by Foxglove Lee
“It’s about a lot of weird stuff.”
“Ceremonial magic,” Leonard clarified. “Tiffany says the doll was your grandmother’s. Do you happen to know if she dabbled in the black arts?”
“What?” I didn’t know how to answer that question. “Are you asking if she was a witch?”
“Not a witch, no…”
“She wasn’t a witch.” I glanced at Tiffany, who looked at me with eyes wide as saucers. “At least, I don’t think she was. She was a normal grandma, just like yours.”
“But you never know what she was like when she was younger. Leonard says séances and stuff were really popular back when your grandma would have been young.”
“It’s possible that she or someone else opened a metaphysical door,” Leonard added. “Maybe some spirit or force became attached to the doll.”
“But then why didn’t my aunt ever notice anything weird about it?”
Leonard answered. “Some spirits, if they’re crafty, will lie in wait until the right sort of person comes along.”
“The right sort of person?” I looked down at my Christmas tree costume. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Somebody who’s a little lonely, a little different?”
When Leonard said that, I knew he could tell about Tiffany and me. Although, the fact that we’d tried to steal lesbian pulp fiction from his shop probably gave us away more than anything.
“It’s just like bullies,” Leonard said. “They know who to pick on. They have a sixth sense about it.”
A shiver took my spine, and I glanced around to see if Yvette was looking at me. She wasn’t. They’d put her back in the plastic bag and tied it up tight.
“It never gets easier, being different.” There were tears in my eyes, and I struggled to keep them from falling, but Tiffany looked at me so tenderly that I couldn’t stop it. She took my hand and squeezed it, and I sat down next to her. “Maybe Yvette wouldn’t have been jealous if I was paying all this attention to some stupid boy instead of a girl. It’s like everything I do gets me in trouble. No matter what, someone’s gonna hate me or tease me or be a jerk. I should just do the opposite of everything I want.”
“No, no, no,” Leonard said urgently. “You have to be yourself, even if it’s not easy.” He looked over his shoulder, then asked, “Do you think it’s easy for a gay man to live in a small town?”
Leonard looked at us expectantly, and it finally dawned on me that he was talking about himself.
“No,” I said. “I guess it wouldn’t be.”
“But you can’t change who you are,” he told us. “And, in spite of everything, I wouldn’t want to. Would you?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it.
Tiffany took a breath, digging her nails into my palm. “What now?”
Leonard read from the text and translated the convoluted language. “To cleanse a cursed object, burn it, drown it, or bury it in sea salt and sage.”
“I’ve already tried drowning Yvette—twice, actually. And I don’t know if she would burn. She survived the fire in my room.”
“We’ll have to bury her,” Tiffany said. “Does your aunt have salt at the cottage? And sage?”
I nodded. “There’s sage in the herb garden, but we only have table salt, like in a shaker.”
“My grandparents have coarse salt at the store.” Tiffany stood, closing the big book on Leonard’s fingers. She picked up the plastic bag containing my cursed doll. “Come on, let’s go. I was supposed to be back, like, an hour ago anyway. My grandma’s gonna kill me.”
“Wait!” Leonard stood too, holding the book like an offering. I thought maybe he was going to give it to us until he said, “I might be of assistance. That is to say, I could help if you’d only wait until after the sale.”
I was about to ask why he’d want to help us, but Tiffany must have seen some reason, or at least felt guilty after we’d tried stealing from him, because she said, “It’s okay. We’ll wait.”
He flashed a heartfelt smile, and then nodded, clearing his throat. “Come back around five. You can help load the truck, then we’ll see about this doll business.”
I heard a whisper in that moment. It was Yvette’s voice saying, “We’ll see…”
Maybe it was the whistle of the wind, but there wasn’t any breeze that day.
There wasn’t any breeze at all.
Chapter 24
Loading up Leonard’s truck turned into a lot more work than we’d expected.
After I’d changed into my new old-man clothes, Tiffany and I worked in her grandparents’ store. Maybe “worked” was an overstatement. Everybody in the community was still at the swap meet, so there was nothing to do. I had my needlework, Tiffany had her pulp fiction, and we sat together in preoccupied silence.
I couldn’t stop thinking about what we planned to do to Yvette. I had a feeling she knew, too. As much as I told myself she wasn’t real, I could practically feel her inside my head, digging for information.
Tiffany might have been more afraid than I was. As soon as we’d stepped into the store, she walked straight to the sea salt. She set Yvette on the shelf below the register and put four boxes of salt on top of her. Tiffany wasn’t taking any chances.
We got back to Leonard’s truck just after five, stopping off at my cottage first to leave Yvette in the care of my aunt.
“Leonard told me about your little plan,” Aunt Libby said as my uncle fixed dinner. “I’m curious what that old man wants with you girls.”
“Nothing gross,” I assured her.
“I get hit on by dirty old men all the time,” Tiffany added. “Trust me, I can smell a letch a mile away. Leonard’s cool.”
“Well… use your heads.” My aunt turned to my uncle. “Flip, you got anything to add?”
He looked up from the frying pan. “Are you two staying for dinner?”
“No time,” Tiffany said. “But thanks.”
Just as we turned to leave, my brother burst out of his room. It was still light out and he’d already put on his pyjamas. “Becca, I won!”
“Won what?”
“The costume contest!”
My stomach knotted. “Good for you.”
“Hey, that’s rad, little man. Gimme some skin.” Tiffany gave him a high-five and he beamed.
I couldn’t believe I was jealous of my little brother.
“Tell your sister what you won,” my uncle said from the kitchen.
Mikey ran back into his room and then jumped out with an envelope. When he handed it to me, I asked, “Can I open it?”
“You can have it. It’s a stupid prize.”
“True enough,” my aunt said. “I mean, what kind of judge thinks an eight-year-old wants a gift certificate for a tea room? Still, Mikey, that’s a lovely gesture, giving your prize to your sister.”
“I told you: call me Mike.”
When I opened the envelope, I felt giddy. “Holy Cow, this is enough for all of us to go.”
“I don’t wanna,” my brother said, flopping down at the table.
“Are you sure?” Tiffany asked in that flirty voice I wished she wouldn’t share with any one besides me. “They’ve got all kinds of cakes and pastries, Mike. Really yummy stuff.”
“Come on, Tiff.” I slid the gift certificate inside the envelope and handed it to my aunt. “We need to go.”
“Where shall I put the doll?” my aunt asked.
“In my room,” I called over my shoulder. “Nothing in there anyway. Just make sure to keep the salt on top of her.”
I think my aunt was saying something as we left the cottage, but I sped across the gravel as fast as my high-tops would carry me.
“Hey, wait up!” Tiffany called. “I wore my jelly shoes.”
“That was stupid.”
She stopped on the gravel and put her hands on her hips. “Bag your face, Becca!”
I didn’t want to stop, so I turned around and walked backwards. “What now?”
&nb
sp; “You called me stupid!”
I breathed in sharply. “I didn’t say you were stupid, I just meant it was stupid to wear those dumb shoes when you knew you’d be moving boxes.”
“Whatever.” She folded her arms in front of her chest. “Saying what I do is stupid is the same as calling me stupid.”
“Fine. I’m sorry, okay? You’re not stupid.”
“I’m really not,” she said. “Just because I’m blonde or whatever people think I’m dumb, but I’m not.”
“I know you’re not.”
She stared at me in a way where I couldn’t tell if she was angry or upset, and it finally clicked that it wasn’t me she was mad at. “Who thinks you’re dumb, Tiff?”
“I don’t know. Just, like, everyone?”
“Everyone like your mom and dad?”
“Especially them.”
“But not your grandparents.”
Tiffany kicked the gravel, then jogged to catch up with me. “I guess not. They wouldn’t trust me to do so much at the store if they thought I was a total airhead.”
“Exactly.” We walked along the side of the road, in the dry ditch, and I held her hand because no one was around. “I don’t think you’re stupid.”
She smiled. “I know.” After a while, she said, “When Leonard and I were looking for that book, I told him about all the trouble I’d been in. I don’t know why. He just seemed like a good person to talk to, for some reason. If he’d called the police on us, I would have been in super-big trouble. I’ve already had my three strikes. The judge is just itching to lock me up—I can tell.”
My head started buzzing so loudly that I couldn’t hear whatever she was saying after that. At first I thought it was Yvette getting inside my head, but the image that kept flashing through my mind had nothing to do with her. It was my dad. My dad in jail. Behind bars. With that toilet like you see in the movies, where everyone can watch you go. Then I saw Tiffany in the next cell, wearing a striped jumpsuit, her eyes expressing unadulterated misery.
“Beckers?” Tiffany stopped walking and turned to face me. “Earth to Rebecca! You okay?”
I shook my head. “Huh? Yeah, I just… I don’t want you to go to jail, that’s all.”
“I know.”
When we approached Leonard’s truck, he scowled. “You’re late, you two.”
“Sorry,” we both said.
“Well, get a move on. Help me with the last of these boxes.” He looked down at Tiffany’s jelly sandals, and said, “Nice shoes.”
If we’d only loaded up boxes, it wouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes, but once we were done that Leonard said he wanted to drop off the cash he’d earned that day at the bank because there was quite a sum.
“Where’s the bank?” I asked.
He jumped into the driver’s seat. “In town.”
“What?” I squealed, sounding like a little kid. “But I thought we were burying Yvette now.”
Those words made me feel weird, like I wanted to cry.
“I’ll be quick as I can,” Leonard said, and as an afterthought added, “You can come along if you like.”
Normally I’d never have gotten in a vehicle with a strange man. Actually, I probably wouldn’t even have gotten in a vehicle with a man I knew. Aside from my uncle, I didn’t like men very much. I felt like when they looked at me they saw a person I wasn’t, and I had no way of explaining who I was.
But I felt comfortable around Leonard, probably because he was gay. Tiffany seemed excited by the prospect of a road trip, so I thought what the heck? And it was kind of nice. Leonard told us about going to school in the city and finally meeting other people like himself. “Things are so much easier for kids these days. When I was your age, nobody talked about being gay—not here in town, certainly. Growing up, I thought I was the only person in the world with this accursed affliction. It was considered a mental defect, you know. That’s how I saw myself back then. The city really opened my eyes.”
It was really interesting, listening to his stories and imagining what it would have been like living as a lesbian in the days of Tiffany’s pulp fiction paperbacks.
Town didn’t seem so far the way Leonard drove, and once he’d dropped off his cash at the night deposit box, Tiffany offered to help him unload the unsold books into his shop.
“Are you kidding me?” I whispered. “It’ll be dark soon. You want to bury an evil doll by moonlight? Why don’t we just invite a vampire and a werewolf to tea while we’re at it?”
“I don’t think you realize what I owe Leonard,” Tiffany said while he unlocked his shop. “Imagine if the people who owned that cottage you broke into pushed for charges. Those police officers really should have arrested you. You got off lucky, Bec. You have no idea.”
She was right, and I knew it.
My arms were pretty strong, but they still ached after carrying loads of books from the truck to the shop. We worked pretty fast, but it was almost an hour before we were back on the road. Leonard bought us burgers from the one fast food place that was still open, and we ate our messy meals in the car like old friends. Anyone watching us would have thought we were weird, weird, weird—a nerdy old man, a messy girl in men’s work clothes, and a meticulous blonde wearing a Santa dress. But I’d never not been weird, so what did it matter?
Dusk had fallen hard by the time Leonard pulled into my driveway. My aunt and uncle and my brother in his pyjamas were all sitting out front in lawn chairs, waiting anxiously.
“Where in heaven’s name have you been?” Aunt Libby asked. The way she raced over reminded me of the day I’d come home in a police car. Déjà vu. Spooky.
Tiffany answered. “We helped Leonard take the books back to town, then we got burgers.”
“And you couldn’t have picked up the telephone?”
“Sorry,” I said, plotting my lie. “I couldn’t remember the cottage number.”
“I’ll stitch it into your skin if that’s what it takes.” My aunt half-laughed as she mockingly wrung my neck. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. Say goodnight, girls.”
“Leonard’s going to help us,” Tiffany said.
My brother appeared at my side. “Help with what?”
Maybe Aunt Libby hadn’t told him.
“Yvette,” I said. “We need to do a ritual, to get rid of her.”
He seemed sort of heartbroken. “Why?”
“Because…” I didn’t want to say the doll was evil, but I couldn’t find the right words. “We think maybe she’s haunted. We’re afraid something bad might happen.”
I hoped Tiffany wouldn’t add anything, and I was relieved that she didn’t.
“Where is the doll now?” Leonard asked.
My aunt seemed reluctant to invite him inside, but she finally relented. “The girls said to leave it in Rebecca’s room.”
Aunt Libby led the way, and when we’d all crowded around my door, my muscles started to seize. I felt like I hadn’t entered that room in forever. There was a weird energy about it, like the place was cursed.
I put my hand on the door and told myself to push, but I couldn’t. What if Yvette was gone? What if she’d escaped her bag and my floor was strewn with salt? I was scared of everything, of every prospect.
It was Mikey who pushed my door open with one unrelenting heave. The plastic bag was lying there in the middle of my floor. Even piled up with boxes of coarse salt, it reminded me of body bags you see in the movies. A flash crossed my mind, of Yvette as a real person, skull cracked, missing an eye. A dead body in a bag. It was enough to make me want to cry.
I covered my face with both hands, pressing my palms into my eyes so hard I saw stars. It hurt, but I didn’t care. When I pressed even harder, those stars turned into flashing lights—red, white, blue. Police lights against a dark sky, bouncing off cold asphalt and the body of a young girl. A child called Natalie Spanner. The girl my father had killed.
I gasped, and right away Tiffany’s hand found my shoulder. “What’s wron
g?”
“Nothing.” How could I possibly tell her that thought? The shame gnawed at my insides. “Come on, let’s do this.”
“Wait,” my uncle said. “Bec, did you notice something new?”
I hadn’t until he asked. Despite my terror and guilt, a smile crossed my lips. “You got me a dresser?”
“Picked it up at the swap meet.” He seemed so proud. “And look inside.”
Look inside? I didn’t even want to step in that room, with Yvette lying there like a corpse. “Can someone pick up Yvette?”
“Sure.” Tiffany to the rescue. My aunt handed her a plastic tray, and she set the bag down first, the salt on top. “We’re all set.”
If my uncle hadn’t been smiling so widely, I wouldn’t have set foot in that bedroom. I opened the dainty white dresser, and the top drawer was full of shirts. T-shirts! Not only T-shirts, but work shirts. They had patches with names on them.
“There are pants in the next drawer. Hope you like them. They seemed like your style.”
They were. They were exactly the kinds of clothes I liked, and the fact that my uncle had picked them out for me instead of buying frilly pink girl things made me almost want to cry.
“Thank you,” I said, staring at my new clothes. Sometimes I forgot how lucky I was, but when I turned and saw so many people crowded around my room, ready to take on unknown evil, I knew how much they cared. It was right there on their faces. “Okay, let’s get digging.”
There were only two shovels, and I definitely needed one. My uncle took the other, and we started a hole behind the cottage. The clearing wasn’t big, and most of it was taken up by the tepee and the fire pit, but there was a spot near the forest path that seemed like a suitable burial site.
With his back to the forest, Leonard watched us dig. Tiffany stood across from him, holding Yvette like a sacrificial lamb while my brother and my aunt picked sage from the herb garden.
The night hadn’t felt hot before I started digging. Now sweat rolled down my spine, soaking my T-shirt. I mopped my brow with the back of my arm. Everything felt sticky.
“How deep should we make it?” I asked my uncle.
“I can’t see the bottom.” He stopped digging. “Maybe it’s deep enough?”