Alara lifted the Mad Hatter clutching a broken teapot. “This isn’t creepy or anything.”
I didn’t know what was more unsettling—the perfect replica of Lilburn Mansion drowning in the thickened glitter of an old snow globe, or the image of a terrified Mad Hatter holding a broken piece of Wonderland.
“Maybe it’s somewhere less obvious,” I offered.
Alara glanced into the hall. “We should check upstairs. That’s where all the activity was reported.”
Lukas not so subtly stepped in front of me. “I’m right behind you.”
The staircase rose sharply. I imagined someone reaching the last step and being pushed backward by an invisible hand. My hand tightened around the railing. When Lukas made it to the top, he grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the landing.
Six doors flanked each side of the narrow hallway. Oil portraits of women bound in layers of fabric and girls in pressed dresses, all wearing the same hopeless expression, lined the walls between them.
The EMF detector pinged.
“You got something?” The red light on Lucas’ EMF blinked erratically as the needle jerked back and forth.
“Where is it?” I looked around, but didn’t see anything.
“It might not be a paranormal entity,” he said. “Other things can set them off—appliances, electrical wires, even water pipes in the walls. And these readings are all over the place.”
Alara stopped, and we almost plowed into her. “I don’t think it’s an electrical wire.”
I followed her eyes to the end of the hall.
A little girl in a yellow chiffon dress sat on the carpet playing with a porcelain doll. Its tangled blond hair spilled onto the floor.
As the girl rose, her body flickered like static on an old television set. She walked toward us, dragging the doll behind her by one arm. With her smooth, flushed skin, she looked nothing like the dead girl floating in my bedroom.
“Did you come to play?” The child’s eyes lit up, bright and curious.
Lukas tried to push me behind him again, but my feet were rooted to the floor.
“Sure,” Alara answered carefully. “What kind of games do you like?”
The child studied Lukas, her blue eyes lingering on his wrist. She acted as if she saw something more than his bare skin. The hem of her yellow dress fluttered in a nonexistent wind.
The little girl’s body flickered, revealing another face beneath her own. An old woman’s empty eyes leered at us, her face slack and covered in scratches. Matted gray hair hung limp at her shoulders where the child’s shiny blond strands had hung a moment ago.
She lifted the doll off the ground, its head dangling from the cord holding the toy together.
The old woman’s scratched face flashed in front of the child’s as she raised the broken doll higher. “I like the kind of games where people like
15. GIRL IN THE YELLOW DRESS
The wind increased and the girl’s hair whipped around her. She stepped forward one shiny patent-leather Mary Jane at a time, dragging the mangled doll. The child pointed at Lukas, the rage in her voice at odds with her innocent features. “I know what you want.”
Air swirled around the child, tangled blond hair lashing her face.
“We don’t want anything.” Lukas backed away, matching Alara step for step. “Kennedy, get out of here.”
I heard the words, but my body didn’t react. What if I moved and it made the spirit angrier?
“You can’t have my doll!” she shrieked.
“We aren’t trying to take your doll,” Alara promised, clutching the silver medal around her neck.
“Liar!” the child screamed. “I know who you are. He told me you’d come.”
Lukas raised the crossbow and aimed it over Alara’s shoulder.
“Go!” he barked at me.
I stumbled back a few steps.
The child’s face twisted into a wicked smile and her form flickered again, exposing the old woman lurking inside her.
Paintings flew off the walls, heavy frames splintering against Lukas’ back. He dropped to his knees, covering his head, and the crossbow slipped out of his hand.
Carpet nails ripped out of the floor, pelting us like knives.
“Hey.” Alara pointed the spiked glove at the girl. “Screw you and your doll.”
The vengeance spirit’s eyes widened, the yellow dress twisting in the whirlwind encircling her.
Lukas staggered to his feet and grabbed the crossbow, raising it again. The bolt flew through the air and hit the spirit square in the shoulder.
The doll slipped from her grasp and hit the floor, smashing to pieces.
The spirit’s eyes darted to the broken shards of the doll. She opened her mouth and let out an inhuman wail.
A wooden side table pushed itself away from the wall and careened toward me. Time skipped as images flashed in front of me in a surreal sort of stop-motion.
Alara screaming—
Lukas lunging for me—
The flat edge of the table slamming into my stomach—
The sound of wood cracking as my back hit the railing. I felt my body falling, the smooth white ceiling above me.
“Kennedy!”
Something clamped down hard around my ankle, and my body jerked to a stop.
The floor swayed dangerously below me, pieces of the railing scattered over the smooth marble. The grip on my ankle tightened, and I felt myself being lifted. My body slid over the edge of the landing, and Lukas stared down at me.
“Lukas…” Alara’s voice rose urgently, and Lukas leapt to his feet.
Alara’s combat boots were positioned between me and the white Mary Janes marching down the hallway.
The spirit pointed at Lukas. “You broke my doll.”
The old woman’s face flashed behind the child’s, and the spirit hurled her body into the air. Alara stepped in front of Lukas and cocked her arm back, cold-iron bolts protruding from the knuckles of her gloved hand. Alara waited until the spirit was practically on top of her before she plunged the iron spikes into the girl’s stomach.
The vengeance spirit’s eyes bulged, and she opened her mouth to scream. But there was no sound. Her body crackled in and out of focus as it hung from Alara’s glove like another broken doll.
Lukas raised the crossbow for the third time and fired. The bolt struck the child-that-wasn’t-a-child in the shoulder, and she exploded into a million fragments of nothing.
Then everything went black.
“Kennedy? Can you hear me?” Lukas crouched over me. “Talk to me.”
The room came back into focus, and my thoughts stitched themselves together slowly. I pushed myself up, and Lukas rested his hand on my back for support.
Relief replaced the panic in his eyes. “Take it easy.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Where’s Alara?”
“She went to find Jared and Priest.” He shook his head, tension carved into every line on his face. “When you fell, I thought…”
