The Dollhouse

Chapter 45

THE flames burned the pale pink walls of the Dollhouse black.

The fire had scorched the rosebushes, and the garden would soon be killed. The hedges would wither and die, and the fence would bake brown like the front of the red automobile in the driveway.

The sugar pink and mint green melted away before our very eyes. It was impossible not to stare as it stood ablaze - the perfect image of a suburban family home soon to be nothing but ashes.

"It seems to be coming from downstairs!" yelled Rudy over the roar. "See how the flames are climbing upwards - we can't get inside!"

The stinging smoke made our eyes weep from irritation; I raised my arm, not sure whether it was mingled with tears. We danced around helplessly, and I found myself screaming Violet's name, knowing that she was almost certainly trapped somewhere, with the chance of dying a very gruesome death.

"She's going to burn alive in there!" I cried, jogging Rudy's sleeve impatiently.

"And my uncle -!"

"Who cares about him! You don't love him! I don't care how mentally disturbed the two of you arer, you love her and she's going to die if we don't do something!"

The flames were creeping to the second story.

The white shutters and balcony remained gleaming and untouched, along with the roof. It had jumped to the trees now, the long branches cracking and threatened to crash down into the garden below.

Then we heard the coughing.

Squinting at the very top floor that loomed over the rest of the hollow like a fortress, we saw the outline of a shape moving. Out emerged Violet, looking panicked and disheveled, at the balcony from the master bedroom.

"VIOLET!" I shrieked, dizzy with relief.

With dark hair messed up and ruffled, and a dark smudge to her clothes, I swear I heard her choke back a sob when she heard our commotion. Our gaze locked - I looked up so desperately the world spun and caved in around me, and her figure was swimming in a mirage behind the dust and the smoke that stole my clarity.

Soon, the Edwardian architecture would splinter, and it would collapse from the interior damage raging from the belly of the beast. Soon, there would be nothing but ashes. Rudy was belting out desperate instructions - "don't inhale, and don't go back inside! Just wait there, and - oh, god -"

"I can't jump, Rudy!" Violet cried, her face screwed up from how hard she was sobbing. "Please, please, don't tell me I have to jump!"

A sick part of me recalled it was beautiful. The scene was enigmatic, cinematic, the kind of movie depicting a deep transatlantic tragedy. It seemed to be a very common theme for me to say that nothing felt real, but it truly didn't.

Two watery lines of black makeup streaked down to her chin - Rudy was swearing, begging her to stay calm. The fire grew brighter, hotter - a small crowd of townspeople grew in the backdrop. I could hear the thicket of their voices, irrelevant, warbled, distorted.

"Wait - the bed - use the bed!"

"Yes!" Rudy snapped his fingers with such violent delight, it was alarming. "Violet, throw down the mattress!"

Where we those in the spectacle back before the fireworks? What became of Sherri, of Arabella? Light-headed, I panicked that no one had arrived - no flashing light, the wail of sirens, nothing to save the property - or us.

Violet frantically hauled the mattress, the large white square emerging from the balcony pale against the black landscape. Crashing down into the garden, the heavy weight of it fell with no grace.