Page 22 of The Souls of Lost Lake
“Rum.” The world above her fell away. Troy and Eddie’s voices became distant echoes. Rum from the 1920s. Prohibition era, if her history classes served her well. Which meant one of the Coonses had probably hidden this rum beneath all the potatoes. A lost bottle of illegal liquor, left behind after a murdering child hacked them all to death and threw their bodies into Lost Lake.
She set the rum bottle on the dirt floor and roved her gaze to the other wall. More wooden shelves, most of them broken now, with jars of food long since leaked and decayed, lying in pieces on the floor. Several shards of glass from Mason jars were piled in the corner. Wren could make out something beneath them.
Stepping toward the pile, she leaned over and carefully picked up one of the broken jars. Setting it to the side, she repeated the motion a few times until she could make out what was buried beneath.
A doll.
Wren mimed a gag even though no one could see her. Of course. Of course there would be an old cracked-faced porcelain doll in the cellar of the murder house of the Northwoods. She tentatively reached for the head of the doll, her fingers wrapping around its hair. She lifted it, bits of glass from the jars falling away.
“That’s human hair.”
“Gah!” Wren spun around and slapped her palm against Eddie’s chest. He’d climbed down and had come up behind her without so much as a peep. Troy was halfway down the ladder behind him. The cellar was fast becoming very tiny.
“That’s human hair,” Eddie repeated.
Wren let go of the doll. Eddie’s hand shot out and grabbed it by the foot before it descended onto its previous graveyard of shattered Mason jars.
“Careful.” The doll now hung upside down, his hand wrapped around one of its legs. The hair was not synthetic and fine. It was coarse, half of it missing from the doll’s head, the remaining hair tied by a ragged velvet string. The doll’s face stared up at Wren from its upside-down position. Its eyes were rolled back into the doll’s head, and its face had a gazillion tiny cracks in it. But the mouth was still pink, as if painted on only months before. The purple-flowered dress that covered the doll hung away from its body, revealing the cloth underside, stuffed with whatever dolls were stuffed with back in the day. The porcelain legs were somehow sewn into and attached to the cloth torso of the doll, and one of the legs was missing its leather bootie.
“Wren.” Eddie’s voice was grave, and it sent a chill through her. A chill that disturbed her worse than the doll hanging from his hand. He shifted his fingers, turning the bottom of the doll’s foot toward her. “Look.”
Wren studied the foot, then lifted her eyes to Eddie. “What?”
“Look.” He said that awful lone word again.
So she looked closer. Wren read the name etched into the bottomof the doll’s foot and then inked over so it was difficult to miss.
Arwen.
Arwen. A name synonymous with Tolkien. Was her name known even before the books had been written? Did the name exist in 1930 when the Coons family was murdered? When their cabin was burned to the foundation, and when their cellar was sealed like a tomb for the next ninety-plus years?
Arwen.
Her name was written on the foot of the old doll with the clarity of an omen that had risen from its historical grave. A soul that had returned to life, awakened, and was now ready to roam free and tell its true tale.
10
Ava
“Do not leave the parsonage.” Noah’s directive sliced through Ava with the swiftness of a well-sharpened blade.
Ava froze in her spot on the worn-out stuffed chair in the front room. Hanny was putzing in the kitchen making tea, and Noah had entered the front door in a hustle. He slammed it too. Which seemed out of sorts for the soft-spoken man. Now his eyes were sparking with that fire and brimstone Ava expected from a preacher. She shrank into the chair. Sure enough, he was going to level it on her, and here she was with nothing to defend herself with except the pillow she leaned against. And its tassels were already coming off, so they sure wouldn’t be of any help!
“What if I have to use the outhouse?” She countered with the first thought that popped into her head.
Noah looked at her sharply, assessing whether she was joking. His brow furrowed. “We have indoor plumbing.”
“Sure. You’re right.” And he was, Ava remembered. She also remembered how nice the indoor plumbing had been. No swatting mosquitoes away from your bare legs when you had to do your business in the middle of the night—or day. “I might need to take a walk, though,” she added for the sake of defense.
Noah yanked his hat from his head and tossed it onto the deskby the window. He ran agitated fingers through his hair, mussing it and making Ava wonder when the last time was he’d had a haircut. Not that she minded. She was used to grubby-looking men who didn’t pomade their hair into submission.
“Just—don’t leave.” His response was inadequate.
Ava wrestled the pillow into her lap and played with the half-worn-off tassels. “Why not? Outside of the fact that half the town wants to string me up by my toes.” She avoided mentioning her midnight escapade into the darkness that had left her again with no memories, and for sure with a swollen knee. It wouldn’t help her cause to bring that up. Her argument was already thinner than the ice on Deer Lake during a warm spring.
Noah rested his hands at his waist and eyed her. They barely knew each other and here they were habituating like man and wife. Ava felt warmth spread up her cheeks. Well, notlikeman and wife. Hanny might be their umbrella of redemption, but considering she was hard of hearing and moved with the speed of a snail, she wouldn’t be much help if there was any hanky-panky going on.
“You need to trust me on this,” Noah said with a sigh.
