Becky's Doll

Chapter 13

I WIPED THE SWEAT OFF my forehead. It was quite a humid day and the rains had finally calmed down. For quite a few days now, heavy storms had taken over, drenching each and every nook and cranny of the small town with piercingly cool water. For some reason, things are normal around the house, except for Becky's occasional mood swings which we all were getting used to now. Even the dark figure hadn't made it's appearance after the day it had burnt my wrists.

My wrists were still bandaged up and the pain didn't subside despite the amount of heat burn ointments I spread on them. The burn had however transformed from a crimson red colour to a hideous purple hue. Trust me, it was not a pretty sight. The heavy rains kept on delaying my plans to visit Elizabeth's father.

When the sun had finally decided to grace us with its appearance in the sky, I had decided to take up this opportunity to clean up Becky's disarrayed room. She was getting tired of spending a room with me. My room had proved to be too small to accommodate my huge books as well as Becky's toys. To be honest, even I longed to have the room to myself again. My decision to open up Becky's room which had been safely sealed away for two weeks, was probably the longest and the toughest one I had ever claimed in all the eighteen years of my life.

Contrary to my expectations of having the room being inhabited by several petrifying dark figures and even worser by cockroaches and mice, the room looked just the way it had been locked away. The sun rays filtered into the room through the pink curtains causing the room to acquire the light shade of champagne pink. Maimed dolls and smashed toys littered the floor and the deep cracks on the walls looked less frightening than before. The room just appeared as if it had suffered a violent earthquake which was certainly not normal but still way better than the creepy appearance it had on before.

I was suddenly overwhelmed by the stale odour of dampened dust which had accumulated on the furniture. I subdued my tendency to sneeze as I moved to open the windows. Letting the fresh air come in,I looked over at my silent companion who was currently glancing around the distorted room. I didn't know what emotion to comprehend from Esther's blank expression. Though, I mentally thanked Esther for accompanying me. I mean who would want to stay alone in this room after the traumatising experience they have had in here.

"Let's get started then," I declared. Esther nodded in response. I didn't know how to mend the damaged walls and cracked floors but I could clean this place up a bit.

I started off with tidying the floor. Each face of the mutilated dolls had been horrendously disfigured. I noticed that  Esther was examining the dolls just as I was, except that she had on a less terrified expression.

We began to work silently but strangely in sync. We placed the damaged items in a large trash bag and the still intact ones in Becky's shelves. Everything had been peaceful until I discovered a strange shard of glass piece under Becky's bed. Esther came up behind me and scrutinised the strange article with a deep frown on her face.

It looked as if it had been a part of mirror. Roughly triangular in shape. A long silky black ribbon was wound around its middle region. Dry leaves of some sort were inserted in between it's folds. Carefully, I unwound the ribbon and the leaves dropped to the floor. Words that I couldn't distinguish were written crudely on the mirror. I swiped the corner of a smudged area slightly with a finger. A smooth dusty black substance coated my finger.

"Ash," Esther whispered behind me. I looked over at her, puzzled.

"Do you know what this thing is?" I asked her, absolutely terrified.