The Doll Garden

Seven

The last time I pulled an all-nighter until the sun rose up, I was a college student rushing to finish a paper that was due the next morning. Now, I was a college dropout with an associate degree in English that I didn't use, who pulled an all-nighter to fall down an unexplainable rabbit hole.

"Nothing? How can there be nothing here!?" I slammed my empty can of twelve-ounce red bull down on my desk, wincing when the impact met my ears. My eyes were bloodshot red from staring at my laptop screen for four hours straight—I was sure of it.

Bouncing my left leg, I continued to scroll through useless search results and articles.

Neither Marisol, Lais, or Sofia were names that could be found in the missing persons database online. Not by first name, last name, age, ethnicity, nationality. Not a damn thing. No one had turned up to claim their bodies or a copy of their death certificates, either.

I'd even tried searching through pictures of old missing fliers that were posted up around Runswick, and all the rest of Rhode Island, from between 1997 and the early 2000s too. It sucked to conclude, but no one was looking for these women.

Or maybe they didn't want to be found. Marisol seemed to have been living here on her own terms and her own free will. It wasn't clear whether or not she had anyone else besides my father to vouch for her. I was stuck.

"Ouch," I hissed and touched the side of my skull. I could hear the screams again.

Loud and clear, flooding my head and muddied in my memories. The screams always came in from right beside my bedroom window. My room wasn't that close to the garden, but it was close enough to hear those screams in the middle of the night. They traveled from around the backside of the mansion, right alongside the space in between the building and the lawn.

It was time for a ten-minute break. And another red bull.

I backed up my computer chair from my desk, sliding off the black cushion, and out the door of my bedroom. I jogged down the stairs and into the kitchen. As I pulled a red bull out of one of the cabinets, I paused. One of the doors to the mansion's main entrance was cracked open an inch.

With furrowed eyebrows, I tiptoed forward until I was standing outside the doors.

There were dark gray clouds overhead, fogging up the sky. Not enough to block out the sun, but enough to create some shade. Damp air clogged my pores and the aftermath smell of last night's drizzling, light rain filled my lungs. Besides that, it was clear out front. Or so I thought.

"Someone's up very early," a voice commented.

A puff of smoke latched onto my nostrils, causing it to wiggle in distaste. I waved the smoke away and scrunched up my face in disgust. When I turned to my right, a blotch of black hair was tucked into a messy ponytail. Her worn-out scrunchy wasn't doing much to hold it together.

"Sorry, sorry. I wasn't trying to blow my smoke in your direction," Tahlia quickly apologized when she realized what had just happened.

"Ah, Tahlia. It's okay, it's okay! Um, sorry. Did I disturb you?" My lips fell into a frown.

"No, no. I actually just finished having a smoke. I was about to have another, but I guess it's a good thing you stepped out here. I shouldn't be smoking these things again." She chuckled.

I watched her blow out her last puff of smoke and drag the end of her cigarette butt against the brick wall. She proceeded to stuff what I noticed was a practically full cigarette box, back into the breast pocket of her maid outfit, and step towards me.

"Really?" My eyebrows shot up.

"Yeah. Sixty days clean. Well ... I was. At least, until this shit fest stressed me out again. Old habits don't die too easily. I fell right back into square one. Shit," she cussed and tossed her cigarette butt onto the floor, stomping the rest of it out with her shoe.