The night sky twinkles, and six-year-old Macy sits at her bedroom window, breathing on the window before drawing lines to connect the stars. Her eyes twinkle with amusement as she watches the stars glimmer. She looks at me with doll-like eyes before turning back to her art.

I try never to bother her while she’s doing this. It makes her happy. Even though it’s already an hour past her bedtime, I silently close the door and walk back into the hallway, where my wife, Chloe, sits, setting up Mario Kart.

“Hey, Samantha! Is Macy already in bed?” She asks, trying to decide between which character she wants.

“Nah. She’s drawing with the stars.” I say, sitting down beside her and grabbing a controller. “I thought you said I could have King Boo this time.” I comment, nudging her.

“Not this time! Boo is mine!” She says, laughing as she selects her character. I settled on Metal Mario. “Be right back, I need more soda.”

“Bring me a glass too!” I say with a grin. An ear-piercing scream splits the air, and both Chloe and I rush to Macy’s room. The window is wide open, and Macy is nowhere to be seen. “She must have been taken!” I yell, looking frantically around the room. “She must have been taken into the forest!”

The two of us rush outside without our shoes, but it doesn’t matter. I need to find Macy. “Macy!” Chloe shouts, her voice cracking. “Macy, if you can hear us, please yell back!” 

We split up, but after only a few minutes we came back together again. “I found a scrap of her shirt.” I say, trembling as it starts to rain.

“I found what looked to be blood.” Chloe says, eyes wide as saucers. “We need to move faster.”

“I know.” I reply, angry that I had been so careless. I should have just put Macy to bed as soon as I went in there.

After a few more minutes, we find more blood. A trail of it that seems to get thicker the more we follow it. I pray that she only cut her leg or something, but the amount of blood only causes me to doubt this. 

Images of her little body sprawled on the ground haunt my mind, and Chloe puts her hand on me. “We’ll find her.” She says reassuringly.

She was right. We would find her. Macy laid dead on the dirt road, with her eyes gouged out. A single stab wound is in the middle of her stomach. “I just hope it happened quickly, and not too painfully.” I say through tears, falling to the path and picking up Macy’s body. 

I hug her but notice something; there’s a small box where her head was. Chloe picks it up, opening it. She yelps and throws the box down.

“What? What is it?” I ask, but Chloe doesn’t say anything. I look inside the box, and a small doll sits there, staring up at me with . . . Macy’s eyes. There’s a small string on the back, and I pull it.

“I . . . can see . . . you . . . Mama.”