The Doll Garden

Twenty-One

His last words to me were very clear: take Mirabelle, leave this place, and don't ever come back. Like walking away from years' worth of trauma was the easiest thing all of us would ever do. Nonetheless, I listened. No questions asked.

I'd have called it an accomplishment on my behalf, but honestly, it was just me prioritizing my siblings' lives and my ex-boyfriend's life over his. I didn't have the strength to cry any longer. Not over something that couldn't be changed. I instead had to force myself to come to my senses to focus on the things that could be changed; all of which were in progress.

"Mira!" Calling out her name in a low whisper was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn't have any other way of contacting her, though, and leaving this place without anyone I'd shown up with was not an option. She'd never come back with the towels. Even after I promised her I wouldn't let anything happen to them. Now I was on the hunt for all three of them.

Before I'd walked out of our father's study, throwing myself into this manhunt, I tried her cellphone more times than I wish were needed. Her phone was either dead, on silent, she couldn't answer it for some reason, or Candace had gotten to her. It was only normal that I had tried not to dwell on the last option too much.

"Come on, Mirabelle," I blew out a sigh, whispering to myself, "you couldn't have gone that far." My teeth were chattering, and I had chills down to the bone—the kind of chills that made my skin feel frail, my hairs stand, and my toes curl. My wobbly legs were a shivering mess, too.

He insisted the cops were still on their way. I didn't hear any sirens yet. But they'd better had been. A maniac was on the loose in here. He was on the brim of death. I had nothing on me but a pair of scissors I'd snatched from my room, and a long black flashlight that was slowly losing its spark. None of those odds seemed like they were going to work in my favor.

"Mira!" I called again, a bit louder, whilst moving my flashlight around. The scissors were clenched tightly in my other hand. My back was to the wall, my feet carefully sliding along the edge, hopefully helping me blend into the darker corners of the hallway.

I was nearing the staircase again. I had cleared out one half of the upstairs floor already—the half that was down the opposite end of the hallway (where mine, Mirabelle's, and Manuel's bedrooms were). The supply closet was towards my bedroom at the end of that hallway, but around the corner, a few feet into the next hallway over.

Grabbing a pair of towels would have taken her fifteen minutes, max. Five of those minutes were me being extra kind. She had no reason to wander off on her own unless something had distracted her—but it would have had to have been something dire. And I didn't see a single thing that hinted she'd been taken. The closet door had been properly situated into its slot on the wall.

I was under the impression she had never opened it. However, after a thorough inspection inside the closet, I saw the towels were still neatly stacked alongside everything else, with one or two missing from the top of the bunch. I knew some were missing because the rows were always stacked evenly. There were no signs of a struggle. All that led me to believe was that the chances of her being harmed were slim to none. That still didn't mean she wasn't in danger, though.

"Where is Candace now?" I'd asked him before I walked out.

"I ... don't know. She could be anywhere doing God knows what," he'd said.

I'd been extra watchful of the shadows around me. I'd been extra attentive to the noises around me, too. But all of my efforts were useless. She was doing an extremely good job of moving in silence. Mirabelle and I hadn't heard a peep when we snuck upstairs. Having been forced to view her in a new light, I was beginning to understand her qualities in a less appealing way.