by Anya Allyn
I nodded at Molly grimly. None of us deserved the fate of dying in that place. “Molly, what’s happening? Why do you need to stay hidden?”
Her blonde eyelashes drifted down. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you the story of my life when I was a kid…” Her chest lifted in a silent sigh. “When I was seven, my mother suicided. I still remember her—she had red hair like me. She tried to be happy and give me a happy childhood, but when she was sad she’d cry for days. I was sent to live with my uncle Devlin and his girlfriend after she died. There was no one else. My uncle had been involved in a string of petty crimes but nothing major. They weren’t nice people. They were cold to me most of the time, and when they’d been drinking—which was most of the time—they’d hit me… lock me up in a wardrobe… or make me drink too and think it hilarious a little kid was drunk.”
She gazed into the multi-colored light streaming from the stained-glass windows. “One night, around four in the morning, I couldn’t sleep. At the time I had a stray cat hidden away in the garage—a cat that had just had kittens. They were the only good things in my life. I went out to check on her and the kittens. My uncle drove in with some strange man, and pulled guns and bags of money from the van. He saw me, and I ran. I hid in neighbors’ lawns, watching the headlights of his car as he searched the streets for me. I was too terrified to go back to the house. I made it to the police station hours later."
She stopped and sighed—the sigh of a person relating a painful memory. “For a while there, I thought the police were going to send me back to Uncle Devlin. I didn’t come across like a sweet, innocent kid. I was almost thirteen, and I talked rough, because that’s all I’d known for years. And I dressed like a little punk street kid. They thought I must have heard the news report about two security guards being shot dead the night before and that I’d decided to make up a story about my uncle. But Detective Kalassi took over… and he believed me. He put me into a witness protection program and I was placed with a foster family. Stupidly, I ran away. I couldn’t relate to my new family. I think I was just too damaged at the time. I kept running, all the way to the mountains. And you know the rest….”
“Did your uncle Devlin go to jail? Is he in jail now?” Aisha’s hand reached over her mouth.
Molly gave a taut, wry smile. “The police didn’t find the cash or guns when they went to his house. And without my testimony, they couldn’t arrest him. If he finds out I’m alive, he might kill me.”
My throat tightened. “No… we can’t get you back just to lose you again…”
A light flickered in the air before us. I stared up into the tall arched windows. Lights of all colors flooded through softly, but nothing like the light in front of my eyes. Molly cupped the light with her hands. It shone in the space between her fingers, then moved away towards the vaulted walls.
“I think it wants us to follow….” Molly hung back, uncertain. “What am I saying?”
The light disappeared next to a set of iron gates and was extinguished under the bright lamps there.
“I don’t like this.” Aisha looked at us with huge aqua eyes.
A man stepped up behind us. “Are you girls interested in seeing what’s beyond the gates?” He was dressed in a somber grey suit. “I’m from visitor information. Ask me anything you would like to know about the church.” His voice was cultured, refined.
Molly pointed to the black gates. “Where does that go?”
The man handed her a brochure. “To the crypt. It’s very worth seeing. Building began early last century, drawing on inspiration from the Cathedral of Sienna from the 1300s and the Book of Kells from around 800 AD. It’s five dollars per person to see.”
Molly drew a purse from her handbag and paid for three admissions. The man unlocked the gates.
“I don’t think this is a good idea.” I shook my head.
“Don’t let the thought of a crypt put you off.” The man smiled. “It’s very beautiful and not to be missed.”
Molly hesitated. “Would you come with us?”
“I am sorry, I need to return the information booth. But I assure you it is quite safe.” He nodded a curt goodbye and walked off towards the front of the church.
Molly took a long breath. “I need to see what this is. I sense… something. Perhaps when you’ve been around a ghost as long as I have, you know when there is a presence.”
“Jessamine?” Aisha asked bitterly.
“I don’t think so. Not her.” Molly took faltering steps to the open gates.
Aisha and I exchanged anxious glances.
“Molly, let’s just go.” I gazed around at the empty church interior. I knew there were police somewhere outside keeping watch, but they wouldn’t be expecting us to head down into a crypt.
Molly stopped, her back straightening. “In the underground, I was sure I’d die not knowing why any of us been taken there, never understanding how the serpent could even exist. And all I know now is that the questions are like knives in my back—knives that twist every night. I know… I know it isn’t over. I can’t just pretend none of it happened. I understand you girls staying up here, but I’m going….” She disappeared down the curved stairs.
I shot Aisha a grim look. We either had to follow Molly or let her go down there alone. Together, Aisha and I stepped after Molly. The air cooled as I traced my hand down the heavy wooden bannister.
The gate swung shut behind us. Aisha sprang back up the stair to push at it. She rattled the gate but it didn’t budge. She turned around to me with terrified eyes.
“Let’s get Molly.” My throat was dry and my words barely audible.
We ran down the rest of the way to the wide, ornate crypt that spread out in all directions. A mosaic floor held intricate inlaid Celtic patterns.
Molly stood tracing her fingers along one of the myriad sandstone columns. “It’s beautiful down here. My mother would have loved to see this.”
“Anywhere we’re trapped is not beautiful,” said Aisha bluntly. “The gate locked behind us. We have to get out of here now.”
My heart began racing at the sight of all the dark spaces—spaces where we could disappear into and never see the light of day again.”
A sound echoed and bounced from the walls and columns. A sound I’d heard over and over. The sound of children singing a nursery song. And then I knew who had brought us down here.
“Prudence,” I whispered.
Molly clutched my hands. “Do you see her?”
“I sense her,” I said.
“This is freaking me.” Aisha’s breaths came fast and shallow.
Molly took the map from her pocket and unfolded it. “What does she want us to see down here? So, the graves of the archbishops are over there. And the graves of the first priests of the church are over here. I don’t know what we’re meant to do.”
I wandered over to the tombs. Between the tombs, seven medallions were inlaid—each displaying a Christian virtue. There was a medallion of Prudence depicting a woman holding an instrument of measure.
Molly looked over my shoulder. “I think… maybe… she wanted us just to think of her.”
We moved into a circle, closing our hands around each other’s. I could only imagine Prudence the ghost. I hadn’t known the real-life Prudence as Molly had. And Aisha had only seen her drawings and poetry.
In a dark recess between a column and the wall, the flickering light returned. The light expanded vertically, until a girl stood in its place—a girl in a yellow, blood-stained dress.
Aisha gasped.
Prudence raised her arm—her fingers tracing a line in the air. A thin smear of light remained. She was drawing something. She traced another straight line beside the first, then wavy lines radiating out from a center point. A tree. She drew in roots below the tree that were a mirror image of the tree above.
The mirrored tree hung before us while Prudence grew filmy, translucent.
“No!” I held out a hand toward her.
Prudence gently raised her
hand and stretched it out towards me. But her expression saddened. The space that had been Prudence became empty air.
“She doesn’t have the strength to stay with us.” A single tear streaked down Molly’s face.
Detective Kalassi and his wife Nina poured mom and Aisha’s parents glasses of wine. Far below the hotel balcony, the lights of Sydney streaked red, blue and yellow across the dark harbor.
“No one was expecting that from Ethan—least of all me.” Martin Kalassi shook his head.
“That boy—he always seemed to have hidden depths,” said Mr. Dumaj. “And now he’s admitted to his crimes—he can be put away.”
“There will be another trial, Mr. Dumaj,” said the detective. “The court won’t automatically accept Ethan’s guilty plea. And Henry Fiveash is still at large. We need to find where he is and bring him in.”
“You’ve been working seven days a week on this.” Nina shot her husband a sympathetic gaze. “No wonder you look burnt out, my poor love.”
Molly brought her knees up to her chin and stared at the harbor, seemingly transfixed by the steady stream of ferries and boats. “You two can’t keep me forever. I know that. Martin, you need to find Henry. And Nina, you need to return to work.”
“Honey, we’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.” Nina touched Molly’s knee. “You don’t know what it means to Martin and me to have you here, alive and well. He drove himself crazy— following every possible lead after you disappeared in the forest. He cursed himself every day that he couldn’t find you. We thought your uncle Devlin must have followed you and hurt you, or even killed you. Martin felt responsible—being the one who had placed you with the foster family.”
Molly squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I was pretty messed up.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. “And now look at me. I’m a dollhouse abductee. From the frying pan into the fire, that’s where I went. I’m a walking disaster zone.”
Detective Kalassi set his glass down on the table. “No, you’re not that. You’re an amazing young lady with a good head on her shoulders and you’re going to have a great life ahead.” He dipped his head. “But you’re right, Nina and I can’t keep you.”
Nina shot her husband a questioning look.
He stretched his mouth thin. “There’s the worry that Devlin will connect the dots sooner or later. He knows I treated your disappearance personally. I was on his back for years. I never let him out of my sights. If he finds out I have a teenage girl living with me, he just might try to find out who she is. I can’t keep you a virtual prisoner in my home forever.” He sighed. “I wish we could move away and take you with us, but you’re right, I need to be here. I need to get Devlin into prison where he belongs and I need to track down Henry Fiveash.”
Mrs. Dumaj creased her forehead. “Can Devlin be convicted if the case goes to trial now?”
“No,” replied the detective. “He can’t even be arrested without enough evidence. Back when the holdup happened, we might have been able to make a case, together with Molly’s testimony. But the trail has gone cold now. He’s hidden the money and we don’t know who his accomplice was that night. But one day he’ll slip up or try to use the money, and I’m going to be right there when he does.” He turned to Molly. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I have to put you back in the witness protection program, although it’s going to kill me to let you go.”
Molly stared down at her hands rigidly. “Martin, I can’t. No more strangers. I’ve lived most of my life with strangers. People who didn’t care about me. I can’t live like that anymore. You have to let me go live on my own.”
“No,” he said fervently. “You’re only seventeen, and you’ve been away from the world a long time. There’s no way I’m going to send you out there on your own.”
Mom tucked her hair behind her ears repeatedly, in that way she did when she was trying to gather her thoughts. “I have a thought. I’ve been considering moving back to Miami.” She sighed deeply. “I think it’s the best decision for Cassie. And if Cassie and I do return to Miami, we’d like for Molly to come with us.”
She turned to gaze at Molly and me.
I didn’t need to think about it. “Oh God, mom that’s perfect…”
Shock registered on Molly’s face. She looked from mom to the Kalassis. “I don’t know what to say….”
“You don’t have to say anything now,” mom hastened to add. “It’s an idea.”
Molly smiled with sadness in her eyes. “I can’t. You’re a family—a unit. I’m a stranger. Some castaway from the underground. And I’m not a kid anymore—I came out of the dollhouse practically an adult. I'm seventeen. I’m going to have to make my own way pretty soon.”
“You’re my sister,” I said fervently. “Even if you don’t choose to live with us—you’ll always be my sister.”
“Mine too,” said Aisha. “I don’t want you guys to go, but if it will save Molly from her uncle….”
A flicker of a frown crossed Molly’s face.
Martin Kalassi leaned forward, resting his arm on his knee. “What Mrs. Claiborne is offering might just be the best thing possible. Kid, you may be seventeen, but there’s things people need their whole lives that have nothing to do with how old they are. And that’s family. Nina and I feel like you’re our own daughter. But we’re conscious every day of how close we live to Devlin. We don’t want anything bad to happen to you, ever again.”
“I would hate to see you go… but Martin’s right.” Nina clasped her hands together.
“I can’t.” Molly shook her head vehemently. “You don’t understand. I bring bad luck. I bring bad things. My mother went crazy after having me. She killed herself. My father died before I was even born. Uncle Devlin went from petty crime to murder. And in the underground… I made Prudence kill herself….I told her too much… too much….”
“You’re not to blame… for any of that,” I breathed.
“Yes I am. And I have to stay here. I have to figure everything out. I can’t let another child die. And more will die… I feel it. I know it.” She clenched her fists together, rising from her chair. “My life is worth nothing. But I give my life, for what it’s worth, to stopping any other kids from going through what I did.”
She gazed at Aisha and me with stormy green eyes. “You two know. You know. You’ve seen what we’re up against. And you, Cassie, you stared into the eyes of evil itself. We can’t pretend any of it didn’t happen.”
Aisha turned her head away.
“Molly, please,” I cried. We were a hair’s breadth away from exposing ourselves, from laying the whole insane world of ghosts and monsters on the table.
Martin stared at Molly. “Well, we can see where Molly got the fight from to survive the dollhouse. She’s a fighter, more than anyone I know. But Molly, it’s time to stop fighting and let us handle it. And you have to stop beating yourself up.”
“Molly….” My mother moved close to Molly, sitting in the chair beside her. I knew the tone she was using well. I’d heard her use it with her teenage clients. “Detective Kalassi has spoken of the very real risk of your Uncle Delvin finding you. If he finds you… you may not have a chance to figure out all the things that you want to.”
Mom’s tone was the one she used when she didn’t understand what the client wanted to do, but because it was important to the client, she treated their words as important and tried to help the client find steps to reach their goal—especially steps that kept them out of harm’s way. I’d always thought mom sounded kind of sucky and condescending when she spoke that way, but right now it made total sense. My hands formed tight balls as I watched Molly’s face.
Detective Kalassi nodded. “Devlin can’t leave the country. He can’t get to you in the U.S, Molly. It would kill and Nina to have you leave us, but we’d do anything to keep you away from that man.”
Molly bowed her head, her entire body tensing and her breaths deep and sharp. Warm breeze from the harbor lifted her hair and made it
fly about her as moments ticked away.
24. MIAMI
The plane touched down on a mild Miami morning. I used to think 58 Fahrenheit was freezing, but it didn't seem that way to me now. The majority of people rushing to and fro at the airport wore jumpers and wintry expressions.
Molly looked lost as she stood in the midst of the milling crowds—her legs long and lanky beneath denim shorts and a windcheater.I could still scarcely believe she’d agreed to come with us.
“Almost there,” said mom. She put her arm around Molly.
On the taxi ride to my grandmother’s old house, Molly craned her neck incessantly, peering at sights that were new to her.
The taxi pulled up in front of our house—the house that used to belong to my grandmother. The gardens had been neatened up and the front door painted.
I was surprised to see new furniture in the house. Mom must have organized ahead to have the house redecorated. The walls had been painted in a Tuscan blue and dark orange, with a beach house theme to the furniture and wall paintings. The house had just been sitting there empty ever since grandma had passed away three years ago.
One of the bedrooms had been turned into a study. Molly and I were to have our lessons at home until the dollhouse media frenzy had died away, maybe longer if Molly’s life was still in danger. Besides, Molly wasn’t ready to have herself thrust out into the world of teenagers—she’d barely been thirteen when she’d been taken to the underground.
“Girls, this is your room,” said mom, showing us into my grandmother’s old room. The carpet had been replaced by glossy floorboards and a shaggy rug. Grandma’s bed and free-standing cupboard had been replaced with separate beds and a wall-to-wall built-in wardrobe.
Two golden-colored shapes raced past the window.
“We have dogs?” I raised my eyebrows at mom. We’d never had animals. She was allergic to animal hair.
She pulled an off-hand face. “Martin Kalassi thought we should have dogs, so we have dogs. They’re trained guard dogs, apparently. Girls, meet Akina and Kishka.”