Page 17 of How to Flirt with a Witch

My gaze pulls to a porcelain doll. I step closer. It’s like she’s cast a fishing line and sunk a hook into me. She’s a foot high with cream skin, rosy cheeks, periwinkle eyes, golden ringlets, and a frilly purple dress.

I furrow my brow. This doll means nothing to me, so why is my face going numb? Why do I feel like something is urging me to lean in, pick it up, and ask questions?

I point to it. “What’s the story with this one?”

The woman stands up from her chair to peer over the mound of dolls. “Oh, that’s Rebecca. I collected her in Boston about… ah, I’d say thirty years ago.”

“It’s creepy,” Andrea says in a pouty tone.

I can’t disagree. But that inner tug hasn’t gone away. My legs are rooted, my heart slamming into my ribs like I’m sprinting. “From an antique shop or…?”

“Toy store. Walked past with my husband and had to have her for the collection!”

I nod. Natalie’s words simmer in the back of my mind, asking me what attracted me to Lucy. I liked her because she was cute and playful, but wasn’t it more than that? Wasn’t there something I couldn’t explain? It was a feeling in my core, a tug like the way you have to keep watching a thriller to find out what happens. My pulse quickened, my skin tingled, and I couldn’t turn away.

That feeling is back as I look at the porcelain doll. My chest skips like I’ve set eyes on something historians have been searching for. This dead-eyed, creeptastic toy named Rebecca is important.

I need it. For the same inexplicable reason I had to adopt Lucy, I have to buy this doll.

This is how I get a hold of Natalie Zacharias.

“Nice, you getting something?” Clayton asks, stepping up beside me. He sees the doll and flinches. “Jesus Christ.”

“It reminds me of… one my grandma had,” I lie.

Andrea says nothing, watching in horror as I exchange payment with the woman and accept my purchase.

The feel of her is as creepy as her appearance. The frilly dress loses volume as my fingers close around her formless body. She’s a couple of pounds. Whatever I expected her to feel like, this isn’t it.

I can’t look at her. Maybe it’s the way her head is tilted or the way age has put little chips and smudges all over her face.

“I’ll get you a bag to protect her from the rain,” the woman says.

“Yes. Thank you,” I say with a sigh of relief.

She puts Rebecca in a paper bag with handles, and it immediately rips. “Oops. That’s weird,” she says and gets me a new one.

I chew my lip.Coincidence?

Her second attempt at bagging the doll is successful. I let out a breath and roll my shoulders, shaking off my anxiety.

We continue through the flea market, me with the porcelain doll swinging from my arm in a paper bag, Andrea with her hand glued to my backpack, and the guys getting excited about random items like old video games. Mo buys a lava lamp and a neon beer sign for his dorm room.

We head to the outdoor portion of the market, and I zip up my jacket. It’s dark, but there are enough lights to see the water and the Granville Bridge passing over it. The wind has picked up, making the tents groan and the string lights sway. Vendors scramble to secure loose papers and tablecloths.

“What do you think of Granville Island?” Clayton asks, falling into step beside me.

“I like it,” I say truthfully. “Not sure about the creepy costumes, but the place itself is nice. I’d like to come here by day.”

A grim reaper lumbers past, the person in the costume on stilts.

Clayton grins at me. “We should go to the improv theater one night. It’s a lot of fun.”

His words dangle in the air. I can’t tell if he means ‘we’ as in the two of us.

“I’m starving,” Andrea says. “Can we get dinner?”

“Same,” I say quickly, grateful for her interruption.