"Dad, Doctors, and Death" by Maelan Johnson: February 2026 1st Place

I wasn’t even supposed to be outside that night.

Wind screamed through my window, rattling the loose pane Mama never got to fix. Downstairs, Max cried in his crate—scratching, whining, urgent. Mama lay too sick to move, skin cold as the frost on the glass, so I slipped on my slippers, pulled my rabbit‑skin coat tight, and crept past the bucket catching slow, rhythmic drips.

The house felt hollow, dust softening everything like old snow.

Outside, Max yanked me toward the woods, paws sliding on frozen earth. My breath burned in my throat. Then voices drifted through the trees, thin and sharp as splinters.

“…you shouldn’t have kept his watch. If the girl sees it, she’ll know.”

My heart lurched.

A second voice—smooth, familiar—answered.

Dr. Halden. The man who’d called Papa’s death an accident.

“She already suspects,” he murmured. “Her father fought harder than I expected.”

Cold flooded me, numbing and absolute. Papa hadn’t slipped. He hadn’t fallen. 

He’d been murdered—by the town doctor.

Max whimpered, pressing against my leg. I backed away, branches snapping under my slippers. Tears froze on my cheeks. When the voices stopped, I ran—snow clawing at my feet—bursting through the door and locking it with shaking hands.

For days, the truth sat in me like a stone. I watched Mama sleep, breath thin as paper. I watched Dr. Halden visit, smiling like he hadn’t killed my father. Every word he spoke made my stomach twist. He wasn’t a man. He was a monster.

I couldn’t hold it anymore.

One morning, when sunlight warmed the frost on the windows, I told Mama everything. She didn’t cry. She just held my hand, her hazel eyes steady and sharp.

“We’ll tell the sheriff,” she whispered. “You’re not alone.”

And we did.

The sheriff listened. He found Papa’s watch—and more. By spring, Halden was gone. By summer, Mama was walking again. By fall, Max had a new crate.

And me? I could finally breathe. The truth made space for something warm, something bright—something like hope.