The Dollhouse

by Charis Cotter

  The memories were dancing across her face…

  “And then Mother and Bubble and I begged Dad to build us one. We begged and begged!” She laughed. “All the way home on the ship, every meal, we talked about the dollhouse and how marvelous it was and how we wanted one of our own. Dad thought we were all nuts, but he finally gave in and said we could have one. But it had to be done right, with an architect, like the Queen’s dollhouse, and it was going to be very expensive, and we kids had to be really careful with it.

  “When we got home, Dad got Fred— Mr. Brock, he’s a lawyer— to help him find an architect. And they hired Adrian. There were weeks and weeks of planning, and Dad had the special room built in the attic for it. The dollhouse took so long to build that Bubble and I got impatient. We thought it would never be finished. But Mother worked with Adrian and they hired people to make the furniture and the dolls and the clothes and made it all exactly like our house.

  “But after a while it seemed that Adrian and Mother were creating the dollhouse for themselves, not for us. Bubble and I would get in trouble if we touched things. It was a work of art, they kept telling us. Not a toy.

  “And now Adrian just keeps coming up with more ideas as excuses to see more of Mother, like the summerhouse, and the model train—”

  “Train?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that was his latest, just before they left on the trip. He brought a model train and set it up around the dollhouse, with a real little station that looks just like Lakeport. Mother was wild about it.”

  The train I had seen in the attic. The train and the station. That was Adrian’s work. I had been right about that.

  Fizz clenched her fists. “I hate that dollhouse. If I could, I would just smash it to bits. And I hate Adrian. If it wasn’t for him and that stupid dollhouse, we’d all still be happy. And I would have gone to the city and seen Funny Face.”

  “Funny face?”

  “It’s this great Broadway show. Bubble and I’ve been looking forward to it for months.”

  “Your father agreed with your mother, then, that you should stay home?”

  She nodded unhappily. “He came and told me he was sorry. That it was a hard time for the family. That he’d take me to see Funny Face on my own, later in the summer, before I go to boarding school. So I said okay, and I’ve been here all by myself with Betsy for the last three days. Boring. So boring.”

  “Who’s Betsy?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before.

  “Betsy is our housekeeper. She’s been with us ever since Bubble was a baby, and she’s really nice, but not much fun. Anyway, tonight they’re coming home,” she said, brightening. “On the nine o’clock passenger train. I’m going to wait out here till it comes. I’m going to go to the edge of the garden and see if I can see them as they go by. Bubble said she’d look for me and wave. They should be back here by about twenty past nine.”

  “But it’s so dark,” I said. “How will she see you?”

  Fizz frowned. “It’s the storm. It shouldn’t be this dark.”

  And just at that moment, there was a brilliant flash of lightning and a crash of thunder.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  THE CRASH

  For a moment the summerhouse and the two of us were lit in stark relief and then it was dark again, with just the candlelight flickering over our faces.

  “Phew! That was close,” said Fizz.

  “Not even time to count ‘one, one thousand,’ ” I said, shaken. “That means it struck less than a mile away.”

  A faraway train whistle called.

  Fizz’s face lit up with a smile. “That’s them. Come on!”

  She darted out the door. I blew out the candle and followed her uncertainly into the dark garden.

  A thin yellow light ahead of me bounced over the grass.

  “It’s okay, I’ve got a flashlight,” called Fizz over her shoulder.

  Fine for her, but I was still stumbling in the dark, trying to catch up.

  A jagged fork of lightning zigzagged down from the sky almost at the same time as another bang of thunder. I screamed and threw myself on the ground, covering my head with my hands.

  I heard Fizz’s footsteps pounding back to me.

  “Oh, don’t be such a baby, Alice,” she said, pulling me to my feet.

  “It was close!” I protested. “Just over those trees.”

  “It wasn’t that close,” she replied, heading back toward the edge of the garden, pulling me along behind her. “It probably hit somewhere near Lakeport.”

  I didn’t feel safe. Mom had drilled it into me, if you’re out in a thunderstorm, first of all, don’t be! And if you’re caught, lie down on the ground. Whatever you do, stay away from trees.

  And here I was with Fizz, running toward the trees that ringed the garden.

  “Fizz, I think we should go in,” I said, pulling back.

  The train whistle called out again, much closer.

  “No!” said Fizz, holding my hand even tighter. “The train will be here any minute. We’ve got to see them. I told Bubble I’d wave.”

  She hauled me into the long grass at the edge of the hill. Below us, I knew the ground gave away steeply, but now it was just a bowl of darkness.

  Fizz flicked the light down the hill. Bushes and trees appeared and then vanished as the light moved on. Something silver glinted at the bottom of the hill.

  The train tracks.

  The train whistle called again. Fizz had let go of my hand and was jumping up and down with excitement. “It’s coming!” she said.

  I turned to look at her and realized that the light was better, because I could see her now, her hair, frizzy from the humidity, standing out like a halo around her head, her silhouette outlined against the sky behind her. Where was the light coming from?

  I looked behind her, and there, sailing up over the top of the house was a bright, full moon. The house loomed up behind us, just as it had that first time I’d seen it from the train, so very much a haunted house, with its blank windows staring out, the vines creeping up the walls, the elegant staircases curving down from the door—

  But it had been a few days since the full moon. Was dollhouse time as different as that? Up until now, whatever time it was in the real world had been reflected in the dollhouse world. When I fell asleep in the afternoon, I woke up in the afternoon in the dollhouse. When I fell asleep at night, I woke up at night in the dollhouse. So why was there a full moon now? It should be growing smaller, not shining out in a perfect silver dollar circle against the black night sky.

  I had no time to try to figure it out. The train whistle screamed in our ears, and the train roared as it thundered into sight. Its bright white headlight cut into the darkness just a little way down the track, moving fast.

  Fizz grabbed my arm. “Watch the windows,” she shouted in my ear. “She said she’d be waving.”

  The lighted windows on the train came into view. I could see vague shapes inside, but the train was going too fast to see anyone clearly.

  “There she is! There she is!” cried Fizz, jumping and waving madly. I just caught sight of someone inside waving their arms, but then the car flashed by us and she was gone.

  Fizz turned to me, laughing, and was about to say something when there was a white flash of lightning and an almighty clap of thunder, both at the same time.

  I screamed and reached out to grab hold of Fizz. But just as my hands made contact with her arms, there was an even bigger crash of sound and my hands closed on nothing, and the whole world seemed to turn upside down, and the train, clearly visible now in the moonlight, jerked up in the air and came down with the cars all piled up like toy blocks spilled out of a box.

  Then Fizz was gone, my hands closed on emptiness, and my head snapped forward and hit something hard. Everything
folded into deep black.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  BLOOD

  Everything was very dark, and all I could think about was how my head hurt. It felt like it was going to explode. A terrible, unbearable pain beat like a pulse behind my eyes.

  Then I began to hear noises around me. Someone was crying as if their heart would break. Someone else was groaning. Someone else was screaming.

  I opened my eyes. I might as well have kept them shut, because it was still very dark. I seemed to be lying wedged between two seats, and there were people around me: some still, some moving. Was I inside the train? How did I get here? Last thing I remembered was standing on the hill with Fizz, watching as the train leaped into the air and fell to the ground with an almighty crash.

  But here I was.

  I struggled to sit up and then managed to pull myself to my feet, my head pounding. It was hard to keep my balance; the floor seemed to be sloping all in one direction, so even though I thought I was standing upright, I kept feeling like I was going to fall backward. Then some lights flickered past the windows, and someone with a flashlight was at the door at the end of the train car, peering in.

  The light passed over several people who were starting to move. I saw a man with his eyes closed and blood pouring down his face. That’s where the groans were coming from. A little boy of about four was stuck between two seats, and he and his mother were both screaming. The light flickered over a woman sitting in the seat across the aisle from where I was standing. She was the one crying, her head buried in her hands. There was something familiar about her, but the light passed on before I could figure out what.

  The person with the flashlight went immediately to the aid of the screaming child and his mother, and I took a few steps toward the door.

  I could still hear the woman sobbing. My head was spinning with the pain, and I just wanted to get out of the train car, but something made me look back at her. In the flickering light from the conductor’s flashlight, I saw that the woman was bending over someone beside her.

  And then I heard my name.

  “Alice!” sobbed the woman.

  I held on to a seat and made my way back. There were lights coming from outside now, flashlights raking across the windows. I could hear people yelling.

  The woman was rocking back and forth, crying. Beside her was the crumpled figure of a girl. A girl with light-brown hair matted with blood.

  Then the woman looked up, not at me, but through me. Her face was streaked with tears. It was my mother.

  The whole world tilted again, and I closed my eyes as I lost my sense of up and down. I felt myself sliding into the darkness that was eating everything up around me.

  Then there was nothing. For a long, long time.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  WRECKAGE

  When I came to, the first thing I was aware of was the harsh, bitter smell of scorched metal. The second thing was that my nose was full of grass. The third thing was that my head still hurt.

  I sat up. Below me was the twisted wreckage of the train, smoking in the pale moonlight.

  I shook my head, trying to clear the clouds of confusion away. What had just happened? I felt like I had been unconscious for a long time, but now I was back at the moment I left, just after the train crashed and the cars flew up in the air.

  Fizz and I had fallen to the ground together with the impact of the crash. She scrambled to her feet with a sob and took off down the steep embankment, half running, half flying, then skidding and sliding to the bottom. She nearly careened into a train car, stopping herself just before she hit it. This car and the one ahead were still upright on the tracks, but the next one in front was lying crookedly, half on the tracks and half off, swaying as if it hadn’t quite finished falling yet. And the cars ahead of that one were lying in a tangled heap of metal.

  I was up in a second, my head and my confusion forgotten.

  “Fizz!” I yelled. “Stop!”

  She paid no attention and took off running toward the mangled cars at the front of the train, where Bubble had stood waving at Fizz as the train whipped past us, just before the lightning struck.

  I slithered down the bank. Stunned-looking people were emerging from the cars that were still upright. Some had blood on their clothes. Some fell to the ground, moaning.

  Suddenly there was a loud screeching noise followed by an explosion that was even louder than the thunder had been. Billows of black smoke poured out of the mangled mess up ahead, and bright orange flames began licking into the air.

  Fizz hesitated for just a moment, then took off again, straight toward the fire.

  A man in a conductor’s uniform caught Fizz as she ran and swung her back.

  “Don’t go any closer, kid. You’ll get hurt.”

  I caught up to them, panting, and then the crooked train car teetered and fell with a squeal of metal. The boom reverberated through the air and the ground shook.

  Fizz struggled to free herself from the conductor. He gave her a shake.

  “You can’t go over there,” he said. “You’ll get killed.”

  “I want to get killed!” she howled. “My whole family was in one of the front cars!”

  “I’m sorry,” said the conductor. “We’ll get a rescue crew in there as soon as we can. But you can’t risk your life.”

  He turned and looked right through me, shouting out to some people behind me who were jumping down from the nearest train car. Apparently I was just as invisible to the conductor as I was to Harriet’s mother and father, and Adrian.

  The noise of people crying and calling out questions began to swell around us. The moon lit up the scene with a cold, bright light. What had been hidden in shadows before now stood out in ugly detail: the shocked faces of the people stumbling around me, the blood on their clothes, the twisted limbs of some of the people lying on the ground. The seared, broken metal of the train cars that were piled up on top of each other, the smoke and flames rising from the wreckage. I didn’t want to see it. I closed my eyes tightly, but I couldn’t block out the sounds.

  People calling for their loved ones, shouting for help, crying. And a familiar voice, very close to me, was yelling furiously.

  “Let me go!” cried Fizz. And then she screamed, “Bubble!”

  I opened my eyes. Fizz was still trying to free herself from the conductor’s strong grip. He gave her another shake.

  “You’re not going over there,” he said. “That’s final.”

  A crowd was gathering around us, drawn to the conductor and his flashlight. A man lurched forward and grabbed the conductor’s sleeve. He was wearing a three-piece suit smeared with blood, and his eyes were unfocused. “What happened?” he demanded, swaying from side to side.

  The conductor turned to him, keeping tight hold of Fizz as he did so.

  “Far as I can tell, lightning struck a tree and it fell over the tracks. There was no time to stop. It’s a terrible mess. We need to get help.”

  “There’s a telephone at my house,” said Fizz, who had stopped wriggling. “Up the hill.”

  “Go!” cried the conductor. “It’s the only thing you can do now to help your family. Go and call for help.”

  He let her go and bent down to help a woman who was crawling toward him, blood on her face and blouse.

  Fizz stood frozen, staring down at the woman.

  “Go!” yelled the conductor, looking back at her. “As fast as you can!”

  Fizz spun around and began running up the hill. I followed.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  THE TELEPHONE

  We scrambled up the hill, sometimes on all fours where it was steep, grabbing at branches to haul ourselves up. My still-pounding headache slowed me down, and by the time I got to the top of the bank, Fizz was far ahead of me, pelting across the lawn.

  The thunder
had moved a little farther away and I could hear it rumbling in the distance. But the night was still hot and thick around me, and I felt as if the world, like the floor of the train car, was tilting slightly. Crossing the lawn, I started to have that nightmare feeling when you need to run but your legs feel so heavy that each step feels like wading through thick mud.

  There was a light in the kitchen. Fizz ran toward that and burst through the door. By the time I got there she was out of sight, but I could hear her footsteps pounding up the basement stairs and into the dining room.

  When I caught up with her in the front hall, she was standing by a little desk holding an old-fashioned telephone in her hand. Her hands were shaking too much to get her finger in the dial. She looked up at me, her face grimy with tears in the soft light from the lamp on the desk beside the phone.

  “Alice,” she whispered, “I can’t make it work.”

  I took the phone from her and stared down at the dial. Somehow, I didn’t think they had the 911 number for emergencies in the 1920s.

  “What’s the number for police?” I asked.

  “Just dial the op-op-operator,” she stuttered.

  I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “O!” she shouted. “O for operator!”

  I dialed it and after a couple of rings a woman came on the line.

  “Operator! What number please?” she said in a singsong voice.

  Fizz grabbed the phone from me.

  “Help!” she yelled. “Help us please! There’s been a terrible train crash. Near Blackwood House, Lakeport.”

  “Oh my God,” cried the woman. I could hear her voice crackling out of the receiver. “Just hang on, honey. I’ll get help there as soon as I can.”

  Fizz put down the phone and turned to me. She was shivering and crying. I put my arms around her and held her.

  The front door banged open and a woman who looked remarkably like Mary came rushing in. Her hair was disheveled, her face streaked with tears. She flew over to Fizz. I stepped aside, and it’s a good thing I did, or I would have found out what it was like to be invisible and have someone pass right through me. She fell upon Fizz and scooped her up into her arms, talking the whole time.