“How can you not hear that?” I whisper, turning to the source. The room switchbacks in and out of focus like a camera shot transferring between the fireplace down here and the landing upstairs, until the images stop flickering and remain on the landing. Though I know we’re downstairs, I’m seeing straight into the bedroom door right next to the servants’ staircase.
Unlike the other rooms in the house, this one is extremely plain. No paper on the walls, no fancy curtains. Just two narrow beds with white linens, a simple washstand and cupboard for clothes. It’s one of two servant rooms that we never use.
Ada’s figure ghosts through until she’s fully formed. Instead of her servant attire, she wears a simple but fitted yellow dress that cinches and makes her waist look like a Barbie’s. She peeks around the corner of the hallway, and when she reaches out, Thomas’ figure appears in her grasp. She lures him into her room and doesn’t wait for the door to close before pulling him to her and pressing her lips to his.
I smack Todd’s stomach, my heart a pulsing lump in my throat. “You seriously don’t see that?”
Thomas flicks a hand behind him at the door, but it doesn’t close all the way. Neither of them notices—they’re plastered together in a haze of closed eyes, desire and kisses.
They cling to one another as if they’ll drown without the other’s touch. One side of Ada’s closet stands open and empty, and an old-fashioned satchel sits beside her bed.
“You mean they’re there, right now?” Todd asks. He scours the area for some sign of what I’m claiming I see.
I feel like a peeping Tom, but even as I close my eyes, they’re there. Ada stumbles, trying to move but not let go of Thomas, whose hand cups her face while his other compresses her body to his.
My cheeks roast with embarrassment, and the memory of Todd tugging me to his lap, the feel of his lips against mine, floods in.
The vision changes again. The far end of the parlor still appears as if the landing has replaced the fireplace. This time Ada emerges from her fully closed door. She wears the same yellow dress, only this time an elegant green coat with pointed lapels covers the top half. The satchel rests in her hand, but she nearly drops it when she turns and finds Mr. Garrett in a tailored suit breathing down her neck.
She lets out a small squeak, but quickly composes herself. A rounded straw hat with a delicate pink ribbon sits tipped on her head.
“I’m seeking other employment, Mr. Garrett,” Ada says. Redness blotches her cheeks.
Beside his sideburns, a muscle in his jaw twitches. His eyes stray down and take in the satchel now in her hand. Ada’s chest pumps, her neck constricted. With excruciating slowness, Garrett’s glance veers back to her face.
“Like hell you are,” he snarls. “You’re mine.”
Fear threatens her composure; her shoulders rise and fall rapidly. “No, sir. I launder and mend your clothing. I build your fires and make your bed. That is all.”
Garrett’s mouth bunches into a sneer, and he snatches the tip of his white bow tie until the strings dangle at his throat. “It is all when I say it is. Do you think I don’t know why you want to leave? You will leave here when I say.”
Ada’s cheeks flush. She takes a step back, holding up her chin in that way I’ve become familiar with. Her voice grows stronger and shakier at the same time. “I know what you are doing in the basement, why the men have gone missing. I won’t be a part of it. I won’t—aah!”
Garrett’s beefy hands grip her arms, shaking her with every word. Her head bobs like she’s made of rags. “You, a servant with dirt and filth on your hands…with deceit in your heart; you think you’re above me? You would have died without me. I gave you a life, a home. I offered you my hand…”
Ada thrusts away from him and straightens her hat. She hasn’t once let go of that satchel.
“Accepting is impossible, you know it as well as I.”
His face falls, and for a tiny minute I almost feel sorry for him. Wanting someone while they want somebody else? Sucks.
“Why?” he asks. A slice of agony tints his voice. “It is not so impossible.”
Ada adjusts the satchel so she holds it with both hands in front of her. Her voice quivers with fright, and though she keeps her head up, her eyes focus on a spot beyond him. “You said it yourself. I am a servant. Dirt, filth…”
“That’s not it, is it?” Mr. Garrett goes on, taking a single, unwanted step toward her. “You love him. Thomas.”
“Please let me go. I beg you.”
He seizes the satchel from her and draws her to him. She yelps, pulling away. “I need a thirteenth specimen, Ada,” he says in a sultry, toxic caress. “I will have your body, whether you give it to me freely or I have to take it in pieces.”
“Monster!” she cries, breaking free of him. “What you do is ungodly, and I hate you for it!” She gasps, as if realizing she’s said too much.
“Hate,” he repeats, taking slow steps toward her.
“No!” she shouts. “Thomas!” But Mr. Garrett holds her against his body. She thrashes, but his arm snakes around her neck and he pushes her head forward against his elbow. Her struggles slow against his arm until she falls limp in his grasp.
“Monster, indeed,” he mutters, staring at her wilted form, his fingers trailing down her throat.
Ada! She isn’t dead—she can’t be. I saw him board her up! To my relief, her chest lifts and falls.
“I can think of some better things to call you,” I say, steaming, but the image shivers and fades away until I’m back in the parlor with the striped wallpaper and Todd. The deep velvet curtains and elegant fireplace, the figurines of women with umbrellas and sitting on benches are back as well, taking the place of any sign that the bedrooms or landing had been there at all.
“What?” Todd demands. “What now?”
“What can I do?” I ramble, one hand on my stomach. “I don’t even know if what I’m seeing is real, but he’s either just killed Ada or he’s about to.”
“Who? And what do you mean, he’s about to kill her?”
I think back to when I’d seen her under the stairs in Dad’s library. But she’d been untouched then—no mangled limbs or blood or anything. So at least he didn’t hurt her.
Except he buried her alive.
We make a ridiculously slow trek up the stairs, until Todd grunts and cradles me up in his arms. He gives me a grin.
“Might be easier this way.”
I can’t process what a cute moment this is; how easily he lifted me or how good it feels being held so near to him. Ada won’t get out of my head.
“All this stuff that’s been happening—I think it’s her way of communicating with me. She’s pleading for my help.” I continue skimming the walls when Todd reaches the landing. He crosses into my bedroom and lowers me to the floor.
“My mom said, ‘The walls know.’ What do the walls know?”
Todd turns his back to me, one hand to his forehead. I can practically hear the cogs ticking, the struggle between the logical side of his brain that he trusts, and the total limb-going-out-on that I’m asking of him. I hope the side of him that believed me after I sliced my hand open will win out.
“I don’t know what you’re seeing, but you can’t let it control you like this,” he says, almost like a lecture. “I know you think these people are real, but it’s over. They lived. They died, just like the other 107 billion people who’ve ever lived on the planet. Well, except for those of us who are still alive, but that’s irrelevant. What happened, happened. Let it go, Piper. Live your life.”
I sag on the bedpost for support, one hand at my side. “You don’t understand. I think my house is in some kind of time warp.”
Todd faces me again and folds his arms as if to say, I’ve just gotta hear this one.
I go on. “Like for the rest of us time is an ongoi
ng line, right? One thing happens, then another and another. But in my house it’s like a bad horror movie that keeps playing over and over, no matter who else is there or what else is going on, their story keeps rolling.”
“Even if that was true, it has nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me?” I lift my shirt and show him the bandage. “Jordan axed my house, Todd. And it went into me.”
He mulls this over for a few seconds. But the smooth line of his brow gives me hope. It’s not riddled with disbelief. “Like with your hand?”
“Don’t you remember? You fell through the floor, into my basement! You just watched my hand heal itself!”
“Come on, let’s…” He saunters away, toward my dresser. “Clothes. We just need to get a few…”
The air turns chill in an instant, and all the doorknobs along the landing begin rattling. I stare at them and swallow. “Todd?”
He’s still at my dresser. “Dumb thing,” he says, jerking at the handles. The drawer won’t budge.
Growling sounds emerge from the direction of the bathroom, and an eerie, otherworldly feeling sweeps over me, pricking the hairs at my arms and neck. More than ever I don’t want to be in this freak show of a house. Todd whirls around, slapping the dresser with his hands, one on either side as if bracing himself.
In perfect synch, the vent in the room clanks as if trying to break loose, the growls deepen to snarls, and the faucet in the bathroom turns on of its own accord. Blood drips from sudden tears in the wallpaper. The drawer shoots out, knocking Todd in the stomach and sending him flying across my room.
“Todd!” I scream. I break toward him and take his hand as he pushes himself up from the floor.
“What do the walls know?” I yell, rotating, staring up at the cherubs painted on my ceiling. “Tell me!”
I’m ready to get Jordan’s axe and start hacking through walls, looking for whatever it is Mom must have hidden in them. That’s got to be what this is about. But I know I can’t.
What could Mom have hidden? I get a flash of a memory, Mom folding papers. Tucking them into manila envelopes. Tucking them…while arguing with Joel.
Again the memory that popped up before surfaces. More of it, this time.
“My boy,” Mom said as she sat on the floor, patting Joel’s arm as he hovered over her. “My blue-eyed boy.” Joel looked angry. Young, fifteen, a spike in his lip, black mesh sleeves riding along his arms under a Skinny Puppy T-shirt. Joel kicked my dollhouse, knocking the roof over. It was on its side, exposing the interior of the house. The way it always was when I’d played with it.
“I’m not your little boy anymore, Mom. I’m not stupid. I saw it. Why won’t you believe me?”
“Just because you think you saw something—” She tucked another piece of paper into the manila envelope at her side. The one on her lap she inserted in the dollhouse. My dollhouse.
“Why are you covering for him?” Joel yelled. “You’re always changing the subject. You can’t ever give me a straight answer.”
Mom paused, looking directly at Joel before placing another piece of paper in the dollhouse. I wonder now why I’ve never seen these papers before. I played with it a lot since this happened. Have I missed something?
Mom’s eyes drifted off as if she saw something on the rug Joel didn’t. “Just because I have answers doesn’t mean you need them on you.”
After a pause, she finished fiddling with the papers on her lap, set the lid back on my dollhouse, and tossed the manila envelope into the fire flickering in the open fireplace across from my bed. Joel stood, watching flames curl over the papers, tucking them in their grasp, until he finally stormed out.
I don’t know what it is Joel saw, what question he’d been demanding answers of my mom for, but at this point that’s irrelevant. Blood is still oozing from the walls, pooling along the baseboards. This has got to stop. I search for something heavy enough to break apart the dollhouse’s walls, and unlike with my real house, this time I’m positive this won’t affect me.
I reach over to grab the heavy, ornamental brass candleholder standing beside the fireplace I no longer use. I try to lift it, but the pressure screams at my stitches.
“Help me!” I tell Todd. A loud ratcheting noise comes from behind the dollhouse in the corner, almost like Ada doesn’t want me to do what I’m about to. Still kneeling, Todd lifts it with strain, and I point.
“The dollhouse. Break it apart.”
“What?”
“Just do it!”
Todd swings. With a clatter, the antique dollhouse crumples to pieces, and with that, my room goes back to normal. The blood disappears; the wallpaper heals itself. The noises cease. Hands on his knees, Todd’s eyes snatch mine with a frightening intensity.
For a few seconds my ticking pulse is my only friend, until he finally speaks.
“Now I know you didn’t just make that happen.”
I droop to the floor beside him and press my quivering back against the wall. I hug my knees and rock back and forth. “Thank you,” I say with relief and a giant sigh, though I’m shaking like a flame. “Thank you for believing me.”
“So.” He handles two of the pink walls, which are in one piece. “Wanna tell me why you had me obliterate an antique?”
This dollhouse was created with care, with principle and focus to make sure every portion mirrored what life would be like in miniature. Each piece is exact, down to the painted flowers on the wallpaper, the rungs on the wooden chairs and the banisters, the tiny, hand-stitched clothing and draperies. These pieces were created with care because they were intended to be treated with it.
And now they scatter from the broken walls of an antique piece of art. The intricate baby cradle lies on its side. The tiny dishes chink in pieces like bits of shattered teeth. I played with these beautiful pieces as a child, and now I move with caution, super aware of how huge my fingers are compared to the tiny mirror. I push a drawer in its dresser, and place the staring doll back in her armchair.
Unwanted stings prick at my eyes, and I stare at the wrecked fragments of make-believe.
Shaking, I push away from him and lean over to look down into the crumbled, scattered pieces. I hope I was right. That I didn’t have him shatter my favorite thing about my real house. Sure enough, sticking up through one of the broken walls is a piece of paper. Chills skitter across my skin as if the temperature drops around only me. I look up to the cherubs. It could just be me, but they almost seem to be sneering.
“What—how did you know that was in there?” Todd asks, his eyes wide with surprise.
“I kept remembering an argument Mom and Joel had. Mom was putting these in here. She—maybe she knew I’d need them or something.” I try to ignore the bite of how she insisted Joel didn’t need the burden of these answers, but she apparently had no qualms whatsoever giving them to me.
“Piper.” Todd’s voice is low and lulling. “Look.”
More papers are stuffed in, poking out along the edges of the broken walls. I pry open the already-cracked base of the miniature house. Lying amid the broken pieces is a small box. The edges are browning with age, but two words peek through the layer of dust.
For Piper.
twenty
two
“Todd!”
Knowing I can barely move, Todd rears back and uses his boot heel to crush through the remainder of the base. I elbow him aside and snatch for the small box, peering down on my Sharpie-written name. Only it’s not written on a box after all. It’s a book, wrapped in brown paper.
For Piper.
I don’t recognize the little swoops on the F or the Ps. I try to grasp who wrote my name there. And why they would hide it if it’s clearly for me.
“Do you think—Pipes, what if it’s from your mom?”
My arms move forward, and I grit against the pain
at my side. The book feels rough to the touch. I blow on it and dust flies in a small burst, though some recoils and makes for my lungs. I cough it away, with more jags of pain, and sit on my feet.
My gaze trickles up to meet Todd’s. A smile teases his lips.
“Bust that sucker open,” he says.
My fingers tug at the brittle edges of the paper, pulling it off completely, and I release a breath.
The cover of the journal has splotches missing from the leather as if it’s been scrubbed away, and it’s tied shut with a thin leather strand. Todd sets a stack of newspaper clippings, folded to fit, on top of the book. Swallowing back the gallon of saliva building in my mouth, I rifle through them.
Surely she left me something. A letter, maybe, apologizing or explaining her actions. Or maybe just listing her love and dreams for me. After all, that’s the kind of thing parents should do when they know they’re headed to the slammer.
But it’s only newspaper clippings. Brittle and crinkly like wax paper, I unfold the first one as Todd pulls at the leather tie to open the journal.
“Hey,” Todd says, his hand on my knee. His touch courses through like an injection of heat, straight to my chest.
I scuff a hand under my nose. “I should know better than to expect some happy surprise to come from all of this,” I say, remembering the inhuman glaze of her eyes. “Who’s to say it’s from her? I mean, sure the writing on the paper was super feminine. But still, anyone could have written my name on that book.”
The fine print is in perfect rectangles surrounding the black and white picture of a hotel with a horse-drawn carriage parked out front. And then I look at the headlines on the newspaper. The date is October 1875.
Another Life Lost: Spare-Tooth Bandit Continues to Evade Authority
Elizabeth Leland’s body was found in an- alleyway near Wasatch and Columnar Road early Saturday morning, hidden in a throng of mist and blood. The Bandit left his mark with his usual careless drudgery, this time devoiding his victim of her windpipe. Her belly was lacerated, as the bandit seemed to have need of her stomach as well.
The Forbidden Doors Box Set Page 19