The Dolls Read online

  “Without your mother,” Peregrine adds, “our mothers were greatly weakened, and it’s been harder for them to . . .” Her voice trails off and she adds, “Harder for them to cast their magic.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I say stiffly. “Somehow you’ve all managed to convince yourselves that it’s fine to use the Périphérie to keep your own lives floating along perfectly.”

  “You don’t understand; they owed it to us,” Peregrine says right away. “Our ancestors have been providing for the people in the Périphérie for over a century.”

  “That doesn’t justify taking from them now!” I exclaim. “All the crumbling houses, the people who have lost their money, the dead lawns, the decaying trees . . . That seems right to you?”

  “We had to keep central Carrefour up somehow,” Chloe says in a small voice.

  “Even the weather?” I ask.

  “The sunshine on this side of town doesn’t create itself,” Peregrine says. “We don’t use it every day, though. You can see there’s a storm coming now.” Peregrine’s eyebrows knit together in annoyance. “You can’t expect us just to stop living.”

  “I don’t,” I say. “But you have no right to live in luxury that’s built on other people’s lives falling apart. That’s disgusting!”

  Chloe quickly picks up the thread of Peregrine’s argument. “It doesn’t have to be that way anymore, Eveny. That’s the great thing about you being back. We have a triumvirate again. We can start drawing our power purely from plants. We can even restore the Périphérie.”

  “If you join us,” Peregrine says, “our lives can be just as we want them to be. You seem to keep forgetting what a gift this is.” She reaches out to take my hand, but I pull away.

  “But you and your moms have already destroyed so much. You can’t possibly justify that.”

  Peregrine rolls her eyes. “Whatever,” she says. “Don’t goody-goody us. You’ve adjusted quite well to the perks of zandara since you’ve been back, haven’t you? Your beautiful house, your huge property, your instant popularity, the money to attend Pointe Laveau. It’s all zandara, Eveny. All of it.”

  “We don’t deserve those things,” I reply. “None of us do.”

  I stand up and look at the two of them. They’re perfect on the outside, exactly what any girl would want to look like. Perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect bodies, perfect everything. But none of it’s real. It never was. “I can’t do this,” I say. “Not until I’ve figured out what’s right and wrong here.”

  “Do you have any idea how much you’d be walking away from if you turn your back on us?” Peregrine demands.

  “None of those things matter to me,” I say. “Besides, if we stopped—no magic, no charms—Main de Lumière wouldn’t have a reason to punish us anymore.”

  “Sure, it’s possible they’d stop coming after us,” Peregrine says, “but in the meantime, we’d have nothing! We’d be like everyone else.”

  “That’s better than being dead,” I tell her. I take a deep breath. “You’ve gone too far, Peregrine. You know that. I’ll do the ceremony with you whenever we figure out the identity of the Main de Lumière soldier who snuck in during the party, but after that, I quit.”

  “You can’t quit!” she cries.

  “Watch me,” I say.

  With that, I stride out of Peregrine’s perfect mansion, slamming her perfect front door behind me as I go. I don’t look back.

  Boniface is sitting in the parlor with his head in his hands when I storm through the front doorway of my house a few minutes later.

  “Eveny?” he asks, standing up right away. “Are you okay?”

  “Just peachy.” I move past him without making eye contact.

  “I never should have let you into the parlor,” he says, wringing his hands together and following me into the room.

  I stop and look at him. “I wish someone had told me before.”

  “Eveny—” he begins.

  “Any other secrets you’re keeping from me?” I interrupt. “How about my dad? Is everyone lying to me about him too? I know he’s been back since I was born.”

  “Yes, he’s been here, Eveny,” Boniface says slowly. “But he’s gone now.”

  “Where?” I demand. “Where did he go?”

  But Boniface just shakes his head. I throw my hands up in frustration, grab my mother’s herb journal from the coffee table where I left it earlier, and head upstairs to my room without saying another word. I can feel his concerned gaze on my back as I go.

  I flip through the little book until I find a page in my mother’s hand entitled The Removal of Charms from Inanimate Objects. She’s written that you must focus intently on the specific things you want uncharmed. I fold the page and dash downstairs. I don’t know if her charm will successfully remove magic from this house, but I intend to try. It’s the first step to making things right again.

  I close myself in the parlor, and with the herb book open in front of me, I ask Eloi Oke to open the gate to the spirit world. The air in the room shifts, and I touch the Stone of Carrefour with my left ring finger. I focus on our house and property as I read the words from my mother’s charm.

  “Mint, nettle, and rue, I draw your power,” I say. I pause and try to feel the request with my heart, like Boniface advised. “Spirits, magic killed my mother, and it’s destroying this town. I want it gone from this house.”

  For a moment, nothing happens, but then I notice my Stone of Carrefour getting colder and colder, and something begins leaching from the parlor. I can feel it, like the air is being sucked out. The lights flicker, and a huge, crimson stain appears on the hardwood floor, just where my mother died. I stifle a scream, and it takes me a moment to realize that her blood had never really been gone at all; someone had simply cast a charm to make it disappear.

  I run toward the door and pull it open, but the moment I stagger into the hallway, I almost fall over. I stare around me in horror.

  It’s not the same hallway I entered through just a few minutes earlier. Or rather it is, but it appears that the hall hasn’t been touched in decades. It’s caked with dust and cobwebs, the marble floors are cracked and chipped, and the walls sag under the weight of the house. Above me, the chandelier hangs at a precarious angle, like it’s going to crash to the ground at any moment. The front door is splintered, and light slices through in jagged beams. Several of the windows are broken, and wind whistles in.

  “What have I done?” I whisper, but I know the answer to my own question before the words are out of my mouth. I hadn’t thought it through enough to realize that the mansion itself is mostly a product of magic. Without zandara, it’s just a dilapidated old shack, and the room where my mother died still looks like a crime scene.

  I have to fix this. And I’m certainly not going to turn to Peregrine or Chloe for help. Boniface will know what to do. In a panic, I run across the rotting floorboards of the living room and out the back door, which is hanging from its hinges and swaying in the breeze.

  As soon as I’m through the doors, I stop dead in my tracks. My mother’s beautiful rose garden, her pride and joy, is dead and decaying. The few roses that still cling to vines are wilted and gray; the rest of the garden looks like it hasn’t been tended in decades. It’s overgrown with weeds and smeared with mud.

  “Boniface?” I cry out. But then I see him, and for a moment, I’m so stunned I can’t move. He’s lying motionless beside one of the rosebushes, a pair of garden shears still in his hand. “Boniface?” I whisper. I run to his side, but when I bend to help him, my breath catches in my throat, and I scramble backward in terror.

  Not only has he collapsed, but he looks like a skeleton with graying skin stretched haphazardly over the sharp juts of his bones. He’s gasping for breath, but his skin is so thin and decayed I can see his lungs rising and falling inside his chest. He looks like a rotting corpse. “Eveny . . . ,” he rasps. “Help me.” It sounds like a death rattle.

  Boniface’s eyes close and as
he goes still, I back away, horrified, sure that I’ve somehow killed him. I’m sobbing with my hands over my mouth when Peregrine and Chloe stroll into the rose garden, looking as glamorous and unperturbed as usual.

  “The front door was unlocked—well, more like unhinged—so we let ourselves in,” Peregrine says casually, her stilettos clicking across the stone path as they approach me. “Come to think of it, you’re looking rather unhinged yourself.”

  “What did you do to Boniface?” Chloe asks, staring at his collapsed, sunken frame. “We came over because we figured you might do something rash after our talk, but we didn’t think you’d hurt someone.”

  “I didn’t mean—I mean, I didn’t want—I didn’t know . . .” I’m still stammering nonsensically, my teeth chattering, when Peregrine holds up a hand to stop me.

  “Just tell us what you’ve done,” she says calmly. “Quickly, before Boniface expires.”

  I take a deep breath and quickly recap what happened. “I was only trying to get rid of zandara’s influence in my life,” I say. “H-how did I hurt Boniface?”

  “Well,” Peregrine says coolly, “it’s probably because in actuality, he’s one hundred seventy-six years old, and zandara is the only thing keeping him alive. Or it was, anyhow, before you cleverly removed it. Nice work.”

  My whole body goes cold. “What?”

  Chloe interrupts in a gentler tone. “Eveny, Boniface is one of several people in town who rely on the zandara queens to extend their lives. He’s been in his seventies for more than a century now.”

  “Same with our groundskeeper, Milo, and Peregrine’s groundskeeper, Samuel,” Chloe explains. “When the town was founded, they made a bargain: They’d help watch over the Queens of Carrefour and continue to keep up our homes without pay, in exchange for lodging and continued life.”

  “Like indentured servants?”

  “Not really,” Chloe says. “They could leave at any time.”

  “But if Boniface leaves, he’d die?”

  “Yes, unfortunately he would, when the magic wears out,” Peregrine says nonchalantly. “That’s one thing zandara can’t reverse—death. Once someone has expired, it can’t be undone.”

  I gape at them. I have a hundred questions I want to ask. But first: “Please, help me save him,” I whisper.

  “Of course we’d be happy to help you,” Peregrine says sweetly.

  “But you have to agree to join us,” Chloe adds. “We need you, Eveny. It’s the only way.”

  “We know it’s a lot to absorb,” Peregrine says diplomatically. “But we promise you’ll like it. And you’ll have a one-third vote in how we handle things from now on.”

  “Like, I can tell you I think you’re a real snob, and you treat people outside your sosyete like crap?” I ask coldly.

  Peregrine looks surprised, but she laughs. “Eveny, I can’t be wonderful to everyone. I simply don’t have the time.”

  I just glare at her until she sighs heavily.

  “Fine,” she says. “I’ll try to be more decent to your little friends. Are you happy now?”

  I look down at Boniface, whose breathing is growing shallower by the moment. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll do it. Just help me fix this.”

  “Wise choice, Eveny,” Peregrine says. “Come on.”

  She and Chloe lead me reluctantly away from the gasping Boniface and back into the parlor. While Chloe lights some candles, Peregrine asks me to remember exactly which herbs I invoked. When I tell her, she walks out the door.

  “You’ll have to focus your energy on this house and the grounds like you did when you cast the original charm,” Chloe says while we wait for Peregrine to come back. “Feel the energy as deep in your heart as you can.”

  Peregrine returns a moment later with a handful of mint, nettle, and rue. “Fortunately, you didn’t destroy the herb garden entirely.”

  “Casting with the herbs themselves instead of only relying on your Stone of Carrefour to channel the herbs will help make us stronger,” Chloe explains. “Now put your left ring finger on your stone, and your right hand here.”

  I do as she says, reaching for my stone and then folding my right hand over Peregrine’s, which is upturned and clutching the herbs. Chloe’s hand comes down over ours, and as soon as she touches us, I feel a surge of power. “When Peregrine’s done, you’ll recite the words Mesi, zanset with us,” Chloe instructs. “It’s what finishes an important charm.”

  “What does it mean?” I ask.

  “Thank you, ancestors,” Chloe replies. “It’s Creole. When our great-great-great-grandmothers founded Carrefour, they dealt with a lot of Haitian immigrants who had lived and died in this swamp. Some of their words became a part of zandara.”

  “Are we going to have a history lesson here,” Peregrine asks, glancing from Chloe to me, “or are we going to fix what you messed up?”

  I take a deep breath while Peregrine calls on Eloi Oke. I feel the air in the room shift, and then Peregrine chants:

  Mint, nettle, and rue were invoked to cast a charm.

  Reverse it now, oh spirits, before it’s too late.

  A mistake was made here, and it must be righted.

  We humbly beg you for your sympathy and assistance.

  Together, the three of us say, “Mesi, zanset. Mesi, zanset. Mesi, zanset.”

  I feel a whoosh of air, and suddenly the whole house is shifting beneath our feet. The walls straighten, the crimson pool of blood vanishes, and the peeling wallpaper turns vibrant and new again.

  When Chloe pulls away a moment later, her eyes are wide. “Did you feel that?” she whispers to Peregrine.

  Peregrine nods, looking just as shocked. “Power,” she whispers.

  I felt it too, but I don’t have time to dwell on that. “I have to make sure Boniface is okay.” I run out of the parlor toward the backyard.

  I find Boniface sitting on the ground, rubbing the back of his head. I exhale in relief when I see that he looks like he’s seventy-something again instead of a hundred and seventy-something. He appears to be breathing normally.

  “I don’t know what happened there!” he says, looking up as I approach. “I must have fallen and hit my head. I feel a little woozy.”

  I hurl myself at him and wrap my arms around his solid body. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I tell him.

  “Well, that sure is the best greeting I’ve gotten in a long time,” he replies, hugging me back.

  Peregrine and Chloe step out on the deck and call to me. “Come on, Eveny!” Peregrine says impatiently. “We have things to discuss!”

  My stomach twists itself into a knot as she turns and disappears inside, followed by Chloe.

  “When did they get here?” Boniface asks.

  “Just in time,” I tell him in a shaky voice. With a heavy heart, I stand up and head toward my fellow zandara queens.

  21

  Peregrine is standing in my living room filing her nails when I reenter the house. Chloe is applying lipstick in the mirror on the wall.

  “You’re welcome,” Peregrine says as I linger in the doorway, watching them.

  I give her a look. “I don’t remember thanking you.”

  Peregrine shrugs. “I assumed that was just an accidental lapse in manners on your part. After all, I did just save your house and Boniface’s life.”

  “So I made a mistake. But can we agree that we won’t do any more big charms without consulting each other? Like I won’t destroy my house, and you won’t endanger everyone just because you’ve run out of guys to make out with?”

  Peregrine glowers at me. “You’re being awfully bossy for someone who’s new at this.”

  Chloe elbows Peregrine. “Eveny’s right,” she says. She turns to me and says, “We’ll scale it back until we know for sure what happened to Glory and that frat guy. Deal?”

  I nod.

  Peregrine doesn’t look happy. “I still get to work zandara on guys, though.”

  I open my mouth to protest, but Chloe
cuts in. “Don’t bother arguing,” she says to me. “Peregrine would wilt without male attention.”

  Peregrine walks out of the room without another word to me. “I’ll be in the car, Chloe!” she calls over her shoulder.

  I hear the front door open and close a moment later. I turn back to Chloe, expecting that she’ll leave too, but she’s just standing there. She shifts from stiletto to stiletto for a moment and twirls her honey-blond hair nervously as she stares at me.

  “What?” I finally ask.

  “Look, I’m not accusing you of anything, but did you dig up the Justin doll? In the cemetery that night that you spied on us?”

  “Oh, crap,” I say. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to figure out what was going on.”

  “You need to put him back.” She looks like she’s about to cry. “You don’t mess with another queen’s magic! I mean, I know you didn’t know, so I’m not mad this time. But Justin’s been acting weird, and I had no idea why. Just rebury him before I have to break up with him, okay?”

  “Chloe,” I say slowly, “is everything between you and Justin magic?”

  She gives me a look. “Not everything. It’s just easier when there’s a little charm involved. I don’t have to worry about stupid stuff like him checking out other girls.”

  “It’s called real life,” I say.

  Chloe makes a face. “But why would I want to go through that if I don’t have to?”

  “Maybe because it would be great to know that Justin likes you for you, and not just because you’ve forced him to?”

  She studies the ground. “But he wouldn’t like me,” she says so softly that her words are almost inaudible. “He’d like Peregrine.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Every guy in town is into her, Eveny. And I’ve been in love with Justin for a really long time. I can’t lose him.”

  She looks miserable, and I feel sorry for her. It’s not worth arguing about. “Fine. I’ll rebury the doll tonight.”