The Dollhouse

by Charis Cotter

  “And was all this furniture here then?”

  Lily nodded solemnly. “Yes. But it was covered in sheets! All of it! It was spooky, Alice. It looked like rooms full of ghosts. Sometimes Mama and me would take off the sheets and shake them out. Then she cleaned the furniture and then we’d put the sheets back.”

  I frowned. “So Mrs. Bishop bought the furniture with the house?”

  Lily shrugged again. She had obviously lost interest. “I guess. Let’s make them dance.”

  We borrowed the Dad doll and made him dance with each of the others in turn. I had to dance the girls and she danced Dad.

  “Swirling their skirts.” She hummed one of those classic waltz tunes that are always playing at skating rinks. “Pum pum pum pum pum, pum-pum, pum-pum.”

  I played along. It was fun.

  “They’re so sparkly,” sighed Lily happily. “So sparkly and beautiful.”

  And they were.

  A car door banged outside. I jumped up and went to the window, just in time to see Dr. West’s blue car chugging out of the driveway.

  “I guess that’s long enough,” I said. “We should try and sneak out now.”

  We shut up the dollhouse, leaving the dolls sitting in the living room in all their finery and the Dad doll outside the front door. Then Lily led the way and we successfully sneaked downstairs and out the door that looked over the terrace, then circled around to the front door as if we were coming back from swimming.

  * * *

  —

  Mom and Mary were both fine with Lily staying over that night, but Mom wanted me to have a big rest first in the afternoon. Mary and Lily went home after lunch, promising to return before supper.

  The last thing I wanted to do that afternoon was go to sleep. I was afraid. Maybe tonight, with Lily, it would be different, but that afternoon I didn’t want to dream about the dollhouse again, and see Fizz with her knowing smirk, telling me I was dead.

  But lying in my green curtained bed in the summer heat, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. After catching myself drifting off a couple of times, I got up and moved over to the window seat and made a little bed for myself there in the cushions. Maybe, just maybe, if I wasn’t in that bed, I wouldn’t dream of the dollhouse.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  BALL GOWNS

  I woke what seemed like a long time later. I sat up and pulled back the window curtains.

  Late afternoon light flooded the room. The curtains felt soft and silky under my fingers. I took a deep breath of the warm, flower-scented air.

  I was awake. In the real house. I could hear voices drifting up from the terrace. My mom and Mary, and Lily too.

  I walked carefully around my bed, pulling back the curtains. No sign of Fizz. Of course not. She was in the other house. The dream house. The dollhouse.

  I headed downstairs, touching the highly polished dark wood banister and feeling the lush carpet on the stairs. The real house, large, solid and reassuring.

  “There you are,” said my mother. “Sleepyhead!” She was sitting under the umbrella on the terrace with Lily, who jumped up when she saw me and came running over to give me a hug.

  “I thought you’d never wake up,” she said. “I brought some dress-up clothes. For later…” She tried to wink at me but only managed to screw up her face and blink both her eyes at me at once.

  “Lily, what a silly face,” said my mother, laughing. “You can play dress-up after supper. Right now, I want you and Alice to make a salad while I get the hamburgers ready for the barbecue.”

  * * *

  —

  After supper and dishes, Lily and I went up to my room, where she showed me what she’d brought.

  “Ball gowns,” she said, pulling a long, billowing apricot dress out of a pillowcase. It was strapless with a cinched-in waist.

  “Wow!”

  “And this one—” added Lily triumphantly, producing a turquoise dress of much the same style from another pillowcase. Both dresses seemed to have yards and yards of some kind of stiff lace petticoat underneath that made the full-length skirts stand out like huge bells.

  “Lily, they’re— they’re amazing!” I said. “Where did you get them?”

  “Mama bought them for me at the thrift store. She says they were bridesmaid dresses. I think so. I call them my ball gowns.”

  “Will they fit me?” I asked. I was a lot smaller than Lily.

  “Let’s try.” She held out the turquoise one to me, and I took off my shorts and top and slipped it on.

  “Safety pins,” she said, pulling and tugging at the back. “All we need is safety pins and then you and I will be ready for the party!”

  With a box full of safety pins Mom found in a kitchen drawer, Lily managed to remake the dress on me so it didn’t fall off. I didn’t think Mom would let us wear them to bed, so we took them off, and I got into my nightie and Lily put on her pj’s. Then we went to the library to look at books until it was time to go to bed. I found Mrs. Bishop’s copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and started reading it to Lily. She sat close beside me on the leather couch, transfixed by the story, her mouth open. It was one of the few times I’d seen her sit perfectly still.

  Mom sent us to bed early, and we waited quietly for about half an hour to make sure she wasn’t going to look in again. Then we crept out of bed and got dressed.

  “This way, when we wake up, we’ll be all ready for the dance!” whispered Lily, twirling in the pretty apricot dress. The color suited her and it fit perfectly. She jumped on the bed. “I don’t know how I’m going to go to sleep!”

  After a lot of fluffing and arranging of the big skirts and petticoats, we settled into the bed. I didn’t think I’d be able to go to sleep either, after my long nap. But I soon found myself yawning. Lily was so excited that she took a long time to calm down, wriggling and chirping away about this and that.

  I closed my eyes and let her words wash over me. It was nice to have her there beside me. It made everything a little less scary.

  Eventually she grew quiet. I could feel myself starting to drift away. Then Lily spoke again, her words coming out one by one as if she was very tired.

  “Last time…I was sleeping…in this bed…was when…I saw…the ghost. I think so. But…as long as you’re here…I’m not scared.”

  “Not scared,” she repeated. “Not scared at all. Coming to the party…” Then her voice died away.

  She must be asleep, I thought. I wonder…

  * * *

  —

  Somebody gave me a shake.

  “Wake up, Alice!”

  “Lily?” I opened my eyes.

  “Nope,” said Fizz.

  I sat up. Fizz was sitting on the edge of the bed, the curtains open to the moonlight coming in the window. Lily was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  SPARKLY AND BEAUTIFUL

  “Who’s Lily?” asked Fizz. “And why are you wearing that evening dress?” She peered at it. “It looks a little big for you.”

  I looked down and saw that I was still wearing the pinned-up turquoise bridesmaid dress.

  “I might ask you the same,” I said, and then Fizz noticed what she was wearing. The sparkling green dress that I’d dressed the Fizz doll in earlier, when Lily and I were playing in the attic.

  “Oh,” said Fizz, frowning. “This is Mother’s dress.” She wriggled a little and pulled up one strap, which had slipped down over her shoulder. She laughed. “I guess it’s too big for me too!”

  She jumped off the bed and twirled around. The dress shimmered in the moonlight. Then she came back and plopped down on the bed again.

  “So who’s Lily?”

  “Lily’s my friend. In…in my other world.” I was a bit nervous about saying this, in case Fizz started talking about me being dead again, but s
he just looked mildly curious. “Lily wanted to come into the dollhouse with me in my dreams, so she’s sleeping over, and we got dressed up for a party.”

  “Well, funny thing,” said Fizz, jumping up again and going over to the walk-in closet. “There is a party tonight. But I have better dresses for both of us.”

  I suddenly became aware of sounds drifting up from downstairs: music playing, people talking, glasses clinking.

  Fizz dived into the closet and I followed. Besides now being stuffed with her clothes instead of my sundresses, the closet also held the two zippered-up dress bags I’d noticed in the big house. Fizz unzipped the first one and pulled out a glittering midnight-blue party dress with a drop waist in the style of the 20s.

  “This is too small for me now, but I think it’s about your size,” she said, tossing it in my direction. Then she reached in and pulled out a dark-green dress.

  “My new party dress,” she said, slipping off her mother’s dress. “My father brought it back from the city for me to wear tonight. It’s Mother’s birthday.”

  She looked older in it, more sophisticated. She added a little silver headband then turned to see how I was getting on with her old dress.

  It fit me perfectly. The spangles on the soft, dark-blue material twinkled like a starry sky. I had that feeling I get sometimes with a new dress— that I was suddenly pretty. I twirled for her.

  “Here,” she said, rummaging around the drawer where she found her headband, then handing me a dark-blue one. “This matches that dress.”

  We stood side by side and looked in the mirror.

  “Aren’t we fine?” said Fizz, grinning. “Not that anyone will be able to see you, except Bubble of course, but still, I think we make a pretty pair, don’t we?”

  I grinned back at her.

  “Let’s go to the party,” she said, and led me out of the room.

  As I paraded down the curving staircase behind Fizz, walking slowly and holding my long skirts in one hand and the banister in the other so I didn’t trip, I wondered about Fizz.

  Last time I saw her she was trying to convince me I was dead, a ghost, and all this was the real world. But today she didn’t seem to be giving it another moment’s thought. She’d been a bit curious about Lily, but then dropped the subject. Her party was more important than anything in my world, which I had the feeling she didn’t quite believe in anyway. It was as if she could only focus on one thing at a time, and then her mind jumped away to something else.

  We walked down the stairs and into the party noises— a woman laughing, a murmur of voices, a guy on a scratchy recording singing a song about a girl he loved with a sunny, funny face. The crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling shimmered and a warm golden glow spilled into the hall from the living room.

  Fizz and I stopped just outside the door. The entire living room was lit by a series of candlesticks lined up on the mantelpieces, and the party dresses Lily had chosen for Harriet and Bubble twinkled in the dancing light.

  They were both exactly where Lily and I had placed them in the dollhouse, but there were other people there too. Harriet, all in silver from head to toe, glittered on the white silk couch, talking to an older man with white hair. He wore a tuxedo with a snowy white shirtfront and was laughing at something Harriet had just said.

  Bubble sat on a green wing chair near them, wearing the sapphire-blue gown that made her look much older than the matching outfits she usually wore with Fizz. Wearing grown-up clothes, Bubble looked so much like her mother in that uncertain light that they could have been twins. Bubble was listening to her mother’s story and smiling happily.

  Lily had been right. It was sparkly and beautiful. Just the way a party should be.

  Fizz, who seemed to have forgotten all about me, glided into the room and sat down in the opposite wing chair to Bubble, just where Lily had put her in the dollhouse.

  A man I recognized as Fizz’s father from the photograph stood on one side of the fire, facing Adrian, the architect, who stood at the other. Both were in immaculate tuxedos and scowling at each other. They looked like two bristling dogs squaring off for a fight, and for some reason, this made me want to laugh. If what Fizz told me was true, they were both jealous of each other. Adrian because he was in love with Harriet, and Bob because Adrian was spending too much time with his wife.

  Bob broke away from the scowling contest first and turned to Harriet with an expansive smile.

  “Time for some bubbly, darling?” he said. “And a birthday toast?”

  “Yes, please,” said Harriet.

  He strode over to a side table where a large bottle of champagne stood in an ice bucket surrounded by wide-rimmed wine glasses. With a flourish, Bob held the bottle at arm’s length, and then he paused, making sure that every eye in the room was on him. Satisfied, he turned back to the champagne, and with a sudden upward swing of his arm, he slashed a gleaming knife against the neck of the bottle.

  Bubble and Harriet shrieked as the glass broke cleanly, the top of the bottle flew across the room and the champagne bubbled up in a fountain over Bob’s hand.

  Bob quickly poured the frothing champagne into a glass and held it out to Harriet.

  “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said.

  She rose and took it from him, and he kissed her. Something green on her finger flashed in the candlelight as she raised the glass to her lips.

  A large, sparkling emerald ring. Where had I seen an emerald ring recently?

  “You’re such a show-off, Bob,” she said, laughing. She turned to the older man on the couch. “How many times have you seen him do that trick, Fred?”

  The man was also laughing and shaking his head. “I couldn’t count.”

  “But Adrian’s never seen it, have you, Adrian?” said Harriet, bestowing a dazzling smile on the architect.

  “No,” he said, coming forward into the family circle. “It’s very impressive, Bob. Dangerous, but very impressive.”

  “Not dangerous when you know what you’re doing, Adrian,” said Bob smoothly. “Which I do.” Then he turned away from him and poured two more glasses and held them out to his daughters.

  “Bubble and Fizz,” he said, grinning. “Tell me. Come on, tell me!”

  “Oh, Daddy, really,” said Fizz, rolling her eyes. “Do we have to go through this every time?”

  He laughed. “Yes, you do! Come on. Bubble?”

  Bubble was dancing on her tiptoes in front of him, laughing.

  “I’m Bubble because I’m happy and bubbly, and I remind you of your favorite drink, champagne! That’s true.” She held out her hands and he gave her a brimming glass.

  “That’s my girl,” he said. “Now, Fizz?”

  She rolled her eyes and said quickly in a singsong, bored voice, “I’m-Fizz-because-I’m-always-popping-like-the-fizz-in-your-favorite-drink-champagne.”

  Bob handed her the glass, grinning. Both girls held out their glasses to their mother. “Happy Birthday, Mother,” they said in chorus, and took a drink.

  So that was where their odd names came from. Champagne. I’d had my first taste of champagne last New Year’s, when Dad had actually been home, and he and Mom were getting along for a change. Getting along so well that they decided I could have a little glass of “bubbly,” as Mom called it. It was the most wonderful drink I had ever tasted. The fizz and the bubbles went right up into my eyeballs and made me giggle.

  “Aren’t they a bit young to drink?” said Adrian.

  His words dropped into the happy room like dead weights, bringing all the laughter to a sudden halt. There was a brief, echoing silence and then Bubble piped up.

  “I’m not too young. I turned twenty-one last April. That’s true.”

  Another uncomfortable silence.

  Bubble certainly looked twenty-one tonight, but everyone in that room knew that she was just
a little girl in every other way. Adrian had brought unwanted attention to the fact that Bubble was childlike, and likely to remain so. By doing so, he had embarrassed himself and everyone else. His ears turned a fiery red.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  INTO THE DARK

  Bob shot one quick, dirty look at Adrian, then he ruffled Bubble’s hair and smiled down at her.

  “So you did, sweetie, so you did. And we all had a drink together on that occasion in this very room to celebrate your birthday,” he added, shooting another dirty look at Adrian.

  “And I’m not too young either, Adrian,” piped up Fizz. “I’ve been drinking since I was four,” she told him. “Champagne’s my favorite, but there’s nothing like a martini. Cheers!” She raised her glass to him with that superior smirk I knew so well and drained the remaining champagne in one gulp.

  “Oh, stop it, Fizz,” snapped her mother. “You’re as much of a show-off as your father.”

  Fizz winced as if she’d been slapped. Harriet flashed a rather forced smile on Adrian.

  “It’s quite harmless, Adrian. Bob and I give the children wine with Sunday dinner and champagne on special occasions. One glass only. We’ve done it for years. We think it helps them develop a responsible attitude to alcohol.”

  Fizz jumped in. “Like yours, I suppose?”

  Everyone froze. For the second time in five minutes, it seemed like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

  Harriet turned to her daughter and spoke slowly, enunciating each word. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said,” replied Fizz. “You’re ever so responsible with your drinking, aren’t you, Mother?” She began counting on her fingers. “Sherry in the morning when Adrian comes to show you some new little treasure he’s made for the dollhouse; Scotch in the afternoon when you’re talking to Adrian about the dollhouse; martinis before dinner when Adrian is here to talk more about the dollhouse.”

  Each time she said “Adrian” she made it into a bigger sneer than the time before.