Chapter 27: Why couldn't it be: Follow the butterflies?

“Why?!” I exclaimed and stared at my feet. Piles of bones filled the room like eerie stone altars, the ones that vikings left. One side of the room had shelves with dolls. Bald ones. The other had wigs for said bald dolls. The wigs rested on white pillows with wine red embroidery.

I shivered and averted my eyes, staring at my feet.

Judging by the chaotic spread of bones near me, I concluded that the second thing I kicked was in fact not a rat, but one of the bone piles. 

Why the hell it brushed up against my leg, I did not know. Nor did I want to. 

I shook my head and reassured myself. It must have fallen over or something. 

I looked around. It didn’t seem like anyone other than the rats had been here for a while.

The walls were sleek, apart from the shelves. They had no indentations, no lever, no buttons, no nothing. Only piles of bones, dolls, and a stressed out me. 

“This fucking place, I swear to God,” I groaned and hurried across the room. 

“I do not like this.” 

I jumped. “Sera?” 

“Who else?” she asked. Her pale reflection sneering at me through the dagger. “The stench of the Outsider is thick here. You should go to the others.” 

“If you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of fucking stuck.” A twang of dejá vù washed over me.  blinked. “Have we had this conversation before?” 

She moaned. “Come on. Get your wand out and blow the wretched thing up.” 

I rolled my eyes. “Aye aye captain.” 

Charging the thing with magic had practically become second nature for me since the intensive shooting back at the library. I loaded it with vial ammo, took aim, and fired. 

The walls groaned. Piles of bones trembled and razed to the floor, covering it like a very noisy and macabre mat. 

The fire dissipated, revealing a flickering bookcase. The layer of bones crunched under my feet. I raised an eyebrow, and reached to the bookcase. The surface smouldered, but it wasn’t hot. It wasn’t anything. 

“What sort of material can do such a thing?” I muttered. 

“No material,” Sera said and chewed on her nails. “This is magic. You should hurry.” 

I banged my fist against it, and stared wide eyed as it passed straight through. Without wasting a beat I pushed myself through. It wasn’t quite like stepping through nothing. Something was definitely there. But at the same time, it wasn’t. Like stepping into a steaming room mid-winter. 

I took a breath. Freedom had only tasted so sweet once before. I glanced back at the bookshelf. It looked just like before I shot it. No flickering, no smouldering. Nothing. 

“Hurry!” Sera insisted. 

I reloaded the wand with a grimace. My supply was getting thinner, quickly. If things kept going like this, I’d have to stop by the Chambers of Crushing to resupply before long. 

“Guys?” I shouted as I walked down the stairs. 

I took each step with care while keeping my wand pressed to my shoulder, ready to fire at a moment's notice. 

No one answered.

I swallowed and dashed down the last steps, making sure to keep my back against the wall as I scanned the room. It was empty. Not even the hogtied John remained in his corner of shame. 

The fire in the kitchen still crackled and sent licks of light into the hall. I cleared my throat and shouted, “Hello?!” 

Still nothing.

“Where the fu-”

Clatter

I whirled around. There was someone in the doll room. 

I clicked my tongue. “Tsk. Again?!” 

My pulse quickened, my heart in my throat. The house seemed to creak and make noises all around me as I crept closer to the room. My mom used to say that healthy houses were alive. This didn’t feel like a very healthy house to me, but it sure as shit seemed like it was alive. I gulped and squeezed the wand tighter, my knuckles whitening. 

I tapped against the door with the steel cap of my boots. The banging echoed through the house, silencing all other noises. Even the crackling of the flames grew more faint. 

“Hello?!” I shouted again. “Make yourself known or I swear to God I will blast you to bits!” 

I took a small step closer, and turned the doorknob, still aiming down the sights of the wand.

I called out again, “Come on guys, this isn’t fucking funny.” 

The door moaned like the hinges hadn’t been oiled for years. It inched open. At first with just a crack. 

A gust of wind escaped the room and brushed against my cheek.

I glanced inside. 

Black beady eyes stared back. 

A cold hand pressed down on my shoulder. 

I whipped around, striking the hand with the buttstock of my rifle.

“Ouch fuck! Cal?!” he moaned. 

I had never been so glad to see his ruffled mop of hair. I exhaled and lowered the wand. “Fuck, Yusuf. Why didn’t you answer when I shouted?!” The rough wooden planks of the wall scratched against my back as I leaned up against them.  

“I should ask you that. We’ve been looking for you! Where the hell were you?” 

I chuckled and pulled and unbuttoned the collar of my shirt. “Got stuck in some hidden room upstairs… Where are the others?”

“I was hoping you’d tell me. We split up to look for you, even Samara woke up to help.” 

That wasn’t good. I squeezed the wand. “There’s something seriously wrong with this place. We need to find them now, the sooner the better.” 

Yusuf raised his eyebrows. “What’s got you so riled up?” 

“Just a bad feeling. That and a fuck ton of bones.” 

Yusuf raised an eyebrow. “Probably should have lead with that.” 

“Probably…”

“Alright. I’ll keep looking downstairs if you check upstairs,” Yusuf said and turned to the kitchen. I caught his shoulder before he had time to step away. 

“You’re not listening. We stick together. There’s no other alternative.” 

He pursed his lips, then grinned. “What, you scared?” His eyes narrowing into slits. 

I paid him no mind and scanned the room. “Yes… I am.”

His smile faded, eyes turning serious. He unbuckled the pipe from his hip.  

I nodded at him. “Stay behind me,” I said and walked to the door of the doll room. 

I took a deep breath. Stared at the small gap of the door, and sighed. “A fuck it.” With burst empowering my kick, the door exploded into the room, coming off its hinges and slamming against the wall inside. 

“Damn,” Yusuf whispered. 

The small army of dolls stared with their beady, black eyes. However I moved, it felt like they followed me with their lifeless gaze. A few of them lay gutted on the bed, crushed by the door. A small consolation. 

“Fucking hate dolls,” I muttered.

Yusuf pressed himself past me with a whistle, admiring my handiwork. He spun around to get a look. If they actually were alive, then we were utterly out-manned and surrounded. There must have been a hundred of them. 

Yusuf jerked to a stop. “That’s not right…” he muttered and picked up one of the broken dolls, pulling it close to his face. 

He turned back to me, eyes wide and trembling. Without giving me a chance to prepare myself he shoved the doll into my face. “Look!” 

He pushed the beady eyes so close to my own that it felt like they stared into my soul. Deep inside their dark, Sera’s eyes met mine. She bit her nails, lost in thought. 

I shoved the doll away, and looked at Yusuf with knitted brows. 

“Look at the fucking hair, man!” he said and pointed. 

This was the first time I ever heard him swear, I think. 

I looked to his finger. The scalp of doll had a reddish hue underneath. Yusuf pulled lightly on the hair to expose the underside. 

The fleshy pink of bloody skin peeked out. Dried veins lined the skin like revolting tattoos. I pressed a hand to my mouth and shoved the doll out his hand. “Fuck!” 

Yusuf stared at the scalp with his mouth agape, as it splattered on the ground. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like a buoy at sea. 

I’d never heard someone gulp as loudly before. 

Not even a parched toddler ravenously inhaling a glass of milk could rival it. 

“What in God’s name…” he finally muttered and looked at the dolls lining the walls, all hundreds of them. 

Yusuf shoved his way past me, falling to his knees just outside the room. His back convulsed as he let the breakfast of the morning go to waste in a series of wet heaves. 

I patted him on the back. “There, there…” 

There, there? Good effort Cal, good effort…

Yusuf turned to me and dried his mouth with his sleeve. Tears welled up and filled his bloodshot eyes. “How are you okay after seeing something like that?!” 

A good point. And one that I had no answer to. I shrugged. “I was through a bit in the coiled building.” 

Yusuf stared at me like he was looking at a stranger.

I cleared my throat “Well. It’s not that I’m okay with it. I can assure you I am screaming on the inside.” 

He shook his head and stared back to the room. A few seconds of silence passed. “Let’s… Let’s not go back in there,” he said and rubbed his eyes. Wet stains coloured his once white robe. 

“Agreed,” I said. “We’ve got to keep going.” 

He nodded, not even the slightest hint of a smile on his face. The scalps got to him. For good reason. I was the abnormal one. Even after enduring what I had. 

I chalked it down to Sera's personality affecting me. She had been through what I had, only a lot more of it. There was no telling where her mind was, or where mine was going.

We cleared the bottom floor to no avail. Wisps of smoke still lingered above the stove, but no flames warmed the room. Everyone was gone without a trace. Samara’s room looked like it hadn’t been touched for years. The chairs we had used to keep watch in the hall had been put back in the kitchen as if we never entered. 

The soles of our boots slapped against the wooden steps with echoing clacks. Yusuf kept his silence, very unlike him. Yesterday he’d been exhausted near death, so that was understandable. But him getting this shaken and not recovering was less than ideal when he was my only back-up.

The boardgame in the living area had been reset. Both the sword-wielding hero and the shivering soldier once more occupied their rightful places amongst their ranks. 

I turned to Yusuf and whispered with a nod, “Those weren’t like that before.” 

He opened and closed his mouth, “Oh… Maybe Nea arranged them again? She looked for you up here.” 

“And she cleaned the rest of the house while she was at it?” I shook my head. “No. Something is very fucking wrong here.” 

I led him over to the bookshelf and pulled on the pristine book. With a rattling the bookshelf clicked to the side, then swung open. There was no dark inside, all the hideously pink wallpapers were clear to see. So were the bones littering the floor, the dolls lining the walls, and the scalps on the bloodied pillows.

“Fuck,” Yusuf whimpered. 

Still no trace of the others. I tapped my finger against the wall. If the dolls were made here, then placed in the doll room… 

I turned to Yusuf and muttered, “We must have missed something. Let’s go back to the doll room.” Never once did I think I would say something so preposterous.