Seven Sisters: Changing

Chapter III: The Basement

I have grown bored with your ignominy.”

“What does ignominy mean?” I sounded out the word pasted in sparkly green letters on the donkey’s side.

“Ignominy has something to do with shame, but I do believe the better question is how did that rickety old woman get a donkey in her basement?” Her drawl quickened as she pranced around and shrieked with joy as she peered around the donkey’s ass. “This isn’t even the best part, Beatrice May Wilkens.”

“Don’t go making up extra names for me, Camilla. You may be pretty, but no one is pretty enough to hoist a middle name on me.”

“Bea that as it May,” she winked, “Wouldn’t you like to know what is inside?”

“Inside what?” It bothered me that she was so far away; the cigarette shook between my plastic fingers. “Camilla, come back here.”

I heard her plastic shoes patter further into the depths of the basement. Why did this house have to be so cold? I took a step forward and could swear I heard breathing.

“That’s your own breath, Bea,” I chided myself. “You are scaring yourself with your own breath.” Something was watching me, I was sure and taking another step felt like forcing myself through a wall. There was that breath again. Was it the donkey? The donkey was breathing. I heard the sound of feet. I took another step. The muffled sounds from the old woman's omnipresent television grew dim.

“Dolls can’t faint. It’s okay, Bea, take another step,” I pushed myself further into the basement, trying not to look too directly in the donkey's direction. “The donkey is not breathing. Stuffed donkeys cannot breathe or move. Dolls cannot faint. Dolls cannot faint because dolls cannot breathe.” My feet stopped moving. Dolls cannot breathe. I looked down at the floor and saw the human footprints.

“Don’t worry,” I heard as I felt myself getting scooped up with a flurry and squeezed into a warm body, “I will take good care of you.”

I froze. I am lying. I fainted. Or I must have because next thing I knew, I was back in my box staring at Alice’s beautifully blank face. The old woman was awake and muttering something about an accident and whose fault it was, and how it had affected her worse than anyone, and was she really to blame.

I wanted out. Something was different; I could feel it beneath my skin, deep within me. A fluttering.  It was like a drum. Every time I close my eyes, it was louder. I would open my eyes and see Alice’s happy baby smile, shudder, and close my eyes again just to be driven mad again by that ridiculous fluttering drum.

It felt like years before the old woman's muttering rant disappeared and was replaced by a startlingly loud store. Had she always snored like this? No, that was new too. I climbed out of my box and peered out of the shopping bag.

“Camilla?”

I heard a sharp scraping from Alice’s box and leapt out of the bag in a sudden burst of energy I had never experienced.

I focused on steadying my breath, on slowing the drumming inside of me.

Alice’s hand pulled down the edge of the shopping bag. She was faced away from me, stepping backwards towards me, dragging something in front of her.

“Alice,” I whispered, “What are you doing?”

“I want my mommy,” she sang in a high-pitched, hollow whisper, “I want my mommy.”

I glanced towards the couch; the old woman’s snores echoed around us.

“It’s okay, Alice,” I held my breath for a moment, “Mommy is just sleeping. Mommy is right there.”

“I want my mommy.” Alice’s voice grew deeper, her head turned around, her eyes met mine, and her eyes were not blank. She had changed, and judging my level of nauseating fear, I was certain I should not stick around to see what she was becoming.

“Alice,” I focused all my attention on the old woman on the couch, “Look!” I pointed and watched her plastic head jerk around.

“Mommy?” she sang. I grabbed a magazine from the stack behind me and flung it towards the couch, knocking over the pile of cups and shattering the glass ashtray.

I ran, not bothering to look back. There was a window that was partially ajar in the second bedroom behind a pile of old chalkboards. I knocked as many things as I could behind me as I clambered up the pile.

“Mommy!” I heard Alice scream for joy, and the old woman screamed in terror. “Mommy, I love you.”

“Camilla!!!” My voice was hoarse, very un-doll-like, “You have to get out! Something is wrong with Alice!” Water was running out of my eyes.

The old woman was sobbing loudly, screaming she was not her mommy, that her daughter was dead, that this was her dead husband’s spirit coming back to haunt her. She was apologizing profusely. Pleading for this to not be real. I could hear Alice crying too, but her tears sounded angry and desperate.

I couldn’t even believe what was happening. Alice should not have been able to move with the old woman looking at her. I squeezed behind the chalkboards and tried to pull the window open a bit wider. The old woman was screaming so loud I was sure the house would cave in. The drum inside of me felt like it was trying to escape, and the water running out of my eyes clouded my vision.

I pulled on the window, and it barely budged, “Come on!” I yelled at it, “Let me out!”

Alice was wailing like a baby, and the old woman became suddenly silent. I could hear movement from the basement. The pile of boxes was loudly being slammed away.

The donkey. It had to be the donkey.

My chest hurt, Alice howled in mourning, the slamming grew louder, and I heaved the stupid window so hard the glass shattered, raining a glittering array around me. I had to leave her. I had to leave Camilla, the brave one, the beautiful one, the perfect one. I dropped down and looked at the drop off out the window, but I had no idea how to gauge a distance so large.

“Camilla,” I cried. I wanted to say I loved her, and the words stuck in my throat. I closed my eyes, and I let myself fall.