Help for the Haunted(81)

After he grabbed his coat and walked out the door, I was left to clear the table before heading upstairs, where I stopped to peek in at my mother again. She lay in her bed, sound asleep, a half-empty dinner plate on the nightstand. I felt the same urge to go inside and take care of her, the way she always took care of us. But I did what my father asked, leaving her to rest and going to my room instead. I pulled that slim piece of metal from my pocket and slipped it into the knob, opening the door.

The moment I stepped inside, I felt it beneath one of my slippers. When I lifted my foot, I saw another of those broken limbs. And then I looked to see not just one but dozens scattered on the carpet. Dozens more on my desk too. I stared down at the chaos a long moment before gazing up at that shelf, where every last one of them had been toppled.

I closed my door. Knelt on the carpet. Hands shaking, I went to work gathering those pieces. When that was done, I put them in a pile on my desk before stepping into the hallway. Last I looked, the rocker had been empty downstairs, but I knew where I’d find Penny. And whether or not the doll was to blame, I wanted her out of our lives.

I walked to my parents’ room and stood outside their door. My mother, I could see, was in her bed still. Quietly, I pushed open the door enough for me to step inside.

Her voice sounded thick and sluggish when she stirred, asking, “Sylvie, is that you?”

“Yes, Mom. It’s me.”

“Is everything okay?”

“It will be. But I wanted to check in on you. To see if you need anything.”

“Actually, a drink of water would be nice. I’ve just been so thirsty. There’s a glass here on my nightstand if you don’t mind.”

I filled the glass in the bathroom sink and brought it to my mother, who lifted her head from the pillow and drank with a loud gulping sound. Meanwhile, I stared around the room, my eyes adjusting to the green glow of the alarm clock. Their dresser. Their nightstand. My father’s empty bed. It was all the same. But then I noticed a smaller lump beneath my mother’s covers. I reached over and pulled back the blankets.

“Why?” I asked when that blank face gazed up at me.

My mother set down her glass, returned her head to the pillow. “I can’t explain it, Sylvie. I had my doubts about the claims that couple made. But your father—he believed. Either way, those people had been through so much, I thought it best to pray with them and remove the doll from their home, to give them peace of mind if nothing else. But now, well, there have been nights when I wake to find her here. Same as what happened to them.”

“Well, I think I should take it back downstairs.”

I waited for my mother to correct me, the way Rose said she once did to her, saying Penny was not an it but a she. But she just kept her head on her pillow as her eyes fell shut. For a moment, I thought of going into the bathroom for a towel to avoid touching the doll. But there seemed no time for that. I moved to the other side of the bed and reached down, moving calmly, intently, slipping my hands beneath its body and lifting. And then Penny was in my arms and I was carrying it out of the room.

Down the hall. Down the stairs. Through the living room, past the empty rocker to the front door. Outside, a misty rain had begun to fall, making a faint skittering sound, like mice running up and down the gutters. I stood on the stoop, staring out at the tangle of twisted branches surrounding our house, at my parents’ Datsun in the driveway, at those signs my father had painted and nailed to the trees, the words screaming: NO TRESPASSING! Carry the thing into the woods, I thought, bury it there like my father had done with Mr. Knothead years before when the rabbit had been found dead one morning—no more tic-tic-tic of its heart. But I had only my bare hands to dig with, and the idea of venturing out there in the dark frightened me.

And then, all at once, I knew.

My feet moved down the stairs and across our mossy lawn until I reached the well we had no use for anymore. Without taking time to consider it, I shoved off the plywood and stared at the shimmering black surface of the water below. I held Penny over the side, took a breath, let go. A faint splash, but nothing more. No scream. No struggle. Of course not. The doll was powerless, after all, except for the power we gave it. If that’s what you believed. In that moment, I did. In that moment, I didn’t too. In the rainy silence that followed, I reached for the plywood, slid it back over the mouth of the well. I rooted around for rocks to put on top, but the ones at the base of Rose’s old rabbit cage were too heavy to lift. The plywood would be enough, I decided, before turning back to the house.

Inside, I went to my room, thinking of my father out there with that reporter, wondering about the things he was telling him for that book. I slipped into my pajamas, looking over at the pile of limbs on my desk. Tomorrow, I told myself as I climbed beneath the sheets, I’d glue them together one last time. Even if they’d never be quite the same, I could lie in bed at night and stare up at them on the shelf. Despite what happened, those horses would appear whole again. Like my family, I thought, drifting off to sleep, they would be together, happy, unbroken once more.





[page]Chapter 17

Possessions



An upright soldier of an H. A slouching E. A slouching R. The word BAD, then a space, then another word, this one missing a letter like a gapped-tooth smile: DE_IRE. I stared up at that drooping marquee as Heekin and I drew closer to the theater, putting together the puzzle of those letters. With effort, I managed to conjure an image of the place it had once been: the ticket window clean and shiny, the marquee upright, proudly announcing films like Casablanca or Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But the image vanished when we reached the glass doors plastered over with newspapers and work permits.