Silent Doll (22 page)

“He left you that,” said Trinket solemnly.

My head shot up and I followed the line of her arm as she pointed to a white box tied with a gold ribbon sitting on the chaise. I scrambled out of bed to it, ripping the lid off, not in excitement but in fear. Inside were several trays of ordinary looking chocolates and another buff-colored card. With trembling fingers I picked it up, as though it might burn me.

You won’t escape, when I come for you.

I dropped the card and took a step back; then, realizing I was still holding the lid, threw it onto the couch. I went first for the balcony doors, but they were still latched shut. I darted from the room to check the bathroom window and the spare room; they were both shut and locked, as was the one in the living room. I marched back into my room.

“Are you sure you locked up when you left?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

I stood there tapping my foot. None of my locks had been forced, magically or otherwise, so I was pretty sure it had not been an actual person in my apartment. I had been visited by a familiar.

A familiar could be more than a cat to a witch. It could be a construct that took a shape that the owner found pleasing. I’d seen a dog made up entirely of bats and a bird made of butterflies. This familiar sounded like it was made of shadows, of dark things not touched by the light. I was being stalked by someone who used magic, a warlock or something darker. I rushed out of my room again, gathering the other cards and laying them out on the floor to complete the rhyme.

“Roses are red, violets are blue, you won’t escape when I come for you,” I said quietly. Definitely not a nice guy. I flashed back to that strange little goblin I’d seen in the sewers.
He wanted the dark one
. Who had I ever met that fit that description—someone who could write a note like this with equal parts malice and desire? It clearly read, to me, that if he couldn’t have me then he’d hurt me.

I sat back on my haunches, looking at the three cards. I’d met one warlock in recent memory. He was young, in his teens, but he really hadn’t been all that powerful. He had looked at me with almost the right amount of hatred and lust for this sort of game, though. Men like that saw a woman with power and they wanted to prove they could dominate her.

I could rule out the kid, though; he probably wouldn’t remember me and he was all hormones and aggression. This was the work of a more sophisticated palette. I would have to take steps. I would take the chocolates to Ro, get her to look them over for possible extras-like poison.

“Miss Cassandra, are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I said, drawing myself up to my feet. “I’m good. I just have a lot on my mind.”

“I would too, with creepy shadow things in my bedroom.”

The doorbell rang. Trinket hugged the bedpost and looked nervous. I put a finger to my lips. I knew that whoever was at the door was from my normal world, but Trinket didn’t need to know or understand any of that. I went to the front door and answered it. Incarra pushed past me, dumping her bag on my living room floor.

“Right, I’ve come to a decision,” she said, spinning to face me. I gave a wry smile as I shut the door.

“Why, hello, Incarra. Do come in.”

She put her hands on her hips. “You think you’re funny?”

“I think I’m adorable, but you were saying?”

“Yes. So, my first time venturing into your other world didn’t work out. I’m a get back on the horse kind of girl, so I say we try again but do something completely blasé, like go to a movie. They do have movies over there, right?”

“Can I come?”

Incarra did that slow horror movie turn to look at Trinket who, having heard no familiar voices, thought it okay to join us.

“Oh,” said Incarra, staring. I could only imagine what she was seeing with her awakened ability.

“Trinket, you’re supposed to be hiding.”

She looked a little crestfallen, as if for a moment she’d forgotten her situation. Incarra seemed transfixed.

“Inc? You okay?”

She looked at me, then back at Trinket.

“What is she?”

Trinket didn’t take offense; she’d probably heard it a few times before.

“How about I make up some fresh coffee and we can talk about that?”

“Oh, I can do that.” Trinket hustled into the kitchen to brew up a fresh pot of coffee. She tootled back into my bedroom to collect my near empty plate and the now cold mug of coffee to wash them up. She bustled about the kitchen full of purpose, getting out an extra mug, pulling the creamer out of the fridge, refilling the sugar bowl.

“Who is she?” hissed Incarra. “She’s acting like it’s her kitchen.”

“She’s having some family problems and is staying with me for a while.”

Trinket carried over two cups of coffee, with the cream and sugar on a tray so that we could help ourselves. For a moment Incarra was completely focused on her drink. Trinket looked at me hopefully. I narrowed my eyes and mouthed “we’ll talk about it later”, realizing that I’d pretty much just invited her to stay by accident.

Incarra took her first sip of coffee after a deep inhalation over the rim, and she was suddenly back in the conversation.

“So, explain what Betty Crocker here is?”

I arched an eyebrow at Incarra. I didn’t understand her attitude. “Her name is Trinket and she’s a doll.”

“Like Pinocchio? Does she want to be a real boy? Girl?”

“No, she’s having trouble with her family. I told you that.”

“So, she’s just going to move in here with you?” I leaned back and I think I got part of her mood. I’d let what she considered a stranger into my home, given her free rein—unintentionally of course—and she worried that I was being taken advantage of. Also, I saw she was a little pissed because she’d dropped hints to me in the last couple of months that she wanted to live away from her mom and that I had a spare room.

“She’s not staying long. We’ll work things out so that she can go home. I don’t mind her pottering around cleaning up and making coffee, saves me doing it.”

Trinkets face split into her stage smile. Incarra grumbled into her coffee; something about stray puppies. I took a sip of my own coffee, letting the silence between us grow until the tension began to vibrate in the air. Incarra turned a steely stare on Trinket.

“So, what’s wrong with your family?”

Trinket folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Sure, sure,” grouched Incarra. I was seeing the tense lines form in her brow that meant she had decided to dislike Trinket on principle. I wasn’t sure what the principle was though.

“No,” I said, “she really can’t.” I explained about the spell. Sympathy crossed Incarra’s face, but then she shoved it down, visibly determined to remain suspicious and pissed.

“Can’t you just write it down?” she asked.

I wonder why I hadn’t thought of that. Trinket looked down at her hands again.

“My fingers aren’t jointed enough for me to grip a pen properly, and I can’t read very well either.”

Incarra and I, as book lovers, knew what a tragedy that was.

“Damn it,” Incarra croaked. “I don’t want to like you, stop being so damn sad and nice.
Bride of Chucky
me or something?”

Trinket turned her head to look at me.

“It’s a horror movie about dolls possessed by psychotic killers.”

“I’m not evil! That’s so mean.” Trinket pushed to her feet and ran for the spare room. I sighed, putting my coffee down on the table.

“Now you’ve upset her. Go apologize.” I pointed at my spare room imperiously, like a displeased parent.

Incarra blinked at me. “What? Why?”

“Because she is no less a person that you or me. She has feelings and you’ve hurt them. Now you go say you’re sorry for being an ass.”

Incarra looked grumpy and for the first time I realized how much more mature I’d become than my friend; but then again she hadn’t nearly died—twice. I didn’t blink. I locked my eyes with hers until she got up and marched to the back room like she was being forced to do something unspeakable. Apologizing took some people, that way, I’d found. I waited and listened, hearing nothing; then Trinket screeched.

“Give it back!”

I was on my feet so fast it almost made me dizzy. I was cross now; this was like babysitting two rowdy children when one is determined to pick on the other. Incarra was holding a framed picture out of Trinket’s reach, which was hard on both of them, as they were similar heights.

“I said apologize, not antagonize!”

“Hang on a minute, before you get all bent out of shape too,” she groused, tapping the picture. “I know this man. He’s the one that was in the room the night I stayed over.”

I walked between them and snatched the picture, then pushed Trinket onto the bed with my hip and Incarra into the chair with my right. Both opened their mouths to yell at me.

“Zip it, both of you, and let me look.”

I studied the picture. It was a photo of a man wearing a thick leather apron, with thinning hair, goggles on his head, rubber gloves on his hands. He had his arm around a younger? Newer? Trinket with blonde bob cut. They stood in front of what looked like a corrugated metal shed, probably a workshop.

“Trinket, who is this man?” I handed her back the photo.

“That’s daddy. How could your friend have seen him? He died years ago.”

I had to explain to Trinket about ectomancy, which left her wide eyed—more so than usual—staring at Incarra with awe.

“Can you see him now? Is he here?” she asked, looking around. Incarra shook her head and looked more than a little relieved. Trinket stroked the photo.

“He said I was his best girl. He tried to make a boy once, but Momma didn’t like it and the magic was wrong. Too much testosterone.” She giggled a little, then placed the photo back on top of her duffle. I looked at Incarra, then back to Trinket. She hopped up.

“Why don’t I go make a snack? I got some cookie dough and can bake you some chocolate chip ones.”

I nodded at her. Incarra mumbled, “Betty Crocker
,”
again. Trinket ignored her. When I heard cupboards banging, I knew she’d be occupied for a bit. I settled on the edge of the bed with my hands on my slightly parted knees, completely un-ladylike considering I was still in sleep shorts and a T-shirt.

“What’s put a bug up your butt now?”

“Ectomancy is no fun.”

“Did you expect it to be all shits and giggles from my description of it?”

Incarra thought about that. “Well, no, but I didn’t expect to feel this compulsion. Since I discovered it, I’ve wanted to come back, go over with you and, well, use it somehow. The old man said to help her.”

“I think we can assume—favoritism notwithstanding—that he meant Trinket.”

“So it sucks.”

“Why don’t you like her? I mean, I get some of it.”

“I don’t really know. That sounds stupid.”

“Very,” I said, only to get the Incarra death glare. “Let me put it this way. Did you want to clean up after me, make me breakfast in bed and bake cookies when I have company over?”

“Hell no.”

I smiled at her teasingly. “Well then, maybe I do like her better.”

Incarra kicked me but she was smiling now. “Asshat.”

“Ooo, ouch, that’s a new one. I’m going to have to remember that.”

She shook her head at me. “No way, patent pending. How many sisters does Trinket have?”

For the first time I counted them in my head. Prima and Ember, the four that looked all the same, and Trinket. “Seven.”

I had the strange feeling again, of a thought forming just out of reach. I was thinking about Trinket’s sisters. They were less advanced than Trinket, who had trouble gripping a pen. A flash of the stain I’d seen on Winter’s Prada knock-off bag.

Why would Winter be handling ketchup she didn’t eat, and probably couldn’t have torn open the packet anyway? There were much more ugly possibilities for a brown stain-like dried blood. We sat in silence for a while.

“Also,” said Incarra, breaking the silence and snatching the picture, “how come she has longer hair now? It can’t grow.”

“No, but it can be changed,” said Trinket, bringing in the fresh baked cookies. The smell almost distracted me.

“We all have a variety of wigs that clip on and off. It’s simpler in the theater, to have one styled and ready to go, for quick changes.”

I stared at Trinket as she held out the cookies to me. I couldn’t believe I had been so bloody dense. “Trinket. What is your hair made out of?”

“Horsehair, I think. I have some purely synthetic ones, but they look a lot less like real hair.”

I took the plate and tossed it onto the bed, scattering cookies everywhere, much to Incarra’s horror, and examined Trinket’s fingers. The ends were smooth, no ridges or dents to mark them. The big picture smacked me upside the head for my stupidity.

“It’s them, isn’t it? Your sisters. That’s what you don’t want your mother to force you to do. You don’t want to kill anyone.”