by Anya Allyn
She dropped to the icy ground, her blood spilling red onto the snow—blood that darkened the front of her white parka. Her unseeing eyes faced the wintry sky.
With a desolate cry, Ben raced to her side.
Lacey’s father’s eyes bulged as he stared at his dead daughter, his mouth quavering.
Devlin pointed his gun at the kneeling Ben.
“No!” Raif yelled.
Turning sharply, Devlin pointed the gun at Raif. “You just bought yourself the next bullet.” Devlin took a shot—missing as Raif leapt sideways.
In the distance, a girl screamed. She ran to us from the side of the house. Devlin frowned, his hand freezing on the gun. I gasped. Her pale hair hung limply over her shoulders, her thin body dressed in nothing more than a short, antique black dress and torn white stockings.
Lacey.
The otherworld Lacey from the castle.
“You hurt my friend,” she said simply.
Every muscle in the sergeant’s face clenched, disbelief etched in his eyes. He went to speak but no words came, as though his throat was caught up and choking.
She cast him a look of pure hate. “You made your own daughter die. You’re a bad daddy. I gave her something you never did. I made her happy. You always said she was too weird to have friends. But I’ve been coming to see her, here in the forest, for months now. Oh, we talk about everything. No one understands us better than each other.”
She stared up at each of us in turn. “I must go—there isn’t time to talk... Please don’t judge me too harshly.”
Kneeling, her fingers curled around the hand of her twin from the other world. “Now she’ll have a friend with her always.”
And then she was gone.
Ben knelt back on his heels, his face in mute shock.
Devlin hung his jaw open. “What is this—some kind of dumb arse trick?”
The dead Lacey’s eyes snapped open.
Struggling, she rose to her feet.
She stared with a glazed expression at her father and Devlin. Black tendrils of smoke began to wind and drift from her eyes. Smoke poured from between her pale pink lips.
“Are you scared of me now, Daddy?” said Lacey. “Did you like it better when I was scared of you?”
The black shadow curled through the air, its fingers reaching toward the sergeant.
“I don’t know what the hell you are, but you’re not my daughter.” He swallowed hard, stumbling back.
Devlin’s eyes were wide and staring. He raised his arm straight and robot-like, as though his mind were half-gone, and aimed his gun at Lacey.
Aisha screamed as a shot shattered the air.
Devlin’s head twisted, and he fell heavily to the ground, his jaw slack against the ice.
For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then I saw Molly standing with her gun pointed at arm’s length.
Lacey’s father gaze moved in an arc from Devlin to Lacey, his breaths loud and gasping. With a shaking hand, he raised his gun at his daughter.
But as he tried to shoot her, Sophronia silently, deftly moved behind him—and forced his knees to buckle from under him. He shot a bullet erratically into the air instead. With a shout, she rained two sharp and fast blows on his neck and shoulder.
Raif charged at Sergeant Dougherty with a roar, pushing him to the ground. Taking the sergeant’s gun, Raif tossed it to Sophronia. Then he turned back to the sergeant and brought down a smacking punch to his temple.
Lacey took measured steps over to her father, the blood on her parka already beginning to thicken and dry. “Don’t you know what the darkness is, Daddy? It’s the shadow of the serpent. It lives inside me. Every time I took someone into the dollhouse, it wrapped around me and a piece of it entered me. I did bad things, Daddy. Maybe I’m too much like you.”
“You’re a freak.” His gaze didn’t leave Lacey as he heaved Raif off himself. “You get away from me....”
Lacey shook her pale head. “I was always a freak to you. I never measured up. Too skinny, too dumb, too strange. And I was a girl. You wanted a boy. You wanted a son who would be a mini-you. But you got me. And then you got Amy and Jacinta. No sons. And you took it all out on me. The freak.”
Making unintelligible noises, Lacey’s father turned and loped away toward the trees.
“Shoot him!” Raif spoke from between gritted teeth, staring at the two people who were now holding guns—Molly and Sophronia.
“We don’t need to,” Sophronia told him. “He won’t be back.”
For a second, Raif eyed Sophronia with rage reddening on his face. Then his expression softened. “You’re right. Any sane person wouldn’t come near any of you lot—I can see that none of you are even surprised at what just happened here.” He tilted his head at her. “And hey, you’ve got some ridiculously lethal moves.”
“Didn’t I tell you that?” She smiled at him. “In any case, it is unfortunate for Lacey’s father, but he has run in the direction that those people eaters went. I am afraid things will not end well for him.”
“I don’t care,” said Lacey, her eyes deadening.
Rushing toward Frances, Molly scooped her up and hugged her tightly. Frances buried her head in Molly’s neck.
Hot tears formed in my eyes.
We were alive.
Lacey was dead.
Lacey was alive.
“Let’s get that wound bandaged,” Aisha cried, running to Lacey.
Aisha and I helped unzip Lacey’s parka and unbutton the layers of clothing underneath. A bullet hole marked the fair skin beneath her right ribcage. But it was more of a fresh scar than an injury. A small metal object glinted where the inside of her shirt was tucked into her jeans.
I picked the metal object up between two fingers. “God, the bullet was pushed straight out.”
Aisha shook her head in wonder, exhaling a stream of condensed air. “Lacey... you’re going to be okay.”
Lacey stood there stiff and numb. “I don’t deserve for you to care if I am okay or not.”
“You saved our lives.” I bit my lip, my eyes brimming.
“I’m my father’s daughter,” she replied. “I hurt people to save myself.”
Sophronia eyed Lacey with her cautious dark eyes. “There is always a point from which we can turn and go a different way. And do not worry about us. We should not keep hold of grudges, lest the grudges become us.”
Ben let the gun in his hand drop to the ground. He stared at Lacey with an expression I couldn’t read. Whatever thoughts were rushing through his mind, he was hiding them well.
Lacey drew her small mouth in, stealing a glance at Ben. “Don’t pretend you’re not freaked out by me.”
“I’m not freaked out,” he told her. He paused. “Okay... I’m freaked out. But now... you make sense. I’m just going to have to pretend I didn’t see that other Lacey and that I didn’t see that bullet Cassie’s holding.”
Raif kept looking at Lacey, then swiftly looking away. I knew he was having trouble accepting what he had just seen.
“Ben... and Raif,” I said softly. “There’s so much we have to tell you, but there isn’t time right now. Just know that this is the kind of lives we’ve been living—and for us, it’s normal. But don’t worry—if you go near Lacey, she’s not going to absorb you or anything. It doesn’t work like that.”
Ben gazed at me nervously. “Good to know. Although it’s true that I always have been absorbed by her.”
Lacey gave Ben a tight, questioning smile.
“We have to go now.” Molly stared at the slumped body of her uncle.
Raif put his arm around his sister. “Whatever comes next, Ben and I are ready.”
Ben nodded his fair head. “Today I’ve seen missing girls appear from nowhere, I’ve had guns pointed at me, I’ve seen an alien shadow pour from someone’s eyes, I’ve seen two girls become one... and I’ve seen the death and resurrection of someone that I... think more of than she knows.” He gazed away into the forest, embar
rassed by his last words. “It can’t get any more intense than that.”
Lacey stared at him at though he were a stranger.
“Okay, you two,” said Molly. “If you come with us, you might see things you can’t begin to imagine. But you’re going to have to keep your head. I don’t know you, but from what I’ve seen so far—I think you can do that.”
Ben inhaled sharply. “Let’s head.”
18. The torment within
CASSIE
We hurried across the wintry yard. The dogs were gone—I hoped they’d found somewhere to go—despite their chasing me down that day in the forest. I stepped inside the shed—the others following. Everything was exactly the same as I’d remembered. Only this time, thin layers of ice lay on the floor. The rainwater tank—being completely set into the ground—was iced over, its lid hard to even see.
Aisha tucked dark hair under her snow cap. “So what’s next—we find a pick?”
“What do we need a pick for sis?” Raif looked around at the old machinery and bookcases.
Aisha pointed at the rainwater tank. “We’re going down there.”
He raised his dark eyebrows, his aqua-colored eyes so similar to Aisha’s. “What in the hey now?”
“Just trust us,” she told him.
Molly glanced at the top of Frances’s head. “I don’t know that we should take Frances down there. She wasn’t supposed to be here.”
Frances gazed back at her with clear eyes. “Are we going down to where Jessamine is?”
Molly nodded, concern tightening her face.
“I want to see her,” said Frances.
Frowning, Molly bit down slowly on her lip, thinking. “I just... never could have imagined taking you back there if we ever got out.”
“Please.” Frances gave Molly a plaintive look. “We need to stick together, just like we did in the dollhouse.”
She sounded so much older than her six years.
Molly nodded, but she still looked uncertain.
Ben tugged his ear beneath his snow cap. “Did I just hear right? You’ve been down there before? You called it a... dollhouse?” A frown crossed his forehead. “That’s where you all were, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Lacey quietly. “That’s where they were.”
Raif plunged his fist deep into his pocket, eyeing his sister. “You were under my damned feet all that time I was searching for you here.”
Shaking his head, Ben smiled wryly. “Guess we’re about to see this dollhouse place. Did you say there’s still a girl down there? So, we’re heading down there to rescue her?”
“She needs rescuing,” Sophronia replied with a tinge of sorrow in her voice. “But there is nothing we can do to save her.”
Raif turned to Sophronia for clarification, but she told him, do not ask.
Molly raised troubled blue eyes to Raif. “You should know that if you go down there, there is a risk that she won’t let you out again.”
“So,” said Ben. “There’s some girl actually living down there, and she can keep us down there, if she wants.” He folded his arms. “Okay, sure, I’d be crazy to say no to that.”
He and Raif exchanged questioning glances, but said no more.
I eyed the frozen-over lid of the rainwater tank again. “I’ll run into the house to find matches. I don’t know how we’re going to do this, but it’s a start.”
“Hang on.” Ben shucked the backpack off his back and pulled out an assortment of items, including a small tent. He stared up at us. “I used to be in the boy scouts. I come prepared.”
He took a few of the hundred-year-old books from the bookshelf and placed them on top of the tank lid. He tried three matches before managing to spark one that wasn’t too damp, and set the pile of books ablaze. The ice melted in rivulets of water.
I knelt at the tank lid, closing my eyes and trying to remember the rotations that made the elevator work. The lock combination was simple—whoever had designed it must have known that no one would ever think the lid was actually the floor of an elevator.
It had been Ethan, Lacey and me who had been hiding in the shed that time we’d heard Henry come in and open the lock. In my mind, I heard the series of clicks, and saw Ethan as he turned the lid back and forth. Leaving my eyes closed, I copied Ethan.
To the left until it clicked, to the right until it clicked, then to the left again and completely around.
Taking a shallow breath, I stood. “We can all fit, if we move close together.”
Lacey hung back as everyone moved toward the rainwater lid.
“Aren’t you coming?” Ben said quietly.
Her eyes stared straight ahead. “I don’t know why any of the girls want to go back there. Wasn’t once enough?”
“Lacey,” I said, “we need to talk to Jessamine.”
“I don’t want to talk to her... ever again.” Lacey’s eyes grew even more distant.
“It’s important. But you can stay here if you want,” said Molly. “But I kind of thought you were on our side now.”
Lacey’s pale lips parted. “But I’m not one of you. I was the one... on the outside.”
“You were trapped by the dollhouse as much as we were,” Sophronia told her. “So why don’t you become one of us? I believe there is a pipe organ down there that needs playing. Cassie told me you can play—and my piano skills are very rusty.”
Lacey’s gaze snapped to Sophronia’s face. “You need me to help?” She dropped her head and nodded softly. “I’ll come.”
Together, we all stepped onto the lid.
I heard the strange knocking sound I’d heard the first time I’d stepped onto this lid. But somewhere, at the back of my mind, I felt as though I’d stepped onto this elevator a hundred times. A thousand times. As though I’d always known I’d come back here.
Ben whistled as the elevator jumped and whirred and started to make its way down. “Some crazy stuff this is.”
For a moment, I worried that the ice and cold might have affected the working parts of the elevator, and we’d be trapped between solid rock, with no way out. But the machine slid down into the darkness of the cave beneath.
We held out our torches and lamps. Shivers travelled down my spine. All the circus paraphernalia still sat on the shelves and floor. So still, so quiet down here—nothing but the sound of our breaths.
“Wait,” Sophronia said, as everyone moved off onto the rock platform. “This contraption appears to work by weight—and we need to keep it down here. What if it freezes over again if it goes back to the top?”
“Good thinking.” Impressed, Raif nodded at her.
She closed her eyes slightly as she smiled at him.
Raif and Ben climbed down the rope ladder and brought back two heavy barrels to sit on top of the elevator. The elevator would stay down here until we returned—and I had to hope that we’d be back here within an hour or so.
One by one, we made our way down the ladder, Molly catching Frances as she jumped from the end rung.
Lacey quietly crossed the room to the gloomy recess that held the pipe organ. Seating herself, she played the midsection of Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 on the pipe organ—just as she had last time. The somber music filled the space, and the Wheel of Death clicked and unlocked.
The others looked back at Lacey and me—the only ones here who knew the way in. Dread combed my back as I walked to the round door with the faded blue star. This door had been the barrier that had stopped me from escaping last time. No, that wasn’t true. From the second I had stepped foot into the forest with Lacey to look for Aisha, I had sealed my fate.
The words carved into the cracked wood of the door were seared into my mind.
Out of this wood do not desire to go,
Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.
Grabbing the spokes of the wheel, I spun it around. The door swung open.
“We need to keep this open, too,” I said quickly, the fear of being trapped rushing through me
like a chill wind.
Raif brought another of the barrels over to hold the door, deftly rolling it with his one arm.
Molly held Frances’ hand as we stepped inside. Lacey kept her arms crossed and tight against her body. Ben and Raif said little as we headed deeper into the underground. I hoped they were steeling themselves and not beginning to wish they’d stayed behind. We had no time to waste.
Henry’s steel wall loomed ahead, but it had been peeled back like a tin can. Nausea rose at the pit of my stomach. This was the wall we’d come against when we thought we’d found escape. Instead, we’d had to return to the dollhouse and make the decision to drink enough tea that it would poison us and we’d never wake. I saw the desolation on the girls’ faces and knew they were remembering the same. Molly had been the only one that hadn’t been with us—she’d been lying in the dollhouse bed chamber, comatose.
I guessed that Henry and the people from the castle hadn’t needed any tools or machines to get through the wall.
We made our way through the opening and raced along the passage to the carousel.
“What the hell is that thing?” Raif’s panting voice was hoarse.
“And more to the point,” said Ben, “how do we get through and how do we get out again?”
“All I know is how we get in...” Aisha pointed to the fantastical creatures of the carousel. “How we get out again is another thing.”
Wordlessly, everyone climbed onto the platform.
The red and green bulbs on the center column lit up, and we slowly spun around to the dollhouse.
In the dark chill, the dollhouse was terrifying. There were no lights on. Either the generator had frozen or Jessamine had destroyed the lights. The dripping of water punctuated the stillness. In the distance, far away and around the corridors, I could hear a low wind roaming. Everywhere, there was that closed, almost wet smell of the underground.
Debris still littered the corridor ahead, but Jessamine—or someone else—seemed to have cleaned up most of it.
Ben shone his flashlight into the kitchen. His beam shone over the dress and porcelain face of the eight-foot dolls sitting on the chairs. He wheeled around, his breaths quick as he eyed Lacey. “It’s one of those things, isn’t it...? Those monsters that marched into the forest that night when we were on school camp.”