1.Threads Of Love

 

Two years had passed since Amelia Hawthorne was reported missing. The Hawthorne family had completely fallen apart since then, some even say they dispersed to North Carolina and so. Now, the 9th house at the end of Burke Street seemed haunted by the two lonely souls. Only Mrs Hawthorne and her mother lived there now, in dire hope of Amelia's return. Mrs Hawthorne had supposedly pawed at and persuaded the local sheriffs and policemen to continue her search for a whole year, which was extraordinary because police searches were hardly three months long. You'd wonder why I'm telling you this, and I'll tell you why.

Two years after the horrible incident, her body was discovered at the bottom of the Beecher lake, grossly bloody, wearing the same dress she had worn when she had gone missing. It was in fact very strange because steamboats would pass Kirsten Lake everyday, and fishing was a regular sport practised in Rosewood, but never had the reports of dead body been found. A few days later, Mrs Hawthorne came to me and we had a truly odd conversation, owing to my memory.

 I heard a knock on my door when I was having my morning tea, and I got up to open it. " Good morning , Miss Hawthorne. What can I do for you?" I said as I seated her on the burgundy chair next to mine.  Little did I know that Miss Hawthorne would confide in me, such ghastliness, cloaked in her motherly love. " Duncan," I must tell you something very important." She whispered clasping her purse, as she pushed up her glasses."I think Amelia isn't quite dead." She stated, with quite seriousness. I sighed, and leaned back on my armchair, assuming this to be one of her episodes. Shock, perhaps. I nodded and said,"Why so?" She looked around secretively and started sobbing."Duncan, I know my little girl is out there ! I remember, she held my hand when I was scared, slept with my in my bed every night, and I have this harrowing feeling that she is out there somewhere.Bring my little doll back, Duncan." I nodded again, reassuringly, although I felt strange as she spoke of the nine year old child. Some said she had gone nuts, but I consoled her.

The next day, I decided to visit the morgue, a visit of interest you might say. I asked a medical student, a friend of mine, to have a look at the body, and with his help, I managed to get into the section with the corpses for the use of the science universities near Rosewood. I entered the nightmarish whitewashed room, where the souls had been sucked out of the bodies..and felt a chill run down my spine. I looked read the labels on the cloth covered corpses, and stopped when I spotted Amelia's. I pulled away the white sheet off Amelia's cold as stone,body and tightly shut my eyes, as I took a scalpel in my hand and gently sliced it from the stomach.It was a monstrous thing for me to do, and quite unusual but the thought was burning a hole in my pocket. As I sliced her stomach with the scalpel, I saw no blood, no organs, as if her humanity had been snatched away from her. And the corpse was stuffed with pure cotton,like a doll.