by Lois Ruby
Chester follows us up the stairs. The grandfather clock in the hall strikes five again. Ha! Mom said it was fixed. I drop Brian and Chester in his room and head for the first-aid kit in the bathroom to soothe my charred foot. Ointment and a thick bandage will help, plus sweat socks and sneakers. So, when I’m sure Chester and Brian are tucked away in his room, I head for the attic, because I’ve got one of my terrible hunches.
And I’m so right. In the dollhouse, the three green velvet couches that match our ruined parlor ones are gone. No trace of them anywhere. I douse the flashlight and sink against the wall across from the little porthole window, trying to figure out how this might have happened so quickly.
A blast of headlights tells me the disaster fix-it people have arrived with a big truck. They’re hauling heavy equipment into the house and quickly set the dryers roaring. Nobody’s going to be able to sleep through this. But a great idea strikes me. Now’s my chance while there’s good light and lots of commotion. Mom won’t notice me missing. I tiptoe down the stairs. Mom’s got her back to me, standing in the ruined, squishy parlor with two men and four roaring dryers. I slip out the back door and dash up the hill to rescue Baby Daisy.
This time I won’t get caught.
THE BASEMENT WINDOW SLIDES UP MORE EASILY this time, almost as if it’s been oiled. I shimmy down the inside wall instead of jumping and jolting my knees. One foot lands on something soft. I leap away to solid ground. Something sweeps across my hair. Ugh. I spin away from it, relieved to see that it’s only the dangling pull-string of a lightbulb. Pull it, or not? With the blaring lights of the truck down at our house, no one would really notice if I turned the light on for a second. I yank the string, and dim blue light barely makes the mess on the floor visible. All the dolls and broken parts I’d so faithfully covered are strewn across the floor. The tarp I’d laid across them is flung over the banister.
Someone’s been here.
Kneeling on the cold cement, I sift through the limbs and heads, searching for Baby Daisy more by feel than by sight, but nothing that tiny is among the scattered parts of these large, soft dolls. So I might as well not take the chance with the light any longer. It zaps off and leaves me in pitch-black again, which is almost better than the bulb that made my skin look a sickly blue.
Footsteps! Someone’s in the room right above my head! Terror rockets through me. I grab the tarp, as if it could protect me from whatever lurks in the dark. It’s better than nothing. The door at the top of the stairs creaks open. I’m a frozen statue, holding my breath, praying to be invisible in the impenetrable darkness.
A figure slowly creeps down, one step at a time. Closer. Closer. I don’t dare step back, but if he gets any closer he’ll collide with me. How stupid could I be to sneak into this house?
Two more stairs and we’ll be eye to eye. He’s taller than I am; I can tell by the movement of air, though I can barely see an outline of a human form. Only one thing to do. I have the advantage of surprise. Quick as a flash, I raise the tarp and throw it over the intruder and bring him crashing to the floor, me on top with the full force of my weight.
“Ouch, you’re killing me!” the person under me cries. A girl. She’s kicking and thrashing around, and I roll off onto a padding of doll parts.
Mariah throws off the tarp. “Sheesh, you scared the living daylights out of me!”
“What are you doing here?” I shout.
“Could ask you the same thing.”
“You first.” I get up to pull the light. At least, if we’re going to have this ridiculous conversation on the basement floor, we might as well be able to see each other.
“I’m looking for something,” Mariah says.
“That makes two of us. Like what?”
She waits a good long time before she admits it. “The journal.”
I fake ignorance. “What journal?”
“Sadie and Emily’s.”
My face always gives me away, and Mariah catches on.
“You found it already, right?”
I nod.
“Give it to me.”
“It’s not yours.”
“Not yours, either,” Mariah says.
“Is too. It came with my aunt’s house.”
Mariah’s face flashes surprise. “You mean it was never here, in this house?”
“Maybe.” Better be cautious.
“That’s not what Emily told me. She said she stowed everything away, hid the evidence over here, not in the Thornewood house.”
“I guess she lied to you,” I say smugly. “Anyway, why do you want the notebook?”
“None of your business,” Mariah huffs.
“It’s my business absolutely. And I’ve read every word. Nearly.”
“About Sadie?”
“A little about her,” I reply.
“About how she died?”
Should I continue to fake it? Might as well be honest. “Not really.”
“Phew, that’s a relief,” Mariah says, hugging herself against the chilling air. “I was afraid —”
“That there was something in the diary about your grandmother?”
“What do you know about my grandmother?” Mariah snaps.
“Well, if you really want to know the truth, there’s nothing in the journal that says your grandmother Truva poisoned Sadie, just in case that’s what you’re worried about.”
Mariah gives me one of her classic shrugs, her face now expressionless in the dim blue light. “Who’s worried?”
“This place smells moldy. Let’s get out of here.”
She scrambles to her feet. “But you didn’t tell me what you were looking for.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I reply, though my beating heart knows it matters a whole lot.
She shoves her hand into her jeans pocket and pulls out a fist closed around some small object. “Could it be this?” With her other hand she dramatically opens her locked fingers one by one, and there, nesting in her palm, is Baby Daisy.
I snatch her up and tuck her under my friendship bracelet.
Without another word, we each climb out the window and walk carefully toward my house, picking our way through the dark and brush.
“Saw the fire engine. Sorry. Did the fire burn up much in your house?” Mariah asks.
“Just in that stuffy old parlor. I think the high-pressure water did more damage than the flames and smoke, actually.”
Neither of us says anything as we get closer to the disaster-service truck, until Mariah cracks the night’s quiet: “I’ll tell Grandmother Truva she’s off the hook.”
“Also tell her that her old friend Canto Caliberti says hello. I may bring him down to visit next week.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell her, but who knows how much gets through the cotton in her brain? Oh, well, we all gotta get old someday, right?”
“Thanks for rescuing Baby Daisy,” I whisper.
“Just didn’t seem right, her being down there with those busted-up dolls. She needs to be back where she belongs, don’t you think? In the doll graveyard.” And with that, Mariah takes off running to the main road.
In the morning when I wake up, the house reeks of smoke. Wish I could skip school, but Mom wouldn’t let me. She’s got breakfast ready out on the cold sunporch, where the windows are open against the burn smell, and where it’s a little bit sheltered from the dryers that roar as loud as an airplane engine.
The phone rings. “Who’d be calling at seven in the morning?” Mom asks, jumping up to answer. She comes back and hands me the phone. “Your friend Darcy,” she says, obviously irritated that she’d call so early.
“Hi, Darcy.”
“Omygawd, I heard your house was on fire, Shel!”
I wince at the name that only Dad uses. “Just the front room.”
“That is so awesomely exciting! Can I come over after school and see the damage?”
Is she totally insensitive? “Sorry, I have a dentist appointment after school.”
Mom raises
an eyebrow at my little lie.
One bite of my Cheerios and I’ve decided two things: First, I’m not going to the dance Friday night, no matter what Darcy says. And second, late-breaking bulletin just in: I don’t like Darcy even a little bit. With her, every single thing is all about Darcy. So she and Arden Kells can go jump off the nearest cliff holding hands.
“THE INSURANCE ADJUSTER WAS OUT HERE TODAY,” Mom tells us at dinner. For once, we’re having hamburgers and fries and carrot sticks, like a normal family. “With good news. The insurance will cover most of the damage to the parlor. We’ll get a new hardwood floor and carpeting, and we’ll replace those ghastly green couches. I’m thinking a nice, soft, cream-colored couch and a small coffee table with shelves for books.”
I look up, my hamburger halfway to my mouth. This is the first time I’ve thought about those dolls under the glass top of the coffee table. They’re gone, burned. I wonder if they suffered in the fire. No, of course not, how ridiculous to think so. Especially if it’s the dolls that caused the fire, which I suspect.
“Oh, by the way,” Mom says, “one of the disaster people found this under a pile of shattered glass from the coffee table. It’s amazing this didn’t burn up with everything else.” She takes a small doll out of her apron pocket and sets it down in front of my plate. I feel all the color drain from my face.
Brian scoots down to get a good look at the doll and announces, “She looks just like Shelby.”
I snatch her away, not willing to admit to anyone else that I have a me-doll, just like Emily.
“Hmm. I don’t see the resemblance,” says Mom. “Oh, and more good news, kids. I got my first customer today. Some lady ordered three different kinds of soup to try for her diner in Santa Fe. Keep your fingers crossed. It could be giant for us.”
Brian’s not really paying attention. He’s probably making chess moves in his head, as usual. All we hear is the crunch, crunch of the French fries, when suddenly Brian asks, “Did Aunt Amelia play chess?”
“That last day at the hospital, didn’t she say she never took to the game?” Mom asks. “There are lots of things I didn’t know about her. Like her romance with Mr. Caliberti. And for the life of me, I still can’t picture her smoking a pipe.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. Why did Aunt Amelia give me that weird pipe?”
We’re both startled as he shoves his chair back and runs into the dining room to unlock the hutch. Again I think, Don’t let the dolls out!
He comes back to the table with the pipe awkwardly dangling from his hand, the tassel brushing his hamburger. He clunks the pipe’s porcelain bowl on the table, loosening something rattly.
“Hand it over,” I say automatically, but he won’t. The bowl is hinged, and he tries to open it with his stubby, nail-bitten fingers. It won’t budge. He picks up a knife, licks the mustard off, and uses the end to pry open the cap of the pipe bowl. Mom and I both watch to see what he’ll find inside.
“It’s probably just dried-up tobacco,” I mutter.
“Hunh-uh. Aunt Amelia said it wasn’t a smoking pipe.” Finally, the knife pries the top open, and it goes flying across the kitchen. Chester thinks it’s a game of fetch, and he brings it back. All he gets is a quick head-ruffling, because we’re much more interested in the object inside the pipe.
The missing queen.
Brian and I dash into the disastrous parlor, Mom cluelessly trailing us, so Brian can put the queen in her opening spot on the chessboard. She doesn’t slide onto the peg easily. He has to twist and jiggle her until she snaps into place with a rewarding click.
There’s another noise I can’t identify for a few seconds until Mom cries, “Look!”
Above the charred mantel, the portrait of Lady Thornewood is sliding to its left, revealing a small square door leading to … what?
“Brian, go get the ladder, quick.” Mom says, and he flies past us to the garage. Mom tries to reach the silvery, square doorknob in the center of the black door, but her stretched fingers are still inches away. Discouraged, she says, “Our old aunt was full of secrets, wasn’t she?”
Which reminds me of something that Aunt Amelia said about Isabella: “We all need friends in high places.” This odd little door is sure up high.
The ladder makes a clattery sound as Brian drags it into the room and locks it into position in front of the portrait. I start to climb up the first rung, but Mom shakes her head.
“If anyone’s going to break her neck, it’ll be me. Stand clear, kids, because who knows what’s inside that wall.”
I know. At least, I think I know.
While we wait with hearts pounding, she carefully climbs up, steadying herself with both feet on each rung. I’d have run right up all those steps and flung that door open by now. Could she be any slower? Finally she’s high enough to grasp the doorknob.
“Here goes.” But it won’t budge. “I don’t want to yank back on it too hard because I’m afraid I might tumble off the ladder.”
“Can I try?” Brian asks. She’ll never let him, but then I remember that Mom’s really scared of heights, and she’s probably quivering like Jell-O inside right now. In fact, she’s slowly coming down, like it’s a mountain, and when she reaches the bottom, her face is pasty white.
I give her a quick hug and say, “Let me do it, Mom,” and she nods. Yes! I scramble up the ladder; have to go two rungs higher than Mom to reach the doorknob, and I do give it a big yank. Nothing happens. I try turning it, but it’s not on any kind of swivel.
“Any ideas?” I ask, looking down at Mom and Brian. Mom’s thinking, but Brian’s fiddling with the chess set. “Brian, for once in your life, get your mind off chess and work with me on this!”
He ignores me, and here I am on the next-to-the-last rung of a ladder, with my head gently clunking against a secret door that will not open.
“Try it now,” Brian says, looking up expectantly. “I kinda thought the king might be the key, so I turned him one more notch, which wouldn’t go until the queen was locked in place.”
And Brian is so right! The doorknob’s now jiggly in my hand, and the whole door pulls open easily. It’s a narrow little safe just big enough for a doll-sized rocking chair. And tied to the chair is a doll that’s maybe a foot tall. Her elegant magenta dress is rumpled and moth-eaten. Tatters of lace hang to the floor. There’s a scarf over her mouth, a gag, tied in a knot at the back of her head. Some of her upswept hair hangs in knotty straggles around her face, leaving just barely visible two dark blue eyes, wide and terrified and silently screaming Help!
“I found Lady,” I announce quietly, before I shout it for all the dolls’ ears from one end of Cinder Creek to the other: “I FOUND LADY!”
Grasping the doll, chair and all, I tuck Lady under my arm to start back down the ladder, but my hand slips on the wall that supports the ladder, and the ladder swings backward. Suddenly I’m flying through the air.
FOR A FEW TERRIFYING SECONDS I SEEM TO BE suspended in midair. Frantic voices all around whisper:
“Watch her! She’s got Lady in her arms.”
“Yes, for heaven’s sake, catch her, catch the girl!”
“All these years, banished …”
It’s not Mom I hear; it’s not Brian.
“Ach, no matter. She’s safe and sound as sand now.”
“Only so if we catch the girl in time! Come, come, all of you!”
And then I’m floating on heavy air, like a magic-carpet ride. The chair with Lady tied to it seems joined to my body as I flutter to the floor and land softly with Mom’s arms around me.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” She’s probing for broken bones, sprained ankles, bumps on the head.
I’m in a daze, but I nod that I’m okay. It’s just Brian and Mom in the room, but I feel surrounded by other beings, souls, whatever you’d call them. I don’t see them, or hear them anymore, but I know they’re there. I just don’t know if they’re looking out for me, or for Lady.
Mom t
akes Lady and the chair out of my arms, and at that moment, I sense something so strong that I can smell it. Fear? Anxiousness? It’s like when you’re watching for a tottering tightrope walker to land in the safety net. Mom sets the chair and Lady on top of the chessboard, and all at once I’m overwhelmed with a wave of sweet relief.
Brian pulls me to my feet. It’s when my sneakers smash the rough-dried carpet that all the others, whoever they are, vanish, real life takes over, and I grasp a scary truth: I’ve just had an out-of-body experience. Does this happen to people who aren’t crazy? I don’t know anymore.
Mom’s bustling around now, setting things straight. She unties Lady from the chair, loosens her gag, and smooths her taffeta dress over her bodice. Brian’s occupied with the chessboard, turning the king and queen counterclockwise so the little door snicks closed and Lady Thornewood’s portrait slides back into its usual spot.
Now all the voices are silent, except for Mom’s: “You scared me to death, Shelby. All for a silly toy like this?” She holds up the doll, whose eyelids slide closed, as if she’s drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.
My voice is as wobbly as my legs. “She’s not a silly toy, Mom. She’s the answer to all the weird stuff happening in this house. She’s Sadie’s doll, the one that represents her mother, Lady Thornewood.”
Brian says, “The doll who never got buried with the rest.”
“Yes, I remember digging up the grave and finding it empty,” Mom murmurs.
A curious calm settles over me. “I’m sure that Sadie locked her in that secret chamber to punish her mother for loving Baby Daisy but never having any love in her heart for Sadie herself.”
“What a terrible thing for a child to do,” Mom cries.
Brian says, “Maybe the doll deserved it.”
“And the mother, I just can’t understand how Lady Thornewood couldn’t love both her children to pieces, the way I do. The way your father does,” Mom adds soberly.
In the kitchen, we clean Lady up and tuck the loose strands of hair into the bun at the back of her head. She seems relaxed now, eyes fluttering open every so often as if to check if she’s still in a safe place. I sit her on the table with her magenta gown fanned out around her like a parachute. Black velvet slippers, each with a magenta bow, peek out from under the dress, and looped around her neck and over one shoulder is a small beaded bag with a golden clasp. I’ve got to open it, right? But what if it’s like a jack-in-the-box, and something awful, a paper snake maybe, is released to leap into my face? I carefully open the clasp. Stuffed inside is a sheer linen handkerchief embroidered with violets.