Dollhouse Read online

  Aisha rattled on about places in the world she’d like to visit, places she’d like to photograph—telling me how her dream career was to become a photo-journalist sent on assignments around the globe.

  A grinding call cut through the thick green ahead. We stopped, listening.

  Lacey held up her phone, recording. “Wait, that sounds too human. Or maybe like a…”

  “Cat,” Ethan finished.

  “Exactly,” said Lacey.

  Ethan shrugged. “And true to its name, it’s the Green Catbird.”

  The call came again, low and drawn out.

  “Sounds like someone’s strangling it by its tiny throat.” Aisha peered through binoculars upwards. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Yeah, that might be because it’s green, and you know, trees are kind of green,” said Ethan in a mock-exasperated tone.

  Laughing, I high-fived Ethan.

  Aisha crossed her arms across her retro Beatles t-shirt, screwing up her face at Ethan. “Too funny.”

  “Well that bird just creeps me out.” Lacey gazed about as though the forest itself had just lost her trust. “Enough weird stuff happens out here without birds who sound like that.”

  “What weird stuff?” Leaning my head back, I let cold water from the flask trickle down my throat.

  “Didn’t you know?” Lacey admonished me. “Girls have gone missing in these forests over the past few years, the last one only last August.”

  I thought back. I’d arrived here in December—I guessed all the fuss about the last girl must have died away by then.

  Aisha held her palms out dismissively. “It’s sad, but stuff happens. The one in August was only three—she just wandered off from a family picnic. A kid that age can wander further than you’d think. And the other one, well she was a thirteen year old runaway. She made a bad decision when she headed into the ‘Tops. You can’t blame the forests for that.”

  I hated to think how they must have died—alone and terrified in the woods. “But why did you say they were missing? Didn’t they find the bodies?”

  Ethan shrugged a lazy shoulder. “Nope. Forest animals probably took pieces of them in all different directions. Or maybe the little one drowned and floated into an underground river.”

  Lacey shivered noticeably, her elbows jutting out as she hugged herself.

  “Let’s keep going,” Aisha pleaded. “I don’t want us to talk about this stuff anymore. My parents didn’t even want me to come on this trip. Every time they see something happen to a girl in the news—anywhere in the world—they say, See? See, Aisha? This is what I mean! She imitated her father’s thick Middle Eastern accent and hand gestures.

  Ethan stepped up behind Aisha and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “But I talked your parents into it, didn’t I? They were okay once they knew I was coming along.”

  We kept walking. No one seemed to want to linger underneath the bird that gave that strangled cry.

  After fifteen or so minutes, the gurgle of rushing water resonated through the woods. We followed the sound to a clear-water river.

  Lacey gasped. “Lizard!”

  A large lizard sunned itself on a broad rock, its spiky head and body erect on dark front legs.

  “Eastern Water Dragon,” corrected Ethan, copying the same gushy tone Lacey had used.

  We stilled ourselves while Lacey quietly produced her camera and steadied it against her eye. The lizard crashed into the water when Lacey stepped forward to catch a better picture, its long striped tail cutting through the water’s surface.

  Balancing along the rocky edges of the river, we kept walking.

  We stepped through the river for another quarter-hour, heading off into the bush when Lacey spotted a fleeting animal. She rushed in, but we just missed seeing the animal.

  It was another world in here. Up in the canopy of green, birds flittered through the tree tops like decorations. Bird and animal noises followed us, echoing and bouncing through the branches overhead. Earthy, spice-laden scents rose like secrets from the ethereal green light of a small clearing.

  It was serene, ancient, primal. This must have been the world the Aborigines experienced back in the days they hunted and made baskets from the alpine grasses—I’d learned that from the internet last night.

  My mood shifted and relaxed. Lacey wriggled her back into the smooth bark of a sub-alpine tree, her bright hair spilling out of its ponytail. Aisha let her eyes drift shut, breathing in the forest.

  A leaf fell—one perfect spiraling leaf, dancing its way to the mossy floor. The air smelled pure, layered with a heady dampness and the cool breath of the trees.

  Ethan threw down his backpack and lounged on a smooth rock. Aisha pulled her sketching pad from her backpack. Resting her head against a tree, she drew Ethan, Lacey and me relaxing in the clearing.

  Brownish shapes bounded into view. A family of small, pudgy wallabies. They sat rigidly at the sight of us, looking and listening intently with their huge eyes and ears.

  Aisha quietly flipped onto a fresh page, her hand moving quickly across the page as she brought the creatures to life in finely-detailed strokes. Lacey went crazy with her camera, snapping picture after picture. Aisha closed her pad and reached for her camera too. She dashed after the wallabies when they hopped away towards the river.

  “C’mon, don’t you have enough now?” Ethan spoke in a testy voice to himself.

  Lacey shrugged at me. Together with Ethan, Lacey and I jogged through the woods after Aisha. I caught sight of Aisha’s Beatles t-shirt as she tripped and fell in the river—water splashing high around her. She refused Ethan’s help as he ran to her. Picking herself up, she just kept moving.

  The river turned and twisted. Ethan seemed helpless to stop the machine that was Aisha. Another river crossed the first, and Aisha followed the second river.

  After ten minutes or so, the land beside the water flattened.

  Ethan knitted his eyebrows together. “This land’s been cleared.”

  Aisha stopped dead still, staring upwards. I followed her gaze—a bulky, dark form loomed to the right.

  “A house? Here?” Lacey stepped back. “Let’s go. It’s private property.”

  Ethan shrugged off his backpack, letting it fall to the ground. “No, I want to see what this is.”

  Aisha and I dumped our backpacks next to Ethan’s and stepped after him. Lacey plunked herself heavily down on a rock at the water’s edge, fixing her ponytail.

  The features of an ornate house filtered through the trees. Built of stone and wood, the mansion looked large enough to accommodate fifty people. Peeling metal grills barred the narrow sash windows. A massive chimney dominated one wing, mock triangular turrets like teeth along its rooflines.

  “It’s beautiful. I love old houses.” Aisha raised her camera to one eye and started snapping photographs. “This would look amazing in a framed image. But I need a clear view. I’m going around to the front.”

  I stifled a groan. The house was startling, but it was aged—and not in a quaint way. Patches of black moss ate into the house like disease. And we weren't supposed to be wasting time taking photos of crappy old buildings.

  “Why’d they even build this thing out here in the sticks?” I asked Ethan.

  Ethan thumbed his chin absentmindedly. “Don't know. Granddad did tell me a lot of this land was cleared back when it was first settled. Mostly for logging. There might have been a clear road up here once.”

  “But there’s just one house,” I said. “One big mother of a house. Why just build this? Doesn’t look like something you’d build for logging either. Unless you’re a very rich logger.”

  The sound of frenzied barking ricocheted through the trees. Aisha froze with the camera at her face.

  “Hope they’re not loose!” It was hard to tell where the barking was coming from, exactly.

  “Let’s head!” Ethan whipped around.

  We bolted towards the river.

  The noise of t
he dogs died away.

  “The dogs must be locked up. They’re not chasing us.” Aisha was almost out of breath.

  Further up the river, Lacey’s prone form was stretched out still on the ground, one hand trailing in the water.

  “What’s wrong with Lace?” I ran to her.

  Aisha stepped casually over and touched Lacey’s head with her foot. “Wake up sleeping beauty.”

  Lacey flinched as she opened an eye to the dappled sun. “Oh you’re back. Just thought I’d have a snooze.”

  “I reckon you could get a good night’s sleep under a train,” groaned Aisha.

  Lacey pulled herself to her feet. “Well, I like sleeping.”

  Ethan checked his watch. “Better head back now.”

  “I was hoping to find a couple more animal species.” Aisha tapped her camera.

  “Baby, no.” Ethan held up two palms.

  Aisha smiled widely. “I didn’t mean back where the dogs are. On the other side of the river.”

  “Aish, I don’t want to go in any further. I’m supposed to be the guide, and I’m not even sure, exactly, of the way back. And the GPS only charts the main tracks.”

  “We’ll just follow the rivers back.” Aisha held her smile.

  “Yeah. But rivers can all look a bit the same, y’know? And I have to find the point we entered in here.”

  “Okay, you’re right.” A lock of hair fell across her forehead. “I don’t want to get lost out here. But it’s a shame. I wanted to do a proper nature study and get us good marks.”

  Ethan shut his eyes, relieved. “Yeah, I’d like to get good marks too. I need ‘em. And l know your pictures are important to you. Shame most of the animals were hiding today.”

  Six different emotions seemed to cross Aisha’s face. “Pictures?”

  Ethan stared back, confused.

  “They are not just pictures.” Her voice was pained. “You sound just like my parents. They don't understand either. This what I want to do with my life. But they talk like my photography is a hobby. Like I should go study law or something when I'm older. But my photographs are records, compositions, perspectives, emotions, reflections, abstracts, studies... You don’t get it at all. And you don’t get me….”

  She'd fired the words at him like bullets.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but jammed it shut again. Holding up a hand, he seemed be trying to use some other sense to figure out the new strangeness of her. My mom always said that even those closest to you will seem to unleash a strange person when you least expect it, but in reality the strangeness was lurking in there all the time.

  “Ethan was just trying to agree with you, Aisha,” I told her. “He’s bending over backwards for you.”

  Aisha’s mouth set into a tight, small line. “You—and Ethan—are forever sticking up for each other. I’m a bit outnumbered with you two around, aren’t I?”

  She shot me a odd, questioning look, as though asking me if I'd been trying to snatch Ethan away from her, turn him against her.

  “Now you’re getting hysterical.” I straightened.

  “Don’t you call me hysterical. Don’t even try it. Ethan—are you okay with her calling me that?”

  “Aish, you’re over-tired, or something,” said Ethan. “Let’s just go.”

  She blinked in reply, her eyes large.

  Turning to Lacey, she demanded to know whose side she was on.

  “I’m on the side of getting off these mountains before dark.” Lacey kept her tone even.

  Aisha walked away stiffly, breaking into a run at the tree line.

  “I’ll go after her,” Lacey offered.

  “Seems to be me who’s upsetting her. I should go.” Ethan’s shoulders hunched as he trailed the direction Aisha had run.

  Lacey and I sat ourselves down, taking swigs from the water bottles. There was nothing to do but wait it out. Lacey fiddled idly with her bracelet—a darkened silver piece of jewelry she told me was her great grandmother's. A favorite song of mine ran through my head. We all had tickets to see the band in July. I wished it was July now—it was tough to wait out two long months.

  Ethan crashed through the bushes, his face coated with sweat. “She come back this way?”

  Lacey jumped to her feet. “You didn’t find her?”

  “No—she’s out there hiding from me.”

  “Maybe she’s embarrassed.” Lacey always tried to find the most flattering solution to a person’s crappy behavior.

  “Whatever.” I threw up my hands. “She needs to put on her big girl pants and let us get out of here.”

  We called and searched for the next half hour, but no Aisha.

  Lacey stood still for a moment, looking back at Ethan and me. “What if she’s trying to get back to the pick-up point all on her own? She might have doubled back while we were looking for her.”

  Ethan stared at Lacey thoughtfully. “Yeah, she might have tried that. She could also get lost trying that.”

  He cupped his hands over his mouth and bellowed Aisha’s name twice, his voice rising in desperation.

  “Ethan, we have to go. My mom will be waiting. I have to be there on time or she’ll freak.” I didn’t want to admit the real reason—night was coming. I couldn't imagine being stuck out here in complete darkness.

  “We can’t leave Aish here by herself.” Lacey shot me a pleading look.

  “Look—I’m going to walk you girls back to the path,” Ethan told us. You just need to follow it down to the pick-up. I’ll stay here and look, just in case.”

  Lacey nodded.

  “And what are you going to do, Ethan? Stay out here by yourself?” It wasn’t fair he had to stay out here because of Aisha’s stupidity.

  Ethan rubbed his forehead with the back of his fist. “I don’t know what else to do. And if—if she doesn’t turn up at the pick-up—call police rescue.”

  Ethan pressed his mouth together so hard the blood left his lips.

  3. RAIF

  "Where's that jerk hiding? How come he hasn't showed his face at school all week?" Raif moved his strong frame in front of me.

  "I saw what you did to Ethan," I told him. "You have to stop doing that." The image of the bruise Raif had inflicted on Ethan's face deepened in my mind.

  I glanced around at the tall boys who stood behind Raif—I didn't know any of them well, but I knew they'd been friends with Ethan, at least, before Aisha disappeared. Now, it seemed they were all against him. The school buzzer rang out through the corridor, but none of the boys moved.

  Raif shook his head slowly and deliberately. “No I don’t. And I’m gonna keep doing it until he tells me what he did to my sister.”

  “He didn’t do anything," I insisted.

  “Why do you defend him?” His milky-green eyes darkened.

  “Aisha… loved Ethan. That’s why.” My voice was small, thin. I hoped my own feelings for Ethan weren't stamped plain as day on my face.

  “Yeah loved him past tense. Because my sister is dead. And she was stupid to ever think he was worth more than a maggot. Him and his grandfather are going to get what's coming to them. There's a tour guide who swears he saw that old bastard at Devils Hole the day Aish went missing.”

  Cold fingers reached around my spine. But I refused to let Raif see that his words had shaken me. There were rumors flying around everywhere, and I wasn't interested in listening to any of them.

  Dominic brushed his fair, side-swept hair back from his eye, and raised his eyebrows at me.

  Was Dominic for real? Trying to do a pick-up stare while standing back and letting Raif grill me?

  “Both me and Lacey were there too," I replied to Raif. "Do you think we had something to do with her disappearance as well?”

  Raif gripped my shoulder. “Neither of you were the last to see my sister. Ethan was.”

  I tried to wrench my shoulder away, but he held tight. "That's not true, and you know it. He was just the last person to stay out there looking for her."


  The wood-paneled corridor seemed to close in around me, the ceiling and walls winding down until the end of the hallway was just a hazy pinprick. The smell of cleaning wax caught in my nostrils, making my mind spin. Panic coursed through me. It wasn't because of Raif, or Dominic, or the other boys standing there backing Raif. It was all the talking about Ethan when he wasn't here to defend himself. Worse, it was the sudden sense of the emptiness of the school now that Ethan was gone.

  Lacey and the twins—Caitlin and Brianna Denshaw —hastened towards me.

  "Hey, release the girl, King Kong!" Lacey glared up at Raif.

  Raif let his hand drop.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, filling my lungs with air.

  If had been anyone else, I doubted Raif would have listened. But no one ever took any offence at anything Lacey said. With her elfin face, squeaky voice and tiny frame, she seemed so fragile.

  Raif and his friends marched away down the hall.

  "You should report that." Lacey's pale blue eyes flicked over me with concern.

  Brianna nodded. "Yeah. He'd get kicked off the soccer team if the school knew he was bullying."

  "It's ok. I just want to let it go." There was no way I wanted to talk with the school principal, and have to lie if I was asked about Ethan.

  A moment of weird silence followed, where no one knew what to say. The twins, Lacey and I had all kind of inherited each other as friends. Aisha had been our common thread, the one who strung us together. Without Aisha, there was a vague awkwardness and a sense that all the spaces weren't being filled in.

  "Hey," said Caitlin finally. "You and Lace should come down to Ladies Well after school. You two haven't been anywhere since...."

  Lacey and I eyed each other. Neither of us had felt like being part of anything outside of school—not since the day of the hike. But Ladies Well was on the edge of the forests, and I felt a sudden urge to be close to the forest, closer to Ethan.