Part 11 (1/2)

Zach sighed again and opened the door to the main room of the library.

He found Poppy at a long table, where she'd spread out several maps, an atlas, and a guidebook. She was standing on a chair, looking down on all of it. The Queen was resting at one end, lying on her side, limp arms outstretched.

”Did you find it?” Zach asked.

She turned with a start. She must not have heard him come in.

”Here,” she said, stepping onto the table and walking over to one of the maps, where she crouched down and pointed. ”Spring Grove Cemetery.”

”You're sure?” asked Alice, and it was Zach's turn to be surprised. He hadn't expected that she would follow him.

”I didn't have an aerial view in my dreams, but it looks right,” Poppy said. ”We should go tonight. There might be streetlights down there, and the moon is pretty full. Even without a flashlight, I think we can find her grave. And then it's over. I promise.”

Alice rolled her eyes.

”I'll copy the map,” Poppy said.

”Okay,” said Zach. ”Get me when you're ready.” He picked up a book of local history that Poppy must have pulled from the stacks, and walked off toward a couple of couches he'd spotted near the picture-book section.

Flopping down, he flipped through the book, skimming over the section on local folklore. There wasn't any mention of an Eleanor Kerchner or a haunted doll, but there was a story about a Dutch girl who haunted a ca.n.a.l lock and a creepy little boy who hung himself. And there was a lady who got stood up on her wedding day and was found, weeks later, dead in her wedding gown. Legend had it that her bleached white skeleton ran around playing in traffic and grabbing people. When Zach got bored, he slipped pieces of paper, on which he'd written cryptic words, between the pages.

A little while later he heard the quiet murmur of voices and hoped that meant that Poppy and Alice were making up. He thought that maybe he would just close his eyes for a second.

After all, they were going to be digging up a grave, and they were going to have to do it with scissors or sticks or whatever other tools they could find. It was going to be hard work. But it was going to get done; Zach was sure about that. So he needed to rest a little. He leaned back on the couch, turning his cheek against the crook of his arm.

THIS TIME HE dreamed that he was lying on a lawn, looking up at a big house. He couldn't get his legs to move. There was something wrong with his vision. It was darkening at the edges, but he could see enough to notice that there were shattered remains of porcelain dolls all around him.

And then he heard a voice, which he knew to be Eleanor's father. ”She looks just like one of them. She looks just like a broken doll.”

WHEN HE WOKE up, a woman he didn't know was standing over him. She looked like she was about to scream, but he beat her to it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

THE WOMAN BROUGHT HER THIN ARMS UP Defensively, as though his shouting was some kind of attack. He scrabbled up onto the couch and then over it, landing on the other side. She blinked owlishly behind her bright-green gla.s.ses. She was about his mother's age, with short, curly, bright-pink hair.

Above her, light streamed in from the windows. It was Sunday morning. He'd slept through the whole night.

Looking around, he spotted Poppy and Alice lying on the other couch, heads pillowed on opposite sides. They were both opening their eyes. Poppy pushed herself up.

”Who are you?” Zach asked the woman.

”I work here,” she said. ”I'm a librarian. I came in on the weekend, like I always doa”I have to do my orders for new books, and it's easier when there aren't any patrons. Now, do you want to tell me what you three are doing here? And are you alone? I thought I heard something downstairs.”

”Um,” Zach said, still dazed from sleep. Answers deserted him.

”It's just us,” said Alice, rubbing her face. ”We left the window open. You probably heard the wind.”

The librarian peered at the three of them more closely. ”You're lucky I didn't immediately call the police. How old are you?”

His brain was finally catching up to what was going on, and he realized just how much trouble they were in. ”Twelve,” he said.

She turned to Alice and Poppy. ”Where exactly do your parents think you are?”

Alice shrugged.

”Well, we're going to go into the office and we're going to call them right now, okay? And you better not have vandalized this place, or I'm going to change my mind and call the cops after all.”

”We didn't mess up anything,” Poppy said. ”Look around and see if we're telling the truth, and then if we are, you can let us go. We won't be any more trouble.”

”It's either we call your parents,” the pink-haired librarian said, ”or we call the police.”

Adrenaline spiked through Zach. He considered running. If they all sprinted for the doors, he was pretty certain they'd make it. Alice's shoes were off, which was a problem, but maybe she could grab them. And then there was the doll. Poppy didn't seem to be holding her, which was unusual. He thought about the last time he'd woken up and found the Queen not where she'd been the night before, but when he glanced around the library, nothing else seemed amiss. The couches hadn't been ripped; there was no scattered stuffing and no tossed packages of food from the break room.

By that point, though, he'd lost his chance. The librarian was waving them up off the couches, and he couldn't catch either girl's eye, so if he ran, he wasn't sure they'd follow.

”Come on in the back and I'll make you a cup of tea,” the pink-haired librarian said. ”You all look like you could use it.”

They must have seemed pretty scruffy as they shuffled to the break room in the same clothes they'd been wearing for a day and two nights. The cat ears on Alice's hoodie were bent at odd angles, and there was ink smeared across Poppy's cheek, like maybe one of the pens she'd been using had started to bleed. Zach wondered if the librarian thought they were homeless kids. He wondered if telling her they were would make her let them go.

Halfway across the library floor, Poppy stopped. ”Wait, where's the Queen?” Her voice was high-pitched, panicked.

”You don't know?” Zach asked. He looked around again, as though somehow the doll was going to materialize out of the ether.

The librarian raised her eyebrows, as though waiting for an explanation.

”A doll,” Zach said. ”She's really old. Poppy must have lost her.”

”Well, where did you have her last?” Alice asked Poppy.

”I brought her with me when I went to the couch,” she said. ”I know I did. She was right there next to me when I went to sleep.”

”Before that, she was on the map table,” Zach put in. ”Maybe you forgota””

”I saw the doll,” Alice interrupted, ”when we went to sleep. Someone must have gotten up and moved her.”

Poppy started to go look when the librarian caught her arm.

”All of you,” she said with an impressive firmness. ”You will go into the break room, and then we'll deal with the missing doll and your parents and everything else. The library is closed. If the doll is here, we'll find it. Meanwhile, it's not going anywhere. Now, let's go.”

Zach really hoped the doll wasn't going anywhere.

They sat down on folding chairs around the break-room table as the librarian put on the electric kettle. She looked through the cabinets until she found a package of Fig Newtons, which she ripped open and put in front of them.

”I'm Katherine Rausse,” she said. ”You may call me Miss Katherine. Not Kathy, Katherine.”

”I'm Poppy,” Poppy said. ”Poppy Bell. And this is Alice Magnaye and Zachary Barlow.”