The Time of the Fireflies

by Kimberley Griffiths Little

  “That sounds ominous,” Miz Beatrice said, wringing her hands.

  Aunt Delphine shook her head. “Doesn’t have to be. You’ll just have to admire her from afar, sweet Dulcie, and keep on being the good girl you are. You’ll reap God’s blessings. I believe that with all my heart. Even when we live a hard life of endless work, you can be happy and contented inside. Will you remember that when I’m dead and gone?”

  Dulcie nodded soberly, blinking her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.”

  The three of them crossed the floor of the shack, and I hurriedly backed up and raced for the trees. The door creaked open. Footsteps tramped down the stairs and the three women crossed the lawns back to the house.

  My throat swelled up as Dulcie clutched the doll tight to her chest. Her face was next to Anna Marie’s cheek like she was whispering love into her ear. Like she knew she might never get to hold her treasure ever again.

  It was foolish, but I raced toward the house, following Dulcie and her mamma after they bid Aunt Delphine good-bye on the path to the banks of the bayou.

  I tiptoed up the porch steps and accidentally brushed one of the rocking chairs, setting it in motion. The chair creaked back and forth and I stood stock-still, hoping nobody would hear it.

  The back door had lace curtains on the inside, but when I cupped my hands against the glass I couldn’t see anybody in the hall. Gently, I turned the knob and slipped inside. Sometimes I couldn’t figure out if I was the ghost or they all were. The memory of Miss Anna reaching through decades of time to touch me with her fingers haunted me.

  I was walking into somebody’s house that didn’t even exist anymore — or did it exist in another dimension? The family was all dead now. This wasn’t real anymore, right? But reality kept doing very strange things.

  The air smelled like lemon oil and roses.

  An antique table and hat rack gleamed with fresh polish to my left. Except they weren’t antiques. They were brand-new in 1912. I peeked into the sitting room. Cushiony sofas and settees were arranged in cozy groupings. Tables with Victorian lamps and lace doilies. A baby grand piano positioned inside the bay window overlooked a rose garden. Pathways of stone and wrought-iron benches sloped down to the lawn.

  All at once, footsteps treaded softly on the carpeted stairs. Voices came from the foyer. Hugging the wall, I crept forward.

  Every day of my life I’d seen that antique doll in her glass case. Her icy blue eyes following me, as though she was deliberating something — or planning her next move. Those eyes had imprinted on my brain. And now I knew she had come from the Island of the Dolls with a soul. A soul that had the potential for evil. No wonder she always gave me the creeps.

  Goose bumps crawled up my neck as I remembered all the times Anna Marie seemed to be alert and aware of me. Times I’d have sworn she had moved just a little bit. It was all real. She was real. Something inside her was watching me and thinking and cursing my family for more than a hundred years.

  Now I knew why I was here. Why I was a witness to five generations of tragedy and heartache. The doll was still in my family. The curse was alive and well.

  I shivered. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t get stuck in 1912. Arrested for trespassing or hauled off to jail. Or worse.

  Miz Beatrice harrumphed as she and Dulcie came around from the kitchen and headed for the stairs. I dove under the stairwell. “Now let’s get this doll back into Miss Anna’s doll case before we’re both kicked out of this house. Gotta get supper going, too. It’s so hot I’m taking the easy way out tonight. Cold leftover ham and salads. Hope T-Paul didn’t eat that last lemon icebox pie I saved for tonight.”

  Their voices faded as they thumped their way upstairs, skirts swishing.

  My palms were sweating as I slinked around the corner, stepping light as a whisper up the carpeted steps. On the second-floor hall, closed doors lined the walls. One opened door revealed a bedroom and an adjoining bathroom that was fancier than I expected, with a tub and sink and decorative tile on the floor.

  Up another half landing, a maid rushed past, her arms full of clean sheets. She didn’t glance down to see me sneaking past a table full of fresh-cut roses ready for arranging in a huge vase, which was a stroke of luck.

  I ducked down when Miz Beatrice glanced over her shoulder. As soon as Dulcie and her mother entered the bedroom, I leaped across the hall and peeked through the open door.

  They were standing in Miss Anna’s bedroom. All done up in pink chintz and flouncy drapes. A vanity table was piled high with hairbrushes and toiletries.

  Miz Beatrice stroked the doll’s delicate pink silk dress. “She is certainly the nicest thing you ever did possess, my girl.”

  Dulcie’s eyes watered. “Mister Edgar gave it to me, fair and square,” she said wistfully.

  “I’m sorry to say, you’ll probably never own anything else quite like it. And we’ve been loyal, hardworking employees.”

  “Miss Anna’s got so many dolls.”

  “That she does,” Miz Beatrice agreed.

  Miz Beatrice took a key out of her skirt pocket and quickly opened the lock to the doll case. Slowly, Dulcie placed Anna Marie next to a row of glamorous dolls decked out in satins and jewelry. I felt a pang of loss myself.

  “She’s so busy riding her new pony, she pays no attention to her doll collection,” Miz Beatrice added. “How many does one girl need? She’s got at least three dozen. And you with nary a one to your name now.”

  The next moment, Dulcie was quietly sobbing. “She’s so beautiful, Mamma!”

  I still recalled the look of pure joy on her face and the thrill in her eyes when Uncle Edgar gave Dulcie the doll.

  Miz Beatrice’s voice was strained. “Don’t keep fretting, my girl. Life ain’t fair, but you can hold your head high. We’ve done nothing wrong by showing her off to your great-aunt Delphine. I suppose it’s a bad thing to admit, but I’ll secretly laugh if the doll refuses to let Miss Anna hold her. Maybe the porcelain will stick to the shelf like glue. Serve her right when she took her from you in front of everyone at the party, then traipsed off to the trees, giggling.”

  “Mamma?”

  “Yes, Dulcie?”

  “Did you see Miss Anna’s face when she came back from the woods that day?”

  I froze behind the door. She was talking about the same afternoon Anna saw me hiding in the shrubbery and touched me.

  “Her face was so white I’d-a sworn on a Bible she’d seen a ghost!” Miz Beatrice burst out. “Well, maybe she did. Maybe that doll’s ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ or whatever is already alive and playing tricks on her!”

  “Maybe so,” Dulcie said quietly, wrapping a finger around Anna Marie’s glossy curls as she sat on the shelf.

  “Time’s up, my girl,” Miz Beatrice said briskly. Striding across the room, she locked up the doll case and tucked the key into a small drawer that pulled out of a jewelry box. Dulcie stared daggers at the jewelry box and her anguish seemed to radiate. “Come on, Dulcie,” her mother told her. “If we don’t leave now, Sarah will see us when she comes down from doing up the master’s bedroom.”

  Dulcie’s eyes filled with tears as she blew a kiss to the doll, and then brushed a final finger along the glass case. “Good-bye,” she choked out.

  An ache pressed deep in my chest like I had a hundred-pound weight on me. Quick as I could, I tiptoed down the staircase, slipped out the back door, and ran for the trees. I was moving so fast, I fell straight into a big bush and collapsed. Rolling over, I gazed back at the house, breathing hard.

  My brain was going a hundred miles an hour with so many wild thoughts as sweat trickled down my face. The doll was cursed. The doll was at every scene of tragedy in my family for five generations. She’d cursed every one of us. Even the day I’d fallen into the bayou — because I had a secret I’d never told my parents — not even Shelby Jayne.

  I’d taken Anna Marie out of the doll case that day. Stolen the key from my mamma’s purse, opened the lock on the g
lass case, and put her in my backpack before school. I’d been mad at Mamma for never letting me look at her. Never letting me play with her. Always saying no. Always being grumpy and sad and ornery.

  The doll had been with me the day I fell off the bridge and gouged up my face forever.

  Now, at this very moment, the doll was with Mamma. For some reason, she’d taken her when she left the house yesterday. What Mamma didn’t know was that the doll was dangerous. That the doll might try to hurt her. Or even kill her.

  Not only could the doll’s curse hurt Mamma, but my baby sister who wasn’t even born yet. I felt a whimper in the back of my throat. A terrible realization dawned on me.

  Miss Anna had lost her daughter, Daphne. Then lost her own life in the fire.

  Grandma Kat had almost been killed in the mansion fire. Then she lost her daughter Gwen.

  If not for Alyson saving me, I had come dangerously close to drowning.

  There was a pattern. I had to find Mamma and stop the doll — before history repeated again with a new and terrible tragedy.

  I was almost certain Mamma was the next target — along with my unborn baby sister.

  When I climbed out of the bushes and dusted myself off, Dulcie was standing right in front of me, staring at me with her dark brown eyes. “Who’re you?” she whispered.

  My throat turned bone dry. “Um.” Nothing else would come out.

  Dulcie rubbed at her head with her thin fingers, clearly puzzled. The faded calico dress she wore had probably been washed two hundred times. She’d taken off her white work cap, and black curls surrounded her heart-shaped face. “You ain’t got hardly any clothes on,” she added.

  I tugged at my shorts and tank top. “Um, I guess so.”

  She gave me a small smile. “’Course, it’s so hot, you’re probably cooler than me. But your mamma lets you out of the house lookin’ like that?” She folded her arms across her chest, her voice rising in a thick accent.

  I couldn’t help being happy around her, and her smile deepened right back at me. Another day, a different time, and I think we’d have made friends right then and there.

  Dulcie lowered her voice. “Why are you here on the island? I was standing at the upstairs hall window when I saw you running across the grass.”

  “I’m — I — it’s hard to explain,” I finally said. “But it’s a matter of life and death.” Unexpectedly, my words echoed those of the girl on the phone.

  She listened to me thoughtfully, sadness behind her eyes, but curiosity, too. “Are you magic? A witch?”

  I shook my head. “Neither. But one day my mamma’s gonna live in that house. And right now, I’m looking for her, and I thought she might be here. Because she’s in danger.”

  Dulcie bit at her lips, nodding as though she understood. “I’m sorry.”

  “Because of your doll,” I added in a low voice.

  “What are you talkin’ about? How could your mamma be in danger because of my doll — I mean Miss Anna’s doll?” She made a face, and then her eyes welled up.

  “You love that doll, don’t you?” I asked softly.

  She sucked in her breath. “’Course I do. I’ll love her until I die. But how do you know about the doll?” She reached out to jab me with her finger — before I could stop her.

  “Ouch!” I said as she poked me hard. Instantly, I fell over and hit the ground, the world spinning like a roller coaster. I lay there, staring up through the limbs of the cypress, until the dizziness stopped. When I scrambled to my feet, Dulcie was gone. The plantation mansion was gone, too. In its place stood the neglected moldy house rebuilt after the fire.

  I was back in my own time at last. Fast as I could, I raced toward the house. I was positive now that Mamma was here. It was the first place I thought of after I talked to Grandma Kat.

  But after running in and out of every room and up and down the staircase, there was no sign she’d ever been there. I’d been so sure! Now what should I do?

  I slammed the rickety front door shut and hurried down the path to the bayou. Mamma couldn’t have come across the water. There was no boat at the dock and no fireflies for her. There was no boat and no fireflies for me now, either. I was stuck.

  A moment later, I noticed a faint outline of footsteps next to mine on the dirt path. The trees shaded the path just enough that the ground stayed damp when it rained. I studied the prints, then put my foot next to one to compare. Slightly bigger. Not a man’s footprint, but a woman’s size. Wearing sandals. They had to be Mamma’s. So she had come out here, but where was she now?

  All at once, Alyson Granger emerged from the trees. That girl had followed me. I just knew she would! I took a good look at her feet, but she was wearing sneakers like I was, which made a completely different print in the damp dirt than the suspicious ones I’d just been studying.

  For once I was grateful to see her, elated even. And she had Beau, the German shepherd, with her.

  “One of these days, Larissa Renaud,” Alyson said as she led me around the curve of the island to where she’d hidden her brother’s rowboat and we climbed inside. “You got some explaining to do.”

  Beau licked my hand as he sat on the floor of the boat and panted, his tongue lolling out of his mouth. “There’s one more place I plan on going,” I told Alyson straight out. “And you can’t come with me. It’s private.”

  She pulled on the oars, her expression serious. “Can I come some other time?”

  “Maybe,” I said, trying not to look at her so I wouldn’t change my mind. “Well, probably,” I added, thinking about how she’d saved my life. Guess I owed her enough to be nice to her. This was the second time she’d rescued me from the deserted island when the fireflies had disappeared.

  After Mamma was found, the doll’s soul destroyed, and my baby sister safe, I’d find Alyson Granger and talk to her like a real person. Maybe even like a friend.

  As soon as the boat bumped the shore, I jumped out, tossed the line around a piling, and yelled, “Gotta go!”

  “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Yep! And don’t follow me, okay?”

  I could sense her eyes on my back as I ran, not toward town, but in the other direction. To Bayou Bridge Cemetery.

  I was scared and I was elated. I knew Mamma might go to the deserted house on the island — and I was right. Had she slept there overnight? I wondered. Was she scared? I couldn’t figure out why she’d stayed out all night, or why she hadn’t returned home. Didn’t she realize we’d be worried sick?

  As soon as I got to the cemetery gates, fresh chills crawled along my arms. Dusk settled, shadows filling the corners. Night was coming on. I didn’t want to be here, but I had to come, even if it meant finding Mamma sleeping among the tombstones.

  Now where was that grave? I’d only been here once before — on Gwen’s birthday with my mother almost a year ago. We’d brought flowers. Daisies and yellow roses, which Mamma said had been Gwen’s favorite.

  Following the winding paths as the graveyard sloped down toward a copse of trees by the water was the older section of the cemetery. The part of the graveyard that was full. A minute later, I spotted a pair of stone angel wings peeking out from behind a granite family tomb circled by a small wrought-iron fence. Some other family had been buried together inside that fence decades ago, but Gwen was on the outside, alone, by herself. Being here made me melancholy. I could only imagine how it made Mamma crazy inside her heart.

  I reached the angel and touched the cold stone, gazing across the sloping grass hills and headstones. She was nowhere in sight and I felt like bawling. I was so sure she’d be here. That Mamma would come to her sister’s grave — because the doll had once belonged to Gwen.

  “Oh, Mamma!” I whimpered. “Where are you?”

  Darkness expanded, wind tore through the trees, and my knees dropped into the tall, uncut grass. Goose bumps prickled my arms as I watched the sinking orange sun.

  Gwen’s grave was long pas
t twenty years old now.

  The doll had cursed her and killed her. And then it struck me. If it weren’t for Alyson Granger, I’d be dead, too. Alyson had defied the curse, had hung on to me with all her might so I wouldn’t drown. Suddenly, I had a whole lot of questions to ask the sheriff’s daughter, my archenemy, who wasn’t my enemy any longer. An extraordinary realization.

  I peered at Gwen’s name, the dates of her birth and death. Mamma had grieved for her older sister since she was nine years old. I choked back a sob. I was the big sister now, and I had a little sister to save. A sister I hadn’t even met yet.

  The only way to save her was to defy the curse. Defy the doll’s malevolent soul from the Island of the Dolls. The Normand, Prevost, Moret, and DuMonde tragedies were going to stop with me. No Renaud tragedies, if I could help it. I didn’t want Mamma or my little sister buried here next to Gwen.

  Tears burned my throat as I thought about Grandma Kat, who had never known her mother. She was horribly scarred trying to save her wheelchair-bound grandmother and then barely saved herself as her family’s home was destroyed. Later, she lost her daughter. How did my grandmother survive so much? How could she still be happy? All of a sudden I wished she was with me right now.

  I was circling the angel, searching for clues, when my foot sank into a freshly dug hill of earth to one side of the gravestone. My heart thudded so loud, my ears popped. I yanked out my foot, shook off the dirt, and then dropped to my knees, shoveling dirt away fast as I could. Underneath the earth about twelve inches was a bulky item wrapped in a blanket.

  “What is this?” I muttered. Snatching up the bundle, I quickly unwrapped the cloth. Inside was the doll, Anna Marie. I was so shocked, I nearly dropped her.

  She was in perfect shape. Not a mark or grass stain on her. “Mamma?” I whispered, darting glances around the graveyard. I was terrified of who, or what, might hear me.

  Then my brain clicked. “You need the doll … it’s got the last clue….”