Bring us justice eldest daughter bring us to justice.
“Who are you,” Laura said, speaking to the door.
We have lived long lives we have seen men and gods move unnoticed among the shadows.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Laura said.
Laura, the dolls said. They sounded disappointed. Laura you know exactly who we are.
“Fine,” Laura said, embarrassed. Heat rushed up her neck. “What do you want.”
Justice demands blood we deserve a repayment of blood and also justice.
“What can I do about that,” Laura asked.
Wait did we say justice already.
“Stop speaking in riddles,” Laura begged. The dolls wailed like banshees in response. Laura knelt to the ground in supplication and covered her ears with tightly with the palms of her hands. Her eyes watered and her veins moved like worms beneath her skin. She realized that the dolls were not merely making noise but repeating a single phrase, over and over, in a cacophony of shrieking.
The daughter will break open the dark blue sea.
Laura stayed on her knees. Nausea crawled up her throat thick as seaweed, as a pillar of salt, and she tried to choke it back down. She placed her hands on her thighs and swallowed gasps of harsh air. She stared at the door which she had seen many times in her childhood and many times after that in dreamworlds, pastel-tinted and frightening. It was smaller than it had been in her head. Here, in front of her, close enough to reach out and touch with aching fingertips, it stood just below seven feet tall.
There were five gold locks in the door. They taunted her, stacked on top of one another like nesting dolls. There was no way out there was no way in. Her mother had buried the keys to the workshop with her father.
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