“I don’t know,” she said. And then, “Soon.”
It was the best she could do. She knew her mother was disappointed. But she couldn’t leave now, right after Aunt Clare had confided in them. More than ever, she had to uncover the secret of the dollhouse. If there was a secret at all.
17.
“Someone’s Walking on the Dollhouse Stairs”
The storm centered over the house. A brilliant flash of lightning brought Amy straight up in bed, just as the first raindrops thudded on the roof.
“Ameee!” Louann’s panicky cry was muffled by the sheet. She had pulled it over her head and was curled into a tight ball. “Ameee!”
The big bed shuddered under the crash of thunder. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Amy tried to sound calm.
“There is, too.” Louann sounded as if she were strangling. “It’s worse than the thunder at our house, Amy.”
“No, it isn’t.” But Louann was right. At home, other people and houses were close by; here in the country, the house stood by itself. As if tonight wasn’t going to be scary enough without a storm! Amy thought.
She’d been awake for an hour, thinking about what she had to do. The dollhouse was trying to tell her something. She didn’t want to go up to the attic again, but she knew she must.
“Don’t go to sleep, Louann,” Amy whispered. “We’re going to do something in a few minutes—as soon as Aunt Clare’s had time to fall asleep.”
The sheet was lowered slightly, and in the next flash of lightning, Amy saw Louann peering out at her. “I can’t go to sleep when I’m afraid,” she said. “What’re we going to do?”
“We’re going up to the attic to look at the dollhouse. Watch it. See if anything else happens.”
“No.” The sheet went back up.
“Why not?”
“Thunder. I don’t like the thunder, Amy.” There was another breathtaking clap, and Louann moaned.
Amy was disappointed. She’d been counting on her sister’s company; it would help to be with someone who wasn’t afraid of dolls that moved and a dollhouse that lighted up by itself. But if Louann was going to scream every time there was a crash of thunder, she’d be no comfort at all.
Amy slipped out of bed and opened the bedroom door a crack. Aunt Clare’s door was tightly closed.
“Is Aunt Clare sleeping?” Louann was peeking again.
“I guess so. She said she didn’t feel tired, so she was going to take a sleeping pill. It must have worked by now.” Amy found her slippers under the bed and put them on. “I’m going up to the attic, Louann. You stay under the covers and keep your eyes closed tight, the way you do at home. You’ll be okay.”
There was a subdued sniffle. Then the mound of bed covers erupted. “I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to. The thunder will sound louder up there.”
“That’s okay.” Louann slid out of bed and reached for Amy’s hand. “I want to be with you.”
Amy felt better. She led the way down the hall as lightning leaped across the window at the far end and thunder rattled the panes. Louann trembled.
When they opened the attic door, the darkness was daunting.
“Too black,” Louann whimpered. “Turn on the light, Amy.”
Amy drew her into the stairwell. “The lightning will help us see,” she whispered. “We want it to be dark—if the light comes on in the dollhouse, we want to see it happen.”
As they climbed the stairs, Amy listened for other sounds between thunderclaps—the small scratchy noise of dolls moving about. When they reached the top step, lightning lit the attic. The dollhouse stood open.
“Walk on tiptoe,” Amy ordered. “And don’t talk out loud—whatever happens. Aunt Clare mustn’t wake up.”
“Okay.” Louann tightened her grip on Amy’s hand and let herself be led across the attic to the corner. The girls knelt in front of the open dollhouse.
They waited while the rain beat a wild tattoo over their heads. The lightning flashes grew further apart, but the thunder was as loud as ever. After what seemed an endless time Amy shifted her weight; one foot was starting to tingle.
Almost imperceptibly, the dollhouse parlor became easier to see. “It’s starting!” Amy whispered. She could make out the furniture in the little room, the highbacked sofa and chairs, the desk set firmly against the closed door. The grandmother doll stood facing the bookshelves as before, her arm upraised.
“Poor dolly,” Louann murmured, hearing what Amy had missed at first because of the rain. The crying again! It came from the parlor—soft, racking sobs. Then the grandmother doll tipped forward, until one tiny china hand rested on a book on the shelf.
Amy gasped. Until this moment, a part of her had insisted that the haunting of the dollhouse could be a product of her imagination. She thought she’d seen the dolls move before; she thought they were able to move by themselves. But now she was sitting in front of the parlor, watching it happen.
“Amy?” Louann looked over her shoulder. “Someone’s coming up the steps.”
Amy turned. “Aunt Clare, is that you?” She hardly recognized her own quavering voice. “Aunt Clare?”
The footsteps continued. Heavy. Shuffling. Skinny, quick-stepping Aunt Clare had never walked like that.
“Amy, it’s in the dollhouse,” Louann said wonderingly. “Someone’s walking on the dollhouse stairs.” She leaned forward, her head cocked in puzzlement. “Someone’s coming down the dollhouse stairs. But I can’t see anyone.”
Amy threw an arm around her sister. The footsteps stopped, and the sobbing grew louder, more frantic. The doll at the bookcase pivoted slowly, just as something heavy thudded against the parlor door.
“Oh, no!” Amy struggled to get up, but she couldn’t. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. Her mind was a blur. She’d come to the attic to learn the secret of the dollhouse, but she didn’t want to see this. Not a murder!
The sobbing was all around them now. The parlor door shook under the impact of the invisible attacker. Louann jumped up.
“Let’s go, Amy. I don’t want to stay here anymore.”
There was a final thud, louder than all the others. The parlor door burst open, shoving the desk to one side. A high, thin scream filled the attic.
Amy stared at the gaping door and at the grandmother doll pressing back against the bookshelves. Panic gave her strength, and she scrambled to her feet. The girls dashed across the attic and down the stairs. As they threw open the door at the bottom and tumbled into the hall, a roll of thunder set the whole house trembling.
“Aunt Clare!” Amy shrieked. Louann shouted, “Mama!” And they hurtled into their aunt’s bedroom as if the killer himself were right behind them.
18.
“More Ghosts, Amy?”
“What in the world!” Aunt Clare sounded stunned. Lightning filled the room with blue light as she blinked at the figures clutching each other at the foot of her bed. “Who’s there? What’s happened?”
“In the attic—we s-saw—” Thunder drowned out Amy’s stammer.
Aunt Clare flicked on a lamp and swung her feet over the side of the bed. “Wait a minute,” she commanded, though with not quite her usual vigor. The pill had put her to sleep in spite of the storm, and obviously she was having difficulty waking up now. “Do you mean you’ve been in the attic again?”
“We had to!” Amy saw her aunt’s lips tighten. “We did it for you, Aunt Clare. Don’t be angry. We saw—we saw—” But the words wouldn’t come.
Aunt Clare reached for her robe. “I’m not angry, Amy—I just don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me. Good grief, what a storm! Let’s go downstairs. Maybe I can hear you better down there.”
Meekly the girls followed along the hall to the stairs. Amy darted a glance at the attic door; it was closed. I wouldn’t go up there again, she thought, for all the secrets in the world.
Lightning lit their way and thunder bombarded them as they trailed into the kitchen. �
��I’ll make cocoa,” Aunt Clare said. “It’ll calm you down.” She combined chocolate, sugar, and milk, while the girls huddled near the door. “You may have noticed I’m a firm believer in the soothing powers of a snack. Though, of course, doctors don’t approve of using food for comfort. In my experience, chocolate never fails. Chocolate-chip cookies are very useful. Also fudge. And cocoa.” She kept glancing at the girls as she chattered. “I’ll pull the shades if you like—a storm makes things seem much worse than they are. . . .”
The words flowed over and around Amy. If my legs would only stop shaking, she thought. If my chest didn’t feel so funny and tight. . . .
Aunt Clare gave up the attempt at conversation. “You’d both better sit down before you fall down,” she suggested.
Amy moved toward the table and Louann followed. Just then another clap of thunder crashed over them, rattling dishes in the cupboards. The room was plunged into darkness, and Louann squealed in terror.
“Darn!” They could hear Aunt Clare moving across the kitchen. “Stay where you are, kids. There’s an oil lamp on the top shelf of the cupboard. I’ll have it in a minute.”
Amy couldn’t have taken a step if she’d wanted to. With the lights out, the terror she’d felt in the attic returned full force. Beside her, Louann sobbed, her panic increasing with each clap of thunder. Amy put an arm around her sister’s shoulders and drew her close.
“There now.” A match flared, and yellow light brightened the kitchen. Aunt Clare turned up the flame of the lamp. “That’s cozy, isn’t it?” She lifted the pot from the stove and poured the cocoa into mugs. “Come on, don’t cry, Louann. Have a nice hot drink and tell me what it was that scared you so. More ghosts, Amy?”
The question was lightly put, but Amy heard the tension behind it. They were back to a dangerous subject again. There was no escaping it.
Amy sipped her cocoa and tried not to look into the shadows beyond the lamplight. “We saw a doll move,” she began cautiously. “All by itself. And we heard things, too.” When her aunt didn’t stop her, she described what had happened in the attic a few minutes earlier.
Aunt Clare regarded her solemnly. “You’re sure, Amy? You couldn’t have imagined the crying, the footsteps?”
“Oh, no!”
“You heard it, too, Louann?”
“And there was thunder all the time,” Louann said, clearly feeling Amy had left out something important. “Just like now.” For her, the storm remained the most frightening part of the night.
Aunt Clare leaned forward and rested her chin on her hands. Her face was gaunt. “Then it’s true,” she said finally. “There’s really something up there—something angry and full of hate, after all these years.”
Amy squirmed. “What do you mean?”
“If there’s a spirit haunting this place,” Aunt Clare spoke slowly, “I’m sure it’s Grandma Treloar’s. She was the strong one, the one who hated Tom so much and despised me for loving him. Now she wants to make me suffer because I brought him into their lives . . . and caused their deaths.” Her voice broke.
“Maybe not,” Amy protested. “Maybe that isn’t it.” But she thought Aunt Clare was probably right. “It could be—it could be that the ghost wants to tell us something else—something about the books in the parlor,” she went on, the idea taking shape as she spoke. “Last night the grandmother doll was there in the parlor, and the books started sliding out of the shelves. We didn’t understand what that meant, and so—so tonight she leaned forward and touched them—first one and then another. Do you think maybe—”
She and Aunt Clare stared at each other, wide-eyed. Aunt Clare stood and picked up the lamp. “We can find out,” she said grimly. “I may regret it, but we have to look, don’t we?”
“Look at what?” Louann clutched her cocoa mug.
“The books in the parlor,” Amy explained. “Maybe Grandma Treloar’s spirit was using the doll to tell us there’s something hidden behind the books. Come on, Louann. We’ll close the curtains in the parlor so you can’t see the lightning.”
Reluctantly, Louann stood up. The little procession made its way down the hall, Aunt Clare leading the way with the lamp. Amy shivered as they entered the parlor. There was a chilling dampness that she’d never noticed before.
Aunt Clare set the lamp on a table and went from window to window, closing the velvet draperies. Then she pointed to the bookshelves. “Amy, you stand in front of the shelves and put up your hand the way the doll did in the dollhouse. Grandma Treloar wasn’t very tall. . . .” Her voice shook. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. People would think we’re absolutely insane.”
Amy loosened Louann’s grip on her arm and positioned herself in front of the shelves. She was still terrified, but for the first time she felt as if she might be close to learning the secret of the haunted dollhouse. She raised her hand and ran her fingertips over a row of books.
“Take them out, one or two at a time,” Aunt Clare suggested. “There could be something behind them, I guess. I’m sure those books haven’t been touched in thirty years.”
Amy pulled out four books, and sneezed as a cloud of dust drifted down over her head. She slid a hand into the empty space they left.
“Nothing,” she reported.
Aunt Clare put the books on the table. “Take out some more, then. Let’s empty that shelf and the one above it.”
Amy pulled out another handful of books, and then another. She emptied the first shelf and started on the second. The table filled up, and Louann carried some of the books to the sofa.
“Let’s stop for a while and look through these,” Aunt Clare said. Her face was so white that she looked like a ghost herself. “There might be something tucked between the pages, I suppose. . . . Oh, I feel ridiculous—and afraid of what we might find!”
Louann gathered up more books from the table just as a tremendous thunderclap broke overhead. The books flew out of her hands, and she sank to the floor. “Make it go away,” she moaned. “Make it stop, Amy.”
“I can’t.” Amy knew Louann was trying hard to be brave. At home, she often became hysterical during severe thunderstorms. “Come on, pick up the books, Louann. You’re a good helper.”
Louann rubbed her eyes with her fists and did as she was told. “Books, books, books,” she muttered. “Books all over the floor. Books and a letter.”
“A letter?” Amy turned from the bookcase. Her sister was looking at a sheet of paper with irritation.
“It was in a book,” Louann said. “It fell out. I didn’t do it.”
Amy snatched the paper from Louann’s fingers and held it close to the lamp.
“A bookmark, maybe?” Aunt Clare suggested. She leaned across the table for a better look, then straightened up with a gasp. “That’s Grandma Treloar’s handwriting. I’d know it anywhere. Oh, Amy!” She closed her eyes and turned away. “You read it, please. I can’t bear to.”
Amy’s hand trembled so much that she could hardly make out the words scrawled on the paper. “ ‘He killed James,’ ” she read huskily. “ ‘He wants money. He’s going to kill me, too. We’ve always been generous to Reuben—how could he do this? Please, God, don’t let Paul wake up—’ ”
That was all. Amy looked up at her aunt, who clung to the edge of the table as if she might faint. “Who’s Reuben?”
Aunt Clare cleared her throat. “Let me see the note, Amy. Please.” She held the paper close to the lamp and read it again. “Reuben Miller was the handyman who took care of the garden and did chores around the house,” she said. “He worked for a number of other people, too. He was quiet—serious—very de-dependable.” She began to cry. “Reuben Miller! Oh, Amy, I know the police questioned him at the time, but he seemed so outraged by the killings, and his wife swore he was home that evening. . . .”
“Where is he now?”
“He died, long ago.” Aunt Clare dropped into a chair and leaned back. “I just can’t take it in. Do you see what this means? Tom di
dn’t kill Grandma and Grandpa. It wasn’t my fault they died!”
Amy watched her aunt study the message again. Something magic was happening, a small miracle in the circle of yellow lamplight. Tight little lines in Aunt Clare’s face melted away, and her pale cheeks flushed with color. She looked, younger, gentler, prettier than Amy had ever seen her before.
“When you said there was a ghost, I was angry with you, Amy,” she murmured. “I thought, if that’s true, the ghost is Grandma Treloar, and she’s still furious after all these years because her killer was never identified. I thought, she wants me to go on feeling guilty forever! But now I know Tom didn’t kill them. And Grandma Treloar wanted me to know the truth. If her spirit has come back, it’s because she wants me to stop driving myself crazy over something that wasn’t my fault at all.” She was like a little girl, thrilled and relieved, asking Amy and Louann to be happy with her. “Don’t you think that’s why she came back?”
“I think the thunder is stopping,” Louann replied. “That’s what I think.” She turned from Aunt Clare to Amy as they burst out laughing. “Not funny,” she scolded. “The thunder was bad.”
The electricity came back on as they returned to the kitchen. In the bright light, Aunt Clare read Grandma Treloar’s note still another time. When she put it down at last, Louann picked it up from the table and slipped it inside a book she’d brought with her from the parlor.
“It belongs here in this book,” she said primly. “This is the book it fell out of.” She laid the thin volume on the table with a satisfied air.
Amy stared at the book and then at Aunt Clare.
“I can’t believe it,” Aunt Clare said, shaking her head. “It’s just a wild coincidence. Grandma must have grabbed the first book she touched.”
Amy nodded. After all, everything about this night had been hard to believe. But she picked up the book and ran her fingers across the cover.
A Play by Henrik Ibsen, it said across the top of the binding, and then in large letters the title: A Doll’s House.
The Dollhouse Murders Page 10