Page 20 of All the Things We Buried

NINETEEN

DORIAN

I woke up in an empty house. The front door was open, creaking slightly in the breeze. Beside me, a smear of dried blood stained the floorboards. The silence was heavy, broken only by the soft rustle of wind slipping through the doorway.

I rose slowly, my limbs stiff from the fall. I looked around, trying to speak, to make a sound, but nothing left my lips. My throat felt hollow, like something had been scraped clean.

When I turned around, I saw a little girl at the top of the stairs. A music box played somewhere behind her. Für Elise , playing faintly down like the memory of something I wasn’t sure ever happened.

My legs felt like they belonged to someone else. I staggered, glancing behind me more than once, unsure if there was still a body, and am I was one of the ghosts now.

At the top of the stairs, a door stood open. The room everyone had been forbidden to enter. The same room where Ian and I used to hide.

I stepped inside.

It was empty now.

The girl stood in the center, cradling a doll in her arms. This time, the doll’s hair was a different shade of blonde, almost white, like bleached bone.

She knelt on the floor, humming as she rocked it gently.

Behind her was a large dollhouse looking like a replica of Gloomsbury, its tiny windows watching.

“Am I?” I asked. “Did I die?”

She looked at me with wide eyes that didn’t blink. “Almost.”

The door closed behind me without a sound.

I moved toward the dollhouse, drawn by something I couldn’t explain. As I leaned in, I saw figures inside. Small, stiff walnut men standing by miniature beds, their carved faces twisted into wooden grins. I looked closer, narrowing my eyes.

The floor inside the dollhouse was shining.

It wasn’t marble. It was a mosaic of human teeth. Polished and pale, packed tightly together.

I gasped and stepped back.

“Shh,” the girl whispered. “You’ll wake her up.”

I turned to face her, my pulse a steady throb in my temples. I took a slow step forward.

“What is happening?” I asked, pressing my hands to my head.

“The first ghost was Wrath,” she said, brushing the doll’s hair with her fingers. “He came home dead from the war, and his anger soaked into the walls. You can feel it when you sleep.”

Her voice was soft; she’d said this many times before.

“Then came Lust, the second ghost. He loved too much. Everything that moved, he tried to make his. Then Sloth, he’s the third. He doesn’t walk. He crawls.”

She looked up briefly, her eyes blank.

“The fourth ghost is Greed. He steals. He always steals. Fifth is Envy. Always watching. Always wanting. Sixth is Gluttony. He choked. Stuffed himself until his heart stopped.”

She paused, placing the doll carefully in her lap.

“And the seventh... is Pride. He chose never to die. He decided forever was better.”

I stared at her. The doll’s glass eyes caught the light as she brushed its hair again.

“They all died in this house. Except one. Mommy said if we want to live forever, we just have to stay here. Everyone wanted that.”

“Who is everyone?” I asked.

“You hear them too.” She tilted her head. “They never chose to die.”

“Who?” I whispered.

She looked past me, her voice lowering.

“They’re buried in the walls. All of them. The house needed to live, so they gave themselves to it. Every year, someone crosses into this place... and survives.”

“No. This is a dream,” I said, starting to hit my forehead with my palm. “This isn’t real.”

“You heard them,” she said. “They always call. Three times. Eighteen voices.”

My breathing grew shallow.

“They haunt you... because of her.”

I froze. “Who?”

“The wet lady,” she said. “She’s always in the bathtub, crying.”

The girl hugged the doll tightly.

“She’s always sad. She died from a broken heart.”

Then, the dollhouse began to shift.

It moved slowly, grinding against the floorboards, its base groaning like it was alive. Loose papers fluttered from beneath it, and one flew toward me, clinging to my hand.

I looked down.

“Sophie?” I read the name aloud, stunned.

“Yes,” the girl said without looking up.

My vision blurred for a moment. I blinked hard, staring at her face.

She blinked back and then smiled.

She had no teeth.

A cold scream tore from my throat as I stumbled away from her.

That girl was Sophie.

But how?

She stood there, holding the doll in her arms, eyes fixed on me.

“The wet lady got me,” she said. “Before I lived too far. She gave me tea, and then she took everything that made me beautiful.”

I gasped, breath catching in my throat. Something twisted inside me, crawling up my spine. I forced myself to stand, my legs trembling under me.

I moved toward the door. Just as my hand touched the handle, her voice floated across the room again.

“This room is where it all began,” she whispered. “It’s why this house breathes.”

I didn’t look back.

I made it down the stairs, stumbling like I had forgotten how to walk, searching desperately for any sign that this was just another nightmare. But the air only grew colder. And the only person I wanted to see was nowhere.

“She’s gone,” Vivian said from the kitchen.

I turned, and there she was, seated at the table. She has been waiting. “Lenore left.”

“She left?” I said, my voice cracking. “No.”

I touched my head. The blood was still warm, sticky against my fingers.

“You have a job to do,” Vivian said calmly.

I didn’t respond. I walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat across from her, staring straight ahead.

“She left?” I repeated, softer this time.

Vivian only nodded.

Lenore left me.

She left me.

But she promised.

She fucking promised.

My hand slammed against my forehead. I hit it again, harder, until tears spilled down my cheeks and spit dripped from my mouth. My head throbbed, but it was nothing compared to the pain cracking open inside my chest. I could feel the salt tracing down my face.

This was the first time I cried since Ian died.

And it was because of her.

She reached inside me and touched something I thought had long since rotted. And now she was gone.

I felt hollow. Like a ghost still haunting a place no one lived in anymore.

When someone disappears without warning, without goodbye, without a single goddamn trace... all you’re left with is that bitter taste they left behind. And you ask yourself the same thing over and over.

What did I do wrong?

Did I push her too hard? Did I not pull her close enough?

I felt empty.

The bitch left me.

She left me.

How dare she?

Of course, she left a bitter taste. Of course, she made everything worse. I was crumbling. My chest felt like it was caving in. All I could hear were the voices in my head, chanting the same word over and over.

Cut. Cut. Cut.

Then her voice came to me, barely a whisper, like it lived in my bones.

She was the only one I opened my heart to. The only one I ever truly felt anything for. My first real love. Everyone before her was a passing shadow. But she... she was my entire world. She was the one I waited for, the one I wanted to change for.

And I let her in.

I let her break down the walls I built after too many nights left bleeding inside.

She made me speak when I wanted silence. She stirred things I buried years ago. She made something inside me bloom, wild and dangerous and real.

I stood up and punched the table.

I killed for her.

Fuck, I would’ve died for her.

I wanted everything with her. A house. A family. A future.

But that was the problem.

I wanted.

I hoped.

And dreams, they’re nothing but illusions of what could be.

Reality is always different.

So this time, I chose to bury something else.

Not just the memories.

But my feelings.

And anyone who came with them.