Cry in the Night by Carolyn G. Hart

bed.
    Everything happened at once. Calls and shouts echoed in the hallway. Juan was the first to come. Barefooted, in shorts, he ran to the open doorway, skidding to a halt to look down at the strange display on my floor.
    I, too, stared in puzzlement at the remnants of a Barbie doll that had been ripped apart, the head chopped free to lie by itself, the arms and legs broken from the torso. A bunched serape lay a foot away.
    Juan reached out and flicked a switch. The overhead light came on. I turned to look toward the bedside lamp and saw the cord lying loose on the floor. Someone had pulled the plug from the socket so that I would have no light when I awoke.
    More running steps. Tony came around Juan and hurried toward me. “What’s wrong? Why did you scream?” Tony, too, wore boxer shorts. He was muscular and looked powerful and very attractive.
    Juan was now leaning against the doorframe, dark eyebrows raised. “Some kind of ritual, maybe? Do you always scream when you kill a doll?”
    Kill a doll . . . The words lodged in my mind and I felt an inward lurch of sickness. That’s what it looked like. Someone had killed a doll. A blond doll. I was blond. Gerda was blond.
    “Don’t be absurd.” My voice was crisp. I knew my anger was evident. “I did not scream. I had nothing to do with the destruction of the doll. I was asleep. A noise woke me, the creak of the door opening. Someone stood there, threw things on the floor, screamed, and ran away.”
    “Really.” Juan’s tone was silky, his disbelief evident. “Well, funny how things happen when there’s a stranger in the house.”
    “Suficiente, Juan.”
Tony’s voice had a hard edge.
    Juan gave an elaborate shrug. He reached down to pick up the serape. As he shook it out, something clanked to the floor. Juan stepped over the doll remnants, reached down, and picked up something dark. He held it cupped in his hand. He came upright and spoke rapidly in Spanish.
    Tony moved toward him, held out his hand, and spoke sharply.
    Juan frowned, shrugged again, and handed the dark object to Tony.
    Tony looked down, slowly turning toward me.
    His demeanor changed as if from light to dark. When he had hurried from the hall, holding out his hands to me, he was all sympathy and concern. Now that he held that dark object, his face turned secretive, speculative.
    “What’s wrong?” I took a step toward him.
    “Have you seen this before?” On his palm rested a blade of rock—hand-formed obsidian. His eyes were dark with worry.
    I didn’t doubt for a moment that the sharp edge had efficiently dismembered the doll. The blond doll. Again I felt a wash of sickness. “I know nothing about it.”
    “What”—it seemed to take effort for him to push out the words—“did you see in the doorway?” He waited too tensely for my answer.
    I looked at him in dismay. “I didn’t see anything. It was too dark.”
    It was as if he’d been handed a reprieve. “Well, then, let’s pick these things up. Come downstairs and we’ll have a drink.”
    “What about the doll? What about that knife? Someone came in my room tonight. Shouldn’t you call the police?”
    “Police?” A deep voice sounded dismayed.
    We turned to see Señor Ortega. He was fully dressed. Perhaps he saw the surprise in our faces and possibly a question in my eyes. He said pleasantly, “I was in the garden taking a walk and saw the lights. Is there some difficulty?”
    Tony took a deep breath. “Someone was playing a joke on our guest.” He nodded at the floor.
    Señor Ortega’s face changed from polite inquiry to inscrutable blankness.
    “What’s going on?” The throaty voice was demanding.
    Tony’s father swung around to face his wife. He moved to intercept her, but she had stopped short, gazing down at the dismembered doll. Her lovely face looked stricken. And frightened.
    “Who did that?” Her voice shook.
    I spoke up. “Someone opened my door and threw in the pieces of the doll and screamed.