When I tugged the string that dangled from the ceiling, the bare bulb came to life, illuminating the hatchet on the wall, the hulking bookshelf blocking the crawl space, my father’s desk in the center, and the empty area where my mother’s rocker had been before they lugged it upstairs for Penny. I went to the desk and pulled open a drawer. Those tarnished instruments lay inside, bound by a rubber band, same as they’d been so many years before. I removed the dental scaler and orthodontic pliers then used the pliers to bend the tip of the scaler until its shape resembled a hook. Next, I went to my mother’s knitting basket, grabbed a spool of yarn.
When I got back outside, my mother was still on the steps, alternately turning more pages of Sam Heekin’s manuscript and looking up to observe what I was doing. Pushing off the plywood, staring into that dark well, I located Penny, facedown and floating in the water. I slipped my makeshift fishing line over the edge, lowering the scaler and moving it in a figure-eight motion. A hand, a sleeve, a strand of that strange red hair—I hoped to hook any such part of that doll. Twice I managed, but no sooner did I begin lifting than the weight of its waterlogged body became too much and Penny slipped free. Before the line broke or the hook came loose, I brought it up again—tripling the yarn, doubling the knots, testing to be sure things were secure. Dropping it down and circling once more, eventually I felt the gotcha feeling a fisherman must when something is on the hook. Carefully, I lifted. The closer the doll got to the surface, the louder the rainstorm sound of water gushing from its body. I kept tightening the line, winding it between my hand and elbow, until at last I was able to reach down and grab Penny.
My mother had put aside Heekin’s manuscript by then and joined me at the well. She watched as I dropped the doll on the ground. Water pooled from its body, trailing in small rivulets around my mother’s slippers and my sneakers.
“There,” I said, brushing my wet clothes. “That’s what you wanted.”
She stared down at Penny—a few dead leaves in the doll’s hair, but otherwise no worse for wear. “Thank you, Sylvie. And I’m sorry too.”
“Sorry?” I said.
“Your sister was right. Your father and I—we used to keep you girls separate from our work, as much as possible. As time’s gone on, I’ve realized we failed at that.”
The mention of Rose and the things she said before leaving only stirred the sadness and guilt I felt about her being gone. In an effort to change the subject I said, “Last night, you told me you didn’t believe them at first.”
“Believe who?”
“That couple in Ohio. The Entwistles. When I came to your room, you said you didn’t believe the things they claimed about the doll. What do you believe now?”
My mother let out a heavy sigh, watching as still more water drained from Penny; it seemed the doll had soaked up a never-ending supply. “I felt badly for them,” she said. “That much was certain. But from the letters they sent, I had the sense they were simply a couple mourning the loss of their daughter, hoping for something to be true that was not. And I told your father as much.”
“Then why did we go there?”
“At first, they wrote to say that in its own strange way the doll had brought hope back into their lives. But over time, they reported that her presence seemed to be responsible for disruptive occurrences.”
“What sort of occurrences?” I asked, thinking only of the ones in our lives.
Again, my mother sighed. She never liked talking about this sort of topic as much as my father, and I worried she might cut it short. But she continued, “Broken dishes. A shattered mirror. A fire in the store below their apartment. More than any of those things, however, they described a pervasive, off-kilter feeling that plagued their home. Eventually, your father convinced me that we should visit and help them if we could. But from the very moment we watched you girls drive off to the movies, I had the same impression as when reading the Entwistles’ letters: this was a couple struggling with overwhelming grief. At first, that opinion was based solely on those feelings I get. But the details of their lives confirmed it. Their daughter had been dead nearly three years, and yet, when the Entwistles showed us the girl’s bedroom, it was just as she left it, right down to her barrettes on the nightstand and her dirty play clothes in the hamper. Most nights, Mrs. Entwistle informed us, she slept right there in the twin bed with her daughter’s doll cradled in her arms, rather than in her own bed with her husband.”
“So were they lying to you and Dad about the things they claimed Penny did?”
“Not lying exactly. What they were doing, I believe, was sharing with us a kind of truth they had created for themselves. In some ways, it’s not so different from what many people do in this world. Their truth was a story that they had woven together in the years after their heartbreaking loss—one they kept adding to, seizing any scrap of evidence to support their belief. You’ll see as you get older, Sylvie, even if the examples aren’t so extreme, there are times when it is easier to fool yourself than swallow some jagged piece of reality. Does that make sense?”