“If you are a good reader,” she said, “I can certainly recommend it. But the language might be a little difficult for you yet…How old are you?” She looked up at me. “Whatever’s the matter with you, girl?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
A ghost? I had seen a ghost! Or four! Five if you counted the dog. Was I like the girl in Mrs. Bishop’s book, making it all up from my imagination? Or was all this craziness really happening?
Chapter Twenty-Five
THE PHONE CALL
“Well? What’s the matter with you?” repeated Mrs. Bishop, fixing me with a fierce, penetrating look.
I struggled to return to what she had been saying to me before I started thinking about ghosts. “Uh…nothing. The book just sounds a little…um…scary.”
“Scary! It’s satire, my dear, not horror. You’re much too young for this book if you can’t understand that. Satire is making fun of things.” She sighed. “I suppose that’s why I like Jane Austen so much. She’s light-hearted. I was a journalist for many years, and I had far too much seriousness in my life. Now that I’m older, I enjoy looking on the lighter side of life now and then.”
“Mary said you were a journalist in England,” I said, wanting to keep her on that subject so she wouldn’t ask me any more questions.
“Mary!” snorted Mrs. Bishop. “That woman never stops talking.”
I had to grin.
“I suppose she told you all kinds of things about my life and my business that she has no right to repeat?”
“No, not really, just that you had— um— oh!” I stopped, remembering that what Mary had said was that Mrs. Bishop must have picked up her bad language while she was a journalist in England.
Again, that piercing stare.
“Never mind, I can only imagine what she said to you. But the truth is, yes, I was a journalist for many years, and I ended up owning the newspaper I worked for. It was a man’s world in those days— I daresay it still is. But I made my way and I accomplished nearly everything I set out to do. In my heyday I was what they now call an investigative journalist. Trying to right the wrongs of the world. I was fortunate, I suppose, starting out where and when I did. I moved to England as a young woman and started my career during the war, when there weren’t enough men to fill the jobs, so they hired women instead. I got my start covering bombings in London, and you can’t get any more closely acquainted with reality than that.”
She shook her head, remembering. “After the war, I was always drawn to stories of injustice, and I was young and headstrong, and I believed I could make a difference in the world with my stories. And I think I did. Sometimes. Not always. But that’s over and done with now.” She sighed and gave herself a little shake, like she was shaking off the past. She looked over at me.
“And now I lie in bed reading Jane Austen. At least, I would be reading Jane Austen if you would leave me in peace and stop asking me questions.”
She really was the grumpiest old lady I had ever met. She was the one who started talking to me! And how was I going to get the keys back in her drawer?
“I love your house,” I said. “It’s so beautiful. I was admiring your dresser, earlier, with the mirrors.”
Her face softened. “Yes, it’s lovely, isn’t it? It belonged to my mother.”
“I’ve never seen one like it,” I said, glancing over at it.
“My mother was a very beautiful woman,” said Mrs. Bishop. “She spent a lot of time in front of those mirrors, fixing her face. I never had much use for makeup myself, but having it there reminds me of her.” She sighed again.
“Do those mirrors actually move?” I said. Maybe I could go over and move them so she couldn’t see me and slip the keys back.
“Of course they move. That’s the whole idea. So you can see the side of your face, or your hair.”
“Can I…um…can I see how it works?” I asked.
“Oh, go and look at the thing, if you’re that interested,” she snapped. “You’d think you’d never seen a mirror before.”
I walked over and sat down at the table. I started experimenting with the mirror on the left, the one I could see her in.
“Oh, I see,” I called out to her. “Gee, I wish I had one of these.”
There. I could no longer see her in the mirror. Quickly I took the keys from my pocket, slid the drawer open and placed them inside.
“You’re too young for makeup,” said Mrs. Bishop.
I returned to her bedside.
“Too young for makeup and too young for Jane Austen, I’d say. So what are you good for?”
“I could bring you some lemonade,” I offered. “And some of Mary’s cookies.”
I smiled at her, and she glared at me again.
“Go on then,” she said. “I could use a little snack.” She turned back to her book.
* * *
—
When Mom came home with the groceries about an hour later, I was out in the garden, lying in the shade of a big oak tree with Buttercakes. I’d thrown a stick for him for a while, and when we both got tired of that, we stretched out in the grass together. I figured that was close enough to hear Mrs. Bishop’s buzzer if she rang it again. I was glad to be out of the house for a while. It was giving me the creeps.
While I was helping Mom unpack the groceries, Dr. West came by to pick up the dog. Mom was all kind of giggly and blushing, and he was making jokes and watching her laugh. Honestly, she’d only been away from Dad for a couple of days. What was wrong with her?
He was kind of cute, I guess, with his rumpled shirt and big smile. He had lovely eyes, warm and twinkly. Even I couldn’t help liking him. He took a close look at me and asked me how I was feeling. He asked it not just like a doctor, but like he really cared how I felt.
I looked away and mumbled, “Fine.”
“She had a long sleep this afternoon,” said Mom. “I’m sure it did her good.”
He turned his easy smile back on her and she giggled. Mom. My Mom. Sensible, practical Mom, giggling because a man smiled at her.
Maybe she liked him because he was so different from Dad. The opposite, really. Dad always had a little frown between his eyes, thinking about work, I guess, preoccupied with his building developments, finances, deals— whatever it was that kept him away from us day after day after week after week— Mom was right. He had kind of removed himself from our family life over the last couple of years. He never made it to my choir concerts or student-parent night or even my birthday. There was always a crisis he had to deal with, usually out of town. We hardly ever went antique-hunting anymore. When he was home, I had to really work to get him to turn his attention to me. Even then, I always felt his itch to get back to what was really important, his work.
But he was my dad. I missed him. I wasn’t going to forget him as quickly as Mom seemed to be doing.
As Dr. West and Buttercakes were lingering by the front door, the phone rang in the study and Mom told me to get it.
“Mrs. Bishop’s residence,” I answered, the way Mom had told me to answer the phone in Blackwood House.
“Alice?”
“Dad?” Just when I’d been thinking about him, he called.
“How’s it going, Alice?”
“Oh— fine,” I said.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, sure. How…how are you, Dad?”
“Oh, fine,” he said.
Silence. This was hard.
“Dad, when are you coming back? When will I see you?”
There was a pause. “I don’t know right now. Your mother doesn’t want to see me for a while, and there’s a bit of a crisis here with the new development in LA.”
Another pause.
“But Dad—” I said. “I miss you.” There was a catch in my voice, and I felt like I was going to cry.
&n
bsp; “I know, honey, I— I miss you too,” he replied. “I just don’t know when I’ll be back. But I will see you, promise.”
How many times had he said that. “I’ll be back on the weekend, promise,” or “I’ll be back for the concert, promise,” or “I’ll come to the cottage, promise.”
“Promise,” usually meant the opposite. He wouldn’t be back on the weekend, he wouldn’t be there for the concert, he wouldn’t make it to the cottage. I choked and handed the phone to Mom, who was standing just behind me with a grim look on her face.
I fled.
Chapter Twenty-Six
THE TRUTH
I was afraid to go to sleep that night.
I lay in bed, trying to keep my eyes from closing. It had cooled down a bit, and a breeze was ruffling the bed curtains. I had left the closet light on and the closet door slightly open so the room wasn’t completely dark. The crickets were humming outside, a high-pitched, ringing sound. Then I heard a train whistle, far away, but getting closer.
If I went to sleep, I would dream about the dollhouse. I didn’t want any more of that. I just wanted to be home in my own bed in my small bedroom with Dad and Mom down the hall and the city noises of cars and sirens outside my window. I didn’t want adventures and haunted houses and grumpy old ladies telling me what to do. I didn’t want anything exciting. Just ordinary, boring everyday life again. The way it used to be.
Except it wasn’t. I could be back there, but most likely Dad wouldn’t be. He was hardly ever home anyway. I sighed and turned over.
“I thought you’d never fall asleep,” said a voice from the window.
I sat up. In the light from the closet, I could just make out the figure of someone sitting in the window seat. Fizz. She stood up, made a leap toward the bed and landed half on top of me, laughing.
“I didn’t. Fall asleep,” I protested, untangling myself from her.
“Oh yes you did. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” She flopped down on the pillow beside me.
I reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. She was wearing the same sundress I’d last seen her in.
“You know what’s going on with me, don’t you?” I said, watching her face.
She grinned.
“Yup.”
“Then tell me. I’m sick of you giving me hints and acting so superior. Tell me what’s happening to me.”
Her eyes narrowed and she stopped smiling.
“You tell me.”
“I’m in the dollhouse, right?” I said, fingering the silky green bed curtains that weren’t quite as silky and fine as they were when I was awake. “These are dollhouse curtains, this is a dollhouse bed, and you’re nothing but a doll.”
“Wrong,” said Fizz, sitting up. “I’m not a doll. This isn’t a dollhouse. This is a real house. I was sleeping, sleeping for a long time, and then you appeared in my bed and woke me up. You’re a ghost. You come from somewhere else.”
“Yes! I come from the outside world, and this dollhouse is inside the attic in the big house.”
She shook her head. “Nope. If this is a dollhouse in the attic, how come we can see the moon out there, and trees, and grass and sky?” She pointed out the window.
She had me there.
“Wait a minute,” I said, jumping off the bed and looking under it. I pulled out the bowl of roses. Their sweet smell filled the room.
“I can prove this is a dollhouse. I put these under the bed in the dollhouse in the attic today, and here they are. That proves I’m going into the dollhouse when I’m asleep. It’s some kind of magic dollhouse.”
Fizz threw back her head and started to laugh. She had a loud, distinctive, infectious laugh, and soon she was laughing so hard she had to bury her face in the pillow. So as not to wake up the other dolls in the dollhouse, I guess.
I wanted to slap her. I went and opened the door to the hall and started yelling.
“Wake up, everybody! Wake up! I know you’re all dolls.”
Fizz sat up and tried to speak through her laughter.
I started slamming the door and yelling some more. She jumped out of bed and pulled me away from the door.
“Stop it,” she said. “They won’t hear your voice, but they will hear the door slamming. Stupid. I keep telling you, you’re a ghost. Haven’t you figured that out?”
There was the sound of a door opening in the hall. Fizz leaped for the bed, switched off the light and pulled the covers up to her chin, just in time. Her mother burst into the room and switched on the overhead light.
“What’s going on, Fizz? Why were you slamming the door?”
Fizz opened her eyes. “Whaaa?”
Harriet stood over her daughter. She was wearing some marvelous satiny-blue nightgown that rippled down over her body from her shoulders to her ankles. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been dressed in daytime clothes, in the attic with Mr. Inwood. Time must have passed here. Of course. It was night now and it had been afternoon then.
“Fizz! What’s wrong with you?”
I stood with my back to the wardrobe, watching.
Fizz blinked. “I was asleep. What’s going on?” She was very convincing.
“Your door— it was slamming. Didn’t you hear it?”
“I heard you come in.”
“You know very well that’s not what I meant,” snapped her mother.
“Maybe it’s a poltergeist,” said Fizz helpfully.
“Don’t you poltergeist me, young lady,” said her mother. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you can’t fool me. I’ve had it with your nonsense. The sooner you’re off to boarding school the better. I don’t want to hear one more peep from you tonight, you understand?” She glared at Fizz, who threw the covers over her face.
Harriet stomped out, turning off the light as she went. I moved slowly toward the bed and switched the bedside lamp on.
Fizz sat up, trembling. “She can’t wait to get rid of me. I hate her.”
She covered her face with her hands for a moment and took a few deep breaths. Then she brushed away some tears and looked at me.
“What are you staring at?” she said. “Don’t you ever hate your mother?”
I thought about it. “No. Not really. I get mad at her. But sometimes…sometimes I hate my father,” I said very quietly.
“Why?” asked Fizz. “What does he do to you?”
“Nothing.” I shrugged and sat down on the bed beside her. “He’s just never around. He’s always working. He makes my mother cry, and he acts like he doesn’t care about us.”
“My dad works a lot too,” said Fizz. “But when he’s around, he’s so much fun. He plays with me and Bubble and chases us around the house and gets down on all fours and barks at Sailor and acts like a little kid.”
“He does sound like fun,” I said sadly. “My dad used to play with me when I was little, but he never seems to have the time now. That’s why we’re here. Mom wants a divorce I think…”
“Divorce?” said Fizz. “Really? You don’t think they’ll make up?”
“Not this time,” I replied. “I hope they do, but Mom is fed up. And now she’s flirting with Dr. West—”
“Who’s Dr. West?”
“This doctor guy,” I said gloomily. “I mean, I like him, and I even sort of imagined him before I saw him, the kind of dad I’d like to have, kind of funny and easygoing and always there, but Mom and Dad only split up a couple of days ago. I don’t understand grown-ups.”
“Me neither,” said Fizz. “My mother’s always flirting with Adrian. Mr. Architect, Mr. Don’t-touch-my-dollhouse-with-your-dirty-little-hands Inwood.”
“Oh,” I said, thinking back to the two of them in the attic. “You think she likes him?”
“Oh yeah, she likes him all right,” said Fizz. “And he’s in love with her. You can tell
the way he looks at her. His eyes go all dreamy, and he stutters, and he falls over things when she’s around. It makes Dad mad, but Mother just laughs it off. She likes having men in love with her. It’s sickening.”
“Don’t you want to go to boarding school?” I asked. I’d read a few books about girls in boarding school and it sounded like fun.
“I don’t know. Maybe. Anything would be better than those two gushing about the dollhouse day after day. But I’ll miss Bubble. And Dad. And Sailor.” She fell silent.
A faint breeze stirred the curtains at the window.
“About the dollhouse,” I said. “You were going to tell me what’s going on.”
She looked at me. “Do you really want to know?”
I felt suddenly cold. She had a calculating look on her face, as if she was weighing up my courage.
“Of course I want to know,” I snapped.
Fizz reached out and took my hand, pulling me onto the bed beside her.
“Brace yourself,” she said.
“Oh stop being so dramatic,” I said. “Just tell me!”
“Well…” she began, her eyes big. “Has something happened to you recently? Some kind of accident?”
“Yes,” I said slowly. I didn’t like the sound of this. “I was in a train accident and hit my head.”
“Is that all?” asked Fizz. “Have you been feeling— at all strange?”
I was getting more uncomfortable.
“Well, yes. I’ve been having headaches and I feel kind of dizzy sometimes. I have a concussion.”
“I think you got more than a concussion in that train crash,” she said softly. “I think you died.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A VERY BAD DREAM
Fizz sat watching me, sitting as still as if she were a statue.
I stared at her. I was icy cold now, and I couldn’t quite catch my breath.
“You’re lying,” I said. “This is your idea of a joke.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s not funny. You’re just not ready to hear the truth.”
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