The Amulet and the Doll

Chapter 6 Jasper

For 3 weeks, one by one each of the girls in the small village wandered into the woods and came home with the doll that they had seen Abigail get for her birthday, and they brought it home for her. Each night she would disappear.

No one knew what happened, but the Village of Orion was in a panic. They started saying none of the girls was to go anywhere alone. Jasper was okay with that. He loved being with his twin sister, Gwen.

It was three weeks to the day since Abby disappeared when Jasper and Gwen came upon the doll that had been dropped in the meadow. A strange, uneasy feeling settled in Jasper's chest as he looked at the doll. Everyone knew that the doll belonged to Abby. She showed it off to everyone the moment Master Owen gave it to her.

The instant Gwen saw the doll, Jasper could tell she was in love with it. Her eyes lit up and her smile stretched across her face. That only happened when she was really happy.

Gwen picked up the doll and held it to her chest.

"Look! It's Abby's gorgeous doll! We should take it home to keep it safe for her!" Gwen sang. It disgusted Jasper.

But the bad feeling he was having about the doll made him worried.

"No, let's  leave it here and her her parents and show them where we found the doll," he argues.

"What a ridiculous idea, Jas! We don't want some strange animal to come and smash the doll!" Gwen continued.

"Really, Gwenny, I don't have a good feeling about the doll.  Let's just leave it and see if we cango find our friends. What if they are all hurt in a big pit somewhere. They are much more important than a stupid old doll!" Jasper grumbles.

Gwen stubbornly refused to put the doll down. "What do you have against this doll?" she asked.

"I don't know. But it is giving me a bad feeling!" answered Jasper as honestly as he could.

Gwen laughed. "You are getting a bad feeling about a doll? You are being silly! I know you aren't scared of anything," she said. As if that put an end to their argument, she turned around and marched off toward home carrying the doll with her.

A heavy sense of foreboding fell upon Jasper as he chased after his sister.

When night fell, Jasper's Mama tucked him and Gwen into their twin beds and bid the good night.

Jasper watched as his sister tossed and turned and cried in her sleep, all the while she held tightly to the glass doll.

At midnight, once again the doll's haunting lull-a-bye rang through the air.

"Come dance with me in the woods

Where magic runs deep.

Follow my special lull-a-bye

Into your dark and eternal sleep."

Gwen's eyes opened up and glowed with a silver light.

Panicked, Jasper shook his sister in an attempt to wake her from her strange sleep. But she ignored him and stumbled out of bed and through their door.

Afraid for his sister, he followed her on her slow and jerky journey into the forest. As they arrived at the clearing, Jasper's nerves started to tingle. He began to yell at his sister.

"Gwen! Wake UP! Look at me! You have to wake up! We shouldn't be here!" He screamed in her face. "We need to go back home!"

But his sister continued to ignore his words and as he began shaking her harder, trying to ger her to respond to him.

"Gwen, throw the doll away!" he yelled as he tried to pull the singing doll out of her hands. But she would not let go, and pushed him down with the strength that surprised him. She had never been as strong as him, and now she threw him to the ground like a discarded toy.

As she entered the center of the meadow, the song ended and Gwen's eyes flickered back to her normal green for just a moment; at the same time the doll's diamond eyes flashed.

Jasper heard his name echoed on the summer breeze as the doll dropped to the ground and watched in horror as his sister was sucked into the doll.

Staring down at the doll, Jasper's breaths came out in pants. The doll ate her!  He had to figure out what to do. He was supposed to protect his sister, but she vanished! How was he supposed to protect her now?