From THE DOLL GRAVEYARD Whatever's buried here has to be really small, maybe goldfish or pet hamsters, because the whole horseshoe space is only about two feet for the six graves. Someone scribbled messy names on those wooden sticks with Sharpies, like they were in a huge hurry to get these dead things underground. Same as the doll people who were in a hurry to get out of the house in the attic. What's everybody's rush? A huge question hits me: who-what-where-when-why? Oops, that's five questions, the biggie being, what's buried here? Five of the wooden grave markers look like those tongue depressors you gag on when doctors look down your throat. One says Dotty Woman with C.B. nested between Betsy Anne and Baby Daisy. I'm startled to see a marker for Miss Amelia.
It can't be a coincidence. "Aunt Amelia?" Brian asks, wide-eyed. "Hardly. She's buried in Denver, and besides, even if they shrink-wrapped her, she wouldn't fit in this grave." Who are these creatures, Betsy Anne and C.B. and all? They don't sound like names for goldfish or hamsters. Brian manages a breathless, "Wow.
" I couldn't have said it better myself. The sixth grave has a larger marker about a foot high and rounded on top like a more traditional gravestone. It says LADY R.I.P. Lady sounds like a good name for a dog, but why is this grave separated from the others? Now Chester begins rooting around in the little cemetery. "Don't, pup," I command, pulling him away by his collar, but he goes right back to the Miss Amelia marker and frantically pulls at the grass and dirt with one front paw after the other, like he's pedaling a bike, until his claws click against something. He tosses out dirt and clamps his teeth around a small doll, only about five inches tall.
Chester drops her at my feet. Miss Amelia. Matted hair sticks out of her head in black clumps, and she has hard, dark eyes too big for her delicate face. And no eyelids. So, they're dolls, Baby Daisy and the rest? Like the one under the glass top table, only bigger? Brian's holding Miss Amelia upside down by one black high-laced shoe. Her thick black wool dress hangs over her hair, but old-fashioned muslin pantaloons modestly cover her. I grab her away from Brian and turn her right side up. Her face is cracked and dotted with black flecks and pinholes.
Her lips twist in a zigzag, as if the doll maker molded a grotesque mouth when the clay was soft. "She's weird," Brian murmurs, as Chester sniffs at the doll. "I think she was made to be a witch doll." She gives me the shivers, or is it that the temperature has dropped ten degrees in an instant? "Let's rebury this ugly thing quick before the storm." A streak of lightning signals the urgency, and I drop the doll back in the hole.