10 #2
She didn’t.
I need help, I cried the day after. I was murdered. I need help! Please!
She kept ignoring me, and for a few days, time went too fast for me to do anything, anyway. When it slowed down and I saw her again, stacking Russian dolls on a nearby display, I changed tack. If you put my legs on, I’ll dance for you, I promised.
She dropped the Russian doll and cursed under her breath.
A puppet without strings! I continued, sensing weakness.
Imagine the money you’ll make! Enough to stop working here.
You’ll get a nice, fancy house up on the hill.
I know what those houses are like. I have a friend—had, when I was alive—who lives in one of those houses.
She invited me over for a tea party one time.
In a word? Swanky. That life can be yours just so long as you talk to me. Please.
It wasn’t very effective . . .
She finished arranging the Russian dolls and left without so much as a glance in my direction.
Time slipped and churned. Dark, then light, then dark again. I called out, begging, then pleading, bargaining, then begging again. I didn’t know if the woman could hear me or not. I didn’t care. Please! Don’t leave me here! Don’t leave me!
Then, in a moment, it was day. The store sat suspended and still; a nearby customer’s mouth hung open, voice so slow it sounded like a zombie’s moan, the employee they were addressing frozen mid eye roll. The fluorescent lights blinked. On . . . off . . . on . . . off . . . on . . .
In the light I saw something new.
Three dolls were on the shelf next to me, sitting in a circle on a spotted handkerchief like it was a picnic blanket.
A schoolteacher, a cowgirl, and a ballerina.
The ballerina’s head was cocked in my direction, her glass eyes staring serenely, her lips set in a smaller, more dignified smile than mine. She wasn’t broken. None of them were. They were as perfect as they’d been when I saw them last, slumped in a heap on top of the bookshelf. My sister dolls.
The light blinked off.
The shadows on the ballerina’s face deepened, darkened.
Had Auntie Dawn thrown the other dolls out too? Had Paul picked them up at the tip, dusted them off, and propped them up in the glass cabinet next to mine? But wouldn’t the garbage workers have found them at the same time they’d found me? Wouldn’t they have been beside me from the start?
The light went on again and I saw the new sign, sticky-taped next to mine. 3 porcelain dolls. Rare, collector’s edition, maybe. $45.55 each. $99.95 for the whole set.
I twisted my head, stitches straining, porcelain cold and clammy as I scanned the room.
I saw, nestled among everything else, bits and pieces I recognized.
The lamp that used to be in the corner of Grandma’s kitchen.
The TV stand, covered in ancient, peeling stickers.
The coffee table with the chipped edge. Grandma’s favorite lounge chair.
My favorite lounge chair. A stack of birdcages.
A pile of familiar flowerpots. A whole shelf of books, all of them classics . . .
All stuff from Grandma’s house. All stuff from my house.
I turned my head back toward the dolls. The ballerina was still staring at me, her eyes cold, dead, accusing.
Why are you here? I asked.
She didn’t answer.
Is Grandma . . . ? I couldn’t finish that thought. I didn’t want to even consider it. Why are you here? I asked again, desperate, frantic. Why are—
Time flew forward, noises smashing together, high and deafening. The dolls vanished, their sign gone, only the sticky residue of the tape on the glass and their abandoned handkerchief remaining.
Uncertainty sucked at me, tore at me. Why would the dolls be here?
Why would anything of Grandma’s be here?
Her house must’ve been cleaned out. Everything sent to the tip.
But she’d lived there since the ’70s. And even if she had moved, she’d take her favorite lounge chair.
She’d take her books. She’d take the dolls.
A figure moved by my cabinet. The woman with the mullet and the hearing aid. She looked tired, shadows carved under her eyes, hair stringy with sweat.
I could’ve begged. I could’ve bargained. But, in the moment, I was tired, I was terrified, I didn’t want to be nice anymore, I didn’t want to be ignored anymore.
What’s the guy’s name?
She didn’t respond, but when time juddered forward, my sign changed.
A puzzle, waiting to be put together A spooky haunted doll A broken toy Probably worth millions as an antique! Defiantly not haunted or evil! Buy it and get a second toy free! $19.95 $12.50 $9.00 $1.00
What’s his name? I asked again the next day.
And again the day after that. And again the day after that.
On day five, she arrived to work without her hearing aid.
After hours of shouting, it became clear she couldn’t hear me without it.
Which, weirdly enough, meant that she wasn’t psychic at all.
She just had a piece of tech that was picking up some otherworldly frequencies.
Ghost Lore Fact #2: Ghosts can’t make sound, but they can manipulate the real world. Addendum: Ghosts can make sound after all, via this one random woman’s hearing aid.
Which didn’t make a lick of sense. Why a hearing aid? Why hers? And why, if she could hear me, wouldn’t she listen?
I watched her ask a customer to repeat himself five times.
I could read the writing on the wall. She wasn’t going to help me.
She didn’t even want to acknowledge me. She would rather put herself in awkward, uncomfortable situations than face me.
If I were a nice person, a good person, I would’ve read the situation and left her alone.
But I wasn’t a nice person. Not then. I was exhausted, broken, and desperate.
I’d been worn away, destroyed in more ways than one, and locked alone in a box with nothing except my grief, pain, and anger. I’d begged. I’d pleaded. But she wouldn’t even look at me.
No. I didn’t have any niceness left.
After a couple of customer complaints, Paul gave her a warning (without even asking what was going on—told you he was an arsehole), and she started wearing her hearing aid again.
He’s a bad guy, isn’t he? I asked the next time I saw her walk down my aisle.
The one you don’t want to name? Let me guess, he’s the sort of guy who doesn’t deserve to breathe?
I know one of those. I’m on a quest to kill my bad guy.
If you help out, I’ll kill yours too. I think that’s fair.
You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Murder is easy, you know.
I’ve never done it myself, but I’ve had a front-row seat. All you need is a strong grip and—
“Shut up,” she hissed, and finally, finally turned to face me.
Her eyes blazed a bright coppery sort of brown, her lips were set in a flat, angry line, and her cheeks flushed beneath a galaxy of freckles.
My stuffing flipped inside me as I realized I knew those freckles.
They’d faded, blended into a tan, but . . .
The shy girl from Ginger’s party.
The one with the fifty-dollar dress and Marilyn Monroe’s smile.
The one Ginger had called weird.
She was older, which was terrifying, her hair cut short, her arms spotted with tattoos, but it was her.
The more I looked, the more certain I was.
What had Ginger said her name was? It began with N.
Frantically, I start scrolling through all the names I knew, trying to find the one that would spark in my memory.