Hadley paced steadily toward the garage. She grasped the metal railing, and as she climbed the steps she found herself thinking of an old poem she’d once read, the one that began: Will you walk into my parlour? said the Spider to the Fly …
The door was wide open. Granny sat on the floral sofa, a cup of steaming tea halfway to her lips. Her dark glasses obscured her eyes, but something told Hadley the old woman was looking right at her.
As Hadley stepped inside, a thin grin snaked across Granny’s lips. She took a sip of tea and then gently lowered the cup, placing it on its saucer.
“Come in, dear,” she said quietly. She patted the empty space on the sofa beside her. Facedown in her lap was a doll.
“I can’t stay,” said Hadley, shifting nervously, checking through the open door for Gabe. “I’ve got something really important I need to do.”
“But you have something important to do right here,” she said. “Come sit with me. I have something to tell you. There’s more to that old story. Do you want to hear?”
“I can’t, Granny, I—” she tried to explain. The eye bulged in her pocket; her hand flew to it instinctively. She should go back outside. Gabe would be there by now—with the doll.
“He’s not coming,” Granny said quietly.
“Who?” asked Hadley, still searching through the open door.
“Why, that friend of yours—Gabe—isn’t that who you’re looking for?”
Hadley took a tentative step toward the sofa. “But how…”
“Have some tea,” said Granny, pouring a cup.
Hadley shook her head slowly. Something had changed. The tea no longer smelled fresh and soothing. It smelled musky and earthy like boiled dirt.
Hadley stared at the doll in Granny’s lap. It wore a pink frilly dress identical to the one she’d been forced to wear. Identical to the one the first doll had worn.
“That girl,” said Granny, “the one who died all those years ago. She was such a charming little thing—and feisty, just like you. But so unhappy. So terribly unhappy. How she’d longed to have both her parents by her side. How she’d longed to return to her old home. How she’d wished for a friend…”
“I’m sorry, Granny. I really don’t have time for this right now,” said Hadley. “I’ve got to go…”
“She fell down the stairs one night, poor dear. They buried her at the back of the yard—to keep her near the house.”
Granny’s words reached Hadley’s ears in good time, but they seemed to take a lot longer to sink into her brain. The girl fell down the stairs. The scream. The girl’s scream. The one she’d heard in the house the day Isaac hurt his ankle …
“Of course, the yard was much larger in those days,” she went on. “With all the erosion of soil it’s dropped off now. The grave has slid right down into the ravine.”
Gabe was right. The soil was eroding. And the doll they found—had it been buried along with the girl? Was there a grave somewhere down there? A box of bones long decomposed? Did all those flesh flies still think there was a body somewhere to feast on? Was that why they hung around? Or were there more bodies? Fresh bodies, bodies of missing families …
Hadley gulped.
“Her name was Althea,” said the old woman. “Did I mention that?”
“B-but,” Hadley stammered, somehow unable to connect the words with their meaning, “isn’t that your name?”
Light from the open door cast a shadow on the heavy dark drapes behind the old woman. The proportions of her body were wrong—the head too large and angular and the body too thin. It looked like some kind of—
Before the word had fully formed in her mind, Hadley saw Granny’s name as if it were written in the air above her. Althea S. de Mone …
Althea’s demon.
Hadley drew in her breath as the door slammed shut behind her. She spun around and tugged at it, but it was sealed tight.
“Such a sweet little girl,” continued the old woman. “And clever, too.”
Hadley stared into the dark glasses. Grace’s words echoed in her mind. Perhaps if you give rather than take …
She was suddenly certain that what lay behind the dark glasses was a great gaping hole in place of an eye. That was where the glass eye belonged. Hadley had to replace it—to break the spell.
In a burst of energy, she lunged for the sofa, and before the old woman could react, Hadley had snatched the frames and yanked them from her face.
Althea de Mone did not move a muscle. She simply sat staring calmly at Hadley. Her two eyes were enormous, completely black and unblinking. Like an insect.
Hadley shrank back. The glasses clanged to the ground. The woman’s lips curled into a crooked smile. Hadley hadn’t noticed before how sharp her tiny white teeth appeared.
“She tricked me, you know,” said the old woman matter-of-factly. “I gave her all she’d asked for—even her final wish, to never see me again—and how did she repay me? With treachery. She was to give me one small thing in return—one of her precious little eyes. But when the time came, I received a glass imitation.”
Hadley’s hand flew to her pocket once again. The eye was still there. “Wh-who are you? What are you really?”
“What does it matter?” she said. “‘A rose is a rose…’”
Hadley needed to get out of the apartment. She needed to find Gabe. She needed to get her hands on the one-eyed doll.
“How Althea loved her dollhouse. And her dolls. That’s what gave me the idea. To make the dolls.”
Thunk.
Hadley had heard that sound before. She searched the apartment, her eyes settling on the old trunk in the far corner. The woman stood and walked calmly toward it. Holding the new doll in one hand, she lifted the lid.
Hadley’s heart nearly stopped as her world narrowed to a fine point.
In the trunk lay row upon row of wooden dolls—dolls of all shapes and sizes—male and female, old and young. They had large, vacant eyes.
Hadley’s insides turned to stone. Lying there, as if in a tomb, was the first family of dolls—the one with the little girl—the family from the newspaper, the one that had gone missing from the house. Beside them was Hadley’s father, a creepy smile still fixed to his lips. And then she saw them—Ed, Isaac … and her mother.
“Lovely,” Granny said, “don’t you think?”
Seeing Ed, Isaac, and her mother lying there sparked courage in Hadley. She raised herself taller and squared her shoulders. She met the demon’s black eyes with a fierce scowl. “I want them back,” she said coldly.
“Ah, but you gave them to me,” she said, chuckling. “Don’t you recall?”
Hadley fished through her memory. What did the old woman mean? Then suddenly she recalled her wish. Up in the attic. I wish my family were like these dolls.
Hadley closed her eyes. She had said that. She had wished it. But she hadn’t meant it. Not that way. Without thinking, she pulled out the glass eye.
“That’s it,” said the old woman. “You have one wish left. Go on. Make it a good one.”
The words flew out of Hadley’s mouth before she could stop them. “I want my family back.”
As the final word left her lips, the old woman’s grin grew frighteningly wide. Hadley could feel the blood crackling to a halt inside her chest. The eye slipped from her hand and rolled across the floor. The numbness was traveling from Hadley’s heart toward her head. Once it reached her brain she would not be able to control her body.
If you get something, you must give something in return …
The old woman stooped to retrieve the eye. She held it up to the dark bulb that was her own. “Ah, the falseness of it all. The constant reminder of the treachery I suffered. I vowed never to be fooled again. Never to rely on promises. Now I take what I’m owed. Limb by precious limb…”
She extended the doll she had been holding and Hadley got a clear view of the wooden face with large, pleading eyes. It looked exactly like Hadley.
Hadley backed away. She turned and staggered toward the window. She had to get out of the apartment before it was too late. The window was her only hope. If she could smash it, she could escape. It wasn’t too high up. She could jump out the window and get away. She grabbed the dark drapes and yanked. The curtains ripped off their rod and dropped to the ground.
A giant metal rim with spokes filled the space outside the window. Behind the huge wheel was a rocking chair the size of a mountain.