The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Even A Ghost Sees What’s Going On
by Melissa R. Mendelson 

This used to be her doll house, but she never played with dolls. Instead, she would sit inside and disappear, go somewhere that I couldn’t follow. I would remain beside her as she journeyed with a smile on her face and light in her eyes. She wanted to leave, and she finally did. I’m sorry that she came back.

She wasn’t even back a year when he moved into the large, white house. I begged her to leave, whispering in her ear, “Go. Go as far away as you once did, and never come back.” But she didn’t leave.

I sat in her doll house, hoping for her to come back and remember. “Please remember who you were and why you left,” I prayed, I begged. “Please leave this place before you lose yourself because of him.”

Every night, she stood in front of her bedroom window. A smile played on her lips, such light in her eyes. Even for a ghost, I breathed a sigh of relief. She was telling me that she was okay, but why wouldn’t she come outside and sit with me like she used to?

Days passed. Weeks. It wasn’t much longer when I saw her change, affected by him, and he would never leave. He made himself at home here, and she could go, escape before she lost herself completely. But she didn’t, and I can’t blame her. Why should he make her leave when she was here first?

But there was a change. She looked lost standing in front of her bedroom window. Her smile sideways, her eyes confused, chasing after a thought or two that she might have had but then quickly faded away.

“Please, come outside,” I said. “Please, you need to come to me.”

As more time passed, she grew thin, pale. Her smile a stranger on her face, her eyes narrow, distrustful. She gazed at her doll house not out of nostalgia but resentment, and he remained as she drifted away.

It was a bitter January morning. The white paint on the doll house was peeling away, snow dripped in from a broken roof. If I was still alive, I would have frozen to death.

She wandered outside, barefoot in the snow, a thin, pale nightgown over her body. Her face was drawn, her lips tight, and her eyes vacant. She stumbled forward, caught herself and then walked inside, taking her seat where a more younger, alive version once sat. Maybe, that was who she was looking for.

I sat beside her, whispering in her ear, trying to bring her back. Nothing. She was gone, but she was still there. And she was waiting for something, but what was she waiting for?

“Come back,” I prayed, I begged. “Come back to me.” I touched her hand, and it was ice cold.

“I should never have come back.” Her voice drifted like a harsh breeze. “When he arrived, I should have left, but I was stubborn. Why should I leave when I was here first?”

To my surprise, she looked at me.

I smiled, but my smile vanished. I looked through her at the body now laying on the ground in the soft snow.

“Now.” She folded her hands over mine. “Now, we can go.”

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Fiction © Copyright Melissa R. Mendelson
Image Copyright Rie Sheridan Rose

About Author Melissa R. Mendelson:

Melissa R. Mendelson is the author of the Sci-Fi Novella, Waken.  She also has a prose poetry collection called, This Will Remain With Us published by Wild Ink Publishing.  Her short story collections, Better Off Here and Name’s Keeper can be found on Amazon/Amazon Kindle.

If you’d like to learn more about Melissa, you can visit her accounts here: www.MelissaMendelson.com