The Doll

The Doll
By Aimee Sawan


Clara had walked past the small brass box on her desk everyday for a month. Wanting to open it but never being able to unlock it. Her curiosity constantly haunted her. She found it in the attic, the place of things people before her had left behind. She smashed the lock open, with pearls of proudly earned sweat running down her spine. The inside of the box was velvet green, not matching with its bronze outside, she noticed faced down photos and newspaper clippings. She ran her fingers over the smooth paper before taking it in her hands. Her mouth grew dry and she quickly flipped through each item, the photos of blood stained women, bagged bodies, and a glass of teeth, the newspaper clippings were missing persons cases from the early 1900’s. She rapidly shut the box and ran up to the attic; she slid the box across the floor barely poking her head inside the attic.

She planned on making this brief, however, curious Clara, as her grandmother used to call her, allowed her eyes to get trapped on a beautiful porcelain doll. The instant she saw the doll, her breath calmed, she was soothed by the dolls beauty. She carefully picked up the beautiful antique doll and made her way back downstairs, and into her room. She fell onto her bed with the precious doll, forgetting about the box and its contents. This doll was charming. Blonde curls held up in a powdered chignon, its dress an old French style ball gown, baby blue embroidered with gold crystals and sapphires. Clara admired the dolls green cat like eyes with her own eyes. The best thing about the doll was her mouth, the lips were curled tightly at the corners, as if she had a secret, maybe she did.

Months later Clara had forgotten about the doll and was no longer enchanted by its beauty. She neglected it, and it too made its way to her desk. One night Clara was in a rush to get to bed, after a long day of lectures. She ran up the stairs on all fours like a wild animal, convincing herself it was faster. Clara ran to her bed, tearing away her clothes as quickly as she could, she pulled her shirt over her head and without looking flung it across the room. “Thud!’ she heard and slowly turned to see what she had knocked over. Clara stopped breathing for a few moments. She stopped moving. She looked like she had seen a ghost, that of which she resembled. The doll lay on the floor, and the thing was bleeding. Blood trickled from the dolls fingertips onto Clara’s carpet.
Clara, not knowing what to do, abandoned her room and ran for her back yard, her knees gave out instantly when her foot met the scratchy wood of her deck. She lay on the wood floor trying to collect air, so that she could stop panicking and figure out what to do with the doll.

It took her a few hours to regain her strength and push herself off her back and onto her feet. The sun began to peek through behind the moon, giving Clara assurance of her safety. She went to her room slowly, afraid to witness the horror that was awaiting her arrival. However when she reunited with her bed room, she saw nothing. The doll was back on the desk as it was before, sitting prettily with the same mischievous smile. She wanted to be done with the craziness and bring the doll up to the attic and never have to go up to that dreadful place again.

Clara crawled up the stairs to the attic, making sure that if anyone was coming to kill her she’d be able to roll up into an immediate fetal position. She reached the attic doors, ran inside, put the doll down and began to run out when she took notice of another doll, and another and eventually counted 13 dolls in total. She ran out, shut the door and locked it behind her. Relieved, she fell to the floor and sat against the door, breathing hard. She’d seen the dolls before, but she could not remember where. Suddenly Clara hesitantly recalled where she had seen the dolls before; they were the women in the photos! The sick murderer had made replicas of his victim’s!

Clara shuddered at the thought and wiped the thought away from her mind, assuming it was a strange coincidence. She declared what she saw the night before a delusion from her lack of sleep.

Clara slipped into the shower to relax her nerves, before she finally joined up with her bed. While Clara was wriggling the shampoo out of her hair, she heard a thud, then another, and then another until she counted up to 13 thuds. She then heard her bathroom door creek open.

When Clara woke up, she heard the cries of several different women, including her own voice whimpering weekly. She woke up in the attic, she tried to lift herself up but she couldn’t. Clara’s joints concrete, her fingers and toes mended together, her eyes like glass, not moving back and forth. The 13 dolls stared at her and her beautiful blonde doll said “Nice of you to join us”.