by Lois Ruby
Nobody’s ever called me that besides Gram and Aunt Amelia, and I’m sure they’re not talking to me from beyond the grave. So, then, who is?
“Who are you? What do you want with me?” I shout.
The voice is silenced. Maybe I scared her. Whoever. I swing my legs out of bed, glancing at the clock. I’ve got exactly forty-seven minutes to get up, shower and dress, eat breakfast, and hop in Mom’s car to get to school.
And then I hear that gurgly, waterlogged voice again: “Saaave Laaady.”
“What? Who? Who’s saying that?” Is it Isabella, the doll locked in my dresser? I open the drawer, unfold her legs, and smooth her fancy dress and hat. “What do you mean, Isabella? Or are you Lady? Is that why there’s no Isabella grave?”
I can’t believe I’m having a conversation with someone who isn’t alive! Am I going crazy, like Emily? Maybe, but the voice answers in a piercing “NOOOOOO! SAVE LADY!” And it’s not coming from Isabella.
I’m so confused, and now the room’s silent except for the buzzing of a fly, one of the stubborn few that survived into fall.
“Shelby! Brian!” Mom calls up the stairs. “Breakfast is ready. French toast, your favorite.”
I shake the cobwebs out of my head and try to convince myself I wasn’t quite awake, that my unconscious mind was revving in overdrive, that it was all a dream.
It wasn’t a dream, though, and now my heart’s racing while my mind zips through a dozen troubling questions, like who Lady, the doll missing from the large grave, really is. Obviously, it’s not Isabella, since I let her out of the locked drawer, and she’s perfectly safe where she is now. But why does the real Lady need to be saved? And what does she need saving from?
But the biggest question is: How am I supposed to save her?
Mom’s super chatty on the way to school. Second day at Enderbrook Middle. It’s gotta be better than day one, right?
“You okay, Shelby? You seem a bit distracted.”
A bit? Hah! My mind’s eons away, wondering how I’m going to find my locker again and puzzling over the Voice begging me to “Saaave Laaaady,” as if a life depends on it. But whose life — Lady’s, or the Voice’s? What’s also streaming through my head is the fact that it is totally abnormal to hear voices, especially when they bring frantic warning pleas.
“I’m fine, Mom.” I blow her a kiss and hop out of the car while she’s barely slowed down. I can’t handle any more questions right now, and I have to face a tribe of kids who wish I’d never moved to town. They’re all loitering around the front steps, waiting for the first bell to ding-a-ling so they can swarm the halls.
Darcy’s waiting for me, chewing on a piece of beef jerky. “Want a bite?”
I shake my head. Would I take a bite of something she’s slobbered all over?
“Did you finish the math?” she asks.
“Oh, I forgot about it.”
“Get to the library. You might be able to whip through it before the second bell, or during Homeroom.”
Isn’t she just a wee bit too bossy? Then she pulls a sudden switch:
“Have you noticed Arden Kells?”
“Is that a girl or a guy?”
“Omygawd, Shelby, you need to learn to tell the difference! He’s only the cutest specimen in our Language Arts class. All that golden-blond hair that hangs over his gorgeous eyes, and he’s taller than most of the seventh-grade gnomes. Look him over thoroughly at lunch, and then let me know if I should go for the gold.”
The bell rings, and we all stampede inside. If I remember which way the library is, I’ll at least get a start on the math. Darcy trots along beside me, and through the chaos of the hall I hear her say, “I’m glad you came to Enderbrook, because I’ve known everybody at this school forever. I need fresh blood.” Then she peels off, pointing to the opposite end of the hall, where the library is. No time to do the math.
Most of the day’s a blur, except at lunch I check out Arden Kells and flash Darcy a thumbs-up. No one else at the table is half as cute as he is.
After school when Mom pulls into our driveway, she has to weave around a bunch of vans. “What’s going on here?” she asks. Like I know?
I spot one panel truck with an extension gizmo on the roof, sticking up in the air.
“Oh, shoot!” Mom cries. “It’s the America’s Most Amazing crew Aunt Amelia warned us about.” Cameras and cables and all kinds of electronic gear are smashing our front lawn and are strewn up the hill. A guy in baggy jeans and a T-shirt with the company logo splashed across his chest — CABLE 87: ALL GHOSTS ALL THE TIME — comes bounding toward us with a big grin on his face.
“Glad you’re home. Mrs. Tate, is it? I’m Drue Kennedy, associate producer of America’s Most Amazing. Double meaning, get it? America IS most amazing, which it is, and America’s most amazing phenoms. Pretty clever, eh?” He sticks out a sweaty palm, which Mom ignores.
“You cannot shoot inside our house, outside our house, behind our house, or anywhere within a hundred feet of our house, and if you do, I’ll get a restraining order.”
“Whoa, Nellie! You’re tougher than the old lady who used to live here! Okay, okay, I get the drift. No can do the weird goings-on in your house. No sweat. It so happens, we’re hanging around waiting for clearance from the bank that owns those houses up the hill. The one on the right is freakin’ Phantom City.”
“It is? Why?” I ask, and Mom throws me a warning look.
“That guy who used to own all these houses … Thornewood? Long time ago there were live coal mines all over here. Thornewood had a monopoly on the ones between here and Trinidad. He got filthy rich on the backs of those miners who earned practically zilcho for their labors.”
“Look, Mr. Kennedy —” Mom begins, but I interrupt her.
“So what happened in that house on the hill?”
“Okay, okay, so one of Thornewood’s business honchos was living high on the hog up in that house. Then one day a couple of coal miners got trapped down in the nearby mines when a ceiling collapsed. One guy was rescued, but the other one, he died of some kind of gas poisoning ’cause he already had black-lung disease. Lousy ventilation down there.”
“Very interesting, Mr. Kennedy, but we need to —”
“Wait, I haven’t got to the good part yet. So, turns out he’s been haunting that house ever since. The last three renters saw him, clear as day. Man, that’s right up our alley at Channel 87! So here we are. Soon as the bank gives us the go-ahead, we’re ready to roll.”
“Is there anything weird about dolls in that house?” I ask eagerly.
“Shelby!”
“Dolls? Not that I’ve heard.” He whips out a little notebook and jots down DOLLS? “Could be. We haven’t been able to get inside yet. Official papers and all that. The network’s skittish about breaking and entering,” he says with a chuckle. “But, hey, I’m on salary. I’ve got all day.”
Mom steers me toward our front steps and warns Drue Kennedy once again: “Restraining order, don’t forget.”
He puts his palms up and backs off. “Yeah, I’m cool with that.”
I have got to get in that house!
MADE IT THROUGH THE FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL! But now winter has hit us with a foul spirit here in Cinder Creek. I remember reading at that Ludlow monument place Dad and I went to, that September of 1913 was one of the coldest in Colorado history. All those coal-mining families were striking. They were kicked out of their houses and lived in tents right out here on the prairie. Brrr! I’m grateful for the blazing fire in our parlor on this Friday night, even though I’ve been jittery about flames ever since Chester’s doghouse caught fire behind our Denver house. Somebody carelessly tossed a lit cigarette in our yard. The little house that Dad built for Chester shot up in flames. Dad ran out and tamed the fire with a garden hose, but Chester was totally freaked. That’s why he sleeps with us now, usually with Brian. It was two years ago, and I can still hear him howling as his house collapsed.
Gotta shak
e that off and think instead about the rich hot cocoa in my mug. Whipped topping floats on the chocolate and melts into cloudy swirls. Someone with more imagination than I have might be able to read my fortune in those swirls. Chester gazes up at me expectantly, as if I’m going to let him lap at my mug.
Mom’s on one of the kidney-shaped couches, clipping recipes from a food magazine. Brian’s on another couch peering at something on Mom’s laptop screen. I’m sprawled on the third couch. I’m supposed to be reading chapter three of The Giver for Language Arts. But my mind keeps wandering to that house up the hill. How can I sneak into that creepy old place without Mom noticing I’m gone? The old-fashioned clock on the mantel says nine, and my eyes are starting to droop. Maybe I should go to bed, set my alarm for 3:00 a.m., and tiptoe out of the house without a single creaky floorboard giving me away.
That’ll never work. Mom has radar; she’d bolt out of bed and catch me before the door closed behind me, and I’d end up grounded for the rest of my natural life. Here’s a think-worthy question: If you’re a divorced kid, and one parent grounds you, does the other let you go? Hmm. I’ll have to test that one.
And speaking of Dad, I haven’t been able to pry a single tiny detail out of Brian about their night together last weekend. Maybe it was terrible. Maybe it was too good to spoil by talking about it. That chills me, even though the fire is crackling away in the fireplace. I glance over at Brian. His whole forehead is wrinkled in concentration.
“What are you doing?” I ask, and not too kindly.
“Googling images to see if I can find out anything about that funny old pipe Aunt Amelia gave me. Here’s one sort of like it.” He turns the screen toward me, and Mom comes over to see the picture, too. It’s a pipe a lot like Aunt Amelia’s, with a painted porcelain bowl and a tassel.
Back to The Giver. Darcy said she read it in fifth grade, but it’s worth reading again. Darcy, who’s my maybe-friend. Darcy, who got to Arden Kells before I even had a chance.
I flop my heels down on the glass-top table. The dollhouse furniture inside scuttles around, and that one doll, the one that spooked me the first day in this house, isn’t up to any mischief.
In fact, she’s not there!
I pop forward to get a better look. My eyes scan the entire table up close, and there’s no sign of her. Besides that, the bed she was lying in that was separated from the rest of the furniture is now shoved up between the wringer washing machine and the stove.
Brian! He’s been shuffling things around under this glass top, but why? Or is there something unexplainable going on? Something else unexplainable, like the furnace pilot light and my red sweater and all those pots boiling over at the same time?
A figure under the glass catches my eye, a doll I never noticed there before. She’s got straight brown hair that wisps over her shoulders and eyes that aren’t blue, but aren’t quite green or brown, either. They’re hazel. Like mine. I scoot down to get a better look, and it’s as if I’m Alice in Wonderland, shrunk to her size, staring in the mirror. She looks just like me, even the small brown birthmark on her left temple and the tiny space between her front teeth. I do not like this one bit; it’s way too freaky. A pulse is thumping in my head, and now the fire seems much warmer on my face, as though it’s notched up a thousand degrees.
Mom is in a totally different world. “This is so peaceful. I’m feeling so much more centered out here in Aunt Amelia’s house,” she says. “Except for that rigmarole about the dolls.” That part she mutters under her breath.
I, of course, have the sharp hearing of an owl, so I catch every word and bristle with anger. For once I keep my mouth shut, and after a deep breath, I remind myself that Mom simply doesn’t understand what these little doll creatures can do. The Shelby me-doll — what can I expect from her? Next chance I get in the parlor alone, I’m taking her out of the table and … and what? Rip her head off? No, I will not do such a vicious thing.
I might as well face facts. I’m not going to read The Giver tonight, not when I have so many other things pinballing around in my mind. Checking to see that Mom’s absorbed in her magazine, I pull Sadie’s notebook out from under the couch, along with the ultraviolet penlight.
Mom says, “Oh, I see you’re into your mysterious cryptology project. How is it going?”
My back’s to her; how does she know? When people get to be parents, do they grow radar eyes and ears that are hidden in invisible places, but always tuned up?
“It’s going great. Brian and I are inventing a secret code.” The white lie comes easily to my lips. But is she suspicious? I glance around and see her lick her finger to flip a few more pages of the magazine. She gazes into the fire with a more hopeful look on her face than I’ve seen since before. Almost makes me feel guilty knowing that the dolls are up to no good. It’s just a matter of time.
Word by word I inch through the pages of Sadie’s notebook. Most of it’s just daily drivel:
That the parrot named Plumy that her father brought her from London keeled over and died one day in his cage. Plumy? It’s almost as dumb a name for a pet as Terpsichore.
What she had for an afternoon snack, which she called tea.
How she ripped out the seams of a new dress her father brought her from Paris and used the tatters as a feed bag for her pony, Bonita. She sure got a lot of stuff from Europe.
How her headaches were getting worse, and she was dizzy a lot and spending more time in bed in a darkened room. Hmm, I wonder what was going on.
How the chauffeur drove her alone to a doctor in Trinidad, which is pretty sad, because you’d think her mother would go with her. She never wrote a word about what the doctor said, just that she couldn’t stop crying and even Dotty Woman couldn’t comfort her.
I’m really feeling sorry for Sadie. Maybe I shouldn’t read any more of this. And then a fragment of a sentence pops out at me:
… So nobody can play chess now ’cause I captured the queen and stashed her …
The sentence drops off right there. I flip the page quickly, and there’s no more of Sadie’s writing, as if she were caught by someone — her mean mother? — or was scared to say any more.
The next page is blank, and the next, and the next, and then there’s invisible writing again. I slide the penlight over the words, surprised to see that they’re in a different handwriting. Printing, actually, which tells me that it was written more recently than Sadie’s words because kids like me print everything unless they have to write in messy, old uphill-slanting cursive for school.
It hits me suddenly: Sadie’s journal has morphed into Emily’s. It’s Emily, not Sadie, who hid the notebook under the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I can hardly wait to read what she’s added. Is Mom watching? She better not be. She always has to know every inch of my business. Can’t she ever just leave me alone? I turn toward her and hear a strangled whisper of a voice: “So many angry girls. Angry, angry girls. Where is Lady? Find her…. Find her,” the haunting voice begs.
Suddenly I’m way more freaked out than I am mad. “Did you hear that, Mom?” I don’t want to lose it the way Emily did. I don’t want to hear things that aren’t there.
“Hear what, the delightful crackling of the fire?”
The next thing I know, I’m up in the attic, terrified! I don’t remember leaving the comfy fire, climbing the steep stairs, pulling down the attic ladder, or opening the trapdoor, but here I am, clutching the diary. My heart’s hammering. Tears pound behind my eyes. I don’t want to let them spill, even though I’m wondering, Is this what it’s like to be crazy? Normal girls don’t end up in places they can’t remember getting to.
Is Lady up here? Is that why I’m here? I pad around on the floor feeling for something, but I don’t even know what — a bump? A secret panel? A puddle? There’s nothing. Besides some empty cardboard cartons, the dollhouse is the only thing in this bare space, and I slide on my rear over toward it. There isn’t enough light to see in clearly, but nothing seems any str
anger than usual.
“Lady? Are you here somewhere?” The pleading voice I’ve been hearing is silent, but is that because I’m hot — dangerously close — and she’s scared? Or because I’m so cold that she isn’t wasting the energy begging me?
Frustrated, I crawl over to the window, hoping for a breath of air, but of course, the window’s sealed shut. Up the hill, there’s the shadowy outline of the two empty old Cinder Creek houses. The house on the left looms dark and skeletal as always, but the house on the right?
A light glimmers in one of its windows!
SOMEBODY’S IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL! MAYBE it’s a cameraman from America’s Most Amazing, but why this late? And wouldn’t he need lots more blazing light than just one dim bulb on the third floor? Besides, I don’t see the TV truck with all the cables.
I think it’s a regular person in there, but who? No one else lives nearby. Could it be a homeless guy who just wandered in? If I tell Mom, she’ll want to take him a steaming bowl of vegetable soup. I’m going to keep an eye on that light while I delve into Emily’s part of the diary. Maybe it’ll give me a clue about Lady. Just gotta hope the penlight doesn’t run out of juice. It actually works better up here in the dark, and I speed across whole sections of Emily’s tiny printing. I picture her writing in this notebook while her family is nearby. She’s scratching out each word in this cramped style so no one can read it over her shoulder before the ink dries invisible.
APRIL 20 — This is the true and honest diary of me, Emily Smythe, age twelve-going-on-eighteen, miserable citizen of this house of shape-shifting hobgoblins that reign supreme. People don’t count a bit here. That’s what Sadie Thornewood said, and she should know because she’s dead, dead, dead, like Lady. So, Secret Eyes of the Future, if you’ve found this in my amazingly clever hiding place, and you’re brilliant like me and can figure out how to read words that aren’t there, burn this and GET OUT AS FAST AS YOU CAN!
