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Walker Manning Hughes

��On the fourth day, and about the hundredth try, Emily heard a sharp click and snatched the bobby pin back. Suddenly the door was unlocked. She turned the fake crystal knob and pushed. A chill ran up her spine and she glanced around quickly. Am I really going to do this? Grandmama had warned her every day about going in the attic, had said there were ghosts, but that was silly. Only little kids believed in spooks. She was nearly twelve, old enough to know that grown-ups only said those things to keep children from having real fun. There were probably all sorts of exciting things to play with in the attic. Toys and books and old dresses. Emily paused for barely a moment and caught the faint murmur of voices from down the hall stairs. She wondered who could be visiting and hoped they would keep the old woman busy for long enough.
��The door opened easily and quietly. There, that wasn’t scary. Two quick steps and Emily was in, the door whisking shut behind her. She scanned the room and found it was not as she had expected, not as she had hoped. Yellow light spilled from two windows and played across a dusty wooden floor, revealing a wide-open and seemingly unused room. There were no boxes, no chests, no racks of old clothes, no shelves of moldy books, no old lamps or chairs, nothing at all. Just a lonely void where cobwebs hung down making sad shadows on the walls and ceiling. A ghost would quickly be bored in such a place. With complete disappointment, Emily turned to leave before she was caught and punished for something so dull.
��“I’m over here,” a voice called softly at that moment and Emily froze in mid-turn. Her hand hovered halfway to the doorknob. She didn’t want to move, didn’t want to answer.
��“Who’s there?” she eventually managed, and her voice was small and distant, not reaching the walls and echoing but falling from her tongue and dying in air. She couldn’t tell what direction the call had come from and turned here and there, looking everywhere in a panic. A small figure huddled in a far corner and Emily locked her eyes on this.
��“Don’t be afraid,” the gentle voice called again. “Come help me. I need help. Please?” The figure moved slightly and Emily thought she saw a tiny hand wave. A child. She rushed over, finding a small swaddling blanket sheltering what could only be an old hand-stitched doll. Red yarn hair spilled out over the floorboards and a button nose glistened in the shifting light. Whoever had called to her must have dropped this.
��“Please don’t be afraid and run away like everyone else,” the doll said.
��Emily tensed, not quite able to get her legs to go, to flee as she really must. “ButÉbutÉ” she stammered.
��“Will you pick me up? Please?” the doll pleaded and her voice was sugar and spice. Entranced, Emily leaned to do as she was asked, feeling she must help, must have this special eldritch prize. She pulled the blanket back. Excited, frightened, confused, she noticed too late the needle teeth bursting beneath the button nose. She didn’t see the jagged scissor hands until they cut down on her wrists, paralyzing her with pain. She never screamed, never made a sound at all.
��Once again the forbidden door opened and closed, quickly and quietly.
��“Emily? Come down here and meet the preacher,” the voice of Grandmama called.
��There was no answer but the soft patter of miniature feet in the hallway. A sharp ringing sound echoed as stained scissors drug with each step. Schtnnng. Schtnnng. Schtnnng. A safety pin came loose letting a few strands of rotted straw scatter. And still the patter, patter of tiny feet.
��“Emily?” Grandmama called. “We’re waiting!”



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