The Dollhouse

by Charis Cotter

  “It’s a lovely room,” said my mother. “Why don’t you unpack your night things and get ready for bed, Alice? She had a bit of a bump on her head on the train,” she said to Mary, “and it’s been a long day.”

  “The poor child,” said Mary. “I’m sure you both need an early night. I’ve made a little lunch for you both downstairs, and Lily and I must be on our way soon.”

  Mom and Mary left, and I took another look around the marvelous room. There was a row of built-in mahogany closets along one wall. Two of the doors opened up into a large clothes closet, and another into a cupboard fitted with shelves where there were a few more dolls and some children’s books.

  “Shall I help you unpack? I think so,” said Lily, hovering over my suitcase.

  I noticed she kept repeating that one phrase, “I think so,” and nodding her head as she said it, as if to affirm that everything was okay.

  “I’m going to wait till tomorrow to unpack, Lily. I don’t feel so good.”

  Lily came over and examined my face. She reached out a finger to lightly touch the bump on my forehead.

  “Does it hurt? Is that where you bumped your head?”

  I nodded. “I have a headache. I’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Her eyes were glued to me as I opened my suitcase and pulled out my summer nightie. I hesitated, reluctant to get changed in front of her.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” I asked.

  “Oh, I can show you,” she said quickly, jumping to her feet and grabbing my hand. “Come on.”

  She pulled me out into the hall and started toward the far end. We passed two doors on our left. The second one was slightly open, and I could hear someone speaking in a low voice that crackled with age. Lily grabbed my arm and put her finger to her lips, shushing me.

  “As long as your daughter keeps out of my way and doesn’t make a racket, I can put up with her being here, but she must respect my property. I have a lot of valuable possessions, and the last thing I need is a thoughtless child causing an uproar. Lily’s bad enough!” She had an English accent and she sounded very cross.

  Lily looked at me with big eyes and clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

  “Now, Mrs. Bishop,” chimed in Mary, “you know Lily’s a quiet, good girl and has never caused any trouble. And I’m sure Alice will be the same. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Alice and I are very happy to be here,” said my mother in her soothing, everything-will-be-all-right nurse’s voice. This was in sharp contrast to her no-nonsense, do-as-I say-right-now nurse’s voice. “And Alice is very mature and I’m sure she won’t be any bother. Now, Mary says you’ve had your evening pills?”

  I frowned. Mom had never called me “mature” before. Usually the opposite. She clearly wanted this job to work.

  Lily pulled me along and through a door at the end of the hall into a luxurious bathroom with a large claw-foot tub and a pedestal sink.

  “Mrs. Bishop is a witch!” whispered Lily, making a face and giggling as she shut the door behind her. “She has a long nose! If you make her cross, she gets really mad and yells.” She waved her arms around the room. “This is the bathroom. It’s way nicer than our bathroom at home. I think so.”

  She stood there, looking at me expectantly, a big smile on her face.

  “Lily, can you go now? So I can…um…”

  “Oh!” she said and giggled again. “Okay,” and she left.

  Once I was changed into my nightie, I tiptoed out of the bathroom. Now the door to Mrs. Bishop’s room was shut tight.

  Lily was sitting on the bed waiting for me, tracing her fingers gently along the doll’s rosy cheek. “Her name is Lucy,” she said. “You need somebody sleeping with you in this scary room. I think so. I asked Mama if you could have Lucy and she said yes.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Lily turned to me, her eyes wide and her expression serious. “I won’t sleep in this room ever again, not even with Lucy. Never.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s the ghost room.”

  A little shiver crawled down the back of my neck. I had known this house was haunted from the minute I first saw it from the train, and I was about to get proof.

  “What do you mean ‘ghost room’?” I whispered.

  If possible, her dark brown eyes got even wider. “I saw a ghost here once,” she whispered back to me. “Sleeping in this bed. I think so.”

  Chapter Five

  THE LUNCH

  Our mothers came in before Lily could say anything else, and Mom had a glass of water in her hand and stood over me while I swallowed a painkiller she’d dug out of her suitcase. Then Mary bustled us all down to the basement. There was a big modern kitchen down there with French doors leading out to the terrace.

  Mary’s “lunch” was laid out on the kitchen table: lemonade, cheese, pickles, bread and butter, potato salad, oatmeal cookies and a green jellied salad with weird little bits of something orange floating in it. Either orange mini-marshmallows or diced carrots, but I wasn’t going to investigate. Mom and I sat down and started loading up our plates. We’d had sandwiches on the train, but no real dinner.

  “Why do you call it a ‘lunch’?” I asked Mary as I sat down and prepared to dig in. “It’s nighttime, not lunchtime.”

  Mary laughed. “That’s just what we call a snack, whenever it happens. We have dinner at noon, supper at night—”

  “It’s a country thing, Alice,” said Mom. “My grandmother on the farm used to serve up what she called a ‘lunch’ to company any time of day. Let’s just say it’s a substantial snack.”

  It certainly was. Lily wanted to stay and eat with us, but her mother told her to have a cookie and come away, because we needed our rest. Then Mary stood and talked for another ten minutes, with Lily beside her slipping one cookie after another off the plate and into her mouth as her mother rambled on.

  “I don’t usually work on a Sunday,” said Mary, “but I’ll drop in tomorrow afternoon to see how you’re getting on and do a few things. Everything’s been at sixes and sevens since Mrs. Bishop got out of the hospital last week, and what with the other nurse not working out and the temporary nurse leaving yesterday, and me waiting on Mrs. Bishop all day, I’m a little behind on the cleaning.”

  “Why didn’t the first nurse work out?” asked Mom, pausing with a forkful of potato salad halfway to her mouth.

  Mary rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Bishop is very particular,” she said, lowering her voice as if the old lady could hear her two floors away. “Everything has to be just so. I’m used to it, although she’s enough to try the patience of a saint. Even though she can’t walk around and inspect my work the way she used to, she’s been grilling me every day about keeping up with the dusting and the polishing and the sweeping and everything else. There are so many priceless antiques in this house, you’ve no idea! And they all need to be cared for to her specifications, not that I haven’t been cleaning professionally for twenty-five years! And my mother before me. And hers before that. Our family has been cleaning houses in and around Lakeport for the last hundred years! But I don’t take it personally,” she added, laughing. “She’s eighty years old and I suppose she has a right to fuss in her own house.”

  “But why did the first nurse leave?” asked my mother, trying to get Mary back on track.

  “Well, poor Mrs. Bishop, she’s been through so much these last few weeks, with the fall, and her broken leg, and the head injury, and she’s more difficult than usual. She’s just not herself sometimes, and she can get quite nasty. The doctor says that’s the head injury, that it can change a person’s behavior. But the truth is, it’s kind of funny because Shirley Bassett is a very cheerful kind of person, really a bit too cheerful you might say, and she treated Mrs. Bishop like she was a child, and Mrs. Bishop couldn’t stand her smiling all the time and
saying things like, ‘We need to get our sleep,’ when she meant Mrs. Bishop needed to get her sleep, and well, Mrs. Bishop lost her temper and told her— well, she said terrible things, her language! I’m glad Lily wasn’t there because it was quite shocking, but you know, Mrs. Bishop was a journalist in England, and I suppose she’s seen it all and heard it all, but before the accident she would never use that kind of language.” Mary laughed again, a loud, happy laugh. “Anyway, Shirley had to go. Mrs. Bishop fired her on Monday, and then Lily and I held the fort that night, and then Mr. Brock got in touch with the agency again and a temporary nurse came for a few days, and she wasn’t too bad, but when I heard that you were coming, I was so relieved.”

  “She might not like me either,” said Mom, taking a sip of lemonade.

  “Oh don’t you worry about that. I could see she likes you already. You’re straight with her, and kind, but not too cheerful, and you don’t treat her like she’s stupid. She hates that, and Shirley really does have a problem in that department. She speaks to everyone the same way. I suppose she can’t help herself. Anyway, it’s late and I know you’re tired, and Lily and I must get going— Lily! How many cookies have you had?”

  The plate was nearly empty, and Lily was reaching for another.

  “Just a couple,” said Lily, trying to paste an innocent look on her face.

  “A likely story,” said her mother. “Well, there’s more in the tin. I’ll take my greedy girl home, and we’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. About two, after we’ve been to church and had our dinner.”

  And finally, they left, Mary’s voice fading away as she admonished Lily all the way up the basement stairs.

  Mom and I exchanged a look, then we both started to giggle.

  “She’s a talker,” said Mom, and opened the tin of cookies.

  When we went upstairs to bed, Mom checked my eyeballs one more time.

  “How’s your head?” she asked.

  “Better,” I said.

  “The food probably helped. If you wake up in the night and it’s worse, come and get me. I’m in here.” She pointed to the door opposite mine.

  When I was alone in my room, I stood for a moment, looking at the bed with its flowing curtains and the pretty doll propped against the pillows, wondering about Lily’s ghost. This room didn’t feel haunted: not like the hall downstairs or the shadowy dining room we had walked through to get to the basement stairs. This room was pretty and quiet. Restful.

  I yawned. I was exhausted. I knew I should just jump into bed and go to sleep and not give myself time to start thinking about ghosts and haunted houses. But I wasn’t quite ready to bid goodbye to the day.

  I walked over to the window closest to my bed and looked out on the moonlit landscape. The window was open, and the sweet country smell of grass and trees and flowers floated in. I curled up against the soft cushions of the window seat and pulled the velvety green afghan over my knees, drinking in the peaceful summer night. I had a feeling that this was going to be my favorite perch.

  In the light of the moon, I could see that the stone terrace was built along the entire side of the house, with steps down to a lawn that stretched off to the edge of the hill that led down to the railway tracks. Beyond that were shadows.

  I sighed. So much had happened since the day before when I walked in the kitchen door and found Mom and Dad fighting. My whole world had been turned upside down, shaken and then set right-side up again, leaving me and Mom in a haunted house in the country and Dad on the other side of the continent. It was hard to believe that any of it was real. Instead of the familiar city noises of traffic and sirens, I heard the high hum of crickets.

  I had been looking forward to this summer so much. It was going to be the best summer ever. First, and most special, was being at the cottage with Dad and Mom, but I had plans for the rest of the summer too. Me and my best friends Aleisha, Laura and Jenny were going to hang out together— we were already signed up for the reading club at the library and swimming lessons at the local high-school pool. We were going to spend our afternoons in our various backyards— lying on blankets in the shade, drinking lemonade and eating cookies. It was the first summer I was old enough to be left by myself and not packed off to day camps while Mom worked, and the four of us had worked it all out with our parents. Now they would all be having fun without me. I missed them already.

  And Dad. Suddenly I missed him so much that I could hardly bear it. If he and Mom couldn’t work it out, when would I see him? It was hard enough for him to find time to spend with me when they were together, but if our family split up— I sighed again. It was too much to think about. I had to push it all away and let time work it out for me.

  Then I yawned again. I was so tired now that I just had to sleep, ghosts or no ghosts, so I turned away from the beauty of the moonlit lawn, climbed into the bed and closed my eyes. My last thought before I fell asleep was of the silvery moonlight falling gently all around me like some kind of starry snow and the crickets gently singing me to sleep.

  Chapter Six

  THE GHOST ROOM

  I don’t know what woke me up. I opened my eyes, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure where I was. I seemed to be floating in some kind of pale-green bubble, faintly lit from outside by a white light.

  My first thought was that I had somehow fallen into the jellied salad, but then I woke up a little more and realized that the green was the bed curtains that hung all around the bed, and the white light was from the moon.

  Someone sighed beside me in the semi-darkness.

  I froze.

  “Mom?” I squeaked.

  The person sighed again, and there was a movement beside me, as if they had turned over.

  There was somebody with me in the bed!

  Was it the ghost Lily had told me about?

  I felt icy cold and burning hot all at the same time. I couldn’t breathe. I tried to turn and look, but I couldn’t move. It was as if I was suddenly paralyzed. I swiveled my eyes to the right.

  Something was there. A lump under the covers, a head on the pillow.

  “Mom?” I whispered, and then I managed to turn my head, ever so slightly.

  A girl lay beside me, sleeping. She was about my age, with dark red hair and a few freckles across her nose. She was breathing softly.

  I stared at her. Was this the ghost Lily had seen? Who else could it be? But she didn’t look like a ghost. Her chest was rising and falling gently as she slept.

  I have never been so scared in all my life. I wanted to scream but I still couldn’t move. All my limbs felt heavy, like I could never lift them. A pressure was building up in my chest, and I felt like I would burst. I needed to breathe but I couldn’t—

  She opened her eyes and looked at me. They were green, like the bed curtains. She blinked a couple of times.

  “Hello,” she whispered, smiling. “Is it time to wake up?”

  The scream ripped out of me and just kept on going, getting louder and louder. I shut my eyes tight so I wouldn’t see her anymore. Everything grew very dark.

  After what seemed like a very long time and a lot of screaming, there was a fumbling at the door and my mother was at my side.

  “Alice, Alice, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

  I opened my eyes. The girl was gone. The doll lay where she had been, with her head on the pillow and her auburn hair peeking out from beneath her lacy cap.

  For the second time in twenty-four hours, I saw my mother looking into my face with a worried frown. Her hair was every which way from sleeping.

  I started babbling about a ghost and a girl and Lily and the moon and finally my mother gave me a little shake.

  “You’ve had a bad dream, that’s all. I’m not surprised, with everything that’s happened in the last two days. Take a deep breath. And another.”

  Obediently I did my best to breathe slowly
, but I could see the doll out of the corner of my eye, her red lips curved in a little smile. I pushed my mother away and picked up the doll. As I tilted her upright, her eyes opened.

  They were green.

  I started screaming again.

  My mother took the doll and crossed over to the toy cupboard.

  “No!” I yelled. “Not in here, not in here! Take it away!”

  “Honestly, Alice, you’re much too old to be carrying on this way about a doll and a dream,” complained my mother, but she left the room, taking the doll with her.

  I tried to calm my breathing again. I could see the moon through the window, a silver ball, almost completely round. Scrambling out of bed, I went over and crouched on the window seat. I wrapped the green afghan around my shoulders and looked out at the moon. It had crossed the sky while I slept. The terrace and the lawn were just as peaceful as they had been earlier, but the shadows were leaning in the opposite direction.

  Gradually I stopped trembling. My mother seemed to be taking a very long time hiding the doll. Then I heard muffled voices from the other side of the house.

  Great. I’d woken up the old lady.

  I got up and tiptoed across the hall and through the open door into my mother’s bedroom. A door on the right led into a bathroom, which was connected to Mrs. Bishop’s room by another door. I crept in and stood, half-hidden by the bathroom door, watching my mother bending over another four-poster bed, larger than mine, talking to someone lying there under a blue bedspread.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Bishop. She hurt her head in the train earlier tonight, and it was very upsetting. It was just a nightmare, and she’s okay now.”

  “Nightmare?” squawked the old woman. “Nightmare! I thought at least she was being torn apart by wild animals. I never heard such a fuss.”

  “Let me make us all some warm milk,” said my mother. “Then we can all go back to sleep. No harm done.”