Anna Snoekstra - Little Secrets

Rose took out two bowls from the cupboard. She opened the chip packets, the plastic making loud squeaky sounds, and threw a chip toward Mia. She opened her mouth wide, but it missed, landing on her forehead. Rose emptied the rest into the bowls.

The squeaking sound of bedsprings moving sounded from the other room.

“He must be awake. Back in a sec.” Mia slid off the couch, munching on the chip, and went into his room. Rose could hear her talking quietly from inside, her voice soft and gentle.

Rose put the bowls on the coffee table and sat down on the couch, still feeling the heat from Mia’s body on the backs of her thighs. She switched on the TV and opened the chocolate. Tossing a square into her mouth, she wanted to close her eyes, the rich sweetness tasted so good. She’d forgotten to have lunch today and she was starving.

“It’s starting!” she called. A girl was walking around her apartment, creepy music playing in the background. Rose knew she was probably going to die within the next five minutes, but she still couldn’t help feeling jealous that the girl had her own place. This girl had a cool Japanese-style dressing gown and could wander around in it and make tea whenever she wanted.

Mia ran back in and sat on the couch. “What did I miss?”

On the screen, a cat pounced through the window and they both jumped. Laughing at each other, they settled back on the couch, passing the frozen Coke back and forth between them. Soon, the murderer appeared. A sack over his head. They tried not to scream out loud and bother Mia’s dad.

“Isn’t he meant to be wearing a hockey mask?”

“I think that comes later.”

Rose thought a sack was probably creepier anyway.

“The hockey mask would make him look like a paper-plate kid.”

“Awww,” Mia cooed.

“Why is he doing it again?” Rose asked when it cut to commercials. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen the first one.

“Killing everyone?”

“Yeah.”

Mia leaned back, stretching out her feet on the coffee table. Her toenails were painted a dark purple. “Something to do with teenagers having sex instead of taking care of him when he was a kid.”

“So stupid,” Rose groaned. Somehow, giving someone a good reason for mass murder made it so much more fascinating. She wondered what reason the person would have to leave dolls on kids’ doorsteps. It really was such a bizarre thing to do. Mia squealed from next to her; Rose hadn’t even been watching. She got comfy, nestling her bare feet underneath herself.

By midway through, the violence had lost its shock. They were both sleepy and covered in crumbs and their stomachs swirled. They were lying down now, Rose’s head on Mia’s hip.

“I should go,” she said.

“Yeah, I’ll drive you.”

“Okay.”

Neither of them moved.

* * *

By the time Rose got home she knew she had left it too late. She shouldn’t have gone to Mia’s house. She should have been here when her mother got home, not left her mother’s anger to stew even more.

“Hi,” she said.

Her mother just looked at her, exhausted, from her place in front of the television.

“Listen,” she continued, “I know it sounds like I was overreacting this morning—”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Rose. I’ve had a long day.”

“Sorry,” she found herself saying. She took a breath; this was going to be a hard conversation.

“So I know Rob’s coming back next week—” she began.

“You’re not going to ask me for more time, are you?”

The way her mum looked at her told her the answer, and not only that, it told her that her unhappiness, her pain, was just another burden. Something to be endured like the sound of screaming chickens.

“No,” she said and left the room.

PART 2

The day you give up on your dreams is the day you give up on yourself.

—Unknown

8

Pulling her hair into a knot on top of her head, blowing a few loose strands out of the way, Rose turned on her computer. It was an old PC, its fan was loud and hot, and it took a full five minutes to load. She was afraid that one day, it wouldn’t turn on at all and then she didn’t know what she would do. You could hardly mail newspapers handwritten articles. That definitely wouldn’t be considered professional.

She’d slept better last night, maybe because there was too much to think about, too much to worry about to even bother. Her exhaustion was stronger than her anger and frustration, and so when she went to bed she’d fallen unconscious almost instantly, waking up with a claggy mouth. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth. But the rest had given her a new sense of determination, something that even the two rejection emails she’d received from the jobs she’d applied to yesterday couldn’t shake.

She took a swig of Coke, the cold bolt of flavor pushing back against the sleepy heat.

When her computer was finally on, she linked it with the Bluetooth on her phone. She tried to use as little of Rob’s resources as possible. She bought her own food, used her own internet plan and never used the home phone. It wasn’t just that she didn’t want to be indebted to him. She also hated the idea of touching anything he used; she despised everything about him. Not that it mattered much anymore.

All morning she had replayed last night’s conversation with her mother. Rose wished she had made it clear, at the very least, that she hadn’t been stupid in calling the cops. Say the word pedophile and she was sure she could get that breathless panicky quality back into her mother’s voice. The idea did something strange to people, especially parents. Everyone agreed that pedophiles were the lowest scum on the planet, yet people also seemed weirdly fascinated by them. Their stories were always in the news the longest, front page after front page of disturbing stories in sickening detail. Maybe people enjoyed feeling horrified.

The screen lit up and, already, she felt a little wired. She’d dismissed the idea of writing about the dolls almost immediately. Dolls on kids’ doorsteps was hardly a story.

But maybe it didn’t even matter.

She opened a blank Word document and typed the title in, just to see how it would look: Porcelain Terror in Colmstock.

Everyone loved a good mystery. Her fingers started flying across the keyboard, trying to shape the strange truth of what had happened into something more menacing. Trying to make it into a story.

It wasn’t the sort of thing that would ever stand a chance in the Sage Review, but maybe it would be possible in the Star. She and Mia only read the thing for laughs, and because it had the most ridiculous star-sign predictions. The tabloid was always filled with tacky sensationalist articles, like how a suburban man had made his wife swallow an entire live snake as part of a voodoo ritual or how a mother was addicted to eating her children’s glue sticks, in between full-page advertisements for diet pills.

It was fun writing something dramatic and salacious. By the time she had to leave for work, she’d emailed the article to the Star. Usually, she would spend at least a few weeks on a piece, but this one she kept short and to the point. If they didn’t like it, they could go fuck themselves.

PORCELAIN TERROR IN COLMSTOCK

By Rose Blakey

Mystery dolls threaten children of small town.

A mystery is an unusual thing in the town of Colmstock, which all but disappeared from the map after the closure of the Auster Automotive Factory. Now, to add insult to injury for the residents of this forgotten place, a bizarre case has emerged that has the local police baffled.

Multiple families have made the terrifying discovery of old-fashioned porcelain dolls on their doorsteps. Most horrifying of all, the dolls are the spitting images of their young daughters. Hair and eye color of these unwanted gifts exactly matching the scared little girls.