Liyla’s mother studied the five of them in the same way. Her eyes moved from Susan to Max to Nell, and she wore the smile of someone who had just won the lottery.
“Oh, my, what wonders,” she said, resting her gaze on Jean. She leaned over and pulled Jean’s chin up so she could look into her face. “You’re as exquisite as an old painting! And this, how amazing!” She reached for Jean’s Barbie.
Jean pulled it to her chest and shot a pleading look Max’s way.
Max bit his lip. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “She’ll give it back.”
Jean reluctantly released it.
“So this is the model, then?” The woman looked from Max to Susan.
With the heel of her hand, Jean pushed a sweaty lock of dark hair out of her eyes.
“It’s just my doll,” she said.
The woman smiled giddily and handed it back to her.
“Of course, of course it is!” she said. “But who gave it to you? Hmm?”
“My father,” Jean said. A stubborn edge had crept into her voice. “For an unbirthday present.”
At this, the woman raised an eyebrow, but Liyla said, “I told you, Ma: they don’t remember.”
For a long moment, the woman considered them again, taking in faces, hands, clothing, dolls. Kate squirmed and Nell squeezed her wadded-up blanket, her fists clenched.
“We do know we need help, though,” Susan said, unable to stand the inspection any longer. “Can you tell us who around here might know about — strange things?”
At that, the woman abandoned her calculations and grinned widely. “Strange things? Well, you leave that to me. I’ll find the right one to help you first thing in the morning.”
She was peering into Nell’s hair when she said it.
We are not staying here,” Nell said when Liyla and her mother had gone out to the yard to make dinner. They heard the squawk of chickens and then the hollow snap of ax against chopping block. “Please tell me we’re not.”
Susan turned away from the back door and looked around the room. The house was little more than a large open space outfitted with a fireplace and table, a rag rug, and several chairs, rough ones beside the table, better ones near the cold fireplace. The only bedroom she could see was through an open door on the right side of the room, and on the far side of the back door, a curtained alcove half hid an unmade bed beneath a good-size window.
“It’s not that bad,” she said, raising her voice over the sound of panicked chickens. “It’s okay.”
The others disagreed. It was that bad. They insisted on searching the place, sure they were going to find the skeletons of a few of Liyla’s playmates somewhere. Under the rug, Jean uncovered a trapdoor.
“See!” Nell shouted when they’d pulled the rug away. “Close your eyes, girls! I don’t think you’re going to want to see this!”
Kate drew back, but Jean got down on her knees beside Nell. Max, who’d been rolling his eyes a minute before Jean yanked the rug back, now bent over Nell’s shoulder, his mouth pressed into a thin line.
A hinged handle lay in a shallow dip in the wood, so it left no bump in the floorboards. Nell pried it up and heaved the door open. A puff of cold air issued from the dark under-floor. Susan shivered. Dimly, about four feet down, she could make out a square of dirt. Nell lowered herself to it. Shoulders jammed together, they leaned over to peer in after her.
“Move out of the light! I can’t see a thing down here!” she said. “My gosh, it’s cold!”
“Maybe it’s a crypt,” Max muttered. Susan hushed him.
They tilted back to give her some light, and Nell gasped. Susan’s stomach dropped.
“What? What is it? What has she got down there?”
Susan stuck her head into the hole, but Nell shoved it back.
“Bones!” Nell said. “Oh, gross! There’s a whole lumpy row of them! And then — ugh! What’s that? Underneath she’s got a basket of something dark and bloody looking.”
Jean had begun to make a gagging noise, and Kate’s face had turned the color of chalk. But Susan paused a second.
“Hold on, did you say a basket?” she asked Nell.
“A basket. Definitely a basket!”
Susan looked around the room. She didn’t see Liyla’s basket anywhere.
“Hey, Nell, take a closer look in the basket. You sure those aren’t plums?”
There was a long pause from below.
Then Nell, sounding sheepish: “Oh, yeah. Actually, you’re right about that.”
Max grunted.
“How about the bones?” Susan asked her.
Another pause, longer this time.
“Uh . . . yeah, I think these are eggs. Yeah, they are. Hard-boiled.”
Max sat back on his heels and blew out a long breath.
“Good work, Nell, you just found the family fridge.”
They hoisted her out and put the door and rug back in place. Nell rubbed her arms. She glanced at Susan, then quickly away.
“Well, who puts their fridge underground, anyway? Isn’t that suspicious?”
Susan shook her head. “People who don’t have refrigeration — that’s who. Why it’s under the rug is anybody’s guess. But that settles it, anyway. We’re staying, at least for now. Right?”
Nobody said a word this time. Jean sat down on one of the chairs by the empty fireplace and kicked moodily at the rungs, while outside, the chickens continued their screaming. Susan glanced at the window and wrinkled her nose. Stained feathers drifted by.
“People have different ways about them,” she said halfheartedly. “Maybe Liyla’s mother is nicer the more you get to know her.”
Not even Kate looked like she believed that. They waited in glum silence as the chickens were plucked and bled, and finally roasted.
At last, Liyla and her
