Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) (28 page)

What did Jessamine mean by leaving me this?

I wheeled around at hearing a sound behind me. Molly, Sophronia, Aisha, Lacey and Frances stood in the ballroom doorway with serious expressions. Still dressed in their gowns and with faded makeup staining their faces, they resembled ghostly apparitions.

“She’s left us, hasn’t she?” Frances sounded lost.

“Yes.” I tried to smile reassuringly.

Ben and Raif stepped up behind the girls, roughly rubbing sleep from their faces.

The whispering vibrations of the shadow rushed through the Dark Way and into the corridor that led to the ballroom.

“We have to get out of here,” I told them.

Racing to the bed and dressing chambers, we collected our clothing and backpacks. As we jumped onto the platform of the exit carousel, the red and green lights blinked on.

Molly reached out and touched the glowing lights, wonder on her face. She must have dreamed of such a moment in the five long years she’d spent in the underground—but that moment had never come. Until now.

~.~

The body of Devlin Parkes lay beneath the snow drifts. You could barely see the hump in the ground. We kept running, still dressed in the clothing of the dollhouse. We needed to get well away. I’d seen what the serpent could do in the other world—she could send the earth plummeting into a deep hole.

We saw no one in the hours it took to reach Ethan’s granddad’s cottage. It was as if we were the only ones left alive in the whole world. Soon, that would become reality.

The cottage, at the bottom of the mountains, was almost buried in snow. Snow had stacked up against the door. No one had been either in or out of here in weeks.

Cautiously, Raif stepped forward and knocked.

My heart jumped as the door cracked open, snow cascading down. A thin, weathered man peered out, looking as ancient as the forests. His watery eyes registered shock. He stared at each of us in turn, his chest heaving sadly. “In these days, it’s only right I’d start hallucinating.”

Icy snowflakes stung my cheeks. We had to be a strange sight, standing here together like this—we’d put on our jackets and scarves, but we were still dressed in the dresses and clothing of the dollhouse. “You’re not hallucinating, Mr. McAllister. We’re Ethan’s friends. We’re really here, and we’ve come to see you.”

His eyes were still glazed but he waved us inside. “Well then, get in here—miserable cold out there.”

We bustled into the tiny cottage. There were just two chairs. With all of us in the cottage, the room was crammed to capacity—there was just a single living space, with two bedrooms leading from it. We knelt on the rug by the fire. Mr. McAllister put a pot of water on two sticks that he had suspended above the fire.

We drew our hoods back.

He froze. “Your faces—I know who you are. But you... you were gone. Vanished.” His gaze settled on Frances. “Even the little one’s here.”

“It’s really us,” said Aisha. “Yes, we were gone. But now we’re back. This is Molly Parkes, Sophronia, Frances Allanzi—and you know Cassie, Lacey, Ben, Raif and me.”

His eyes grew wet and his lined face opened up. “I searched for you kids until my old legs and body gave out. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason for all of you to just disappear like that. What happened to you?”

“That’s a very long story,” I told him in a gentle voice. “But we’re safe now. And Ethan’s safe too. He just... couldn’t be here with us right now.”

His breaths quickened. “My grandson’s alive?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He’s been back here many times looking for you on the mountains, but didn’t find you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, relief and anguish in every line of his face. “I’d given up on ever seeing him again. But still, I’ve spent my time roaming up and down the river, and around the forest, always looking for him.”

“Ethan had to go away for the past three months,” I said. “That might be how you’ve missed seeing him. But you will, soon.”

I knew that nothing in this world could be promised, but I also knew that Ethan would do everything in his power to get back to his grandfather.

He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, touching his hand to his forehead and nodding with relief. “I never thought I’d live to see a miracle. But you kids, here, today—that’s a damned-straight miracle.”

Taking up the gnarled branch that served as a walking stick, he walked over to the kitchen and set out cups. He glanced back at us over his shoulder. “I’m not so senile as to think this is just a friendly visit. How in the name of all that’s holy did you even get here?”

“I could lie and give a simple explanation,” I told him, “but something tells me that you’d see straight through that.”

He gave a single nod. “You remind me of my daughter, Alkira—Ethan’s mother. She was nothing if not direct. I like that.”

Aisha brought the boiling pot of water over to him.

Ben turned his head to stare at the jumping flames as Mr. McAllister began pouring out hot cups of tea. “Sir, having a fire in these parts is dangerous. There are... certain people who are attracted to the sight of smoke. They’re hunters... of a type.”

Deep crevices formed between Mr. McAllister’s eyebrows as he considered Ben’s words. “Well, they’re welcome to come and sit by my fire. This winter’s been a long one.”

Ben exhaled a tight breath. “Yes it has been. But you can’t let these hunters in. They’re not good people.”

The old man’s pale blue eyes focused sharply on Ben. “Well, all of us are just a step away from losing our humanity. I do my best not to judge.”

I shivered hearing Mr. McAllister speak of the Eaters. He knew exactly who Ben was talking about. Somehow, he’d been able to avoid not only death by starvation and exposure, but being taken by the Eaters.

Lacey tucked strands of white, snow-flecked hair back from her face. “They’re afraid of you, aren’t they? That’s why they don’t come near you.”

Mr. McAllister turned to Lacey. “Lacey Dougherty—the sergeant’s daughter....”

“That’s right,” she said softly.

“I’ve seen you out in the forest many times—before the long winter came—and after.” It was a statement, but he posed it in a questioning way.

She drew her top lip in. “Yes. Too many times.”

I wondered what he’d say if he knew the extent of her involvement in the disappearance of the girls in the forest and if he knew she was the one who had planted the ribbons under the floorboards of his cottage. But by the knowing, heavy-hearted look that had entered his eyes, I suspected that he guessed at least part of it.

Lacey wrapped her arms around her shoulders, half-burying her face in the crook of her elbows.

“And what makes you think people are afraid of me, Miss Dougherty?” he asked her.

She toyed with the ends of her scarf. “They’ve seen your shadow....”

“Have they?” He sipped his tea, seeming to be waiting for more.

Nodding, Lacey raised her eyes to him. “A few months ago, I was at the river camp. One night, I watched you face down a serpent and then wrestle with its shadow.”

“Did I?” he said, not giving anything away.

“Yes, you did.” Nervously, she rewrapped her scarf around her neck.

“Sir, I’ve seen the serpents sneak in at night for myself,” said Ben. “I know they’re real. Most people don’t live to tell the tale, but I did. And so did you. Except that you did something that no one else has done. You took on a serpent’s shadow... and you won. We want to know how you did that.”

Mr. McAllister’s shoulders hunched. “Oh... I didn’t win. No, no you mustn’t think I won.” He gazed at Lacey. “Look at this poor little one—does she look like she’s winning?”

Lacey winced. “You know, don’t you? You can tell I have the shadow too?”

“I can see it plain as day,” he replied. “I could see it when you stood outside.”

“I only have a small part of shadow in me. And I didn’t choose to have it enter my body, not really.” Lacey shook her head. “But you
did
—you stole the shadow from the serpent.”

A distant haze entered Mr. McAllister’s eyes. “I’ve faced down worse. I nursed my wife through a long illness before she died, and I lost my only child to a car accident. I’ve taken darkness into my soul... and so I knew darkness when I saw it. It knew I was old and ill and close to death. But I didn’t yield. It’s not my way.” He stared around at us. “So I took it in, I took it inside me. But it hangs like a black curtain over my soul. I can feel it clawing and kicking inside me as we speak.”

Ben gulped down the remainder of his tea. “Sir... I don’t know how to say this, but you’re different. I was Ethan’s best mate since he came to live with you, and I know how you were... before. I hope it’s not out of place to say that you—”

“Have my mind back?” Mr. McAllister broke in. “That’s what you meant, isn’t it?”

Casting his gaze down, Ben nodded.

“Well, that might well be true,” said Mr. McAllister. “I used to forget things, forget everything, even forget who I was some days—it must have been very hard on my grandson in those last years. My mind was slowly leaving me. But this thing inside me, this shadow—it’s changed me. I forget nothing, these days.”

I remembered the confused old man who’d taken the stand at the court case. Mr. McAllister had been suffering from Alzheimer's back then. He was so much stronger and sharper now.

“Tell us how—tell us how you did it?” Molly’s voice was urgent—the voice of someone who’d spent years in the grip of the shadow.

Pain stole into his eyes. “You young kids don’t want to go messing with that.”

“Mr. McAllister, we couldn’t get in any deeper than we already are,” Molly told him.

“Then p’haps you kids better tell me what you’ve been up to.”

He made it sound like we were normal teenagers in a normal world, who’d been out causing a bit of mayhem. Something about that was comforting. We told him, as briefly as we could manage, about our lives over the past year. About the dollhouse and the castle and Prudence. When we were finished, he gazed around at us steadily—in a more direct way than he had since we’d been here in his cottage, almost as though something had woken inside of him.

Stiffly, he rose and went to poke at the fire. Raising his shoulders in a sigh, he gazed into the flames. “This is all I know. It’s painful for those creatures to send their shadows outside of themselves. When they strike, they must strike quickly, or risk having their shadow torn away from them. They use your own energy against you, as they seem to have none of their own. In those seconds, you have an advantage, see? You must empty your mind and take the shadow inside you. As soon as it realizes what’s happening, it will fight you. But you must stand firm. You must keep out your own thoughts and fears and open yourself completely.”

He shuffled slowly around to us. “You must have no fear. For me, it was not so hard. I’m an old man with nothing to lose, a man who has lost everyone—and I thought I’d lost Ethan too. But you’re just beginning your lives, and you’re full of restless dreams. To take on the shadows would be foolhardy.”

“Can you control it—the shadow inside you?” Molly asked him.

“To a degree, yes,” he replied, “but it is a wild, roaming thing that I must continually keep a rein on.” His eyes hooded over. “But I’m growing tired. It’s a constant battle.”

Sophronia limped over to him. “I see that your hips are about as much use as my bad leg. But you have discovered the secret of the shadow, have you not? There is no way you could be feeding yourself out here in the middle of nowhere. You are using the shadow to flit about.” She raised her dark eyebrows.

He gave her a nod. “The power of this thing damn near terrifies me. What kind of damned alien life form has a shadow that can defend itself and kill and transport itself from place to place? At first, I thought I’d gone completely mad. But then I understood that this damned unholy power was real. I wanted to shout it to everyone I saw. But something worries me more than the monsters—that people would start using the power of the shadows against each other. That would be the end of us.”

“So you’ll train us?” Ben sounded completely like a man in that moment. There was no trace of that awkward, boyish uncertainty he often had in his voice.

I turned to Ethan’s grandfather. “We seek only to stop those people that we told you about—the people of the castle. And to defeat the serpents.”

Mr. McAllister exhaled a long, tense breath. “I’ll train you.”

~.~

We stood out on the snow in a horizontal line, all except for Frances—who sat on a log with her small frame silhouetted by the midday sun. We’d changed from our dollhouse clothing back into our regular clothes. I’d dressed in Ethan’s bedroom, surrounded by the things that made Ethan who he was—his drawings and poetry, a picture of his nine-year-old self with his parents, and a view of the endless forest beyond the small window. I’d breathed in that scent—of forest and wood fires—that was so much a part of Ethan.

Ethan’s grandfather stood ankle deep in the fresh snow outside the cottage, facing us—his hooded eyes weary but intent. He leaned heavily on his walking stick. We’d spent exhausting hours trying to learn how to empty our minds in the face of the onslaught of a shadow, and how to be stronger than the shadow itself.

It was now time to take on a shadow.

Raif insisted on being first. Mr. McAllister cast the shadow out from itself, hurling it toward Raif. I watched the shadow stream through the cold, bright air. Raif doubled over, wrestling with himself.

Mr. McAllister closed his eyes and silently called the shadow back. “You tried to fight it, but that is a fight you can never win. Because you end up fighting yourself. Instead you must simply hold on and hold out. Encompass the shadow with your will.”

Raif rolled about in the snow, breathing heavily.

“You came within seconds of being turned into powder,” Mr. McAllister told him. “I don’t know that we should continue.”

“May I try?” I asked Mr. McAllister. “I’m ready.”

White hair fell across his eyes as he bent his head. “How can I be sure?”

“Because I faced the empress of the serpents and her shadow before.” I told him. “I can do this.”