by Alex Bell
Our boots crunched on the snow as we walked out of the gates and along the coastal path towards Neist Point. It felt like the most natural thing in the world when Henry took my hand in his. To begin with we walked in silence, the sea pounding against the rocks below providing a constant background roar, the tang of salt strong in the air.
Once we had put some distance between us and the school, I started to talk. I told Henry about the dolls and all that had happened since I’d arrived at the school. The girls saying that the Frozen Charlottes moved around at night, the writing that had appeared on the blackboard, the bell ringing, the marks on the inside of the toy chest as if tiny fingers really had scratched and scrabbled, desperate to get out…
We’d reached Neist Point now and stopped there, looking out over the cliff at the vast expanse of sea. I took the Frozen Charlotte from my pocket and stared down at it in my gloved hand.
“God, I just don’t know what to think,” I said. “I feel like I’m going mad.”
Gently Henry took the doll from me and then, without a word, he drew back his arm and threw it, as far as he could, out over the clifftop. I watched as the little body sailed in a high arc, cutting a path through the snowflakes that had started to fall before dropping down into the sea, where it was immediately swallowed by the grey water.
Then he put his hands on my arms and turned me round to face him.
“Why don’t we just leave it all behind?” he said. “Whiteladies and that villain, Redwing, are all in the past. This school can be, too. I have a little money put away. We can just go. We’ll go anywhere you want.”
“But, Henry—” I began.
“I know I’m an odd sort of chap but I would do my very best to make you happy, Mim,” he said. “We could build a good life together, I know we could.”
I longed to throw my arms round him and agree to his suggestion. To simply walk away from Dunvegan School for Girls and never look back. And yet…
“I can’t,” I said.
“Why not, in heaven’s name?” Henry said. He ran his hand through his windswept hair in an impatient gesture. “You needn’t think there’d be anything improper about it. We could just live as friends, if that’s what you want. If we moved to a new place we could tell everyone we were brother and sister, and there’d be no scandal then. We could find a little cottage to rent, just you, me and Murphy—”
“Henry.” I cut him off firmly. “Please listen to me. I don’t think you could behave improperly if you tried and that is not my concern. Furthermore, I love you to distraction and nothing would make me happier than to go away with you.”
Henry’s eyes widened at this and he opened his mouth to reply, so I pressed on before he could do so.
“But I can’t just walk away,” I said. “I can’t. Not until I find out what the devil is going on with these wretched Frozen Charlotte dolls. I must know, Henry. If I am ever to have another peaceful moment or unbroken night’s sleep. And I can’t leave the school unless I’m sure the girls are going to be all right.”
For a long moment Henry stared at me. “Did I mishear you, Mim, or did you really just say that you love me to distraction?”
I couldn’t help a small smile. “You are very distracting at times, Henry.”
Before I could go on, he put his hands round my waist and lifted me up, whirling me in a circle through the snowflakes.
“Put me down, you ridiculous fellow!” I said. Part of me wanted to laugh and be happy, but it wasn’t the time for that yet. Estella was dead. There were things that needed to be done.
Henry obediently set me down on my feet.
“We will find the answers to your questions,” he said. “I don’t know how yet, Mim, but we will. And then—”
“Then we will be married and gloriously happy and all of this will be nothing but a distant memory long behind us,” I said.
Henry beamed at me and one of his hands curled tenderly round the back of my neck. “Gosh, I love you,” he said. “May I kiss you now?”
In response, I gripped the front of his cloak and pulled his head down to mine. His lips were warm, his hands were gentle and it was my first ever kiss, with the boy I loved, surrounded by snowflakes on the clifftop. A sweet, perfect moment as if we were standing inside a snow globe and the rest of the world simply didn’t exist. But it could not go on forever.
We were both breathless by the time we pulled apart and Henry gazed down at me with a foolish grin on his face.
“I know,” he said, before I could speak. “I know full well that I have a foolish grin on my face and I really don’t care. I hope to grin foolishly for the rest of my days, in fact.” He wrapped his arms round me and held me tight for a moment. “You’ve made me the happiest chap in the world,” he said. “You really have.”
I kissed him on the cheek then took a step back. “I love you, too, Henry. I hope we can leave this horrible place soon.”
But before I could do that I knew I had to go right back to the very beginning, to where this had first started – at Whiteladies.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Isle of Skye – January 1910
As soon as the girls had settled for the night and the school had gone to sleep, I crept down the corridor to the toy room.
Once again, there was a light on inside the dolls’ house and, as I locked the door behind me, I was sure I heard a muffled giggle coming from the miniature version of Whiteladies. I switched on the gaslights and saw that most of the Frozen Charlotte dolls lay in the basket by the door, right where they’d been left. But I knew they wouldn’t all be there and, sure enough, when I swung open the front of the dolls’ house, there were three dolls inside Redwing’s study.
They were in almost exactly the same position as last time. The bonneted doll lay on the floor behind the desk. The doll in the cornflower-blue dress was sitting in the wing-backed chair by the fire. And the Frozen Charlie doll was standing behind it, the hawk cane propped in the crook of his arm.
The dolls were there that night at Whiteladies.
They saw what happened. And I thought that perhaps, somehow, they’d been trying to tell me. Estella had said that if I talked to them then they’d probably talk back. Well, here I was. Ready to talk. Ready to listen.
Taking a deep breath, I kneeled down on the floor in front of the dolls’ house.
“All right,” I said. “I’m here and I’m listening. If you have something you want to say, then you’d better say it now.”
Silence. Nothing but silence for long, long minutes.
Then the idea came to me all at once and I leaned forwards slowly, peering in at the stubbornly silent, motionless dolls.
“I know,” I whispered. “Why don’t we play a game?”
Even though I was looking for it, even though I was half expecting it, part of me still didn’t really believe that the dolls were supernatural in any way. And so, when the Frozen Charlotte in the blue dress turned her head to look at me, I let out a yelp and jerked back.
I was half pleased and half terrified as I peered at the dolls’ house. “Well?” I said after a moment, when my heart no longer hammered quite so hard.
“Do you want to play a game?”
“The fingernails game?” said the doll in the blue dress, her painted lips moving rapidly.
“No,” I said, shuddering at the memory of Estella’s ruined fingers. “Definitely not that game.”
“The stick-a-needle-in-your-eye game?” said the doll lying on the floor.
The Frozen Charlie didn’t speak but what followed was a disturbing back-and-forth between the two Frozen Charlottes.
“The eat-your-face game?”
“The séance game?”
“The rip-off-all-your-skin game?”
“The stab-a-knife-into-your-heart game?”
“I know! I know! We should play the tear-apart-the-cat game!”
“Oh, that’s my favourite, my favourite!”
“We just need a cat! Is there
another cat?”
“There’s got to be a cat here somewhere!”
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”
“Impossible to play the tear-apart-the-cat game without a cat!”
“Ha ha! Cat! Gutted cat!”
“Shut up! Shut up!” I cried, pressing my hands to my head, unable to bear it another moment longer.
“Sorry, Mother,” the doll in the blue dress said in a small, subdued voice.
“Why on earth are you calling me that?” I demanded.
“You let us out,” the Frozen Charlotte replied. “So we’re yours. Yours!”
“Yours forever!”
“Well,” I said weakly. “All right then. If you belong to me then I think I should get to pick the game. And I know exactly which one we should play.”
“What is it?” I took a deep breath. “Let’s play the Whiteladies game.” The doll in the blue dress squealed. “Oh yes, yes! Such horror! Such violence! Such wickedness!”
“Hee, hee, hee!”
And then, with a pop, the gaslights went out and darkness spilled into the room.
The only source of light came from the lamp in Redwing’s study. And then I saw what Estella had meant about the dolls moving fast because all of a sudden the Frozen Charlotte in the bonnet, the one that reminded me so much of my mother’s, was no longer lying on the floor behind the desk but standing in the corridor outside the study door. The Frozen Charlie was standing in front of the seated Frozen Charlotte doll, placing the hawk cane directly in front of her.
I watched as the bonneted doll went into the study, walking in odd, jerky movements as if some unseen child’s hand was guiding her. The Frozen Charlie twirled slowly round towards her in the same way. For a moment they faced each other. Then the bonneted doll spoke, her voice high-pitched and overly dramatic like a bad actress at the theatre. “You can’t keep using my daughter like this, Edward! I won’t let you!”
The Frozen Charlie didn’t speak but waved his cane at her in a threatening manner.
“No, I don’t care what happens to me!” the Frozen Charlotte cried. “I won’t let you hurt my daughter!”
With startling speed, the Frozen Charlotte shot across the room towards the Frozen Charlie. A strange tussle ensued between them, the two dolls dancing in the air around each other. The doll in the blue dress remained motionless in her seat all the while, staring blankly ahead.
Then the bonneted Frozen Charlotte was on the floor and the Frozen Charlie loomed over her, raising his cane high above his head. I watched as, with a terrible inevitability, he drew the cane down upon her, over and over and over again, until her little porcelain head had been entirely smashed in.
I closed my eyes, heard the crunch of bone and the squelch of brain matter; saw blood running out in a slowly growing pool…
Suddenly I was there, right there at Whiteladies, deeply held in a trance, unable to move or speak or do anything at all, as Edward Redwing dragged my mother across the room, flinging her down on the floor behind his desk.
From my position I could only see her feet, ankles and lower legs as Redwing raised his cane above his head. My mother’s legs jerked violently when he brought it down for the first time. As the cane came down again and again, those legs kicked and struggled – fiercely at first, then growing weaker until they no longer moved at all. The cane kept coming down, though, the sounds it made becoming wetter and wetter. Redwing exerted such physical effort that his shirt split across his back.
When he finally turned to face me, blood splatters ran up his white shirt and even stained his face. His hair had fallen loose and he ran a hand over his head to smooth it back into place.
“Now,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Where were we?”
When I opened my eyes, the Frozen Charlie doll was standing before me, holding out the cane. The sight of that red-eyed hawk filled me with dread but I knew I had to take it if I was to remember it all. Slowly I reached out my hand and closed my fingers round the little stick.
And the rest of what happened that night burst in, like a blow to the head.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Whiteladies – One month earlier
“Now,” Redwing said, smoothing back his hair. “Where were we?”
The hawk cane was covered in blood. It ran in clotted streams down the silver and over the rosewood, dripping on to the carpet, filling the air with the scent of iron. The room was quiet but inside my head there was a scream that went on and on. I’d been silently screaming the entire time I’d watched the rise and fall of that cane, seen my mother’s legs eventually stop kicking, twitch feebly and then lie still. I had been completely unable to break out of the trance in time to save her.
Pouring all of my mental willpower into the effort to break free, I finally managed to stand up from the chair, still half in a daze.
“You can’t stand up!” Redwing said. “You’re in a trance!”
My lips were slow and clumsy, my tongue wouldn’t work properly, but I still managed to force out two words: “You … monster.”
Redwing laughed and without a word crossed over to his desk, walking past my mother’s dead body to yank open the bottom drawer and pull out the papers I’d discovered earlier that very evening – the reams of writing from beyond the grave. I found myself stumbling towards him like a sleepwalker.
“I fear you were labouring under a misconception earlier, my dear,” he said. “You believed that all this depravity was the result of my automatic writing when, in fact, these are the words you have written yourself while you’ve been in a trance.”
I stared at him, trembling, not wanting to believe it.
He smiled at me. “All those weeks and months of effort on my part and I was never able to contact so much as a single spirit,” he said. “Your mother experienced a similar lack of success. But the first time you went into a trance, the devils and demons all flocked to you like you were the strongest magnet on the planet. Yes,” he said, shaking the papers at me and breathing hard now. “Yes, everything I say is true and you know it. It is not I who has the dark soul, madam, it is you! And if you can speak to devils, then you can speak to my daughter, damn you!” He thrust the cane in my face and I felt the malevolent influence of his voice ensnare my mind like a net. “Try again!” he hissed.
Despite all the rage boiling up inside me, I couldn’t stop myself from obeying his order. Perhaps it was because I had already gone willingly into a trance earlier and now, even as I struggled to break free of it, Redwing’s words seemed to have a peculiarly powerful influence over my physical body, while the real me stared out from behind my eyes, screaming for this to stop.
“We are here to make contact with Vanessa Redwing.” I heard myself say almost the exact same words my mother had spoken, a lifetime ago, at that very first séance at Whiteladies. “I open myself up to the realm of the spirits. Vanessa, are you there? If you can hear me, please follow the sound of my voice.”
Only it wasn’t Vanessa Redwing that answered my call. I could sense, somehow, that all the anger and grief building up inside me was like the sweetest nectar to the black thing that drew near and then was suddenly there, inside my head. It was ancient and dark and twisted and warped, and it was black and it was evil and it was dangerous and it was terrible but, most of all, it was bored. And it wanted to play.
Redwing must have sensed the change. Perhaps he saw it in my face, perhaps there was a kind of devilish madness there, staring back at him. Either way, he suddenly stepped back from me with an uncertain expression.
“Don’t be frightened yet,” I heard myself say quietly, and I couldn’t quite tell whether it was me talking or the unnatural dark thing inside of me. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to be frightened.”
And then the demon, or the dark spirit, or whatever it was, rushed down my arm with a flash of pain so intense it was like the skin was being flayed from the bone. Then it passed out through my fingers and went into the Frozen Charlotte doll I sti
ll clutched tightly in my hand.
“Hello, Mother!” it cried. “Do you want to play a game?”
The doll seemed to leap from my grasp, straight to the desk, where it snatched up the letter opener and used it to smash the glass of the paraffin lamp.
The fire roared into life much faster than it should have, as if some supernatural force were fanning the flames. Redwing staggered back, away from the heat, raising his arms to protect his face, choking on the sudden smoke. Out in the hall, the grandfather clock pealed out six brooding chimes.
And I didn’t hesitate to take my chance. I lunged towards the desk, seized the letter opener and plunged it with all my strength into Redwing’s chest. It was more difficult than I had expected – clothes and skin offered significant resistance – but all my anguish was in the movement and I felt the blade cut through his shirt, pierce through skin and scrape over bone.
Redwing made a little grunting noise and then lifted his head, staring me straight in the eye with a look of pure surprise.
“No,” he gasped, coughing up blood that marked my face.
“Yes!” I snarled.
He tried to push me away but the strength was draining out of him already and I pulled the letter opener free to plunge it back into his chest a second time. And then a third and a fourth. In fact, I eventually lost count. Redwing ended up crumpled on the floor at my feet, and I gripped the letter opener in a hot, slippery hand and allowed myself a small smile of satisfaction.
“Now,” I said, wiping the blade on my cornflower skirts, “it is time to be frightened.”
“Let’s play the burn-down-the-house game!” cried a chorus of voices.
I turned in their direction and saw that all the dolls were moving about now, in strange, jerky little gestures as if someone else were in control of them. While I’d been occupied with murder, the Frozen Charlottes had been spreading the fire, tossing books and papers on to the flames.
