Bury Me

by K. R. Alexander

  On the other side of the room, a flash of gold.

  Gold.

  I take a step forward, and suddenly the room is filled with light. Like someone has flipped a switch, or lit a dozen lanterns, the room glows with warmth. Before my eyes, the room changes.

  Soot and dust fade, floating up and disappearing like snow falling in reverse, revealing stone walls and intricate paintings. An accent table holding a vase of dried flowers materializes in front of me, but that’s not what makes my breath catch.

  On the other side of the room, locked behind a thick door of iron grating, is the treasury.

  I look down at the doll. She is smiling.

  I think I know where she wants to be buried.

  I walk forward in a trance, my mind spinning.

  This is the treasury where Elizabeth used to hide. This is the room where she found the doll for the first time. The question is, why is she bringing me here? Why does the doll want to be buried in the basement? Maybe she likes gold?

  Or maybe … maybe she wants me to have this treasure?

  Just the thought makes my heart flip. I always thought the doll was trying to harm me. But what if she was trying to help me all this time?

  My free hand wraps around the cool iron grate. Beyond the bars, treasures beyond my wildest dreams glimmer with promise. Golden chalices covered in jewels, glittering pearls, shining candelabras, pyramids of silver bars, even an open chest overflowing with gold coins. How in the world did Elizabeth’s family afford all of this?

  And there, against the wall, is the painting that Elizabeth had hidden behind. There’s a large scratch across it, but I can make out the two figures. Two men. One is her father, and the other … looks very familiar. Was he in the dream?

  I know I have to get in there. The doll wants me to have this treasure. She wants me to have a better life, to escape from Copper Hollow with my mom and my friends. To escape just like my father did. I don’t worry about why. That’s not important.

  I reach to open the door. It doesn’t budge.

  For a moment, disappointment floods me. I can’t have come so far, only to be stopped by a locked door.

  Something clanks to the ground at my feet.

  The locket!

  Somehow, it fell off the doll’s neck. The force of the fall snapped the amulet open. And it wasn’t empty. There, nestled inside, is a tiny skeleton key. And it looks like it’s the perfect size for the lock.

  With shaky hands, I pick it up and place it in the lock.

  “Please work,” I whisper to myself. “Please, please work.”

  I turn the key.

  The lock opens, and I gasp a huge sigh of relief. Excitement races through me at the thought of suddenly having so much money.

  I barely even notice setting the doll down as I step inside—my body is on autopilot, and everything I see glints gold.

  My mom and I will be able to get a house. No, not just a house—a mansion. One even bigger than this. One so big that all of my friends will have their own wings. We’ll be able to play hide-and-seek all day and still not visit every room. We’ll hire a chef to cook all of our meals. I’ll never have to eat ramen again, and my mom will never have to work behind a greasy stove. The thought is almost enough to bring me to tears.

  Everything is finally going to be okay.

  Better than okay. We’ll go out there and find Dad and everything is going to be amazing now because I’m finally, magically, rich.

  A creak behind me derails my thoughts.

  I turn.

  Just in time to see the door swinging closed.

  I lunge for it

  but I’m too late.

  The door shuts.

  The lock clicks.

  My excited daydreams shatter into a million pieces as a dark reality settles over me.

  I push against the door, but it won’t budge.

  I look up to see the doll smiling at me from the other side of the bars.

  I shake the door wildly.

  It doesn’t budge.

  I am trapped. Alone. In the basement of an abandoned manor that no one seems to remember. And no one knows where I am.

  The lights go out.

  The giggling begins.

  Darkness.

  Pitch-black darkness. Not even sunlight from the hall.

  It’s so dark, I can’t see my own hands, not even when I bump them into my nose.

  I can’t tell if the giggling that echoes around me is from miles away or right at my feet.

  Something scurries past my legs. The giggling is for sure coming from at my feet.

  I jerk away and press up against the door, the bars to my back.

  “What do you want from me?” I yell out. My voice trembles.

  The giggling just gets louder. Something rubs against my leg once more. A tiny doll hand.

  Many tiny doll hands.

  I scream as they claw at my ankles, as the laughter gets louder.

  There’s nowhere to run. No way to escape.

  “Help me, somebody, please!” I yell. Maybe James and Alicia are out there. Maybe someone is close enough to hear me, to help me …

  “No one is going to come for you,” chides a girl’s voice. “No matter how loud you scream, they’ll never hear you. They never hear.”

  Instantly, the clambering and giggling stops. Instead, I hear a girl softly crying.

  “Who … who are you?” I ask.

  The voice is familiar, but I can’t figure out why. It’s not Alicia. It’s not any girl from school. Wait, can it be … ?

  “You know who I am, Kimberly Rice,” the girl says. “Just as I know who you are.”

  Light flickers, pale blue and ethereal. And there, before me, hovers a young girl with curly hair, wearing a beautiful ball gown. The same gown I was wearing in my dreams. The same gown as the doll that led me here.

  “Elizabeth,” I gasp. “Are you … dead?”

  The girl nods. Her eyes are darkened with sadness, and when she looks at me, my chest goes cold with despair.

  “Indeed,” she says. “And it is nice to finally meet you … cousin.”

  “Cousin?” I whisper.

  My thoughts congeal like honey—nothing feels real, and yet I’m not waking up. Her words settle into my bones with a familiarity that feels awfully close to truth.

  She nods.

  “Your father and mine were brothers,” she says. “But they did not act like brothers for very long.” She looks down, her hair falling back over her face. “Perhaps it would be better to show you.”

  Glowing fog curls in her hand, swirling to form a ghostly doll, exactly the same as the one that’s been haunting me. Only this one doesn’t have words on its dress.

  Elizabeth holds it out to me.

  “It is time you know the truth,” she says. “About Copper Hollow. About our family. And about our curse.”

  “Curse?” I whisper.

  “Yes,” she says gravely. “The curse I brought about.”

  Her eyes look so sad that even though she’s just admitted to something terrible, I still feel pity for her.

  “Okay,” I whisper. I want to know. I reach out and touch the doll.

  The moment my hand closes around its vaporous body, the darkness around me swirls white and fades.

  “We were once the wealthiest family for miles around,” Elizabeth’s voice echoes.

  The mansion soars around us. We stand out in the courtyard, birds singing in the warm summer air. Sunlight glitters off the many windows of the mansion and the plume of water from a nearby fountain—the very fountain James used only days ago as his make-believe crow’s nest. The mansion is no longer crumbling and burned, but pure white, complete with window boxes overflowing with flowers. The gardens that were overrun with weeds spread out around us, green and vibrant and filled with roses and so many other flowers I couldn’t begin to name them. It is beautiful and lavish, everything around me absolute perfection.

  Which doesn’t explain why
Elizabeth sounds so sad when she speaks.

  A young girl runs out in front of us, chasing a ball. It takes me a moment to realize it is a younger version of Elizabeth.

  “When I was a child, I thought I was a princess,” the ghost beside me says. “Playing every day in a castle built just for me. But as I grew older, I realized the truth: I wasn’t a princess, and this wasn’t my castle. I was a prisoner, and the mansion was my penitentiary.”

  The scene shifts, and we are suddenly following a slightly older version of Elizabeth along a hallway. Portraits of stern-looking family members glare down at her.

  “I wasn’t allowed to have friends,” Elizabeth says at my side. “My parents thought it was dangerous for me to socialize outside of our class. So I was left to my own devices, to play make-believe and pretend I was somewhere better … just like you.”

  She looks at me. For a moment, I can see the family resemblance, and I wonder if maybe she’s telling the truth about us being related. But that can’t be true. Mom would have told me about having a cousin and an amazing past, right?

  “Eventually, though, even my imagination wasn’t enough to hide me from the truth of my family’s empire.”

  The scene shifts again, and we are now standing in the public square in downtown Copper Hollow. Over there is the library. And there, the police station. Everything looks exactly the same, so much so that I almost wonder if I’ve been transported out of the treasury.

  Until I look over and see the crowd that’s gathered.

  Even from here, and even though I can’t hear anything, I can tell the crowd is angry.

  One man stands on a crate in front of them, shouting and gesturing with his fist. The crowd mimics him, just as angry, just as ready for action. They are soot-covered, their clothes torn and dirty. Some look like people I know, but it’s hard to tell from the grime on their faces. Something about the man on the crate tickles the back of my mind. He looks familiar, but how?

  “The people of Copper Hollow were angry,” Elizabeth says. “For years, my parents had been stealing from the very miners whose work brought them their wealth. They ran the city council and taxed the town heavily—in addition to keeping all of the profits from the mine. But people were too scared to do anything. They knew that if they spoke up, my family could close down the mine and everyone would be left without a job or food. That is the true reason my parents wouldn’t let me leave my house—they didn’t want me to see what monsters they were.”

  “Those people don’t look scared,” I say. “They look ready to attack.”

  “They are,” she replies. “And they will. A week ago, a section of the mine collapsed, trapping and killing the workers inside. The rest of the miners knew the mines were unsafe, and they wanted my family to fix them before resuming work. My family refused and sent them back down, swearing that if production lessened, the town would pay for it dearly. That was the last straw. Their fear turned to anger, and that anger turned to action.”

  A sudden movement from a side street catches my eye. I look over to see a copy of Elizabeth standing in the shadows of a house, watching the group with a wide, scared expression.

  “I snuck out of the house the day my family was holding a grand ball for all of their richest friends. Families from many towns over were to be attending. I didn’t want to go, especially not after what I had seen. I almost didn’t return home that night, but I feared being caught by the townspeople as much as I feared my parents’ wrath.”

  She turns to me.

  “I thought that it might be safer at home, anyway. Because no one from town was invited. Little did I know, they would show up anyway.”

  “What happened?”

  “This is the night they burned down the mansion and murdered me and my family,” Elizabeth says. My blood goes cold, but her next words freeze it in my veins. “And that man on the podium is the reason for it. That man … that man is your father.”

  “My father?”

  Words barely form in my cloudy brain. I crumple to my knees, and in that moment, the scene shifts.

  We are back in the mansion. Up on the balcony. Below us, the crowd of costumed dancers promenades and spins in silence.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth says. She kneels at my side. Her ghostly hand tingles cool and oddly comforting on my shoulder. “Though I suppose you would not remember.”

  “Why … I thought …” I thought he ran away before I was born. I thought he was a nobody like me.

  “Your father was an angry man,” Elizabeth says. “Even though he came from wealth, he and my father had a huge fight, and your father was cut off from the family and its luxury. He worked in the mines, and he never forgave my father. He eventually convinced the town to revolt. To tear down our manor and make our family pay. My parents knew of the threats, but they did not think he would follow through. They thought he would never betray his own blood like they had. But the night of the ball, he did.”

  Bricks shatter through the great stained glass windows at her words. Bricks wrapped in flaming paper. Instantly, the ballroom explodes into silent chaos. Flames lick up the satin curtains and spread through the ballroom, leaping across dresses and tuxedos. I watch in horror as the dancers try to escape, but their paths are barred—none of the doors leading from the ballroom will open.

  “They blocked off all the exits when they attacked,” Elizabeth says dully. “They didn’t want to ruin just my family—they wanted to destroy anyone with a lick of wealth. There were no survivors.”

  The scene shifts again, disappearing in a whorl of smoke and flame.

  We are now back in the treasury. Jewels and gold glimmer from every surface.

  “I hid down here to escape long before the townspeople attacked. I wanted to hide from my parents and their friends and their terrible hypocrisy. To live with so much wealth while everyone else starved seemed like the most terrible thing. But I had no clue how I would get out. I wished with all my heart that I would be free of them. Free of my family and their monstrosity.

  “I hadn’t wanted this, though. I never would have wanted this.”

  Light flickers in the hallway. Light, and the unmistakable scent of smoke. A vision of Elizabeth peeks out from behind a painting to investigate.

  “By the time I realized the mansion was on fire, it was too late.”

  Someone holding a torch runs down the steps. My chest constricts at the sight.

  It’s my father.

  The vision of Elizabeth retreats back behind her painting.

  “I didn’t know what was going on. I only knew to hide. I didn’t dare think of what your father would do if he found me. But he wasn’t interested in me. He was only interested in what my family had stolen.”

  My father seems surprised to find that the treasury door is unlocked, but he doesn’t hesitate. He rushes inside and fills his pockets with gold and jewels, hastily draping pearls over his neck. I watch in fear and disgust as he hurriedly stashes as many treasures as he can on his body. When he turns around, his eyes brush over me.

  I swear he can see me.

  The look in his eyes—the greed, the hatred—makes me cower away.

  If this is my father, I’m glad he’s gone.

  Even in the vision, I hear the click of the door as it latches shut behind him and he races up the hall. Smoke billows down after him.

  “I often wonder if he would have saved me, had he known I was there,” Elizabeth muses. “But I do not think so. He was as much a monster as my parents. Perhaps more so. It doesn’t matter, though. The damage was done.”

  Moments later, I watch speechlessly as the vision of Elizabeth rushes from her hiding space. She grabs at the door, the doll forgotten and splayed on the ground beside her. The door doesn’t budge. The key glints ominously on the ground just out of her reach.

  Smoke fills the room, thick and acrid. I cough at the same time Elizabeth does. I feel her panic, her fear. The hurt that someone would do this.

  “I burned with the re
st of the treasure,” she says as smoke fills the vision and the present day returns. “My ghost has stayed here ever since, unable to leave, forever stuck in my prison. Until you, Kimberly. Now that you are here, I believe I am ready to forgive and move on and lift the curse.” She looks at me, and her gaze is sharp.

  “But first … I require that you help me.”

  “Curse?” I ask. “What do you mean, curse?”

  Elizabeth sighs.

  “Did you ever wonder why no one from Copper Hollow ever leaves?” she asks. “Or why you and your mother live on the outskirts, never able to know the warmth of a house?”

  Her words make me shiver. I nod.

  She continues, and her voice shifts to anger.

  “When I was dying, I swore I would make this town pay. I put a curse on the town, that anyone living here would never be able to leave or move on with their lives—I wanted them to be as stuck as I felt. And I cursed my entire family, so those surviving would never know wealth again. But in doing that, I cursed myself. My rage kept my soul trapped here, unable to escape or forget. The town could not move on, but neither could I. Worse, my curse backfired; I was forced to live with the memory of what happened, but all traces of my family were wiped from the minds and histories of those who live here.”

  That explains the blank library books, and the fact that no one ever goes near or seems to remember the mansion, I think in wonder.

  “But what about me?” I ask.

  “I wanted to hate you for what my uncle—your father—did to me. And for years, I did. Especially when I realized that he had fled town right after stealing from us and managed to sneak off before my curse took hold. I wanted revenge. But then I watched you playing with your friends. Using your imagination just as I did to visualize a better world. You saw things no one else could, beauty where there was only pain. You weren’t greedy like your father. Even after he left your family behind, you held on to hope that things could improve, and you worked hard to make that happen. It took time, but eventually I realized you weren’t to blame for all this, and it was wrong of me to make you suffer. You started to see the truth of the town, and my mansion. When I knew you were ready, I sent you the doll so you would find me.”