Margot threaded her arms in between the wires holding it together. She wasn’t sure what she was holding, just that it was solid enough to let her move the effigy. It rattled with each inch, and Margot squeezed her eyes closed, afraid that the dozens of tiny objects scratching at her arms and cheek might extend their claws at any second and sink into her. But she didn’t stop. Not until the Watcher was positioned in the hallway, facing the front door.
Breathing heavily, Margot backed away and slumped down beside Marsh in front of the television. The main hallway seemed like the right place for the talisman. A precious ward at the front of the house, refusing entry to anyone who might try to knock at the door.
She’d hated the Watcher before. Especially for the way it seemed to stare at her when she turned aside. Now, though, she was only grateful to have it. She felt less vulnerable with it there. Less alone.
“Want to watch something?” she asked the golden retriever. His head tilted slightly at her voice, though he seemed more than content to relax.
Margot sipped from her mug, then returned it to the floor while she selected a tape. She chose an old romance, one where the woman’s hair was bobbed and the man wore expensive jackets. She pulled her knees up ahead of herself and let her eyes fix on the grainy, slightly off-color images. She couldn’t follow the plot as well as she should have. There was something about a fake relationship and an inheritance. Her eyes kept moving toward the bell hidden in the room’s back wall, behind the overstuffed couches, and it was hard to pull her focus back. She turned the film off after forty minutes.
Most of the tapes had handwritten labels, but one in particular stood out with its faded red words: Margot’s Tape.
She slid it into the player and rewound it to the start. After a second, the curtains flickered onto the screen, and her mother’s voice began narrating.
The other family. It’s so obvious now that I know. The gray puppets are less an analogy and more just…a simplification. They play outside at night. They get irritated if they’re interrupted. They even have Xs across their mouths to represent the stitches.
She watched the girl’s puppet leave the house at night and sway toward the tall, gray figures. Her mother’s voice dropped lower, growing darker, more menacing. “The other family was so angry that they attacked her. They scratched her and bit her and dragged her into the earth.”
Margot knew the tape by heart, but she still flinched, squeezing her eyes until they were nearly closed, as the three puppets twitched down and disappeared off the screen.