Dollhouse (11 page)

“Like a collector?” I said.

“Maybe.”

For the second time that week, I was glad we hadn’t attacked Henry Fiveash.

“Why would he need to hide this junk?” said Lacey.

“It’s not junk,” said Ethan. “Some of this stuff would be worth a mint. It’s old as the hills and is in nice condition. Maybe that’s why he hides it.”

“It would be stuff from his family heritage too.” I nodded. “Lacey and I looked him up before we came.”

Ethan sat on a clown’s tricycle. “I was hoping this—coming down here—was going lead somewhere.”

I eyed him sympathetically. I felt it too. Although I desperately didn’t want to find Aisha’s remains—at the same time I ached for resolution.

I stepped over to the dark recesses of the cave. Large oil paintings, much like the ones in the house above, were stacked against the wall. None of these were framed.

The first depicted a river—gum trees thick along the far edges. I recognized the scene—it was the one you’d see looking out from the top story of the Fiveash house—if all the land was cleared. The next was another forest scene, but the trees were gnarled and devoid of anything green. A path ran straight up and then forked to the left and right. The left-hand path headed into a blackened tunnel of trees. There was ugliness and intent about the brush strokes, a sense of foreboding in the tunnel.

I quickly flipped to the next painting. A young girl ran through tall grass—her wheat-colored hair loose and her white dress unfettered with ties or bodices. She ran towards the forked path I’d seen in the last painting.

The last of the paintings illustrated the dour face of a woman in her late twenties. She wore her fair hair severely back from her bovine features.  Her eyes had a crystalline sharpness. As I stared, I felt the eyes cut into me—like blades.

I pushed myself away, letting the paintings clatter back against the wall.

Ethan whistled. Stepping past me, he moved towards a huge dark outline. I trained my torch at the shape. He ran a hand along the body of a car that looked as though it belonged to the early 1900s.

Past the car, my torch beam hit a rock wall. Ethan stepped into the beam, investigating the wall—then turned back to me sharply.

“Looks like this is it,” said Ethan. “We’ve seen everything that’s down here. I’ll come back again and have a better look by myself. I don’t like this place, and I want you girls out of here.”

“Is there something you don’t want us to see, Ethan?” Lacey stepped beside me, her face taut.

“Not now, please?” I asked her.

Ethan looked from Lacey to me. “What’s going on?”

Lacey took another step towards Ethan. “If there’s someone you’re protecting, you should remember Aisha.  Remember her, and tell the truth. Who is it, Ethan?”

I tugged at Lacey’s arm. “I think we should leave. Now.”

Ethan’s face shadowed. “Both of you think I’m hiding something? I thought you were the only people in this whole town beside granddad who... never mind.”

The three of us stood rigidly for a moment.

I was first to move.

“Ethan, I still believe something’s up with Henry Fiveash. You can hang your hat on that. But if there’s any evidence of any kind down here—we shouldn’t be putting our handprints on it. Get yourself away from the mountains—well away—before we call the police.”

His eyes were heavy, almost closing. I could tell he didn’t want to hear anything I’d had to say. For the second time in two days, I’d been a traitor to him.

I needed to go before I hurt him any more than I had already. As I moved to leave, something entered my head, something I'd meant to look for but forgotten.

The wood
.

Henry had brought wood down here, hadn’t he? But there was no fireplace. And no wood.

I turned my head back. “Did anyone see the stack of wood?”

Lacey wrapped her arms around herself. “Maybe we missed it.”

Ethan stood with his arms akimbo. “I’ll figure it out later. You’re obviously in a hurry to run away.”

“I’m not trying to run away,” I said stiffly. “Anyway, you told me I should go.”

“Then go. Maybe I’ll figure out more without people around who think I’m a bad person.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I don’t think you’re a bad person. This—coming down here—was supposed to be to find out more about Henry, or whatever it is that he knows.”

A furrow deepened in Lacey’s delicate forehead. “Maybe we should have copied everything Henry did exactly. Except Ethan threw the load of wood in the bottom of the water tank instead of bringing it down here...."  Her voice trailed off.

His face tightened at the temples. “Are you saying I did that deliberately?”

I should have left when I said I was. Mentioning the wood had been a bad idea. I hated tension—it made me ball myself up inside. Ethan and Lacey were like a married couple who’d just let their long-held, bitter resentments fly loose on each other.

“The thing we didn’t do was to play the stupid pipe organ.” Ethan shrugged.

“That’s not sane,” Lacey shot back at him. “Henry will hear it.”

I couldn’t speak—just shook my head.

“He’s off chopping wood—far away,” said Ethan disdainfully. “Anyway—he might have had the entrance to the cave open that time we heard it. He probably thought there was no one about. Look at this place. How would you hear anything from above?”

Ethan strode over to the organ. He jabbed his fingers onto a few keys. The notes resounded around the spaces of the cave, mournful and disjointed.

Ethan dropped his head. “Okay, so that idea was all kinds of dumb.”

He seemed so lost, broken.

“Sounded better than Henry’s effort,” I offered. “Even if his was some kind of tune.”

Ethan stared around at me. “Yeah, he did play something.” He looked purposefully at Lacey. “Know what it was?”

Lacey crossed her thin arms. “What does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Probably doesn’t.”

She sighed—the kind of sigh a woman makes when dealing with a man who’s not making any sense. At least, I’d heard my mom make that sound when talking to my dad on the phone. A long series of resigned sighs.

With stiff steps she made her way onto the platform. She opened out the sheet music that sat on top of the organ. The faded title read
Chopin Nocturne No. 20 in C-sharp minor
.  The pages were yellowed, crackly—she ran a finger along a section somewhere midway.

She began to play.

The sound wasn’t as beautiful as when Lacey played her own piano. The pipe organ had that over-the-top ‘circus’ kind of sound. But still, it sounded so different from the clumsy tune Henry had played. The melancholy, unearthly notes rose and fell—measures of sadness and grief.

Lacey’s hands moved lightly at the center of the organ. She brought her fingers down on the last, deep reverberating note.

A lock, or maybe a spring, released under high pressure.

I flinched, expecting something else to happen. But nothing did.

Ethan shone his torchlight in the direction of the sharp sound. A huge circular object was fixed on the dark recesses of a far wall. Metal spokes and tiny light bulbs ran around its perimeter. A faded blue and yellow star spanned the cracked wood.

“The original Wheel of Death,” mused Ethan. “They used to tie someone on these and have a knife thrower toss knives at the wheel.”

“Ugh.” Lacey took faltering steps over to see it.

A few of the bulbs flickered on, but the rest remained dead. We exchanged nervous glances. The light dimly illuminated an inscription in the wheel's center.

Moving close to the wheel, I strained to read the worn lettering:

Out of this wood do not desire to go,

Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.

I turned back to Ethan. “More Shakespeare?”

He twisted his mouth thoughtfully. “Yeah... it is. It’s from a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Can’t remember who spoke it or why, but the whole play talks about dreams a lot. Like how time is all messed up in dreams.”

Shrugging, he stepped over and reached for a spoke, attempting to spin the wheel.

With a crack-crack-crack, the wheel made a complete turn.

And swung outwards.

A massive hole gaped in the rock wall behind the wheel. Bitter air snaked towards us. The passage ahead was the still, cold black of a granite coffin.

My hand fumbled as I pulled my torch from my jean pocket. The three of us stepped wordlessly inside—we'd come too far not to. Our combined torch light barely penetrated the darkness. I just made out the sketchy outline of a rounded rock ceiling and walls, spearing down into a winding passage.

My foot slid on something that was not rock—something rubbery. I bent to snatch it up. It was one of those gel phone cases. I turned it over. My heart dropped through my chest. The pop-art image of John Lennon in tiny round glasses colored the back of the case.

“Aisha's...."  Lacey breathed.

Ethan took stiff steps over, seizing the case and crushing it in his fist. He stared from the case to Lacey and me with dazed eyes. “You girls head back.”

I wanted to tell him no, wanted to tell him I was with him to the end. I needed to believe that the biggest part of me wanted to make up for betraying Aisha.

Lacey paced backwards, her face stretched tight across high cheekbones, eyeing Ethan coldly. “I’m getting the police.”

She'd stopped trying to conceal how she felt about Ethan hours ago, but I willed her to shut her trap. Now wasn't the time.

Ethan swallowed hard, as though pushing down anger, or hurt. “Do what you want. All I ask is to be the first one...  to find Aish.”

“Ethan,” I said softly, “you know what you find...  won't be
her
, anymore.”

He expelled a long breath of air. “Cassie...  I know that. But she always hated the thought of strangers touching her stuff. She'd have wanted me to be the one. Just give me the rest of today—that's all. Call the police in the morning.”

“I'm not letting you disturb evidence.” Lacey folded her arms tightly. “Haven't you ever heard of a crime scene?”

My jaw trembled as I nodded. “Whatever happened to her is no accident. And the people responsible will want to keep it a secret. It's too dangerous...."  

Out in the cavern, the light faded and snapped off. Dark filled every space around us. I rushed for the exit—my limbs as though in slow motion, Ethan and Lacey dark blurs either side of me.

The wheel slammed shut, spinning—and then stopping dead.

My breaths pushed through strained lungs. Ethan sprinted to the round door—training his torchlight around its perimeter. There were no handles, no switches. He let out a low, keening sound under his breath.

I flashed my torch about like a lunatic.

Ethan hurled his shoulder against the wood. It barely made a sound. “I need something to pry the door open with. But we’ve got nothing.” His voice cracked on
nothing
. “Looks like that freaking door was on some kind of time-delay.”

Lacey pressed her back into the wall, frozen. “What do we do now?”

“Maybe this keeps going...  maybe it comes out somewhere in the mountains.” My words were tight, closed.

Lacey clamped her eyes shut, as though not wanting to commit to anything.

Ethan let the phone case unfurl in his hand, his attention fixed on it for a moment.  “I vote we find her.”

We moved along the passage. There was nothing else to do. No one spoke. No sound but the sharp intake of our breaths. The blackness stuck to me with a tar-like grip, claiming me.

Were these the last steps Aish had taken in her life?  Were these the last steps we'd ever know too?

The passage twisted back—and downwards. We continued on, walking at least the same amount of time again.

Something blocked the passage up ahead. Something big. A brick formed in my throat. I shone a shaky light over the large mass—the beam of light barely reaching it.

Lacey stepped forward, running her torch beam around in a circle. “It’s got... lots of heads .…”

We moved in slowed steps. Murky shapes solidified. The heads belonged to gargoyles and unicorns—on a child’s carousel. It was old—antique—like everything back in the cavern. It entirely blocked the passage. A metal wall divided the carousel in two—dividing it from whatever was on the other side.

Ethan jumped up onto the carousel platform and ran a hand over the center column. “Can’t find a switch or anything.”

We tried heaving the carousel around, but it didn’t budge.

“What if …” I said quietly, “we just get on a ride?”

Ethan gazed back at me.

I raised my eyebrows at him. Riding carousel horses made as much sense as this thing being here in the middle of a cave tunnel.

There were eight rides to choose from. Lacey shook visibly as she mounted a red-eyed unicorn. Ethan and I stepped up onto a gargoyle and dragon behind her.

Tiny red and yellow lights flickered on along the center column. With a whirr the carousel began to rotate. I closed my eyes to the sight I’d find on the other side. Seemed a ridiculous way to meet your death, if that was what was about to happen.

Shadowy light made my eyelids flinch.

The lights were
on
here.
Someone had to be here.

The carousel ground to a halt. Ahead was a rock wall that wound around into a corridor. I swung my leg off the dragon.

We stepped along the rock wall and peered around into the corridor. It flowed steadily downwards.

Lacey stared around. “Someone went to a lot of trouble if this is a gold mine.”

The walls and ceiling were almost perfectly round. They couldn't have been cut or blasted. I tried to imagine the size of the drill that would have to have bored through the rock. It would have to have been immense. Did they even have drills like that?