thought Martha had fallen.
When she raised the binoculars and spotted a small patch of color in the rocks above her, she thought she’d stumbled across her first sighting of a Gila monster. Her mother had shown her pictures of the venomous reptiles: massive heads and small, beady eyes, with orange, pink, or yellow blotches covering their bodies. She knew they moved sluggishly and couldn’t chase her down the mountain, but she was nervous nevertheless as she edged closer for a better look. And closer. Until she stood a few yards away.
The orange coloring wasn’t the scaly back of a lizard.
She was looking at a French fashion doll’s paisley shawl.
Despite adrenaline pumping through her veins, Caroline fell asleep, a dreamless and heavy retreat from the world. The flight attendant gently placed a hand on her shoulder, startling her awake. “Please return your seat to its original position,” she said quietly. “We’ll be on the ground in a few minutes.”
Groggy and disoriented, Caroline adjusted the seat and noticed for the first time that her bracelet was missing. Her lucky bracelet. Where could it be? She fought back the feeling of panic threatening to overcome her and forced a weak smile. It’s only a bracelet, she thought. You’re getting superstitious in your old age, like Nina.
She wondered what was happening at home right now. Were they hunting for her? Had they searched the house yet? She smiled to herself, feeling stronger and more confident.
No one could match her ability for concealing things. Thanks to her daughter’s inherited competitive nature, their games had been played at a highly skilled level. Scavenger hunts. The traditional Easter basket searches. The challenge, each time, to be better than the last time.
Caroline grinned at the memories.
Let them look. They would never find it.
3
Paris was the birthplace of the first fashion doll. The doll’s attire imitated the leading dress styles of the time. Since middle- and upper-class Parisiennes changed their outfits throughout the day, some fashion dolls came with trunks filled with gowns, ankle boots, tortoiseshell dressing sets, and other accessories.
Because little French girls played with these miniature versions of their mothers, few dolls survived in good condition. Most of the trunks and accessories were lost or destroyed.
A French Bru fashion doll in mint condition, with no cracks or repairs and in original costume, sold on eBay sans trunk. Starting bid: $24,950. An original trunk would have made the doll worth much, much more.
—From World of Dolls by Caroline Birch
“Ohh, isn’t it cute,” Nina cooed, holding up the multicolored cotton shawl. It was about the size of a baby’s terry washcloth.
“I wonder what this is worth?” Gretchen said in disbelief. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s in perfect condition except for a tiny bit of ground-in dirt where it must have hit the rocks and settled in. It’s a miracle I found it.”
Nina looked up from admiring the shawl. “A miracle? No. This is a sign. You know that most of my psychic predictions come to me in dreams. Well, last night I dreamed about this very thing.” Nina frowned. “In my dream your mother was the size of a doll and wore the shawl over her shoulders with a dress from this exact historical period. I wonder what the dream means.”
“The problem with your dreams,” Gretchen said, “is that you can’t interpret them. You should take a class on dream analysis.” Preferably one that doesn’t allow dogs in the classroom, Gretchen thought with a watchful eye on Tutu.
Nina scanned a creased photograph lying on the table. “You found this next to the shawl?”
“The shawl must have been in this bag,” Gretchen said, holding up a brown paper lunch bag. “It was lucky that it had fallen out so that the colors caught my eye. The picture was inside the bag, and I almost missed finding it because the bag blended so well with the rocks.”
Gretchen gazed at the photograph. A French fashion doll with startling blue eyes, wearing a green silk gown, smiled serenely up at her from a compartment inside an open doll trunk. A straw hat with a green ribbon and white flowers rested in her arms, and she wore glistening black earrings.
She noted the trunk’s domed shape, its brass-headed tacks, and brass handle.
Nina sat fingering the doll shawl, surrounded by her entourage, Tutu and her latest purse dog trainee. The trainee, a white fluff ball puppy named Rosebud, peered out from a large cloth purse slung over the workshop doorknob. Occasionally it emitted