The Dollmaker's Son | lrh ✔️

One

START.

Presley Grove is a little town that sits on the central coast of California, surrounded by rocks and gravel and salty sea water. I've lived here since I was six, and although it's what I grew up with, I've always wanted to get away.

Six year old me was excited to step on those wet rocks, to go paddling everytime the sun was out. There weren't a lot of kids in the area at the time, but I didn't mind. I never really noticed.

I went to a school an hour away from my town, and since it was connected to a High School, ended up going there, too. I stayed with the same people I met when I was little. Again, I didn't mind. I liked the familiarity.

It wasn't until I was in the last couple months of my senior year that things started to change. Most of the teenagers in Presley had already left, out to seek new adventures in hopes of getting to attend their perfect colleges.

I, for one, decided to stay at home. We had no money for me to go off, at least not right away, so I picked up a few day jobs here and there to earn a few extra bucks.

It wasn't ideal, but it was something, and I couldn't complain. What with my little brother, Corey, starting Elementary and me already looking at pricey universities, my parents just couldn't afford either for both of us.

I wasn't entirely alone, though. A family moved into Presley, in the empty house right next to us, a family of three that consisted of a father, a mother, and a son two years older than I- I was told by my mother that his name was Luke.

They owned a little business, a shop that was placed in the main High Street of our little town. It was a good change of scenery and I quite liked the vintage set-up of their store front; they sold dolls.

China dolls, Victorian dolls, Rag dolls. They sold dolls that looked like the Cabbagepatch kids, and dolls with amazingly fine straw hair that somehow mimicked my own. To my surprise, Corey loved it, and that made me love it, too.

Corey was a fussy kid and getting him to be excited over anything was a difficult task, so I was always pleased whenever he asked me if we could stop at the Hemmings' Doll Emporium on the way home from school.

It wasn't unusual for me to cave in, so we'd get the bus into the High Street to spend an hour or two glossing over the porcelain army cadets and the life-size toy soldiers. Unfortunately, every trip led to another empty promise from me that one day, I'd be able to get him one.

But Corey never pressed on, never insisted. He just said that he'd like one, but he didn't need one. When I asked him why, he'd say the same thing over and over again, with seemingly no hopes of changing his answer;

"I don't like the way their eyes follow me."