Several rooms away, a boy who was much bigger than either of the girls crept around on his tiptoes. He wore baggy black shorts and a short-sleeved black button-down cowboy shirt. His cropped hair was spiked up in the front. His eyes were dark and wide, but he didn’t say a word. In fact, as he moved throughout what looked like a child’s nursery, the boy didn’t make a sound.

On the level where Lou continued to wander, another girl was walking through a room with indigo wallpaper. Her brown hair was divided in the middle and fell to her shoulders in two braids.

In an adjacent room, a blond boy disappeared through a doorway before Jason made out what he looked like.

His conversation with Lou from the previous night echoed in his head: The kids in the dollhouse …

Had his sister become one of them?

CHAPTER 4

LOU STARTLED AWAKE to find herself on a blue velvet daybed in an ornately decorated room that seemed vaguely familiar. White marble busts stood atop tall pedestals around the space—a young woman whose face was covered by a transparent veil, an older gentleman whose ruffled shirt collar made him look important and ridiculous, a grand dame whose hair was coiled in braids atop her head, and more. In the corner stood a white stone statue of a girl dressed in a simple robe holding out a book. The empty eyes seemed to stare.

Lou blinked and wiped at her own eyes, certain that she was dreaming. The longer she remained asleep, the more time her brain would have to throw something terrifying into the mix.

Usually, whenever Lou wondered if she was inside a nightmare, she’d pinch the skin between her thumb and forefinger, and almost immediately she’d find herself lying in bed, the dull pain throbbing toward her wrist.

Lou sat up and tried it now. It hurt, but as seconds ticked by, she realized she was still perched on the same daybed in the same room.

Lou knew then that she wasn’t asleep. Her heart fluttered and her tongue went dry. Frustrated, she stood and wandered between the busts.

When she’d made it halfway across the room, she noticed a golden frame hanging on the wall between two windows. The picture inside the frame was one she’d drawn for the dollhouse a couple of years prior, of a vase full of lilies. When Lou had finished it, the drawing had been minuscule. This one, however, was several feet high.

“Am I … am I inside the dollhouse?” A spot on her forehead went cold with fear before spreading chills across her scalp.

There was a scraping sound beside her. Lou turned to find the bust of the veiled woman facing her. Suddenly, the veiled woman smiled, showing wet, ruby-colored teeth. Lou screamed and pushed at the pedestal. The stone seemed to push back at her.