The Doll That Wept
I made no sound. A cry would have told Mark he’d won before he even reached me.
I guided Lily into the closet and held one finger against her quivering mouth. She gave a tiny nod, tears bright in her eyes, her beloved blanket twisted in both hands. The slatted doors had barely closed when Mark’s footsteps reached the landing.
My pulse battered my chest. The police had combed the woods for my brother, while Mom lay drugged on my sofa, mourning the child she had always favored. Yet Mark was in my house at 3:15 AM, moving as if he had every right to be there.
“I came back for the doll,” he said from my bedroom doorway. His outline rested against the frame, relaxed in the weak hall light. Nothing about his neat clothes suggested days lost in the wilderness; his face was smooth and his jacket spotless.
I planted myself between him and the closet, my phone clenched against my leg. “The police think you’re dead. They found your car running.”
He gave a dry little chuckle. “An engine doesn’t run forever. Taking a walk isn’t illegal.” He entered, swept his gaze around the room, then fixed it on the porcelain figure atop my dresser. “That antique belongs to Grandma. Keeping it while probate is open is theft.”
My eyes dropped to the doll’s skirt, where a slim dark wire showed beneath the lace. The wet eyes, the slow turn, the voice that had seemed to come from nowhere—it all made sense now. There was no spirit inside it. There was electronics.
“You set this up,” I said softly, dread settling low in my belly. “The tears, the voice—you rigged the doll to scare Sarah off.”
“I wanted you scared enough to leave, too,” Mark replied, coming nearer. “Then Mom would put the property in my name instead of yours.” His smile held no warmth. Sarah’s fear wasn’t his explanation; my fear was the point.
I kept my shoulders against the closet doors. Lily’s shallow breaths slipped through the narrow gaps, each one a reminder of how close he stood. I pressed my palm to the wood behind me, promising without words that I wouldn’t let him reach her.
Mark stopped beside my bed and inspected his nails like we were sharing a dull afternoon, not facing each other in the middle of the night. But he didn’t look like someone who had vanished for three days in the state park. His coat was dry.
His boots had some wear, but no heavy earth clung to them. A trace of burnt coffee and bargain motel soap hung around him. I smelled neither wet leaves nor river water. Whatever had happened to him, it hadn’t happened out in those woods.
“Mom hasn’t rested in three days,” I said, keeping my voice restrained. “She collapsed on my floor yesterday. The paramedics sedated her. She believes her oldest son is gone.” The grief had left her barely able to think, and Mark knew it.
He lifted one shoulder. “Mom always makes a scene. Once the estate gets sorted and the house is transferred to me, she’ll move on. This is just a rough patch before things settle.”
He edged around the bed. I tightened my hold on my phone. The station was twenty minutes away; Mark was close enough to cross the room before anyone could answer a call. I had to keep him talking, pleased with himself, watching me instead of the closet.
“A rough patch?” I asked, trying to sound beaten rather than furious. “You left your car on the interstate bridge with the engine running. They searched the river for your body.”
“I paid a buddy two hundred dollars to leave it running there,” he said. Leaning on the dresser, he picked up my hairbrush, turned it in his hands, and dropped it back. “I’ve been staying at the Starlight Motel on Route 9. Cash only. It’s peaceful when everyone thinks you’ve been taken.”
He tapped the doll’s ceramic cheek with one thick finger. The hollow click made my skin tighten. “I’d forgotten Grandma’s creepy little doll until Mom said you’d found it in the attic last week,” he said. “It was the perfect prop. You were afraid of it when you were a kid.”
