Bury Me

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by K. R. Alexander


  They were even more shocked when I finally told them why.

  “Exactly what I said. I was taking a shower and heard the door slam. I went out to investigate. And when I came back, she was standing in the sink.”

  “No way,” James replies.

  Alicia hasn’t said a thing, but her facial expression says it all:

  She believes me, and she is scared.

  We walk through their neighborhood, heading toward town because Alicia wants to grab some food for breakfast.

  “Where is it now, then?” James asks.

  “In the trash,” I reply.

  “Do you think it will stay there?” Alicia asks quietly.

  I look at her. It’s the first time she’s said aloud what I’ve been fearing—that the doll is somehow alive. That the doll is, for some reason, after me.

  “I hope so,” I reply. My words are equally quiet. I don’t like the thought that my friends believe the doll is alive. For some reason, that makes it more real.

  “We should go check,” Alicia says. “Just to make sure.”

  I can tell that she doesn’t actually want to go through with it. I don’t either.

  “Is that a good idea?” James asks.

  “Definitely not,” I reply. I look at Alicia. “Let’s do it.”

  We grab some bagels from the grocery store and head straight to my trailer. I try not to bring them here very often. It’s not that I’m ashamed of where I live; I’m just super aware of how much better their houses are, and I don’t want them to feel sorry for me. Even though there’s nothing to feel sorry about.

  Although we’re on a mission, we don’t go straight for the trash can. I can tell we all want to put it off. Instead, we sit at my front table—well, I stand, because I’m being polite—and eat our bagels in silence. Mostly in silence.

  James picks up the book I was reading and opens it to the front page.

  “This looks … interesting,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I reply. I don’t look at him. I’m too busy staring at the trash can. Are the bricks in the same spot as last night? “I finished it in one sitting.”

  “What did you learn?” Alicia asks.

  “I …”

  But I don’t remember anything I read. In all the fear of last night, I honestly forgot about the book. For some reason, that really bothers me.

  “I didn’t learn much,” I finally say. “It’s about our town’s history.”

  “Sounds boring,” James says. He slams the book shut. “Who wants to read about Copper Hollow?”

  “Yeah,” Alicia says. “It’s not like anything interesting ever happened here.”

  Their voices are both dull, just like yesterday when they left me alone in the mansion. Which makes me think I should probably bring that up. Some other time. First, I have to tackle this.

  I make my way over to the trash can. There’s no point delaying the inevitable. I can hear my friends flanking me as we crunch across the gravel. My heart hammers in my throat. Slowly, I remove each brick and set them on the ground.

  When the last is cleared, I grab the lid. I try to ignore how badly my hand shakes.

  And when I remove the lid, I don’t know whether to gasp from fear or relief.

  The doll isn’t there.

  Panic races through me.

  “Are you sure you threw it away?” James asks unhelpfully.

  I don’t answer. I’m already halfway to my trailer, my mind screaming, No. No no no. If someone came by and stole it—or if it escaped—this can’t be over. I just want it to be over. I want this all to be a bad dream.

  I throw open the front door and turn on all the lights.

  “I know you’re in here!” I yell. To no one.

  The trailer is empty.

  For a moment, I stand there, breathing heavily, my friends worrying behind me. I don’t know what I expected to see. The doll on my pillow again? Or Peter or someone else, sitting at our kitchen table, there to make fun of me? But there’s no doll and no bully, and before I can start wondering if I’m losing my mind, I rush in and begin opening cabinets, looking under the table, pulling off the sheets of our unmade bed. I probably definitely look like I’m losing it.

  “What are you doing?” Alicia asks.

  “It has to be here,” I say. “It has to.”

  “What if it’s not?” James says. “What if it was a bad dream?”

  “Yeah,” Alicia says. Her voice is quiet, like she’s trying to convince herself. “Are you sure this isn’t just your wild imagination playing tricks on you? You’re always so good at make-believe …”

  “I know it was here last night,” I say. I push myself up from where I was rummaging through the lower drawers of our bed and face them. That’s when I see the trailer through their eyes. Small. A mess. And me, standing in the middle, looking wild-eyed and frantic. They probably think I’m making it up.

  I don’t know whether to be angry or to laugh, because if I were in their shoes, I’d think the same thing.

  “Come on,” I say. “I’ll prove it.”

  Without waiting to make sure they’re following, I storm past them and into the woods.

  * * *

  I don’t head to the fort. I head straight to the tiny burial mound.

  James and Alicia are right behind me, and I make sure they get the chance to see it when I arrive. I expect to find the mound torn apart, maybe scraps of the doll’s dress stuck to the twigs. But when we get there, the mound is exactly as it was yesterday—a small, fresh pile of dirt with a few stones on top.

  My heart sinks.

  No. I have to be right. Or, at the very least, I have to be sure.

  I drop to my knees and push aside the rocks, then start to dig.

  “Kimberly—” Alicia begins. I don’t stop or say anything. My hands are coated in dirt and my nails are chipped from the rocks, but I barely feel the cuts and scrapes as I claw through the cold, heavy ground. I barely feel anything except my heartbeat, barely hear anything above my own thoughts of I have to be right. I have to be right.

  After a few moments of digging, I hit the bottom of the mound.

  There is

  no

  doll.

  I look up at Alicia. James has already walked away, toward the fort.

  “I don’t understand,” Alicia mutters. I see her mentally sorting things out, trying to figure out how the doll could escape without disturbing the burial mound. And I see her reaching a terrifying conclusion: If the doll could escape from here, then who’s to say it couldn’t also sneak into my trailer?

  I stand.

  “Now do you believe me?” I ask.

  Alicia opens her mouth, but is interrupted by James’s yell.

  “Come here, quick!”

  Alicia and I exchange a worried glance.

  Then we run.

  James stands stock-still in front of the fort. It doesn’t take long to figure out why.

  There, sitting in the middle of our fort, her head tilted to the side, is the doll.

  There is something about her that looks a little more human. She’s covered in dirt, with twigs in her hair and her cheeks smudged. There’s no mistaking it’s the same doll, though—from the locket to the scribbled crimson dress, she is pulled straight from my nightmares.

  Even worse, written in the dirt at her feet are two words:

  “Did you do this?” Alicia asks, looking straight at me. Once more, my heart throbs—but this time, with a note of anger.

  “Why would I do something like this?” I ask.

  “Because Copper Hollow is boring and you’re trying to make it fun with another one of your wild stories?” She doesn’t sound accusatory; she sounds like she’s running out of options that make sense, and she doesn’t like that at all.

  I shake my head. Swallow hard.

  “This isn’t fun.”

  She doesn’t say anything for a long time, just looks at my face. And maybe she can read it in my eyes—the fear, the shock, th
e frustration—because after a while, she takes a deep breath and looks at the doll.

  “What do you think she wants us to do?” Alicia asks. “We already buried her.”

  And it’s then that I know she believes me. Even though I really wish she wouldn’t. If she believes me, that means there’s something scary going on here.

  “I don’t think she liked us just throwing her in the ground,” James says. “Maybe she wants a real funeral.”

  “What do you mean?” Alicia asks. “We did what she wanted.”

  “Maybe not. Maybe this is, like, the doll of a girl who was never properly buried, and she wants a real funeral.”

  I’m about to say we should take her to the funeral parlor when I realize … Copper Hollow doesn’t have one. I can’t actually remember anyone ever dying. Or being born, for that matter.

  The thought is quickly pushed out of my mind.

  “We were rude yesterday,” James continues. “You have to do it right. Respectful. That’s what anyone would want.”

  Alicia swallows hard. A funeral. For a doll.

  It should sound ridiculous, but it feels like a terrible weight settling over the three of us. It raises so many questions, and none of us have a way to find out the answers. I stare at the doll, at her dress, at the words in the sand. There’s still a chance this is a sick joke by a bully, but I can’t think of anyone in Copper Hollow clever enough to pull it off.

  Which means everything James is saying might be real. We might truly be dealing with a possessed doll. I shudder. It was in my bed.

  “Then I guess we throw her a proper funeral,” I say. “Let’s just hope it’s enough.”

  The funeral is as grand as we can make it.

  Alicia runs home to grab some funeral clothes, and James and I wander through the woods, looking for a place to bury the doll. He suggests burying it next to my pet goldfish in my backyard, since it’s close and it might count as a real graveyard.

  I don’t want the doll anywhere near my house, so I make another suggestion.

  An hour later, we are all dressed and arranged at the edge of the old mine. It’s blazing hot out even in the shade, and the extra layers of Alicia’s mourning wear don’t help. She found a couple of loose black dresses and even an old dark coat for James. We fashioned veils for all three of us out of an old black swan ballet tutu. Really, I’d say we’ve done a pretty good job for an impromptu funeral. Alicia has even brought her kazoo so we can have a burial song.

  We stand in a half circle around the tiny pit. Beside us, the road leading to the mine’s entrance stretches ominously, barricaded by moldy old boards that couldn’t keep out a child. Not that anyone would go down there willingly.

  Everyone knows it’s haunted. The perfect place for a creepy doll to be buried. Even if this is as close to the mine’s entrance as we’ll go.

  The doll is wrapped in a towel. It’s not much of a burial shroud, but it will do. At least, I hope it will do. We also made her a makeshift coffin out of a cardboard shoebox we found in the woods, along with some faded plastic flower petals and sparkly bits of jewelry we had lying around the fort. I hope that if this is real, if she really does want a proper funeral, this is enough to satisfy the doll.

  And I hope that if this is all a prank, it ends here. I can just imagine Peter and his goons in the bushes, giggling to one another as they watch us go through with this. I can see it now: When the doll is buried, they’ll come bursting out and make fun of us for being little kids who believe in things like cursed dolls and ghosts.

  I ready myself for the humiliation. But at least then it will be over.

  “You should say something,” Alicia whispers.

  “What? Why me?”

  “She was on your pillow,” James says. “Clearly, she’s linked to you.”

  I groan. I know it’s true. I just don’t like hearing it.

  “Fine.” I reach down and pick up the bundled doll. “Oh, sweet doll. Your life was too short, and you had many adventures unlived. But it is time for you to be buried. Just … please … stay that way.”

  James makes a noise in the back of his throat, and I know it’s his way of saying that I should say more. I glance at him and Alicia, then back to the doll. I can just picture her inside the towel, glaring up at me, demanding something better. I don’t know why, but something about that mental image makes me think of the mansion, and all my weird dreams.

  I guess if I’m going to do this right, I need to actually do it well.

  “Okay, okay.” I clear my throat and close my eyes and imagine the doll, but this time I see her as a real girl, which just makes my words come out stronger. “I don’t know why you came into my life, and I’m sorry that this terrible tragedy fell upon you. It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair, that your life should be cut so short. I only hope that you are able to find peace at last.”

  I lean over and gently place the doll into the casket.

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” I whisper.

  James looks at me and gives an approving nod. Then he leans over and brushes dirt on top of the closed casket. Alicia plays a mournful song on her kazoo.

  I close my eyes and ready myself for Peter or whoever pulled this prank to leap from the bushes. Any moment now.

  Any moment.

  No one shows up. That alone worries me more than I want to admit.

  Silence stretches between us when Alicia finishes playing. A cold wind rustles through the trees, causing the cavern to howl.

  Despite the sweat dripping down my skin, I shudder. It sounds like a crying ghost.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I finally say. I turn from the burial mound.

  I don’t look back.

  We spend the rest of the day playing.

  No matter how hard I use my imagination, however, I can’t focus. All I can think of is the doll. Why did it show up? Why would it want me to bury it? Was it a lost spirit needing to be put to rest? Was it a message from beyond the grave? And why do I keep thinking it’s somehow related to the mansion and my strange, dancing dreams? Even my “overactive” imagination can’t figure out why it suddenly appeared.

  I try not to worry about it, but I can’t stop. By the time James’s watch beeps, letting us know it’s time for him to go home, my stomach is in so many knots I can’t even think of dinner. Or eating alone in my empty trailer. So I do something I’ve never done before.

  I ask my friends to join me.

  “We can drop by Mom’s diner,” I say hopefully.

  They must hear the desperation in my voice. The fear. Because they exchange a look and don’t answer right away.

  “I don’t think I can,” James says. “My mom doesn’t like me missing dinner.” My heart sinks. So much for that.

  “I might be able to,” Alicia replies. “I gotta run home and tell my parents, but how about I meet you at the diner after?”

  I nod, suddenly buoyed. We can have dinner together, and even though my mom works late, I can hang out in the booth and wait for her to be done so we can walk home together. I won’t have to worry about running into the doll or anything else scary. Adults make scary things go away. So does being with a good friend.

  My friends head to their homes and I make my way to the diner in the setting sun. I pass Mayor Couch along the way. He gives me a wave and walks beside me for a moment; I wonder if he’s meeting his wife in the diner for dinner. He’s in a different faded Hawaiian shirt. Pink, this time.

  “What have you been up to this fine summer day?” he asks. His cheeks are a little red. Sunburned.

  Burying a haunted doll, I almost say. I catch myself and instead tell him, “Playing in the woods with my friends.”

  “Oooh, what was the adventure today?”

  I make up a lie that has nothing to do with ghosts or dolls or funerals. Everyone in Copper Hollow knows about my adventures.

  “Today we explored the great silver mines of Pluto,” I say.

  His grin dims.

&nbs
p; “I hope you weren’t near the old copper mines. They’re very dangerous, and we must never go there,” he warns.

  “Of course not,” I fib. I mean, we didn’t go into the mines. We were far away from the entrance. I try to change the subject. “I finished that book. The one about our history.”

  “Book?” Mayor Couch asks. “What book?”

  “The one I showed you.”

  He chuckles. “You and your imagination. I don’t remember you showing me a book.”

  I’m about to open my mouth to tell him that he must remember, but we are near the diner and something in his expression tells me not to push it.

  Something weird is going on with him. It makes me wonder … is it linked to the doll? Or maybe he just has some sort of memory loss?

  The tiny bell dings when we step into the diner, and my mom looks up from behind the counter. Her smile widens when she sees Mayor Couch. I’m pretty certain it slips a bit when she sees me beside him.

  She definitely looks tired. I know these double shifts drain her, and that’s why I try to stay out of her way both here and at home. She comes over and says hello to the mayor, who immediately goes to sit next to his wife. Then she turns to me.

  “Hi, honey,” she says, distracted. “What are you doing here?”

  “Alicia and I are having dinner together,” I say, as if it’s perfectly normal and not the first time my friend has ever joined me for a meal.

  I can tell my mom’s worried. Worried that she’s going to have to pay for our meals when she doesn’t have any money to spare. Worried that her boss will come in and get mad at her. And normally, that would be enough to make me stay at home and eat leftovers or cook ramen. But tonight, there’s no way I can go back to the trailer alone.

  She’s stuck with me.

  “Okay, well,” she says, “you can have the corner booth. I’ll get you both milkshakes.” She looks to the mayor, then to me. “Just … don’t get into trouble, okay?”

 

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