Page 32 of She’s a Doll

She leaned back against the far wall, still breathing too fast, still shaking. “It’s downloading,” she said after a while. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. You know I’m going to need an email or a phone number too, right? And if there’s two-factor authentication, then you’re cooked. Didn’t think of that, did you, demon doll?”

I stared at her, trying to summon the energy to speak again.

“Oh now you’re quiet. You wouldn’t shut up for weeks at work but now⁠—”

Oh, I said. Four. One. Four . . .

Nicola’s hands shook as I finished reciting my phone number. “If this doesn’t work, I’m still smashing you,” she said. “I hope you know that. No second chances. No hiding behind any more cans. If this doesn’t work, you’re pulp.”

Yeah, I rasped. Figured.

I watched her thumb move across the screen of her phone, tapping in the number. I was impressed she could remember it after hearing it only once. Impressed and grateful. “Watson11 is a shit password,” she said as she typed. “Pretty sure Insta doesn’t even allow passwords that shit anymore. You’ve got to have special characters, more digits, a couple of . . .”

Her eyes widened and her face went gray beneath her freckles.

I couldn’t see the screen of her phone from where I lay. I didn’t need to. I knew what she was seeing.

It logged in, didn’t it?

The hammer slipped out of her hand and hit the ground. The thump reverberated through the tin shed and rang in what remained of my porcelain head.

12

Ghost Lore Fact #1: Time is fucked up when you’re dead. Addendum: You can unfuck it, as long as you don’t mind getting a little fucked up in the process.

For the next few days, I stayed lying on the plywood bench, staring up at the harsh buzzing fluorescent light, tentatively poking and prodding the time stream. It was less of a stream and more of a river, the raging kind. I hovered at the edge of it, feeling the rush and eddies, sometimes fast, sometimes slow and swirling, but always going in one direction. Now that I was aware of it, it was a hard thing to ignore. I wasn’t able to slow or stop time half as well as I had before. A hammer, as it turned out, was a hell of a motivator. But if I pushed myself deep into the stream, I could disrupt the flow, breaking the rush of the current and reducing time to a crawl. I could also redirect the more stagnant parts, pushing them forward faster.

Both actions left me strung out and weak, but it was another tool in my belt, another weapon in my arsenal. More than that, it was a sliver of control, and after everything, that felt like finding a raft after days of bobbing around in the ocean.

During the exhausted haze between experiments, I thought about Grandma, Cookie, Auntie Dawn, . . . and Nicola. I didn’t blame her for trying to smash me with the hammer. I still don’t. I get it. I probably would’ve done the same thing if I were in her position. But I was a little worried that she hadn’t hung that hammer back up in its spot on the wall. It was still on the floor, where it had fallen.

That felt dangerous.

A promise, just waiting to be fulfilled.

Perhaps she’d come back, pick the hammer up, and finish the job she’d started. I wasn’t sure how long I could avoid blows, rolling around the workbench without legs or arms. Probably not long.

But she’d logged on to my Insta. Surely she knew that meant I wasn’t a hallucination. Surely that was good news. It meant she wasn’t having a mental breakdown. Or maybe she was, but I wasn’t part of it.

In the days that followed, I tried to come up with something to say to her. Thank you was a solid option. I’m sorry for being a bitch in the store was another. But when the door of the tin shed finally crashed open and Nicola stomped in, hair sticking up at every angle, still in her red Trash N’ Treasure T-shirt, the first thing I said wasn’t anything kind, thoughtful, or profound. It was another piece of proof, just in case she was still unsure.

What kind of dog does Willy Wonka have?

She stared at me.

That’s the joke you told me at Ginger’s party, I reminded her. I didn’t laugh properly, because I wasn’t Willy Wonka, I was the Hatter. But it was a good joke.

She kept staring. She stared long enough that I probed the stream uncertainly to make sure we weren’t in a slow patch. Everything was flowing by, steady and stable.

Do you remember? I asked uncertainly. The answer was a choco⁠—

“Chocolate lab,” Nicola muttered. “I remember.” There were shadows under her eyes and a box under her arm.

Unease trickled through my stitches. You’re not going to put me in that box, are you?

“I phoned my audiologist,” she said. “And then a priest.”

I didn’t know you were religious.