Took (16 page)

For a while, no one spoke. It was as if we were waiting for Miss Perkins to tell us something and she was waiting for us to tell her something. A black cat crept into her lap, and two more emerged from the shadows to crouch at her feet. They watched us steadily, unblinking. I wondered how she told them apart.

The fire popped and crackled, and the wind did its best to squeeze in through every crack. Selene coughed. Mrs. O'Neill crossed and uncrossed her ankles. Somewhere in the back of the house, a cat yowled.
There must be dozens of them
, I thought, mostly black, gray, and dark tabbies.

“This is how it is,” Miss Perkins said suddenly. “Selene, there's no way you can go back to my auntie. She don't want you no more. You must learn to live in the here and now—or die. Them's your choices. If I was you, I'd choose to live.”

Tears ran down Selene's face, but she said nothing. She simply sat and stared as if she were a cat too, half wild, not one you dared to pet.

Miss Perkins turned her eyes to me. “She means to keep your sister for fifty years,” she said, “just like she kept Selene and all the ones before her.”

“There must be something you can do,” I whispered. “My family is wrecked. My mother, my father—” I couldn't go on without losing my self-control and throwing myself at her feet, crying and begging for her help.

“I didn't say there's no way to get your sister back.” Miss Perkins spoke so sharply, the cat on her lap raised its head, startled out of its nap.

“Have you actually spoken to her?” Mrs. O'Neill asked.

“Not exactly.” Miss Perkins stroked the cat on her lap. “I got my ways of finding out things on the sly. Things folks don't want me to know. Things I don't want them to know I'm interested in.”

Mrs. O'Neill nodded as if she understood, but like me, I was sure she didn't quite see what the old woman meant. But she was a witch, and we weren't, so why should we expect to understand?

Miss Perkins stretched a hand toward Selene. “Bring me that dolly, dear.”

Selene gripped the doll. “What do you want with her? She's mine.”

The old woman leaned toward Selene and stared into her eyes. “The dolly,” she said. “Give me the dolly.”

The air seemed charged with electricity, and my skin tingled as if a thunderstorm were rolling through the house. I wanted to jump up and run from the dark room and the craziness of the old woman, but something kept me where I was.

Selene rose slowly and gave the doll to Miss Perkins. “Good girl,” she said as Selene backed away and collapsed on the sofa. Mrs. O'Neill put her arm around her. For once, Selene did not pull away.

In the meantime, Miss Perkins turned the doll this way and that, studying her intently in the dim light of the fire. She caressed Little Erica, moved her arms and legs, and hummed to herself, as if she'd forgotten we were in the room. After a minute or so, she bent her head over the cat in her lap and seemed to listen. He made a strange sound, not a meow, not a growl, not a purr, but something like all three. She nodded her head slowly.

At last Miss Perkins looked up. Her eyes seemed unfocused, as if she weren't seeing us or the room, but was looking at something far away. Selene and I moved closer to Mrs. O'Neill. She held us both tightly.

Miss Perkins slowly came back to the room and the fire and the three of us. Her sharp eyes fixed themselves on me. “Come here, boy. Come close.”

Even though I wanted to stay where I was, safe and warm beside Mrs. O'Neill, I did as she said. The old woman smelled of dried grass and herbs and flowers. A nice smell. I sniffed and breathed it in, feeling it spread through me like magic.

“How much do you want your sister back, boy?” she whispered. Her eyes probed mine.

“I'd do anything to get her away from Auntie.”

“Will you go to Auntie's cabin tonight, all by yourself? No mammy, no pappy, nobody. All by yourself. Just you. Are you brave enough?”

I stared at her, almost speechless. “Tonight?”

“You said you want your sister back. You said you'll do anything. This is the onliest way to do it.”

I glanced at Mrs. O'Neill to see what she thought. Her eyes were open but unfocused, as blank as Little Erica's eyes. She and Selene seemed to be in a trance.

Miss Perkins leaned toward me and studied my face. “You brave enough? 'Cause if you ain't, you'll never see your sister till fifty years from now. And that one there will be soon be dead.” She nodded at Selene. “It's for both these girls you're doing it. You break the spell for your sister, you break it for Selene, too. Once the spell's broke, Auntie will be finished. The dark will take her.”

I tried to stand tall and straight. Maybe if I acted brave, I'd be brave. “What do I have to do?” My voice came out in a squeak.

“You go to the door of the cabin at midnight—not one minute earlier, not one minute later. Knock three times. Auntie will call out, ‘Who's that knock, knock, knocking at my door?' You'll say, ‘A poor traveler lost in the cold.' She'll say, ‘What you want with me?' You'll say, ‘To sit by your fire a spell.'”

Miss Perkins stroked the cat's black fur and crooned to him. Except for the wind and the fire, the room was as still as death.

“She'll ask you to tell her a riddle,” she went on. “First you say, ‘I brung you a cherry without a stone.'” Miss Perkins reached into her pocket and drew out a blossom. She laid it carefully on the table beside her. “A cherry don't have a stone when it's blooming.”

“Second, say, ‘I brung you a chicken without a bone.'” Miss Perkins took an egg from her pocket and laid it beside the blossom. “A chicken don't have bones while it's in the egg.”

“They're old riddles,” she said. “Everyone knows the answers, so she'll ask for something harder, a riddle she's never heard before.”

The old woman coughed and sniffed and fidgeted with the doll. “Last of all, say, ‘I brung you a servant that never tires and never grows old.'” She added Little Erica to the objects on the table.

“It ain't a riddle she'll have heard before. If she can't guess the answer in three tries, she's got to open the door and let you in.”

My heart knocked about in my chest, hammering and pounding my ribs. “But when she sees me, she'll know who I am.”

“Auntie ain't the onliest one that knows her way around the dark side of the moon. I got tricks of my own, boy. She won't know you. I'll see to that.”

The cat interrupted her with an odd, questioning sort of noise. Miss Perkins stroked him till he purred loud enough to make my bones vibrate.

“Soon as you're through the door,” she went on, “Auntie will ask you for the answer to the riddle. Open the sack and show her the servant that never tires and never grows old. Once she sees that dolly, she'll forget about your sister. At least for a while—”

“But—” I couldn't stop myself from interrupting the old woman again. “She
knows
the doll belongs to Erica. And how can a doll be a servant? She's plastic, she's not alive, she can't move or talk or—”

“Hush up and quit asking fool questions. You got to trust me, boy. Get your sister out of the cabin as fast as you can. She won't want to come. You'll have to drag her away. Run for home like you got wings on your heels or seven-league boots on your feet.”

“But what if—”

“Don't vex me no more, boy. Do what I tell you, bring your sister home, and the spell will bust at sunrise—for both girls. They'll remember who they are in this world, but they won't remember nothing about Auntie's world.” Miss Perkins scrunched her face into a tight fist, and the cat lashed his tail and hissed at me.

My brain whirled with questions, but my voice had dried up and my mouth felt numb, the way it does in the dentist's office when he gives you Novocain. I nodded, as if I understood, and hoped I'd be able to do all she asked.

Miss Perkins put my sister's doll into a burlap sack, tied it shut, and gave it to me. “No matter what, don't open this sack until you're inside the cabin, and don't be scairt of the dolly.”

Before I could ask her why I'd be scared of a doll, she gave me a warning look, and I shut my mouth.

Miss Perkins nodded, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Now go sit on that sofa and keep your mouth shut about everything I done told you.”

I took my place next to Mrs. O'Neill, who continued to stare straight ahead at nothing I could see.

Miss Perkins murmured a few words to the cat. The moment he closed his eyes, Mrs. O'Neill and Selene came back from wherever they'd been. They stretched and yawned as if they'd been napping. Selene looked bewildered, as if she wasn't quite sure where she was. Although I expected her to ask about the doll, she didn't say a word.

“Thank you for your time,” Mrs. O'Neill said to Miss Perkins. “I'm sorry you can't do anything to help us. That poor child—fifty years is a long time.”

“The years will go by in a flash.” Miss Perkins picked up a ball of yarn and her knitting—a lumpy black scarf already long enough to wrap two or three times around her neck.

Gently helping Selene to her feet, Mrs. O'Neill turned to me. “Come along, Daniel. The snow's getting worse. Your parents must be worried.”

“See yourselves out,” Miss Perkins said. “I'm a mite weary tonight. When you're old as me, the cold settles in your bones and sets them to aching and scraping against each other.”

“Good night, then,” Mrs. O'Neill said. “Take care of yourself, Miss Perkins.”

“You, too, dearie, and don't fret yourself about the snow. It'll stop soon enough.”

We left Miss Perkins sitting by the fire, knitting and humming to herself while the cat dozed on her lap. Outside, the cold air froze the hairs in my nose, and my eyes watered, but I was glad to be away from the smoky smell of the house.

I kept the sack behind my back, but no one noticed it. Selene sat behind me with her nose pressed against the window and watched the empty streets of Woodville glide past. A flake or two of snow drifted past the windshield, but Miss Perkins was right—the moon was already breaking through the clouds.

As usual, our house looked dark and vacant. As it had the previous night, a lamp glimmered in Mom's bedroom window, but the downstairs windows were lit only by the headlights of the car.

Mrs. O'Neill stared at the house. “My goodness, Daniel, is anyone home?”

“They're upstairs,” I said. “The light's on in the bedroom. Dad's office is in the back—that's where he is.” Where he always is—lost in computer games and websites for missing children.

As I opened the car door, she asked, “Do you want me to come in with you?”

“No, it's okay. Everything's fine.” What a good liar I was getting to be. “Thanks for taking me to see Miss Perkins again.”

While we talked, I was aware of Selene watching me through the window. I waved to her, but she turned away.

Mrs. O'Neill said goodbye and turned around slowly, her headlights washing over the unpainted sides of our house. I watched the taillights grow small as the car disappeared around the curve in the driveway.

The kitchen looked the way it always did. Sink full of dirty dishes. Trash can overflowing with pizza boxes, beer cans, and wine bottles. Table littered with newspapers, paper plates, coffee cups, forks and knives and spoons, an empty wine bottle, ashtrays heaped with cigarette butts.

“Dad? Mom?” I called.

“Up here,” Dad answered.

I climbed the back stairs slowly, keeping the sack behind my back. It was the new normal—Dad playing a war game on the computer, Mom huddled in her room under a quilt, reading.

“We saved some pizza for you,” Mom said. “It's in the fridge. Just heat it up in the microwave.”

“Thanks.” I stowed the sack under my bed and went down to the kitchen to warm up the pizza. The crust tasted like burned cardboard and the cheese had turned to something that resembled melted plastic and stuck to my teeth, but I ate it anyway. I was going to be out in the cold a long time. I needed something in my belly.

For a while I sat at the table and watched the clock. Seven p.m., eight p.m.—time crept past. Upstairs, my parents were silently engrossed in their books and games.

I said good night to them and went to my room. They barely acknowledged my presence. It was as if I'd disappeared too. If I failed tonight, if Bloody Bones killed and ate me, would they care? Would they send anyone to look for me? Or would they just sink deeper and deeper into the house, burrowing under blankets, eating bad pizza, drinking, smoking, not even noticing I was gone?

For at least an hour I stood at my window, trying to remember the way our family used to be, but only seeing myself teasing Erica and making her cry, forcing her to leave the doll in the woods. Why had I been so mean to her?

I shivered in the cold air that leaked through the loose windowpanes and watched the wind blow the clouds away. The moon sailed into sight and shone on the snowy fields. In its bright light I saw the beginning of the path that led to Auntie's cabin.

I glanced at my clock. Ten thirty. It was time to go.

I hauled the burlap sack out from under the bed, grabbed a flashlight, and tiptoed downstairs. Even though I'd heard Dad go to bed and I knew Mom was with him, the house felt empty, so dark and cold and silent I could hear my own breathing. I pulled one of Erica's old jackets off the coatrack, grabbed a pair of mittens, a hat, and her red boots, and stuffed everything into a backpack. Zipping my parka, I stepped into the darkness. The cold wind hit me like a fist, and the freezing air hurt my chest.

Crouched in the snow, I took a long look at the house. Then with my head down, I ran across the field and into the woods. No one but deer and small animals had walked on the path since it snowed, so I slipped and slid and sank to my knees over and over again, clambering out of one snowdrift and stumbling into another.