The Doll in the Garden

Chapter 5

The Garden's Secret

JUST AS KRISTI and I hit the ground under the tree house, Mrs. Smith stepped out on her back porch, holding a cherry pie.

"I'd deliver it myself," Mrs. Smith told me, "but I'm right in the middle of doing the wash. You tell your mother to come over, though, as soon as she gets a chance. I'd love to meet her."

"Are you sure it's okay if I come with you?" Kristi said as she followed me through the gap in the hedge. "I heard what Miss Cooper said about me being in the yard."

I looked at Miss Cooper's windows, but as usual all the shades were pulled down. "You can visit me," I said. "It's our apartment, and we can invite anybody we want."

As we started up the steps, I heard Max barking from somewhere inside the house. "Does he bite?" I asked Kristi.

"Mad Max? He's getting kind of old now, and Mom says his bark is worse than his bite." She glanced down as if she expected to see Max coming up the stairs after us. "I don't think I'd take any chances with him, though."

Mom was delighted with the pie and happy to meet Kristi. She told her she'd come over soon. But the minute she'd eaten her piece of pie, she excused herself and went back to her typewriter.

"Come on," I said to Kristi. "Let's explore the garden now."

Without giving her a chance to argue, I ran down the steps. Glancing at Miss Cooper's windows, I saw the blinds were still drawn. Recklessly I sprinted across the grass and plunged into the garden's cool, green shade.

In a few seconds I heard Kristi pushing her way cautiously through the undergrowth. When she emerged, her face was red and shiny from the heat, and she was breathing hard as she sank down on the pond's edge beside me.

"It's spooky in here," Kristi whispered. Peering into the shadowy spaces under the bushes, she added, "I know that white cat's hiding somewhere, just waiting to get me."

For some reason, probably because of Kristi's talk of ghosts, the garden seemed a little scary to me, too, but I wasn't going to admit it. Brushing a cobweb away from my face, I said, "Just think, nobody can see us in here. Not even Miss Cooper. It's our private kingdom, Kristi. We can be princesses here."

Kristi sighed and looked at the cherub's worn face. "He looks sad," she said, "like he's been crying."

She was right. Years of rain had made streaks on the cherub's face like the tracks of tears. To add to the melancholy, a mourning dove began to coo, and a cloud drifted in front of the sun, casting everything into deep gray shade.

"Let's go to my house," Kristi said. "We can play with my Barbie dolls."

I shook my head. "Go home if you want to, but I'm staying here."

Without looking at her, I stepped into the pond and started tugging at the ivy and honeysuckle draping the cherub.

For a few minutes Kristi watched me silently. Then, without saying a word, she sighed loudly and yanked a handful of weeds out of the pond.

Even with Kristi's help, it was hot, dirty work. The sun popped out from behind the clouds again, and in no time we were both sweating. Mosquitoes whined around our heads and gnats tried to get in our eyes, but we kept on working till the cherub was free of ivy and honeysuckle and the pond was weed-free.

"Maybe we could run a hose out here from your yard and fill up the pond," I said.

"And buy some fishes for it," Kristi said.

I nodded, glad to hear a little enthusiasm in her voice.

Even though Kristi wanted to stop and rest, I talked her into clearing a circle around the pond. While I was dumping an armload of weeds by the fence, I suddenly heard her scream. Starded, I ran to her side and stared into a hole she'd made pulling out a gigantic thistle.

"There's something buried here." Kristi pointed a wobbly finger at the corner of a wooden box sticking out of the dirt. Her face had turned white under her tan, giving her skin a grayish look, and she was shaking.

Except for the persistent cooing of the mourning dove, it was so quiet I could almost hear my own heart beating. "It's not deep enough to be a grave," I whispered.

As a worm coiled itself out of the dirt and wriggled away, I said, "Maybe it's a treasure chest." My voice was so loud it made Kristi jump.

Cautiously, I knelt down and gently brushed the dirt away from the plain wood box. It wasn't very big. Maybe sixteen to twenty inches long, no more than three or four inches deep, and six inches wide.

"Look, there's something caned on the top." Spitting on my finger, I cleaned the dirt from the letters crudely scratched into the lid. "I think it says Anna Maria," I said, but Kristi was standing too far away to see.

"Bury it again, Ashley, just the way it was," she begged. "It's the white cat's coffin, I know it is!"

But something in me wanted to see what was in the box. Telling myself I was going to find gold or silver, enough to make Mom and me rich for life, I lifted it carefully out of the earth.

Before I raised the lid, I glanced at Kristi. She was standing several feet away, ready to run.

"Don't you want to see?" I asked.

"No," she whispered. "It's going to be something awful."

Turning back to the box, I began prying the lid off. Kristi crept closer, and when I finally got it open, she screamed at the sight of its contents.

"It's a dead girl!" she cried.

She startled me so much that I hurled the box into the weeds and backed away from it, terrified.

"I saw it, I saw its face!" Kristi was kneeling in the weeds, her hands over her eyes. "Oh, Ashley, what should we do?"

My heart was thumping and I could hardly breathe, but I forced myself to look at what had fallen from the box. Too small to be a person, it lay in the weeds, face down, its clothing in rags, its hair tangled.

Cautiously I reached out and turned it over. Its china face was pale and smudged with dirt. One eye was half-open and the other was closed, its nose was chipped, but it was still beautiful.

I held it toward Kristi. "It's an old doll," I whispered.

"Are you sure?" Kristi peeked through her fingers like someone watching a horror movie.

I touched the doll's tiny teeth with the tip of my finger and then tried to wipe the dirt from her round cheeks. "Of course I'm sure. Isn't she pretty?"

Finally satisfied we hadn't dug up a dead body, Kristi came closer and stroked the doll's hair. "Can I hold her?"

"Be very careful with her." Reluctantly I handed the doll to Kristi and watched her anxiously. "Don't poke at her teeth or her eyes," I said.

"It's a shame she's so dirty." Kristi pulled the doll's ragged dress up and examined her jointed legs. "Her body's made of leather."

I reached for the doll, but Kristi ducked away. "Let me look at her," she said. "I've never seen one like this."

Although I wanted to snatch it back, I let Kristi examine the doll. I picked up the wooden box. Inside I found a scroll of yellowed paper tied with a faded blue ribbon. On the paper was written:

Louisa Perkins, Please forgive me,

I am sorrie.

Your friend, Came.

I read the message out loud and then swapped the scrap of paper for the doll. Kristi studied the words, her forehead creased.

"It doesn't make sense," she said finally. "Is the doll's name Louisa Perkins?"

I shook my head. "Her name is Anna Maria." I showed Kristi the letters caned on the lid of the box.

"Well, who are Louisa and Carrie then?" Kristi stared at me, obviously puzzled.

I gazed into Anna Maria's one open eye and wished she could talk. "I guess Carrie's the one who buried her," I said slowly, "but I don't know who Louisa Perkins is."

For a moment we were silent, and a breeze sprung up, shaking the Queen Anne's lace and bringing the smell of roses to us. The garden was very quiet, and my voice seemed to hang on the air repeating, "Louisa Perkins, Louisa Perkins." Who was she? Why was Carrie sorry? And why had she buried the doll?

Suddenly Kristi grabbed my arm. "Look behind you," she whispered. "The white cat's under the bush!"