The gloom of the midnight moon watched over the sleepy town of Dust Haven, and the first fog of The Long Darkness had flowed from the isolated church to the silent streets below. The town’s lifelong inhabitants hid behind locked doors, voicelessly mouthing their prayers for the night to come, wishing in the darkness of their homes that their offering be sufficient to keep at bay that which threatened their crops and livestock for the many seasons to come. Before yesterday’s arrival in Dust Haven, the Harburys had spent years sleeping in hostels, often in the car, occasionally in a tent. Night after night, town by town, paycheck to aching paycheck. Dale did all he could to provide for little Annabel. Working any earner he could find that would provide a roof over her head, a scrap of food for her to eat, and a pillow for her to sleep on. I will keep Annabel safe, he’d promised in prayers to the ghost of her mother. Twenty years, the church tower held silence in its hibernation, but on this night, it would chime again. Echoes of rich timbres bounced through the floorboards and doorways, the emptied stores and lifeless barns. Each house sat in darkness, curtains and shutters closed, no lamps nor candles lit, no hint of life to be found at all. Apart from the newest arrivals to Dust Haven, and the four Faceless girls who sought them. They skipped hand-in-hand down the town’s cobbled roads, leading the fog of The Long Darkness behind them. Their pale, white, frowning masks glowed in the streetlamps. Late nights, Dale would come home, often sacrificing his own nourishment for hers. Tucking her in with torn quilts and singing lullabies on broken-spring mattresses, hoping for her to have a glimmer of restful sleep in the stained, damp hostel rooms — toxic mould inhaled into her dreams. Laughing and singing sweet rhymes from their last days at nursery, the girls looked through the windows. Searching. Seeking. Each shared a single knock on the doors they approached. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Dale and Annabel, with full bellies, sipped tea, cheered and wept around their lantern-lit dinner table, a dream they thought never to come true. Gorging themselves on the courtesy welcome treats for the isolated hilltop church’s new lifetime contracted maintenance man. A home of their own and free supplies of local produce for the family - a true end to their hardships. “All will be well from now on, dearest Annabel,” he’d said as the bell chimed once more. Their mutual laughter and cheer distilled into quiet contentedness, both of them looked with wonder and awe at their cosy dining room, warm from the burning embers of the log-lit fireplace, “It’s perfect, Dada, perfect perfect perfffeect!” Between the softening resonance of the last bell chime and the crackling of wood, there developed sounds of school girls singing nursery rhymes, with intervals of stopping, then laughter, then more singing. Mounting in volume, louder, and louder, and louder. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Grandma said they only return every hundred years. Grandma lied. They’ve just finished the new housing estate on the outskirts of town. Obliterated the Scrubs. Cleared the brambles. Filled in the May Beck and concreted over Hangman’s pond. We should have known there would be consequences. No one’s buying the houses. The families and young professionals came in droves to view the new-builds with their three-car garages and solar panels. But all left with strained expressions and their feet on their accelerators. We told the developers. More than once. The Scrubs is wasteland for a reason. The Methodist church clung on for almost seventy years. But after the third suicide the minister was not replaced. The building was boarded up and left to rot. The Scrubs was left to grow wild again. We told everyone. They didn’t listen. It was a Tuesday night I first saw them. I was so tired. Work had been particularly bad. I got home around five hours later than I should have done. That was a record. But the ward never stops and the staff never stay. Except me. I was weary down to the marrow but I couldn’t sleep. The air was thick. It was January but something like humidity, but colder, choked the air. I watched the slice of moonlight move across my bedroom ceiling and tried again to figure out how I could get out of there with no money, no car and no qualifications. Then I heard them They were laughing. My heart slugged through almost a hundred beats before I was able to move. I went to the window. Put my eye to the gap in the curtains. They were on the grass that divided my yard from the back of the estate and the boarded-up church. There were four that I could see but I knew, somehow, there were more watching from the shadows. Grandma said you may mistake them for children. I think she lied about that, too. Black pits for eyes and mouths. Skin like stone, unmoving. But they were laughing. They knew what was coming. And they were laughing.

Mavis said to her, “What are your dolls doing down the street?” “They need a reminder of who they used to be.” “What do you mean?” “Well the one on the right was the Dean who ruined the lives of children and ended up cleaning the outhouses up at Manson’s Creek.” The one on the left was the school principal who led the children of parents he didn’t like straight to Death Row. The tears of the parents fell so heavily on his head that six months before his death he took his own faeces from his pampers and pasted that on his hair to look good for the television crew that was coming to do a documentary on him. He did that daily. And the middle two, one hired them and the other supervised them and said what they were doing was right and within the law.” Lucita answered in detail. She was so serious that Mavis wondered aloud whether she did do anything wrong in her job as auditor. “Are you saying they are in those dolls?” “Yes. Their bodies went in the grave but not their spirits, Not their souls. Not their feelings. They have to collect payment for all those children they destroyed. They knew exactly what they were doing. They just didn’t count on payday. Whenever their families come out, they get to watch each other. They don’t recognize the dolls as family of course, but if you look carefully at the dolls, you’ll see the tears.” “How come they’re so dirty?” “Whenever their descendants do the same wrongs as they did, their clothes get dirty and heavy.” Mavis was now horrified. As always when she’s nervous she starts biting her fingernails. As now, so Lucita asked with a smirk what are you nervous about Mavis. She didn’t dare look Lucita in the eye. “I’m wondering it I did any bad things and if you have a doll for me. Please don’t answer, please don’t.” The two of them did walk back to where Mavis saw the dolls but they weren’t there. So they walked again and found them in front of the supermarket. “How did they get here? Mavis asked in total confusion. “I do not know how they get anywhere. I was just made responsible for them. I do not know what wrong I did.” “I am thirsty. I need some coffee. Do you want a cup? Let’s go. That’s my house up there.” “Really? I always heard that that is a haunted house.” “What?” Lucita laughed out aloud. “Come on. Let’s get us some coffee while you tell me what other nancy stories you’ve heard.” They entered the house through the back door and Lucita settled Mavis in the rocking chair close to the window where she could see the sloping hills down to the flat by the supermarket. Lucita went in to the kitchen ostensibly to get coffee. “Hello Miss Mavis what are your dolls doing in front of the supermarket?”