Page 32 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
Keeping the secret that I’ll die with, I don’t mention that my first love was the boy I’d read them to.
“Great, another thing for us to toss away.” He pulls out a random book, blowing the dust from the cover. “And if they weren’t moldy then, they are now.” He shoves it back into its spot before I see the title and realize it’s my favorite story. “I swear, looking at this dump now, renovating this place is gonna cost more than selling it.” He gives me a squeeze and a smile. “But it doesn’t cost more than every cent I’ve ever earned. We’ll have the wedding of our dreams.”
Shane pulls out his phone and disappears into the reading room before I can answer him. His fast-moving fingers gliding across his phone screen tell me he’s already searching the web for local takeout deliveries.
Slipping out of my coat, I hang it on the hook that’s always been mine. The fourth from the left. I check that the door islocked and head back into the reading room, following Shane’s voice as he says, lost in wonder, “It’s like a fucking maze in here.”
He’s already in the kitchen and got there too quickly to have read the lies on the walls—all the sordid words of how my stepbrother hurt me with his body parts.
Those words are all I can see. The spray paint still wet and sticky on my fingers as I touch the wall.
Ambrose La’Darragh raped his little sister and then killed their parents in this house.
My fingers linger on his name a little too long. Long enough for black to stain my fingertips. My eyes move to the next message until, eventually, tears blur it from my view.
Ambrose La’Darragh killed his parents because Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t let him touch his little Dollie.
One of the music room doors clicks open, freezing me on the spot. I blink, and tears fall, allowing me to see the recently painted hatred again.
Slowly, I twist around, terrified to look. Those doors have never had an issue—no trouble opening and closing like the front ones.
Could a vandal still be in the house?
Could it be something else?
“Shane?” I call out, not wanting to check it out alone.
The distance between us and his selective hearing grants me no answer.
But someone has to look.
Unfortunately, that someone is me.
The steps across the room put more dust on my socks.
I bravely look up to the darkness that looms on the second floor from around the archway. Then, I creep across the foyer.
Swallowing my fear, I peek around one of the doors and into the music room. The old piano holds my attention for a second before my eyes drift over every other instrument.
There’s no damage. Nothing missing. Not a soul in sight.
Deeming the room safe from an intruder, I grip the handle tightly and pull it closed.
“It was just the wind,” I tell myself, praying we’d trapped a draft inside when we were struggling with the front doors. Ignoring the fact that it’s totally crazy, I turn away. I take only two steps, and the door clicks open again.
Tears rise again, and my eyes widen.
My lip trembles, leaving a puff of air in the cold house.
Careening so slow, I barely move. A shaking hand grips the doorknob. The lacy patterns on my glove blur into a black mess through tears as I watch myself close it for the second time.
Fingers trembling around the brass knob, I wait for something to pull it open again.
Something haunts me from the second floor: the memory of my parents. I glance up, expecting to see them there, standing in the dark, but all I see are two creepy-looking gargoyles staring back.
A beat passes.
Then another.
