Suddenly I had an image of our enormous wooden house as a giant pile of kindling.

“I have to find that doll,” I said.

I turned back to my sister crumpled on the floor. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her violently.

“Get up!” I roared. “Wake up, Kasey!”

After a moment her eyes opened. They were blue. They jumped away from me to look at the sparks overhead.

“What?” she whispered.

“Tell me where it is!” I shouted, still shaking her. “Tell me!”

“Where what is?” she said. “Ow, Lexi, stop!” “The doll!”

“I don’t remember!” she sobbed.

Then she glanced at the attic door.

I jumped to my feet and ran to the top of the stairs. The door to the attic was in the ceiling. Usually there was a string hanging down that you could grab and pull, but it was half broken and out of reach.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kasey repeated. “I’m sorry, Lexi, I’m so scared.”

My first instinct was to snap at her, but something stopped me.

“Kase,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “look at me.”

She raised her tearstained face and stared right at me, like a scared cat that might bolt at the slightest misstep. “I know you’re scared. But I need your help.”

She sniffled.

“Please come help me open this door.” “Alexis, what are you doing?!”

I looked down the stairs to see Megan crouching next to Carter, who was looking up at us dazedly.

“Don’t trust her!” Megan said. She started to climb the stairs but stumbled and fell, grimacing.

I turned to my sister. “Megan’s hurt. You have to help me.”

Kasey took a few steps forward.

“I need a leg up,” I said. “I just need you to give me a boost.”

“Oh God,” Megan said from the bottom of the steps.

Kasey knelt with her back to the wall, making a stirrup out of her hands.

If she wanted to, she could flip me down the stairs.

“I love you,” I said. “I trust you.”

“Hurry,” she whispered, staring up at the ceiling.

I took a step back and put one foot in her hands.

“Go!” I said, half expecting to fly backward into the air over the foyer.

But I went straight up and grabbed the string from the attic door, and in the next second I was safely back on the carpet.

I grabbed my sister in a tight hug, burying my face in her messy, sweaty hair.

“Good, Kasey!” I said. “Now go, get outside. Call Mom. And stay out. Whatever you do, don’t listen to Sarah. You’re stronger than she is!”

Kasey scampered down the stairs and pulled the front door open.

“Help me get him outside,” I heard Megan say.

“Lexi!” Kasey shrieked. “The kitchen’s on fire!”

“Just go outside!” I yelled.

“Kasey, grab Carter’s legs,” Megan said.

I looked down the hall and caught a flicker of yellow light coming from the study.

But I couldn’t concern myself with that at the moment.

The ladder to the attic slid down and landed on the carpet with a soft thud.

I had bigger fish to fry.

29

A PUTRID, SKUNKY SMELL FILLED THE ATTIC.

The smoke alarms in the hallway below me erupted into eardrum-piercing shrieks, one after another.

The whole house was going to burn down.

Couldn’t I just go outside and wait for the fire department to show?

No. It had to be done. Now, by me—or it might not get done at all.

The rotting smell grew stronger and mixed with the heavy smoke. My “flight-or-fight” response leaned heavily toward flight, but I forced myself to cross the room, feeling heat radiating up through the floorboards.

“Where are you?” I demanded.

For a moment all was silent, and then a bouquet of blue sparks flew upward from the far corner like a mini-fireworks display.

I froze.

What if the sparks burned me? What if they were just luring me over there so they could shoot up into my face, leaving me blind and helpless?

Something stung my leg, and instinctively I reached down and slapped the spot as if I’d been bitten by a mosquito. But then I felt the sting again, and then again, and I reached into my pocket and pulled out the two pieces of the heart necklace.

They glowed blue, surrounded by a thick mass of tiny blue flickers.

“…Shara?” I asked.

Another spray of blue light exploded in the corner. She was helping me.

I clenched my jaw, closed my hand around the hearts, and started climbing over and around the eight years’ worth of junk between me and the far corner.

The rotten egg smell acquired a sharp hint of dead fish, and I fought the urge to gag, especially as I drew nearer to the corner.

Then I saw a box that didn’t match the others in the attic; it was the clean, white kind for file storage, the kind we hadn’t used when we first moved in.

I grabbed an old baseball bat and slid it under the corner of the lid, then jerked it upward. The lid went flying.

And there she was.

The doll.

Just like she’d been in Shara’s photographs in my dream—bald. Chipped. Undressed.

Her eyes were closed, rimmed by a few threadbare eyelashes.

As I leaned over her, her eyelids popped open. The eyes glowed vivid green, as if they were lit from within.

I held my breath as I stared down at her. Then I lowered the bat and reached down into the box. I lifted her into my arms and smoothed the few strands of hair still stuck to her head. Yes, she was ragtag. But in a weird way…She was beautiful.

I stared down at the deep emerald eyes. There was something so comforting about the way they seemed to look right into me.

I felt a burning in my hand and realized I’d been gripping the necklaces so tightly that they’d left a red mark on my palm, like a bad sunburn.

But why, it occurred to me, should I listen to Shara?

She’d nearly killed her own daughter.

The burning in my hand faded from my consciousness.

What I really needed to do was get the doll to safety. Yes, yes. To safety. I hugged the doll close to my chest and ran back to the ladder, but beneath me the hallway floor was on fire.

All that mattered was protecting the doll. If I could have saved her by jumping down into the flames, I would have done it.

I wove my way back through the attic, to the small window that looked out over the very top of the tree.

Of course, once we got outside it would be hard to explain my change of heart. Megan, Kasey—they’d blame the doll for the fire. For hurting us.

I’d have to hide her and keep her hidden until I could think of a way to convince the others that she was my friend. Just for a little while. I was sure that once they met her, they’d understand.

And if they couldn’t be convinced, I could always find…other ways…to deal with them.

Wait.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I knew I had to protect the doll. I clutched her closer and felt warmth fill my body. But no…wait. Something was wrong. My sister…

“You were mean to my sister,” I said. But Kasey was so weak. She needed to learn to stand up for herself.

“No, but…you didn’t have to make her do those things.”

But who was to say all of those horrible things weren’t Kasey’s ideas? She’d been lying so much lately. Who was to say that she wouldn’t try to steal the doll back? After she’d left it to burn here in the attic?

My feet were growing hot, but I felt stuck, lost in the maze of my thoughts and the doll’s horrible, wonderful voice and how much I cared for the doll and how I would do anything for her.

And then the solution hit me:

If I killed Kasey, she couldn’t take the doll from me.

I cried out as an explosion of sparks came flying from my jeans pocket.

It was as if a layer of gauze had been slowly wrapping around my face, so gradually that I didn’t even notice it until it was ripped away.

The doll…the doll had convinced me to kill my sister.