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My heart beats faster and I find myself hurrying until I get to the table and chairs. There’s an old teacup on the table. A child’s tea set, I think. I walk toward it to have a closer look.
It’s broken. Cracked in two, half lying on its side, the other half still sitting up in its pink saucer with the golden trim.
Not toys, actually. Too nice to be toys.
On the floor lie the remnants of a second cup and a small teapot. I bend down, wanting to pick them up but as soon as I do, I scream, falling backward on the ground because a pair of glass eyes is staring back at me.
My heart nearly explodes and I crab-crawl away, wincing as shards of glass cut into my palms. Even though I know it’s just a doll, a very old doll imprisoned by weeds, I’m terrified.
Just a doll.
That’s all.
A toy.
Like all those dolls in my room that night eight years ago during the storm. The night countless eyes stared back at me.
I stop moving in order to look at my sliced hands. The bigger shards drop onto the broken tile, making a tinkling sound, like crystal. I look back at the doll.
She hasn’t moved.
Of course she hasn’t moved. God. I’m an idiot.
A little girl must have had a tea party here a long time ago. A very long time ago. That’s all this is.
But then that feeling is back. Like someone’s watching me. I shudder but force myself not to look at the doll as I get to my feet. I want to get out of here.
Blood smears my palms. It hurts, but there isn’t anything I can do about it until I get back to the house.
I hurry out of the solarium as the rain picks up. Disoriented, I stop once I’m outside. Is this the entrance I used? No, the table was on the other side then, wasn’t it? Is there more than one table?
Turning a circle, I see too many paths to choose from. Before I can panic, however, I decide on one, hoping it’s the way I came.
I glance over my shoulder at the abandoned building. Why did I go in there? It’s creepy, all of it. The broken railing. The china cracked and ruined. That doll forever alone in the dark, rain-soaked woods.
Shudder.
I hurry away. Night is falling fast. How long have I been out here? Clouds overhead hide the last of the waning light as rain falls heavier, plastering hair to my face. I realize now just how cold I am.
Tripping over rocks and tree roots, I try not to break into a run. I guess it was a ten-or fifteen-minute walk to get here from the house, but after walking for what seems like a lot longer than that, I realize I’ve been going in circles.
Because I’m back at the solarium. Back to where I’d started.
It takes all I have not to panic. Not to think there’s something not right about this.
My hands throb with the glass embedded in them, and I know it’s stupid, but I feel like something led me back here. Something old and eerie.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell myself. Turning a circle, I look around, trying and failing to get my bearings. All I hear is the constant sound of the rain, and all I feel is the presence of that hulking, broken solarium with the doll trapped inside.
After looking left and right and back at the solarium, I start to walk. I just need to be away from here, but fifteen minutes later, when I’m again back in the same place, I can’t stop the panic that takes hold of me.
I want to rub my face but remember the glass in my hands. I walk a few paces back the way I came but stop. I’ll just end up walking the same circle again. I know it.
Pushing wet hair from my face with the back of my hand, I turn again, crossing to the other side of the solarium, giving it a wide berth as I do. When the cold wind whistles, I give in to that panic, hurrying my steps backward, keeping my eyes on the structure as if that would keep some monster from charging out of the place after me.
I trip. I’m not watching where I’m going. But I can’t drag my eyes away from the solarium so when I crash into something hard behind me, all the tension I’ve been trying to keep tamped down bubbles up, releasing into a scream so loud, it sends birds I didn’t know were even there noisily flying from the branches of the trees.
I bounce off whatever it was that was behind me almost falling to the ground until a strong pair of hands catches me.
I scream and scream until I hear him. Until he turns me, pulls me to him, and I feel his chest against my face and his hand cupping the back of my head and big, powerful arms holding me tight.
