Dollhouse (10 page)

Henry Fiveash’s misquoted Shakespeare intruded on my thoughts, together with his bashing notes on the pipe organ and the growls of the dogs. Meaningless, jumbled sounds from the past few days.

A coldness ran along my back
. The pipe organ.
Where was it?

I ran my hands through my hair, fingers catching at the knots. We’d searched the entire house, even the basement. I hadn’t seen it in any room. It’d been dark, but we hadn’t missed any rooms. Had we?

Ethan and Lacey dozed. That wasn’t safe. Henry could have a reason to come into the shed at any time. I didn’t want to tell them about the pipe organ. It would just be one more stupid, dead-end thing on this wild goose-chase.

I tried to run through each room in my mind—each corridor, the attic, the basement, the kitchen. There had to be false wall somewhere—a secret room.

My mind spun, arms flailing as I tried to feel my way around the house—trying to recreate every wall and surface.

“You’ve become me,” Ethan remarked.

I turned sharply.

He propped himself on his elbows. “You’re losing it. I can tell. After this, you need to get out of here. Never come back.”

“It’s all sending me crazy.” My voice was low, hushed—unlike me.

“Tell you what. I’ll distract the dogs later, while you and Lacey run the other way.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Yeah you can. It’s been decided.”

“I want to tell you something.” I breathed deeply. “I’m with you on Henry Fiveash. Something’s wrong—and it all points to him.”

Ethan sat up. “Then you understand why I need to stay up here on the mountains.”

I didn’t know what or why, but Henry had to know something. I’d had that weird dream about him, and some of it had remained in my head, like coffee grains in a cup that refused to dissolve. Maybe he wasn’t directly guilty of anything, but something was being concealed. I only hoped Ethan wasn't involved, didn't know something he wasn't telling us.

It was time for confessions.

“Ethan... Last night ….”

“Don’t say a thing. You don’t need to.”

I glanced at Lacey. She still seemed fast asleep.

“I’ve been beating myself up.”

He winced in acknowledgement, staring hard at the floor. “I know what beating yourself up feels like.”

“I didn’t mean to do...  what I did. I regret it.”

His jaw hardened. “No regrets. No way to live a life.” He lifted cool brown eyes to me. Anyway, what were you doing a minute ago? You looked like a demented chicken.”

I knew Ethan was just trying to change the subject—to ease my discomfort.

“This is stupid ….” I hated myself as I spoke. “But I didn’t see a pipe organ. You know, the one we heard the other day? I was trying to figure out where it could be.”

His expression froze. “Me either. How did I miss that!”

Nodding dumbly, I wrapped my arms around myself. “There has to be another room.”

Ethan touched his fist to his forehead.

I tried to remember the sounds, tried to remember the up-and-down melody. “There’s probably some stupidly simple explanation. Like it’s a recording or something.”

“It’s not a recording,” he told me. “I know that one hundred percent. I’m going to stake out the house until I find out where that thing is. I’ll wait until the morning, when the old guy goes out for his favorite hobby—chopping wood.”

Lacey woke yawning.

“New plan, Lacey,” Ethan told her. “We're staying here overnight. Let’s pool our food and see what we have.”

I checked my bag. “I’ve got a liter of water, breakfast bars, hard bread, cheese and cracker packs, and dried apricots. Enough to share.”

Lacey chewed the inside of her cheek. “I brought water too. And coffee. And um, sultanas I think ….”

“You were supposed to be the camping expert, Lace,” I told her.

Ethan grinned at me, amused at my annoyance. Lacey squeezed her eyes shut, as though she wanted to slide back into sleep.  I calmed myself—stopping myself from saying anything else. Lacey couldn’t help how she was. She’d provided all the camping gear, but it was too much to expect she’d care about food supplies.

“How about you, Ethan?” I asked him.

“I was hoping you girls would have the nosh. I’ve got some chocolate, but it’s probably pretty mushed.”

“But you’re planning on staying here for months—what did you expect to eat?”

Ethan pointed towards the house.

“You’ve been stealing food from the kitchen?” I gasped.

“So what?” Ethan protested. “He stocks up months or even a year ahead—you should see his stash. I saw him drive a load back the day before you girls came here. He used a wheelbarrow to cart it all into the house. Took him a few trips, and maybe a few hours.”

“Guess it makes sense for him stock up when there’s not exactly a supermarket around the corner. But if he sees you, he’ll be on the phone to the police.”

“I sneak in at night—he’ll never see me.”

I decided it didn’t matter if Ethan was stealing food. He had to survive out here somehow.

“You made out like it was the first time you’d been in the house—the night we all searched it,” I accused him.

He shrugged. “Yeah—so I already looked through the house. But I was hoping you girls might see something I missed. And if I told you I’d already been in there, you might not want to go.”

Lacey shot me a look I interpreted as,
See? He can’t be trusted.

I handed around portions of food just before night closed in. Lacey took a bird’s sized bit of bread and handed the rest back.  Ethan ate noisily, barely closing his mouth. I guessed his half-deaf grandfather wouldn’t have taught him how to eat in company. At first it was cute, but soon started to grate so much I was glad when he finished.

Was I in Ethan’s tent?

I checked my surroundings. And then remembered the shed—and settling in behind the bar last night.

Relieved, I wiped the drool from the side of my mouth.  Ethan and Lacey were still asleep. I stood, stretching stiffly.

I felt a lingering want—something leftover from having been so close to Ethan all night. I tried to shake it, but it clung to me like a lonely ghost.

The world outside the tiny window was caught in that deep patchy gloom just before daybreak—the air hung with swirling mists.

The loud slam of a door shook me completely awake. It had to be the back door of the house.

I ran to kneel in between Ethan and Lacey, shaking them both roughly. “Henry!”

Both woke startled, confused.

I peeked through the window again. Henry threw large pieces of animal to the dogs—then made plodding steps through the mist into the dogs’ enclosure.

“Mornin’ mutts,” he said. “Get into that tucker.”

I ducked as he unlatched the door. The door slammed shut and his feet shuffled across the floor. He cursed as he kicked his foot into something. He stacked wood into his arms—the unmistakable sound of wood hitting wood. Then offloaded it somewhere, with a heavy clunk.

A metallic noise echoed through the shed as he moved something heavy. It had to be the water tank lid. He grunted with the effort. A weird series of clicking noises followed. Closing my eyes, I listened hard. Desperately, I wanted to peek over the top of the bar, but I’d be too easily seen.

A clanging noise sounded as his boots hit something—the bottom of the water tank? A grinding clamor wound downwards. I glanced over at Ethan and Lacey. The muscles at Ethan’s neck strained. Lacey’s eyes were stony.

Ethan and I stared at each other as the first strains of the pipe organ played. He jumped to his feet.

“No.” I pulled him down. “Don’t go rushing after Henry now. Wait until he leaves.”

Breathing hard, Ethan crouched to the floor.

“What if it’s just, I don’t know, a wine cellar or something?” said Lacey in a small voice.

“Who plays piano in their wine cellar?” I whispered.

Ethan flexed his hands. “Whatever it is—it’s not staying secret any longer.”

Henry didn’t stay down there for more than a few minutes—it hardly seemed worth the effort to go down there to bash out a few notes and then leave. But the grinding sound echoed through the shed again and he trudged out through the door.

I edged my nose around to the window. Henry walked off into the woods with his axe.

“He’s going off to chop more wood,” I said.

Ethan ran to the water tank—Lacey and me following.

He lifted the lid away, and then turned back to us. “I don’t get it. Once you jump down there, you can’t get out again. He must have used a ladder—but there’s no ladder here.”

“There was a ladder in the basement,” Lacey said.

“He didn’t bring anything with him—especially not a ladder,” I told her.

Ethan cursed in frustration. “Well what the hell did the guy use? Sounded like he chucked a load of wood in there.” He trod over to the pile of wood on the other side of the shed, piling a load of it into his arms. With a grunt he offloaded the wood into the tank. It hit the bottom with a series of clunks.

“Well that did sweet nothing.” He cursed under his breath.

Lacey brushed wispy strands of hair back from her face. “What about all those other noises? That clicking?”

Ethan stared at her. “Yeah you’re right. But what made the clicks?”

Frowning deeply, he fitted the lid back onto the tank. He knelt—and instead of lifting the lid, tried to turn it.

The lid
clicked
.

You wouldn’t think anything of it ordinarily—it just sounded like the lid had hit a groove or something. But Lacey was right—there had been at least five clicks before Henry had left for the space that held the pipe organ.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hear the sounds again. “It’s a lock!”

Gazing around at Ethan and Lacey, I pointed at the lid. “It’s some kind of lock—like a safe.”

Ethan blew out air. “If you’re right—there’s no way we’ve going to fluke it—could be any combination.”

“It sounded like the lid was dragged one way, then back—then maybe completely around,” I said.

“That’s the best we’ve got. I’m going with that,” Ethan told me.

Ethan dragged the lid clockwise, and then followed my instructions.

He lifted the lid off. Nothing had shifted.

We tried it again counter clockwise. Ethan tore the lid up again.

Nothing happened.

I tried to recall the clang of Henry’s boots hitting the metal of the water tank. “It sounded hollow—kind of tinny when he jumped in.” I eyed the tank. “Almost like he didn’t. I mean, almost like he jumped on the lid itself.”

Ethan stared at the water tank cover. Sweat beading on his upper lip, he pushed the lid around again—this time going back to the clockwise start.

“Now what?”

Shrugging, I jumped on the lid.

A knocking sounded underneath me, and the tank began to drop.

Wide-eyed, Ethan and Lacey jumped onto the lid next to me as the tank descended.

I fumbled through my pocket for my torch as a dark hole opened up above the top wall of the tank. The entrance to some kind of cave.

Cold, stale air rushed up.

We had to bend to step from the lid to a rock platform. I edged onto and along the platform. A rope ladder swung beneath—falling away into darkness.

“It’s not a pit of snakes down there?” Lacey peered over the edge.

The tank ground upwards as soon as we were all off the lid. I felt entombed. But Ethan's eyes spoke of grim anticipation. He was completely in his own space. I couldn't allow a wheedling voice—mine—to intrude. A large grimy, red button was set into the rock wall. I had to hang onto the sight of that.
The way back up.

Ethan dropped himself over the edge, moving quickly down the ladder. I doubted anything would have stopped him now.

Turning myself backwards, I stepped onto the rickety rope. Within twenty steps I put my foot on solid rock.

I shone my torch around the space. “Can’t see anything.”

Lacey bumped into me as she jumped from the bottom of the ladder. We all stayed together in a tight bunch, looking for something—anything. Dark things squashed into my mind. There could be unimaginably worse things in places like this than Lacey’s pit of snakes.

I shrieked as something brushed my face.

Reaching up, my hand grasped a rope with a wooden handle. I pulled it.

Light flooded the cave. The pull-cord above my head dangled from an immensely high ceiling—a fluorescent light dimly illuminating the cave’s rocky ceiling and edges.

My stomach knotted at the sight of a line of lofty, thin people standing not far from me. Then I realized they were wooden clown statues—taller than Ethan.

I stared about the cavernous room. Whatever I’d imagined finding, it wasn’t this.

 Just about every available space was crammed with circus paraphernalia and weird curios. Broken carousel horses littered the floor near big-wheel tricycles and penny-farthings. A store dummy wore a Victorian blue dress. Two long racks held antique dresses and costumes. Massive shelves were filled with puzzles, carousel horses, masks, clowns, theatre, theatre posters, game machines—and a thousand other things.

The pipe organ stood on a wooden platform. We stood before it—not speaking for a moment. The pipes of the organ disappeared into the rock above—that had to be why Henry came down here to play the thing—it couldn’t be moved.

Walking away, I investigated the dolls on one of the many shelves. I picked up a set of wedding dolls, twisting the heavy wooden base that they stood upon. A droning wedding march played for a few seconds.

Lacey winced visibly, placing a slim hand over her face.

“Lacey hates dolls,” I told Ethan. It sounded stupid when you said it out loud. But it was no more stupid than my fear of the dark. Perhaps less stupid. Dolls had a face whereas darkness had none.

 “Maybe he comes down here to play with all his toys.”  Ethan pulled the cord on a small, waist-coated metallic monkey. The monkey clattered up the pole it was attached to.