Free Paper Dolls by Anya Allyn

stomach knotted. I felt a sudden need to run and reassure myself that the world I used to know still stood beyond these four walls. With stiff steps, I walked to the window. I recoiled as my face triggered a furor of photo snapping from a ring of photographers in the street below.
    Gathering my hospital gown around me, I made my way out to the corridor. It was empty of patients, the faint smell of bleach rising from the floor. Most of the doors were closed. Inside the few that were open, patients slept—hooked up to monitors and drips.
    Was
Aisha
here somewhere?
Sophronia
?
Frances
? The doctors said they weren’t authorized to give that information. Desperately, I wanted to know where they all were. I’d been told they were all safe and recovering, but that was all.
    A discarded newspaper sat in a trash basket, underneath a bundle of disposable gloves and gowns. A close-up of Ethan’s face was plain to see on the fold of the front cover. With trembling fingers I moved the plastics aside and picked up the paper. The photo of Ethan was the same as the one from school. Even in grainy newspaper print his eyes still held that same expression—a look that tore into your soul.
    My gaze fell to the headline,
Dollhouse shock find—Ribbons under floorboard.
I told myself not to read on. But I did. Line after line of words laced my body with invisible cuts….
    In a shocking twist to the Dollhouse case, hair ribbons matching the ribbons of the dollhouse abductees were found under a loose floorboard in the home that Seth McAllister and his grandson Ethan shared in the Barrington Tops region.
    Ethan McAllister was age nine when the first of the five girls, thirteen-year-old runaway Molly Parkes, was taken from the Barrington Tops forests and kept in the underground tunnels beneath the Fiveash house. Seth McAllister claims his grandson had no knowledge of either the Fiveash house or the horrors that lay beneath it.
    Ethan was found with part of an unknown Fiveash inheritance of gold and diamonds on his person when rescued from the tunnels. The inheritance was buried beneath the landslide that occurred on the Fiveash property immediately after the abductees rescue. Also buried in the landslide were the underground tunnels and the Fiveash house itself.
    There is speculation that the body of an unidentified sixth girl lies within the tunnels. Due to the instability of the earth, no recovery operation can be carried out.
    The owner of the Fiveash house, Mr. Henry Fiveash, fled from the property some time before the date of the rescue.
    Detectives on the Dollhouse case are working to piece together the macabre puzzle.
    A court date has yet to be confirmed.
    The paper fell from between my fingers, fluttering to the floor.
     

16. THE DETECTIVES
    Detective Kalassi came with a team. They were organized, their expressions intent—focused on ferreting out the truths behind the dollhouse. But there were no truths to find—at least, none that I knew. The dollhouse didn’t come with explanations or reasons.
    One of my doctors—Dr. Pearson—insisted upon staying for the duration of the interview. I was his patient, he told the detectives, and he didn’t want me over-stressed.
    Detective Kalassi sat heavily on my right. “Cassie,” he sighed, “there you are.”
    The others smiled at the warmth in his voice.
    “Maybe,” I told him. “I still don’t feel all here.”
    “No,” he sympathized. “You’ve been through most ever will. But I have to tell you how good it is to see you. I can’t tell you what it did to me when I found out we’d lost more kids in that forest. We followed every lead, but nothing. And then you just… appear. It’s a good day when a missing kid is returned. A very good day.”
    A few of the detectives murmured assent. I stared beyond the detectives, to the patch of muted blue sky through the window. “What about Sophronia, Aisha, Frances? Where are they? Are they okay?”
    Detective Kalassi placed a hand