Free Dollhouse by Anya Allyn Page A

to how we
might
find her.
     
    * * * *
     
    For the next three days, we faithfully tracked Henry Fiveash’s every movement.
    We knew he went to bed at eight at night and rose exactly at six-thirty in the morning. We knew he quoted his crazy Shakespeare mix of poetry in the woods. We knew he chopped wood with gusto—more than a person could ever want—and kept his fire burning day and night.
    Ethan kept intricate notes of everything Henry did, with black lines crisscrossing each other. He even wrote out the words to the Shakespeare quotes and tried to find hidden messages and meanings.
    Sitting there at the campsite—watching Ethan scrawling like a madman and Lacey grower quieter each day, and watching myself losing trust in Ethan—I couldn’t help but think that
this was us now
.
    Lacey and I made the long trek down the mountain, to where the phone reception worked, and called our mothers. I strained to sound normal, to sound like I was having an amazing time out canoeing and mountain biking.
    Right now, I wanted desperately to go home.
    Mom asked me to send her photos of the winter camp, but I made up some excuse about my mobile internet not working.
    I dropped the phone back into my pocket and returned to the campsite.
    The only other thing to search now was the old shed and the enclosure it sat within. But that was impossible—the enclosure was a fenced area of about half an acre—guarded by two vicious dogs. There was no way of getting in without them running us down and tearing us to pieces. Ethan said he’d get in there—after Lacey and I had left the mountains. I couldn’t talk Ethan out of it, so I gave up.
    The three of us searched the woods on the other side of the enclosure—inspecting the ground for anything unusual. I realized I’d completely given up on finding any kind of gold mine. That seemed like a kids’ adventure now, like a girl scouts’ trip gone wrong.
    Deep, droning strains of music carried on the breeze.
    “Pipe organ,” said Lacey flatly.
    I wondered if Henry had noticed us at all as we’d followed him that day. I imagined him sitting in his stuffy living room with the period furniture, smoking a pipe and laughing at us. Then mocking us with the discordant sounds of his pipe organ.
    One of the dogs growled, and we beat a hasty exit. I held up an arm to brush away the branches of a tree that were draped with enormous heart-shaped leaves. Arms slid around my shoulders and waist. I turned to see Ethan pulling me close to him.
    “You were one step away from wishing you were dead. That's the Giant Stinging Tree. The leaves have a potent neurotoxin, and it's a bastard getting the needles out.” He shrugged his body against mine.
    Lacey glanced over, eyeing Ethan's arms on my torso, a strange look on her face. He released his lock on me.
     
     

10. TRAITOR
     
    Ethan disappeared for two days after that. We didn’t see him anywhere. Lacey and I took long, winding walks up and down rivers—hoping to see something searchers had missed—or maybe because we wanted to look at something different than dirt and rocks and Henry Fiveash.
    The next night, we made the decision to leave. Neither of us was going to be able to hold off our parents forever—one of them would smell a rat pretty soon. And we weren’t finding the barest whisper of a clue. I doubted we would—even if we stayed up here for a year.
    I couldn't sleep. Long after Lacey and I had crawled into our sleeping bags, the wind and the never-ceasing calls and roar of the animals bore down on me. My body ached, in the way your body did when you’d been tossing and turning too long.
    Above it all, I could sense Henry laughing—as though he were standing out there in the middle of the night seeing everything, knowing everything we did.
    Yes, it was time to leave. I was going crazy—just like Ethan.
    A scream—
the scream
—arced across the night outside. Human, piercing. Bloodcurdling.
    Gripping the tent, I slid down the