by Kat Shepherd
Clio held up the two menus. “Okay, everybody, who wants what?”
* * *
A few hours later, all the girls had changed into their pajamas, and the leftover food was put neatly away in the fridge. A board game was still spread out on the coffee table, and slips of paper from their epic charades tournament were crumpled in a bowl in the middle of the floor.
Kira yawned, and Rebecca looked at her watch. “It’s getting late. Should we head upstairs and set up our sleeping bags?”
Clio picked up her pillow. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
The others grabbed their stuff, but Tanya stayed on the floor. “You guys go ahead. I’m just gonna finish cleaning down here first.”
Kira led Rebecca and Clio upstairs, but Maggie hung back. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Tanya put the last of the plastic game pieces into the box and slid it back onto the shelf.
“Are you sure?” Maggie asked. “If it helps, I totally know that Mary Rose is just a normal doll now, but I’m still a little scared about sleeping in there.” She held her pillow over her head like a weapon. “But don’t worry. We can protect each other.”
Tanya laughed weakly and picked up the bowl of charades clues. “I just have to dump these and then I’ll be up. Save me a spot on the floor near the doorway, just in case.”
“You got it.” Maggie grabbed Tanya’s olive-green sleeping bag and flitted out the door, her fuzzy pink slippers skating across the hardwood floor.
A few moments later, Tanya threw her canvas backpack over her shoulder and scooped up her flannel-cased pillow. Something from her backpack dug into her back and she shifted it, feeling the familiar spine of her notebook. She still carried it everywhere, but she hadn’t looked at it for days, not since she had forgotten to record their doll exorcism. To tell the truth, she hadn’t been feeling much like a scientist, lately. Science hadn’t helped her feel brave around Mary Rose or figure out how to fix any of her supernatural problems. Even so, she felt scattered without her notebook, like there was a piece of her missing, the piece that kept her grounded and focused.
As Tanya reached the top of the stairs, she heard the other girls talking softly to one another down the hall. She glanced at her watch. It really was late. Mrs. Fogelman had said she would be back before the girls went to sleep. Why hadn’t she come inside yet?
Kira was tucked into the daybed already, with Mary Rose on the pillow next to her. A few other dolls were gathered at her feet. The other girls had spread their sleeping bags out on the floor, and Tanya shot Maggie a look of gratitude when she noticed her own sleeping bag had been rolled out in the spot closest to the door. She heard the back door close below, and a moment later Mrs. Fogelman’s clogs clomped up the steps. Tanya peeked her head out to wave, but the artist walked straight into her room without even a glance down the hall. She must have realized how late it was and figured the girls were already asleep.
The older girls slid into their sleeping bags. “Everyone’s teeth are brushed?” Rebecca asked.
“Seriously, Becks?” Maggie said. “The whole point of a sleepover is to ditch our parents and forget about boring stuff like that. If I wanted someone to check on my oral hygiene, I could have just stayed at home!”
Kira giggled from her nest in the bed.
“Suit yourself,” Rebecca said. “But oral health is very important. I brushed and flossed before I even put on my pajamas.”
“You really are annoying, you know that?” Maggie asked.
“I try.” Rebecca leaned back against her pillow with her hands behind her head, and Kira giggled harder.
The atmosphere was so festive that Tanya almost forgot why she had been afraid of the doll room in the first place. Clio yawned and stretched her arms overhead. “Okay, everybody, time for bed. I’m shutting off the light.” She reached up and clicked off the lamp. The room was dark, but dim light from the hallway fell comfortingly across the girls sprawled on the floor.
Tanya could hear Kira rustling around in bed and she snuggled deeper under the covers. Rebecca and Clio whispered together for a minute or two before they, too, grew quiet. Next to her, Maggie sat up and flipped her pillow to the cool side before rolling over onto her usual stomach-down sleeping position. There was no other sound in the house, and Tanya lay awake listening to the others drift off to sleep around her. She slid her arm out of her sleeping bag and reached for her notebook and pencil, which she had tucked against the wall near her pillow. As her hand closed over the smooth, cardboard cover, she felt instantly more relaxed.
She pulled the notebook into the sleeping bag with her and unhooked the flashlight from her waistband, covering her head so the light wouldn’t disturb the others. She didn’t have anything in particular to record, but making notes always calmed her busy mind, and she hoped it would help her fall asleep. She wrote down the date and the time and popped her head out of her sleeping bag to peer at the window to see what the weather might be. The full moon peeked out from behind the clouds that crowded the sky, and Tanya watched the cotton-candy silhouettes drift across the silvery white disk. Tree branches moved in the wind, and a few stray leaves swirled up. The weather was changing.
Tanya recorded it all and paused, thinking about what else she wanted to add. Finally she wrote, No further nightmares since the morning of the mirror burial. It had been a relief to sleep soundly the past few nights. Of course, she hadn’t been sleeping in a room full of creepy dolls, so she may have made that observation a bit too soon. She hoped not. Tanya slipped her notebook and pencil under her pillow and clicked off her flashlight. She curled into a tiny ball, and as she drifted off to sleep, she felt something nagging at the back of her mind. She ignored it, instead allowing the heavy pull of sleep to take over. But as her mind slipped into unconsciousness, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was forgetting something. Something important.
CHAPTER
17
TANYA’S EYES FLEW open and she lay still, wondering what had awakened her. She took a moment to orient herself, letting her mind take inventory. Was it morning? No, it was still dark. Did she need the bathroom? No. Maybe a sound had awakened her? She listened, but she couldn’t hear anything. She sat up and scanned the room. She could just make out the three lumps on the floor made by her sleeping friends and across the room the faint outline of Kira’s head against the white pillow. The room seemed darker than it had been before. The moon had gone behind a cloud again, and the hall light was off. Tanya had no idea how long she’d been asleep.
She lay back down, but her eyes refused to close again. Something didn’t feel right. Tanya wasn’t the kind of person who believed in intuition, so she knew there must be some tiny detail that her subconscious mind had picked up on that her thinking brain had missed. It was weird that the hall light was off, but that wasn’t enough to make her uneasy; Mrs. Fogelman could have turned it off after the girls went to sleep. What was it, then?
Her three friends were still on the floor beside her. Tanya’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness now, and she sat up and looked again. Maggie was drooling onto her outstretched arm, her sleeping bag kicked halfway off and her red curls spread across the pillow. Rebecca lay on her side, her hands folded neatly under her cheek and a small smile on her face. She was probably dreaming about cupcakes. Clio was on her back, snoring gently. Her head was perfectly centered on her satin pillowcase, her hair a dark nimbus around her face. Kira was still cuddled up in bed.
But wait. Tanya looked closer. The shape of Kira’s head looked strange. The little girl had a narrow, pinched face, and the shape on the pillow looked rounder. Tanya stood up in alarm. She remembered a story her mother told about her brother, Bryce. When he was three, he had had an allergic reaction to medicine, and his head had swelled up like a balloon. Was Kira having some kind of allergy attack? Tanya picked her way across the sleeping bodies. “Kira!” she whispered urgently. “Kira, are you okay?” There was no answer. “Kira,” Tanya said loud
er.
Clio began to stir as Tanya reached the bed. “What’s going on?” she mumbled, her voice fuzzy with sleep.
Tanya knelt on the floor by the bed and put her hand on Kira’s forehead. She gasped in horror. It was ice cold. “Oh, no!” Tanya cried. “Kira?” She switched on the light and let out a tiny scream when she looked down. A large clown doll lay in Kira’s place, its fat, round cheeks painted with bright red circles and its mouth stretched into a leering grin. The bell on its pointed hat jingled merrily as Tanya pushed it away in horror.
“What’s wrong?” Rebecca asked, crawling out of her sleeping bag. Maggie sat up, too, her eyes still puffy with sleep.
“Kira’s not in her bed,” Tanya answered. She pointed at the clown doll. “This was in her place.”
Rebecca blinked. “Okay. First rule of babysitting: don’t panic.” She stood up. “Maybe she’s in the bathroom.”
“I’ll go check,” Clio said. She disappeared but returned a moment later. “It’s empty.”
Rebecca chewed her thumbnail. “Maybe Kira woke up and decided that she wanted to sleep in her own room? I used to do that sometimes.” She padded down the hall to investigate.
“Do you think she got scared and climbed into bed with her auntie Dot?” Maggie asked.
“Maybe,” Tanya said. Rebecca came back into her room, and from her face Tanya knew she hadn’t found Kira. “We have to spread out and find her,” Tanya said.
“Has she ever sleepwalked?” Rebecca asked.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” Tanya answered. “At least not that anybody’s ever mentioned.” She switched on the hallway light and looked anxiously at Mrs. Fogelman’s closed door at the end of the hall. Tanya would be embarrassed if she woke the older woman up to tell her that Kira was missing, only to discover the little girl was safe and sound in her great-aunt’s room. “Let’s try downstairs. Maybe she went to get a snack or something.”
The girls quickly checked the rest of the upstairs, careful not to disturb Mrs. Fogelman yet. A search of the downstairs rooms proved fruitless as well, until Tanya heard Clio’s cry of dismay. “What is it?”
“The back door’s open!” The other girls found Clio in the sunroom, shivering by the open back door.
Tanya clicked on her flashlight. “Let’s go. She can’t have gotten very far.”
Rebecca grabbed her arm. “Wait. We need coats and shoes. And grab an extra coat for Kira. If she’s been sleepwalking outside, she’ll be freezing.” The girls rushed to the front hall and fumbled on their coats and shoes. “One of us should go wake Mrs. Fogelman,” Rebecca said.
“I’ll do it,” Maggie volunteered. She ran back through the house and up the stairs.
The others piled out the back door, calling Kira’s name. Somewhere in the neighborhood a dog barked, but otherwise there was no answer. Tanya swept the flashlight beam across the yard. “Why is it so dark?”
“The outdoor lights,” Rebecca cried. “I’ll go switch them on.” A few moments later, the little lanterns along the path came on, but the rest of the yard lay in shadow. The lumpy shapes of Mrs. Fogelman’s sculptures loomed, and it was impossible to tell what was what.
“Do you think she’d go into the studio?” Clio asked.
Tanya tried the door. “It’s locked.”
Maggie came running out the back door. “Kira’s not in Mrs. Fogelman’s room, either.”
“Is she coming to help us search?” Tanya asked.
“I can’t wake her up,” Maggie answered. She shivered in the cold and zipped up her coat. Her eyes were large and frightened.
“You can’t wake her up?” Rebecca repeated. “She’s not … I mean, she’s not, like, dead or anything, is she?”
“No,” Maggie said. “She’s alive and breathing. She’s snoring, actually. But nothing I do seems to be able to wake her.”
“We don’t have time to worry about that now,” Tanya said. “We have to find Kira.” The balmy temperatures from the past few days had dropped dramatically, and there was a sharp bite in the air. The ground had hardened in the past few hours, and there was a fresh layer of frost that gave the grass a silvery cast as her flashlight beam swept across it. Wind rustled the tree branches and cut through Tanya’s flannel pajama pants. She remembered the thin unicorn nightgown Kira had worn to bed. They needed to find her, and fast.
The clouds scudded across the sky, and bright moonlight lit up the yard. Clio pointed to a huddled figure near the old fish pond. “Over there!” The girls ran.
Kira stood in front of Unburied Past, Mary Rose clutched in her hands. Her feet were bare, and her stick-figure legs were marble white beneath the hem of her nightgown. Tanya threw a winter coat over the girl’s thin shoulders. “Kira! Honey, are you all right?” She rubbed her hands briskly up and down Kira’s arms in an attempt to bring blood back into her frigid limbs. “Let’s get inside where it’s warm.”
Kira didn’t react. Instead, she continued staring into the depths of her great-aunt’s sculpture. The dark arms of the pedestal reached up and twined around the basin encircling the gazing globe. Tanya could see Kira’s thin face distorted and stretched in its milky reflection. Her eyes were hollow and blank, and her lips were turning blue.
“She may still be asleep,” Rebecca said. “Let’s get her inside and call my parents. They’ll know what to do.” She pried the doll from the little girl’s arms and laid it on the ground beside her. With effort, the four of them were able to get Kira back inside and into the living room.
“I’ll go get your phone,” Maggie said. She ran upstairs.
Tanya switched on the gas fireplace and parked Kira in front of it. She knelt down and vigorously rubbed her hands along Kira’s feet to bring the circulation back. Rebecca grabbed some blankets and wrapped them around the little girl. Clio sat next to Kira and began to warm her hands.
“Kira?” Tanya said. “Can you hear me?” Kira’s eyes were blank, and she sat limply in the chair, pliant and unmoving.
Maggie came back down carrying four phones. She had a confused look on her face. “Rebecca, your phone’s dead.”
Rebecca looked up. “It is? But I plugged it into the wall charger before we went to sleep.” She reached out one hand. “Can I use yours?”
Maggie swallowed. “All our phones are dead.”
Rebecca stood up. “The house phone.” She ran into the kitchen. She came back in a moment later. “It’s dead, too.”
Tanya looked out the window. “One of us will have to run for help. My house isn’t far. We can go get my parents.”
“I’ll do it,” Clio volunteered. She ran over to the front door and turned the deadbolt. She twisted the knob and yanked. It wouldn’t budge. “I can’t open it. There’s another lock here, too, and it’s the kind that needs a key,” she called.
“Use the back door,” Tanya called back. “The gate in the back fence should lead to the alley.”
“I’ll go with her,” Rebecca said. The two girls rushed through the house to the back. When they returned a moment later, both girls were ashen. “The back door’s locked now, too.”
“What do you mean?” Tanya asked. “I don’t think we even closed it behind us when we came inside.”
“I … I don’t know,” Rebecca said.
“There has to be a set of keys somewhere,” Clio offered. “Where does Mrs. Fogelman keep her purse?”
Tanya racked her brain, trying to remember. “The front closet,” she said finally.
Clio opened the closet door and grabbed a tapestry bag that hung from a hook. “This one?”
“Yes,” Tanya answered. She turned back to Kira. “Kira, can you hear me?” Kira didn’t answer.
Clio rummaged frantically through the purse, but her hands came out empty. “They’re not here.”
“Mrs. Fogelman may keep them in her room,” Maggie suggested. She stood up. “I’ll go look for them and try to wake her again, too.” She started up the stairs, but she stopped halfway up
, and slowly backed down again, her face a mask of horror.
“What’s wrong?” Tanya cried.
Maggie pointed wordlessly up the stairs.
Mary Rose sat at the top of the steps, the ring of keys in her lap.
CHAPTER
18
“H-HOW DID SHE get up there?” Rebecca asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “I left her outside.”
From the top of the stairs came the tinkling laugh of a little girl. The sound trickled down Tanya’s spine like ice. Mary Rose’s face shone silvery-white in the moonlight, and her once-blue eyes now glimmered gold. She wore a long, black gown, and on her head was a doll-sized crown made of silver rams’ horns.
Silver. The half-remembered thought that had been nagging at Tanya finally clicked into place. “The silver chest,” she whispered aloud. “Of course. Everything in the Nightmare Realm is silver. Silver amplifies the queen’s power; it doesn’t neutralize it.”
“But the paper that Ethan found,” Clio said desperately. “It was supposed to free Mary Rose from the Night Queen!”
Tanya shook her head. “‘Freeing the vessel’ wasn’t about exorcising Mary Rose at all. It was about freeing the doll to do something bigger: prepare for the Night Queen’s return.”
Another giggle cascaded through the air like glass bells. Mary Rose stood. Her hands were empty; the keys had disappeared. She floated slowly down the steps, her blue-gold eyes glowing, her lips as red as blood against her snow-white face. When she spoke, her voice was high-pitched and light, like a small child’s. “It is true. My return is certain now. There is but one final step.” Her mouth stretched open, and Tanya could see jagged black teeth sprouting from her jaw. “The final vessel has been prepared.” A spider leg burst from Mary Rose’s skull, and then another. She had almost reached the bottom of the stairs.
