“What does thismean? Why does she want me to see her needlepoint?”
“Let’s keep going.” Julia reached for the next bag and opened it to find another needlepoint scrim of a bucolic scene, and Courtney did the same thing. No vision came and nothing odd happened, so they kept going, opening bag after bag, and in no time an array of unfinished needlepoint pillows lay on the rug.
Courtney looked up, hopeful. “Well? What was the point?”
“I don’t know.” Julia’s heart sank. She didn’t know why she’dfelt the urge to look under the bed anyway. Maybe she wasn’t a real medium, after all.
Then her gaze fell on one of the last few bags.
“What are you looking at?” Courtney asked, breathless.
“That one,” Julia answered, pointing. “Open it.”
70
Julia watched as Courtney opened the bag and took out its contents, but it wasn’t another needlepoint. It was a Black Barbie doll with tangled dark hair and a torn dress layered with pink sparkly ruffles.
Courtney gasped. “This is my doll! It’s Holiday Barbie, a special edition and everything. Grandma Kay gave it to me for Christmas when I was little.”
Julia felt her chest tighten.
“Ilovedthis doll. It came with a pink star that was a Christmas ornament. We put it on the Christmas tree.” Courtney turned the doll over, and the gauzy pink dress was ripped in two, as if it had been torn off. “What happened? The dress used to be perfect. So did her hair.” She shook her head, bewildered. “I loved this doll, but one day it disappeared. Grandma Kay told me she lost it. I used to play with it all the time. I kept it on my bed when I wasn’t here. Why would she hide my doll? Why rip the dress?”
“I don’t know,” Julia answered, mystified.
“Shetoldme she lost it, like, two years after I got it. Out of the blue, it was gone. It didn’t even make any sense.” Courtney shook her head, confounded. “How do you lose a doll? She must have lied to me. Why? I was so upset when she told me, we had a fight.”
“Let me have the doll.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know that, either,” Julia heard herself say, holding out her hand.
“Okay.” Courtney gave her the doll, and as soon as Julia had it in hand, her fingers closed around it and she felt a resonance inside her chest, a vibration as palpable as a tuning fork, once struck. Just then she felt strange, sensing herself leaving the present, slipping out of place and time, and beginning to experience a vision.
“Jules?” Courtney asked, her voice sounding far away.
“Shhh.” Julia closed her eyes, and the vision materialized to her in dark fragments, coming together slowly to reveal that it was twilight outside this very house at an earlier time, maybe decades ago, then she saw in her mind’s eye a much younger Kay, her petite silhouette emerging from the darkness.
Kay was getting out of her car with her purse and a small bag of potting soil. She closed the car door and turned to the front lawn, only to face a sight that stopped her heart—there was a naked Barbie doll in front of her house, tied to a stick by her long hair. The doll’s dark legs were scissored open like she was doing a split.
Sweet Jesus, no!
Kay dropped the potting soil, shocked. She didn’t understand what she was seeing. The Barbie doll was Courtney’s favorite. Hergranddaughter played with that doll all the time and kept it on her bed. Its hair was ruined now, tangled around the stick. Its sparkly pink dress had been torn off and was lying on the ground, dirty. But it was the fact that its legs were crudely open that terrified Kay.
She trembled. Her mind struggled to make sense of it. Someone must have gone into her house while she was in town. They had gone upstairs to Courtney’s bedroom and taken the doll off her bed.
Kay could barely control her fear. Whoever did this was threatening her granddaughter. Whoever did this was saying that they could get to Courtney anytime they wanted. They could go in her house. They could even go upstairs. They could go to her verybed. Her preciousCourtney.
Kay knew what she had to do. She jumped back in the car, started it, stepped on the gas. Her heart was pounding, her breath ragged. She drove directly across the mowed field. It was too dark to see in front of her but she knew where she was heading. To Bill McKenna’s, the new neighbor. She’d seen lowlifes going to and from his place. It had to be one of them who did this.
Her fingers clenched the wheel. Her thoughts raced. She couldn’t call the cops, they wouldn’t do a damn thing. McKenna was a big-time realtor in town, friends with Glushenko. She could handle this on her own. She had to, now that Mo was gone. She was still strong, only in her fifties. She wasn’t going to let anybody threaten that baby girl.
Kay tore across the field, reached McKenna’s house, and lurched to a stop. His truck wasn’t in the driveway, a blue car was. A skinny white man in an undershirt and jeans was in a lawn chair out back. He looked about forty, drinking beer and smoking a cigarette, his legs propped up on an old well. He had to be the one who did it.Kay wasn’t afraid of him. She would tell him to stay away from her granddaughter.
Kay got out of the car and stalked across the lawn, yelling,You went in my house? You took my granddaughter’s doll?
Nice to meet you, neighbor!The man chuckled, then rose, wobbling like he was drunk.