6. Lyle

Lyle

1 Moyer Avenue

Silent Falls

            “But I want it!” Maisie whined, stomping her pink sandshoes on the shining wooden floor.

            “It’s not a toy sweetheart,” explained Jack calmly, the blood slowly rushing to his face. “It’s very expensive.”

            “But I want it!” she demanded.

            He and his wife Heather had always envied his brother. He had the one thing they wanted most: a beautiful child. So when he had asked them to look after little Maisie for a month while they went to Australia, they had been more than willing. Now, however, as he stood trying to negotiate with the six year old in an antiques shop, he was pitying his brother.

            “I’m just in here to buy a clock for Auntie Heather, then we’ll go to the toy shop and you can have anything you want. Why don’t we get you that dolly that was on TV this morning? Would you like that?”

            “No! I want that dolly!”

            He couldn’t understand why she would want it. It was just a porcelain blonde haired doll with a dirty pale pink dress and hat. It would break after ten minutes with Maisie. She’d been with them three days and already managed to break five glasses, and fall a hundred times. She always had scabby knees. Probably didn’t get a chance to heal before she fell again.

            “We’ll go to the toyshop first then.”

            “No I don’t want a toy! I want that!”

            “It will break,” he tried to explain. “It’s glass.”

            “I’ll look after it. I promise.”

            “It’s not for children.”

            “I’m not leaving this shop until I get it!”

            “You’re not getting it!”

            “Why the hell did you buy her a porcelain doll?” Heather was unimpressed as she watched Maisie chatting to the doll along with her other dolls.

            “She wouldn’t go without it,” Jack said, feeling ashamed he was blackmailed by her.

            “You should have dragged her out then. They’ve spoiled her. You can’t let her think she can behave like that with us”

            “I know, but I’m no good at this.”

            He looked over at Maisie on the living room floor, wearing her pink nightdress, with her blonde hair down, she looked like the doll. Strange. He hadn’t seen it in the shop, but even the face was similar. The same green eyes.

            “Don’t you think the doll looks a little like her?”

            Heather looked from the doll to Maisie, then back again. “Yes, it does. Maybe that’s why she liked it.” She glanced at the clock and saw it was after nine. “Time for bed Maisie.”

            Maisie ignored her, and continued to chat to her dolls.

            “Maisie, sweetheart, it’s after nine. Time for bed.”

            “No,” she said, without looking up.

            “I said time for bed. Don’t ignore me!” Heather felt her voice raise.

            “I’m not going. I’m playing.”

            “You’re going to bed.”

            “No, I’m not!” she shouted.

            “Yes you are.” And with that, Heather lifted her from the floor, still clutching the doll.

            “Put me down!” Maisie screamed.

            “You’re going to bed. You do not behave like that in this house!”

            She carried Maisie to the spare room where she had been sleeping and placed her on the bed while she protested. “I’m telling Mummy and Daddy!”

            “Oh, don’t worry about that, I’ll be telling them!”

            She turned off the light and closed the door, locking it. Immediately, she could hear Maisie pounding her fists on the door and demanding to be let out.

            “God,” she sighed. “I wish she were as quiet as the bloody doll.”

            Eventually, Maisie tired of screaming and getting nowhere, retreated to bed in a silent rage. Jack and Heather were so strict. Her parents would never have dared drag her to bed. She would tell Daddy when he got home, and he would be angry with Uncle Jack. He would shout at him, quite rightly. Although, Jack had proved easier to sway than Heather. He bought her the doll. She liked the doll. It was a grown up doll. He thought she would break it, but she wouldn’t. She would be extra careful.

            “Wouldn’t make a difference,” said a voice from beside her. She sat up and looked around. There was no one there. She was tired though, maybe she imagined it.

            “No you didn’t.” She looked again, nothing there except her new doll. Her new doll! “Yes, it was me.”

            She couldn’t see it properly in the darkness. It didn’t seem to be moving, but the voice was definitely coming from it. “You know what I do Maisie?”

            “No.”

            “I grant wishes.”

            Maisie gasped with delight. “Really?”

            “Yes.”

            “Well, I wish for…my Mummy and Daddy to come back, and shout at Jack and Heather for being mean!”

            “I only grant one wish.”

            “Grant that then!” she demanded.

            “Someone’s already wished, and it’s their wish that’ll come true.”

            “Maisie, time to get up!”

            She wasn’t getting up now, she was tired. Heather stood above her, already dressed, still looking angry from the night before.

            “Get up Maisie.”

            “No,” she tried to say. But no sound came out of her mouth. She tried again, and again, but she had lost her voice. Forever.