Orange Groves

Book excerpt: We all have secrets, every one of us. Some secrets are so precious we dare not lay them aside even for a moment, holding onto them tightly wherever we go, like the sound of trailing footsteps, as close as your own shadow. Then there are those secrets that forever haunt a place, intertwined with the soil, water, and buildings, and sometimes, even a few wild orange groves. Fleeing from such places is pointless; there is no escape- not really. Traditions are a sacred, sometimes too sacred, way of life in the South, invoked to purify or shroud all manner of sin. The murky waters of history surge with deep-rooted families and prominent citizens as if a part a great river, with currents, eddies, and backwashes. The sleepy town of Bedlam, located in rural Harrison County, Florida, is a place of such secrets. On the outskirts of town towers a high school. For three quarters of a century, it stood as a threshold of the wild orange groves beyond; but its days were numbered. After a politician's death and a notable act of God, the closing of Orange Groves High School becomes the harbinger of things best left undisturbed. For those that sit in the classrooms, or walk the halls, from teacher to student alike, it's not a time that would be easily forgotten. When the indulgences of the past catch up with the indulgences of the present, there comes a reckoning. Sometimes the past is only a few feet under the surface.