EMBER’S POV
“You were small at the time. Three, maybe four.” Her voice drops toward the floor. “You had a doll, and you carried it everywhere. Named it yourself, the first name you ever gave anything—”
And something moves in the deepest, a cold thread pulling up from a place I’ve never once been able to reach, and before she can say it, my own mouth opens and the name falls out like it’s been waiting my whole life.
“Molly.”
Devika goes chalk-white.
“Yes. Molly.”
“I remember—” and it’s surfacing now, dredged up from under years of suppression. “I remember playing with her in the dirt. I brought her things. I made her—” my breath catches, “—I made her tea parties. I brought her flowers. I thought she talked to me. Mother, I remember thinking my doll was talking to me, telling me to—”
