Breaking Point

Léa spent the whole day waiting by the lake, her eyes fixed on the misty horizon where the yellow cabin stood out like a blot of sunlight against the gray.

The following morning, worry gnawed at her too fiercely to stay still. She climbed the muddy path to Maya’s house, her footsteps echoing strangely in the heavy silence of dawn. When she knocked, only her echo answered. She circled the property, her stomach twisted with growing dread.

Maya lay on the shore, curled on her side, her amber hair fanned out in the damp grass like a tarnished halo. Her face was pale, her lips tinged with a troubling shade of blue, and at the corner of her mouth was a trace of dried blood. Purplish bruises marked her bare arms and her delicate neck — strange patterns that looked almost like the imprint of tiny fingers.

Léa dropped to her knees, trembling hands reaching out to gently shake her. Maya opened her eyes with difficulty, her blurred gaze trying to focus.

"Léa ?" she whispered in a hoarse voice. "What… what happened ?"

Léa helped her sit up, noticing that Maya’s clothes were soaked, as if she’d fallen into the water.

"I don’t remember anything," Maya admitted, shivering. "I was painting by the lake, and then… I felt something, like little hands grabbing me, pulling me toward the water."

She raised her arms to examine the bruises, frowning at the marks she couldn’t explain.

"I must have fainted," she went on, rubbing her neck. "But… no. That’s ridiculous." She shook her head, but her eyes kept scanning the surroundings, as if dreading an invisible threat.

Léa helped Maya back into her house and, before closing the door, glanced over her shoulder toward her own home. In the window of her bedroom, she thought she saw Momma’s silhouette — upright on the sill, watching them.

She stayed with Maya until she fell asleep, exhausted. But as soon as her breathing became steady, Léa slipped away and ran home, her heart pounding in her chest.

In her room, Momma was exactly where she had left her that morning — seated on the dresser, hands folded neatly on her lap. The red needle now rested in her cloth hand, like a tiny dagger poised to strike.

Léa approached slowly, her lips moving in the silent dialogue she had always shared with the doll.

*What did you do ?*

Momma’s button eyes seemed to stare with new intensity, as if stitched with a living gaze. Léa had the strange sensation that the doll was expecting something from her. Hoping for… what ? An apology ? A return to the old order ?

That night, unable to sleep, Léa climbed up to the attic to search through her mother’s belongings. She hadn’t set foot there in years, choosing instead to let Céleste’s memory rest in peace. But now, the events of recent days pushed her to seek answers in the past.

At the bottom of a dusty trunk, she found a black leather-bound notebook she didn’t recognize. Her mother’s careful handwriting filled the yellowed pages. At first, Léa read with tender curiosity, touched by Céleste’s intimate thoughts. But her smile slowly froze.

*Lord, grant me the strength to remain dignified despite the temptations of this corrupted world. These women who flaunt themselves shamelessly, who reject Your divine plan to indulge in unnatural sins… they should find husbands who would teach them their place.*

Further on: *I saw two women kiss in town today. My blood ran cold. How can people so openly reject the order You have established ? Such creatures deserve to be stoned.*

And again: *If my daughter ever strays down these paths of perdition, I will return her to You with my own hands — even if it costs me my freedom on earth. A mother’s love must sometimes be harsh, to save her child’s soul.*

Léa shut the notebook abruptly, her hands trembling. Her mother — the woman she had idealized despite her tragic death — had hidden a deep-rooted hatred. The love Léa had believed to be pure and protective had been poisoned from the beginning.

A loud thump echoed through the house.

Léa raced down the stairs and ran to her bedroom. Momma had vanished from the dresser. Panic rising, she searched frantically — pulling out drawers, looking under the bed. It was a faint creak that made her glance toward the window.

The doll was there — standing on the windowsill — facing Maya’s house. In the moon’s pale light, her button eyes gleamed with an eerie metallic shine. The red needle dangled from her hand like a tiny sword of Damocles.

Léa grabbed Momma and clutched her to her chest, feeling the worn fabric and frayed seams beneath her fingers. She mouthed the words:

*Mom… stop. Please, stop.*

But for the first time in her life, she felt the doll wasn’t listening. Something inside her had hardened — crystallized into an unyielding will. The maternal love she had carried had twisted into something else — a toxic possessiveness that refused to let Léa grow, love, or choose.

Léa placed Momma back on the dresser and stepped away. For the first time, she felt afraid of the cloth creature that had accompanied her since childhood. Afraid of that warped love that sought to trap her in a suffocating purity.

That night, Léa fought against sleep. She sat at the foot of her bed, her eyes locked on the doll, who hadn’t moved for hours. But she knew. She knew that the moment she looked away, the moment she surrendered to sleep, Momma would go to Maya — to do what her mother’s twisted love deemed necessary.

At dawn, Maya found a note slipped under her door. A torn scrap of paper with trembling handwriting that read: *Get out of my life.*

Her heart clenched. The handwriting looked like Léa’s. The paper felt familiar too — that rough texture, those torn spiral edges…

The notebook she had given to Léa.
There was no doubt.
The message had been ripped from one of its pages.