Miko

A short story written around 5 years ago.

Miko.

    There once lived a girl named Miko. The darling girl bore quite a fondness for porcelain dolls -- and dolls in general. As well, an affinity. She’d a vast array of them in her collection. Stuffed beasts, rabbits, frogs. She’d even a bulbous onion plush, which she’d refer to as “Mr. Onion-Head.” But none were more dear to her than Lady Sakura.
    Ah, Sakura -- an age ravaged, vermiculated doll, far older than Miko, herself. She’d often ponder upon the circumstances of how she’d come to own the doll, for she’d had it for as long as she could remember. One day in early Autumn, Miko went to her mother with that question exactly. “Mother” She asked. “Where did Sakura come from?” And her Mother explained, matter-of-factly, that her aunt had given her the doll as a gift upon her second birthday.
    Odd, her Mother thought, that her sister, Miko’s Aunt, Hilde, would give her two year old niece such an expensive, and may I say, extravagant porcelain doll. The dear child most likely would end up breaking it, and perhaps injuring herself on the shards of porcelain it would produce upon shattering. However, questioning, naught, and satisfied with this story, Miko returned to the garden, which was located therein the rear-yard of their spacious, Victorian home.
    “Sakura” She said, when again she came upon the magic tea party she’d set only a few minutes prior, “Did you know that you were a gift from my Aunt upon my second birthday?” “Yes, I did know.” The Doll replied. Miko then sat opposite Sakura -- to whom the years had not been kind.
     The paint that had once imbued Sakura’s face witch such beauty had chipped somewhat. Paint-less crevices not so unlike human wrinkles. Her hair was ratted, in need of a fine combing. Miko used to brush it daily as her Mother had once brushed hers -- The hair being torn out in long, frazzled strands. Miko would then pull the hair from the brush, and after balling it up, leave it in enmeshed wads about the house. Her Mother grew quite agitated with that, mind you.
    Miko had many a guest that afternoon, all attending her elegant tea party. Mr. Onion-Head, the bears of various names, unremembered. The sly and cynical black fox. The mighty, yet dignified orange frog of forgotten origin. The unconscionable Punchinello, the Jester, dressed in red and yellow. His wife, Judy, and of course their ill fated stick puppet baby. They were all there. The guest of honor was of course Sakura, as it always was, for she demanded it.
    Upon the most average of afternoons, they’d swill from empty cups, slaking their thirst with delusional, herbal elixir. As well, they’d nourish themselves upon invisible crumpets. But that day, that afternoon, t’was different. Sakura sought a more satisfying drink. She’d been promised, if she behaved, she’d delight in a certain beverage of her own design. She had indeed been a good doll that morning, and felt she was quite deserving.
    Yes, a strange anecdote, indeed! A mischievous, ill-intentioned doll? How absurd! How a doll could misbehave no one but Miko quite understood. Thus, Miko presented the good and kindly Miss Sakura, a tea concocted solely of dead crickets and rose petals -- And hot water, of course.
    Miko had known of this request previously. So, the night prior, she’d slipped out into the dreary, tenebrous, overtly mysterious garden around, oh, about midnight -- after her parents had gone off to bed. She took with her a pail, small shovel and flashlight. Sakura, fearful of the dark, watched from the bedroom window. The flashlight: to shine down upon the crickets to locate them. The pail and shovel set: just because she enjoyed them. Other than that, they really served no purpose whatsoever.
    Miko followed the sound of the crickets’ midnight, violin song. Their orchestral chirping guiding her steps along the dead leaves, littering the garden floor. It was difficult at times, for the crickets silenced upon her arrival, but she’d indeed caught enough to fill Miss Sakura’s tea cup. That tea cup that was now set before her on an embroidered doily, rose petals and crickets therein
    Sakura forced her guests to indulge in the crickets as she.  But soon Miko’s Mother would appear to scold her for behaving in such a fashion. “A little girl such as you shouldn’t be playing with dead things like this. That’s an activity best suited for bad little boys!” That’s what she’d say. But of course, Miko’s response would be, and always was “No, Mother, it wasn’t me! It was Lady Sakura!” But Miko knew that never worked.
    It was as if Miko’s mother didn’t believe that Sakura had a mind of her own; Could move and speak just as all people do. The same as you or I. Miko thought that this was not such a far-gone idea at all. After all, she was only six years old. However, I’ll let you in on a little secret. Miko’s doll was very much alive.
    Well, at least that’s what Miko’d like you to believe, right? In turn, if Sakura misbehaved, Miko misbehaved, and was rightly scolded by her Mother. Like the time Miko broke the mirror in her Mother’s room, placing the blame on the doll because she didn’t like her own reflection. Or the time when Sakura supposedly took a razor blade to Miko’s Mother’s new leather couch, slicing it into fine, elongated strips.
    “Sakura did it, Mother!” That’s what she’d always say. Her Mother would only shake her head disappointedly. “When will you learn?” Became a regularity of speech. “When will she learn?” Miko thought. “When will I learn?” She said aloud one day in late autumn while looking into the mirror, disgusted with her own reflection.
    With a scrunch of her nose she grabbed Sakura by the left arm, and dragged her down the stairs, her porcelain face cracking against each and every wooden step. “Sakura, you’re a bad doll! You got me in trouble. Mother’s really mad this time!” With those words, Miko dragged the flaccid doll still, this time along the hallway floor, making her way to the tool shed, located adjacent the garden.
    “A scolding just doesn’t work, anymore! You need to learn a lesson.” Miko had punished Sakura before by locking her in the closet for extraneous periods of time. She’d refuse to feed her, and if she had to use the little girl’s room, she’d yell “Root in your own filth, that’ll teach you!” And leave her to do so. “This time you have to learn some discipline.” Miko said to Sakura as she entered her Father’s dust riddled tool shed. There were many rusted implements there to induce suffering.
    Miko positioned Sakura’s head in her Father’s vice. Turning the crank, the pressure grew increasingly. Sakura did indeed deserve punishment for her actions, for earlier that day she’d snapped the necks of Miko’s Mother’s love birds. Miko looked about, finding a hacksaw hanging from a twisted nail above her.
    Ignoring Sakura’s pained cries, Miko sawed through her left arm, severing it completely. The porcelain splintered in her hand as she did so, slicing it deeply. Blood spat from the wound, trickling from hand to elbow and collecting in a shallow pool on the saw dust laden floor. Sakura’s now detached limb laid in the collection of liquid, slathered in its fair share.
    Miko quickly put the wound to her lips, suckling at it, tasting it’s coppery flavor as it ran down her throat. That taste stayed with her for years to come. “This” She thought “Is the most extraordinary flavor I’ve ever had the satisfaction of tasting.” And then after this instance, Miko took to cutting herself purposefully with her Mother’s paring knives.
    Obviously she wanted no one to know of her obtuse nature, so she’d have to cover the wounds, as to shelter them from the outside world, the prying eyes of all whom would seek to halt this act she so relished in. She took to wearing long sleeves, inlayed with bandages and gauze. She loved the scent, the color, the taste; The very aura of this crimson liquid. The splotches it made in her ashen skin as it rose to the surface, seeping through the shattered grains of flesh.
    She had a favorite place to carve herself, as well. Her left forearm -- due to the fact that she was right handed. However, at one point, from increasing mutilation, she had to switch locations to her chest, then stomach -- then thighs. The flesh of her forearm became so embellished with scar tissue it resembled the bark of an elder oak. Miko often sat alone at night, languidly shredding herself, then lapping at the gashes with eager tongue. She reveled in the pain, to her it was as magnificent as interpretive dance.
    Of course, this began while she was still young. A tear here, a slice there. It began slowly, and developed itself over the years. It took on its own persona, much like that of Sakura. Miko’s high school years were not without much blood letting. Her room had not changed much since her days of youth, either.
    Portraits of children with gigantic eyes, topped with straw hats and exuding sickly sweet poetry adorned her otherwise bare walls. Her friends, the stuffed animals, all lain strewn about the floors, arrayed in no particular order. Still, Sunday was time for tea, her friends never being so happy to gather in her garden.
    Her peers, neighbors, parents even, thought the girl troubled, but did nothing of the sort to bring their views upon her. Aside from the crude remarks  presented to her during school, she was totally oblivious to how others viewed her. Though sometimes, Sakura, though armless in all of her fragility, would still belittle Miko, telling her the truth others seemingly left unsaid.
    Miko loved, but also despised Sakura. To her these emotions seemed not so very unlike one another. Believing Sakura to be her best friend and also her most loathsome enemy, Miko treated her with animosity, and likewise. She’d often torture her for hours on end, insisting Sakura dispel all secrets of her world, the veiled world of dolls. Sakura then insisted that she herself was not a puppet, and puppets were the only ones that could disclose the secrets she so longed for.
    Miko had but few puppets. One of them, just so happening to be the incessant Jester, the famous Mr.Punch. His face was salient with trepidation, his nose long and arced. But of course, the Jester was not unlike all other inadament objects. He spoke not. He was as breathless as the dead wood from which he was fashioned. When he didn’t disclose any secreted truths, Miko condemned his paper-mache head to rubble with a claw hammer.
    “If you won’t tell me your secrets, Mr. Jester, I shall search the dark recesses of your brain to find them myself.” Miko however found nothing but strips of newspaper fastened with a flour/water mixture. “What lurks here in the most secluded bowers of this puppet’s domain?” She screamed, as she drove the claw hammer into the puppet’s wooden body, which had not as grand an effect as it did the paper-mache head.
    Aside from her stuffed acquaintances, Miko knew naught friendship. The girls at school all had it in for her, at least that’s what she believed. You should’ve heard the laughter she endured the first day of high school when she walked backwards into a bush watching another, more popular girl passing by. She tripped, falling headlong into shamefulness.
    Other classmates saw her berating a porcelain doll in the washroom, shouting to great lengths. Again, this was of course Sakura, who’d not let Miko out of her sight for too long a time before she became antsy. Miko couldn’t leave her home for she was sure Mother would send her to the fireplace. This is what Sakura had warned her about. “Mother has it for me as your school chums have it for you.”
    Despite Sakura’s best efforts to embarrass Miko, Miko, although introverted, grew to be a stunning young woman, who at first sight was one whom most would want to make acquaintance. Then, when conversation distended over a short period of time, they always came to the conclusion that looks can be deceiving. That is until one instance with a girl by the name of Ester.
    Ester was someone crafted in the same vein as Miko herself. She too shared little to no friendships, and very eccentric tastes. One day in mid November, Miko invited Ester to escort her to the Autumn faire. Ester obliged this notion and upon the day of the festival they entered together.
    Here, there was a pumpkin patch. They sold pumpkins, in all obviousness, and as well gourds of all shapes and sizes. Miko purchased one that resembled a witch’s nose. Shriveled, heavy with wart-like protrusions, deep orange in hue. She as well bought a set of four miniature pumpkins for Ester, who grinned sheepishly beneath a torrent of falling leaves. Miko called her “My Autumnal Angel” When as many as seven dispersed leaves caught themselves within Ester’s auburn locks.
    They enjoyed a frolic throughout mounds of leaves and hay, throwing fresh corn cobs to the crows that flocked there. As well they exulted in taking what may or may not have been obscene photographs with a few of the more hideous, pumpkin headed scarecrows there. Up until that day scarecrows knew not of open mouthed kisses. The girls’ mouths tasted of pumpkin innards. It was a flavorful pumpkin day for both of our girls, for towards the finale they savored each a waffle cone full of pumpkin ice cream, which to Ester was one of the tastiest treats in the world. That is until she tasted blood.
    Ah, what a splendiferous segway. Over the next few months Miko and Ester spent a copious amount of time together. Whenever you’d see Miko, you’d surely find Ester right beside her. Needless to say Sakura was very jealous indeed, and even more so angry. She sat neglected in Miko’s room, just upon the rocking chair, the moonlight glittering through the drapery in long, silver strands. A docile creature was the night.
    Were Sakura a true child, she would’ve wept profusely. But since she wasn’t, her tear ducts only cracked. Dust ballooned from her ocular cavities, even the empty one. And although she was not human, she was capable of humanly emotion. Fear, desire, revenge. These concepts circulated about her otherwise hollow head. She would exact revenge on she whom had taken her most cherished friend.
    Along one crisp evening, upon which the zephyr was ever so slight, Miko returned home bringing with her her most beloved of friends, Ester. With Ester she needed no one else, she longed for her, and her alone. And if I’m not mistaken, Ester felt these sentiments exactly. Miko’s parents rejoiced at the fact that Miko finally had a real friend, and were very anxious to meet her that night.
    Miko’s Mother prepared Sushi, which Ester never had the pleasure of eating before, but by the end of the meal, she agreed, that it was wonderful and just had to learn this new art skill. “Edible art.” She held in recitation as she engorged chopstick after chopstick of the Japanese delicacy. Miko’s father recounted the story of how he, when visiting Tokyo on business, fell in love with Miko’s Mother, as well her culinary skills, and simply had to make her his wife.
    There was much joviality that evening. All felt swell except for Sakura, who sat brooding in her rocking chair. Creak, creak it went as it rocked in a faint breeze. The chair seemed as if to be holding communion with the house at it settled. Perhaps they were speaking upon casual affairs. Sakura cared not.
    The old Victorian house wasn’t ventilated well and was rather cold this time of year. Sometimes Miko would refer to it as “Cold as a meat locker.” Aside from being cold, it was also musty. You know the scent. Aged varnish. The aroma of a store room arrayed with wooden crates and spider webs, high, lofty ceilings. Echoes permeated that place even when not a sound was to be heard.
    After supper Miko showed Ester up to her room, the room which held Lady Sakura, the tempestuous doll. Ester had heard of Sakura only from children tittering over it throughout school. She knew not if it were true or not. A fourteen year old girl who still talked to a doll as if it were a real person. That was absurd, she thought. But this was what drew her to Miko. Not her ethereal beauty, or her intellect, although these were wondrous qualities; But her abnormality. This was the oil lamp that lead the moth astray. (Ester.)
    Ester had never met anyone like Miko before, and was certain she’d never meet anyone like her again, at least not in this life. To elucidate further upon this subject, she believed that Miko was indeed her soul mate, and if death parted them in this life, they would find one another again in the next. She wanted to hold fast to her forevermore. No one else. To covet her as a prized possession. To adore her. Lavish her with attention and fine endowments. Though she was not the only one whom was desirous of those things.
    The door creaked obstreperously upon letting the girls into the moonlitten room. The window was open, the drapes were tied. Ringlets of moonlight bathed the room in their lambent buoyancy, and shone on the girls’ faces, giving the impression of spirits lost along their journey home. Sakura was displeased.
     Miko lead Ester to the window where she pointed downwards, towards the magnificent garden below. Ester adored snap dragons, lilies, daisies. All were accounted for here. The scent of lilac crept, as did the shadows along the barren walls of Miko’s silent dwelling.
    Ester commented upon the sunflowers of tall stalk that also could be beheld from the window, just beyond the garden, atop a dreary heath. She felt a cool draft slip through the room, chilling her ankles and spine. The inert feeling of formication ensnared her. She felt encumbered. Something was watching her. Something with a plethora of eyes; Just a whisper of unease.   
    Ester turned around, and found herself gazing at the doll. “This must be the famous Lady Sakura?” She thought to herself. Her kimono resplendent with cherry blossoms. her cheeks looking as if they could’ve been rouge once upon a time. And of course, she was de void a left arm. “What happened to your doll?” Ester murmured. Miko’s eyebrows rose in surprise, she stammered. “She...” Without words, Miko’s eyes welled with tears, causing Ester to turn her attention away from Sakura.
    With a gentle hug, Ester assured her that it’d be alright, and with a kiss washed away her tears. The tears tasted salty, and brought upon several memories of visiting the ocean along her days of youth . Miko gave but a crooked grin, watching Ester’s eyes moving rapidly beneath her eyelids as she reminisced of times long since passed.
    Ester’s eyes were not the only in movement. Sakura’s eyes darted as a scavenger’s , scanning the sickly grasses for carrion. However, Mrs. Sakura was more a predator, she preferred to hunt, to kill, rather than feed off of the already dead. For her intended prey was just that. Prey. Living. A fountain of blood fashioned after an attractive, teenaged schoolgirl. What wicked thoughts crossed that otiose basin that was Sakura’s cranium that night.
    After a long period of amorous squeezing, all was well with the two girls and Miko recounted a story she’d heard about a spectral steed that grazed near a nameless grave in the cemetery just near her home. They agreed a gay time would be had by all were they to run out and see such a thing. So off they went, skirts mingling amidst the breeze.
    But there was no gaiety to be had by Sakura. The silent room felt awkwardly welcoming. The walls sighed, holding no compassion for her. Why when she dwelt in misery did she deem it fitting? The door had closed abruptly, leaving her all alone with the sappy, big eyed kid paintings festooning the walls. The atrociously sweet poetry ran rampant through her porcelain skull. How was she to end this agony, this perpetual suffering? She knew only one way, she came to but one conclusion. Ester had to die.
    After all, she’d learned punishment from the best. However, after she thought about it for a while she wondered if she’d enjoy herself more were she to make Ester’s demise slow and painful. Methodical and agonizing. “Yes.” She thought. “That’s just what I’ll do.” She toyed with the notion of using a hatchet, a butcher’s knife, the trowel Miko’s Mother used when tending the garden. None seemed satisfactory.
    “But what about the vice? Ah, the vice.” Her eye gleamed with such a diligent malevolence that she wondered if the Devil himself had ever concocted such a truly sinister plan. “The Devil himself has nothing on me!” She cackled, almost hearing Ester’s screams already, ringing in her once finely crafted ears. “But how can I do it? I’m too small. I haven’t the strength to grind her into the vice” She thought.
    Sakura toiled in her stationary position, if only in her mind, but the girls knew nothing of her malignant plans. They pranced as maidens through silent woods, they basked in pale moonlight and laid down in flowerbeds. To them the moon never looked fuller, and the air never smelled so sweet.
    The cemetery was surrounded, and entangled by blackberry brambles. The stone walls were simply overrun with them. The girls stopped at one point to savor a few of the blackberries. The scent was enchanting and seemed dense enough that one may’ve actually been able to see it aloft the wind. Blackberry juices stained their mouths and fingertips. They decided they would jump the wall instead of journeying about to locate the gate.
    Ester went first, signaling Miko to follow. Miko took her time climbing atop the wall, as she was very un-athletic. Ester had already made it over by the time Miko had only reached the top, her skirt snagged on one of the various blackberry thorns encircling the area. Upon pulling it out again, Miko lost her balance, toppling from the wall’s highest peak. As well, her sleeve caught a thorn on the way down, tearing it from wrist to shoulder.
    It just so happened that her left arm was revealed. This time it was awash with unintentional blood. Miko lay in a crinkled heap amidst a blanket of dead leaves, her dress and sleeve resembling her Mother’s couch after having met the wrath of  Sakura. Her now naked, sallow flesh glowed by the light of stars and moon, showing sanguine droplets at play. They streaked as rain along a window’s glass during a heavy storm, being blown by a stringent wind current.
    Her forehead, as well, had fallen victim to the gnashing teeth of the blackberry bushes. A razor-thin gash expelled blood from her right eyebrow. It’s open to interpretation wether or not the way Miko had been situated that night, there beneath the twisted brambles of the blackberry bush, that she resembled Christ; Adoring a crown of thorns, bleeding for the many sins of mankind.
    A dense fog layered the stark grounds of the cemetery, lingering about the numerous stones and effigies, angels and crucifixes. Fireflies kept vigil here and appeared to be the dancing eyes of some of the luckier statues. Two fireflies puttered about the interior of a semi-hollowed tree, who’s duel limbs stretched outward as if a set of partially decayed wings. They too resembled eyes, the tree appearing to be the grisly ferryman himself. Death.
    The girls paid no mind to this, the atmosphere struck them naught. Miko laid curled along the outskirts of the cemetery, crumpled against the stone wall. Her back was mantled with flakes of stone that followed with her descent. Miko had always covered herself, as to let no one in on her little secret. Her ardently painful secret. Ester’s eyes fell upon that secret, as one would fall into a circuitous chasm from which there wasn’t end.
    Miko was a chasm. A complexly assembled jigsaw puzzle that was lain before Ester disassembled, as jigsaw puzzles are meant. The rigmarole was drawn in bloodied scar tissue; The conundrum quite visible through torn cloth. Ester was without word to mend her perplexing love, but only kisses, which she placed accordingly up the arm, the neck, face, and all places in need of healing. I foreshadowed this quite some time ago. Blood was indeed the greatest taste Ester had ever savored.
    Ester ran her tongue from Miko’s wrist into the palm of her hand, dipping her tongue into the majestic crimson pool which awaited her there. Her thirst could not be slaked. She would look to Miko for all days to come to quell her bloodlust. Their bodies entwined, surrounded only by the night sounds, and the tunnels of dead beneath them. They smelled of cobblestone and bark, cinders and sand. Copper.
    They appeared evanescent, attaining oneness with the fog moving about them. They fell backwards into the sea of deathly leaves and wraithlike mist. If this was oblivion they welcomed it with open arms, embracing one another as rapturing savior. The church bell struck midnight, the witching hour was upon them. The ghost steed trundled out along the grave lands, he too veiled within the thread-like smoke. He did indeed graze near an unmarked tomb. There his master was lain. There the grasses tasted sweeter.
    Sakura dreamt of a time wherein she and Miko could again live within each other’s fantasies, darting about their tranquil garden. Complacent with togetherness. Sharing one another’s thoughts. Her face, were it able to contort, would’ve worked itself into a highly grievous smirk. She would twiddle her thumbs, concentrating on things to come. “When will the time come?” She wondered. “When shall death play out so gallantly? As the knight to the dragon, so shall I be.”
    She painted pictures in her mind, all pastel, all rigorously. All marked by death. She traveled a path along which candles all diminished as she reached the end. The flames of the candelabra waned. Milk soured as pestilence lurched forth from a place of stygian pits and brine. She thought extraneously on the subject of Ester’s death and the reprisal of Miko’s affections. She’d plant the corpse in the flowerbed so she could gaze out on it regularly. And from her decomposing corpse, Sakura envisioned beautiful flowers blooming as she and Miko’s love was rekindled.
    Mrs. Sakura then stumbled upon something left carelessly lying about the floor of the drafty interior of what she called a brain. A fraction of a thought that grew as shadows lengthened. “If I were only real, Miko could look upon me with passionate eyes.” Thus began Sakura’s search for mortality.
    She’d a warped sense of reality, but then a reality wherein a doll encounters thought processing isn’t exactly reality at all, is it? Not to mention the fact she’d ramble on for hours with no real voice at all. She’d somehow gotten the idea that she could squirm her way into reality, as a worm into an apple. A maggot into the would be corpse of Ester. “If I only had a body to harbor my spirit!” She belched, chortling at the very thought.
    Ester’s death was catalyst, assuring her life, so she believed anyway. She’d discard the poor girl’s soul and take the body as her own. “But how does one expel a soul from a body?” She hadn’t the slightest clue. “I mustn’t ruin the body if I intend to use it. But I do wish to kill her so.” Sakura seemed psychotic, her conversations with herself lengthened until they deteriorated all together into nonsensical yammering.
    After several minutes that may or may not have been hours, Sakura came to the conclusion that stealing a soul involved much more effort than an easily hosted murder. She’d be the hostess for once, and Ester the guest of honor. She’d give her two lumps. Not sugar, mind you. She believed an axe would do the trick, and Ester’s blood would flow like an enchanted stream in some ill-gotten fable. Then she settled on the soul thing. No, the murderous plot. She stewed.
    As seconds ticked away to minutes and minutes to hours, Sakura labored steadily. She concocted a most devious plan that was forgotten instantaneously. Her eyelashes twitched as a fly landed along her plaster-like face. Not long after, Miko and overnight guest, Ester, arrived home for the night. Sakura smelled the bated blood on their breath.
Miko drew the curtain and stepped towards Ester, whom laid splayed out along the bed. She then bent down, and kneeling on the ground, rummaged about under her bed. The room was stoical and dark.
    “What’re you looking for?” Ester asked, spreading her arms out onto the bed, running them along the cool, cream colored sheets, as if making snow angels. Miko stood up, revealing a luminous glass jar, wherein fireflies were held. “I caught them for you, we can watch them in their miniature world. I keep them here in re-creation of night. They’re like stars. I’ve named them for us.” Ester placed a cupped hand against the incandescent jar, the fireflies fluttering inside. Their light cast strange images along the walls, like sketchy shadow puppets doing pirouettes “What’re their names?” “Ester and Miko.” Miko said, diverting her eyes from Ester’s for not more than a second. “I know there are others but, they’re like two constellations. The rest are just shared stars.”
    Ester ran her slender hand along Miko’s with a smile, pressing it softly against hers. Then from her hand, Ester traced Miko’s arm, to neck, fascinated by the sensation of her lithe flesh. She grasped lightly at the nape of Miko’s neck, then onto the throat. She squeezed gently as Miko relinquished the jar to the floor, and mounted her, a sharp breath escaping her lungs. Crickets chirped at not so far off a distance. Silhouetted masses spawned then retracted. The walls seemed to breathe with a chilled vapor.
    Childlike whispers fell like pebbles to the ocean. A sedimentary effect followed and gave way to new and more salacious soundscapes. Sakura heard neither. She waited for slumber to serenely wash them away to summerland. While they pranced in a paradise so fervent, she would assure Ester’s sleep lasted far longer than was intended. And soon enough sleep lead them off hand in hand, but not before a myoclonic jerk or two.
    Morning came fluently, for Sakura found herself locked in the closet. Bound, gagged, she voicelessly screamed out to no avail. If it’s one thing Sakura hated, besides Ester, it was the dark. For her, this was the ultimate punishment. The closet seeped cruelly calculating darkness. She could feel it reaching out for her, like the spiny tendrils of some inconceivable monster. She tried to recall the prior night’s events.
    However her concentration was broken when Miko vociferously screeched from behind the closet door, within the room beyond. “What did you do!? What did you do!?”
Sakura hadn’t an idea of how she was supposed to answer any of these questions with a gag in her mouth. Further questions could be raised upon the idea that Sakura could actually answer questions at all.
    Without another moments notice, Miko threw open the closet door, tearing Sakura from her dismal threshold. Scragged, Sakura was unable to move, and thus was slammed forcefully against the closet door; Miko’s usually beauteous face, all the while, transfiguring itself into a vision of morbidity. A vile miasma slunk from her maw as she choked somewhat before regaining a sliver of composure. Caterwauling, she made her way towards Sakura, words seemed meaningless. Would answers come?
    “Tell me! Why!?” Miko pined, hysterically sobbing, her entire frame shaking. Sakura smiled, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror near the door. “Tell you why?” Sakura spoke, seemingly flabbergasted by the sound of her own voice, admiring herself in the mirror. “They knew, didn’t they? We can’t let anybody know.” “Know what!? I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Miko paced feverishly from one side of the room to the other, until she collapsed in front of the mirror.
    She then jolted to her feet, laughing maniacally, bleating with an intense rage that would’ve driven her insane, had she not already been. She hurled her arms outward, Sakura secured tightly in her grip, and again rammed Sakura, this time against the mirror; The shrine of photographs all fell from their position encircling the mirror: All were of Ester and Miko. This must’ve triggered Sakura’s memory of what transpired the night before. It spilled into her like a torrid deluge of crystalline water. “What I did...”
   Sakura gazed into the moon’s pallid, skeletal face, then to the bed containing the huddled shapes of both Ester and Miko respectively. She knew tomorrow would be different. The flowers in the garden swayed as if living more so than they did. The whistling of stray winds could be heard trekking tree tops, and night birds sang their poignant song. Mr. James, and Mrs. Midori James, Miko’s parents, could be seen enjoying a moonlitten cup of tea in the garden below.
    Ester enwrapped her arms about nothingness. Opening her eyes, she found Miko was no longer there beside her. She gripped at the blankets, feeling lost, alone and helpless in the somber room. She sat up in the bed, finding beads of sweat dribbling down her face. Her back felt clammy, her white tank top clinging to it due to the excess moisture. She heard an owl hoot close by, then another, perhaps there were a congregation of them rallying about the trees just near the window. The macabre doll that had sat in the rocking chair the night before was no longer there. The chair rocked solitarily, creaking as though fictitious weight satiated the emptiness.
    Ester stood, wearing only the saturated tank top, and underwear, she shivered somewhat. Sweat rolled from her legs even in the night chill. She stared out of the window, taking in the scenery just outside. It’d grown quite darker. The trees’ overhanging branches sashayed in the night air, and at their feet, the garden could scarcely be seen through the ornate darkness. Ester couldn’t make out the shadows shifting about the flower bed.
    An echo from the hallway reminisced Miko’s voice, it caught Ester’s ear, whom backed away from the window and turned towards the partially open door. Light bloomed from the halfway crevice, projecting itself into the room. It could be seen only along the floor until Ester opened the door fully, then it fell upon her as well. The floors creaked as she made her way through the blisteringly bright hallway, her bare feet along the cool, wood stained floors. Such a contrast this was from Miko’s room. Although the hall was brilliantly bright, Ester still held an ominous feeling.
    The laughter of a little girl played about the hallway walls, a disembodied voice accompanied by the clattering of a few piano keys. Ester’s eyes darted rapidly, shock seemed to strangle her short breaths. Soon, she found herself near the washroom. She flicked on the light inside, glancing into the empty cubicle. Here’s where she noticed the color of the walls differed somewhat in one place. Just above the sink. The paint was whiter there. An outline signified where once a mirror had hung. Ester had just seen it there earlier that night when washing up for bed.
    She then turned on the faucet just to watch the water run down the drain, only to turn it off again seconds later.  Her eyes moved to the shower curtain, which she pulled slightly to the left, revealing nothing. Footsteps grabbed her attention, she turned about swiftly. They had passed just behind her through the hallway. Tiny, dainty footsteps. The kind made by a small child when just learning to walk upright.
    She pictured it. The child’s enormous head weighting it backwards. The steps slipshod and inconsistent. Slowly first, then hastening. Toddling, teetering. She’d the most disconcerting feeling that an olden, corrosive doll was sweeping about this house of its own accord. Doing things it aught not be doing. “Miko?” Her voice seemed to be lost in the giganteum house, just as she was. She followed the ginger footsteps she’d heard just moments ago, she moved slowly, this is all her fear permitted.
    The staircase leading to the downstairs living quarters was ahead. She pressed her palm against the wall as she crept forward, awestricken and silent. Her fingernails slid, scraping in a most nettlesome manner the wall’s white wash. Her breathing quickened as she placed her right foot to the top most stair, followed by her left foot upon the secondary. She breathed in deeply, grimacing, she pressed on. One stair, two stairs. Although shiny and cool, they felt as a marshland to her; A sinking sensation encasing her as she moved.
    Ester found herself careening in the James’ family living quarters. The fireplace was litten, she heard the crackling as she’d met the end of the staircase. It reminded her of a story her mother used to tell her of a witch whom lived within the fireplace of their old house on Front St. Of course, there wasn’t a witch. It was just a scare tactic used to keep her away from the lapping flames. The witch was said to have swept leaves with her broom, into a realm where dust and ghosts pitched anecdotes no one believed. That life Ester remembered seemed so far away now.
    “Hello?” She said aloud, staring into the lively flames, then doing a quarter turn, looking about at her surroundings. “We’re in the garden.” A familiar voice rang, in its effervescent but now somehow disturbing tone. The fire quickly died away, as if a heavy gust of wind had blown into its vicinity. It hadn’t waned in the slightest before vanishing completely from sight. There was no wind, the night was eerily still.
    Ester tiptoed into the kitchen, where the door leading to the garden was located. She reached forward, walking with her right arm outstretched as to turn the knob very soon. Her fingers trembled with anticipation. The door swung ajar as she approached it, and she retracted her hand quickly. Petrified, she stood fixating on the scene she saw within the garden. Fog laced the garden floor, an aromatic breeze of grass and varied floras rained in on her. Dead leaves blew in along the floor, pulled along with a now faint airwave. She took the first step outdoors with caution.
    A magical tea party had been set, everyone was invited. What was left of the Jester. Mr. Onion Head, the black fox was even there. “Good, Evening.” He said, licking his incisors. “Won’t you join us for a spell?” Ester was terrified, unable to speak, to comprehend. “We’ve saved you a place, Ester.” Sakura stood from the chair she’d been sitting in at the end of the table. “All my friends are here. And look, Miko’s parents have joined us, too.”
    Ester’s head pivoted, noticing Miko’s parents sitting at opposite sides of the table. Though something was amiss. Their faces no longer looked supple, they looked as if they’d congealed. They were now a pasty color, stiff and devoid emotion. Their eyes stared, unblinking. Their mandibles seemed to have been carved out to resemble that of marionettes. Blood drizzled from the open wounds, glistening along their doll-like veneers.

    “I haven’t the answers. But they do. The puppets. The puppets can tell you. Tell me!” Sakura shouted, as she mimicked the jaw movements of Mr. James, blood saturating her hands as she did so. “I want to know how to attain humanity!” Ester screamed, backing away slowly. The scream lasted only a second, dismantling itself to sobs rather quickly. “Don’t go, Ester. You’re the guest of honor. Come take a seat over here by Mummsy and Daddsy.” Sakura’s voice crackled with all the vice and frailty she’d grown accustomed.
    Ester continued stepping away from the harrowing scene playing out before her. She walked backwards, never diverting her attention from Sakura. “No...” Ester was able to mutter through mostly incoherent sobs. Tears rolled down her face. She came back to the exterior of the house, pressing her body against it, sliding down. The assembly of dolls and stuffed animals only laughed uproariously. Their laughter filling the dismal night.
    Sakura’s telltale of the event in question ended there. “What did...I do...” Sakura stammered. Miko’s eyes were glossy, her dark hair hanging over her face in tousled, viscid strands. Her breathing was sporadic. She twitched, still clasping Sakura in her talon like fingers. “Why!? Where’s Ester!?” She slammed Sakura again into the mirror. She caught sight of herself, staring back. Her mouth was crusted with dried saliva, her lips chaffed and dry. “Where’s my parents!?” She screamed, shaking the immobile doll again. “Where’s Ester!?”
    Veering back, Miko thrust the doll outwards, connecting it with the mirror, shattering it instantaneously. A glassy mist enveloped her, causing her to close her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw that her fists were caked sanguine. The whole of the mirror had met ruination, except for a few shards resembling ice sickles remained near the top most corner. Miko blinked, coming eye to eye with the doll once again. “Tell me!?” She screeched, clasping at the dolls throat tighter. “I’ll tell you.” A morbific voice whispered, emitting from the most likely of places. It was a shrill, high voice. Miko  caught a glimpse of her own face in the mirror.
    “Sakura!? Sakura!?” She shook the doll, the arms and legs whipping the air. Flopping lifelessly. The second voice came again. “I won’t tell.” Miko’s lips quivered as she watched her own reflection speaking the words within the confines of the cold mirror fragments. “No.” Miko cooed, her eyes dropping to the floor, where a pool of blood had collected. Blood spattered from Miko’s right wrist, a large, jagged piece of glass still lodged in her supple skin. She was mesmerized by the letting of blood, the way it gleamed upon the glass.
    Then, quickly, she extracted it with an ounce of gratifying pain, causing more blood to flow. A wad of blood spewed from her split wrist. Lush and chunky. Again looking to the broken mirror, she found herself to be gaunt and sallow. She felt dizzy, hollowed,  weak, noticing the amount of blood that had collected upon the floor below her. With each droplet that fell, accumulating, she heard it as if it were a thunder storm. She dropped the doll whom she once called Sakura, and collapsed in the ever increasing vermillion puddle.
    Miko, faint and nearly ineffectual, crawled towards the door, leaving a trail of bloody hand prints along the floor. She balanced herself with a hand against the wall, bedecking the room with gore. She let out a choked whimper, displaying the palms of her hands. Particles of glass were embedded therein, and blood was not at a loss. “Ester...” Miko gurgled, throwing her shoulders against the door to prop herself up. Her legs seemed useless and noodle-like, rubbery. Soon, she was immobile. Her neck swiveled left, taking in the lengthy spoor of blood. Her neck again cocked, gazing down the lurid hallway. “I’m sorry...”
    With a second look to the blood trail, she recalled a faerie-tale about two small children who followed a trail of bread crumbs to find their way from the Witch’s wood. Her breathing slowed, her teary eyes closed. Had her heart belonged to her, and not Ester, I would make the point that it’s beat ceased then. She found herself surrounded by greenery, a vast and uncharted wood set before her. A trail of bread crumbs lined a path through the disconsolate forest. Somehow this soothed her. She followed the trail to a moss wrought, ivy clad water well, fashioned from cobblestone.
    She felt a small, cool object clasped firmly in her fist. She un-balled her hand, and there resting in her palm was a silver coin. She dropped it down the murky, dark depths of the wishing well, a wish along her lips. If you’re wondering what she wished for you haven’t been paying close enough attention, I’m afraid. But, thank you for reading, nonetheless. Writing this has brought me great happiness. And to those who have been paying attention, I’m sure this ambiguous ending has brought you great happiness, as well. The end.