Amanda Stevens - The Dollmaker

She hesitated, glancing behind her down the street. Then her gaze came slowly back to his. “Show it to me from there.”

He nodded and opened the back door of his car, lifting the doll with curly blond hair and turquoise eyes from a white box. She resembled the little girl on the bike, but she wasn’t an exact match. Not yet.

“Do you like dolls, Ruby?” he asked over his shoulder.

“I like Maw-Maw’s dolls. She has thousands and thousands. Maybe even more. Sometimes she makes her own dolls.”

“Yes, I know. She and I took some classes together. But even your grandmother doesn’t have a doll like this one.” He straightened and turned so that the child could see what he held in his hands.

She was instantly charmed. “She looks like me!”

“That’s because I made her from a photograph your grandmother gave me. She’s not quite finished, though.” He held the doll out to her. “Do you like her?”

The child nodded, her smile as dazzling as the sunlight.

“Come take a closer look then.”

She was still torn with indecision. She turned again to search the street behind her. “I have to go home and ask Mama first.”

“Why not take the doll with you? I bet your mother would love to see her. Here, let me help you….”

It happened so quickly that no one on the quiet street saw or heard anything. They never did. Not even in this day and age when people told themselves they were on guard for such things. But he was very good at what he did. And the little girls who came to his attention all had one thing in common.

They loved dolls. Almost as much as he did.

The memory drifted away and his eyes misted as he watched the house through the rain. His mother had once loved dolls, too. He wondered if she still did.

The lawn sprinklers along St. Charles Avenue were already twitching as Claire drove in to work early the next morning. Live oaks stood like brooding sentinels at the edge of the street, their dense, spreading limbs a cool green ceiling overhead. Orange and red hibiscus lined cobblestone walkways, while climbing roses spilled over cast-iron gates, and brick walls encased magnolia trees, ginger and thick clumps of oleander.

The summer gardens were in full bloom, and the ravages from Katrina that lingered in other parts of the city were nearly invisible here. One had to be a native or an expert to notice the diminished tree canopy or the scars from severed limbs left by the chainsaws.

Claire and her mother and sister had evacuated to a cousin’s house in Shreveport before the flood, and when the first reports of the compromised levees came over the news, they’d listened in horror and disbelief to the accounts of whitecaps on Canal Street. Lucille had kept wringing her hands and saying over and over that it couldn’t be that bad. It just couldn’t.

Weeks later, when they were finally allowed back into the city, they’d found the magnitude of the destruction overwhelming. Entire neighborhoods destroyed. Streets piled high with debris, flooded cars and uprooted trees. Doors on almost every house marked with a spray-painted X, a date, the search unit and the number of casualties found inside the building.

Claire’s family had been luckier than most. Her old Uptown house and her mother’s home in Faubourg Marigny had been virtually untouched by wind or water, and Charlotte’s loft in the Warehouse District had suffered only broken windowpanes and minor roof damage. Despite the lack of utilities and city services, they’d moved back home as soon as possible, determined to help with the cleanup and get on with their lives. But the devastation wreaked by the storm would live on long after the physical evidence had been swept away. Decades later, when people sat out on their porches watching dusk settle over the city, the memories would still come creeping back, Claire imagined, and a soft breeze from the Gulf would always bring with it a renewed sense of foreboding.

But she didn’t want to think of the past this morning, not of the storm and not of her own personal tragedy. She was anxious to get to the studio early and put in some time at her bench before the gallery opened at ten. Work had always been her salvation, and now she looked forward to having her mind occupied by something other than the doll. At least until Mignon Bujold returned on Tuesday.

And then what? Claire wondered uneasily. What would come of finding that doll? The discovery might lead to nothing, but it wasn’t in her to give up. She’d waited too many years for even one small clue, and now she had two. The doll…and the missing photograph of Ruby.

After going back up to bed last night, Claire had lain awake for a long time, listening to the storm move off to the west as she tried to convince herself that she’d put the photograph away and forgotten it. She even got up and searched through her picture drawer, but it wasn’t there.

Claire had no idea when or why the photo of Ruby had vanished, but she had the strangest feeling it was somehow connected to the doll. And the notion that someone might still be obsessed with her daughter after all these years sent an icy chill up her spine.

Saturdays were always busy in the gallery, and Claire spent most of the day on her feet. During lulls between customers, she stayed busy packing shipments, and late that afternoon she conducted a large tour of the hot studio, where the tourists were able to watch Ansel Ready, a master craftsman who had been blowing glass for more than forty years, go through the process step-by-step.

Afterward, when Claire led the group back into the gallery, she mingled with the out-of-towners, chit-chatting about the studio, the artists and about individual pieces that had aroused someone’s curiosity. She rang up their purchases, and as the last of the tour slowly filed back out into the street, she hoped to finally have a moment to catch her breath.

But long after everyone else had cleared out, a woman in a flowing skirt and dangly earrings lingered in the showroom, her gaze fixed on a display case that featured some of Claire’s pieces. Claire had noticed the woman earlier on the tour, deciding something about her demeanor had seemed a bit odd. Instead of interacting with anyone in the noisy, enthusiastic group, she’d hovered at the back, isolating herself as if she didn’t quite belong.

However, she’d seemed intensely focused on the tour. Every time Claire looked up, the woman’s gaze was on her. Claire had never had anyone hang on to her every word the way this woman seemed to, and after a while, the undivided attention became a little unsettling.

Claire pretended to work at the register, but her gaze kept straying to the woman. She wore a thick matte foundation on her face, and her eyes were rimmed in black kohl. But even through the heavy makeup, Claire found the woman’s features strangely arresting.

She looked up, caught Claire staring and smiled.

Claire shivered and suddenly she knew why the woman’s appearance was so striking. Her colorless face was reminiscent of a mannequin’s or a doll’s. Beautiful to look at, but not quite real. She had no emotion in her eyes, no expression in her features. And when she smiled, only her lips moved.

Taking one of Claire’s pieces from the display shelf, she approached the counter. “I’ve decided I can’t live without this,” she said. Her fingers around the rippled bowl were long and tapered, and she didn’t wear any rings.

As much as Claire needed the money, she had a funny feeling about the purchase, as if the woman had chosen the piece not for its beauty but because of its creator. But Claire didn’t know why that would be. Her name was not on the bowl, so this stranger couldn’t know it was one of her creations.