Chapter Four

Aimes led the way through the door in the dining room and into the next room. Pawson toddled after her as fast as his little legs would allow. They wandered through two sitting rooms before Aimes noticed a staircase along the far wall.

"If there are any ghosts, they have to be upstairs, right?" Aimes asked.

"I suppose..." Pawson was losing faith in his practical joke. The more they wandered through the haunted house, the less likely it seemed that Aimes could be scared of anything. But until the storm passed, it wasn't safe to go outside.

"Then upstairs we go!"

"Just be careful," Pawson said. "After all that raspberry jelly fell into the dining room, I don’t think the floors are very safe. This place should honestly be condemned."

"Condemned?" Aimes asked. "I think everything deserves a second chance."

"Not that kind of condemned," Pawson sighed.

Regardless, Aimes went up the staircase two steps at a time. They creaked under her weight. Pawson shined the way with the flashlight and Aimes had to brush some cobwebs away on the upper landing. In front of them was another hallway, lit only by the flashlight and the occasional flash of lightning from the windows on the far end of the hall.

"Eenie meenie miney mo..." Aimes sung to herself as she passed by the doors. Finally, she settled on one near the end of the halls and knocked politely before entering.

"I don't think you need to knock, Aimes. I'm pretty sure there's nobody else here but us." Or at least Pawson hoped that was the case.

"It’s only polite," Aimes said. "I would hate to walk in on someone changing." Though to Aimes, ‘walking in on someone changing’ had a different meaning. She waited a moment after the knock and opened the door.

Inside was a nursery. The wallpaper was striped with little stencils of boats and planes, but it was already peeling off the walls in huge sheets. There was a painted-white wooden crib on the far wall by one of the only windows in the house that wasn't broken. Little bookshelves were decorated with toys. But most interestingly, shelves lined every single wall - about a foot from the ceiling - and they were filled with porcelain dolls.

Pawson hesitated in the doorway, shining the flashlight everywhere Aimes went. She went to the changing table first and fished around under the tabletop. She turned back to Pawson and the smile had faded from her face. Just when Pawson began to worry something was truly wrong, she said: "Cloth diapers. Ew."

Pawson put his paw to his face and groaned. Nothing was going to scare Aimes at this rate. Pawson slouched back, and for a moment he could have sworn one of the dolls’ heads moved to look at him. He rubbed his eyes and looked again, all his fur standing on end.

"Aimes, I don't know about this place..." He stepped into the room to be closer to his companion, and when he did the door slammed shut behind him. He dropped his flashlight in surprise and turned to tug at the door.

"It's probably just jammed," Aimes said calmly, walking back over to the light on the other end of the room to give Pawson the flashlight.

As she took her own shot at opening the door, Pawson looked around the room nervously. The flashlight lit up the crib. The unbroken window. The changing table. The shelves and shelves of dolls. Except... two spots were empty. Weren't there dolls there before?

"Aimes," Pawson hissed quietly. "Two of the dolls are missing." He pointed a paw, and Aimes looked up at the shelf and gasped.

"Oh no... no no no, oh Pawson, don't you know what this means?"

Finally! Pawson thought. She understands how much danger we're in!

But then Aimes said: "It means the little kid who lived here never got to complete their collection!"

Pawson groaned and turned to his friend: "No, they were there a moment ago!" When Pawson turned back, two dolls - no taller than Pawson himself - were standing side by side in the center of the room, both facing Aimes and Pawson.

"AH!" Pawson stepped backwards into Aimes, trembling from head to toe. He held the flashlight tight with both hands, pointed right at the dolls, and refused to blink. If he looked away for even one moment, they might...

"I bet they wanna play," Aimes said, stepping forward. She reached down and scooped up one of the dolls the same way she would scoop up Pawson.

"Oh gosh, look at you. I bet you haven't had someone play with you in so very long! My name's Aimes, and I'm going to call you... Audrey." Aimes nodded her head happily and looked down at the other doll. "Your name can be… Staycee."

"Aimes, I really don't think this is a good idea..." Pawson tried the handle again, fumbling to do so without looking away from his best friend.

"Nonsense," Aimes dismissed, dusting off the dolls with her hands. "Imagine if you were stuck in a room all alone. You'd wanna play too."

Pawson couldn't argue with that, but he kept the flashlight on the dolls all the same. Aimes went to a nearby shelf, grabbed an old tea set, and put it on the floor in the middle of the room. Then she situated the dolls so they were sitting, one on each side of her.

"Come on, Pawson" Aimes urged, motioning to the empty spot across from her. "We saved you a seat."

"You know, I just don't know if I'm in the mood for t-t-tea..." The bear stammered out, one bright paw held in front of his mouth nervously. Lightning flashed outside and it filled the room with white light for a moment; when it faded, both the dolls had their heads now turned to look directly at Pawson.

"You're being very rude to our hosts," Aimes hissed across the tea set, pouring a cup of imaginary tea for each of the dolls.

Pawson knew when he wasn't going to get anywhere with Aimes; sometimes she was just too headstrong. So with his eyes on the dolls, Pawson sat down on the floor across from Aimes.

"Well let's hurry this up then."

"More tea, Miss Staycee?" Aimes asked, then poured the empty teapot over one of the dolls' cups. "And for you, Sir Pawson?"

"I'd be delighted," Pawson said, putting on a haughty voice and doing his best not to allow his trembling to impact the tone. Aimes tilted the teapot over his cup as well and he picked it up, sipping from the rim. After a few more cups of tea and a discussion about the difference between cookies and biscuits, a quiet creak interrupted the party.

"Look Pawson, the door is open." Aimes pointed behind Pawson, and sure enough she was right.

"That was spooky," Pawson muttered, letting out a sigh of relief.

“I told you it was jammed," Aimes said, standing on her feet and picking the dolls up in her arms. She put each one back on the shelves in the empty spots. "Now that the house has settled, it opened up."

"That doesn't make any sense at all..." The bear grumbled, with his arms crossed over his chest.

"And yet the door is open," Aimes countered.

"Let's just get out of here." Pawson picked up the flashlight and hurried to hold open the door, just in case it decided to close again. Aimes put the tea set away and followed Pawson back into the hall.