Dollhouse Read online

  "Why not?" I nodded. "Could be a good change."

  Lacey shrugged and nodded.

  I headed off for my ecology class.

  Walking into the classroom, I tried not to see the empty desk beside mine. Just like I did in every class of mine that Aisha used to be in. But of all those classrooms, this one was the worst. She haunted this room. People had pinned up the sketches Aisha had drawn on that day out there in the forest—the animals and the forest. There was even that sketch of Ethan, Lacey and I resting under the trees.

  Aisha had also taken scores of photographs that day, but the police had taken all of them in case there were any clues in them. I knew the photographs would have been amazing. She had the kind of talent with photography where even inanimate objects seemed to have a mood. Maybe she picked up moods in scenes so easily because her own moods changed so rapidly.

  Everyone had liked Aisha. Despite her mood-a-minute personality. She was kind of on the fringe and kind of friends with everyone at the same time. I guess she’d been one of the few kids who didn’t need a clique to merge into. That was how I became friends with her. She just walked up and talked to me. She didn’t stand back like the others—others who were either tossing up whether I’d be a good fit for their group or automatically shutting me out because they weren’t interested in adding any stragglers to their group, especially not an American straggler.

  I felt eyes on me, and turned to see a suggestive grin spreading across Dominic's face.

  4. LADIES WELL

  Ben Paisley dive-bombed the jeweled-green pool of Ladies Well, sending a high spray of water over Lacey. Lacey shrieked, running from the edge of the rock platform.

  Brianna and Caitlin Denshaw wrapped towels around themselves as they pulled themselves onto the rock. Dripping, they padded over to Lacey and me. The four of us sat watching the boys jump from the higher rocks into the pools—the boys bellowing blue murder as their bodies hit the icy water. I was glad Raif wasn’t here with them—the boys were okay when he wasn’t around.

  Dominic stood shirtless on an outcrop of rocks. His back rippled as he dove into the water, and swam strong strokes to the platform's edge. Tossing his hair back, he spat water from his mouth.

  I tilted my face to the weak sun. This was the only moment of normality in the past few weeks. Life had operated in suspended animation ever since Aisha disappeared. But with the deep of winter on the way, it seemed life would stop, completely freeze over. Already, all around the tiny patch of sunlit sky, gray blankets of clouds massed.

  Caitlin squeezed water from her hair, her grayish-blue eyes alive with the exhilaration of cold—eyes that were almost the exact same color as her racer-back swimsuit.

  Brianna’s teeth chattered. “Last time for me this winter.”

  She was the quieter, more reflective version of her sister. The two of them shared the same mousey-brown hair, freckles and love of the water. They competed in regional swimming events—powerhouse Caitlin apparently having an edge over her twin.

  “You guys must have Eskimo blood.” Shivering, I gazed out at Ladies Well—broad expanses of rock that trapped the river into deep, crystalline pools. I'd been here a few times in summer, and the water had been too cold for me to swim in even then. I was used to the bathwater-warm oceans of Florida in the summertime.

  Caitlin grinned widely. “The more you do it, the more you get used to it.”

  Brianna nudged Lacey and gestured meaningfully towards the boys. “I bet Ben needs some warming up over there.”

  “What?”

  "Ben Paisley. He's got the hots for you."

  "Get out of town. Look at me—my dad calls me a shaved toothpick.” Lacey stared off into the trees, flicking off Brianna's words as though they were bothersome insects.

  Lacey seemed not to notice Ben’s dogged attention to her over the past couple of months or so. She never showed interest in boys—or anything much for that matter. She was hard to know. If Lacey was a place, there’d be no signposts.

  Unperturbed, Brianna turned her attention to me. “I’ve seen Dominic staring at you in class. I’m sure he’s hoping you’ll be at our party next week—you’re coming aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to miss a sixties dress-up. But I won’t be getting groovy with Dominic. He’s not my style.”

  A pang hit the center of my back. Aisha would have loved a sixties party—she’d said she wished she was a teenager of that era. I bet she would have wanted to dress as John Lennon, her idol.

  “What’s wrong with Dominic?” Caitlin toweled her feet. “He's got a kind of surfer boy thing happening."

  "You mean wanna-be surfer boy," Brianna commented dryly. "We're a long way from any surf here."

  Caitlin shrugged. "I’d still do him.”

  Brianna elbowed her twin. “Who’s your style, then, Cassie?”

  Ethan’s face moved into my mind. He blotted out every other boy, like a sun.

  “I don’t know. I guess I like someone who’s into the outdoors, like me. And I don’t mean footie.” I laughed.

  Footie was the game Australian men played and watched—like a game of gridiron but without any kind of head gear or body armor.

  “Hmmm well I’ll keep thinking,” said Brianna. “There’s a couple of contenders.”

  I realized then it was less about matchmaking for Brianna and more of a kind of sport—placing people on teams. I wondered if she was thinking of Ethan as one of my contenders. Ethan was an outdoors type—more so than anyone else at school. He was known for taking off by himself for weekends out in the forests. Part of me wanted Brianna to say it, wanted her to verbalize the possibility of me and Ethan getting together. But I knew she wouldn’t. I felt guilty for even thinking it.

  Caitlin gazed at me sharply, as though she’d hooked into my train of thought. “I bet a lot of girls are hoping Ethan's going to be available again soon...."

  "Really?" I tried to sound casual, but my heart was already pumping.

  Brianna gave an exaggerated nod. "Just about every girl at school would like to tame wildboy Ethan. They're just not admitting it now that... well, now that something's happened to Aish."

  The mood changed when Aisha's name was mentioned. Everyone's expression stiffened.

  Caitlin bit her knuckle, gazing off at the water. “I heard that Aisha went missing too quick that day. That there was someone there, waiting in the forest.”

  Few people had directly spoken to me about Aisha's disappearance—the school had strictly instructed everyone not to question me, Lacey or Ethan about that day. It seemed that for Caitlin at least, the dam had broken.

  Lacey plugged back into the conversation."It's all just speculation at this point."

  “Spoken like a policeman's daughter," Caitlin shot back. “He's actually on the case, isn't he?”

  Lacey nodded. “There's all kinds of crazy stuff people are ringing in with. They invent things just for attention.”

  Brianna turned her head as Ben pulled himself from the water and sat shivering on the rock platform, his face a blotchy red and white. “Just like Ben. I get it why you're not interested in him, Lace.”

  “What about Ben?” I asked.

  Brianna wrinkled her freckled nose. “It wasn't anything recent. It was back when we were all around nine or ten. Ethan had only just come to our school the month before. We were on a school camp on the mountains, sleeping in tents. Ben woke everyone up, screaming he saw black shapes in the forest, like, huge giant people.”

  “I remember that,” nodded Caitlin. “His mum had to come pick him up. A few of the kids called him chicken-shit for months afterwards. He was a weird kid—always in a corner reading those horror chapter books. No wonder he saw stuff.”

  Ben moved his gaze to us, as though he realized he was the subject of our conversation, then turned to stare fixedly into the pools of water.

  5. QUESTIONS & LIES

  My mother's expression was strained as she answered the
door. "You're late. And I couldn't call you."

  "I know. Sorry. Forgot to take my phone to school today."

  Her cheeks were flat, colorless. I made a mental note never to become a youth worker. She never seemed off-duty—there were often crisis phone calls late at night that had her scurrying like a manic chicken. She’d secured the job before we’d moved from the US, and she’d been thrown in the deep end straightaway.

  I shrugged the schoolbag from my shoulders and stepped towards the kitchen.

  "Cassie... wait, there's a couple of officers waiting here to see you."

  I tensed. At that moment, I wanted to head back out the door. Run away like a little kid. But I couldn't do that.

  As I entered the living room, two police officers rose from the sofa. Lacey's dad—Sergeant Dougherty, and the detective who'd questioned me straight after Aisha had vanished—Martin Kalassi.

  My voice sounded stiff and unnatural as I answered their questions.

  No, I haven't seen Ethan. No, I don't know where he is. No, he didn't tell me anything about leaving town. Yes, I'll let you know if I hear from him.

  Detective Kalassi was a big man, with a generous sort of face. In plain clothes, he seemed like a friendly uncle. The kind of person you'd trust. But he was police, and the last person I could trust.

  Lacey's dad was dressed in full uniform. He had the same pale blue eyes and whitish hair as Lacey, except his expression was closed, distant.

  "Be sure you do tell us if you do hear anything," Sergeant Dougherty cautioned me. "Make no mistake. The case with Aisha Dumaj is extremely serious." He gazed at me intently. "When a teenage girl goes missing, every minute counts. When that time goes past a certain point, the situation becomes very dire. At the point we're at with Aisha, it's gone past dire. The case has been upgraded from Missing Person to probable homicide. We're doing our best to apprehend whoever is responsible for harming Aisha. But we need the help of the public and we need the help of Aisha's friends."

  I nodded, sure that his eyes were burning a path inside my skull, probing for answers.

  I knew the police were almost certain Aisha hadn't been taken off the mountains, or hadn't found her way off them by herself. There'd been busloads of tourists that day at all the main exits from in the area she'd been last seen. And her trail vanished into thin air not far from where we'd last seen her—almost as if someone had picked her up and run off with her.

  Detective Kalassi asked if he could see my phone, to check if there were any messages from Ethan. There weren't. Ethan never called anyway. He didn't even own a cell phone. Kalassi's eyes crinkled at the edges as he handed the phone back to me. "Sorry 'bout that."

  Mom stood beside me as they left, her arm slipping around my shoulders. "I hate it that you have to go through all this."

  "Don't be sorry for me. Be sorry for Ethan." The words came from deep within me.

  “I'm sorry for all of you. Aisha. Lacey. You.... And of course, Ethan.”

  “Mom, don’t be a hypocrite. You don’t care about Ethan. You don’t trust him either. That’s why you’ve insisted I don’t go anywhere with him since this all happened.”

  “Cassie, c’mon. There’ve been threats against Ethan’s life. It hasn't been safe for you to be with him.”

  “Admit that you don’t trust him.”

  She chewed her lip, staring at me in that intense way she did when she wanted me to think about whatever we were discussing. The same look that had pulled confessions from me when I was a little kid.

  “Mom, I trust him with my life. And so should you.”

  “He’s had a hard time growing up, I know that.”

  “Maybe he did. But that doesn't mean he's bad or anything.”

  “You’re a good friend to him. I’m sure he needs friends right now.”

  “Mom, I know you’re trying out your psycho-babble on me. Trying to sound like you’re on my side. Well you’re not on my side. You’re on everyone else’s side.”

  “I know things have been on edge between us lately. Cassie, I miss our talks. I miss us.”

  I crossed my arms. “Well what would you like to talk about? How you moved us here to the end of the world? How you ran after a man who tricked you? All your psycho training couldn’t tell you Lance Bailey was a scummy cheater, could it now?”

  Her expression tightened.

  But I didn’t care. She'd brought us out here because she’d thought the suntanned Australian man was the love of her life. A love that had lasted all of two months after we moved here—before Lance had decided to go back to his ex-wife. He was the circus act who’d turned our lives upside-down.

  “Cass, that’s unfair.”

  “It’s true.”

  “I thought moving here could be good for us. A change. You were worrying me with the crowd you were hanging with in Miami. And I guess love blinded me where Lance is concerned. I made a big fat mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “You made a big fat mistake with dad then too. Because he didn’t even stick around as long as my first birthday.”

  “If you want to discuss this stuff in a reasonable way, I’m open to it.”

  “No I don’t. Just get off my back about Ethan. He’s better than any other male who’s been in my life.”

  I stormed to my room and dropped onto the unmade bed.

  People were so false. She refused to admit how she really felt about Ethan. Half the town suspected him of hurting Aisha, and the other half just probably didn’t care enough about a missing teenage girl to have any opinion.

  My mother leaned herself against the door frame. “You want to go back to Miami?”

  I eyed her face, looking for some kind of trick. But I kept my mouth firmly shut.

  “Because I’ll arrange it,” she said. “I thought you’d settled here, but I don’t want you unhappy.”

  “Would you really?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded with determination.

  It would be summer in Miami right now. Pool parties, non-stop life, hustle, bustle and heat. Girls on South Beach with perfect bodies and perfect smiles in perfect bikinis. Shirtless boys on skateboards. The odd celebrity brunching at a Lincoln Street cafe. I missed my home. I missed the vibe, the bad Hawaiian shirts, the loud Spanish spoken on every street corner—even the smell of greasy fries and flesh baking under the hot sun. I missed riding my bike along Ocean Drive, tasting the salty ocean and watching the waves dip and roll.

  I remembered all the reasons mom had wanted to move me away. I didn't have close friends there, but I went to parties every weekend, and sometimes we did dumb kid stuff. Last year during spring break, I'd escaped through my bedroom window—meeting up with friends to party with the college students crowding the streets and beaches of Miami. When mom found me, she'd practically yanked me all the way along the street to her car, yelling that I needed to think about my future.

  I didn't understand why she was always so hung up on that stuff. I was fourteen then, and didn't even want to know about my future. Adulthood yawned far in the distance, so far I could barely catch a scent of its dry, colorless lands. Mom and I fought a lot last year. But if adulthood and being responsible means my mom's life, she can keep it.

  Study your eyeballs out, get a high-stress job, get married, spit out a kid, get divorced, stress about everything, live out your life on antidepressants and too much coffee.

  I’d hated it when she moved us here. The first sights from the car window had made me shrink into myself. Clawing vines hung like nooses in every inch of forests. The forests seemed choked with death, as though the vines would soon pull the trees—and the people—deep underground. But that was before I'd knew Ethan. With him around, I somehow fit here.

  “I don’t know,” I said carefully. “We’re kind of here now. And we haven’t done any of the stuff you and Lance promised we would. Like seeing the Great Barrier Reef and swimming Monkey Mia with the dolphins….”

  “You’re still thinking about becoming a marine biologist, aren’
t you?” she said.

  I nodded slightly, surprised she’d remembered. For once she didn't mention my grades. It would be the shock of the century if I pulled them up enough to even get into college.

  She smiled in return, a kind of bitter-sweet smile.

  Staring down at my hands, I took a shallow breath. “I’d also feel bad leaving here now when they haven’t found….”

  “Aisha,” my mother finished.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, you haven’t spoken to me about Aisha at all. Or about the Barrington Tops trip.”

  “I talked myself inside out in interviews with the police and the rescue squads. I couldn’t talk about it anymore after that.”

  “I know all that would have been harsh on you.” She sat beside me on the bed. “If you ever want to talk, I mean without being grilled, I’m here.”

  “After what I just said to you... about Lance and stuff?”

  “I understand you being angry about all that. I’m angry with myself.”

  I stared at the solar star stickers on my ceiling. Back in February, Aisha, Lacey and I had jumped all over my bed trying to get the stickers up there—laughing like idiots. The stars seemed like a good idea then, but now they just seemed childish.

  I closed my eyes, not wanting to tell my mother about the thoughts that spun through my mind—images of Aisha growing more and more upset about me practically flirting with Ethan on the trek. I hadn’t thought about Aisha’s side of things that much since that day. I’d been more about trying to protect Ethan. I tried to imagine a scene where Ethan was my boyfriend and Aisha had been getting too close to him. But the thought of Ethan being mine was immediately so powerful and warm I couldn’t bear thinking about it.

  I opened my eyes to my mother’s concerned face.

  “Cass, are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I think I don’t want to talk about this anymore today.”

  “I understand. But any time you do, just... talk, all right? Don’t keep things canned in.”

  I drew the blanket around me as she left the room, the blanket that still smelled vaguely of Ethan. I fell asleep with him all around me, hating myself for not being able to get him out of my head.