The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror Read online

  What was pretty about Annie was her placid blue-violet marble eyes and the freckles on her face that made you want to smile. Her eyes, like Baby Emily’s eyes, shut when you leaned her backward, and opened when you leaned her forward.

  My Friend had seen Annie first, in the park near my house. Beyond the playground where children shouted and laughed swinging on the swings there was a little grove of picnic tables and beneath one of the tables in which initials had been carved and gouged the cowgirl-doll lay on the ground, on her back.

  Here! Hurry.

  My Friend shoved me forward. My Friend’s hard hand on my back.

  What was this, beneath the picnic table? I was very excited—I stooped to see.

  A doll! A cowgirl-doll! Abandoned.

  Picnic debris had been dumped onto the ground. Soda bottles, food-packages, stubs of cigarettes. It was very cruel that the cowgirl-doll with the freckled face and red-orange hair should be abandoned here.

  Her arms were outstretched. Her legs were at odd angles to her body and to each other. Because she had been dropped on her back her eyes were partly closed but you could see the glassy-glisten beneath, of surprise and alarm.

  Help me! Don’t leave me.

  Distinctly we heard this plea of Annie’s, my Friend and me. Her voice was whispery and small, her chipped-scarlet lips scarcely moved.

  Inside my hooded jacket, I bore Annie to safety.

  My Friend guided me from the park by an obscure route.

  My Friend preceded me, to see if the way was clear.

  It was a quarter-mile to the carriage house and to the shadowy horse stall at the rear.

  In this way in a trance of wonderment Cowgirl Annie the second found doll was brought home.

  By this time the little fourth-grade girl who’d lived on Catamount Street was rarely spoken of. For she had gone away, and would not be returning.

  And this new girl who’d “gone missing”—from Prospect Heights Park—when her older sister and brother who’d been supposed to be watching her at the swings had been distracted by friends—she too had gone away, and would not be returning.

  Another time, much alarm was raised at our school. Though the missing girl was a third-grader, at another school. Though we had heard the warnings about strangers many times by now, by ninth grade. The uniformed police officer who spoke to us from the auditorium stage reassured us that “whoever took this child will be found” but these too were familiar words, some of us smiled to hear.

  In the park that afternoon there’d been solitary men, always in a park near a playground there are solitary men, and some of these men have criminal records, and these were taken into custody by police, and questioned. But we knew, the little girl would never be found.

  Now I was no longer taunted by the older boys on the school bus for I was not one of the younger children. In my eyes such hatred blazed for these boys, they had learned to avoid me.

  I learned that to be respected you had to be steely-calm and still. Or, you had to be reckless. You could not show weakness. You could not be “nice”—you would be ground beneath the boots of the strong like a beetle.

  But now the second of the found dolls had come into my life, I did not care what these boys thought of me, or anyone else except my Friend.

  The second of the found dolls. When I was fourteen.

  Not soon, for my Friend cautioned me against recklessness.

  Not soon but within two years, the third of the found dolls entered my life.

  Then, after eleven months, a fourth found doll.

  These were not local dolls. These were dolls discovered miles from Prospect Hill, in other towns.

  For now I had a driver’s license. I had the use of my mother’s car.

  At school I was a quiet student, but my teachers seemed to like me and my grades were usually high. At home, I was quiet in a way that maddened my father for it seemed to him sullen, rebellious.

  I had a habit of grunting instead of talking, or mumbling under my breath. I had a habit of not looking at any adult including my parents for it was easier that way. My Friend did not want me to look at him—my Friend understood the effort such looks require. You can look into a doll’s eyes without fear of the doll seeing into your soul in a way hostile to you but you can’t be so careless looking at anyone else. And this too maddened my father, that I would not meet his gaze: I was disrespectful.

  My father said I will send him into the army—not to college. They’ll straighten him out there.

  My mother pleaded Robbie should see a therapist, I’ve told you. Please let me take him to a therapist.

  So it happened, on the day of my eighteenth birthday I had an appointment with Dr. G., a (psycho) therapist whose specialty was troubled adolescents. I sat in a chair facing Dr. G. in a trance of fear and dislike not raising my eyes to hers, but staring resolutely at the floor at her feet.

  Dr. G.’s office was sparely furnished. Dr. G. did not sit behind a desk but in a comfortable chair, so that I could see her legs, which were the legs of a stout middle-aged woman, and I thought how much preferable it was at school where our teachers sat behind desks so that you could see only the tops of their bodies mostly, and not their legs. It was easy to think of them as big ungainly dolls that way, whose jaw-hinges were always moving.

  Dr. G. asked me to sit in a chair facing her, about five feet from her, and this too was a comfortable chair though I did not feel comfortable in it and knew that I must be vigilant.

  “Robbie? Talk to me, please. Your mother has said that your grades are very good—you don’t have trouble at school communicating, evidently—but, at home . . .” The more kindly the woman was, the less I trusted her. The more insistently she looked at my face, the less inclined I was to raise my eyes to hers. My Friend had cautioned Don’t trust! Not for an instant, you’ll be finished.

  It was then I noticed a doll in a chair on the farther side of the room. Her head was large for her body and her face seemed to glow, or glare, with an arrogant sort of beauty. And her thick-lashed eyes were fixed upon me.

  Dr. G.’s clients included young children, I’d been told. Teenagers, children. Troubled.

  Though the office was sparely furnished yet there were a number of dolls of varying sizes and types, each distinctive and unusual, a collector’s item: on shelves, on a windowsill, and in this white wicker rocking chair which was a child-sized chair. Barely I could hear the therapist’s voice, which was warm, friendly, and kindly, so powerful was the doll’s hold upon me.

  “You’re admiring my antique Dresden doll? It’s dated 1841 and is in quite good condition. It’s made of wood with a painted face, the colors have scarcely faded . . .” Dr. G. was clearly hoping that I would react to this information but I sat silent, frowning. I would not smile as others had smiled in my place nor would I ask some polite but silly question. As a boy, I could not be expected to care about dolls.

  Staring at the doll who stared at me with marble eyes that reminded me of Baby Emily’s eyes; and in those eyes, a subtle sign of recognition.

  It was exciting, the Dresden doll did seem to “know” me. Because of the therapist’s presence, however, the Dresden doll was not in the least frightened of me.

  She was a beautiful doll though made of wood, and unlike any of my found dolls. At first you thought she had dark wavy hair then you saw that the hair was just wood, painted dark brown.

  “Some of my very young clients prefer to talk to a doll than to me,” Mrs. G. said. “But I don’t suppose that’s the case with you, Robbie?”

  I shook my head no. It was not the case with Robbie.

  Elsewhere in the therapist’s office were smaller dolls. On a shelf was a gaily painted Russian doll which I knew had another, smaller doll inside it, and another, smaller doll within that doll. (I did not like these Russian dolls, that made me feel slightly sick.
I thought of how a woman carries a baby inside her and how terrifying it would be if that baby carried another baby inside it.) There were rag dolls arranged on a shelf like puppets. There were little music boxes covered in seashells and mother-of-pearl and there were Japanese fans and animals carved of wood.

  Though Dr. G. had furnished her office sparely, and the colors of the furniture and of the carpet on the floor were dull, dun-colors that could not excite any emotion, as Dr. G. wore dull, dun-colored and shapeless clothing that could not excite any emotion, yet these collectors’ items suggested another, more complex and secret side to Dr. G.

  “Tell me why you find it so difficult to talk to your parents, Robbie. Your mother has said . . .” In her quiet stubborn woman-voice Dr. G. spoke.

  Because there is nothing to say. Because my real life is elsewhere, where no one can follow.

  I did not like many people. Especially, I did not like adults who wanted to “help” me. But I think I liked Dr. G. I wanted to help Dr. G. establish a diagnosis of what was wrong with me so that my parents would be satisfied and leave me alone. Yet I could not think how to help her for I could not tell her the secrets closest to my heart.

  Badly I wanted to examine the Dresden doll with the painted face. Badly I wanted to take the Dresden doll home with me.

  In all, I would see Dr. G. approximately twelve times over the course of five or six months. I was not a good client, I think—I never “opened up” to Dr. G. as “troubled” people do to their therapists in movies and on TV.

  Never during these visits did I reveal anything significant to Dr. G. But I was riveted by the Dresden doll who stared at me boldly through the full fifty-minute session.

  The Dresden doll was not afraid of me because she was protected by Dr. G. who never left the office and never left us alone together.

  You can’t touch me—not me! I belong to her.

  You didn’t “find” me. I was always here. And I will be here when you are not.

  Such a look came into my face, of longing, and anger, Dr. G. broke off whatever she was saying to exclaim, “Robbie! What are you thinking?—did something come into your mind, just now?”

  Something coming into my mind like a maddened hornet? A paper airplane sailing? A nudge in the ribs?

  Quietly I shook my head no.

  Lowering my gaze, to stare at a spot on the carpet.

  As my Friend had warned Never make eye contact. You know better.

  This was so. I had made a mistake. But it was not a fatal mistake for no one knew except the Dresden doll.

  She was only a doll, I thought. Something made of wood.

  She could not be a found doll—for I could never touch her.

  Never bring her to the carriage house for safekeeping among her sister dolls.

  “Is something distracting you, Robbie? Is it something in this room?”

  Shook my head no.

  “Would you be more comfortable if we moved to another room?”

  Shook my head no.

  Then at our next meeting—(which would be our last meeting)—I was shocked to see that the Dresden doll had been removed from the white wicker rocking chair. In her place was an embroidered pillow.

  I said nothing of course. My face locked into its frozen expression and would not betray me.

  “I think you might be more comfortable now, Robbie?”

  Dr. G. spoke gently, proddingly. I hated this homely graceless female now, that she’d sensed the hold of the Dresden doll over me; she alone, of all the world, might guess of my fascination with found dolls.

  I hated her and I feared her; that suddenly I might lose control, I might begin to shout at her, demanding to see the Dresden doll again; or, I might burst into tears, confessing to her that I had stolen the found dolls, that were hidden in the carriage house.

  It is a terrible thing to feel that you might break down, you might utter a confession that could not then be retrieved. And so, I did not speak at all. My throat shut tight. Dr. G. asked her usual picky little friendly-seeming questions to which I could not reply and after some minutes of awkward silence on my part, Dr. G. handed me a notebook and a pen and suggested that I write out my thoughts, if I could not speak to her; I took the notebook from her and with the smile of a shy-but-determined boy. I wrote GOODBYE and handed it back to her.

  Already I was on my feet. Already I was gone.

  After high school it was decided that I would “defer” college. My grades had been high, especially in physics and calculus, and at graduation my name had been asterisked in the commencement program to indicate summa cum laude but I had not gotten around to applying for any college or university. My teachers and the school guidance counselor were perplexed by this decision but my mother understood, to a degree. For my father had departed from the house on Prospect Hill and you might think that a concerned son would not leave his mother alone in such a large house, at such a time.

  Only I knew, I could not leave my found dolls.

  I could not risk strangers finding them. The possibility of the found dolls being discovered was too terrible to consider.

  Often when I couldn’t sleep, I took a flashlight and went out into the carriage house. By moonlight the carriage house seemed to float like a ghost ship on a dark sea and all was still except for the cries of nocturnal birds and, in summer, a raucous sound of nocturnal insects buzzing and humming like insidious thoughts.

  The found dolls lay quiet in their makeshift cribs of plywood and hay. They had been placed side by side like sisters though each doll was quite distinct from the others and might have made a claim for being the most beautiful.

  Mariska. Annie. Valerie. Evangeline. Barbie.

  Barbie was one of that notorious breed—Barbie Dolls.

  In this case, Bride Barbie. For the angelic blond girl-doll wore a white silk gown that shimmered and shook when you lifted her and on her flawless head a lace veil. Her figure was not a child’s figure but that of a miniature but mature woman with pronounced breasts straining against the bodice of the wedding dress, a ridiculously narrow waist, and shapely hips.

  My Friend had observed One of these will do. We should give Barbie a chance.

  Barbie had given me the most difficulty, in fact. You would not think that a doll so small and weighing so little could scream so loud and that her fingernails, shaped and polished and very sharp, could inflict such damage on my bare forearms.

  If she doesn’t obey, you can chop her into pieces. Tell her she’s on trial for her life.

  In her makeshift crib of plywood and hay Barbie lay motionless as if in a trance of great surprise and great loathing. Not ever would Barbie cast a sidelong glance at her sister-doll beside her, a soft boneless cloth doll with a startlingly pale, pretty face and a little tiara on her platinum blond curls sparking with tiny rhinestones.

  Evangeline had come from Juniper Court, a trailer-village on the outskirts of our town. Hardly protesting Evangeline had come with me at my Friend’s suggestion for she was a doll lacking a substantial body; her head was made of some synthetic material like plastic, or a combination of plastic and ceramic, but her body was boneless, like a sock puppet. She could not put up much of a struggle and seemed almost to fall before me in a swoon of abnegation, as a sock puppet might do for whom the only possible life is generated by another’s antic hand.

  No one had searched for Evangeline. It was believed that Evangeline was a runaway like other children in her family and in Juniper Court.

  When I left the dolls I covered them beneath a khaki-colored canvas, neatly.

  This khaki-colored canvas was the cleanest covering I could find in the carriage house.

  Many items of furniture and other abandoned and forgotten things in the carriage house were covered with pieces of canvas that were soiled and discolored, but the covering for the found dolls was reasonably cle
an.

  I would have drawn quilts over them, to keep them warm, but I worried that someone would notice, and become suspicious.

  No one ever came into this part of the carriage house. Not for years. But I had an irrational fear that someone might come into the carriage house and discover my found dolls.

  My Friend said They’re happy here. They’re at peace here. This is the best they’ve been treated in their short tragic lives.

  One night not long after I’d stopped seeing Dr. G., I heard a sound at the entrance to the stable, like a footfall, and shone my light there thinking in dismay Mother! I will have to kill her . . .

  But there was no one there and when I returned to the house it was darkened as before.

  I was relieved, I think. For it would not be an easy or pleasant matter to subdue, silence, and suffocate Mother, so much larger than any of the found dolls.

  Most nights Mother slept deeply. I think Mother was heavily medicated. Sometimes I stood in the doorway of Mother’s room seeing her motionless mannequin-figure by moonlight beneath the bedclothes of the large canopied bed and listening to her rhythmic breathing which sometimes shaded into a soft snoring that was a comfort to me. For when Mother was awake, and in my presence, always Mother was aware of me, and looking at me; always Mother was addressing me, or asking me a question, waiting then for me to reply when I had no reply for her.

  Though I only murmured or grunted responses, and avoided looking Mother in the face, Mother was never discouraged and continued to chatter in my presence as if she were thinking aloud and yet at the same time addressing me.

  My Friend laid a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. It was the first time that my Friend had appeared inside my house.

  You know that it would be better, Robbie, if the woman were silenced. But this is not a task for the lily-livered.

  (How strange this was: lily-livered was not a phrase my Friend had ever spoken before. But lily-livered was a phrase that my father had sometimes used in a voice of mockery.)