Ruby’s lips quivered. She swallowed and glanced towards the stairs as we
passed them. “Can’t I pack a few things? Everything I own is here. My whole
world.”
That sounds reasonable. It will only take a minute to fill a travel case.
She can gather her clothes while I pack the dolls…
I blinked. The thoughts tried to cling to my mind like cobwebs, but I
brushed them away. I understood what was happening. “No. It’s Shreya
making you think you want to pack. She’s trying to stall you, because every
second you spend in her house, she tightens her grip a fraction.” I bent closer,
staring into Ruby’s eyes, willing her to absorb some of my conviction. “We’ll
go right now. In a few days, we can come back and collect your things.”
She fixed her lips together and nodded. I’d gotten through to her. I
wondered if she realised the promise to come back was a lie. I knew in my
soul we would never see Marwick House again. We would be like the last
family—the ones I’d watched run to their car, crying, wearing only their
pyjamas. They had never returned. And like them, Ruby’s property would be
absorbed into the building to be used and admired by the next soul who
underestimated the house and Shreya’s control over it. I wondered what they
would think about the blue room with its shelves of smile-less, dead-eyed
dolls.
We ran to the front door, and I grabbed the handle with both hands. I was
ready to get outside, to taste clean air again, and clear my head of the layers
of fog Shreya had wrapped it in. I was ready to see my family. I was ready to
be free.The door handle wouldn’t turn.
“W HAT —” I rattled the handle. It was frozen. I felt around the locks, bolting
and unbolting them again, but none of them were engaged. The door
wouldn’t open. “Ruby? Do you know why it won’t turn?”
“No.” She turned to scan the foyer as she folded her arms across her
chest. “Let’s use the back door.”
We held hands as we jogged through the house. The house’s dignified
silence felt magnified as we ran into the kitchen and towards the back door.
The handle rattled when I twisted it, but then stuck. I groaned. “No, come on,
let us out. We’re not playing your games anymore.”
Ruby stepped into my place and struggled with the door. She beat her fist
against it then kicked it before finally slumping against the wood. Colour had
drained from her face. “She’s locked us inside. ”
I pressed my hands to the sides of my head. I couldn’t believe it. We were
so close to getting away—just a thin block of wood divided us from safety.
“We’ll find a way out.” I turned towards the house and raised my voice.
“You can’t keep us here!”
A door slammed upstairs. We both flinched.
“Come on. We’ll get through a window.” The pane above the kitchen
bench was large enough to squeeze through. I leaned over the sink and tried
to open it, but the clasp had frozen shut. I strained until my hands ached
before sliding back. “We’ll need to break it.”
Ruby had already pulled down two of the heavy cast-iron pots from the
stovetop. She handed one to me then heaved her own at the glass. A deep,
angry clang shook in my ears as the metal struck, and bounced off, the glass.“No way,” I muttered, swinging my own pot at the window.
Reverberations ran down my arms as the pot bounced back. The window
remained flawless.
Ruby didn’t speak, but her face tightened with anger. She beat her pot
against the glass again and again, filling the kitchen with the awful discordant
clangs, then slumped back, breathing heavily. “There are other windows.
Bigger windows.”
“Okay.” I already knew it would be wasted energy—but I couldn’t give
up without trying. We raced through the house, first beating on the tall dining
room windows, then the square panes in the laundry, and finally facing the
large latticed windows in the living room.
One of the panes was already broken. Raul had punched through it on the
night he’d died. Ruby had taped a square of cardboard over the hole, but I
ripped it back and crouched down. Cool, fresh air blew in. I used the pot’s
handle to apply pressure to one of the glass fragments poking out from the
wooden sash bars criss-crossing the window. I leaned my whole weight
against it, but the glass didn’t pop out. It didn’t even crack.