by Foxglove Lee
I sat in the passenger seat with Mikey in the middle. Tiffany turned the key and the engine sputtered. The marina blocked my view of the street that led to our cottage, but I was sure beyond sure the police were on their way.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is it out of gas?”
“I don’t think so.” Tiffany turned the key again and the engine roared. The whole boat started to vibrate and a giddy thrill ran through me. We were on the move!
Tiffany glanced behind us. The coast was clear. The only boats out were far away. I grabbed Mikey by the wrist. We were moving back, moving. We’d very nearly cleared the docks when suddenly we jerked forward so hard we almost bashed our skulls on the dash.
My stomach plunged. “Mikey, are you okay?”
He nodded, but he looked dazed.
“Oh crap!” Tiffany left the engine running while she hopped out of the boat.
“What are you doing?” Maybe I was just having a bad day, but I really started to panic. “Tiff, what happened?”
She kneeled on the dock while the man from the marina poked his head out back. “What are you kids up to?”
“Nothing!” Tiffany untied a rope from the moor and tossed it into the boat. “Just missed a step. Everything’s fine.”
“Lousy kids,” the man grumbled as Tiffany hopped back in her seat.
“Off we go!” Tiffany pulled away from the dock so fast my heart jumped into my throat.
We sped along the lake, catching the spray in our faces and kicking up water. The stretch before us was dark and calm, but behind us white waves coasted. It was scary and exciting, and a big part of me resented Mikey for literally coming between Tiffany and me. I remembered being upset with her, but now all I wanted was to be alone together and tell her all about my stupid adventure.
And then I remembered Yvette, like a half-forgotten dream. She’d been there in that cottage. Or she hadn’t. Maybe it really was a dream. I wished I could be sure one way or the other.
The ride got bumpy as we approached the little island, but Tiffany slowed just in time to hop off at the makeshift dock. “Well?” she asked. “How’s my driving?”
“I almost peed my pants,” I said, mostly to make Mikey laugh.
“My pants,” Tiffany reminded me. “On loan. No peeing allowed.”
We all tossed our lifejackets over the pole where Tiffany had moored the boat, and Mikey went off exploring. The island was nothing more than a patch of dirt with a few trees growing on it, so I wasn’t worried about him getting lost. At the very centre, there were raspberry bushes growing, and my hungry belly gravitated toward them.
“Mikey seems to have taken the news a lot better than you,” Tiffany said as I picked plump berries from the thorny patch. “He’s singing We are the Champions. Can you hear him?”
“Yeah, he does that a lot.” I didn’t want to talk about serious things. I’d had enough serious. All I wanted now were raspberries. Still, I looked up when Tiffany was silent. She’d stepped away from me, and was looking out across the lake. The skirt of her jersey dress danced on the slight breeze. “You look nice today.”
She looked at me over her shoulder and smiled, then gazed back out across the water.
“You look nice every day,” I went on. “I don’t think you could not look nice, even if you tried.”
She sat on a log that had washed up on the island. There was just enough room for me to join her, so I did. I took off my shoes and socks and let my toes dig down in the cool sand. The sun wasn’t too bad today, and it wasn’t too humid either.
“Sorry about your dad.”
All at once, I realized that sentiment would be thrown at me a lot over the next fourteen years. And I had no idea how to answer it. “Thanks, I guess. I mean, he obviously deserves it for what he did. I just wish… I wish…”
“That someone had told you?”
“Yeah.”
Tiffany took my hand and I glanced around quickly to make sure Mikey was out of sight. “Well, I’m sorry no one did.”
“Did they not trust me?” I asked her, watching the sun sparkle on the lake. It was so beautiful I could have cried. “Like, my mom, right? She’s been letting me take care of Mikey almost since he was born. I do so much. You have no idea. I do so much for this family, then something huge happens and nobody says a word? Did they think I couldn’t handle it?”
“Your aunt and uncle told me they didn’t want to hurt you. That’s what it was.” Tiffany tightened her grip on my hand, and I squeezed back. It felt good to sit beside her. “Your family obviously trusts you. They obviously depend on you. I think they also just didn’t know how to break the news.”
I knew she was right. This was so complicated, and it totally changed the way I saw myself. Two days ago I was borderline normal. Now I was practically a felon.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Tiffany tossed her hair to one side. “I made you a present. It’s just—”
“Can I go swimming?”
When I turned around, Mikey had already stripped to his Scooby-Doo underwear. Tiffany laughed, and I hoped she wouldn’t notice when I stole my hand from hers.
“There’s a drop-off,” I said. I could feel how irritated I was that Mikey had ruined the moment, but I tried not to take it out on him. “Take one of the lifejackets and use it as a flutter-board, okay? And don’t go too far out.”
“And stay where I can see you,” Tiffany added. I knew she was kind of making fun of me, but there was nothing wrong with being a little overprotective.
When Mikey was in the water and splashing around, Tiffany held out her wrist and said, “I wanted to say sorry for teasing of you. I made this myself. What do you think?”
I hadn’t noticed before, but Tiffany was wearing a bracelet made from the little bits of tiger’s eye she’d shown me at the craft store. Usually jewellery didn’t appeal to me, but this bracelet did. I liked it a lot.
“Thanks,” I said as she slipped the bracelet off her wrist and put it on mine. It fit just right, and when I flipped it around, it gleamed like bronze in the sunshine. “Nobody’s ever given me a gift like this before.”
“Like a girlfriend gift?” she asked.
That’s not what I’d meant, and the idea made me weak and giddy. I didn’t know how to respond, so I just said, “I really like it a lot.”
“Different gemstones have different energies. Did you know that?” Tiffany padded her fingers across the trail of stones. “Tiger’s eye is for good luck, clear thinking, and protection from the evil eye.”
I swallowed hard. “You think I need that?”
“If everything you said is true, then yeah.” Tiffany lowered her voice and shifted closer to me. “Evil energies can possess objects the same way they possess people. Last night, when you weren’t in the next bed, you were all I could think about. I figured you’d gone back to your aunt and uncle’s place. I would have worried like crazy if I’d known you were out God-knows-where. Be sure to wear your tiger’s eye so I know you’re safe.”
I felt a blush coming on. “You sound like my mom. Well, not my mom, but somebody’s mom.”
Tiffany nudged me with her elbow. “Well, I care about you.”
“I was fine. I broke into one of the rich people cottages. It was kind of… fun.” I decided it was better not to tell her about seeing, and smelling, Yvette. I’d probably dreamed that anyway.
“I missed you.”
My cheeks must have been scarlet. “I missed you too.”
Her lips were incredibly close to mine, just a feather’s touch away. I could feel her soft breath on my skin, sweet like berries. She was so close, so close…
“Aaaaahhh!” A blood-curdling scream from the water.
I shot up, racing to the shoreline. My feet were wet before I knew it. “Mikey, what’s wrong? I’m here!”
“Seaweed!” he screamed, peeling green slime from his shoulder and launching it at me. It landed smack in the middle of my top.
Tiffany howled when I
turned around.
“What are you laughing at?” I asked. “It’s your T-shirt.”
She shrugged. “Plenty more where that came from.”
“My aunt thinks you’re a liar,” I said before the filter kicked in. “Sorry. Just because you’ve been so many places and you act like you’re rich even though your grandparents aren’t. But whatever. She’s just jealous.”
Tiffany’s expression fell, and I knew I’d hurt her badly. “Are you jealous too?”
“Of course,” I said, trying to laugh it off. “I got a taste of the good life at those rich people’s cottage. I could get used to that.”
“My parents have a place like those ones,” Tiffany said, acting haughty now.
I wasn’t sure how to react. Maybe she was lying. “So why aren’t you there?”
Tiffany sat up very straight, her lips pursed tight.
“Becca, where’s my towel?” Mikey dragged himself out of the water, his wet undies clinging to his skin.
“You didn’t bring a towel, remember? You’ll just have to air-dry.”
When I looked at Tiffany, her haughty shoulders had fallen and she was biting her bottom lip.
“Sorry,” I said, and I meant it.
“My parents are sick of me.”
I wasn’t expecting that, not for one second. “What do you mean?”
Mikey wandered barefoot toward the raspberry thatch, and I hollered at him to put on his flip-flops.
“My parents are sick of me,” Tiffany repeated, like it was simple and I should understand. “They’ve been sick of me since the moment I was born. My dad’s always working—he works in oil, which is where the money comes from—and my mom… I don’t know. She’d just rather not have me around.”
“So they sent you to stay with your grandparents because they’re sick of you?”
“Not just because of that.” She toyed with the cross around her neck—the one with the tiger’s eye in the middle. “There was… well, I got into some trouble or whatever. It’s stupid. They said I needed to learn the value of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, which is so stupid, because what do they know? My dad gets cash thrown at him for doing next to nothing, and my mom’s never worked a day in her life! But whatever, right? Parents!”
I laughed, though I didn’t mean to. We came from such different worlds, and somehow we both got sloughed off onto other family members. But if our parents hadn’t bundled us both away to the same cottage community this summer, we’d never have met. So it was kind of like… kismet.
Before I could explain any of that to Tiffany, I heard another scream. This time, I rolled my eyes as I turned toward Mikey, who was racing across the island shore. “What now, booger-breath?”
Tiffany stood at my side as my little brother held up what he’d found in the water. “Didn’t this used to be yours?”
Seaweed clung to her sopping wet apron and pine needles stuck out of her frazzled red hair. One of her fingers had broken off. But it was Yvette. I’d know her jealous stare anywhere.
The last thing I heard was Mikey asking “Becca?” as I dropped like a stone into Tiffany’s arms.
Chapter 17
“Rebecca Jane Warren, don’t you ever scare me like that again!”
My aunt’s arms wrapped tight around me. Her big breasts pressed against my front. I squirmed uncomfortably, but I couldn’t escape.
“Ouch, my neck! Aunt Libby, let go!”
Tiffany and Uncle Flip stood beside my bed in the Jones’s cottage. At first, I wasn’t sure why they were looking at me so pathetically. Then it all came streaming back. I sat up too fast and my head started spinning. I fought the confusion, and looked around the room for police presence.
“Where did they go?”
“Where did who go?” my uncle asked.
Tiffany moved closer, kneeling beside the bed. “Are you okay?” She fingered the tiger’s eye bracelet she’d made, and I could see in her sad eyes that she felt like she’d failed me. “I was so worried about you, Bec.”
Everything inside me wanted to pull Tiffany into my arms and kiss her like a sailor on leave, but not in front of my aunt and uncle. “Did the police come after me? Am I going to jail?”
My aunt looked at my uncle, and they both smiled the way people smile at children who’ve just said something ridiculous. “No, sweetheart. You’re not going to jail.”
Uncle Flip gazed at Tiffany, who didn’t seem to notice. “We’ll talk about that a little later, just the three of us.”
“No,” I said, feeling like a petulant child. “I want to know now. It’s my life. What did they say?”
Aunt Libby took my hand, but I slipped it away from her, folding myself up as small as I could go. It was my uncle who said, “We told them everything you’d been through—with your dad, finding out about the charges and the sentence, all that. It affected you very deeply. They understood that you’re a good girl who just acted out because of this trauma in the family.”
I wanted to yell at him, to say, “I’m not a child and I’m not crazy person! Stop talking to me like that!” But my throat closed up and I couldn’t say a word.
“We also mentioned this whole affair with the doll,” my aunt said. “The officers agreed that you could benefit from a few sessions with…” She cleared her throat. She wasn’t looking at me anymore. “Well, you know, just talking with someone.”
The doll?
The doll!?
My heart slowed until it felt like a block of ice in my chest. I’d never told them about Yvette. Never. The only person I’d told was… Tiffany…
She bit her lip. I didn’t have to say a word.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper. “I thought they should know. I was worried, and if you really think that doll started a fire… I mean, wouldn’t you have done the same thing if our roles were reversed?”
“No!” I snapped. “If you told me a secret, I’d keep it. I wouldn’t go spreading it all around town.”
“Not town,” my aunt said, defending Tiffany. “Just us. Just family.”
“And you never said it was a secret,” Tiffany piped in.
Uncle Flip overlapped with them. “Becca, honey, you know a doll didn’t burn down your room. You know that’s impossible.”
“But it happened!” I didn’t know why I was arguing. I should have just shut my mouth and let them think I was a normal person. “You said yourselves how weird it was that only my furniture burned and nothing else caught fire. And how come I found her in the dresser drawer and she wasn’t burnt at all? How did she even get there? Yvette is real! I don’t know how, but she can move and talk and do stuff. She’s evil!”
“A doll can’t be evil,” Uncle Flip said, gesturing toward the bedroom window.
I turned around fast, scared to death that Yvette would be sitting there on the sill. Thank God she wasn’t. But he’d pointed that way for a reason, and when I looked out the window I caught sight of my brother on the Jones’s front lawn. He had Yvette stretched out in front of him, swinging her around in his arms.
Every bit of pain in my body dissipated as I launched myself off the end of the bed. I didn’t even feel my feet moving under me, carrying me down the stairs and out through the store.
“Put her down!” I screamed, falling to my knees beside my brother.
I hit Yvette out of Mikey’s hands, but he chased her battered body across the lawn. “Hey, don’t hit Yvette! She’s cool!”
“She’s not cool, she’s the devil. She’ll kill you, Mikey.” A chill ran down my spine, and I sat back on my heels as my brother hugged my doll. “Wait, what did you call her?”
He looked up at me like that was a stupid question. “Yvette.”
“How did you know her name?”
“She told me,” Mikey said with a shrug. “She talks.”
My stomach tied itself in a mass of knots. The pain was so intense I had to hug myself tight. My body didn’t feel like my own. My brain hurt, like a hea
dache but way worse. She talks. Yvette talks.
“What did she say to you?” I grabbed Mikey’s arm, trying to get him to let go of evil Yvette. “Tell me what she said.”
Suddenly, there were hands on my shoulders, pulling me off my little brother.
“Rebecca!” my aunt hollered.
“Bec, cut it out.” Uncle Flip heaved me to my feet and right away I started shaking in his arms. “Becca? You okay?”
No. Not even a little bit.
I heard Tiffany scream, but my field of vision was so blurry all I saw was a blonde halo around a white dress. Her hand found mine and squeezed. Something inside of me was fading. Everything was getting hazy again, and I was scaring myself.
And then my belly rumbled and my butt clenched.
“Bathroom,” I said, wriggling out of my uncle’s grip. “I have to go.”
My feet took off beneath me and I raced into the Jones’s cottage and up the stairs. Tiffany’s grandmother shouted after me, “Rebecca! Up and at ‘em, I see,” but I didn’t stop to chat. I made it to the bathroom just in time, and that’s when I realized I’d never changed the tampon I’d stolen from the rich people the day before.
“Oh no…” I closed my eyes and tried to remember what I’d learned in health class. If you left a tampon in too long, you could get toxic shock: fever, chills, nausea, delusions. What were the other symptoms? Oh yeah. Diarrhea…
It was starting to seem like my embarrassments would never end. Why couldn’t I just have a normal life like a normal person? Why did a jealous doll have to be obsessed with me? Why did my dad have to be an irresponsible drunken murderer and ruin my life? And why couldn’t I have a period without nearly killing myself?
“I’ll be fine.” I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. “Listen up, Rebecca. You’ll never be normal, but you will be fine.” My knees buckled and I pressed my weight against the sink. “Okay, so maybe I need a nap. And then I’ll be fine.”
There was a knock at the bathroom door, and I prayed it wasn’t Tiffany. I didn’t want her smelling the foul odour I’d created.
“Rebecca, honey?” My aunt’s voice had never sounded so sweet. “How are you feeling?”
