Paper Dolls (30 page)

“What do you mean? You want to stay with Emerson?”

“He’s already asked me to be his fiancée and I accepted.”

“Okay. Whatever. But just leave with us now. And tomorrow, you can tell Emerson you were sick and had to go.”

“I’m not going. You don’t understand what you’re asking of me. I was never strong, Cassie. I’m sorry.”

“Aisha, we’re walking out of here now,” said Molly. “You need to come with us.”

Aisha’s jaw tensed as she looked away. “I’m not coming. I never want to be on the side of things where I am the victim… ever again.”

A pained breath of air escaped me. Aisha’s words were odd and kind of calculated.

I nodded at Molly and we began walking away. Molly was heading towards the back garden. It would be easier to walk away from there, rather than try for the front door.

Mrs. Batiste stopped at us the folding doors. “My dears, you’re looking quite peaked. Would you like to lie down upstairs?”

“Thank you,” said Molly. “But I think Cassie just needs a little walk outside. She’s feeling a little faint.”

“Are you all right?” She peered at my face with concern.

“Yes, I just… haven’t been well lately.”

“Well, after that awful business with that man in the park, it stands to reason. If you need anything, let me know.”

I smiled thinly and nodded. Out in the gardens, a scattering of guests chatted loudly. Molly and I stepped into the darkness of the trees.

“We’ll just keep moving. And if we can find a car with the keys in it, we’ll take it.” Molly's face was a mask of grim determination.

Neither of us could drive, but I knew as much as she did I was prepared to do whatever it took. Cool night wind brushed past us as we crouched and fled along the lines of parked cars out the front of the house.

Molly stood, looking about her. Her shoulders sagged and she cried out in anguish, her hand reaching over her mouth.

I straightened slowly, not wanting to see what she was seeing.

A bare landscape met my eyes. Everything was gone—stripped, desolate. No other houses, no streets, no lights.

“That’s not possible.” Her voice was barely audible.

“No matter what. We keep going. Remember?” My voice cracked and was half-lost in the wind, but I meant it. We had no choice but to keep moving.

We ran into the night, with no markings to tell which way we were going. Trees thickened around us. I could barely see two feet in front of me. Rustling branches jumped out at me. My heart jumped against my chest wall.

“We could be heading into the state forest.” My voice shook.

“Is there any way off it? A road?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

She took my hand and headed back the way we had come.

Voices carried on the wind. High, tinkling laughs.

“They’re here,” I whispered. “They’re all around us. God, they’re all around us.”

Parker and Emerson strode out from the darkness.

“Molly.” Parker took her arm. “There you are.”

Emerson reached for me. “Cassie, what are you doing out here?”

“Let us go.” Molly attempted her pull her arm free.

“We can’t let you get lost out there,” said Parker. “It’s a big, big forest. Better go back inside.”

People moved towards us, ghostly bodies flitting in and out of the trees. They didn’t even try to hide what they were now.

The guests fell into pin-drop silence as Parker and Emerson brought us in to the ballroom. All pretenses were gone from the faces of the guests now.

Mr. and Mrs. Batiste held hands, beaming at us. “We’re so glad you didn’t get lost out there in that forest,” said Mrs. Batiste. “The boys have brought you back safe and sound.”

“Are we really safe?” I gazed directly at her.

Mr. Batiste cleared his throat. “Please remain cordial.”

Detective Dragar knows where we are tonight,” said Molly. “If we don’t return from here, you will all be held accountable.”

Mr. and Mrs. Batiste stepped back as a man walked out in front of them.

“I do indeed know where you are tonight,” said Detective Dragar. He sipped his glass of wine and shrugged his forehead.

Molly gasped.

“That reminds me,” said Mrs. Batiste, “I must speak with your mothers.”

Detective Dragar pointed a gun at Molly and me as Mrs. Batiste took out a cell phone from her handbag. She called each of our mothers and told them that she had invited us to stay overnight so we could watch some yacht races first thing in the morning. She was breezy but brisk, and gave our moms no time to ask questions before she ended the conversation.

I stared desperately around the room, seeking out Zach’s face, dreading what I would see but still needing to see him. I found him standing in the midst of the crowd that surrounded us. He stared resolutely at the floor, his face expressionless.

The blonde girl in the green dress that I’d seen earlier wrapped herself around Zach and gazed coldly back at me. “It’s about time I had my boyfriend back.”

Zach made no move to push her away or deny what she’d just said.

“You poor thing, Sienna,” said Mrs. Batiste. “You have been beautifully patient. And you know we do love you like a daughter.”

A bouquet of dead, thorned roses dropped through my heart.

Viola stood next to Emerson, excitement in her eyes—her boyfriend behind her with his chin resting on her shoulder.

Tears tracked down Aisha’s face. She refused to meet my gaze. Reluctantly, she let go of Emerson’s hand as she moved to stand beside Molly and me.

“Let’s begin, shall we?” Mr. Batiste clasped his hands together.

“Indeed,” agreed his wife. “I’m sure our guests are anxious to get this thing moving.”

“What do you want from us?” Molly demanded.

“We have a little errand for the three of you,” answered Mr. Batiste.

“We’ll do nothing for you.” My voice shook.

“Oh I think you will. You won’t want to stay where we’ll be sending you, and we will be the only ones who can bring you back. You can’t doubt our collective abilities. You just saw for yourself what we can do. We took the surrounds of this house back to 1920, back to when there was little here other than a few Indians and coconut plantations.”

Henry and Audette walked together arm in arm to stand beside the Batistes.

“We meet again.” Henry smirked.

The Henry who had me hypnotized me in the park stepped beside the ghost-Henry. I recalled the man I had seen earlier, outside. It had been this Henry.

“Is Jessamine here too?” I asked bitterly.

Henry’s ghost gave an exasperated laugh. “Jessamine haunts those dreary forests near Tobias’s old house. Still waiting for her grandfather.”

“Probably for eternity.” Audette tittered.

Mr. Batiste’s eyes glittered coldly. “Girls, prepare yourselves and listen to this instruction carefully. We will be sending you to another world. What we seek is a book—and we all know you know which book we seek. Find it for us.”

“How can we be expected to find a book if you were not able to yourselves?” Molly gazed around the room.

He hesitated. “Something is blocking us from entering certain planes. Something that won’t block you.”

“And if we decide not to return?” Molly asked.

“Aisha will be there keeping watch on you both. But if you do slip away, things won’t go well for those you leave behind. Cassandra, how is your mother, anyway?”

My stomach clenched. “Don’t touch her.”

“I have no family,” Molly told him. “None that I care about, so don't try that on me.”

“Perhaps,” said Mr. Batiste. “But how would you feel if little Frances Allanzi—the poor little mite who escaped the underground—were to meet her end?”

Molly shook her head numbly. “She’s just a child. How could you…?” She stopped herself. “Of course you could. You kept her in that terrible place. You were prepared to have her starve to death....”

Henry’s ghost clucked his tongue. “I was quite fond of her. I did try to set her free once, but she refused to leave you...
Missouri.
And remember, Frances doesn’t have to die. It’s your choice.”

Molly’s hands balled into fists.

“I’ll take your silence to mean that you concur,” said Henry’s ghost. He gazed around at the guests, a smile creeping across his face.

“I don’t care about your trick with making everything disappear outside,” I told him. “I don’t know how you did that. Perhaps you drugged us. But how are we to travel to other times and places? You're insane.”

He sighed. “I’m a ghost. Insanity is the least of my problems. But you
can
travel. Cassandra, and you can take others with you. You are the key.”

“What do you mean—the key?”

“You can step into the memories of others at will. And you can step through those memories and out to the other side, to other worlds. You’ve been able to do this since you were very small, but you have forgotten. At first, we thought it was us pulling you in—that happens at times. But then you arrived in my train carriage over and over again. That cannot happen by coincidence. You are the key that can unlock these worlds.”

My breaths strained through my lungs. The scenes in Copper Canyon were me travelling to other worlds? Not
this
world, but other worlds? My mind felt as though it were bending inwards.

"I am not any kind of key," I breathed. "How can I be? I stumbled on the dollhouse by accident... and...."

"Ah, yes. But you see, nothing is accidental, not really. Everything is connected. When we made a bargain with the serpent, it was to exchange her use of the children for her power. Her shadow has the power to move between worlds. It is of course, a quite dangerous mode of travel. But then you came along, you with the same power. Only you didn't know you had it and you didn't know how to use it."

I gazed directly into his eyes. "What was the bargain you made with the serpent?" I asked stiffly. "What did she want with the children?"

His expression grew distant. "That is for us to know and not you." He brandished his cape, gazing about the room. “Friends, people of the Nemus, allow me to read you a passage from the first book….”

The people bowed their heads. The lights dimmed, almost plunging the room into complete darkness. Molly’s hand crept across and held mine tightly.

“We, the Order of the Mirrored Tree,” said Henry's ghost, “seek to slip between— to walk again and again and again upon the earths. None will be lost to us—no requiem or mourning. No fortunes shall fall through our grasps. The stars shall not blind us. We shall not feel the scorch of the burning orbs though we fly higher than Icarus. We are the masters of destiny.”

The people began chanting, their faces looking tranced. Before us, blue flames leapt into the air, with seemingly no fuel or source. No heat emanated from the blaze.

Zach raised his eyes to me, eyes in which the blue flames danced. I stared back at him in revulsion, into eyes that had lied to me, into eyes that had made me believe he was good and wonderful and in love with me. I’d trusted him with so many secrets.

He stepped away from the girl named Sienna. “Cassie,” he said in a low voice, “This is killing me….”

I stared back at him, not speaking.

I’m not responsible…for any of this. It’s out of my hands.”

I gave a slow shake of my head. “From the day you turned up on that island, all of this has been planned. All of it. Every last detail.”

“Yes.” Pain entered his eyes. “But please believe me. The things I said to you were true. Somehow, after all of this, we’ll find a way.”

“You think I would have anything to do with you now?”

He dropped to his knees, elbows over his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so damned sorry.”

Mrs. Batiste glared at me. “Don’t you dare make my son feel that way. He did what he had to do. Sienna, please take him from the room.”

Sienna reached down for his arm. He tossed her hand away from him. She stormed away.

Something dark uncoiled from the flames. Molly stared at me. The shadow of the serpent rose before us. I knew it knew me, knew Molly. It advanced towards us, hungrily.

“Step into the shadow,” commanded Henry’s ghost.

“You’re going to kill us….” My legs barely held me upright.

“You won’t die. You’ll travel through a door. You will go where you are sent. And you will return when you are commanded to.”

I refused to move.

Henry’s ghost raised an eyebrow. “It’s just a short car trip from here to go and pick your mother up. Or, we have someone even closer who might be of interest. Guess who we have down in the basement here? Dear daddy.”

“You have my
father
?”

“Yes. It was a bit of a nuisance, to get him all the way from Copper Canyon to here, but we managed. He’s been gracing us with his presence ever since.”

Something kicked deep inside of me. It hurt to know he was here, but a small seed of strength planted inside me.
He hadn’t left me
.

I clenched my teeth and stepped towards the shadow with Molly and Aisha. I waited for the sting of a million barbs, but none came. The swirling mass of black dragged us into a shaft of air. I felt the cold silence of space bear down on me, a suffocating stillness, and yet the force of being spirited away at terrifying speed.

Flurries of white blew down and around us. We stood at the edge of a frozen lake, gasping as an intense chill bit into our flesh. Punctured by gaping round holes, the iced-over lake revealed the dark water beneath. I whipped around, unable to accept that Henry had been telling the truth—we could be sent to another world at will. But the white landscape didn’t disappear like some trick of the eye. Everywhere, as far as I could see was buried in snow. Strange mountains, sharp and tall, were greyish ghosts in the dim, wintery sky.

“Where are we?” Aisha’s pale eyes watered in the wind.

For numbed moments we stood side by side, gazing at the alien world.

Long paper-thin tunnels ran everywhere on the surface of the ice and snow, climbing and twisting over each other, like a macabre children's playground. I bundled my arms in close to my chest and stepped through the wind. Reaching out, I ran a hand along the inside a tunnel—it was smooth and almost transparent, a tessellating diamond pattern on its round walls.