The Dollhouse Murders (35th Anniversary Edition) Read online

  That was all. Amy looked up at her aunt, who clung to the edge of the table as if she might faint. “Who’s Reuben?”

  Aunt Clare cleared her throat. “Let me see the note, Amy. Please.” She held the paper close to the lamp and read it again. “Reuben Miller was the handyman who took care of the garden and did chores around the house,” she said. “He worked for a number of other people, too. He was quiet—serious—very de-dependable.” She began to cry. “Reuben Miller! Oh, Amy, I know the police questioned him at the time, but he seemed so outraged by the killings, and his wife swore he was home that evening….”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He died, long ago.” Aunt Clare dropped into a chair and leaned back. “I just can’t take it in. Do you see what this means? Tom didn’t kill Grandma and Grandpa. It wasn’t my fault they died!”

  Amy watched her aunt study the message again. Something magic was happening, a small miracle in the circle of yellow lamplight. Tight little lines in Aunt Clare’s face melted away, and her pale cheeks flushed with color. She looked younger, gentler, prettier than Amy had ever seen her before.

  “When you said there was a ghost, I was angry with you, Amy,” she murmured. “I thought, if that’s true, the ghost is Grandma Treloar, and she’s still furious after all these years because her killer was never identified. I thought, she wants me to go on feeling guilty forever! But now I know Tom didn’t kill them. And Grandma Treloar wanted me to know the truth. If her spirit has come back, it’s because she wants me to stop driving myself crazy over something that wasn’t my fault at all.” She was like a little girl, thrilled and relieved, asking Amy and Louann to be happy with her. “Don’t you think that’s why she came back?”

  “I think the thunder is stopping,” Louann replied. “That’s what I think.” She turned from Aunt Clare to Amy as they burst out laughing. “Not funny,” she scolded. “The thunder was bad.”

  * * *

  The electricity came back on as they returned to the kitchen. In the bright light, Aunt Clare read Grandma Treloar’s note still another time. When she put it down at last, Louann picked it up from the table and slipped it inside a book she’d brought with her from the parlor.

  “It belongs here in this book,” she said primly. “This is the book it fell out of.” She laid the thin volume on the table with a satisfied air.

  Amy stared at the book and then at Aunt Clare.

  “I can’t believe it,” Aunt Clare said, shaking her head. “It’s just a wild coincidence. Grandma must have grabbed the first book she touched.”

  Amy nodded. After all, everything about this night had been hard to believe. But she picked up the book and ran her fingers across the cover.

  A Play by Henrik Ibsen, it said across the top of the binding, and then in large letters the title: A Doll’s House.

  THE morning was washed fresh by the storm of the night before. Aunt Clare drifted around the house with a smile on her face. She hummed as they dressed for church and was thoughtful on the drive home after the service.

  “I feel so light,” she marveled. “As if a whole world has slipped off my shoulders. I can’t tell you how different I feel!”

  Amy thought she knew. Aunt Clare didn’t need her anymore; there was a new serenity in her aunt’s manner and in the old house itself. And that was good, because Amy was ready to go home. She was grateful that Aunt Clare didn’t protest when she said she and Louann would leave as soon as their parents came back.

  “I do want your father to know about Reuben Miller,” Aunt Clare said. “He has a right to hear the truth. But I’m not going to tell him or anyone else how we happened to discover Grandma Treloar’s note. If you want to tell, it’s up to you. I still can hardly believe it myself. If your father thinks I should tell the police about Reuben, I will, though I doubt anyone cares anymore who did the killings—anyone but me, that is.”

  “I’m going to tell Ellen everything,” Amy said. “She’ll believe it.” A long, wonderful summer lay ahead, with a best friend she could really talk to.

  Aunt Clare nodded. “Ellen’s a good friend. You know,” she said suddenly, “I think I’m going to enjoy my own friends more when I get back to Chicago. It’ll be different this time, because I’ll be different. No more nightmares about Grandma and Grandpa despising me, blaming me. No more guilty feelings—though I’ll always be sorry I gave them such a hard time. I’m going to find a job I like, and just start over.” She leaned across the table earnestly. “I’d like you to be as carefree as I am at this moment, Amy. You’re like a daughter to me.”

  Her glance touched on Louann, and Amy knew what she was thinking about. They sat quietly, deep in their separate thoughts, until Louann grew bored and wandered upstairs. She had a box of treasures to examine—some old games Aunt Clare had found in the back of a closet. Her heavy tread echoed on the stairs.

  “I keep thinking about what brought you here a week ago,” Aunt Clare said. “How frustrated you were. What are you going to do the next time you feel like running?” It was the same question Amy had asked herself.

  “I know your mother doesn’t want any more advice from me,” Aunt Clare went on. “But maybe you and she can talk things over one of these days. You can help her to understand that you and Louann must have time apart occasionally. You need it, and Louann has a right to meet other people—”

  “Like Mrs. Peck.” Amy remembered her jealous twinges when Louann talked about the fun she and Marisa had been having.

  “Like Mrs. Peck,” Aunt Clare agreed. “It would be great if Louann could go on spending time with her all summer. Just because you’re on vacation, you shouldn’t become a full-time sistersitter.”

  “My mom thinks we should take care of Louann ourselves.” Amy picked her words carefully. She’d never tried to explain this to anyone else before—or to herself. “I guess I sort of think we should, too, even though I get awfully tired of it. I don’t know why, but that’s how it is.”

  Aunt Clare began gathering the plates and glasses. “I’ll say one thing more, and then I’ll be quiet.” She grinned at Amy. “I may not have experience raising children, but I am an expert on guilt feelings. And I’m pretty sure your mother feels as guilty in her way as I do in mine. She blames herself because Louann is brain-damaged—there isn’t any reason for her to do that, but it’s a perfectly human way to feel. And because she feels guilty, you and your father feel guilty, too. Louann is your family burden, and it’s up to your family to take care of her—isn’t that the way you look at it?”

  Amy was astonished. She had never thought that her mother might feel responsible for Louann’s being the way she was. It was possible, she supposed. Still, there was something wrong with Aunt Clare’s description of their feelings…something missing. She wanted to talk about it some more, but the sound of a car on the gravel cut short the discussion.

  “Mom and Dad are here!” Louann pounded down the stairs and ran outside. Moments later, they were all on the front porch, hugging each other as if they’d been apart for weeks.

  “Happy late birthday!” Amy’s father exclaimed. “It’s an awful responsibility, having a teenager in the family. Makes me feel older myself.”

  Amy made a face at him. “How’s Barbara’s husband?” she asked. “Is he going to be okay?”

  Her mother’s face clouded. “The doctors still don’t know if he’ll recover. I feel so sorry for that little family.” She hugged Amy and Louann again. “I just couldn’t wait to get back to see you both. We’re so lucky….”

  Aunt Clare left them on the porch together while she went inside to pour lemonade and fill a plate with cookies.

  “We’re both going home with you today,” Amy said shyly. “I’ve got my stuff all packed.”

  Her mother looked delighted. “I’m glad! We’ve missed you, Amy—especially Louann.”

  “Why ‘especially Louann’?” Mr. Treloar demanded. “I missed Amy as much as anybody.”

  “I missed Amy as m
uch as anybody,” Louann repeated. “Aunt Clare gave me games,” she said, changing the subject. “I know how to play them. Amy says I don’t, but I do.”

  “You do not,” Amy argued. “I told you this morning, you have to throw dice and then move—”

  “I know how. I do!” Suddenly Louann’s face was flushed. She scrambled across the porch on all fours and leaned against her mother’s knees. “Tell Amy I know how,” she commanded. “You tell her, Mom.”

  “Amy, please don’t get her all upset….”

  It was a scene they had played many times before. But this time there was a difference and Amy knew it, even as she glared at Louann. In the last two days and nights, she and her sister had been through a lot together. They’d been partners, holding on to each other when they were too frightened to stand alone. At that moment Amy knew what Aunt Clare had left out when she talked about “your family burden.” She’d left out love. Louann, crouched there like a small child, full of resentment and frustration, was a real person. A sister. She’d been brave when Amy was afraid. She had good points and bad points like everyone else.

  “I’ll play the games with you next week, Louann,” Amy offered. “Or maybe Mrs. Peck will. If I’m busy doing something else.” She looked into her mother’s eyes as she said that, and waited, not breathing, for the nod that finally came.

  “Sounds like a fine arrangement to me,” her father said. “And that lemonade looks terrific, Clare.” He opened the screen door for Aunt Clare, who had been standing there with a tray of glasses, not wanting to interrupt. Louann scrambled up, her anger forgotten, and handed the glasses around.

  “There’s nothing like a snack,” she announced, in a voice so much like Aunt Clare’s that they all laughed.

  * * *

  An hour passed. The Treloars lingered on the porch, sipping their drinks and listening to Aunt Clare’s plans for closing up the house and returning to Chicago. At last Amy’s father put down his glass and stood up.

  “We’d better head for home,” he said. “It’s been a long, hard weekend.”

  For all of us, Amy thought.

  Aunt Clare jumped to her feet. “Before you leave, there’s something I want you to see in the attic, Paul,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve forgotten it exists—you were so small when I got it.”

  Amy felt a familiar sinking in the pit of her stomach. She didn’t want to go up to the attic again. She just wanted to go home. But when the others filed into the house after Aunt Clare, she couldn’t very well stay behind.

  Louann raced ahead when they reached the attic door. “This way,” she shouted. “I know what it is.”

  The dollhouse stood open, just as they’d left it the night before. No, not quite. Amy felt goose bumps on her arms. The dolls had moved again. All four—the grandmother and grandfather, the big sister and the little boy—were seated at the dining room table, the way she and Ellen had arranged them more than a week ago. Amy glanced sideways at Aunt Clare, and saw her aunt’s eyes widen.

  “Why, this is gorgeous!” Mrs. Treloar exclaimed. “Clare, it’s the loveliest dollhouse I’ve ever seen. Wherever did it come from?”

  “It was mine when I was a girl. But it’s never been played with, and I think that’s too bad. Somehow”—Aunt Clare smiled teasingly at Amy—“somehow I don’t think Amy would enjoy it much, even though she likes miniatures. But I know Louann would. I’d like her to have it.”

  Mrs. Treloar was astounded. “Oh, it’s much too valuable!” she exclaimed. “It belongs in a museum. Louann might break things. You mustn’t—”

  Her protest faded as Louann dropped to her knees and reached into the house to touch a table, then a chair, with a gentle finger.

  “Mine?” she asked in an incredulous whisper. “The dollhouse is mine?”

  “It surely is,” Aunt Clare said. “If your mother and father say it’s all right.”

  Amy’s father cleared his throat. “I’m sure Louann will take very good care of it,” he said. There were tears in his eyes, and for a moment Amy thought of what it must have been like for him on that long-ago night—awakened by police in the dark wood closet and carried off to live with strangers. He had his own terrible memories to live with.

  Now he was looking at the dolls gathered around the table. “They seem happy, don’t they?” he said. “Like a real family.” He put an arm around Amy and rested his other hand on Louann’s shoulder. “Best thing in the world—a family,” he said. “Agreed, Amy?”

  Amy leaned against him. “Agreed,” she said.

  “Agreed, Louann?”

  But Louann was too busy to answer. She was passing a tiny china plate from one doll to another. “Have a chocolate chip cookie,” she coaxed. “You’ll feel much better.”

  When she was eight, Betty Ren Wright began copying her poems into a loose-leaf notebook with her name lettered across the cover. That was her first book, and she liked the idea so much she never stopped writing. She attended elementary school, high school, and college in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area, and took every opportunity to write. Her first short story, a mystery, was published soon after graduation, and her first picture book appeared several years later.

  Betty Ren was an editor of children’s books as well as a distinguished author. Her books received many state awards, including two Texas Bluebonnet Awards and two Missouri Mark Twain Awards. In 2006 she was honored as a Notable Children’s Author by the Wisconsin Library Association.

  What types of books did you like to read when you were a child?

  I read constantly, and pretty indiscriminately; my mother brought home armfuls of books from the Teachers College library every Friday, and I swallowed them whole. I loved family stories, animal stories (no matter how sentimental!). I did not care for fantasy; I craved ghost stories, but I wanted the ghosts to appear to ordinary people like me.

  That’s why you write ghost stories!

  I’ve always loved ghost stories; but when I was growing up, there always had to be an explanation for what appeared to be supernatural. I wanted real ghosts, and starting with The Dollhouse Murders, I found them. I’m so glad there were lots of readers who wanted the same thing.

  Where do the ideas for your books come from?

  Well, like most writers I use my own experiences and the experiences of friends as starting points. Or I remember feelings I had in childhood and start there. Each time, the finished story is very different from what actually happened, because as I start writing I constantly ask myself, What if…? What if that dollhouse were haunted? What if I were ten years old and had to spend the whole summer with a bachelor uncle who didn’t like children? What if my dreams actually came true, and I was afraid to tell my family what was happening? I consider lots of different what-ifs for each book and by the time I’ve chosen my favorites, the book has begun to take shape.

  What can you tell us about two of your most popular books, The Dollhouse Murders and Christina’s Ghost?

  The Dollhouse Murders really began the day I watched two young brothers, one of them mentally challenged, sharing a picnic at a roadside stop. The direction of the novel was settled the day I helped my friend “clean” her dollhouse (we used very delicate watercolor brushes).

  What fun writing this book was! A friend had built a glorious dollhouse that was an exact reproduction of her grandparents’ home. Paintings, books, bedclothes, furniture—it was perfect! What it needed, I decided, was some ghosts. I was interested in family problems that result when a child has intellectual disabilities—and had written magazine fiction and a third-grade reader around that subject—and wanted to use it again in a book-length story. The characters and the setting went together so easily, the book almost wrote itself.

  The setting for Christina’s Ghost grew out of the many hours I spent as a child at an isolated lake cottage. I’m sure I could go through my shelf of books and tell where each started—sometimes a bit of conversation, sometimes a friend’s memory, sometimes a single incident that
I’ll never forget but that plays a very small part in the novel.

  When I was a little girl, my mother periodically decided I should experience “family life”; and off I went to stay with an aunt, uncle, and four teenage cousins. I never forgot the feelings of total dislocation that went with those visits—my aunt was accustomed to four teenage boys, and the boys barely noticed the visitor curled up in the library with a book. I wanted to reproduce some of the lost feeling in Christina’s summer with Uncle Ralph, but I wanted Christina to be as unlike me as possible. She acknowledged her discomfort, but unlike me she set out to do something about it. She became the girl I wished I had been.

  Amy in The Dollhouse Murders sure is a spunky heroine!

  Amy is a protagonist who grew stronger under pressure—a trait I certainly admire. (If I were Amy, I probably wouldn’t have run away in the first place!)

  Do you have a favorite spooky, old house that you visited or ever stayed in?

  For a dozen years or so I lived in an apartment created from the sunroom of a huge hundred-year-old house in Racine. It was sometimes drafty but always sunny, and it had a fine working fireplace. I loved every minute of my time there, even after the owners, who lived in the rest of the house, told me it was haunted. Perhaps I enjoyed it even more then, because there was always a chance….Unfortunately the ghost or ghosts never visited the sunroom.

  What were your favorite books growing up?

  I liked the old-fashioned stories (old-fashioned even when I was a child) such as Little Women, Little Men, Treasure Island, and Black Beauty. Animal stories were always welcome. In my grandparents’ little library I discovered a treasure trove of Horatio Algers (my uncle’s), and I read some Nancy Drew, though she wasn’t a great favorite. Later, Precious Bane by Mary Webb became my “best book ever”—a kind of real-life fairy tale.

  Have you learned more about yourself through your writing?