Part 1 Chapter 1 - The Shop
It all began on a sunny and mainly cloudless day. Ethan was walking quickly down Jade Street, and the street was crowded with a lot of people, with the wind whipping his messy brown hair around, and the sun managed to glare into his blue colored glasses. Jade Street has always been a busy street, as it’s full of farmer markets, family and friends meeting up, restaurants that are full of people looking for a bite of a tasty meal, and people entering and exiting various stores. Ethan continued to walk by other people until he stopped at the entrance of Antique Trove.
In Antique Trove, many items have managed to find their place there, and are normally located on the shelves and tables, or on the floor if they are larger. These items usually range from small items, such as glassware and books, to larger items, such as clocks, paintings and different types of furniture. The store also has a rustic theme, with green wallpaper plastered on the walls. Madeline’s grandparents are the owners of the store for 40 years. The reason to why Madeline is working for them is because she enjoys selling old items to people who have an interest in collecting vintage items, along with the fact she managed to spend a lot of time in the store in her childhood. Ethan then enters the store, and he sees that Madeline was sitting on a foldable chair at the cash register.
“Hey Madeline! How’s everything?” Ethan asks as he walks around the shop, in order to takes a look at the various items placed on the various tables.
“Not too bad!” She says, as she looks up from from her phone. She was also texting her best friend at the same time. “What are you looking for today?”
“Eh. Maybe something like....“Ethan says this as he looks around, and his eyes landed on a dummy, a marionette and porcelain doll, placed into a sitting position on a shelf.
The dummy had a purple suit, along with a purple tie that was neatly tucked into the suit. As Ethan changes his focus to the marionette, he sees that it has red eyes, and that it was wearing a tattered blue Victorian Era dress, along with nearly washed out blue gloves on its hands. After taking a look, he immediately shifts his attention to the porcelain doll, Ethan sees that it was wearing a Victorian Era style ball gown, and that its eyes managed to resemble a black void.
“Oh, these look interesting. How long did you have them?” Ethan says as he quickly points at them. After looking back up, she immediately says- “Just for a week. My grandparents say they just randomly appeared on the doorstep. They don’t really know who left them there.”.
“Ah okay. Odd.” says Ethan as he takes another good look at them.
“We do tend to get odd items from time to time. Once we got some sort of weird collection that consisted of shrunken heads. After we sold them to someone else, they claimed something weird was happening to them.” spurts out Madeline as she continues to type away on her phone. “Anyway, what are you planning on getting?”
“You know what, I’ll get these. They’ll be an interesting addition.” says Ethan as he points at the dolls.
" All right.” Madeline says as she quickly sends a text. “Anything else?”
“No. That’ll be all.” says Ethan, as he grabs his wallet from his back pocket. Madeline nods as she stands up and stretches, due to sitting in the chair for so long. After putting her phone into her back pocket, she quickly grabs the dolls and rings them up at the cash register.
“$300 please. And would you like them to be packed?” asks Madeline as she holds up some packing paper.
“No. I’ll take them as is.” says Ethan as he takes out some money from his wallet, and gives it to her. Madeline nods as she passes some change and the receipt to Ethan.
“Thank you! Have a good day!” says Ethan as he walks towards the store exit.
“You too! See you another time!” says Madeline as she waves goodbye to Ethan.
After about 10 minutes, the front door clicks shut. After entering his small house, Ethan heads upstairs and enters his collection room. The inside of the room has a lot of brown shelves lining the walls, and these are where the smaller items rest upon. The items Ethan managed to collect over two years consist of a small antique clock, an antique grandfather clock, two entire shelves of old books, some antique coins that rest one one of the lower shelves and an old painting that’s currently resting on one of the walls. After setting the dolls down on one of the shelves that hang between the higher and lower placed shelves, Ethan then steps back and admires them. Just as he was about to leave the room, his cellphone then starts to ring and he picks it up. As Ethan does this, the dummy’s eyes moves to look at him, with a subtle click following the action.
“Carl! How’s it going man?“ Ethan exclaims with excitement.
“Not too bad! Did you get anything at that antique shop?” says Carl as he places down lunch on the table, and Amy arrives as he was placing the plates down.
“Just some dolls. A dummy, a marionette and a porcelain doll.”
“Really? Some old crusty dolls?” Carl says in a confused tone as he sits down to eat. Amy perks up with interest as she hears this.
“Hey man. They looked interesting, and I thought they would fit right in with the other stuff. Do you think Amy would be interested in looking at them?”
“Eh. I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see when we come over next week on Saturday.”
“All right. See you then.”
“See you. Call if you need anything.” says Carl as he prepares to eat. After the both of them hang up, and as Ethan turns around to face the dolls, the dummy’s eyes then click back into place. Ethan notices this and after eyeing the doll for a couple of seconds, he immediately says to himself- “Weird.”
As Ethan leaves the room, the dummy then moves his eyes to look at both the marionette and porcelain doll that are sitting on the left and right of him.
