Page 11 of The Imaginary Friend's Obsession

And there it is, sitting in a corner, waiting for me. I blow off a layer of dust and gently lower the tonearm onto the waiting record. A brief pause, and a song begins to play: “Daisy Bell.”

I smile at the familiar lyrics, listening to the rich sound of the record. A memory stirs somewhere in my mind, but it slips away before I can grasp it. Instead, I just stand and listen, my eyes shut and my heart at peace, for once.

Chapter Seven

“Iwasn’t able to get my hands on a good record player on such short notice, but I found this in storage.” Ezra holds up an antique radio, polished wood with a brass dial to change the station.

I smile. “I think he’ll like it.” God, I hope I’m right. I want so badly to see him. This will be our third session at the MRF, and I hope today is the day Dorian will reveal himself.

“I’m going to go put it in his room. You can watch through the window if you’d like.”

As badly as I want to accompany him into the cell, I know he’ll never say yes until I tell him aboutthat night. So I bite my tongue and stand beside the viewing window in the observation room as Ezra goes to give the radio to Dorian.

When the door in the cell opens, I strain to see through to get a better idea of how Dorian is being trapped.Iron and salt, Ezra mentioned, but I’m not sure where it is or how it works. All I can see is that Ezra is in a small chamber with another, closed door behind him. Two doors, one of them shut at all times, like an airlock or a quarantine chamber. I watch as Ezra walks inside and sets the radio on the metal table. Nothing in the cell moves, other than Ezra. He walks out, shuts the door behind him, and soon reappears in the observation room with me.

I’m about to speak, but I pause as music starts within the cell. Ezra and I both look through the window at the now lit-up radio. It takes only a couple seconds for me to recognize the same soothing melody I listened to last night: “Daisy Bell.”

Delight zips up my spine.He’s here. I quickly reach over to hit the intercom. “Dorian?” I whisper, peering into the room. I stay quiet, listening and waiting to see if Dorian will appear, but he doesn’t. My shoulders sag, and I turn back to Ezra.

“We used to listen to that song all the time on the record player up in the attic,” I say. “I went up there last night. I found this.” I dig into my pocket and pull out the crumpled paper. It’s one of my childhood drawings of us. Me: small, blonde, excited. Him: taller, dark-haired, face hidden behind a white, grinning mask.

Ezra smiles as I show him, but his brow furrows as he takes a closer look. “The mask…?”

“I gave it to him,” I say. “Like I mentioned, he never wanted to show his face. He said it would scare me. When I was drawing this picture, I realized I didn’t even know what he looked like. So I drew him with a mask. And then all of a sudden he peeked out from beneath the bed, and he was wearing it.”

I smile as I remember him crawling out from under the bed, that smiling white mask emerging from the darkness.

“His appearance changed?” Ezra murmurs. “Unusual… But, all right, continue. That’s the first time he came out?”

“Yes. I was so excited.” That was the first time we sat face-to-face—or face-to-mask, rather—cross-legged on my bedroom floor. I took his hands in mine. “Then I asked him if he wanted gloves, too, because his hands looked like they hurt. They were all…torn up. I asked him what happened to him, to make his hands like that, and then…”

The radio goes staticky within Dorian’s cell, the song glitching.Da-Da-Daisy…

My brow furrows as the rest of the story evades me. It’s like I’ve hit a wall. There’s more to the memory, I know it, but as I reach for it, it slips through my fingers like it never existed at all. “And then… I…” Why can’t I remember? I force myself to focus: to remember looking down at Dorian’s small hands with his torn fingernails and bloodied fingertips. I can picture him leaning in, whispering as he told me… told me…?

Something important. I can feel it. It’s there in my head, I just can’t quite…

Disjointed moments flash through my brain. The lights flickering. Eyes in the darkness. Someone screaming. The attic hatch rattling—

I gasp, pressing my palms to my eyes as pain flares in my skull. The song on the radio turns to pure static, but buried within it, I hear a deep, echoing voice whispering my name.

“Daisy?” Ezra’s voice seems far away, as if through water. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I…” I lower my hands, and a drop of red splatters on the table. I raise my hand to my nose and it comes away wet with blood.

Dorian’s bloody hands, his eyes sad behind his mask.

“What happened to you?”

I’m right on the verge of remembering more, but my skull is pounding, my heart thumping in terror of…something.

Sudden movement out of the corner of my eye jerks me out of my reverie. I lift my head, and my heart skips a beat.

Dorian.

He’s here, standing right on the other side of the glass.

Visible.Real.

---