The Doll's House Chapter 7.

Chapter Seven.

 

Cruxton.

 

The gates were chained shut, the houses boarded, the wells capped with stone. Ivy grew unchecked, curling over signs no one read anymore. Even the birds flew wide around it.

Sophrayni rode slowly along the outer path, Shade’s hooves muffled by moss. A sign hung crooked on the gatepost:

The ink had faded, but the seal remained.

She dismounted and walked to the gate. No guards. No watchers. Just the silence of a place locked away.

She thought back to what Thallian had said.

A hundred years ago, Magalan had come here. Not in disguise. Not with kind words. She came with wraiths and fire and orders. The villagers were told to leave. No reason. Just leave.

Some were old soldiers and refused. They tried to fight, but there were too many against them. They were cut down where they stood. Magalan had the bodies thrown into the town’s well.

Then she destroyed the fields. Not with handfuls of salt, but with barrels. Wraiths dragged them through orchards, gardens, grain plots.

“Salt wears off,” Sophrayni had said.

“Yes,” Thallian replied. “But slowly. For decades, nothing grew. The soil turned white. The wind carried it into the wells. Into the houses. People said the dust tasted bitter. When they tried to return, they fell ill. King Rolan sealed the place and built them a new town.”

He had smiled sadly. “They called it New Cruxton. The old town is still there. The fields may be green again, but no one plants. No one harvests. The king’s seal still holds. And the memory of what she did lingers longer than the salt.”

Sophrayni mounted Shade again and followed the outer path. The town wall, low, old stone, half‑swallowed by ivy, ran beside her.

She wasn’t looking to break in. Not yet. Just to see.

The perimeter was uneven. In places, the wall had crumbled, but the gaps were choked with thorns or collapsed beams. In others, trees had grown so close their roots had lifted the stones, as if trying to pry the town loose from the earth.

She passed a gatehouse with no gate, only rusted hinges and a tangle of nettles. A fox darted across the path and vanished without a sound.

Further on, she found a place where the wall had fallen entirely. A narrow track led inward, half‑covered in leaves. Animal prints marked the mud, deer, badger, something else she didn’t recognise.

She dismounted and crouched, brushing her fingers over the prints. No human tracks. No cart ruts. Just the quiet comings and goings of creatures that had claimed the town.

She looked up at the broken gap in the wall. A way in ,  but a way in to what?

She led Shade through the gap. He didn’t rear or snort. He didn’t panic. But his muscles were taut beneath her fingers, and his breath came slow and deliberate. Not fear. Not refusal. Just… alertness.

Inside, the moss was thick, but not undisturbed. A narrow trail wound through it ,  too narrow for a person, too deliberate for wind. Sophrayni knelt and touched the moss. Hoofprints. Small. Fresh.

She followed the track. It led to a space in the middle of the town.

She dropped Shade’s reins. “Wait here, my friend.”

He snorted softly and bent to nibble at a patch of green grass.

Sophrayni turned a full circle, taking in the buildings around her. No one had lived here since the people moved out.

Roofs had caved in and sagged, beams warped by rain and rot. Stone walls leaned at odd angles, as if the village itself were trying to forget its shape.

Window frames had splintered. Glass was long gone, replaced by vines. Doors hung crooked or lay in the street. Ivy clung to everything.

In one cottage, a tree had grown through the roof, its branches lifting slates toward the sky.

Sophrayni peered into a doorway. The floorboards were buckled, covered in moss and blown leaves. Ferns grew in the fireplace.

A pigeon burst past her, wings clattering. She stepped back quickly.

Another building held the unmistakable smell of a fox den.

She moved slowly through the overgrown square, her boots brushing moss and brittle leaves. Shade followed at a distance, ears flicking at every sound.

She passed a row of cottages, each more broken than the last. One had collapsed entirely. Another leaned so far it seemed impossible it still stood.

Past a tangle of elder trees and a rusted water pump, she saw a house that was different.

Larger. Two storeys. A central doorway flanked by narrow windows. The shutters were gone, the glass shattered, but the frame still held its shape. Ivy clung to the stone, but not as thickly.

The roof had sagged, but not collapsed. The chimney still stood, though the pots had fallen through the roof long ago.

Sophrayni stepped closer.

The door was ajar, tilted on its hinges. Inside, the air was dry. Spider webs hung thick with dust and dead flies, swaying gently in the breeze.

She brushed them aside, apologising to the spiders, and stepped in.

The stone floor was covered in moss, deadening her footsteps. Something had been inside recently ,  an animal, scratching at the floor and disturbing the moss.

A staircase rose to the left, its banister worn smooth. A vine wound around it and disappeared upstairs. To the right, a study. Empty shelves, thick with dust and bird droppings.

A sudden scrabbling on the top shelf made her jump. A pair of dark eyes peered down, whiskers twitching. Then it vanished.

Shade poked his head through the doorway, then jerked back as spider webs clung to his face. Sophrayni giggled as he sneezed.

“Serves you right for being nosy,” she said, brushing them away.

She turned back into the house. If the doll’s house is anywhere, it will be here.

She put one careful foot on the bottom step. The wood crumbled beneath her shoe.

“I don’t think I’ll be using the stairs,” she murmured.

She whispered a spell and floated gently upward, not touching a single step.

The first room was empty. Gaping holes in the ceiling showed where the roof had fallen through. Swallows’ nests lined the join between wall and ceiling, feathered with straw and down. Tiny chirps echoed faintly.

Swallows darted in and out through a gap in the roof, weaving past broken beams and trailing dust. They paid her no mind, their wings whispering through the still air as if she were just another shadow.

She saluted them and moved to another room. This one too was empty of furniture and crowded with swallow nests. She tried all the rooms. All were equally bare. The people who had lived here had stripped the place clean.

She floated back down to the ground floor and let the spell fade. Moving deeper into the house, she let the silence guide her. Past the study, past the moss‑covered stair, she found a narrow hallway. The air was cooler here, the light dimmer. Dust hung thick and undisturbed.

She opened a door on the left.

It was a small room, low‑ceilinged, with faded murals on the walls, stars, birds, a crooked sun. The paint had peeled, but the shapes remained, like memories refusing to fade.

There was a child’s chair near the hearth, left behind because it was no longer needed, perhaps. A shelf clung stubbornly to the far wall, its contents long gone. But in the corner, beneath a broken window, sat a small table. Its legs were uneven, one splinted with twine. On top lay a scattering of wooden blocks, softened by time.

This had been the playroom.

Sophrayni floated in slowly. The floorboards had rotted away in places. She crossed to the table and touched one of the blocks. It crumbled slightly at the edge, but the carving was still visible, a crescent moon.

She closed her eyes and let the silence settle.

If there was a model here, it might have been kept in this room, she thought. Where the children could play with it.

There was a spell Calizone had taught her ,  but it came with stern warnings. Done incorrectly, it could trap her spirit in the past.

Sophrayni stepped into the centre of the room and knelt, placing both hands flat on the moss‑covered floor. She closed her eyes and whispered the words ,  not loud, not forceful. Just enough to stir the dust.

The spell was old and dangerous. It reached backward, not through time itself, but through the impressions time left behind.

The air shifted.

She felt warmth first ,  childlike joy, the echo of small hands arranging miniature chairs, voices of happy children.

Then silence. The children’s voices stilled.

Sophrayni felt Magalan’s fury. Cold. Deliberate. The doll’s house was no longer a toy. It was a prison. A binding. She felt the twist of magic ,  tight, cruel, precise. Not to kill. To trap.

She gasped and opened her eyes.

The room was still. The moss undisturbed. Sophrayni breathed a long, steadying sigh. She had cast the spell correctly. She was not trapped in the past.

For a moment, she felt a flicker of satisfaction. The doll’s house had been here. It had been touched by magic. She should be able to find it.

She cast a finding spell.

Nothing.

She tried again.

Still nothing.

She went outside, stood in the centre of the village, and tried harder.

Nothing.

The doll’s house was not here.