Book Five, Chapters 54 and 55

From the outside, the House of Dolls looked picture-perfect, like an American Girl store or the type of place that only existed in the minds of young girls playing tea parties with their dolls.

Because there were dolls. Tons and tons of them.

It was a Queen Anne-style home, except for two of the walls—the ones facing the street—were mostly windows. Through those windows, you could see tables set up for patrons who might want to have a tea party themselves, as the Dollhouse was apparently a restaurant as well as a shop.

Who would go eat in a place filled with those soulless creatures? I didn’t know.

There were lots of fabrics around the house with a checkered pattern, similar to the one usually found on a picnic blanket. The entire place was dusted and perfect, situated on the corner of a street in a well-to-do neighborhood with old houses and large trees.

Out on the porch, four dolls had been set up in rocking chairs to greet the neighborhood. Only one of them appeared to be cursed, as its eyes just wouldn’t stay still.

For Carousel, this place was underwhelming so far. I had expected the walls to be made out of melted Barbie dolls or something. And yet, it was perfectly delightful—from a distance.

Because no matter how good it looked as we walked down the street, the closer we got, the more omens we saw peeking out through those windows in the front.

We stopped at the corner across the street from the house, and Antoine whipped out the Atlas, which he carried with him.

Ideally, we would keep the Atlas at the Loft so that it didn’t get carried into a Storyline and then lost to us forever. But we figured that if Kimberly got trapped in a Storyline, the Loft would also be lost to us, and if the Atlas was there, it would be gone too so there really was no safe place for it.

Finding a way to copy the Atlas without spoiling ourselves was on the To-Do List.

“So, what have we got?” Michael said. “Is it safe to walk in? Or are we just gonna sit out here and stare?”

“I cannot impress on you enough how difficult it is to search through this book,” Andrew said. “It was designed for someone with Eureka.”

I chuckled because I had come to the same realization myself when trying to search through the Atlas. We would have our Scholar back one day, and when we did, it would be his job to look through that damn book.

“I doubt the Psychic would have sent us here if it was a death trap,” I said. “We paid her forty whole dollars.”

As much as that was a joke, I also felt like it might be true—that we could trust a lead from a Paragon, at least within the terms of the normal game, if not under all circumstances. Perhaps if there had been some ominous warning along with it…

“Here it is,” Andrew said. “Unfortunately, this section is not nearly as complete as some of the others.”

“That’s because nobody wanted to go into the Dollhouse,” Isaac said.

He was probably right.

As Andrew read through the scant information about the House of Dolls, I noticed that Ramona was staring at the house. I followed her gaze up to the second floor, and sure enough, there was an open window. While the room was dark, it did appear that something was sitting in front of the window—not in a chair, but almost as if a bed was situated in front of the window.

I could only see the silhouette.

“Spooky,” I said. “You think we’re being watched?”

Ramona shrugged. I could tell from the look on her face that something was off.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just feel like someone’s looking at me.”

I looked back up at the dark figure in the window. There could have been someone there, or I could have been looking at a pillow—I couldn’t tell. I also felt something, but then, out in the open, my Hysteric trope was making me all kinds of anxious.

Andrew closed the book and handed it back to Antoine.

“I have to conclude that if the Dollhouse were dangerous, then someone who had written about it would have mentioned it,” he said. “More than that, it is a restaurant of some sort—or at least I think I see a menu by the door. And restaurants are often safe enough to eat at, with some notable exceptions.”

I could understand the rest of them having their concerns. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to go through Carousel without being able to see omens easily, let alone see how they triggered.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll go in and help scope the place out. We don’t know this area very well, so we need scouts to stay out and keep a lookout. Isaac that means you, as much as you probably wanted to go in the Dollhouse.”

“Aw, nuts,” Isaac said.

“Lila,” I said, “if you would stay out for a while and just keep an eye out while I scope things out in there, we’ll send for you if we find something.”

Technically, the lead that we were given was given to Andrew, Lila, and Michael, so it would make sense for her to go into the Dollhouse. But at the same time, I was far too curious—and a little too much of a micromanager—to stay outside now that we were on the trail of something big.

Your friends have all fallen, some here, some there;
'Til they have risen, you've no friends to spare.

I fully expected to find a clue about the fortune, and I wanted to be there to see it for myself. The more I looked at those two little lines, the more certain I became that the straightforward warning was just a misdirect and that the true meaning was something else entirely. I was still working it over in my mind.

“I’ll stay out here with the Atlas,” Antoine said.

I guess that means me, Andrew, Michael, maybe Cassie, maybe Kimberly. “Dina,” I said, looking at her, “do you want to look at some dolls?”

“The first time one of those things says my name, I’m going to punt it across the room,” she said.

“Who else? Ramona, do you want to come?” I asked, noting that she was still looking at the upstairs window.

She nodded.

Kimberly wasn’t that excited to go and Cassie was acting hesitant for some reason, so Andrew, Michael, Dina, Ramona, and I set off across the road. As we got closer, I kept my eyes moving to try to get a layout and understand the omens.

My worst fear was that they might be moving, as dolls tended to do in horror movies. But for the most part, the House of Dolls appeared to be an ordinary shop—lots of omens for sale, as well as a few trope items, including a baby doll that everyone in a horror movie would pretend was a real baby.

Kimberly could use it with her pregnancy trope. I’d have to tell her about it.

As we approached the porch, I was able to read the menu for the tea and treats available at the shop.

The Teacup Cottage: House of Dolls
Enchanted Teas and Sweets

Teas

• Moonlit Gumdrop Elixir

• Fairy Fog and Petalbrew

• Whimsical Wishing Tea

• Starlit Dream Draught

• Midsummer Marshmallow Mist

• Honeydew Glitter Gloss

• Whispering Cloudfrost Tea

• Velvet Rose & Sparkle Shine

• Candyfloss Hummingbrew

Sweets & Treats

• Rainbow Glow Cakes with Sparkle Drizzle

• Celestial Cloud Scones with Stardrop Jam

• Mystic Gumdrop Carousel

Step into wonder, where each sip tells a story and every bite feels like a dream.

Those weren’t exactly recipes I was used to, but then, I didn’t drink tea, so maybe it was a perfectly normal menu.

The possibility that a witch was about to eat us skyrocketed, but if we weren’t going to take risks, we would be stuck in Carousel forever.

Before we could open the screen door and enter the establishment—which had a big "Open" sign in the window—a plump woman with a large smile and ruby-red cheeks quickly opened it for us. She must have heard us coming. Her hair was long and tied into pigtails, a bright, deep red that looked too uniform to be real—a wig, most likely.

On the red wallpaper, she was simply an ordinary NPC named Darla.

"Hello, welcome to The Teacup Cottage!" She waved us all into the house. I wasn’t in any hurry, still checking for omens and danger to make sure we were safe, but soon enough, we all scuffled inside to see rows upon rows of dolls of all sorts.

There were way too many dolls to be comfortable, and at least half of them looked far too creepy for anyone to realistically want to display them.

"Peter, we have guests," the woman called out. She turned to us, smiling broadly. "Would you like some tea? Did you see the menu?"

Michael, Andrew, Dina, and Ramona were not the slightest bit interested.

I asked how much it cost.

"Only a dollar," she said, "but the second cup is free! What can I get you?"

“I’m good,” I said. “We’d just like to look around.”

"Wonderful! Be careful not to touch the dolls; lots of them are antiques. The house is full of them, but whatever you do, don’t go upstairs. Now, which tea was it you said you wanted, son?"

“No tea for me,” I said.

But she looked at me expectantly and replied, “I’ll go ahead and get you some—you’ll love it. Peter!” she yelled. “One order for Whispering Cloudfrost!”

She smiled back at me.

When she left, Andrew looked at me and said, “I advise you not to drink the tea.”

“Thanks,” I said as if I had to be told.

"What exactly are we supposed to be doing here?" Michael asked.

Andrew shook his head and took out the card Madam Celia had given him. “It has no instructions, no hints. I suppose we’re just going to look around… unless you think that Darla has answers.”

Meanwhile, I noticed that Ramona was looking straight up.

“What’s up there?” I asked.

“I don’t want to say,” she replied. “I don’t understand it.”

I tried staring up at the ceiling like she was, and it was true that there was something up there. I didn’t know if I felt it because I had my semi-psychic background trope or because there was something up there that even an ordinary person could feel—a silent scream, pressing down.

“Here’s your tea, dear,” Darla said, having returned quickly.

“That was done fast,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, “we pride ourselves in our service.”

She handed me an empty yellow teacup, then lifted a matching teapot and began filling my cup. Except… nothing came out.

“Would you like any sugar, dear?” she asked.

“No… I’m good,” I said. “Thank you.”

Honestly, one of the creepiest things that could have come out of that teapot was… nothing. Because it confirmed that Darla was more than just a little weird.

“That’ll be a dollar,” she said, “and taste your tea while it’s hot!”

Was I supposed to pay her a dollar?

She didn’t give me anything, and there was no way I was going to drink this “tea” anyway, but she held out her hand. I decided it was worth a dollar just to end the interaction.

I retrieved the right-sized coin from my pocket, and as she reached out for it, I fumbled a bit so that it dropped to the ground.

“I am so sorry,” I said.

“No problem at all,” she replied, bending over to grab it.

Immediately, I dumped the invisible tea onto the ground with a silent splash, and when she rose back up, I brought the teacup near my lips to pretend I had just drunk the whole thing.

“You finished it?” she exclaimed, laughing. “Your mouth must be burning! Would you like some more?”

“No, no, I couldn’t,” I said quickly.

“I insist! The second one’s free,” she said, lifting the teapot to pour me another fake cup of tea.

Defeated, I said, “We’re gonna go drink it over here at the table.”

I led the group to one of the tables by the window.

I set the cup in front of me, and the others joined me. After a quick look to ensure there were no omens under the seats, I admitted, “That was embarrassing.”

They were silent, and I guessed if they weren’t so distracted by the creepy dolls, they might have been laughing at me.

Andrew was straight to business. “It seems that every doll in here is an omen of some kind. Am I wrong about that? It’s difficult for me to differentiate each doll on the red wallpaper.”

I looked around. “No,” I said. “About half of them are omens, sure, but most of them seem to be omens for the same series—something called Summer Slumber Party, Parts One through Three.”

“That sounds about right,” Dina said, glancing at the variety of dolls.

“Personally,” I said, “I’d rather a doll be from a slasher than from some sort of haunting.” Then I thought about it, looked over at all the dolls, and said, “No offense.”

“I don’t get why we’re sitting here,” Michael said. “Shouldn’t we be, like, interrogating that Darla woman?”

“You really think she has any good information?” I asked, scooting my cup of invisible tea to the edge of the table. “She seems a little off her rocker.”

Still, I didn’t know what we were supposed to be doing here, and there didn’t seem to be a good way of finding out. Luckily, the answer wasn’t exactly hiding from us.

There was a loud sound from upstairs—like a door slamming—and then footsteps.

Darla screamed from the back of the house.

We all jumped up from our table and ran to find her. I looked left and right, making sure we weren’t encountering any omens.

“Don’t stare in that mirror,” I said as we passed one. I didn’t even have time to see what its deal was; I just knew to avoid triggering it. “There’s something tough in that drawer—leave it alone,” I added.

As we made our way to the back of the house, we realized that the collection of dolls in the front was only the beginning.

“All right, folks, be ready to run for the door,” I said.

I could feel anxiety rising; there was danger here, even if I couldn’t see it. And yet, I heard laughter echoing quietly around us, along with the pitter-patter of what sounded like a toddler’s footsteps—but maybe gentler.

“Why the heck did we enter this place?” I said aloud. It was instinct or maybe even the result of someone or something’s trope.

And then, suddenly, the laughter stopped, and all I heard was a very loud slurping sound coming from back in the direction we had just run from.

I looked around the back room. It was just rows and rows of dolls with little tables set up, similar to the ones up front but much smaller, with lots of tiny teacups set out.

Eventually, we found Darla lying at the base of the stairs.

“Are you okay?” I asked, still cautious of any omens.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I don’t know what came over me. Do you need some more tea?” she asked me.

“No,” I replied.

She nodded and started to try to stand up. At first, she couldn’t, and then she looked up the stairs at something I couldn’t see and said, “Peter, I’m sorry. I’ll just need a moment.”

I looked up the stairs myself, my heart pounding, expecting to see something horrifying. But all I saw was an empty hallway at the top of the stairs.

“What’s up the stairs?” Michael asked.

“That’s Peter,” she said. “Can you see him too?”

Of course, we couldn’t see anything.

“Maybe we should reconvene outside,” Andrew suggested.

I agreed; things were getting too spooky in there.

So, bidding Darla well as she sat on the steps, we all turned to leave. As we did, I caught a glimpse of the table we had been sitting at while we scoped out the place.

My tea had been sitting right on the edge of the table, but now it had moved—into the lap of a doll sitting where it had been. The doll was in the vein of Chucky but about fifty years older, with a little tan cap and lifeless eyes. Next to the doll was a knife.

It was both an Omen and an enemy, not unlike the Grotesque.

The storyline was called Kid Stuff, and it was a tough one. You triggered it by not playing make-believe with the doll and giving it food.

I stopped in my tracks, piecing it together. I had to assume that’s why we needed to have a cup of tea—to keep a thirsty doll distracted.

The doll didn’t move, and I had no evidence that it could move on its own, except for the fact that no one seemed to be around when it got onto the table. I wouldn’t have stared at it for very long, but when we turned toward the door, it slammed shut, blocking our exit.

Michael tugged at it and banged on it. It didn’t budge.

As we turned our backs to the door, bracing ourselves for a fight, Darla walked down the hall toward us and said, “Peter would like to see you.”

“We could jump through these windows,” Michael suggested. “I could break through, no sweat.” But as he said that, the shutters on the outside of the building closed around the windows, darkening the room and giving us a solemn answer.

We were not getting out. Not that way.

“This is… highly unusual,” Andrew said. I could hear a quiver of fear in his voice; normally, he was analytical and calm, but now he was casting his logic out like a prayer. “If we were being ambushed, I feel like it would have happened by now. We would have triggered an omen or something. This must be something different.”

I had to agree, though I was probably just as hopeful as he was.

Before we could decide what to do, Ramona stepped up to the front of the group and said, “Take us to him.”

Darla turned and began walking back down the hall.

“What are you doing?” I asked Ramona. “Are you sure about this?”

“No,” she said, and then she started following Darla to the back.

I tried to use my pseudo-psychic powers to sense what it was we were heading into, but all I got was a sense of something powerful on the other end. I hoped desperately it was all in my head.

Still, we weren’t getting out through the door, so I followed Ramona, who was following Darla, back through the house and up the stairs.

Upstairs was just a normal, well-kept house filled with pictures. The photos featured a boy and a girl about the same age—they could have been twins. They looked like they’d grown up sometime around the 1920s, maybe earlier. For all I knew, it could have been as far back as the 1880s, though I didn’t think photography of this type existed then. They seemed to be on a farm in the middle of nowhere, but they looked happy.

A radio was playing softly in the hallway, an old-fashioned kind built into a cabinet.

“Peter, I brought them here,” Darla called out.

“Are you sure the door was locked?” I asked Michael.

“I tried to pull it off its hinges. It wouldn’t budge.”

I had to hope that Madam Celia hadn’t sent us to our deaths.

Darla led us across the landing at the top of the stairs to a bedroom. She opened the door and waved us in.

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered under my breath.

When we walked in, the room looked like a normal one from the 1950s or so—lots of magazines and model cars, the kind that you paint with special metallic paints. But all that stuff had layers of dust on it and hadn’t been used in a long time, it would seem.

On the far side of the room, by the windows, was a hospital bed. In it was a man who I had to assume was comatose, given the feeding tube and the fact that he was out cold. His skin was gray, and his hair was so wispy and fine that I couldn’t even tell its color, but it was something light.

On the red wallpaper, he was labeled Peter Who Knocked on the Door. He was Level 50 with a host of tropes that I couldn’t see. He was a Paragon.

My mood instantly brightened because, as terrible as my experiences with Paragons had been, I’d rather face one up here than some sort of monster, ghost, or demon any day.

Whatever it was that Ramona and I had felt downstairs—or across the street—we were feeling it tenfold in this room. Whatever this man was, he was putting out a lot of psychic wattage.

Or something was.

“Hello?” I asked.

No answer. Terrible customer service.

While Peter never woke up, it wasn’t true that he never answered because, like downstairs, there were dolls here too—though in a far more reasonable amount.

One doll in particular was sitting on the desk. It was a terrifyingly lifelike humanoid, something like a cat or maybe a bear—it wasn’t clear. It had fur, and its eyes moved from side to side mechanically. It also had a voice box, the kind that needed to be activated by pulling a string. The name “Bastion” was written on its front.

With the influence of whatever Peter was, no string pull was necessary.

“He sleeps and waits to be woken by his master,” Bastion’s voice box rasped. Bastion himself couldn’t have said it any more terrifyingly. “But I am limited without him awake. Quite a conundrum.”

It was one of the top three scariest voices I had ever heard.

“He is like you,” the voice continued.

As if to emphasize who he was talking to, Ramona’s hair lifted as though struck by a gust of wind.

“I favored him, but he could not bear it forever, so I brought him here. But Carousel does not allow him to wake unless called upon. So I am stuck in the confines of this house lest I retreat to my other plane, always trapped between the two.”

Ramona was a Mercer, which meant that she had some connection to a poltergeist. In its enthusiasm for protecting the Mercers, it often ended up getting them—and bystanders—killed. Whatever this presence was, talking through Bastion, it seemed a lot like her poltergeist, bound to a man who could not live with its burden.

“We wait until called upon, until one day we may go home… cured,” the voice said.

I didn’t know what the etiquette was or whether we should ask its name, so I didn’t. In fact, I was terrified. As happy as I was to see a Paragon, I wasn’t exactly hoping to meet one connected to some sort of spirit, ghost, or… whatever this was.

“Why were we sent here?” Andrew asked, building up courage faster than I did.

“The script in his mind tells me that I am to give you a gift,” the voice replied. “I will do this… because I must.” It continued, “For unless I regain my conduit, I will be here forever.”

“And what gift is that?” I asked.

"It will call to you when you try to leave. You must avoid the hazards of the house, as I have been trapped here with a great horde of minor Imps as an insult to my power," the voice said.

And then it stopped talking.

I was a bit worried; I didn't know the etiquette for meeting some sort of disembodied Eldritch horror, but it was being absolutely rude.

"Wait," Ramona said. "Do you have something to tell me?"

It turned out he didn’t. He’d returned to whatever other plane he was trapped in, without his conduit—that is if I was reading the lore right.

"Well, nice seeing you, Peter," I said as we turned to leave. And as I said that, my hair blew a little, which either meant the upstairs room was very drafty, or maybe Peter wasn’t entirely gone.

~-~

“So this really is just some sort of minor quest,” I said. “Not that I mind that. It’s nice to have a straightforward goal.”

“Better than the tutorial,” Dina replied.

What wasn’t?

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” I said, reaching the bottom of the stairs and heading back toward the front.

When we got there, the doll with the knife was still sipping on my tea. And, as the disembodied—or maybe forcibly embodied—spirit had stated, one of the dolls did call out to us.

It cried so loud, and suddenly, we all jumped.

It wasn’t even a spooky omen; it was a spooky trope item.

It was just a baby doll, but one with moving eyes and an annoying cry. Its torso was hollowed out, filled with potpourri—or perhaps herbs and spices of the spell variety—and an assortment of symbols were carved into its plastic.

You know, one of those dolls.

Its trope was a Hysteric trope with an effect I didn’t quite understand at first. The trope, called Fear of the Unknown, would only trigger against dangers the user didn’t otherwise have an awareness of. Attached to the terrifying baby doll, it seemed like it would cry whenever an unseen danger was near.

I had no idea what that meant. Did omens count as dangers we weren’t aware of, or did the fact that we were aware of them mean they wouldn’t trigger the trope?

I had to think on it: Dangers of the type the user isn’t aware of.

“How much for the doll?” Michael asked Darla.

“Five dollars,” she said, “if you promise to give it a good home.”

We did promise it.

We coughed up the money, and she went to grab the doll. She carefully wrapped it in some crate paper as if she were swaddling it, then placed it inside a bag, which, to my mind, defeated the purpose of swaddling it—but I wasn’t going to say anything.

With that, we grabbed the bag and turned to leave. When Michael reached for the door, it took a bit of effort to open it, as if someone upstairs was having a little fun at our expense.

As we crossed the street, Ramona said, “Riley.”

I turned to look at her, and she continued, “I have something on the Throughline Tracker for an Advanced Archetype. It just appeared.”

“Huh,” I said. “I guess we’re getting a lot out of this trip. Hopefully, one day, we’ll figure out what Advanced Archetype you’re about to unlock.”

“But it says what Archetype it is,” she replied.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Eldritch Conduit,” she answered.

“Nice,” I said. I’d heard of that Advanced Archetype before, but I had to wonder: Why did she get to see what Advanced Archetype she was working toward when everyone else hadn’t? Was Peter the Eldritch Conduit Paragon? And by meeting him, was she able to see her progress toward the archetype?

“How far along are you?” I asked.

“Just two little dots,” she answered.

“Well, with a little luck, you’ll be able to channel some unknowable entity—and hopefully, you won’t end up inside a hospital bed in a dollhouse for the rest of your life.”

She smiled, but I sensed she was a bit more worried about that possibility than she let on. I had been thoughtless. She already channeled an entity, in theory, the same one that killed her mother and sister (originally) and had, in fact, killed her as a baby in her original timeline.

As soon as we started crossing the street, the others saw us and started cheering, overly emotional. Apparently, seeing the shutters close on their own and hearing loud noises from inside the house had scared them—or something.

So, what was the clue that would help us rescue Logan and Avery? There were definitely no werewolves in that house.

What exactly did we need a doll that would cry around unknown dangers for? I mean, obviously, there were good reasons to have a doll with that power, but why specifically now? And how would it help us move forward on our task of rescuing Andrew’s teammates?

And what did it have to do with that fortune Celia gave us?