'You took her, didn't you?' Kristi said suddenly.
I looked at her, feigning innocence. 'Why would I do a thing like that?' Unfortunately, my voice came out unnaturally high and I stammered on the words.
'Because you want her for your own!' Kristi hurled the empty box into the bushes.
I drew myself up as tall as I could, glad I was both older and bigger than Kristi. 'You were scared to death, remember? You told me to bury the box and you begged me not to open it. You thought Anna Maria was a dead girl!'
Kristi's face got red. 'I have just as much right to that doll as you have!' she yelled.
'You do not. This is my yard, not yours!'
'It's Miss Cooper's yard!' Kristi's voice was getting louder and louder.
'Will you shut up?' I hissed. 'Miss Cooper and Max are sitting on the front porch. They'll hear you!'
'I don't care if they do!' Kristi shrieked. 'You give me that doll, right now, or I'm telling!'
'Be quiet, Kristi!' I wanted to shake her I was so mad. Through the tangle of honeysuckle and shrubbery, I could see Max coming around the corner of the house.
As Max started barking, Kristi scurried away through the undergrowth, heading for the safety of her backyard. At the same moment, Snowball crept out of the weeds and rubbed against my legs. When I reached for him, he backed away through the brambles, meowing at me, his eyes imploring me to follow him.
Ghost or not, Snowball's fur was soft and his body was as warm as Oscar's. I wanted to pick him up, but before I could catch him, he darted out of the garden and ran across Miss Cooper's lawn.
Afraid Max would get him, I followed Snowball onto the lawn and through a small opening in the hedge that separated Miss Cooper's yard from the field next door. Behind me Max was barking, and I expected to feel his teeth sink into my leg at any moment.
Chapter 9
Louisa
AS I STEPPED out of the hedge on the other side, the light dimmed, and instead of the field, I saw a white frame house in the center of a green lawn. In the sudden dusk, its windows glowed softly, lit from within. The scarlet flowers bordering the porch held the last light of the sun in their petals. The air was cool, fresh, and sweet with the smell of roses. While I stood there staring, I heard a mourning dove begin to coo.
Feeling dizzy, I shut my eyes and backed up against the hedge. Its stiff leaves poked my neck, reassuring me with their scratchiness. Keeping my eyes closed, I wondered if I'd fainted from the heat. I'd read once that people with sunstroke hallucinated. Was that what was wrong with me?
'There's no house here, no flowers,' I told myself. I'd looked over the hedge from my bedroom window, and all I'd ever seen was an empty lot grown high with weeds.
But when I opened my eyes, the house was still there. It was dusk instead of noon, and Snowball was meowing.
Too frightened to move, I looked down at the cat. 'What are you?' I asked, remembering Miss Cooper's words about the devil and his own. 'Where have you brought me?'
He purred and rubbed against me, warm and soft, his back arched, his tail brushing my legs. Surely he meant me no harm. He was too beautiful to be evil.
As the colors of day faded slowly away, Snowball pricked up his ears. Somewhere in the gray shadows, a child had begun to cry.
Snowball looked at me, and then, his tail waving like a white plume, he disappeared into the shadows on the lawn, leaving me all alone.
Unsure if I were awake or asleep, I was afraid to leave the safety of the hedge. I still didn't know where I was or why Snowball had led me here. I wanted to run back to my own yard, but the child's voice tugged at me. I felt its sorrow, and I had no choice but to follow Snowball.
Like a swimmer venturing deeper into the water, leaving the shore farther and farther behind, I entered the yard a step at a time, pausing after each one to test the current. 'Snowball,' I whispered. 'Where are you?'
Then ahead of me I saw her, a little girl in a white dress, sitting on a stone bench under a dogwood tree. She was holding Snowball on her lap, and her face was hidden by long, golden curls. At her side was a wicker doll carriage as old-fashioned as the clothes the girl wore.
For a moment I stood still, partially hidden by the boxwood bushes lining the path, and watched the girl stroke Snowball's fur. The cat looked at me, his pale eyes expressionless, but the girl didn't see me.
'Where have you been, Snowball?' she whispered. Her voice was low and hoarse, and she was thin and pale.
For an answer, Snowball purred and leapt lightly from the girl's lap. He ran toward me, and the girl looked up and saw me before I could duck away and hide.
Her eyes were huge and darkly shadowed, and her skin was milky white. She gasped and clasped her hands over her chest. 'Who are you?' she asked. 'Where did you come from?'
For a moment I couldn't speak. Was I staring at a real girl or a ghost? If I answered her, would I be caught in this place forever?
Snowball rubbed against me again, pressuring me to speak, to move, to approach the little girl who sat still, her eyes wide and full of questions, waiting for me to say something.
I closed my eyes again, pressing the lids together so tightly I felt dizzy. If she were there when I opened them, I would know she was real and I would answer her. Aware of my heart beating faster and faster, I slowly allowed myself to look again at the little girl. She had risen to her feet and she looked as puzzled as I felt.
Cautiously I bent down and picked up Snowball. He felt as warm and heavy as Oscar as I walked up to the bench and handed him to her.
'My name is Ashley,' I told her. 'Your cat brought me here.'
The little girl stroked Snowball's soft fur. 'You were supposed to bring Carrie,' she whispered to the cat. 'But she still won't come, will she?'
Lifting her head, the little girl smiled at me. 'I've been waiting so long for Carrie, but she never comes. Since you're here, will you stay a while and play with me instead?'
'What's your name?' My heart was still thumping and my knees felt a little quivery, but I had to know who she was.
'My name is Louisa,' she said.
'You're Louisa?' I sucked in my breath. 'Louisa Perkins?'
She nodded, obviously pleased I knew her name. 'Did Carrie tell you about me?'
I shook my head. 'I don't know who Carrie is.'
Louisa started to speak, but her words turned into a deep, choking cough. Raising a handkerchief to her mouth, she bent her head. Her shoulders shook as the coughing continued.
'You're sick,' I said. 'You should be in bed.'
Louisa shook her head and slowly the coughing stopped. Before she stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket, I saw bright red spots on it.
'Is that blood? Are you coughing up blood?' I stepped back, horrified.
Louisa kept her head down, hiding her face from me. 'It's nothing,' she said in a low voice.
Frightened, I looked away. Beyond the hedge, I saw the dark shape of Miss Cooper's house against the evening sky, but the steps leading to our apartment were gone and so was our back porch. The tall tree between Kristi's yard and Miss Cooper's wasn't there.
Things were the same and not the same. Like someone in a story, had I followed a white cat into another world? Suddenly afraid I'd never see my mother again, I backed away from Louisa.
'Oh, don't go, please don't go, Ashley.' Louisa stood up and clutched my arm. Her hands were icy cold, and her white dress brushed against me as soft as cobwebs. 'I'm so lonely. Carrie never plays with me anymore, and I miss Mama and Papa so much.'
Snowball circled my legs, meowing, as if he, too, meant to keep me in the garden.
'I'll let you play with my dolls,' Louisa said. 'Look, here they are.' She pointed into the wicker carriage.
Two worn rag dolls sat at each end, facing each other, their heads hanging.
