The Doll Maker's Curse

Any collector or treasure hunter will find something about estate sales to pique their interest. They had always captivated me; the antique trinkets, faded books, and dusty furniture loaded with lost stories drew me. Nothing, though, could have prepared me for the day I came and found an apparently harmless vintage doll that would transform my house.

Drawn in by the fading handwritten sign in the front yard, I strolled into the Millers' estate sale on a gloomy Saturday. From finely carved wooden furniture to ancient silverware, their big Victorian house was filled with remnants of the past. But what drew my eye in the living room was a little dusty shelf in the corner. Among the mess of objects there sat a porcelain doll, delicate, lost, and shockingly lovely.

Wearing a faded blue frock that had obviously once been lovely, she was a Victorian-style doll with auburn ringlets. Her eyes, with their subdued, knowing look, and the small asymmetry of her smile, gave her almost life. Unlike any doll I had ever seen, I felt compelled to carry her home. The older nephew handling the sales observed my interest.

"That's Marianne," he gently said to me. "My aunt gathered dolls all her life; this one was unique. Made in the 1890s, a well-known doll manufacturer designed her. Pausing, he looked at the doll as though it were more than simply a thing. "I've always found her... unsettling," he said softly, nearly as though he were divulging a secret.

I smiled nicely; the price was reasonable; soon Marianne was buried in newspaper and nestled into my tote bag. Getting such a rare piece of history gave me the excitement of discovering treasure. She could already be sitting gracefully on the antique secretary desk I had recently bought for my living room.

After a busy day of getting settled into my new, fixer-upper Victorian house, that evening I set Marianne on the desk and watched her. Her face's delicate features were emphasized by the soft glow of the reading lamp, and for a brief instant she seemed as though she had always belonged there. Whispering somewhat in jest, "Welcome home." Though I felt stupid talking to a doll, something about her made the gesture seem normal.

Marianne's first week was not very spectacular. I was too busy repairing the oak floors buried under a musty carpet for decades and scraping layers of ancient wallpaper from the dining room. The house desperately needed a facelift even though the elderly couple who had lived here for more than fifty years had taken great care of it. But as I worked among the ruins of the past, I observed unusual events starting to occur.

It commenced modestly. Not where I had left my coffee cup, now positioned on the other side of the table. From the bedside to the bathroom counter, my reading glasses had moved inexplicably. Nothing significant; just stuff the tiredness of renovation work could readily justify. But the stranger the house turned, the more familiar it got the longer I stayed.

The sounds started to emanate then.

One evening, as I was relaxing in a hot bath to help with my sore muscles, I heard a gentle tune floating about the house. Coming from somewhere deep within the walls, this song was one I couldn't identify. Stalled, I sat up. I carried no music box of my own. I quickly wrapped myself in a towel and looked about the home while the water sprayed over the tub's edge. The letters led me—to Marianne—to the living room.

The music stopped as I came inside the room.

Frozen, I stood there, fixed on the doll. No winding key, no obvious mechanism. She returned to the desk, shivering down her spine, but I attempted to make sense of it. Right, old houses produced strange noises. Perhaps the pipes produced some musical, hum-like resonant frequency. I argued with myself it was nothing.

That evening I had a vivid dream. I was in a poorly lit workshop surrounded by incomplete dolls at several phases of development. Wearing wire-rimmed glasses, a man bent over a workstation, his hands paint-stained. He turned to face me and had glassy eyes. Sweat covered me when I woke up; the bedding was twisted all over. My bedside table had a clock showing 3:17 AM. I clearly remembered shutting my bedroom door before turning in for sleep, but right now it was wide open.

From then on, things got fast out of hand.

More unexplainable events happened over the next days. Once closed, doors would be wide open. Lights I had turned off were on when I got back. I returned home several times to discover all the faucets running and water pouring from the taps. The most disturbing element, though, is my restoration job appeared to fall apart overnight. Early morning covered walls I had removed of old wallpaper. The floor I had spent hours sanding looked to have scratches once more. As if my diligence had been undone during my sleep.

And Marianne sat on her seat through it all, her painted smile spreading somewhat more every day.

First, I thought of throwing her out. But one thing kept me back. Though she was surely precious, it was not only the collector's feeling. Marianne seemed to be the least of my concerns. It was a disturbing feeling.

I finally decided to phone the old nephew from the estate auction one evening after the framed pictures in the corridor had been inexplicably repositioned to face the wall.

"You're not telling me something about this doll," I replied, my voice taut with a mix of fear and fascination.

The pause lasted quite a bit.

"My aunt wasn't only a collector," he replied at last, his voice hardly audible. She restored something. Her area of expertise was haunting objects—things with past-linked significance. She thought she could settle them.

My gut turned. "And Marianne??"

She is not the haunted item, he said gently. "She serves as the guardian. She was developed by my aunt to guard the house.

I said nothing, my head whirling. "What?”

"The house... it wants to get back to a specific time. My aunt thought something awful happened here in the late 1800s. The local doll manufacturer made more than simply dolls. He aimed to... safeguard humans. Her family.

Recalling the weird dream of the workshop and the man with glass eyes, I felt a cold run through me.

"Marianne was designed to contain the impact of the house," he said. "She preserves the line separating the past from the present as long as she is unaltered. According to my aunt, the only thing stopping the house from finishing its metamorphosis is...

Sitting in the living room facing Marianne that evening, I tried to sort through all the nephew had told. The grandfather clock in the corridor was the only sound audible until—

You know, he is still here.

The voice arrived softly and pleasantly, like that of a young child. I stopped and fixed the doll. Her painted look stayed the same, but I sensed her awareness—her glance—on me.

"The doll maker," she said, almost in a whisper. "He has been waiting for someone that values his output. Someone to add to his assortment.

I stiffened my throat. "What is his desire?"

Though Marianne's delicate lips did not move, a melodic chuckle reverberated around the room. "What every artist yearns for. To design. To honor beauty before it fades.

I heard floorboard creaks behind me as though on cue. I had no will to turn around. I was unable.

"Don't worry," Marianne spoke once more, this time quieter. I refuse to let him bring you. For this reason I am here.

I closed my eyes and felt a cold breath on the back of my neck, not of my own.

"But I can't hold him back permanently," she murmured. "He is becoming more powerful."

When I opened my eyes once more, the room had evolved gently. My laptop, my phone charger, and the magazines—the contemporary items—had disappeared. Among other things I had never seen before were a half-written letter in fading brown ink, a tarnished silver frame, and a crystal inkwell.

Marianne was still seated at the desk, her painted eyes observing, her constant knowing smile unbroken.

Marianne anchored me in the present, as this mansion was something out of time. She was not cursed, as I had first feared. No, she was the one thing keeping me safe in an area eager to pull me into its past.

I still live here, sharing this house with Marianne. She talks to me sometimes, telling me of the rooms to avoid and the shadows not to stare at too closely when the lines separating now from then get thin. The improvements are still under work. The wallpaper stays. The floor marks remain exactly as they are.

I also clutch on to my quilt and whisper thanks to the porcelain guardian who keeps the doll maker at a distance at night when I hear his gentle footsteps in his workshop below for now.