Frozen Charlotte (19 page)

The house looked so shut up and empty from outside that I’d expected it to be silent when we walked in, but the whispering hit us as soon as we went through the front door.

“
Let’s play the Knife Murder Game…
”

“
Yes, yes…
”

“
Oh, what fun, what fun!
”

“
Close your eyes and count to ten.
”

“
Who will be the first to die?
”

“
No cheating or peeking.
”

“
Cross your heart and hope to die…
”

“
Stick a needle in your eye!
”

I recognized those creepy, giggling voices the moment I heard them and my heart sank. It was the Frozen Charlotte dolls. I must have missed some.
They were still there inside the house.

From the way Cameron tensed beside me I could tell that he heard them too. He turned towards me, his face white in the dimness, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“It’s the Frozen Charlottes,” I whispered. “There must be others I didn’t know about.”

“It sounds like they’re in the walls,” he replied.

“Weren’t the ones in the basement plastered into the wall?”

Cameron nodded and we both glanced at the wallpaper in the hall. The dolls must be hidden from sight inside the plaster, nestled into the very foundations of the house.

“What’s that smell?” I asked, wrinkling my nose as I suddenly became aware of it.

“It’s petrol.”

“Where’s it coming from?”

“I don’t know.”

There was no sign of either Piper or Lilias. The staircase that the schoolteacher had broken her neck on all those years ago loomed before us, reaching up into darkness on the first floor. The curtains blocked out the weak sunlight outside and
made it seem like it was the middle of the night. By some unspoken agreement, Cameron and I didn’t call out, or turn on the lights, but made straight for the staircase, creeping up it in the dark, hoping that Piper wouldn’t know we were there. The whispering followed us all the way up the stairs and I realized that the entire house must be infested with Frozen Charlottes.

Some part of me hoped Lilias would still be locked away in her room but that hope vanished as soon as we saw her door. It was wide open, and it looked as if Piper had hacked at the lock with her knife.

Guilt twisted in the pit of my stomach. I had told Lilias to lock herself in and then I had left her by herself in the house. Whatever had happened to her, it was my fault.

Cameron stepped into Lilias’s room and turned on the light.

Some of her furniture had been shoved up against the door, as if she’d been trying to keep Piper out, but the room itself was empty.

Cameron turned on his heel and came back out to the landing. The expression on his face was so terrifying that I almost took a step back from him.
He drew a deep breath and then shouted out at the top of his voice, “Lilias! Where are you?”

All around us, the hidden Frozen Charlottes giggled and whispered excitedly.

“
Where’s Lilias?
”

“
Has anyone seen Lilias?
”

“
Perhaps she’s in the coffin?
”

“
Perhaps she’s in the grave?
”

“
Perhaps she’s all chopped to pieces?
”

“
Ha! Chopped to pieces!
”

Cameron and I raced around the upstairs bedrooms, no longer caring how much noise we made, but there was no sign of Lilias or Piper. Rebecca’s room was a terrible mess. It looked like Piper had gone into a rage when she’d seen that the doll cabinet was empty. There was hardly a thing left in the room that hadn’t been destroyed. She appeared to have slashed the knife around blindly, demolishing almost everything in sight, including the doll cabinet and the window.

“Mad,” Cameron muttered under his breath. “She’s finally gone completely mad.”

There were even deep gouges in the wallpaper from where she’d dragged the blade along the walls.

We went back to the top of the staircase and, now
that the lights were on, I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before – there was a drop of blood on the first step. I nudged Cameron and pointed at it. We hurried back down the stairs, noticing more blood every few steps. It led right to the old school hall.

We went straight there and found one light in the huge room already on. It was the spotlight above the stage where Cameron’s piano used to be. Lilias stood there by herself with a knife pressed against her neck and tears running down her cheeks.

Cameron stopped dead when he saw her. Slowly, he held both hands out in front of him, palms up, and said in a calm, steady voice, “Lilias, please. Put the knife down.”

“The evil skeleton,” she whispered. “I can feel the skull grinning inside my head. I don’t want it there. I want to cut it out.”

“There is no evil skeleton,” Cameron said. “Lilias, nothing about you is evil.”

“There is. There must be. Otherwise I never could have broken your piano, no matter how many times the dolls told me to.”

“I don’t care about the piano!” Cameron said. “Do you hear me? I couldn’t care less about the
damn piano! The only thing I care about is you. So put the knife down and let’s get out of here.”

Lilias gave a dry sob and the hand holding the knife trembled. It looked like it could go either way. I didn’t even dare to breathe. Would she listen to her brother or was she about to cut her own throat right there in front of us?

“Lilias,” Cameron said, and his voice was suddenly very quiet, “if you ever loved me at all, even a little bit, you will put down that knife. Right now.”

She took a great gasp of air, and the knife fell from her fingers.

In a flash she was off the stage and running to Cameron. Her arms wrapped tightly around his waist and she buried her face in his side.

“Good girl,” he said, hugging her back. “Good girl, Lilias!”

The Frozen Charlottes, though, weren’t so happy about it. They were practically hissing through the walls.

“
Nasty boy!
”

“
Horrid boy!
”

“
Always ruins every game!
”

“
Hateful…
”

“So
hateful…
”

“
Kill him, Piper…
”

“
Pretty, pretty please…
”

“
Do it for us, Piper…
”

“
Put your knife in his heart…
”

“
No, no! Put your knife in his face!
”

“
Cut out his eyes!
”

“
And feed them to the cat!
”

“Lilias,” I said in alarm. “Where is Piper?”

“She’s gone,” Lilias said. “She said she was going down to the beach to look for the Frozen Charlottes you threw into the sea.”

“We’d better check the house,” Cameron said, looking at me. “If she really isn’t here then we can lock all the doors and keep her out.”

I almost didn’t hear what he said. One of the big long windows was uncovered – perhaps Piper had run out of sheets – and for just a brief moment, I thought I saw Rebecca outside the window, her long dark hair blowing around her, both hands pressed against the glass as she stared in at us.

Cameron was already heading for the door with Lilias hanging on to his left hand. I looked back at the window but Rebecca was gone – if she’d ever
been there to begin with. Frowning, I hurried after them.

The moment we stepped out of the school hall into the front entrance, the room went completely dark.

Someone had turned off the lights, plunging us into blackness.

I heard Piper shriek as she rushed past me. A blade glinted for just a moment in a chink of light shining in through a gap in the sheets, and then there was a thump and someone grunted in the dark. For a few moments of confusion I didn’t know what was going on and, although my hand fumbled for the light switch, I couldn’t find it.

Then Cameron’s hand closed suddenly around mine, and I knew it was him because I could feel the burnt skin of his scarred right palm.

“Come on,” he muttered, already pulling me along, stumbling, behind him.

My free hand found the bannister and I realized we were heading up the stairs. I could hear Lilias’s footsteps clattering on Cameron’s other side and, behind us, Piper was shrieking, “What the
hell
are you doing here, Cameron? You’re the only person who could have stopped that brat from slicing herself
up once and for all and you’re not even supposed to
be
here. You’re supposed to be rotting in prison!”

We ignored her and carried on up the stairs. The darkness hid us from view and the whispering Frozen Charlottes helped mask our footsteps but there was nowhere to escape to and it could only be a matter of time before Piper caught up with us. When we reached the landing I thought Cameron would go to one of the bedrooms and try to lock us in but, to my surprise, he headed straight for the end of the corridor instead.

“Where are we going?” I whispered, wishing I could see my way better in the dark.

“The roof,” Cameron replied, and the words came out as a gasp. His voice sounded strange and I knew that something was wrong.

When we reached the end of the corridor, he stopped so suddenly that I bumped into him. My hand came away from his T-shirt slippery and wet.

“Cameron, are you bleeding?” I hissed.

He didn’t reply but opened the door and pulled us through it. A small, steep staircase, almost more of a ladder, led up to a trapdoor in the floor. I heard the rusty groan of bolts being drawn back, then
Cameron struggling with it and I put my hands against the door to help. It was incredibly heavy but we managed to push it open between us and it finally landed back against the floor with a bang. I winced, certain Piper must have heard it.

“
The roof, the roof!
”

“
They’re heading for the roof!
”

The Frozen Charlottes whispered in the corridor behind us, and I wished I could smash all their horrid little china heads in.

“Go on, Lilias,” Cameron said, pushing her up through the trapdoor. It was so narrow that we had to go one at a time.

As soon as Lilias was gone, Cameron’s hand was pushing me through. I scrambled out on to the roof beside Lilias. We’d come out on to the flat bit with the slate tiles, beside the empty bell tower. The distant roar of the ocean below the cliff seemed to keep in time with the anxious thumping of my heart.

Cameron pulled himself up on to the roof beside us and I saw him stagger as he straightened up. In the evening light I could see what I had felt downstairs – one side of his shirt was soaked in blood which was running in a dark stream down his jeans.

“Oh my God, you’re hurt!” I said. Lilias whimpered beside me and grabbed hold of my leg.

“I’m all right,” Cameron said. “Just help me with this door, quickly, before Piper realizes we’re up here!”

I rushed to his side and together we gripped the edge of the trapdoor and tried to lift it closed but it was even harder the other way and, a moment later, I heard Piper screech on the stairs below.

“I’m going to
end
you, Sophie! You should never have touched those dolls! You can’t hide behind my brother forever!”

Over the side of the trapdoor I saw her come on to the staircase and jerk her head up to look at us – a weird, snake-like movement that made her appear somehow inhuman. She was still holding the knife and I could see that the blade had blood on it.

Cameron and I strained as hard as we could against the trapdoor. I heard him groan with the effort, but we couldn’t quite close it in time and, the next moment, Piper’s head appeared at the opening.

I let go of the trapdoor, leaving Cameron to take the full weight, and hurried to the side to kick Piper full in the face before she could pull herself through. I felt savagely pleased by her cry of pain and the series
of thumps as she slipped back down the stairs. Served her right for being such a vicious, two-faced bitch.

The next second, Cameron managed to slam the door closed. His breath came out in a ragged gasp as he straightened back up. His left hand was clamped to the ripped gash in his shirt, but blood ran down through his fingers and dark spots stained the ground around his feet.

“There’s no way to lock the door from this side,” he said. “We… We have to—” He tried to take a step forwards but his legs buckled beneath him and he fell forward on to his knees.

Lilias and I both rushed to his side and helped him sit back against the wall. The sight of the wound in his side made me feel light-headed for a moment – it was no mere scrape but a great slash that cut deep. Cameron was shivering, and his hairline was damp with sweat. I knew he was really hurt, and he knew it too, but the look he gave me warned me not to say anything in front of Lilias.

“Here,” I said, pulling off my jacket. “Stop the bleeding with this. You’ll be fine. It’s not… It’s not bad.”

I couldn’t help faltering over the blatant lie but
Lilias didn’t seem to notice as she crouched down by his side, holding on to his hand. And when Cameron’s blue eyes met mine I thought he was grateful to me for trying.

“We need to block the door,” he said. “To stop her from coming through.”

“You stay there. I’ll do it.”

But although I searched around the roof I couldn’t find anything we could use to weigh it down.

“She won’t be able to lift it by herself very easily,” I said. We all glanced towards the silent door. There’d been no sign of Piper trying to force her way through. Perhaps she didn’t fancy getting another kick in the face. “And even if she does manage it she’ll need to climb out head first and I can just kick her back down like I did before. She shouldn’t be able to reach us up here. We can call the police and just wait her out.”

“Have you got your phone?” Cameron asked.