Paper Dolls Read Online Free PDF Page A

Aisha.
    Lacey paled. “What?”
    Aisha grabbed Lacey’s wrist, forcing her to look down at her silver bracelet. “Who gave you this bracelet? Well?”
    “You must be very ill, Aish....” Lacey took a step back.
    “Henry made you wear it—didn’t he?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Aisha's mouth drew into a hard line. “As I lay in the bed chamber—
slowly dying
—my mind ran through pictures of my life. And I saw you, like a puzzle. I finally saw all the pieces of you, and put them together.” Her voice rose in intensity. “You brought us here on purpose, Lily Fair. Yes, I figured out Prudence’s poem. You were the one who comes and goes, while everyone else just went around and around and around.”
    Lacey put a hand up, as though to protect herself.
    “You put us in a dark, damp hole and you went away. We lived like sewer rats. You lived—out in the sun—while we were left to rot and die—never to see sun again. Scared the rats are going to tell, now that they’re out?”
    “No one would believe it.” Her voice was small.
    “Lacey.” My muscles clenched, my head spun. I willed Lacey to deny the things that Aisha was saying—things that couldn’t possibly be true.
    But a look of knowing crept into Lacey’s eyes.
    She wrenched her arm away from Aisha. “You can’t judge me. Neither of you can.” Her body trembled all over. “I was just a little kid. Nine years old. I was on a school camp in the forests. Henry Fiveash stole me from my sleeping bag. I was taken down to the underground. I woke with my face painted, and dressed like a doll. Jessamine said I was hers… forever.”
    I gasped. “You were
The First One
. It was you!”
    Lacey closed her eyes. “I made a deal with Henry. I said I’d bring more girls if he’d just let me go. Well what would you have done? I was a child—alone with a crazy man and a ghost. He had me put back in my sleeping bag before dawn. Two of the horrid doll things carried me through the forest, to make sure I didn't run away.”
    She stared down at the bracelet like it was a snake wound around her arm. “So I’d know it wasn’t just a nightmare—he fixed the bracelet to me.”
    Aisha shook her head. “Two girls died—girls you brought there. Their deaths are on your head.”
    Lacey backed away.
    “Why Aisha, Lacey?” I cried. “Of all people, why did you choose your own friend?”
    “I didn’t choose her...." A low, pained sigh emitted from her chest. “When... when I took Frances down there, a photo fell from my wallet. It was one of me and Aisha from dance practice, back when we thirteen. Jessamine saw it, and she insisted on having Aisha from that moment on. Nothing could change her mind.... The day of the trek... it was always going to be Aisha. When she ran off by herself into the forest, that's when the toys took her."
    I took a step towards her, speaking directly into the traitorous face of
The First One
. "So why did you even bother stealing and copying Aisha's file—pretending we were going to investigate the case for ourselves... when you knew what happened to her all along...
all along
...."
    "I stole the file so I could see what the police knew. And I showed it to you so you'd trust me, so you'd tell me if you knew anything... about Ethan. You don't know what it's been like for me. All the lies I've had to tell... all the people I've had to hurt. From the day Henry brought me back to the school camp I've barely eaten, I've barely lived. I've had to live with this every single day...."
    Something died inside of me. "Why didn't you just... tell someone? Police... your father?"
    Pain wound through her gaze. "Henry said if I didn’t do what Jessamine wanted... he’d bring my little sisters to the underground and give them to the serpent.”
    Horror caught in my throat.
    “So you took the sisters and daughters from other families for sacrifice,” spat Aisha. “I’ll never let you forget what you did.” She stared