by Anya Allyn
PAPER DOLLS
Anya Allyn
Copyright 2012 Anya Allyn
All rights reserved
Book Two of the Dollhouse Trilogy
No part of this book may be used or reproduced without prior written permission, excepting quotes not greater than four paragraphs used for review purposes.
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1. SLUMBER
The last of the tea seeped into the stone floor. I craved its poison. I craved sleep from which I'll never wake. But I can't have it, anymore. Whether the cup slipped from me or I slipped from it, I couldn't tell.
Down the empty corridor, only the wind sounded. Every natural breath was spent. As a living ghost, I wandered.
I unlaced my boots and let them fall to the ground, then unrolled my stockings. I wanted to feel the floor beneath my feet—but I couldn’t feel it at all. My body and mind were numb, merging with the cold stone of the floor and walls.
I found my way into the bed chamber. Four dolls lay in their beds, with waxen faces and still limbs. Four dolls who will never again open their eyes. I climbed into my own bed and pulled the covers over. My arms folded across my chest automatically.
No sleep came. Something restless banged inside my head like a drum. Something that wouldn’t allow let me to remain here like this. Something that refused me peace.
2. RAG DOLL
Kneeling in the storage room, I unzipped my backpack. Most of me was still back in the bed chamber, waiting for death. It felt like betrayal to not stay with the others, to not die with them. But blood hammered through my head and body and I was compelled to keep moving. To stay alive.
My wetsuit was still crammed into the bottom of the backpack, just as it had been when I packed it in there. I barely remembered myself as I was back then—so desperate for resolution and answers, so desperate to help Ethan.
A blast echoed from the other side of the carousel. Ethan must have found something to make explosives with.
Then… nothing. The nothing stretched out infinitely. No more sounds came.
I struggled into the rubber suit and zipped the back up. My fingers faltered when I touched Lacey’s bag. She had an extra beanie and a balaclava and I needed both of those. I stretched the balaclava over my face, then two beanies over my head.
I pulled two pairs of socks on each foot, then runners. I took leather gloves from the drawers and wriggled my fingers into them.
I shrugged a thick jacket on and jeans over the wetsuit. I could never have fit jeans over all that before—but I was now bone thin.
Placing the headband torch over my forehead and shoving the big torch down my jacket front, I was as ready as I was ever going to get.
The Dark Way was empty and still as I made my way down it. The shadow hung back as I found the tunnel in the wall.
My feet slipped on the scattered diamonds as I struggled to climb up to the opening. I clambered over the hessian bags, dirt and dust thickening in my nostrils. Below was a narrow, downwards descent. I was going to have to climb backwards. Ice-laden air breathed over me as I began the climb. My foot skidded. I slid on my back a few feet. It hurt. I breathed short erratic breaths. What was I doing in here? This was crazy.
I slowed my breathing, gathered myself.
Lifting the large torch from my jacket, I shone it directly down the tunnel. The tunnel descended at almost a ninety degree angle. I’d have to inch down, and pray I didn’t fall. There was almost certainly no way of getting back up to the top again. And there was no telling how far it went straight down—it could go for miles like this.
And if I succeeded in getting down there, underground rivers might cross and flood the tunnel at any point.
As I pulled the torch away, something moved below me.
A large animal? I knew it wasn’t. With nausea rising in my heart and stomach I shone the torch downwards again. Something climbed, fast, with jerky movements that belonged to no animal.
Much bulkier than a human.
I backed up—straightening each leg against the rock as I pushed myself up. My legs burned. The thing crawled towards me. I trained the torch directly on the thing—the thing that was surely about to devour me from the legs upwards.
Dead eyes glared at me above a wide smiling grin. It moved a large lace-up boot near its head at an impossible angle, and pushed itself forward.
Struggling upwards, I bumped my head—hard. The thing pushed at me—pushed me up—at a crazy speed.
Both of us tumbled from the opening.
It crawled forward grotesquely. I scrambled to get to my feet, my layers of clothing impeding me. Whipping my torch out, I shone it downwards. The thing was slickly wet, covered in black mold and rotting clothing.
It collapsed on top of the diamonds.
The next second, I knew what it was. I should have known the thing would be in the dollhouse somewhere. Every child knew that a Raggedy Ann doll came in a pigeon pair—with a Raggedy Andy doll. The hair had been eaten away and the clothes were stained and dark—but it was unmistakable.
I could guess how he got there. Jessamine had put him there for protection. Judging by the condition of him—that time was many decades ago. I doubted he was much protection, anymore.
There was nothing to do except... go back in there.
If anything else was in the tunnel—it was all over. If I’d been further in when the Andy doll rushed at me, I’d have been crushed to death against the rock.
I lifted myself back into the tunnel.
Wind blew around me, biting into the skin around my eyes. I welcomed it—despite the pain—the odor of slime and dank was overpowering. My arms and back scraped and slid along rock. I made the backwards descent down into the almost vertical section, my heart pounding.
My legs burned as I struggled to keep myself from falling—positioning them hard against the rock. There was nothing to grip onto—just small, slippery ledges.
I kept moving. I didn’t know how long I’d been in complete darkness. Probably less than ten minutes. My heart dilated and constricted—a caged animal in my chest. I tried to disengage my brain, stop all thought—stop everything except the relentless climb downwards.
3. DRIPPING ROSE
The tunnel changed course—into an almost a ninety degree turn. I wriggled my body under a protrusion of rock. Crawling was easier now—my body almost horizontal. I inched along like a worm. I wished I could face forward, but there was no turning space.
I crawled like that forever. I felt my mind filling in, like sand filling in a child’s sandcastle moat on the shore. I tried to remember songs—anything to stop my mind from closing in. But the music jarred in my head, turned into tinny carousel tunes.
I’d been moving for at least hours—or at least days—or perhaps I’d died, and it was just my spirit roaming the tunnels.
No, none of that was true.
Ice water drizzled on the face and ran underneath me.
The tunnel sloped upwards ahead, ending in a high ledge. I had to climb feet first. Upwards. I couldn’t do it. And there wasn’t enough space above me for me to use my arms. I grunted with each small effort.
A sharp rock edge scraped along my side, ripping through to my skin. Bitter water ate into me.
Almost immediately, my body began to shake. The insulation I’d had between my body and the wetsuit was gone. My bones turned to ice. The cold chewed into my bones like a rabid dog.
I couldn’t last like this. I didn’t know how long I had before my body refuse
d to move, before it shut itself down to conserve energy.
I tried to find a foothold on the upper ledge—but my body kept slipping down. My legs flailing, I tried again. And again. And again.
Exhausted, I leant my head back in the icy water. My head froze, hurt. Even if I made it—I couldn’t manage miles more of this. And in the end, was it all just to deliver myself to the serpent?
My brain slowed and mushed—my head filled with snow. Flurries of snow swirled before my eyes. Beautiful.
People die all the time, Cassie, in places not nearly as awful as this. It’s easy to die. Humans are fragile. Let it happen. The hurt will go. You’ll be free.
Shadows slipped and slithered on the rock wall. I felt the barbs pierce me. It wasn’t so gentle this time. The shadow was anxious, tired of waiting.
In the midst of the snow, a face. Ethan’s. I kissed it. But I couldn’t remember why I wanted to. Couldn’t remember Ethan. The face turned ugly—diamonds in his eyes and between his teeth.
I was disappearing, drawing down.
A dripping rose.
Prudence.
Something—at the back of my mind—kicked me.
Go!
The voice was urgent.
Go!
I realized the voice was my own.
The shadow wrenched itself from me—leaving me breathless.
I was cold, so cold. My limbs numb.
Water gurgled around me. If it rained in the outside world now—the tunnel might fill with water. And I’d drown... drift... forever.
But if rain and wind from the outside could reach in here, perhaps there really was a way out at the end....
4. THE TERROR
My body jack-knifed. My head crashed back into the rock. I threw my body forward again. My legs found purchase on the rock ledge. I used elbows, hands, head, shoulders—everything to get the rest of me up there. I pushed my legs out—forcing my body to follow.
I made it. I was moving again.
My mind might still be somewhere back there—but I was moving. My body ached and shook. The tunnel continued on its upward incline.
The tunnel opened out—the ceiling lifting to a full foot above my head. Crying out, I twisted my body around to a crawling position. I crawled on for what seemed hours. I counted in my head—trying to stop myself from losing all track of time, from losing myself....
The shriek of wind intensified. A deeper, booming noise introduced itself. An underground river?
I edged along. My left hand slipped over the rough lip of the rock. The tunnel seemed to end here. Extending an arm out, I shone the torchlight around. A cathedral-sized cave stretched before me, pillars of transparent crystal rising from a wide, murky pool. A waterfall rushed from the soaring ceiling of rock into the pool. In my heart I knew the water stretched downwards to unimaginable depths.
There didn't seem to be anywhere to continue on. No more tunnel. But I couldn’t turn around and go back. There was no choice but to jump the eight or so feet into the water below and hope I found something, some way forward.
I might drown with that hope inside me.
I closed my eyes as my legs splashed into ice water. Icy water closed over me. Terrified, I struck out, struggling to the surface. Taking a lungful of air, I swam to the slippery, crystalline walls. My feet found purchase on an underwater rock shelf.
Desperately, I wanted to sit, lie, rest. But there was nowhere here for any of those things.
I sensed the shadow. But it didn't come to me, it didn't seek me. With a sickening in my stomach, I knew it no longer had to seek me. Because I'd come seeking it. I was here, in the bowels of the serpent. I felt it begin to digest me, disassemble my mind.
Snatches of sound echoed in the cave. I strained to hear.
I remembered being so sick once that my mother had to take me to the hospital. I was only three. My temperature rose so high, I imagined things, hallucinated. Family came to visit—but they sounded so far away, so garbled. Like a radio transmission fading in and out.
That’s what the sounds reminded me of now.
Then I heard it clearly. Girls singing. An old nursery rhyme I couldn’t place.
A grey light wavered near the middle of the water. Not light exactly—more like a reflection of light.
It was a figure, a girl, standing on the water. She turned to me. She wore a yellow dress—a dark stain on the bodice. Her waves of hair were stringy, unbrushed.
“Prudence.” The name slipped from my tongue.
She gave a single nod.
Her hair fell down the small of her back as she lifted her head back and pointed upwards. My gaze travelled up the rock wall. There was a strange, crisscrossed pattern in the rock. Was it some pattern left behind by cooled lava? I stared closely. The patterned parts were different to the rock—almost stony.
My stomach tightened. They were tree roots. Aged, but still, tree roots. That meant I had to be somewhere near the surface—didn’t it?
Prudence was gone.
Although she’d been there but a moment, I immediately felt the loss of her. But another presence edged in, a presence that was not Prudence.
I edged frantically around the walls of the cave, keeping to the shallows of the frigid black water. Stepping onto a ledge on the other side, I peered upwards.
Light—dim, inconstant. Was I imagining it? I snapped my torch off. The dim light still shone above.
Heaving myself up, I tried to reach the lowest of the tree roots. My legs were heavy, paining—I couldn’t make them move and lift me.
Something swam below the water’s surface, thrashing.
The rushing waterfall seemed almost to freeze, the water moving like it was being filmed in stop-motion. The water rose in jagged shapes when it hit the pool below. In a way I’d never seen water do.
I lunged at the tree root again, my feet slipping along its wet edges.
Something rose behind me.
I pulled myself up to the next root, treading along it with shaking legs.
I whipped my head around before jumping to the adjacent root.
A flash of silvery scales in the recesses of the cave. A large unblinking eye. It turned to face me.
The serpent.
It watched me with diamond eyes, eyes like glass, eyes that knew me—had looked inside me. Centuries streamed through the cold gaze.
My mind bent inwards—turned on itself, my body immobile.
The serpent moved towards me in a blinding flash of silver, giant eyes cutting into my soul. Every nerve and vein of my body choked with her bitterness, her revenge—choked with the rage that had cooled into immeasurable hatred.
She slipped away into the black water. I sensed her icy satisfaction at my fear. I searched the cave from side to side, my chest squeezing painfully.
Then she was there. I threw my back against the wall, a scream fleeing from my throat.
The open jaw filled the air, monstrously large. It smashed against the wall, meshing itself in the roots of the tree. The tree roots ripped away, pulled down by the serpent as it dove down into the water.
I leapt from tree root to rock ledge. An ear-splitting crashing sounded above. A wall of wood steam-trained past me. The entire tree coming down. Straight down. Branches whipped by my face. Any second, I'd be torn downwards with the tree. Far above, ground filled in as the top of the tree was drawn down. I was being entombed.
5. BREATHE
A set of rock ledges gleamed wetly on the far wall, underneath the waterfall—ledges that led upwards. But too far to reach.
There was a chance—one chance—to jump from the falling tree over to a ledge.
It was death to try.
It was death not to try.
With outstretched arms, I leapt to a thick branch. My body was taken down at terrifying speed. Flung hard through the waterfall, against the wall.
Sliding downwards, I desperately grappled a ledge with my arms and legs. And clung there as the tops of the tree were wrenched
deep underground.
Through a curtain of water, I watched the ground above being constructed at a terrifying pace. Dirt swirled in the open spaces. Desperately, I heaved myself upwards along the jutting ledges.
She was coming back. I could feel her. A presence—palpable, ancient.
The waterfall rushed past my body, almost sending me into freefall. I gripped a wet tree root, my gloves ripped and hands bleeding. The only way up was through the surging water. Taking a lungful of air, I climbed up into the stream, letting the icy water drown me. My heavy clothing dragged me backwards. I tugged at the zipper of my jacket, allowing the stream to tear the jacket away.
The water wrapped itself around me in a whirlpool. I threaded my arms through the tree roots. The serpent was willing the waterfall into a vortex, trying to send me plummeting down.
My lungs hurt, my brain screamed for oxygen.
Water spiraled downwards, leaving the river bottom above dry. Blowing out a lungful of stale air, I clawed my way up. I rose, standing on the dry river bottom. I squinted in the world of light, breathed in pale-colored air—stunned at the sight of forest and sky.
A wall of water crashed along the riverbed as the river reclaimed itself. My body was tossed out onto hard ground.
I loped away, raw panic winding along my spine—not knowing which way I was running.
I yelled. Yelled into the trees. Fear, horror, grief, sorrow, relief—all of it cut through me.
Sun fell on me, weak but intense and beautiful. I gloated on the yellowish of it, the depth of color, gazing upwards at the green leaves and snatches of pale blue sky through the branches.
I tore the beanie and balaclava from my face—then peeled off the clothing and wetsuit. They slid from my body like cold fish skin.
I stepped from the socks and shoes, kicking them into the forest.
My soaked slip stuck to me as I blundered forward.
Cassie, you know some things about the forest, I told myself. Think—what kind of trees are here? I stared about me. Not alpine. I was lower than that. Not sub-tropical. Just fairly ordinary-looking trees and shrubs. Mountain peaks rose in the distance. I was no longer on Devils Hole. I could be close to the bottom of the mountains.