The lightning lit up a chair by the window, and Calvin noticed Charlotte had left her doll there. He walked over and picked it up.
“Look at this!” he exclaimed. “The doll's soaking wet!”
“Is the window open?” asked Ben.
“No,” said Calvin. “And everything else is dry.”
Calvin held the doll out away from him, and they could all see water dripping from her. They couldn't imagine why the doll would be wet.
“It's a message,” said Calvin. “It's trying to tell us that Charlotte is caught out in the storm!”
It seemed like a far-fetched idea to Ben Gill, but he had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. He couldn't take any chances. He grabbed his raincoat and ran down the path. He had gone only a short way when he saw the oil can by the pathway.
“Charlotte,” he called. “It's Daddy! Where are you?”
“Here,” she called. “Help me!”
He ran to the riverbank and saw Charlotte clinging to a limb that had broken from a tree. She reached out one hand and he took it.
“Give me your other hand,” he said.
She reached the other hand, and he pulled her from the water.
“You're okay now,” he told her. “I've got you.”
“Oh, Daddy!” she cried. “I was afraid you wouldn't come. The storm caught me before I could get home.”
“What happened?” Ben asked her.
“The wind blew me down, so I grabbed onto that tree and pulled myself up. I was holding on, but the limb broke and I fell into the river. I kept holding on, but sometimes my hands would slip off and I'd have to grab on again. It was the strangest thing, though. Something held me up in the water each time until I got my grip again.”
“Well, you're safe now,” he said. “We're going home.”
He took Charlotte's hand and led her to the path. With his other hand, he picked up the oil can, and they hurried home as fast as the storm would allow.
Bonnie quickly helped her daughter change into dry clothes, and she made some hot chocolate for all of them. The storm continued outside, but they were all safe now, thanks to Emma. They told Charlotte how the wet doll had made them realize she needed help.
“Did you fall into the river right there at the bend?” asked Bonnie.
“Yes,” said Charlotte.
“And you felt like something was holding you up?” Bonnie continued.
“Yes,” Charlotte said again.
“That's odd,” said Bonnie. “That's just where your little cousin Emma drowned years ago! Maybe that Emma gave you something besides giving you her doll. Maybe she held you up.”
“Was my doll really dripping wet?” asked Charlotte.
They all nodded, but Charlotte went to her doll to see for herself. She picked up the doll and then looked at the family with a puzzled look on her face.
“Are you sure she was wet?” she asked. “She's bone dry now!”
As far as the Gill family was concerned, a miracle had happened that day, and they never looked for any other answer.
The Red Thing
This story was always hard to believe, but great-great-uncle Lightel Simpson told it as the truth.
Lightel Simpson had completed a successful day of deer hunting in the Kentucky backwoods and was a little tired from the day's activities. He had gutted the big buck he had shot and had hung it on the branch of a large tree in the back of his cabin. He figured he would cut it up after he rested a bit and ate a bite of supper.
He put his prize hunting dogs in the pen out back and fed them their supper first. Then he heated up some stew and cornbread and ate by himself.
The dusk deepened and the moon came up. Lightel decided to relax a bit and let his food digest before he cut up the buck, so he took his guitar and moved out onto the front porch. He started strumming softly, but he suddenly was overcome by a most uneasy feeling. He stopped playing his guitar and sat quietly, listening. Then he realized what the problem was. The woods around his cabin were totally silent. The crickets, frogs, and all the forest creatures were not moving or making a sound. That was a sure sign of danger close by.
Suddenly, the silence was broken by Lightel's hunting dogs whimpering and running out from behind the house with their tails tucked! They dashed under the floor of the cabin and stopped whimpering, falling as silent as everything in the woods. Lightel was amazed. He had never known his dogs to dig out of their pen before. He laid his guitar on the porch beside his chair and stood up, still listening for any sound.
Then he heard what he wished he hadn't heard. His skin crawled as the air was pierced by a screech like nothing Lightel had ever heard from human or animal. It came from behind the cabin in the vicinity of the buck. Then the noise started to move toward the end of the cabin. He was too frightened to move.