Nadia had slept three nights in the house she’d inherited from her grandmother, and every night she had the same dream. Nightmare, really. She heard crying coming from the attic, and when she went to investigate, she found a three-foot-tall Japanese woman trapped in a wooden crate. Then the dream shifted, and she was trapped in a crate. She cried and cried, but nobody let her out.
Remnants of the dream clung to the edges of Nadia’s brain like cobwebs. She shuffled into the bathroom and splashed water on her face, trying to wash them away. The old pipes groaned. For a moment, their vibration sounded almost like crying.
She shut off the water. Chilly droplets trickled down her face, dripping into the sink. The tinnitus that she’d developed in her thirties masked sounds in a certain frequency. She could almost make out a faint… something. But not quite.
Images of a crate flashed in her mind randomly as she brushed her teeth.
Her eggs nearly burned as she stood, greasy spatula hanging from her right hand, listening for cries. They rang in her head. But were they real? The smell of singed butter brought her back to herself. Her fingers trembled as she shut off the gas burner.
“This is crazy. I have to check,” Nadia muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose with her left hand. Her right hand tightened on the spatula. She carried it with her as she made her way to the hall and pulled down the attic stairs. It felt a bit nuts, wielding a greasy spatula as if it were an effective weapon against anything bigger than a spider. Then again, here she was climbing into the attic looking for a three-foot-tall woman in a crate that she’d seen in a dream. Carrying a spatula ranked pretty far down this morning’s weirdness list.
The attic smelled of must and decay. Ominous shapes loomed in the darkness, a menagerie of blocky specters cloaked in shadow. Nadia fumbled, left-handed, for the chain to turn on the light. She yanked it hard enough to shower herself with dust and strands of fiberglass insulation. She swished the spatula back and forth, ready to fend off any threats.
Crumpled cardboard boxes formed precarious towers, piled three or four high in some places. Stacks of moth-eaten blankets, chairs with busted seats or broken legs, and an old sewing mannequin made up the random shapes that had felt so sinister in the dark. Nadia counted her breaths, in and out.
A wooden crate stuck out from behind a pile of boxes. Nadia’s heart rate doubled.
“It’s nothing, Nadia. Coincidence. You probably saw this as a child and the memory surfaced in your dreams.” Her gut ignored her pep talk, refusing to unclench. She forced her trembling legs to carry her to the crate. She knelt and tried the lid. Nailed shut. She wedged the spatula beneath the edge, but only managed to bend the flimsy utensil.
Glancing around the attic, she spotted a rusty claw hammer. She pulled the thin nails loose with a wailing screech and lifted the lid. A three-foot-tall woman in traditional Japanese robes stared up at her from inside the crate. Shock froze Nadia in place.
It’s a doll. The rational part of Nadia’s mind wrestled with her primal instincts, gradually reasserting control. It’s not a woman. It’s a doll. A doll can’t hurt you.
Shoulder-length black hair framed the doll’s pale face. Its flat eyes looked dead, yet oddly alive. This is bad. I should close it up and leave it. Its faint smile radiated warmth and friendship. Nadia didn’t want to trust it. But somehow, she did. Before she knew what she was doing, she reached out to pick it up. “Well, I can’t just leave you here. Come on, I’ll make us some tea while I decide what to do with you.”
Tea for a doll? You really are going crazy. But I definitely need something hot and caffeinated for myself.
Twenty minutes later, the doll rested on a dining room chair while Nadia sat across from it waiting for her tea to cool. As she looked into those painted eyes, her shoulders relaxed. Time stretched and lost all meaning. Something in the back of her mind struggled and cried out, but she closed a lid over it. Why was I ever worried? She sat across from a friend, come to visit from far away.
“I’m sorry. It was rude of me to not offer tea to my guest. Would you like some?” Nadia hurried to make another cup. She set it in front of the woman. No. The doll. The woman. Dizziness swept over her. Foreign thoughts swirled in her head, not quite understandable. A name. “Is there anything else I can get for you, Miss Kobe?”
Whispers. Murmurings. Images of other crates and boxes, in unrecognizable storerooms and closets. Each of them crying. Then, out of the chaos, words formed.
Find… sisters. Free us.
“Yes, of course.” Nadia reached across to take Miss Kobe’s hand. “It’s shameful how you’ve been treated. I’ll do whatever I can to make it right. Help me find our sisters, and I will set them free. I promise.”
