Creepy Dolls

The little gem with whom you are about to become acquainted was a doll my husband’s Grandma Audrey gifted us shortly before her death. Audrey was a tough as nails, feisty woman in her eighties who loved nothing more than shopping at auctions and flea markets. The doll she gave us was a find from one of her endeavors, and what a find it was.

The doll stood about two feet tall and came with a name already attached: "Little Alice." With her blonde curls and frilly clothes, she looked very much like any other of her ilk. To add to her charm, she could talk. While this feature wasn't unusual in and of itself, it was some of the things she said that made her stand out from the rest.

At first, her utterings were your typical doll fare. “My name is Little Alice,” and “We are going to be friends,” were two of her favorites. All of that was normal and good and we were fine with it, but some of the other things she said came straight out of left field.

I was holding Little Alice one day and prompting her to speak. In the midst of her innocent exclamations, she piped up with: “You need professional help.” To say that I was surprised would be an understatement. I had never heard a talking doll say something so random.

Suddenly fascinated with Little Alice, I tried for what seemed like hours to get her to say it again, but she stubbornly refused. In fact, she never again repeated the phrase, even though the rest of her repertoire played on a continuous loop.

Little Alice informing me that I needed professional help became a great source of material for my husband, who loved to share the anecdote with anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, other things she would say in the future weren’t nearly as amusing.

We were sitting outside one day on our porch swing with Little Alice when, out of the blue, she began reeling off what sounded like court documents. There was mention of concentration camps and, strangely enough, a dinner of peas and carrots. Her speech went on and on uninterrupted for several minutes. To add to the bizarre nature of the incident, she had recited the entire spiel in a thick German accent.

When she finally fell silent, my husband and I tried in vain to get her to say the whole thing over again. It was no use. Time and again she went right back to “We’re going to be friends,” as if what had come before never happened. We eventually learned that anytime she said something completely off-the-wall, she only did so once.

Unlike some people who hang on to objects that are clearly bordering on the sinister, we had no problem getting rid of Little Alice. That doll wasn't right, and she had spooked us for the last time. We didn’t know if she was possessed or manufactured to go off on disjointed rants, but we weren’t keeping her around to find out.

Since she had been the last gift we received from Audrey, we locked her up in the yard barn temporarily while we debated what to do next. In the end, we tossed her in the trash bin; in this instance, sentimentality only went so far.

Down the road, when the time came to clean out the barn, I found an unexpected reminder of Little Alice: her blond curly hair, which was lying on a shelf behind some old paint cans. How it got there and why it wasn’t under her bonnet when she was thrown away, we'll never know. In the end, it was just another question mark in the saga of our extraordinary—albeit creepy—talking doll.