Dollhouse (21 page)

"He said...  he said he could take me away from this place. I just had to give the word."

Words caught fast in my throat. That was miles away from what Henry had said to
me
. I felt a sudden, irrational pain in knowing that Henry wanted Aisha and not me. I was the bud and not the rose.

One thing was sure. Whatever Henry meant by
away
was not the outside world. He could never let any of us go free. It hurt to even conjure Henry up in my head, to see his eyes.

Her thin shoulders stooped. “I didn't know Jessamine was going to send you into The Dark Way, when I told on you. I swear. I wasn't  thinking. I was...  not myself...  I was just raging inside.”

“I'm okay.” I gave her a small smile.

She wiped her face dry. Small residues of paint were left under her eyes, and tears streaked through them. “After I was brought down here... I thought everyone would write me off as dead... even my family. My one point of light... was the hope that Ethan know I was alive and would never give up looking for me. Stupid right, to expect that much of another human being?”

We fell on each other in a hug. Her body felt as bony as mine.  

“Ethan didn't kiss me,” I said softly.

She moved back to study my face, shaking her head slightly.

“It's true. Out in the forest, I was frightened out of my head. And I thought... I thought you were gone...  forever. I kissed him one night when I was weak. And I'm sorry. But the truth is he didn't kiss me back.”

A gasp caught at her throat. “God, I've been incredibly stupid.”

We were quiet for a time.

“I want to tell you something too,” she said. “Back in March, at Lacey's party, I overheard something that was said.”

“At Lacey's party?” Normal things like parties seemed so strange now, out of grasp.

“Ethan told Ben that you were the girl guys wanted their girlfriends to be like.”

My gaze fell to the tiled floor, stunned those words had come from Ethan.

“I'd liked Ethan for a long time,” Aisha continued. “And so that night, I was determined to make him mine. I did all I could to get him. You can guess the rest.”

I expelled a lungful of air, slowly. “I wouldn't have guessed... any of that.” Aisha had always seemed so sure of herself back then. Like everything came to her so easily.

The others stepped into the bathroom. Missouri eyed me questioningly, sensing the charged air between me and Aisha, but saying nothing.

I left the room, caught up in thought.

* * * *

The day passed as though in a dream. As though we were mere dolls being observed by people other than ourselves.

Philomena rolled about on a floor rug—playing some game with her fingers. Sophronia unraveled a long scarf she’d made—and began knitting it again. Aisha curled up in a chair and read, playing with her hair as though she couldn't really focus on the pages.

Missouri sat on a horse in the carousel—perhaps because it was the only place in the room where she and Jessamine couldn’t see each other. She hadn't bound her hair up today, and her red hair swung as she leant back perilously.

No food was given to us today. No breakfast. After the feasting yesterday, there were no complaints.

My eyelids were heavy, gritty. I drifted into sleep.

I woke to the rumble of the tea trolley. Jessamine had decided it was time for bed. We had our tea—and I gladly accepted it. I wanted to sleep, and not think.

Philomena had barely woken from her nap when her tea was placed in front of her—but didn’t protest, as a normal child would. Swinging her legs in the big chair, she sipped from the cup.

The fire faded into a pile of ash as we filed out of the room.

The bed chamber was colder tonight—if possible. I drew myself back into the bed, arms crossed over my chest, shivering. Clown and Raggedy Ann settled into their beds. Jessamine was lost in sleep straightaway—while the other girls’ breath misted the air as they coughed.  We all coughed in the bed chamber, every night. The dampness stuck to our lungs. Tonight, the odor of wet moss and cold sweat was thick. Missouri fell into a fitful sleep, her chest rattling as she breathed.

I studied the faint figure of the angel in the alcove above me—praying to her to send me into a dreamless sleep. The more I looked at her, the more she just resembled a block of stone.

My heart palpitated—I suspected it was the tea. It couldn’t be good for you to take sleeping medication every night.

The heaviness of the tea settled over me—a blanket of rain-filled clouds on my body.

An image of my father walked through my head. In a suit, he came to sit by my bed. Wordless. Without turning my lamp on. I asked him if he was taking me to my baseball game in the morning. He just shook his head and stepped away. I heard his car in the driveway—the sound of tires on gravel. Heard my mother yelling shrilly outside. I walked out to the living room to find mom sitting in the dark doorframe—halfway between inside and outside. She didn’t speak. I didn’t know what had happened until the next day until my mother told her sister on the phone, “Andy’s left for good.  He’s gone. What’s wrong with me? What the hell’s so wrong with me?”

She cried. And then I knew.

Mom had been so excited less than a month ago, when she said that dad was coming back to live with us. She used the word,
reconciliation
. I was eight years old. I’d only seen
dad
on the limited occasions he’d travelled from Los Angeles to Miami to take me to lunch or buy me a birthday present. I didn’t remember him at all from when he last lived with us. I was just a baby then. The meetings with him each year always seemed stilted, like he was lost for what to say to me, or bored by my presence. He always wore suits—he was a lawyer, he told me, and lawyers wear suits.

I didn’t know why Andy had come back or why mom had wanted him to. Those were mysterious adult decisions that had nothing to do with me. All I knew was that after he'd moved in, they'd squabbled a lot. Like brother and sister. After the first couple of weeks, they'd shown about as much romantic passion towards each other as a brother and sister too. And the squabbles became feuds. Then Andy left.

He only sent me presents via mail after that. He didn’t fly in to give me the gifts in person. Until he stopped sending gifts altogether. When the gifts dried up, so did his communication with me.

It wasn't until last year that I knew mom had been on anti-depressants almost my whole life. It explained a lot of things, like the weeks where I thought she'd never stop crying, and the times I abruptly got sent to stay with my grandmother.

My mind stepped downwards, to a place where there were no conscious thoughts.

* * * *

Jessamine smiled sweetly when I entered the ballroom.

“Calliope—you’ve finally graced us with your presence.”

I was late to the ballroom. I'd slept later than the others, and Jessamine had strangely allowed it. She'd been softer since the day of the feast.

“You know,” she said, “we haven’t heard a great deal about you since you’ve been here—and I’m sure we’re all anxious to hear.”

Hesitantly, I stepped over near the fire, seating myself on a chair. “What would you like to know, Jessamine?”

“Well I’m sure we’ve all guessed where you’re from—the Americas. Perhaps you could tell us all about your homeland.”

The girls looked over to me—appearing happy to drop their needlepoint and sewing.

“I’m from Florida—on the East Coast of North America.”

“I’ve been there,” said Jessamine wistfully. “Orlando was delightful—so many carnivals and sights to see.”

"Would you believe I've only been to Disney World once, even though I used to live quite close to there?"

She frowned. "Is that a circus?"

"No. Disney World, you know, as in Walt Disney?"

Missouri shook her head at me.

I guessed Jessamine was thinking of another place entirely, but she didn't like to be wrong. Changing subjects, I talked on about Florida—the ocean and the dolphins—which seemed to delight Jessamine.

“I’ve heard tell that performers ride the dolphins there and perform the most amazing tricks!” she told me.

“Well, no one actually rides the dolphins—as that would be cruel,” I replied.

Missouri shook her head at me again.

 “Unless,” I hastened to add, “the dolphins wear harnesses.”

I rattled on—inventing a story of a beautiful girl, named the Silver Mermaid, who used to perform ballet on top of a dolphin—diving to the depths of the ocean with the dolphins after the show.

“But how did she breathe?” asked Philomena.

I thought fast. “She was born with gills as well as lungs!”

Jessamine clapped, laughing. “Of course—we all should have guessed that!”

Even Sophronia smiled—the first smile I’d ever seen from her.

Jessamine decided then we should all draw dolphins and circus performers.

We moved to settle in at our desks.

I sketched a dolphin in a harness—with a very ungraceful Silver Mermaid riding her.

Sophronia drew a circus lion standing on top of an elephant—with an Indian princess on the elephant’s back. Jessamine cooed in delight when she saw it.

Missouri penciled the same lines over and over, coughing.

Philomena tugged my sleeve. “Would you please draw me a dolphin? Missy’s feeling awfully poorly.”

Philomena’s phrasing sounded a lot like Jessamine’s. I guessed it made sense when she’d been around her since she was a toddler.

Missouri raised her face to me. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face flushed. She looked as if she was running a temperature.

I made a quick sketch of a dolphin leaping from the water.

Jessamine stared down her nose at it. “You must continue to practice hard or your drawing skills will never improve. Angeline—please show Calliope how a dolphin is drawn.”

Aisha moved her pencil over a fresh piece of paper. Her dolphin's smooth lines were perfect.

Philomena looked from Aisha's drawing to mine. She snatched up both pictures, and ran zooming them up and down around the room.

Jessamine let out a tinkling laugh—running to chase Philomena. The closer Jessamine got to Philomena, the harder Philomena giggled.

Aisha left her desk to curl up on a chair and sleep. Sophronia went to tend the dwindling fire—cold air was already numbing my fingers.

“Can we talk?” I whispered to Missouri.

Her pencil stilled on the page.

“I need to tell you something. About those people who were here.”

Missouri breathed in heavily, eyes down at her paper. “I hated them. We all need to band together. Be aware.”

The image of Henry and that woman mocking me bled through my mind. “The blonde woman—the one in the black dress. She told me Henry was going away and we were all leaving here soon.”

Missouri risked a glance at me. “Oh God...."

I cast my eyes down. “There's only one way we're leaving here...  isn't there?”

“Every morning I see Philomena, she gives me hope. She
is
hope.”

I gave a tight smile that Missouri didn't see.

“That dress—the one the woman wore—Jessamine made me wear it in The Dark Way,” I told her. “It was...  like it was alive. Like it was trying to kill me.”

Missouri stiffened. “You've been in The Dark Way with Jessamine?”

“Yes. I gave Evander and Angeline food when they were both in the cells...  and my crime was discovered.”

She shook her head slightly. “I'm sorry you had to see...  that place. But if Jessamine made you wear the dress, it was to protect you.”

“
She
sent me in there. How is that protecting me?”

“She has a strange sense of right and wrong. And yes, she's still very dangerous. But I don't think she intended to kill you.”

I rubbed my forehead, staring hard at the desk. “You've worn the dress?”

She nodded. “Twice.”

“What did you see?”

“I saw my life. As it was before I came here. Like I was really back there. You'd think I'd say, things didn't seem so bad looking bad on them, considering where I am now. But it isn't like that.”

I cast a sideways glance at her, but knew she wouldn't say more. She'd told me very little of her past life. My mind travelled back through The Dark Way, through the twists and passages. To the desk. The desk that had to belong to
The First One
. Had I imagined it? Would I go to the book I'd stuffed the drawings or writings into, but find they weren't there? There hadn't been a chance to look at them again.

“In The Dark Way,” I began, “I saw...  something...."

“Lots of nightmares are dreamed up in there,” said Missouri quickly, an undercurrent of warning in her voice.

“No, not a dream. I saw...  a desk. Like the ones we have here. But filled with poetry, and drawings of snakes. But I don't know how I got to it. I must have blacked out, or sleepwalked.”

 “That was Prudence's desk.” Missouri's voice faltered. “Don’t tell the others. Please. They don’t know...  about her.”

“Who was she?”

“A beautiful girl. Just fourteen years old. A poet. It's hard for me to even speak her name...."

I looked around for Jessamine—she rode the carousel with Philly, her guard down.

“I have her drawings,” I told her. “And some of her poetry. Would you like to—”

“I don't want to see them,” she cut in.

I studied her face, dropping my gaze when Jessamine noticed us not drawing. I hastened to sketch a picture—an ocean with a wobbly shoreline. Jessamine relaxed and turned back to play with Philly.

“Please, tell me what you know about them. I need your help.”

“I do what I can to keep the other girls going. Please don't ask more of me than that.”

“I thought you'd at least tell me something, now that I found evidence,” I pressed.

Missouri was hardly being rational. She was the one who'd told me to find out about
The First One
, but now she didn't want to discuss it.

She stared ahead with a cold gaze. “Evidence? This is not a game.” Tendrils of deep red hair fell to touch her desk. “You know, you could have brought help down here, when you first discovered the underground. We could have been saved. You should never have passed through the carousel. And now Henry and the others have visited us. I can't help but wonder if that's something to do with you or Evander. And the food and wood stocks are dwindling. That hasn't happened before.”  Her jaw quavered. “I've tried my best to keep Soph and Philly safe. And now you and Angeline and Evander. But I don't think I can do any of it anymore.”