As much as I was trying to maintain a positive attitude, the situation was looking hopeless.
“Are you okay?” I asked Lucy.
“I’ve felt better.”
“We have to get out of here.” I pointed at the stairs halfway down the hall.
She nodded in understanding.
We raced down the hall. I heard the music room door swing open and the doll horde pour out into the hall behind us.
In our panic we veered too close to each other and we bumped shoulders, causing me to drop the candlestick. It didn’t matter. The stairs were only a few metres away.
I kept running.
Lucy didn’t.
She stopped to pick up the candlestick.
“Lucy, no!” I shouted.
The dolls closed in on her.
“Leave it!” I pleaded desperately.
She didn’t appear to hear me. She was rooted to the ground, her hand suspended in mid-air above the candlestick, staring in fear at the dolls.
Another three or four seconds and the dolls would be on top of her.
I ran in front of her — getting between her and the immediate threat — and scooped the candlestick off the floor, then swung it to the left. The first three dolls flew off their feet and hit the wall. I swung the candlestick to the right and the next two dolls were propelled into the other wall. The sixth doll — the one with the big eyes and the cracked face — ran straight for me, so I swung the candlestick straight down on her head. She crumpled at my feet.
Miss Ashton had been close behind the others. I swung the candlestick at her, but too late. She ducked and slid between my legs. She got back to her feet and jumped at Lucy. She hit my sister in the centre of the chest. Lucy was rocked backwards toward the stairs. Her arms spun in circles around her head as she tried to regain her balance. She took two, three, four awkward steps back. Miss Ashton fell to the ground and watched Lucy with a wicked gleam in her eyes. For an all-too-brief moment, it looked like Lucy was going to be okay.
But then her heel rolled over the edge of the top step.
And it was all over. Momentum and gravity took over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lucy raised her arms to protect her head and tumbled down the stairs. Although it was a short distance to the landing, only six or seven steps, the sound of her crashing to a stop was painfully loud. She didn’t move.
“No,” someone said. Me, I realized. “No!” I shouted as I returned to my senses.
I looked from my sister’s still body to Sadie Sees, standing a short distance beside me, looking down the stairs with glee. She had long ago stopped being my doll. She no longer made me think of Grandma. All I saw when I looked at her was the horrible creature that had hurt my sister. All I saw was Miss Ashton, and she needed to pay. But first, I needed to make sure Lucy was okay.
I hit Miss Ashton as hard as I could. She rocketed down the hall and landed amid the other dolls, which were getting back to their feet.
I raced down the stairs and crouched beside my sister.
“Lucy?” I said loudly beside her ear.
She didn’t respond, not at first. Her eyes were closed. Her face looked pained. But then her eyelids fluttered open and she looked at me in confusion. “What happened?”
I laughed in relief and tears sprang from my eyes. “You fell down the stairs,” I said, “but you’re going to be okay.”
I looked back up at the third floor. The dolls and Miss Ashton stepped to the edge and stared down.
“I’m going to pick you up,” I told Lucy.
I placed the candlestick on her chest, slid my arms under her body as gently as possible and scooped her up. It was a bit of a struggle — she was small for her age but she wasn’t exactly light. She held on to my neck and I found the strength to get to my feet. The fear and adrenalin coursing through my veins helped.
The dolls flowed down the stairs.
I didn’t know where to go, but I started to run anyway — down the stairs to the first floor. When I saw the front door I considered rushing through it and back to Grandma’s house, but I knew I had to put a stop to the dolls once and for all if I wanted to save my sister and myself. Otherwise they’d never stop coming for us.
The only thing I could think to do was find a safe place to hide while I worked things out.
The bathroom. It was worth a shot.
I ran down the front hall with Lucy in my arms, my shoulders aching and my back screaming, and pushed the bathroom door open with my hip. Once inside I laid Lucy on the floor, grabbed the candlestick, and looked at the door.
It had a lock!
I turned it quickly just as I heard the dolls reach the other side. The door rattled in its frame as they pulled on it and banged against it, but it held.
I scanned the room for anything that might be useful. Nothing caught my eye. Just a row of sinks and a small window above them.
“You can’t wait in there forever,” I heard Miss Ashton say from the other side. “But we can wait out here as long as necessary. We’ve already waited more than sixty years for this moment.”
The feeling of relief that had washed over me when I’d found Lucy was replaced with a feeling of despair. We could try to squeeze through the window, but Miss Ashton and the others would probably hear us. They’d continue pursuing us forever and ever and ever until … until we were dead and they’d impressed the Wisp. That was the only way I could see this ending.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Little pig, little pig, let me in,” Miss Ashton said, and the girls laughed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
We were trapped and everything had begun to feel hopeless, but at least I’d managed to get us to safety temporarily. And my sister was lucky — her fall could have ended much, much worse.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She nodded weakly. “I’ve got a killer headache, but I’m okay.” She propped herself up on one elbow and winced in pain.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” I asked.
“I’m hurt everywhere,” she said.
It was good to see she was able to joke. “I think you were unconscious for a bit.”
She placed her fingertips gently on her forehead. “Yeah, I was, and I had an awful dream while I was passed out.”
“What was it about?”
“I was here in the school a long time ago. Grandma was in the music room playing with the dolls she’d borrowed.”
“Stolen,” one of the girls — Mary, the baby doll, I thought — said from the other side of the door.
Lucy continued. “She heard a noise and ran away, just like she said in her journal. The candle tipped over. The flames spread quickly. It was awful.”
I nodded in agreement, feeling some of the guilt — probably a tiny fraction of what Grandma had felt all her life — for what had happened here back in 1952. I looked at the candlestick and realized I was squeezing it so tight that my knuckles had turned red and white. Maybe it was the same one Grandma had used to light her way that night.
Hattie’s laughter came through the door.
“You think the school burning is funny?” I said in disgust. “People died.”
“I was one of those people,” Hattie said. “But that’s not why I’m laughing. I’m laughing at Edith thinking all these years the fire was her fault.”
“What do you mean?” Lucy asked.
“She didn’t do it.”
“Who did?” I asked, even though I had a pretty good guess.
“I did.”
I was about to ask if she was serious but Miss Ashton beat me to it.
“You set the fire?” she asked.
“Not on purpose,” Hattie said, somehow managing to sound offended. “I saw Edith steal our dolls so I followed her to the music room and hid and watched. She looked so pathetic playing with our dolls and pretending they were us that I almost felt bad for her. When I knocked over a cymbal, she ran out of the room with the dolls in her arms. I chased afte
r her, but I ran too close to the candle she’d left behind. It tipped over and rolled under one of the drapes. It caught fire quickly. I tried putting it out but realized I wouldn’t be able to on my own, so I ran for the door but …” She sighed irritably. “I tripped, fell, and everything went black. The next thing I knew I was floating through the smoky sky above the school when I spotted the other girls, floating through the air with me. And then I saw Edith and her caretaker father, doing nothing but watch the school burn.”
The way Hattie said “caretaker” made it sound like a swear word, something vile in her mouth that needed to be spat out.
“I also spotted our dolls — she’d hid them in the hedge,” Hattie continued. “And so, instead of passing on, I had the idea to slip into my doll. And it worked. The other girls followed my lead. But before we could do anything — before we had the strength to act — Edith hid us in her trunk, and those red stones in the lid kept us trapped in there ever since.”
It wasn’t Grandma’s fault. I felt like a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I wished there was some way I could tell her. I almost felt happy enough to cry. It gave me the strength I needed to figure out a way to beat the dolls.
“Why didn’t you say anything before?” Miss Ashton asked. Her tone was icy cold. Without seeing her I couldn’t tell if she was angry or simply dumbfounded.
“Edith shouldn’t have been in class with us,” Hattie said. “The only reason she’d been granted admission was because her father worked for the school. And to think she wanted to be our friend.” She laughed bitterly.
None of the other girls joined in her laughter, which gave me a small shred of satisfaction. And then I had an idea.
I motioned soundlessly for Lucy to follow me into one of the bathroom stalls. We crammed inside the small space and I closed the door, hoping that would create a bit of a sound barrier. I didn’t want the dolls to hear us.
“I think I know how to beat them,” I whispered, “but for my plan to work, you have to stay in here.”
Lucy opened her mouth to protest, but I cut her off. “You have to stay in here, Lucy. It’s the only way, and I don’t have time to explain. I’m going to run out, and you need to lock the door behind me. No matter what you hear or what happens next, don’t follow me. Wait five minutes, then climb out the bathroom window. Go back to our bedroom in Grandma’s house and watch out the window. And this is the most important part: if you see any of the dolls, or any ghosts, enter the backyard, run up to the attic and hide in the trunk. They won’t be able to get to you in there. Do you understand?”
Lucy’s eyes were red and her bottom lip quivered, but she nodded.
“Tell me you’ll get out, no matter what you see or hear.”
“I will,” Lucy said. She squinted and added, “You too, right?”
I nodded and looked away. “Of course.”
“Okay,” she said, looking a little relieved.
“Hey, come here.” I pulled her close and hugged her tight. “We’re going to be okay.”
“Promise?”
It broke my heart to lie to my sister, but I forced a smile and said, “Promise.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
We pulled apart and gave each other one final look. I could only hope she’d do exactly as I’d said. There was so much that could go wrong. I felt like I was standing on top of a house of highly flammable cards, soaked in gasoline, about to strike a match.
“All right,” I said. “It’s time. Ready?”
“Ready.”
We left the stall. I picked up the candlestick and reached for the deadbolt on the bathroom door. Outside I could hear the dolls scratching at the door, trying to find a way in.
I looked at Lucy and raised one finger off the candlestick.
One.
I raised a second.
Two.
And then, after I raised a third — three! — I nodded, tightened my grip on the candlestick, unlocked the deadbolt, threw open the door, and charged out into the hall. The door bashed one or two dolls to the side. I used the candlestick to hit a few more. I think I kicked one as I started to run, but it was hard to be sure. Everything was a blur. But I distinctly heard the click of the lock on the door behind me.
“You don’t honestly think you can escape us, do you?” Miss Ashton asked incredulously.
“I’m pretty sure I’m faster than a pathetic old lady that has to live inside a kid’s toy,” I said, hoping my words would antagonize her.
Luckily for me, they did. Big time.
She lunged for me, enraged. I swerved around her outstretched arms and bolted up the stairs, all the way to the third floor without stopping to catch my breath or look behind me. I knew Miss Ashton was following me, and I knew the others were following close behind her. I ran down the hall, barged into the music room, and dragged a desk to the side of the door. Although a big part of me wanted to use the desk to block the door and prevent the dolls from entering the room, I left it where it was. They would expect me to barricade them out, and to ensure I outwitted the dolls, I knew I needed to do something they’d never see coming in a million years. Something unthinkable.
The door opened and the dolls poured in. I pushed myself up against the wall beside the desk, out of their sight.
Miss Ashton entered first, followed by Mary, Dorothy, Virginia, Lois, Ruby …
I held my breath. Had Hattie stayed downstairs to try to get into the bathroom, as I’d feared might happen? But then, a moment later, Hattie finally ran into the music room and joined the others.
I slammed the door shut and pushed the desk in front of it.
“What are you doing?” Miss Ashton shrieked.
I ignored her and swapped my candlestick for one of the lit candles from the seance Miss Ashton had begun earlier. Then I grabbed one of the drapes from the closest window.
Miss Ashton raised her hands and took a step toward me. Understanding dawned on her face.
“You don’t want to do that,” she said. “You’re trapped in here with us. Set fire to the room and you’ll die too.”
I hesitated for a moment. Could I actually follow through with what I had planned?
As if she picked up on my last-minute hesitation, Hattie smiled and taunted me. “Go ahead, set us all on fire. See how you like to burn. See how you like to be torn apart from your family and stuck between worlds for years.”
The way she spoke angered me — she’d started the original fire, but she managed to make it sound like she was the victim. Not to mention the fact that a moment ago she’d been ready to sew Lucy up like a doll. It was for Lucy that I had to see my plan through to the bitter end.
I lit the bottom of the drape on fire then ripped it free from the rod above the window. I balled the flaming material up and threw it at the dolls. The look on Hattie’s face, as well as the others’, was priceless. None of them thought I’d actually set fire to the room while I was trapped in it with them, but they were wrong.
While they were scrambling, I ran around the room knocking the other candles over and setting fire to anything I could find.
The fire spread quickly, far more quickly than I would’ve thought possible. The dolls tried to avoid the flames but they couldn’t forever. Soon they were all burning blue, and they shrieked and howled and wailed as they ran in circles, spreading the fire farther around the room. I didn’t know whether Miss Ashton and the girls felt the pain of burning alive, or if they were remembering the first time they’d been burned, or if they were simply terrified of fading away permanently. Whatever the case, one by one they began to slow down and fall as their bodies were consumed by the fire. Hattie tried to pull the desk away from the door in a last-ditch effort to save herself, but Miss Ashton pulled her back.
“What are you doing?” I asked the headmistress.
“Helping you,” Miss Ashton said as her face melted. “Stopping her from escaping.”
“Why?” I said.
“I thought your gr
andmother burned down my school, but it was her.” She pointed at Hattie. “All these years my anger has been focused on the wrong person.”
Plastic melted and dripped off her body in thick rivulets, and she fell to the ground and stared at me. Her hair and clothes had burned away first, and I could see the mechanics that made her eyes and mouth move inside her head. It was the stuff of nightmares.
“I can see through aaannnyyythiiinggg …” she said in Sadie’s pre-recorded voice, her speech box malfunctioning and dying.
And then she was silent.
The flames licked closer all around me. My cheeks were flushed and sweat poured down my body.
All of the old dolls had stopped moving and were little more than piles of melted plastic and burned wood. All except Hattie. She was somehow still hanging on, but just barely.
My lungs burned and I coughed violently. The smell of burning plastic was horrible. I crouched low to the ground to try to avoid breathing it in.
“I can see,” Hattie said, echoing one of Sadie Sees’s sayings. “I can see. I can see. I can see … that this will all be for naught. I’m going to—”
She didn’t finish her final threat. Her jaw fell off and her body crumpled in on itself. Within a few more seconds she was reduced to nothing more than a flaming puddle of sludge.
“Good riddance,” I choked out.
My head swam and I felt like I was about to throw up, but at least my plan had worked. I closed my eyes and hoped that Lucy had made it out to safety.
She made it, I told myself.
Amid the crackle of the fire I heard glass shatter. I raised my head and opened my eyes. A rock rattled across the floor. It had come from the window. I peered through the smoke and saw that the window was broken.
“Zelda!” I heard someone shout. Lucy. Outside. “Zelda!”
I stumbled a little but got to my feet. I was shaky but managed to make my way through the fire to the broken window. The air smelled fresh and sweet. I looked outside.
Night of the Living Dolls Page 7