“You remember,” Elizabeth mocked. “Are you sure you were there for all of those memories?” Charlie searched her thoughts for anything that could confirm the memories she clung to.

“Look down,” Elizabeth whispered.

“What?” Charlie whimpered.

“Your memory. I’m sure it’s crystal clear, since you were there and all.” Elizabeth smiled. “Look down.”

Charlie returned to her memory, standing in front of her father’s workbench. She was immobile; she didn’t have a voice. “Look down,” Elizabeth whispered again. Charlie looked to her feet, but didn’t see feet at all, only three legs of a camera tripod anchored to the ground.

“He was making memories for you; making a life for his little rag doll, making her a real girl.

“I’m sure many of those memories have been elaborated upon, edited, and embellished, but make no mistake, Charlie wasn’t there.” Elizabeth leaned closer to Charlie.

“He made us one, two, three.” Elizabeth touched Charlie’s shoulder lightly, then brought her hand back to her own chest. “Four.” Her eyes flickered, and the silver glow faded until her eyes looked nearly human.

“Charlie would be a baby, then a little girl, and then a sulky teenager.” She looked Charlie up and down with a pointed sneer, then her expression cleared as she continued. “Then at last she would be a woman. She would be finished. Perfect. Me.” Elizabeth’s face tightened. “But something changed, as Henry labored, racked with grief, over his little girl.

“The littlest Charlotte was made with a broken heart. She cried all the time, day and night. The second Charlotte he made when he was at the depth of madness, almost believing the lies he told himself; she was as hopelessly desperate for her father’s love as he was for hers. The third Charlotte he made when he began to realize he’d gone mad, when he questioned every thought he had, and begged his sister Jen to remind him what was real. The third Charlotte was strange.” Elizabeth gave Charlie a contemptuous look, but Charlie scarcely saw it. The third Charlotte was strange, she repeated silently. She ducked her head and rubbed the flannel of her father’s shirt with her thumb, then looked back up. Elizabeth’s face was stiff with rage; she was nearly trembling.

“What about the fourth?” Charlie asked hesitantly.

“There was no fourth,” she snapped. “When Henry began to make the fourth, his despair turned to rage. He seethed as he soldered her skeleton together, pouring his anger into the forge where he shaped her very bones. I was not Charlotte-drenched-in-grief. I was made alive with Henry’s fury.” Her eyes flared again with silver light, and Charlie stayed herself, forcing herself not to blink. Elizabeth leaned in closer, her face inches from Charlie’s. “Do you know the first words your father ever spoke to me?” she hissed. Charlie shook her head minutely. “He said to me, ‘You are wrong.’