I nod.
Little does she know, the reason I’m here is because I’m already in trouble. I’m just not sure how much, or if it’s finally over.
I wait for a few minutes and watch the diners come in. Mom brings over two milkshakes—both chocolate—and I sip mine and stare out the window at the setting sun and start to worry that maybe Alicia won’t show up. Maybe her parents told her she couldn’t come, or she got hurt, or the doll found her on the way here. Then I catch sight of her walking down the street. Relief floods through me, and I give her a wave.
She smiles when she steps into the diner and sits down across from me.
“Chocolate—my favorite!” she says, and takes a long sip from her shake. “Sorry I’m late. Mom made me do some chores before letting me leave.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m just really glad you made it.”
“Of course,” she says. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Her response strikes me as odd: I want to say, Because we’ve never done this before, because you always have some excuse not to hang out. But I don’t want to push it. She’s here now.
Mom comes over a minute later and takes our order. Alicia grins at me and tells me her parents gave her some money, so we order extra fries and another round of milkshakes, and even though I feel a little awkward letting her pay, it feels nice to be having fun with my friend.
We talk about everything—the coming school year, her annoying little brother, the dress her mom is forcing her to learn how to sew. Everything but the doll. It’s the one subject neither of us wants to touch, not even in the bright lights of the diner. I can tell that she’s thinking the same thing I am: It’s over now. And that means we can forget it and move on.
Our town seems very good at forgetting things.
When Mom brings our food, we chow down and spend the time watching the other patrons in the diner. It’s kind of strange, watching Mayor Couch and his wife. They don’t say anything to each other while they eat. And behind me, I overhear some of Alicia’s neighbors talking about the weather.
I mean, that’s a normal conversation.
Until I realize they keep repeating the same things over and over again.
I glance over my shoulder at them, but neither of them seems to notice that they’re just repeating things as they eat.
“Looks like it’s going to be a hot summer,” one of them says.
“Yeah, not a lick of rain to be seen.”
“Hard times. Hard times.”
Then they pause, and a few minutes later, start up again.
“Looks like it’s going to be a hot summer.”
“Yeah, not a lick of rain to be seen.”
“Hard times. Hard times.”
I lean forward and whisper to Alicia, “Do you hear that?”
“What?” she asks.
I gesture to her neighbors. “They keep saying the same thing.”
I see her furrow her eyebrows and concentrate on what they’re saying. The neighbors repeat themselves once more, but Alicia shakes her head.
“No they’re not,” she says. She giggles. “Stop making stuff up, silly. You had me worried for a moment.”
I raise an eyebrow, but I don’t question. Because the neighbors are repeating themselves again, and if she doesn’t notice …
I thought it was only the doll, but now that it’s shown up, it’s like I’m seeing the truth for the first time:
Something very, very weird is happening in Copper Hollow. And no one but me seems to notice.
“Elizabeth!” my mom calls out. Her voice comes from upstairs, and I do my best to stay quiet, to stay calm. If she doesn’t hear me, she won’t come down here. “Elizabeth, where are you?”
Wait, why is she calling me Elizabeth? Isn’t my name Kimberly? The question slides from my mind as the dream falls back into place. No, I’m Elizabeth, and right now I need to hide.
This is my secret cave. This is where Aladdin has hidden the genie’s lamp. Where the king has stashed his royal jewels. Down here, I can pretend I am safe. Safe from their arguing. Safe from the arguments I overheard in the town square.
This is my secret cave, but it is my family’s greatest secret as well.
Or at least, it was.
Gold glitters from every surface—goblets and masks, candelabras and crowns. Jewels drip down like dewdrops, fat and glistening in the lamplight. All locked away behind iron bars. Locked and safe and secret. Except I found the key. I found the key, and my parents don’t know, which means I can hide down here without them ever finding me. I can be as safe as the treasures they’ve hidden away.
I hear my mother walking away. She will keep looking for me. I’m in trouble. She knows I went into town on my own. She knows I’ve seen the protests in the street.
She knows I’ve seen the mines.
I look down to my coal-covered hands.
I’ve seen the truth, and it has stained me deeper than coal dust.
That’s why I’m in trouble.
My mother will never find me down here, and tonight is the ball for all of their friends. There, I’ll be able to blend into the crowd. For a few hours, I’ll be able to escape. In the midst of so many people, I will be able to hide from my parents and what they have done to our town.
I will be able to hide.
But not forever.
“Honey.” My mother’s voice cuts through the dream. “Honey, wake up.”
I grumble and roll over in bed. It feels early. Maybe that’s just because I feel like I haven’t slept at all. What was I dreaming about? Something about hiding. About being someone else.
At least it didn’t have to do with dolls.
“Kimberly Josephine Rice,” my mother says sternly.
My eyes snap open.
“What?” I try not to sound as grumpy as I actually am.
“I should ask you the same question.”
“Huh?”
She stands over by the kitchen counter, coffee just beginning to percolate. Her hands are on her hips and she stares out the kitchen window, her eyebrows furrowed.
“What is the meaning of this?” she asks. Then she points.
I grumble again and push myself out of bed. I had such a good night—after Alicia went home, I stayed around and read an old magazine until Mom got off of work. She even managed to close up early, so we walked home together, chatting quietly, and there were no dolls and nothing scary and everything finally seemed to be okay again. The funeral had worked.
Something in her tone tells me that relief was short-lived.
I stumble groggily over to her and look out the window. Immediately, despite the heat of the trailer, my blood goes cold.
“Are those your toys?” she asks.
I can only nod silently.
There, in the backyard, are a dozen mounds popping up from the grass. At first, it looks like there are sticks or something poking out from the tops. Except she’s right—those aren’t twigs. Those are my old toys. I see a doll’s leg and a game board and a telescope, among others.
Someone took my toys and buried them in my backyard!
“Who would—” I begin.
And then I see her.
Sitting on a cinder block near the front of the mounds. Her crimson dress rumpled, her black hair in knots.
A telltale scowl on her porcelain face.
The doll hasn’t stayed buried after all.
My mom lectures me on “responsibility” and “acting out” and says that I am too old to be doing things like this. Her anger starts turning to sadness, and she says that we are too poor for her to buy me new toys, so I will just have to play with dirty ones. I am grounded for the rest of the day—no playing with James or Alicia—and I need to have the yard back to normal by the time she gets home.
I think her lecture will never end. Then she looks at the clock, curses, and says she’s going to be late, and look at how hard she works just so we can get by, yet here I am breaking the toys she’s worked for.
I barely hear her. Not as she lectures and not as she runs around the trailer, getting ready to go to the diner for her breakfast shift. All I can hear is the blood pounding in my ears. All I can see is the doll, sitting on her cinder block, staring at me angrily.
I wait for my mother to see the doll. But Mom’s either too busy or she doesn’t see the same things I do. It’s not like I can tell her what’s happening. Why would she believe me? My friends barely believe me, and they’ve seen some of this firsthand.
If this is a prank, it’s gone too far. I’m grounded and my mom is worse than angry—she’s hurt, thinking that I’d disrespect her like this. I can’t stand to think that she’s sad, that she’s thinking about how little money we have. I spend most of my time trying to prove to her that everything is okay, and now it’s clear that it isn’t.
The moment she is out the door and down the drive, I stomp out to the backyard and grab the doll.
She is cold. Colder than ice. And I swear that when I pick her up, the air around me goes cold, too.
I want to throw her. I want to toss her into the woods and scream at whoever is out there to stop. This isn’t funny anymore. This was never funny, but now it’s mean. Someone has come into my house and stolen my toys and gotten me into trouble.
“I don’t care who you are or what you want,” I growl to the surrounding woods. “I’m done playing games. You hear me? I’m done!”
The woods stay silent. The doll’s head tilts to the side. If someone is out there, they aren’t interested in coming clean. For some reason, that makes me angrier. A bully like Peter makes sense—I can understand why he’d come around and try to torment me like this. He always does mean things when he’s bored, and there’s not much else to do around here in the summer.
But if it’s not him. If it’s the doll …
My anger flares.
What right does this doll have, coming into my life and making a mess of things? Why me? Why not someone else?
“If this is your doing,” I say to the doll, “I want you to know that I’m done. I buried you. I followed your directions. No more. I want you out of my life. Forever.”
The doll doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me with a frown that speaks louder than words. I almost want her to respond. To open those painted lips and scream at me, or grab my arm with her tiny hands and try to hurt me. She does nothing. That makes it worse.
This doll is ruining everything, and I can’t figure out why, or how to make it stop.
Well, I’m going to end this, once and for all. She might be able to pull herself out of the ground, but she’s still made of porcelain and fabric.
I storm inside our trailer, the doll still clutched tight in my fist.
It doesn’t take long for me to grab the supplies I need. A book of matches, some newspaper, and kindling from a pile in the back of the yard.
In less than ten minutes, I have a small pyramid of twigs and newspaper built in our fire pit. Normally, this is where Mom and I would roast marshmallows or hot dogs on cool fall evenings. But now, in the morning sunlight, I have an entirely different plan. I’m going to get rid of this doll once and for all. Making sure the bucket of sand for putting out fires is nearby, I light a match and set the twigs alight. It takes a few minutes for the fire to really catch, and I stand back at a safe distance until it is really burning. Then I look at the doll in my hands.
“I’m done playing games,” I say again.
Then I toss her into the flames.
She lands right in the middle of the fire. Her dress catches immediately, and the sudden heat makes me take another step back. But I don’t leave, even though sweat drips down my face. I’m not leaving until I’m certain she isn’t coming back.
“Stay. Away,” I say.
I watch her burn.
The paint on her face peels off and the leather cord holding her locket snaps. Her porcelain skin chars black, and right when I think she is finished, when her hair is gone and she is nothing but a shell, her head tilts to the side. Fire reflects in her darkened, glassy eyes. And maybe it’s a trick of the light. I don’t think so. Because I swear she opens her mouth and silently screams at me.
I don’t turn away.
I have to be sure she’s gone.
I have to.
I don’t step away until she is nothing more than a piece of charcoal. And even then, even when the sun beats down and I am covered in sweat from the fire and the early morning sun, I wait.
I wait until the fire has burned down to embers. Until the doll is ash and the locket is molten.
Then I step forward with the bucket of sand to put out the fire.
As I pour it over the embers, I see that the doll isn’t gone. Not entirely.
One tiny arm sticks out from the ashes. Blackened and crisped.
With one finger pointing directly at me.
I shudder. Then I dump the rest of the sand on top.
“There,” I say, tossing the bucket to the side. “Now you’re really buried.”
I turn and stomp away.
I spend the rest of the morning cleaning up the backyard.
I unearth all my toys and clean them off as best I can, keeping a close eye on the pile of sand in the fire pit where the doll found its final resting place. A part of me keeps waiting for the pile to move, for the doll to burst from the ashes like some crazed zombie and attack. Another part waits for someone to leap from the woods and yell at me for burning the doll and ruining their prank.
By the time I’ve finished clearing up the backyard and putting everything away, neither of those things has happened, and I’ve gone from angry to nervous. I know I need to go to the woods and leave a note for James and Alicia—they’ll surely be there at noon, our usual time, and I don’t want them worrying. Or, worse, coming over here and wondering why the yard is torn up. That’s not a situation I’m ready to try to explain.
When I’m sure the fire is cold and the doll is truly gone, I pack up my library book and a pen and paper and head out to the woods.
I must have walked to our fort hundreds of times in the past. I know the path as well as I know the inside of my own trailer—it meanders through the woods, worn down from months and months of my footsteps. Which means I’m not paying attention to where I’m going—my feet already know the way.
Or at least I thought they did.
A few minutes into my walk, I realize the trees are getting thicker. The air is colder. After another few steps, the path opens.
I am standing in front of the burned mansion.
I stop and stare. I swear it’s so cold that my breath comes out in clouds.
And it’s now, staring up at the ruins, that my dream from last night comes back into focus. My dream where I wasn’t myself. I was a girl named Elizabeth, hiding in a room of treasures, yet still pretending I was somewhere else. I know she was hiding in the mansion. I know the two are somehow linked.
“What in the world is going on?” I whisper. As if the mansion will tell me the answers. To my dreams. To the doll. To the strange way everyone has been acting.
The mansion doesn’t say a word. Of course it doesn’t. For a moment, I consider going inside. Finding my way back to the ballroom. Or seeing if I can find the treasure room … if there is a treasure room.
I must be losing it. Thinking my dreams are real. If there were a treasure that huge in Copper Hollow, the town wouldn’t be as poor as it is.
I sigh. I need to get to the fort. It’s nearly noon, and James and Alicia will be waiting.
I’m about to turn away when I catch it. The slightest hint of movement in one of the broken windows. A splash of crimson darting into the shadows. My chest constricts and ice pools in my veins.
No.
It has to be a bird. A cardinal.
But I swear it was the doll.
I don’t think—
I run.
Away from the mansion and its toothy grin, deep into the woods that have always�
�up until right now—felt like home. Despite the heat of the day and the sweat from running, my skin feels cold as ice. Even the scent of the forest is different—where it once smelled like lush green heat, it now smells cold. Dusty. Like a graveyard.
But that’s not the worst part.
Drifting through the trees is the giggling of a little girl. Familiar and haunting enough to send more chills down my spine.
Something darts through the underbrush.
I jerk around. Was that another cardinal? That flash of red?
More giggling. I turn and something darts through the branches above me, fast as I blink.
No, it can’t be a doll. It has to be a bird. Has to be.
I have to get out of here.
I try to ignore the phantom doll and the giggling and the cold. I run full speed through the woods, toward our fort, and pray that the nightmare stays behind me.
By the time I get to the fort, it’s way past our normal meeting time, and I have mostly convinced myself that I was just seeing things in the woods, because the closer I got to the fort, the less, well, spooky the woods became.
But James and Alicia aren’t there.
Strange. Maybe they were already here and just left without me. The thought leaves a pang in my gut—I don’t like thinking they’re out having fun when I’m grounded. Not that I want them to be miserable without me. I just … don’t want to be alone.
At least the air is a normal temperature here, and there aren’t any more signs of a doll. The panic in my chest starts to go away, but I still jolt every time I hear the branches rustle from a squirrel.
I leave my friends a note, just in case they head back this way:
I don’t want to mention being grounded because of the buried toys. I don’t want to admit the doll came back. That I burned her, but now I think she’s following me. That’s beyond impossible, and I don’t want them to worry over nothing.
I tell myself I was seeing things before, that it was just stress and nerves and fear of stumbling upon the mansion alone.
Bury Me Page 5
