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.
“I loved this 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.
“She told me 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.
Her granddaughter 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 very bed. Her precious Courtney.
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.
You trying to threaten me? Kay charged straight for him.
You gotta be kidding. The man backed up against the well, still chuckling. Can’t take a joke?
Who are you? What’s your name?
James Shoemaker. Why? Got your panties in a twist? What about that little girl’s? I hear her name’s Courtney! She’s damn cute—
Don’t you dare! Get her name out of your mouth!
Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it, you n—”
Kay pushed him. Shoemaker laughed, dropping the cigarette and beer, then suddenly hauled off and punched her hard in the chest. The blow sent Kay reeling backward, knocking the wind out of her. She gasped for air, doubling over. The pain brought tears to her eyes.
Shoemaker cocked his arm to punch her again, laughing now.
His eyes glittered with glee. He waited for her to straighten up.
He would enjoy hitting her again, hurting her, maybe beating her to death.
Kay found her footing, summoned all her strength, and shoved him back with everything she had, catching him by surprise.
Shoemaker staggered backward, his arms pinwheeling. He slipped on the mud. His feet slid out from under him. He lost his balance against the well.
Kay screamed as Shoemaker fell in, striking his forehead on the well. His head bent back at the neck with a sickening crack. His top half vanished as he flipped over, tumbling upside-down into the well. He hit the bottom with a splash and a disgusting thud.
No, no! Kay rushed to the edge of the well. A clump of Shoemaker’s hair and skin stuck to the rim. Blood glistened darkly on the brick, dripping down the side.
Kay peered down the well. It was too dark to see inside. Shoemaker didn’t make any sound, not even a moan. No sound at all came from the bottom. The water didn’t move. There wasn’t much there.
Kay shouted into the well. Her anguished voice echoed inside. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t get him out. She waited to hear something from the well, but there was nothing. She realized with horror that Shoemaker was dead. She had killed him. She had committed murder.
Kay cried out and backed away, in disbelief. She hadn’t meant to kill him. She only wanted to tell him to stay away from Courtney.
Kay turned around, ran to the car, then took off.
She drove home, crying so hard she could barely see, terrified that she had broken the First Commandment, done the worst thing one human being could do to another.
She could never face God in church or pray to him for forgiveness for her eternal soul.
Kay reached home in tears and flew from the car.
She took the doll off the stick and hid it because she could never look at it again.
She’d have to make up a story to tell Courtney.
She could never tell anyone what she had done, and at the end of her life she would have to confess her sin and would accept whatever punishment God gave her. And only then would her spirit be free.
The harrowing vision began to ebb away, and Julia felt herself leaving the dark, horrible scene behind. Tears filled her eyes, and she knew they were Kay’s tears even as she returned to her own time and place, coming back to herself, sitting stunned on the bedroom floor across from Courtney.
“Julia, what just happened? Are you okay? I was calling you, but you didn’t answer!”
“I’m fine.” Julia heard her own voice in her ears. Her headache vanished. Her thinking clarified.
“Did you just have a vision?” Tears filled Courtney’s eyes. “Was it Grandma Kay? Did you see her?”
“No, I was her, I saw what she saw,” Julia answered, full of wonder. She’d just channeled Kay. She’d become a medium, in full. “She wants me to tell you something.”
“My God, she told you that?”
“No, she showed it to me.”
Courtney gasped. “What happened?”
Julia hesitated. She didn’t know if she should tell Courtney the truth, but then she realized it was Kay’s choice, not hers. “I have to tell you something, but it’s not easy to hear. I think it’s something she couldn’t be free of, unless you knew. It’s like a confession.”
“What?” Courtney asked, astonished. “What could she have to confess?”
Julia braced herself, then told her.