by Willow Rose
“Shoes, please, Detective,” Bellini repeated with more authority.
I pulled off both my shoes and put them on the table with an aggressive movement. “Here. Keep them.”
60
May 2016
“Hi there. Can I help you with anything?”
Shannon looked at the hundreds of beautiful old dolls on the shelves through her sunglasses. On the sign outside it said Carol’s Doll Shop. Shannon wondered if the woman in front of her was Carol or just someone working there.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?”
Shannon shook her head and held on to her hat. She knew it must have seemed odd that she was wearing a hat and sunglasses inside, but she couldn’t risk being recognized.
“Not really. Mostly looking.”
“Well, let me know if you have any questions,” the woman said with her deep Southern accent. “Just holler if you need me. I’m Carol, by the way.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Shannon hadn’t really thought about what she was actually looking for in the shop. All she knew was that Jack believed this shop had to be connected somehow to the person who kidnapped Tyler and Betsy Sue. After looking at the woman behind the counter, Shannon wasn’t so sure anymore. It could, after all, just be that Betsy Sue liked the dolls she saw and that was why she stopped in front of the shop.
“Say, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” Carol asked, looking up from behind the counter.
Shannon blushed and turned away. “I don’t think so.”
“Haven’t you been on TV or somethin’?”
Shannon shook her head and walked towards a doll. She looked at the dress and felt the fabric. “That’s a nice one right there,” Carol said. “Fabric is gorgeous, don’t ya’ think?”
“It feels very nice.”
“Now I know where I’ve seen you before!” Carol suddenly exclaimed.
Get out of here now, Shannon! Before the press finds you here!
Carol looked at her, all excited, but then it was like she remembered something and she stopped herself. “No, that can’t be.” She looked at Shannon. “She’s a lot older. But you sure look like her, though. I mean, I can’t see your eyes and all, but the chin and mouth and that nose. They’re just like hers. Well, don’t you mind me. I’m just babbling along here. Tell me what you need, sweetheart. A new doll? A brand new outfit? We just got a new summer collection. It’s be-au-ti-ful, I tell you. And let me know if you ever have a doll that needs repairing. We have a great doctor who even makes house calls, so you don’t have to go anywhere with your precious doll.”
Shannon stared at Carol. Without noticing it, she slid off her sunglasses. “Did you say doll doctor?”
“Yes, oh, my gosh, you really do look just like her. It’s striking. Only younger, of course.”
Shannon shook her head. Usually, it was the other way around. Usually, people said she looked younger in the pictures and videos they saw of her than in real life. This woman was strange. Shannon decided to not care.
“Do you have an address for this doll doctor?” she asked.
“Nope. But I do have her number. You want it, sweetheart?”
“Yes, please.”
Carol took out her phone and started looking through her contacts. “We’ve used this lady for years and years,” she said. “She’s the best around. Haven’t seen a doll she couldn’t fix yet. Ah, here she is. I’ll write it down for you on a piece of paper.”
Carol wrote the numbers down, then handed the slip to Shannon with a smile. “I tell you, even your eyes. It’s scary how much you look like her.”
“Thank you so much,” Shannon said. She left the store, holding the number in her hand, smiling for the first time in many days.
61
December 1990
“What are you talking about? What cavern?”
Joseph stared at Kimberly. They were sitting in the kitchen eating peaches and drinking sweetened tea. The peaches were delicious. Soft and ripe and every bite was like an explosion. Yet, Kimberly couldn’t quite enjoy them or her family’s company. The many questions kept bothering her.
“You took me to the basement, remember? Last night? You told me to close my eyes, then dragged me down some iron stairs into this cave, this small place where you had all the bourbon and a gambling table and then…then we drank a lot and got drunk and then you had a bunch of people over.”
Joseph looked at Kimberly with a grin. The same grin she remembered he had worn in the basement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mom, are you alright?” Rosa asked, her face smothered in peach-juice. “You seem a little…odd today. You were sleeping on the couch all morning. Maybe you dreamt it all?”
“No,” Kimberly said. “It wasn’t a dream. It happened. I’m sure. You were there too, earlier, before we went into the basement. You gave me the book, remember?”
Rosa looked at her, then shook her head. “What book?”
“The book you found in the attic,” she said, looking from one to the other across the table.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Are you kidding me?” Kimberly asked. Her voice was shivering. She couldn’t stand this. They had to be joking. It happened. It really did. “Joseph, you heard her talk about the book at the dinner table as well. Tell her.”
“I…I don’t remember anything about a book,” he said.
“Come on, Joseph. Last night. She was talking about the general and telling the story of how he put his daughter in that awful chair upstairs. Don’t you remember? We ate in the formal dining room. We had roasted duck!”
“I remember the duck,” Joseph said.
Rosa laughed. “Me too.”
“I think Rosa is right,” Joseph said. “You must have dreamt it. There’s no cavern under the basement containing old bourbon bottles. Believe me, I would know. And we didn’t have guests over last night. We never have company anymore. Not since we moved.”
Kimberly felt dizzy. What was all this? Why were they denying these things? Could they be right? Did she just dream it all? The book? The cavern, the bourbon, the cigars, and the guests?
She felt so confused.
“Are you all right, Mommy?”
Kimberly shook her head. “I’m not sure. I feel like strange things are happening to me. This house. This place. I don’t know…maybe I’m…Joseph,” she said, looking at her husband for comfort. He touched his hair that was still combed back on his head. At least he wasn’t smoking now, but he did smell an awful lot like old cigars.
“I have to say, you have been acting weird lately. I heard you yesterday upstairs talking to yourself sitting in that small room with the chair. And this morning when I came up from the basement you were sleeping on the couch. You slept all the way through breakfast and lunch. We were worried about you, but thought you needed it and let you sleep.”
Kimberly looked at her daughter, then at her husband. She didn’t know what to say to them. Her mind kept wandering down to that cavern and all the guests. What was she supposed to believe? She grabbed her hair and closed her eyes. She pulled her hair to make sure she was actually awake this time. It hurt like crazy and she let it go.
“Moom? You’re scaring me,” Rosa said.
Kimberly opened her eyes. The words felt like they emerged in slow-motion as she spoke:
“I think I need to lie down.”
62
May 2016
The Doctor watched Shannon King as she stood at the bus stop across the street from the doll store. She watched as Shannon walked out of the store, grabbed her phone in her purse, and walked around the corner to make a call.
Just as expected, the Doctor’s phone soon rang in her purse and she picked it up. “Yes?”
“Hello, I have a doll that needs repairing. I was told you could do that?” she heard Shannon say on the other end. The Doctor watched her across the street as she leaned against the brick wal
l of the store.
So, you found me after all, dear Shannon. Well, it was bound to happen at some point, wasn’t it?
The Doctor had seen Shannon walk into the doll store from inside the house and knew she was getting closer. It was okay, really. The only thing that bothered her was the fact that Shannon thought she was so stupid as to fall for her little show.
“I do, yes.”
“Great. Carol’s Doll Store referred me to you. When can you take a look at it? If you give me the address, I can come to your place right away. I’m downtown anyway. I could just stop by?”
Nice try, Shannon. Nice try.
“That was very nice of them,” the doctor said. “I make house calls, if you like.”
“I heard that, but since I’m downtown anyway and have the doll with me, I was thinking I might as well just stop by.”
“All righty, then. You just come on by, dear.”
“Right away?”
“Yes. That would make things a lot easier. I actually live right across the street from Carol’s little shop. It’s number 237.”
“All right. See you in a few.”
Sure will, Shannon dear. Can’t wait!
The Doctor hung up, then started to walk back towards the house. She hurried up the stairs and let herself in. She arranged the dolls in position in the hallway.
“We’re expecting nice company, girls,” she said and corrected Millie’s hair. “Now, you all be on your best behavior, you hear me? It’s your favorite singer.”
The Doctor turned up the music, playing Shannon’s newest album, before she checked on Rikki Rick, who was still sleeping in his crib. She closed the door, then listened to make sure she couldn’t hear the two girls upstairs. She kept them drugged during the day. Their screams were only for the night. To keep people away.
She walked to the entrance, where she spotted Shannon as she stopped outside the fence and looked up at the house. She seemed puzzled, like she felt like she was in the wrong place, then shrugged and walked up the stairs while looking behind her a few times.
She rang the doorbell and the Doctor pulled the door open, smiling from ear to ear. Shannon King stared, baffled, at her; her jaw dropped.
“You? I know you! What on earth are you doing here?”
“Well, I live here, dear Shannon.”
“But…but the tour guide told us that the house was abandoned,” she said. “When we took the tour. What are…what the heck is going on here, Kimberly?”
“Don’t believe everything those guides tell you. It’s all just old stories and fairytales. I’ll tell you all about it, dear niece. As soon as you come on inside. Come, come.”
Shannon didn’t move. “I don’t know. Maybe I should wait for Jack. Wait…was that what the lady meant, that Carol lady when she said I looked like…she was talking about you, wasn’t she?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, dearie, but do come on inside and we’ll talk about it.”
Kimberly reached out and grabbed Shannon’s arm, but she pulled it away. “I think I need to…”
“COME IN!” Kimberly yelled, annoyed. This small charade was taking way too long. The neighbors would see them and blow her cover. Staying in an assumed haunted house was excellent for keeping curious people away. For years, they had thought the house was empty. There was no need to tell them it wasn’t.
Shannon shook her head. “I think I’ll have to…” she said and walked a few steps down the stairs. But something made her stop. A sound so sweet Kimberly couldn’t have staged it better herself.
The sound of Rikki Rick crying.
63
May 2016
“What was that?”
Shannon stared at her aunt and took another step towards her. She had recognized her face from pictures that her mother had showed her when she was a child. Only this face was a lot older, probably in her fifties or maybe even more.
She heard the sound again, through her own music playing in the background. Shannon gasped. She would recognize that cry anywhere.
“Tyler!”
Without thinking further about it, Shannon pushed Aunt Kimberly to the side and stormed in. Inside, she was met by an inferno of ugly dolls staring back at her with their creepy dead eyes.
“Where is he?” she yelled, while Aunt Kimberly closed the door behind her and locked it.
“Well, go on,” she said. “He’s right in there. Second door on the left.”
Shannon ran to the door and pushed it open. There he was. Lying in an old wooden crib, crying his little heart out. Never had his crying sounded more heavenly to her. Tears sprung to her eyes as she ran to him and picked him up in her arms. Holding him close was the best feeling she’d ever had.
“I’m never letting go of you again, my dear baby boy,” she whispered and kissed him over and over again, tears rolling across her cheeks. “Oh, Tyler, oh, dear Tyler, how I have missed you.”
Kimberly came up behind her. “I bet you missed him a lot, huh?”
Shannon sniffled, then looked at her aunt. “Why? Why did you take him? Why would you do such a terrible thing?”
Kimberly smiled. “For his own good. And for yours, dearie.” She moved her neck from side to side with a crack of her joints.
Shannon scoffed. “What do you mean? How can stealing a child from his mother ever be the best for anyone?”
Kimberly exhaled. “There is so much you don’t understand, Shannon. You’re still so very young.”
Shannon felt her heart racing in her chest as anger rose in her and replaced the joy of finally being with her son again. “You’re sick. Mom always said you went mad when you lost your child. That was why we never saw you. She said you were dangerous.”
Kimberly smiled again. “Well, your mom always did run with half the truth, now didn’t she? I kept your son perfectly safe.”
“What about the children, the girls? What about Betsy Sue? You stole her from her mother when she was just five years old. Who does that?”
Kimberly shook her head. She pursed her lips. “Again, with only half of the truth. Betsy Sue was just an infant when I brought her here. So were Miss Muffit, Bibby Libby, and Rikki Rick. All grew up in this house perfectly protected.”
“Until you killed them. Betsy Sue told us you tied a girl to the chair and let her sit there till she died? They found the bones in the tunnels.”
“Yes, Bibby had to go, I’m afraid. She was getting too dangerous,” Kimberly said, shifting in her seat.
“What the heck do you mean?” Shannon snapped, feeling suddenly very tired. Her aunt was creeping her out. She just wanted to leave with Tyler now.
“When we first moved here, I thought it was the house,” she continued. “We inherited this house from my aunt, who had lived here with her husband and four girls. Only, three of them were killed one night. Stories were also told about the general who built the house, who…”
“Let his daughter die of thirst in the chair,” Shannon said. “The tour guide told us the story. Why didn’t I make the connection before, when Betsy Sue told Jack about the chair?”
“Yes. At first I believed the house turned people evil, like Joseph, my late husband. The changes were visible. He started to dress and act like the general, like in the pictures I had seen in that book that my daughter…well, that doesn’t matter. But soon I realized it wasn’t the house. What did all these people have in common? We were all related, the house being handed down through generations, and the killings happened every time someone moved into the house, except when some students lived here in the eighties. It took me a while to get to the conclusion, but at some point, I realized that it wasn’t the house. It had nothing to do with the house and everything to do with us, with our family, our genes.”
Shannon exhaled. What was all this? Kimberly was blocking the door, so she couldn’t just walk out. Did she really have to stand there and listen to all this craziness?
“Listen,” she said. “I need to get back to…”<
br />
“NO! You are a part of this, just as much as I am,” Kimberly yelled. “It’s in your DNA as well. And in the boy’s. Do you think I didn’t read about how you killed that man? They let you get away with it, but you did kill him.”
What the heck?
“It was self-defense; besides, it was my ex-husband who killed him. Not me.” Shannon took a step backwards. The look in Kimberly’s eyes was that of a madman.
Kimberly walked close to Shannon, pointing her long crooked finger at her. “You have it too, and you know it. The murder gene. It’s in your blood.”
64
December 1990
Was she really the one going insane here, Kimberly wondered, while lying on the couch in the living room. Rosa had gone back into the attic, while Joseph was hiding in the basement, as always.
Didn’t it happen? Was there really no cavern and no guests? Or was Joseph messing with her? Was he pretending it didn’t happen just to make her believe she was losing it? Was it all just a part of a sick game he was playing?
The general killed his daughter. Aunt Agnes’ husband killed those three girls. Even though they say they’re just rumors. He did it, didn’t he? There is always some truth to every rumor. That’s what they say, isn’t it?
“He’s tricking me into believing I’m going mad,” she mumbled to herself, while staring at a raven on the branch outside the window. “He did all those things, didn’t he? He let the raven into the kitchen; he put the rat in the sink, didn’t he? He could have. Could he somehow have planted the fleas between the planks?”
Kimberly got up, the blanket tucked around her shoulders, while thinking back over the past months. A theory was slowly shaping in her mind, and she was getting more and more determined that she was right. It was like all the pieces finally came together. He was trying to drive her insane. The only thing she didn’t have an answer for was why? Why would he do this to her?
