“Yes,” I whispered back.
“Are you really me?” asked Fizz. “I don’t understand.”
“I came back to find you,” said Mrs. Bishop. “I left you here in the dollhouse after the train crash. I should have taken you with me. I would have had more fun.”
“Why didn’t you take me?” asked Fizz.
Mrs. Bishop looked over at me for a moment. In her eyes I could see everything she had told me. She looked back at Fizz.
“Because it hurt too much,” she whispered. “It just hurt too much.”
“Yes,” said Fizz, “I know,” and tears began to spill down her cheeks. Mrs. Bishop opened up her arms and folded her into a hug.
“I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Bishop.
For a moment all I could hear was the moaning of the wind outside and Fizz crying softly.
Lily squeezed my hand again.
“Will they be happy now?” she asked. “Now that they’re together again?”
Mrs. Bishop’s eyes met mine over Fizz’s head.
“I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
“I do,” said Mrs. Bishop, and then I realized that the wind wasn’t just moaning outside, it was beginning to howl. The curtains billowed in at the windows and then a violent gust of wind blew them up in the air and the candles flickered. I could feel the darkness I had tried to keep at bay pressing in on us from all sides.
Lily slipped her hand into mine.
“Alice?” she said uncertainly.
Mrs. Bishop’s voice rang out above the growing tumult of the wind.
“It’s over, Alice. It was always going to come to this, no matter how many candles you lit. You were hurt too badly in that train accident, even though nobody could tell. And it’s all for the best. Now we can all rest.”
Fizz pulled away from Mrs. Bishop and turned to face us.
“We’re all going to sleep now, Alice,” she said, smiling. “A deep, happy sleep. You’ll see.”
Seeing the two of them together, both with the identical all-knowing smirks on their faces, was more than I could bear.
“You two may want to die,” I said, “but Lily and I do not.”
“Oh, Lily isn’t really here,” said Fizz. “She’s just part of your dream.”
“I am not!” said Lily. “I’m just as real as you, you stupid doll! I think so!”
Mrs. Bishop laughed. “You couldn’t possibly understand, Lily. This is beyond you.”
“I understand that you’re mean,” said Lily. “And so is Fizz. You’re both mean. Come on, Alice, let’s get out of here.”
“And where, exactly, do you think you can go, Lily?” asked Mrs. Bishop sweetly.
The wind had picked up even more and the house seemed to be trembling around us. The candle flames faltered and then came back again, sending strange shadows across the room.
“Home,” said Lily. “Back to the real house. We’ll wake up and everything will be okay. I think so.”
Fizz laughed. “Maybe you can do that, Lily, but Alice can’t. She’s already fading.”
Lily turned to me and her face fell.
“Alice?” she said in a small voice. “Are you feeling okay? You look funny.”
I grabbed the candle from the bedside table and took it over to the dresser with the three mirrors. My face looked back at me, multiplied by three, quivering in the uneven light. All three of me were very pale, and there was something wrong with my hair at the back, where it was sticking up. I put up my hand to feel.
It came away wet and red.
“You’re bleeding, Alice,” said Lily beside me. “We gotta get you home so Dr. West can fix you. I think so.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
THE ILLUMINATED DOLLHOUSE
I turned back to the bed, where Fizz and Mrs. Bishop were sitting side by side, watching me. They weren’t laughing anymore.
“I’m sorry, Alice,” said Fizz. “I told you. You wouldn’t believe me.”
“I’m not dead yet,” I said. “Come on, Lily.” I pulled her into the hallway, where the candle flames were dancing madly.
The wind was screeching now, tearing around the house like so many howling banshees trying to get in.
“Where can we go, Alice?” cried Lily, gripping my hand with two of hers.
“To the dollhouse,” I said. The magic dollhouse. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. The dollhouse had been the key right from the beginning. Maybe now, somehow, it could help us get back.
As we passed from the hall into my room, a rush of wind scooted after us and blew out all the candles. The house plunged into darkness.
I stopped.
“We have to go up in the dark, Lily,” I said.
“No, we don’t,” she replied, letting go of my hands and fumbling with something.
A couple of seconds later a faint, narrow beam of light trickled out from something she held in her hand.
“It’s a penlight,” she said triumphantly. “I think so. Dr. West gave it to me for my birthday. I always carry it in my pocket.”
The door of the dollhouse room stood open, as I had left it, and a strange, bright glow was coming from the room beyond. A yellow, flickering light.
Lily and I stopped at the threshold and peered in.
The dollhouse was alight with candles, like a huge birthday cake. Both sides stood open, and inside, all the candles I had lit in the bigger house were burning brightly. Tiny perfect candles, lighting up the house.
“Oh!” gasped Lily, clasping her hands. “It’s so beautiful!”
It was. The house was at its very best, with the rich fabrics of curtains and couches gleaming in the soft candlelight, the paintings illuminated, the chandelier sparkling in the downstairs hall. We circled around it, almost breathless with the magic of this dazzling, impossibly beautiful miniature world.
There were no dolls. It was empty, as it had been when I came up here after my nap.
“Alice,” said Lily softly, slipping her hand into mine. “I have never seen such a wondrous sight in all my life. I think so.”
I had to agree.
Just then I became aware of two things almost at the same time. The first was the wind, which had continued to growl and moan around the house ever since we left Mrs. Bishop and Fizz. A gust tore through the open window and all the candle flames in the dollhouse flickered, then grew larger. The second thing I became aware of was the smell of something burning.
I looked more closely at the nearest candles, which were on the mantelpiece in Fizz’s bedroom. The flames were blowing this way and that and the bed curtains were smoking. As I gazed at them, a flame flicked up and suddenly the bed was on fire.
Lily grabbed my arm and screamed. All at once, everywhere in the dollhouse, the candle flames were being fanned by the wind and all those lovely, sumptuous fabrics were catching fire. The rugs in the living room, the couches, the chairs, the bed curtains in Bubble’s room.
The fire was spreading incredibly fast, fed by the wind that whistled in through the window. I ran over and pulled it shut, but it was too late. The dollhouse walls were burning now, and I could feel the crackling heat scorching my face.
“Lily!” I yelled. “We have to get out of here!”
We raced out the door, and I shut it behind me, hoping to stop the spread of the fire. Then we stumbled down the stairs, through my room and into the hall.
The house was very dark. The roaring of the wind filled our ears, and underneath that, the ominous crackle of flames in the dollhouse room upstairs.
I thought of Mrs. Bishop, lying helplessly in bed, with Fizz beside her. Moving through the hallway was like moving through a pot of black paint, with the narrow light from Lily’s flashlight barely breaking through the dense darkness. I held her hand and led
her into Mrs. Bishop’s room.
“Mrs. Bishop,” I began. “We have to get you out of here—” And then I stopped. The penlight’s wavering beam passed over the empty bed.
Mrs. Bishop and Fizz were gone.
No sooner did I see that the bed was empty, than Lily’s flashlight blinked out. She dropped my hand.
“Lily?” I said, reaching for her.
There was no answer.
I was alone.
Chapter Fifty-Five
THE STAIRS
The darkness was complete. No moonlight coming in through the windows. No starlight. Just deep darkness all around me. The wind picked up, screeching around the outside of the house, sweeping in the windows.
I felt my way out of the room into the hallway. The wind began to howl and sing, and I could hear curtains flapping and things falling off shelves and breaking.
And all the while the darkness thickened around me like a big, dark blanket. I could barely breathe. The darkness had an intense, quiet energy that was big enough to swallow the whole house. The whole world.
It was coming for me. Like Mrs. Bishop had said. Had it already taken her and Fizz away? How could I possibly stop it? Death was all around me, silent, relentless. Completely impersonal.
I was going to die.
I fell to my knees in the hall, covering my head with my hands, trying to hide from Death.
And as I crouched there, wind and darkness all around me, something completely unexpected happened. Images of my mother came into my mind. Laughing as she told me stories of her cooking disasters while I put the macaroni and cheese together for Mrs. Bishop. Shouting at Dad over the muffins when he said he had to work for six more months before he could quit. Crying on the train all afternoon as we traveled away from the city toward Blackwood House. Bursting into my room after I first saw the ghost in my bed, her hair sticking up. Smoothing my forehead as I lay in bed with my everlasting headache.
And then came images of my dad. Standing on the doorstep in his wrinkled suit, his eyes lighting up when he saw me. Pleading with my mother to give him another chance, that he really meant it this time. Hugging me tight, smelling of soap and aftershave.
What would they do without me? What would I do without them?
“No,” I whispered to that insidious, all-powerful darkness. “Not yet.”
I scrambled to my feet. A sound like a freight train bearing down on the house filled my ears.
I’d seen a movie about a hurricane once. This was definitely starting to feel like a hurricane. A hurricane that was barreling through Blackwood House.
I had to get out.
With one hand groping along the wall to my right, I took careful steps toward the stairs. If I could just get down the stairs and outside, maybe I would be okay.
Suddenly there was no more floor under my left foot— just air. I struggled not to lose my balance, but at that moment a tremendous blast of wind came up behind me and pushed me down the stairs.
I felt that sickening rush of adrenaline as I fell into space, and then a horrible jolt as I hit the wall, then went tumbling down. I rolled over and over, banging my head again and again.
The pain in my head came back in a rush, and this time, if possible, it was even worse than before. It seemed to burst out of my head and expand to fill all the rooms in the house. The roaring of the wind and the screaming of the pain in my head seemed to join together until I felt like I was at the center of a galloping storm.
Then I hit the bottom of the stairs and thumped my head one more time. The darkness I had been working so hard to keep at bay closed around me and bore me away.
Part Six
THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
Chapter Fifty-Six
TOUCH AND GO
“Ahhh…lisss”
Somebody was calling me softly in a spooky voice.
“Ahhh…lisss”
My head hurt. A dull pounding. I opened my eyes, but had to shut them again right away because the room was too bright.
“Alice!” said the voice with delight. “You’re awake!”
I squinted my eyes open just a little and saw Lily standing beside my bed, grinning at me.
Except it wasn’t my bed. This bed had metal railings on the side, and there was a bright light in the ceiling, bearing down on me.
“Ellie!” called Lily in a loud voice that made me wince. “Mr. Greene! She’s awake!”
I turned and saw that the wall on my right was a window, and there were three people standing on the other side, but then they rushed into the room, and my mom was there, and my dad, and they were hugging me and crying and laughing.
“Ouch!” I said as Lily gave me another heartfelt hug. “My head hurts.”
“Be careful, Lily,” said Mom.
Dr. West was there, too, and he gave me a huge smile.
“Welcome back, Alice,” he said. “You gave us all a good scare.”
He took my pulse, checked some screens at the back of my bed, and looked into my eyes with a little flashlight. It looked familiar. Didn’t Lily have a light like that?
“Head hurt?” he said.
“Yes.”
“It will for a while. We’ll give you some more painkillers soon. You’ve been through the wars.” He reached out and touched something on my head, and for the first time I realized there was a big bandage wrapped around my head. I put up my hand to feel it.
“What…what happened?”
Mom’s face appeared beside Dr. West’s. “You’ve had surgery, Alice. It turned out that there was a little bleed in your brain, caused when you hit your head in the train, but it was so small it didn’t show up on the CAT scan. When Lily went to wake you up, she couldn’t rouse you, so she came and got me. You were unconscious. We got you to the hospital in an ambulance, they found the bleed and went in and stopped it.”
“Am…am I going to die?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Mom put her hand over her mouth and shook her head, tears in her eyes. She couldn’t answer me.
Dr. West jumped in. “No, Alice, you are not going to die. You’re going to be fine. You just need a few days in hospital and then some quiet time, and you’ll be going swimming again with Lily in a couple of weeks.”
A huge sense of relief flooded through me. Mrs. Bishop was wrong. It wasn’t my time.
“But what about Mrs. Bishop?” I asked. “Is she okay? Did she die?”
Mom frowned. “She’s fine. Mary’s with her. Why do you ask?”
“Oh. I don’t know,” I replied. “I was worried about her.”
“Don’t worry about anything,” put in Dad, coming closer and planting a kiss on my forehead. “You’re going to be fine; Mrs. Bishop is already fine. And I’m going to stay around for an extra week or two till you feel better.”
I looked from him to Mom. “Are you and Mom fine too?” I asked.
“Lily, let’s leave Alice alone with her parents for a while,” said Dr. West. “How about some ice cream from the cafeteria?”
“Okay,” said Lily, with a little bounce. “I’ll see you later, Alice.”
After they left, Mom and Dad sat down, one on each side of my bed, each of them holding one of my hands.
“We were so worried,” said Mom. She sniffed and then pulled a Kleenex out of her pocket and wiped her eyes.
“We thought we were going to lose you,” said Dad.
“Really? Could I have died from this? Mom?” My voice rose into a squeak.
“Stephen, for goodness’ sake,” snapped Mom. “You’re scaring her.”
“No, I need to know,” I said. “Could I have died?”
“You’re fine now,” said Mom. “We caught it in time. But if Lily hadn’t gone in and tried to wake you up when she did…well, it would have been touch and go.” Then she started to cry again,
and Dad went around the side of the bed and wrapped her in his arms.
After a while she stopped crying and turned back to me. “I felt terrible we hadn’t realized earlier that there was something wrong, but your symptoms were those of someone who had a mild concussion, and we just had no way of knowing.”
My head was aching worse now, after all the excitement. I closed my eyes for a minute.
“We should let you sleep,” said my mother.
“No…wait!” I said, opening my eyes again and reaching out to clutch at her arm. I needed to ask her one more thing. “You and Dad…are you going to be okay? Are you going to…get a divorce?”
They exchanged looks. Then Dad spoke.
“Alice, I have to go back to LA for a while to work over the next few months, but I’m leaving the company at Christmas, and I’m going to find work that keeps me close to you, no matter what happens.”
“You mean…you might still get a divorce?”
“Alice,” said Mom, “we just don’t know. Right now all you have to worry about is going back to sleep and getting better.”
She bent over and kissed me. Then Dad did the same, and then they left.
I closed my eyes. I felt I could just slip away, into the darkness again.
I opened my eyes quickly. Into the darkness. I didn’t want to go there. What if there was another bleed, if they still hadn’t caught everything? What if I went to sleep and never woke up?
The thin hospital blanket was pale green, and it felt soft under my hand. Someone had turned the overhead light off and the room had lost its glare. I had no idea what time it was, or what day it was. My head hurt, and I was so tired.
My eyes closed again. Mrs. Bishop had been wrong. It wasn’t her time yet. And it wasn’t my time either. That dream I had of Mom in the train, crying over my dead body, it was just that: a dream. Something I was afraid of, something I had imagined happening, but something that hadn’t really happened.
Or had it really happened and I changed it somehow? By lighting the candles against the dark? By burning down the dollhouse? Had I really burned it down? I forgot to ask Mom about the fire. Was that all part of the dream?
The Dollhouse Page 22