What a Doll!

by P. J. Night

  Once in the pantry Emmy pulled the doll out of her pocket and stared at it. It was eerie how similar its hair looked to Lizzy’s actual hair. The makeup was totally smudged and dirty, but still evident. Luckily Lizzy had been able to wipe the makeup off her own face, but what on earth would she have thought if she had seen the doll? She would have had a lot of questions about why Emmy was carrying around a freaky doll, that was for certain. Emmy felt flooded with relief that Lizzy was clueless about what had just happened.

  Emmy shoved the doll back into her pocket. It was the only safe place for now.

  “Emmy?” Lizzy called from the kitchen. “What are you doing in there?”

  Emmy took a deep breath and grabbed a small plastic bag full of the gummy fish. She stepped out of the closet, holding them up triumphantly.

  “Just getting the anchovies!” She giggled. “Come on, let’s add them to the pizza.” They went to work arranging them.

  The finished product looked colorful, sugary, and awesome. Emmy took a pizza cutter out of the utensil drawer and started slicing it just like a real pizza. It was still a little warm. She handed the first slice to Lizzy, who took a big bite.

  “Mmm,” Lizzy said appreciatively. “You have to try it.”

  Emmy picked up her slice and took a bite. As the sticky sweetness filled her mouth, she thought of how sour this night could have become. But it didn’t, she reminded herself, forcing a smile at Lizzy. I got to the doll in time. It didn’t.

  CHAPTER 12

  Later that night Emmy lay in her bed in the dark as Lizzy lay on the floor in her sleeping bag. With the exception of the doll, all seemed right with the world to Emmy. Here was her best friend, lying in her bedroom like she had a million times before.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Lizzy began.

  Oh no, Emmy thought. Then she reassured herself. Lizzy knows nothing about the doll. She had put the doll in her night-table drawer while Lizzy was in the bathroom getting ready for bed.

  “I really think we should be Raggedy Ann and Andy for the costume party,” Lizzy continued. “The costumes would be really easy to make, and I could wear a wig made of red yarn.”

  Emmy paused. Just the idea of yarn hair on Lizzy made her skin crawl. “I just think it’s kind of babyish,” Emmy said. She knew that would make the idea a lot less attractive to Lizzy.

  “I guess you’re right,” Lizzy said. “Okay, but we really have to think of something great.”

  “We will,” Emmy assured her friend. “For sure.”

  Emmy listened as Lizzy began to fall asleep. She lay there thinking of how much she’d hurt Lizzy. Yes, Lizzy had hurt her too, but now Emmy was overcome with guilt at the havoc she’d wreaked in Lizzy’s life. A broken leg! Crazy hair! And more, of course. She had to get rid of that doll as soon as Lizzy left in the morning. And she had to make sure that the spell was no longer on it.

  When she was sure that Lizzy was deep asleep, Emmy slipped out of bed, grabbed the doll from her night-table drawer, and quietly padded over to her desk. She sat down in the chair, in front of the lavender candle. She knew her mother had asked her not to burn the candle without her supervision, but Emmy didn’t have a choice.

  Emmy lit the candle. She watched as its flame danced to life and then she turned her attention to the doll.

  “I don’t hate you, Lizzy,” she whispered over and over again, so silently that Emmy could barely hear herself. And then, “You are no longer Lizzy. I release you.”

  The flame started flickering. Emmy could only hope that she had broken the curse she had unintentionally put on this now-tattered doll and on her best friend. And this time she knew she had to test it out before she tried to get rid of the doll.

  Emmy turned her chair so she was staring at Lizzy as she slept peacefully, wrapped up in her cozy sleeping bag. Emmy started waving the doll’s arms around wildly. Lizzy didn’t move.

  Emmy made the little doll dance, but again Lizzy didn’t move.

  Emmy let out a sigh of relief that was so forceful, it blew out the flame on the candle. Her hunch had been right. The candle and the doll were somehow connected. And she had broken the spell.

  Now all she had to do was wait until morning when Lizzy left to go home. It would be a long, sleepless night, but tomorrow she would get rid of the doll once and for all. It didn’t have any powers anymore, but all the same, Emmy wanted it gone. For good.

  As Emmy had feared, it was a rough stretch till morning. She’d fall into a light sleep for a little while but then wake right up. Each time she did, she wanted to check the night-table drawer to make sure the doll was still there, but she didn’t want to wake up Lizzy. Finally, the sun came up and the room turned light. Emmy tried to talk herself through her anxiety. Lizzy will leave right after breakfast and I’ll walk down to the river. I’ll throw the doll into the water and watch it sink. And it will be gone, gone forever. And Lizzy will never find out about what I’ve done to her, and we’ll stay best friends forever. Her hair will grow back and her leg will heal and everything will be fine.

  Emmy lay there impatiently waiting for Lizzy to open her eyes. She could already hear her parents downstairs making coffee and preparing breakfast. She heard Sam go downstairs and wanted to go downstairs too—she’d been in this bed long enough—but didn’t want to leave the doll in the room alone with sleeping Lizzy. She did little things to wake Lizzy up, like cough and rock her bed so it squeaked. Finally, Lizzy stirred.

  “Mmmm,” she said, her eyes still closed. Lizzy was such a heavy sleeper.

  “Morning, Lizard,” Emmy said, using her old nickname for Lizzy.

  “I’m not a lizard,” Lizzy said, her eyes still closed, but a smile on her face.

  “Sorry, Lizard,” Emmy replied. Finally, Lizzy opened her eyes.

  “Did I sleep too late?” Lizzy said, rubbing her eyes.

  “No, you’re fine,” Emmy said. “You have an hour before your mom wants you to be home. Let’s go downstairs and get breakfast.”

  Emmy and Lizzy got up slowly and shuffled their way down to the kitchen in their pajamas.

  “Hi, pizza makers,” Emmy’s dad said. Emmy and Lizzy both smiled sleepily, proud of their creation, half of which was currently on the kitchen table. Sam sat at the table too, eating a slice.

  “Mom said this counts as breakfast,” he told the girls, obviously very pleased with his mother’s judgment.

  “For sure it does,” Emmy said, trying to act normal around him. She just wanted to put last night, and the past two weeks, behind her. She was still so freaked out about what could have happened while they were making the sauce.

  Emmy and Lizzy both poured themselves big bowls of cereal and dug in.

  “What do you plan to do today, Emmy?” her mom asked. “Lizzy, I know you have plans with your family. I told your mom I’d make sure to send you home in time.”

  “I’m not sure,” Emmy answered. Though, of course, she was totally sure. She had to get to the river, which was more like a canal actually, and a good twenty blocks from her house. Still, she had to do it alone, so she couldn’t very well ask her parents for a ride.

  After breakfast when Lizzy had to go, she turned to Emmy and gave her a hug, and they stayed in the hug an extra long time.

  “I’m glad we had a sleepover,” Lizzy said, a little shyly.

  “Me too,” Emmy said. But there was so much that neither of them was saying.

  I’m so glad we’re friends again. I’m so sorry I hurt you. Let’s never let that happen again.

  As soon as Lizzy left, Emmy ran upstairs and pulled on sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and sneakers as fast as she could. She opened the night-table drawer, took out the doll, and put it into her sweatpants pocket. Then she walked downstairs, reminding herself to act normally. “I’m going for a walk,” she told her parents, who were still at the breakfast table reading the newspap
er.

  “To where?” her dad said. Taking a random walk wasn’t something Emmy usually did.

  “Um, I have to go to the park and look for certain wildflowers for art class,” she lied. “We’re doing some kind of big art project next week.” She was pretty impressed with her own story. It was foolproof.

  “That sounds fun,” her mom said. “Want some company?”

  “No!” Emmy said, a little too quickly and forcefully. “I mean, thanks, but I was looking forward to going by myself. Now that you let me walk places outside by myself during the day,” she added.

  “Okay then,” her mom said. “Have a good time, honey. Come right back home when you’re done.”

  “I will,” Emmy promised. She pulled on a light coat and stepped outside. The walk seemed to take forever. She kept one hand on the doll in her pocket. This was going to be it, the final farewell, and she couldn’t mess it up.

  Finally, she reached the river. It was called the Gowanus Canal, and it had the distinction of being one of the most polluted body of water in the country. Emmy hoped that the toxic chemicals in the water would destroy the doll before it even sank to the bottom.

  Even the birds floating on the water seemed dirty. “Oscar the Grouch’s Riviera,” her parents liked to call it jokingly. It was lined with dumps and junkyards and old abandoned warehouses. Emmy walked onto the bridge that crossed it and looked down.

  She took the doll out of her pocket and looked at it one last time. Then she took a deep breath and hurled it as hard as she could into the murky water below. It fell with a satisfying plop. She felt immediate relief as she watched it sink deeper and deeper until she couldn’t see it anymore. The water was so dark that it quickly obscured the doll. She stayed for a minute, still a little afraid to turn her back on the thing, until she finally made herself turn around and start walking.

  Emmy felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. Her life was going to be normal again! Lizzy was her best friend and the doll with the crazy powers was gone, gone, gone. She felt so proud of herself, like she’d accomplished something remarkable. Lizzy was none the wiser, and she’d solved the problem all by herself. All’s well that ends well, she thought.

  She was actually going to have a regular day, her first in awhile. She reminded herself to look for flowers on the way home so her story would hold up. She felt like skipping straight home, but turned around for one last look to be sure the doll was really gone. Better to be safe than sorry, she told herself.

  And what she saw made her heart stop.

  It was the old woman from the shop, sitting on the dock below.

  She was holding the dripping doll in one hand and a lit candle in the other. A net sat beside her. The candle flickered but stayed lit against the wind. The woman’s long, straggly white hair blew in the wind, and she looked like she was talking to the doll. Emmy couldn’t hear her, but she was close enough that she could see the woman moving her lips. And she could definitely see her mole.

  What she was saying was “Emmy, Emmy, Emmy.”

  Her name. The spell that activated the curse. Emmy remembered saying Lizzy’s name when she first got this evil little doll.

  Emmy stood frozen in place, unable to take her eyes off the woman. What should she do? Approach the woman and explain that she needed to get rid of the doll? Run away as fast as she could? She had no idea, and remained as still as a statue as she stared down at the woman, who was now looking up and smiling strangely.

  Her smile in the shop had been friendly, but now it seemed like a mean kind of smile. Emmy gave her a halfhearted wave.

  “Oh, Emmy?” the woman called up.

  Emmy’s heart skipped a beat. What could this woman have to say to her now?

  Nothing, it turned out. Instead, the woman snapped a strand of the doll’s hair in two. She had to tug hard since the yarn was thick.

  And as the woman did so, Emmy felt a small but sharp pain on her head, the way it feels when a single piece of hair is tugged.

  Because that’s exactly what was happening.

  “Ow!” Emmy cried. Her hand went instinctively to her head. The woman laughed and went back to pulling on the doll’s hair.

  Emmy started to run toward the woman, but the woman was too quick. She got up and started running at a pace far too fast for an ordinary elderly woman. But Emmy knew by now that she was anything but ordinary. She was evil and she was also too fast for Emmy. Emmy soon lost her in the crowd on the bustling avenue. As she walked home, Emmy could feel the same small, sharp pains on her head, over and over again.

  And by the time she walked in her front door, her hair was already shorter on one side of her head, and she was holding a clump of broken ends of hair in her hands.

  EPILOGUE

  The next morning Emmy’s face was swollen from crying as she and Sam sat at the breakfast table with their parents. Since last night, Emmy’s hair had gotten shorter and shorter. Her scalp felt sore from the constant tugging at her hair. She had no idea how to make the spell go away.

  “We’ll call Dr. Lewis today,” her mom reassured her. Dr. Lewis was her pediatrician. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation for what’s happening to your hair.”

  Emmy knew that there was. But how could she explain this to her parents? She imagined trying to tell the doctor what had happened: Well, see, I bought this doll from an old woman in a store, and it’s like a voodoo doll. And I used it to do terrible things to my friend. And it’s been controlling me and making me do terrible things. And now the woman who sold it to me has put me under the doll’s spell, and that’s why my hair keeps falling out, but not in clumps, just one strand at a time.

  Her dad tried to change the subject. “What do you kids have going on today? It’s beautiful outside. Maybe we should go for a walk in the park.”

  “I’m going to stay home and read,” Sam said.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” Emmy said.

  A nap would be the only escape from the horror of reality. Emmy’s eyes filled with tears. Again.

  “Let me call the doctor right now, honey,” her mom said sympathetically, pushing her chair away from the table. “He’ll be able to figure out what’s going on with your hair.”

  “Definitely,” her dad added reassuringly.

  Emmy went upstairs to her room and looked out her window into Lizzy’s room. Lizzy was still asleep in her bed.

  She never knew anything, Emmy thought, jealous of the peacefulness with which Lizzy rested. And I know everything. And now it’s my turn.

  The babysitter checked the clock again. Past eleven. They’d promised to be home by ten thirty. She shifted sleepily in the deep leather chair and glanced back at the TV. She had it turned down low, to an old black-and-white movie, which was quaintly spooky. Practically every scene included ominous music, sinister characters wearing hats and trench coats, and lots of fog and shadows. But she wasn’t the sort of girl that got scared easily.

  Outside, the wind howled, rattling the old doors and window frames. The draft caused the heavy floor-to-ceiling drapes to billow, as though someone were hiding behind them. The rain streamed down the windows in rivulets.

  Lightning flashed. For a brief instant, through the gap in the drapery, the girl could see the dark landscape illuminated outside—black trees bending, empty swings bobbing crazily in the wind. There was a loud crack of thunder.

  And then the power went out.

  With a blip the TV powered off. The reading lamp next to her went black. The girl was plunged into darkness, not complete blackness, but pretty close. With an exasperated sigh she stood up from the chair and groped her way toward the kitchen, shuffling with baby steps so as not to trip over any toys. Now she wished she’d done a better job of picking up after the twin girls, who’d been playing with their wooden food and plastic oven earlier that evening.

  The k
itchen was full of gray shadows and devoid of noise, except for the howling wind and pattering rain outside. There was no hum of the refrigerator. No whooshing of the dishwasher, which she’d actually remembered to turn on. Opening the drawer near the stove, she felt around for a flashlight. She came up with the next best thing—a candle, with a little holder attached. Luckily the gas stove worked, so she didn’t have to search for matches and could light the candle. The weak flame flickered, shedding a wan light around her. And then she saw them:

  A pair of green, glowing eyes, staring at her from the shadowy corner of the kitchen.

  She gasped. Took a step backward, almost dropping the candle.

  Then she exhaled.

  “Nero! You dumb cat. You scared the life out of me.”

  She heard the orange-and-white tabby cat jump down from the counter and pad over to her, twining itself around her feet, purring.

  Inside the pocket of her sweatshirt she felt her phone vibrate. She drew it out and checked the message. Another text.

  I see you. You’re in the kitchen. You’re wearing a pink zip-up sweatshirt.

  Her mouth went dry and her palms felt sweaty as she read the mysterious message. This was the third text she’d gotten tonight from that number. She scrolled back to reread the first two messages.

  I’m back.

  The second one was even creepier:

  You thought you’d gotten rid of me. Well, you didn’t. Your luck has changed.

  This third one was deeply unsettling. She couldn’t pass it off as a wrong number. She was wearing a pink sweatshirt. She was standing in the kitchen. How could someone possibly know that? She peered out of the window over the kitchen sink, straining her eyes to see past the streams of water running down. But all she could see was the blackness outside. All she could hear was the howling wind and the pattering rain. The kitchen faced the back of the house, where there was a small yard and then a grove of trees. No one in her right mind would be standing out there on a night like this. She set the candle down and texted back.