The Dollhouse Asylum (2 page)

I wait a few minutes, but Tristan doesn’t come to the door. All I can do is study the brick patio beneath my feet and stare at the traces of pink and green dye that smudge one side of the door.

Tristan doesn’t seem to be coming out so, against my better judgment, I place my sweaty palm on the doorknob. The metal is scorching hot and doesn’t turn. It’s locked! Stupid door. So I slump past two more houses, trudging through this scorching heat. My skin’s starting to burn and I really need a drink.

By the time I’ve made it to the middle of the street, I can almost feel Teo watching my every step, my every look. Naturally, his blinds are turned so I can’t see in, but picturing him hovering behind a window makes me yearn to go straight for him, find the comfort he so often offered me.
Do not concern yourself with those ninnies
, he would say of the girls who snickered at my choice of books.
You may not have passed the test with flying colors, but you will get it. You shall see
. But today is not a day Teo holds his hands out for me. That’s what he does when I’m on the brink of something. I’ll show him I can do this, find the “right” house.

Turning to face the women’s side of the street, I find that the houses look the same—nothing looks suspicious or obvious. The other houses remain still. All brick, all huge. Even their roofs are the same shade of gray-black. The towering houses make me feel so small, like they’re swallowing me.

It takes me a minute to realize the women’s homes don’t have signs like the men’s. They have mailboxes, which is weird. No mailman could come here with both ends of the street halting in grass. Maybe it’s a clue. A clue! I race toward a mailbox with a flag pointed up, and am about to yank the door open, when a female voice yells, “Don’t!”

Freezing maybe five inches from the mailbox, I glance around the street, trying to find the source of the not-sohelpful voice. What’s so wrong with opening a mailbox? And why is she screaming? Or maybe Teo asked her to.

But someone called out to me. I scan the red brick house in front of me, two away from Teo’s on the end of the street, when I find the source of the voice on the porch: a black-haired, caramel-skinned girl leering at me. A short, black dress hugs her body so tightly, it’s like her curves are about to pop. Two curves in particular—it’s obvious she’s had those puppies enhanced. Her appearance is so pristine, I’m suddenly very aware of my ragged jeans, now sweat-soaked T-shirt, and messy, flax-colored ponytail. Man, I must look like crap.

“Hot date?” I ask, mostly because she so obviously flaunts everything. Black eyeliner extends past the diva’s eyes and ornate beading weaves through her jet-black hair. “Funny,” I say, crossing my arms, “I didn’t know the Egyptian style was in.”

“Move on.” The girl’s pouty lips jut outward as she leans in her doorway like she’s working the corner or something. Maybe this is part of Teo’s plan, to test my patience just to throw me off. But she was the one to talk to me, and I’m not about to let this opportunity slip through my fingers, so I throw out the first thing that comes to mind. “Can I have some water?” Because my throat hurts.

But the diva swats at me like I’m a gnat. “Go!” she yells, which is more than a little frustrating. I open my mouth to tell her she looks like a streetwalker in that dress, when a voice cuts me off.

“Let her in, Cleo.”

It’s coming from right across the street. I move to see who it is but change my mind. I don’t want to lose my footing with “Cleo.” Still, I turn around to take a peek at this boy’s house, but I’m not surprised to see that he isn’t showing his face; he’s only shouting through his cracked-open front door.

“You let her in,” Cleo yells before slamming her door shut.

Breathless, I don’t miss a beat. This boy wanted her to let me in. I can work with someone who will help me out. I sprint for his house, knowing he’ll help me next. Even the boy’s voice sounds nice.

“Hey!” My feet hit the pavement, my ponytail slapping me in the face, but the door starts to close. “Wait. Please. I need a drink.”

As I scramble up his porch steps he slams the door closed—
crap
—but maybe I can talk him into helping me. “Hello?” My voice sounds both loud and small in the silence of Teo’s mansion-filled subdivision. Scanning his sign for a name, I spot it right away. “Marc?” He wouldn’t have called out to Cleo if he didn’t want to help me out.

But he doesn’t answer me. At least, not outright. Maybe he’s shy—just needs a little time. I can be patient, chat through the door, show him I’m a nice person before he lets me inside. But several more seconds pass before a muffled voice answers. “Why are you here? There are already seven.”

“I know,” I say, pressing my fingertips to the wood-grained door. “Teo—” I wipe the sweat dripping into my eyes, “—gave me a job.”

Several awkward seconds languish past and I’m left wondering if I will ever get inside, get a drink. Which sucks. I need to focus on Teo’s mission, stop wasting precious brain cells on the minor detail of my parched throat.

Marc sighs like I’m more of a nuisance than anything. “I can’t believe this.”

Wait. I know that voice. “Marcus?”

Several seconds pass before Teo’s younger brother responds. “I go by Marc now, Cheyenne.” But the way he says my name isn’t right, not like that. He used to sing my name, “Chey-yi-yi-yenne,” every time he saw me at the math meets. And before he sang my name, his blue eyes would swim in a barely controlled typhoon so that I could only smile at him before looking away. But now, he sounds beaten down, flat. And it’s not hard to imagine that his eyes have also changed.

He said,
I go by Marc now, Cheyenne
. Which is odd, because once he threw a spitball at one of the judges for calling him just “Marc.”
It’s Marcus
, he had said, and I braced myself because the judge had to pause everything to pick the spitball out of his hair. One of my friends, Josie, had wondered why they let the artsy kids from Griffin compete with our school, and I halfway wondered the same thing. Not because I didn’t like them—they just always came in last. And they never focused on the questions like Khabela. We were the math and science school; math meets were our thing.

But I can’t believe Marc’s here, too. I’m surprised Teo didn’t mention that. While I can’t wait to talk to Marc more, for some reason he doesn’t seem excited to talk. Like Teo, Marcus has always been hard to read. But I need to know what’s going on, and if I can keep him talking, maybe he can help me figure out which is the “right” house.

“So, what are you doing here?” I finally ask.

“You need to go.” Marc’s words are a slap. We always chatted at the math meets, and I swore those blue eyes watched my every move. His order only makes me want to dig in my heels and stay. I lean back against the side of the house, my cotton shirt sticking to the brick. Folding my arms, I plan to dig in, convince him to help me out, when he asks me the last thing I’m expecting:

“Are you vaccinated?”

Apart from my childhood vaccinations, everyone was vaccinated last year. “Are you vaccinated?” became the new “How are you?” Everyone asked it, like a fee for entry, but that was for the outbreak in Beijing two years ago, the Living Rot. The sickness was so horrific, so deadly, that everyone involved with the quarantine made sure it was buried as deeply as the core of the earth. Beijing would never happen again. The cannibalistic disease would
never
be repeated.

Despite my ingrained assurances, I have to ask, my lower lip trembling slightly, “What do you mean?”

The seconds that tick by languish longer than the time during finals week when all I could see was the live footage of the Chinese people turning on their friends. Their sagging skin and blood-dripping teeth. The citywide burning authorized by the United Nations. The military strike units forbidding anyone to enter Beijing.

Eventually, Marcus responds and he does little to answer my question, “You’d better talk to my brother, Cheyenne.”

His reaction makes me want to lash out.
His brother
was the one who told me to find someone else to let me inside. So I try once more, desperately hoping Marcus will soften. “Please, Marc? Just a drink?”

Silence answers me. I hold my breath and will him to answer. But there’s nothing coming from the other side. He’s ignoring me. Waiting for me to move away. But then the floorboards squeak; he’s coming closer. I’ve convinced him to open the door. Metal clicks against metal, and I’m watching the doorknob, preparing for it to turn, when it doesn’t. That’s because that metal clicking against metal was him turning the deadbolt—
locked
.

He’s locking me out. Marcus is Teo’s brother, my friend. Or he was. Sometimes he could be a colossal jerk. Especially compared to Teo, who must have gotten all the good genes in the family: manners, intellect, tact.

“Find a girl!” Marc barks, which proves I’m right. “Tell her you’re clean.” And then all Marc’s movements from the other side fade away, and it’s just the door and me.

I smack the door with my fist, very nearly scraping it with the stake in my hand. There’s something seriously wrong with these people. I’ve been placed in the heat, in ninety-degree weather, and
no one is helping me
. I’m not a threat to anyone. I need to get inside.

“You need to
go
,” Marcus growls, apparently back at the door. He doesn’t have to growl at me. He was always so playful and eager to help. Like when I’d managed to tangle a wad of bracelets at a math meet. I’d been so done with them, about to rip them off, when Marcus had reached over and untangled them for me, smiling. I’d thought he was sweet.

Now I don’t understand why he won’t help me. But, wait a second. “What about the vaccine?”

“You don’t—”

A sound I don’t recognize comes from nearby. A whoosh, crisp and neat, catching the wind. But quicker. And close. Just beside me in Marcus’s front lawn lies a foot-wide hole in the ground, which wasn’t there before.

Curious, I step cautiously to peek inside the hole. Maybe Teo is sending me something. A note, or water, maybe. I’m two, three inches off when two eyes and a forked tongue slink out of the hole. A snake, and it’s looking directly at me.

I freeze, too terrified to speak. Black and yellow coils glisten in the sun, and I wish I were the sort of person who could find some beauty in the thing. It’s horrible. Death, scales, teeth. I’ve been terrified of snakes since I was a little girl. Ever since one of my mom’s boyfriends thought it would be fun to taunt me with one, I’ve avoided the reptiles more than I avoided the stupid ninnies who laugh at the books I read.

As the snake slinks out, I see it’s much larger than I originally thought. Four feet long or so. I can’t have it lunge at me.

I repeat the mantra my mom taught me when I was small, in case I ever found one at the park, on a walk, or in the street:
Walk slowly and it will lie flat
. Walk slowly…walk slowly…but it doesn’t look like it’s going to lie flat. The beast is lifting its head. He’s hissing at me, which is worse than nails on a chalkboard, like pterodactyls screeching. My mouth is open before I know what I’m doing, and the noise tearing through my throat causes it to lash out at me.

I’m screaming, flailing across the yard and down the street. Snakes don’t need to be near me. Snakes can have their own feast. Just not me. Not me. I shake away the image of dozens crawling over me.

Marcus told me to find a girl, so I will. With things like that around, there’s no way in hell I’m going back on his side of the street.

* * *

I’m back at the place I started, that small patch of grass where I plucked up that metal survey stake. Tossing the stake to the ground, I glance up at the sun where it sears me from the sky. It’s directly over my head, so it must be noon, and my back, neck, chest—everything—drips with sweat from the heat.

I need shade. But those trees on the periphery of the subdivision look like they’re the only place that offers it. Or the houses themselves. Or the porches. But I’m not going to linger on any porches any longer—I saw how well that turned out.

So far, this is what I’ve learned: I’m stuck in a hellhole filled with an unrelenting heat. Seven men stare at me from their houses, and Cleo is the only one of the women to come out. The men’s homes bear signs, and the women’s sport mailboxes. I’m not supposed to touch the mailboxes, and freakishly large snakes pop out for any girls who venture on the wrong side of the street. For the life of me, I can’t see why Teo likes this place.

I need to study the other women’s houses, like the one closest to me. It’s similar in coloring to Cleo’s: dressed in red brick, two stories, and towering. So maybe I’ll knock and announce that I’m not leaving until they let me inside. I’ll bring the stake again and threaten to use it if I must, because Teo is waiting on me. I need to prove that I can do this.

Teo knew I would take the complicated route, that I wouldn’t try the closest home so I could learn what I needed from the outside. I always did that in class, too.
Solve this equation, Miss Laurent
, he would say, taunting me with the jerk of his upper lip. I would scramble for my notes, wrack my brain for the proper method, and then he’d remind me of a simple mnemonic. And instead of feeling like a fool, I’d be awed by his simple trick. So now, Teo knows I won’t linger on the men’s side of the street after seeing the snake lash out. I have always struggled with bravery, something Teo no doubt has seen.

But today, today I am hot. And thirsty, and sweaty, and cross. Perhaps Teo wants me to do something specific. This game where he plays master and I play puppet is precisely the type of thing Teo does to test us.
Let down your hair, girls
, he once said.
Not for aesthetics, but to relax your brains so you can better think
. We all dutifully listened to him. But this time I will not be his puppet. I’m already tired of this game.

He may have an issue with perfection—my little manicure is evidence of that. The new homes, the perfect lawns, even the trees are minutely placed. I’ll never be perfect. I wish I was, but I’ll never be able to change that. It’s time to get inside, go in the home that makes the most sense: the home closest to me on the women’s side of the street. And I’ll take my weapon—this little survey stake—in case this woman is anything like Cleo and fights letting me in.