The Dollmaker's Daughter

Prologue: The Porcelain Smile

The first doll arrived on my sixth birthday—a perfect porcelain girl with ringlet curls and a lace pinafore.

"She looks just like you," Father said, stroking the doll’s cheek with his stained fingers.

That night, I woke to the doll sitting on my chest, its glass eyes gleaming in the dark.

By morning, it was back on the shelf.

And down in the village, the Miller girl was reported missing.

Chapter 1: The Workshop Rules

Father’s workshop smelled of sawdust and something sweetly rotten.

"Never touch the dolls after dark," he warned, locking the cellar door each night. "They’re shy."

But children in our valley disappeared like milk teeth—one every few months, always after Father delivered a new doll to some grieving family.

The townsfolk whispered that the Dollmaker of Black Hollow could ease a mother’s sorrow.

They never asked how.

Chapter 2: The Living Wood

At twelve, I found the hidden ledger.

Page after page of names:

"Emily Carter - oak, ash, lock of hair"

"Thomas Vale - pine, elder, left molar"

And beside each entry, a date.

The day each child vanished.

That night, I pressed my ear to the cellar door and heard it—the soft, wet sound of chisels working without hands.

Chapter 3: The Broken Doll

I turned sixteen the summer the pastor’s son disappeared.

Father brought his newest creation upstairs—a boy doll with startlingly familiar freckles. "For the pastor’s wife," he murmured, polishing its wooden fingers.

When he left for supper, I smashed it against the hearth.

The scream that came from the broken pieces wasn’t wood splitting.

It was human.

And from the cellar, a dozen tiny voices began to wail.

Chapter 4: The Offering

The truth lived in the cellar.

Hundreds of dolls lined the shelves, each twitching in their sleep. Their wooden mouths opened and closed like gasping fish.

At the center stood Father’s masterpiece—a woman-shaped hollow tree, its bark split into a screaming mouth. From its branches hung tiny cradles, each holding a curled-up figure no bigger than my thumb.

The stolen children.

Father found me there, his chisel in hand. "You weren’t supposed to see," he sighed, as the tree’s roots slithered toward me. "But the Mother always needs more daughters."

Epilogue: The New Dollmaker

They say the Dollmaker’s daughter took over the family business after his tragic accident.

My creations bring such comfort to grieving parents.

Especially the newest one—a handsome man doll with wood-stained fingers and Father’s kind smile.

Sometimes at night, I hear him whispering from the shelf:

"Let me out."

But the Mother’s roots hold him tight.

And the children in the branches?

They’ve started singing lullabies again.