The Doll In The Garden Part 3

Still meowing, the cat backed into the shrubbery, and when I reached for him, sorry I'd hurt his feelings, he edged farther away. I crawled toward him, but he turned and ran out of the garden. Holding Anna Maria tightly, I stumbled after him.

"s...o...b..ll," I whispered, keeping a fearful eve on Miss Cooper's windows. "Kitty, kitty, kitty."

Slowly he walked across the gra.s.s, watching me over his shoulder as if he were asking me to come with him. When he reached the hedge separating Miss Cooper's yard from the field next door, I stopped.

"Come here, s...o...b..ll," I said softly, but he stayed where he was and meowed plaintively.

"I'm not going through that hedge," I told him, "so you'd better come here."

I guess I spoke too loudly because Max started barking from somewhere in the house. Afraid of being caught by Miss Cooper, I turned and ran for the stairs. Up I went as quickly and as quietly as possible. Just as I reached the porch, I saw a light flash out of the open kitchen door below me.

"Who's there?" Miss Cooper yelled. Max bounded outside barking and ran toward the hedge, and I slipped into our kitchen, still clutching Anna Maria.

Hoping the commotion wouldn't wake Mom, I tiptoed into my room and peeked out the window. Max was circling the yard, sniffing and barking, but I was sure s...o...b..ll had his own secret places where Max would never find him.

In a few minutes. Miss Cooper called Max back into the house, and all was quiet again.

I got into bed and Oscar crept to my side. "This is Anna Maria," I told him, holding the doll upright in front of him.

To my surprise, Oscar's back arched and his fur rose. He made a strange growling sound and retreated to the foot of the bed. Hesitating for a moment, he stared at Anna Maria. Then he leaped to the windowsill and refused to come near me or the doll.

"Don't let him hurt your feelings," I whispered to Anna Maria. "He's probably jealous of you."

Anna Maria gazed placidly at me^ her mouth slightly open, her tiny teeth showing. She looked as if she were about to take a deep breath and tell me all her secrets.

I smoothed her hair and laid her down beside me. "Who is Carrie?" I whispered. "And why did she bury you?"

But Anna Maria closed her eyes and said nothing.

I closed my eyes, too, happy to have Anna Maria beside me. But just as I was about to fall asleep, I heard it again. Outside in the night, a child was crying.

Frightened, I sat up and looked out the window. Down on the lawn, in hill view, I saw s...o...b..ll. He was looking up at me, and for the first time I noticed he cast no shadow on the moonlit gra.s.s.

Chapter 8.

Secrets WHEN I WOKE UP, the first thing I saw was Anna Maria's pale face beside me on my pillow. Admiring her beauty, I smoothed her hair and straightened her white dress.

Cuddling her close to my chest, I knew I didn't want to share her with anybody. Not Kristi. Not Mom. I wanted to keep her for myself. Quietly slipping out of bed, I went over to my dresser. I laid Anna Maria in the bottom drawer and covered her carefully with my sweaters. No one would find her there, I thought."

While I pulled on clean shorts and a tee shirt, I remembered what I'd seen last night. Had s...o...b..ll really cast no shadow? Even in the morning sunlight, I shivered a little thinking about it. I must have been mistaken, I told myself. Moonlight is tricky; it can fool you into imagining all sorts of silly things.

Grabbing a brush and comb, I pulled my hair up into a ponytail and walked down the hall to the kitchen.

"You're up bright and early, Ash," Mom said. "Did you sleep well?"

"I heard that sound again - like somebody crying," I said. "And Max was barking - didn't you hear him?"

"You know me," Mom said. "They could drop an atomic bomb next door and it wouldn't disturb me."

"That's because you stay up so late working," I said. "You should go to bed earlier."

Mom shook her head. "The sooner I finish my dissertation, the sooner I'll get a job," she reminded me.

I chewed my English m.u.f.fin and watched Mom pour cream into her coffee. It only Daddy were here, I said without thinking. As soon as the words slipped out I felt my eyes fill up with tears, and I pressed my hand against my mouth, too late to take back what I'd said.

Mom reached across the table to pat my arm. I wish he were here, too, Ashley she said softly. "Don't feel bad for saying you miss him. I miss him too. It's okay to talk about him."

But I couldn't talk about Daddy. Not to Mom, not to anybody. He'd left such a big hole in my life, I knew nothing could ever fill it up. Just saying his name made the hole bigger, so it was better to say nothing.

Pulling away from the comfort Mom was offering me, I went back to my bedroom and took a book from the shelf under the window. I didn't want to see Kristi, not now that Anna Maria lay hidden in my dresser drawer.

It wasn't long, though, before I heard Kristi calling me. When I didn't answer, she came to the back door and knocked. Mom let her in and sent her down the hall to my room.

"Ashley, something awful has happened," Kristi said. "Anna Maria's gone!"

I stared at her, trying my best to look surprised. "What do you mean?"

"I went to the garden first thing this morning, and all I found was the empty box." Kristi's eyes glistened with tears, and I struggled to keep myself from feeling sorry for her.

"I thought you weren't ever going there again," I said, reminding her of what she'd told me yesterday.

"I was worried all night about Anna Maria," Kristi explained. "I could hardly sleep for thinking about her lying there by herself in the dark. And I kept hearing that crying and I got to imagining it was her, Anna Maria, crying for me to get her and bring her inside. So the minute I woke up, I went out and looked for her, but she was gone!"

"She must be there," I said, hoping Kristi wouldn't guess I had Anna Maria hidden in a drawer two feet from where she was standing.

"I think the white cat took her," Kristi said sadly. "Or else Max got her and tore her to bits. I heard him outside barking."

Too ashamed to look at Kristi, I just shook my head as if I didn't believe her.

"Come on, Ash, I'll show you." Kristi ran down the hall to the kitchen door, and I followed her reluctantly.

As we slipped through a hole in the hedge at the back of Kristi's yard, I told myself I had every right to keep Anna Maria. Wasn't I the one who opened the box? If I'd listened to Kristi, we would've reburied poor Anna Maria without even seeing her face.

"See?" Kristi dived into the brambles and pulled out the empty box. "All that's left is the note."

I frowned at the little sc.r.a.p of paper, and, while Kristi was examining the box, I slipped the note into my pocket.

"What should we do?" Kristi stared at me, her eyebrows drawn down over her eyes.

I shrugged and turned away from her to watch a b.u.t.terfly on a cl.u.s.ter of Queen Anne's lace. It was an orangc-and-black monarch, so close I could have touched it with a fingertip.

"You took her, didn't you?" Kristi said suddenly.

I looked at her, feigning innocence. "Why would I do a thing like that?" Unfortunately, my voice came out unnaturally high and I stammered on the words.

"Because you want her for your own!" Kristi hurled the empty box into the bushes.

I drew myself up as tall as I could, glad I was both older and bigger than Kristi. "You were scared to death, remember? You told me to bury the box and you begged me not to open it. You thought Anna Maria was a dead girl!"

Kristi's face got red. "I have just as much right to that doll as you have!" she yelled.

"You do not. This is my yard, not yours!"

"It's Miss Cooper's yard!" Kristi's voice was getting louder and louder.

"Will you shut up?" I hissed. "Miss Cooper and Max are sitting on the front porch. They'll hear you!"

"I don't care if they do!" Kristi shrieked. "You give me that doll, right now, or I'm telling!"

"Be quiet, Kristi!" I wanted to shake her I was so mad. Through the tangle of honeysuckle and shrubbery, I could see Max coming around the corner of the house.

As Max started barking, Kristi scurried away through the undergrowth, heading for the safety of her backyard. At the same moment, s...o...b..ll crept out of the weeds and rubbed against my legs. When I reached for him, he backed away through the brambles, meowing at me, his eyes imploring me to follow him.

Ghost or not, s...o...b..ll's fur was soft and his body was as warm as Oscar's. I wanted to pick him up, but before I could catch him, he darted out of the garden and ran across Miss Cooper's lawn.

Afraid Max would get him, I followed s...o...b..ll onto the lawn and through a small opening in the hedge that separated Miss Cooper's yard from the field next door. Behind me Max was barking, and I expected to feel his teeth sink into my leg at any moment.

Chapter 9.

Louisa AS I STEPPED out of the hedge on the other side, the light dimmed, and instead of the field, I saw a white frame house in the center of a green lawn. In the sudden dusk, its windows glowed softly, lit from within. The scarlet flowers bordering the porch held the last light of the sun in their petals. The air was cool, fresh, and sweet with the smell of roses. While I stood there staring, I heard a mourning dove begin to coo.

Feeling dizzy, I shut my eyes and backed up against the hedge. Its stiff leaves poked my neck, rea.s.suring me with their scratchiness. Keeping my eyes closed, I wondered if I'd fainted from the heat. I'd read once that people with sunstroke hallucinated. Was that what was wrong with me?

"There's no house here, no flowers," I told myself. I'd looked over the hedge from my bedroom window, and all I'd ever seen was an empty lot grown high with weeds.

But when I opened my eyes, the house was still there. It was dusk instead of noon, and s...o...b..ll was meowing.

Too frightened to move, I looked down at the cat. "What are you?" I asked, remembering Miss Cooper's words about the devil and his own. "Where have you brought me?"

He purred and rubbed against me, warm and soft, his back arched, his tail brushing my legs. Surely he meant me no harm. He was too beautiful to be evil.

As the colors of day faded slowly away, s...o...b..ll p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. Somewhere in the gray shadows, a child had begun to cry.

s...o...b..ll looked at me, and then, his tail waving like a white plume, he disappeared into the shadows on the lawn, leaving me all alone.

Unsure if I were awake or asleep, I was afraid to leave the safety of the hedge. I still didn't know where I was or why s...o...b..ll had led me here. I wanted to run back to my own yard, but the child's voice tugged at me. I felt its sorrow, and I had no choice but to follow s...o...b..ll.

Like a swimmer venturing deeper into the water, leaving the sh.o.r.e farther and farther behind, I entered the yard a step at a time, pausing after each one to test the current. "s...o...b..ll," I whispered. "Where are you?"

Then ahead of me I saw her, a little girl in a white dress, sitting on a stone bench under a dogwood tree. She was holding s...o...b..ll on her lap, and her face was hidden by long, golden curls. At her side was a wicker doll carriage as old-fashioned as the clothes the girl wore.

For a moment I stood still, partially hidden by the boxwood bushes lining the path, and watched the girl stroke s...o...b..ll's fur. The cat looked at me, his pale eyes expressionless, but the girl didn't see me.

"Where have you been, s...o...b..ll?" she whispered. Her voice was low and hoa.r.s.e, and she was thin and pale.

For an answer, s...o...b..ll purred and leapt lightly from the girl's lap. He ran toward me, and the girl looked up and saw me before I could duck away and hide.

Her eyes were huge and darkly shadowed, and her skin was milky white. She gasped and clasped her hands over her chest. "Who are you?" she asked. "Where did you come from?"

For a moment I couldn't speak. Was I staring at a real girl or a ghost? If I answered her, would I be caught in this place forever?

s...o...b..ll rubbed against me again, pressuring me to speak, to move, to approach the little girl who sat still, her eyes wide and full of questions, waiting for me to say something.

I closed my eyes again, pressing the lids together so tightly I felt dizzy. If she were there when I opened them, I would know she was real and I would answer her. Aware of my heart beating faster and faster, I slowly allowed myself to look again at the little girl. She had risen to her feet and she looked as puzzled as I felt.

Cautiously I bent down and picked up s...o...b..ll. He felt as warm and heavy as Oscar as I walked up to the bench and handed him to her.

"My name is Ashley," I told her. "Your cat brought me here."

The little girl stroked s...o...b..ll's soft fur. "You were supposed to bring Carrie," she whispered to the cat. "But she still won't come, will she?"

Lifting her head, the little girl smiled at me. "I've been waiting so long for Carrie, but she never comes. Since you're here, will you stay a while and play with me instead?"

"What's your name?" My heart was still thumping and my knees felt a little quivery, but I had to know who she was.

"My name is Louisa," she said.

"You're Louisa?" I sucked in my breath. "Louisa Perkins?"

She nodded, obviously pleased I knew her name. "Did Carrie tell you about me?"

I shook my head. "I don't know who Carrie is."

Louisa started to speak, but her words turned into a deep, choking cough. Raising a handkerchief to her mouth, she bent her head. Her shoulders shook as the coughing continued.

"You're sick," I said. "You should be in bed."

Louisa shook her head and slowly the coughing stopped. Before she stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket, I saw bright red spots on it.

"Is that blood? Are you coughing up blood?" I stepped back, horrified.

Louisa kept her head down, hiding her face from me. "It's nothing," she said in a low voice.

Frightened, I looked away. Beyond the hedge, I saw the dark shape of Miss Cooper's house against the evening sky, but the steps leading to our apartment were gone and so was our back porch. The tall tree between Kristi's yard and Miss Cooper's wasn't there.