We followed Carrie through an old-fashioned kitchen, down a dark hall, and up a flight of carpeted steps. Scarcely daring to breathe, Kristi and I watched her stop in front of a closed bedroom door. A crack of light shone under it, and Carrie pressed her ear against the wood. Hearing nothing, she opened the door quietly and peered into the room.
Although Kristi and I tried to go with Carrie, Snowball stopped us on the threshold and forced us to stay in the shadows like an audience in a darkened theater watching a play unfold upon a stage.
The room was lit softly by a heavily shaded lamp beside an old oak bed. In a chair next to the bed sat Aunt Viola, fast asleep. In the bed, her head propped up on a lacy pillow, was Louisa. The lamplight gleamed on her hair, turning her curls to gold, but her eyes were closed and deeply shadowed. Her face was ashy white and her thin hands clutched the covers.
While we watched, Carrie approached the bed, holding Anna Maria like an offering. In the light from the lamp, I could see her sharp face and small, pointed chin, her dark eyes, and the frown creasing her forehead.
As Carrie bent over the bed, Louisa opened her eyes. 'Carrie,' she whispered. 'Is it really you?'
'I brought her back.' Carrie laid Anna Maria in Louisa's arms. 'I just wanted to borrow her for a little while. I didn't mean to keep her so long.' Carrie ran a finger lightly over the doll's hair, but her eyes were fixed on Louisa's pale face.
Louisa smiled. 'It's all right,' she said, hugging the doll. 'You knew how much I needed her, so you brought her.'
'I would have come sooner,' Carrie said, 'but your aunt wouldn't let me in the house.' She stole a glance at Aunt Viola who sighed without opening her eyes.
'She tries hard to do what's best for me,' Louisa said, 'but she makes mistakes sometimes.'
'Are you sure you forgive me?' Carrie came closer to Louisa, and I could hear the tears in her voice.
Louisa reached out and grasped Carrie's hand. 'You're my best friend, Carrie. Nothing can ever change that.'
Holding Anna Maria tightly, Louisa lay back on her pillow and smiled at Carrie. For a moment her eyes sought mine and Kristi's, but when I tried to approach the bed, Snowball pressed against me, keeping me in the hall.
'Don't leave me, Louisa,' Carrie said. 'Get well, and I'll be a better friend, you'll see. I'll never tease you or take your things. I promise.'
Louisa turned her head and coughed. When she looked at Carrie again, her face was paler. 'I'm very tired now,' she whispered. 'Perhaps you'd better leave. If Aunt Viola awakes and finds you here, she'll be cross.'
But Carrie fingered. She smoothed the pillow under Louisa's head and brushed her curls lightly with one hand. 'You have Anna Maria now,' she said. 'She'll make you get well, I know she will.'
But Louisa shook her head. 'Soon I'll be with Mama and Papa. I heard Doctor McCoy tell Aunt Viola when he thought I was sleeping.'
Carrie stared at Louisa, but the little girl's eyes were already closing. Bending down, she kissed Louisa's cheek. TU always be your friend, I promise,' Carrie said. 'And when you're well, we'll have tea parties in the garden again and you can read to me from your fairy tale book.'
Louisa lay still, her eyes closed, a little smile curving her lips. Once more Carrie touched the doll, and then without looking back she ran from the room.
Chapter 18
A Visit to Cypress Grove
THE MOONLIGHT silvered the yard as Snowball led Kristi and me out of the house. When I looked up at Louisa's bedroom window, I saw Aunt Viola peering out into the garden, but she didn't notice me. She was looking at the hedge, which was swaying as if someone had run through the gap ahead of us.
'Where's Carrie?' Kristi asked me. 'We can't leave her here.'
'She must have gone home without us,' I said.
'Let's go.' Kristi pushed past me, but I lingered a moment, watching Louisa's window. Aunt Viola was gone, but the light still glowed softly.
'Goodbye, Louisa,' I whispered, knowing as I spoke that I would never see her again. She had sent Snowball to me for the last time, and she was sleeping now with Anna Maria in her arms.
'Come on, Ashley.' Kristi pulled my arm. 'It's scary here in the dark, and I'm cold.'
Ignoring her, I stooped down and stroked Snowball's fur as he rubbed against my legs and purred. 'I won't see you again either,' I told him.
Tears filled my eyes as he slipped away from me and ran up the steps. Leaping to the sill of an open window, he crawled into the house. I waited and in a few seconds I saw him looking down at me from Louisa's room. Then he was gone and Kristi was pulling me through the hedge.
***
As we stumbled out of the shrubbery and into the afternoon's hot sunlight, we almost tripped over Miss Cooper. As old and wrinkled as ever, she was sitting on the grass in her own yard. When she saw Kristi and me, she said, 'It was all true what you told me, all true.'
'You gave Anna Maria back to Louisa,' I said, 'just like you promised.'
'Yes,' Miss Cooper said, 'I did, didn't I?'
'And she forgave you,' I added.
Miss Cooper smiled then and her wrinkles shifted and reshifted, forming new patterns. 'She died peaceful,' she said. 'She died my friend.'
Stunned, I watched Miss Cooper struggle to her feet. 'She couldn't have died,' I said. 'She couldn't have.'
Miss Cooper glanced at me and shook her head. 'She died on this very day in 1912. I told you that.' Then she hobbled away, leaving Kristi and me standing in the hot sunshine staring after her, too dumbstruck to speak.
'Come on.' I grabbed Kristi's arm and started running. Despite the heat, we raced across the lawn and down Homewood Avenue toward Lindale Street.
'Where are we going?' Kristi cried.
'To Cypress Grove,' I shouted. 'It can't be true, Louisa can't be dead, not after all we did.'
By the time we'd run the five blocks to the cemetery, we were panting and soaked with sweat. At the iron gates, I paused a moment, almost afraid to enter the still, green landscape ahead of me.
'You said she wouldn't die if she got her doll back,' Kristi said. Her voice was so sharp with accusation you'd think I'd deliberately betrayed her.
Ignoring Kristi, I walked slowly down a gravel roadway. Unlike the memorial park where Daddy was buried with only a brass plate to mark his grave, Cypress Grove was an old cemetery, and you couldn't mistake it for anything but what it was. Many of the stones had fallen over and lay half-buried in the grass. The inscriptions were hard to make out, partly because the writing was old-fashioned and partly because the words had been almost worn away by years of rain and snow.
'If we don't find her grave, then she didn't die,' I told Kristi, but even as I spoke I saw the pink stone angel Miss Cooper had told us about. It was standing in the shade of a holly tree, somberly regarding the ivy curling around its base.
It was a hot, dry July day, and leaves from the holly tree littered the ground! As we stepped into its shade, the leaves crunched under our bare feet, cutting our skin with their sharp edges. Sunlight and shadows mottled the little angel. Slowly I made out the letters caned into the stone:
LOUISA ANN PERKINS
BELOVED DAUGHTER OF ROBERT ALAN PERKINS
AND
ADELAIDE JOHNSON PERKINS
JANUARY 11, 1903 – JULY 17, 1912
