Alice wrapped her scarf around her neck and pulled on her riding gloves, wondering briefly whether to put on an extra pair of socks for the ride up the mountain. All the librarians had chilblains now, their toes pink and swollen from the cold, their fingers frequently corpse-white from lack of blood. She looked out of the window at the chill gray sky. She no longer checked her reflection in the mirror.

She pulled the envelope from the side, where it had sat since the previous day, and tucked it into her bag. She would read it later, once she’d done her rounds. No point getting worked up when you had two silent hours on a horse facing you.

She looked at the dresser as she made to leave. The dolls were still staring at her.

“What?” she said.

But this time they seemed to be saying something quite different.

 

* * *

 

• • •

For us?” Millie’s mouth had dropped so far open Alice could almost hear Sophia warning that bugs would fly straight in.

She handed the other doll to Mae, its petticoats rustling as it was pulled swiftly into the child’s lap. “One each. We had a little chat this morning and they told me in confidence that they’d be much happier here with you than where they’ve been living.”

The two girls gawped at the angelic porcelain faces, and then, in unison, their heads turned toward their father. Jim Horner’s own expression was unreadable.

“They’re not new, Mr. Horner,” Alice said carefully. “But where they come from has no real use for them. It’s . . . a house of men. It didn’t seem right to have them sitting there.”

She could see his indecision, the I don’t know . . . forming on his lips. The air in the cabin seemed to still as the girls held their breath.

“Please, Pa?” Mae’s voice emerged as a whisper. They sat cross-legged, and Millie’s hand absently stroked the shiny chestnut curls, letting each one spring back into place, her gaze flickering from the painted face to her father’s. The dolls, having for months seemed sinister, rebuking, were suddenly benign, joyful things. Because they were in the place they were meant to be.

“They’re awful fancy,” he said finally.

“Well, I believe all girls deserve something a little fancy in their lives, Mr. Horner.”

He rubbed a rough hand over the top of his head and looked away. Mae’s face lengthened, fearful of what he was about to say. He motioned toward the door. “Would you mind stepping outside with me a moment, Mrs. Van Cleve?”

She heard sighs of dismay from the girls as she followed him to the back of the cabin, her arms wrapped around her to keep out the cold, mentally running over the various arguments she would employ to try to change his mind.

All little girls need a doll.

They would likely be thrown away if the girls didn’t take them.

Oh, for goodness’ sake, why must your wretched pride get in the way of a—

“What do you think?”

Alice stopped in her tracks. Jim Horner lifted a piece of hessian sacking to reveal the head of a large, somewhat threadbare stag, its antlers thrusting into the air three feet to each side of it, its ears stitched haphazardly to its head. It was mounted on a roughly carved oak base, which had been painted with pitch.

She stifled the strangled noise that emerged unbidden from her throat.

“Shot him over at Rivett’s Creek two months ago. Stuffed and mounted him myself. Got Mae to help me send off for them glass eyes on the mail order. They’re pretty lifelike, don’t you think?”

Alice gaped at the deer’s glassy, overlarge eyes, the left of which had a definite squint. The stag looked faintly demented and sinister, a nightmare beast, conjured in fever dreams. “It’s . . . very . . . imposing.”

“It’s my first go. Figured I might set up a trade in them. Do one every few weeks and sell them in town. Help keep us going through the winter months.”

“That’s an idea. Maybe you could do some smaller creatures too. A rabbit, or a ground squirrel.”

He mulled this over, then nodded. “So. You’ll take it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“For the dolls. A trade.”

Alice lifted her palms. “Oh, Mr. Horner, you really don’t need to—”

“Can’t take ’em for nothing.” He folded his arms firmly across his chest, and waited.

 

* * *

 

• • •

What the heck is that?” said Beth, as Alice dismounted wearily, pulling bits of foliage from the deer’s antlers. It had caught on every second tree the whole way down the mountain, causing her almost to fall off several times, and now looked even more bedraggled and wonky than it had on the ridge, strung with a variety of stray twigs and leaves. She walked up the steps and placed it carefully against the wall, reminding herself, as she had now done a hundred times, of the joy on the girls’ faces as they learned the dolls were truly theirs, the way they cradled and sang to them, their endless thanks and kisses. The softening of the planes on Jim Horner’s face as he looked on.

“It’s our new mascot.”

“Our what?”

“Touch a hair on its head and I’ll stuff you worse than Mr. Horner stuffed that deer.”

“Shoot,” said Beth to Izzy, as Alice strode back out to her horse. “Remember when Alice made out like she was a lady?”

 

* * *

 

• • •

   Lunch service had nearly finished at the White Horse Hotel, Lexington, and the restaurant had started to thin out, leaving tables scattered with the detritus of napkins and empty glasses as, fortified, the guests wrapped themselves in scarves and hats. They were braced to venture back out onto sidewalks teeming with last-minute Christmas shoppers. Mr. Van Cleve, who had eaten well on a sirloin steak and fried potatoes, leaned back in his chair and stroked his stomach with both hands, a gesture that conveyed a satisfaction he seemed to feel less and less in other areas of his life.

The girl was giving him indigestion. In any other town, such misdemeanors might eventually be forgotten, but in Baileyville a grudge could last a century and still nurture a head of steam. The people of Baileyville were descended from Celts, from Scots and Irish families, who could hold on to resentment until it was dried out like beef jerky, and bearing no resemblance to its original self. And Mr. Van Cleve, although he was about as Celtic as the Cherokee sign on the outside of the gas station, had absorbed this trait thoroughly. More than that, he had his daddy’s habit of fixing on one person, then training on them his grievances and blaming them for all that ailed him. That person was Margery O’Hare. He rose with a curse for her on his lips, and he went to sleep with images of her taunting him.