Broken

1914

The wind blows through the trees, whispering secrets carried from far away. The whispers brush past the man's ears, incomprehensible. He stumbles wearily along the road, pushed along by the wind towards his Edwardian-styled home, tall and thin. In his arms, he grasps a tiny body. A doll.

The doll has a round head with small features, nose and mouth, but large black holes for eyes. She is dressed in the usual attire a real girl might wear around the house. Knickers, a plain white apron, stained, over a brown tunic. Her bonnet rests atop wispy curls that are sculpted into her porcelain skull, with red yarn hair sprouting here and there from her scalp. She is a clown, triangular tears painted below her eyes, red triangle nose, painted red lips. She smiles.

With the next soft gust of wind, droplets of water spatter against his coat. His black silhouette quickens, passing beneath the orange pools of light from above, flickering ominously in the dark night. He passes through the gate, it squeaks apprehensively, and he approaches the door, fumbling for the knob. Hands shivering from the chill that makes its way through his layers, the doll slips from his embrace. She hits the doorstep and falls to the street with a crack, echoing against the stone buildings, down the shadowed alleys, into the heavy air.

"Oh!" The man crouches beside the tiny heap, coattails flying. Gingerly, he picks up the doll, turns her round to face him. She isn't broken, but with a disappointed sigh, he sees a crack fanned out across her delicate smiling face. With another rattling sigh, he stands up, the doll clutched in his hands, the cold forgotten. He mounts the steps and opens the door.

"Papa!" The cry comes almost immediately as he steps through the entrance. "Papa, you're home at last!" A young girl, perhaps five, runs down the narrow hall in a dress nearly identical to the doll's.

"Yes. I've missed you." He crouches down to accept the girl's eager hug. "And I've brought something back for you as well." He holds out the doll, an arm still wrapped around the girl. "She's a little cracked but she's still smiling." He pushes the bonnet back on the doll's forehead, as the girl oohs. She reaches out and grasps the doll.

"Thank you, papa! She's so pretty." The man stands, brushing back the girl's hair, and smiles. His wife approaches to greet him home and the girl runs off to play with her new toy. Climbing onto the mattress in her small bedroom and sitting cross-legged, she grabs her other two dolls, placing them beside her new one.

"Cecilia and Beth, meet..." The little girl pauses as she deliberates on a name. A smile crawls across her face, slow in its process of lifting up her lips and brightening her soft blue eyes. "Maggy. Yes. Meet Maggy."

***

Silence settles over the small house and sleep steals through the minds of its occupants. The dark and shadows become a creature of the night, slithering through the cracks of the floor, crawling across the walls. The man wakes to the sound of some careless shadow, creeping through the door to his room. He lays still, ears strained, when his bed creaks with extra weight. His head turns, meeting the dark eyes of the doll. The black holes are like the moonless sky, black and naked; are like endless pits, full with the hidden terrors of the night. The eyes look deep into his own eyes, probing at his mind, reaching into the depths of his thoughts.

I'm watching you...

His gaze with the doll is broken with a set of pale blue eyes. "We couldn't sleep, papa. Can we sleep here?" The black holes appear again, set in the round, cracked face, next to his daughter's own round face. "Papa?"

"Of course you can sleep here, dear." The voice comes from behind him and the man looks wildly over his shoulder. His wife lies beside him, raised on her elbow. She beckons to the girl and she crawls over her father's tense form, settling between them, bringing the scratchy blankets up to her chin. In the crook of her elbow lies the doll, her face tilted towards him, lips smiling, eyes reaching, pulling, at his mind.