Lily looked at me, alarmed, then gave me a hard push through the secret passage and into my room. She shut the closet door behind us just as her mother opened the door to my room.
“What’s taking you so long?” said Mary. “The scrambled eggs are getting cold.”
Lily shrugged. “We’re coming now, Mama. I think so.” She looked the picture of innocence.
Mary gave her a sharp look. “I don’t know what you two are up to, but Alice needs to eat her breakfast and get dressed, because the doctor is coming to see her and Mrs. Bishop in half an hour.”
“We’re not up to anything,” said Lily, her eyes wide. “Just talking. I think so.”
Mary shot her another look. “Right. Well, enough talking for now. Alice needs to get on.”
Obediently we filed past her out the door and downstairs. She stayed behind.
Chapter Fourteen
THE OTHER DAD
Dr. West was large and soft like a teddy bear, with thinning hair, glasses and a big friendly grin. He wasn’t dressed like any doctor I’d ever met— he wore a floppy shirt with a pattern of palm trees and sunsets all over it and a pair of baggy shorts.
He came to see me after he looked in on Mrs. Bishop. Lily and I were sitting out on the terrace just beyond the kitchen window at the wooden patio table under the dark green umbrella.
“This is Alice,” said Mom. I stood up.
“Hi, Alice,” said Dr. West. “Hi, Lily!”
Lily got up and threw herself on him in a big hug. “How’s my favorite patient?” he said to her, ruffling her hair.
“I got a new friend,” said Lily. “Alice. She’s really nice. I think so.”
“I can see that,” said Dr. West. “I just need to check her out, so why don’t you go find your mom?”
“Can’t I stay?” said Lily.
“Lily!” called Mary from the kitchen. “Come in here! Let Dr. West do his job.”
Lily left, with a loving backward glance at Dr. West.
“So, tell me about these headaches,” he said, sitting down in Lily’s chair and looking into my face.
He did everything Mom had done that first night on the train and more— lifting my eyelids to stare at my eyes, asking me questions, making me follow his finger around with my eyes. Finally he turned to Mom, who had been sitting on the edge of one of the other chairs the whole time, watching.
“I think she does have a slight concussion, Mrs. Greene—”
“Oh, call me Ellie,” she said quickly. “Everybody does.”
He grinned. “Ellie. And please call me Sam.”
She grinned back at him. There was a pause. I looked from one to the other. They were both grinning away, and something was passing between them, something I wasn’t sure I liked very much.
“Yes, well,” said Dr. West, clearing his throat. “Ellie. I think you were wise to have me take a look at Alice. It’s not too serious, but just keep an eye on her, let her sleep as much as she wants, and she should probably stay out of the sun. Follow the usual precautions for concussion.”
“Stay out of the sun?” I complained. “In the summer? Mom!”
“Or at least wear a hat. And sunglasses! The bright light will make her headaches worse. And if the headaches or the dizziness get bad, please call me right away. I’ll be in every few days to see Mrs. Bishop, so it’s no trouble to keep an eye on Alice.”
A low buzzing came from the house. “Ellie!” called Mary from the kitchen door. “Mrs. Bishop is ringing her bell. Do you want me to go?”
“No, I will,” said Mom. “Thanks, Dr. West— I mean Sam. I better go, she doesn’t like waiting.”
“No kidding,” said Dr. West, and they both laughed, and that foolish look passed between them again.
After Mom went, Dr. West sighed and settled back in the chair. “I could stay here all morning,” he said. “I love this house. And this garden. You’re lucky, living here. They don’t make them like this anymore.”
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“Oh, just an ordinary little bungalow in Lakeport, up the hill from the railway station. My ex-wife and I bought it when I started my practice, and well, I’ve never moved. Couldn’t afford a place like this anyway, and I’m on my own now, so even if I could afford it, there wouldn’t be much sense in me living in a big house by myself.”
“Mrs. Bishop does.”
He laughed. “Yes, but she’s Mrs. Bishop! Out of my class. Quite a character, Mrs. Bishop. To tell you the truth, Alice,” he went on, leaning closer and lowering his voice, “I’m just a little bit scared of her.”
I laughed. “Me too. Just a little.” I liked him. And there was something familiar about him. Why was that? I’d never met him before.
He got up. “Back to work,” he said. “It was good to meet you, Alice, and I hope you feel better.”
“Um…Dr. West,” I began. He was so nice. The kind of person you could tell anything to. “Umm…I was just wondering. Do concussions make you have funny dreams?”
He stopped his progress toward the kitchen door. “Dreams? Sometimes, I guess. Why?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to go much further than that. If I told him about Fizz and Bubble, he’d think there was something wrong with me. And he’d tell Mom.
“Well, I’ve been having some funny dreams since I got here.”
“Alice,” he said, coming back to me. “I understand you and your Mom are going through a difficult time right now.”
“Oh. Did she tell you?” I was surprised. Mom is very private.
He blushed. “Uh…no. Actually, Mary did.” He laughed. “Mary knows everything about everyone and she doesn’t hesitate to pass it on. Look, I don’t want to intrude, but sometimes when life is…um…challenging, shall we say, it shows up in our dreams. That could be what’s happening to you.”
“Oh,” I said. I didn’t see how dreaming about Fizz and Bubble could have anything to do with Mom and Dad breaking up, but I didn’t say anything, because when he leaned over to talk to me, his face so concerned, I suddenly realized why he seemed so familiar.
He was the spitting image of the dad I’d imagined me and Mom going home to, when I was daydreaming on the train, the comfortable kind of dad who wore baggy pants and who lived in a little house on top of a hill.
Chapter Fifteen
BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR
After Dr. West left, I sat staring blankly out at the lawn. What was happening to me? Was my imagination finally taking over my life? I imagined for months that Mom and Dad would break up— and then they did. I imagined a train crash— and then it happened. I imagined a different kind of dad in a house on a hill— a dad who was messy instead of ultra-neat, a dad who was easy to talk to and not always distracted by work, a dad who was home and not in LA— and then Dr. West shows up, just how I imagined him, and starts putting the moves on Mom.
Well, not really. All he said to her was “Call me Sam.” But still—
“Alice?” came a voice at my elbow. I turned, and there was Lily, standing on one foot, frowning. “Do you feel okay? Mom says you’re sick.”
“I’m okay, Lily,” I said. “Just a bit of a headache. Dr. West says I should take it easy.”
Lily sat down beside me. “Mom says your brains got shaken up.” She looked so concerned, I had to smile. I reached out to her and patted her hand.
“Don’t worry, Lily, it’s just a concussion. I know a couple of kids at school who’ve had them. They just rest for a while and then it’s better.”
“Does that mean you have to lie down?”
“Not right now.”
“Good, because Mom left the keys in her purse in the kitchen. She’s gone to dust the living room. So—” She smiled her angelic smile, reached into her pocket and drew out a bunch of keys.
“Hey!” I laughed. “You�
��re pretty good, Lily!”
She smiled. “I borrowed them, like you said. Not stealing. I think so. We’ll put them back after.” She looked a little worried.
“Yes, we will, Lily. It’s just borrowing. Let’s go!”
We went quietly into the house and up the stairs into the dining room. When we rounded the corner into the hall, I could hear Mary humming in the living room. I tiptoed over to the door and saw her dusting the glass animals on the side table with a tiny little feather duster.
“Go!” I breathed into Lily’s ear, and we climbed the staircase. A murmur of voices came from behind Mrs. Bishop’s closed door. Hopefully Mom would be busy with her for a while.
Once in my room, we closed my door tightly, then went into the closet. I turned on the light and closed the doors behind us.
“Just in case anyone looks in,” I said.
Lily nodded, solemnly. “They won’t know we’re in here. I think so,” she whispered.
The door at the end of the closet was locked.
“What?” I said. “This was open yesterday.”
“Mama probably locked it,” said Lily. “She always keeps it locked.”
I started trying keys, one after the other. My hands were trembling. Lily put her hand over mine.
“Don’t shake,” she said.
I took a deep breath and kept trying keys. Finally one turned. We opened the door and Lily pushed past me, as if to rush up the stairs. I grabbed her shirt and held her back.
“Go slow,” I whispered. “The stairs might creak.”
She nodded and slowly, slowly raised one foot.
“Faster than that!” I said, laughing, and gave her a little push. I followed her up. A couple of the stairs creaked, but not very loudly. The walls were thick in this old house. I noticed there was still dust on the stairs. As far as I could tell, with Lily ahead of me, mine were the only footprints from yesterday, going up and down, with a few scuffs where I had fallen.
When we got to the top, Lily headed straight for the window on the opposite wall. I went after her and grabbed her shirt again.
“Tiptoe!” I hissed.
She raised herself on her toes and carefully placed one foot after another, arms outstretched for balance. I stifled another laugh and tiptoed along behind her.
We stood at the window looking out. The tops of the trees tossed in the wind, and we could see far, far away to the southwest, where a bank of clouds was gathering along the horizon over the lake. Beside me, Lily held her breath. I looked over at her.
“It’s so beautiful,” she said, her eyes filled with light. “We’re on top of the world. I think so.”
I looked back out. It did feel like the top of the world.
“Come on,” I said, pulling at her arm. “Let’s see what’s behind that door.”
The second key I tried turned. Lily and I locked eyes. But instead of opening the door, I froze. What if I really was making things happen with my imagination? What if there was someone held prisoner in there? Or worse, a dead body? Or maybe it was the portal to another world where Lily and I would be devoured by dragons, or—
Lily reached past me and pushed the door open.
We took a couple of steps in. We were standing in a large room that stretched the depth of the house, with a large half-circle window on one side identical to the one we had just been looking through on the other side of the attic. The walls were painted buttery yellow and a huge woven rug in dark blues and reds spread across the floor. A tall wardrobe stood in the far corner. There was nothing else there except— a dollhouse.
An enormous dollhouse. The biggest I had ever seen. Sitting right in the middle of the rug.
Lily gasped and slipped her hand into mine.
“A dollhouse,” she said softly. “A secret dollhouse. I think so.”
We walked over to it together. It was taller than me, taller even than Lily, with a peaked roof and two rows of windows across the front. The walls were gray-blue, and the front door had a little porch with two white columns.
“Lily,” I said. “It’s this house.”
It was. It was an exact replica of Blackwood House.
Chapter Sixteen
THE DOLLHOUSE
We circled around to the back of the dollhouse. Each side had three tall windows and two chimneys. A half-circle window stood at either end of the attic. The back had that fancy porch I had seen from the train, with the two curved staircases going down. But there were no French doors leading out from the kitchen in the basement. In their place was a red door.
Otherwise it looked identical to Blackwood House.
Lily was peering in one of the second-floor windows at the back. “How do we get in?” she said.
I investigated and found some hooks on one side. I unhooked them, and the back wall of the house swung open.
Lily and I simultaneously caught our breath, and then let it out in an “ohhh…” of wonder.
Everything was perfect. Each floor was about fifteen inches high. At first it seemed to be a mirror image of the bigger house. The living room had the same furniture and color scheme, even down to the silver candlesticks on the mantel and a tiny shepherdess in a red skirt on a desk with curvy legs in the corner. The dining room had a long, gleaming table and dark-red velvet curtains. The hall was the same, with the chandelier and the curving staircase.
The basement kitchen was different: more old-fashioned, with no counters. Instead there was a long pine table with chairs, rows of kitchen cupboards and a big stove.
My room was the same, with the flowery wallpaper and the floating green bed curtains and—
“There’s someone in your bed,” whispered Lily, digging her fingernails into my arm. “The ghost!”
She was right. The curtains were partly open on this side and I could see a figure lying on the bed. I reached over, my hand trembling again, and gently pulled the bed curtains open.
A girl doll about nine inches long lay on the bed, her eyes closed. She had red hair and was dressed in a white cotton nightgown with embroidery along the top.
Fizz.
I just stared at it for a moment. I felt frozen, the way I felt when I woke up and she was beside me. The whole world seemed to have just stopped.
I swallowed. “How—?” I whispered, but my lips felt cracked and dry. I reached out and grabbed Lily’s arm.
“Alice, are you okay?” Her eyes were big. “You’ve gone all white. I think so.”
I took a deep breath. Then another.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me, Lily,” I said.
“Maybe it’s because your brain is shaken up,” she said.
I shook my head. “No, I mean about the ghost. That doll—”
“She looks just like the ghost I saw,” said Lily. She didn’t sound at all surprised. “Same hair. Same nightgown. I think so.”
I nodded. “I know. I saw her again last night,” I said. “Her name is Fizz. And I saw another girl, in the Silver Room. The ghost took me through the secret passage.”
Lily’s head swiveled back to the dollhouse. There was a row of mahogany doors on the far wall, just like in my room downstairs.
Lily pulled open the doors to the closet. Clothes hung from the rail and there was a built-in dresser to one side. She started pulling at the dresser, but it didn’t move.
“Wait,” I said, then reached in. I grasped the small brass handle on the second drawer down and twisted it. There was a click and the dresser swung open, revealing the secret passage.
We looked at each other.
“It’s just the same,” said Lily. Then we leaned in closer so we could see through to the other room. I could see the bed, but not much more.
“Come on,” I said, scrambling to my feet and going around to the front of the dollhouse. I found the hook along the corner an
d swung the front of the house open.
Again, we were looking into an exact replica of the front part of the house downstairs. The living room, the hallway, Mrs. Bishop’s bedroom, the Silver Room.
The curtains were closed around the bed. Lily gently pulled them open.
A doll with curly dark-brown hair lay with her eyes closed under the white coverlet.
“Bubble,” I breathed.
“Bubble?” said Lily. “That’s what the ghost called me. I think so. She said, ‘Bubble, it’s not time yet.’ What kind of a name is Bubble?”
“A weird name,” I said, thinking about it. “A nickname, maybe.”
Lily reached in and pulled the doll out from the bed. She ruffled her hair.
“She’s bigger,” she said, “than the other one.”
I looked at the doll. “I think you’re right.” This doll was just about the size of a Barbie doll, only she looked more like a real person.
We went around to the back of the house, and Lily took the Fizz doll out of the bed. I was glad she did it. I didn’t want to touch it.
The doll with the dark hair was definitely a couple of inches bigger than the other one.
“Her big sister,” said Lily, sitting one down in a chair and making the other one stand behind her. “I wonder if they have other clothes.”
She rummaged in the closet. “Look, here’s a blue dress,” she said. And then she took off the red-headed girl’s nightgown and fitted the dress over her head.
I couldn’t believe it. Lily was playing with the dolls. The ghost dolls.
“Let’s find something for Bubble to wear,” said Lily, and picking up the dolls, went around to the front of the house again.
“Hey, she’s got a blue dress too,” she said.
I went around and saw that several dresses hung in the closet in Bubble’s room. Lily had the blue dress halfway on her already.
“Look,” she said, holding them up. “Matching dresses! I think so.”
With the dresses on, the dolls looked more real. The dresses were beautifully detailed, with drop waists and pleats…where had I seen dresses like that?
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