Gemotions

Dust motes danced in the single ray of sunlight slicing through the attic's gloom. Amelia, hands perpetually smudged with grime, coughed, the air thick with the scent of forgotten things. She’d been cleaning the house for a week, a Herculean task after the previous owners, a family with a penchant for accumulating, had decamped. Finding a dusty trunk, she wrestled it open. Inside, meticulously wrapped in tissue paper, lay a collection of antique dolls, their painted eyes staring up at her with a vacant, knowing air. A sharp pang settled in her chest. She hadn't collected anything in years.

Amelia ran a hand over the dolls’ porcelain faces, feeling the coldness seep into her skin. The attic's silence pressed against her, heavy and unyielding. She’d spent her life caring for others – her demanding mother, her wayward brother – and had nothing to show for it. Now she was the caretaker of a house full of other people’s memories, and her own felt...empty.