A Sordid Story of Blood & Fluff

20: The Glitch

The Gold Room was perhaps the easiest room to remember. It had been one turn and then a straight shot from Base, albeit a very long one. Even distracted and talking to Scotch after the extraction, Powder remembered the simplicity of its location. Now, just to remember which hall connected to the one Base was on... yes, this was it.

Powder emerged in a familiar corridor. Adrenaline kept her feet light and her momentum moving forward.

The door to the Gold Room stood as broad and nondescript as all the others, except that veins of gold ran through the grains in the wood as though the tree had bled the metal when it was cut and shaped. These were faint, however, and did not prepare one for the richness of the room's interior.

Powder tried the handle but the door wouldn't give. She knocked with her fist and waited. The kind of stillness that existed in some parts of the Dollhouse was so quiet that the sound of one's thoughts could be unusually loud and wild. Powder was afraid of hers, their rattles and thrashings making her shiver and rub the sides of her arms.

The door opened and there stood the female doll. She was a bit shorter than Powder had realized. The white lacy shift she was wearing hung from her shoulders and dragged on the floor, the ends of it dark gray from dust. Her eyes were wide enough to show full white around her pupils. She looked around Powder as if to make sure she wasn't followed.

"I need to see Maraschino," Powder said.

The girl placed both of her hands around Powder's neck and pulled her closer. She looked steadily into her left eye and then her right one as though she had lost something in them. Then she stepped away, looking contemplative. It occurred to Powder that she might be speaking to the Voice in her mind.

The girl doll turned around and lifted her curly brown hair away from her back, exposing her embroidery. All that was inscribed was "Divinity." Like Powder's, there was no number beneath the name. Powder was unsure of what to make of this introduction, but surmised that Divinity was incapable of speech. Divinity let her hair drop and then circled around Powder to firmly shut the door. It was fairly dark inside but suddenly the room became aglow, the few wall lamps reflecting off all the shiny gold surfaces and ceiling. It felt warmer than any other place in the Dollhouse.

From somewhere far off beyond the curtain a door handle turned. Powder straightened up and pressed her heels to the floor.

"The Voice that spoke to me last time asked me to find something," Powder said. "And I have."

"Have you?" The Voice rang out around the room, loud and clear.

Powder trembled, looking around the room and blinking. "Yes," she said, a little louder. "And you asked me to come back once I did."

The curtains billowed outwards and a figure strode through the center part. Powder had barely a moment to process Maraschino before he rushed up to her. He was extraordinary; more surreal than any of the other dolls she had met, and that wasn't just due to the ornate garnet robes he wore. He was the most advanced she had seen in terms of motion, expression and fluidity of movement. Paradoxically, Maraschino's face was also the most unnatural. His beauty was not storybook standard—it was terrifying. His fabric was moon white, his lips pink and his hair a rich shade of black that reflected something indigo. It was short but spiked in thick waves. His elongated, curving eyes sat beneath thin sculpted eyebrows that expanded and arched when he spoke. He had the kind of face that would bring you to your knees; lovely but fierce. If it was not for the warmth generating from his dark eyes, Powder would have been scared. More scared.

Before she had backed up too far, Maraschino enclosed her hands in a firm grasp. He had long, thin fingers that were completely gloved in fabric and deep rosy glass nail beds. If he had noticed his awing effect on Powder, he didn't show it.