14
Cristina
After that disturbing lunch, I walk back up to my room a feeling of dread having replaced my hunger. I have nothing to do and spend the next few hours thinking, thinking, thinking. I can’t concentrate on reading and when I try to call Liam, the phone goes right to voicemail. He’s at school like a normal person. Like I should be.
I need to ask Damian for my laptop and internet access to continue my studies online. I don’t see why he’d care either way. He’s already given me access to the outside world with the phone, so if he’s not here, it’ll at least keep me busy. I wonder what he’d ask for in return. I remember our conversation this morning. About how I could thank him.
My belly quivers with the memory of last night even as my sex is still raw from it.
Movement outside the window catches my eye.
I scoot out of view as someone walks from the house toward the trees carrying something in each hand. From how he’s bent, whatever he has must be heavy.
My heart races in anticipation of seeing Damian.
Except that it’s not Damian. It only takes me a moment to realize it.
It’s Lucas.
What is he doing? What is out there?
Without giving myself time to chicken out, I take my raincoat from the closet and put on a pair of boots. I don’t have hiking shoes or even a pair of sneakers. I should ask for some. Tell him I want to go running or something.
Tucking my phone and knife into a pocket, I hurry out of my room. I’m careful to look out for others but not caring as much as I maybe should. I pass one woman vacuuming the living room. She ignores me as I hurry toward the back of the house.
There’s noise coming from the kitchen, so I avoid it. But I notice a set of French doors off the dining room, so I head in that direction. I turn the lock and hurry out, closing the door quietly behind me. I follow a path in the grass that has been worn down.
Once I’m under the cover of trees, I know I can hide if he comes back.
I move as quietly as I can, but I’m not sure it’s quiet enough as I crush leaves and break branches underfoot in the utter stillness around me. I hug the raincoat closer as a cold mist begins to fall.
The path becomes harder to make out as I creep deeper into the woods. I have to double back twice when I lose it altogether.
It’s on that second time I see Lucas again. He’s put his hood up and bent his head down. I don’t think he sees me when I duck behind some bushes. He’s going back to the house, no longer carrying what he had earlier.
I wait until he’s out of sight before I move again, then walk in the direction he came. I’m almost sure I’m lost again when a path clears before me and the trees become less dense.
It’s strange. I turn a circle and realize I can’t see the house anymore. I’m not sure which way I came from after all those wrong turns. Suddenly I glimpse a two-story structure of some sort that is so overgrown it’s almost been swallowed by the forest. I would have missed it but for the momentary clearing of clouds and the shiny glint of something bright. Like the sun reflecting off a mirror.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I walk toward it. Is this where Lucas came? Where he left whatever he was carrying?
It’ll be dark soon. I hesitate, afraid. Always afraid.
I should turn back and return when it’s full light.
But I stop that line of thinking. I need to be stronger than I have a been if I’m to survive this house of horrors. If I let fear stop me, I’m finished. I can’t be afraid of the dark. I’m not a little girl anymore, and the games Damian and his family are playing aren’t children’s games.
So, I head in the direction of the structure thinking of Hansel and Gretel, thinking I should have left breadcrumbs. Wondering if a wicked witch is waiting for me inside.
I realize why the ground here is more worn down. At some point, it must have been covered in little stones. The trees around it must have been cut down long ago. Some new saplings are growing but aren’t as old as the rest of the forest, so it’s also a little brighter here even though it’s a dark day.
After a few minutes, the structure comes into view.
Two stories, like I thought, and as large as a small house. It must have been a solarium, I think. All the walls are windows, the glass mostly gone now with only shards left here and there.
I stare up at it in awe. It’s beautiful, or was once. Old, like it was built in the early 1900s with decorative curving arches. I can tell from what’s left of the wood that it was painted white once.
Walking around it, I peer inside, seeing a garden table and two chairs, now green with moss. What I’m sure were once brightly colored tiles are now broken and litter the earth and it’s as though the forest floor is growing into it. Reclaiming it.
Plants that must have been potted inside have broken out of their pots and now reach heights that, had there still been a roof, would have busted through it.
The double doors stand open. Well, the frames of the doors do. They, too, must have been glass. There are still shards of it here and there. I have to be careful as I make my way through them, picking up the faint scent of something floral and too familiar. Something left over from a different era.
Pins prick my skin, but I’m drawn deeper inside. My eye follows a beautiful, ornate staircase winding up to the second level. Some of the steps are rotted. The railing is intricately carved, magnificent and intertwined with thorny vines of a rosebush from which grow an abundance of deep red roses just past their prime.
It’s their smell I recognize. Sweet and old like the roses he’d send me. Did they come from here? I always thought they came from the florist in the city but maybe not.
I look up from the roses and study the second floor, which is more a gangway that spans the entire solarium. The railing is wholly intact but for one place where it’s mangled, the wood of the platform rotted away.
I stop to look at that for some reason. I don’t know why. But when a cold chill runs along my spine, I swear I feel eyes on me.
I turn a circle, searching the shadows. No one’s here. I’m alone. But the thought doesn’t comfort me.
Mist picks up into a steady rain. I need to go back. I want to go back. I never thought I’d say that. But something is telling me to get away from this place.
My heart beats faster and I find myself hurrying until I get to the table and chairs. There’s an old teacup on the table. A child’s tea set, I think. I walk toward it to have a closer look.
It’s broken. Cracked in two, half lying on its side, the other half still sitting up in its pink saucer with the golden trim.
Not toys, actually. Too nice to be toys.
On the floor lie the remnants of a second cup and a small teapot. I bend down, wanting to pick them up but as soon as I do, I scream, falling backward on the ground because a pair of glass eyes is staring back at me.
My heart nearly explodes and I crab-crawl away, wincing as shards of glass cut into my palms. Even though I know it’s just a doll, a very old doll imprisoned by weeds, I’m terrified.
Just a doll.
That’s all.
A toy.
Like all those dolls in my room that night eight years ago during the storm. The night countless eyes stared back at me.
I stop moving in order to look at my sliced hands. The bigger shards drop onto the broken tile, making a tinkling sound, like crystal. I look back at the doll.