by Marina Cohen
Thirty
Her mother’s cheerful humming filled the kitchen, but it was no comfort to Hadley. This mother would be as much help as a wax mannequin or a cardboard cutout. Hadley had to get the eye. The eye was the key to all her misery.
It sat on the floor in her bedroom, staring at her. She picked it up carefully and examined it again. The pupil was black and dilated. The blue-gray folds of the iris were quite the opposite of Hadley’s deep brown. Did it belong to the old doll in the ravine? Had the old doll belonged to the girl who died?
Hadley looked toward the dollhouse, as though it somehow held the answers to her questions. She swallowed a baseball-sized lump. Her mother’s doll sat peacefully in the living room. Granny de Mone lay in the room above the garage. Her father’s doll was nowhere to be found. Slowly, she peered around the room, half expecting it to spring out at her from the shadows.
Hadley’s fingers tightened around the smooth glass eye before burying it in her pocket. She needed help to sort things out. But who could she turn to? Who was crazy enough to believe her story?
Hadley’s spine straightened. “Crazy,” she said out loud.
She grabbed a little red purse that hung in her closet and flung the strap over her shoulder. There wasn’t much money in it, but it was enough for bus fare to and from the city.
Blood beat hard in her ears as she fled down the steps. She took the last three steps at a jump and landed with a thud in the middle of the hall. The sound echoed through the whole house.
He stood at the far end of the hall. As the shape took form in Hadley’s mind, her lips parted and her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the sound.
The figure was twisted and mangled. One arm hung lower than the other. One knee was bent inward and the black suit was tattered and torn. It was like his body had been chewed up and spit out. Like it had been crushed by a garbage truck.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He took a jerky step toward her. His jaw swung back and forth, unhinged.
Hadley eyed the door. She turned to make a run for it, but it was as though she was waist-deep in mud. Her feet moved, and everything around her blurred, but the door didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Over her shoulder, she could see him limping steadily toward her.
She pressed forward, her muscles on fire, but before she could get halfway to the entrance, a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“Let go,” she growled.
Thrashing and twisting, Hadley managed to break free from his grasp, and though she plunged forward, the front door seemed to move farther away. She lunged for it again, but her foot slipped and she fell flat on the hardwood floor. He snatched her ankle and began dragging her backward a second time.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed, kicking wildly. “Get away!”
His grip tightened.
In the struggle, the eye slipped from her pocket. It rolled out, stopping an arm’s length from her face. Without thinking, she scooped it up, words exploding from her lips.
“I wish I’d never met you!”
Hadley’s feet kicked and scuffed at the wood floor. She stopped struggling and turned to discover she was alone in the hall.
Blood prickled through the veins in her leg. It was as hollow and numb as her other three limbs. Relieved that she still had control of her body, she scrambled to her feet and bolted through the door.
The sun melted through the trees, sprinkling beads of gold along the street. Hadley raced down the porch steps all the way to the curb. She stared back at the house and suddenly it looked like a giant face—the door was the nose, and the porch an enormous smile of white picket teeth. It grinned at her like it knew something she didn’t.
Thirty-one
Hadley wove briskly through the side streets until she finally emerged onto Brownsville Road.
The bus stop was crowded. One woman read a magazine. Several others checked their phones. A teenager listened to music with big white headphones. A plane flew low overhead, and in the distance, a siren blared.
In minutes a bus screeched to a halt. A cloud of noxious fumes exploded from the exhaust pipe. Hadley climbed aboard, paid her fare, and slumped into a window seat. The bus lurched forward and the landscape began to slip by. Houses and fields gave way to buildings, shops, and restaurants. It made Hadley feel like she’d been trapped in the old house on Orchard Drive far too long.
In no time, she arrived in the city. She wandered along the familiar streets until she reached her destination. As she stood on the sidewalk staring up at the brown bricks, she heaved a sigh of relief.
The building was a welcoming sight. She stepped through the glass door and into the foyer. She located the name on the index, then pressed the numbers, and a crackly voice burst through the intercom.
“Hello? Who’s there? Hello?”
“It’s Hadley. I need to see you.”
“Hello? I can’t hear you. Is someone there?”
“It’s me, Hadley,” she said, banging her fist on the speaker. The old thing never worked properly. “Can I come up?”
There was a pause and then the buzzer sounded. Hadley snatched the door and headed past the tattered foyer sofa toward the old elevators.
She hit the red up button and the metal doors slid open. Inside the elevator she noticed details she’d overlooked in the past—a crack in the fake wood paneling, an oily black stain on the ceiling, a chip in the plastic third-floor button. The imperfections were strangely comforting.
The hallway was dim, the brown-and-orange carpet worn bare in the center. She almost passed right by Grace’s apartment and headed straight into hers—but then she remembered she no longer lived there. The mysterious gnome-and-elevator-hating couple did.
Hadley halted short of Grace’s door, keeping well back in case any invisible gnomes happened to be lounging nearby. Extending her arm as far as she could reach, she knocked gently.
The door flew wildly open. Grace was a blur of color and energy. A crinkly golden skirt flounced beneath a peacock-blue blouse that was just a smidge too tight. Grace’s trademark beads swung like pendulums. Today, her Birkenstock sandals were flaming red. As was her hair. Classical music, something vaguely Vivaldi-ish, drifted into the hall.
At first she looked past Hadley, almost through her, as though Hadley were invisible. Then their eyes locked and a large smile seemed to envelop Grace’s entire face. She threw her arms around Hadley and squeezed so tight Hadley worried she might crack a rib. Grace released her and stepped back as though to get a more complete look. She peered left and then right, and though there wasn’t the least chance of anyone hearing, she leaned forward and whispered, “The gnomes are happy to see you.”
Grace took Hadley by the shoulder and yanked her inside. As she stood in the foyer looking on into the living room, it suddenly occurred to Hadley that in all the years she’d lived in the building, she’d never set foot inside Grace’s apartment.
The place smelled of gingerbread and old books. Tiny glass bottles that might once have contained perfumes or medicines dangled from the ceiling at various levels, like spiders from spun threads. Some were round, others square, and some even pyramid-shaped. They were as unusual and colorful as the beads around Grace’s neck.
Several bottles hung in front of the giant sliding glass door that led out to a balcony, while some were suspended in the archway between the foyer and the living space. Many swayed randomly throughout the apartment, tinkling together softly as though pushed by some mysterious undetectable breeze. Sunlight reflected off and beamed through them, casting a rainbow of colorful spangles on the walls and floor. Most bottles were open, but a few were sealed tight with corks.
“The bottles trick the demons,” said Grace, leading Hadley through the space. “Evil spirits are often confused by light and color.” She waved her beads and winked knowingly. “They enter the bottles thinking they are entering souls. I cap those quickly, trapping the spirits inside.”
Ha
dley nodded. “Good plan.”
With all the recent ripples in Hadley’s reality, it was comforting to see Grace hadn’t changed. Hadley stepped gingerly through the space, dodging and ducking the bottles—especially the corked ones.
Grace’s furniture and knickknacks were a jumble of tastes and styles. An Asian fan hung above a portrait of a young Queen Victoria. Dopey and Grumpy stuffies sat beneath a strangely angled lamp whose base was a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The coffee table was a giant slab of driftwood with a dainty embroidered chair on one side and a leather one in the shape of a giant baseball mitt on the other. Hadley sank deep into the glove chair, while Grace sat upright on the antique.
“What brings you here?” she said, her eyes bright and bulging behind her large lensless frames. “You look worried. And slightly constipated. I’ll get you some prune and acai berry juice.”
Before Hadley could stop her, Grace hurried off into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a bamboo tray carrying a staggering pile of cucumber and alfalfa sandwiches and a mug brimming with a purplish-brown liquid.
Hadley graciously accepted a sandwich. Together, they crunched loudly on the crusty brown bread and crisp cucumbers. Then Grace handed her a mug. “That’s it,” she said. “Go on and drink. You’ll feel better. And lighter quite soon.”
Hadley took a sip. The horridly sour liquid churned in her stomach. She made a face and put down the mug, gathering her thoughts.
“Now, tell me,” said Grace. “What’s troubling you?”
Hadley took a deep breath, and then, like a great dam had burst inside her, her story gushed forth in a giant frothy wave of words. There was no particular order to the events. She mentioned her real father, Ed’s disappearance, Isaac’s torn ligaments, her mother’s strange behavior, and the dollhouse she could not get rid of. She ended her incoherent rant by taking out the glass eye and holding it up to the light.
“I found this. It’s magic. I think it grants wishes.”
Grace leaned far back in her chair, placing as much distance as possible between herself and the eye, as though it were some kind of ancient evil. For the first time Hadley could remember, Grace frowned.
“I warned you,” she said quietly. “Wishes come with a cost.”
Her words stirred inside Hadley. “I know that now. But I didn’t know I was doing it at first. It all just seemed to slip so easily out of me and then, it, well, sort of spiraled out of control.”
Grace’s eyes crinkled with a hint of resigned sadness. “Yes. Wishes have a way of doing that.”
“So, you believe me, then?”
Grace looked Hadley firmly in the eye. “Of course. I believe you believe.”
Hadley deflated slightly. “That’s not the same thing.”
“Ah,” said Grace. “But it is. You see, there is no one giant hard-and-fast reality. Life is billions of minute and fluid realities bumping into each other and connecting for brief moments in time. Your reality is not mine. But then, mine is not yours. So yes—yes, I believe you because you believe you.”
It wasn’t the same thing, but Hadley decided it was the best she would get.
“Well then, do you think I can undo what I’ve done? Do you think there’s a way to get back what I’ve lost?”
The woman placed one foot across her knee, folded her arms and raised her chin. She looked like she was posing for a statue. She seemed to think for a very long time and then she said, “I’m not sure. Some things, I’m afraid, can never be undone.”
Hadley sank lower into the squishy leather glove as though the weight of the world were pressing her down.
Then Grace held up an aha index finger. “Though, perhaps,” she said, with a sudden cheerfulness that startled Hadley, “perhaps if you give something back. Perhaps if you give rather than take. That might be the answer. Do you know where the eye belongs? Could you return it to its owner?”
Hadley sat up straight. Her eyes grew saucer-wide. The old doll—the one Gabe had found. It was missing an eye. That’s where the eye belonged. Maybe if she returned the eye to the doll, she’d get back everything she’d lost. She nodded fiercely. “I think I might. If I return the eye, things might go back to the way they were. Back to normal.”
Grace stood. She placed a gentle hand on Hadley’s shoulder. “I dislike that word.”
“What word?”
“Normal.” Grace made a face as though she’d tasted something bitter. “What is normal depends on how you look at things. Like beauty, and love, and happiness—it’s all about perspective.”
“Huh?” said Hadley.
“Well,” said Grace thoughtfully. “If you believe someone is beautiful, then who is to tell you they are not? And if you believe you are happy, then aren’t you?”
Hadley thought about this for a second. Some people were perpetually miserable. Others always happy. It didn’t matter what was happening in their lives—some people just chose to be happy.
“So, if I believe I’m happy, I will be?” said Hadley.
“Exactly.”
Hadley stood. The Vivaldi music had ended. It was time to go.
“The gnomes—they like you,” said Grace. “They told me to tell you.” She took off her glasses. Her eyes seemed much smaller without the frames. Less bright. “They say you can stay here if you like. But if you choose to go back you must be careful. There are things out there. Terrible things. Things that will steal your soul and hold on to it forever.”
The warning sent tremors quaking up Hadley’s spine. Grace’s apartment was warm. It was kooky, but comfortable. Part of Hadley wanted to stay there and never return to the old house. But how could she leave her mother? She couldn’t abandon her and Ed and Isaac. She had to at least try to set things right.
Before she left the comfort of the gingerbread scent and the tiny tinkling of the glass bottles, she paused in the doorway. “If I should somehow, well … disappear … will you remember me? Will you come look for me?”
Grace reached for Hadley and gave her a tight squeeze. “I’ll send the gnomes.”
Thirty-two
Yellow clouds clotted the sky above, not so much gathering as growing and thickening in every direction. They blotted out the setting sun and seemed to be descending, closing in around the neighborhood.
Hadley stared at the house from the curb. She looked at it as if for the very first time. It was tall and majestic, yet whitewashed in a lazy sort of indifference that came with age. She had never noticed just how beautiful it really was. Elegant and lofty—the sort of house anyone would love to call home. Anyone who didn’t know its secret.
But Hadley did know. She knew there was more than wood and brick and mortar holding it together. There was something else—and it was evil.
Hadley clenched her fists and moved steadily toward the front door. A strange sense of peace welled within her—the kind of peace that came with purpose, with the simple knowledge of what must be done.
The foyer was dark. And cold. And the silence that greeted her was so thick and complete it was as though she’d entered a tomb.
“Mom?” she called. Her voice quivered slightly as it rippled through the stillness. “Are you there?”
The kitchen was empty. Not only was there no sign of her mother, the jars that usually lined the countertop were missing, as was the dish towel that had hung from the stove handle. Hadley opened the cupboards one by one and then the drawers—even the fridge. All were bare.
She searched the dining room next, and then the living room. All the while she called out, “Mom? Where are you?” Each room seemed emptier than the previous, the stillness spreading like black mold.
Where was her mother? Had she gone looking for Hadley? Where was all the food? All their household things?
A warning thudded in Hadley’s chest. She did her best to ignore it and pressed on. She needed to find her mother. She needed to tell her the whole story. Together they’d replace the eye. They’d get Ed and Isaac back
. And then maybe, just maybe, they could all leave the house forever.
Hadley climbed the steps. The door to her bedroom was ajar. Hadley could see the pink organza dress from the hallway. It lay across her bed as though it had been placed there for her to wear once again.
Anger churned inside her. That dress—that hideous dress. She burst into her room, snatched up the frilly pink fabric, and threw open her closet. The dress slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor. Her clothes were gone. They had disappeared along with everything else. The old furniture was intact, the furniture that had never quite belonged to her, but all her things, her unpacked boxes of junk, were missing. Even the dollhouse was gone.
“The dollhouse.” She gulped. She needed to find it.
Her heart beat wildly in her throat as she raced down the hallway and up the narrow steps leading to the attic. The old clutter lay under thick dust and yellowing sheets as though it had never been disturbed. Hadley flung one of the sheets aside and located the dollhouse. It was in the exact spot she’d first found it.
Her eyes flitted from room to room, searching each space. Nothing was unusual. Nothing had changed. Everything was in its place. And then it hit her. It wasn’t what was in the dollhouse but what wasn’t that sent an electric shock pulsing through her veins, zipping toward her heart.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the eye. Gabe. She had to find him, and quickly. She had to get the old one-eyed doll from him. She had to return the missing eye to it before it was too late.
Hadley’s arms and legs felt stranger than ever as she left the house and ran into the yard.
The yellowish mist had descended on the house and was growing thicker by the minute. It seemed to press down on her, making it harder and harder to breathe. Hadley couldn’t see beyond the property’s edge. It was as if the street, the trees, the other houses lay somewhere beyond the fog, just out of reach.
She stood at the edge of the ravine, fanning the air side to side. Each time she managed to move a bit of fog it was closed back in like curtains flopping back into place. “Gabe!” she cried. “Are you there? Gabe!” A river of relief washed over her when she heard his voice.