The Dolls (2 page)

I feel silly, because how can I recall someone I’ve never met, someone who left before I was even born, someone I’ve only seen one picture of in my life?

“I think my father was—” I start to say, but the words get caught in my throat as I notice a shirtless guy jogging around the outer rim of the cemetery, his head bent, his caramel-colored skin glistening with sweat. He looks up as we pass, and for an instant, our eyes meet, and it feels like the world slows on its axis. Then, just as quickly, we’re moving past him toward the south side of the graveyard.

“Who was that?” I ask, spinning around in my seat to look out the back window. The guy has stopped running and is standing in the middle of the road, staring after us. His muscular chest rises and falls as he catches his breath.

“Who?” Aunt Bea asks, glancing in the rearview.

“That guy running around the cemetery,” I say. “He was about my age.”

“Honey, we’ve been gone fourteen years,” she points out gently. “He would have been a toddler last time we were here.”

“Oh, right.” My heart sinks a little.

I turn back around as the road winds up the middle of three small hills that sit on the south side of the cemetery. Ahead of us, at the top of the slope, looms a huge white house, a mansion really, and I’m hit with a sudden wave of memories. As we follow the drive around to the front, I take in the Gothic columns, the enormous
Gone With the Wind
porch, the steps leading down to a sprawling, immaculately maintained lawn. A thin veil of fog swirls around the property.

“This is . . . ours?” I ask. But I already know the answer. I remember my mother teaching me how to ride a tricycle in the driveway; I remember doing lopsided cartwheels in the yard; I remember being happy here. How had I managed to mostly block this place out? And more importantly, why have we been living in a tiny Brooklyn apartment when we own a place like this?

“Actually,” Aunt Bea says, “it’s yours.” When I turn to look at her, she’s already watching me closely. “Welcome home, Eveny.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

I
’m still standing outside the passenger door of the car, staring up at my house—my
mansion
—when I feel a warm hand on my arm. Startled, I spin around and see an old man peering at me.

“Eveny,” he says in a low, rumbly voice. His dark brown skin is a sharp contrast to his snow-white hair. He must be at least seventy-five, but his wide gray eyes are startlingly clear.

“Where did you come from?” I ask, my heart still pounding.

He beams at me. “From the garden. I didn’t mean to scare you, dear. Do you remember me? I’m Boniface. Boniface Baptiste.”

“Boniface? Geez, of course,” I say. He was the house’s caretaker when I was little. He was around all the time, and he even used to babysit me sometimes when my mother and Aunt Bea ran errands together. “You still work here?”

“I live just out back in the caretaker’s cottage. I’ve been looking after the Cheval mansion for practically as long as I can remember. Come on,” he says, gently placing a hand on my back and leading me toward the house. “Let me show you around.”

Aunt Bea has already vanished somewhere, so it’s just me as Boniface talks slowly about how he took the sheets off the furniture, shook the dust out of the curtains, and scrubbed the beautiful hardwood floors before we arrived.

“I miss your mama all the time,” he says abruptly as we come to the front door. “You’re the spitting image of her, you know. Same red hair, same green eyes, same lovely smile.”

He opens the huge black front door for me, and I feel a pang the moment I step over the threshold. I stand frozen in the front hallway as I’m hit with a barrage of hazy memories. But it’s not until I look to my right and see a set of closed double doors painted a somber red that I feel the breath knocked out of me. “That’s the parlor,” I say softly.

“You remember it?”

“I don’t know . . .” I’m confused. I don’t recall ever being inside the room, but something about it lurks in a far corner of my mind. Suddenly, my heart is racing and my lungs are constricting. I reach for the big bronze door handle, but Boniface steps in front of me.

“It’s locked, I’m afraid. Haven’t seen the key in years.” He’s already walking away by the time I can breathe again.

“What is it with this town and keys?” I mutter.

“Just wait until you see your bedroom,” Boniface calls over his shoulder. “I took the liberty of decorating a bit. I wanted you to feel at home here,” he’s saying as I catch up to him on the wide wooden stairway.

Upstairs, Boniface pushes open the door at the end of the hall and motions for me to step inside. The bedroom, which last held my little twin bed and the big armchair where my mother read me stories at night, has been transformed.

The walls have been painted sky blue—my favorite color—and are lined with colorful photos of flowers. There are framed shots of lilies in a field, lavender in a garden, sunflowers in a white pitcher on a farm table, and cornflowers in a vase. Pushed up against the right wall is a teak sleigh bed with a fluffy white comforter. Above it, a beautiful wreath of dried poppies and peonies hangs from the wall. To my left is a huge picture window framed by gauzy white curtains.

“It’s perfect,” I breathe. In fact, it’s nearly as large as our entire apartment in Brooklyn.

“Your aunt called and told me all about your interest in botany.” Boniface is smiling at me. “Well I’ll let you get settled, then.”

As he leaves, I feel myself beginning to warm to the place. But then I make the mistake of wandering toward the window, which is arched and beautiful and diffuses the rays of soft morning light. I’d forgotten that it overlooks the cemetery we passed earlier, and as I gaze out now at the sprawling, fogshrouded field of ornate crypts, I feel a chill go through me. Even when I back away and try to focus again on my great room, my veins feel like they’re filled with ice.

I’m sitting on the deck just after sunset, trying to figure out how it’s seventy degrees here in the dead of winter, when my phone rings.

It’s Meredith, who launches into an off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” as soon as I say hello. “So how’s podunk Louisiana?” she asks when she’s done assaulting my eardrums.

“Well, it’s not New York. And this whole town is surrounded by a big wall, so it’s like we’re completely trapped.” I feel a million miles away from my best friend as I hear laughter and honking horns in the background. The sounds of the city sure beat the silence out here in the middle of nowhere. Aunt Bea and Boniface have gone into town to pick up some things for the new bakery, and I feel like I’m the only person left on earth. I absentmindedly flick on and off the flashlight I’d grabbed from inside, watching the deck alternately illuminate and plunge into darkness.

“You won’t believe how crazy the wedding was today without you,” Meredith says.

“The Michaelsons?” I ask, trying not to sound as sad as I feel. “Or the Harrises?” For the last year and a half, Mer and I have worked for Blossom and Bloom, a florist in our neighborhood. The owner, Pauline, always said I had a sixth sense about which blooms fit which brides. Working for her is one of the things I’ll miss most.

“The Michaelsons,” Meredith replies. “It was just me and Pauline because David called in sick. We ran out of lisianthus and had to figure out what to sub in.”

“What’d you use? Texas bluebonnets?” I lived for those emergencies, the ones where you ran out of the flowers you were intending to use, so you had to find something else, something that fit both the bride’s vision and your own sense of the couple.

“We only had purple statice.”

“I’m sure that worked great,” I lie. Purple statice is a filler, so the substitution would have changed the whole feel of the bouquets. I’m so dorky—I’m the only person in the world who would care about something like that.

“Anyway, what did you say about there being a wall around the town?” Meredith asks, and I’m relieved for the change of subject because it momentarily stops me from thinking about the life I left behind.

I quickly recap what Aunt Bea told me about the gate. Then I tell her about the weather, the cemetery just beyond the garden wall, and the strange, swirling mist.

“No offense,” Meredith says when I’m done, “but Carrefour sounds crazypants.”

I’m surprised to realize I feel a bit defensive. “It’s not so bad.”

“Whatever you say. Anyways, what’re you doing for your birthday?”

“Nothing yet.” In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if Aunt Bea has even remembered, because it’s just after eight p.m., and she hasn’t wished me a happy birthday yet. No cake. No ice cream. No singing. Nothing.

“Maybe Bea’s planning to surprise you.”

“Maybe.” I turn the flashlight off and tap it absently against my knee.

I’m about to tell Meredith about the intimidating-looking Pointe Laveau Academy when something darts across the backyard. I blink into the darkness and sit up, my heart pounding. Meredith launches into a story about how Jon Dashiell hit on Holly Henderson right in front of her boyfriend, but I’m not listening. “Shhhh,” I finally manage.

“Did you just shush me?”

“I think I heard a noise,” I whisper. “There’s definitely something in my backyard.”

“Kind of like how you always thought you saw some guy lurking in the shadows here in Brooklyn?” she asks, laughing.

“No,” I mutter, feeling stupid. Three months ago, I’d begun to notice a slender man with white-blond hair loitering behind me wherever I went. I’d be walking home from school, and I’d catch a glimpse of him in the shadows, or I’d be window-shopping in SoHo with Meredith and see his reflection in a glass storefront. When I finally told Meredith about it, she’d laughed for a full minute. Like she’s doing now.

But I tune her out as I strain to see across the darkness. The moon is half full, so it’s casting light over my mother’s rose garden, which Boniface has so carefully maintained. Beyond that lies her vegetable garden, lush with greens, tomatoes, and herbs. It backs up against the cemetery wall edging our property. That’s where I see a shadow slinking along now.

I squint, then draw in a sharp breath as I realize it’s human-shaped. I blink a few times and can just make out the faint silhouette of a person methodically picking something from one of the plants near the wall.

“Hey!” I drop my phone and call out. “Hey you! Stop!” I’m dashing across the backyard in defense of my mom’s beloved garden before I realize how stupid I’m being. How do I know it’s not some creepy guy waiting to rob our house—or worse?

Suddenly, there’s a thud, and the person goes down hard.

“Damn it!” comes a curse in the darkness, and I’m hugely relieved to realize the voice is female. I almost trip over her, and as I beam my flashlight down, I see a girl about my age with wild, sun-kissed blond waves. She’s in a white cotton dress, and her feet are bare.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demand.

“Who in the hell are you?” the girl shoots back in a thick Southern accent.

“I
live
here. This is my yard. What are
you
doing in it?”

She looks perplexed. “But this is the Cheval mansion.”

“Yeah, so? I’m Eveny Cheval.”

The girl stares at me like I’ve just told her I’m the President of the United States. “Huh?” she manages.

“I just moved in,” I say, growing more confident. “And I want to know what you’re doing on my property.”

“Uh, picking herbs,” she says, adding defensively, “My friends and I pick stuff here all the time. It’s no big deal.”

“What do you need herbs for?”

“Recipes and stuff,” she mumbles.

She’s obviously lying. “What, is Boniface growing pot out here?”

The girl laughs and unfolds her left hand. “Not that I know of,” she says. I peer at her palm. Indeed, I see only lavender, thyme, and lemongrass.

“Told you so,” she says. She sticks out her right hand to shake mine. “I’m Glory Jones.”

Her grasp is warm and firm, and she grins at me as I help her up. “So you must be starting school in Carrefour?” she asks as she brushes the earth off her dress. When I nod, she asks, “Pointe Laveau?”

“Not that I have much of a choice.”

Glory shrugs. “It’s not so bad. You get used to the uniforms. Plus, it’s fun to accessorize.” She jiggles her armful of bracelets and bangles.

It still sounds like torture to me, but I find myself smiling anyhow. “You go there too?”

“Yeah. Maybe we’ll have some classes together. Do you know what you have for first period yet?”

I shake my head. “I actually don’t start until next Monday.”

“How come?”

“I think the days off are my consolation prize for my aunt dragging me halfway across the country on my seventeenth birthday.”

“You’re seventeen?” she asks in a small voice. “Today?”

“Yes . . . ,” I say slowly.

“Oh.” Glory gives me an uneasy smile. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Eveny.” She’s already backing up. “I’ve got to go meet my friend Arelia now. I guess I’ll see you at school next week. And, um, happy birthday.”

I stare after her as she hurries away. I’m still trying to figure out what just happened when she pauses and turns to face me. “Listen, Eveny,” she says solemnly, “be careful.” And then she’s up and over the back wall.

I blink into the darkness, then shake my head. Glory Jones was weird. But I like weird.

By the time Aunt Bea arrives home a couple of hours later, I’ve called Meredith back twice, but her phone’s going straight to voice mail. I try not to feel hurt that she’s out celebrating my birthday without me.

Aunt Bea brings me a chocolate cake from the market in town, and although it tastes a little like cardboard, I’m grateful for the effort. “I wanted to bake you something special,” she tells me, “but my pans and mixing bowls haven’t arrived yet. I promise, I’ll make you whatever you want next week.”

She finds a single, dusty candle in a drawer, and she and Boniface sing “Happy Birthday” to me as she sets the cake down atop the little table on the back porch. Boniface flips a switch inside the house, and the garden is illuminated by a hundred little fairy lights overhead. I take a deep breath and prepare to make a wish, but a gust of wind sweeps in and snuffs the flame for me. I shiver, even though it’s not cold outside.