Light in the Attic

The Doll Speaks

"So SOH-CAH-TOA is Sine= Opposite over Hypotenuse," Tamara stared out the window. She hated math so much.

How could that doll have gotten in the two houses? Tamara couldn't stop thinking about the little Japanese doll. It had been a week since the death of Xavier and Larissa. The doll hadn't appeared in her aunt's house.

"Tamara, TAMARA, are you paying attention?" She jerked and looked up quickly. The teacher had been trying to get her attention for a minute.

"Y-yes Mr. Schmidt?" Tamara didn't catch anything from what he said so she was afraid he was going to ask her something.

"If you're having a little trouble, you can go to the counselors office. We all know that you liked him so you can leave." Mr. Schmidt is a very sympathetic man. He was Tamara's favorite teacher for that. She smiled though she didn't want to miss the lesson.

"No thanks. I'm fine thank you." She smiled and started taking her notes. The student teacher approached her.

Ugh! I very much dislike him. He has very pretty eyes though. Tamara didn't like Mr. Graif because when he was up teaching she didn't understand a single thing he said.

"Are you ok? I saw that you were not paying attention so I wanted to see if you had anything you missed and needed explaining." He looked like he was uncertain about what he asked.

Aww that's nice. Tamara smiled. "Ummm... Yeah, I didn't catch the part in which he said how to set it up on a calculator."

"Ok, so you press the 2nd button and then the sine button. Then you set up 15 over 22 and equal it." He kept on explaining and tried following what he was saying.

"Ok so the assignment is page 385. Numbers 1 through 55 and 62 through 70." Everyone groaned. It was so much. I took out my Geometry book, my notebook, and my pencil. I tried concentrating but my mind kept drifting to the doll all covered in blood. She appeared to have a devilish grin that wasn't there when she found the doll.

"AHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Tamara screamed and leaped up from her desk. On her notebook were the words, We need to talk about what you owe me for the deaths of Xavier and Larissa.

Both Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Graif rushed towards me. She jumped to her senses and slammed the  book shut. They couldn't see this or they would think Tamara had contracted a person to kill both of them.

"What's the matter?" Mr. Schmidt asked very concerned. Everyone was looking at her like she was crazy.

"Ummm... I need to go to the counselers office." Tamara was slowly backing up to the wall.

"Go ahead, we all understand." Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Graif gave Tamara sympathetic looks. Everyone else in the class nodded. She ran down the hall and past the counslers office. She sprinted out of  the school and to her house.Tamra ran to the attic and found her.

"I thought you would never get here." The doll stood up from where she was sitting and walked up to her. Tamara didn't want to but she knelt down.

"I control you now. You have no choice but to obey." Tamara knew that the doll was grinning. Then Tamara had a migraine. Images started passing through her. Things from the past. Not her past. The doll's past.

"Why don't you love me anymore?" Haruka was a beautiful old woman. She had short black hair.

"I still love you. She is just my...er... friend" Jin, a very handsome young man who looked like he had been caught red-handed in a murder scene.

"Um...er... Hi, i'm Lily." Lily was young and she looked very uncomfortable.

"I WILL KILL YOU BOTH!" Haruka took out the knife she had in her kimono. She advanced towards Jin. He backed away and slammed into the wall behind him.

"No, Haruka you don't know what you're doing-"  Jin didn't finish. Haruka sliced Jin's throat open. He was bleeding. Oh god, so much blood. Haruka turned towards Lily, and did the same.

"I stuffed them. Now they are my pets. You will be my pet too." Haruka, in doll form, advanced towards her. Tamara couldn't move.

"Please! Haruka, you don't know what you are doing. HELP! AUNTIE!" She knew it was no use. No one was home other than her and the doll.

"Hehehe. Its no use. But you will be mine. You will kill for me like I killed for you." Haruka was singing now. A japanese tune Tamara didn't know.

"I NEVER ASKED YOU TO KILL XAVIER! I STILL LOVED HIM!" Tamara was screaming. Her face was hot and red. She was sweating.

"Oh, but he never loved you. You see he had been cheating on you with Larissa for over a whole year." She started laughing.

"STOP!" Tamara whipped her head around.

"Auntie! Thank god." Tamara was smiling now. She was so happy. Her aunt was here.

"Haruka, I will never kill for you again. My death and Jin's death is in your hands, and now you want my brother's little girl's life. NEVER!" Her aunt started advancing towards Haruka. Haruka was backing up.

"Lily, you don't know what you're doing." Haruka sounded scared now.

"Wait. You are Lily?" Tamara was confused. Her headache was getting worse.

Her aunt sighed, "Yes. I am Lily. And I am flesh but not bones, or arteries, and blood. I am skin and fluff. So is your uncle. Your uncle is Jin." Her aunt started crying. Tamara didn't know if that was normal now. "But once I get rid of her, I will only be a dead person. So will your uncle."

"But-but, no aunt, you cant." Tamara was sobbing.

"YOU SHALL DIE TAMARA!" The doll roared. She ran and striked her across the face with her knife. Tamara felt blood gushing out from her cheek, and ear.

"DAMMIT HARUKA!" Tamara's aunt was definately mad. Lily ran, picked up the doll, and kept running towards the wall. Tamara's aunt smashed the little doll against the wall using the force of her body.

"NOOO!" Haruka's vocie was echoing in the attic. Tamara's aunt fell to the floor with a dull thud.

"Auntie? Auntie answer me. AUNTIE!" Tamara dragged herself towards her aunt's body. Then Tamara saw it. The cut in her aunt's throat. Her aunt's shirt was revealing the sowed up scar of the slice Haruka made her to stuff her. Then her aunt started to transform. Her facil features changed from American to Japanese. She started getting slimmer, and her clothes changed to a kimono.

"So Auntie was telling the truth." Tamara stood up. She was about to get out of the attic when she herad a voce.

"Is it over honey?"

"AUNTIE!" Tamara whipped herself around and ran into the arms of her aunt.

"It's me hon." Her aunt had changed into the woman she knew.

"Wait," Tamara ended the hug. "If you turned back, and you're not dead, then doesn't that mean-?" Tamara and her aunt stared at each other.

"Oh no. We have to get out of this house." Her aunt and Tamara stood up  and ran down the attic stairs.

"JIN! JIN WE HAVE TO GO!" Her aunt was screaming at the top of her lungs. Tamara's uncle appeared at the foot of the stairs.

"So Tamara knows the stroy, huh." He smiled. "Good. Saves me the trouble of having to tell her." Then he looked confused. "So you didn't kill Haruka did you?"

"No, that's why we have to go." They all piled up in the car. Her uncle hit the gas and drove off.

If they would have looked back, they would have seen the cracked doll, standing on the porch. She was staring after them, a grin on her face, thinking of the gory things she would do to Tamara if she ever found her again.

But of couse they didn't. So they never thought of the horror they would live through again. Tamara will have to try to kill that thing. But will she be able to?