Only when she got back to her feet did she see that they weren’t playing cards but photographs, like the ones you got at Riverview’s photo gallery, four poses for a quarter. She turned them, one by one, until they all faced the same way. She felt as though something sharp pressed against her from the inside, like an awl punching through her breast.

They were photos of the girl from the movie studio. The girl in the yellow dress. The girl she’d found in Hell Gate. Lying on a bed, her arms and legs akimbo like those women in the naughty Mutoscopes. Oh! What She Did! She recognized the long-waisted dress with its rows of embroidered daisies, the girl’s long dark hair. No hair ribbon, no socks or shoes. Her eyes stared blankly at whoever was taking the picture. What She Couldn’t See.

Only as she scrutinized the photos beneath the grimy window did she realize she wasn’t looking at a girl but a large doll. Its face gave it away: vacant eyes always staring in the same direction, mouth parted in the same almost-smile, as though it recognized the person behind the camera. The hem of its dress was uneven where part had been ripped away.

She shuffled through the pictures again, checking the back of each one to see the same name written there in pencil.

Maria.

Black specks flew in front of her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. She pinched her nose, gulped deep breaths until the room stopped spinning. Stared at the floor where the oversize leather wallet lay, open so she could glimpse what was inside. She knelt, her fingers thick as sausages, her head one of those floppy balloons in Hell Gate. She picked up the wallet, so much heavier than it looked, so heavy she didn’t see how she could hold it.

Photos were stuffed inside like wads of cash. Girls, dolls, she couldn’t tell which: no, not girls but dolls, not dolls but the same doll, its clothes different but its face always the same, those horrible staring eyes and long dark hair, sometimes tied with a ribbon, sometimes covered with a hat much too big for its head. A name written on the back of each photo.

Alice. Katy. Christina. Iolanda. Dolly. Rachel. Irena. Deirdre. Faith. Daisy. Rose…

Abriana.

The black specks in her vision bloomed into faces lined up on an altar, burning candles. She felt as though she were back in the tunnel, the world’s true face revealed as she touched that of the dead girl. She heard a soft huh huh huh, realized it came from deep in her throat. From outside she heard voices, a man shouting.

How could she have not known?