Her mother’s cheerful humming filled the kitchen, but it was no comfort to Hadley. This mother would be as much help as a wax mannequin or a cardboard cutout. Hadley had to get the eye. The eye was the key to all her misery.
It sat on the floor in her bedroom, staring at her. She picked it up carefully and examined it again. The pupil was black and dilated. The blue-gray folds of the iris were quite the opposite of Hadley’s deep brown. Did it belong to the old doll in the ravine? Had the old doll belonged to the girl who died?
Hadley looked toward the dollhouse, as though it somehow held the answers to her questions. She swallowed a baseball-sized lump. Her mother’s doll sat peacefully in the living room. Granny de Mone lay in the room above the garage. Her father’s doll was nowhere to be found. Slowly, she peered around the room, half expecting it to spring out at her from the shadows.
Hadley’s fingers tightened around the smooth glass eye before burying it in her pocket. She needed help to sort things out. But who could she turn to? Who was crazy enough to believe her story?
Hadley’s spine straightened. “Crazy,” she said out loud.
She grabbed a little red purse that hung in her closet and flung the strap over her shoulder. There wasn’t much money in it, but it was enough for bus fare to and from the city.
Blood beat hard in her ears as she fled down the steps. She took the last three steps at a jump and landed with a thud in the middle of the hall. The sound echoed through the whole house.
He stood at the far end of the hall. As the shape took form in Hadley’s mind, her lips parted and her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the sound.
The figure was twisted and mangled. One arm hung lower than the other. One knee was bent inward and the black suit was tattered and torn. It was like his body had been chewed up and spit out. Like it had been crushed by a garbage truck.
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” He took a jerky step toward her. His jaw swung back and forth, unhinged.
Hadley eyed the door. She turned to make a run for it, but it was as though she was waist-deep in mud. Her feet moved, and everything around her blurred, but the door didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Over her shoulder, she could see him limping steadily toward her.
She pressed forward, her muscles on fire, but before she could get halfway to the entrance, a hand grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“Let go,” she growled.
Thrashing and twisting, Hadley managed to break free from his grasp, and though she plunged forward, the front door seemed to move farther away. She lunged for it again, but her foot slipped and she fell flat on the hardwood floor. He snatched her ankle and began dragging her backward a second time.
“Leave me alone!” she screamed, kicking wildly. “Get away!”
His grip tightened.
In the struggle, the eye slipped from her pocket. It rolled out, stopping an arm’s length from her face. Without thinking, she scooped it up, words exploding from her lips.
“I wish I’d never met you!”
Hadley’s feet kicked and scuffed at the wood floor. She stopped struggling and turned to discover she was alone in the hall.
Blood prickled through the veins in her leg. It was as hollow and numb as her other three limbs. Relieved that she still had control of her body, she scrambled to her feet and bolted through the door.
The sun melted through the trees, sprinkling beads of gold along the street. Hadley raced down the porch steps all the way to the curb. She stared back at the house and suddenly it looked like a giant face—the door was the nose, and the porch an enormous smile of white picket teeth. It grinned at her like it knew something she didn’t.