Broken Dolls

by Tyrolin Puxty

  “Die?” Sianne finishes.

  “Yeah.” I shake my head. “I mean, no. I don’t know! I was just so confused, with meeting you and seeing those other dolls…” I groan and tug at loose strands of my hair. “It doesn’t matter!”

  Sianne carefully pulls her hands from my legs, watching them intently to ensure they are secure. “It’s okay to be confused,” she says. “Life is very confusing. The fact that we breathe air, create music, and fall in love is all very nonsensical, but it doesn’t mean we need to analyze it. Just enjoy the moment, because it’s gone once you know you’re in it.” She puts her hands in her lap and smiles, seemingly proud of her speech.

  Maybe Sianne has a point. Before Lisa arrived, I enjoyed life–even when it wasn’t spectacular. Since she tried to break me, she has been a vacuum of misery, sucking me into her deluded world. I desperately want to scramble back into the life I was happy with, but I’m not happy there anymore, either. I haven’t found the world I belong to yet.

  “What on earth is your accent? It’s nothing like mine!” I force a chuckle. Even though my laughter is fake, it makes me feel a little better.

  Sianne shrugs. “A little bit of this and a little bit of that.” She smiles and mumbles something under her breath. “I have to go.” She scratches at her neck. “Lisa will wonder where I am. I pretend I’m her minion. I’m actually the professor’s minion. Funny word. Minion.”

  Sianne reluctantly slinks away into the tower of boxes.

  “Wait!” I shout, too scared to move in case the glue hasn’t set. “Sianne? Wait!” The outline of her body stands still in the darkness, watching me from afar.

  Great. I now have two crazy dolls I have to be on the lookout for.

  Cautiously, I sit up, squeaking loudly. I touch my knee and am relieved when my hand doesn’t stick–at least, that means the glue has dried. I stand, but not as steadily as I’d hoped. My knee slips out of joint, nearly knocking me off my feet again. I frantically grab my leg and force it back where it should be and remain hunched over, grasping for balance. It might be a while before I can dance again… hey, it might be a while before I can even walk again.

  My movements are akin to the Tin Man–stilted and awkward. Every step I take is balanced out with a one-minute rest.

  When people swore on TV, I’d block my ears because I knew it was rude and inappropriate, but right now, I feel the urge to use a highly unnecessary profanity.

  It takes me all night to reach my treasure chest, but there’s no way in the world I can pull myself into it. I still need time to heal.

  Gently lowering myself to the ground, I rest my back against the treasure chest. These pathetic legs! Well, at least I’m not split in two anymore–I mean, that would’ve been a hindrance.

  I attempt to close my eyes, but cringe when they creak. Good grief. I really am the Tin Man. Soon I’ll be asking Gabby for the oil can.

  The only thing I can do is sleep and hope to wake up miraculously healed. Either that, or be endlessly relegated to the pits of imagination time. The recorder rests on the other side of the treasure chest, so I could probably make that walk.

  I lean against the chest to pull myself up, and lumber towards my recorder, keeping one hand on the chest and the other on my leg.

  My eyebrows furrow when I make out the machine. It’s in the dark, but something is wrong with it; I just can’t quite work out what.

  “No,” I whimper when I trip on bits of plastic scattered across the dust-covered floor. I hobble closer and collapse when I see the irreparable damage. My recorder is completely smashed, like someone has dropped it from a great height and proceeded to stomp on it. “Professor! Professor!” I scream, unable to tear my gaze from the remains of my recorder.

  The familiar hurried footsteps sound outside before the professor bursts through the door, his hair sticking up like he has been half-electrocuted. It must be the middle of the night, because he is dressed in blue-checked pajamas.

  I point at my recorder, horrified that he hasn’t noticed the plastic massacre.

  “Imagination time!” I shriek. “It’s gone! Forever! Professor, you have to fix it! Please!”

  He towers over me, staring at the remains. He removes his glasses to rub his eyes and shrugs, then turns his back, opens the attic door, and steps outside.

  “Professor? What are you doing? Are you going to get some glue? We have some in here!”

  “No,” he says from the doorway, his face masked in shadow.

  I hesitate. “Tomorrow, then?”

  “I broke your recorder,” he says simply, putting his glasses back on.

  I don’t have a heart, but I feel it shatter.

  “Why?” I ask, my voice meek.

  “Because I like to listen to your imagination time while you sleep. But instead of hearing Ella’s Rescue Squad, I heard a disturbing message from you.”

  I gape at him. “Really? I don’t remember this. What did it say?”

  “I’m not telling you.” His tone is polite, as always, but his words cut deep. “I don’t know why you left a message like that. Perhaps Lisa is getting to you. I need to find her and put an end to her madness.”

  I’ve had enough. First, I broke in half. Then, my faux-mother appears with incoherent answers. And now, this? I feel like I’m going crazy! I curl my hands into fists and raise my voice.

  “Professor, I’ve had a really rough day, okay? Nothing’s making sense! Have you ever listened to a song stuck on replay? Had the same tune, lyrics, and beat slamming into your mind over and over until you feel like all your thoughts are muddled? This is how today feels. So why don’t you just treat me like a normal person and tell me the truth?”

  The professor hesitates, tapping the doorknob vehemently. “Because you need to forget your past,” he says, slamming the door.

  I dart my eyes to and from the recorder. What past?

  really don’t know how I feel about you calling my grandfather evil. Yeah, he’s controlling, but come on!” Gabby brushes my hair with one of her doll’s brushes and twists it into two symmetrical knots. I sit on the attic floor and stare into the mirror Gabby brought in. I look so fake. Like devastatingly fake. No human has bulging eyes like mine and a twig neck. The professor’s attempt at making me beautiful has only turned me into an aberration.

  “He smashed my recorder! He knew how much it meant to me! And did he apologize?”

  “Well, yeah, okay, that was pretty nasty,” Gabby mumbles. “But nasty doesn’t equate to evil.”

  “Then how do you explain him turning his own sister into a doll? What kind of person does that?”

  “But maybe there’s more to it? You said she was pretty crazy?” She pins a clip into my hair. “I’m just sitting on the fence, here.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah. Crazy is one word to describe it. Mental institute crazy. I can barely bring myself to even speak to her. She kept whispering strange numbers.” 3-4-7-8-1-9-2. I can’t seem to forget them.

  Gabby laughs, grabbing the hairspray. “Aunt Sianne used to do that. She died a few years ago, but Dad always talks about her. He’s convinced she’s still alive, but–why are you looking at me like that?”

  My mouth hangs open. “She is still alive,” my voice breaks. “That’s the doll that’s hidden away! The professor’s sister is your Aunt Sianne!”

  Gabby frowns and shakes her head. “No way. Because that would mean–”

  “–you’re related to a crazy doll. Let’s hope you don’t inherit the madness!”

  We burst into hysterical laughter, before remembering that we’re not supposed to.

  “Do you ever get the feeling we might be related?” I ask softly, hoping I haven’t said anything out of line.

  “All the time.” Gabby’s smile is as frank as is contagious. “You said Sianne kept saying she was your mother. If she was, wouldn’t that make us, like, second cousins or something?”

  “I’ve always wanted a cousin!” I giggle when Gabby picks me up and
squeezes tightly. “Maybe we could pretend to be cousins? Would that be weird? It’d be nice to at least act like I have family…”

  “That’s not weird.” Gabby adjusts the clip in my hair. “Let’s just say we’re cousins.”

  “Agreed.” I sigh deeply, squirming in Gabby’s grip.

  “What’s wrong?” She lowers me to the floor.

  “I can’t get Sianne off my mind. Not only is it creepy that she’s tried to convince me she was my mother, but she admitted that it’s her job to spy on me! She says the professor put her up to it, but I don’t know, she seems to say one thing and mean another…”

  Gabby shrugs. “Maybe she turned herself into a doll for funsies?”

  “No,” I say. “No way in the world. He did that to her, and he did it so he knew what I was doing… of every minute, of every day…”

  “But you don’t know that for sure, do you?”

  We flinch when a paintbrush crashes to the floor and rolls towards us. Gabby and I gaze up at the two dolls standing on the table. One is shorter than the other and twitching. The other holds my gaze with a formidable stare.

  Gabby jumps up and enters some kind of karate position. “You stay away from my cousin, psychotic goth doll!”

  Lisa sniggers and waves half a tissue above her head. “I surrender, I surrender. Look, I’m not evil. Sianne told me how our brains kinda go weird when we’re turned into dolls. Isn’t that right, Sianne?”

  Sianne points at her head and twists her finger. “Crazy like a coconut.”

  “Anyway, I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.” Lisa’s smug smile is really starting to grate on me.

  “Ella, press your panic button!” Gabby instructs.

  “You know you’d be silly to,” Lisa warns. “Look, I get the whole ‘it’s-awkward-now-that-you’re-all-family’ scenario that’s going on, but in reality, you just have to accept that the professor is the bad guy, here. I wasn’t going to tell you anything else, but I’d be the bad dolly if I didn’t. I have one last shred of evidence to demonstrate. How long ago was the ballet?”

  “Three days,” I say, but it feels like a lifetime ago.

  “Right. Three days. And how many days do you think it takes to kidnap a girl and turn her into a doll?”

  “Five!” Sianne interrupts. She pauses and taps her chest. “I mean, seven!”

  Lisa rolls her eyes and motions for Sianne to hush. “It’s a trick question,” she says quietly. “It takes less than an hour.”

  I swear time stops. It’s like I can’t even hear anything anymore. Gabby and I remain frozen, hoping against all odds that Lisa isn’t insinuating what we think she is.

  “What are you talking about?” I finally say, shuffling towards Gabby’s ankle and cuddling it.

  Lisa checks her nails, now painted electric blue. I don’t know where she keeps finding these shades. “I stumbled across something you’re not going to like. The professor seems uncomfortable creating dolls in the attic now, so I thought I’d check his office. I got the feeling you might recognize her.” Lisa steps sideways and turns her head to the left. “You can come out, now.”

  A doll emerges from behind one of the pencil holders. Her beautiful dark skin matches her cocoa eyes and hair. Her strapless dress has bright red and green stripes, with sandals to match.

  “The professor calls her Libby.” Lisa presses her lips together. “Recognize her?”

  Gabby goes weak at the knees. She stumbles towards Lisa and Libby, leaning against the table for balance. “Oh my God. How?”

  Libby politely curtsies and offers her hand to shake. “Hello! Lovely to meet you. I’ve been told by the professor that we’ve met before. I vaguely remember going to school with you and a party with dodgems, but not much else, I’m afraid.”

  “Why is this happening?” Gabby shouts at Lisa. “You’re lying! This may look like Libby, but there’s no evidence!”

  Libby puts her hands over her ears. “With all due respect, miss, the professor explained that I was broken, so he protected me.”

  “How?” Gabby asks. “How are you ‘broken’?”

  “He said I was sick,” Libby says matter-of-factly and smiles, her teeth unnaturally white.

  Gabby covers her mouth with her hand and closes her eyes, dry heaving. Lisa looks irritatingly smug, tapping her foot to an imaginary beat.

  “Sick, eh?” Lisa speaks in such a sly and condescending tone that I want to slap her. “Aren’t you sick, Gabby? I could be wrong… but the recent pattern would indicate…”

  Gabby shoots Lisa a disgusted look and grasps her. She squeezes Lisa tightly, as if she has every intention to crush her waist. Despite Gabby’s wide eyes and snarl, Lisa remains surprisingly serene.

  “Don’t think he won’t do it,” Lisa says. “He turned his sister into a doll, so what makes you think you’re safe? And Ella here isn’t even sick, yet she’s been a doll for years.”

  I’m not sick? I want to question it, but I don’t want to give Lisa the satisfaction. Instead, I puff out my chest and try to convince myself that the professor really is the good guy. But there’s nothing I can think of that depicts him in a positive light.

  Gabby looks at me for reassurance, but I can’t give her that. I’m compelled to believe Lisa.

  “So… you really think that my grandfather will turn me into a doll because I’m sick?” Gabby asks, her eyebrows puckering when Lisa nods.

  “I can guarantee it,” Lisa says, seemingly enjoying Gabby’s discomfort.

  “It’s true,” Sianne chimes in, oblivious to the gloom and doom. “We’re all sick in some way. You don’t have to be diseased to be turned into a doll. You might be depressed, like Lisa.”

  I’ve never seen Lisa look so vulnerable. She whirls over to Sianne. “What? How do you know that? Tell me!”

  “You’re not depressed now, are you?” Sianne asks.

  “No!” Lisa snaps. “But I’m suspicious! Tell me what you know! Was I depressed?”

  Sianne stuffs the ends of her hair into her mouth and chews. “We’re all here for a reason,” she says, her voice muffled. “We’re all broken.”

  We remain silent, lost in our thoughts.

  “Then I can’t stay here,” Gabby whispers, snapping us out of our respective trances.

  “It doesn’t seem so bad!” Libby says, her optimism reminiscent to my previous outlook on life. “The professor says I would’ve surely died, but now I’m free to be healthy and happy!”

  Gabby’s eyes dart from Libby to Lisa to Sianne to me. “Ella? What’s being a doll like? Really like?”

  I contemplate a pros and cons list. For an undetermined length of time, I’ve been confined to a dingy attic where I spent the majority of my time watching TV and longing to go outside. The professor controlled me to the extent that I forgot what it was like to even make a decision. I constantly made up storylines of my life as a human, wondering where I went and who my family was. I longed to taste juicy fruits and delectable desserts. I wanted to know what it was like to breathe, to feel, to live. Beyond all else, I always wondered what my life would’ve been if I had never become a doll.

  I cringe before the words even escape my mouth. “Run, Gabby.”

  Gabby turns to Lisa who nods in agreement.

  “We’ll come with you,” Lisa says solemnly. “I thought the treatment could be reversed, but I’ve done some more sleuthing. Once you’re a doll, that’s it. There’s no more hope for me to change back. The least I can do is stop you from becoming one.”

  “We’ll be with you until the end.” I stroke my new cousin’s ankle.

  Gabby whimpers with each touch, until she bends over and slips me in her jeans pocket. She picks up Lisa and Libby and reluctantly slides them into the pockets next to me, then reaches for Sianne who squeals and hurries behind the pencil-holder.

  “You have to come with us!” Gabby says, her entire body shaking. It’s like being in a dry Jacuzzi.

  “I can’t!” Sianne c
lenches her jaw. “Daniel told me to stay!”

  “What?” Gabby asks. “You’re in on this? Ella was right?”

  “I came here to keep you off the track, that’s all. That’s my job. I must do my job. Jobs are important.” Sianne tilts her head to the side and widens her eyes. “I must help my brother. Family is life.”

  “Then why have you teamed up with Lisa?” I ask.

  Sianne’s eyes click when she blinks. “BECAUSE I’M CRAZY!”

  “Forget it,” Lisa snaps, tapping impatiently on Gabby’s jeans. “We haven’t got time for this.”

  The four of us jolt when the stairs outside creak. It’s the professor. Gabby freezes, staring at the door like a rabbit caught in headlights.

  “In here!” Sianne bounces up and down, screaming as loudly as she can. “Professor! They’re escaping! Hurry!”

  Lisa tugs on Gabby’s shirt and hits her side. “He’ll be here any second! Go-go-go!”

  “Oh!” Libby squeals and claps her hands. “This is exciting! Where are we going?”

  Gabby doesn’t need to answer. I know exactly where she’s going.

  Except, once she’s at the window we climbed through the first day we met, she has more trouble forcing it open–I’m guessing she’s probably a lot weaker now.

  “Where do you plan on going?” Lisa asks when Gabby sits on the windowsill.

  “Home,” Gabby grunts. She looks over her shoulder. “Aunt Sianne! Shut up!”

  Sianne ignores her and continues to jump up and down like the loon she is. “Daniel! She’s out of the window! Quick!”

  “How far away is your home?” I ask.

  “About a ten-minute drive.” Gabby grabs the drainpipe and begins her descent. “I need to tell my parents about Grandpa.”

  “But what if they’re in on it?” Lisa huffs, dangling her arms from Gabby’s pocket like a ragdoll.

  Gabby stops mid-climb. “What do you mean?”