Revenge of the Dolls Read online

  Aunt Sarah had made their clothes too, sewing them with uneven stitches from odds and ends of old velvet ribbon, cast-off dresses, scraps of once-white satin now aged and faded to yellow.

  But it was their faces I dreaded most. Bulging foreheads and sunken cheeks, glass buttons sewn on for eyes — often too close together or with one eye higher than the other. The mouths were drawn with a crimson crayon. Leering, lopsided grins drawn with a wobbly old hand gave them an evil look, as though a dire thing were about to happen. Some had a few strands of yarn hair, some had no hair at all, and one wore a dusty yellow wig Aunt Sarah had found in the attic.

  Trissy hesitated at the doorway. No lamp was lighted in Aunt Sarah’s room. There was only the firelight, glowing like the fire of a secret shrine. The dolls sat on the chairs and sofa, which were drawn to face the fire. In a far corner a tea tray had been placed on a night stand; a shapeless sweater was thrown over the footboard of the bed. Shadows wavered on the glass doors of the bookcase as Aunt Sarah passed. The fringe on a lampshade trembled.

  Motioning us to come in, she settled herself in the only chair that was not filled with dolls. It was her chair, a worn rocker, and it creaked as she leaned back. There was nowhere else to sit. Trissy and I stood awkwardly before the fire.

  “See who’s come,” Aunt Sarah said to the silent ring of faces. Glass eyes stared blankly. Crayon mouths grinned.

  “Say hello,” Aunt Sarah told us.

  “Hello.” Trissy’s voice was hopeful. But the crayon mouths were silent.

  “Say hello to Nellie.” Aunt Sarah frowned at us as if we had done something wrong. We looked about uncertainly, and she pointed her finger at a small, particularly ugly doll with lean drooping arms and a bald head made from a piece of blue cloth.

  “Nellie says hello to you.” Aunt Sarah looked at us with a sly smile. The rocker creaked.

  “I want to hear them talk.” Trissy looked into Aunt Sarah’s ancient face.

  But Aunt Sarah shook her head.

  “They only talk to me.”

  Trissy looked disappointed. She began to move slowly along the length of the sofa, peering at the dolls, trying to hear something.

  “No one can fool me,” Aunt Sarah said. “My dolls are always watching. My dolls … Don’t touch!” She leaned forward abruptly as Trissy fingered a limp scrap of lace sewn to a doll’s sleeve.

  “Just look,” Aunt Sarah whispered. “Don’t touch.”

  We stood a few moments longer, and Aunt Sarah began to rock in the creaky old chair. I tried to think of something to say.

  “Does it take you long to make a doll?”

  She studied me for a moment. “Not long.”

  I hesitated. Her eyes were so deep, so old.

  But at last I said, “What do they tell you?”

  “They warn me.”

  The firelight leaped, but the rest of the room was in shadow.

  “About what?” I asked.

  But Aunt Sarah didn’t answer. She had closed her eyes. I didn’t know what the dolls would warn her about. I didn’t know who or what she thought might threaten or harm her …. Well, maybe Aunt Catherine and Uncle James. They wanted to put her “away.”

  Her eyes remained closed. I wondered if she had fallen asleep, and I took Trissy’s hand. At the door I said “good-bye” just in case Aunt Sarah wasn’t asleep, but not loud enough to wake her if she was. I thought we were lucky to get away so soon.

  “I want to hear the dolls talk.” Trissy tugged at my hand.

  But I said we had to go downstairs. Dinner was probably ready by now.

  “But I want to hear.” Trissy trailed along beside me down the stairs.

  “They don’t really talk,” I tried to explain. But Trissy didn’t understand. She still believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and fairies. In her kindergarten world dolls could talk. Her teddy bear really fell asleep in her arms at night. And someday a birdie would fly out of the sky and light on her finger.

  Mama was sitting in a circle of lamplight. The draperies had been drawn at the windows, and the clock was chiming six. Cousin Grace sat with folded hands and the resigned expression of someone who has been treated unfairly by life and can’t fight back. I thought it could not be easy or pleasant for her to live with Aunt Sarah day after day, year after year, with no life of her own at all.

  But Cousin Grace smiled when she saw us coming, and when Trissy went to stand by her chair she smoothed Trissy’s wispy hair and patted her arm.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  I think Cousin Grace enjoyed our visits, skimpy as they were. We brought a little variety into her life.

  But in a week we would be gone. The door would close behind us and Cousin Grace would be alone again with Aunt Sarah.

  Chapter 4

  AUNT CHRISTINA and Uncle Jason came the next afternoon. They had been driving since early morning. The blue Chevy was covered with mud.

  Paulie was in the back seat. He had the door open even before the car stopped.

  He’s as bad as ever, I thought as I watched him get out of the car and dart aside to scare the sparrows. Trissy and I had just put bread crumbs on the feeder under the oak tree. The birds rose in a dark cloud, a flurry of wings against the leaden sky.

  Paulie flapped his arms.

  “Shoo! Shoo!”

  He galloped after the birds.

  Trissy ran out toward the car without a coat, but I stood by the door frowning at Paulie. I wished he would grow up and stop being so dumb.

  Uncle Jason caught Trissy up in his arms, and Aunt Christina picked her way across the gravel drive, blowing kisses to Mama, Cousin Grace, and me, the reception committee at the door.

  Aunt Christina was a small woman with short, fluffy brown hair and hazel eyes. She always wore kid gloves, stroking her fingers elegantly when she put them on. She was Mama’s sister, and they looked quite alike. But Aunt Christina was more frivolous; she always spangled herself with jewelry and appeared faintly surprised that she was the mother of a big boy like Paulie. “Nobody believes I’m really his mother,” she always said. She didn’t care much for problems — which Daddy said was too bad, as we all have them.

  Uncle Jason was strong and hearty. He was a painter. I had been to his studio once. Mama took me there one hot summer day, and afterward we had ice cream in a shop across the street.

  I hadn’t liked Uncle Jason’s paintings much, and the studio was a mess. Canvases were stacked against the walls, brushes stood in glass jars on a table wounded with the brown furrows of cigarette burns, and paint tubes were scattered everywhere, crushed, squeezed, oozing. I couldn’t imagine Aunt Christina going there, bejeweled and perfumy, stroking her kid gloves. She was more suited to greeting guests at a gallery showing. I could imagine her in that setting more easily, quivering with bracelets and drinking champagne.

  Uncle Jason had talked to us a lot about the motion of color. Blues receded. Yellows advanced. Reds clutched your heart.

  I never knew exactly what he was talking about.

  “I’ll paint your portrait someday, Alice my darling,” he had promised me. He caught my chin and tilted my face. “Ah, those blue, blue eyes. My Renoir girl.”

  Mama looked pleased that he thought I was beautiful.

  “Maybe someday,” she told Uncle Jason.

  So I suppose someday he is going to paint my portrait. But it scares me a little, because he is so rough and hearty and I always feel small and defenseless when he is around.

  He came striding along now with Trissy in his arms, and there was a flurry of hugs and kisses when Aunt Christina came up the steps. Her silky raincoat rustled. A blue chiffon scarf floated at her throat. Paulie ignored everybody, standing on the sodden lawn gazing after the birds.

  “Come on, Paulie,” Aunt Christina called over her shoulder. And at last he did come thundering up the steps, a stocky, mischievous boy who couldn’t care less about a hug from Mama and Aunt Grace. When Uncle Jason set Trissy down in the
front hall, Paulie pulled off her hair ribbon and made her chase him to get it back.

  “Play nice, Paulie,” Aunt Christina scolded absently.

  Uncle Jason wanted to know if Daddy had come, but Mama said he couldn’t get away from his office just now, and then we all went into the living room.

  Aunt Sarah was sitting in a wing chair by the fire. She had been there all morning. She said it was Tuesday so she wouldn’t go out. No one had asked her to. I wondered what else she would say that was interesting, but she didn’t say anything more.

  “Christina and Jason are coming to see you,” Cousin Grace had told her.

  But she hadn’t answered.

  When we all came in and Aunt Sarah saw Paulie, she told him he couldn’t see her dolls.

  “You want to see my dolls, don’t you? But you can’t.” She shook a finger at him. “Boys are rough. I don’t like boys.”

  Aunt Christina bent and kissed Aunt Sarah’s cheek. “How are you, darling?” she asked lightly.

  “Only the girls can see my dolls.”

  “Of course, darling,” Aunt Christina agreed.

  “My dolls talk to me. They say no dogs, no boys.” Aunt Sarah frowned at Paulie to show him there was no use begging to see.

  Paulie got around behind Aunt Sarah’s chair and stuck out his tongue at her.

  “Can your dolls walk, too?” Trissy twisted a strand of hair and studied Aunt Sarah.

  “No.” Aunt Sarah’s expression was wary. “I don’t want them to go away. I want them with me.”

  Trissy tilted her head, staring curiously.

  “Could you make a doll that could walk?”

  “That’ll be the day I leave,” Uncle Jason joked in an undertone.

  “Jason!” Aunt Christina shushed him. But I don’t think Aunt Sarah heard.

  Aunt Sarah didn’t stay downstairs long after that, and when she had gone upstairs and Cousin Grace went to speak to Annie in the kitchen, the discussion began.

  “I see she’s worse than ever.” Aunt Christina drew off her kid gloves and ran her fingers through her hair like a comb to fluff it out.

  “How Grace can stay here …” Uncle Jason shook his head.

  “Where else can she go?” Aunt Christina reminded him.

  Mama looked weary. “Why don’t you children go outside and get some fresh air,” she said.

  But we didn’t go far. We listened behind the door. We couldn’t hear everything, and what we did hear was pretty much the same old stuff we’d heard before. Some other arrangements must be made …. The house was too big …. Why Aunt Sarah wanted to keep it up, Aunt Christina would never understand.

  “It’s her home,” Mama said.

  Uncle Jason mumbled something I couldn’t hear exactly … “incompetent to handle all that money” — something like that.

  “Senile you mean,” Aunt Christina said.

  “Oh, no, not senile,” Mama protested.

  “Look how she talks to those dreadful dolls.” Aunt Christina’s voice skimmed over the words, over Aunt Sarah’s life, as though it were nothing of importance.

  “She’s always done that,” Mama defended. “She’s just lonely.”

  “Grace is here. Why should she be lonely?”

  “That’s not the point,” Uncle Jason interrupted.

  Then there was something about an appointment with a doctor.

  “If she’ll go.” That was Aunt Christina.

  “Do people still follow her when she goes out?” That was Uncle Jason.

  Aunt Christina laughed softly. “Heaven help us,” she said. I could picture her shaking her head and tangling her fingers in her necklace.

  “Who follows her?” Trissy pulled at my skirt.

  “No one,” I said.

  Paulie snickered. “Little green men with horns.”

  “What little green men?” Trissy’s eyes were wide.

  “No little green men.” I glared at Paulie. “No one, Trissy. No one follows her.”

  Dear little Trissy. You didn’t understand at all.

  Chapter 5

  THE RAIN BEGAN again the next day. Trissy and I went to the attic to dress up in old clothes. Paulie came too, because there was nothing else to do. But he didn’t think dressing up was any great idea.

  “Who wants to do that?” He shoved his hands in corduroy pockets and frowned around at the dusty corners of the attic.

  “Cousin Grace said we could.”

  Paulie stuck out his tongue at me.

  “Is this where Aunt Sarah makes her dolls?” He wandered over to a discarded old table that had probably been hauled up to the attic years and years before we were even born. It was littered with odds and ends of material, and I told him to leave it alone.

  He lifted the lid of a wicker sewing basket on the table and pawed around inside.

  “Leave it alone,” I told him again.

  “Who says?”

  Paulie took a pair of scissors out of the basket and snapped them at me. The glinting blades flashed in the glare of the bare attic light bulb.

  I turned my back on him and pulled at the lid of a trunk. I didn’t care whether he played with us or not. I wished he’d stayed at home.

  “Go away then,” I grumbled. “Trissy and I are going to dress up.”

  I tugged at the heavy lid, and Trissy tried to help. “Watch your fingers,” I warned her.

  But the trunk lid was too much for us. “Come on, Paulie. Don’t just stand there. Help.”

  He clacked the scissors a few more times to show he wasn’t taking orders from me, but at last he put the scissors back in the sewing basket and came to help with the trunk. Between the three of us we got the lid raised.

  Old clothes had been packed away inside: out-of-style dresses, a fan with a ribbon streamer, a straw hat. Paulie stood back with his hands in his pockets again, but Trissy and I hauled out the stuff. Near the top was a moth-eaten wool shawl with a tasseled fringe.

  “I’m going to be a gypsy!” I put the shawl over my shoulders and swirled to make the tassels sway.

  “I’m a gypsy too.” Trissy had found another shawl. It straggled to the floor, covering her like a shroud.

  “Why don’t they throw all this junk away?” Paulie still wasn’t interested.

  Out from the old trunk came the stored-away years: the long-ago times before Aunt Sarah had grown old, before Cousin Grace had grown sad. There were men’s shirts, waistcoats, cravats, collar studs. Here were the years when there had been brothers, uncles, grandfathers, a time when the house had been filled with people I had never known, never could know, a time when pipes were smoked and men looked at pocket watches and tall black hats were set down on the hall table.

  The trunk held more than just old clothes. Covers fell from books with loose yellow pages. There were a box of buttons and a box of seashells. Someone had collected seashells once upon a time. I wondered who. There was needlepoint work begun and abandoned. A faded stagebill from some long-ago program. A cracked mirror with a mother-of-pearl back. How beautiful it must have been once.

  “Hey, look at this!” At the very bottom of the trunk Paulie had finally seen something that interested him. It was a black eye patch on a thin elastic band, and he pulled it over his head. His blond hair was askew. His face was lighted with joy at his discovery.

  “I’m going to be a pirate.”

  Then he found a long black coat and a red muffler, which he tied around his waist for a sash. He shoved aside Aunt Sarah’s clutter of scraps and sat at her table to make himself a cardboard dagger to hang at his waist.

  The box of jewelry was our greatest find, and we haggled over the pieces, dividing up the beads and rings, fastening our shawls with tarnished brooches.

  “I want this. And this.” Paulie snatched the best pieces. He had pushed the eye patch over his ear, to see better. He had forgotten he didn’t want to play dress-up.

  We foraged through the house, adding to the costumes we were getting together in the atti
c. Everyone was gone but Annie in the kitchen. Everyone had gone with Aunt Sarah. It was supposed to be a routine checkup with her doctor, but there was more to it than that. I wondered if Aunt Sarah would come back or if the doctor would shut her up in a room with barred doors and we would never see her again.

  “You can borrow this.” Annie dredged down into the bottom of her shabby black purse and gave the “gypsies” a cheap lipstick. It was flattened, almost gone. But we loved it.

  Annie’s hair was frizzy, her wrists were white and bony. Her brother drove her out from town every morning in a rust-eaten car. She was “grown up” to me, but I don’t suppose she was really very old. Her eyes sparkled with excitement as she helped us with our costumes.

  “You can make rouge,” she told us. She scrubbed her blunt fingertip into the lipstick and dabbed red circles on my cheek.

  Good things were cooking on the stove, and the kitchen was warm and steamy. Annie’s apron pocket bulged with pot holders. I’ll never forget you, Annie. I wonder where you are now, now that everything has changed.

  “There you go!” She rubbed lipstick on Trissy’s cheeks. She gave Paulie a scarf, and he tied it on his forehead like a pirate’s bandanna.

  We rushed off, back to the attic, shawls trailing. Two gypsies and a pirate. We wanted to be ready to surprise everybody when they came home.

  “They ought to be here soon,” Paulie said.

  I looked out the attic window. The rain was a thin veil in the early twilight. The surrounding woods and fields had a desolate look that chilled my heart. It was all so different from the shimmering, sunlit days of summer I knew so well.

  I could see the road to town. But no car was coming yet. The ground was far below. The damp earth, the garden misty with rain — it made me feel queer to look down at it.

  And then I noticed there were no sills on the attic windows.

  How had Skippy fallen out?

  There were no sills to jump up upon, to stand on, to fall from.

  Only the small, high-set windows, flush with the wall.

  Skippy went to heaven. He went to heaven right straight out the attic window.