Page 23 of Little Dolls

He walked slower now, a sense of foreboding welling up inside him, filling him slowly like when he’d filled water balloons with Dora earlier in the summer.

Why was she so still and quiet? Those were two words he would never have associated with his effervescent little sister.

When he’d circled so he was in front of her, he saw why she wasn't moving.

She was dead.

Dora was dead.

She looked like she was sleeping but he knew she wasn't.

In her lap sat a doll.

He screamed.

Someone was laughing, but he couldn’t see anyone about.

The fear and horror and guilt inside him kept growing, filling him to the brim until he exploded with an enormous bang.

Jonathon woke with a start.

He was drenched in sweat, even though he was wearing only a pair of sweatpants and had thrown all his covers on the floor while he slept. His heart was rocketing in his heaving chest, and his hands were shaking.

Of course, he’d never actually seen his sister’s dead body, either at the park, at the morgue, or at the funeral. It didn’t matter to his mind, though. In his dreams, he always pictured her as she must have looked when she was found on that picnic blanket. Beautiful, her skin unmarred, her eyes closed as though simply asleep.

Jonathon hadn’t seen her disappear, either. She had just been there and then she hadn’t. If he’d noticed her wandering off, then perhaps he would have been able to tell the cops something that helped them find her. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t witnessed what had caused his sister to leave the playground, even though she knew never to go off on her own, and especially not with a stranger.

Wanting to shake off the dream, he climbed from his bed and padded barefoot down the stairs to the living room, where he settled down in his rocking chair. For some reason, the rocking motion still soothed him, just as it had when he was a colicky baby, and his mother had sat in this very chair to attempt to get him to sleep.

He remembered perfectly the day his little sister disappeared.

The two of them had been playing at the park. They were meant to be home by dark, but he’d begged to be allowed to stay until dark because he and his friends had wanted to play some game. Twenty-three years later he couldn’t even remember what it was. Of course, Dora had begged to stay, too. Whatever he did, she wanted to do, as well. Back then it had been so annoying. Dora had been practically a baby, only six, although as she had repeatedly reminded him she was almost seven and would be starting second grade after the summer.

Their mom had reluctantly agreed to let them stay late, on the provision that their dad met them there after work. Only he’d never turned up. Jonathon had known that he should take his sister home, that their mom wouldn’t like them being there without a parent after dark. But he’d wanted to stay with his friends.

One minute Dora, all muddy and disheveled from a day at the park, had been swinging on the swings. The next she’d been gone.

Those awful hours were seared into his mind, and he could see them playing out with crystal clarity as though they were happening this very minute.

Realizing Dora was gone.

Looking everywhere for her.

Running home, just a street from the park, hoping the whole way that Dora would be there waiting for him. Jonathon had known if she was there, he was in for the punishment of a lifetime, but it would be worth it just to see his sister safe and sound.

But she wasn't there and telling his mother he’d lost her was the single worst moment of his life.

That night their home was a hive of activity.

Police officers came, and neighbors, friends, and family.

Everyone searched the streets for Dora, but she was nowhere to be found.

What came next was somehow worse.

Stillness.

Complete and utter stillness.

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