Basically, a Female Harry Potter - Aka Lilli, gets adopted and moves to America. She has an adoptive brother named Alex and an adoptive Mom. Just her luck she lives in an area with a high congregation of African wizards. This is one adventure she might not make it out of.
Of all the things one can do in the middle of the night, Lilli was having a staring contest with a doll. A life-sized, grinning doll. A doll that was sitting on her bed. A very much self-invited doll.
"No, just no. This is my room, and no dolls are welcome!" passed through Lilli's sleep-fuzzy mind. She grasped the surprisingly light doll by the shirt, tossed it into her trash can, and went back to bed, dreaming about candy and unicorns.
The next morning, the sun was streaming through the window of the 2-floor suburban house Lilli lived in. It illuminated the light purple walls of Lilli's room and brightened up her sleeping face. The day was unexpectedly chilly for early fall, and the crisp breeze sneaking through the barely open window managed to wake the girl up. Her black hair was mussed up, and her emerald green eyes still glazed over as she yawned and stretched. The sun threw light on her pale face, freckles prominent across her nose.
Lilli turned and tried to burrow back under the covers, then eventually, grudgingly, poked her nose out. Then, she saw it. The closet door lay open, and sitting in it was the doll.
The same doll that she had thrown out. The doll that she thought was a dream.
Lilli retreated under the covers, certain that she was still asleep. Then, she poked her nose out again and checked the closet. "Nope, still there," she realized.
Lilli started thinking furiously, "What is a doll doing here? This must be a prank. And I know just who did it." Lilli's older brother, Alex, loved scaring his little sister. They had a bit of a love-hate relationship. "Time to put a bucket of water on Alex's doorway. After I get rid of this doll." A plan in mind, Lilli threw away the doll again and put a bucket of water on her brother's doorway.
It was a Sunday, so he would still be sleeping, and would never suspect a thing. Or so she thought. Until she turned around and saw him staring at her while holding a glass of water. "Woopsie," she thought, as he stormed past her, intent on removing the bucket, and ended up knocking it onto his head.
Furious, he yelled at Lilli, "What was that?" then ran outside, still dripping water all over the place.
Lilli wanted to go after him but knew he needed to cool down. She didn't really regret dumping water on him, because he had scared her so badly with the doll. So instead, she went to the kitchen, had breakfast, and came back to her room. When she noticed that the doll was back, Lilli snarled, "Stupid brother. He must have snuck it back in to freak me out".
Lilli threw the doll out the window and tried to forget all about it. She spent the rest of the day reading and relaxing. But something kept nagging at her. A feeling that something was wrong. Lilli ignored it as best she could, but when Alex didn't come back home, she grew very worried. Her mom had just gotten home from a trip to New York, and they started calling all of his friends.
He wasn't with any of them. And he wasn't at the park, nor was he at the library. She and her mom continued searching. They were worried, but not to the point of calling the police, only to find that he was just around town.
After all, he was a teenager, at that age where you don't need your parents, but don't have any common sense yet.
"He must be in the park!" Lilli insisted.
Her mom replied, exasperated, "But we already checked there! Unless he is suddenly an amazing hider, he isn't there."
"But what if he is moving around?"
"And what if he just isn't there, huh?" Lilli's mom retorted.
"Have you got any brilliant suggestions? Maybe leave it up to fate. Have a palm reading to see where he is," Lilli countered sarcastically.
The conversation had swiftly turned into an argument. In the end, they decided to just wait for him to come home. It was already 11:00 pm, and tomorrow is a school day, so Lilli couldn't keep looking anyway. "After all, teenagers will be teenagers," Lilli thought, "I hope."
The next day, the doll hadn't reappeared, but neither had her brother. Lilli went to school with a heavy heart. She walked down to her locker, thinking about where her brother could be.
Then she screamed. For in her locker, grinning at her, was the doll. And on its shoulder was her brother's birthmark. That same distinctive shape that was in that exact spot on her brother.
She couldn't believe it. The doll had followed her there. Lilli slid down the wall. Her skin turned clammy, and her lips had a slightly bluish tint. As she hyperventilated softly, she heard her heart pounding in her ears.
Slowly, as if moving through syrup, Lilli reached out, grabbed her water bottle and automatically downed it on the spot. She felt bone-tired, even though it was still early morning. Suddenly she shivered, like somebody had just walked over her grave.
It was cold as if the door was opened on a December day. But all the doors were closed, and she still wore her jacket.
Suddenly, Lilli snapped out of it, slammed her locker shut and decided, "You know what? Maybe it's better to just leave my binders in and say I forgot them. Easier too. No dolls, only detentions."
She rushed away from her locker and went off to class, and tried to forget the doll by worrying about her brother. She couldn't focus all day, and she got sent to the nurse because she was shaking uncontrollably. But she was pronounced fine.
As she walked to lunch, still in a daze, she saw other kids whispering quietly. When she sat down, the girls on her table were gossiping about a disappearance. A girl named Samantha wasn't at school.
One girl, Lucy, said, "I heard that Samantha isn't here because her little sister disappeared, and Samantha is looking for her with the police!"
Another girl interjected, "No, I heard that they moved to Florida."
"I heard Samantha is in the hospital!"
"What if she just has a cold?" Lauren sounded skeptical.
"No, silly, Samantha would have texted me to ask for the homework if she just had a cold. I haven't had word from her all morning."
"Wait, she just texted me! You were right, Lucy, Samantha's sister disappeared. The police are looking now. She says to look around town for a girl with a rainbow hoodie and a butterfly pin."
"After school let's look! Ask Samantha to send us a picture of her sister."
Lilli mused, "A butterfly pin. What does that remind me of? Have I seen her around town? Butterfly pin, butterfly pin..." Suddenly her face went slack with horror. "Butterfly pin, purple and blue, was sitting in the doll's hair." Lilli's stomach rolled, and she couldn't think, nor breathe, just panic.
She doubled over and right there threw up her lunch, breakfast, and snacks. One of the lunch aides got her a trash can and took her to the nurse's office. But once she got sent home, instead of feeling relief, she only felt fear.
When Lilli walked into her room, she immediately spotted the doll sitting in her closet. It was just sitting there, innocent as can be. She felt bile rise up her throat as her stomach flip-flopped again.
Thoughts flitted like butterflies in her head, "What do I do, run, hide, please go away doll, what do I do?" Suddenly Lilli had this nagging suspicion that she should look and see if there were any other disappearances. It felt important somehow. Maybe if this had happened before, someone would know how to fix this. Maybe she could fix this.
She opened up Google and began to search the news sites for disappearances. It was going slow, not even Samantha's sister had hit the news yet. Her mom had left her soup, along with toast, and as she drank the hot soup, Lilli felt a bit calmer.
After what felt like ages, she came across some news articles about disappearances 10 years ago.
The headlines were jumping in front of her eyes, growing bigger, overwhelming her. She scanned the pages frantically, faster and faster. Three disappearances. Two siblings, a boy, and a girl.
Another girl, younger than the other two. All in the same week. Lilli's hands shook until she could no longer type, so she clumsily scrolled downwards. First, the boy went missing. Then the other girl.
Finally the sister. Never found. Lilli's thoughts swirled around her head in a tornado, refusing to believe what she was seeing. "A girl. Samantha's sister. A boy. Alex. The sister."
Lilli saw a picture of the three. The last one to disappear had an uncanny resemblance to the doll. Same facial features, same dress, same brown hair, same button nose. When she was terrified out of her wits, Lilli always tried to make jokes to forget her fear.
She turned to the doll and asked, in a shaky, mock interrogator's voice, "Excuse me, Miss, do you happen to be 11 years old Peggy Woodman, disappeared October 1996?"
The doll smiled, "Yes, dear."
10 years later, Ivy woke up suddenly. It was early morning, too early to get up and she wasn't quite sure what startled her. Then Ivy screamed because sitting on her bed was a doll. A doll with black hair, emerald green eyes, pale skin, and freckles dotting her nose.