The Doll That Wept

“Come to Uncle Mark,” the voice called from below, urging Lily down the stairs.

Mark snatched up his phone and stared at its screen, his thumb poised over the display. There was nothing for him to start. The app remained silent, yet the little green connection light kept flashing, linked to some device hidden in the house.

A stair creaked under a person’s weight. The sound came slowly, one groan from the first step, and my stomach tightened as I understood someone was coming up.

Mark turned toward me. The swagger he’d worn moments earlier had disappeared. In its place was the frightened boy I remembered, trapped in a danger he could not control.

“Get the door locked,” he breathed.

I rushed the few steps to the bedroom entrance and shoved it closed. My damp hand slipped on the brass lock before I managed to turn it. The deadbolt clicked into place, loud in the room’s silence.

I backed away, careful to keep my feet quiet against the carpet. My shoulders met the closet doors. Behind them, Lily gave a muffled sob into her blanket. She was scared, but she was still doing as I’d silently asked, keeping herself hidden and quiet.

I reached behind me and found the narrow spaces between the closet’s wooden slats. My fingers brushed Lily’s shoulder. She leaned her face against my hand, and that small touch kept me steady when everything else felt unreal.

Outside, the approaching steps reached the upper landing.

They proceeded along the hall, measured and unhurried. Each board announced the stranger’s progress: a complaint near the bathroom, a heavier sound by the linen closet, then a faint creak just beyond my door.

Then the footsteps ceased.

The hush pressed in around us. I heard cloth whisper against the other side of the bedroom door. Whoever stood there was close enough that the thin wood between us seemed useless.

Mark had retreated to the dresser. His big hands clamped around its edges until his knuckles blanched. His chest jerked with shallow breaths. The smug expression he’d worn minutes ago was gone, leaving him staring at the door in panic.

“Lily, open up,” Mark’s voice called from the hallway.

It carried his familiar gravelly edge, even that slight roughness at the end. At first it sounded just like him. But in the quiet, I caught something unnatural in it.

There was no soft, human breath behind the words, no sense of a person speaking through a closed door. Instead the voice seemed metallic and flattened, as if a recording were coming from a speaker buried in the hall.

“You’d better open it,” the voice warned. “Or I’ll come inside.”

Mark slapped a hand over his mouth. A thin whimper escaped him before he could smother it. He looked from the locked entrance to me, terror widening his eyes as if he couldn’t make sense of what was happening.

I pulled my hand from the closet and crossed to him. Grabbing the collar of his leather jacket, I yanked him forward until he had to meet my stare.

“Who helped you?” I demanded under my breath. Anger had roughened my voice, and I heard a hardness in it that I hadn’t known I could summon.

He shook his head, glancing toward the door. “No one. I already told you I handled everything myself.”

I twisted the leather in both fists and brought his face down to mine. “Don’t try that with me. You didn’t take your car to the bridge yourself. You said you paid someone two hundred dollars to leave it there. Tell me who.”

“It’s not important,” Mark said, stumbling over the words. His gaze kept darting toward the hallway.

“There’s somebody outside my daughter’s room carrying your keys,” I hissed, shoving him back against the dresser. Beside his elbow, the porcelain doll shifted unsteadily. “That person has your voice on a recording and knows you’re meant to be dead. Who did you pay?”

Mark shut his eyes. His jaw quivered, and whatever resistance he’d been clinging to seemed to drain away.

“Dave,” he whispered. His breath smelled sour and stale. “He runs nights at the Starlight Motel. He’s an ex-con.”

I stared at him, cold disbelief spreading through me. “You put your fake death in the hands of a convicted criminal?”

“I needed somebody who wouldn’t start asking things!” he pleaded, his voice cracking. “I couldn’t be seen driving my own car on the highway cameras. I paid Dave two hundred dollars in cash. He was supposed to leave it on the bridge with the motor running. That was all.”

“You were staying at his motel too,” I said, fitting the pieces together. “For three days.”

He gave a miserable nod. “I paid cash. I drank whiskey with him at the motel. I might have said too much.”