The Vampire Doll

by Kat Shepherd

  Kira showed Tanya the guest room where she was staying. It reminded Tanya of the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. The walls were papered with some kind of woven bamboo, and the canopy of the four-poster bed was grass thatch. Glass globe lights hung from the ceiling in rope nets, and the bedside table had a hula-girl lamp. Although it didn’t exactly look like a kid’s bedroom, it seemed like it could be a fun place to stay for a while. There were a few stuffed animals perched on the tropical-print bedspread, which Tanya assumed Kira had brought with her. “This is a neat room.”

  Kira shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. My bedroom at home is pink and gold, and my comforter has a puppy on it.”

  “That sounds cool,” Tanya said. “Do you like dogs?”

  “I love them!” Kira gushed. She continued down the hall. “My mom and dad promised we’re going to get a rescue dog after my mom gets better. I already picked out a name for him and everything! I want to call him Max.”

  “Cool,” Tanya answered. She followed Kira to the closed door at the end of the hall. “What’s in here?”

  “This is the collection room Auntie Dot was talking about.” Kira turned the knob and opened the door. When Tanya saw what was inside, the smile fell away from her face.

  The room was filled with hundreds of dolls.

  Rows and rows of them were crammed onto the shelves that lined the cream-colored walls, and still more were nestled among the lacy pillows on the brass daybed. Tucked next to the bed was a white wicker bassinet with a realistic-looking baby doll swaddled inside. In the corner stood a child-sized table and chairs where a quartet of larger dolls were seated for a tea party, complete with miniature china cups. A thousand unblinking eyes seemed to stare back at Tanya wherever she looked, and she found herself growing dizzy. She took a deep breath and gripped the edge of the daybed for support. “What … uh…” Tanya steeled herself and tried to act natural. “What is this?”

  “It’s Auntie Dot’s doll collection. She has dolls from all over the world, and some of them are really old. She’s been collecting them since she was a little girl. Do you want to see any of them?”

  Tanya’s smile was wan, and her knuckles were white where her fingers wrapped around the daybed’s rail. “That’s okay. Unless you want to show them to me. I’m not really a doll person.”

  “Me neither,” Kira answered. “I like stuffed animals.”

  “Same,” said Tanya, relieved. She edged toward the hallway. “Do you want to go back downstairs?”

  “Sure,” Kira said. “Can you believe my Auntie Dot wanted me to sleep in here?”

  “She did?” Tanya asked, horrified. There was no way she would ever sleep in that room, not for all the money in the world.

  “Uh-huh,” Kira said. “She was all excited to show it to me when I first got here. She said it was ‘perfect for a little girl.’ I said, ‘Maybe for a girl a hundred years ago, but I don’t know any girl who would want to stay in a bedroom like that.’ She got kind of angry after that and went out to her studio for a long time.”

  “Yeah, I think there was probably a nicer way you could have told her that,” Tanya said.

  “Why?” Kira asked. “I didn’t even want to come stay here in the first place.” Her eyebrows knitted together. “I’m bored. Didn’t you bring anything else to do?”

  “Oh! Uh, yeah, sure.” Tanya was thrown by the sudden change in mood. “Let’s go back downstairs.” She took one last nervous look inside and caught the tiniest movement. Her senses sharpened, and she peered more closely at the sea of eyes, but all was still. Tanya shuddered and shut the door firmly behind her, cursing her overactive imagination. She ignored the cold sweat that had broken out on her forehead, and she forced enthusiasm into her voice. “I have a great idea for a game!” But the prickle at the back of her neck remained.

  Tanya could swear one of the dolls had winked at her.

  CHAPTER

  4

  TANYA LEANED AGAINST her locker and took a final look at her algebra homework before putting it away. She had finished it early in class, and even though she already knew it was perfect she couldn’t help checking it again. Something about seeing all of those problems neatly completed on the page made her heart sing a little, and she flipped it over to check the back. Oops. She had used the corner of the graph paper to sketch out a diagram for a new invention idea she had. She hoped Mr. Benjamin wouldn’t mind.

  “Ugh, I wish I was in the same math class as you,” Maggie said, peering over Tanya’s shoulder. “But no, you have to be in algebra with all the other geeks and leave me behind in Math Achievers.” Maggie pushed up the sleeves of her pink sweatshirt and twisted around to make sure the silver angel wings printed on the back showed around the straps of her glittery backpack. “I’m still not sure how to divide mixed numbers or why I’d even want to, and there are people in there in even worse shape than me. Calling us ‘math achievers’ is just embarrassing for everyone involved.”

  “Sorry, Mags,” Tanya answered. “I will never give up my geekiness.”

  Maggie slammed her locker shut with a smile. “I know, you miserable traitor.” Tanya laughed, and Maggie gave her a squeeze. “But I love you anyway.”

  Rebecca checked her braid crown in her locker mirror and tightened the backings on her hoop earrings. “I can help you with math if you need it. I’ve gotten As on all my pre-algebra tests so far.”

  “No thanks,” Maggie answered. “Every time you try to help me you just end up complaining that my work is too messy to read.”

  “That’s because it is.” Rebecca buckled her caramel leather backpack and slung it onto her shoulders. “But I guess not everyone can be perfect like meee,” she sang.

  Clio laughed. “Perfect is one way to put it, I guess.” She fluffed her twist-outs and slipped on a bright yellow headband. “Some of us might call it … obsessive.”

  Rebecca raised her eyebrows in mock offense. “What? Just because I color-code my assignments? I prefer to think of myself as detail oriented.”

  The girls started walking down the hall toward the cafeteria. “Are we meeting Ethan for lunch?” Maggie asked, looking at Clio.

  “Why are you asking me?” Clio said. “We’re all friends with Ethan, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Maggie said. “So, are we?” she asked her again.

  Clio bit her lip and tried not to smile. “He said he’d see us there.”

  “He did, huh?” Maggie nudged Clio with her elbow. “When did he say that? You don’t have any classes together.”

  Clio wouldn’t look at Maggie. “He texted me.”

  Maggie grinned and nudged Clio again. “He texted you, huh?”

  “Oh, come on! You text me all the time!”

  Maggie waggled her eyebrows. “Yeah, but I’m not Ethan!”

  When the girls got to the cafeteria, Ethan Underwood was sitting at their usual table bent over a book, his blue-streaked bangs hanging down over his eyes. He jumped up and waved when he saw the girls walking over. “What’s up? Oh, hey, Clio. I like your shirt.”

  Clio’s eyelashes lowered shyly, and she touched the neck of her embroidered peasant blouse. “Oh, thanks.” She sat next to Ethan in the chair he had pulled out for her. Ethan’s pale cheeks were flushed scarlet when he took his seat again, and he bent his head back over the book, hiding behind his bangs.

  Tanya took pity on him. “What are you reading?”

  Ethan looked around before answering to make sure nobody would overhear, a sure sign that it must be something supernatural. The girls leaned in closer.

  Ethan’s voice was soft. “I found it in Great-Grandma Moina’s collection. It’s a book about object possession.” Ethan’s great-great-grandmother had worked as a psychic medium back in the 1920s, and Ethan had inherited both her records and her supernatural abilities. Well, mostly. He was still figuring it out.

  “Object possession?” Rebecca asked. “Is it a book about supernatural property law or something?” She laughed an
d looked around the table. “Get it, guys? Object possession? Property law?” The others just stared at her. She shrugged. “Whatever. I thought it was a good joke,” she mumbled.

  “It wasn’t,” Maggie said. “But that’s okay; you just rock on with your nerdy self.”

  “Object possession is when ordinary stuff takes on an entity of some kind and it basically becomes haunted,” Ethan explained.

  “Oh, like when my parents took me on a ghost tour at this castle in Rhode Island,” Maggie said. “It was full of ghost stories. There was this suit of armor with the helmet bashed in, and the tour guide said that sometimes it would shriek at night.” Maggie held up her arm and pointed to the gooseflesh that had sprouted on it. “Still gives me chills.”

  “Oh, that is so awful,” Rebecca said. “Imagine being alone in a castle, and all of a sudden you hear random screaming.” She shuddered. “It’s like an endless jump-scare!”

  “I don’t know, Becks,” Maggie said. “We’ve dealt with some really freaky stuff when we’ve babysat. Is a screaming suit of armor really any worse?”

  “Yes!” Rebecca answered. “It’s the whole startle factor. You know I hate being startled!”

  Maggie unwrapped the foil from her leftover pizza. “Oh, okay, cool. So we’re still good to go as long as the Night Queen doesn’t pop out unexpectedly and yell, ‘Boo!’”

  “Pretty much.” Rebecca took a bite of her turkey sandwich.

  Tanya peeked over Ethan’s shoulder. “So what does the book say? Are there certain elements or chemicals that the objects have in common?” she asked, thinking of the mirror pieces she was studying at home.

  “Not really,” Ethan said. “It could be anything: boxes, cabinets, books, furniture … pretty much whatever.”

  “What about portals and stuff? Does it talk about that?” Tanya asked.

  Ethan pushed the book over to Tanya. “I don’t think so. It’s more a collection of spooky stories about possessed objects than anything else, but you can borrow it if you want. Maybe you can find something in here that I’m missing.”

  “Thanks,” Tanya said. She tucked the book in her backpack and spooned a bite of vegetarian chili from the thermos her dad had packed her.

  Clio reached across and tapped Tanya on the arm. “You still haven’t said much about your new babysitting gig. How was it?”

  Tanya opened a bag of tortilla chips and dipped one into the chili. “It was okay. Kira’s a little bit hot-and-cold, and she and Mrs. Fogelman don’t seem very close. It’s not terrible, but it’s definitely not the easiest babysitting job I’ve ever had. I feel a little sorry for both of them.”

  “That sounds kind of tricky,” Rebecca said. She put her empty sandwich container back in her lunch bag and picked up a slice of cucumber. “But at least nothing supernatural happened, right?”

  “Right.” Tanya thought back to the roomful of dolls. Sure, they scared her, but lots of people thought dolls were weird and unsettling. It wasn’t like anything had actually happened. Except for that doll that winked at you. The thought tried to bubble its way to the surface, but she pushed it back down. Nothing winked at me. I just let my imagination get the best of me. “Everything was totally normal,” she said firmly. She took a long sip from her water bottle.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Maggie said. “Because if any other spooky things happen in this town, we are seriously all going to have to move away to someplace safe and boring, like Iowa. And I do not want to live in Iowa!”

  “Hey, don’t harsh on Iowa,” Tanya said. “My cousin Julie lives there!”

  “Uh-huh. And how does Julie like living in Iowa?” Maggie challenged.

  “I don’t know,” Tanya admitted. “They’re moving to Chicago.”

  Maggie tossed her pizza crust triumphantly down on the table. “I rest my case!”

  “Nobody’s moving to Iowa,” Clio said. She checked her phone and stood up. “But I do have to move it if I want to get to history on time.”

  Tanya stood up. “Yeah, I should head out, too. Spanish is all the way on the other side of the building.” She tapped Ethan on the shoulder. “Thanks for the book. I’ll give it back to you as soon as I can.”

  “No worries, keep it as long as you want,” Ethan replied.

  Tanya waved goodbye to her friends and slipped Ethan’s book out of her backpack to read on the way to class. It was a leather-bound book with a green cover, and the title was written in plain block letters: Object Possession. She riffled through the pages, pausing when she came to the etched illustrations. One showed a couple quailing at a tendril of vapor seeping from a wine cabinet, and Tanya rolled her eyes. She and her friends had literally fought off zombies, and the adults in this book were afraid of a little wisp of smoke?

  Object possession was an interesting idea, though. It wasn’t exactly possession, but the girls had found certain places and things the Night Queen was able to control. Ethan’s book seemed like more stories than science, but if it could give Tanya a clue to what they had in common, it might be a powerful tool to defeat the Night Queen once and for all.

  CHAPTER

  5

  WHEN TANYA KNOCKED on Mrs. Fogelman’s door a few days later, it was Kira who answered it. “Auntie Dot said you were coming today.” She tried to peek into the tote bag Tanya was carrying. “Did you bring any experiments?”

  “I did,” Tanya said. “It might get a little messy, so you have to promise to help clean up.” She followed Kira into the kitchen and began unpacking the bag on the counter.

  Kira’s eyes widened when Tanya pulled out a head of red cabbage. “What’s that for?”

  “You’ll see,” Tanya answered. She lined up a small bottle of white vinegar next to a lemon and a box of baking soda. Finally, she took out a container of chewable antacid tablets. “Now we just need a knife and a cutting board so I can chop up this cabbage.”

  Mrs. Fogelman swept into the room. Her striking, silver-streaked hair was pulled up in a messy bun around her head, and she wore a vivid orange-and-green caftan with a pair of beaded leather sandals. Tanya wasn’t much for fashion, but even she thought it was strange that anyone would wear sandals in the dead of winter. “I see Kira’s already gotten you settled in. She did so enjoy your time together on Saturday. It looks like you have something equally enticing planned for today.”

  “I hope so,” Tanya said. “As long as you don’t mind a little cutting and cooking. We’ll be careful, and we’ll clean everything up afterward.” Tanya took a bright blue pot off the stove top and filled it with water.

  “It’s fine with me. Just make sure nobody loses a finger. Her parents will be furious if I don’t send her home in one piece!” Mrs. Fogelman gave a husky laugh and tossed a voluminous hand-knitted shawl over her shoulders, her bangles clattering merrily down her wrist. “I’m off to my studio.” Her eyes blazed. “The work awaits!” A cloud of sandalwood scent followed her out the door.

  Tanya searched through the drawers until she found a knife and a cutting board. “Your auntie Dot sure does love making art,” she said. “Is she always this busy when you visit her?”

  Kira shook her head. “She used to like to play with me a lot more, and so did Uncle Eli.” She reached for the lemon and rolled it along the counter’s edge.

  “Uncle Eli?” Tanya asked. She thought Mrs. Fogelman’s husband had died a long time ago, before Tanya was even born.

  “He wasn’t really my uncle. He was Auntie Dot’s boyfriend. He lived in Seattle, but they liked to visit each other a lot. He was an artist, too. Last summer when I came to Oregon, Auntie Dot and Uncle Eli took me by the river and we all built fairy houses and painted pictures.”

  Tanya put the cabbage on the cutting board and carefully cut it into slices. “That sounds like a great day. Is he going to see you while you’re here this time?”

  Kira frowned and picked at the white sticker on the lemon rind. “He died last month.”

  Tanya stopped cutting. “Last month? Oh
, I’m so sorry, Kira. That’s awful! Your great-aunt must be heartbroken.”

  Kira peeled off the sticker and stuck it to the leg of her fuchsia leggings. “Yeah. Uncle Eli was really fun. Auntie Dot doesn’t like to talk about him, but I think she misses him a lot, and that’s how come she’s always in her studio. They were making a sculpture together before he died.”

  Tanya chopped the cabbage until the leaves were in tiny pieces. No wonder Mrs. Fogelman seemed so distracted. Other than Rebecca’s grandmother, Tanya had never had someone close to her pass away. She remembered crying when Rebecca’s Nai Nai died, and for weeks afterward the Chin family had seemed to be in a sort of sad cocoon. “Well,” she finally said as she washed the knife and put it away, “I’m sure it’s not the same without your uncle Eli, but I bet your auntie Dot is happy to have you here. I know she loves you a lot.”

  Kira didn’t say anything, but her face darkened. “I don’t care. I just want to be back home in my own room with my own mom and dad. It’s ugly and boring here, and everything is cold and wet. Auntie Dot never takes me to do anything fun.” She poked at the pile of cabbage on the cutting board. “What are we even doing with this gross cabbage anyway?”

  “Why don’t you help me put it in this pot of water and we’ll find out?” Tanya scooped a pile of cabbage into the pot of water on the stove. “See? Like this.”

  Kira scowled. “You do it. I don’t feel like it!”

  Tanya tried not to react to Kira’s change in mood. “That’s fine,” she said, keeping her voice calm and light. She poured the rest of the cabbage into the pot of water and set it to boil. “It’ll be ready in about ten minutes. Do you want to help me set up the rest of the experiment while we wait?”

  “No,” Kira said flatly. “I’m going upstairs to play.”