I inherited my grandmother's house in October when the maple leaves turned the color of dried blood, and the wind carried whiffs of winter. The lawyer handed me an iron key that felt too heavy for its size as if it were made of memories instead of metal. I hadn't visited the house since I was twelve when my parents decided grandmother's "episodes" were too much for a child to witness. Now, twenty years later, I stood before the Victorian mansion with its peeling paint and sagging shutters, wondering if the darkness I remembered was real or just the product of a child's overactive imagination.

The key got stuck in the lock at first, resisting my effort like a living thing. When it finally turned, the mechanism let out a sound like an old woman sighing. Inside, the air was rife with dust and the peculiar sweetness of decay. Sheets draped the furniture like funeral shrouds, and my footsteps reverberated on hardwood floors that hadn't felt human weight in years.

I found the first doll in the parlor, sitting primly on a velvet chair as if waiting for tea. Its porcelain face was webbed with hairline cracks, and its glass eyes reflected light that shouldn't have been there. Grandmother had always loved her dolls—collected them, talked to them, treated them like the children she never had except for my father. I remembered how she used to say they were her "real family."

"Hello, Keziah," I whispered, recognizing the doll from my childhood. The name came to my lips unbidden, and I froze. I had never known the doll's name. Grandmother hadn't told me, had she?

That night, I slept in my old bedroom on the second floor, though every instinct screamed against it. The house creaked and settled around me like a living thing digesting its meal. In the dark, I could have sworn I heard the soft pat-pat-pat of tiny feet in the hallway, the whining of porcelain against wood.

I woke to find Keziah sitting at the foot of my bed, her cracked face turned toward me. I didn't scream. Somehow, that seemed important—not to scream. Instead, I carefully picked her up and carried her back to the parlor, setting her gently in her chair. "Stay," I said firmly, feeling foolish even as I said it.

When I returned upstairs, there were dirty footprints everywhere, too tiny to be human, leading from the parlor to my bedroom and back again.

The next day, I started going through my grandmother's belongings. In her study, I found journals dating back decades, their pages filled with her spidery handwriting. The earliest ones were normal enough—accounts of daily life, recipes, and notes about her doll collection. But as I read on, they grew stranger. She wrote about the dolls speaking to her, about how they moved when she wasn't looking, about how they were hungry.

December 15, 1982

Keziah says the others are restless. They need more than I can give them. But I won't. I won't do it again. Not after last time.

 
I found newspaper clippings tucked between the pages. Children who had gone missing in the neighborhood over the years. Each disappearance was marked with a small red dot in my grandmother's hand. Next to each article, she had written a name—not the name of the missing child but the name of a doll.

The realization came slowly, like ice forming on a pond. Each new doll in grandmother's collection had appeared shortly after a disappearance. Each one had eyes that seemed too alive and movements that seemed too fluid when caught in peripheral vision.

That evening, I counted the dolls. Thirty-seven. The newspaper clippings accounted for thirty-six missing children.

I was halfway through writing down each doll's name when I realized what that meant. If thirty-six dolls matched thirty-six missing children, then Keziah—the first doll, the one that had started grandmother's collection—Keziah must have been...

The journal entry confirmed it. My father had a twin sister who died when they were five. Or rather, who vanished. Grandmother had written about how she couldn't bear to lose her only daughter, how she had found a way to keep her. How Keziah had shown her how to do the same for other children who were "lonely" and "needed a home."

I should have burned the house down that night. Should have lined the walls with gasoline and struck a match. Instead, I went to bed, telling myself I would deal with everything in the morning. But as I lay there in the dark, I heard them moving. Porcelain feet on hardwood floors. Tiny hands opening doors. The soft, horrible sound of their murmurs.

They surrounded my bed by midnight. Keziah stood at their head; her cracked face somehow different—more human, scarier. When she spoke, her voice was like rustling paper.

"We've been waiting for you, Aunt Rachel," she said. "Grandmother promised someone would inherit us. We need a new caretaker. We need to grow our family."

I saw then what my grandmother had seen—the loneliness in their glass eyes, the yearning in their porcelain hands. I understood why she had done what she'd done. The dolls needed love. They needed a family. They needed...

I found myself nodding, reaching out to touch Keziah's cold cheek. "Yes," I retorted. "Yes, I understand now."

The next day, I read in the local paper about a child who had gone missing three blocks away. That evening, a new doll joined the collection. She has the sweetest smile, and her eyes—well, her eyes are just like the ones she had before.

I call her Zuri, and she sits beside Keziah in the parlor. Sometimes, late at night, I hear them chatting, planning our next family reunion. After all, there are so many lonely children in the world—so many who need a home—and we have so much love to give.

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Emecheta Christian is a vivid writer whose work explores themes of self-actualization, belonging, and the complexities of the human experience. His works have appeared in esteemed literary journals and anthologies such as The Potter's Poetry, Indiana Review, Oxford American, Four Way Review, the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, and elsewhere. He has been recognized with several awards, including the Iroko Award and The Dorothy Hewett Award. Emecheta's unique voice and evocative imagery have garnered him a growing reputation as a voice of change in the global literary scene.