“What a nice angel,” said Emily, stopping to admire her. She touched the angel’s foot and smiled up at Sally. “I like this house,” she said. “And what a long stairway. It goes on and on!”
In the upstairs hall she stared in awe at the grandfather clock, and admired the flowers on the rug. “It looks like a garden up here,” she said.
Sally took her proudly into her bedroom.
“What a pretty room!” cried Emily, her eyes shining. “It’s the prettiest room I ever saw! Oh, Sally, you’re so lucky!”
“Maybe I am,” thought Sally, remembering how she had felt when she had first come here. And now, why now she was having the best adventure of her life! “How funny,” she thought. “If I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have known Emily, and I wouldn’t know about the other Sally, and Elizabeth!”
“Is that the other Sally and Elizabeth?” Emily was pointing to the picture over the fireplace.
Sally nodded.
“She does look just like you! And Elizabeth is — she’s wonderful! Oh, Sally, you just have to find her! Wouldn’t it be fun to play with her?”
Sally took Emily up to the attic and showed her the other Sally’s trunk and all the things inside. She let her read the diary, and she put on the other Sally’s clothes for her. She told Emily all about her dreams, and how it had seemed that she could see the other Sally in the mirror. The two of them stood side by side looking into the mirror. “Yes,” said Emily, “that does look just like the other Sally in there.” She took a bite from the gingerbread cooky she had brought to the attic with her. “I wish I could have a dream like that,” she said wistfully.
But this time nothing happened.
And they looked and looked for some clue to Elizabeth’s whereabouts. But for a very long time they found nothing at all.
“What’s Shadow doing?” asked Emily.
Sally looked up from the paper-lace valentine she had found in a box. “Oh, he’s pushing something into that space between the wall and the roof. See where it comes down there? He’s always doing that.”
“Cats are funny,” said Emily. “Is it true that they don’t like to be laughed at?”
“That’s what my Aunt Sarah says,” Sally answered, smoothing the lace of the valentine and placing it back in the box. “She’s very old and she probably knows a lot.”
Emily had disappeared behind a chest of drawers.
Sally looked up when she heard a gasp of surprise, which seemed, since she could not see Emily, to come from the chest itself.
“Sally!” cried Emily’s excited voice. “Come here!” Her face, which to Sally’s surprise had turned a glowing pink since she had last seen it, appeared briefly from behind the chest and then vanished again.
Sally was on her feet immediately, hurrying over to Emily, hardly daring to hope, scarcely able to breathe. “Is it — Elizabeth?” she whispered.
“No,” said Emily, looking up at her from where she was kneeling on the floor behind the chest. “It’s this!” And with a triumphant flourish she held something up in one hand.
It was Sally’s turn to gasp. “Emily,” she whispered. “It’s Elizabeth’s bonnet!”
Emily nodded her head up and down several times in rapid succession, her grin widening all the while, till it stretched almost to her ears.
Sally’s trembling fingers reached out to take the little yellow bonnet. “It really is!” she cried, looking up at Emily, whose head was still bobbing excitedly up and down. “Where did you find it?”
Emily’s head was slowing down, though the grin remained. “Right here,” she said proudly, pointing to a spot on the dusty floor near her knees.
Sally stared at the spot as if she expected it to tell her something. There was a pounding in her ears which would have made it impossible to hear anything, however, particularly the faint voice of a dust-laden floor.
She looked up at Emily, “I looked back here yesterday,” she said, “and I’m sure it wasn’t here then.”
Emily was not smiling now. Her eyes were very dark and round with astonishment. The two girls stared at each other. They could hear the steady ticking of the grandfather clock, like the beating of the heart of the old house. And indeed, at that moment the house did seem to Sally to be alive, and more than that, to know something about Elizabeth and the other Sally, about herself and Aunt Sarah. Houses must get to know something, she thought, with all the things that happen in them. Was it trying to tell her something?
“But how did it get here, then?” Emily was asking.
Sally shook her head. How had the bonnet gotten here, where it had certainly not been yesterday? She looked up at the dusty rafters overhead — not so far overhead at this point, for they were sitting only a little distance from the part of the wall where the roof sloped steeply down. By standing on tiptoe, she was able to touch the roof. She ran her fingers along the top of the rafter. The thick coating of dust that she found there had certainly not been disturbed in many years. There was nothing up there but dust. The bonnet could not have fallen down from there.
She sat down again. “Emily,” she said, “do you realize what this means? It means that Elizabeth is here somewhere. I was right!”
Emily nodded. Her eyes were very shiny.
Sally got down on her hands and knees and peered beneath the chest of drawers. She sat up. “She’s not there,” she said. She looked down at the faded little bonnet in the palm of her hand. It looked in that unsteady hand as if it were trembling with a life of its own.
As she gazed at it, her longing to find Elizabeth, to hold her in her arms, grew until it filled her entire body and spilled over into the attic. It seemed to her that the very cobwebs shuddered in sympathy. The trunks looked as if they were about to fling open their tops in excitement.
“Emily,” she said, looking up at her friend, “it almost seems as if Elizabeth is leaving clues for us, doesn’t it?”
Emily touched her tongue to her upper lip and nodded. “Maybe she really is magic,” she said.
“Maybe she wants us to find her,” said Sally. “Maybe she’s lonely.”
“Yes,” agreed Emily, clasping her hands tightly together and shivering with delight. “Do you think she’s playing a game with us?”
Sally thought for a moment. “No,” she said at last, “I don’t think so. I think it’s just that she can’t do everything for us. We have to do something to find her.” It seemed to her as she spoke that she knew Elizabeth very well, knew that she would not play such a game with them, would never tease them. Or was it the other Sally she knew so well? After all, it was the other Sally who had first imagined things with Elizabeth, just as Sally herself was doing.
“But what can we do?” asked Emily.
“We can start looking all over again,” said Sally. Determination strengthened her voice. She stood up and slipped the little hat carefully into her pocket.
Once more they made a careful search of the attic.
“She isn’t here anywhere,” wailed Emily at last, turning her dust-streaked face to Sally. Cobwebs were clinging to her long braids, and there was a black smudge on her nose. “Your face is all dirty, Sally,” she said.
Sally nodded wearily. “There’s nowhere else to look,” she agreed and brushed at her cheek. But Elizabeth had to be somewhere, she reminded herself, touching the little bonnet in her pocket. Yes, she had to be.
They went downstairs to show their find to Aunt Sarah, who could not seem to believe that she held the little bonnet in her trembling fingers. She was looking at it as if it were a small ghost.
“Elizabeth was wearing the bonnet when she was lost, wasn’t she?” asked Sally anxiously, for she had just realized that maybe the bonnet had never been lost at all. And that would mean — that would mean that Elizabeth was as far away as ever!
But Aunt Sarah nodded. “I’m certain that she was,” she answered firmly, and Sally believed her. “You say the bonnet wasn’t there yesterday?” she asked.
Sally shook her head. “I know it wasn’t there. I looked. I remember looking in that very place.”
“It’s very strange,” said Aunt Sarah, “very strange indeed.” And she gave the bonnet back to Sally, handling it very gently as she did so. “Wouldn’t it be funny,” she said, as if she were talking to herself, “if you did find Elizabeth after all these years?” She smiled, though it looked to Sally — she thought that she must be mistaken — as if there were tears in Aunt Sarah’s eyes!
It was hard to say good-bye to Emily that day, for both of them were so excited that they wanted to go on and on talking about the bonnet, and how it could have come to be there on the floor of the attic, and where else they could look for Elizabeth. Even Aunt Sarah was caught up in their enthusiasm, and seemed reluctant to have it end.
“You’re very sure,” she said, “that you looked everywhere?” They nodded.
“Well,” said Aunt Sarah at last, “maybe after dinner and a good night’s sleep, you’ll think of something.”
“May we look again tomorrow?” Sally asked her aunt as Emily was leaving.
“Of course,” said Aunt Sarah. “And Emily’s invited to come again and stay for lunch.”
Emily uttered a little crow of delight and leaped from the top porch step to the path, her braids flying. This reminded Sally of the famous leap of the hoptoad into the teacup, and made her laugh. She and Aunt Sarah stood companionably watching Emily skip down the path to the gate.
“Thank you, Aunt Sarah,” said Sally when the gate had closed behind Emily.
“You’re very welcome, Sally. Look, doesn’t Shadow look happy?” said her aunt, pointing to where he was sitting on the hall rug. “I think he likes having children in the house. They liven it up. Yes, it does seem as if this old house is coming alive again.”
Sally remembered how she had felt in the attic, as if the house were alive. “Do you really think houses can come alive?” she asked.
“I do,” said Aunt Sarah, “when there are people in them who care for one another.” And to Sally’s immense surprise, Aunt Sarah bent down and kissed her on the cheek! Sally was too dumfounded to do anything but stand there, fingering the little bonnet in her pocket and feeling, for some reason, completely happy.
She went to sleep that night, the bonnet on the night table next to her bed, feeling sure somehow that the next day she and Emily would find Elizabeth at last.
But it was not to be.
Chapter 15 - Christmas Eve
Next morning Sally woke feeling extremely strange. Her throat was now very sore, and she felt hot and cold by turns and quite horribly weak besides. When her aunt came in to say good morning, Sally found to her surprise that her own voice came out as a hoarse croak.
“My goodness,” said Aunt Sarah, peering down at her. “You look terrible, Sally — all flushed and odd.” She placed a gentle hand on Sally’s forehead. “Why, you’re simply burning up. You stay right here in bed. I’ll call the doctor right away, and then I’ll bring your breakfast up to you.”
Sally felt as if she could not possibly do anything but stay there in bed. It was an effort even to move a finger, which she tried to do by way of greeting Shadow, who stood up, when Aunt Sarah had bustled out, from where he had been curled at her feet. He came and sat on her pillow, and licked her hot cheek with his rough tongue.
“Hi, Shadow,” she croaked. “That feels good.”
Sally ate scarcely any breakfast at all, and her aunt looked worried as she carried the tray away.
Sally looked sleepily and fondly at Shadow, who was now sitting on her stomach, cleaning industriously between the toes of his paw.
“Shadow!” she cried, and she would have raised her head if had not made her dizzy even to think of it.
Was she dreaming? For it looked to her as if Shadow had a tiny golden thread caught between the curving ivory claws of his paw — a golden thread that looked as if it must be, as if it could only be — a strand of Elizabeth’s own hair! Her eyes flickered over to the bonnet on the night table, but she was sure that it had not been disturbed. The frayed ribbons still lay in the patterns she remembered from the night before.
“Shadow, let me see!” she begged, reaching a hand toward him. But Shadow stood up, stretched, and flowed smoothly as a spill of water to the floor and disappeared beneath the bed.
When Sally tried to sit up, she found that she was indeed too dizzy and exhausted to do anything but call, in a plaintive, trembling whisper, “Here, Shadow, here, kitty, kitty, nice Shadow —”
She could hear him busily licking himself beneath the bed.
When Aunt Sarah returned to say that the doctor would be coming soon, Sally told her in a weak voice, which shook with excitement, about her discovery.
Aunt Sarah, listening, touched her forehead. “You’re very hot,” she said. “Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”
Sally tiredly shook her head from side to side. “Please, Aunt Sarah, look at Shadow’s paw. He’s under the bed. He knows where Elizabeth is!”
Aunt Sarah sighed and shook her head. She looked very worried, and did not seem to be taking Sally’s story seriously at all.
“Please,” begged Sally.
“All right, Sal,” she said, “if it’ll make you feel better. Shadow!” she ordered sharply. “Come here!”
Shadow appeared, blinking, from beneath the bed. Aunt Sarah, with some difficulty, stooped to pick him up. She placed him on the bed.
“There,” she said. “Where is this thread now?” Breathing hard from her exertions, she sat down on the bed next to Sally.
“On that paw,” said Sally, weakly pointing.
Aunt Sarah gently lifted Shadow’s right paw and peered at it. “I can’t see anything,” she said.
Sally stared at the paw, at the black velvety pads, at the tips of the ivory claws just showing. “Neither can I,” she said. “Maybe it was the other paw.”
But as Sally had feared, there was nothing on the other paw either.
“Now Sal,” said Aunt Sarah after a long silence, during which they did not look at each other. “I want you to rest. Forget about Elizabeth and just concentrate on getting better. You’re sick, and all this excitement about the doll — I blame myself. I ought never to have let you start it.”
“But I know it was there,” Sally said. “I wasn’t dreaming. He could have pulled it off when he was cleaning his paw—” Her voice trailed off into a tired mumble. Her eyes closed with weariness, and she felt a tear slip from beneath the lid of one of them and slide down her cheek.
“Sal, Sal,” whispered her aunt, stroking her forehead. “Go to sleep, dear. Rest.”
Aunt Sarah’s cool hand felt good on her forehead, and Sally could feel herself drifting into sleep … slowly, slowly … she seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into the soft bed. From somewhere far away, the grandfather clock whispered. Tick … a long pause … tock. Tick … tock.
Aunt Sarah was tiptoeing away from her bed.
But Sally was not quite asleep. “She doesn’t believe me,” she thought.
“Does … n’t,” echoed the clock.
Her thoughts followed Aunt Sarah’s footsteps along the hall.
“She thinks … I … dreaming … tick … tock … but I wasn’t.”
“Was … n’t.”
“Saw … thread.”
“Saw …”
But Sally was asleep and did not hear the clock whisper “thread” to the empty hall.
She woke to see what at first looked like a faraway round moon hovering over her bed. But it was, after all, Dr. Green, who turned out to be a pleasant red-faced man. He sat on her bed and petted Shadow while Sally held the thermometer in her mouth.
“Now, young lady,” he said, winking at her. “You’re going to be right here in bed for a few days, it seems. You have a touch of the flu that’s going around, and you’re not going to feel like doing much else.”
“A few days! What about Elizabeth?” she wondered in angu
ish. Would she have time to find her? What about the last entry in the diary? A few days could mean a week, and then she’d probably be going home, and Aunt Sarah would sell the house, and she’d never find Elizabeth!
The doctor took the thermometer from her mouth and looked at it. He nodded. “Feverish all right,” he said. “But there’s no need for your aunt to get in touch with your parents. No need at all to worry them. You’ll get along just fine. Just a few days in bed, and take your medicine regularly, and you’ll be up and hopping around again.” He stood up. “And you’ve done your aunt a world of good being here. She’s a new person,” he said.
“I feel like a new person,” said Aunt Sarah. “I feel quite young again.”
“Well, to make sure we keep you that way,” said Dr. Green, “I’ll send over a woman my wife knows to do a little of the heavy work while this girl’s in bed.”
And he and Aunt Sarah left the room.
For a day or so, Sally slept a good deal of the time. Aunt Sarah brought medicine to her and notes from Emily, who had come to look for Elizabeth and been told that Sally was sick.
Emily’s notes were truly bright spots in Sally’s days. They were decorated with crayon pictures of Elizabeth, and of Sally herself holding Elizabeth and showing her to Emily, who had braids that reached to her toes, upraised hands, and a round “o” for a mouth. There was also a large one of Shadow. Aunt Sarah thought it looked just like him. She pinned all the pictures up on the wall where Sally could look at them.
Dr. Green kept his promise to send someone to help Aunt Sarah. Mrs. Binneky was a brisk, happy little person who called Sally “love” and sang as she dusted her bedroom. One day she brought her a pink cupcake with a sugar bird on top in a crinkled green paper cup.
When Sally grew a little stronger and was able to sit up, Aunt Sarah brought her books to read and paper dolls to cut out. Sometimes they just talked together, mostly about California, which Sally had never seen. Aunt Sarah told her about the palm trees that grew along the street where she lived. “Sometimes,” she said, “when you’re walking along, a date will fall right on your head.” And she could pick oranges and bananas from trees in her back yard. “I just reach out the window in the morning,” said Aunt Sarah.
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