Through the Glass (A Storybook Novel 1)

by Kira Moericke

  She obeys as I splash water into her hair and scrub the blue liquids on top of her head.

  “That stuff smells good,” Lynne says with her eyes still pinched tightly closed.

  “The shampoo?” I scrub her head with sudsy bubbles.

  She nods.

  “Okay, you have to lay down now,” I tell Lynne, putting a hand on her back and guide her down towards the water. I can tell by the way her body tenses up that she’s scared of being so close to being underwater, but I hang onto her as I wash the soap out of her hair.

  “It’s getting hot,” Lynne says.

  “Already?” I reach over and use one hand to turn off the water.

  For the rest of Lynne’s bath, I scrub her with body wash and dry her off with a fluffy purple towel. Whoever gave us all this stuff also gave us clothes. For Lynne, they had provided a little yellow sundress with a blue bird on the chest. It reminds me of the game we played with the figurines when we first arrived. There is also yellow, plastic barrettes in the shape of suns and socks with pink beads aligning the top. Once I get her dressed, I raise her up so she can see herself in the mirror.

  At her reflection, Lynne smiles.

  “Now go and show off to Maxwell while I take a bath, okay?” Placing her down on the floor, I watch her run out of the room. I close the door after her and drain the water from the tub so I can refill it with clean water. I place Lynne’s towel on the floor, right outside the bathtub where the water is all over the floor, then kick off my shoes and strip out of my clothes. When I take my shirt off, I see that the ceiling is a mirror. Never once had I thought that they could be watching us in here.

  But to be clean, I think. The thought of being watched slips from my mind, and I can’t get into the tub fast enough. I practically dive into the shallow, steamy water. Goose bumps sail up my arms as I lower myself into the water. The heat burns my skin, but at the moment, I don’t care. Holding my breath, I dunk myself under the water. Since I’m not one of those talented people who can see underwater, I close my eyes, making the seconds feel like minutes.

  Bursting forth out of the water, I reach for the razor and shaving cream to shave my legs and underarms. Afterwards, I put shampoo and conditioner in my hair and wash my body. By the time I’m finally done with my bath, my fingers are so shriveled and slightly numb, and there is a gross brown layer over the water. I get out of the water and grab for the pink towel, wrapping it around my body.

  “Sarwa, are you almost done?” Lynne calls from the other side of the closed door.

  “Not yet.” I wipe my hands across the surface of the mirror, revealing my pink, clean skin. Then, reaching into the bag, I dig around for the brush I thought that I had seen when I was getting Lynne ready.

  “Maxwell won’t pway with me,” she whines.

  “I said not at the moment,” Maxwell says in defense.

  “He won’t?” I try to put interest in my voice, but truthfully, I want Lynne to leave me alone so I can have some me-time. “How about you ask him again?”

  There is silence from the other side of the door, and I figure Lynne went back to ask Maxwell to play with her again. I smile as I run the brush through my hair until it doesn’t snag any snarls, then place the brush back into the bag and dig around for some clothes. There is a green bra, a little big in cup size, and matching panties. I slip them on, arranging the bra as best as I can so that it doesn’t move on my chest so much, before I look for some clothes to go over my undergarments.

  “Ooo,” I say in awe.

  Excitement flares within in me when I pull out a pink Skater dress with a non-gaudy, light pink flower pattern. Dropping the towel that I had balled in my hand, I slip the dress over my head.

  It fits perfect. It’s tight in all the right places and flares at the waist. Just having it on makes me feel like a princess. I pick the towel up off the floor and wrap it around my hair, hoping it will absorb some of the water.

  “Sarwa,” Lynne calls from the other side of the door again. I can hear her little hands slap against the wood of the door.

  “What?” I kneel down, the dress pooling around my knees, and dig for the makeup. After a moment, I find it all under a box of tampons. Grabbing as much makeup as I can, I place it on the toilet cover.

  “When arwe you coming out?” she asks, her voice whiney.

  “Soon.” I grab the foundation and smear some on my face, rubbing it until it blends in with my skin. Next, I move onto the light pink eyeshadow and mascara, highlighting my eyes. Then with a quick swipe of eyeliner, I consider myself finished.

  “Can I pwease come in?” she begs.

  “Yeah.” I unravel the towel from my hair and toss it onto the floor. My hair is damp, but it’s better than it had been before. Grabbing the brush, I run it through my hair once more.

  “It’s hot in here,” my sister complains. She crawls up onto the toilet cover when I move the makeup back into the bag and dig around for the perfume, the deodorant, and the good-smelling lotion.

  “I know.” I rub some deodorant under my arms and squirt some of the peach perfume on me. I drop both bottles back in the bag before I open the lotion and rub some on my hands and up my arms.

  “I want some.” Lynne watches me rub it into my skin.

  “Give me your hand then,” I say. She holds out her hand, and I squirt a pea-size spot of lotion on her.

  “Can you pway with me?” Lynne asks as I rub the lotion into her skin.

  “Play what with you?”

  “Hide-and-seek,” she replies. She grabs my hand and pulls me out of the bathroom and into the Salmon Room where Maxwell is laying on the cot, reading the book he had been reading a couple days ago.

  When we enter the room, I can feel his eyes on me.

  “You have to count first,” Lynne says. She lets go of my hands, walks around me, and pushes me forward. “Count to ten,” she orders.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Closing my eyes, I count. The sound of bags rustling fills the room, and I know exactly where she is. “Ready or not, here I come.” I spin around and start my unneeded search.

  “I’m glad that you’re finally out of the bathroom,” Maxwell says, placing his book down. He stands up. “Now she won’t keep bugging me.”

  “I figured she’d keep bugging you,” I say, walking around him and tossing the new pillows up. “She was bugging me from the other side of the door.”

  “She kept on asking me where you were.”

  “What did you tell her?” I can only imagine what he said.

  “I told her you got sucked into the drain.”

  I spin around to look at him, shocked. “You did not.”

  “Well, you were taking forever in there.” Maxwell shrugs.

  “Did she believe you?” I ask with a short laugh.

  Maxwell presses his lips together for a moment before breaking into a smile. “No, not really.”

  “Good.” I start laughing. “You’re so mean.”

  “Mean? I was only teasing her,” he says innocently.

  “Then you’re such a tease,” I correct with a smile. Shaking my hair, I slip a damp strand behind my ear.

  “Sarwa! Come look for me!” Lynne shouts from the large paper bag she is hiding in.

  “Okay, okay, I’m coming.” I move towards the bags and start to pick up the empty ones. “Maybe she’s in one of these bags?”

  Lynne laughs from the bag she is hiding in.

  Maxwell walks over to the bag and places a finger over his lips as an indication for me to keep quiet. With a smile holding back a laugh, I watch as he silently reaches down and snags the bag’s handle, lifting it up. From inside, Lynne shrieks.

  Laughter starts to seep out of my mouth without my control. From within the bag, I can see Lynne squirm, her hands and feet poking at the bag, making it pop out.

  “Sarwa!” my sister screeches. “Help me!”

  With my words mingling with my unstoppable laughter, I say to Maxwell, “You better put her down before
she rips a hole in the bottom.”

  Carefully, Maxwell lowers the bag and places it back on the floor. When the bag touches the floor, Lynne scrambles out, knocking the bag to its side. In a ball, she tumbles out and stares at me, her eyes narrowed with anger.

  “Meany,” she accuses me.

  “What?” I ask, my laughter faltering.

  “You mean.” She gets up off the floor and runs over to the cots. Burying herself in the new blanket, she sticks her bottom lip out and crosses her arms tightly over her chest.

  “How am I mean?” I walk over to her, but she folds herself into a ball.

  “You lifted me up,” she says, her voice muffled and stubborn.

  “That wasn’t me. It was him.” I point at Maxwell, not caring that I’m throwing him under the bus.

  “Hey.” He narrows his eyes playfully at me.

  I turn my head to look at him with a smile on my face. “Sorry.”

  “Weave me alone,” Lynne demands, still tucked into a ball.

  “Fine.” I get up and head to the bathroom where I suddenly remember leaving a mess. Stepping into the room, the scents of ocean mist and peaches fill my nose. The stuff I had dragged out of the bags is scattered all over the place and there are dirty suds remaining in tub. I step over mine and Lynne’s towel, peach spray and lotion, and a giant deflated bag to get to the bathtub. I sit on the edge of it and turn the faucet on so I can rinse out the tub.

  “She’s still upset.”

  I jump at Maxwell’s sudden appearance. I can feel my heart beating quickly, but I’m not entirely sure that it is because he scared me. There is a faint thought that maybe it could be partly because we are in the same room together without Lynne.

  Caitlin, I press painfully into my mind. You have to remember he has Caitlin.

  “What?” A lopsided smile yanks one side of Maxwell’s lip upwards.

  “Nothing.” The word comes out a little too quickly for anyone to believe. I just hope he doesn’t notice.

  “You have this really weird look on your face.”

  “I do?” Embarrassed, I force my face to relax as I turn to look back at the bathtub and splash some clean water around to get rid of the dirty water. When I get the tub pretty clean, I notice some dark hair plugging the drain.

  Eww . . .

  “You practically took up the whole floor with your guys’ stuff,” Maxwell observes, his smile dropping from his face as he looks around the room.

  “Well, I would of cleaned it, but Lynne wanted to play because someone wouldn’t play with her.” When I turn around to reach for a the paper towel, I give him the look.

  “Hey.” He raises both hands in defense. “I was busy.”

  “What? Reading a book?” I rip a sheet of paper towel off the roll and use it to clean the clogged drain.

  “Actually, I was looking through the bags,” he says. “And trying to figure out why we got all this stuff.”

  “Yeah, but you always wonder that whenever we get something good,” I point out.

  “I know. But this is a lot more than food, Sara.” He sounds slightly irritated.

  “But you still haven’t come up with a conclusion.” Now he’s starting to irritate me. Holding the soggy piece of paper towel with the strand of hair inside of it away from me, I shoot it across the bathroom to the little wastebasket, making it swoosh right in.

  “Because they’re up to something.” He runs a hand through his hair as he tilts his head up to the mirrored-ceiling.

  “How do you know?” I grab the good smelling lotion that I had left on the back of the toilet and toss it back into the bag. “Maybe they’re just being generous.”

  “Generous? Bullshit.”

  I huff a sigh as I pick up the two wet towels, move around Maxwell, and swing them over to the door to dry. “You’re just paranoid,” I mumble.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” I turn around to face him and slip a strand of hair behind my ear.

  “Seriously, what did you say?” His eyes follow me as I grab the bag off the bathroom floor, carry it out into the Salmon Room, and place it with all the others. He follows right behind me.

  “It was nothing,” I say as I walk past him, back into the bathroom to make sure I have everything picked up.

  “Just tell me what you said,” Maxwell says, following me back into the bathroom.

  “Fine! I said you were paranoid.” I look at him with my arms crossed over my chest.

  Maxwell looks at me, his eyes hardening. Then, without a word, he turns on his heels and marches out of the room. The butterflies I had been feeling just minutes before are now gone, leaving me with an empty, sick feeling.

  I lean against the wall opposite of the sink and stare down at my chipped, purple nails. My long, damp hair falls around my face, some sticking to my cheeks.

  “Sarwa?” Lynne calls from the Salmon Room.

  No, I mentally groan. I don’t want to go into the Salmon Room in case I say something that sets Maxwell off. I don’t think I can go another day with him in his dick-mood.

  “Sarwa!”

  “I’m coming.” Inhaling a deep breath, I raise my head and head into the Salmon Room, where Maxwell is moving the bags out of the way to the door that leads to the hall. Across the room, Lynne is sitting on the cots. Walking over to her, I ask, “What?”

  “Can you pway with me?” she asks in a tiny voice.

  “Not right now, Lynne.” I don’t feel like playing. Maxwell has ruined my peppiness. I slump onto the cot next to her and stare at my purple nails. A faint memory of painting them comes to mind. I remember I had been lying on the floor in the living room with my blue calculus folder underneath my hands in case any nail polish spilled. I had lain on my stomach going back and forth between painting my nails and watching Entertainment Tonight when I was really supposed to be doing my homework. Lynne had been in the kitchen at the time, bugging Mom as she made supper.

  I stare at my nails until my eyes start to burn. Blinking, the memory disappears, and I’m left with the feeling of emptiness.

  “I’m borwed,” Lynne complains.

  “Why don’t you play with the figurines?”

  “The what?”

  “Wait,” Maxwell says suddenly. Clearly he was listening to us. I don’t know whether to be insulted that he was eavesdropping on us or happy that cared to pay attention to us. “I found something. It was before you guys came so I had just stuffed it away.” He walks over to the crumpled boxes in the corner and starts shuffling through them. “Here.” After a moment, he straightens and reveals a white porcelain doll with dark purple lips, dark, hauntingly beady eyes, and long wavy red hair.

  “Shit!” I didn’t mean to say it but the word just slipped out. In the second of seeing the doll, I pinch my eyes closed and cover them with my hands.

  “What’s the matter?” Maxwell’s voice is full with concern and confusion.

  “I want it!” Lynne says. I can imagine her leaning forward with her arms outstretched as she reaches for the doll.

  “Get rid of it,” I say with my hands still over my eyes. “Please.”

  “I want it!” Lynne says again, her voice rising.

  “Lynne. No.” I open my eyes, but I keep my gaze low, looking down at the material of my dress that covers my thighs.

  “Pwease!” she begs. “I want her!”

  Even though I’m not looking up, I can hear Maxwell move around the room then the clinking of porcelain as it’s placed against a hard surface. After a moment he says, “It’s gone.”

  “Thank you.” I look up and glance around the room. He’s right; it is gone.

  “Why are you so freaked out about the doll?” Maxwell looks at me, his eyebrows furrowed slightly.

  “I’ve seen to many freaky doll shows,” I reply. “The porcelain ones are just the creepiest ones.”

  “So I’m guessing that you’ve never seen Annabelle?”

  “Never have, never will.” I shake my head, trying to r
id the image of the creepy doll. “I couldn’t even watch the commercials.”

  “You couldn’t even watch the commercials?” There is mock laughter in his voice.

  “Everyone is scared of something,” I shoot at him, frowning. “At least it isn’t something pathetic like the number thirteen.”

  “Why? Do you know someone who is scared of the number thirteen?”

  “No, but I’m just saying.”

  Maxwell’s eyes widen and roll to the side, indicating that what I said is totally bizarre.

  I roll my eyes and drop onto my back. All I can think about is that creepy doll. I wish I could break it, shattering it into a hundred of pieces, but all the sharp edges would be dangerous not only for Lynne but for Maxwell and myself as well.

  “Can I have the dolly?” Lynne asks softly, resting her head on my stomach as she peers up at me. “Pwease?”

  Her little voice pulls at my mind coaxingly, but my fear for the doll gets the better hold of me. So instead, I say sternly, “No, Lynne.”

  “Why not?” she whines.

  “Because I’m scared of the doll.”

  “Why you scawed?” Confusion fills her large brown eyes.

  “Why are you scared of the dark?” I ask back.

  Fear face-plants my sister as she brings her legs close to her chest. “Because therwe arwe monsterws,” she whispers.

  “Well, that doll is my monster.”

  “What?” She doesn’t seem to understand.

  “The doll is a monster,” I try again.

  “It is?” She sounds frightened.

  I nod. I know I’m a total ass for lying to my two-and-a-half-year-old sister, but I need to make sure that she doesn’t bring out that doll. Ever.

  “Will it hurwt us?” Lynne whispers, her voice shaky.

  “Only if we take it out from where Maxwell put it,” I whisper back. “So don’t grab the monster doll, okay?” I start to rub her back in hopes of ridding her fear.

  Lynne nods, cuddling closer to me.

  “Are you trying to scare her?” Maxwell asks, coming over to the cots. He sits down and looks at Lynne, who now looks like a mini-me; scared and pathetic.