The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [138]
And, indeed, Anise smiled at her. Then the woman put her hands on her hips in a businesslike fashion and surveyed the tables and the toys in the greenhouse. “First of all, a greenhouse is no place for a lot of dolls,” she said. She lifted one of the American Girl dolls roughly by its ankle and started toward the greenhouse door. Garnet had been kneeling before one of the cartons, peering in at the rows of plants there in their tiny plastic pots, but she was instantly on her feet when she saw Anise treating the doll so roughly. She pulled the doll from the woman’s hand and held it against her chest as if it were an actual infant.
“Cali, really. It’s a doll,” Anise scolded her. “You are ten years old. Isn’t it time to—forgive me—stop thinking like a child and reasoning like a child? Isn’t it about time you put aside your childish ways?”
Hallie was pretty sure the quote came from the Bible, but she couldn’t have begun to explain the context or the meaning or why Anise had decided to cite it. She had a vague sense that the woman was using it ironically: Anise had meant what she said, but quoting the Bible was almost a joke to her.
“I like that doll,” Garnet said. “I like all my dolls.”
“You’re too old—”
“I’m not too old! I’m ten!” She motioned at Hallie with her hand. “We’re ten!”
“It’s okay,” Hallie said, hoping to calm her sister. “We’ll bring the dolls inside and put them back in the den. They probably shouldn’t be out here in the greenhouse anyway. I’ll take a couple and you take a couple. Anise, is that okay? We’ll bring them to the den or even upstairs to our bedrooms, and it will just take a minute. Cali and I will—”
“And I’m not Cali! I’m Garnet! I don’t want to be Cali!” Suddenly she was shouting, and Hallie could see from the corner of her eye that Anise was more intrigued than angered by the outburst. She seemed to be studying the two of them, almost curious. She had no intention of jumping in as a grown-up.
“Okay, you’re Garnet. Fine. Not a big deal,” Hallie reassured her sister, and Garnet seemed to calm down. They would each take an armful of dolls, and then they would each take an armful of the dolls’ furniture. In two trips they would have cleared the greenhouse of what Anise considered the childish things. “Anise, we’ll be right back, okay?” Hallie said.
Anise nodded, and Hallie turned back to her sister, expecting to see her rounding up more of their toys. But she wasn’t, she was just standing there, her gaze stonelike, and Hallie knew instantly that the girl was in the midst of a seizure. Her eyes were open but absolutely oblivious to the world they were taking in. She was standing perfectly still, holding the American Girl doll named Addy in her arms; she might have been mistaken for a wax model of Garnet Linton, except for the reality that Hallie could see her sister breathing slowly and evenly.
“Garnet?” she said, but only because she felt she had to say something. She knew her sister wouldn’t respond. “Garnet?”
And, just as she expected, her sister didn’t say a word. And so Hallie gently removed the doll from her arms and took Garnet’s hands in hers. Then she sat her sister down on the ground where she was, the dry dirt warm, and knelt beside her.
“What is she doing?” Anise asked. The woman was towering over the twins, and Hallie couldn’t tell what to make of her tone.
“She’s not doing anything,” she answered. “At least nothing on purpose. But she has these seizures. It’s a brain thing.”
“An illness?”
“Sort of. I don’t understand it really.