Chapter Nine
How far does this circus stretch?
I squinted ahead, trying to see where it ended.
The rest of the performers were sleeping once again while I sneaked off into the night. I had to have one more shot at The Dark Room. I desperately needed to take another look at the poster I’d seen the night before, the one which clearly showed Laurent’s dance partner. And I also needed to know if there would be a new poster—this one featuring the two young men who had taken part in Rex’s act.
The chilly air caught in my chest. “One… straight line,” I whispered to myself.
Alone, I was having trouble navigating my way to the caravan. I kept moving, ignoring the ominous feeling that crept up my spine. When I reached the caravan, I found it locked this time—someone was clearly being more careful. But so was I: I’d the foresight to bring the straightened paper clip with me, just in case.
After picking the lock and opening it within a few seconds, I slowly entered. As I tiptoed through the hall, I heard, or maybe imagined, the sound of light footsteps behind me. They didn’t sound human though, they were too light. Yet, every time I turned to look behind me, there was nothing there. Picking up my pace, I hustled to the last room, where Rex had found me the other night and quickly put a stop to my peeping.
As I’d expected, this room was also locked, so I used the paper clip to open the lock. There wasn’t any light in the room, but after a moment, I grew accustomed to the darkness. And in this darkness, it was going to be difficult to make out any details on the posters.
“Great,” I said out loud, taking a deep breath and pushing myself forward. The tiny footsteps skittered behind me again, reminding me I wasn’t alone. And yet, when I looked back, again, there was nothing there. I didn’t turn back around right away this time, instead I searched the perimeter, wanting to see whatever this creature might be. I couldn’t explain why, but I strangely wasn’t frightened, even though I knew something was following me.
Maybe it was owing to the fact that the footsteps were so light, I could only imagine that whatever was making them wasn’t very big—maybe it was a cat or something of a similar sizez. My eyes strained in the dark, but I couldn’t perceive any movement. Blowing out a harsh breath, I combed my fingers through my hair as I continued to search for whatever it was in the darkness.
I knew I’d heard something—I wasn’t just imagining it.
But after nothing presented itself, I turned around again and started forward. And then I heard a brush of fabric and whirled around to catch the little bugger. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I found on the floor before me, a red-haired doll in a black dress. She stood upright and stared up at me, her face made of stark white porcelain. There was nothing particularly scary about her besides her sudden appearance from seemingly nowhere and the fact that her eyes were… well, they were moving.
“But that’s,” I started as I shook my head and felt my heart rate start to climb. “Impossible.”
Strangely, whatever fear I was starting to feel was suddenly silenced, as if someone had placed a warm, comforting blanket over it.
You don’t have to be afraid, my voice sounded in my head, though I was fairly sure the thought wasn’t my own.
Even so, I wasn’t afraid. Instead, I was curious. Incredibly curious.
The doll sat delicately on the ground, the glazed green eyes staring up at me as if this were commonplace, as if she weren’t an inanimate object that was now strangely animate. I stared back for a moment to see if she would move again. She didn’t. She just peered up at me, her unmoving lips painted into a friendly smile.
Ordinarily, if someone had ever mentioned the idea of a doll coming to life, I would have been scared to death and yet… I still didn’t feel any fear. There was just something so comforting about the doll, about the warm smile on her face, about the fact that she just sat there, watching me as I watched her. Neither of us acting in any way as a threat to the other. We both just… were.
A part of me thought I should run, take a leap over her and head for the door and get the heck out of this bizarre place, but there was something else that stalled me, something that told me to buffer my courage and find out how in the world this doll appeared to be… animate.
“Who are you?” I asked as I crossed a splinter of light to look down at her.
The doll didn’t reply.
“Okay, well, if you won’t talk… I’ll talk.” I didn’t know what I was doing—standing there talking to a possessed doll, but for some strange reason, I didn’t feel anything… evil coming from her. In fact, the longer I looked at her, the more my heart started to calm and my breathing regulated.
I started forward once more and then heard the sound of the pitter-patter of her feet behind me. Turning around, I gave her a smile.
“Well, come on then,” I said, feeling silly, but having the doll with me was actually strangely comforting. Because she seemed… somehow familiar. Which, of course, made no sense because I’d never seen the doll before in my life.
Yet the feeling was there all the same—like I’d had this doll for years.
With the doll following, I navigated my way down the hall to view the sizable collection of old posters. Finally, I found the portrait I was looking for, the one of Laurent’s dancing partner from the other night. But the woman… she was gone!
I glanced to the posters beside this one, thinking I must have somehow gotten mixed up but, no, this was the exact poster I’d witnessed the other night—the poster with the woman in it. And yet now… now she was gone.
And, of course, that completely defied logic. Defied reality and I couldn’t wrap my brain around the fact. My eyes roamed over it as I searched every detail, every expression, every face, not sure exactly what I was searching for, but searching all the same.
“What in the world?” I asked as I stepped closer, scanning the image more carefully, searching harder for Laurent’s dancing partner. But she was nowhere to be found. I glanced around for the second time, thinking I had to have mistaken this one for a different poster. But the frame was the same as it was the night before. It was also in the same exact place. I turned back to the poster and looked again. There was no mistaking it—the woman was gone. It was as if she’d never been.
“No, that’s impossible!” I ran my hands across the canvas, trying to wipe away whatever illusion might have been cast on it. “There’s no way—it looks exactly the same, but without the dancer.”