She picked up Porgy and narrowed her eyes. “Is that an old-people saying? Or do you have something against birds?”
Jayne entered the foyer, interrupting my own eye roll. She carried a stuffed plastic garbage bag over her shoulder like Santa Claus, awkward knobs and the stray twig protruding from the plastic. “Hi, Nola,” she said, dumping the bag on the floor between us. “You ready for your college tour today?”
I glanced at my stepdaughter, who shrugged. “She knows only because she was here yesterday when Alston and Lindsey and I were talking about it. We may have discussed your spreadsheet.”
I glared at my sister.
Nola tugged on my sleeve. “Why don’t you go have breakfast? I bought you Froot Loops. Plenty of processed sugar and empty calories, just the way you like them.”
I was oddly touched. Nola was usually on a stealth mission to restrict my diet to cardboard and sawdust disguised as health food.
“Thank you. But I’m going to run upstairs to shower and get dressed since we have that college tour. Jayne brought doughnuts, too, but I’ll save those for later.”
Nola’s phone pinged. “The tour isn’t until one o’clock. You have three hours,” Nola said as her thumbs flew over her phone screen.
I considered her with open admiration. I could barely type one letter at a time when fully focused on texting.
Jayne’s eyebrows rose as her gaze scanned me from head to toe. “It might take her that long.”
“Ha,” I said, turning to head up the stairs.
“Oh, wait,” Nola said, calling me back.
I turned and watched her pull something out of the large pocket of her plaid pajama bottoms. “Did you put this on my nightstand?”
Jayne inhaled sharply. I squinted and took a tentative step forward to see better, Jayne’s reaction making me glad for once of the vanity that kept me from admitting I needed to wear glasses. “What is it?”
Nola held her hand closer so I could see better, and I immediately wished she hadn’t. An iron coffin-shaped box filled her outstretched hand, a small round window at the top showing the sallow pixie face of a small doll-like figure inside. Its eyes were black ink-drawn dots with a red circle to indicate an open mouth caught at the moment of surprise. Bold, raised letters on the lid read: LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER.
“It opens, too,” Nola said.
I lifted a hand to stop her, but she’d already flicked up a clasp on the side of the box to reveal a small porcelain doll, its pale arms crossed over its chest. The tiny white body lay upon what appeared to be a bed of antique buttons made of pewter and mother-of-pearl.
Jayne kept her distance—she was eight years younger than me, with apparently better vision. “I think that might be one of the most hideous and horrifying things I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot.”
“Worse than the Edison Doll in your attic?” Nola asked, referring to an antique talking doll with the unnerving habit of appearing unexpectedly.
“I’d say it’s a tie. And this was on your nightstand?”
“Yeah. I thought Mellie gave it to me.”
My eyes met Jayne’s in mutual understanding, both of us recalling the footprints in the snow. We looked at Nola. “I’ve never seen it before, and I certainly wouldn’t have put it in your room.” If I had seen it before, I would have burned it or thrown it into the Cooper River. I was a big believer in ignoring the obvious and pretending bad things didn’t exist. Until they undeniably did.
“Maybe Ginny could hold it and see if it speaks to her?” Nola suggested.
“No!” Jayne and I shouted simultaneously.
Ginette Prioleau, our mother, had been blessed—or cursed, depending on which one of her daughters you asked—with the ability to channel spirits by holding objects. It was one of the reasons why she wore gloves all year long. But her strength would have been zapped from her for weeks, sending her to bed. I imagined Jayne was thinking the same thing: that not involving our mother would be for the best not only for her physical health but for our peace of mind.
I reluctantly took the doll in its little coffin from Nola, gingerly clasping it with my thumb and forefinger as if it were a dead palmetto bug. “It’s old, so chances are, Sophie will know what it is. Or at least know why it was put in your room. Maybe Meghan found it in the cistern and brought it upstairs when you weren’t here and you’re just noticing it now.” Meghan Black was one of Sophie’s graduate students who’d been helping to excavate the cistern.
“Probs,” Nola said, nodding along with Jayne and me as if we were all in agreement that what I’d just said wasn’t something with which to fertilize the garden.
I quickly placed the box and its unnerving contents in the small chest in the entranceway, hearing the buttons shift like crawling insects as I closed the drawer. “Thanks for the doughnuts and coffee, Jayne. I’ll see you when you bring the twins back.”
“Just promise me that you’ll eat at least one doughnut.”
“I promise that I’ll try. And even have a spoonful of Froot Loops. I need my fruit.”
“You do know there’s no actual fruit in that whole box, right?” Nola asked.
I shrugged, then listened to the chiming of the old grandfather clock from the parlor. “I’d better hurry—I’ve got only two and a half hours to get ready.”