by Laura Ruby
“Cool. So it only feels like it’s sideways.”
“I said sorry.” Lily sat back on her heels. “What happened to you?”
“Darren Sharp happened to me,” he said, sitting up. “He happened to want to try out his blue belt or yellow belt or whatever belt in karate. But don’t think he’s good or anything. My nose is hard to miss.” The boy sneezed, then groaned. His enormous brown eyes watered. “So, what happened to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Most people don’t run laps around their houses.”
“Not like it’s your business or anything, but somebody was in my house, moving around my stuff.”
“Really?” His battered face perked up, as if he liked the idea of anonymous somebodies creeping around. “Do you have any idea who it was?”
Lily picked at the strands of hair tickling her cheeks and stood up. “I don’t know who it was. All I know is that there was someone looking in my window this morning, and then somebody came in and stole some things. I thought I could catch him.”
“How do you know it’s a ‘him?’” the guy said.
“Him, her, who cares?” Lily put her hand in her pocket and felt for the house key. What if the person who had stolen it had already made a copy? Despite the cold, Lily felt a trickle of sweat drift its way down her stomach. “I have to call my mother,” she said absently.
“Okay. So where’s your mother?”
“At the store.”
“Really? Around here? Which store?”
This was one of the reasons Lily hadn’t wanted to go to middle school. Too many dumb guys. “Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”
“Shouldn’t you be?”
“For your information, I am in school,” she said. She was glad he was still sitting on the ground so that she could tower over him. She glared at the guy, at the deserted street and sidewalk. She hated being afraid.
He struggled to his feet. “Is this your house?”
“No.”
“Whose house is it?”
“My great-uncle’s.”
“So maybe it was your great-uncle in the house.”
“He’s not even in town. He’s in Philadelphia.”
“That’s cool.” The boy tilted his shaggy head and smiled through the smeared blood. “You’re new here, aren’t you? Where are you from?”
Even with the broken nose and the blood and the twigs decorating his dark hair, Lily could see how cute he was, and for some reason it irked her even more.
She folded her arms across her chest. “You don’t want to know where I’m from.”
He rolled his eyes. “Okaaay,” he said, drawing the sound out. “Maybe I don’t.” He lifted his hand, which was smeared with blood. “Look, do you think maybe you have a couple of tissues you can give me, or some paper towels or something?”
“I don’t think we have any tissues,” Lily said. “Or paper towels.”
“Yeah, all right, I get the hint. I’m leaving,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you around. Or not.”
She watched him turn and stumble away. The back of his jacket was covered with grass stains and black streaks of dirt. She hoped that the stains were from his fight with the Karate Kid, but worried that they weren’t. What if he asked her to pay for the cleaning? What if he needed a whole new coat?
“Wait,” she said.
He raised his arm without turning around, like a man flagging a taxi. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No, no,” she said. “Wait.” He stopped. She pulled the ratty sweatshirt over her head, careful not to take off her T-shirt with it, and held the raggedy thing out to him. “Here,” she said. “It’s better than a paper towel.” She crossed her bare arms, hugging herself against the bracing wind.
He looked at the shirt, then at her. “I can’t take your shirt. I’ll get crud all over it. And you’ll turn into a Popsicle.”
“It’s old. I was going to throw it out anyway,” she said. “Take it. I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” She thrust the sweatshirt at him.
“Thanks,” he said.
She watched him press the sweatshirt to his ruined nose, which did look pretty mangled. “I’m sorry I ran into you,” she said.
He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I guess if I had some freak lurking around my house, I’d start running around too.” He paused. “Are you sure you saw somebody in your window? Maybe it was a bird or something.”
“Yes, I’m sure!” she said. “I don’t go around seeing things.”
“Peace, okay? I was just asking.”
“Besides,” Lily said, “whoever it was took all my school books.”
“Why would anyone want to take all your school books?”
“How should I know?”
“Are you sure you didn’t move them or put them somewhere?”
“I think I would have remembered moving my books,” Lily said, exasperated.
The boy raised a single eyebrow. Lily decided that he was an idiot.
“Well,” Lily said. “I hope you can find a doctor to fix your nose.”
“Good luck finding your burglar-intruder-whoever.” The guy smiled with half his mouth. “But if you find him, why don’t you send him to my house? Tell him he can have my schoolbooks.”
Lily whipped around and marched toward the house, but her foot caught on something and she went sprawling onto the cold, hard ground.
“Are you all right?” the guy said, clearly fighting a laughing fit. He held out his hand to help her up.
She eyed him with suspicion.
“Your shoelace,” he said, pointing to one of her sneakers. “Mom always says it’s dangerous.”
Face burning, she quickly knotted the untied lace. “I’m fine,” she said, ignoring his hand and jumping to her feet.
“You don’t look—”
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She cut him off, turned and raced up the porch stairs. She opened the front door and slammed it shut as hard as she could.
Once inside, however, the fear hit her again like a bad smell. She rubbed her face, then her bare arms with her hands, suddenly colder than she had been outside. Who had called the house? Was it the same person who stole the books? How could somebody have gotten in the house to get the key in the first place? The person could have been right there in the room with her! But who could he be?
Where could he be?
Eyes wide, she kept as still as she could and listened for any sounds in the house.
And there it was. But different this time. Faster. Bolder.
Coming from the parlor.
Lily almost ran back outside to get the guy with her shirt up his nose. But she thought of his one raised eyebrow, the blood like war paint on his cheeks, and steeled herself. She peeked into the parlor.
And found Julep perched on the arm of one of the big, stiff chairs, thwacking the pull chain of a lamp against its wooden base.
“Julep!” she yelled, then groaned. “Now who’s the fig brain?”
The cat mewled and kept thwacking, her eyes round Os of kitty glee.
“Glad to see someone’s making herself at home.” Lily rubbed her forehead with her hand, then knocked on it as if to pound in some sense. Maybe Broken Nose Boy was right. She must have forgotten about moving the books. She must have brought them upstairs or something. It was possible. More possible than anyone wanting to steal them.
Still knocking on her forehead, she walked up the stairs. Once the landing, however, she paused. Instead of the warm, lemon-minty scent that usually permeated the house, there was another scent: faint and sooty, like burnt toast. She followed her nose to a staircase partially hidden above the main staircase. A white door with a shiny knob like an eye perched at the top. The attic. She climbed the staircase and tried the knob but it wouldn’t budge no matter how hard she tugged. Pressing her eye to the keyhole, she tried to see inside, but the opening was too small. The sooty smell was gone, if
it had even been there at all.
Lily stomped back down the stairs. Well, Lily, what’s your hypothesis? The Kewpie cooked up some toast for a snack? A book-swiping burglar decided to light himself a campfire in the attic?
Yeah, right. Old houses made a lot of noise, old houses smelled bad, old houses were weird. She’d have to get used to it. To all of it.
She threw open the door to her bedroom. Piled neatly on the low table next to the bed, Lily found her books.
Lily also found the Kewpie doll, with its sweet baby eyes and pink crescent grin, sitting on the bed, arms up, waiting.
The Good Fortunes Shoppe
Cape May’s outdoor mall was a cheerful strip of ice cream, T-shirt, jewelry and souvenir shops lining a brick pedestrian walkway. In the summer, the walkway teemed with children slurping ice-cream cones, teenagers elbowing and jostling one another, and parents in ill-fitting Bermuda shorts buying hermit crabs and other vacation necessities.
But now it was January, and many of the mall’s stores were shut tight for the winter.
Except for Madame Durriken’s Good Fortunes Shoppe.
Though it was popular with tourists and townies alike, the town officials weren’t too fond of the Shoppe, and had twice held referendums to have it closed down — some for religious reasons, most for reasons of taste. The Good Fortunes Shoppe — stocked with tarot card decks, candles, astrology charts, incense, dream interpretation books, spell manuals and a large selection of moon-embroidered satin cloaks — was open year round to anyone looking for a way to tell the future.
And if you weren’t interested in learning to tell your own future, for twenty-five dollars, Madame Durriken would do it for you.
Madame Durriken, whose real name was Maple Ann Spatz, was uncommonly tall and gaunt with diaphanous gray hair like dandelion fluff. She read palms and tarot cards and, occasionally, foreheads. She also claimed to be able to see — and speak to — the dead.
Madame Durriken enjoyed her work.
“Let me see,” she might say as she traced a crease in a palm, her forehead equally creased in concentration. “You will have a long life, a long, long life, and much financial success. But,” she would say, raising an eyebrow so high that it was swallowed up by her fluffy gray hair, “you are unlucky in love.” She would cluck her tongue in sympathy, stretching the skin on the palm, tipping the hand toward its unsuspecting owner. “See this little break? Right here? This is a divorce!”
The sad truth was that Madame Durriken could tell the future about as well as the weather men, that is to say, not very well at all, and the deceased wouldn’t talk to her if she was the last person on earth — living or dead.
Madame Durriken’s current customer — her only customer — on this chilly January morning was poor Mrs. Wilma Hines, who was hoping to speak to her husband again. She couldn’t find the checkbook and the heating bill needed to be paid. She was sure Mr. Hines, dead for some fourteen years, would know where it had gotten to.
Madame Durriken led the shuffling Mrs. Hines through a doorway covered with heavy red velvet curtains into the tiny makeshift room where she did all her readings. She yearned for the heat of July and August that thrust the bubble-brained young women into the Shoppe, aching and desperate for some bit of news about rock-headed young men. She loved laying out the tarot cards one by one, her frown deepening with each card. She loved taking the girls’ young hands into her own skeletal ones, watching as the girls’ excitement wilted like a fresh hairdo in the heat when she said, “You’re in some trouble, dear. This boy is up to no good.”
But twenty-five dollars was twenty-five dollars, and Madame Durriken wasn’t going to turn away money, especially in the winter with business so thin. She sat Mrs. Hines in the folding chair across the glitter-strewn table and took her place in the big armchair against the wall.
“Now, Wilma, you remember what you need to do, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes.” Wilma hefted a purse the size of a sewing machine onto the table. “I must close my eyes and concentrate.”
Madame Durriken reached across the table, plucked up the purse, and set it on the floor. “Not on the table, dear. The spirits don’t like clutter.”
“Oh, my. I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Hines, glancing around. She gazed at the ceiling. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s quite all right, Wilma.” Madame Durriken placed a large candle shaped like a bat in the middle of the table and lit it. “Why don’t we get started? Now, you do what you did the last time. Put your hands flat on the table, and concentrate very hard on Mr. Hines. We’ll see if we can’t get your husband to join us for a little visit.”
Mrs. Hines giggled at the idea of her dead husband joining them for a “little visit.” She put her palms flat on the table and closed her eyes. Madame Durriken intoned, “Spirits of the dead, can you hear us? We beseech you! We are calling Harold Hines! Harold? Your dear wife needs to speak with you! Harold! Come to us now!”
Mrs. Hines shivered in anticipation and Madame Durriken stifled a yawn. She quietly stood up from her chair and drifted to the window, which was completely covered with black and gold draperies. Nudging the draperies aside, she risked a peek to the brick walkway outside. A blond woman wearing an orange cloak and a funky patchwork skirt was standing at the door of the Something Fishy gift shop across the street, muttering to herself as she patted her pockets.
“Harold! We beseech you!” barked Madame Durriken, as she wondered who the woman might be, and where she might have gotten the snazzy cloak. Philadelphia? New York City?
She was so busy thinking about the cloak, how many she should order and how much she could charge for them that she almost didn’t see the tall boy loping like some sort of ostrich behind the blond woman. And even then, as Madame Durriken took in his peculiar clothes, bluish skin, the queer shine of his eyes, it was a moment before she registered that she could not only see the boy, she could see through the boy.
And that he had seen her, too.
The spirit boy grinned right at Maple Ann Spatz and held out his cloudy hands as each one burst into flame.
Chapter Four
“I’m telling you, Mom, someone was in the house. I heard him.”
“Lily, I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that anyone would break into the house to move your books around.” Her mother hung her orange cloak on the coat tree. “What do you think about pancakes for lunch?”
“We had those for dinner last night,” said Lily. “And breakfast this morning.” She followed her mother down the hallway and into the kitchen. “So what about the doll? How did the doll get from the basement to my bed?”
“Are you sure that you didn’t—”
Lily stamped her foot, feeling like a baby as she did it, but unable to stop herself. “Why does everyone think that I did it?”
“Who’s everyone?” Her mother pulled the elastic from her hair, then fluffed the blond curls with her fingers. “And anyway, people forget things all the time. When I used to drive to work, sometimes I couldn’t remember a single thing that happened along the way. It was like I had arrived at work in a blink.”
“That’s not what happened. I didn’t move my books. I didn’t bring the doll up from the basement. And I didn’t forget.”
“What about Julep?”
“You think Julep took my math books?”
“No, I think you took your books upstairs and forgot you did it, just like you forgot the key on the table.” Her mother pulled the ham from the drawer in the fridge, along with an old, tattered book. “And I guess the thief must have stashed this in the cheese drawer just to be safe.” She smiled at Lily as she tossed the book to the counter. “The Standard Guide to Rare Coins? Not your usual fare.”
Lily stared at the book. “I don’t know how that got in there!”
“Uh huh,” said her mother, unwrapping the ham.
“Maybe the guy put that in there!”
Lily’s mother waved her hands, bracelets jangling. “Oh, it was
probably in there before and we didn’t notice it. Uncle Wes is old. He probably has all kinds of funky stuff all over the place.”
Lily nudged the book with a finger. “What about the doll?”
“What about it?”
“How did the doll get upstairs?
“Julep.”
“What? How?”
“Don’t you remember?” Her mother opened the bag of white bread, removed four slices. “She used to pull your socks from the drawers and hide them under the couch?”
“It’s not the same,” Lily said.
“And what about the time she stole your teddy bear? We were looking all over the house for it, and then she trotted by with it hanging from her mouth. Couldn’t she have done the same to the doll?”
“And then she arranged it on my bed?”
Lily’s mother slapped some ham onto the bread. “Look, Lily, I don’t know how she did it, but I don’t see any other explanation.” She topped the sandwiches with a second slice of bread. “I know you’re angry with me.”
Lily pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat at the table. “That’s not it, either.”
“I know you didn’t want to leave Montclair. And I know you don’t like the house much. Maybe you hate the house. Maybe you even hate me. But that doesn’t mean that there are crazy burglars running around. Besides, we have to make the best of it, all right?” Her mother put the plates on the table. “Now will you look at this service? What other kid has it so good, hmmm?”
Her mother ate her ham sandwich while Lily ripped hers into a lot of little pieces, rolling them into balls before popping them into her mouth.
“It’s a stupid doll,” Lily said, finally.
Her mother looked hurt. “It was my mother’s. And before that it belonged to my grandmother.”
Lily was unmoved. “It’s stupid. And ugly.”
“So maybe we should throw it in the closet with Uncle Max.”
“Maybe we should make Julep do it.”
Her mother didn’t answer. Lily rolled a ham-and-bread ball between her thumb and index finger. She remembered the phone call. “Somebody called, too. Somebody who knew my name. Tell me that’s not weird.”