Her gaze flickered to the spot in the living room where the dollhouse used to rest in all its glory. An eternal mystery: a flower that bloomed only at night, petals turned inward, away from the revealing light of day. Now there was a thin layer of grime in its place. She grew drowsy and calm. Maybe she would forgo coffee and go back to bed. Her eyelids weighed heavy on her eyes, the world shrunk drifted smoke-like in front of her.
Help us Laura help us.
The water burned her palm as she opened her eyes with a start, shocked awake. Laura yanked her hand from the sink and rushed to turn off the faucet, coffee forgotten.
“Mother did you just say something,” Laura said. She spoke quickly, frantically. Her hand throbbed and burned with a fierce vermillion color. Her mother turned again towards her.
“No, little swan,” Laura’s mother replied, unfocused. She went back to destroying the walls of their house.
~
Strange things, young girls. They disappear and reappear like stacks of cards.
~
Laura woke up in front of her father’s blue door. Throughout her head there was a pounding, the beat of a distant, angry drum. She could not remember how she had ended up in the basement. She had been dreaming about doing laundry: the faint scent of lilacs, warm dryer sheets, a sock in one hand and not the other. And then her eyes opened. The pounding in her head became the sound of an insect buzzing very close to her ear. She swatted at her neck in reaction. The static cackled, louder and faster, until she was filled with an invisible swarm, the pressure in the back of her skull growing and growing and then coming together and solidifying into a single phrase, many unintelligible voices pressed up against one another and speaking in unison.
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