7. Dollie—present day #2
Ambrose La’Darragh killed his parents because Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t let him touch his little Dollie.
One of the music room doors clicks open, freezing me on the spot. I blink, and tears fall, allowing me to see the recently painted hatred again.
Slowly, I twist around, terrified to look. Those doors have never had an issue—no trouble opening and closing like the front ones.
Could a vandal still be in the house?
Could it be something else?
“Shane?” I call out, not wanting to check it out alone.
The distance between us and his selective hearing grants me no answer.
But someone has to look.
Unfortunately, that someone is me.
The steps across the room put more dust on my socks.
I bravely look up to the darkness that looms on the second floor from around the archway. Then, I creep across the foyer.
Swallowing my fear, I peek around one of the doors and into the music room. The old piano holds my attention for a second before my eyes drift over every other instrument.
There’s no damage. Nothing missing. Not a soul in sight.
Deeming the room safe from an intruder, I grip the handle tightly and pull it closed.
“It was just the wind,” I tell myself, praying we’d trapped a draft inside when we were struggling with the front doors. Ignoring the fact that it’s totally crazy, I turn away. I take only two steps, and the door clicks open again.
Tears rise again, and my eyes widen.
My lip trembles, leaving a puff of air in the cold house.
Careening so slow, I barely move. A shaking hand grips the doorknob. The lacy patterns on my glove blur into a black mess through tears as I watch myself close it for the second time.
Fingers trembling around the brass knob, I wait for something to pull it open again.
Something haunts me from the second floor: the memory of my parents. I glance up, expecting to see them there, standing in the dark, but all I see are two creepy-looking gargoyles staring back.
A beat passes.
Then another.
A loud noise booms, echoing through many rooms. My heart lurches, and I let go of the doorknob.
I recognize the sound, which is just a grandfather clock.
The one in the reading room alerts me that it’s seven in the evening, and with a six-second delay, another confirms it up in the hallway on the second floor. I step back, my whole-body trembling.
The door is still closed, and after seconds pass and silence ebbs, I’m able to breathe when it doesn’t click open again.
“This sofa doesn’t feel too damp, considering it’s been here for how many years?”
The statement sofa almost fills the tiny living room. The only other furniture is a coffee table, free of stains, which is also unfamiliar. Shane’s tablet sits on top, playing some movie that has neither of our attention. I tremble at his side, tears still dripping from my eyes.
“I have no idea.”
“Look, stop crying. You have no reason to be sad.”
Nodding, I finger the fabric, not remembering the comfy maroon sofa at all. The suedette material feels nice between my fingers, warm… like the room, which should feel damp, too.
“Come on, relax a little.”
Using my toes to do it, I pull off my socks and kick my feet up just as the doorbell rings, as loud as it always was.
“Can you go?” Shane’s shoes are off, too, kicked under the table he puts his feet upon. “No shoes.”
Bringing my foot into the air, I wiggle my toes. “On the way here, you said you wouldn’t leave my side.” My anxiety tries to guilt him, and a flush of shame guilts me for it instead.
“Lancie, we’re in your childhood home, and the monster who caused all your fears is still behind bars. You’re safe.”
The bell rings again.
“Go on,” Shane encourages, handing me his wallet. “I won’t find my way back.”
I’d say Shane is playing dumb with his excuses, but with the amount of attention he pays to anything but the phone in his hand these days, it’s possible that he wouldn’t find his way back until our food goes cold.
A sneer about him using that annoying little device for GPS sits on my tongue, but I don’t feel the desire to voice it.
“You’ll be quicker. Go. And wipe those silly tears.”
Knowing that’s true, because I’ll probably run through the house to avoid harsh memories catching up, I force myself off the sofa.
I glance back with pleading eyes at the door, but he doesn’t meet my stare, and I know I have to do this alone.
I make it from one side of the house to the other in seconds, avoiding the pull to the second floor.
Wedging the door handle in that special way, it opens on the first attempt. I cringe as it whines.
Rain bounces off the delivery guy’s red hat, his blond hair drenched beneath. Rain droplets are dropping into his eyes.
“Oh…”
Now, I not only understand his impatience as shown by ringing twice, but I feel bad, too. I hadn’t noticed how bad the weather was while Shane was blasting some movie he’d downloaded on his tablet.
“Come in a sec.” I step back, counting money from Shane’s wallet, and the man steps inside, shivering on the worn welcome mat.
“New in town?” he asks cautiously as he stares around the house.
“I just got—” I freeze before saying the word, “home. I grew up here.”
“Then I guess you’re not scared away by the ghost stories.”
“Well, ghosts don’t usually hurt you. Living, breathing people do.” I roll my eyes shut, hoping this random person forgives me for the bite in my voice. And hoping that he can’t see I’m all talk because the ghosts here make my hair stand on end.
“I’m sorry. The place is just a mess, and it’s stressing me.”
“You’re Dollancie La’Darragh?”
“I am.” I offer a weak smile that he returns. “How much?”
I count a few dollar bills.
The teen driver smiles at something behind me, his head bobbing in acknowledgment, and I think nothing of it because teens are often weird until he says, “Tough crowd.”
His expression changes to something forced, his nostrils flaring with what looks like worry, and his smile becomes bigger, faker, and more painted on.
My head snaps over my shoulder, and I see nothing but the probably moldy books.
“Huh, Forty-one, fifty, please.”
With my attention pulled back to him, I count the dollar bills again. “Here’s fifty. Keep the change.”
I exchange pleasantries and wish him a good night, but I can’t help the uneasy feeling that spreads over me when he takes another look behind me before stepping out.
With the door securely locked and nothing out of place in the foyer, I rush back through the house with my neck hairs standing to attention, checking behind me for any shadows that don’t belong to me.
“Shane, were you creeping around to scare the delivery guy because it worked! And it scared me, too!”
“What?” his voice is quiet when it seeps from the den to the kitchen as I approach, and it sounds like he’s already chewing something.
His damn nails again, no doubt.
“Nothing. Never mind. Did you look for plates?” We probably shouldn’t eat from anything found in this kitchen, but we’re sharing this food, and I don’t want him to claim all the best parts from the cartons. Besides, germs can be washed away easily.
“I thought they were all smashed.”
Dozens of them are all over the floor, perfect company for the graffiti on the walls that speaks of death and murder. I haven’t read any of it in the kitchen. I got the gist from the reading room, and I close my eyes every time the words in here catch in my peripheral vision.
I creep through the shattered china, heading for the cupboard that now, even as an adult, I can barely reach.
“Need help, princess?” I spin around, dropping the food to the floor over the shock of Dad’s voice in my ears.
Pounding comes with the rise and fall of my chest.
Obviously, he isn’t here when I slowly turn around. The kitchen is vacant of company, but I still can’t help scanning every inch of the room.
The cold air around me makes my heart pound faster. Taking a moment, I allow it to calm.
“Bless this house, bless me, free those wronged by cruel deeds.” I chant lowly as I make a silent vow to purchase some sage tomorrow.
My stomach rumbles, and somehow, calms that feeling of anxiety building in my chest.
Luckily for me, nothing is spilled but my blood, as a small shard from one of the broken plates pierces my skin while I push the containers of food back into the paper bag.
Wasting no time, I rush back to the cupboard to find two plates that look nothing like the broken ones. One pink and one black. They look unrealistically clean, but then again, so do the kitchen countertops and accessories.
Testing my luck again, I pull open a drawer and find cutlery.
I run the plates and two forks beneath hot water before I clutch everything and take it into the living room.
“There’s hot water here,” I tell Shane as I sit myself back down at his side. I don’t mention my struggle, and he clearly didn’t hear it.
“There shouldn’t be.” He finally pulls his eyes off his phone. “Unless you’re due a giant bill for that, too, because who would be paying for it?”
Well, that would be my luck.