Sergeant Thomas arrived within half an hour, and Fay was so relieved to see him. He dealt firmly with Auntie Jean’s panicking and set them to work searching the house, in case Ivan was playing a joke on them. They’d already looked, but the Sergeant insisted they check every cupboard, every possible hiding place both inside and outside. Meanwhile he talked to other police officers on his radio. Then he asked Uncle Gwynne to check the camera footage for the day.

The footage showed Fay and Ivan leaving the house at ten o’clock. Customers came and went, and then at two o’clock, after coming back for one of Auntie Jean’s sandwiches, Ivan snook back into the shop. Fay watched the footage with the sense of dread intensifying. She knew where he was going.

And it happened again.

She saw it this time, they all did. Ivan crept up to the attic, and went over to the dolls. He picked up the Ugly Doll from the chair first, then slung it down, carelessly, on the floor. Fay gasped – she wouldn’t have dared go near it. Then he rooted through the dolls in the pram, picking up Fay’s policeman and smiling. Fay hated him in that second. Then he picked up a book from a pile on the floor.

The screen fuzzed over. When it cleared, he was gone.

Fay felt sick. Physically sick. There was no way Ivan could just disappear –he wasn’t in the other attic room, and he wasn’t on the first floor. He’d have had no time to get to the ground floor. Uncle Gwynne and Sergeant Thomas were confused. “That’s what happened before,” said Uncle Gwynne slowly, “with the other lad.”

Fay staggered backwards, away from them and the screen. She could hear it in her head – that whisper. As I was climbing up the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there.

“Have they found….” Auntie Jean hesitantly asked.

“We’re still looking for George Dunn,” said Thomas in a neutral tone. He was looking uncomfortable. There was something odd occurring in this bookshop. Fay felt like at any moment, he might arrest Uncle Gwynne.

“I’d like to search this property, please Mr Tasker,” Thomas said eventually. “Starting with the cellar.”

Fay was confused. Why the cellar? It’s the attic where they’ve disappeared. They, she thought – both the other boy and now her brother Ivan. They’ve disappeared, from here.

But not taken. Not taken.

*

Thomas locked the front door and methodically went through every room in the bookshop. He made Fay stay with Auntie Jean, and they both watched his progress live on the monitor.

The cellar held lots of her Uncle’s junk. She watched Thomas rifling through boxes of paperwork, and sniffing some dusty old clothes. She wondered how long the police had searched for her cousin Artie. She could feel Auntie Jean trembling beside her. Uncle Gwynne had a face like stone, and wouldn’t look at either of them. Did they still hope that Artie would one day just walk back into the shop? Or was his body mouldering by some rock somewhere, waiting for some unfortunate hiker to discover it?

Fay felt cold, and desperately wished that her Mam would come. This wasn’t her home after all.

Thomas checked behind bookshelves in the other rooms, searching, presumably, for hidden doors. Fay was glad this was not her dream where doors could appear willy nilly. He checked the yard, nothing there but the bins. He moved up to the first floor. Nothing in history or archaeology, geography or travel. He stuck his head in the old cupboards and stamped loudly on the floorboards. Nothing.

Then he went up to the attic rooms. He had to stoop to enter through the four-and-a-half-foot door. Fay peered more closely at the screen.

She watched as he bent over the dolls. He picked one up to examine it more closely, and then turned his attention to the books, just as Ivan had done. There was one book lying on top of the others and he picked it up.

The screen fuzzed, and he was gone.

Fay bolted back from the monitor in horror. “No, no, no,” she moaned. She felt a scream try to force its way up from her stomach through her spine, and thumped her belly to stop it escaping. “That can’t happen!”

She had to know. Had to. This was worse than her dreams but it was real and it was here. Ivan was her brother, and her responsibility. She darted away from Auntie Jean, and evaded Uncle Gwynne as he went to catch her. She thought she heard him shouting after her, “My book! Don’t look at my book!” but she wasn’t sure and she wasn’t going to stop for anything.

She ran up the narrow, winding stairs to the attic, counting as she went. Sergeant Thomas was nowhere to be seen.

She entered the room slowly, warily. She no longer trusted her dolls – she wasn’t even sure about her policeman doll. He was lying on the floor, where Ivan had dropped him.

There were two dolls in the pram that she didn’t remember. A boy doll, in a blue jacket. His cheeks were ruddy, and he had yellow wool for hair, and crooked wire glasses stuck to his front, and orange shoes. And another boy doll, soft-bodied like the sailor doll with a painted smile – but he was wearing a white t-shirt, and with brown wool for hair, brown like Ivan’s hair. It can’t be Ivan, she thought wildly. He’s not a doll, he’s a human boy! But she gripped him tightly and tears started to roll down her face. She sank to her knees, gripping the policeman doll too. Whose face, she could see through her tears, was no longer smiling, but grimacing, mouth wide, like a scream.

Fay found that she couldn’t breathe. The world seemed to fuzz around her, becoming indistinct, and then inverted black and white like a photographic negative. It was if she were about to faint, but Fay knew she was still conscious. When her vision cleared, the room was smaller. Her head touched the ceiling.

The dolls were huge. Lifesize, grotesque parodies of humans – their faces grinned obscenely as their flaccid limbs splayed on the cot. Dolls they still were, but they were more than that. George Dunn, Ivan and Sergeant Thomas were trapped inside, things of wire and clay and stuffing.

Fay gasped for breath that wouldn’t come. This was her nightmare, come true. She must be sleeping, she must be! But as she gripped the clothes of both dolls, her eyes blurred with tears that would not stop, she heard that whisper again.

As I was walking up the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there.

It was louder than before. More distinct. Most definitely real.

She wiped furiously at her eyes, forcing breath down her throat. Looking across the room, to the Ugly Doll that Ivan had thrown so casually to the floor.

It was standing up. On legs with no feet, all soft and stuffed, no bones to hold it. It was standing up.

He wasn’t there again today. The whisper, louder. And Fay was sure it came from the Ugly Doll.

Oh how I wish he’d go away!

And Fay finally found her breath, and screamed, and jumped to her feet, desperate to get out, to find those winding stairs, round and round merry go round, to find those stairs and freedom.

But the door, that tiny four-and-a-half-foot door to the attic room, was gone.

THE END

A few days later she was hanging about outside the shop again when a policeman came down the street from the Clock Tower. He smiled at her, and went inside. He didn’t shut the door properly so Fay, with her big ears, slunk into the porch and listened as the policeman talked to Uncle Gwynne. He was Sergeant Thomas of the Dyfed-Powys Police (Fay was thrilled to hear this) and was looking for a boy who had gone missing in Hay (that was less thrilling), and was questioning all the shop owners who may have encountered him.

“Eleven-years-old,” Thomas said, pulling out a photograph to show Uncle, “blond hair and glasses, and last seen wearing a blue hoodie and orange trainers.”

Fay thought that sounded like one of the boys that had chased her and Ivan from the Butter Market. She hoped that Ivan hadn’t done anything stupid. He had a hot head full of lava, her Mam always said.

“Local?” she heard Uncle ask.

Thomas cleared his throat. “No, on holiday from the South with his father. Been staying over in Builth Wells.”

Uncle shook his head. “Not seen him.” The two men talked for a minute or so more and then the Sergeant squeezed out of the door past Fay.

“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” Fay said quietly. “We hadn’t got it and he wasn’t too happy about it.”

“Excuse me?” Sergeant Thomas turned back to look at her.

“He came in with his Dad,” Fay said. “He was looking for Agatha Christie but Uncle was a little bit rude. He probably didn’t notice that he had a boy with him.” She gave him a wry look. “Uncle doesn’t really notice children.”

“When was this, Miss….” asked Thomas, getting out his notebook.

“I’m Fay. Fay Tasker. Uncle is my Uncle Gwynne and there’s Auntie Jean too. We’re staying here for the summer holidays because my Mam’s in hospital. Me and Ivan that is. It was last week, on Thursday. About three-ish, I think,” Fay replied. “I remember cause that was when Baz finished painting the sign.” She looked upwards and Sergeant Thomas followed her gaze.

“Baz the Brush, is it?” he said. “That’s helpful, Miss. Did you see where they went when they left the shop?”

Fay shook her head. “I went upstairs,” she whispered. And remembering what had happened there, she shot past the policeman and round the corner. No more talking to strange men Fey Fay, she told herself, even if he is in uniform.

That night Auntie Jean made sausages and chips. Ivan smothered his in tomato sauce till it looked like it needed an ambulance. Fay liked that all sat together to eat; her Uncle was friendlier when there was food in front of him, and it felt almost like family.

“Funny thing,” he was saying, and Fay’s big ears pricked up. “I checked the cameras to see if that missing boy had come in the shop.”

Fay’s mouthful of sausage was going nowhere.

“He was in last week, with his Dad,” Uncle Gwynne continued. “But he came in again later, by himself. He looked at transport, mythology and the children’s stuff in the attic.”

Fay tried to chew but found she couldn’t. “In fact, not long after Little Miss Fifi had been up there, playing with the dolls,” he continued. Fay’s eyes went wide.

“And after being banned and all,” he said. “Naughty child!”

Ivan snorted and tomato sauce sprayed out across the table. That earned him a disapproving “Boy!” from Auntie Jean.

“Guess I’d better tell Sergeant Thomas,” continued Uncle, ignoring the tomato splatter. “He can give her a telling off.”

Fay was horrified and felt her eyes brimming with tears. But Uncle Gwynne was only feigning being cross. He winked at her as he stuffed three chips in his mouth at once. Fay could have sworn he swallowed them whole, without chewing.

“Seriously,” he continued, “he was there all right, then the picture went all fuzzy, like static, and when it cleared he were gone.”

Fay felt cold. She remembered the whisper.

As I was walking up the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there.

Just like the boy. Not there.

*

Fay’s big ears went on operation overdrive over the next few days. From Baz the Brush she learnt that the boy was still missing, and the last sighting of him had been in Hay. She noticed that there were several police cars out and about, and she heard from the lady in the fossil shop that they were going to search the riverbanks, for any sign that he’d fallen  in the water. “Father’s beside himself, poor thing,” she confided, “but you would be, wouldn’t you?”

Fay was only nine but she knew about that. Mam had been beside herself when Dad vanished. But he’d turned up living in Abergavenny with a woman with dyed black hair, so Mam had rolled her sleeves up after finding out and got on with things. It was Auntie Jean that Fay was watching, carefully, a worry ball building in her stomach. Auntie Jean whose boy had gone missing, ten years ago.

Uncle Gwynne seemed not to see any comparison. “Ran off, more like,” he’s said in the kitchen the night before, while Fay’s big ears listened from the hallway. “City lad, thinks he’s hard, row with his father and just takes off. Gets hisself lost on the mountains. He’ll turn up.”

“He’s eleven,” Auntie Jean protested. “Just a child.”

“Aye, but there’s no suggestion that he was taken. Not taken.”

Taken. That word chilled Fay. She’d heard it before – when she was smaller, and Mam and Auntie Jean had been talking. Auntie Jean had been crying over Artie. She never knew Artie – this happened way before she was born – but taken didn’t sound nice. Who would take Artie, and why? And if someone could take Artie, would they take her too? Or Ivan? She looked up to her big brother – surely he could stop anyone from taking him or her?

That night, it took Fay ages to get to sleep. When she finally dropped off she dreamt about the house. At first it was little doors, appearing in odd places – beside the stove, behind the sofa. She crawled through one that appeared in the bathroom, and found herself, as if by magic, in the attic room.

The dolls were there. The posh dolls with their smug expressions, the soft dolls and their raggy smiles. The soldier boy, and her beloved policeman. Thomas, she called him, remembering in her dream the name of the Sergeant who had visited the shop. And another. A boy doll, with yellow wool for hair and a blue jumper. A pair of tiny wire glasses had fallen from his face and become attached to his clothing.

His face was sad.

Fay was confused. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here,” she said sternly. “They’re looking for you. Sergeant Thomas – the real Sergeant Thomas that is – he’s looking for you.”

And the doll named Sergeant Thomas stood up in the pram, balanced on the china face of one of the posh dolls, and Fay dropped the boy doll and screamed.

*

Auntie Jean was quite kind in the morning, making Fay some hot chocolate for breakfast, although she’s been quite grumpy to be woken up at four in the morning by screaming from her niece’s bedroom. Ivan hadn’t stopped teasing her; she’d explained about the dream, but he was twelve, and thought she was childish.

“Dolls,” he sneered. “You’re such a baby, Fifi!”

“I am not!” she said, cross because she felt it was true. “It was such a horrible dream.”

Auntie Jean tutted at her. “I told you they’s not for kids,” she said, but not roughly. “They’re collectors items. You’ve got your own dolls, Fay.”

Fay had brought her best Barbie doll and several teddies to Hay, but didn’t play with them much. She knew that eventually toys were not for playing with, but for keeping only, but she just wasn’t quite sure when she should make the switch.

Ivan wouldn’t let go though, and dug at Fay by using the pet name she hated. “I’ll show you Fifi,” he taunted. “I’ll go and see the dolls. Prove to you they’re just plastic and tat.”

“Oi,” Auntie Jean admonished. She sent them out to amuse themselves – “You’re not to go upstairs again!” – and they wandered off to look at the market. There were some lovely multicoloured baskets on one stall and Fay wanted one, but didn’t have enough pocket money. Ivan was bored after five minutes, and when he saw some of the local boys, went off to taunt them. Fay let him go; she didn’t want any trouble.

She returned for lunch – Auntie Jean made her a cheese and tomato sandwich and gave a glass of cold milk – then sat by the castle with her writing book. Miss Jessop had set them some homework for the holidays, to write a fairy tale, but she was struggling. It should have a castle and a king, she thought, and a princess too; but she couldn’t think of how to start. She thought that Uncle might help her as he wrote stories, but when she remembered his mouldy book, A Child’s Book of Nightmares, she thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be the kind of fairy tale Miss Jessop would like. Besides, she’d not be brave enough to ask him.

But when she returned for tea at four o’clock, Auntie Jean was cross.

“Ivan’s not back,” she said, “and I told him to not bother the local lads. He’s bound to be in trouble somewhere.”

Fay thought this was probably true, but didn’t like to add that she was sure Mam hadn’t sent them to Hay for the summer to wander the streets. At home there were stricter rules, but more affection.

At six Ivan still hadn’t appeared, and the macaroni cheese was congealing on the table and in Fay’s stomach, turning into a giant worry ball. There was a boy gone missing, and they were searching the riverbank, and what if something had happened to Ivan too?

As the evening drew on, and Auntie and Uncle and Fay waited for Ivan to come home, the house started to morph around Fay. As her worry ball got bigger and bigger, she imagined she was climbing endless stairs that twisted round into ever smaller rooms, so that eventually, like Alice, she was too big to fit through the doors. She tried going downstairs, wanting to escape the house altogether, but she kept returning to the same place. The black beams started to feel oppressive – like the bones of a ribcage squeezing her heart and the feeling of dread got tighter and tighter. By eight o’clock, Auntie Jean’s anxiety had risen to a pitch, and Uncle Gwynne cracked.

He phoned Sergeant Thomas.

To be continued….

Hurrah, the wet miserable weather has actually made me be productive today, and I’ve written a short story. Here’s the first bit of the first draft: comments (constructive please) welcome! It’s inspired by a short holiday in Hay-on-Wye.

The Bookshop

When she was very little, Fay had a recurring dream that her house would change when she wasn’t looking. She would turn away for a second, only to find that a door had appeared where there wasn’t one before, sometimes tiny in the skirting board like in Alice in Wonderland, or a staircase that wound up, round and round merry go round, to an otherwise unknown attic. She would clamber up the tight corkscrew steps, eager to explore, to find out if there were fairies or goblins playing, if magic was happening, if an adventure were to be had.

But sometimes in her dream, doors disappeared, leaving her trapped, flailing against solid cold walls. She would wake up sweating and gasping for breath, crying out for her Mam.

It occurred to her now, being all of nine-years-old and much more grown-up than her silly younger self, that her new home much resembled the higgledy piggledy, fairytale house of her dreams.

It was only her home for the summer though, she reminded herself, and gripped her fingers just that little bit tighter.

She was watching Baz the Brush put the finishing touches on the new sign; he wobbled a bit on the ladder as he finished the “S” on the end, but his lines, unlike hers, were straight and sure. She hoped when she was older she’d be able to write so neatly; Miss Jessop was always criticising her handwriting, “like a spider’s had a rave on the page”. Baz climbed down to cross the road and stand with her.

“That’ll do,” he said, “neat and tidy, like.”

Fay grinned. The sign now proudly proclaimed “Tasker’s Books and Antiques” in brilliant white, and not a flake of the old crumbling yellow could be seen. It did make the shop front look much better. When she and Ivan had first arrived, they’d stared in dismay at the rickety old building with its peeling paint and grimy windows. How could Mam send them here? It was dirty! But now, not a ghost of the previous letters could be seen. Rather like her cousin, but she wasn’t supposed to know about that. She knew she had big ears for a girl of nine.

“It looks nice,” Fay said, and was pleased when the man gave her a big smile. He patted her on the head (leaving, she worried for a second, blobs of white in her brown hair). Since she’d arrived a week ago, affection from grown-ups had been a rare thing. Ivan didn’t mind so much as he was twelve and shrugged off hugs and kisses; he just played in the yard with his football and picked fights with the local boys, but Fay was a born worrier, and she worried that her Auntie Jean and Uncle Gwynne didn’t really want them around.

And last night she had the dream again, the bad one, for the first time in ages.

There’s no point moping about it, Fey Fay, she told herself; Mam would say roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, best cure for a worry pain. It’s just that – oh! – there isn’t much to do in Hay if you’re nine-years-old.

She and Ivan had explored the castle but so much of it was cordoned off – unsafe. They’d heard there was a King in the Castle but they hadn’t seen him, despite peering in windows until they were shooed away by a big loud woman. They’d gone down to the river to look for fish but Auntie Jean had shouted at them about that – they might fall in, and then what would their dear Mam do? They’d explored the nooks and crannies of the streets and camped in the Butter Market, until chased off by bigger boys, starting Ivan’s feud. And the shops… well, they were all the same. And Auntie and Uncle’s shop was out of bounds since Ivan pretended to be a ghost and scared the customers. So it was their cramped room or the yard.

Fay was bored. So much so watching Baz re-paint the shop sign was exciting.

Inside the shop however, Baz’s magic had little effect. It was full of piles of clutter in every dingy corner. Ramshackle bookshelves crammed with mildewed old books, chipped crockery and some of the ugliest ornaments Fay had ever seen.  But it was busy; always full of tourists, who browsed in silence and ignored any children pulling gargoyle faces at them from around the shelves. The attic was the best room – up in the eaves it had sloping ceilings and tiny doors, and that’s where Aunt and Uncle had put the childrens’ books and toys. But Fay and Ivan had been banned from there.“These ain’t for playing with,” Aunt Jean had told them sternly. “They’s collectable – you know – for adults. Not for kids.”

Her Uncle had been a children’s author. That’s what her Mam had said. Back when he was younger, when cousin Artie was little. He’d written a children’s book which was nominated for some award but now it was out-of-print and no one read it, and he hadn’t written any others since Artie went. Fay had met children’s authors at school and so thought they were all jolly and fun, so was disappointed that Uncle Gwynne was not. Fay had looked for a copy of his book in the shop but there wasn’t one. She had, however, found a copy in Uncle’s room, when she and Ivan had been messing about. The spine was faded away as if it had sat on a shelf, untouched, for a hundred years. She opened it to the title page.

“A Child’s Book of Nightmares” it read, by A.G. Tasker.

Not the kind of book she wanted to read. She shut it quick.

The building itself bothered Fay too. While Ivan thought its maze of small rooms amusing, she found it confusing. The low beams, small doors and lots of steps leading up and down felt more like the houses in her book of fairy tales than her modern two-bed semi back in Hereford. It was as if the house was built for smaller people, and would adjust itself to their needs. Not modern people. Not people like her.

Baz was clearing up his pots and brushes. She snook inside the front door to see if Samantha was on the till; the young assistant worked some days, and was more tolerant of Fay and Ivan, and might just offer a biscuit.

No luck – it was Uncle Gwynne manning the shop, so she darted past Baz and into the murky interior. Uncle was having a discussion with a customer.

“I can’t believe you don’t have it,” a tall man in a red woolly hat and a Barbour jacket was saying. “It’s a classic, you must have it.”

“Ain’t much call for Christie these days,” her Uncle retorted. “All Mankell and Larsson, see, with a bit of Hayder and Rankin. Gore is what people want now, see.”

“But still…”

“You wanna try Murder and Mayhem, see, up the road. Specialises in crime fiction. We’re general. Try them.”

Uncle sat down and picked up his book, signalling that the conversation was done. The man grunted unhappily, and made a show of rifling through the local authors books showcased on Uncle’s desk – Erskines and Rickmans mainly. Uncle ignored him, and after a few moments the man shouted “George!”, and a young lad appeared from the shelves. They both left, letting the door swing shut behind them, rattling the bookcases.

Fay shrank back into the shelves. Her Uncle was sometimes bad-tempered, and while not nasty to her and Ivan, he had a manner that frightened her. She wondered, somewhat cruelly, if that was why cousin Artie had run away.

Then she remembered that seven-year-olds didn’t run away for real. At least, not very far.

Fay felt rebellious, born of boredom. She crept up the stairs, round and round merry go round, till she reached the forbidden attic room. She wanted to look at the dolls again.

There was an old pram stuffed full of them. All old, not Barbies or Bratz or even Tiny Tears (a baby doll her Mam had had when she was a little girl). There were several that looked like miniature children, all prettified in frilly dresses, with hard faces and red lips. There were soft raggy dolls with the stuffing coming out, grubby and worn. There was a tiny sailor doll, and a policeman doll, but not dressed like a modern policeman. He was her favourite – he had a nice face.

The doll she really didn’t like sat in its own little chair in the corner of the room. Ugly Doll. Naked and bald, it wore a painted smile and had rouged cheeks, but had no hands or feet; it was grotesque, and Fay ignored it.

She didn’t much like the posh dolls either – they reminded her of the Louises at school, the trio of girls that laughed at her wild hair and hand-me-down clothes, and wouldn’t let her play in the playground, but made her stand on one edge and watch all the other children have fun. The soft raggy dolls had funny faces, almost as if they were drawn on; they were loved, she thought, and that’s why they’re scruffy. But it was the policeman she liked best – he made her feel safe. She imagined that he stopped the posh dolls bullying the raggy dolls, when it was quiet and dark after closing time. He kept order, and did the right thing.

Perhaps he’d belonged to Artie.

It was quiet in the attic room; Fay could hear people shuffling about downstairs, and the slight murmur of voices, but because the stairs were steep and tight and the door only four-and-a-half-feet high (Auntie had told them that), not many people ventured into the attic room to explore the toys and childrens’ books. She walked her policeman along the edge of the pram, and whispered in his voice, “Allo allo allo, what’s all this then? I hope you’re all behaving yourselves.” She giggled. “I’ll be having no trouble off you lot, or I’ll be off carting you to the station, and you can spend a night in the cells.” She gave the last word a growl to make it sound menacing. “The cells, don’t you know!” She patrolled him back around the edge.

It was then she thought she heard a whisper. She glanced quickly at the door (noting, with some relief, that it was still there and open) but there were no footsteps on the stairs. She held policeman closer to her head and repeated, in the tiniest voice, “What’s all this then?”

The whisper came again.

She stared at the policeman in her hands. His eyes were smiling. She drew him closer to her face, and held her breath.

“As I was going…”

The faintest, most tremulous voice, like an exhalation. “… up the stair,” she heard, she most definitely heard it, “I met a man who…”

Fay froze, disbelieving but wanting to believe so much that the policeman could really talk to her. “…wasn’t there,” came the whisper, so, so faint, but she could hear it, clear and real.

A clatter on the stairs – heavy boots ascending. A browser.

Fay dropped the policeman doll back into the pram, and as a woman in a purple headscarf bent her head through the door, she pushed past and ran down the staircase, round and round merry go round, all the way out through the shop and out into the street, crashing into Baz’s neatly stacked paint pots on the pavement.

To be continued…