The Dolls Read online

  Dedication

  TO JAMES, CHLOE, EDDIE, AND COLTON:

  I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHO YOU GROW UP TO BE

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  When I open my eyes and blink into the milky morning sunlight, there’s no longer snow on the ground outside the car. Instead of the brown-gray tableau of a New York winter, endless cypress trees line the road, their branches heavy with Spanish moss and their green leaves catching the first rays of dawn.

  As I struggle upright from a deep slouch in the passenger seat, it takes me a second to remember exactly where we are: Louisiana—or en route to Louisiana, anyhow. I’d fallen asleep just before midnight some eight hundred miles into our drive. Now, just after six a.m., thick white fog swirls around us, making it seem like we’ve been swallowed whole by a silent, drooping forest.

  “Good morning,” I croak, unwinding a tangle of red hair from my watchband.

  “Morning, sleepyhead,” Aunt Bea replies without turning. She’s focused intently on the road ahead as if expecting cross traffic, though the woods appear entirely deserted. “Did you sleep okay?”

  I glance at my watch. “I guess I did,” I say. “How are you feeling?” She’s been awake for at least a day, running on coffee and Red Bull.

  “I’m hanging in,” Aunt Bea says, her face taut with exhaustion. “We’ll be there soon.”

  “Cool.” I try to smile, but it comes out as a grimace. I still don’t understand why we’re doing this.

  Three days ago, my life was normal: winter break was almost over, and I was getting ready to celebrate my birthday and start the second semester of junior year. Then Aunt Bea—my legal guardian since I was three—announced over coffee and Cheerios that we were moving back to Carrefour, Louisiana, the town we left fourteen years ago right after my mom killed herself.

  “I miss Brooklyn already,” I murmur as I look out the window again.

  “Give Carrefour a chance, Eveny. Believe me when I say you’ll fit in fine.”

  “You don’t know that.” The thing is, I’ve always felt a half step different from everyone else, more at home in gardens and with plants than with real people. Still, I managed to develop a small, tight-knit group of friends back in New York. Starting over feels daunting.

  “Carrefour isn’t exactly new to you,” Aunt Bea says, reading my mind. “People will know who you are.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of: being the girl whose mom offed herself by driving into a tree.”

  “Oh, Eveny,” Aunt Bea sighs, “no one’s going to judge you for that. If anything, they’ll feel bad for you.”

  “I definitely don’t need anyone’s pity.” After all, my memories of my mom are all good ones—up until the day it all ended.

  “You know, it’s okay to let people in,” Aunt Bea says after a pause. “Your mom being gone is still hard for me too. But you deserve to know who she really was. I think being in Carrefour, where people knew her, will be a good thing.”

  She looks miserable, so I force a smile and say, “Moving back will be good for you too.”

  Aunt Bea’s been dreaming for years about opening her own bakery, but in New York she could never afford to do it. In Carrefour, she’ll be leasing a kitchen space downtown and is already making plans to open within the next week and a half. As frustrated as I am about this move, it will be positive for her, at least. And that’s something.

  I take a deep breath and add, “If you think this is the right thing, I’m on board.” I spend the next hour of the drive trying to convince myself the words are true.

  It’s 8:46 in the morning and I’m texting with my best friend Meredith when Aunt Bea announces, in a voice that sounds oddly choked, that we’re almost there.

  I look up in surprise as we approach an impenetrable-looking iron gate. On either side, as far as I can see, a stone wall ten feet tall extends into the swampy forest. Above the gate is a rusted sign that says Carrefour, Louisiana: Residents Only in swirling script.

  “Residents only?” I ask. “How are we going to get in?”

  “We’re residents, Eveny.” Aunt Bea shifts the car into park and steps out into the foggy morning. She rummages in her purse for a moment before pulling out an antique-looking bronze key. She inserts it into an ornate keyhole and hurries back to the car just as the gate begins to creak loudly open.

  “What the . . . ?” I say, my voice trailing off as she gets in and begins driving through. I turn around and watch as the gate closes slowly behind us, its hinges squealing in protest. “What was that?”

  “My key to Carrefour,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Every family has one. It’s the only way in or out.”

  “Weird,” I murmur. We continue through a swampy area that gets darker and darker as more tangled branches stretch overhead. Mist is rising from the shallow water surrounding the road, and as we break through a clearing, my confusion deepens. I thought I’d recognize Carrefour right away, but this place doesn’t look at all familiar.

  The town that lives in my memories is southern, Gothic, and filled with old mansions and stately, moss-draped cypress trees. But what’s rolling by my window is a lot plainer than that, making me wonder if I’ve imagined everything. Bland row houses line the paved streets, and kids play in a few of the yards. I see a yellow car jacked up on bricks in front of one of the homes and a cluster of plump, middle-aged women wearing dresses and wide-brimmed hats sitting on a front porch of another. A tangle of little boys kicks a soccer ball lazily around the end of a street, and two girls ride rusted bikes in circles at the end of a cul-de-sac.

  “This is Carrefour?” I ask.

  “Technically, yes,” Aunt Bea responds. “But you didn’t spend much time out here in the Périphérie.”

  The name rings a vague bell, but I can’t place it. Behind the row houses, I glimpse marshy wetlands, gnarled cypresses, and a pale green film on the surface of what appears to be a stagnant creek. Spanish moss hangs from hickory branches that arch over the road like a canopy. Above them, the sky swirls with the dark clouds of a coming storm.

  I look out the window again, feeling a little sad. “I just don’t remember the town looking like this.” Not that I’m judging. I loved the cluttered disarray of Brooklyn. But I’d always thought of Carrefour as so opulent—and so wealthy.

  “This was always the . . . less privileged area of Carrefour,” Aunt Bea says, her brow creasing. “But it seems like it’s gotten a whole lot worse since we left.”

  “Because of the bad economy?” I guess as the road leads us past the last dilapidated house and into a deep, misty forest.

  “Maybe,” she says slowly. “But I’d be willing to bet central Carrefour is doing just fine.”
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  As we round another bend and emerge from the woods, sunlight suddenly streams in from all directions. In under a half mile, we’ve driven into an entirely different world.

  Just beyond the final creeping cypress tree of the Périphérie sits the edge of the most perfect-looking town I’ve ever seen. As we begin making our way through a neighborhood, I see immaculately manicured lawns, houses with picket fences and matching shutters, and gardens blooming in brilliant color even though it’s January. “It’s like one big country club,” I say.

  I stare out the window as Aunt Bea takes a left, turning into what appears to be Carrefour’s downtown area. On the corner there’s an ice cream parlor flanked by a café with an old-fashioned Enjoy a Coke sign out front, and beside it a little French bistro called Maxine’s. A half dozen shops that look like they belong in an Atlantic seaside resort town—not middle-of-nowhere Louisiana—extend down the left side of the street.

  “That’s where my bakery will be,” Aunt Bea says, pointing to a sliver of storefront next door to a boutique called Lulu’s. “It used to be a little walk-up hamburger stand when your mom and I were kids.”

  Perfect canopies of blue and white stripes shade the sidewalks of the main street—which is actually called Main Street—and the store windows are all cloaked in curtains of sea-foam green and pale yellow. The buildings are a uniform clapboard white, and the people strolling along look like they’ve been plucked from Martha’s Vineyard and dropped here in their shirtdresses, khakis, and button-down shirts.

  “They know it’s winter, right?” I ask as I watch two women emerge from the market with a wicker picnic basket. “And that they’re not actually on their way to a clambake?”

  Aunt Bea laughs. “Roll down the windows. It won’t feel like winter here.”

  I give her a skeptical look, but by the time my window is halfway down, I realize that it must be in the low seventies outside. “But it’s January,” I say.

  “It’s Carrefour,” she says without explaining.

  “Does everything here look like a postcard?” I ask, wriggling out of the sweatshirt I’ve been wearing since we left New York.

  “Wait until you see our house,” she says, and, suddenly, I feel uneasy. The last clear memory I have of this town is standing in our front hallway with my mother’s two best friends, Ms. St. Pierre and Ms. Marceau, as the police chief arrived to tell me the news. Honey, your mama killed herself, he’d drawled. Drove right into a tree. I’d screamed and screamed until I passed out.

  “There’s your school.” Bea cuts into my thoughts as we pass a sprawling brick building with an ornate sign that reads Pointe Laveau Academy in Victorian script, just like the entrance gate. The parking lot is full of expensive sports cars, and two impossibly thin girls in white oxfords, maroon plaid skirts, and knee socks walk across the lawn, deep in conversation.

  “Isn’t there a public school in town?” My skin itches just thinking about wearing a uniform, never mind fitting in with a bunch of rich kids.

  “There is,” Aunt Bea answers lightly, “but your great-grandmother founded Pointe Laveau Academy, and it’s where your grandma, your mom, and I went.”

  I’m about to argue, but then I look out the window and realize the sun has slipped behind the clouds, casting long, eerie shadows over the cemetery we’re about to pass on the edge of town. Suddenly, a vivid memory hits me like a punch to the gut.

  It’s my mother’s funeral, and I’m standing among soaring white tombs, my eyes sore from crying. A man with sandy hair and dark sunglasses slips from the shadows and bends to speak to me, his voice low, his words fast. “You must listen to me, Eveny, I don’t have much time.” He’s a stranger, but there’s something familiar about him. “They’re coming for you. You have to be ready.” He melts back into the shadows before I can ask what he means. . . .

  I gasp and push the image away as I try to catch my breath.

  Aunt Bea looks at me sharply. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Just a weird memory.” I hesitate. “Of Mom’s funeral.”

  “Honey, you were only three then,” Aunt Bea says gently. I don’t think I’m imagining the concern on her face. “What are you remembering?”

  I feel silly, because how can I recall someone I’ve never met, someone who left before I was even born, someone I’ve only seen one picture of in my life?

  “I think my father was—” I start to say, but the words get caught in my throat as I notice a shirtless guy jogging around the outer rim of the cemetery, his head bent, his caramel-colored skin glistening with sweat. He looks up as we pass, and for an instant, our eyes meet, and it feels like the world slows on its axis. Then, just as quickly, we’re moving past him toward the south side of the graveyard.

  “Who was that?” I ask, spinning around in my seat to look out the back window. The guy has stopped running and is standing in the middle of the road, staring after us. His muscular chest rises and falls as he catches his breath.

  “Who?” Aunt Bea asks, glancing in the rearview.

  “That guy running around the cemetery,” I say. “He was about my age.”

  “Honey, we’ve been gone fourteen years,” she points out gently. “He would have been a toddler last time we were here.”

  “Oh, right.” My heart sinks a little.

  I turn back around as the road winds up the middle of three small hills that sit on the south side of the cemetery. Ahead of us, at the top of the slope, looms a huge white house, a mansion really. As we follow the drive around to the front, I take in the Gothic columns, the enormous Gone with the Wind porch, the steps leading down to a sprawling, immaculately maintained lawn. A thin veil of fog swirls around the property.

  “This is . . . ours?” I ask. But I already know the answer. I remember my mother teaching me how to ride a tricycle in the driveway; I remember doing lopsided cartwheels in the yard; I remember being happy here. How had I managed to mostly block this place out? And more importantly, why have we been living in a tiny Brooklyn apartment when we own a place like this?

  “Actually,” Aunt Bea says, “it’s yours.” When I turn to look at her, she’s already watching me closely. “Welcome home, Eveny.”

  2

  I’m still standing outside the passenger door of the car, staring up at my house—my mansion —when I feel a warm hand on my arm. Startled, I spin around and see an old man peering at me.

  “Eveny,” he says in a low, rumbly voice. His dark brown skin is a sharp contrast to his snow-white hair. He must be at least seventy-five, but his wide gray eyes are startlingly clear.

  “Where did you come from?” I ask, my heart still pounding.

  He beams at me. “From the garden. I didn’t mean to scare you, dear. Do you remember me? I’m Boniface. Boniface Baptiste.”

  “Boniface? Geez, of course,” I say. He was the house’s caretaker when I was little. He was around all the time, and he even used to babysit me sometimes when my mother and Aunt Bea ran errands together. “You still work here?”

  “I live just out back in the caretaker’s cottage. I’ve been looking after the Cheval mansion for practically as long as I can remember. Come on,” he says, gently placing a hand on my back and leading me toward the house. “Let me show you around.”

  Aunt Bea has already vanished somewhere, so it’s just me as Boniface talks slowly about how he took the sheets off the furniture, shook the dust out of the curtains, and scrubbed the beautiful hardwood floors before we arrived.

  “I miss your mama all the time,” he says abruptly as we come to the front door. “You’re the spitting image of her, you know. Same red hair, same green eyes, same lovely smile.”

  He opens the huge black front door for me, and I feel a pang the moment I step over the threshold. I stand frozen in the front hallway as I’m hit with a barrage of hazy memories. But it’s not until I look to my right and see a set of closed double doors painted a somber red that I feel the breath knocked out of me. “That’s
the parlor,” I say softly.

  “You remember it?”

  “I don’t know. . . .” I’m confused. I don’t recall ever being inside the room, but something about it lurks in a far corner of my mind. Suddenly, my heart is racing and my lungs are constricting. I reach for the big bronze door handle, but Boniface steps in front of me.

  “It’s locked, I’m afraid. Haven’t seen the key in years.” He’s already walking away by the time I can breathe again.

  “What is it with this town and keys?” I mutter.

  “Just wait until you see your bedroom,” Boniface calls over his shoulder. “I took the liberty of decorating a bit. I wanted you to feel at home here,” he’s saying as I catch up to him on the wide wooden stairway.

  Upstairs, Boniface pushes open the door at the end of the hall and motions for me to step inside. The bedroom, which last held my little twin bed and the big armchair where my mother read me stories at night, has been transformed.

  The walls have been painted sky blue—my favorite color—and are lined with colorful photos of flowers. There are framed shots of lilies in a field, lavender in a garden, sunflowers in a white pitcher on a farm table, and cornflowers in a vase. Pushed up against the right wall is a teak sleigh bed with a fluffy white comforter. Above it, a beautiful wreath of dried poppies and peonies hangs from the wall. To my left is a huge picture window framed by gauzy white curtains.

  “It’s perfect,” I breathe. In fact, it’s nearly as large as our entire apartment in Brooklyn.

  “Your aunt called and told me all about your interest in botany.” Boniface is smiling at me. “Well I’ll let you get settled, then.”

  As he leaves, I feel myself beginning to warm to the place. But then I make the mistake of wandering toward the window, which is arched and beautiful and diffuses the rays of soft morning light. I’d forgotten that it overlooks the cemetery we passed earlier, and as I gaze out now at the sprawling, fog-shrouded field of ornate crypts, I feel a chill go through me. Even when I back away and try to focus again on my great room, my veins feel like they’re filled with ice.