MORNING SERIAL
I SHRUGGED my shoulders as the tears filled my eyes. It was all my fault.
‘Well, you’ll have to clear that up and put it back just right. You really need to look after your things, Violet. Is anything broken?’
I hoped not but it certainly felt like I was, like a storm had swept through me and taken down everything in its path. That’s what happens when someone walks in on your world – uninvited. I slumped against the wall and let the tears roll down my cheeks.
Those dolls had watched me for years. They didn’t say a word, but I knew they paid attention. One stood with her toe over the edge of the second floor and a hand upon her hip. I waited for her to gallop side to side, which of course, she didn’t. They were all dusty, too, their hats had doubled in height and the furniture was layered with what had become extra cushions, all the bold-coloured fabrics of them faded from terracotta to yellow, from blue to green.
Slowly, I began to save each figure from the massacre, where shoes had flown across the room and left dolls’ arms raised as though trying to reach them. I patted down their hairstyles, replaced their hats, and made sure they were all back in their starting positions on the floors where they’d stood for years. Still, they looked different since their trauma. They looked at me, as though I was the one who’d viciously uprooted them.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, still shaking a little as I twisted their faces away, not wanting them to see me in such a state, ‘just for a while.’
I stomped towards my bedroom, greeted – as always – by the huge poster of Margot’s perfect ballerina pose and immaculate face, smiling at me from the wall. I tore it down and shut the curtains on Secret Haven for good.
All week someone kept yanking me out of one nightmare and hurling me into another, changing the scenery in the blink of a stage curtain, leaving parts of me behind with each act: a hand here, a leg there, one on the Common and one in the sea, and what could I do about it?
> Unspeakable Beauty by Georgia Carys Williams is published by Parthian at £10.99. parthianbooks.com
CONTINUES TOMORROW