Doll House

Doll House

“I know you’ve looked at many houses, and I’m sure you are beginning to wonder if there is a house out there, just for you. I’ve shown you several houses over the last month, and I feel I’ve gained some insight into what you are looking for. This house I believe although different in many ways than a more traditional house, has a few features I think you’ll like, and you won’t find them in any other house in this area but this one, I assure you.”

The sermon, as she had come to think of it, had finally ended. She followed him up the walk from the street, waited on the covered porch as he attempted to unlock the front door. “Would you excuse me, I believe I’ve brought the wrong keys. Let me check my car. Are you alright here until I return?” She nodded.

She thought it the perfect opportunity to look at what she wanted to look at, and not what he wanted her to see. Her husband had refused to look at any more houses until she found one that met her needs.He would, if she recommended a house, meaning it met the majority of her needs, consider looking at it in hopes it would meet at least some of his.

They needed to move. They’d outgrown their present home. Two children and a third, well not a child, her mother would be coming to live with them. “She is beginning to be forgetful,” is what the doctor had told them. Her contribution to the new home would make the move possible. He resigned himself to living with a mother-in-law. He liked her for the most part, but then she presently lived across town. She would if they found a house to accommodate everyone, be living just down the hall.  The house would be as much hers as theirs, until it got to the point they couldn’t take care of her any longer. She understood the arrangement, or at least said she did on her better days.

Susan walked to the side of the house and peered over the fence. The rear yard was large and landscaped to her liking. She particularly liked the clump of river birch near the rear entrance and the old Maple that shaded not only the house but the detached garage, which she’d been told by Mr. Crumb had been renovated into a guest house. The children can, “make all the noise they want and not disturb the other members of the household.” His words remained etched in her mind, like the scratch in her treasured “Stones” album.

She could see him rummaging through the contents of the glove compartment, looking between the seats, on the visor. She walked across the front lawn to the north side of the house and found it lined with arborvitae.  “They’ve got to be thirty feet tall, a privacy screen made in heaven.” She’d liked what she saw so far. She went back to the front door to wait for Mr. Crumb, and hopefully he found the key he was searching for. 

Crumb was now searching the trunk of the car, rifling through a box that appeared to be filled with folders. She heard a click and turned to see the door swing open. She thought about calling Mr. Crumb and letting him know the door was unlocked but quickly decided against it. She liked the idea of inspecting the home on her own. “No scripted comments clouding my thoughts.”

She peaked around the corner of the foyer and found the dining room, complete with a beautiful inlayed table, and chairs that were covered with a floral fabric that seemed to glow in the afternoons light.

She walked toward the rear of the house and looked into the kitchen; it was everything she’d hoped for and more.It was spacious, room for more than one cook, and a counter with stools where company could visit while she finished preparing a meal. The living room was spacious, it had windows on two light green walls, the room appeared to dance as the shadows of the Birch leaves skipped across the hardwood floor.

There was a sunroom adjacent to the living room, it would allow for adequate ventilation on warm summer evenings when the breeze was usually light; effectively driving out the heat and replacing it with the cooler evening air. She’d noticed the stairwell as she stood admiring the view from the sunroom. It looked out onto a patio that was shaded by a Sycamore tree. She loved the trees mottled bark and spiny seeds, they reminded her of Christmas ornaments. There had been a Sycamore tree in the house she grew up in and she remembered spending summers in its shade reading or drawing pictures of birds, which remained a passion of hers since childhood.

She pulled herself up the stairs with the aid of a polished rail. The spindles were maple, they cast a comfortable reddish glow which made them appear to be on fire. The upstairs hall was spacious. At the far end, hosting a number of plants was a leaded glass window. The prismed light coming through the window gave the hall a greenish tint; it reminded her of the Florida Keys where she’d gone on her honeymoon.

There were four bedrooms, which were a must if her mother was going to move in. Her boys would have their own room, her mother would have her room, her privacy, but be in close enough proximity if she were in need of anything, and they would have the master bedroom next to her room. She could see the door to the bathroom in the far corner. “So far the house is perfect. It provides for all our needs, and the converted garage couldn’t make things any easier. She knew her mother disliked noise and the garage residence where the boys could play would eliminate that concern.”  

She went to the bedroom at the front of the house and looked down at Mr. Crumbs car. The trunk she observed was closed, as were the doors of the vehicle. She looked over the front yard and he was nowhere in sight. “He must have made his way to the back to see if the door was open or he’d found a key to the cellar. He’ll be up shortly.”

As she turned she noticed a doll house in the corner of the room. The curtain covering the window was pink, the light caused the room to take on a rosy glow; the white window casing and door trim appeared to bleed. She’d experienced that peculiarity before when the humidity was high and the house had been closed up for a time. She watched a pinkish drop slide down the door trim and disappear onto the floor. Something similar was happening to the window she’d looked out just moments earlier when searching for Mr. Mathias Crumb. “Mathias, what an uncommonly strange name.”

She hadn’t noticed immediately that the doll house was a perfect replica of the house she was in. She walked over to it and peered through the window of a second story room which looked identical to the room she was in. She thought she saw something move, adjusted her glasses, and looked once again through the window. There was what appeared to be a figure dressed similar to the way she was dressed. It appeared to be standing near the bed, similar to the place she was standing, but looking out the window up at her. She felt a shudder run down her back and quickly pulled away from the window. She’d begun to feel uncomfortable and decided she’d best find Mr. Crumb.

She moved down the hallway toward the stairwell.  She heard a loud “bang,” and what sounded like cursing coming from outside. She believed it was Mr. Crumbs voice she heard, but then... cursing seemed out of character for a man as seasoned as him but it sounded like his voice, she was certain of that. “He must be attempting to access the basement through the cellar door. The noise was probably something left by the cellar entrance that he’d dislodged and it tumbled down the cellar steps.” She peered out the window facing the rear yard but didn’t see Mr. Crumb. “He must be in the cellar; he will be here shortly.” 

She turned back toward the stairwell and noticed a strange light coming from the doll house room. The thought of a room being called the doll house room, she liked that. She’d spent some time in the south and it wasn’t unordinary for rooms to be named after people or incidents that occurred within them. She found the practice endearing and began to think of other names she could use to enhance the mystique of not only the rooms but the house itself.  She walked toward the light to investigate. She listened; she was sure Mr. Crumb would come up the stairs at any moment. 

She peered around the door opening at the doll house. The bright light appeared to be emanating from a window. Not a window in the room she was in but in the bedroom window of the room she’d just passed. She pulled herself from the doorway and crept slowly toward the room with the light in the doll house window. The door to the bedroom was closed. She couldn’t remembered if the door to the bedroom in the doll house was closed or not. She opened the door slowly and found a young girl sitting on the bed looking admiringly at an exact replica, of no only a duplicate of the doll house in the next room, but an exact copy of the house they were in.

She didn’t know what to say.  She wasn’t supposed to be in the house without Mr. Crumb, but then he’d said nothing about people being in the home, a family still living there. She was about to ask who the girl was when she interrupted her thoughts, “Hi, my name is Mary. Who are you?”

She was so surprised she answered without thinking. “My name is Susan, and I’m here to look at the house. We are looking for a home, and Mr. Crumb the real-estate agent thought my family would be well suited for this house. How long have you lived here?” She continued without giving the girl a chance to answer. “I wasn’t aware that anyone was still here or I wouldn’t have come in.” Her words poured from her in such rapid fashion it surprised her.

“Oh, that’s alright. It happens all the time. The people all like my doll houses. I don’t know if you noticed but there is one in every room. This is my grandfather’s house.  He was a carpenter.  When he retired he felt he needed something to do, but wasn’t physically able to build real houses anymore, so he started building me doll houses. He built this house. I guess he thought he knew it so well it would only be natural for him to build doll houses just like it. Do you like them? I’ll tell him if you do. He loves it when people like his houses. He says it makes him feel young again. Oh, my name is…Oh, I told you that already didn’t I. Did you see the picture of the wall of the bird I drew?”

She looked where the girl pointed, a Cardinal perhaps? She remembered drawing one just like it when about the girls age. “But mine was better.”

“You be sure and tell your grandfather I loved his doll houses; I wish I could live in one, and I like your bird picture. I’ve got two boys, I’m not sure they’d like the doll houses as much as I do, but then you’ll probably be taking them with you when you move?”

“Why would I move. I love it here. Grandpa and I like people when they come to visit. They don’t stay very long or they tend not to leave at all. It’s the strangest thing.” Susan thought the declaration strange, but then girls at that age are strange; she remembered only too well.

“This house is not for sale? Mr. Crumb, you must know Mr. Crumb, the agent?... I believe he is in the basement. He couldn’t find the key to the front door and had to look for a key to get into the house to show it to me, and I think he may have found the key to the cellar. I heard a loud noise that sounded like it came from… down there,” Susan pointed toward the stairwell.

“No that’s just grandpa. We’ve had trouble with people trying to break into the house, so he sits down there and waits. He’s got this old shotgun he said his father bought him, and he uses it to scare off people. Sometimes it accidentally goes off. Want to see? Come over here and look in the cellar window. I just cleaned them so you should be able to see grandpa plain as day…take a look. 

I’ve got to get going, I’ll let grandpa know we got company and tell him you liked his doll houses. ”And the girl was gone before she could…could what?

Susan went to the doll house and looked in the cellar window. An old man was sitting on what looked to be an old nail keg holding a…sure enough a shotgun. The cellar door appeared to be open and a figure, someone who looked a lot like Mr. Crumb was lying on the floor in a pool of what appeared to be blood. 

Susan jumped back and then ran to the window that looked out on the rear yard. Everything appeared different. The trees were smaller, and there was no fence. The space was bare where the converted garage had been. She began to feel something was not right. he reached for her purse to get her phone and call her husband, but her purse wasn’t there. She noticed movement through the cellar window and looked once again at the scene in the basement. The body had disappeared and the blood was gone. She went to the window once again and looked out, as the sun dipped below the horizon making the trees look like silhouettes made of construction paper, the kind she remembered making in school.

Susan began to panic. “I can’t make sense of what is happening. Mr. Crumb has been murdered in the basement? I’m in a house where no one supposedly lives, yet a young girl says she does?” 

Susan walked down the hall looking into each room as she passed, hoping to see the girl again; there were so many questions. When she reached the bedroom overlooking the front yard she looked for the doll house that had been in the corner, across from the bed. It was no longer there. She pulled the curtain aside and looked at the street. The girl she’d been speaking with was standing on the street talking to the man she recognized from the basement.

She watched as Mr. Crumb who appeared unhurt, walked across the lawn. The three of them stood in the street, and then as if on que, they all abruptly turned and looked up at the window Susan was looking out from. She jumped back and let the curtain fall. She sat on the bed looking around the room for anything that would help her make sense of what was happening. She stood and moved toward the dressing table where a comb and brush lay; a round mirror rose from the tables back, it made the room look larger. Everything seemed so familiar, it was as if she’d once sat in front of the mirror brushing her hair; “but that’s impossible.”

She heard the noise again. The sound, she recognized this time.  The furnace igniting, the gas exploding and sending that familiar sound accompanied by heat through the pipes. She picked up the brush and began to brush her hair. It all seemed so familiar, and yet she didn’t remember ever having been in the house before. She felt the warm air from the vent being blown across her feet. It reminded her of fall and how wonderful the light and smells had been… until that day.

She looked up and saw herself in the mirror. She had changed, she was looking at the young girl she’d spoken to earlier, the one who said she lived in the house and whose grandfather had …

“It was the reason I had to leave.”

She heard voices emanating from the stairwell and the footsteps that encouraged the complaining stair treads to object. She listened as they made their way toward the room facing the street. She got up and moved to the window.  She looked out the doll house window and saw three people by the door staring at her doll house. “Isn’t that remarkable, an exact model of the house we are in,” the voice penetrated the walls, causing her doll to fall from its rocking chair. 

Susan continued to look out the window at the three people who milled about the room.  The room once again blushed pink as the remainder of the sun’s rays exploded through the window, and then everything went...