Erin came back up the basement steps with her doll, and her mother spotted her as she emerged into the kitchen.
"There you are, young lady!" her mother exclaimed. "You know you're not supposed to go into the basement by yourself! The stairs are dangerous, and your father has a lot of dangerous equipment down there!"
Erin's lower lip quivered. "I'm sorry, Mommy. I was just looking for my dolly. And I found it!" She held the brown-haired, blue-eyed doll up as evidence.
Jennifer shuddered a bit. It was a bit creepy how Mark had made this doll to look exactly like Erin -- well, as exact as a foot-tall polymer simulacrum could be.
"I wish you had told me," she said. "I would have helped you find her. Ryan could have, too."
"But you and Ryan were busy doing chores and stuff!" protested Erin.
Jennifer sighed. "We'll talk about this later. Right now, it's time for your nap."
Erin was about to protest that she wasn't tired, but she sensed that now was not the time for that with her mother seeming mad. Instead, she just said, "Okay, Mommy."
* * *
As his sister was lying down for a nap in her bedroom, her 14-year-old brother Ryan had deposited a bag of trash in one of the household garbage cans, which were kept next to the detached garage behind the house.
His chores completed, he started walking back to the house when he saw something under a shrub. He reached in to pick it up and found that it was Erin's doll.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked it.
It didn't answer, of course, just looked at him with unblinking eyes and a neutral expression, dressed in its blue-and-white checkered dress.
"You should at least smile," he muttered.
The doll's face almost seemed to flicker, and Ryan blinked as it appeared that its painted-on lips had shifted position, the corners moving upward into a definite smile. But that wasn't possible, was it? He looked up into the partly cloudy sky, wondering if it was a trick of the light.
He looked back down at the doll, shrugged, and said, "I can't believe Dad has spent so much time making dolls that look like my sister."