The Quiet One

Jane was a soft-spoken girl of few words. Her closest friend, John, had always liked that about her. John would take up entire rooms with his personality and Jane shrank to give him that space, often already having retreated into her imagination.

Jane's parents had always found their friendship curious, as the two had nothing in common. Jane was a quiet but vivid dreamer who struggled to make friends while John made friends everywhere he went. John loved talking about himself, and Jane hated doing that. Jane loved collecting dolls, John despised them; Jane had a collection of her favorite porcelain dolls displayed along a windowsill in her bedroom, and John refused to go anywhere near them; he swore the dolls were plotting against him. The dolls remained on display because it amused Jane to see John in such a rare state of paranoia.

During the summer before they entered the fifth grade, John moved away from their small hometown in Wyandotte, Michigan to Dallas, Texas. To stay in touch, they became pen pals; Jane had never written to anyone before, but she discovered she had much more to say when writing letters.

After a few months of writing, John started settling into his new life and his letters became less and less frequent.

Jane coped with the distanced friendship by joining a mailing list for a penpal group she discovered, hoping to connect with more soft-spoken introverts like herself.

Within a week, an 11 year old from St. Augustine, Florida named Chester started writing to her. The two had a lot in common, but most importantly, they both loved dolls. She wrote about her collection of cherished porcelain dolls displayed on a window that overlooked the town and he boasted that he had an entire closet full of them.

Chester painted the streets of St. Augustine in his letters; coquina walls lining narrow brick streets arched after centuries of carriage wheels weighing over them, tropical courtyards and art galleries overlooking spirals of sailboats along the river.

After a few months of exchanging letters, Jane arrived home from school to discover a suspicious package wrapped in brown paper collecting snowflakes on the doorstep.

She tore the paper with a steady earnest. A thin, delicate box revealed a glass doll, eyes painted on, lips frowning; she’d looked this angry and exhausted for nearly three centuries.

She perched it along the window with the rest of her collection, still pristine in its box.

The doll’s dangling beaded black earrings looped twice at the ends like a pair of scissors cutting as they clung to each earlobe. Two buttons of burst blood vessels settled below her cheeks. Knives of white lace sprouted from her shoulders and her collar clutched her chin. It was for the best that she was not alive, because she looked seconds away from choking to death.

“What would you like to be called?”

The dolls lips remained in a frown. But Jane heard an echo rise from the vents. “Jane. I’d like to be called Jane.”

Her blood froze. “But that’s my name.”

The doll remained still and silent.

“Okay, Jane. If that’s what you want to be called.”

“Jane?” A gentle voice called.

“Yeah, mom?”

“It’s time to eat, love.”

Jane slurped spaghetti in a hurry, anxious to write Chester and thank him for the ancient surprise.

"How are you adjusting since John moved?" Her mother asked.

"He stopped writing to me. I have a new penpal friend named Chester. He collects dolls, too. Old ones."

"How exciting!" Her dad chimed.

"Who wants chocolate cake?" Her mother asked, slices of cake already plated in front of them. Her parents tended to keep dinner simple so they could focus on dessert.

After the cake, Jane wrote to Chester in her bedroom.

A giggle echoed from the vents. Words came at a whispered hiss. “Chester’s no friend. Stop writing to him. Immediately.”

Jane's pen wiggled over the paper. “He brought us together. He can't be too bad.”

“Do as I say,” the voice said.

"Why?"

"Because I'm your only friend. And you'll never have more."

She yanked the doll from the window and shoved it in the closet with a slam. “Chester's my friend. You’re not real. You’ll do as I say and stay there!”

As she finished writing the letter, she sensed the doll staring through the barrier separating them. Quickly, she signed her name and sealed it.

One by one, Jane’s collection of porcelain dolls tumbled off the windowsill, crashing to the floor and shattering on impact. She dropped to her knees, surrounded by the ruins of her coveted collection. "It's not real."

“Touch their broken pieces and tell me it's not real,” the voice echoed.

Jane pounded her fists against the closet door, which seemed to have sealed itself shut. "I'll destroy you! I'll shatter you the way you shattered them!"

"You'd never do that to me."

Jane gave up shoving the door and began writing an overdue letter to her old friend, John. She wrote that she had recently moved; her new address was in St. Augustine, and she wanted to send a special gift to a special friend.

The closet door clicked and creaked as it opened. "Did you mean that? Do you want to destroy me?" The voice asked.

"Of course not," Jane said, "You're far too precious."

She taped the doll up in a cardboard coffin and raced out into a snowstorm with it clutched against her chest.

As she shoved the package over to the clerk, she was so relieved that she groaned, briefly catching their attention. "Sad to see this one go," Jane said. The clerk dumped the box into a bin and wheeled it away.

She glided over scattered patches of ice on the walk home, collapsing them into tiny glacial pools.

She tiptoed into the house and creaked up the stairs. Her mother and father snored over the television in the living room, slouched in a sloppy cuddle on the couch.

A bang from the basement. The heat fired on to keep the house warm from the bitter storm. For once, Jane was happy to go to bed at a decent hour. She splashed warm water over her face and heard a gentle voice call her, “Jane?”

“Yeah, Mom?” Jane replied. She glanced down the stairs to see the television still strobing over their shadows from the living room.

After a long stretch of silence, she settled into bed and drifted off into a dream.

“Jane?” A sweet voice whispered through the darkness.

“Yes?”

“Are you trying to get rid of me, Jane?”