Twinkle Twinkle DOLL

The moving truck left at 6 PM. By 7 PM, the house was ours.

By 3:13 AM, the house had us.

Mom called it a "fresh start".

Dad called it "affordable".

I called it nothing. Because nobody asked me.

I’m Steve. 17. The oldest.

That apparently means I get the biggest room.

It also means I get the room on the third floor. The one with the slanted ceiling, the water stain shaped like a hand, and the window that never fully closes.

The house was old. 1980s old. White paint peeling. Garden overgrown. The realtor said "character".

I heard "problems".

First night. Everyone was exhausted. Boxes everywhere. Lily, my 9-year-old sister, fell asleep on a mattress on the floor. Noah, 12, was already snoring in the room next to mine. Mom and Dad were downstairs arguing about which box had the coffee maker.

I laid on my bare mattress. No sheets yet. The air was cold. Too cold for August in Karachi.

I told myself it was just the old AC vents.

I don’t know when I fell asleep.

I do know when I woke up.

3:13 AM.

My phone screen lit up the room. 3:13.

And a sound.

`Twinkle, twinkle, little star...`

Soft. Barely there. Like someone humming through a wall.

A kid’s voice. Female. Maybe 8 or 9.

I sat up. Heart beating too fast.

"Hello?" My voice cracked. The house ate it.

`...how I wonder what you are...`

It was coming from my direction. From my room.

I swung my legs off the bed. The floor was ice.

The humming stopped the second my feet touched the ground.

Silence. Just the hum of the fridge downstairs and the distant traffic on Shahrah-e-Faisal.

"Probably the neighbors," I muttered. "Some kid."

But the house next to us was empty. The realtor mentioned that too. "For sale for 2 years."

I checked the window. Locked, but the latch was loose. Wind came in.

I checked under the bed. Nothing.

I checked the closet. Empty hangers and the smell of mothballs.

The drawer in the old wooden desk. That’s where it felt like it came from.

I pulled it open.

Empty. Except for one thing in the very back corner.

A marble.

White with a blue swirl. Cold.

I picked it up. The moment I did, the humming started again.

`Twinkle, twinkle, little star...`

But this time it wasn’t from the drawer.

It was from behind me.

From my bed.

I spun around.

Nothing. Just my pillow. My blanket in a lump.

The marble in my hand felt heavier. I dropped it. It rolled under the bed and stopped.

The humming stopped too.

I didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

---

Morning was chaos. Normal chaos.

"Where are the plates?"

"Lily, don’t touch that!"

"Noah, breakfast!"

I didn’t mention the singing. Who would believe me?

Dad was already outside fixing the gate. Mom was unpacking the kitchen. Lily was drawing on the wall with a crayon. Noah was playing with a toy car he found in the backyard.

"How was your first night, raja beta?" Mom asked, handing me chai.

"Fine," I lied. And took the chai. My hand was shaking.

That night I slept with the light on.

3:13 AM.

`Twinkle, twinkle, little star...`

Louder this time.

Not from the drawer. From the corner.

I turned on the light. The room was empty.

But the marble was back. On my desk. Right in the center.

I threw it out the window.

I watched it hit the dry grass below and disappear.

I went back to bed.

3:14 AM.

The marble was on my pillow.

I didn’t scream. I just stared at it.

And then I started humming along without realizing it.

`...how I wonder what you are...`

My mouth was moving. But I wasn’t the one doing it.

I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. The humming stopped.

I slept with the marble in my fist. Squeezing it so hard my palm hurt.

---

Day 3.

Things started getting weird.

Lily stopped playing with Noah. She started sitting in the hallway outside my room. Just sitting.

"Who are you talking to?" Mom asked her.

"My friend," Lily said. "She sings nice."

Noah started sleepwalking. I found him at 2 AM standing in front of my door. Eyes open.

"Steve," he said, but it wasn’t his voice. It was higher. "Wanna sing?"

Then he blinked and walked back to his room like nothing happened.

Dad found scratch marks on the floorboards in my room. Three long lines, like fingernails.

"Termites maybe," he said. But termites don’t make that sound at night.

That dragging sound. Like something being pulled.

And every night. 3:13 AM.

`Twinkle, twinkle, little star...`

Now it wasn’t just humming.

Now there were words.

And now... my lips were moving with them.

I’d wake up and my throat would be sore. Like I’d been singing all night.

I’d wake up and the marble would be in my mouth.

I stopped telling anyone.

---

Day 5. The breaking point.

I woke up not in my bed.

I was sitting on the floor. In front of the desk.

The drawer was open.

And the marble was gone.

In its place was something else.

Small. Porcelain.

A doll.

It was about 8 inches tall. Old. Dress cracked. One eye blue, one eye missing. Hair was yellow yarn, matted. And around its neck, a faded ribbon with words stitched in: _Lottie_.

It was smiling.

I don’t remember picking it up. But it was in my hands.

And I was humming.

`Twinkle, twinkle, little star...`

The door creaked.

Lily was standing there. In her pink pajamas. Hair a mess.

She wasn’t scared. She was smiling too. The same smile as the doll.

"She’s pretty, isn’t she?" Lily whispered.

"Who?" I asked. My voice didn’t sound like mine.

"The lady under the floor," Lily said. "She’s lonely. She wants us to sing with her."

"What lady?"

Lily pointed at the floor. Right under my bed.

"There," she said. "She’s been waiting. For a big brother to sing first."

Cold ran down my spine.

"Lily, go back to bed."

But Lily just tilted her head.

"You’re singing so good, Steve," she said. "Don’t stop."

Then she turned and walked out.

And I heard her, down the hall, start humming too.

I looked down at the doll. Lottie.

Her one blue eye was looking at me.

Her mouth moved. Just a little.

And she sang.

`...up above the world so high...`

My mouth moved with her.

I couldn’t stop.

---

I don’t remember much after that.

I remember Dad yelling.

I remember Mom crying.

I remember Noah hiding under the table.

I remember waking up in my bed at noon. Sunlight.

The doll was gone.

Dad was sitting next to me. He looked 10 years older.

"Steve," he said. "What happened last night?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were... you were in the backyard. Barefoot. Singing. Over and over. You wouldn’t stop. We had to hold you down."

I didn’t remember the backyard.

I did remember the doll.

I did remember Lottie.

"Mom threw it away," Dad said, reading my face. "Whatever it was. Found it in your room. Threw it in the trash."

Relief. Hot and fast.

"Good," I said.

That night, I slept like a baby. No singing. No marble. No doll.

3:13 AM came and went. Silence.

For 2 days, the house was normal. Lily played with Noah again. Mom cooked. Dad fixed the gate.

I thought it was over.

---

Day 8.

I was in the kitchen getting water at 2:55 AM. Couldn’t sleep.

That’s when I heard it.

Not from my room.

From the basement.

`Twinkle, twinkle, little star...`

But it wasn’t one voice.

It was three.

A girl. A boy. And a man.

My voice.

I ran downstairs.

The basement door was open.

And in the middle of the dirt floor, where Dad had been digging to fix a pipe...

Was a hole.

About 2 feet deep.

And in the hole was the doll.

Lottie.

Clean. Like she’d never been in the trash.

And around her, drawn in the dirt... were three sets of footprints.

Small. Medium. Large.

Leading to the hole.

And then... stopping.

Like whoever made them was now under.

The humming stopped.

From the hole, a new voice. Not a child’s.

An old woman’s. Raspy.

"Thank you for singing, Steve," it said. "Now it’s your turn to be quiet."

The dirt at the edge of the hole moved.

A small porcelain hand reached up.

And grabbed my ankle.