A noise—from Lucinda’s room, like the shuffle of cards.

“Hello?” I said.

The door swung inward. The hinges protested, issuing a prolonged weeeeeeeek. I squinted, trying to see into the room. I couldn’t make out anything but darkness.

“Hello?”

A giggle.

I stiffened.

Rosa? I wanted to believe it was Rosa. But it wasn’t her. The giggle was more a cackle, malevolent, threatening.

Lucinda? Had she recovered? Was she sitting on the bed, naked and giggling in the dark?

Time to get the hell out of there, I thought.

I stood—but didn’t leave. The person was cackling in the bedroom again. I knew I should ignore whoever it was, leave the cabin, run, but instead I found myself moving toward the witchy sound.

I stopped inside the door. I still couldn’t see anything in the room. It was cauldron black.

“Hello?”

“Jack…”

The voice was female, young, raspy.

Something moved very quickly. I heard the frantic patter of small footsteps. Then a snick, a whoosh. A tiny flame appeared to my right.

A doll stood on its tiptoes, a burning match in its hand. It was attempting to light the candle on the dresser. The wick caught and light bloomed. The doll extinguished the match with a quick flick of its wrist.

Its head twisted ninety degrees, owl-like, to look at me.

“Jack…” it rasped.

“Who are you?”

“Jack… It’s me…”

The doll was female. It had dark wavy hair that fell halfway down its back, thick-lashed brown eyes, a tiny nose, playful lips—

“Pita?” I said.

“Jack…” Her lips weren’t moving, and I realized she was communicating to me how she claimed to have communicated with her sister Susana, telepathically.

“What happened to you?”

“Solano…”

“What about him?”

“He caught me…”

“Caught you? But what did he do? You’re a doll, Pita.”

“That’s what he does… He catches people… He turns them into dolls… He hangs them up everywhere… But we’re still alive… We’re alive inside them…”

“Where’s Eliza?” I asked, alarmed. “Where’s Rosa?”

“Dolls…”

“No!”

She began to cackle once more.

3

I came awake with a start and found myself in candlelit darkness. It was late, the time when graveyards yawned and decent folks slept snugly in their beds. Not me though. I sat cross-legged on the hard floor in the middle of the cabin’s main room, groggy and exhausted.

I raised my head from my chest, blinking. I remembered sitting there, closing my eyes, not to fall asleep, to think…and maybe to forget. Yes, I’d wanted to forget I was covered in Nitro’s blood, forget his lifeless body was lying on the porch, his eyes staring at eternity, forget we were trapped on the island, stalked by a killer.

My stomach, I realized, felt bloated and bilious. At first I thought this was due to hunger. But it wasn’t hunger. It was fear.