Charlotte Says Read online

  Praise for Charlotte Says

  “I love origin stories but horror origin stories? I was sold from the get go … this book is probably scarier than any book I’ve ever read... Give it a read, if you dare.”

  Zoe Collins, No Safer Place

  “You don’t need to have read Frozen Charlotte to enjoy this book (though I definitely recommend you read both!) This is a chilling prequel that captures the menace and dread of the first book while giving you an insight of how it all started. This is the perfect eerie read that you’ll want to stay up all night to finish.”

  Maia and a Little Moore

  “The revelation of how the evil little Frozen Charlotte dolls came to have their power is unsettling and chilling, and reading parts of this late at night in a quiet house I … admit to looking over my shoulder more than once!… I’d love to see more historical type novels from Alex Bell in future, and eagerly await her next offering.”

  Michelle Harrison, author of The Thirteen Treasures

  “This second installment sees us back in 1910, so that we can investigate the origin story of these murderous dolls. And it’s as brilliant at stomach-churning high horror as the first. Perhaps it’s even better… Definitely one for fans of horror everywhere.”

  Jill Murphy, The Bookbag

  “Creepy dolls, ghost children and needles in eyeballs, what else would you want from a horror novel?”

  Bernadette Donnelly, Crack Your Spines

  “Both ‘Charlotte’ books hit the nail on the dead, having an excellent balance of fast placed plot, the supernatural, characters you care about, and nasty little dolls…”

  Ginger Nuts of Horror

  “…even gorier and scarier than the first novel … the harshness of (the historical setting) made this ever more horrific. Wonderful work yet again from Alex Bell!”

  Fay Myers (librarian) via NetGalley

  “This is horror. Torn between needing to know and fearing for the characters, I read this fast… Compulsive.”

  Dawn Woods (librarian) via NetGalley

  “I devoured this book in one day. It was so much fun… I want to get a crate of Frozen Charlottes, a box of these books and give one to everyone I know at Hallowe’en.”

  C Smyth (teacher) via NetGalley

  “This is real horror writing for me – it doesn’t rely on blood and gore, but on an increasing sense of unease and the sort of sinister happenings that make you want to check over your shoulder and keep the light on… Such clever writing … and definitely not just for the YA audience.”

  Becky Hawkins via NetGalley

  “Wow – I thought the first book was scary … and a fab read – this one is even better and much darker and more graphic.”

  Michelle Warner via NetGalley

  “What a creepy story with a very creepy doll house… I loved the first book and this was just as good.”

  Carley Adair via NetGalley

  “Frozen Charlotte was the creepiest of the first batch of Red Eye books. Charlotte Says outdoes it… I will definitely be looking out for more books by Alex – as long as I can read them during the day!”

  Barker Jones via NetGalley

  For Lauren Griffiths – one of my most very favourite humans.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Exclusive Extract: Frozen Charlotte

  Exclusive Extract: Savage Island

  More RED EYE reads...

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Isle of Skye – January 1910

  “Don’t be frightened yet,” the voice says. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to be frightened…”

  I turn, looking over my shoulder, but there is nobody there and I am alone once again at Whiteladies – that house of confused spirits and cracked china dolls and slaughtered horses. From somewhere downstairs a grandfather clock counts down the six hours in deep, melancholy tolls and, like a magnetic force, my eyes are drawn with a terrible irresistibility to the door at the end of the corridor. Nothing else exists in the entire world but that door. It is closed but I can hear someone sobbing behind it. Sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. On, on, on. I must help them. I must open that door. I must do something. Now. While I still can.

  I walk down the corridor, and the soot and blood mix together in swirls of black and red – on the walls, on my skirts, on my hands and in the fine grooves of my fingertips. The closed door looms before me, and it hides a secret that will be the end of everything I know and love. Yet still I move closer. I reach for the door but I can never get to it. No matter how many steps I take, the door is always further and further away. My fingers grasp at nothing. Grief makes the air thick and heavy, and I choke on smoke and, all around, there is the smell of burning human hair…

  Flames lick at my skin as my hand reaches for the doorknob.

  “Charlotte says you shouldn’t open it,” a voice remarks, almost conversationally.

  I turn and, through the fire, see little Vanessa Redwing sitting on the floor of the corridor with her back to me. She’s playing with her dolls’ house and I see that she’s wearing her riding habit, her dark curls drawn into a low bun beneath her top hat. From this angle I can’t see her face but I do see the scarlet streak of blood running slowly down her neck from her ear. She hums as she moves her doll from one room of the house to another.

  “Charlotte says don’t open the door,” she says again, not turning round.

  “Why not?” I ask, my voice a croak.

  “Something bad happened in that room,” she says.

  “But I must know,” I say. “I have to remember.”

  “Charlotte says you’ll regret it if you look,” Vanessa whispers. She turns her head slightly and I sense she is watching me, but her face is hidden by the netted veil attached to the stiff brim of her riding hat. “Charlotte says there are some horrors that burn,” she says.

  The fire leaps taller, crackling with spite as it devours the house around us. The heat is almost unbearable; the smoke makes my eyes water; it hurts to breathe.

  Vanessa holds the doll up to her ear, as if it’s whispering something to her. Then she giggles softly. “Charlotte says let it burn,” she says, giggling some more. “Let it all burn right down to the ground.”

  “Wake up!”

  I turn away from her, finally managing to wrap my fingers round the brass door handle embossed with the Redwing coat of arms, the hawk emblem with the cold, cruel eyes that blaze red hot. The brass smokes, burning and blistering my skin, but I don’t care. At last I will get to see what lies beyond, to find out what happened in this room…

  “Wake up, miss,” a man said again. “We’ve arrived. We’ve reached the school.”

  His fingers pressed against my shoulder and I shoved his
hand away before I could stop myself. In those confusing moments between sleeping and waking, it was another man standing before me, another hand on my arm, purple bruises blooming under cruel fingers. But then the image faded and it was only the carriage driver, shivering in the gloom and giving me a reproachful look.

  “I’m sorry for waking you, Miss Black,” he said, his lilting Scottish accent making me feel a long way from home. “But we’ve arrived at the school.”

  I looked out of the window but night had fallen while I’d been sleeping and there was nothing much to see except the glow of lanterns shining through the fog. The tang of salt and brine reached right into the carriage, telling me that the ocean was somewhere close. There was no scent of smoke or ash or burning hair. And when I looked down at my black kid gloves, they were not sticky with blood.

  “Miss Black,” the driver said again, starting to look a little vexed. “We’ve arrived at—”

  “I heard you,” I snapped. I had been so close to the door that time, so close to remembering. But it was not the driver’s fault, so I shook my head and added, “Please forgive me. It’s been a long journey and I am fatigued.”

  “Of course,” the driver mumbled, already turning away to see to the removal of my luggage.

  The cold had bitten deep into my bones while I’d been asleep, and the blood rushed painfully back into my hands and feet as I got up from the uncomfortable bench seat. I was absolutely famished. I’d used my last pennies on a pot of tea and a plate of crumpets while waiting for the ferry in Mallaig but that had been hours ago and now I was dreadfully hungry.

  The heel of my boot crunched on the frozen gravel as I stepped out and saw the horses steaming in the lamplight, snorting and shuffling their hooves, anxious to be on their way. The driver must have been eager to leave, too, for he had barely set my trunk down on the ground before climbing back into his seat.

  “The school is straight through those gates,” he said, pointing with his whip. “If they’d left them unlocked then I could have dropped you off at the door. But you can get in through them side gates just there easy enough.”

  He paused and I wondered whether he was waiting for a tip. Perhaps if I offered him one then he might even get down from the driver’s seat and help me with my luggage. But I had no money left in my purse and I was damned if I was going to beg. So I simply offered him a tight-lipped thank you. He shrugged in response, flicked his whip at the horses, and the carriage trundled away, taking the warm lamplight with it. I was left shivering in the dark outside the black iron school gates, scowling after the retreating carriage as I reached down to grip the handle of my trunk.

  It was devilish heavy, and my arms and back ached with the effort of dragging it along behind me. Thanks to the boats running behind schedule, I was later than I had said I would be in my letter, but I thought they might have left the gates open for me just the same. I looked up at them, tall and imposing, with the words Dunvegan School for Girls spelled out in the ironwork at the top. An exclusive industrial school, founded to provide for the maintenance and training of destitute girls not convicted of crime, read the job advert that Henry had sent me. It was, in other words, a place for those who had nowhere else to go.

  I found the side gate the driver had mentioned and passed through to the school grounds. The building was larger than I had expected and loomed overhead. The wind whistled through the open tower in the centre, causing the faint echo of a ringing bell to carry through the air. Most of the school was cloaked in darkness, the nearby black windows lifeless and opaque with ice, but a light glowed here and there in the otherwise dark façade. I searched the windows for faces but saw none. The building seemed without warmth or pity or interest in me of any kind. Well, that suited me perfectly. More than anything, I wanted to be left alone. To be invisible.

  Unfortunately the fog chose just that moment to turn into misty rain that clung in droplets to my travelling cloak, soaked through the soles of my boots and dampened my gloves, causing them to shrink and cling tightly to my hands.

  I had no idea which way I was supposed to go, so decided to make for what looked like a main entrance. My breath smoked before me, and the hem of my black mourning dress became bedraggled and wet from the frosted stones as I dragged my trunk to the doorway. There was no answer when I knocked, so I tried the handle but the door was locked fast.

  I sighed and gazed around hopelessly. There wasn’t a soul about, and the night seemed to become colder and colder by the second. It had been a long, tiresome journey – I was bone-weary and hungry, and now I was locked out in the dark. It would easily have been enough to make most other seventeenyear-old girls weep in my place, but I knew what real horror was and this was nothing on that.

  I straightened my shoulders and glared at the closed door before me. If I knocked long and hard enough, eventually someone would have to hear and let me in. And I would knock all night until my knuckles were bloody stumps if I had to.

  I gripped the brass knocker and brought it down on the door relentlessly, over and over again, as hard and as loud as I could, channeling all the fear and frustration and grief I’d felt over the last few weeks, relishing the aching muscles in my arm and back. At least the pain told me I was still alive, which was more than could be said for my mother…

  I felt a fresh wave of longing. I would have sold my soul to have been back in our little rented townhouse with her. Mother could play the part of mysterious medium, purveyor of séances and communicator with the dead extremely well but in private her default was always a ready smile, a cheerful nature and a boisterous laugh. For a moment I could see her so clearly in my mind’s eye, plump and pretty in one of her flamboyant flowery bonnets, her head thrown back as she guffawed at some joke she’d probably made herself.

  But then the image dissolved and blew away, like little pieces of ash plucked apart by the ocean wind.

  I swallowed down my sorrow. Now was not the time to fall apart.

  “The Black women are strong,” Mother had often told me. “The Black women don’t give up, Jemima, no matter how bleak things may seem…”

  The front door was suddenly yanked open, startling me. I found myself face to face with a maid, probably a year or two younger than myself. She was extremely pretty, with green eyes and glossy blond hair tucked beneath a white cap. I disliked her immediately. She had a sulky look that many pretty girls seemed to suffer from, and I could tell she wouldn’t hesitate to make things difficult for me the first chance she got.

  “Yes?” she said in a hostile tone.

  “I’m Jemima Black,” I said. “I’ve come to take up the assistant mistress post. I believe you’re expecting me?”

  “You’re late,” the girl replied with a sniff. “We thought you’d be here hours ago.”

  “The boat was delayed,” I said. “Because of the weather. There was nothing I could do.”

  The girl sighed. “I’ll fetch Miss Grayson,” she said, beckoning me inside.

  I stepped over the threshold into an entrance hall. Although nowhere near as grand as Whiteladies, it was nevertheless more impressive than I had expected, with a sea-green tiled floor and a tall wooden staircase that led steeply up to the first floor. I thought of the portrait hall that had formed the entrance to Whiteladies, with its magnificent stained-glass window filled with hawks and all those glistening oil paintings, the face of a dead girl staring back at me from every gilded frame. No matter how unwelcoming the school may be, I was glad to be here, hundreds of miles from London.

  I’d grown accustomed to the new electric lighting that had been installed at Whiteladies and had forgotten how gas lamps sucked all the moisture from the room, making the air as dry as old paper. Even the potted plants by the front door were wilting. Gaslight produced a much softer glow than electricity and much of the room flickered in shadow. I could make out the exposed gas pipes, though, running along the ceiling, marring the elegant décor.

  “Wait here,” the maid said, then turn
ed and disappeared through one of the side doors.

  I had expected the place to be noisier, considering there were twenty or so girls boarding here, all seven to ten years old. But the place was silent. Silent as the grave, I thought, and had to stifle the sudden urge to giggle. I longed for bed and hoped I wouldn’t be kept standing around in my wet clothes for too long.

  I took out my pocket watch and was shocked to see that it was almost eleven o’clock. No wonder the place was so quiet. All the girls would be asleep by now. I hoped my knocking hadn’t woken any of them. I glanced up at the staircase to the first floor, where I imagined the dormitories would be, and immediately saw the flash of white nightdresses, pale fingers curled round the balustrades. The knocking had clearly woken the girls after all, and now there were perhaps two or three of them up there, watching me.

  I raised my hand in greeting, but there was a startled gasp as they saw I’d spotted them and then the girls vanished, scattering like birds. At just that moment the door on the side of the entrance hall opened and a woman came striding out. I realized this must be Miss Grayson and, despite the fact that Henry had provided me with a colourful description of the schoolmistress in his last letter, my heart sank at the sight of her. She wore a dressing gown, implying that my arrival had roused her from bed but, strangely, her grey hair was arranged in a perfect pompadour – swept up on top of her head and then pinned in place around hidden hair rolls to add extra height and bulk. Her hair must have been long enough to sit on when it was loose, and the elaborate hairstyle did not match the sternness in her watery blue eyes or the pinched expression of disapproval around her mouth. She was in her mid-fifties and life’s many disappointments had clearly twisted her features into a shrivelled look of bitterness. I’m quite certain that she’d resolved to hate me before she ever set eyes on me.

  “Miss Black, I presume?” she snapped.

  In my heeled boots I was tall for a girl but Miss Grayson still loomed a head taller than me in her itchy-looking woollen slippers.

  “Yes,” I began. “I’m—”

  “You’re late, miss.” She cut me off sharply. “I’m Miss Grayson, the mistress here, and I must warn you that lateness will not be tolerated at Dunvegan School for Girls. Timeliness is next to godliness, and I run a punctual school.”