“Well, I’m glad you like it,” she laughed. “But would you mind telling me what you’re talking about?”
“My doll,” Jenny cried. “My beautiful doll.” Then, as June stood looking at her in amazement, Jenny had an inspiration. “I know what I’m going to name her! I’ll call her Michelle! It’s such a beautiful name, and I’ve always wished Michelle and I could have been friends. She was beautiful, wasn’t she? With dark hair, and beautiful brown eyes? Ill bet the doll looks just like her! So now we
And then she was gone, out of the house, searching for her father.
June stood quite still, trying to put it all together. A doll? What doll?
What was Jenny talking about?
Slowly, a thought beginning to grow in her mind, June left the kitchen and headed for the stairs.
It couldn’t be true.
She knew it couldn’t.
It was quite impossible.
But Jenny was going to name the doll Michelle.
June started up the stairs.
She paused at the door to Jenny’s room.
The room she hadn’t wanted Jenny to have.
But Jenny had insisted, and she had given in.
She opened the door hesitantly, and stepped inside.
The doll was on the bed, and as she looked at it, June felt a scream build inside her.
She had burned the doll. She clearly remembered burning it, twelve years ago.
But it was there, and it was not burned, and its sightless, glassy eyes stared blindly up at June.
As the beginnings of panic began to grip her mind, a memory welled up inside her, a memory from her youth.
It was a bit of poetry, from Milton:
Comes the Blind Fury with th’abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
Very quietly, June Pendleton began to cry.
