complain less, and be thankful more.

 

January 18th, 2007

Just got home from rehearsal. More on that in a few.

Julie called me from Bronning right after school. The good news is Nettie Hastings is getting better. They gave her antibiotics in the hospital, and they’re working. The bad news is she’s really messed up emotionally. She won’t eat, she barely talks, and when she does talk, nothing she says makes sense. Everybody is worried about her.

Julie says there’s some serious bad vibes flying around between her aunt and uncle. Almost like they’re blaming each other for what happened. I read somewhere once that marriages often split up after the death of a child, but in this case, it seems completely nuts to me. Unless there’s stuff going on here that I don’t know about, I don’t see how it could be his fault or hers.

God, I don’t want to think about this anymore! It makes me angry, and it makes me cry. I miss Julie, and I’m really worried about her. She’s so sensitive to people’s emotions, and it sounds like she’s getting a heavy dose of unhappiness and sorrow. I’m not good with words, so trying to comfort her over the phone isn’t much good. I wish I could hold her in my arms for a few minutes.

***

The rehearsal was good. We’d learned our harmony parts for the backing vocals, and surprise, surprise, it came together really nice. When he spoke to Jamie on the phone, Jason suggested that we just gather around the keyboard and work on the vocal harmonies by themselves, so we tried that. It sounded great!

We’ve got three of the songs absolutely nailed, but “Destruction Preventer” still has problems. Katie isn’t tripping over herself trying to play it anymore, but once she’s been doing that double kick thing for awhile the tempo starts to drag. But it’s massively better than last week, and I don’t think anyone is worried. She’ll get it.

We still haven’t started writing the original song yet. I think we would have if Jason was here, but everyone is scared to jump into it without him to guide us. We spent the last ten minutes of practice just jamming on a blues thing.

When it was over, we struggled into our coats in the lobby of the old fire hall, where the rehearsals are being held. I was pulling up my hood when Jamie tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, little sister… you want to get together sometime and work on a few of those instrumental harmony parts, just the two of us?”

I looked up into her hazel eyes, and imagined the two of us screaming in harmony when we came together.

“I’d love that,” I said. “Give me a call sometime.” She took me in her arms again, and when I hugged her back I made a point of running my finger down her spine. I thought I felt her shiver, just a little.

Maybe I shouldn’t have written about that, because now my imagination is running absolutely wild thinking about getting naked with Jamie. My pussy is throbbing like crazy, and my left hand is already down there.

No point in writing anymore… it won’t be legible.

 

January 20th, 2007

I’ve been working towards coming out to my mom for awhile now, but I sure didn’t expect to come out to Grandma at the same time.

Here’s how it happened. We were sitting on the couch this afternoon at Grandma’s house, and Mom was gushing about her classes. She’s been a student for about two weeks now, and loving every minute of it. She bought a laptop (it’s a course requirement) and she was showing us some of the software she uses to do her work.

If I’m being honest, I was pretty heavy into smile and nod mode, and I think Grandma was too. We’re both happy Mom is doing this, and that she’s so enthusiastic, but she’d been going on about it forever. It’s not like we had any idea what she was talking about, anyway.

Finally she closed the laptop and started talking about the people she goes to school with. That was better; at least it’s something Grandma and I could kind of relate to. She was talking about a woman named Katerina, who already knows a lot of the material and is helping other students.

“She’s nice,” Mom said, “and she really helped me get hold of some concepts I was struggling with. I just wish I didn’t know what I do about… well, her lifestyle.”

Grandma cocked her head. “Meaning?”

“Meaning she’s – um, maybe I shouldn’t talk about this with Mallory in the room.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not a little kid anymore, Mom.” I had a pretty good idea what this was about, and was starting to get kinda steamed.

Mom shifted uneasily in her chair. “Well, she’s… she has a partner, and it’s not a man.”

“So she’s a lesbian,” I said, struggling to keep my cool.

“Yes! I was surprised. She’s so nice, and helpful, and she seemed so normal…”

Normal. That’s the word that set me off. “So what?” I snapped. “You think lesbians are going to be bug-eyed freaks with horns sticking out of their heads or something? They’re just people, Mom.”

Mom’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I like your tone, young lady.”

I folded my arms, glaring. “Maybe I don’t like yours.”

Mom was just running away from feelings she couldn’t deal with. I know that now, and I feel terrible about the way things played out. But I couldn’t think straight right then. I was angry with Mom, but more than that… I was disappointed in her. Big time. I’m nearly positive that she’s secretly gay, so why, why, WHY did she have to say stupid crap like that? All I could think was how unfair she was being, and that just got me madder.

“Okay, girls, take it easy,” Grandma said in a soothing voice. “I think we can agree that lesbians can still be nice, helpful people, right?” She folded her hands on her lap and fixed her eyes on Mom, who looked away. “Why does it matter to you who she’s sleeping with, Sharon? Isn’t it enough that she’s helping you?”

“She’d rather put on her judgey face,” I huffed. “Katerina could dedicate her life to helping homeless people, and it wouldn’t matter because she’s gay.” I knew that I was overreacting, but couldn’t stop myself from blurting out, “Are you going to judge me too, Mom?”

Both my mother and grandmother were staring at me now, Grandma with a look of understanding, Mom with an expression that was something like horror.

“What – what do you mean?” Mom whispered, suddenly gone pale.

I looked at Grandma. “She’s acting all shocked,” I said, then turned back to my mother. “Remember what we talked about in the car that day, Mom? You already know I masturbate. Did you…”

“MALLORY!” Mom practically screamed. “Not in front of your grandmother. What has gotten…”

“I’m familiar with the practice, thank you,” Grandma broke in dryly.

“Did you ever stop to wonder what I think about while I’m doing it, Mom?” I spat out. “I have sex fantasies, same as you do. And guess what: they’re all about girls. Does that make me a bad person, like Katerina? Does it, Mom!?”

“STOP IT!” Mom cried, clapping both hands over her ears.

I’d spent weeks thinking about how I was going to broach this topic. I sure hadn’t imagined it would happen like this, with me getting mad because Mom was judging a perfectly nice person because she was gay. This wasn’t what I’d wanted at all.

Desperate to find a way out, I looked to Grandma. She was just sitting there with her hands folded in her lap, utterly composed, with a look of… was she smiling at me?

Tears were coursing down Mom’s cheeks, and suddenly the anger whooshed out of me. In its place was a sick sort of horror, way down in the pit of my stomach.

“I think that’s enough, Mallory,” Grandma said, speaking gently.

I knew she was right. I got out of my seat, crossed to Mom’s chair, and nestled myself into her lap. I put my arms around her, but she didn’t hug me back. Her body was stiff as a board.

“Mom?” I said, almost crying myself. “Please don’t be mad. I love you.” Finally she wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my hair, sobbing her heart out.

“Mallory,” she moaned, “Mallory, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

“Me, too, Mom,” I mumbled into her sweater, ashamed of myself.

We sat there for a long time. Grandma said nothing; just watched us from her rocker. After awhile she got up, taking the cordless phone into another room. She came out a few minutes later and replaced the phone in its cradle. Mom was still holding me, rocking back and forth a little, still sniffling.

“I just called your friend Emma’s mom, Mallory,” she said to me. “I’m thinking it’d be good for you to go spend some time with her while your mom and I talk. Sound good?”

It did sound good. I couldn’t help but feel guilty about the whole ugly scene, and needed something to take my mind off of it.

So Grandma drove me to Emma’s house, where we hung out for the rest of the afternoon. That was really nice. I think Emma sensed that something was wrong, but she didn’t ask me any questions, which I appreciated a lot. I wasn’t ready to talk about what happened just yet, not even to Julie.

Later, Mom picked me up, and we went back to Grandma’s house in time for supper. We didn’t really say much, but she greeted me with, “Hi, honey,” and kissed my cheek, so at least I knew we were okay again.

And when Mom tucked me in about half an hour ago, on the davenport in Grandma’s den (that’s where I’ve been sleeping while I’m here), she held me in her arms for a little longer than I expected.

“I won’t judge you, Mallory,” she said with tears in her voice. “I guess people can’t really help who they’re attracted to.” She sighed. “Sometimes in life, we find ourselves craving things. Things we’re told we shouldn’t want. Then you carry that need around, hiding it from everyone.” A long pause. “Mallory, what you did today took real courage. That’s what your grandmother thinks… and so do I.”

My ears perked up at that. I sensed a confession there, buried just beneath the surface. I was dying to know what she and Grandma had talked about.

Mom was still talking. “It’s just that I was brought up to believe that two women together like that is a sin,” she went on, “and I guess there’s still a part of me that believes it. You know what the Bible says, and we are still Christians…”

I gathered my courage. I’d hinted at this with her before, but it was time to say it directly. “I’m not a Christian, Mom. Not anymore. If there’s a God that makes me feel this way, and then tells me I’m evil because of it, it’s not a God I want to know. You go on believing whatever works for you, but you’ll have to count me out. I’m sorry.”

Mom squeezed me more tightly now, her chest heaving. I couldn’t see her face in the dark, but I knew she was crying again.

Finally she kissed me and slowly got to her feet. “Goodnight, sweetheart,” she said, and left.

 

January 21st, 2007

It’s Sunday night, and I’m at Julie’s house. Mom has to get up really early to get to class in Wadena tomorrow morning, and Dad… oh, I don’t even remember what his excuse was. Since Mom left, he’s completely checked out. I have an idea he’s drinking again.

Annamarie’s funeral was yesterday, then Julie and Lisa came back home this morning. Jason is staying up north for a few more days; I’m not sure exactly why. I came over after church, and am spending the night. Julie was exhausted when I got here, and I don’t just mean tired. I’ve never seen Julie with so little zest in her. Lisa wasn’t looking much better.

We spent the afternoon sitting around and talking. Actually, I did more listening than talking while Lisa and Julie unloaded about the week they’d spent in Bronning. Well, in the area of Bronning, at least. See, the original plan was for them to stay at Jason’s sister’s house, but the bad vibes there were so thick that it didn’t even last the first day. Jason put Julie and Lisa up in the closest hotel, which is about twenty miles away.

There’s still a lot of confusion about how the girls were taken, because Nettie Hastings won’t talk about it. At all. When anyone asks, she just clams up and starts shaking. They got her pneumonia taken care of, so she was released from the hospital on Thursday, but it sounds like she’s still really messed up.

Someone got the bright idea that it might help if she had her cousin there to hang out with, so Julie found herself in the bedroom Nettie used to share with her sister, surrounded by Barbie dolls and stuffed animals and all the other stuff girls our age have in our rooms. Nettie would pick up dolls or whatever else and go through the motions of playing the imaginative games Julie was trying to lead her through, but she never started anything herself, and mostly responded to Julie in one-word sentences. They tried this twice, with no improvement. Then on the morning of the funeral Nettie woke with fluid in her lungs, and got shuttled back to the hospital.

The funeral itself was a bad scene, to hear Lisa describe it. The dead girl’s parents were fresh back from getting Nettie settled in at the hospital, and they got into a shouting match in the lobby when Mrs. Hastings made a nasty comment to her husband about what happens when he let his no-good nephew watch their daughters. Mr. Hastings fired back that she’d been just fine with his nephew when it meant she got to eat lobster and clams at the club instead of looking after Nettie when she was sick and… yeah.

“There’s no sense to it,” Lisa said, her voice flat and lifeless. “It’s not his fault or hers. I think part of it is they both blame themselves, and are projecting it onto each other. Maybe they already had some marital problems before, and this is just aggravating old grudges… who knows? What I do know is that neither of them is going to be any use at all to Nettie right now, and she really needs a lot of help.”

The room fell silent for a moment, then Julie asked me if anything exciting had happened while they were away. I gave them a fast rundown on how the week had gone, doing my best to keep it light and positive-sounding. So I had to leave out the part about telling Mom I was gay, and how badly I’d messed it up… but I wasn’t ready to talk about that anyhow. Not even to Julie.

When I told them about my post-rehearsal conversation with Jamie, they perked up a little.

“That sounds like a positive development!” Lisa said with a giggle.

“You should have said something like ‘how about right now’,” Julie added.

“Oh, I thought about it,” I replied. “I went from zero to wet, like, lickety-split! I’ll bet everyone in the lobby was wondering where the smell of pussy was coming from. But I made you a promise. I’m gonna keep it.” She smiled and kissed my cheek.

I ended up making dinner. Nothing fancy, just spaghetti, but I couldn’t even have done that much a few months ago. The sauce was from a jar, but I added pulled pork, diced up some chili peppers, sauteed onions with mushrooms, and spent some time getting the seasonings just right. This is all stuff I learned from Julie. After dinner, we watched a movie.

Julie and Lisa were pretty wiped out after the drive, then the big meal, and they were pretty much collapsed by the time the movie was over. So I shoveled Julie into bed around seven, and Lisa turned in just a few minutes after. It’s around nine thirty, and I just spent a couple of hours practicing piano on Jason’s super-cool synthesizer.

It’s pretty weird to be at Julie’s house and basically have the place to myself. Aside from that, it just occurred to me that it’s the first time I’ve been here with no Jason, and we haven’t done anything sexy. I actually think that’s good. It’s nice to see that just being together is fun, even without anything kinky going on. Maybe that’s what love really is: you really want to fuck somebody, but you enjoy their company even when you’re not horny.

And with that Profound Thought from your Amazing Fount of Wisdom, Mallory Kalvornek, it’s time for bed.

 

January 26th, 2007

I’m spending the weekend at Julie’s house. It’s supposed to be my weekend with Dad, but he’s at some convention in Iowa having to do with fertilizer or pesticides or some other chemical thing. Jason came home late on Tuesday, but he’s driving back up to Bronning tomorrow morning. He’ll be back on Sunday, and he won’t be alone. I’ll get to that later on.

We wrote a song yesterday in rehearsal! I mean, we did the whole thing in one shot. There are some rough edges to knock off, but it’s mostly done. We’d burned through our three cover songs, no sweat; even “Destruction Preventer” went pretty good. Katie is still dragging a little on that one, but I think she’ll have it in a week or two.

Then Jason asked Jamie and I if we had any riffs. I’ve only recently learned what a riff even is, but I had come up with a couple of things. I was nervous about showing them off, so I said we should hear what Jamie had first.

We ended up using the first thing she played for us. She said it was something she’d written for one of Jason’s guitar lesson assignments. It was a super-catchy riff, and I instantly realized I could harmonize my keyboard with her guitar on the turnaround. I didn’t say anything, just did it when the part came around again. Jamie’s face split into a wide grin.

We just sat around and jammed on the riff for awhile, then Roger got an idea to alter it slightly for the verse. It was Katie’s idea to make the first half of the verse just guitar and kick drum, with the whole band coming in on the second half. She’s not at all like I thought when we met. I think she’s just the kind of person who hides in her shell until she gets to know you a little.

While all this was going on, Ralph was humming a tune into the microphone. After we’d played it a few times, Katie caught Ralph’s attention. “Is that the melody you want to sing?” she asked, sounding nervous.

“Sure, why not?” said Ralph.

“Hang on a minute,” said Katie. She snatched up a pen and started scribbling in her rehearsal notebook. When she finished, she held it out to Ralph with trembling hands. “I… I don’t know if this is any good,” she said. “But… um… I kind of have an idea for words to go with that tune. If it works, the song could be called “Ear in the Wall.” If it stinks… well… just tell me. I won’t be mad.”

As it turned out, it didn’t stink. At all. Katie’s lyrics were actually really cool. When Ralph sang them to the melody he’d come up with, we instantly knew we had something.

We struggled a little coming up with a chorus, and then it occurred to me that a regular chorus wouldn’t fit this song.

“We should break it down instead,” I said. I outlined the chord changes I had in mind on the keyboard, and Jamie broke into a wide grin.

“Little sister!” she said.

We ended up doing it that way, with Jamie playing those chords on her guitar and most of the band sitting out. While we were going through it I played a little melody that popped into my head, and Ralph ended up using it for his vocal line. Right then and there, Katie came up with some more lyrics to go with it.

We used one of the riffs I’d written for the bridge, and after the guitar solo we repeated that progression with Jamie and me harmonizing on a melody she came up with on the spot.

Jason just sat back and watched, saying nothing at all until we got through our first semi-successful runthrough of the whole thing. Then he stood up and clapped.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “never once, in all my years directing student ensembles, has a group of students written a song with zero input from me. And it’s fucking good, if you’ll pardon my French. It’s good enough to record.”

God, it felt great. Tossing those ideas back and forth and turning it all into a real piece of music was a tremendous high. I’m really starting to think that music is my thing. Maybe after this school year I’ll lay off the art classes so I can spend more time on it.

After rehearsal, Jamie and I made plans to get together tomorrow at her house to jam. She has the place to herself most of Saturday afternoon, and says she has all the equipment we need. I asked her if Julie could come along with me to listen in, and Jamie agreed.

I don’t know if we can make something happen with Jamie or not, but my gut says yes. I’ve learned to trust it.

Mom and I haven’t talked at all about what came up at Grandma’s house, not since that night. I feel like we need to, but it should wait until she and I have some alone time together. Right now, Mom’s really busy with school stuff, plus she’s moving into her new apartment next week.

Today after school, when we got to Julie’s house, Jason was on the cordless. He gave us a wave and a quick smile, then went upstairs with the phone.

He didn’t return for over an hour. Julie, Lisa, and I were hanging out in the living room when Jason came down the stairs. Lisa was saying something to us, and broke off in mid-sentence. “How bad is it?” she asked.

“It ain’t good,” he said. He rummaged in the wooden cabinet above the fireplace mantle, took out a bottle and poured himself a drink. Then he sank heavily into his recliner. “We need to talk.”

Julie cleared her throat. “Um, do me and Mal need to do the disappearing girl trick?”

Jason rubbed his chin. “No, you need to be here for this. Mal might as well stick around, too. She’s here often enough.”

Lisa looked a little afraid. “Jason, what is it?” Her eyes said she had a pretty good idea already.

“My sister just went inpatient,” he said. “She’ll be institutionalized for who the hell knows how long. Total mental break.”

I’d never heard of a mental break. I guessed it meant you went completely loopy.

“Oh, God,” said Lisa. “So what happens to Nettie?”

“It gets better,” Jason went on. “My bro-in-law was transported to the hospital Tuesday evening for alcohol poisoning, and just this morning he overdosed on trycyclics. Would have killed him, too, if someone had found him just ten minutes later. Nettie’s with her grandma on Darrell’s side for the moment, but that lady is simply too old and feeble to take care of her. The situation has a shelf life of days, at best.”

Lisa nodded slowly. “You’re thinking we could bring her here.”

“If it was just me, I’d already be on my way to get her,” said Jason. “It’s that or foster care. Oh, I suppose my mom would probably be willing to take her, but let’s be honest. I love my old man, but I can’t say I’m crazy about the notion of an emotionally fragile child living with him. I think even Mom would have to admit that it’s a bad idea.”

He blew out his breath. “But it’s likely to be damn hard. Nettie’s going to need a lot of care and attention. She’s already waking up with night terrors, and the shrinks think that’ll get worse before it gets better. She might act out in ways that could be really unpleasant. And depending on how well her parents do, this could be a long-term situation.”

“If you think we can handle it, then so do I,” said Lisa.

“Don’t forget that I’m going to be persona non grata for a big chunk of the next year, if we go through with our plans,” said Jason. “Medic school is going to take up a lot of my time, especially once clinicals get rolling. And you’re pregnant. Radical reduction in energy reserves in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.” He paused, took a sip from his glass. “Maybe it would be best for me to just push back school for a year if we’re doing this.”

Lisa was shaking her head vigorously. “No way,” she said. “I’m willing to have her here, and I still think you should go to school. We can make it work. But we need to hear what Julie thinks.”

Julie opened her mouth to speak, but Jason beat her to it. “Julie,” he said, “there are no wrong answers. You can veto this, and no one will think less of you. It won’t be your job to take care of her, but having her here isn’t going to be easy, and you’re my first priority… you have to be. Tell us what’s really on your mind, not what you think we want to hear.”

Julie shifted uneasily. “It’ll be hard,” she said, “but if we can help her, I think we should do it. It might be good for her to have me and Mal around, you know? We’re close to her age.”

Jason looked to me. “You’re not exactly part of the decision, Mallory,” he said, “but I’d like to hear what you think.”

Julie and I exchanged a look, and I could see my thoughts reflected in her eyes. It was going to make our private activities a lot harder to maintain. But what did that matter in the face of a real crisis? If this was handled right, Nettie Hastings might be able to find herself again and rejoin the land of the living. If it wasn’t, she might never recover.

I blinked, surprised at the turn my thoughts had taken. I recognized it as a terribly adult way to think, mostly logic and not much emotion. Counting the cost. It struck me that a time is coming, maybe not too far away, when I’ll think like that almost all the time. It was a little depressing.

“I think she needs a family,” I said slowly. “And I think… I think she’s not gonna get it from her parents right now. I have that problem sometimes, and…” I paused, not sure how to complete my thought. “I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is a great place to be for someone who needs a family, and I would know.”

“Oh, sweetie,” said Lisa.

“You’ve all helped me a lot,” I said. “I’ll bet you can help her, too. And maybe I can even help you help her. I mean, I’d like to try.”

Jason was leaning back in his chair, sipping his drink.

“There’ll be some things to sort out,” he finally said. “We have to get legal power of attorney for her medical care and stuff like that, but the people I was just talking to say that we can sort that out within twenty-four hours. We can probably even apply for and get foster status, and then the state will give us money for her care. I don’t really give a damn about that, but I won’t turn it down, either. And it can happen fast. Even going into the weekend, the social services people will expedite in situations like this, where time is of the essence. The lady I just spoke to said all I have to do is call her back, and she’ll meet me in Bronning tomorrow at a time of my choosing with papers ready to sign.”

“Sounds nice and easy, then,” said Lisa.

“But the rest of it sure won’t be,” said Jason. “So I just want to lay it out there one more time. If anyone knows of any reason we shouldn’t do this, speak now. I should point out that it’s not irrevocable. if she ends up being too much for us to handle, they can still place her somewhere.”

“I think you should bring her here, and we don’t even talk about sending her anywhere else,” said Julie.

Lisa was nodding. “Go get her, Jason,” she said.

On to Chapter Twenty-Two!