Short Story Collection: Hidden Fears
The Doll with the Blue Eyes
“Ding, Dong,” went the sound of the doorbell as the six-year-old crashed through the door of the antique store, leaving her dad outside. With a sigh, her dad followed. Hundreds of dolls were sitting on shelves and had the full attention of his daughter Lynn. Lynn was desperately searching for a special doll. She looked everywhere but couldn’t find just the one. She was running from isle to isle, her father lazily following. After a long, frantic search, she finally gave up. She seated herself on a closed box and pouted:
“I can’t find the right doll!”
Her dad, a tall, sturdy man could of course reach all the places she couldn’t. So, he tried his best to cheer his daughter up by picking a random doll from the upper shelve to please his little girl.“Look,” he said. “This one can talk.”He pulled the little string attached to the dolls body:
“One.” It squeaked.
The father suppressed an ugly shiver. Its voice sounded off to say the least, but the way Lynn stared at the doll in fascination, warmed his heart. It had long blond curly hair cascading over its porcelain body. Two sky-blue eyes dominated her pale, waxen face. The doll was wearing a burgundy ballroom dress from the eighteenth century. It was holding one finger up in the air, emphasizing the word it said. Lynn was blown away by the doll’s appearance. Her father found the doll creepy but seeing his daughter’s happy face consented to buy it. At home Lynn showed the doll to both her older sisters who immediately became jealous. In the evening when the parents went out, the eldest sister Alison started pulling Lynn’s hair, making her scream just as she had done since Lynn was born:
“Are you Daddy’s little favorite now?” Alison snarled, pulling her lips back into a nasty grin.
The middle sister, Nina just sat there and laughed while she saw her younger sister get beaten by the eldest. Nina loved to watch.
“Ow!” Lynn cried in desperation, wishing she didn’t have to share the bedroom with her sisters.
Alison let go of her and ran towards Lynn’s bed. She turned over the mattress and uncovered a small wooden chest.“Isn’t this the box where you keep your precious stuff?”Nina snickered at the eldest remark.“Let’s see what you got here. Mhmm.” Alison took out a small porcelain cat and dropped it on the floor without taking a second glance at it. It broke into a thousand pieces.“Oops.” She shrugged and continued flinging Lynn’s precious, fragile souvenirs on the floor. The laughter of Alison and Nina echoed through the small apartment. Lynn clasped her new doll, whining. Alison’s eyes were glistering with joy when she slowly approached Lynn, eyes fixed on the doll. Just as she was about to rip the doll out of Lynn’s hands, their father entered the room:
“Missy, what are you doing?!” He said in a stern voice. He already suspected what was going on. This was not the first occurrence of sibling cruelty he as a parent had witnessed over the years. Although, as a father, he felt quite helpless because his daughters were too smart and too devious for their own good. Lynn was the only one radiating innocence. That’s why he felt overly protective about his youngest child, although he would never admit it to his wife nor to his eldest girls.
Alison sighed, letting her hands fall to the side of her body.“Nothing,” She answered in a sing-song voice.
After their dad had lectured Alison to no avail as usual, the three of them were sent straight to their beds. This night something strange was about to happen. All previous omens led to this and while Alison was sleeping, she was haunted by an unusual nightmare. She saw Lynn’s doll everywhere, hearing it say number two in a loud clockwise rhythm. The string attached to her body went up and down by itself. Alison awakened bathed in sweat, hearing its dainty, shrill voice again:
“Two.”
Turning her head, she saw the doll, which was seated at Lynn’s nightstand; there, it was, with its string going up and down and repeating the number. Alison gasped and let out muffled scream into her pillow which woke Nina up. As soon as Nina opened her eyes, the doll did not move anymore. Nina, sleepy as she was, asked what was going on, but Alison just feigned her fear. She said it was nothing and tried to go back to sleep.
The next day, Lynn and Nina, were awakened by the agonized wailing of their mother, who had entered the children’s room to wake up the kids. Alison was lying motionless in her bed; holding the doll in her clasp, which was now pointing two fingers in the air. Nina’s eyes widened, not at the loss of her sister but at the doll’s odd gesture.
“It was the doll!” Nina accused it. But nobody believed her. Presumed dead by doctors, Alison had died from cardiac arrest.
Weeks passed, the whole family was mourning for their loss except Lynn. She actually felt relieved for once. But this feeling didn’t last long as her middle sister took over the role of the eldest. Nina began teasing her and accusing her of killing Alison with her creepy doll. Lynn clung to her doll as Nina approached her the same way Alison did. Nina ripped the doll out of Lynn’s hands and threw it out of the window from the tenth floor.
“See? Now nobody will die, and I can tease you as much as I want to!” Nina barked defiantly with her little hands stemmed on her hips as a sign of her new authority over Lynn.
That night, Nina was haunted by the same dream. She saw the doll everywhere. The doll’s voice repeated the number three over and over again. In the morning, Lynn shook awake by a terrifying scream yet again. Her mother was shaking Nina’s limb body, spilling more tears over losing another child so suddenly without reason. It felt like punishment indeed, but while the mother cried out to God how he could dare to take away her sweet souls, the father’s deadpan expression lingered on the photo of his eldest now dead daughters. God had nothing to do with it, he thought. It was something much more sinister indeed and he knew it every time his hairs stood shrill at the past cruel behavior of his own genes.
Lynn stared at the doll seated at Nina’s nightstand. It held up three fingers. How did it return to this room and get up all ten floors? Lynn wondered and that was all that shocked her that morning. She spilled no tears for her bygone sisters. But, alas, if she was the only one left with the doll, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to keep it. After all, in her eyes, the doll only did it for her and now the deed was done and over and so was her ties to this toy. So, at Lynn’s request and to the father’s relief, they went and returned the doll to the antique shop before they headed for the funeral home for a second time this month, dressed in somber black.
“Ding, Dong” went the sound of the bell as a little girl about eight years old stormed through the door of antique shop. The doll she wanted was seated on one of the lower shelves. She found it simply magnificent. It had long blond curly hair, cascading over its porcelain body; two sky-blue eyes dominated her pale, waxen face. The doll was wearing a burgundy ballroom dress from the eighteenth century. It was holding three fingers up in the air.
“Three.” It said when the girl pulled its string.
