doll was Victorian, and that seemed a safe bet, as far as names went.
Winifred stared back at her with those utterly dead eyes, and Murphy’s heart slammed the accelerator again. She booked it out to the hallway and slammed the door shut. Eileen was standing a few feet away, a single brow raised.
“There was … a doll,” Murphy tried to explain, which made her sound like the greatest coward who ever lived.
Eileen shrugged and said, “Yeah, dolls suck.”
She could be a stone-cold bitch, but she could also be decent.
Murphy smiled a little. “You think so too?”
“Sure. I had this Raggedy Ann once named Deidre. Creeped me the hell out.”
“What’d you do with her?”
“Gave her to Claire.”
Murphy giggled, and Eileen actually smiled. Then she pointed to the spiral staircase at the end of the hall. “Turret’s the only place left, huh?”
Murphy was glad to be almost through with their reconnaissance mission. Eileen was right: Claire was paranoid. There was no one in this house aside from them. No hoboes, no ghosts, and no Mark Enright.
Murphy’s heart had turned law-abiding motorist once more as she and Eileen headed up the stairs. Midway up the spirals, there was an arched window. Rain slammed against the glass, torrential. Beyond, hard wind was on the Pacific, whipping out angry waves. They’d been right to stay. If they’d gone out in this weather, they wouldn’t have made it home. They’d have been swept away in a flash flood, or smashed by a fallen tree. Dead.
Dead as Siegfried.
Murphy winced. She’d gone a few minutes without feeling totally guilty about that. At least she was treating Siegfried properly in death. His Tupperware coffin was safely deposited in the grand piano downstairs, resting inside its frame on the bottommost strings. That had seemed the classiest alternative to a turtle funeral home. Murphy had noted a slight odor emitting from the coffin, like trash gone bad. Nothing noticeable outside the piano, though. She’d find Siegfried a proper burial site before the stench got worse.
“Murph. Move.”
Eileen jabbed Murphy’s shoulder, and the sisters headed up the remaining stairs. When they reached the top, Eileen flipped on the light, revealing the round room with its hundreds of books. Murphy’s imagination ran wild. What had gone on in this place? Tea parties? Secret meetings? Torrid love affairs?
Or maybe this was where Mark Enright had first fought with his father. Maybe he’d whacked him over the head in this very spot. Maybe they’d painted over the bloodstains. Maybe—
“AAAAAH!” Murphy shrieked.
Something was headed straight for her face—small, black, and fast. Panicked, she threw out her hands. Then she got really scared because Eileen was screaming.
It was pandemonium. Murphy waved her arms, tripping backward, falling, butt slamming onto the floor. The switchblade flew from her hand, skidding across the room. Eileen, too, had dropped her knife, and her screams transformed into words: “FUCK” and “VAT,” and then Murphy realized she wasn’t saying “VAT” but “BAT.”
When Murphy was brave enough to open her eyes, she saw the truth for herself: the mystery object that had come for her face was indeed a bat, flapping haphazardly around the room.
“Fuck!” Eileen shrieked again, grabbing Murphy by the shoulders and trying to haul her to her feet. Murphy had only stood partway up before they were tumbling down the stairs. She hit her shin against the railing. Pain meant nothing, though; Murphy was focused on her hair. What if the bat got in her hair? She stumbled to her feet, and then she and Eileen were neck and neck, racing down the hallway and the next flight of stairs. She didn’t know where the bat was anymore. She could only hope she was getting farther away from its claws and beady eyes and fangs.
There was only the grand staircase left. Murphy took the steps three at a time, advancing like a track star, flinging herself over invisible hurdles. She collapsed on the parlor floor, gasping for breath. Digging her fingers into her curls, feeling all over, she shouted, “It’s gone, right? Where is it? Is it gone?”
When she looked up for an answer, she found Claire standing over her, big-eyed, brandishing a soup pot above her head.
“What?” Claire looked wildly between Murphy and Eileen. “What’s going on?”
Eileen was puffing as loudly as Murphy, hands on her knees. Neither of them could speak.
Claire shook the pot, menacing. “What’s going on? Is someone here?” Then she called out, “We’re armed down here, you hear that? WE ARE ARMED.”