Cat Got Your Tongue

Chapter 1

Life is a precious gift. To be alive is a joyous thing and should be appreciated. Many believe that life can only come through reproduction; the repeated cycle that travels from offspring to offspring, from plant to plant. But how mistaken they all are.

The power of love and hate can be suffocating. It can murder your soul and destroy your sanity. But amazing things can grow from the pain of love and burn of hate. Just like a fairy tale, true love is the magic, golden key that frees the captive. But after the love has set the princess free, what is to follow? Love is, in fact, a cruel mistress that suffocates the broken heart and kills the mind. Even so, love can create a  life.

Our story begins with a doll-maker named Conrad Baiser. He would spend his days and waste his nights creating porcelain faced girls and boys. Many were fascinated by the realistic faces and such detailed fingers that he quickly grew fame in his home county of Essex. Before middle age, he was known through out his country and the people threw their hard earned pounds at him for the chance to own one of his amazing creations. His pretty little wife, Maria Baiser, was not to thrilled at the sight of the dolls. She found them childish and their piercing glass eyes disturbed her until she couldn't sleep. Conrad worried for his wife's health but could not bare to abandon his art, so moved his equipment up to the attic and agreed to only bring his creations down in cardboard boxes so they couldn't glare at his wife.

"They stare at me in the worst way!" Maria would cry.

"I believe they are jealous of your beauty" Conrad would reply as he hid his art from his fearful wife.

On a warm fall evening, his wife returned home with a bungle of joy in her arms; a daughter who they named Catherina. The man, like every man should, loved his daughter more than life and treated her like a precious gem. His daughter's beauty overwhelmed and inspired Conrad. He wished make a doll as beautiful as his child, but as much as he tried nothing seemed to compare to his child's perfect face. The nose wasn't small enough, the lips weren't heart shaped, the cheeks were too chubby, the eyes were't the right shade of blue, and what ever wig he bought could not compare to his daughter's real flowing copper blonde curls.

After three years, Conrad was overwhelmed with satisfaction as he finally stared at a perfect double of his daughter. He'd finally sealed his daughter's beauty in porcelain. Knowing his wife was out, and only his daughter and the nanny were downstairs, Conrad proudly carried the doll down stairs to show his daughter. He called out but didn't receive a response. His ears picked up the far away sound of his child giggling outside. Conrad headed to the kitchen to place the doll on the preparing island. As he gentled placed the delicate creation down, he heard a high pitched sound, followed by a loud bang. 

Then a woman's scream.

Conrad ran out the kitchen, his heart racing, and scrambled to open the front door. He flung it open and felt the blood drain from his race. For a second, he couldn't move. Then he was running again, running as fast as he could to the bloody scene on the road outside his front garden. The nanny howled in horror as Conrad got closer. The doll maker's heart shattered like glass as he pulled his still, bloodied daughter into his arms, screaming for someone to call an ambulance. 

As the miserable scene dragged on, an invisible life floated through the air. With the little vision it had being unclear and gray, it became confused as it flew through the open front door, and searched for it's home. It wondered around, fearful and lost until it saw something familiar. With a cry so high-pitched no human could hear it, the life flung itself into the blue glass eyes of the silent, porcelain girl and finally settled, believing it was home again.