The depth of short stories and micro-fiction 2

The Porcelain Music Box

The Making 

In the of 1897, in the remote village just outside of Kent, United Kingdom, a craftman named Elias Thorne Worked alone in a cramped, drafty workshop built into the side of a hill. He was known in the area for his exquisite porcelain work, but those who knew him well whispered of a darkness that lived within him one born from the loss of his only daughter, Lily, who had died of a fever at age seven.

Consumed by grief and a twisted desire to bring her back, Elias began to construct a music box unlike any other. He moulded the porcelain casing by hand, using clay mixed with soil from Lily's grave and shavings from the wooden cross that marked her resting place. For the mechanism, he didn't use brass or steel as was customary instead, he carved each gear and pin from the bones of animals that had died on his property, believing their life force would help awaken something within the box.

But that wasn't enough. On the night of the new moon, when the village was shrouded in thick fog, Elias snuck into the local churchyard and exhumed the body of a newborn infant who had been buried just days before. He carefully removed the child's small heart, dried it in his workshop's fire, and ground it into a fine powder that he mixed into the glue used to assemble the box's inner workings. As he fitted the final piece into place, the music box began to play a soft, tinkling melody one that Elias swore was the same lullaby he'd sung to Lily every night before she died.

The First Owner

Elias sold the music box to a wealthy merchant named Arthur Blackwood, who was passing through the village and was captivated by its delicate beauty and haunting tune. He brought it home to his manor, where his own daughter, Eleanor also seven years old immediately fell in love with it. She kept it on her bedside table, winding it every night before she slept.

Within weeks, strange things began to happen. Eleanor would wake screaming, claiming she could see a small girl in a white dress standing at the foot of her bed one with pale skin, hollow eyes, and fingers that were nothing but sharp, white bones. The music box would play on its own, often in the dead of night, and the melody would sometimes warp into something discordant and cruel, like a child crying in pain.

Arthur's wife, Margaret, tried to throw the box away, but it always found its way back to Eleanor's room sometimes appearing on the bedside table, sometimes hidden under her pillow. One morning, the servants found Eleanor sitting on the floor, her eyes wide and vacant, humming the music box's tune over and over. In her hands, she held a small lock of dark hair that no one in the household recognised. By sunset that day, Eleanor was dead her body cold and stiff, with strange, dark marks on her skin that looked like tiny fingerprints.

Grief-stricken and terrified, Arthur tried to destroy the music box. He smashed it with a hammer, but the porcelain pieces simply reformed overnight, good as new. He threw it into a nearby lake, but three days later, it was sitting on his front doorstep, the water having left no trace. Desperate, he sealed it inside a lead box and buried it deep in the woods but within a month, the box had reappeared in his study, the lead torn apart as if by bare hands.

Arthur Blackwood was found hanging from the rafters of his study two weeks later. The music box sat on his desk, playing its lullaby at full volume, and on the wall beside him were words scratched into the wood with what appeared to be human fingernails: "She wants to play."

The Years of Torment

Over the next century, the music box passed from owner to owner, each one meeting a terrible end. A schoolteacher in Birmingham bought it at a flea market and was found dead in her classroom, her body contorted into impossible shapes, with small, child-sized handprints covering her face. A young couple in Manchester kept it as a wedding gift, and their newborn son vanished without a trace the night the box began playing on its own only a single, porcelain button from the box's casing was left in his empty crib. A museum curator in London tried to display it as part of an exhibition on cursed objects, but before the show could open, he was found in the museum's basement, his ears bleeding and his mouth filled with tiny pieces of broken porcelain.

Each time the box changed hands, it left a trail of death and madness in its wake. Those who touched it reported feeling cold fingers wrapping around their wrists, and many claimed to hear whispers in their ears—words in a language they couldn't understand, but which filled them with a deep, primal fear. Some said they could see the small girl from Eleanor Blackwood's nightmares standing just out of sight, always watching, always waiting.

The Ending

In 2025, the music box was discovered in the attic of an old house in Stafford, where it had been hidden away for decades. It was sold to a young woman named Chloe, who had recently moved to the area and was drawn to the box's vintage charm. She didn't know its history nor did anyone who sold it to her. She placed it on her bedroom shelf, thinking it would make a nice decoration.

On the third night after she brought it home, Chloe woke to the sound of the music box playing. She sat up in bed, her heart racing, and saw a small figure standing at the foot of her bed a girl in a white dress, her skin as pale as porcelain, her eyes empty black holes. The girl reached out a hand that was nothing but bones, and as she did, the music box's melody grew louder and more twisted, filling the room with a sound like grinding teeth and weeping children.

Chloe tried to scream, but no sound came out. The girl stepped closer, and Chloe could see that the dress she wore was stained with dark blood, and that in her other hand, she held a small, porcelain heart that beat in time with the music box's tune.

"You're the one," the girl whispered, her voice like broken glass. "You're the one who will finally let me stay."

The music box's lid flew open, and from inside poured a thick, black smoke that wrapped around Chloe's body. She felt herself being pulled toward the box, her skin growing cold and hard, her bones shifting and cracking. As the smoke consumed her, she could feel her consciousness merging with the box's mechanism her thoughts becoming the tune, her heart becoming the beat.

When the smoke cleared, the room was silent. The music box sat on the shelf, its casing now bearing a faint, porcelain likeness of Chloe's face. The lullaby played once more, soft and sweet, and then fell quiet.

Upstairs, in Chloe's bedroom, there was no sign of her no clothes, no belongings, no trace that she had ever been there. All that remained was the music box, sitting on the shelf, waiting for its next owner.

And in the darkness of the room, a small, white dress could be seen hanging from the door, swaying gently in a wind that wasn't there. The lullaby began to play again, soft and slow, and a voice whispered from the shadows: "Now we can play forever."