I quietly let myself into the schoolhouse and made my way directly to the toy room. The door was slightly ajar, light spilling out into the corridor. When I pushed it open and stepped in, I half expected Estella or one of the other girls to be there, but the room was empty. Miss Grayson must have brought up the basket of dolls, for I saw it placed just inside the room, the Frozen Charlottes laid out in their new outfits.
My eyes went straight to the dolls’ house version of Whiteladies and, once again, I saw that there was a single light on. The light inside Edward Redwing’s study.
Charlotte says something bad happened in that room…
Unbuttoning my cloak, I walked over and pulled open the front of the house. Immediately I saw that someone had placed three dolls inside, grouped together in the wood-panelled room. Firstly there was the Frozen Charlie Estella had been making suits for earlier. Secondly the Frozen Charlotte in the cornflower blue dress I’d noticed on Bess’s desk. And finally a Frozen Charlotte in a pale green tea gown with an empire waistline and a flowery porcelain bonnet attached to her head. I couldn’t help thinking that Mother had owned several bonnets like this, as well as a Lucile dress Redwing had bought on their honeymoon that was almost the exact same shade of green.
The doll wearing the bonnet lay on the floor behind the desk, with just her feet poking out the other side. The Frozen Charlotte in the cornflower blue gown had been awkwardly placed in the armchair beside the fire, just where I had always sat during Redwing’s trance sessions. And the Frozen Charlie was standing behind this chair. He’d been propped up in such a way that he leaned forward slightly, looming over the Frozen Charlotte, the tiny hawk cane cradled in the crook of his arm. Just the sight of the little scene made a shiver run through me.
It could only be a coincidence. No one here at the school knew anything about what had happened at Whiteladies.
Hastily I snatched up the dolls, ignoring the cane that rolled across the floor. I took them over to the basket by the door where, to my surprise, I saw the toy-room key, glinting dully in among all those pale limbs.
I placed the dolls in the basket before picking out the key and then closing and locking the door behind me. It was not yet seven o’clock and I thought the girls would probably still be awake. I walked down the corridor to their dormitory, wishing that I had some food or drink to bring them. I’d thought I’d been doing an act of kindness by giving them the Frozen Charlottes and the dolls’ house but it seemed like the toys had caused nothing but trouble ever since they’d arrived. Perhaps I should have thrown them out the moment I received them.
When I opened the door and peered into the dormitory, I saw that almost all of the girls were in their beds. No doubt they were trying to keep warm. With no fire, the room was bitterly cold, and going hungry was only likely to make them feel even colder.
There was just one girl who wasn’t in bed and that was Estella. She was standing gazing out of the window. I knew at once it was her because she hadn’t changed out of her shirt, which was bloody and ripped.
“She’s out there,” Estella said, without turning round. “She’s looking up at the schoolhouse.”
“Who is?” Martha asked, sitting up in bed.
“One of the Frozen Charlottes,” Estella said. “She must have got outside somehow.”
“The dolls are magic,” Bess said from her bed.
“The dolls are murder,” Estella responded. “They want to do terrible, awful things to us. They want to see us bleed and burn and rot in hell.”
“They do not!” Bess exclaimed. “They told me they wanted to be my friends – my best friends!” She started to cry.
“Why do you always have to spoil everything, Estella?” Martha demanded. “Why can’t you just be normal?”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Estella said. “The Frozen Charlottes will slaughter us all if they can. Every last one of us.”
Bess cried even harder.
“Shut up!” Martha cried. “God, Estella, you’re such a freak!”
“Martha, that’s enough!” I said, stepping into the room.
She fell silent at once, clearly startled by my presence.
“Bess, please stop crying. The dolls can’t hurt you,” I said. “Estella, come with me for a moment.”
She turned from the window and then walked slowly over. “What have I done wrong now?” she asked, giving me a defiant look.
“Nothing,” I replied. “Just follow me, please.”
We left the dormitory and I led the way down the corridor to the bathroom, ushering Estella inside and then closing and locking the door behind us.
“We need to get you out of that shirt and wash the blood off your back,” I said. “I’d like to help if you’ll let me.”
Estella gave an angry shrug, which I took as permission. In the hour or so since she’d been flogged, the blood had congealed and dried, sticking the shirt to her skin. I tried my best to be gentle, but there was no way of removing the shirt without re-opening the wounds, which immediately started to bleed again.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as Estella flinched.
She didn’t reply and I silently set about sponging away the blood, wincing at the sight of those angry red slashes.
“I saw what you did for Bess today,” I said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Estella replied.
“It’s all right, I won’t tell anyone. I thought it was a very kind thing to do.”
Estella said nothing. I rinsed out the sponge, watching the water turn pink in the basin.
“Estella, I need to tell you something,” I said. “I’ve seen Dolores, too. She was on the servants’ stairs on my first morning here.”
Estella looked up sharply, meeting my gaze in the mirror that hung on the opposite wall.
She looked doubtful, so I said, “I swear to you I’m telling the truth. I really did see her.” I proceeded to describe her appearance.
“She’s often there,” Estella said. “Dusting on the staircase. Humming. Sometimes I think she forgets that she’s dead. And she gets stuck in a loop. Going round and round and round. Over and over again.”
“Tell me about what happened when your brother died,” I said quietly. “And, Estella, I promise I’ll believe you this time.”
“He fell through the ice,” Estella said in a quiet voice. “I lay by the hole and stuck my arm into the water and waved it around but he never grabbed hold of my hand. He never grabbed hold of it. Then suddenly he was standing there on the other side of the lake. Talking to me. He told me not to worry and that he was all right.” She frowned. “I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t wet. It was like he’d never fallen through the ice at all. He disappeared into the trees before I could ask him and, when I got back to the house, he was in his bedroom. I could hear him talking to himself in there. John always used to talk to himself.”
“Only he wasn’t in his bedroom at all, was he?” I said.
“No,” Estella almost whispered. “John drowned in the lake when he fell through the ice. He was already dead when he spoke to me. No one believed that I had really seen him.”
Holding her arms, I gently turned her round to face me so I could look her straight in the eye. “I believe you,” I said. “I believe that you saw him and that you saw Dolores.”
Estella looked at me in silence before, finally, she said, “If you believe me about that, then do you believe me about the Frozen Charlotte dolls, too? Do you believe that they’re the ones who killed Whiskers?”
I gazed at her. “Estella, I don’t know what to think. I’ve never believed in ghosts my whole life. But since I arrived at this school, I’m not so sure. Dolls that move about on their own, though? That … I mean, that’s just madness.”
“They’re evil,” Estella said. “You should get rid of them.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because if what you say is true, if the dolls really are haunted somehow, then I think they might know the answer to something I want to know. Something I need to know.”
I saw that closed door in my mind’s eye once again.
Charlotte says something bad happened in that room…
“You should get rid of the dolls,” Estella said again. “Before something really terrible happens.”
“I’ll keep them locked in the toy room,” I said. “I have the key and I won’t let it out of my sight this time. It’ll be all right, I promise.”
Estella simply shook her head at me. “You’ll see,” she said. “Everyone will see in the end.”
I fetched a nightdress for her to change into and then sent her to bed. When I got back to my room, I pressed my fingers against my aching temples, trying to make sense of it all. Could it be that the dolls were haunted, or was I simply allowing myself to get pulled into the disturbed tales of a small girl? My mind was in a whirl and I felt exhausted after the long and difficult day.
I tucked the key into the pocket of my nightdress before climbing into bed, where I was immediately dragged down into sleep.
Several hours later, I was woken by a scream.
Not a cry, or a moan, or a whimper.
An ear-splitting, bloodcurdling, hair-raising scream of agony and terror.
And it was coming from the girls’ dormitory.