The Dollhouse

by Charis Cotter

  Obediently I went over to the dressing table, which had a large oval mirror in the center, with a smaller mirror on each side that you could move to different angles. A silver-backed mirror and brush and comb set lay on the polished surface, along with some pretty white china baskets. But no glasses.

  “If they’re not there, try the drawers,” called Mrs. Bishop from her bed. I glanced back at her. The bed curtains hid her from my view.

  There were three drawers with brass hoop handles.

  I pulled out the middle one, and there were her glasses. And right beside them, a key ring full of keys.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  THE KEYS

  I glanced back toward the bed. I still couldn’t see Mrs. Bishop, so she couldn’t see me.

  “Well?” she demanded. “Are they there or not?”

  “Yes,” I said, scooping up the keys and putting them in my pocket, then taking the glasses and shutting the drawer. “I’m just coming.”

  As I turned away from the dresser something pink caught my eye in one of the side mirrors. Mrs. Bishop’s pajamas. The way the mirror was angled, there was a clear view of her sitting in bed. If I could see her in that mirror, then— she could see me.

  I froze. My stomach started doing little jumps.

  But she wasn’t looking at me. She was gazing in the other direction, toward the window. Phew…That was close.

  I shouldn’t have risked stealing her keys like that. The only thing I can remember going through my head was, “Keys, locked doors, dollhouse,” and then they were in my pocket. I’d get in so much trouble if she found out. Mom could get fired. We’d be homeless, cast out on the streets. Begging for food.

  “Well?” Now she was looking my way. “What’s taking you so long, girl? Bring me my glasses!”

  “I…uh…I…” I stuttered, and then my body started working again, and I brought her the glasses, hoping the keys wouldn’t start to jangle in my pocket.

  She put them on, then gave me one of her sharp looks. “Are you feeling sick again? Do you need to lie down?”

  “I…uh…yeah,” I replied. I seemed to have lost the power of speech.

  “Well, go on with you then,” she said, picking up her book. “I’ll ring the bell if I need you.”

  The hall was silent except for a distant tick-tick from the grandfather clock downstairs. The house seemed drenched in hot summer afternoon sleepiness. No one was here except for Mrs. Bishop and me.

  I hurried into my room, leaving the doors open behind me so I would be sure to hear Mrs. Bishop’s bell. The closet felt almost unbearably stuffy. At the door to the stairs, I fumbled with the keys, trying one after another. Finally I found one that worked. I climbed up the steep stairs, noting that they were dusty and the wood had a visible grain running through it. Not clean and flat-looking, the way the stairs were in my dream.

  The attic was empty— no trunks or lamps. The heat shimmered in the light that streamed in the far window.

  I still had the key that had opened the door clutched in my hand, and on impulse, I tried it in the lock to the dollhouse room.

  Nothing. I tried the one right beside it, and the lock turned.

  I stopped just inside the door and looked around at the room, trying to remember what else had been different in my dream. The dollhouse stood in the same place in the center of the room, tall and imposing. The walls, the rug, the wardrobe in the corner— everything looked the same.

  But the room felt very, very hot. I glanced over to the window. Had it been open in my dream? Had there been a soft breeze slipping in, cooling things off? I couldn’t remember.

  I went over to examine the window. At first glance, it didn’t look like the kind that could open. Identical to the window on the far side of the attic, it was a half circle of glass, taller than me and wider than I could reach if I stuck both my arms out on either side. On the lower part of the window was another half circle, like a sun, with white wooden sunrays radiating out to the top.

  I took a step closer. A white-painted latch was visible on one side of the sun shape, blending in with the white bars so it was hard to see at first. I lifted the latch and the smaller half circle detached from the rest of the window and tipped forward, letting in a delicious breath of fresh air. It was still hot, but not as hot as the air in the attic.

  I wiggled the latch a little. It moved smoothly and quietly. It must have been oiled recently. Someone had been up here at some point. But when? And who?

  I turned back into the room. Something caught my eye on the floor to the left of the dollhouse and I caught my breath, unable to believe what I was seeing.

  A doll-sized replica of the summerhouse sat on the carpet with a toy yellow dog lying in front. It had been hidden by the dollhouse when I stepped into the room.

  How was it possible? Suddenly my head was spinning, and I sank to the floor and covered my eyes with my hands.

  What was happening to me? Was this the concussion, making me see things that weren’t there? Mixing up my dreams with reality? Was I going crazy? The house seemed to be rocking beneath me.

  I took a few deep breaths and I felt a little better. Maybe it was the heat and the concussion that was making me feel so awful. I peeked through my fingers. The summerhouse was there all right.

  The summerhouse had definitely not been there that morning when Lily and I had been here. Could someone have come up here and put it there while I was sleeping? But who? After Lily and I locked the room and tiptoed downstairs, we’d had lunch with Mary and Mom, they had left, and then I’d come up for my nap. There was nobody else here that I knew of, except for Dr. West dropping off the dog. Could someone have come through my room to the hidden staircase while I was asleep?

  Possibly. But who? Mrs. Bishop had a cast on her leg and couldn’t move. And why would Mom do something like that without telling me?

  Maybe Mrs. Bishop didn’t want me playing with the dollhouse. Like Adrian and Harriet in my dream, she might think the dollhouse wasn’t for children. And that’s why it was locked up and kept secret. Maybe Mom was in on it. Knowing how curious I am, Mom may have thought it was better to keep the dollhouse a secret from me.

  But where had the summerhouse come from? All of a sudden like that, just after I was dreaming about it?

  I stood up and went over to the window, gulping in the fresh air. Trees grew up quite close to the house, and I could see through a lattice of leafy green to the gravel driveway below. The leaves were motionless in the hot, still afternoon.

  After a few minutes I felt better, and I went back to kneel beside the summerhouse and peer in.

  The tea party was in full progress, just as it had been in my dream. The Bubble and Fizz dolls were seated on the floor with Bubble’s three dolls, April, May and June. The tablecloth was spread with teacups, a teapot and a tiny plate of shortbreads. But there was no ghost Alice doll standing at the back dressed in my clothes.

  I reached out and touched the wooden roof. It was real. Solid. I pinched my arm. Okay, I could feel that. This was real. Not a dream.

  I turned and looked back at the dollhouse. From where I was sitting on the floor, it looked enormous, looming over me. A brooding presence. A haunted dollhouse.

  I gave myself a shake and stood up. I wasn’t going to let my imagination get away with me, and I wasn’t going to be scared of a dollhouse. I unlatched the back wall and swung it open.

  The sweet smell of fresh-cut roses floated past me. I peered into the upstairs hall, and in the shadows, I could just make out a dark-blue bowl full of white and pink roses. I snaked my hand in carefully and pulled it out into the light.

  The roses weren’t real; they were made from silk, tiny and perfect. They didn’t smell like anything. I must have imagined it. I put them back on the little desk in the hall and turned to my bedroom. The bed curtains were open and no doll lay on the
bed.

  Of course. The Fizz doll was in the summerhouse with Bubble.

  I raised my eyes and looked at the dollhouse attic. I hadn’t had time to notice it when Lily and I were up here before. But now I saw that a toy dollhouse that looked like a replica of this one stood in the middle of the attic room with its back wall open. A dollhouse within a dollhouse.

  Two dolls stood on either side of it: A woman doll with dark brown hair and a flowery dress. A tall, skinny man with unruly brown hair, dressed in a light summer suit. At the woman’s feet sat a miniature summerhouse with a small yellow dog stretched out in front.

  I reached out a trembling hand and gently turned the little summerhouse so I could see inside. Tiny Bubble and Fizz dolls were having a tea party with even tinier April, May and June dolls. And there in the corner, stood another. I lifted her carefully out.

  The ghost Alice doll, with straggly brown hair, a green top and jean shorts lay in the palm of my hand. Tiny. Perfect. Me.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A MAGIC DOLLHOUSE

  That feeling I got when I was running down the attic stairs the first time I came up here? When I lost my balance and for a moment I felt like I was going to fall?

  I hate that feeling. Weightless and falling and adrenaline jumping through my body. Whenever that happens, I always feel all trembly after, as if I really had fallen down. Mom says it’s the body’s natural reaction to a stressful situation, where the fight-or-flight response might be needed.

  As I stood there in the hot attic, staring at the Ghost Alice doll in my hand, which along with the Adrian and Harriet dolls had apparently materialized in the dollhouse after I dreamed about them, I had an adrenaline rush, even though I was in no danger of falling. It swooped through my body and left me shaking.

  Fight or flight, I thought stupidly. Which can I do? There was no one to fight. Flight? Where would I go? I could run downstairs and hide under the covers on my bed, but then I might fall asleep and wake up to find Fizz beside me, grinning in that annoying way she had, like she knew something hilarious that I didn’t.

  I had nowhere to go and no one who could help me. Mom would say it was my concussion and have me in the hospital before I finished telling her. Lily might understand, but I couldn’t see how she could help. She wouldn’t know any better than I did what was going on.

  Something weird and crazy was happening to me. It was more than concussion or bad dreams. I had to figure it out.

  I looked back at the dollhouse. The dollhouse was the key. Carefully, I replaced Ghost Alice in the little summerhouse. Then I looked on the other side of the dollhouse attic. It wasn’t empty, like the real attic outside this room. There were a few old chairs, an old trunk and a lamp. Just as there had been in my dream. I couldn’t see down the stairs to see if they were dusty. Instead, I went around to the front and opened the wall to look in at Bubble’s room, the first room I had taken any notice of after Fizz told me not to scream and led me through the secret passage.

  I fingered the silver bed curtains. They were just a bit stiffer than the real curtains. I pressed my finger into the carpet. It wasn’t as springy and deep as the real one. I remember noticing both of those things when I met Bubble in my dream.

  What if…What if I was actually going into the dollhouse in my sleep? Was it possible?

  I sat down on the rug and crossed my legs and stared at the dollhouse. I needed to be deliberate about this, like at school with a science experiment. Make observations. Draw conclusions.

  I swallowed. Okay.

  On the surface, the house I went into in my dreams was identical to the Blackwood House of my waking life. Except for a few telling details— the stairs with their lack of dust, the wardrobe full of clothes, the coarser curtains, the thinner rugs. And the material on the summerhouse cushions felt crisper and the colors brighter than the faded chairs I had seen in the summerhouse with Lily. Like they were brand-new.

  Fabrics. I remembered how Dad always said good materials showed that a restoration was done right.

  All of the fabrics in my dollhouse dream were not quite as fine as the real thing, as if it were harder to reproduce the high quality of the thick woolen rugs or the silky bed curtains. The wood on the attic stairs in the dollhouse wasn’t the same fine wood as the real attic stairs. And they weren’t covered in dust because in the dollhouse those stairs were used every day, and presumably somebody swept them.

  The dollhouse closet was full of Fizz’s clothes, whereas mine only held my three sundresses. And Fizz and Bubble were dressed in blue dresses the second time I dreamed about them, after Lily had changed the dolls out of their nightgowns and into their blue dresses. That was the biggest clue of all that they were in the dollhouse.

  But. But. It was so hard to believe. Maybe I was just dreaming it all. After Lily changed the dolls into blue dresses, I dreamed about Fizz and Bubble wearing blue dresses. Things from the waking world often made their way into dreams.

  But things from dreams didn’t make their way back into the waking world. I looked back at the summerhouse on the carpet behind me. It wasn’t here this morning. And I think I would have noticed the Harriet and Adrian dolls (and the summerhouse!) in the attic if they had been there the first time Lily and I saw the dollhouse.

  Was it possible that whatever happened when I was in the dollhouse could be echoed in the real world afterward? And the reverse— if I made changes in the dollhouse in my waking world, would they be reflected in the dollhouse world when I went back there?

  It was nuts. I had to be imagining it all. Finally my imagination had gone too far and taken me right inside one of my fantasies. And now I couldn’t tell what was real and I was drowning in it. Maybe the concussion had pushed my brain over the edge.

  Or— maybe it was a magic dollhouse?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  FOUR GHOSTS

  I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so worried. I knew there was no such thing as magic. I’d come to that reluctant conclusion a few years ago. Despite my great desire to see fairies, have three magic wishes, find a cloak of invisibility and have the ability to fly, I had to admit that those were childish things and they just weren’t going to happen. I could have them all in my imagination, but not in the real world.

  But now this. And I had been invisible for a while. Neither of the grown-ups had been able to see me when I was in the dollhouse world. Maybe I’d stumbled into something.

  A magic dollhouse? Really?

  I could test it. Scientifically. I could do something to the dollhouse now, and then the next time I dreamed about it, see if whatever I had done was there.

  A loud buzzing noise from downstairs made me jump. It took me a second or two to identify it. Mrs. Bishop’s bell. She wanted me.

  What could I do, quickly, that would be easy for me to check on in the dollhouse world next time I dreamed about it? My eyes fell on the bowl of roses in the upstairs hall of the dollhouse. I picked them up and put them under Fizz’s bed. Then I closed both walls, hooked them shut and went downstairs, locking both doors behind me.

  I hesitated, wondering what to do with the keys. I couldn’t keep all of them. They’d be missed. The bell rang again. I wiggled the two attic keys off the ring and shoved them under my underwear in the dresser. Then I stuffed the key ring back in my pocket and ran in to the old lady, just as the bell screeched out for a third time.

  Buttercakes was barking wildly outside. I guess he didn’t like the bell either.

  “What on earth took you so long?” demanded Mrs. Bishop, glaring at me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was asleep.”

  “I thought my bell was loud enough to wake the dead,” she retorted.

  Wake the dead. I wondered if those people in the dollhouse were dead. Fizz. Bubble. Harriet and Adrian. Were they all ghosts?

  “Alice!” barked Mrs. Bishop.
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  I jumped.

  “Are you even listening to me?” She was looking very cross.

  “Sorry, I’m…still waking up,” I said.

  “Well, finish waking up and pick up my book for me. I dropped it.”

  I glanced at the cover as I picked it up. A girl in a long, old-fashioned dress stood in front of a big spooky mansion. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I opened the front cover. There was a name written at the top of the very first page in spidery old-fashioned handwriting: “Fiona Bishop.”

  “Well?” said Mrs. Bishop. “Why are you so interested in my book? Have you read it?” Then she answered for me. “Of course not, you’re much too young.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “A very foolish young girl who goes to live in a house in the country and starts imagining all kinds of silly things about the people who live there,” said Mrs. Bishop, a little smile turning up the corners of her mouth. “She’s idiotic, but it’s always been one of my favorites. I read it again and again, and it still makes me laugh.”

  “What kind of foolish things?” I asked.

  “She has read too many ridiculous novels about men who keep wives locked up in secret rooms, and when she finds some rooms she’s not allowed to enter, she creates an entire fiction about the man of the house, imagining that he was cruel to his wife and may have even caused her death. Total nonsense. She’s the kind of girl who spends too much time in her imagination and finally couldn’t tell what was real and what was not.”

  Mrs. Bishop’s words rang through me. It was just as if she was talking about me. Locked rooms. A mystery. Not knowing what was real and what wasn’t. Did she know? Could she know? Had she seen me with the keys after all?

  She took the book from me and began turning the pages to find her place, that little smile on her lips, paying absolutely no attention to me.