Rag Doll in the Attic

by Jan Fields

  “Murdoch,” Alice said, giving a pretend shudder of fear. “Believe me, he was even scarier on a stormy night. I thought I would die of fright when he came roaring off the porch of the lighthouse keeper’s cottage, shining a flashlight in everyone’s eyes and ranting like a crazy person. Some of the guys managed to run off, but he caught me and called my folks. Honestly, by then, I was just glad he didn’t kill me with an ax. I was grounded for a month, but everyone at school thought I was fearless.”

  “As I remember, you pretty much were,” Alice said, then she turned and gestured across the attic. “We have the tea set. Do you think it’s worth poking around for anything else?”

  “Sure,” Alice said. “It’ll be fun. Besides, I don’t want to waste my attic-adventuring outfit. Point me at boxes that remain unopened!”

  4

  Annie slipped between the neat rows to where the attic still looked a bit jumbled. Cardboard boxes tied with twine were stacked two or three high, and a few old trunks stood behind the stacks of boxes, sometimes with a smaller box or two sitting on their lids. “It’s pretty easy to see what parts I haven’t reached yet,” she said.

  “Let’s start with a trunk,” Alice said. “They always make me think of ocean voyages and foreign lands.”

  “I don’t know that I would count on finding anything that exotic,” Annie said, as she lifted a twine-bound box from the top of a small brown trunk. They knelt in front of the trunk as they hauled it open. A puff of dust wafted off the lid, making Annie sneeze.

  The trunk had a top tray that held delicate baby clothes wrapped in tissue. Each tiny dress was trimmed in some kind of needlework, bits of crocheted lace on one and delicate embroidery on another. “What beautiful work!” Alice exclaimed, gently lifting a tiny polka-dot dress that featured a row of circus animals marching across a band of smocking.

  Annie nodded. “It could be Gram’s. She told me she’d tried a lot of different kinds of needlework before she settled on cross-stitch. Maybe she tried most of them while she was pregnant with my mom.”

  “If she did,” Alice said. “She must have been good at everything!”

  “That sounds like Gram,” Annie responded as she gently folded the dresses back up in the tissue and laid them in the trunk. “I don’t know whether to frame them or hope for another granddaughter.”

  “You might want to give LeeAnn a vote in that,” Alice said. “Seems like she has her hands full with the twins. I know the very thought of twins is enough to give me nightmares!”

  “I can’t imagine how she does it sometimes.” Annie lifted out the tray and began sorting through a layer of old books underneath. “But she’s very capable. I think she took after Gram in that way.” She held up a book. “The Secret Garden. This is a beautiful copy. Someone took good care of it. Do you suppose the library would like some old kids’ books for the display?”

  “Maybe, though Valerie may already be planning to use books from the library in the display. We could set them aside just in case and ask her.”

  Annie nodded and put the books off to one side. At the bottom of the trunk, she found a long, narrow box and lifted it out. Another book had been wedged between the box and the back of the trunk. It tumbled to the bottom when Annie lifted the box. She reached down between two other boxes and snagged the book by the corner. Then she added it to the pile. The box she’d removed looked almost like a flower box, but the cardboard was thick and stained, and the box was wrapped in loop after loop of twine.

  “Wow, that looks like someone was afraid something inside was going to escape,” Alice said with a laugh.

  “Oh, thanks,” Annie said, setting the box down quickly. “That’s a creepy image. I don’t think I would enjoy finding a chipmunk mummy or some other dead critter inside.”

  “Aren’t we going to open it?” Alice asked, picking the box up and turning it over in her hands. Inside something shifted with a rustle and soft thud. “You don’t want to pass up a mystery do you?”

  “I don’t know. Do you think it might be something dead? I’ve had a lot of mysteries in the past months. I thought I might go with a nice quiet week or two.”

  “Wimp,” Alice said, grinning. She shifted the box again. “I don’t suppose you brought scissors or a knife up here with you?”

  Annie shook her head. “We could take it downstairs.”

  “No. If it turns out to be boring, I want to look some more.” She brought it closer to her face to look over the knot on the underside of the box and began picking at it.

  While she wrestled with the knot, Annie put the tray back in the trunk and closed the lid. Then she gathered up the books and carried them over to the maple dressing table so she would know where to find them if the librarian showed an interest.

  “Got it!” Alice crowed after a few minutes. She unwrapped the string and held out the box. “Do you want to do the honors?”

  “After your remark about something being trapped in there?” Annie said, holding up a hand. “Be my guest.”

  Alice pulled the lid from the box. Inside, a slightly tattered rag doll lay in a nest of newspaper. “Oh, my,” Alice said. “Who would wrap a doll in newspaper? The ink has made her dress even grubbier.”

  “A child might,” Annie said as she walked over to look closely at the doll. It had thick black wool hair and a sweet embroidered face with black button eyes. The muslin face was stained, showing where the black dye of the wool had run slightly onto the fabric. “Looks like the doll got wet. You know, there’s something familiar about this doll.”

  “Maybe it belonged to your mother,” Alice suggested.

  Annie stared into the doll’s scuffed button eyes and shook her head. “My mother wasn’t a doll girl. Gram used to talk about that like it was some kind of affliction. I think she would have loved to fill my mother’s room with dolls.” Anne bit her lower lip gently between her teeth as she looked over the doll’s old dress. “This is handmade. Why would someone go to that kind of trouble for a girl who didn’t like dolls?”

  Alice shrugged. “Maybe it was made by a relative. Sometimes they can be kind of clueless. Do you remember the honeybee pinafore Nana Muriel made for me when I was twelve?”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember,” Annie said, laughing at the memory. “Your mother insisted you wear it for the Fourth of July picnic to show respect for you grandmother.”

  “I would have worn it,” Alice said. “If I hadn’t fallen down the front-porch steps right as we were getting ready to leave, and I got that terrible grass stain on it.”

  Annie burst out laughing. “As I remember, you fell down and then rolled yourself halfway across the front lawn before your Mom came outside.”

  “What can I say?” Alice said primly. “I was a clumsy child. Honeybees, ugh!” She shuddered, and then burst into giggles. The two women laughed until they were gasping.

  Holding the doll, Annie stood up. “Well, I’ll consider putting it in the display, but I don’t think it was my mother’s. It’s not like the honeybee pinafore. Clearly this doll saw a lot of loving and cuddling.”

  “Hey, I cuddled the pinafore in my own way,” Alice said as she walked back to the dressing table and picked up the box with the little tea set. “This makes two toys; that’s probably enough.”

  Annie nodded absently as she followed Alice down the attic stairs. She carried the doll to the table in the kitchen and propped it up beside the tea-set basket. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Sounds like the perfect gloomy-cold-day drink,” Alice said. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring a snack to go with it. I have another new muffin recipe that uses blueberries, lemon and almonds.”

  Annie carried a tin of shortbread to the table to go with their dark English tea, perfect for chasing away the cobwebs that seemed to be in her head lately. “You don’t always have to feed me,” she said with a smile. “But if you want to bring over some muffins sometime, I won’t resist.”

  “I knew you’d like the sound of those. So what do
you think of our new mystery lady?” Alice gestured toward the doll. The dull light coming through the kitchen windows cast a shadow over the doll’s face, making her embroidered smile seem melancholy. “Maybe it was Betsy’s?”

  “I don’t think it looks old enough to have been Gram’s. It’s nicely made though. Someone put a lot of time into it.”

  “Except this part,” Alice pointed to a ragged bit of stitching on the doll’s apron. “Is that a bird? It looks like it was done by a little kid.”

  Annie lifted the doll and looked at the apron. Faded blue stitching on the apron did look like a bird if you added a lot of imagination. “I think it is a bird. A bird with a pointed head.”

  Alice laughed. “Poor bird. So we don’t think it belonged to Betsy or your mother. You know what that means.”

  Annie looked up at her friend’s wide grin and shook her head, trying to ward off the inevitable. “A mystery!” Alice announced.

  5

  Annie didn’t have time to scold Alice for the “m” word, because the women heard a knock at the front door. “I’m so popular lately,” Annie said as they walked to the door.

  They found Wally Carson grinning sheepishly at them through the screen door. Annie knew he was scrambling to catch up on a number of handyman jobs that had piled up after he’d broken his arm the previous summer. She hadn’t really had him back to Grey Gables since they’d dealt with the mice and all the chewed-up wiring. She loved the careful work Wally did, but she knew Wally’s handyman skills were much sought after, and Annie didn’t want to be greedy. Plus, if she were totally honest, she needed a little break from hammering and painting. Wally had been a lifesaver when she’d arrived in Stony Point and seen how much Gram’s house had fallen into disrepair, but he’d done so much that she thought they could both take a bit of a break.

  The old house felt more like a home again and less like a project because of all the things Wally had done for her. Still, she wondered if it might be wise to make up a list of possible spring and summer projects so she wouldn’t end up last in line for the busy handyman’s time. “Did you spot something I need to have mended?” Annie asked with a smile.

  “In a way,” Wally said, backing away from the door and gesturing toward a spot on the porch they couldn’t see. Annie slipped through the door and saw a wicker chair with a lovely striped cushion that matched the other chairs on the porch. “I didn’t get a chance to work on that chair you bought at the charity auction last year before I broke my arm, and then I’ve been tied up with that cabinet installation job and trying to catch up on things people needed. Anyway, your chair has been sitting in my workshop, and I totally forgot about it.” He grinned again. “Sorry about that. It’s good as new now, though. Just in time for the weather to warm up so you can enjoy it. And Peggy made the cushion to help make up for how long you had to wait.”

  “That does help cushion the blow,” Alice said.

  Annie and Wally both groaned together at Alice’s horrible pun, making her friend laugh. “Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t help myself!”

  “Well, the chair looks lovely,” Annie said as she stepped closer to look at it. She walked in a full circle around it and couldn’t spot any of Wally’s mending. It looked perfect. “I thought I’d made a huge mistake when I accidentally bought a three-legged chair, but you did a wonderful job. You’re amazing.”

  “I told you that you got a great bargain,” Alice said.

  “As I remember, you told me that I’d gotten caught up in auction fever.” Annie turned back to Wally. “You’ve probably saved me from a lot of teasing with your gorgeous work.”

  Wally blushed a bit at the praise. “I wanted to do a good job for you. You’ve done a lot for us since you came to town.”

  “And you’ve done a lot for Grey Gables,” Annie said, gesturing at the house. “You’ve really brought this old Victorian back to the way Gram would have wanted it.”

  Wally had worked steadily on the house ever since Annie arrived back in Stony Point, right up until he’d fallen out of a tree and broken his arm. Annie’s few attempts at home repairs during his healing made her all the more grateful to have such an excellent handyman. And she liked knowing she was helping out his family. She loved Peggy and their adorable princess-loving daughter.

  “It’s been good to have the work.”

  As Annie slipped inside to get her wallet, Alice said a quick goodbye since she needed to prepare for one of her jewelry parties. “Don’t take that doll to the library until everyone sees it at the Hook and Needle meeting,” she called out to Annie. “Stella might recognize it. Or someone else.”

  “You just want to turn it into a mystery,” Annie scolded as she carried the check back out to Wally.

  “We all love a good mystery,” Alice agreed with no sign of remorse. She waved at both of them and trotted down the porch steps.

  Having Alice around is like reconnecting with a lost sister, Annie thought with a smile, as she watched her friend hurry out to her flashy Mustang convertible. Somehow Alice always looked totally at home in that car, with the wind blowing her auburn hair. Annie couldn’t imagine driving something so attention-getting.

  “Thank you,” Wally said as she handed him the check for the work on the chair. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.”

  “I will,” Annie agreed. “Are you still putting in some time on Todd Butler’s lobster boat?”

  “On and off when they need the help,” Wally said as he pushed back a heavy lock of dark hair. “He’s got a sweet boat.”

  When Wally left, Annie walked back into the house; she thought about the talented handyman’s longing to be a fisherman. She wished she could just give Wally the money for a boat of his own. Even though Wayne had provided well for her, she was far from wealthy. Still, she knew how he longed to be out on the water. He came from a fishing family that had fallen on hard times. She wondered how Peggy would feel about Wally going out to sea with his own boat. Lobster fishing wasn’t exactly like an episode of Deadliest Catch, but anytime you’re out on the water, you run risks.

  “I’d make a terrible fairy godmother,” she decided. She’d constantly be second-guessing whether she’d made someone’s life better or just more complicated. As she walked into the kitchen to grab a second cup of coffee, she immediately noticed the rag doll was missing from the table.

  “Oh no!” Annie froze. She’d had people creep into her house more than once since arriving at Grey Gables, and she’d even had her car broken into. It was one reason she was less than excited about the idea of a new mystery. And now the doll was missing. Did she have someone new creeping around the house? Usually the stalkers waited until she’d told someone about the mystery!

  She looked under the table, but the doll hadn’t simply fallen onto the floor. Goose bumps crept up her arms as she wondered if the thief could still be in the house with her. She walked quietly across the kitchen and pulled open one of the deep drawers and looked inside for a possible weapon. A solid rolling pin looked like the best choice, so she slipped it quietly out and silently pushed the drawer closed.

  Then as she turned back into the room, she spotted a flash of movement near the floor out of the corner of her eye. Boot’s tail twitched from where the cat had crept between the end of the counter and the wall. Had the burglar frightened the cat? That didn’t seem likely since Boots had turned into a fuzzy ball of claws and temper when she’d had a thief in the house once before. “Boots,” she whispered. “Boots!”

  The chubby cat actually growled from her tight confines, and Annie suddenly felt a bit suspicious. What if this theft was an inside job? She opened the drawer again, this time fishing out the heavy flashlight Gram always kept there, and returning the rolling pin with a shake of her head. All this mystery talk was making her jumpy again.

  Annie flashed the light into the narrow gap between the cabinets and wall. She caught sight of dark yarn hair and a pale muslin face, then the flash reflected off the cat
’s eyes as Boots huddled over her prize. “Boots!” she said. “You come out of there with that doll.”

  Boots responded with another growl. What had gotten into that cat? No amount of coaxing could get Boots to come out of her corner and tugging lightly on her tail had resulted in such a fierce growl that Annie decided not to repeat the gesture.

  She finally had to resort to opening a can of tuna to draw the cat out of the tight space. Then, while Boots gobbled down tuna, Annie reached in and retrieved the doll. She looked it over carefully. Boots didn’t appear to have clawed it anywhere, though some of the yarn hair was suspiciously damp.

  “This isn’t a kitten; it doesn’t need grooming,” Annie told the cat. Boots looked up and licked her lips smugly. “You are incorrigible. I’d better find a safer place for this doll.”

  Annie tucked the doll under the yarn in her project bag. Since she had gotten into the habit of keeping that bag out of reach from curious paws already, she’d be taking care of two problems at once when she hung the bag high on a peg.

  The rain settled in for a long, gray stay, and Annie found it to be perfect crocheting weather. She finished Joanna’s sweater during the three-day New England monsoon; she found that she slept surprisingly well. She’d expected more visits from her recurring nightmare with the sound of rain pounding on the roof, but perhaps it had passed.

  On the third day, when the sun struggled to peek through the thinning clouds, Annie was glad for the chance to get outside again. She looked over the sodden flower beds, knowing it was a great time for weeding since the ground would be soft. She reached down and pulled up one glob of dandelion and mud. She laid it on one of the rocks that bordered the bed and brushed off her hands. “Maybe later.”

  After a quick wash of her hands, she grabbed her project bag and the tea set, and headed for town instead. The weeds could wait.

  The rain-darkened streets were lightening up as they dried in the few rays of sun struggling to peek out of the clouds. By the time she parked in front of A Stitch in Time, the sun had won the battle. Annie climbed out of the car and looked around, enjoying the smell and look of the rain-washed town.