Charlotte Says by Alex Bell

Author:Alex Bell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stripes Publishing

Chapter Eighteen

Isle of Skye – January 1910

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.

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