“I went up in the attic this morning,” I said.
Lily sat up. Her eyes were big.
“You’re not supposed to,” she said, shaking her head. “How did you get in?”
“The door wasn’t locked,” I said. “At least, the door to the stairs wasn’t locked. The other door was locked.”
Lily shook her head. “Nobody’s allowed up there. Only Mama. And Mrs. Bishop. That door’s supposed to be locked. Both doors are supposed to be locked. I think so.”
“How come? What’s so special about the attic?”
Lily put her finger to her lips again. “Secrets,” she said. “Lots of secrets. I think so.”
I sat up. She had that look she’d had earlier about the ghost, like she was brimming with something that wanted to spill out of her.
“Have you been up there?”
She did that looking around thing again, even though we were clearly alone and out of earshot of the house.
“Once. Mama forgot to lock the door to the stairs. I went up.”
“Did she forget to lock the other door?”
Lily shook her head. “Nope. It was locked. But I tippy-toed across the big room and looked out the window. You can see forever. I think so.”
I nodded. “I know. I did that too. But why is it secret?”
“Mama won’t say. She says to mind my own business.”
“I’m going to find out,” I said, lying back down and gazing back up at the sky. The white clouds were multiplying and moving faster.
“How?” said Lily.
“I’m going to find that key.”
“I know where it is.”
I sat up again. “Where?”
“Mama has it. Mama has all the keys on a key ring. All the keys to everywhere.”
“Where does she keep it?”
“In her purse.”
“Does she take them home at night?”
“Yup.”
“Does she carry them around with her while she’s cleaning?”
“Sometimes.”
“Okay, then we have to watch, and when she doesn’t take them, we have to steal them.”
Lily looked shocked. “Stealing is wrong. I think so. Bad girls steal. I don’t steal.”
“I saw you stealing the cookies last night when your mother wasn’t looking.”
She grinned. “That wasn’t stealing. That was sneaking. I think so. I sneak all kinds of stuff when Mama isn’t looking. Cookies. Candy.”
“Taking the keys isn’t really stealing. It’s borrowing, because we’re not going to keep them.”
Lily frowned. “Borrowing? Not stealing?”
“If we were stealing, we wouldn’t give them back. But we’re just going to take them for a little while. So we can find out what’s behind that locked door. It’ll be fun. We’ll find out the secret. You like secrets, don’t you, Lily?”
She nodded, and laughed. “Secrets are fun. I think so.”
Part Two
THE DREAM
Chapter Twelve
BUBBLE AND FIZZ
We didn’t get a chance to “borrow” the keys that afternoon. After a while Mary called Lily to go home, and then I made macaroni and cheese for supper, with Mom supervising. She’s been teaching me to cook this year and I can make a few things. Tuna casserole. Spaghetti. Roast chicken. I like cooking with Mom because it’s one of the few times she just relaxes and lets all the other stuff go. She tells me stories about when she was a kid and learned to cook from her mom, my grandmother, who died last year. Mom had a hard time learning to cook, and she made all kinds of funny mistakes, like mixing up sugar and salt and leaving out ingredients and burning things. Her mother was patient with her, and Mom is patient with me.
I carried the dinner tray up to Mrs. Bishop, with Mom hovering behind me, and she made a point of telling Mrs. Bishop that I had cooked it myself. The old lady looked suspiciously at it, but after her first forkful, she nodded and said, “Not bad. I see you have potential. You may go now.”
I backed out of the room again, dissolving into giggles in the hall with Mom.
I went to bed early. I was really tired, and a headache was hovering behind my eyes. It wasn’t bad enough to take a pill, but I was happy to turn down the sheets and crawl into bed. Mom came in to say good night.
“Now, you’re not going to wake up screaming tonight, are you?” she said with a frown. “I don’t want to test Mrs. Bishop’s patience. We need to stay here, Alice. For a while.”
“I won’t scream,” I promised. “Have you heard from Dad?”
She shook her head. “I left a message at his hotel. They said he was out. I left the phone number but told him not to call unless it was urgent.”
“Oh,” I said in a small voice. “Don’t you want to talk to him?”
“No. There’s nothing to say at this point. Now forget all that and go to sleep.”
She kissed me and left the room.
As if I could forget it. This whole thing still seemed unreal, like a strange dream that went on for days and days. Leaving Dad, the long train ride, the train crash and then the haunted house with the locked doors in the attic and the empty, sad rooms downstairs, the lawn with its too-bright light, Lily and Mary-who-never-stopped-talking— and this strange, kind of floaty feeling that was somehow connected to the dull headache and the train crash. None of it seemed quite real. I felt the loss of my familiar life as if I were a boat that had been tied to shore and someone had cut the rope, and I was drifting, drifting into a wide lake that went on and on forever, with the faint call of a train far in the distance, echoing over the water.
I fell asleep without even thinking about the ghost.
* * *
—
Something woke me up again. A sigh? A movement? When I opened my eyes, it was just like the night before: the moonlight filtering in the open window, the curtains stirring in the warm summer breeze.
And someone beside me in the bed. Sleeping. That hum of another person’s presence slowly bringing me to consciousness.
Again I felt my whole body freeze and my breath stop.
The ghost murmured something in her sleep, and I could feel her turning over. I summoned my courage from wherever it had fled to with my breath and, with a great effort, managed to turn my head to look at her.
Her eyes were open, staring into mine. Green.
I opened my mouth, and she swiftly put a finger to my lips.
“Don’t scream,” she said. “You’ll disappear again if you scream.”
The idea of screaming dissolved. She was real. Her finger felt warm, and I could feel her breath. She smelled faintly of roses.
“Who are you?” I finally whispered.
She took her finger away and grinned. Her eyes were dancing.
“I’m Fizz,” she said.
“Are you a ghost?” I whispered. I still couldn’t quite catch my breath.
She wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t think so. Are you?”
“Me? You’re the one who materialized in my bed.”
“Your bed? This is my bed. You materialized in my bed.”
I sat up. “How is this your bed?”
She sat up. “Because it’s always been my bed. I’ve been sleeping for a long time, I know that, but now it’s time to wake up. Where’s Bubble?”
Bubble. That’s what she had called Lily.
“Who’s Bubble?”
“My sister. Let’s go find her.” She threw her legs over the side of the bed and slipped to the floor. She was wearing a sleeveless white summer nightgown with fine embroidery across the front, and her thick red hair was cut in a short bob that fell to her chin.
I scrambled after her and grabbed her arm. It was warm and soft. “Wait!” I said. “Tell me again. Who are you?”
&nbs
p; She shook off my arm and turned to me impatiently.
“I’m Fizz. I live here. My sister lives here. My parents live here. I’ve been sleeping and—”
She stopped and frowned, as if she was trying to remember something. Then she shook her head. “I can’t remember exactly, but I know I was sleeping for a long time. And then I dreamed that Bubble was sleeping in the bed with me, and she woke me up, but it wasn’t time, so I went back to sleep. And then you were here and woke me up, and then you screamed the house down and you were gone, and I went back to sleep. And now you’re here again. Only this time, thank goodness, you didn’t scream. It’s time to wake up. Come on. Let’s go find Bubble.” She headed for the closet.
I pulled at her arm again. “We need to be really quiet. We don’t want to wake up the old lady.”
“What old lady?”
“Mrs. Bishop. I woke her up last night and she was really cross. I promised not to wake her up tonight.”
Fizz shook off my arm again. “You’re nuts. There’s no old lady here. But we do need to be quiet. Follow me.”
And I did.
She turned to the right. I was dimly aware that there seemed to be more clothes hanging there than just my three sundresses, but I had no time to think about it as she pulled at one of the drawer handles on the built-in drawers and the whole thing swung to one side, revealing a small doorway.
“Another secret passage?” I squeaked.
“SHHH!” said Fizz fiercely. “Come on!” She grabbed my wrist and pulled me after her, through the doorway.
It was another bedroom, with two long windows hung with silvery curtains. The moonlight sparkled through them. On the left was a large door, leading to the hall. I realized this must be the room between my room and the bathroom. I’d walked by the door a few times but hadn’t yet looked inside.
A four-poster bed stood directly in front of us beside a fireplace. The bed curtains were silver, pulled back to reveal a lump just visible under a white bedspread. Fizz moved quickly over to it, jumped on the bed and gave the lump a shake.
“Whaaa?” came a voice, and the lump sat up. The light was dim, but I could see the tousled dark head of a girl wearing the same kind of cotton summer nightgown as Fizz.
“Wake up, Bubble!” said Fizz, “but be quiet.”
Then she dug under the pillows and pulled out a small black flashlight. She turned it on.
Bubble looked about eighteen: a pretty girl with thick black curly hair and dark eyes. I thought I had seen her somewhere before. She was staring at me.
“Who’s that?” she whispered to Fizz.
“A ghost,” said Fizz.
Bubble stiffened and clutched at Fizz’s hand.
“Don’t worry, she’s a friendly ghost,” said Fizz, giving Bubble’s hand a squeeze.
Bubble looked unconvinced.
“Here, touch her,” said Fizz, pushing Bubble toward me. “She won’t hurt you.”
Bubble reached out her hand to my arm and I felt a featherlight touch. Her face relaxed a bit. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
“The city,” I said.
“We’ve been to the city, haven’t we, Fizz?” said Bubble, looking at her sister. “On the train. That’s true.”
“Yep,” said Fizz. “We go every June for Mother’s birthday and stay in a big hotel and see a show.”
Bubble’s eyes lit up. “We have so much fun! I like the city. That’s true.”
Bubble reminded me of Lily. She spoke like a little girl, but she looked almost grown-up. And she seemed to have the same habit of repeating a phrase. I looked around the room. It was mostly in shadow, with the flashlight creating a little bubble of light around the bed. There was something odd about the room, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The bed curtains fell a little stiffly and didn’t quite touch the ground. The carpet felt a bit hard under my bare feet— I didn’t sink into it the way I did in my room.
The girls’ faces were lit up: they looked like girls in a painting, with their matching summer nightgowns and their bobbed hair rumpled from sleep.
Bubble was smiling at me. Then I realized why she looked so familiar. Of course, she was the older girl in the photograph I’d found in the desk. The one that was taken in the 1920s.
What was happening to me? Was I time travelling? Or was I seeing ghosts? Both seemed equally unlikely. I must be dreaming, that had to be it. Suddenly I felt very woozy.
Fizz was talking to me, but her voice sounded far away, and I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Then I seemed to lose my balance and felt myself falling, falling— a long way down. Why did it take so long to hit the floor?
I sank into a soft bed that seemed to be full of pillows. Darkness filled the inside of my head and then— everything went blank.
Chapter Thirteen
THE SILVER ROOM
When I woke up, the sun was pouring in the window, and Mom was standing beside my bed.
“You slept in again, Alice,” she said. “It’s ten o’clock. Lily’s here and she wants to play with you.”
I sat up. My head was spinning. I groaned.
“Are you okay?” said Mom, looking into my eyes.
I nodded. The room came into focus again.
“Just sleepy, I guess,” I said.
“Did that headache come back?” said Mom.
I was reluctant to answer her. “A little.”
“Right,” said Mom in her nurse’s no-nonsense voice. “You’re seeing a doctor. You may have a concussion after all. I should have taken you yesterday.”
“But Mom, I’m okay—” I protested.
“You’re showing two classic symptoms of concussion, Alice: an ongoing headache and sleeping more than usual. We’re seeing a doctor and that’s that. I think I can get Mrs. Bishop’s doctor to take a look at you. He’s coming this morning to see her.”
She bustled out of the room. I knew there was no arguing with her, but I wanted to spend the day trying to get into the attic with Lily, not waiting around for a doctor.
I looked over at the closet. There was one thing I could do right now.
I slid out of bed and crossed the room, my feet sinking into the carpet. I opened the closet doors and turned to the built-in chest of drawers. What was it Fizz had done? Fiddled with one of the handles? I grasped the left-hand handle of the second drawer down. It was one of those brass loops that hangs from two little screws.
I pulled on it.
The drawer opened. There was a metal rod running from where the handle was attached to the back, set tight against the bottom of the drawer. I closed it again. I tried twisting the handle. Did it budge, just a little? I lifted it halfway up and then twisted again.
Bingo. There was a click, and then when I pulled, the whole chest of drawers slid toward me, opening a doorway to the room beyond. It moved smoothly, without a sound. Someone must have oiled the hinges recently.
That was something Dad pointed out to me when we were exploring that old house last summer: all the locks and door mechanisms had been oiled to open smoothly and quietly.
“It’s these small details that show a house has been cared for,” he said. “If you go into an old house that’s been neglected, that’s one of the first things you notice: doors and windows don’t open and close properly because the hinges and locks haven’t been oiled.”
The door led into the back of a closet in the next room. The room itself looked much as it had last night, except brighter, with sunlight filtering in through the silvery drapes. The bed stood empty, with the curtains pulled back.
But they were different. I walked over, and this time my feet sank deep into the gray carpet. The bed curtains felt satiny smooth and they fell in puddles to the floor.
Weird. I walked over to the armchair by the fireplace. It was covered in a silky blue material with s
ilver flecks. I sat down, sinking into the soft cushions. I looked around. This whole room felt different than the others in the house: the silver, blue and gray gave it a magical, luxurious quality quite unlike my peaceful green room or Mrs. Bishop’s fresh blue and white bedroom. As if it had been decorated with someone in mind: a delicate, beautiful girl not quite of this world.
Bubble.
What was going on? Was I dreaming about the past because I saw that photograph? But why was this room exactly the same as it was in the 1920s, when Bubble and Fizz were girls?
It hadn’t felt like a dream.
“Ahhh…lisss” came a soft, spooky voice behind me, dragging out the syllables of my name. “Ahhh…lisss!”
My heart started beating erratically. I leaped to my feet. Lily was peeking around the corner of the bed, smiling her radiant smile.
“Lily!” I cried. “You scared me!”
She laughed and came toward me. “I was trying to. Pretending to be a ghost.”
I laughed, but it sounded a little forced even to me. “Well, it worked.”
“You found the secret passage!” she said, coming over to me and brushing her hand over my hair. “And the Silver Room. Isn’t it beautiful? I think so.” And she spun around, her arms wide, taking it all in.
“Yes,” I said. “It is. How did you know about the secret passage?”
“I found it from this side, one day when I was hiding from Mama. I hid in the closet and there was a hook.”
“Show me.”
She took me over inside the closet.
“See?” she said, taking my hand and placing it on the back panel. Sure enough, a little hook was there, hidden in the shadows.
“I found the hook and unhooked it. Then the wall moved and I was in your room.”
“Pretty cool,” I said. “Does your mother know about it?”
“I don’t think so.” She grinned, and then lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s a secret!”
“Lily!” called a voice from the hall. “I thought you were bringing Alice down for breakfast.”
The Dollhouse Page 6