Page 5 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
“Damn… another thing to fix here,” Dad moans in his husky voice. That’s all I hear as I continue following the tiny footprints.
Luckily, my new sister took no time looking around the house at stuff that would likely give her nightmares tonight.
The bugs.
The shadows.
No doubt, she’s already jumping on one of the beds and laughing about how high she can bounce.
But silence meets me, still gazing up in wonderment. There’s so much darkness in this house. It’s peaceful, and no doubt, it will be painted over tomorrow. Like I said, Mom loves all things beautiful and bright because they are one and the same,apparently. But the darkness is beautiful to me, with so many shadows waiting to tell stories. Stories like those in the hundreds upon hundreds of dusty books that block me from going farther unless I go up.
Two staircases border the bookcase. Each one has a door beneath them that could be for storage or something else.
I pay them no attention as I stare up at the three open doors that can be seen along the vast second floor from where I stand. This place has lots of bedrooms—twelve, apparently. The other doors are hidden behind sharp corners.
Shadows loom and cling to the two separate staircases. The red carpet on both, stained by deeper patches of red, is something I don’t like. It reminds me of blood and how the stain looked at our last home after Dollie—the name I use for Dollancie because I can’t say that properly—had a nosebleed all over the fluffy rug. Oh, the telling-off she had. I didn’t stick up for her, but even now, weeks later, I feel like I should have.
There’s still no sound of her upstairs, the silence echoing.
The miniature gargoyles, perched on each banister, stare at me. They are the creepiest thing about this house. I’m not sure I like them yet, and I love spooky things. My eyes are still locked on one of them when I jump, my crutch hitting the floor with a bang as something touches my shoulder. All that’s on me is my father’s hand, gracing me before he asks to hang up my jacket.
I shrug out of the yellow material, rainwater still dripping off it. The color choice wasn’t mine. Mom said the bright yellow and pink would help Dollie and me get spotted, should either of us wander while on our rest stops.
Dollancie didn’t complain, loving all things pink and girly. I’d have begged for black if I thought I’d have gotten it.
Mom steps up behind me, and I know her heels click-clacking on this wooden floor will annoy me until the day I go off to college.
“Why don’t you go select a room, sweetie?” She smiles down at me, her slightly crooked teeth on show. She places my crutch back into my hand.
The dust from the floor annoys my skin before I even take it from her hand, and I’m about to tell her,no thanks, it’s been on the floor with all the germs,when Dad, watching her every move, like always, says, “The house has been empty for years. Even the germs are dead, Ambrose.”
He’s reading my mind again. And I hate it.
I nod, disagreeing silently and wondering if he knows that, but I take the crutch to please him. “Sure, Mom.” It still feels strange to call her that, but like with her daughter, I can’t say her name, Genevieve, without my tongue twisting and turning it into something it isn’t, and it makes my dad happy.
But she isn’t my mother. My actual mammy wants little to do with me, happier entertaining men back in Ireland. Those are more of Dad’s words scraped into my memory.
I creep up the stairs slowly with the crutch—a help I need more than ever as I struggle with so many steps.
My eyes drift back to a gargoyle as I finally edge across the landing, breathing hard.
The first bedroom is a big, boring square with a giant metal bed in the center and hardly any other furniture.
The next room is smaller. It has four sets of bunk beds that look like they were once silver but are now orange in places, kinda like Dad’s car that brought us here to Carbonado Valley.
My sneakers press into the dirty carpet as I move off in the opposite direction of where Dollie disappeared to, looking for a room as far away as possible because she cries at night, and it makes me itch with agitation when she keeps me awake.
I settle on a room that isn’t big or small after being called in by the drawings on the walls. The headless child doesn’t scareme. Neither does the other child, who holds his head in a bloody hand, standing with a big smile on his face.
This place was once an orphanage, and I wonder if the drawing was a self-portrait, which might explain why this place closed.
That story would make a great horror movie.
“This one?” Mom surprises me by appearing in the doorway, and I can only turn so quickly, just in time to see her hiked eyebrow. It’s penciled like the line around her thin lips, both a light mocha shade. “Do you really want to be so far away from everyone else? Your Dad and I were thinking about one of the rooms at the top of the stairs.”
“Here is fine. Dollie will keep me awake at night.”
She nods, knowing that’s possible and not judging me for blaming her daughter for my room choice.
