Hollow Dolls, The (22 page)

The interior of the car was gone.

She was looking at a large ornate plaque with a coat of arms above
a hearth. The fire blazed and Melanie could feel the heat on her legs as she
stood on a chair reaching up to touch the golden name plate that read
‘Dentowne’.  She was yanked off the chair and pushed to the floor. Dentowne was
shouting.

She was in Cloe’s body.

Melanie’s consciousness jumped from one place to another. The
banana plantation, the screams, the vicious beating in the barn and then
Dentowne himself on top of her. He was inside her. She let loose a blood
curdling scream as the old man jammed his hard bony cock between her tiny
buttocks. Dentowne leaned down and whispered in her ear ‘pretty pony’ as the
fire light flames flickering all around the inside of the barn.

“Miss. Hello Miss. Are you okay?”

A man stood at the driver’s side window of the black car that was
blocking traffic.

He shook Mel’s arm.

“You okay Miss?” he repeated over and over.

The cool beach air flowed across her damp face and sound came back
into her ears. She saw the man’s gray uniform and conductor’s cap with a blue
stripe. He was bent down looking in the window at her. Then she felt his hand
on her arm.

Her skin was white now.

She started to throw up and covered her mouth. She swallowed hard
gagging at the burning sensation in her throat.

Melanie managed to blurt out a few words and wiped her mouth.

“Sorry…about that.”

“You shouldn’t be stopped here you know.”

“Thanks,” said Melanie. She let the clutch out. The conductor’s
hand pulled free of the grip he’d had on her arm and Blackie jigged forward. She
heard the rubber on the road and looked over to the passenger’s seat imagining
Winnie were there.

“Crazy drunken kids,” said the conductor as she sped off.

Melanie stopped at Denman and Davie, right between all the
buildings of the West End and English Bay Beach. She looked at the finger marks
on her arm the man had just made. Cloe’s dark skin was still in her eyes. She
felt herself slipping away again so she concentrated hard on the burning in her
throat and the awful taste. It was something to keep her here. She banged her
hand on the wheel and cranked the music up.

Two men who stood on the corner kissing heard her yell. They
looked over into Melanie’s window, then made a few dance moves at her. Melanie
popped the clutch lunging forward toward home, leaving a bit of rubber on the
road.

In the alley behind The Sandman, she pulled over underneath an overhanging
magnolia tree in bloom. She slid the shifter into first, turned off the
ignition, and let out the clutch.

The fresh magnolia scent seemed to be saying everything was going
to be okay.  The sweet smell brought her a bit closer to simply being. A
busgirl from Moxie's sitting out back having a smoke waved to her. Melanie
stared at her not knowing she was looking at anything in particular. Her stare
drew the girl in. She was Heather, ‘your server for today’. Melanie frequented
the restaurant occasionally.

"Hey are you alright?" Heather leaned on the car.

"Sure, yeah. I almost had an accident,” said Melanie,
thinking something up.

"It seemed you, maybe you were, I don’t know, just feeling
sad or something."

She looked into Melanie’s eyes with a longing familiarity.

“Go ahead. It’s ok,” said Melanie.

"It’s nothing. I get depressed sometimes. Just lonely really,”
said Heather.

“I miss my shrink,” said Melanie. “I wish I could remember exactly
who he was. I mean...I don’t know what I mean,” she said. Melanie trailed off.

“I stopped going to mine,” said Heather. She took another puff on
her cigarette and craned her neck to blow it high above the car. She knew
Melanie didn’t want her there.

“See ya.” Heather walked back and sat down to finish her smoke. How
beautiful Melanie was. All the usual resentful thoughts of the privileged class
started streaming through her mind. She felt bad for including Melanie in that
group because Melanie had been so nice. It was impossible to stop once she’d
started.

“She’s just another rich bitch. Why be nice?” mumbled Heather. 

Heather had a carousel life. A strange echoed music played in the
background while the horses went round and round with nobody on them. The
horses were terrified and there was a reason for the amusement park being all
abandoned and empty. Everyone had left because they knew Heather was coming.

The music was made of echoes, old bits of laughter from the lucky
ones that were at the park just minutes ago and would return as soon as Heather
left. They all waited with their hands covering their mouths being sure not to
make a sound.

Heather felt her world behind the curtain. Her only real friend
was the blade she’d carve into her loneliness and tormented skin. She puffed. The
people hiding had laughed louder and louder before she’d arrived just so she
would hear the echoes. Tonight when she got home, Heather would show them what
they’d done by writing it on her body.

“It’s my own fault,” mumbled Heather. She took another puff and
looked back over at the spot where Melanie had been in her car. Maybe she had never
been there. Maybe she’d made the whole thing up pretending that Melanie had
spoken to her. Why would the rich bitch talk to her anyway?

Of course she’d made it up.

A sadness gripped her heart so badly that she stubbed her
cigarette out half done, breaking the white paper open to expose the strands of
brown tobacco. She rushed back inside and swallowed a Klonopin with some coke. In
the bathroom stall she sat on the toilet seat and put her feet up against the
door so nobody would see her work shoes. Her break was over. Someone was in the
next stall, ripping pieces of toilet paper. She couldn’t think. What was it was
that had just fucked her up so much? In the back of her mind were the horses
and a carousel.

As long as she wasn’t thinking of cutting.

Melanie pulled Blackie into the underground parking.

Her temples throbbed on the elevator ride.

Inside finally.

Away.

After writhing on the couch in timeless places her body was
drenched with sweat. Her clothes still damp from rain, she staggered to the
bathroom. On her knees she threw up in the toilet. After retching over and over
hugging the bowl she splashed water on her face. This was real. In the mirror
was the face of madness, yet Melanie saw innocence. It was real. A gift from
Cloe. Finally. She rushed into the court room.

“Your Honor. I have the evidence. And it’s real this time.”

She went to the suitcase and took one of each with a drink of rum.
Soon after things were better again. She called ‘Georgy’ on the menu of Skype.

“Hi Georgy.”

“Mel, is everything okay?”

“I’m Melanie,” she said. “I don’t remember everything. I’ve just
had this terrible you know, impaired reality. I had sex with this bad wolf.”

She talked as though he were her psychiatrist and knew everything
about what went on inside her.

“Have you been working out? You know it’s better for you than sex
with strangers.”

He
was  the stranger.

Now Nigreda was manipulating her but Melanie didn’t know, being
distracted by Georgy.

She was about to be sick again.

“Do you know Alejandra?” said Melanie. She choked out the words
desperately.

“What’s that?” said Georgy, playing dumb.

“I know she’s Cara’s sister!” said Melanie. “Alejandra saved me at
the farm. Do you know about that?”

“I’m sorry Mel, I don’t know everyone there.”

“Don’t call me that! She’s here. Alejandra! And she’s after me and
Winnie. She wants Winnie for some government experiments. I have to find her!!”

“I’ll try for you Mel, er, Melanie. Are you drinking your water?”

“I have to go.”

Melanie closed the laptop and went for the rum bottle on the
table, took it to the couch with her. It didn’t make sense to her. Georgy
should know everything.

Georgy called Lilly.

“She knows about Alejandra and everything,” said Georgy.

“That’s fine,” said Lilly. “Alejandra’s bringing her back to me.
I’ll straighten Melanie out when she gets here.”

“You don’t understand Lilly! She’s remembering Jack. She knows
about Alejandra catching Peter at the farm. She remembered the whole damn
thing.”

“It will be better for her to know she was a slave child from the
beginning. I wanted her innocent, but it can’t last forever. She’s still mine.
I love her and I want her back. You can fix her up when she gets back to
London. That’s your job Georgy.”

Lilly hung up.

“Why don’t you just tell him the truth?” said Cara.

“Georgy may tell Phillip yet. We wait,” said Lilly. “We have to
get Melanie back here.”

~*~

Melanie
had the lights off and let the Challenger coast down the narrow driveway nearby
the house. She sat in Blackie with her spy binoculars watching through the
windows of a post and beam architectural dream home. Houses were sparsely
distributed in the British Properties. On the side of the hill, they were hard
to notice from a distance nestled among the conifers, chipmunks and whiskey
jacks. It was dark and Melanie could see Alejandra. The woman with the long
dark hair moved around inside the house. Melanie couldn’t remember seeing
anyone so beautiful or ever being this excited. Perhaps when she first met Cara
she’d felt this. This was ten times as strong. A hundred. Right now, she only
knew one thing. She had to be with this woman. To find out something.

She
got out and closed the door loudly. As she walked up the path to the front
deck, a husky security man wearing an expensive looking suit took her by the
arm. She was malleable Melanie. She didn’t care any more. She wanted the woman
with the long dark hair. To be with her. To
be
her. When Alejandra
noticed the movement out on the deck she came to the sliding door.

“Hello
Melanie.” She spoke casually as if she’d been expecting her.

“Hi.”

Melanie
looked down at her hands.

“Why
are you here?” said Alejandra softly.

“I’m
not sure.”

Alejandra
signalled the security men to leave.

“Come
in.”

“Thank-you.”
Melanie stepped in gingerly.

Everything
seemed so natural and polite and safe.

“What
would you like to drink then?”

“Bourbon
please.”

“Tough
girl. I like it Melanie. Very much.”

“Are
you taking Winnie,” said Melanie. “For the experiments?”

“That’s
sweet Melanie. You are such a good friend to her. A believer. You believe in
her, don’t you?”

Melanie
nodded and felt her pony brush the back of her neck.

Alejandra
slipped a large dose of salvia divinitorum solution into Melanie’s bourbon.
Alejandra didn’t want to play talk. She wanted to get started. Georgy had been
experimenting on Melanie with salvia only his was a much lower dosage over a
long period. A foot in the door so to speak. This would be all the way inside
with the door closed. Just the two of them.

Melanie
had been drawn in like the goose; paddling toward the dancing fox on the shore.
There were always foxes in her life it seemed. And the far off shores where
they danced.

Hours
later Melanie’s arms felt weak from being tied to the cross for so long. When
she became conscious she looked down and Melanie saw the bowl full of factory
sealed needles with their pink hubs showing through the plastic. It felt like
an operation. She was naked. The air was warm. There were large patterns of
needles piercing her breasts and nipples. Rows of needles that looked like
arrows for battle. She was a quiver. Alejandra stepped close.

“I’ve
got this problem,” said Alejandra. She lifted Melanie’s chin, put her hair
behind her ears.

“I
think you can help me with it, correct?”

“Yes
Mistress.”

“Good
girl Melanie.”

Fiona
brought some cleansing supplies and began to take the needles out. To Melanie she
was the elf girl Phoenia. She was very beautiful too.

“Fi...”
Melanie began then didn’t know who she was looking at. The face shifted.

Fiona
finished wiping and cleaning Melanie’s tortured body.

 Alejandra
came close and kissed Melanie’s lips.

“Mistress,”
said Melanie. She looked into Alejandra’s kaleido-eyes.