Ib is used to being alone.
Her parents love her, she knows. But they love her too much. They don't let her go outside. Not ever. They don't let her go to school, and they don't, not ever, let her talk to strangers. Or family members. Or even the maids that scurry around their house.
They give her books and keep her inside. And she's okay with that. In her books, there are stories about bullies who like to make fun of people. They'd probably make fun of her, because she has reddish eyes and her name is spelt weird and sometimes she has dreams about headless ladies and men and women clawing their way out of big, gilt-framed paintings.
She doesn't want to be bullied. So she reads, and dreams about making friends with the headless ladies and pretends that she doesn't need friends.
But her parents are not mean. They love her. And books can only teach you so much. So they hire her a tutor. And she loves him.
His name is Garry. He's twenty-two years old, so ten years older than her. He smokes a lot, but he stops when she asks him to. His hair is purple, and he said that he was bullied when he was little for it. She tells him that she thinks that it's cool and he beams.
He's nice, and he doesn't make her do things that she doesn't want to, not like her parents. He makes her lessons fun, and he's been to a lot of great places. He likes painting, but he's even worse at it than her. He's understanding and sweet, and he's her best and only friend.
When he first came to teach her, she asked if she could leave the house for once. But he listened to her parents and said no. She got angry at him, so ridiculously angry, so she refused to talk to him for a week. Then she realised that she was being stupid.
When Ib was just a baby, her parents made her a red rose made of red and green paper. And as soon as she was old enough to walk around, she carried the rose with her. She felt empty without it, and luckily, the rose had withstood the test of time.
When Ib realised she was being a jerk, she made Garry a rose. A blue rose, with twice as many petals as hers. He smiled and he hugged her.
Yes, Garry is her best and only friend.
But he still scares her sometimes.
Garry owns a doll. It scares her. Its blue with a misshapen head and red buttons for eyes. It's mouth is a line of stitches with a split in the middle. It's dressed in a pink square of cloth. Its hair is black and funny.
Garry talks to it sometimes, and that scares her most of all. He laughs and talks as if it's a real person, as if it's replying to him. He kisses it on the forehead and sometimes even asks her if she wants to talk to it as well. She always says no.
When she asks it what it's called, just to be polite because he's her friend, he says that it is the Blue Doll. When she asks where he got it, his eyes glaze over and he only stares until she leaves. As soon as she's gone, he starts talking again.
Today is one of the bad days. Garry talks with renewed vigour, and Ib is bored. Her parents are out, and when her parents are out, Garry is supposed to watch her. But he doesn't. Ib wants to steal food from the pantry, she wants to build a cubby and store it all away, just like the characters in the books she reads.
And then she realises what she can do. Excitement bubbles up in her heart as she opens the big, heavy door that has kept her caged for the whole of her life and when she steps outside, a breeze ruffles her hair.
She wanders along the pavement as if drunk, struggling to take in everything. A car swerves past her and she yells out an apology. A dog shakes water all over her and she pretends to be angry at it before laughing. A cat rubs up against her, and she runs home to get it some meat.
It is, to say the least, a dream come true.
And it becomes even better when she finds the iron gate that marks the entrance to the park. The park is the thing that makes her city known to everything around it. She's read about it countless times, and it's right there.
In the park, there is a slide. And a pair of swings. She lazily drifts back and forth on the first swing before noticing the girl next to her.
Her name is Mary. Her hair is blonde and her eyes are blue. Her clothes are green and old-fashioned, and they talk. Ib meets her every day at the park, and they talk. She tells Mary about her dreams, and Mary nods and listens. And Mary is creative, so wonderfully creative, so she tells Ib stories about a world with all the creatures that Ib sees in it, a world where they are queens. It makes her feel giddy, it really does, because Mary is her age, but not a bully. Ib's parents wouldn't understand - they would think of Mary as a stranger and chase her away, so Ib has to hide her away. It makes her feel nice and warm inside - she feels like one of the men in her mother's trashy romance novels that she accidentally files into Ib's bookcase of study books.
When Mary asks her if she can visit her house, Ib tells her that Garry is there and will tell her parents. For once, she is angry at Garry, but Mary isn't. She smiles, tells Ib that its okay, and runs away. Ib walks home.
For the next week, the Blue Doll is nowhere to be seen. Ib is happy. Garry is not. And that means Ib isn't happy either. She talks to Mary, and she swears she sees Mary scowl at the mention of Garry, but she ignores it. Mary tells her that Garry will be okay and pats her hair and gives her some candy that she bought and makes Ib feel like a spoilt cat.
It's a nice feeling.
When she gets home, Garry is talking to the postman. A postman that Ib has never seen before, but she hasn't really interacted with many people.
The next day, Garry is not in the guest room. She goes downstairs and he is at the door, talking to the postman. He is smiling and laughing, and looks happier than he has in days. And that makes Ib happy. The postman turns toward her and he has curly black hair and red eyes. He looks slightly younger than Garry. He's dressed in blue, and there are a set of marks around his mouth that look like stitches when she narrows her eyes.
He catches her staring and his eyes flash, like the sun glinting off a pair of big, red buttons. Garry notices her and waves goodbye, slamming the door in the postman's face. He is strangely red in the face, and a little flustered.
Their lessons don't go as well. Garry is distracted. She assumes that he's lost the Blue Doll as he calls someone. She sneaks out of the house and goes to meet Mary. She tells Mary about the postman, and there's a knowing sparkle in her eyes as they giggle together.
The next day, Garry is not in the guest room. He is not downstairs either. She heads into the kitchen, and sees him in the kitchen with the postman (postboy?), drinking together, laughing about something or other. She hears Garry call him 'Pantin' and she remembers vaguely that it sounds a little like 'Puppet' or perhaps, 'Doll'.
Later, when they think that Ib is asleep, they start kissing. Ib watches them for a while until she feels awkward and silently runs out of the room. Ib tells Mary, and Mary howls with laughter. Ib giggles along and tries to ignore the growing sense of dread in her stomach.
She dreams of a headless lady wearing a pretty blue dress whirling her round and round through a sea of shining red buttons, making sure that she does not touch any of them.
When she wakes up, Garry is not in the house. She spends the entire day looking for him, he is gone. He is gone the next day as well.
By the fifth day, she knows that he has left. His rose lies abandoned on his bed. Mary isn't sad. She knows that he won't need it anymore.
On the thirty-first day, Ib's parents have not returned, and neither has Garry. She still waits, the rose clasped tightly in her hands. She stares ahead at a painting of a rabbit mounted on the wall, and for a second, she sees the Blue Doll leering down at her. The image makes her jump and she runs out of the room.
She goes to the park, and Mary is waiting for her. Mary is always waiting for her, Mary will never leave her, not like Garry, not like her parents, and that makes her happy. Ib cries and Mary holds her in her arms and tells her about a world full of secrets and locked doors that swing open at their touch, and whose denizens protect them from the villains trying to hurt them.
Mary leads her down a dark alleyway that soon melts into a pink bridge surrounded by neon green plants. Everything is fuzzy and Ib wonders if it's just a dream. They soon reach a small white cottage with a red door. Mary opens it and inside, the walls are painted white and decorated with scribbled drawings in crayon.
Inside the first room, there is a toybox. Mary opens it and takes out a bright yellow rose.
"Do you like it? I saw yours, and I thought it was cool, so I made one for myself!"
Ib marvels at it, because honestly, it's much better than her own. She helps Mary pin it to her dress, and Mary helps her tie her own rose into her hair.
"It goes well with your eyes!"
In the last room of the little white house, there is a painting. There are words engraved into the golden frame, words that Ib cannot understand. She's never been good with words, but the painting itself is magnificent. It's a painting of a beautifully colourful world, with locked doors with monsters hiding behind them, and flowers tucked into every nook and cranny.
Ib gawks and claps her hands in delight. "It's beautiful! Did you paint this?"
Mary smiles sweetly. "I made it."
Ib doesn't understand what the difference is, and then, quite suddenly, she does. Mary takes her hand and it makes Ib feel warm inside.
"Would you like to come with me?"
Ib doesn't have to think. "Yes please."
"Thank you."
The painting shimmers and they both step forward.