I can hear the gravel fly as we pull into the driveway. It’s not the first time, I have been here but I don’t remember it to well, the last time I was here I was only 4 or 5.
It’s a huge Victorian cabin in the middle of the woods. It’s been empty for at least 12 years. We emptied everything and moved to Virginia when I was 6 right after my mom died.
My mom was really big into the supernatural so one of the things I remember about her is her stories she would tell me.
My mom and her 3 sisters grew up here in the cabin. So most of her stories took place here. One that mom told the most was about this Doll that lives on the shelf. Her grandmother always said never to play with the doll, no matter how pretty she looked or how bored you were and that with this Doll came games. Mom even said once a little girl came over and was found hanging dead in a tree by a noose with the doll sitting below the tree. No one knew how she got up to the tall oak tree she was only 5. Then she would growl and always scare me with this creepy doll. I’ve never heard much more dad usually cut her off there and said I would never go to sleep after that. Dad use to be great but since mom died in the house,and we left and he was never the same.
Why we are back now, I don’t know. All dad said was that we were moving and we left. He wouldn’t even answer questions. So now we are in the middle of the woods only with a trunk full of things.
“I call the biggest room,” called Larah the youngest of us 3 kids, she was 2 when mom died.
“Hah, that’s funny,” Shannon scoffs, “I’m the middle child and the favorite so I get it!”
I roll my eyes and follow dad into the house with all of my bags in hand. He unlocks the door and pushes it in with his foot. Larah and Shannon run in and stop dead in their tracks and gasp at the foyer. I side step them and keep walking, I plan on getting the best room.
I walk up the magnificent stairs and even thought it’s beautiful, it has a weird feeling to it. I just brush it off and blame it on fatigue and go to find a room.
One by one I go through the rooms and eventually my sisters catch up with me so we go room to room together. After what feels like forever and my sisters have picked their rooms, I reach the last door.
It creaks as I swing open the wooden door to an old room in what I’m guessing is close to what you would call an attic but still a room.
“This one is mine,” I say sitting down my bags right as Larah runs up and stops at my door.
“Awww, Clary always gets the best rooms!” she says stepping into the room looking around.
It is a big room with book shelfs built into the walls. In it is a desk in front of a huge window in the back wall. There is a table and chairs, a dresser, and a white vanity. At the back of the room on the right is a turn into a small room with more bookshelf built-in to the walls. There is a bed with night stands on both sides of the bed.
“Yeah I take that back I don’t want this room,” I turn to where she is looking and on one of the shelves is a doll. She scoffs and walks back out. I walk up to the doll and pick it up and turn it from hand to hand.
It is… hideous but… inviting. One eye is missing and its pink frilly dress is dirty and has been collecting dust. It has curly blond hair with patches that seem as if it has been ripped out. But on top of that… It looks as if it has been lit on fire, and smells of… sulfur. I quickly toss it into one of the dresser drawers. And start unpacking.
After putting away a couple of things and have had a bologna sandwich for dinner I head up to my room for bed still not able to shake the image of that doll.
Once I get up to my room I grab my diary as usual and lay in bed while I write. When I’m done, I open the drawer to one of the night stands and go to set my diary in when I see something inside the back of the drawer.
I reach my hand in and pull what seems like a book out. I set my diary down and start to look at this purple died, leather bound book. I open it up and look at the first page.
Owner
Christina Paige Fray
I sit there with my mouth open gawking at the page. Christina Paige Fray. I haven’t heard that name in what feels like an eternity.
“Mom…”
I quickly flip through all the pages while every once in a while looking at the dates, I get all the way to what I’m guessing is a few weeks before the last entry in what I’ve now discovered is a journal of my mom’s and read it.
5/9/05
I don’t know what’s real, are my thoughts my own, am I crazy, is life worth this. Me, am I worth anyt- Am I worthless? Is that my family or are they one too… is my life a lie, I just want it to go away. This is evil, it is evil, they are evil. WHY me, what have I done, I’m sorry.
I sit on my bed confused not knowing what to do. So I quickly shut the book and put it away, not knowing what else to do with… that. I roll over and squeeze my eyes shut.
I snap my eyes open as I hear a creak and a slam noise in my walk in room. I sit up and look to the opening between the rooms waiting for something to come through but nothing does. Slowly I get up and quietly move to the thresh hold of the rooms, I then snap my head around the corner, expecting to find someone there but only to find the doll looking me dead in the eye on the dresser. I slowly move closer to the doll and quickly s****h it up and just look at it then at the door, and sigh, walk over and lock the door, Larah and Shannon are going to get it for scaring the hell out of me. Then, I walk, doll in hand, back to my bed room and set it on a shelf between some stuff already sat there and step back.
“Adds some astetic,” then i walk over climb in bed and turn off the lights.
That night I dream of me and a little girl in a dark room. She is asking me riddles and laughs as I get them wrong. Slowly her laughs start to get more desperate and forced. I walk over and look at her but she just looks on as if I’m no longer there.
I reach to touch her and she snatches my wrists and looks me and says in a demonic voice, “it’s all in the game honey,” then proceeded to laugh. Her grip tightens to a point of major discomfort then she releases my arms and goes blank no laugh or anything just… blank. Her gaze slowly moves to my wrists and I jerk them back afraid she would grab me again and I look down. Both of my wrists have deep slits and are pouring blood.
I start hyperventilating and begging for help but she starts singing itsy bitsy spider with intervals of manic laughing. Then hands start to slowly touch me, slowly starting to grab as the hands increase, I can’t slap them away. And then I’m falling and being cut and scratched and tussled around as I scream and scream and cry for help.
I sit up in bed drenched in sweat. I jump up and run down stairs and finally notice someone is cooking bacon. I walk into the kitchen and flop down in one of the chairs. Shannon looks up from her cereal and looks taken back.
“What happened to you, you look like you seen a ghost. And what did you do to your face?”
I reach up at touch a 3 scrapes across my cheek and down my neck, which are deep enough to be drawing blood, through my histaria. I must not have noticed I had scratched myself.
“Oh umm, I’m not sure, must have done it in my sleep,” I say daised.
“Huh looks pretty bad for a sleep scratch,” Shannon prods but soon gives up and goes back to her cereal.
After having breakfast I start to head back up stairs still bewildered from that mornings incident.
I set down on my bed and look at the drawer the journal is in. I sit there for a long time till I decide to get it out again, but when I do I just sit and looked at it. Then snap it open and flip to the page I read last night and skim over it again. Then flip to the next page which is a few days later.
5/11/05
It speaks to me now more than ever. It whispers things to me. I try and I try but I can’t get away. I’m sorry. It tells me things in riddle forms. It wants me to hurt the baby, my family… Me. But I try, I won’t do it. I’m sorry.
I flip to the next entry.
5/15/05
It follows me. I don’t have long. It watches me. Is is right. It listens to me. I don’t know what’s real. Is it evil. I’m sorry.
Next page this one a few days a difference since the last entry.
5/23/05
It says it is there for me. That no one loves me. That they are all my monsters. No one cares I’m here but it. That I’m worth less. That I should… I can’t, I won’t, but is it true, is it right.
Flip the page
5/26/05
Is that my family or is it right, it says that they are my monsters, trying to deceive me. I’m sorry. It tells me things now, it watches out for me, it says I’m its friend, that it cares for me and that they don’t. It says they try to hurt me but it’ll help me. It says I should go with it. That the only way to escape them, to escape this, is to leave and go somewhere far away. I’m sorry. It says it loves me, I’m alone. I’m sorry.
5/29/05
It says I’m alone. It whispers to me to do things to myself and the monsters. I see the monsters watching me. It says the day is close for my escape, that it will help me. That I’m worthless and I have no point. That it will help me, I just have to listen that it is and will always be right. I’m sorry.
The next one is what scares me the most of all.
6/7/05
I think it’s rights. What am I worthy of? My life has no point. I am alone. No one loves me. It tells me do things. It says if I do it, the deed, we can be together… Forever. I’m sorry
And on the next few pages is the same list scribbled over and over.
1) Slay my monsters.
2) Find my monster Slayer spear.
3) Pour the blood of the smallest monster on it.
4) Take all the magic pills.
5) Drink the bubble gum bubbly bleach.
6) Get my spear and slit my wrists.
7) Go to sleep.
And it’s written over and over, each time in more and more manic writing. One day on the last entry she says this.
6/24/05
I am worthless… That is not my family… my life is a lie, Its going to go away… This is evil, it is evil,they are evil… I am evil… I’m sorry.
And that’s it, nothing else just, done. Dad said mom died of falling down the stairs but… I don’t think so. Did mom kill herself? Who is IT ? WHAT IS THIS?
I sit there and sit there till I here a creak noise. I look around and see movement our of the corner of my eye I look up at the doll who is looking directly at me. It’s one eye boring into my soul.
I sit there looking at the doll and the more I look the more inviting she looks. Maybe she isn’t that bad. She looks somehow peaceful in a way. I get up and walk over to the shelf and pick up the doll and go back to setting on my bed and looking at the doll. How old is this Doll. She is different, like me. Shes pretty actually… maybe we can be friends.
“Hi, My name’s Clary.”