The Dollhouse

by Charis Cotter

  Mom didn’t look like any of those things were going to happen when she marched me into my room and stood over me as I lay down on the bed. It was too hot to get under the covers.

  “Sleep,” she said, as if she expected to be obeyed immediately. “And no dreams or sleepwalking or anything else. Just sleep.” She turned away.

  “But Mom,” I said. “What about Dad?”

  She stood with her back to me for a moment. Then she gave a big sigh and turned back.

  “This is between your father and me, Alice. I know it affects you. I know it’s hard for you. But it’s your dad and me who have to figure it out. Just leave it, okay?”

  Her stern, determined expression had dropped away. Now she just looked tired and sad. I felt a wave of doubt sweep over me. Maybe it was too late for Dad to fix it.

  “Okay,” I said in a small voice, and she left.

  I lay in my little green world inside the curtains, closed my eyes and worried about Mom and Dad for a while. But then I thought of how he’d looked when I saw him standing on the step in the wrinkled suit, and I smiled. It was so good to have him back. And no matter what he said about how he got here, I knew deep inside that the real reason he was here was because I had wished him here, and I had placed the Dad doll on the dollhouse steps. The magic dollhouse. Finally something good had come out of it.

  And it wasn’t a dream. Dad was really here.

  * * *

  —

  I drifted away. I slept for a long, long time. Now and then sounds filtered through heavy layers of sleep. The murmur of voices. Faint, faraway music. A train whistle, blowing sharp and lonely, rising and falling as the train approached, passed and then faded away into the distance.

  I dreamed that I had been sleeping in that floating green bed for years and years— decades— sleeping and dreaming while the world went on without me, waiting for the time when I would wake up and everything would be right again.

  * * *

  —

  When I woke up, the first thing I was aware of was the heat. That thick, heavy heat where it’s hard to take a breath. Then, for a moment, I didn’t know where I was. Or who I was. I had that stunned, just-run-over-by-a-truck feeling that sometimes comes after a long afternoon sleep.

  Then it all came back to me. The haunted house. The magic dollhouse. Dad.

  I sat up. The bed curtains were closed around me. Maybe that’s why I was so hot. Mom must have come in and closed them while I was asleep.

  I pulled them open and went over to the window. I must have slept for a very long time, because the light was beginning to fade. The sky beyond the trees was filled with that strange, metallic light that comes before a storm.

  I tiptoed to the door, opened it and listened.

  All was quiet. They must have let me sleep through supper. I wondered if they would leave me a little while longer, because I needed to go up to the dollhouse. I wanted to take the Dad doll and put him somewhere that would make him stay here with us, that would force him and Mom to make up.

  But where? If I put the Dad doll in the front bedroom in the dollhouse, maybe he’d turn up in Mrs. Bishop’s room in the real house, talking about architecture with her, and she would want him to stay.

  It was lame. I knew it was lame. Or what if I put him in Mom’s bed? I giggled. But the way things were between them, that would probably make her really mad.

  I’d figure something out.

  I fumbled under my underwear in the dresser for the keys, then quietly unlocked the door at the end of the closet. I went carefully up the stairs, trying not to make a sound. In the attic, the fading afternoon sunlight was slanting in the far window, falling in dusty paths along the floorboards. Even though I was eager to get to the dollhouse, I couldn’t resist tiptoeing across to look out.

  Under the tinny, darkening sky I could see the lush summer countryside rolling into the distance and the train tracks snaking between the hills. I saw the train at the same time I heard its whistle— and the dream was suddenly there with me again. I clutched at the memory, feeling it about to disappear again.

  I had dreamed that I was lying in the green-curtained bed, sleeping for years and years, hearing the train whistle…but there, it was gone. I couldn’t remember anything else.

  Something about the dream was pulling at me. Something very sad. Something very wrong. But I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  I turned back into the attic and crossed silently to the dollhouse room. The key turned easily and I was in.

  The room felt hushed and still. In the dim light the dollhouse dominated the room, a huge, dark bulk.

  As I started toward it, I tripped on something, and before I could catch myself, my arms were flailing and I fell with a thud.

  So much for being quiet.

  I sat up and listened, holding my breath.

  There were no sounds from downstairs. Relieved, I looked to see what it was that had tripped me.

  Train tracks. I had tripped over the tracks for a model train. They ran in a wide circle around the edge of the room, encircling the dollhouse. I stood up and followed them to the other side. In one place the tracks ran up and down over a bridge. In another they ran through a woodlot of toy trees. Along the far wall they ran by a little wooden train station. I crouched down to read the lettering on the station wall.

  “Lakeport.”

  It was identical to the station where Mom and I had disembarked from the train from the city the night of the accident.

  Chapter Forty

  ALONE

  I sat back on the floor with a soft thump.

  The tracks hadn’t been here yesterday afternoon. Where had they come from? Had Adrian added the tracks and the station as his latest surprise for Harriet? And just like the summerhouse, once the tracks were set up in the dollhouse world, they were echoed here, in the real world.

  Because…because both worlds were slowly lining up? Adjusting to each other? Coming closer?

  A shiver slithered down the back of my neck. Everything was so quiet. As if we were waiting for something— the big house, the dollhouse and me. The storm?

  I gave myself a shake, stood up and went over to the dollhouse. I unlatched the back and looked in.

  The living room was empty. No party, no dolls in their best clothes. Where were they?

  I looked through the other rooms, and there was no sign of them. All the rooms were empty. The only doll I found was the Fizz doll, lying in the green-curtained bed by herself. Asleep.

  I went around to the front of the dollhouse. The Dad doll was gone. I unlatched the side and swung it open.

  Bubble’s bed was empty, and so was her mother and father’s bedroom across the hall. There was no one in the study, no one in the basement.

  I crossed to the cupboard and pulled out the box labeled Dolls.

  It was empty.

  Whoever had set up the train must have taken the dolls away. I started pulling out all the other boxes in the cupboard, getting more and more puzzled as my search came up empty.

  The clothes were there, the extra furniture was there, the linens for the beds and the dishes and knick-knacks— all of them were there, but no dolls. No Bubble, no Harriet, no Bob.

  And no Dad.

  But they weren’t all gone. Fizz was still here. Asleep in her bed.

  I had a bad feeling about all this. I had a sudden urge to go running downstairs and find Mom and Dad and Lily. I wanted to see them and touch them and make sure that they were real. And that I was real. And that everything that had been happening with the dollhouse was just some crazy hallucination from my concussion.

  I stood up. I must have got up too quickly, because I had a sudden moment of dizziness so strong that I sank back down to my knees and closed my eyes. It must be the heat. The air was thick and I had a hard time breathing, the way you d
o just before a summer storm breaks. The attic seemed twice as hot as the rest of the house. I had to get out of there.

  I got to my feet and lurched across the room. I left the boxes on the floor and the dollhouse standing open. I didn’t even lock the door— I just stumbled toward the stairs.

  Then I stopped myself. These stairs were dangerous. I had to go slowly. I held tight to the railing and took them slowly, one step at a time.

  When I got down into the second-floor hallway, it wasn’t quite so hot, and I took a deep breath. But everything still had that suffocating weight of the coming storm.

  I went to Mom’s room and opened the door. “Mom?” I whispered.

  There was no answer. I tiptoed in and stood at the open bathroom door, looking into Mrs. Bishop’s room beyond. The curtains were closed and the room was dim. I could just make out a motionless figure in the bed.

  Mom must be downstairs. I crept back into the hall and began to descend the curving staircase.

  The house seemed unnaturally quiet. Hushed. Waiting for something.

  I popped my head into each of the downstairs rooms, but no one was there. Mom must be in the kitchen. I started down the stairs to the basement, calling, “Mom?”

  The kitchen was deep in shadows. I flipped the light switch beside the door, but nothing happened.

  “Mom?” I said uncertainly.

  No answer.

  Where was she? She wouldn’t have gone off and left me sleeping with a storm coming and Mrs. Bishop helpless in her room. The vision I had had in the attic, of everyone gone except me, came back. My uneasiness increased.

  Maybe she was outside. I crossed to the door, pushed it open and went out into the garden.

  Night was falling quickly, and I could only just see the outline of the trees at the far edge of the lawn, where the land dipped down into the railway cutting.

  There was no one in the garden. A flash of white near the summerhouse caught my eye.

  “Mom?” I called.

  No answer.

  I headed across the lawn. My bare feet sank into the soft grass. The summerhouse was wrapped in shadows. I slowed my steps.

  “Mom?” I called out again.

  No answer.

  I stopped. A thread of fear twisted up my spine. If it was Mom I had seen, why didn’t she answer? If it was someone else, why didn’t they answer?

  I had the strongest feeling that there was someone or something in that summerhouse that I didn’t want to see. I wanted to turn around and run back to the house as fast as I could, up the stairs, into my room, close the curtains, put my head under the pillow and make it all go away.

  And in that moment, thinking about my bed, my dream came back to me in full.

  I had dreamed I had been lying in my bed, sleeping. Sleeping for years and years, while the world went on around me. All alone in my little green world, waiting to wake up. Lonely. With a train whistle in the distance, getting closer.

  How long had I really been asleep? A few hours? Or a few years? In the dream, it had been decades.

  Standing in the darkening garden with the summerhouse and its secrets looming ahead of me, I began to feel very cold inside. Cold and scared. What was happening to me?

  And then from far, far away came that high-pitched, haunting call of a train whistle blowing.

  Chapter Forty-One

  LEFT BEHIND

  And just as I was standing there, listening to the mournful cry of the coming train, with fear rising all around me in the stifling heat, my knees weak, my heart pounding— the door to the summerhouse creaked open.

  A figure in white stood there. It was too dark to see their face, but whoever it was raised an arm and beckoned to me.

  I couldn’t move. I tried to speak, but it came out as a high-pitched squeak. “Who…who’s there?”

  A laugh rang out through the darkness. A familiar, taunting laugh.

  Fizz.

  “Fizz?” I said, peering into the shadows. I took a step closer.

  She broke away from the doorway and came over to me. She was wearing the same white sleeveless nightgown that she had been wearing the first time I saw her, and her feet were bare, like mine.

  “Did I scare you?”

  “Yes,” I gasped, feeling the breath starting to flow back into my lungs. “Yes, you did scare me! I thought you were a ghost.”

  She laughed again. “We’ve been through all that, Alice. You’re the ghost, not me.” She put a friendly arm around me and drew me toward the summerhouse. I could feel the warmth from her body.

  “I don’t understand,” I said, dazed, as we went in. “I thought I was in the real house, not the dollhouse. I saw Mrs. Bishop in her bed, but everyone else is gone.”

  “Mrs. Bishop?” said Fizz, fumbling with something.

  “The old lady. I told you about her before.”

  There was a snap of a match and a thin streak of golden light sprang up. Fizz had lit a candle that was sitting on a little rattan table with a glass top. For the first time I could see her face clearly. She looked very tired, with her curly hair frizzled from the heat.

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “The old lady. In the other world.”

  “But this is the other world, Fizz! This is the real world, not the dollhouse. Why are you here? Everything feels wrong. I had this awful dream like I was asleep for years and years and everyone had forgotten about me and gone away, and there was a train and—”

  Just then the train whistle hooted again, closer now.

  “There’s always a train,” said Fizz. “We live beside the train tracks.” She sighed and curled up on the rattan sofa.

  I picked up the candle and went over to her. I held the candle high so it illuminated the flowered sofa cushion. The material was bright and new, not faded the way it was in my summerhouse.

  “Oh,” I said flatly. “I guess I’m in the dollhouse after all. But the kitchen—”

  The kitchen had been so dark I hadn’t been able to tell if it was the old kitchen or the modern kitchen. If I had woken up in the dollhouse, then the train tracks were in the dollhouse world, not mine.

  But why was Mrs. Bishop here, sleeping in her bed? Or was that her? All I had seen was a lump— someone was sleeping there, but not necessarily Mrs. Bishop.

  The train whistle hooted again, much closer, and now I could hear the engine rumbling as it drew closer. Or was it the sound of distant thunder? I gave an involuntary little shiver. I don’t like thunderstorms.

  “That’s the eight-thirty freight train,” said Fizz. “I’m waiting for the nine o’clock passenger train from the city.”

  I put the candle back on the table then sat down beside Fizz.

  “Why are you waiting for that train?” I asked. We seemed to be in our own little bubble of light, with the darkness spreading around us.

  “Mother and Dad and Bubble are on it,” said Fizz. “They’ve been gone for three days. Mother’s birthday trip.”

  “I thought you were going with them,” I said, remembering the party. “I thought it was a family tradition, that you all went together.”

  “Yes,” sighed Fizz. “It is. This is the first year I’ve missed.”

  “How come?” I asked.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Mother and I had a huge fight. After the party. She said I was making trouble on purpose, telling Dad lies about her and Adrian drinking all day. I told her…” She stopped. She seemed to be having trouble with this part of the story.

  With a deep breath, she continued. “I told her that if she wanted to have an affair with Adrian, she should be more careful if she didn’t want me to notice and tell Dad. That I loved him and didn’t want her hurting him. That Adrian was a jerk, and if she wanted to get a divorce and marry him, don’t expect to ever talk to me again. That—” She broke off, unable to continue, tea
rs choking her.

  “You said all that to your mother?” I asked. “Is it true? Is she really…um…having an affair? With Adrian?” I made a face. “Eww.”

  “I know,” said Fizz, starting to laugh through her tears. “He’s such an idiot. He may be a famous architect, but he’s not very smart. And he’s mean to Bubble.”

  “But does your mother really like him?”

  “She does! She laughs whenever he talks, and she bats her eyes at him, and they’re always whispering in corners. I…I even saw him kiss her once.” She dissolved in tears again.

  “Yuck,” I said, and put my arm around her. “Maybe she’ll come to her senses.”

  Fizz shook her head. “I don’t think so. She and Dad were fighting about it before they left. She told him she didn’t want me to come on the trip, and I said I didn’t want to come anyway, and Dad said she was breaking up the family, and it just went on and on with them yelling, and my mother crying, and poor Bubble was so scared. Finally Mother said she wouldn’t go at all, and then Dad had to persuade her, and then she only agreed to go if I stayed home.” Fizz jumped up and started pacing.

  “She’s so mean! She didn’t used to be like this. Before the dollhouse, before Adrian, she was fun and played with us. She took us places. We went to England on a family trip, and we had so much fun. I loved England. I just loved it. I loved all the old buildings, and the castles and the beautiful cathedrals. And that’s when we saw the dollhouse. Queen Mary’s dollhouse.”

  “What was it like?”

  Fizz smiled, remembering. “It was fantastic! Bubble and Mother and I went crazy for it. It’s about the size of our dollhouse, only it’s a palace, right? It’s the Queen’s palace, so she has these fancy cars in a garage in the basement, and these big rooms with paintings and crystal chandeliers and a knight in a suit of armor and painted ceilings— oh, it was wonderful. There were even bottles with real wine in them and real books that were specially written for the dollhouse by famous writers.”