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Every now and then the neighbors saw the two of them playing with each other. Every now and then one might smile at the sight of them and think, "Oh, how nice that those two made friends with each other! They always used to seem so sad and lonely."
Every now and then, but not often, one of them might stop to wonder just why they'd seemed that way, those thoughts made darker if they stopped to ponder the bruises each of the girls had that moved around their bodies but never faded completely. But those thoughts were never voiced; it wasn't their place to question how other people raised their children, and they weren't going to get a reputation for sticking their noses in where they weren't wanted. So they just went back to the safe old thoughts of how nice it was that they'd found each other, how sweet it was the way they seemed like two little girls right out of a storybook, where bosom friends spent all their time together and never even seemed to fight.
But if they could have seen them playing within Alessa's own home instead of out in the streets of Silent Hill where they were away from their parents eyes for a moment they might have thought twice about keeping their questions to themselves. Of course, any child spotted in the process of making a mess of their living room was going to look furtive, but it just wasn't right the way they flinched and froze at every small noise until they were absolutely sure that it wasn't Dahlia Gillespie arriving home from whatever errands were important enough to justify leaving two small children alone.
And if they could have heard the contents of the girls' make-believe as they pulled their fort together it only would have raised further questions, because it didn't sound anything like what a person would expect from a six and a five-year-old.
"Watch the temple rise, Claudia!" Alessa whispered, staring raptly at the lopsided construction of pillows and cushions propped up between the couch and coffee table. "All it needs is its crowning tower and it will be a perfect monument for God's return to Earth."
"I know! I know what it will be!" Claudia exclaimed and darted to a stand in the corner where a sparkling red vase stood, one of the few pretty things in the entire house. "They build the tower all in stained glass, so when the sun makes it shine everybody will remember the shining light of salvation!" She sat it carefully in the very center of the cushion roof, not quite the right position for a steeple but they both knew how important it was to make sure that if their 'tower' fell it wouldn't topple straight onto the hard floor.
"And the color will remind everyone of the cleansing fire and the streams of sinners blood that came before, so they'll never forget how lucky they are," Alessa said approvingly. Their 'temple' completed they crawled in through the blanket door and huddled together in the dimness inside. Alessa took a deep breath and said in the most commanding voice that she could manage, "Bring in the penitents."
Claudia leaned through the back door flap and brought in a few old dolls, all of them that they each had brought together, and lined them up against the wall. "Listen," she whispered reverently, "Can you hear the people crying out in joy for their new Queen?"
"Shh," Alessa hissed, her eyes darting towards the blanket like Dahlia might be crouched just on the other side listening in on them. "Claudia, you shouldn't say things like that. It's only God that they should worship, you know that."
Claudia's lower lip trembled but then she sat her chin and said, "They can be the same thing."
Alessa sighed. "Then they shouldn't call Her by a lesser title," she said, but she reached out to squeeze Claudia's hand before going back to their play. She sat up as straight as she could in the small shelter, staring down at the dolls with a look that she tried to make fierce. "What are their crimes?"
Claudia reached out to touch the first, "This one is a blasphemer. This one tried to hide her sinning husband from God's eye when She returned and purged the world of evil." She went on down the line, listing the crimes of each. When she reached the last, guilty of harming her daughter who was blessed in God's eyes she added, "She has agreed to pay penance for the group, so the rest could have lighter punishments."
"Then bring her forward," Alessa said, holding out her hands for Claudia to place the doll in them. She stripped it of its clothing, revealing a long gash down its front held together by wide childish stitches; they had played this game before. Once it was entirely bare she played it on a serving platter that was sitting on top of an upside-down pan. "Attend the alter," she told the other dolls gravely, "and remember that she does this so none of you need to suffer the pain God can ask of the faithful who have faltered in their path." They were words that they'd both heard before during many church services, though as often as not the clergy would decide that the blood of one person wasn't enough to pay for the entire group's crimes while it was still wet on the alter, especially if there was someone who they felt had been making trouble among the sinners.
Alessa picked up the knife that she had beside the alter. Unlike the platter and pot it was clearly no kitchen tool, its curving blade wickedly sharp and discolored in a way that made it easy to believe that it had drawn blood many times before. She held it out on the flat of both hands, bowing slightly to Claudia as she did so. "I give this job to God's most devoted priestess," she said and for a minute her voice held more affection than the solemness she'd tried to hold onto.
Claudia blushed faintly as she always did at the title, but she took the knife and raised it high. When her hand bumped the cushion above them she brought it down with all the force she could, plunging it deep into the doll's chest then slicing down and tearing straight through all the old stitches in one smooth movement. Stuffing spilled out through the hole, dyed red with food coloring long before.
Alessa threw her head back to stare towards the ceiling and smiled beatifically. "God sees the sacrifice, and approves!" she said. Unlike their parents they never changed the arrangement once it was made, never snatched away the promised forgiveness from the others once the first sacrifice was complete.
If their neighbors could have seen, those who weren't members of their church at any rate, even the most staid of them wouldn't have been able to hold back their questions about what Dahlia Gillespie and Leonard Wolf could be doing to make their daughters act that way. But all the neighbors saw was the two of them running out into Alessa's backyard not long afterwards, once they'd put the living room back to rights, laughing like they thought nothing at all of their bruises, like their wasn't anything worrying about the almost unnoticeably small strands of red cotton caught here and then in jags on their fingernails. So all the neighbors thought was, wasn't it sweet to see them at play?