Nightmares Vs Magic

In the alchemy labs, Dove was helping Joon with the report, writing down everything she knew and remembered about the compass during the island mission. 

"It pointed us in the direction of the island, and it kept pointing in the same direction when we got to the shore. Only when we started walking in the forest did it go crazy, the arrow spinning in circles, like a regular compass around a magnet." 

"Good. Then it reacts the same way as any ordinary compass." Adan smiled at the prototype compass they were speaking of. 

The intern sat across from him at a cleared table in the computer labs. Joon sat next to her as he helped type out the feedback and results on a laptop. The laptop was connected to the closest printer. 

"Although, I can not help but feel bothered when my projects are at the same ordinary level with common items, so I will be thinking about what I can improve." He held the item up to the light with both hands, admiring the design. 

"What do you think I should add?" He asked Dove. 

"I'm no alchemist."

"But you can give me a suggestion still.

Joon grinned as he gently elbowed her, she gave him an unamused frown over her face mask. 

"Doesn't matter what you suggest, he can make it happen. Just try." Joon told her as he kept typing. 

She hesitated, sitting up straight but losing the will to maintain eye contact before answering, "Maybe, you could give it a tracking ability? K-kinda like Ursa's dogs? Where they dogs sniff and then trace- the compass could somehow take a sample and then track?"

"What, like heat seeking missiles?" Joon asked, pausing in his typing. 

"No like, kinda like how phones connect I guess?"

"Like the way the little antennae on old flip phones would locate other phones when calling?"

"Sort of? Like radio waves or air tags connected to devices- I'm not sure. I just guess, if it had a tracking feature along with being able to detect where mass numbers of nightmares are, that would be very, practical." She shrugged, keeping her hands folded at the table instead of wringing them. 

Adan hummed with an intrigued smile; hands folded under his chin as he put the compass down in the neat holding box that was prepared for it. 

"I will see what I can do. I have enough data to work with now."

The girl got up and ready to leave after seeing Adan pick up the box holding the compass. 

"One more thing." He said suddenly, turning and looking over his shoulder at her. 

"Is Bence currently teaching Eden about bones?"

"Well, yes."

Adan laughed out loud to himself. 

"Ah the poor soul, wearing so many hats. With the way he is now, you'd never guess he was that mysterious student who threw raves and would wake the dead simply to join his parties!"

"Pardon?"

"Say what now?"

He waved it off as he smirked to himself. 

"It doesn't matter for now. That is a special blackmail that I plan to use for another time. You two are free to think what you like with that slip of information. I would love to see the day Mr. Stoic becomes reminded of his ridiculous past. Until then, if you are willing, Dove," He asked before setting the small box down, taking a small piece of paper and beginning to write while speaking.

"Go tell Bence word for word, "Jiya aka gama wukake ku. Jaki." and don't hesitate."

Dove looked at the slip of paper, then back up at Adan with a blank stare. 

"Is there an insult in this sentence?"

"Perhaps, that depends on how he interprets it."

"Ah, um, w-where?"

"It doesn't matter. As long as you do not hesitate."

Joon snickered and offered to go with her to send the message. She knew he just wanted to see Bence's reaction. The girl wondered if Adan may have taught the boy a bit of Hausa from time to time because it felt like the boy knew what the sentence meant. 

He went back to get the feedback report printed, handed the freshly printed papers to Adan, and joined Dove in traveling down to the floor below the labs. 

When they opened the door leading to the main office from the stairwell, there were people running about, some papers scattered across the floor, and a crowd whispering around the conference room. 

The workers all looked panicked, and through the window of the conference room, Bence could be seen with his arms crossed a pensive frown on his face. 

"Laurence?" Dove unconsciously said under her breath with a concerned face, her eyes wide. 

Joon patted her back and motioned for them to go over. They made their way over to the crowd and maneuvered through until Dove could get inside the room. 

"Kids, don't get too close." Bence warned them as soon as they entered. 

The necromancer stood a distance away from the table with the three dollhouses. The two realistic ones remained the same, it was just the peculiar one created by Connie that suddenly changed. The interior details were different and there was something at the bottom of the table. 

Before he could stop her, Dove ducked underneath Bence's arm that he held up to keep them away, and she swooped in to pick up the new item from under the table. 

The item was the same size as one of the four dolls that came with the toy house, now suddenly changed and resembling someone dear.

In place of the white fabric for skin, there was now beige-colored fabric for the body. Instead of an empty spot for a face, there was now some extra fabric to make the brown hair and black thread to make the eyes and mouth. 

The once blank doll also had clothes now. A khaki polo shirt and chinos, a light brown leather jacket, and even shoes that had the same color as the ones Laurence was last seen wearing. The one clue that made the girl very sure that the doll really was Laurence was the little item resembling a coffee cup attached to the dolls hand. Not by thread or anything, it just wouldn't come off, but it resembled the same cup that Dove gave him this morning. 

She gingerly clutched the little doll with both hands, staring with a mixture of disbelief, belief, and worry. 

Outside the room and peering in through the window was Eden. Joon noticed them and asked what was going on. Eden told him in writing, since the situation was so absurd, that everyone suddenly heard a noise and noticed Laurence was suddenly gone. One worker checked this room where he was last seen, and they didn't find anything but the doll on the floor that resembled him. 

For fear of also being turned, everyone has avoided touching the doll and the little house. Bence came over quickly after hearing all the commotion and was the only one who dared get closer until Dove showed up. 

Joon was surprised and went to go see for himself. 

"Is that really Laurence?" Joon asked, bewildered. 

"It really is..."

Bence knelt beside her and tried to get her to put him back. 

"You shouldn't be near this- it might turn you into a doll too."

"And?" She said without looking at him. 

The intern then stood up, still carefully holding the doll as she noticed the changes of the dollhouse. 

"Dove, don't touch the dollhouse." Bence put his arm up in front of her again, and this time he would get her to at least doing that by gently pushing her back. 

"What is that red circle in the living room?" She still looked over and noticed the tiny pentagram drawn on the cardboard floor. 

"I thought it was a pentagram at first, but it's a lot more. This only confirms that baby Connie actually became possessed by something when she made this, but I'm not sure if it was really a demon." 

Joon got closer, stepping beside Dove as he peered over at the little mark on the floor of the cardboard house. 

"What else could have caused a little kid to draw something like that? It's literally a pentagram."

"It's common for kids to just accidentally draw symbols like this without knowing the meaning. A circle with a star in the middle? Don't try and tell me you never drew something like that and thought it was such a unique looking design."

That made Joon fall silent for he had no clever response. 

Bence took a picture of the symbol with his phone and sent it to Enzo via text message. 

"Laurence I can only guess, ended up like this after reading that symbol so I need everyone to leave the room. I'm going to have someone else come look at this." He ordered, having the spectators ushered out of the room.

Joon noticed Dove wasn't budging and still trying to study the little house. 

"Dove?" He softly called out. 

"You might get turned into a doll too." 

"I need to figure out how get Laurence to change back. I'm staying here."

Bence patted the boy's shoulder, already recognizing the goal Dove had set for herself. He knew that she was in no state of mind to listen to anyone at the moment, still comprehending the fact that the large arts and crafts project was legitimately cursed. 

"We're going to figure this out. For now, go tell Adan and Enzo about what has just happened. Enzo used to work in the archives so he might be able to find some reports and files for us to go off of."

Joon nodded and was about to send the message before memory struck him and he told Bence of a message that Adan also had for him. The necromancer raised an eyebrow and asked Joon to pass on the message to him.

"He told her to tell you, but since she's unavailable, "Jiya aka gama wukake ku. Jaki." is what he wanted you to hear."

A moment of silence. Someone passing by the room heard and snickered, scampering off before Bence could see them. The necromancer's stoic face was caught nearly twitching at the mouth, like he wanted to laugh but stay angry. He inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, bending just low enough to Joon's eye level with a smile that was difficult to read. 

"Is that so? Well then, along with telling him and Enzo about this new incident, would you also mind passing along a message just to Adan for me?"

The boy nodded. 

"Thank you. Tell Adan that this is my response, "Tudod, mennyire elfoglalt vagyok, te hülye! Ki a valódi seggfej, aki még egy egyszerű emlékeztetőt sem adott?" and please don't hesitate." Bence said with a firm grin. 

"... I only know how to moderately pronounce some Hausa. I don't know if I can pronounce all that you said." Joon stared up at him blankly, now knowing how Dove felt. 

"That's alright! I can write it down for you. Just as long as you pass on both messages for me." 

He sent the alchemist intern on his way with some papers in hand and went back to the conference room. He let Dove stay in the room despite the possible dangers. He only had one request which was to avoid having physical contact with the dollhouse, and to not read the words of the little pentagram on the bottom floor of the dollhouse. He used the same tweezers left on the table to cover that up, then had the other two dollhouses removed and sent back to the clients. 

Dove took notes instead of photos of every little detail she could find, for the house did indeed change after Laurence's sudden transformation.

The little house was still made of scavenged toy parts such as foam boards, cardboard from the covers of notebooks and children's novels, paper for the walls and other places, broken plastic that was pulled apart and then glued back together, and more. This time however, the rooms and layout of the house changed from that of a family home. 

It now looked more like a college dormitory as the other three dolls were each placed in their individual rooms. There were four assorted bedrooms, each one had two sets of bunk beds, and while there were tiny objects, the new drawings on the cardboard walls were what gave the most clues. 

On the wall of the assumed shared living space was a poster that had the year, '2012' in bold colors and the neatest font that crayon art style would allow. 

When Bence entered the room to check on her, she looked up from her notepad and finally put the doll of Laurence down. She placed him next to the house, not knowing what would happen if he were to touch the dollhouse again. 

"Was Laurence in college during 2012?"

Bence looked up in surprise, then walked over to see the little detail she was staring at. She pointed for him. 

"This used to be a regular family home with the bedrooms and study and huge living room and kitchen, now the floor plan has changed to look like something of a frat house."

"I can confirm Laurence was a college student in 2012, but I must also clarify that this is not a frat house." 

"It's not? But isn't a frat house essentially house for college boys?"

Bence chuckled as he looked at all the other details. 

"Oh no, a frat house is like a dormitory for male college students, but it would typically be messier, and the details would make it obvious that there are frequent parties."

Unlike a real frat house, this house was cleaner for living room had only little fabrics shaped like sweatshirts strewn about the floor. There were little flat boxes with pizza made from cardstock cut and glued together, and then the detail that made Bence realize something. 

There was a plate on the little table in the living room, a plate made from cardstock and holding brownies made from felt, but there were green symbols on the brownies, like it was drawn on with a green colored pencil. The symbols were the typical one for weed. 

"A child would not or at least should not know about weed brownies." He thought out loud. 

Dove looked at the brownies on the table and then realized. 

"Oh, so that's what those were."

"What we know so far is that a little child locked herself inside her room when making them, and that the house is confirmed to be magical, or cursed." The man stood up and crossed his arms, leaning against another table as he thought. 

Dove picked up the notepad and read over what she had so far. 

"Before he became a doll, there were four blank and empty dolls in the house. Now there are only three and Laurence has become one of them. Not only that, but the entire house changed, not just some colors and accessories, but most of the floor plan. The shape of the structure remained the same." 

"That means three other people can become turned into dolls, but the conditions for that or for what happens after all four dolls have been occupied by a soul is a mystery."

"And the key for a possible answer is the symbol on the bottom floor of the house which stayed the same. The big issue for why we can't use it, however, is the theory that Laurence became a doll after reading the words on the circle."

"What other leads do you supposed we can use then in order to get him out of the doll?" Bence asked, wondering what she'd have in mind. 

Dove kept her eyes on the table, every now and then eyeing the doll of Laurence.

"If at all possible, we go and schedule a meeting with the family of eight-year-old Connie. It is likely that while the child may tell us how and perhaps why they made this dollhouse, I have a feeling that it is the family who will helps us see the bigger picture."

"And why is that?"

"... I know many people will assume that a kid is in their own head or not paying attention most of the time, hence why some adults will do what they do despite a kid being around. But the truth is they do pay attention, they observe immensely, just not in the same body language or reactive way that adults expect. There must have been something that caused Connie to lock herself in her room, and a reason for why the family let the child stay locked in for two days."

Bence nodded and decided to figure out how to contact the family. Laurence had a clipboard earlier for paperwork for each of the dollhouses. That same clipboard was found on the floor, picked up, and placed randomly on the table.

The necromancer flipped through the pages on the clipboard until finding the client information sheet for the family who sent in the dollhouse for inspection. He left the room to call and schedule a meeting, but not before checking one more time on Dove. 

She was still quiet. He let her be, one introvert understanding another. 

"It's okay Laurence. I-if you're hearing this, we'll get you out of there. I hope I can solve this case as fast as you likely could." She muttered to the doll, picking him back up again, not feeling right just leaving him at the table. 

She took her notepad and left the room, locking the door behind her.

Bence got on a phone call with one of the parents. The voice coming from the other end sounded like the mother talking. He did not tell her every detail about what happened, mostly that he had more questions. The man asked if she would like to have the discussion at their house, or if she or anyone from the family could come visit the agency. 

Surprisingly, she preferred for the discussion to be held at her house. 

He hung up after more details were exchanged, lifting his head up to see Dove standing by his desk, doll in her hands.

For once ever since coming here, she didn't look like a full-on adult with a piercing gaze, despite only being eighteen. 

Her style of choice always being a suit that typically helped with her professionalism, her quiet, stoic face from that she inherited from the years of merely observing and looking at her parent's faces, and her mannerisms that typically came from whoever she decided to mirror so as to have the best social outcome when in work mode. All of that seemed to turn off as she waited by Bence's desk for a meeting confirmation, clutching a doll of someone she looked up to in a subtle way, with both hands. 

For once ever since coming to work at Macabre House, she looked like a young, wary girl. 

"The mother wished for us to hold the questioning at her house today, preferably at five. That's when the entire family will likely be present. Is there anything you want to start preparing until then?"

Dove looked away in thought. 

"Are any of the family members confirmed to be haunted?"

"No. Currently, all of them are normal. But, little Connie may possibly be haunted."

"Can normal folks actually create cursed or magical items?"

"It's a rare case." Bence shrugged.

She hummed, eventually telling him that she was going to go take photos of the dolls and the dollhouse, all in their current states. 

"You should probably leave Laurence at the office." Bence suggested. 

She blinked out of her thoughts and remembered she was still holding the doll of Laurence in her hands. 

"Oh,,, right, might seem weird to see a teenager walking around with a doll." She said, walking over to Laurence's desk. 

"That, and the little kids might try to take him and rip him up." The necromancer said as he watched her awkwardly place Laurence at his desk. 

He was too small for the chair, so she put him on the desk, and he wasn't like the articulated dolls who could sit, so Dove awkwardly had him lean against his computer. Then, just as an extra precaution, she made a little sign from some blank paper. 

'Laurence has been turned into a doll. A solution is being worked on. Please don't disturb him.'

... P.S. Anyone who tries to move him from this spot will be used as a practice dummy for Eden's autopsy lesson.

Bence added that last line. 

With a couple hours to spare before meeting the family, Dove and Bence did all they could to figure out anything about the dollhouse's magic. 

Enzo came down to their floor after receiving the news, bringing some books and papers from the archives. As much material as he could find and remember that was related to the subject of dolls, curses, and transformations. 

The three remaining blank dolls were given to him to be taken back to the labs for examination, but the house was to stay in the conference room. 

The books and articles had a list of enchantments, voodoo curses, enslavement and entrapment, doppelganger dolls, the act of binding a person to an object in various ways, forced puppetry, living dolls such as sennentuntschi, etc. Unfortunately, the method of how Laurence became a doll did not fit the description for any of the methods in the books. 

The answer lied in the little pentagram inside the dollhouse. 

When the time hit four-thirty pm, Bence had Dove put the books down, gave her the briefcase, and they left to go visit the family of Connie. 

Ever since the island case, Laurence wanted Dove to always carry around her briefcase on field missions, just in case she ever needed anything from it. 

                                                  ...

The family lived in the suburbs, a good distance from the city. The house was two stories, and by the looks of the two cars parked in the driveway, it was safe to assume both parents were home. Bence parked right in front of the house, avoiding the driveway, and they walked up to the door. 

The mother appeared, opening the door before Dove could even knock. She had bags under her eyes, not as deep as the ones Laurence and Dove had, but they were visible. Her hair was frazzled, her clothes rumpled, and her voice strained as she forced herself to sound cheerful. 

"Oh, how good it is that you're here! Please come in! I already have some tea ready." The woman welcomed them both inside quickly, then shut the door behind them. 

"I was expecting there to be some questions, so I prepared quick. My youngest has been acting strange for the past week and a lot of people have been asking questions; her teachers, the parents of her friends, her friends who would keep asking when or if she could come out to play, the counselors- I've been busy!" The woman ranted, leading them to the living room. 

"I see. I apologize if the request for a meeting may have added to your stress." Bence responded as he surveyed the living room. 

"Oh, not at all! Not at all! I love being busy! And I see that you both are wearing suits? Oh, that is such, a professional appearance! I hope I get to see my children in suits one day! Well, mostly my son. He seems so wild even for his age."

Papers scattered over the coffee table; some were receipts from a different psychiatrist, others were prescriptions for medicine, and then flyers for shrinks, and printed letters from teachers and counselors. 

"Sorry about the mess by the way. I've been doing my best to clean up."

"Seems like a huge mess. I sure hope you aren't doing it by yourself." Dove commented as she looked around the house as well.

All of the curtains were pulled over the windows, the outlets that weren't occupied by other electronics or lamps had nightlights. There was a cross on the wall, thought it appeared to be more for decoration than a show of devotion. 

"Well, I'm the only one available. The kids need to study and do their club activities, and my husband works from nine to five. Frankly, everyone is just so busy, but my husband is thinking of hiring a cleaner."

The mother showed Bence to the couch and urged him to sit. He at first rejected, but when she insisted more, wringing her hands together tightly, he decided to oblige. Then when she turned her head to Dove, the girl immediately went to sit beside him. The woman's face gave off this idea that if the girl had not moved fast enough, she would pull her to sit down. 

Then, after Dove, the mother sat on the sofa across from them, brushing her hair strands out of her face and behind her ear. That did not fix the fact that her hair was a mess, but it made her feel better as she smiled at them, hands folded in her lap. 

Her smile almost reminded me of Annabelle's, except, surprisingly, Annabelle's smiles were all genuine. This mother's smile was, ah, I supposed the kindest word I can use is 'forced'.

"So, is this about the dollhouse my little Connie made? I bet you must've found some pages glued to the walls. She tore up almost all of her favorite books to make it! I don't even know where she got the strength to! When her brother tried to get her to reenact it, she just couldn't do it!"

"Well, we certainly found some interesting details about the little house." Bence chose his words carefully, before glancing to Dove. 

She made eye contact with him. He gave her a nod, as if to say, 'go ahead', and she looked to the woman. 

"How long did you say it took Connie to make it? Our reports say it was about two days, but of course, that amount of time seems unbelievable for an arts and crafts project of that size and her age."

The woman sighed, laying back in the sofa. 

"It was certainly a shock. We don't even know how she managed to put it all together! The scissors in her room are only for kids, and I don't recall her even having that much glue. My husband says I probably forgot some in there the last time I helped her with a project- I know I didn't! But, he insists since well, how else could she had managed?"

"Um, do,,, do you, can you recall why she was in her room for two days, in the first place?" Dove asked carefully as she took her phone out, ready to record. 

"I grounded her!" The woman answered instantly, sitting back up in her seat with a frown. 

She then caught herself and put back on a fake smile. 

"I mean- it's been a rough week. She- my Connie has this very creative and, strange imagination. Sometimes the teachers at school will call- they would call me before this incident, about a lot of things- the teachers would call me to talk about the things Connie would say in class and the things she'd write about. Saying all these things about how 'she's disturbing the other students', 'she keeps drawing these strange monsters', and all sorts of things." The mother said while rolling her eyes and making air quotes with her fingers. 

"All of the other moms would give me these looks! Because of those! And so I'd work my ass off, talking her up with excuses that she is just very into the gothic theme and how we like to read her Edgar Allen Poe stories! That's believable, right?" She asked with a shaking voice. 

Dove hesitated, before redirecting the conversation back to why Connie ended up locked in her room. The woman blinked and stopped clutching the chunks of sofa when sitting up. 

"Oh, right!" She put back on a smile. 

"I had to ground her because for some reason, for all of last week, her behavior just changed, very drastically. She would talk about strange things, and she keep insisting on sleeping with her dolls, her stuffed animals, and night lights all around the house! I guess some kids still believe in monsters. Anyway- she was relatively quiet aside from all that, but then last week, she kept fussing and crying, she couldn't stand being around others, yet she didn't want to be alone."

Dove tilted her head. Bence raised an eyebrow, attention piqued. 

"Whenever I tried to ask her what was wrong, she'd just keep bursting into tears to the point I couldn't understand a thing she was saying. I just assumed it was something childish again and decided to wait until she could find the words. And then Friday rolled around." The woman sighed again, her shoulders slumped and she could not force herself to smile this time.  

Her eyes fell to the table between them, some bad thoughts coming to her head. Then she perked herself back up when seeing the untouched cups of tea. 

"Well, don't let them just sit there getting colder!" Her voice got back up again. 

"Go on, drink!"

The nearly forgot about the cups of tea the woman had placed for them. Dove felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. 

I remember glancing to the side at Bence, not feeling very comfortable in this house. The decorations around the house looked like the usual ones you'd see at a craft store. There were family photos that hung on the wall, but not ones with like the usual kids by themselves growing up. Most graduation pictures, Christmas photos of each of the three kids with the mall Santa, and group photos of the whole family. 

I was assuming each large group contained all family members. And then there was a wedding photo of the woman and the husband, whom we have still yet to see. 

It felt like this woman was trying desperately to preserve a sense of normalcy. When bringing up the other moms, that gave me the theory she's probably a part of the PTA. The fact that there are papers and receipts from different psychologists and calls from parents told me she felt stressed very often. 

I wasn't sure at the time if the drinks were clean, since she claimed to have made them right before we arrived. I guess there was just a paranoid thought in my head, thinking, if we made it obvious that we could tell her family wasn't normal, what lengths would she go to in order to cover it up?

Bence picked up his cup and took a smell, then a sip. After a minute, he gave the woman a grin and thanked her for the tea. She smiled and acted bashful, talking about a tea recipe she used. When the woman looked away for just a few seconds so as to refer to something in her kitchen, Bence pointed to Dove's cup and mouthed to her. 

'Mine is safe. Do you want me to switch it with yours?'

The girl shook her head. She picked up her cup and took a sip. She exhaled a sigh. 

It was clean, it didn't taste like it had anything in it. I wouldn't call myself a professional in knowing whether a drink has been roofied, but I do have stories.

"May I ask you to continue explaining what happened on Friday." 

The woman wrung her hands together in her lap, looking off to the side as her forced smile became rather quiet. 

"One day I got another call from the school, this time the principal. Connie got into a fight with another kid. The boy was pulling her hair and she fought back, I thought this was going to be a case where the other boy's parents would be brought in and it would be that typical situation of 'who's right, who's wrong.', um thankfully that wasn't the case. The principal told me that the boy's parents would be disciplining him, mostly because the teacher remembered Connie burst into tears when he pulled her hair. I thought that was normal, until the principal brought up what the teacher was saying." 

The woman paused, not just to take a breath, but also because she was hesitating, a pained expression on her face. 

"The teacher told the principal about how Connie kept saying these words like 'stop touching me!', 'stop touching me again!', and that, made the teacher and principal, concerned with her home life."

Dove frowned and leaned forward. 

"I was so embarrassed. Connie was already causing all sorts of trouble, and then she causes serious drama. Last week's Friday was also a busy time as well, we were planning to go out and eat, made reservations at a restaurant, and she almost made us late." The woman said as her grin got wider and her eyes became, empty. 

She began talking with her hands more. 

"I decided not to tell my husband, he didn't need to know with how busy he was and it was just going to push all of our plans back. So, when I took her home, I tried to ask her why she said those things. And she kept insisting that I already knew why!" The woman's face contorted into one of shock and disbelief as she mimicked a gasp. 

"I can't read her mind! And instead of answering my question, she went on this tangent about how she hated how-, um, she hated this family, how she hated that we never talked about anything- blah blah blah. Childish, emotional stuff. So naturally, I grounded her. A child cannot throw a tantrum just because she's upset with her family! And honestly, not even thirteen and her moods are all over the place."

Dove was thankful that she knew how to keep a poker face when needed, however, she could not help but glance down to see Bence's hand gripping tightly to his cup. She did not dare to look up and see what expression he was wearing. Instead, she lifted a hand to gently tap on his wrist. 

The trembling of his hands stopped. He raised the half empty cup to finish the rest of the tea, set it down firmly, and promptly stood up, excusing himself in need of fresh air. 

Before the woman could frown and ask for his reasoning, Dove grabbed her attention fast. 

"And, was she grounded for two days then? Is that why she was locked inside her room?" The girl quickly asked as she looked over the woman's shoulder to see Bence leaving the room and walking out the front door.

For some reason, I wanted to reach a hand out and stop him. Call out for him, tell him to wait for. I also for some reason knew it wouldn't work and made sure not to do anything that I was thinking off. I felt my eyes getting glossy but covered it up as I took another sip of tea. 

"I didn't lock her in there." The woman insisted, no smile or frown or exaggerated expression. Her statement was full of honesty. 

"When I put her inside her room, all I did was close the door and tell her that she wasn't to come out until she thought of some better words to say. And then, she responded with something that just, made me decide to leave her alone until she came out on her own."

"May I know what she said?"

The woman shrugged. 

"I can't remember all that much, she screamed it through the door. Connie pretty much just told me that she wished our family was different, something something about no more lies or secrets- but we aren't keeping any! Honestly, it's those damn phones and stuff. I'm sure some of her friends at school are letting her use theirs. Because after this, there's no way I'm giving her a phone until middle school, maybe even high school. She just can't be trusted."

"Trusted?" Dove repeated in a questioning tone, making the woman flinch. 

"Because! Because clearly, she's in the stage of lying now!" The woman uncrossed her arms and sat up. 

"L-lying?"

"You know!- About earlier!"