The Glaring Beginning of Chapter 5

 

Chapter Five

Andi tapped my shoulder.  “Are you all right?” 

I swallowed hard and nodded.  “Ellen, do you have more candy?”  The plastic-wrapped nugget was hot and kind of damp.  I unwrapped it and laid the sweet on my tongue, focusing on the fake watermelon flavor that was, at that moment, the only thing I knew for certain to be real.  

Becca sort of skipped across the gravel to Daniel and threw her arms around his shoulders.  “That was amazing!  You are such a talented musician.”

Daniel snort chuckled and dumped the spit out of his trumpet.  A huge glob plopped next to his sneaker.  “Much obliged, much obliged.  An auspicious beginning to the spooky season if I do say so myself.”  His face flushed red enough that I could see it through the dark.

“He’s gonna love her forever.”  Andi chuckled.  “And I’m totally there for it.”

“Let’s go.”  Chris whirled and headed back down the path.  

“Thanks, Daniel!”  Ellen clapped in his direction and hurried after Chris.

Daniel bowed elaborately, and with a half-missed high five, Becca jogged back toward us.

I stared at the tree.  Where did that person go?  No mausoleums or big monuments were close enough to dart behind.  Could they have just faded into the shadows and ran?

Andi pulled a pen light out of her pocket and switched it on.  “Whatcha looking at?” 

I am not the kind of person who sees things.  I’m also not easily spooked.  But the weird thing in Becca’s bedroom window and now this?  I’m no Andi, but I firmly believe in science.  Darting black shadows and skirt edges with no bodies attached don’t exist.  Still, I know what I saw.  “Hey can I borrow that?”  Andi handed me the light, and I swept the beam back and forth around the tree and the nearby stones.  Slanty shadows shifted with the light.  But still.  No one.  “Nothing.  I didn’t see anything.”

Leaving Daniel to revel in his glory, we trooped back down the path.  An eerie feeling still enshrouded us—like the music was a cloud velcroed to our clothes.  

The Fogg’s monument loomed, barely visible in the glow from the nearest streetlamp.  Ellen skipped off the path and tripped over one of the border stones.  “Ouch!”  She clutched her ankle and hopped on one foot.  “Oh no!  My shoe few off!”

Andi’s was the only other light besides the streetlamps.  She cast it over Alton and Alva and their tragic offspring until she spotted the purple flat leaning against Enid’s stone.  “There!”

“Let me get it.  I see really good in the dark.”  Becca dashed over and crouched.  “Hey, wait a second…”  She picked something up from next to Ellen’s shoe and rocked back on her heels.  “Was this here before?”  

I saw a flash of white and heard a sound like dice rattling in the palm of your hand.  I stepped into the Fogg realm and squinted.  Lit by Andi’s flashlight, a small, white doll with what looked like actual hair and a charred red dress dangled from Becca’s fingers.

Ellen gasped and jumped back, bumping her butt on the headstone of another Fogg.  

Even Chris was intrigued.  She came up beside me and bumped shoulders.  “Was that there before?  What is it?”

I shrugged.  “Some kind of doll?  And no.  Definitely not.”

Andi came closer.  “I think it’s bone—carved bone.”

“Human bone?” Ellen squeaked.

The doll was only three or four inches long.  Its head was large and oval, with a mop of messy brown hair, sunken eyes, a protruding nose, and no discernable mouth.  The arms and legs flopped like a puppet’s, and one hand was carved so it looked like a teeny tiny bird perched on the fingers.  Andi ran a finger gently over the doll’s face.  “ I think it’s some kind of scrimshaw.”

Becca looked up at Andi, and the light hit her square in the face.  Her hair was a messy, frizzy halo just like the doll’s.  I could almost believe they were related.  Becca flinched and shielded her eyes.  “What’s scrimshaw?”

Chris moved closer too.  “Carved whale teeth.  The sailors used to do it to pass the time at sea, but I thought they only decorated powder horns and made pictures of ships.  I didn’t know they carved things like toys.  Are you sure it wasn’t there before?”

Ellen limped to her shoe and shoved her foot into it.  “Positive.  Only the beets.  You better put it back, Becca.”

Becca caught her bottom lip between her teeth and fingered the charred red dress.  “She looks like she burned.”

“But the face is still pure white,” Andi said.  “Weird.”

“Put it back,” Ellen said again.

Becca caught my gaze.  “I mean, she’s apparently Enid’s, and Enid lived in my house.  Maybe we should take it home.”

I’d seen and heard enough weird stuff for one night.  I didn’t need to relocate potentially haunted dolls.  Besides, it looked like it belonged in a museum.  Possibly the person who followed us all night left it as bait and would report it stolen if we took it.  The five of us wouldn’t last a day in Juvie.  Well, Becca might make it a few weeks.  “Maybe we should leave it.”

Becca gently replaced the doll, legs extended and leaning, lopsided, against Enid’s headstone.  “Here’s your dolly,” she said in a cooing kind of voice.  “I’ll put her right here next to the beets, and you can play with her any time you want, okay?”

“I’m sure Enid will get right on that.”  Chris snickered.  “Come on you guys, I’m starving.”

Grabbing Ellen’s bag, Andi led us out of the Fogg’s burial ground and down the path.  

Walking away, I could almost feel hollow black eyes boring into my back.  What if I turned around and she was gone?  What if a tiny translucent girl was reaching for her over the headstone?  My stomach clenched.  

What if she was following us?  

I didn’t look back.

Honestly, unexplained footsteps, wind summoning, a phantom skirt, and a creepy doll would seem like enough weirdness for one night.  Oh, and beets.  But it wasn’t even the half of it.  Once we got to Becca’s, things just got weirder.