up one of the napkin scraps. She ripped it in half, and then ripped it in half again. She was thinking very hard about the room in the basement, where her father made dolls and sacrificed every daughter he’d ever had, except for her.
“The dolls,” Laura said. She wanted to hear her mother say it. She wanted the words in the shape of an uncoiled rope. She wanted the offense spoken out loud, carved in stone and unforgivable. Her mother did not give her those things.
“To turn the tides of the wind,” she said. There was a horrible, wistful look upon her face. “That was what they told him.”
~
The first and the last surviving daughter, the dolls called her. They pointed her towards her old nook under the stairs. For hours, she dug and dug through boxes of costumes, paperback novels, throwing stilettos and dried-out markers behind her. Finally, at the bottom of a box full of baseball caps, she grazed her fingers against something warm and sharp. When she looked closer, the dolls let out a sigh of relief.
~
Unlike her dreams, the floor was clean and there was no sign of blood. Still, the door was an impossible mountain in front of her: a foot taller than her father, as dark and as large as the night.
Laura leapt forward with her axe.
She struck somewhere in the middle. It didn’t leave a dent, so she did it again, harder. She pulled the axe back and rammed forward. The rich, dark blue paint began to chip and reveal flesh-colored wood underneath. Laura dislodged the axe and swung again wildly. She felt like she was walking on hot sand, beneath the light of a great red sun. The axe landed near the third lock above the door handle. The wood cracked further. Laura pictured her father installing the locks, while her mother gave birth a million times over, alone in their bedroom on the third floor.
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