know you’re telling the truth?”
“See for yourself! Put the key in the lock of the door there. Turn it twice, but keep saying his name in your head, his name and the name of his town.”
“Gregory Buxton,” she said, turning to the door, “Cascade Falls.”
“Try it,” said Shanks. “Keep saying that, turn the key, open the door and walk through. That’s all the proof you’ll need. But then, once you’ve spoken to him, promise me you’ll do as I ask.”
“I’ll … I’ll talk to Milo about it.”
“We had a deal!” Shanks shouted from behind her.
Amber didn’t turn. “I didn’t agree to anything.” She put the key in the lock, repeating Buxton’s name and the name of his town over and over in her head. She twisted the key and heard the door lock, then turned it again, heard the tumblers slide and settle. Then she opened the door and stepped through, but at the last moment the corridor became a dimly lit hall with a grand staircase and long shadows. The door shut behind her with a crash that reverberated through the floor itself. She spun. The door was now white and it didn’t have a handle. She pounded on it. It was thin wood that shook under her fist.
And then Shanks’s voice came drifting down from upstairs.
“I told you I was tricky.”
AMBER LURCHED SIDEWAYS, a fast-moving terror spreading outwards from the back of her neck to her fingertips and toes. She ran from the hall, seeing now how fake it all was, how flimsy the walls were. She skidded into the kitchen, with its table and chairs and stove and fridge, and her foot caught on something and she went stumbling, nearly falling over a sofa. The architecture was crazy. It made no sense. One half of this room was a kitchen, the other a living room.
She heard Dacre Shanks coming down the stairs.
“I fibbed,” he called. “I tricked you. You can use the key, but only I control where it leads. I admit it, I played you for a fool. In my defence, though, you were an easy target.”
Amber ran quietly into another room, a room with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Upon those shelves were rows of cardboard painted with the spines of anonymous books. This was the library, and it was also a utility room with a washing machine and a plastic bed for the dog.
She caught her foot again. A crack ran in a perfectly straight line between the dual rooms. It took her adrenalised brain another moment to piece it together. This was a dollhouse, after all. The front was a façade that split somewhere near the middle, and opened up like uneven wings, like the covers of a book, revealing the interior with its collection of half-rooms. Closed up like this, nothing made sense, and everything was folded together at an unnatural angle.
“Amber,” Shanks called in a sing-song voice.
She ducked down in the dark behind a washing machine. Her hands were shaking.
“You’re being silly,” he continued. He was still in the hall, probably trying to figure out which way she’d run. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re the first person I’ll be able to talk to, eye to eye, in all the time I’ve been here. Come out. Come on. You know I’m going to find you eventually.”
She shuffled forward a little, and peeked round the edge of a bookcase. She glimpsed him, just enough to see the knife he held as he moved away. He was checking the other side of the house first. She’d been given a moment, a chance to think, to put her thoughts in order.
When he didn’t find her over there, he’d come over here, and he’d find her within seconds. So she had to move. Upstairs. That was the way to go. Upstairs would have multiple bedrooms, which meant more places to hide. She gripped the bookcase, getting ready to pull herself up on to her quaking, trembling legs, but her gaze caught on her hand, and she looked at how soft and pink it was.
She’d almost forgotten.
She shifted. She felt that pain again, that peculiar kind of pain as the strength flooded through her and her limbs lengthened and her body reshaped itself. She had horns now, and her hands were long-fingered and tipped with black nails. She forced the fear down and got up off her knees. She crept quickly and quietly back through the kitchen-living room, keeping her eyes locked on the darkness at the other side of the hall.
She reached the staircase. From a few steps away, the banisters had seemed ornate, but as she ascended she could feel the chips and inconsistencies in the wood beneath her hand. The steps didn’t creak, though, and for this she was thankful. She sank into darkness and then plunged into light, a harsh light that cascaded through the circular window and bathed the second-floor landing in hellish reds and fiery oranges.
Amber moved to the side, into the shadow, and crouched, looking through the wooden railing and down into the hall. Seconds passed, then Dacre Shanks walked into view, crossing from one side of the hall to the other. She watched her enemy, marvelling at how easily the hunter can become the prey. All it takes is a new perspective.
To her right, a half-wall with a doorway leading into a bedroom, the wallpaper a dark colour, a blue or something like it. Maybe a green. Pressed against it, in the closed wing of the front of the house, another bedroom of a lighter colour. It was hard to tell in all this gloom, but it was probably pink.
To her left, the main bedroom and a bathroom with a Jacuzzi and a tub. No shower, though. There was also a toilet and a sink with a framed piece of reflective plastic that acted as a mirror.
Dacre Shanks strolled back into the hall, and raised his head. He was a narrow man, with dark hair turning grey and receding fast from his temples like it was afraid of his face. His face was something to fear. A long nose and a thin mouth and eyes in shadow. “Are you up there, Amber? Did you sneak by me? Oh, aren’t you a clever one? Aren’t you a sneaky one? But you know what you are, most of all? You are fun. You are a fun one. So come on down, Amber. You win our little game of hide-and-seek. I give up.”
He raised his hands in surrender and chuckled.
“I’m waiting,” said Amber.
Shanks swivelled his head to where she was crouched. He couldn’t see her, though. His eyes passed over her.
“What was that?” he called. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite hear you. Old age, you see. I’m not as young as I used to—”
“I said, I’m waiting.”
Shanks zeroed in on her position, and gave her a smile that opened like a wound. “Waiting for me?”
“I’m not like the others you’ve killed,” Amber said. “I’m not going to scream and run away.”
“Ooooh,” said Shanks, and laughed. “A fighter, are we? Heather was a fighter, back in her teenage years.”
“And she beat you,” said Amber. “So now I’m going to beat you.”
“Wrong,” said Shanks, a flicker of irritation crossing his features for the first time. “She tricked me. She didn’t beat
