“You might.” Grandma sounded grave and concerned about the whole thing.

  She picked up another washcloth, shook it out, folded it, and put it back down. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly, and it struck me—she was scared.

  What did I know about concussions?

  I knew that if you slept while you had one, it could kill you. I also knew that you got them from hitting your head, sometimes by hitting it with way less force than you would think. I did have that lump on my temple, so I was gonna check that as a major possibility.

  And—okay, so I was interested in art, not health and science. As it turned out, that was the extent of my knowledge on concussions.

  Frowning, and with drips of cold water streaming down the curve of my cheeks, I asked her, “Do I need to go to the hospital?”

  “No, no, we’ve already called the family doctor. He’s going to be out here first thing tomorrow to take a look at you, but he’s certain you’ll be fine. You’re hardly the first Hoggwaller to take a bump to the head.” Grandma petted my hair.

  I resisted the urge to say I’ve noticed, and I just stayed quiet instead.

  Hard to tell if that was the right choice or not.

  On the one hand, it meant I wasn’t going to be totally rude to the people who had taken me in and let me stay with them.

  On the other hand, Grandma’s mouth suddenly pursed up like she had just bitten into a lemon, and she dropped the spare cloth back onto the tray before turning to face me, no more visible fretting or worries on her face.

  “Though this wouldn’t be an issue if you had listened to me, young lady,” said Grandma, the sharpest I had ever heard her talk. “What on earth were you doing outside that cellar? I told you to stay away! You fell down the steps and hit your head!”

  “I…did?” That didn’t sound right. I mean, the hitting my head part? Yeah, that had obviously happened. But the part about falling down the stairs… That one just seemed a little off.

  “It’s been hours, Quinn.”

  “Hours?” No, wait. I was starting to remember now. It shouldn’t have been hours. I had been gone, and I had been gone for an entire month! But when I turned to look, it was night outside, and the moon was very much full.

  “Yes, Quinn.” Grandma gave a heavy sigh and then sat down on the edge of the mattress. It creaked slightly beneath our combined weight, the springs not as young as they used to be. She reached out and put a hand on the curve of my knee. “Hours.”

  “Oh.” I wasn’t sure if that was disappointing or not. I reached up with my free hand and brushed the tips of my fingers over the curve of my cheeks, but there were no stars beneath the pads of them. I hadn’t actually killed anyone.

  Which was good!

  That was a good thing. Yeah, sure. But the rest of it… Did that mean that Molly wasn’t real either? That house? The other dolls? If they weren’t real… Why had these other dolls come back into my bedroom?

  “I know that things are hard for you,” said Grandma. She took a deep breath and let it out in a slow, whistling exhale. “Unmeasurably so.”

  Measurably so, if the mouse from my dream had anything to hear about it.

  She continued, “But the rules I have in this house, I have for a reason. The basement—”

  “What's not safe about it?” I blurted rudely.

  She reached out with one finger and tapped the outside of the washcloth. “Do you really need to ask me that, Quinn? Look at the state you’re in!”

  “Right, but it’s just because I tripped.” Although that wasn’t true. I could remember now, going down the basement and to the cradle in the center of it. I could remember looking at the doll—before I knew it to be Molly—and then…well, then waking up in bed.

  There were flashes of my dream visible between, but some of it was still a bit on the foggy side.

  Grandma pursed her lips at me.

  I was quick to add on, “So if I just passed out because I tripped, what makes the rest of the basement so dangerous? I mean, you keep saying that you don’t want me down there, so….”

  “For one, the stairs are in terrible shape,” Grandma grumbled. “And for another, I never said it was dangerous, Quinn. I said that I didn’t want you down there. It’s a small difference, but it’s one that counts for a lot.”

  “The stairs aren’t in that bad of a state,” I grumbled right back.

  “Bad enough that you tripped all the way down and bonked your noggin,” chided Grandma. “And even if they aren’t, to you, it doesn’t matter much, now does it? I’m certain your father didn’t let you run around like a little wild animal back home. He had rules, and when he put them down, I’m sure you listened to them.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to go into the backyard once it was dark,” I admitted. “But he always told me why I shouldn’t do something. He said I would be more likely to listen if I understood what was being asked, and that the best way to understand what was being asked is by knowing why it was being made into a rule.”

  Grandma just looked at me with her continued, extra-pinched, sour-lemon expression.

  So I went on, “You know, I couldn’t go into the backyard at night because it was dark, and we had a fence up so people couldn’t get in, but that didn’t mean an animal couldn’t get in. He would say, ‘Quinn, what if you stepped on a snake? What if you got stung by a bee or you tripped over something in the dark?’ That made sense.”

  “Like the stairs?” Grandma gave a cluck of her tongue. “Mhm. Like the stairs.”

  “Right, like the stairs.” I rolled my eyes. “Except that the stairs aren’t why you don’t want me down there, and you already said that, right? So I just—I thought maybe if you told me what was really going on…”

  I trailed off. A part of me wanted to keep pushing. To know what this was really all about. But the rest of me was starting to piece together what was really going on; the fact that it was just a dream, the fact that it hadn’t actually happened.

  The stairs not being in good shape, that was a fine reason to stay out of the basement. It really was. And…

  I gave a heavy sigh and dropped the wet, drippy rag from my face. It landed on the bed next to me with a splat of water, promptly getting all soaked up by the bed sheets. I dropped my hands down onto my lap, fingers turned up toward me.

  I could imagine what they looked like covered in blood. I didn’t even have to imagine it. I could just remember it. The red had stained my skin while I slept, and it would never really come out.

  In my head, I could almost make out the thin pink line where the fishing line had dug in across my palm. My thumbs curled inward, brushing over the skin there. It was smooth. When I blinked, the faint pink line was gone.

  It had never really been there.

  “I guess it doesn’t matter,” I told her, unable to keep the sullen tone out of my voice. “Since it’s not actually my house. Sorry, Grandma. I shouldn’t ask about it so much. You don’t have to explain things.”

  Grandma hummed and sighed and clucked her tongue again. Then she reached out, curling both of her hands around my face, and tilting my head up. Her lemon-pursed old-lady chapped lips pressed against my forehead in what was somehow both the driest, crustiest kiss and the wettest, sloppiest kiss I had ever been given. I tried not to cringe, but I don’t think it worked.

  She pulled back afterward but didn’t let go of my face. “Quinn. This is your home, too. And… I’m sorry. I know it must not feel like that, with all of this stuffy old-folk stuff sitting around.”

  It didn’t.

  The dolls were in my room, again. I hated that. I hated them. Why were they staring at me? Was this because I had let them all back out of the boxes?

  No, I thought bitterly. That’s stupid. Just because I did something in a dream, that didn’t mean it did anything out here. The dolls are just back because… Grandma or Gramps moved them.

  Grandma continued, “You know, this house… I raised your dad here.” She stood up, and offered me her hand. “Are you dizzy?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  The blankets were pushed off of me, and I slung my legs over the edge of the mattress. I didn’t take her hand, though. I didn’t know why. There was just a part of me that curdled at the thought.

  Because my hands were bloody? No, that wasn’t it. They weren’t bloody. I hadn’t really killed anyone. I just… Didn’t want to hurt her twisted up fingers, that was all.

  After a moment, Grandma dropped her hand away. She looked awkward for a moment, but she quickly recovered.

  “Your father… He loved this house. He used to run up and down the stairs all the time, and he would—oh, he would jump on the banisters and ride them down!” She gave a raspy chuckle.

  Even I had to smile a little bit at that one. My mouth had twisted up at the corners, trying to picture what my dad would have looked like at my age, running around in this weird house.

  “And then… You know, his sister was just as sweet,” said Grandma, with a heavy sigh. “Sometimes I think about the fact that I’ve lost both of them, and it just gets me all bogged down.”

  My throat went tight. I couldn’t stop thinking about what the mouse had said…before I shoved him off of the sink pipes.

  Grandma shook her head. “But that shouldn’t be stopping me from making things good here. We’re family, you and me.”

  “What was she like?” I asked, voice a whisper. Another question that just sort of spilled out of me all on its own.

  “Your aunt?” Grandma asked, moving to stand by the dresser. She picked up one of the ballerina figures. It was a fully porcelain piece, save for the feathers affixed to the girl’s hair. She ran her fingers over the curve of it.

  Although her smile lingered, it bore the traces of bittersweet reminiscence. It was the kind of smile one wears reluctantly, concealing the true desire to do otherwise.

  She said quietly, “Your aunt was such a good girl. She loved to work in the garden with me. I’ll be honest with you, Quinn. She’s the one that had the green thumb, not me! Those rose bushes of hers, oh, you should have seen them in the spring!”

  “Really?” I smiled back at her and finally stood up, though I moved slowly. I was terribly achy, but not the least bit dizzy. Taking a moment, I rolled out my shoulders and stretched my neck this way and that way, rolling my chin and flexing my arms.

  It didn’t actually make the aches go away.

  “Really,” said Grandma, setting the ballerina down. It was dusty, save for the clean streaks her hands left behind. She seemed terribly sad about that, and wiped the tips of her fingers off against her dark green and blue dress.

  Grandma grabbed one of the spare cloths and started to wipe the dust off of the figurines. Yeah, that was probably something that I should have been doing. It would have been the polite thing, right?

  It just hadn’t crossed my mind.

  She picked up another one; the figurine was sitting in this one, leg stretched out in front of her. She was tying up her shoes. They were black, and so was her bodysuit. Only the skirt was pink with a glitter resin coating the surface.

  Why did that outfit look so familiar?

  Grandma explained more, “She’s the only reason I still work out there, though I’ve never been able to get a single rose to bloom. They all dried up around the same time we lost our little Molly.”

  A cold chill shot down my spine.

  I froze, staring at Grandma with wide eyes. “What did you just call her?”

  “Molly.” She looked at me as if I should have known that already. “Oh, right, I know your father always called her Pippin, but that was just a silly nickname. She was your Aunt Molly.”

  Molly.

  Like the doll in my dream, who wore ballerina clothes, and told me that she loved roses.

  Maybe I was feeling dizzy after all.

  Aunt Molly

  To my credit, I didn’t fall over. My belly just swooped straight down into my feet as the realization hit me. She was right. I had always known my aunt as Pippin.

  She was Aunt Pippin, and dad didn’t like to talk about her anyway. I didn’t know anything about her.

  Feeling dazed and airy, I moved to join Grandma at the dresser. I curled one hand against the edge of the dark wood structure and stared at the dolls lining it. Okay, this wasn’t a dream, so I had to use real-world rationality.

  These dolls were all wearing ballerina outfits. I saw them every single night. That was probably why they had been in my dream. And even though I hadn’t actually taken note of it, it was probably likely that Grandma and Gramps had mentioned ‘Molly’ in one of their stories at some point, right? Or maybe even the whole Molly thing was just a coincidence—it’s not that weird of a name. Although the biggest part of the coincidence is that Grandma mentioned all this to me right after I woke up from that dream.

  “You know.” Grandma gestured to the ballerinas. “These were hers.”

  “The figurines?” I asked, not daring to pick one up.

  Grandma was cleaning each one off with such careful reverence. There was no way I could help and do the same sort of job. She hummed. “Mhm. The figurines, and all the rest of the dolls.”

  “All of them?’

  “She loved dolls—your aunt did.” A wistful note swept through her voice. “I swore, she used to wish that she could be one! And if they didn’t have a doll that looked just the way that she wanted, well, she would make it.”

  A shudder ran down my spine.

  Grandma told me, “She used to call it doll surgery.” She picked up a third figurine, this one wearing a Swan-Lake-style outfit, with her arms up above her in a graceful arc and her eyes closed and her little mouth open to show off her teeth. “She would take a needle and thread, and she would carefully weave her own hair into the doll. And she would repaint them! And the clothes, oh, she was always making new clothing for them to wear.”

  “What dolls did she make?”

  “Oh, so many of them. We have one in the foyer, a little blonde girl. By the cat pictures.” Grandma dusted off the figurine, then set it back down and turned to face me. “Under the frames.”

  Tabitha.

  “And she made the most adorable outfit for a doll once, turned it straight into a clown,” she said nostalgically.

  Harry.

  I could feel my heart beating faster in my chest. That wiggly choking feeling was back in my throat. If it made me go pale or flush, Grandma didn’t comment on it.

  “I know that dolls aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, Quinn, but it means a lot that you haven’t fussed about all the dolls we have sitting around.” She began to wring her hands together. “We toyed with boxing them up once, but it felt like we were getting rid of the family! We had to bring them all right back out.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t know what else to say. That was exactly what happened in my dream. The dolls had been boxed up and put away, and the three remaining dolls were devastated over it.

  There was no way I could have known that was something that Grandma and Gramps had done, though. There was no way I could have known about those specific dolls.

  “Your aunt loved them. And I’ve tried my best to love them just as much,” Grandma’s jowls sagged a little. “That’s part of why I don’t want you in the basement.”

  My eyes went wide. “Because of the dolls?”

  “Because of one very special doll,” clarified Grandma. She led me over to the window seat, carefully moving the dolls aside; each time, she would mutter ‘excuse me’ or ‘pardon’ to the dolls, as though they were real.

  I watched, mystified, as she finally made enough space to sit down.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “My old bones have been up far later than they usually get to be. I just needed to sit for a moment.”

  “That’s okay. You were telling me about the basement, about the special doll you have down there.” I didn’t want her to get distracted from what she was about to tell me. I needed to know what was going on. It was this urge that sat in the back of my chest like a yawning black hole.

  “To tell you the truth,” Grandma leaned her head back, “that one in the basement… She just reminds me so much of Molly. She looks just like her.”

  “Does she really?” I couldn’t bring myself to sit next to Grandma. I perched on the edge of my bed instead, facing her.

  “Just like her,” she repeated. “In fact, I had her out in the living room for a while but your Grandfather, oh, he couldn’t stand it. Started to cry every time he looked that way. Told me, ‘Annie, I love you and I loved that little girl, but that is the one doll—and I mean it—the one doll I don’t want in this house!”

  I stayed silent. Waiting. Listening.

  Grandma looked away, then pursed her lips at me. “Now, Quinn, you need to make me a promise. I’ve been married to Eddie for longer than you have been alive, much, much longer than that. And there is only one thing in the entire time that we’ve been married that I have ever lied to him about.”

  Silence. I could hear my heart beating. Could Grandma hear it too?

  She lowered her voice. “I don’t mind telling you why the basement is off limits, but you have to swear that you will never tell Eddie the truth.”

  “I promise,” I told her, without even thinking about it. I leaned forward, bracing my hands on the jut of my knee. “What’s going on in the basement? What did you lie to Gramps about?”

  “Don’t look so eager,” she chided and leaned away a little. “It’s nothing solicitous. But he told me, he wanted that doll out of the house. Oh, we fought about it. Any other doll, I would have gotten rid of. But that one… It looked just like my Molly. The problem was, Eddie wanted it gone because they looked alike. It was too hard on him. I love your grandfather, Quinn, so I told him alright.”

  A pause.

  My heart beat even louder. I was half expecting for the overhead light to become purple and just swallow us whole.

  It didn’t. It stayed old, dim, and yellow. It didn’t even flicker.

  “But I didn’t.” Her voice was low and hushed, like she was admitting to something terrible. “I took her down to the basement, and I set her up in a cradle we had leftover from when Molly was a baby.”