After the gravestones, the path trickled into indecision. Mrs. del Salto must have made the decided path from the cottage to the graves. I pictured her walking over and over to the graves of her children, gazing at them, eating ashes and salt. Her children had died in just a handful of days. No wonder she was all rusty and sharp.
Why didn’t she crave a boon for more children—just the way I was going to crave a boon for a Songbird and gold?
These grave markers were made of stone; there were no wooden stars. Why were some stone and some wood?
On I went, through bars of pale sun, through the shadows of the indigo trees. The trees thinned, then the forest floor broke in half and toppled into a gorge. I lay on my stomach to look. The drop was so steep it made me dizzy. Along the bottom flowed one of the countless rivers of the Indigo Heart, all rushy with spring.
“Not countless,” said the dagger. “Not if you count high.”
I turned back to the cottage. I passed the graves, the doghouse, the stable, the chicken coop, and the barn. I was beginning to understand that the Judge was rich. He lived in a cottage, which didn’t seem like a rich thing, but his horses were the best horses in all of Blue Roses, and he hired workers to tend the horses and the chickens and the gardens. There was even a worker in the cottage. Her name was Veronica. She came on Wednesdays to clean and on Saturdays to make pies and bread.
I smelled the bread first thing. Bread is strong; it has a strong smell. It’s so strong, it’s alive. You can tuck it away under a cloth, and when you come back, it’s grown. I was growing and I was alive. The dough was growing and it was alive.
The kitchen table was bare because making bread would mess up the tablecloth, and also because Veronica washed the clothes and linens. As soon as she saw me, she filled my yellow cup with milk. You could see all the cracks in it, but the glue was strong. I drank down the milk, I drank down the color of the cottage.
I wandered into the Judge’s library. It seemed so long ago that I’d thought the walls were made of books. Now I knew they were made of shelves and that the shelves were filled with books. The bottom shelves were taller than the other shelves and they were filled with Magda and Isaac’s books. Books for children were tall because they had to fit in all the pictures.
But I wouldn’t look at the books now. I went to the mantelpiece and snatched up the photograph of Magda and Isaac.
“The photograph isn’t worth anything,” said the dagger.
“I only care about the frame.” I was going to fill up all the empty spaces in the dollhouse. The frame would fill up the empty space in the dining room.
“But the frame’s not gold,” said the dagger. “Just painted.”
It didn’t have to be real gold to be valuable. It could still be valuable to me, like the little key I’d taken from Magda’s book, even though it was only made of tin.
I slid the frame into my coat pocket. The photograph came along with it, of course, even though that wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t put the frame in the pocket with the drawing of Gentleman Jack. His face didn’t go with a painted frame. His face would only go with a frame of real gold.
The dagger and I paused at the desk.
“You’ll take the coins?” said the dagger.
“On May sixth,” I said.
“You’ll take the inkwell?” said the dagger.
“On May sixth.”
“When are you going to destroy Grandmother’s photograph?” said the dagger.
I didn’t know.
“You could know if you wanted to,” said the dagger.
I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to destroy the photograph and the safe silvery feeling it gave me. I’d never disobeyed Gentleman Jack before, but maybe it wasn’t disobedience if it was a thing you just hadn’t done yet.
“Betrayal!” said the dagger.
But I was taking a long time to visit Gentleman Jack—another long time—and I wouldn’t be able to tell him why. I couldn’t say it was because I hadn’t destroyed the photograph.
There was something new on the desk, a small square of orange paper, no bigger than the Judge’s thumbprint. On it was a picture of an old-fashioned man. His hair was long and bound together at the back. On the square were tiny words I couldn’t read, but there was also a number. I could read numbers. It was the number Two.
“It’s a stamp,” said the dagger.
What was a stamp?
“It’s like money to send a letter far away,” said the dagger.
“As far as Netherby Scar?”
“Farther,” said the dagger.
The Judge had paper and envelopes and stamps and pens and ink—everything you needed to send a letter. But an envelope was much bigger than a stamp. How strange that such a small thing could send such a big thing traveling thousands of miles.
“A stamp is little but strong,” said the dagger. “If you mail a letter without a stamp, it will come back marked RETURN TO SENDER.”
I could send a letter to Grandmother in Netherby Scar.
“You don’t know how to write,” said the dagger.
“Flora could write it.” I could send a letter to Grandmother, explaining why we hadn’t arrived at her house on Day Zero—on the old Day Zero.
“You don’t know where to send it,” said the dagger.
That was true. In order to see Grandmother, I’d have to make my way to her house. That’s what Gentleman Jack always said, “Make your way.” I’d have to make my way by showing Grandmother’s pocket watch to the people who lived there. They’d recognize the engraving of the flying bird, which was the Royals’ emblem. They’d tell me where to go.
“Could I send myself to Grandmother’s house?” I said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the dagger.
I sat in front of the dollhouse. On the floor were all the ingredients I needed to make a mirror: glue, a pencil, scissors, the foil from the Sheriff’s office, the frame from the library, and Betsy’s Valentine’s Day card. The frame was empty; the Valentine’s card was good and stiff. The photograph of Magda and Isaac lay on the floor. I traced the shape of the frame on the card, then cut it out, but a little smaller. That was because I had to fit the card into the back of the frame, which was edged with a lip and two metal pivots to hold the back in place.
I only had to use half the card. I used the front part, which had a picture of some roses. I didn’t know why I’d kept the part with the words. I’d never know what they said.
It didn’t matter that the edges of the card weren’t perfectly even. No one would see the edges from the front. I knew about glue now because of the yellow cup. I spread glue on the card, then smoothed the foil over the glue. I folded the foil over the edges. Last, I slipped the whole of it into the frame, set the back onto it, and folded the pivots to keep the back in place.
The mirror fit perfectly in the dining room, under the arch of painted garlands. I unhooked the watch from the library wall and polished the cover. On the outside was the lid with the bird engraving; beneath that was the photograph of Grandmother when she was young; and beneath that was the watch’s silent heart.
“When are you going to destroy Grandmother’s photograph?”
I didn’t know. I couldn’t make myself destroy Grandmother’s photograph and wreck the safe and silvery feeling it gave me.
“Betrayal!” said the dagger. “You can’t visit Gentleman Jack until you’ve destroyed it.”
I called out to the dolls. You couldn’t reach in and grab them. They might be made of china, but they were real. They were cold on the outside, but they were warm on the inside. Their china hearts were warm.
“Come and look!” I said.
Swish went the mother doll’s skirts; tap went the father doll’s feet. There came the ticking of Oakheart’s feet on the floor, suddenly muted when he reached a carpet, loud again on the bare wood.
“It’s beautiful!” said the mother doll.
My stomach floated up like a cottonwood seed
.
“Beautiful,” said the father doll.
The mother and father dolls looked at everything. At the lace tablecloth—
“Stolen!” said the dagger. “That’s good!”
Stolen from one of Magda’s dresses. But the dress was just hanging in the wardrobe, doing nothing. The dress didn’t need the pocket, not the way the table needed the tablecloth.
At the gold frame on the wall—
“Stolen!” said the dagger.
At the silver paper in the frame—
“Stolen!” said the dagger.
“Don’t forget the key in the drawer,” I said to the mother and father dolls. “You can lock yourselves in, you can lock others out.”
“We won’t forget,” said the father doll. His eyes were a nice warm brown. It was funny how the father doll had brown eyes, and Betsy had brown eyes, but Betsy’s real-person eyes looked like marbles and the father doll’s glass eyes looked real.
I had made them happy. “I’ve seen the baby,” I said. I hadn’t yet told them about the baby doll in Elton’s General Store. It was mixed up with the ugly memory of my sticky fingers and the way the egg-man’s arm had dropped to his side. It was mixed up with my sorrows. But I liked the cottonseed feeling of making them happy.
The dolls looked up. Their eyes made the tiniest of clicks.
“Tell us!”
“Tell us!”
I couldn’t say he was in a store. They wouldn’t understand. “I was in a place with toys for children.”
“That’s a good place for our baby to be,” said the father doll.
“There were jacks and balls and blocks—”
“A ball!” said the father doll. “I should like to have a ball to kick to the baby.”
“But he can’t stand up by himself,” I said.
“Later,” said the father doll. “When he’s learned to walk.”
“By holding on to Oakheart’s collar,” said the mother doll.
“He’s about this high.” I showed them a space between my hands, about two inches. “He has brown hair and blue eyes.” I wished I knew whether his eyes clicked open and shut. “He’s wearing blue pajamas, but his feet are bare.”
“We’ll have to wrap him up warmly,” said the father doll.
“We need a blanket for the cradle,” said the mother doll. “There’s a cradle in the nursery upstairs.”
“Oh, Starling,” said the father doll. “You have made us so happy!”
I had made them happy.
“I can get a blanket before May sixth,” I said. “I have sixty-five days.”
“Hardly any time at all,” said the father doll. “Not to get the collar, which is the second task.”
The tasks should stop there. Two tasks was the right number of tasks. Grandmother had given Gentleman Jack two tasks.
“Hardly any time at all to perform the third task,” said the mother doll, “which is to get our baby.”
Even if I had plenty of time, I still couldn’t get the baby. I had no money. I’d only told them about the baby so they could be happy. Their being happy was the opposite of a sorrow. It was a joy, and even though it was a lie, I’d still embrace it.
“You couldn’t even steal it,” said the dagger. “If you went into the store, they’d be watching you every second.”
That was true. But still, the rhyme that had begun to spin itself in my mind—the rhyme about the dolls’ tasks—suddenly shifted and expanded.
One is for Oakheart,
Two’s for a collar.
Three’s for a sister,
Four’s for a brother.
“That doesn’t rhyme!” said the dagger. “Not Collar and Brother.”
But the dagger didn’t know anything about rhyming, which was why it couldn’t understand the Whistling. I knew; I’d tested it.
“Anyway,” said the dagger, “who’s the sister?”
“The sister sleeps in the green bedroom,” I said.
“Where is she?” said the dagger.
“She hasn’t gotten here yet,” I said, but I didn’t really know what I meant.
“The Indigo Heart will keep you as long as it needs you,” said the father doll. “It attracts the people it wants to attract. It keeps the people it wants to keep.”
Oakheart was asleep on the parlor carpet. His legs jerked and his tail thumped. He couldn’t close his eyes because he was made of wood, but he could sleep and he could dream. Did the wax doll have eyes that opened and closed?
“You said you were going to leave,” said the mother doll. “But you came back.”
“Because I made a new plan about Gentleman Jack.”
“There’s always a reason,” said the father doll. “That’s the way it works.”
Fine. If the dolls wanted to believe that the Indigo Heart could keep me here, let them.
“We will sing songs to our baby,” said the father doll.
“And read him nursery rhymes,” said the mother doll.
“Nursery rhymes?”
The dolls were surprised I didn’t know about nursery rhymes. “You speak like a person who knows nursery rhymes,” said the father doll. “That’s because of the piping in your voice.”
But I had no piping in my voice. My voice was thick and heavy as cement. It had one flavor, and the flavor was Ugly.
“The rhymes are in a big book,” said the mother doll.
“With a picture of a goose wearing a bonnet,” said the father doll.
“Magda’s mother used to read them to her,” said the mother doll. “And later Magda read them to Isaac.”
“Magda could read when she was only four,” said the father doll.
“The King was in the counting house, counting out his money,” said the mother doll. “That’s part of a Mother Goose rhyme.”
That was like Gentleman Jack, the King, counting out his money. Except that Gentleman Jack would be counting out his gold.
“The Queen was in the parlor,” said the father doll, “eating bread and honey.”
The parlor was for Mrs. del Salto, and the bread and honey was for me. I remembered the rhyme, but I didn’t remember it. I remembered it like an echo.
“You don’t remember!” said the dagger.
I thought about Magda, who had learned to read when she was four. I thought about her wardrobe, stuffed with memories. I didn’t remember when I was four. I only remembered when I was five, or maybe six, and Gentleman Jack rescued me. Yet there were the echoes in my head.
“Heads don’t echo,” said the dagger.
But memories could echo. When the dolls told me about the tasks, they made me remember a dog, a collar, and a baby holding the dog’s collar. I remembered thinking the baby memory must have been hollow, because inside the memory was a silver echo. And always when I looked at Grandmother’s photograph came the same silver echo.
Gentleman Jack had made me come alive. The dollhouse had made Oakheart come alive. You could tell he was alive when you looked at the inside of the dollhouse door. When the dolls left the dollhouse, he banged his nose against it, leaving tiny dents. His nose was real, the dents were real, the loneliness that made him bang at the door was real. Nilsson had given him a real nose, but the dollhouse had brought him to life.
But I was the one who’d dusted the mother and father dolls. And then look what happened! “Did I make you come to life?” I said.
“The Blue Rose made us come to life,” said the mother doll. “She made us out of clay and breathed spirit into us.”
“But you’re made of china!” I said.
“China’s made of clay,” said the father doll. “And the clay in the Indigo Heart is made of stardust.”
Before I left the attic, I hid the photograph of Magda and Isaac in the dollhouse, under the carpet in the parlor. I stuck the leftover half of the Valentine’s Day card there, too. It was perfect. You’d never know they were there. Veronica came in to dust the cottage and beat the rugs, but she never cleaned the dollhouse.
That was my job.
I left the dollhouse and its apple-seed doorknobs. My feet took me to Isaac’s room. There was no dust. The walls were blue; there was a blue cradle with yellow spindles. There was the same kind of horse I’d seen in the General Store, the one that looked like a sleigh; its mane was lavender and yellow ribbons. There were train tracks on the floor.
There was no blanket in the cradle. Isaac must have been cold. It looked too empty. It looked so empty, it would make you frantic.
I didn’t care what the dolls said. I was the one who’d dusted the dolls. I’d made them come alive.
Veronica had dusted the room, but she could not make Isaac come alive.
My feet took me down to the library. Magda and Isaac’s books stuck out from the lower shelves. Here was one with a picture of a fish-girl on the front, another with a picture of a hut running about on chicken legs. And here it was, a picture of a goose wearing a bonnet.
The pictures were loud with color. One was of a boy dangling long legs from a hayrick, casting a fishing line into a pail. Another was of a boy plunging his thumb into a pie. I almost knew what he was going to pull out.
I stared at a picture of a neat little ship with cheerful sails and white mice in blue coats strolling the decks. I felt I had loved that picture, and the words that went with it, even though I couldn’t remember them. I had loved it before I was six, before I went to live with Gentleman Jack.
“You don’t remember that time!” said the dagger.
But I wouldn’t let the dagger ruin the echo-feeling of having loved the words and the picture. A Mother Goose book could breathe spirit into your memories. The dolls had said the Blue Rose had breathed spirit into them and turned them into stardust. The Judge had said the Blue Rose breathed spirit into all creation.
Breathed Spirit. A memory recaptured is a memory come alive. It’s a memory that’s had spirit breathed into it. I hid my thoughts under the words Breathed Spirit.
I looked at the words in the Mother Goose book. They looked back. The first word was I. I was easy. But the next word was hard. It started with an S. The words looked back at me. There were lots of S’s in the words. The S’s curled in on themselves. They held on to their secrets.
The Robber Girl Page 17