China Dolls- Extended

*This is an extended version of the previously posted "China Dolls". I am considering using this scene, or one similar, as Chapter 1 of my novel. It sets the back story of what drove this family to become religious fanatics and kidnappers. All feedback is welcome- especially if it is to be used in such a crucial place as Chapter 1!*

         The room with the iron bed was on the second floor of an old country house. Fifteen years ago, it had been Matti’s room. China dolls with dresses of every color sat on the shelves that lined the now bare walls. Their white, expressionless faces looked out over a white cotton comforter and pillows trimmed with lace. A hand sewn quilt lay across the bottom of the bed and little fingers traced the stems of the wild flowers that moved over the fabric.
         The air held a tune, hummed soft and sweet, and the fragrance of a single lily drifted from a vase in the corner. It was the first blossom of spring and the little girl had plucked it from her mother’s garden before it had been seen by the others. Plump fingers gripped the metal at the foot of the bed and Matti slid down the pole. She plotted over to the window and looked out towards the barn. Pressing her nose tight against the glass, her large, blue eyes squinted and searched for any bright splotches that may have peaked from the earth since the morning. Shafts of bright green rose from the dirt near the fence but there were no blossoms.
         The glass felt cool against her forehead and the young girl raised her hands to the sides of her head. She placed ten little pads on the windowpane. Matti could almost feel the cold dirt in her hands, the grittiness sliding over her palms. Her eyes became wide and her body rose up on the tips of her toes- she would do it.
         She whirled away from the window and clapped her hands. Her feet left the floor while small, white teeth beamed in anticipation behind sweet lips. Her new yellow dress twirled and fell against her juicy legs and a fleeting thought urged her to change but she couldn’t. She didn’t have time. The shiny brass doorknob was too large for her hand but if she used all of her might the egg shape could fit into her fingers. The door flew open and a squat, yellow blur ran out of the room with the iron bed and bounded down the wooden staircase.
         “Now you stop right there,” demanded Martha Jenkins, pointing at the girl with her rolling pin. Matti froze on the kitchen floor with her arms in midflight. Blond curls dripped from her shoulders, concealing a sneer. Her mother’s apron was covered with flour, her hands, chunks of raw meat. “You march right back upstairs and take off that dress.”
         Little arms crossed. A little head tilted to one side, revealing the smirk. “I don’t hav’ ta’.”
         “That is enough!” Martha shouted. Dust flew between them as she slammed the rolling pin. Matti jumped. An oak table next to the sink took the beating. Then the warning came, “I said- take- it- off.”
         Little fists and feet threw down in defiance. “Naoooo!” she shrieked with all of her might. The round features of a cherub hardened with rage. Her mother’s warning was met with a dare. “You,” Matti seethed, with her hands on her hips, sticking out her plumpish butt, “can’t make me.”
         Martha recovered from the shrill cry and tightened her hands around the rolling pin. She raised it once more when a glint around the girl’s neck caught her eye.
“What’s that you’re wearing?” Martha’s voice had become strained.
         “Papa gave it to me,” the little girl vexed. She tilted her head from side to side and stuck out her tongue. “Cause I’m the prettiest.”
         “That’s-” the pin clattered on the table. Martha’s hands fumbled in the raw meat. She rolled it into little balls and then smeared them up and down her forearms. She stared at the table and in a ghostly voice said, “That’s not yours. Take it off.”
         “Eeewww, that’s nasty,” Matti whined. Then she yelled, stomping her feet with every word, “you’re nasty! And you’re ugly! And you're mean! And I HATE YOU! And YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!”
         The little girl spun around, raced through her father’s workshop and out the backdoor. She dashed across the budding grass and dove onto her stomach in the middle of the garden. She raised her plush little arms over her head, her hands barely touching, and rolled, rolled in the dark cool dirt. She laughed and grinned with her eyes closed and she squeezed her lips tight as the soil fell over her face.
         From the second floor, the china dolls looked on through immobile eyelashes. They watched the little girl stand and twirl and then throw herself back down onto the soil over and over again. The bright yellow of her dress faded like a molding banana. Their placid eyes saw a man stagger out of the wood line. They sat in their beautiful colored gowns as he stopped and then turned towards the little girl. His body swayed to an unheard rhythm. He took one step, then two, and then broke into a stumbling run as he closed the distance between himself and the garden.
         Martha had taken a seat at the table. The hairs on her arms were sticky from the meat. She traced her fingers over the greased skin and slipped her wedding band on, and off. The light metal floated through her fingers as it slid through the animal lard. That necklace was hers. Wylie had given it to her after the birth of their first child. And now he had given it to her, their beautifully retched daughter. Martha had clung to her ignorance to keep her family together but it couldn’t be denied any longer. What she had suspected for years was now known. That child had ruined them. The angelic looking, demonic child, which they had created, had destroyed everything.
         The shrieking outside grew louder and Martha looked out towards the garden. Standing over the blotch of yellow was a man holding a jug. Her throat burned with anger. She grabbed the coyote rifle from the fireplace and stormed out the back door, her greased hands slipping and fumbling along the metal.

         “Why would Papa do such a thing?” Wyatt asked with young innocence. He added another log to the fire and then sat on the floor at Martha’s feet. The floorboards creaked underneath the recliner as the woman lowered herself down. Night had fallen and the waves of guests had long disappeared. The police chief was the last to go- he was an old friend of Wylie’s. He made them all tea and waited with Martha until the house was empty and the bodies had been taken to the morgue. She sighed as her eldest laid his head across her lap. She stroked his hair and he buried his face deeper into the roses on her dress.
         “Shhh,” she cooed. “It’s my fault, child.”
         “No, it isn’t,” protested the younger of the two. Johnny ran upstairs and came back down holding one of Matti’s china dolls by the hair. “He gave that little brat everything.”
         Wyatt barely lifted his head when Johnny tossed the doll in the fire. He thought his brother was right. Wyatt loved his daddy but couldn’t even remember the last time they had worked on a car together. He was always playing with Matti. Singing stupid baby songs with her. He loved her more. That’s why he chose to go with her instead of facing his dues.
         “We both spoiled her, Johnny. We ruined her with temptation. We turned her over to the devil and she cursed us all.” The three watched the blue yarn of the doll’s dress scorch and enkindle. Disintegrated scraps of material fell away into the ashes and the plastic hair dripped down its porcelain face. The mother’s expression was as placid as the one in the fire. “I told her not to go out with that dress.”
         Wyatt closed his bright blue eyes and a tear ran down his face. He saw his little sister’s body bludgeoned by his father’s drinking jug. He saw the bloody scalp of his old man. He saw one old, wily arm wrapped around a yellow blur and the other still clutching the rifle. Drink would do that to a man, though. One time he beat Johnny until his butt split open, when he found tobacco in their room. Mama had to come and stop him. She wasn’t there to calm him down this time, though.
         “Will we all fall to the devil, Mama?” asked Johnny, standing in front of the hearth. His austere gaze showed only the reflection of the flames in his young, grey eyes. “Is that how we’re made?”
         Martha pulled the bible from her sewing basket. Her hands trembled to hold open even a few pages. She read aloud from the book of Genesis and her boys learned how Man was created in God’s own image.
         “God wouldn’t create us to kill us, Mama,” said Wyatt. “I don’t think Matti should have died.”
         Martha shifted in her chair and closed the book.
         “Do you think she was on the path towards Heaven?”
         “No,” said Wyatt. He moved away from his mother and sat on the brick, pulling both knees up to his chin. His pants smelled of dirt and smoke. “God won’t let her into Heaven now.”
         “Maybe we could have changed her,” offered Johnny, still staring into the fire. “She was born an angel. Maybe if she knew how bad she became, she could have been saved.” A light flickered in his eyes as he glanced over at her chair. “Mama, maybe we can save other girls from the devil.”
         Martha’s heart pounded in her chest as she listened to her son preach. She had failed her own daughter. She had ruined an angel from God.
         “What are you talking about, son?”
         “There are lots of bad girls like Matti,” Johnny said, clenching his pants in his fists. “The devil has them. Maybe we can take them back. Create them again. Turn them into angels before they go.”
         A chill swept over Martha’s shoulders. She looked deep into the face of her little boy, so solemn and stern in the fire light. “Isn’t that God’s job?”
         “We will be doing his work, Mama,” said Johnny.
         “Matti was born an angel, Mama,” said Wyatt.