by John Saul
That Jennifer could rarely convince any of her friends to come to her house had stopped bothering her years earlier—she simply attributed it to the fact that she lived too far out of town.
But then, for her twelfth birthday, she had asked if she could have a party.
June had opposed the idea, sure that the mothers of Paradise Point would never allow their children to come out to the house, but Jennifer had, as always, gone to her father. Cal had overruled June, telling her that he thought it was time Jenny began having a social life.
And, when the party actually took place, and all Jennifer’s friends showed up, June began to think that maybe she had been wrong—maybe Paradise Point was beginning to forget.
Carrie Peterson looked curiously around the old house. She wondered, for the fourth time, why her parents had argued with her about coming out here. It seemed to her like a perfectly ordinary house. How could anybody believe the stories her parents had told her? Well, they were pretty old, Carrie thought, and old people had all kinds of funny ideas. She thought the house was great.
“Jenny, can I see the upstairs?” she asked. Jenny grinned at her.
“Sure. Come on.”
Leaving the party, the two girls climbed to the second floor. Jenny led Carrie down the hall to the large corner room she had moved into a year earlier. “This is my room.”
Carrie immediately crossed the room to sit on the window seat. She stared rapturously out at the sea and sighed happily, “I think I could stay in this room forever.”
“I know,” Jenny agreed. “But my parents didn’t want to let me have it. I had to argue, and argue.”
“Why?” Carrie asked.
“It was my sister’s room,” Jenny said.
“Oh” Carrie remembered all the stories she’d heard about Jenny’s sister. “She was crazy, wasn’t she?” she asked.
“Crazy?” Jenny asked, “What do you mean?”
Carrie looked at her curiously. “Well, Jenny, everybody knows your sister killed four people. So she must have been crazy, right? I mean, it’s either that, or you have to believe all the ghost stories, and who’s going to believe that old stuff?”
Suddenly Jenny realized why her mother hadn’t wanted her to have the party. Her mother had known. She’d known that the kids would come, and they’d look around, and then they’d start asking about Michelle. But Jenny didn’t want to talk about Michelle. She didn’t know very much about her, and what little she did know had never made very much sense.
“Can’t we talk about something else?” she said. But Carrie was not to be put off.
“You know, my mother didn’t want me to come out here today. She says this house does things to people. She says as long as it’s been here, it’s had a reputation, whatever that means. I guess it means this house makes people crazy. Do you think that’s possible?”
“It hasn’t made me crazy,” Jenny said levelly. Carrie’s prattle was making her angry, but she was trying not to show it.
“Yes, but you’re different,” Carrie said. “You were born on a grave. Now, that’s what I call creepy!”
“I was not born on a grave!” Jennifer said hotly. At least she was sure of this much. “I was born in the clinic, in my father’s office. Just because I started to come while my mother was in the cemetery, doesn’t mean I was born on a grave”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?” Carrie said. “Even though old Mrs. Benson always said it was a bad omen. And I guess she was right, wasn’t she? I mean, with Michelle killing her little boy, and all that?”
Jenny’s anger suddenly reached the boiling point “Carrie Peterson, you take that back! It’s a lie, and you know it. You take it back!”
Faced with Jenny’s wrath, Carrie’s expression turned stubborn. “I won’t,” she said. “I won’t, and you can’t make me.”
The two girls glared at each other, but it was Jenny who broke away first “I want you to go home,” she said. “I want you to go home, and take all your friends with you!”
“Well, I wouldn’t stay here another minute, anyway,” Carrie shot back. “Maybe mother’s right—maybe this house does make people crazy!”
She stamped out of the room. Jenny heard her going down the stairs, calling to all her friends. There was a momentary hubbub, and then she heard the front door opening and closing.
And, finally, silence.
Only then did Jennifer go downstairs.
June was standing in the hall, perplexed.
“What happened, sweetheart? Why did everyone leave so suddenly?”
“I asked them to,” Jenny said. “It was a crummy party, so I told them all to go home.”
June’s Bostonian breeding, her sense of propriety, a sense she thought she had left behind her years ago, came flooding back. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said sharply. “You were their hostess—if the party wasn’t going smoothly, you should have done something to make it right. Now I want you to go to your room, and think about it, then this evening you can call up every one of those children, and apologize. Do I make myself clear?”
Jenny stared at her mother. She’d never talked like this to her before—never in her life. And it hadn’t even been her fault—it had been Carrie Peterson’s fault! Hurt, Jenny burst into tears and fled up the stairs.
As soon as she got to her room, she saw the package.
It was sitting on her bed, wrapped in silver paper, with an immense blue bow on it.
Jenny frowned.
Why hadn’t she seen it before?
Then she figured it out. While her mother had been lecturing her, her father had slipped into her room and left it on the bed—a special surprise.
Jenny was grinning as she opened the package, and as she lifted the gift out of the box, her grin turned into a smile.
It was a beautiful doll—and old! Jenny realized it must be an antique, and wondered where her parents had gotten it. She’d never seen anything like it.
It had a blue dress, all ruffles and lace, and a perfect porcelain face, surrounded by dark curls held in place by a tiny bonnet.
Jenny hugged it close. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered. “You’re so beautiful.” Her hurt and anger completely dissipated by the gift, she rushed downstairs.
“Mom? Mom! Where are you?”
“I’m in the kitchen,” June called. “What is it?”
Jenny burst into the kitchen, and threw her arms around her mother. “Oh, Mother, thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you! It’s beautiful. Just perfect!”
Puzzled, June disengaged herself from Jenny’s arms.
“Well, I’m glad you like it,” she laughed. “But would you mind telling me what you’re talking about?”
“My doll,” Jenny cried. “My beautiful doll.” Then, as June stood looking at her in amazement, Jenny had an inspiration. “I know what I’m going to name her! I’ll call her Michelle! It’s such a beautiful name, and I’ve always wished Michelle and I could have been friends. She was beautiful, wasn’t she? With dark hair, and beautiful brown eyes? Ill bet the doll looks just like her! So now we can be friends. Oh, Mom, it’s just wonderful. Where’s Dad? I’ve got to find Dad, and thank him!”
And then she was gone, out of the house, searching for her father.
June stood quite still, trying to put it all together. A doll? What doll?
What was Jenny talking about?
Slowly, a thought beginning to grow in her mind, June left the kitchen and headed for the stairs.
It couldn’t be true.
She knew it couldn’t.
It was quite impossible.
But Jenny was going to name the doll Michelle.
June started up the stairs.
She paused at the door to Jenny’s room.
The room she hadn’t wanted Jenny to have.
But Jenny had insisted, and she had given in.
She opened the door hesitantly, and stepped inside.
The doll was on the be
d, and as she looked at it, June felt a scream build inside her.
She had burned the doll. She clearly remembered burning it, twelve years ago.
But it was there, and it was not burned, and its sightless, glassy eyes stared blindly up at June.
As the beginnings of panic began to grip her mind, a memory welled up inside her, a memory from her youth.
It was a bit of poetry, from Milton:
Comes the Blind Fury with th’abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
Very quietly, June Pendleton began to cry.