by A. A. Vacco
“On my way to check on Billy. Spence is home on his own, so if he needs something and can’t get to me, I told him to call you.”
“Not a problem. How’s Billy?”
“A complete wreck. How’re Kat and Walt?”
“Even worse," Elle stood up and strode back and forth across the living room.
They chatted for several more minutes, assuring one another that they were ok. Elle hung up and turned to Cal. “Should I go...?”
“No.”
“But Kat...,”
“You can’t fix this one, Ellbea. And Honey, this is going to hit you hard too. Just, sit," Cal said as he moved over, making a space for her on the giant armchair.
Elle hesitated, then wedged her way into the spot Cal created for her. She took in a deep breath, put her head on his shoulder, and started to sob. Cal tilted his head away so that she wouldn’t see the stream of tears that began to trickle down his face. They stayed there for the rest of the night.
30
To Elle, the few weeks following Genie’s passing blurred together. The town collectively mourned as well. Cara and Alex remained in town a few days after Genie’s funeral. Cassie had a hard time handling everything that took place, so Alex determined that given the recent events, time away from Millerton would be beneficial. Justin was up north for baseball camp in Chicago as it was, so the three stayed with the Conways.
The morning before the Kingmans headed back to Millerton, Elle hosted brunch. Kat and Walt stopped over to join. Elle stood by stove making pancakes and Cassie, next to her, watched and chatted. Kat and Cara sat at the table talking in soft tones, and Walt, Calvin, and Alex appropriated the living room to watch some football.
“Auntie Elle?” Cassie started.
“Yea Cass?” Elle poured more batter onto the skillet and turned toward her.
“You know when you guys came in for that volleyball tournament?”
“Mhm.”
“Well," Cassie folded her arms across her chest and shifted her weight, “This is gonna sound sort of crazy, but...," she paused.
Noticing the batter starting to bubble, Elle flipped the pancake, creating a sizzling sound in the pan. “What’s up, Cassie?”
“We went to that house. That doll house.”
Elle stopped. She set the spatula down and turned back to Cassie. “Who’s ‘we’?”
“Um, me, Aubrey, Genie, and uh, her boyfriend. Or coach, whatever.”
“Anything happen while you guys were there?” Elle felt a familiar knot tying in her stomach. She waited for a response, but Cassie just glanced down at her shoes.
At this point, the pancake started to smoke. Elle didn’t notice, but the smoke detector did. “Ah shit," said Elle, flipping the charred cake into the wastebasket and turning to wave a dish towel at the alarm. Kat and Cara jumped up to see if they could help. They couldn’t, but the noise alerted them nonetheless. Once the shrieking alarm silenced, Elle turned back to Cassie. She ignored the fact that Kat and Cara were now close by.
“Cassie, at that Doll House, did anything, unusual, happen to any of you guys?”
This caught Kat’s attention. “What? What did you just say, Elle?”
Elle sighed. “The teens hit up The Doll House when we were in Millerton.”
Kat normally had a short fuse, and given the events of the past week, that fuse became nonexistent. Elle expected rage, ire, items to be thrown. Instead, Kat burst into tears. Cara raised her eyebrows at Elle. Must’ve been expecting the same thing I was, thought Elle.
In attempts to quell the situation, Cassie did something out of character; she lied. “Aunt Kat, Aunt Kat, I’m so, so sorry. We just wanted to see it. We didn’t even go inside, we just walked around it and looked through a few of the windows.”
Kat’s sobbing slowed. She drew in a few deep breaths, and reached for the tissue box on Elle’s counter. Cara, not wanting to upset her further, remained silent. Cassie told her mom all that she had witnessed that night, which turned out, wasn’t much. But Cara knew Genie and Billy were in the house and would’ve likely been killed if Alex hadn’t shown up to drag them out. She decided now was not the time to share this with Kat.
As Kat calmed down and resumed her seat back at the table with Cara, Elle glanced at Cassie and clicked on the fan over the stove. The steady whir blended with their low voices.
“Cass, what really happened?” She added another circle of batter to the pan.
Cassie took a step closer to Elle. “Well, we all did go there, and it was pretty creepy. Aubrey and I decided we didn’t want to go further than the front entrance. Genie was kinda mean about it. Then, she and Billy left us to go explore the house.”
Elle flipped the pancake and nodded. “So, did you see anything happen while you were there?”
“Aubrey and I waited for a few minutes, but then, she felt something cold on her arm. I was holding onto her other arm, so when she ran out of the house, she pulled me with her. When we got outside, we waited on the lawn for a few more minutes. Then we heard Genie scream from the upstairs.”
Elle tilted her head, bemused. “Upstairs?”
Cassie nodded. “Yea, I didn’t know that there was a way up there, but we saw the flashlight shining in the upper window.”
Elle added the finished pancake to the others plated on the counter and began adding strips of bacon to the hot pan. They hissed and popped on contact with metal.
“Anyways," Cassie continued, “We thought they might need help, but we were too afraid to go in and try to find them.”
“That probably saved all of your lives," murmured Elle.
“We drove the van back to the house, and Dad was there. We barely mentioned the mansion, and he jumped up, put us both in the back of his police car, and drove us over there. He went so fast! Like, this spooked him, too," said Cassie.
Nodding and turning over the bacon, Elle said, “It’s a dangerous house, Cass, and your dad knows what it can do to people.”
“Yea. Well, when we got there, Dad made us stay in the car, but I saw him break one of the windows and pull Genie and Billy out. He was yelling and banging on the door before that, but couldn’t get in, so he used something on the porch to shatter the glass.”
“Quick thinking on his part. Let ask you this, Honey, does your mom know about all of this?”
“Yea. But after Dad took us back to our house, he made a deal with Genie that he wouldn’t tell just to get her in trouble. Mom didn’t really like that idea, but Dad said that he wanted Genie to be an adult and tell her mom on her own. Plus, something about him wanting her to come to him if she got into trouble again.”
Elle mulled this over a moment. “I suppose I get where he’s coming from," she replied. “But, you initially said, ‘this is gonna sound crazy’; is there more to this?”
Cassie shifted her stance and glanced back at the floor. “Uh, well, ever since that night, I don’t know, our house just feels...tense.”
“Tense?” repeated Elle.
“Uh huh. Like, me and Justin fight more. Mom and Dad argue over little things. Mom spends more time at Gramma Cass’s. And, um...,”
“C’mon, Cassie, what else?”
“Well, nothing I can see. But I’m afraid to sleep at night. I have nightmares and wake up all the time, afraid someone’s in my room, watching me. But I turn on the lights and no one is there.”
“Think you’re just stressed out from everything that happened over the past month?”
“I guess.” Elle didn’t think she sounded convinced. “I did find something in my room though, that wasn’t there before that night. A...a doll with dark skin and dark eyes. It seems much older than the dolls at the store.”
“Does your mom or dad know you still have this doll?”
“I’m afraid to talk to them. Mom already thinks I stole it or something! But I don’t know where it came from.”
“Where what came from?” Kat’s low, raspy tone came from behind them.
; Cara started to stand and make her way across the kitchen as well.
“Where...where Cassie’s interest in cooking came from. She asks some great questions," said Elle. Elle decided to talk with Cara and Alex later, but for the time being, didn’t want to upset Kat.
Kat didn’t press it further, but Elle heard her mutter, “You’re a shitty liar, Ellbea."
Cara called the guys in from the living room and the group gathered together and enjoyed brunch. Once they finished and cleaned up, the Kingmans headed back home. By then, Elle completely forgot to mention to Cara and Alex about the mystery doll in Cassie’s possession.
31
“Ah, crap!” Elle sat up from the couch after a power nap. It was the following weekend after all the chaos and she still felt like she couldn’t catch up on rest.
Calvin sat across from her on his recliner. “What’s the matter, Babe?”
Elle grumbled and rubbed her eyes, “Nothing, it’s just, I meant to talk to Alex about something last week.” She stumbled to her feet and made her way into the kitchen. Her cellphone sat charging on the counter. Elle turned it on and the time and date flashed January 18th, 2015. 7:45pm. She unlocked it and called Alex.
“Ellbea, hey!” Alex answered on the third ring.
“Hi Bud, listen, there’s something I meant to ask you.”
“Sure thing, what’s up?”
“That night you found the teens at The Doll House...,”
Elle heard Alex sigh, but she went on, “I think, somehow, Cassie got a souvenir from the event.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Don’t get mad, I doubt she had much of anything to do with it, but I think one of the dolls, uh, made its way back home with her.”
Alex paused. “Well, I’m working right now, but I’m on patrol. I’ll swing by the house and see if that’s actually the case. But, why wouldn’t she say something?”
Elle sat down at the table. “Alex, you remember the house. It affects people differently. People aren’t themselves. Also, she’s scared. She probably doesn’t want you thinking she stole it or something.”
“And she told you this?”
“Promise me you’ll act like you stumbled upon it, rather than rat me out. I still need her to be able to come to me...,”
“Yea, yea, I know, I know. Thanks for the heads up, Ellbea.”
“You got it.”
While Alex made his way back home, Kat dug up some nerve of her own. After a few glasses of wine, she mustered enough courage to go back into Genie’s room. Wincing, she turned the handle and stepped in. The room appeared in as much disarray as it had the night she lost Genie. Kat moved around, with trepidation at first, straightening the bed and picking up the scattered laundry one piece at a time. Once she eased a bit, she bunched the remaining laundry into Genie’s hamper. She cleared some of the items on her desk and folded down the comforter on the bed, adding the sheets to the pile in the hamper. She took care to breathe through her mouth; even the familiar scent of her late daughter was too painful to endure.
As she decluttered the space, an unfamiliar piece caught her eye. Kat stood and made her way toward the shelf in the corner of Genie’s room. There sat an aged, porcelain doll. Kat frowned and picked it up to examine it closer. The doll had on a faded dress with a large white collar. The hair fell in yellow ringlets around the ivory colored face. The dark eyes were the doll’s boldest feature. It wore a small backpack, Kat noticed, as she turned the doll over. It was the same pattern as the dress, and didn’t stick out. She almost missed it. Everything on this doll appeared to be hand stitched. Kat took in a faint, musty smell as she held the doll. Definitely old, she thought. But how? Millerton. They visited the Doll House in Millerton.
Almost dropping the doll, Kat let out a small scream. She placed the doll back on the shelf, picked up the hamper, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Even though it was only eight o’clock on a Saturday night, Cassie also felt the exhaustive weight of last month’s events. She made her way to her room and closed the door. She changed into some sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, then powered on her laptop. Loading her Netflix account, she created an alcove of pillows and blankets atop her bed to prepare for her TV show marathon. Once she sank into a comfortable spot, she reached to her right to flick off the light. The glow of her computer illuminated the room. The nightstand next to her closet caught her attention as the theme song to Law and Order SVU started playing. There sat the mystery doll. “Don’t remember setting you there," murmured Cassie, but soon the detective work of Olivia and Elliot claimed her full attention.
Cassie felt her eyes growing heavier and heavier with each passing episode. She slumped deeper into her pillow fortress, until she dozed off. She didn’t know how long she slept for, but she woke up feeling like she needed a puff of her inhaler. She kept it by her bed for such occasions, but when she sat up to reach for it, she realized thick, black smoke clouded her entire room. Wheezing, Cassie frantically rummaged for the inhaler on the shelf next to her bed. Once she found it, she drew in two deep breaths. The smoke thickened and Cassie continued to cough. Where was the smoke coming from?
Her eyes darted around the room. Flames licked the bottom of her closet door, and Cassie jumped up and tried to escape. But her door was locked. Locked?
She never locked it. Her heart skipped a beat. She tried to scream, but more smoke flooded her lungs, sending her into another coughing fit. Dropping to her knees, she started to crawl toward the window. Living in a ranch house, she figured she could use the window to retreat to the backyard. Her room wasn’t large, but Cassie needed all of her strength just to get to the window. Each movement sent her head spinning. She felt like her lungs were on fire and no matter how much she coughed, she could not refill them with enough air.
She pulled herself up using the windowsill. She unlatched the bottom lock, then the top and started to rotate the crank at the base of the window. It moved a few inches, then stopped. Cassie pulled her entire weight down on the crank, but it would not budge. With a final, desperate shove, the handle on the window broke free, sending Cassie falling back to the ground. She glanced back to her bed and the door. A figure stood at the edge of the bed. It was small, but person-like. It was...,“Oh god, that freakin’ doll," she gasped. Cassie’s world darkened. The remaining air abandoned her with each passing second. She curled into a ball, sputtering and wheezing.
Then, darkness.
Alex pulled into his driveway after hanging up with Elle. He planned to go directly to Cassie’s room and remove the doll, but Cara caught him as he passed through the kitchen. “Home so soon?”
“Uh, hi, yea, just needed to check on something real fast.”
Cara crossed her arms over her chest and blocked his path. “And, what, I can’t hold the fort down without you?”
Alex sighed. Cara was always sensitive, but lately, she was acting over the top, even for her. “No Dear, that isn’t what I said.”
“You think since you’re a police officer, and I’m just some, stay-at-home mother, you have to check in every gosh darn second to make sure I’m doing my job?” Her shrill tone echoed from the kitchen and down the hall.
“Cara, please. You’re fantastic with everything you do here, for the house, the kids. This is something Elle mentioned--,”
“Oh, oh, ok. Now Elle gets to help out with the house. Now we have three people running the show.” She started rubbing her hands together and pacing back and forth across the kitchen.
Alex rubbed his temples, took a deep breath, and then met her as she paced toward him. He took her hands, unclasped them, and said, “Let’s sit, ok? Just, here," he dropped her hands and pulled out a chair from the kitchen table.