Page 39 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“Redneck Harriet?” Wren raised her brows.
“Eddie’s nickname for the possessed creature.” Gary dried a coffee mug with a red dish towel.
“She’s not possessed,” Eddie insisted, balancing a spoonful of Neapolitan ice cream. “She’s—”
“Evil. Wicked. Demonic,” Wren inserted. “I can go on.” She reached for Redneck Harriet and lifted the doll, its body stuffed, porcelain legs and arms wagging. Marching to the kitchen garbage can, she stepped on the latch and the lid popped open.
“Whoa! Whoa!Whoa!” Eddie’s chair scraped on the floor as he catapulted from it. “Don’t throw her away!”
Wren dangled the doll over the garbage can, feeling as if shemight take all her angst out on the worthless antique. “Convince me to save her life.” She cocked an eyebrow at her friend. Eddie grabbed for Harriet, his fingers grazing her hand. Wren jerked it away. The doll’s eye made a sound and rolled back down from where it had been hiding in her skull.
“She’s vintage.” Eddie reached for the doll again. They did a little dance around the garbage can. Eddie snatched at the doll and instead caught Wren’s shirt. He tugged her toward him, and she stumbled into him. His arms came around her in a wrestling-type hold, his breath warm on her neck.
“Give me the doll,” he teased.
Wren heard Gary’s chuckle, but she ignored him. She twisted in Eddie’s hold. “Nevah!” Her exaggerated retort was playful, and she dropped toward the floor, effectively breaking Eddie’s hold on her. For a moment she felt bereft. Disappointed. Brushing it away, she lofted Redneck Harriet over the garbage once again.
“I don’t like her. Flaunting her in my face will not win friends and influence me.” Wren let go, and Harriet began her descent into the innards of the can. Eddie lurched forward and caught her, pulling her up.
“Don’t do it. Don’t end Redneck Harriet.” He had a weird attachment to the doll.
“Whatever.” This time Wren felt all playfulness drain away. The doll stared at her wide-eyed, questioning, the cracked face hiding stories it had no intention of telling. “Didn’t you ever watchThe Waltons?”
“Ohhhhh, good one!” Gary shook a spatula at her.
“No, it didn’t take priority overPower Rangers.” Eddie smirked.
“There was an episode where Elizabeth was supposedly being haunted by a poltergeist. She’d watch the rocking chair in her room move, the radio would turn to static when she’d walk by. It ended with Elizabeth’s doll moving toward her. Like some sick creature. Elizabeth was screaming, and her parents came running, and it scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. I hate dolls.”
“The Waltonshad some weird episodes. I remember that one.” Gary jammed the spatula into the utensil holder by the stove.
Eddie returned to his ice cream bowl, but he took Redneck Harriet with him. Now that he’d dubbed the doll with a moniker, Wren was even more disturbed by it. Eddie took a spoonful of ice cream and seemed to contemplate it for a moment, seriousness replacing the teasing in his expression. “She’s got your name on her foot, Wren.”
Gary stilled. Wren followed suit.
Eddie’s spoon clanked against his bowl. Redneck Harriet lay on the counter next to it. “You should see if the Coons family had anyone in their house named that.” He leveled a knowing gaze on Wren. “You will not relax until you know why your name is on her foot. I know you.”
“Troy said it’s not a big deal.” Her response was weak.
A flicker flashed across Eddie’s face. For a moment he looked irritated, but then it was gone. “Yeah. Well...” He stood, gathering his bowl and spoon to put them in the sink. “Troy hasn’t woken you up out of a nightmare before.” He set the dirty dish into the sink and hiked from the kitchen, leaving the doll faceup where she was on the kitchen bar.
“What got into him?” Wren scowled. This week the world had become even more crooked on its axis than it already was.
Gary pressed his lips together and widened his eyes, his expression one that implied she was missing something obvious.
Whatever. She needed sleep. She needed—Wren glanced at Redneck Harriet. Now both eyes had rolled back into its skull, leaving cracked white eyeballs staring into the abyss of the kitchen. Wren scurried away to the spare room. Once there, she shut the door harder than she’d intended. Dolls. Irritable Eddie. Ava Coons.
She tugged off her shirt and reached for her pajama top that was lying over a chair by the window. She pulled it over her head and then pushed back the curtain. It was supposed to be a full moon tonight. The woods behind the Markham home were the samewoods Jasmine wandered. Or at least the search party wandered. How much longer would they keep it up? A week? Two? When did a rescue become a retrieval instead? A little girl could only survive so long against the elements, even if it was summer.
The trees cast arm-like shadows across the lawn, the gravel driveway splitting it into two sections. Gary’s toolshed was a silhouette against the woods. Wren scanned the darkness, marveling at how light it seemed. A blue light cast from the moon that seemed to smile from its place in the sky. Somehow it didn’t feel like a friendly smile. It was mocking. As though it watched them all suffering—each one of them individually writhing in their own internal and external pains of just being alive. The missing, the dying, the lost...
Her breath stopped. A wash of alarm coursed through Wren with such fervor that her body could only stiffen in response, her hand still holding back the curtain.
In the center of the driveway, near the end where it met the road, was the blue-black outline of a woman in what appeared to be overalls. She stood with her arms hanging at her sides. Her long hair was pulled back, but wisps still blew in the breeze, lifting toward the sky. Her face was dark, and where her eyes should be were even darker hollows. The moonlight acted as a disguise by covering her face in shadow.
“Ava Coons.” Wren’s whispered declaration startled herself. She dropped the curtain. Hesitating only a second, she charged from the room and rushed through the house to the back door. The Markhams never locked their doors. Why would they when the crime rate in these parts was nonexistent? Wren wrenched the door open and ran out into the yard.
She was gone. The woman who had stood at the end of the drive had vanished. Wren ran her hand over her eyes, sure she’d been seeing things. This week was getting to her. Toying with her nerves. Unsettling her and tipping her courage out of her already half-empty emotional glass and refilling it with lunacy. Sheer lunacy.
