The Dollhouse Romance Read online

  By someone, I assume he means to use himself as the test subject.

  He lowers his voice to almost a whisper, glancing at his door. “Do my parents know about your riddle?”

  I shake my head.

  “Probably best to not tell them. Father’s had too many disappointments; I don’t know if his heart can handle another one. Can you make it back tonight, after everyone’s sleeping?”

  I nod. I haven’t slept well since arriving at the mansion, anyway. An adventure in the wee hours of the morning would, at least, be a worthy waste of time.

  “Then we’ll see if your boat works. For now, though, I think my mother’s waiting for you to deliver your groceries.” He picks up the scented card and holds it to his nose. His jaw works up and down. Is he angry? Pensive? The scars on his face make it hard to read his emotions.

  “Who sent it?” I ask.

  “Someone who finally cares about our predicament. May I…?”

  “Sure. Keep it. I have another one in my room.” I zip up my backpack and then stand. Eleanor’s waiting for me. But my heart clenches at the sight of David, holding the bandage boat in one hand and the riddle in the other. He’s hungry for more than just food. “David, I’ll figure out how to get you all out of here,” I hear myself vowing. “This riddle was entrusted to me. I’ll find a way.”

  He hesitates before saying, in a quiet voice full of hope, “I believe in you.”

  That’s a big oath – and a lot of faith.

  What if I’m not smart enough to deliver?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

  ALEXIS?

  Mouser meows to me as I pop out full-sized next to the dollhouse. Oh, no! I forgot to close the study door. She’s padding straight for me.

  “No, no, no. Go back. Bad cat! Stay away!” I run toward her, but she passes through the sphere’s perimeter before I can intercept her.

  My blood freezes. What will happen?

  She seems fine, sniffing around the porch and rising up on her back paws to inspect the higher windows. But when she’s done exploring, she heads back to the bedroom – and turns to wood as she exits the dome of sparkles.

  Oh my God.

  I’ve just killed my cat.

  I rush over to the little statue, so lifelike, so real. So dead.

  Or maybe not. I pick her up and step back into the dome. Just like that, the rough wood dissolves into soft fur. But she jumps out of my arms, outside the perimeter again, turning into a carved statue once more.

  It’s a morbid logic puzzle. If I put her back into the dome, the Whitmans will be able to care for her. If she’ll stay. But she’ll be enormous to them, and she’ll probably damage their tiny furniture. Or I could take her inside the dollhouse with me so she’ll shrink small enough for the Whitmans to play with. Either way, she’s doomed to a captive life now.

  I wish I had closed the door.

  I can’t leave her as a statue. I bark out a desperate, sick laugh at the idea of putting her on my pillow, all wooden.

  “I’m so sorry,” I tell her as I join her out in the study. I don’t feel any fear coming from her, so I’m tempted to leave her there. Maybe put her up on a shelf with the shrunken houses. But what if Amelia asks about her? Although Mouser mostly lives in my room now, Amelia has borrowed her a couple of times already to keep mice out of the pantry.

  There’s nothing I can do. I scoop up my cat-sized statue, take her back to my room, and sit with her in my lap in front of my crackling fireplace. “Help,” I say to nobody in particular.

  I don’t know where she comes from, but a beautiful woman enters – floats into? – my room, the blue silk of her gown fluttering like her own personal cloud. She’s radiating. Maybe it’s the way the sunshine from the window behind her bounces off her perfect auburn curls, forming a halo of light. An otherworldly beauty about her silver eyes and laughing ruby lips makes me painfully aware of my own physical flaws. I’m a plain brown sparrow sitting next to an elegant peacock.

  As the ghost-sorceress-person floats toward me, I catch a whiff of her delicious floral perfume, identical to the scented riddle cards I’ve received. She picks up the Mouser statue. At her touch, my cat melts into fur again. “Let’s make sure she doesn’t get stuck again, shall we?” She plants a golden kiss on Mouser’s nose and then pulls the study door shut so Mouser can’t go back inside.

  “Please.” I find my voice when she starts to leave. “Could you do that for my friends? They’re trapped, too.”

  Her smile is kind, but she shakes her head. “Logic over magic, I’m afraid.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Didn’t you get my riddle? You’re the only one with the power to free the Whitmans.”

  “I’m human. No powers.”

  “Being human only limits you if you’re short on imagination. Logic over magic this time.” She taps my finger, her touch startling me with its solidness. “Pretty ring,” she says as if her bright silver eyes let her see through the bandage. “Such a trinket must come with quite a bit of responsibility, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.” I hide it behind my back while she continues to snoop around my room.

  “Oh, my goodness. Chickens for good luck.” She’s at my nightstand, picking up my porcelain chickens. “I haven’t seen that in years. You’re Paraguayan?”

  “On my mother’s side.”

  “It’s a nice custom, to personalize your bedroom.”

  She wants an explanation. The silence grows uncomfortable to the point where it’s rude to not give her one – she’s just staring, her silver eyes compelling me to volunteer information.

  “I do it everywhere I go,” I blurt. “We move a lot. My mom had a deal with a rental company in Minneapolis. We got free rent, so long as we fixed up the apartments.”

  “Tearing out carpets, laying down floors, painting? That sort of thing?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  The lady flips through my sketchbook, pausing to study the smallest house plans in particular. “I know other people who are obsessed with houses, too. Dollhouses.”

  The way she pierces my soul with her comment convinces me she’s not talking about the Whitmans. The only person I can think of who loves dollhouses would be… Phoebe. The little girl in the mirror – the one Amelia coddles with ice cream and hot chocolate on tantrum nights.

  “Nothing’s off limits to a person with imagination,” she tells me. “It’s your greatest power, if you’ll dare to use it. Visit the Whitmans whenever you like – you have my permission.”

  As if hers is the only permission I need.

  Before I can point out that Amelia would be furious to know I’ve been snooping, she pauses to pet Mouser. Then she walks out my bedroom door, fading into the sunshine at the end of the hall.

  I think I’ve just met my first ghost.

  Is that what you get when an Artemic dies?

  Did I just meet Alexis?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN:

  SKILL FOR SKILL

  Still trembling, I return to the dollhouse, careful to shut the door behind me. I take a few deep breaths to calm myself before delivering my food tray to Eleanor. “Everyone hold onto something. I’m opening it up,” I announce in a loud voice. Then I count to three to give them time to brace themselves.

  I really need to get some oil for the rusty hinges – not because they’re so difficult to open, but because I’m afraid Amelia or one of the other staff will hear the sharp squeak. I set the tray’s full-sized contents on the tiny counter by the icebox, then close the dollhouse and take the eggs and canned tomato sauces in with me so they’ll shrink proportionally.

  I pop back into David’s room. Not where I meant to go, until midnight at least. “Sorry!” The billiards room, where George and Henry bend over a green table. “Sorry…”

  By the time I make it to the kitchen, Eleanor’s clapping her hands in joy and rummaging through the platter. “I haven’t had chocolate in decades! And look at the rest. How did you know? We�
�ll feast tonight. If I were a better chef, I could do these things justice. Nobody complains, but…”

  Henry pecks his mother on the cheek. “You do all right, Mother. You haven’t poisoned anybody yet.”

  “Or broken any teeth,” Nathaniel adds.

  My eyebrows arch. “What a thing to say about your mother’s cooking!”

  Eleanor chuckles. “They’re being kind, actually. Because they love me and they’re good boys. Well, my good boys, help me put everything away.”

  I sit at the table, out of the way, until they’re done. I’m such an outsider. They work in comfortable unison, a real family like I’ve only dreamed about: father and mother, happy together, plus siblings. A real family. Not like my half-family.

  “Will you be staying for dinner?” Eleanor asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Actually, I wonder if you’d let me make you dinner.” I laugh at the startled looks on their faces. “What?”

  “Would you, really?” Henry’s voice fills with hope.

  “After a full day of school and dessert prep? No, dear,” Eleanor says, but her hopeful tone betrays her.

  “It’s not work. It’s actually kind of soothing.”

  “Anything’s better than her cooking,” Nathaniel mutters. “We still love you, Ma.”

  She swats him. “Out. Go help your father. And Henry, go check on David.”

  On his way out, Nathaniel pauses to whisper in my ear, “I hope your food is as delightful as you are.” And then, just because his lips are so close to my ear anyway, he gives my cheek a bold smooch.

  I giggle, embarrassed and flattered at the same time. It’s very easy to like Nathaniel.

  Eleanor hands me an apron. “I don’t mean to be lazy, especially in my own home, but maybe you’d be safer if I just watched.”

  “Wow. You’re that bad?”

  “Worse than you can imagine. Except for my pies. I’ve won awards for my strawberry-rhubarb pie.”

  “Can’t live off pie.”

  “No, dear, though it would be delicious to try. Look, in my other life, I always had a maid to do the cooking. Now I’m willing to learn. Alexis took over while she was here, but I mustn’t rely on others… Do you know any easy recipes?”

  I think back to when I was five years old, things Mamá used to show me. “Sure.”

  Eleanor hasn’t exaggerated her poor cooking skills. But she’s a good listener. She writes everything down so she can practice while I’m at school. After the tomato sauce begins to simmer, I add some oregano and marjoram from Eleanor’s spice jars, marveling at how fresh they still are after all this time. Then I write down a few easy recipes for her.

  We chat about girl things, like how Eleanor met George in 1866 and got swept off her feet. How she set up her first household back in 1868. “Phoebe didn’t like my furniture,” she says. “Said it belonged on the prairie. When she brought us here, she shrank it down and made me keep it in the basement drawer with everything else she didn’t want to use here.”

  I’m still struggling to grasp the full scope of Phoebe’s powers to shrink things. “How, exactly, did she convince you to get into her dollhouse?”

  “Convince? No. Tricked is more like it. She met us at the train station. Alone. Must have started pretty early that morning in order to cover the distance to Otter Paw on foot.”

  It’s three miles from the mansion to the historic district, where the railway station still takes passengers once a day. “That’s a long walk for a little girl, especially to the middle of nowhere.”

  She laughs. “It wasn’t as barren as you make it sound, young lady. Otter Paw was its own town by the time George finished the mansion. In order to build something like this, you need workers. And to bring in supplies for the mansion, you need transportation. Our craftsmen built their own brickyard, woodworking shops, railway spur, marketplace, chapel, and inn, not to mention lodging for all the workers. That’s the beginning of a whole town, right there – but you’re right, I bet a lot has changed in a hundred years.”

  “I can take some pictures for you tomorrow so you can see what it looks like now.”

  “I’d like that. Anyway, our crates were already packed and waiting to be loaded. Phoebe waited for the train to arrive, and then she shrank us down along with our crates and put everything in her pocket. Nobody ever came looking for us because they knew we were leaving for Minneapolis.”

  “And nobody asked questions? Not even Phoebe’s little friends who came to visit?”

  “We didn’t dare say anything. We played along like good little dolls, afraid of what she’d do next if we disobeyed her.” Eleanor’s kind eyes turn bitter. I don’t blame her. “Oh, we tried to escape. Whenever we could. But nobody got past the perimeter.” She blinks. “Darling, I know you’re curious, and I’ll tell what I can. But… could we talk about this some other time?”

  “Of course. Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “I know you didn’t.” She sighs. “Tell me, is my furniture still in the drawer?”

  “Yes. Very small, though – smaller than you are.”

  “Good. Maybe someday... You know, when we first moved in here, I felt out of place with all this grandeur. My kitchen was barely half the size of this one, and we certainly didn’t have a strong room for keeping valuables. Those are real gems and jewels in there, you know. I suppose I’ve lived here so long now, my own furniture might be too rustic for me.”

  “I know what you mean. My entire apartment could fit in the Alexis suite. I wonder how I’m going to go back to normal after living in that.”

  We smile at each other. Then Eleanor breaks into a delighted laugh. “I’ve just thought of something. Perhaps we could trade skill for skill. You teach me to cook, and I’ll sew you a wardrobe fit for a queen.”

  So she noticed my hand-me-downs, after all. Immediately self-conscious, my hands fly to my faded sweater, which I’ve had since eighth grade.

  “No, dear, that’s not what I meant. I’m a great seamstress, you see. I may not be able to cook, but I made all our costumes. Phoebe’s, too. She kept the sewing room well-stocked – I can make anything you can imagine. Please? I’ve always wanted a daughter to sew for. Boy clothes are so boring.”

  Her words, honest and affectionate, ease my shame. I agree. “But I’d like to learn to sew for myself, too, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  Eleanor squeezes me tight. “My pleasure. Oh, this will give me so much to do. So much. It’s good to have something useful to do.”

  “We’re both stuck here, aren’t we?” I ask in sudden realization. “Me in my bedroom, forbidden from wandering the halls, and you in this house, unable to leave. At least you have more space. And more stuff.”

  “At least you have a life. You can go out to school or the mercantile, out there in fresh air and green grass. I haven’t seen grass in a century.”

  “Well, autumn came early this year. The leaves are already starting to turn color. And we call them malls now. Not mercantiles. They’re huge.” I take my biscuits out of the oven and put them into a large stoneware bowl. “Cover those with a towel to keep them warm. Dinner’s almost ready, if you want to call everyone to the table.”

  “George will be so thrilled! He doesn’t say anything about my cooking, but every wife wants to make her man happy. I’m so lucky you came along.”

  “I don’t think he likes me.” I frown as I give the broccoli one last stir to coat each piece in the creamy cheese sauce.

  “Who, George? Why do you say that?”

  “Well, he leaves the room whenever I visit.”

  She sighs. “Men get their sense of self-worth from being good providers. George was one of the leading architects of his day. His star was rising, and then we were cut off, just like that. Now he has to rely on handouts, like a beggar. It was hard enough for him to let Phoebe bring us her leftover foods, or to allow Alexis to take care of us. But now we’re awake again and he’s just as helpless as ever. He wants to be the one to pro
vide for us.”

  “So he resents me? Because I bring you things?”

  “Because he can’t bring the things we need. He has no purpose in life anymore. I still take my purpose from being a wife and mother, but he needs a job to feel useful. Do you understand?”

  I nod slowly. “I don’t mean to hurt his feelings.”

  “He knows. And he’s grateful, truly he is.”

  “I don’t think Henry likes me much, either.”

  Eleanor pats my cheek. “Henry lost the woman he loved more than life itself. If he seems discourteous, it’s because he’s afraid you’ll get stuck here, too. We disagree. I believe you’re safe because you’re not tied to Phoebe’s curse. He thinks it’s just a matter of how much time you spend here before you’re trapped.”

  My heart skips a beat. “I could still get trapped here?”

  “I don’t think so… I really believe it’s because Alexis and Henry got… Oh, dear! Some things are better left unsaid. Those biscuits smell divine. Let me find the honey. And some jam, maybe. Are we ready?”

  Another secret, huh? Alexis and Henry got what? She won’t tell, though. Fine. I’ll just keep snooping until I figure all this out. “Ready. Call them.”

  Eleanor calls to her men to wash their hands. Then she helps me carry the food out to the table.

  “What about David?” I ask. “Is the ibuprofen working yet? Can he come down for dinner?”

  “He’s better today, but still pretty bad,” Eleanor admits. “He thinks I don’t notice. He tries to protect me so I don’t worry about him so much. Of course, I know better, but I still let him think he has me fooled.” She points to a tray at the end of the counter. “We’ll just pack him a picnic. What a nice surprise your dinner will be.”

  “You’re a hero,” Henry says after his first bite of cheesy broccoli.

  “A savior,” George mumbles, trying to avoid eye contact with Eleanor.

  “A goddess,” Nathaniel adds through a mouthful of steak ragout.