Whispered Magics by Sherwood Smith

Author:Sherwood Smith [Smith, Sherwood]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: magic, aliens, young adult, short stories, fiction
ISBN: 978-1-6113- 289-1
Publisher: Book View Cafe
Published: 2013-08-06T07:00:00+00:00

The Love that Dolls Talk

Though Kate was all the way upstairs in her bedroom on her bed, she could hear her mother’s angry voice.

“Jen! Have you been messing with your sister’s dolls?”

Kate just barely heard Jen’s voice. “No! I dunno how it got there! But I’ll put it back.”

Tromp, tromp, tromp, click-click. That was the door handle. The door opened, then came the scrunch scrunch of cautious feet on the new carpet.

Kate opened her eye. Jen reached up to put the Princess Polly doll back on the shelf next to the row of others. Jen wore a Disney Princesses t-shirt. Shorts. Brown hair in three braids today. The middle braid reached her waistband in back.

Then she whirled around so fast that all three braids whizzed out, kind of like a kid helicopter. There was Jen’s face, round, brown eyes. Who was she being today? Kate didn’t care.

Jen grinned. “Your dolls been walking around the house?” Her mouth pruned up in fake disgust. “Think Princess Polly was looking for the bathroom? Princess Poopy,” Jen added, snickering.

Kate wondered if she’d thought bathroom jokes were that funny when she was in fourth grade. Yeah, probably. Right now she couldn’t remember, but she was used to that, too.

What she did remember—just now, she realized—were little voices during the night. It hadn’t been a dream. She’d heard them. Hadn’t she? Dreams and real used to get mixed up, but she was learning which was which.

“Want anything?” Jen asked, putting her hands on her hips. “TV on?” She pointed up at the corner, where Uncle Tad had put a TV, just like in her hospital room. “Can I get you anything?” She fingered the book lying on the little table beside Kate’s big hospital bed. “Read you another chapter? I can read that book. I read it when you were, um, gone.” Jen talked quickly. “It’s kinda old-fashioned, but I liked the part when Anne smacked her slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head.”

Kate wiggled her fingers sideways. Everyone knew that meant No.

“Okay.” Jen shrugged, chewed her lip, then she ran out, thump thump thump, forgetting to close the door.

The thumps went all the way down the stairs, then turned to slaps on the tile by the front door, where you turned to go into the kitchen.

Jen’s voice floated up the stairs again. “Kate still won’t talk to me. She won’t even let me read.”

“It’s all right. We’re to expect that.” Mom’s voice went high—almost as high as Jen’s.

It was strange how sounds were different from each room. Kate had never noticed that Before. She thought of her life as Now, and Before. Before, she hadn’t heard things like she did Now. How everyone’s voices were different for each room. How Jen’s voice was so light, and easy to listen to—like sunlight. Like water and sunlight. But when Mom’s voice was high, it reminded Kate of crying.

Kate didn’t want to think about crying, so she thought about words instead, how to make all the sounds she heard into words.

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