Chapter 27
VERO IS BRAIDING my hair. We aren’t in the tower bedroom anymore. Maybe it’s her mood, maybe it’s my mood, but we’ve downgraded to the little room. With the one narrow window and the twin beds shoved tight together because that’s all the space will allow. At the foot of the bed is a tattered blue area rug. Neither of us look at the rug.
I’m sitting on one of the beds. Vero is kneeling behind me, efficiently plaiting my long dark hair into braids. She is lecturing me as she works.
“You can’t trust them.”
I don’t say anything. Nor do I move. Every now and then, the flesh disappears from her hands, and I feel her skeletal fingers rake across my scalp.
“Where were the police thirty years ago? If they’re so good, they should’ve found you then. If they’re so hardworking and trustworthy, they should’ve rescued you then. Even cops have appetites. You know it’s true.”
In the distance I can hear the sound of a lawn mower. I don’t know why, but it makes my expression soften, my shoulders relax. If I wasn’t here with Vero, I would get up now, climb across the beds to the tiny window. I would look out and see . . .
“You need to pay attention!” Vero tugs my hair. Hard. I wince. She doesn’t care. “Time is running out; don’t you get that?”
I can’t turn my head to look at her, so I shrug.
“I’m trying to help you. You still won’t see what you need to see. You still don’t know what you need to know. How long do you plan on being so stupid?”
“What are you?” I ask. “My childhood ghost, my guilty conscience?”
She yanks my hair, definitely annoyed. “I know what I am, but what are you?” she taunts back.
“I think you’re a tool.”
She gasps, clearly surprised by this mundane description, maybe even put off.
“You are the gatekeeper of the memories I can’t face,” I continue, thinking out loud. “Whatever happened all those years ago . . . I boxed it up. Put it away with a sign that read ‘Keep Out.’ Except things don’t like to stay boxed up, do they? Even the past wants to be heard. I think you’re its avatar, the face of all the memories trying to break free.”
“If you’re so fucking smart,” Vero informs me, “then why are you so stupid?” She drops my hair, steps off the bed, clearly done with me.
But I don’t let her go. I’m running out of time. Something worse is lurking out there. I’ve started a process that can’t be undone, and now, if I don’t figure out everything, and fast . . .
The past doesn’t just want to be heard. Sometimes, it wants revenge.
The smell of smoke. The heat of the flames.
The sounds of her screams.
Even in my own mind, I automatically reach out a hand for Thomas.
“Why does Chelsea hate me?” I ask Vero now. “This room . . .” I drift my fingers across the threadbare brown coverlet. “There was just the two of us. I thought we’d be friends.”
“She can’t be your friend,” Vero says immediately. She is standing on the blue carpet. Her skin is back on her face, but her hands remain skeletal.
“Why not?”
“There are no friends in the dollhouse. You survive in this place. You endure. You don’t make friends.”
Vero’s voice sounds funny. I study her carefully and discover she is crying.
“You’re sad,” I whisper. I don’t know why this surprises me. Of course she’s sad. The memory of a kidnapped little girl. She should be devastated.
“The secret realm, the magical queen,” she singsongs now. Her hair is starting to fall out in clumps, the white of her skull showing through. “Once I had a life. Once I had a story. I told you those stories. Over and over again. Because someone had to know. Someone had to remember what was real.”
“I understand.”
“Chelsea doesn’t have a story. Even before the dollhouse. There was no magical queen, no secret realm. No one has ever loved her, not even you. No one wants to be her”—she eyes me slyly—“not even you.”
“She was jealous.”
“I stole her room, the best room, the tower room . . .” Vero’s voice is no longer sad, but smug. A look flitters across her face. Not little girl at all, but devious. Suddenly, I’m nervous.
“Once, she was the princess, but when I came, I was younger, more beautiful.” She preens. I step back, even more uncomfortable.
“I took it. I claimed the tower. I commanded all of Madame Sade’s attention. I was the youngest, the brightest, the best. Of course she spent all her time on me. I was worth it!”
“You were a little girl—”
“A diamond in the rough. But I learned. I learned everything. And when I was twelve and the time came, she gave me to her most special of friends, the richest, the most powerful, the most commanding of them all. The others knew. Of course they hated me for it.” But Vero’s not complaining; she’s boasting.
Maybe she should. For six long years she was locked away, all alone except for her teacher’s company.
“Who are the other girls?” I ask, for things are shifting again in the back of my mind. Except this time, I don’t turn away. I step closer.
“You know. You know you know. We are a family. A fucked-up, twisted family, fashioned by the world’s most fucked-up, twisted mother, Madame Sade herself.”
And for a second, I can almost picture it. Family dinners, yes. All of us sitting around the formal dining table. Except Madame Sade’s family only has girls—yes, no?—four of us. Two older, two younger. Chelsea and I are the younger pair, positioned at the far end of the table. Where we watch the two older girls, with their carefully polished faces and poofed-up hair, whisper between themselves. Every now and then, almost on cue, their heads rotate to stare at us. Their expressions are harsh, knowing. We quickly look away. We’re scared of them. They are our future, and we know it.
Vero whispers in my ear, “No one ever leaves the dollhouse. Only way out is death, death, death.”
But there is something else here, something else I know I need to grab on to, study harder.
I hear myself say: “You didn’t keep the tower bedroom.”
Vero jerks back. More patches of hair fall from her skull. Followed by pieces of her face.
“There is no one younger and prettier than me!” she snarls.
“You moved into the room with Chelsea.”
“Jealous. No one ever loved her. Not even you. No one wants to be her, not even you!”
“But she . . .” I hesitate; then the words simply come out. I don’t know if I’m speaking the truth, as much as I simply have to speak. “Chelsea loved you. In the beginning, she was jealous. No, she was afraid. But by the end, she loved you very much. Living in this room with you; it was the first time in her life she didn’t feel alone.”
Vero won’t look at me anymore. She spins away, half flesh, half bone. Half girl, half ghost.
She is dancing on the rug, I realize. As if daring me to see it.
Outside, the sound of the lawn mower, moving closer. I want so badly to go to the window. I don’t want to be trapped in this room anymore with Vero. I want to peer out over the vast, sweeping lawn. I want to feel the sun on my face. I want to see him.
But I don’t move. I stay where I am, watching Vero, and I realize for the first time, she is holding a needle in one hand. As I watch, the insides of her arms fill up with track marks. Identical to the marks on the older girls, I realize now. Our future selves. Because in the beginning Madame Sade offers a beautiful bedroom, a roof over your head. But by the end, it’s not enough. It takes a more compelling incentive to keep the girls working.
To keep them dependent.
Vero catches my stare. She laughs louder, spins more wildly.
“Please,” I try to tell her. “It wasn’t your fault. Whatever happened, whatever you did. You shouldn’t have been put through this; you shouldn’t have—”
“Loved to fly?”
I can’t talk to her anymore. There is a look on her face . . .
I’m afraid again. More frightened than I think I’ve ever been, my fingers sinking into the edge of the mattress. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to talk to her; I don’t want to remember.
But I still don’t leave. A process has been started. It’s too late to turn back now.
“There’s only one way out of the dollhouse,” she cries now, twirling on the rug, dancing on the rug, toe-tapping across the rug. “Death, death, death!”
“But I didn’t die,” I protest.
She stops moving so suddenly, the skin flies from her body. She stands before me, a bone-white skeleton, proud of her decay.
The look on her face is once more smug. “Then how did you get out? Or did you escape at all?”
Then she goes toe-tapping once again across that terrible, awful, moldering navy-blue rug. And now I shiver.
* * *
I WAKE UP to the smell of freshly mowed grass. For a moment, I’m completely bewildered. Thomas, I think. He must be outside, mowing the lawn. But then the ceiling comes into focus, as well as the framed picture of the moose hanging on the wall. I register the familiar feel of my favorite quilt against my fingerprints, but a strange pillow under my head.
The hotel room, of course. I blink a few more times, but the smell of cut grass remains. I sit up and find Tessa Leoni positioned in a chair, eyeing me intently.
“What are you thinking of right now?” she asks me.
I answer without thinking. “Thomas.”
“First thing you noticed about him.”
“His eyes. They’re kind.”
“Describe him.”
“Tall. Lanky. All arms and legs and thick dark hair that’s always rumpled. He has big hands, calloused, capable. You can tell just by looking that he knows how to do things. He’s strong.”
“First thing he ever said to you.”
“He didn’t. He watched me. But I didn’t want him to notice. I didn’t want him to see. Every now and then, though, I’d glance up and he’d be studying me. He would smile. And I’d feel . . . warm. Like I’d been cold for a very long time. But I always looked away again. Before we got in trouble.”
“Nicky, where are you?”
But I’m awake now, aware enough not to take the bait. Such as the answer is not New Orleans. It’s different, it’s earlier, and it’s a memory I’m still working on myself. I need to know what I need to know first, I think. Then, and only then—maybe then?—I will share it with others.
But Vero had been telling the truth; I can’t trust anyone, not even the cops. If they were so great, where were they thirty years ago?
“You bought a candle,” I say, finally having identified the source of the smell. There, on the round table in the corner of the room, a fat glass jar filled with light green wax sits, burning merrily.
“Yankee Candle Company,” she informs me. “They have a scent for everything. I brought you food, too. And some supplies.”
She lets me eat first. A Greek salad topped with grilled chicken. I didn’t realize how famished I was until I wolf it down. There are also new clothes, an oversize navy-blue pullover, dark ball cap, glasses. An ensemble meant to disguise rather than flatter. Finally there’s a large sketch pad topped with an assortment of pencils and pastels.
Tessa outlines the game plan, as the room steadily fills with the scent of freshly cut grass.
“I want you to draw. The house, room, yard, people, places, things. Anything that comes to mind, really. Just close your eyes, focus on the smell and sketch away.”
“You want to know if the dollhouse is real,” I tell her.
“I need you to make it real. Right now, you’re a woman with a history of brain damage and imaginary friends. If this investigation is going to get off the ground, we need details. You’re going to have to go to the places you don’t want to go, Nicky. It’s the only way.”
I understand. I’m even intrigued. Talking about the past is hard. Trying to get the memories to focus, then lock in my mind using words; I grow too tired and overwhelmed. But I’m an artist. I can draw. And maybe, much like muscle memory, if I just let my hand move across the page on its own . . .
I open the sketch pad. I pick up a charcoal-gray pencil. I get to work.
I close my eyes. Tessa’s right; it’s easier this way. I inhale deep, pulling the scent all the way into my lungs, into my stomach. I feel sun, the promise of an outside world. I feel the yearning of a young girl, locked up for too long inside.
My hand moves across the paper.
From time to time, Tessa asks me questions. She sits at the table across the room, leaving me be. I can hear the clack of a keyboard, her own fingers busily at work. But she’s in her world and I’m in mine, and even her questions blend with the pictures opening up before me.
“What are the names of the girls?”
“Vero, Chelsea, CeeCee, Renita.”
“How old are they?”
“CeeCee and Renita are older. Madame’s first girls. They scare us.”
“Why?”
“They’re . . . cold. Know things even we don’t know yet. Madame is hard on them. They’re getting too old for the dollhouse, and everyone knows it.”
“Do you talk to them?”
“Never.”
“Who do you talk to?”
“Vero tells stories. Of the time before. When she was a real girl and someone loved her. Chelsea listens. They hunker together in their side-by-side beds. They whisper and dream of Someday. Other Places. Outside. Then night falls. Madame unlocks their door. And it’s time again.”
I draw a room. Not the narrow bedroom, but a parlor. With a marble-trimmed fireplace and brass sconces on the wall. A room that had once been grand. But it’s worn now, frayed around the edges. Like Madame. Once beautiful, now clinging desperately to what used to be and might have been.
I draw her next, my hand stuttering over the grim set of her mouth, the harsh lines at the corners of her eyes. I can’t help myself; I shiver.
“What’s her name?” Tessa asks me.
“Madame.”
“Does everyone call her that?”
“Anything else is a sign of disrespect. We must respect.” I pause. “She wants us to love her. Maybe some part of her even wishes we actually were her daughters, that we are one big happy family. But if we don’t love her, she will settle for us fearing her instead.”
“Is it her house?”
“Been in the family for generations. We’re lucky she lets us live here.”
“Like you’re lucky for the clothes on your back, the food on the table?” Tessa asks sharply.
“Without her, we would have nothing,” I say simply. “Without her, we would be nothing.”
I move on to the dining table. A long rectangle, capable of hosting a party of sixteen. An elaborate crystal chandelier dangles in the middle, while a faded crimson floral print adorns the walls.
“Who cooks, who cleans?” Tessa is asking.
“She takes care of us; we take care of her.”
“And at night, when the . . . guests arrive.”
“Dinner parties. She’s the hostess. We’re her daughters. We must be considerate of the guests. Engage them in conversation, entertain their every need.”
I leave the dining room. The wraparound front porch, where we could sit as a reward for good behavior. The vaulted foyer, where she would stand to greet every new arrival. The tower bedroom, with the rose-painted mural. Where it all began. Where it all ended.
Where Vero and I still sit and drink a cup of tea.
One room left. I know it well; the twin beds shoved together, the narrow window on the wall. Where Chelsea and Vero spent their last years, whispering stories together in the dark.
Small, cloistered, should be the easiest to sketch. And yet my hand skips over it time and again.
Vero braiding my hair, her skin falling off in chunks.
Vero dancing across that awful frayed blue rug.
My hand is shaking. I can’t get the tip of the pencil down on the paper. I try to focus, will my own fingers into action. My arm shakes harder.
I’m aware of Tessa watching me, which only makes it worse.
“Nicky,” she asks quietly, “was it your or Thomas’s idea to return to New Hampshire?”
I don’t answer her question. I’m too busy staring at my trembling hand. Her cell phone rings. Tessa checks the display, then excuses herself, taking the phone and stepping out of the room into the hall.
Alone I think I can do this. Draw the rug. Just draw the rug.
But I can’t.
When my hand moves again, it doesn’t draw the room. It draws a face. One as familiar to me as my own. With deep, dark eyes. Laugh lines crinkling the corners. Dark hair, tousled around his forehead.
Except this Thomas is younger than my own. With fewer lines and thicker hair. His jaw is not fully fleshed out, his face still babyish around the edges. A teenager, full of promise but not yet grown into himself.
And he’s not smiling at me kindly. Or flirting with his gaze. Or winking at me slyly.
My fingers move again. Mud splattered across his brow. The smell of wet-churned earth, the feel of the grave. Or maybe it’s soot, smeared across his cheek. The smell of smoke, the feel of the flames.
I don’t know this Thomas. The look on his face. So grim, so horrible.
The things he has done, I think, automatically. The things he’s about to do next . . .
I drop my pencil. Grab the sheet of paper. Quick, before I can think twice, I rip it from the pad.
I can hear Tessa’s voice, still talking on her phone in the hall. As I cross to the hotel bed, lift the mattress and shove the sketch beneath it, disappearing it from sight.
My heart is still beating wildly. I can barely sit. My head throbs. Thomas, young Thomas, clearly not from New Orleans.
Vero is laughing in the back of my mind. Or maybe she’s taunting. “How does someone so smart get to be so stupid?”
Then: “Run, baby, run.”
But I can’t run. There’s no place for me to go. Only worse things for me to remember. Fresh dangers for me to face.
I need to pull myself together. The scent of grass. Trying to draw it in, find my center again. But it’s not happening.
Vero is whirling around in my mind. Dancing across that awful rug as hair and flesh fly off her bones.
I’m on the edge, I realize. The furthest I’ve ever gotten in my memories. Maybe even now standing right outside the shuttered-up box. All I have to do is lean forward, remove the sign that says “Keep Out,” then tug hard on the lid . . .
The door opens. Tessa walks into the room. The look on her face is stern and immediately foreboding. “That was Wyatt. We need to return to the sheriff’s office. They’ve recovered Thomas’s vehicle. Nicky, you have some serious explaining to do.”