The many winding paths of Grasscove, USA: Part Five

*This story is underneath my folder titled “Grasscove, USA”. Gacha Club character designs are under this forum: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=116005&start=1335. Enjoy!*

We’ve been walking in the hotel for hours and haven’t found anything supernatural. No ghosts except for Ophelia, no vampires except for Emery and Lilliana. I think that maybe we should get out of here and-

“Let’s split up.” Emery says.

I’m sorry, did he just suggest that we split up? In a haunted hotel? In this circumstance? How is splitting up going to help us?

“Maybe we’ll find something if we’re not all with together. I’ll stay with Ophelia and you and Lilliana can go on your own ways.”

In the quick blur that is vampire speed, Emery disappears into a dark hallway, Ophelia following after him. I’m left alone with Lilliana again. I glance at her blue-gray eyes and feel my neck burn where her teeth grazed it.

We don’t need to talk about that.

“So where do you want to-Lilliana?!”

Lilliana just took off without a word and left me here, alone in the unlit hallway. I’m not too mad about it, I just wish that she said something.

I guess I’ll catch up with her.

…………………………………………………..…………………………………………………………………

I’m not sure where to look. I don’t think there is anything else here in this hotel. The only thing I hear is my own footsteps and when I look into the rooms, I don’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary. I try to listen for quiet whispers, like when Ophelia spoke to me and Lilliana years ago, but I hear nothing.

Which is odd, because I used to think I could hear all kinds of ghostly whispers as a little kid. I thought I could see and talk to ghosts like a character in a movie, like somebody more than what I am. I thought that I couldn’t have possibly imagined something like that.

Obviously I was wrong, but why do I care? It’s not a big deal and yet I can’t help but feel a little sad about it. It’s almost like I don’t deserve to see ghosts as much as I did as a child, like I’m not worth it anymore. That’s probably not what it is at all, but that’s how I feel. I miss being able to see the magic in stuff. I miss feeling special and intuitive.

I think I should just sit down and take a break. I’ll find the others later. I just need to be alone for a bit. Yeah, that’s it.

I walk into the first room I see and sit on the white bed, taking in all of the details. I like to look at how rooms are made. It’s nice to imagine who lived and dreamed in them, because if I do that, then I can detach myself from the present by thinking of the past. It sounds bad but it feels comforting to me.

This is a hotel, but it’s not a modern hotel, so there is still some difference the rooms have from each other. There’s the same dark green paint and white lace curtains that are in all of the rooms, but there is a music box and dolls on the shelves. In the closet, I see small, frilly dresses with many bows and layers, lines of Mary Janes, boots, and buckle shoes underneath the dresses. On the nightstand next to the bed, there is a dusty white hand mirror with many pearls and engravings on the handle. Behind it is a gramophone, the golden horn blooming out of the wooden box like a flower.

This could have been Ophelia’s room, but it can’t be, because if she’s Emery’s sister, then she died in the 1600s. Maybe before that. Gramophones were invented in the 1800s and only the wealthy had hand mirrors in the 1600s.

Or Emery could have stolen the mirror for her. He was a cowboy, after all. He could have done lots of things that history couldn’t find out. And the gramophone could have been put there long after most of the Lathom family died and Emery became a vampire.

Either way, it’s a nice room. I like it. It feels like a secluded escape from the strangeness of reality, minus the dolls. It’d be better without the dolls’ glass eyes staring at me. But that is just one small thing. Other than that, the room is perfect.

I think Lenora would like the room the way it is. She liked dolls and girly things. Even at twelve years old, she still had the dolls her Grandma gave her. Whenever I went to Lilliana’s house, Lenora would be on her phone, scrolling through videos on social media. She’d eat and scroll if it was time to eat. She wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone and would not stay out for long, because after she was done hanging around us, she’d go upstairs to her room and talk to her dolls. We could hear her from downstairs. I thought she was talking to friends at first but Lilliana told me that she didn’t have any. She only had her dolls.

That’s why when Lenora went missing back in spring, nobody but Lilliana and their parents cared to put up missing posters around town and look for her. I don’t think a lot of people liked her much. I think they thought that she was “spoiled” and “careless” and that she “deserved to go missing”. I think they cared a little too much about how she acted. I know that she probably didn’t care about me much, but I think I understand her. I think she just didn’t trust people enough to talk about her thoughts and feelings. I think she found comfort in her dolls. I don’t blame her, with all of the stuff people assumed and said about her.

I would have helped Lilliana, but my family was on vacation to some brighter, tropical place at the time and I only got news of what happened through her texts.

Lenora didn’t even go anywhere. She just wasn’t found in her bed. She was taken…taken like how Ophelia was.

But we found Ophelia’s ghost! Lenora is still missing. Maybe it’s not too late yet.

There’s a doll on the bed, with sandy blond hair tied in two braids by murky green bows, freckles sprinkled all over her face, around her gray-green eyes. She’s wearing a green and orange plaid dress that has sunflowers as buttons and white tights and white Mary Janes on her feet. She is not smiling. Not even a hint of a smile, just a droop of the lips. Out of all the dolls here, I think she freaks me out the most. There’s something about her face…her lips…that looks off-putting and frightening…like a monster in hidden form.

I pick her up. Her stomach feels hard. Like there’s something inside of it. It’s too hard, not the material of a doll.

I lift her dress up. There’s a hole in her stomach, where a shellac disk record is. I’m not sure how a shellac disk record was able to fit in this doll, but it’s there.

I gently take the record out of the doll and put it in the record player, placing the handle on top of the record and letting it play.

There’s a banjo playing and a young man with a southern accent singing mournfully. I cannot make out what the lyrics are. The record is too scratchy for me to understand anything. Maybe the disk was cut to fit the doll and that’s why it’s unintelligible. Maybe it’s just old. But I think it’s a longing love song from how he’s singing it, from how the tune melds with his words.

That’s another thing. I listen to all kinds of songs in my free time, old and new. I feel like I’d know what this song is, but I don’t. It might be a song I haven’t ever discovered, but I don’t think I know who the guy singing this is. It feels like this song isn’t from here. Not that it’s from a different country, just that it’s not from Earth period. But it sounds like it’s from Earth. Maybe I’m overthinking this. I’m totally overthinking this. I-

“LEFT HER FOR DEAD!”

I jump further into the bed. The lyrics had suddenly screamed out before fading into scratches. I didn’t expect it. I need to calm down. Let my nerves rest.

I breathe, in and out, in and out, in and out…nope, I’m not calm. A little bit better, but still scared.

I reach out towards the record player and remove the handle. I grab the record and put it back in the doll.

This doll isn’t normal. That has already been established. This doll is disturbing.

Which is exactly why I need to take her with me. This could be the paranormal thing that we’re looking for, the thing that could help us! Even if she isn’t, I’ll give her to Lilliana. All dolls mortify me, but I think Lilliana will appreciate something that reminds her of her sister. I don’t think the scratchy record will bother her as much as it did with me, because I could just be overly paranoid over the wrong things. I’m told by my parents that I need to work on my reactions. Whatever that means.

If she is scared, I’ll take the disk and destroy it. I don’t want her to be scared. But I can’t leave this doll behind.

I hold the doll in my hand and walk out.

*This is the doll Elizabeth is holding:

*The actual doll does not have a record in her stomach, that came from a dream I had about her and decided to put in this story.*