The Secret of Goldenrod

by Jane O'Reilly

  “Poppo,” she said as she carried the plate of steaming hot dogs into the dining room and put them on the card table. “I’ve been thinking.” She stood up straight and tall and cleared her throat. She wanted to sound as grown-up as possible.

  He raised one eyebrow, concerned. “What is it?”

  “I’ve made the decision to go by my real name from now on, so please call me Citrine.”

  “Ci-trine?” he said, sounding out her name softly as he went into the kitchen. “Ci-trine,” he said again, coming back with the buns. “But this afternoon you said—”

  “I know, but I’ve changed my mind.” She knew she had already changed her mind once, and now she was changing it again, but she trusted elegant little Augustine’s opinion more than she trusted mean old Charlotte’s.

  Poppo scratched the back of his neck as he looked around the dining room, the way he did when he was assessing a new building project. “But I’ve always called you Trina.”

  “But Trina is a nickname. And it sounds like it belongs to a little girl. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  “I’m beginning to see that,” he said, finally pulling his chair away from the card table to sit down. “That’ll take some getting used to, unless . . .” Instead of sitting down, he looked at Trina with a serious face.

  “Unless what?”

  His serious look broke into a smile. “Unless my real daughter has been abducted by aliens. WAH-HA-HA!” he roared in his monster voice. He picked her up and spun her around. “You tell those aliens I won’t let you go without a fight.”

  The room swirled around Trina, but she didn’t giggle the way she did when she was little. “This is what I mean, Poppo. Put me down. Please.”

  She said it so seriously that her dad instantly placed her on her feet. He acted dizzy as he sat down, and then he grabbed the ketchup bottle and pretended he was going to squirt her with it before he smothered his hot dogs with ketchup. “Okay, then,” he said. “Citrine it is.”

  Trina knew he was trying to make a joke out of something that hurt his feelings, but she was pleased to be making a little progress with her dad in the growing-up department.

  Outside, the wind picked up. When lightning lit up the eastern sky, they both turned their heads to the French doors. “Lucky I finished my work when I did. But you’re right. There is something very strange about this house.” He took a bite of hot dog and chewed it very slowly.

  “Really, Poppo?” Trina wondered if he had been keeping scary things he knew about the house to himself, too. “Like what?”

  “Like I haven’t found a single piece of rotten wood on this whole house. I keep thinking, if they’d brought in a wrecking ball to tear it down, I don’t think the house would have budged. I’ve never seen anything built as rock-solid as this place.”

  Right then a big gust of wind hit the house and the French doors, screeching on their hinges, swung open into the yard. Trina grabbed the paper plates as they slid across the table. Her dad hurried to close the doors. “I take it back,” he said. “Looks like I’ll have to replace the lock, but . . .” He turned the lock handle over and over again with a puzzled look on his face. “Now it works fine. Maybe the doors weren’t locked. Or maybe they’re just fickle.”

  Fickle. Fickle meant you changed your mind a lot. What decision could a door lock be trying to make? The front doors, too, for that matter. But Poppo didn’t seem the least bit concerned.

  He sat back down at the table and they finished eating without talking, watching the storm roll in as if it were a movie on a big screen. Then, out of the blue, he said, “About school.”

  Trina was silent for a moment, reliving her awful day at school. “I told you, I’m never going back.” Although she was full, she took another potato chip and nibbled it, looking down at her plate.

  Her dad leaned forward, trying to make eye contact. “You’ve always liked school.”

  She had liked school, but she had never liked being the new kid. And she had never expected anything like New Royal. Even if some of the kids were nice, like Edward, there weren’t enough for a softball team. And to top it off, there was the humiliation of Charlotte calling her an outhouse.

  “It’s different here, Poppo. All the kids know each other. And they all think this house is haunted.”

  Lightning cracked the sky, closer this time, but her dad talked right through the rumble of thunder. “You have to give it time.”

  Time. That was the problem. Too much time. Going to school meant she would be miserable for a whole year. This was certainly a woe she could tell to Augustine. Trina set down her half-eaten potato chip. “May I please be excused?”

  She didn’t give him a chance to speak. She didn’t even look at him because she knew he would have that faraway look in his eyes. The one that meant it was hard being a dad sometimes. But it was hard being a kid, too. She put her paper plate in the garbage and went upstairs, feeling a little less lonesome now that Augustine was sharing her room.

  Trina opened her bedroom door and whispered, “Augustine, I’m back,” but the little doll didn’t answer. Trina got down on her hands and knees and crawled up to Augustine’s dollhouse and peered into her bedroom. The little doll lay peacefully in bed with her eyes closed.

  “Augustine, wake up.” Trina nudged the little doll, but she didn’t move. Frightened now by a doll that didn’t talk, Trina picked her up. Augustine’s eyes opened when Trina tilted her, but she remained silent, just like an ordinary doll.

  Trina put her cheek to the doll’s cool little head and wondered if she had imagined the doll waking up and speaking to her. Was a talking doll just another strange thing about the house to add to the list? Or did she want a friend so badly she made one up?

  Confused, Trina put Augustine back in her bed. She picked up her tiny silver hairbrush and brushed the doll’s golden hair until it fanned out in a fine yellow spray against her pillow.

  “You look just like a princess now,” said Trina, thinking that might wake up the doll.

  Augustine didn’t utter a sound.

  Sighing, Trina tore up one of her old T-shirts and started cleaning the dollhouse. She dusted the furniture and the pictures and the tiny books. She took down the tattered curtains, thinking she could learn to make new ones. She shook the rugs in the air and washed the dinner plates and the tea set in the bathroom sink. She was sitting on the floor by the dollhouse, making a list of the work to be done, when her dad knocked on her door.

  “How about a game of Crazy Eights?”

  “Not tonight, Poppo. I’m busy.”

  There was a long pause before he said, “Can I come in? I have an idea.”

  Trina glanced at Augustine, this time making sure she was still an ordinary doll, and was both sad and relieved that she was. She got up and opened her door to her dad, who was standing there with a plate of vanilla wafers in one hand and Augustine’s dress in the other. Trina recognized a peace offering when she saw one. Her dad always brought her a treat when something went wrong. Tonight cookies weren’t enough to make things better, but she didn’t want to seem ungrateful either. She took the dress and helped herself to a vanilla wafer. “So what’s your idea?”

  “Is everything okay? I mean . . .” The window flashed bright with lightning, barely a second before thunder clapped, interrupting her dad in midsentence. Trina hoped he’d lose his train of thought, but he didn’t. “I mean changing your name. And not wanting to go back to school. Are you sure everything’s okay? Is this some kind of girl thing I don’t understand?”

  Trina had never thought much about girl things, but the idea of using girl things as an excuse sounded like a good idea. Maybe girl things were a way to get what she wanted. She shrugged and took a bite of the wafer.

  “Listen, I know it’s hard getting used to a new place. So I was thinking, what if you took a few days off? A little R & R. And then you can start school again next week.”

  Trina gave the idea a bite’s worth of thought,
figuring out that a few days off would buy her time to think of a permanent way to avoid New Royal Public School. “Okay,” she said.

  “That’s great,” her dad said, sounding relieved. Then he looked past Trina to the dollhouse. “Wow. Sure is a beauty. Where did you say you found it?”

  Trina led her dad to the mirrored door, glad to be off the hook about school. “In here,” she said, pushing down on the latch. “It’s a secret door to the turret room. I think it was a playroom.”

  Her dad peered into the room over her shoulder as lightning magically lit up the colorful shelves. “Makes sense. Back then children were meant to be seen and not heard. Must be why they call them the good old days,” he said, winking as soon as he caught Trina’s eye.

  He started to go in, but Trina pulled him toward the dollhouse. “Come and see it.”

  She crouched down and hung Augustine’s dress on her four-poster bed. When her dad crouched next to her, Trina gushed with excitement. “Look at the dining room table, Poppo. It’s set for three people. See the little dishes and the tiny silverware? And the newspapers on the side table? And there’s the doll. In bed. The dress belongs to her.” Trina knew better than to introduce her to him as Augustine—as if she were real.

  “This little doll?” He picked up Augustine and her eyes popped open with a vacant stare. “She’s pretty fancy,” he said. When he flicked her arms and legs, they kicked and waved as if yanked by a marionette’s string. Trina watched in horror, imagining what Augustine might say if she were awake. “Please don’t, Poppo. She wants you to take her more seriously.”

  “She does? Oh, of course she does,” he said sheepishly, putting her back in her bed. “I don’t know much about dolls,” he said. “But I know houses and this is one of the finest I’ve ever seen. Even the doorknobs work.” He opened and shut the front door. “Better than Goldenrod’s.” He sat back and put his hands on his knees. “You know, I bet a hundred years ago, on a stormy night just like this one, some little girl was playing with this dollhouse.”

  In the next gust of wind, the room went dark. Even the hum of electricity stopped. Trina sat still and listened as the storm raged outside. But this time the house didn’t feel scary; it just felt empty and sad. No wonder Augustine was eager to make friends. She had been lying in darkness this lonesome for a hundred years without anyone to play with her.

  With a click of his lighter, her dad found his way to the gas sconce. When he lit it, the room glowed golden. “I guess I wasn’t kidding. Some little girl would have played with the dollhouse exactly like this. By gaslight.”

  The flame of the gaslight emitted a little puff, like a tiny gasp, and so did Trina. Poppo was talking about Augustine’s little girl and he didn’t even know it. A little girl who was now long gone.

  “Look at that. It even has a stable.” He sat down next to Trina and set the horse in one of the stalls. “That means this dollhouse is a carriage house. Every mansion had a carriage house back then. It was kind of like a garage. And that’s where the caretakers lived.” He picked up the carriage and turned its wooden wheels. “Makes me wonder what happened to the carriage house for Goldenrod. People wealthy enough to build this place would have had a lot of carriages.”

  “Maybe they ran out of money,” Trina suggested.

  “Could be,” he said, gently picking up a little blue velvet chair with three legs and the splinter of a fourth. “A little glue and this chair will withstand Goldilocks.” It was funny to watch her dad’s big hands touch the small things. If Augustine woke up now, she’d be terrified.

  He set down the chair in Augustine’s room and pressed a piece of curling wallpaper back into place, but it let go as soon as he moved his finger. “Sure needs a lot of work,” he said.

  “It’s definitely a fixer-upper,” Trina said, “but I know it’s all doable.”

  “I don’t know, Princess. I’ve got a lot on my plate with Goldenrod. Every wall. Every system. The painting. Winter will be here before you know it and—”

  “No, Poppo. I want the dollhouse to be my project. You said I get my own tools, remember? And I want to learn how to sew, so I can make new curtains for it and fix the quilts and—”

  “You know you’re on your own there, right?” Her dad stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “I was always going to build your mother a dollhouse.” His voice was low and distant. And he had that faraway look in his eyes.

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “I would have, too, especially if I’d known you’d end up playing with one.”

  Now Trina had something new to think about: her mother liked dollhouses. “Why didn’t you?” she asked.

  He flexed his fingers. “With these clunkers? Just imagine.” And then he got quiet again. “You know you can’t keep it,” he said. “Nothing here belongs to us.”

  Every time Trina got her hopes up her dad seemed to knock them down. “I know I can’t keep it. We never keep any of the houses we fix up.” Trina glanced at Augustine. Only Augustine knew how badly she wanted to live in one normal place forever. Someday things would be different. Someday.

  POUND! POUND! POUND!

  Trina jumped. “Someone’s at the door, Poppo!”

  Her dad shook his head in disbelief. “Who would come all the way out here on a night like this?”

  Trina pulled Augustine’s quilt to the doll’s tiny chin before she followed her dad out of her room. The hallway and stairwell were blacker than the sky, but downstairs the parlor was filled with the bright beams of headlights.

  POUND! POUND! POUND!

  Her dad opened the door to a short man with a big black mustache wearing a long raincoat that nearly brushed the ground. He was bouncing from one foot to the other on the top plank step, rain dripping down from his soaked head.

  “Hank!” Trina’s dad said, shaking his hand. “Tr—I mean Citrine, this is Mr. Hank from the hardware store.”

  “Nice to make the acquaintance.” Mr. Hank tipped his wet head and raindrops flew. “Got a dining room table for you, Mr. Mike. Heh-heh,” he said. “Used to belong to this old place. High time she came home.”

  “Thanks, but are you sure? In this weather?” Trina’s dad sounded bewildered.

  “Just take a quick jiffy,” Mr. Hank said, glancing back and forth between the foyer and his idling truck, acting like it might drive off without him. “If you give me a hand.”

  “Sure, I guess,” Trina’s dad said. “Power’s out. Come in while I get a light on.”

  With a quick shake of his head, Mr. Hank hobbled backward through the door, turned to go down the steps, and sloshed through the puddles to his truck.

  Her dad lit the parlor and dining room sconces and went outside. As he and Mr. Hank carried a long table covered in plastic through the front door, Trina hurried into the dining room to move the card table and the folding chairs out of the way.

  They centered the table in front of the French doors, and Mr. Hank pulled off the plastic in a single swoop. As if a master switch had been flipped, the lights came on and the chandelier brightened the table’s dark wood with a red shimmer.

  “Wow,” Trina gasped. “I’ve never seen a table like this before.”

  The lights of the chandelier blinked off and then on again, in a sort of happy little wink, and Trina had a funny feeling someone was tapping her on her shoulder, trying to get her attention. She placed her hand on the table’s shiny, smooth top, and all at once she saw it set with white dishes, sparkling glasses, and a big bouquet of yellow flowers. She swore she could hear people, all dressed up and sitting around the table, talking with each other and laughing.

  Goldenrod, the sad house, now had one happy room.

  “She’s a beaut, all right. Finally back where she belongs.” Mr. Hank bounced on the tips of his toes as he quickly bundled up the wet plastic in his arms. “Don’t have the chairs, though. Nope, sure don’t. Wish I did, heh-heh,” he said, bouncing himself backward out of the dining room, across the parlor, all th
e way to the foyer as if he couldn’t wait to get out of the house.

  “Do I owe you any money?” Trina’s dad said, running to keep up with Mr. Hank. “I’m sure the Roy estate could buy it back from—”

  “Nope. She was stole in the first place,” Mr. Hank said without slowing down.

  “Stolen?” Trina blurted, trotting behind her dad. “Who stole it?”

  “Heh-heh,” was all Mr. Hank said as he disappeared out the front door into the wet, gray night. “The spindles for your porch should be in tomorrow,” he called over his shoulder. “Banister too.”

  “Great, I’ll stop by,” her dad called back just as Mr. Hank ducked into his truck, plastic and all, and rattled away.

  Trina stood in the doorway with her dad, watching the red taillights of Mr. Hank’s truck recede into the cornfield as the rain poured down in sheets. “Stolen!” Trina repeated. “Why was it stolen?”

  “Why not?” he said. “People steal all kinds of things.” He imitated Mr. Hank walking backward, bouncing from one foot to the other, all jumpy and jittery, until they both burst out laughing. “He sure was scared to come in.”

  “See what I mean, Poppo? Everyone thinks this house is haunted.”

  “And you know what I have to say about that,” he said as the electric lights in the chandelier flickered like candles and dots of light danced on the new dining room table.

  Trina gave the ceiling a distrustful glance.

  “Don’t worry,” her dad said. “Even if we lose power again, we’ll still have the gas lights.”

  Losing power didn’t worry Trina. But the idea that the house could somehow be listening did. A storm could make the lights flicker, but a storm wouldn’t know how to make the lights flicker as though winking at her, or when to shut a door, or how to blow French doors open if the locks worked properly. And most of all, what could possibly explain Augustine, except for something in the house itself?

  Trina knew she was right when she said everything was Goldenrod’s fault. She could blame everything on the old house, even how the kids at school treated her, except . . . except nothing had gotten her yet, so it was more like the house had cried wolf. And she knew that people who cried wolf wanted attention.