“No harm done?” snapped Mrs. Bishop. “A ruined night’s sleep? I’ll pay for this tomorrow and so will you.”
“I’ll be right back,” said my mother, and came toward me. I stepped back and retraced my steps through her bedroom and into the hall. She caught up with me and put her finger to her lips. We went down the steep staircase in silence. I clung to the banister around the curve.
As we descended into the shadowed hallway below, I kept looking over my shoulder. It felt as if there was something lurking behind me, watching.
“Where did you put the doll, Mom?” I asked, clutching at her arm.
“I tucked it away in my room, so you don’t need to think about it again,” she replied.
We went through the dining room past the elegant table and chairs to the doorway in the corner that led to the basement stairs.
Once we were in the kitchen, Mom turned on the light. The room felt modern and ordinary. I took in a shaky breath and sat at the table while Mom made the hot milk. I persuaded her that mine should be cocoa.
“It was just so real, Mom, not like a dream. I was awake. I’m sure I was awake, and Lily told me she’d seen a ghost in that bed before, and she was so real, a girl with red hair—”
“So it was Lily who put the idea into your head. Honestly, Alice, you have to get control of your imagination. And I wouldn’t pay too much attention to what Lily says.”
“Why not? What’s going on with her, anyway?”
“Her mother was telling me. She’s always been a bit slow to develop, ever since she was a baby, and they can’t say exactly what it is, but they think she’ll never really grow up. She’s like a small child, and she’ll probably remain that way. So you see, even though she looks older than you, she’s still at the stage where kids believe in ghosts and fairies and magic—”
“Mom! I’m still at that stage! I believe in ghosts! Maybe not fairies, but definitely ghosts. If you could have seen this girl tonight, you would have screamed too, honest. It was terrifying; she was right in my bed, just like Lily said!”
Mom prepared a tray with three mugs and some of the homemade oatmeal cookies that were left from Mary’s lunch.
“Turn out the light, Alice,” she said, heading for the stairs. “You had a nightmare, that’s all, and you imagined the doll was a girl sleeping in your bed. You need to get some rest, and tomorrow you’ll be laughing about this.”
“No I won’t,” I muttered, and followed her up the stairs.
Chapter Seven
BREAKFAST
When I woke up, the room was filled with the bright light of day. I was alone in my bed. Last night Mom had said she’d stay with me till I fell asleep, but I didn’t remember anything after she said that, so I guess I fell asleep pretty fast.
I sat up. I still couldn’t believe that this lovely room was mine for the summer. The curtains stirred in the soft breeze that was drifting in through the open window. The flowery wallpaper and the green bed curtains made me feel like I was in some kind of fairy garden. Maybe the girl in my bed was a fairy and she came because it was Midsummer’s Night. But who ever heard of a fairy with freckles?
I don’t believe in fairies anyway. Not really. I like to imagine they’re possible, but there is a part of me that knows they aren’t. And that girl had looked like a real, live person, not a fairy or a ghost. Now that I wasn’t scared anymore, I realized that she had looked like the kind of girl I’d like to get to know. Something about her smile. She looked like she’d be fun to be around.
But maybe Mom was right and it was a dream. Dreams could seem as real as waking, I knew that. Like that train crash last night.
I got out of bed and went to settle in my little nest in the window seat. I couldn’t see the train tracks, but I knew they were there somewhere, past the garden, at the bottom of the hill. I tried to remember what had happened. I’d been thinking about train crashes— and then the train stopped suddenly, I hit my head, and everything went black. But I had these very clear pictures in my mind of twisted train tracks, a train car on its side and dead bodies. It was so clear, just like it had really happened. Sometimes my imagination played tricks on me, and it took awhile for me to sort out what was real and what was in my head. I must have imagined all that about the train crash.
My door opened and my mom poked her head in.
“So you’re finally awake,” she said. “You’ve been sleeping for hours. Come downstairs and get your breakfast. How’s the head?”
The head was fine, no trace of headache, and I told her so and went down for bagels and peanut butter at the kitchen table by the open French doors, with the warmth of the summer and all kinds of sweet country smells wafting in.
Mom made herself a cup of tea and sat down opposite me with a pad of paper and a pen.
“I need to make a shopping list,” she said, “so let me know if there’s anything special you want me to pick up.”
I looked at her. “How about Dad? I could use one of those.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not going to discuss that with you right now, Alice. Let’s just give ourselves some space for a few days and settle in here. That’s the whole point of us coming here: to get some space.”
“But what am I supposed to do all summer? Aleisha and Laura and Jenny and I had it all worked out. You know we did! The reading club, the swimming lessons. Baking cookies. Being on our own. We’ve been planning it for months. Now they’ll go on and have our perfect summer without me. And I’ll be stuck here in this haunted house with nothing to do.”
“I’m sorry! I know you’re missing a lot. But I just didn’t have any choice, Alice. I had to do this, and you had to come with me. That’s all there is to it.” She got up and started opening random cupboard doors and slamming them shut and scribbling things on her shopping list. She was upset.
I felt bad for her. And I felt bad for me. And I felt bad for Dad.
“Mom?” I said. She turned to me, and her expression made my heart turn over. She looked cross and sad at the same time. Poor Mom.
“What?” she snapped.
“Um…” I wanted to say I was sorry and I knew it was hard for her, but I didn’t know how to start. “Umm…How’s the old lady today?”
Her face relaxed and she rolled her eyes. “She’s going to be a challenge, let me put it that way. She’s got an electric buzzer beside her bed that she’s going to ring every time she needs me. When I brought her breakfast, she gave me a ten-minute lecture on how to bring you up that started out, ‘Although I never had children of my own, I’ve learned through careful observation that it does no good to indulge them…’ ”
I laughed. “She sounds a bit like a dragon lady, Mom. But do you think Mary’s right? That she’s a bit wonky because of the fall?”
Mom poured herself another cup of tea and sat down opposite me.
“I don’t think so. She has had a head injury, and I understand it’s affected her moods, but according to the case notes the other nurses left me, it wasn’t severe. She does tend to get a bit confused at times, and rambles on about her life in England, but a lot of old people talk about the past and get mixed up about times and places. She called me Betsy a couple of times, and she seemed to think the train accident was a lot more serious than it was, but I set her straight.
“She’s actually very interesting: she was a journalist for years and she told me she’d written stories about the evacuation of children from London during the war. I think you’ll enjoy her stories. And that reminds me, I do have something in mind for you this summer. Just a little summer job helping me.”
“Mom—” I began. “You know I don’t like all that nursing stuff.”
I was no good when people around me were sick or hurt: whatever their symptoms were, I’d start feeling them. Once a girl at school cut her finger with scissors, and there was a lot of blood. I had to
sit down and put my head between my knees or I would have fainted.
“Nothing like that. I just want you to help with the housework and sit with Mrs. Bishop sometimes when I have to be out.”
“I thought Mary was here to do the housework.”
“She comes three times a week, but she’s got other houses. Part of my job is as a housekeeper: grocery shopping, cooking the meals, making the beds, laundry, a bit of dusting, that sort of thing. There’s a lot you can help me with. I’ll give you five dollars an hour. You can put it in your travel fund.”
I was saving up for a school choir trip to New York next spring. Aleisha and Laura and Jenny were saving up too. We are all in the choir. That’s another thing we were going to do this summer: work on a couple of musical numbers with dancing, just for fun.
“Okay,” I said. “I can do that. How much do you want me to work?”
“A couple hours a day would be about right,” said my mother. “But for today, just get your suitcase unpacked and settle in. When Mary comes, you and Lily can spend some time together.”
“Can I explore the house first? I haven’t had a chance to see it yet.”
“You can take a look around the first floor on your way upstairs, but don’t touch anything! You heard what Mary said about how Mrs. Bishop feels about her antiques. You didn’t make a very good impression on her last night with all that screaming, and we’re both going to have to work hard to persuade her you’re mature enough to be trusted with her treasures.”
“Well, I’m not going to start screaming again if that’s what you’re worried about,” I protested. “Unless there are more ghosts in this house…”
“That’s enough, Alice. No more haunted house nonsense. For goodness’ sake, just keep a low profile for a couple of days and I’m sure you can win Mrs. Bishop over.”
Chapter Eight
THE PHOTOGRAPH
The dining room was spooky even in the daylight, crowded with deeply polished mahogany furniture. Two ornate gold candlesticks stood majestically in the center of the dining table. The walls were painted the exact same shade of dark red as the long velvet drapes that blocked out most of the light from the windows. A fireplace stood against the far wall, with a gold-framed mirror hanging above it. In the far corner, opposite the door to the basement stairs, was a closed door.
I had to investigate.
The door led into a small passageway lined with built-in china cabinets with glass fronts. Stacked behind the glass were plates, bowls, cups, and various serving dishes in at least five different patterns.
At the end of the passage, another door led me into a study. Two tall windows faced the driveway, and the walls were lined with bookshelves. There was a big old-fashioned desk at one end, a dark brown leather couch, and a fireplace. Did every room in this house have a fireplace? I guess that’s all they had to heat it in the old days. Two glowing brass candlesticks stood on the mantelpiece.
There were all kinds of old books with leather backings, and I wanted to take some down off the shelf and look at them, but Mom had said not to touch anything, and I had to try my best to be mature. Even if it had been wishful thinking on her part last night when she sang my praises to Mrs. Bishop. Most of the time she was not very impressed with my maturity. She was always saying things like, “Take responsibility for yourself,” “Stop daydreaming!” “Pick up your clothes!” or “Alice, get a grip!”
So today, after disgracing myself with the nightmare and the screaming, the least I could do was not touch anything. At least, not on my very first morning.
I went out the far door and crossed the hallway into the living room. I stopped just inside the door and just stared. I had never been in a room as grand and beautiful as this one. It was twice as big and twice as luxurious as the living room in the historic house I toured last year with Dad. The room stretched from the front of the house to the back, with an archway across the middle.
My feet sank into a thick cream-colored carpet. The pale-green walls were lined with paintings, like an art gallery. Each section of the room had its own seating area. Silky sofas and elegant wing chairs, fancy lamps and embroidered footstools. Green-and-white marble mantels crowned the two matching fireplaces, and the tall windows were draped in floor-to-ceiling curtains in ivory silk. Dad always told me to pay attention to fabrics in a restored house: he said that was the key to whether it had been done properly or if they cut corners on cheaper materials. No one had cut any corners in this house.
I felt I needed to hold my breath, it was so quiet and still. And somehow sad, as if no one had come in here for a long time. Even though it was full of lovely furniture, it seemed empty.
I tiptoed in, half-afraid that my feet would leave footprints in the thick carpet. There were all kinds of things in here I wanted to touch: the blue silky material on the nearest chair, a collection of glass animals on a side table, a gleaming silver candlestick. I stuck my hands in my pockets to keep them out of the way of temptation.
There was a hush over the room, as if it were held in some timeless kind of bubble. I felt a bit like I was in a dream. The rest of the house was sunk deep in silence, as if I was the only person in it.
Something drew me toward the far corner, where a pretty little desk with curvy legs stood half hidden by one of the green wing chairs. A delicate china shepherdess stood on top, a china lamb curled at her feet.
As I came closer, I could see she was wearing a deep-red skirt and a ruffled white blouse, and she had bright blue eyes peeking out from her red bonnet and an enticing smile on her painted lips. I sat down on the small desk chair and looked at her. Her expression suggested she might break out in a little tinkling laugh any minute. My right hand came out of my pocket and snaked toward her.
No. Mom said not to touch and I wasn’t going to touch. I pulled back my hand. I examined the desk instead. Several little compartments were lined up under the little shelf where the shepherdess stood, with a small drawer in the center. My hand snaked out again, but this time I didn’t stop it. What was the harm in opening a drawer?
It pulled out easily. It was empty. I pushed it back in but it didn’t close all the way. I pulled it out, tried again. It wouldn’t close. I pulled it again, harder, and the whole drawer slipped out in my hand.
I peered in. It was too dark to see anything. I tried putting my hand in and feeling around. My fingers touched a crinkly piece of paper. I gave it a pull, and it wouldn’t come at first, then all of a sudden there was a little ripping sound and it came.
It was a photograph, torn at the edge. It must have got wedged in behind the drawer when I opened it the first time, and that’s why it stuck.
The photograph was black-and-white, faded and old. A woman with dark hair cut in a swinging bob and a shining, smiling face was hanging on to the arm of a big man wearing a hat. A young woman, barely more than a teenager, stood squinting into the camera, holding hands with a girl of about my age. Their matching dresses were cut straight to their hips, then flared out in small pleats to just below their knees.
They were standing in front of a tall doorway with white pillars to each side. It looked like the front of this house.
I looked closer at their faces. The teenager was remarkably pretty, with the same dark hair and eyes as the older woman— her mother? The man had a big, easy smile and he looked like he was just tickled pink to be standing with the three of them. The father? And the young girl—
I felt a chill start at the back of my neck and I stopped breathing.
The young girl had lighter hair than the others, red or dark blonde I guessed, and a smattering of freckles across her nose. She was grinning and her eyes flickered with mischief.
It was her. The girl in my bed last night. The ghost.
Chapter Nine
THE LOCKED DOOR
The quick, high notes of a buzzing bell broke the stillness of the hou
se. Almost immediately came the tip-tapping sound of someone coming up the stairs from the basement, then a door creaked open, and I could hear my mother’s swift footsteps in the dining room.
I fumbled the photograph back into the drawer, shut it tight, then got up and moved quickly away from the desk, breathing hard. Now I could hear my mother going up the hall staircase. I stood beside the door and listened. A slight creaking overhead, and then it was silent again. The house seemed to muffle sounds.
With one glance back at the quiet elegance of the double living room, I went out and ran upstairs to my room, my heart still hammering in my chest.
* * *
—
I stood just inside my room, the door closed behind me, staring at my bed.
The ghost bed. The ghost girl. Now I was sure. It wasn’t a nightmare. How could I have dreamed of a girl in a photograph that I’d never seen before? She had to be a ghost. It was an old photograph, black-and-white, taken before they had color film. And the clothes were old-fashioned too— those short haircuts and drop waists reminded me of a movie I had seen on TV that was set in the 1920s— Thoroughly Modern Millie. The 1920s were— I counted on my fingers— seventy years ago. If the girl I saw in my bed was the girl in the photo…that would make her a ghost for sure. Lily was right. Mom was wrong. This room was haunted.
But it didn’t feel haunted. It felt peaceful, like it had all along. I knelt on the window seat and looked out past the lawn to the trees that grew down the hillside and climbed up a slope opposite.
The long, wailing cry of a train whistle pierced the air. I leaned out to look. Through a gap in the trees far to the right of the garden I caught sight of a train and soon it was clattering past the house, invisible in the dip. I listened until it had rumbled into the distance and the countryside was quiet once more.
I turned back into the room and took a deep breath. This room was where I was going to live for the next few weeks, so I had to somehow make my peace with it. I walked over to the bed and started smoothing the sheets and pulling up the covers.
The Dollhouse Page 4