The Dollhouse

Chapter 44

SHERRI stepped foot into the chapel.

Sam, out of breath, crashed through in pursuit.

"What are you doing here?" Rudy let out a half-sigh, half-groan. The high strung excitement of the evening had already been corrupted, and the last thing he needed was his sister complicating our plot.

Sherri still had the appearance of a person who had been undernourished, but there was an eerie ethereal glow that she carried in with that entrance. She raised her chin, her grey eyes swimming with malice.

"I want to see Mother before we leave for good."

"Oh, for-" Rudy literally slapped his palm to his forehead. "Do you really think - I understand - but there's no way we can let this jeopardize -"

"With respect, your mother has intimidated, isolated, tortured, and resented me simply because I was an extension of her husband," I cut in coldly. "You don't know how badly we want to escape the life that has treated us so cruelly."

"I've barely set eyes on my mother ever since she let them strap me to a chair and lobotomize my brain. I need to see her. She needs to see me."

Just before I could retaliate: a feeble moan sounded, muffled by the tightly closed door behind our backs.

Sam's eyes darted around.

"What is that?"

"Uh, unimportant," I said hurriedly. "Quick - let's give Lorna the keys to the car. We need to park up somewhere along Newberry Lane. But not in front of the Dollhouse."

My memory did not store the recollection of leaving the holy church where I had almost drugged and kicked my attacker to near death; but I did remember the smell of stale cigarettes soaked into the seats of the borrowed car. We all climbed in, Lorna draped over the driver's seat, whipping her head around the pull out of the driveway, the little gravel stones flying around from her hasty acceleration.

Lorna kept drumming her fingers rhythmically on the steering wheel. The cold wind whipped through the crack in the window, surprisingly cool as the sky slowly turned deep purple.

A thought sparked.

"Wait, it is okay if you drop me near town? I think I should try and find Nick and Betsy."

"Sure. Of course."

The most remarkable and consequential mistake was about to be made, and there was nothing that could have prevented the root of its course.

I was wedged between the Benedict siblings. Every now and them the mirror angled so I could see how downcast they truly were when no one was watching. Strikingly similar, there was an element to it that made my heart shatter all over again.

The Haverbrook Harvest would soon come to a spectacular close. The firework show would kick off once the night turned from navy to black, and the laughter would hush in awe of the neon lights.

Lorna drove through a line of traffic cones without deliberation. Despite barely being aware of the extent of what was going on, I had to give it to her.

The crowd was thickening. There was faces that stood out so starkly there seemed to be sense of surrealism attached. Everybody's families were in attendance.

I could see Danny darting about the place while his parent's heads bobbed in the foreground; Joyce talking morosely to Arabella's disgruntled mother, who appeared deeply unenthused. I couldn't place my stepmother clustered in the crowd.

Remembering Violet was still missing, my chest stabbed with worry.

The car rumbled to a stop.

Some passing folk stared in judgement at our obvious breach of the road rules. Sherri got up to let me out of the back seat.