“Dear Anna Marie,” I said softly, gazing into her pretty blue eyes. She stared right back as though she were truly listening. “I forgive you for hurting my family. I forgive you for hurting me. You probably didn’t realize how strong and powerful you were. Envy and jealousy that got out of control. That took over your heart. I forgive you, and I love the beautiful doll you can be. Please, please let love heal you, too.”
Instantly, Miz Mirage flew out of her chair and flung open the kitchen door to the backyard. Abruptly I stood, the chair falling over as I witnessed the most wondrous miracle.
A swarm of fireflies hovered around the blue bottle tree, whirling around the yard and the porch, as if they were waiting to come in. As if they’d been waiting for Miz Mirage to open up the house. Within seconds, hundreds of lightning bugs flew into the kitchen, dancing and spinning and sending out tiny rays of golden light. The light was warm and wonderful and full of joy. Tears streamed down my face as I clasped Anna Marie to my chest and held her tight and loved her.
“There!” Miz Mirage cried out, flinging her hands toward the black sky studded with stars. “Go! Fly! There is the path that will take you back home.”
But she wasn’t ordering the lightning bugs to leave. She was talking to the doll’s cursed soul, that unhappy spirit that had caused so much misery.
The fireflies filled the kitchen and the swamp island with love and tenderness. It was so astonishing, and so powerful, I never wanted it to end. Across the room, enclosed by the cloud of fireflies, Alyson’s face was shining, too. We raised our arms to bask in the light, whirling and dancing around the kitchen together, as I held the beautiful porcelain doll aloft.
Outside, the blue bottle tree trembled ferociously. The bottles clattered together and bobbed on their branches as the tormented spirit whooshed out of Anna Marie and flew through the door, disappearing into the night.
I gazed across the yard as the blue bottles swayed together and then slowly stopped, one by one.
There was utter silence in the kitchen.
“It’s done,” Miz Mirage whispered as the fireflies flew out the door in a stream of magical light, disappearing among the cypress and elephant ears.
I cleared my parched throat. “Will the spirit know the way home back to the islands? It won’t get lost, will it?”
Miz Mirage slumped into her chair. She looked exhausted. I was exhausted. Like I’d just run a hundred miles and performed a thousand push-ups. Mentally, it felt like I’d just done a year’s worth of homework all in one night. “Don’t worry, Larissa. The soul knows where to go after this life. Someone who has been waiting for her will lead her home.”
“Really, truly?” I choked up again, and I realized I was still clutching the doll to my chest. She felt warm and cozy in my arms.
Miz Mirage smiled behind her own tears. “It’s over, darling girl. You did it. You’ve been brave and wise and good, Larissa Renaud. I’m so proud of you.” She put her arms around me, and when I pressed my face into her neck, fresh tears came bursting out.
My mamma was safe. My baby sister, Emilie, was safe.
Alyson scooted closer and we fixed our eyes on the lace and ribbons and jaunty hat. The doll was dressed just like Miz Julianna and Miss Anna and Miss Sally Blanchard. Like all the proper ladies of the early century. Her eyes were a soft, pretty blue. Her mouth looked relaxed and gentle.
Anna Marie was just a doll again. A doll of porcelain and finery and dark eyelashes. The spirit had been driven out. Or put to rest. Or taken home. Whatever it was called.
The antique doll was only a doll once more. A doll without the power to hurt my family ever again.
A month later, Mamma and me and Grandma Kat pulled up in front of a small brown house in St. Martinville. Grandma was driving and she cut the engine while we gazed at the small, older homes and neighborhood. The grass was mowed neat and tidy, and a blue Chevy sat in the driveway.
Daddy was home tending Emilie, and Mamma’s health was better than in a year. She held my hand tight in hers and leaned over to brush my hair out of my eyes, straightening the jeweled butterfly clip she’d given me for the occasion. I had to admit I liked the clip, and I liked her fingers on my hair. Plus, the pretty clip made my boring straight hair so much fancier.
Having Emilie home and healthy had softened Mamma. Her face wasn’t so tense and angry. She was smiling more and letting me bathe and dress my little sister. I’d even heard her singing soft lullabies, which was completely not like my mamma at all. Me and Daddy would hear her coming down the stairs and smile at each other.
“I’m kind of nervous — are you?” Mamma asked, biting her lips.
I nodded, holding tight to the bag on my lap that held the case with the doll, Anna Marie, inside. “Thank you for helping me find Dulcie’s great-granddaughter, Mamma.”
She didn’t open the car door yet. Just grasped my hand in hers. “You are a generous person, Larissa. You’re doing the right thing by giving Anna Marie to the family who rightfully owns her. She should have been handed down in Dulcie’s family all these generations, not ours. Would have saved so much grief and heartache and tragedy.” She glanced over at Grandma Kat. “She’s an exquisite doll, but there was always something about her that bothered me. I could never pinpoint what it was; that’s why I left her in the doll case and never sold her. She was a family heirloom, but she always gave me a slithery, bad feeling.”
“I felt it, too,” I said.
“I know you did, I could tell. And it got worse the last month. Remember when I asked you if you’d been messing around with the doll?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said slowly. “I forgot about that.”
“One night when you and your daddy were in the kitchen making popcorn, I passed the doll case on my way to bed, and Anna Marie’s eyes followed me straight across the room. I thought for sure I was seeing things. Or a trick of a mirror on one of the bureaus.”
“What did you do?”
“I started testing her at different times of the day. I’d catch her watching me, and her eyes were actually moving. One day I even screamed out loud when you and Daddy were gone. I sat down in front of her one time and she smiled at me. It wasn’t no nice smile, either. That’s when I knew there was something inside of her. And I had the realization that she knew I knew it. I started researching where she came from when you and Daddy thought I’d gone to bed. Once I knew a bit of her history, I knew I had to go to the Caribbean and find the Island of the Dolls for myself and talk to some of the doll makers.”
“That was so dangerous, Maddie,” Grandma Kat said, making a tsking sound with her tongue.
Mamma kept staring out the windshield. “I wasn’t thinking straight, that’s for sure. The doll started to play mind tricks on me. I felt like she knew what I was thinking. I had to go before I got so close to my due date the airlines wouldn’t let me on the plane. And I knew if I told you where I was going, you’d stop me. I should have left a note, but I was so afraid. That doll got so bold with her wicked stares. I was terrified of what she might do. I had no idea you were thinking the same things, Larissa.”
My mamma had done a brave thing. Maybe foolish, just like me, but brave. She’d been trying to take care of me. I bumped my shoulder against Grandma Kat, enjoying the warm coziness as I sat between them both in Grandma Kat’s ancient Lincoln with the bench seat. “You sure you don’t mind giving her away? After all, Miss Anna gave her to you personally.”
My grandmother shook her head. “Anna Marie wasn’t my grandmother’s doll to give. It’s a sad, sad story, but today feels like it’s going to be extra special. Although I don’t think it’ll beat when your mamma and baby sister were able to come home from the hospital. All thanks to you, Larissa.”
“It was Miz Mirage, really.”
Grandma Kat shook her head. “Larissa, you were brave enough to know you needed to go to her. You were smart enough to find the doll at Gwen’s grave in the first place.”
Mamma kissed the b
ack of my hand. “I left home so fast I forgot my phone and purse, but I had my I.D. and some money in my pocket, so I made some calls to the airlines and St. Martinique airport from a pay phone down Main. Then I caught a ride to the island with Mr. Boudreaux, who was just leaving the town dock to go fishing. But the evil was getting worse, and I was sick physically as well as had this horrible feeling inside. I had to leave Anna Marie behind at the cemetery, or she would have killed me on the airplane. I knew someone would eventually go to Gwen’s grave site, and I figured that was the safest place.”
“It took me a while to figure out where to look for you, but I finally did,” I told her.
“Well, now,” Grandma Kat said, consulting a paper with the address. “We’d better get up to that front door or they’ll wonder what we’re all doing sitting in this car in the heat. Dulcie’s descendant is a woman named Sophie Cambray.”
“I wish the doll was going to a girl like me,” I told her. “Not an old lady.”
Mamma let out a laugh as she shut the car door, and then tugged me up the porch steps. “Do the honors, my girl.”
I pressed the doorbell, feeling the weight of the bag with the doll in my other hand. Almost as soon as I heard it ring, the door flew open.
A young woman stood there wearing a floured apron, a mass of dark curls, and pearl earrings. “You’re early! I barely got the first batch of brownies in the oven. I’m Sophie, please come in.”
She led us to a small front room where sunshine poured in the windows. I noticed that there were daisies from the front garden on the end tables next to a sagging sofa that had seen better days. She was young enough that the little house made me wonder if she and her husband might be college students. The duplex was small, yet cozy, and smelled delicious, like chocolate. “I’m Sophie,” she said again, untying her apron and balling it up in her fists like she was nervous.
Grandma Kat extended her hand. “I’m Katherine DuMonde. We spoke on the phone. I grew up in the old Normand-Prevost house on the island. This is my daughter, Maddie, and Larissa, my granddaughter.”
“Pleased to meet you all.” Sophie gestured for us to sit. I perched on the edge of a chair and studied a collection of glass cats on the mantle. Through the window I could see kids playing a game of tag football. A group of girls in shorts sat on a lawn across the street talking and pretending not to watch the boys. A man drove by pedaling a bicycle, a toddler sitting in the back with a miniature bike helmet on his head.
“My grandmother told me that her mamma worked at the Normand plantation when she was a girl. My great-grandmother was Dulcie Lamar. Those were different times, weren’t they?”
Grandma Kat nodded. “They surely were. Like a different world. But really only a couple of generations ago — at least for me, since I’ve got a few decades on you!” She laughed and Sophie seemed to relax. I relaxed more, too. Everybody always liked my Grandma Kat.
“I read in the newspaper this morning that the house out there is going to be bulldozed,” Sophie asked. “Is that true?”
“Yes, we got a call a couple of weeks ago,” Grandma Kat said. “It’s been sitting empty for more than twenty years and there’s been quite a bit of vandalism. Folks wandering through and squatting and making a mess of the place. Teenagers, too. It’s not safe anymore. Some kids spent the night recently, and one of them fell through the staircase and broke his leg. It’s infested, too, with all sorts of bugs and critters.”
I noticed Mamma turn away to peer out the window. Like she didn’t want to hear them talk about it. I got an unexpected shiver as if I was seeing inside my mamma’s heart. She didn’t want the house condemned and destroyed. It was her childhood home. The home she’d grown up in with her sister, Gwen. Taking down the house meant taking away all the memories of Gwen in the house. I was glad Shelby Jayne had found Gwen’s old scrapbook hidden in the cupboard upstairs. Mamma had it in a safe spot now. I wondered how often she took it out to pore over its pages.
Sophie lowered her eyes. “Must be hard to hear that about a place that was your home.”
“It is,” Grandma Kat admitted. “But we don’t have funds to fix the place up. Actually, it needs to be torn down. There’s no way to make repairs to get it livable again. Somebody will have to start over — if the land ever sells. Needs a whole new bridge, too, and that will cost a pretty penny. So the place will probably be left empty.”
“A piece of history lost, too,” Sophie said. “Which is sad. I love history. I was a history major at the community college in New Iberia.” A buzzer rang from the kitchen and the young woman jumped up. “Oh, that’s the brownies I made for y’all.”
“You really didn’t need to,” Mamma said, finally turning from the window.
Sophie brushed her hands at the air. “I don’t need much of an excuse to make my mamma’s famous brownies with white chocolate chips. Besides, my husband loves them and he’ll polish off the pan tonight.”
A couple minutes later she was back with a plate of warm brownies dripping with icing and glasses of sweet tea. “They’re messy, but you won’t care once you taste them.”
I held a big chocolate square on my lap on a napkin and pinched off pieces as it cooled. It was delicious. “Mamma, you should get the recipe.”
Mamma said, “It’s probably a secret family recipe.”
“’Course not!” Sophie said lightly. “I’ll write it out for you.”
I studied her under my eyelashes, wondering how old she was. Not old at all, but out of college, married. I wondered if she had kids, but there wasn’t any sign of children. No toys or diapers lying around.
“I was just glad I got off work a bit early today so this worked out perfect.”
“Speaking of family secrets …” Grandma Kat started.
Sophie’s forehead wrinkled as she set down her glass of tea. “I wasn’t quite sure what you were talking about on the phone, Mrs. DuMonde.”
“Please call me Kat.”
Sophie blushed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, it’s about your great-grandmother Dulcie. She was the same age as my grandmother Anna. They were both girls of about twelve when Anna’s uncle came to visit. A man named Edgar Normand, a sea captain — whose father had ties to bootlegging during the Civil War, no less! Uncle Edgar always brought gifts for the family when he visited Louisiana. He was generous, and treated the servants well, too. This particular year, I believe it was 1912, he gave a special gift to your great-grandmother Dulcie.”
Sophie’s eyes opened wide. “That was very kind of him, but how would you even know that? It was so long ago, and she didn’t leave a diary or anything.”
Grandma Kat turned to me. “Show her, Larissa.”
I pulled out the box and opened the lid. As I lifted out Anna Marie, her petticoats and crinolines made a soft shushing noise. I showed her to Sophie, smoothing the ribbons on her hat.
“She’s beautiful!” Sophie exclaimed. “And she’s in perfect condition.”
“A doll makes a fine gift for any girl that age,” Grandma Kat said gently.
“She is perfect, except for a tiny chip on her chin,” Mamma finally spoke from her chair.
“But you can hardly see it,” I added.
“She’s worth a great deal,” Mamma added. “My husband and I own Bayou Bridge Antiques.”
“Why didn’t you sell her a long time ago?”
Mamma shook her head. “I couldn’t bear to sell her because she was my sister’s doll. My sister drowned in the Bayou Teche when she was a girl.”
Sophie’s expression turned tender as she studied Grandma Kat’s and Mamma’s face. “I’m so sorry. I can imagine why you’d want to keep her.”
Mamma took a gulp of her tea as Grandma Kat leaned forward, blinking back emotion. “But don’t you see, Sophie? We’ve had the doll in our family all these years, over a hundred years, and yet the doll was never ours to sell. She never belonged to us. She belonged to Dulcie. She belongs to your family. She’s rightfully you
rs.”
“I’m not sure I understand …” Sophie said.
“Uncle Edgar gave the doll to Dulcie, and Miss Anna Normand took her. She was jealous of your great-grandmother.”
“How could she be jealous of a servant girl whose grandparents used to be slaves? That doesn’t make much sense.”
Grandma Kat lifted her shoulders. “Some things we’ll never truly know, but when we recently learned the story, we wanted to make things right.”
I could see Miss Anna in my mind, Dulcie and her mamma, and the doll collection in Anna’s fancy bedroom. I knew the details of how it all happened, but I’d never tell. I’d never breathe a word.
I realized Sophie’s eyes were on me. “I don’t feel right taking your doll, Larissa. Seems like you should have her. Especially since your own mamma and grandma have kept her so special all these years.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want her. I can’t have her. No!” I thrust the doll into Sophie’s arms and stepped back. “Please. You have to take her. It’s the only way to make things right.”
Sophie searched my face, frowning, and her dark eyes were so much like Dulcie’s it took my breath away. I’d never forget when Dulcie caught me in the bushes and the awareness I’d had that we’d have been friends if times had been different. “Will you tell me her story sometime?” Sophie asked.
I shrugged and wiped my sweaty palms on my shorts.
“Please?” she asked again, her soulful eyes keeping a hold on mine, like she knew I had a secret.
“Maybe,” I whispered.
“Thank you.” I think Sophie understood that there was more to the story than we were letting on. When she gazed down into the lovely porcelain face, she added, “I don’t think this doll should ever be sold. She’s a true heirloom, isn’t she?”
“We best be going now,” Grandma Kat said.