David Strugnell
02-04-2012, 08:58 AM
My life both began and ended on the cold, dark floor in my attic. It may not have been ideal, but it is nothing I would regret. My new friends...my family...gave me the love I had lived so long without when I grew up with my mother. But in time, after what my new mother did, I was able to forgive my mother for the love she had withheld from me for so long. I see now that my new family loves me so much more than she or my father ever did, and this became very clear the night that I first began to find out the truth behind my soon-to-be family...
"Tell me a story, mama! I want a scary one!" My bright, human eyes shone with anticipation as I sat on my pale pink bed beneath heavy blankets, my beloved doll Victoria propped up beside me.
"Alright, alright, settle down," my old mother said laughing lightly. Her long, black curls that mirrored my own bounced off of her shoulders as she reached down to the bed to sit beside me, the bed creaking under the excess weight. Our house was built well over 100 years ago, and when I was small I was more than convinced that every single thing IN the house was just as ancient. Before we moved to Hungary for my old father's business, we lived in a brand-new three story house that made our current living conditions seem medieval at best.
"Let's see now...," my old mother paused for a moment before her crystal blue eyes lit up with an idea. "You know what? I have a challenge for you." Without saying another word she got up off of the bed and padded down the hallway to her bedroom. After a moment, she returned with a large brown book covered with various stains from years of use.
"I want you to try to read a story out of this book tonight. If you can finish it without my help, I will read any story you want tomorrow," she said, handing the heavy book into my outstretched hands. My mother smiled at me and turned to leave, making sure to leave the light on in my bedroom. Once I heard the soft 'click' of her door down the hall, I turned to a random page in the book and began to read:
"Long ago near the house we live in now, there was a beautiful woman named Elizabeth Bathory. She lived in a tall castle with many rooms and she had many young maids that did whatever she wished. Elizabeth was a countess of the country, so she had many people looking up to her. One day, Elizabeth realized that she was aging. Her head started to sprout silver strands of gray hair and her skin began to wrinkle. She was so upset by this, she tried all sorts of different methods to try to make herself look young again."
"That's not scary! Ladies do that all the time!" I commented aloud, remembering the dozens of commercials with screams and green mud that promised to 'erase those fine lines and wrinkles.' Despite the obvious fault in the story, I continued to read.
"Elizabeth found her own special way to look young again, and how she went about it was truly frightening. After an accident with one of her maids, Elizabeth became convinced that the girl's blood made her skin smoother, younger. She soon became obsessed with the search for beauty, killing many innocent girls in the process. Only sparing her own children, Elizabeth continued for many years until eventually she was caught. However, since Elizabeth was very powerful in her country, she could not be put in jail, so the police of the time locked her away at the very top of her tower, where she stayed until the day she died."
"But...what happened to her kids? Where did they go? Did she have a little girl like me?" The book refused to answer these questions, so I climbed out of my warm bed to ask my mother. I knocked once on the solid wood frame before entering and speaking before I was even fully in the room.
"Did Elizabeth have any little girls? What happened to her kids?"
My old mother smiled solemnly. "She did have girls...2 of them, actually, and 2 boys. They were all sent away to live with other wealthy people. It is very sad that the children were separated from her family, and her very first little girl, Anastasia,was the saddest one of all."
"What happened to her?"
"No one really knows...the only trace of her that is still around is sitting patiently on your bed waiting for you to go to sleep," my mother said, shooing me out of the room and closing the door.
That same night, I remember having a strangely vivid dream. In it, a young woman with sleek raven hair sat at a wooden table with a flickering candle as her only source of light. Her eyes burned almost red with hatred as her thin hand expertly maneuvered a paint brush along the contours of the object in her hand. Eventually I was able to see what it was that the girl had red lips topped with a head of blonde curls that I recognized immediately to be my Victoria. The woman swiftly turned the doll over in her hands, revealing the back half of the doll that had yet to receive body parts. On the inside of the doll's stomach, the woman signed her name in thick black ink: Anastasia Bathory.
My eyes flew open once the dream had ended, and I found Victoria to be looking over at me from her perch on the over side of the bed. I reached out and gently caressed her face, a smile on my lips.
"Poor Anastasia...don't worry, Victoria, my momma loves me very much so you'll be safe with us." After my reassurance I rolled over and felt myself falling back to sleep, but not without hearing a faint voice whisper, "Liar."
As I grew up, I eventually grew out of my doll collection and moved them upstairs into the attic. I feigned complete disinterest with the family I had moved into the dark cobwebs, but in truth I visited them all quite often during the night, mainly so I could see my Victoria.
The attic was fitting of a Hollywood movie, completely covered in dusty cobwebs; the small window at the front pushing in whispers of the winter air outside. The rotting beams that hung limply from the ceiling warded away any stray boxes and trunks that my parents might have wanted to banish from overfilled hallway closets. I made sure that I kept my family of dolls up high out of the way of any stray mice that took homage in the rotting beams. I took very good care of all of them, but that couldn't help a little disrepair—my Victoria only had one fading icy-blue glass eye with a tint of red from when I accidentally dropped a cup full of kool-aid. Her perfect blonde ringlets had bits and pieces that fell out on occasion, leaving only a few scattered patches of dingy golden clumps. Her lovely white lace dress had a small dark red spot on it, although to this day I am not completely sure of its source. But I still thought she was beautiful...her single eye glistened with more love and kindness than anyone's parents would ever show.
After a while I stopped even glancing in the direction of my other dolls. When I climbed up into the attic, I always called out for Victoria and reached out for her pale hand. I spent hours brushing her fragile hair and unwrinkling her dress. I continued this ritual up until I was 11 years old, and that was the year I had learned Victoria's secret.
That night at exactly 3 a.m., my internal alarm clock woke me up and pushed me into a state of restlessness. I climbed the rotting attic ladder as quietly as the moaning old house would allow and witnessed the most amazing thing in my 11 years of life. There was my darling Victoria, dancing by herself in the pale moonlight shining from the tiny window. Her stiff porcelain limbs twirled against the splintery unpolished floor, her single eye invisible behind her plastic lid. My gasp caused the spinning to cease immediately as she slowly opened her eyes...
"Hello, Helena."
At that moment I was at a loss for words and my hands began to tremble as they fumbled behind me, looking for something to lean on. Victoria smiled at my reaction, walking over towards me and holding out her hand. Instinct told me to reach for it, and her cold fingers snatched my own before common sense could argue anything else.
"Aren't you happy to see me, Helena? I'm your family, remember?" Victoria's voice seemed to croak out puffs of dust from years of silence, but as she continued, her words flowed with a warm, silky quality. She continued to move close, climbing on top of nearby boxes that I kept old clothes in. Our eyes then met, my own green eyes locked intently on her blue one. Suddenly, it felt as if I had been given clarity and insight into my own life. I saw visions of my mother, her black hair coming down like a raven as she berated me, leaving me with strangers as she went out in fancy dresses with my father, the emotionless gaze he gave me as he walked out the door for the last time 3 years ago, the birthday parties I had spent alone with my mother, and the many hugs and kisses I had never received simply to say "I love you."
Tears brimmed in my eyes and I wanted the visions to stop, but they continued flashing across the back of my eyelids, showing images of my angry or disappointed parents countered by all of the hours I had spent venting and crying to Victoria to make myself feel better. I saw our many tea parties together, the days where we played dress up, and the hugs that she never failed to return. All too soon the visions ended and my mind was filled only with the thoughts of my family.
"I'm always happy to see you, Mother," I replied after a moment, a warm smile spreading across my face to match hers. "I wish you would have told me about this sooner, Mother...why did you have to wait so long?" Victoria released my hand from her grasp and I took her up in my arms.
"These things take time, love. I wanted to be sure you were ready." My ****-eyed stare must have suggested my confusion, and Victoria sighed. "I am very old, Helena, and I have had many children before you. Sometimes they were not ready for this, and I lost them. I love you very much, and I wanted to be absolutely positive that you could handle this."
"Oooh," I said quietly, my breath blowing back Victoria's bangs from her round face. I held Victoria closer to my chest and laughed quietly. "Don't worry, Mother; I'll be ready for anything when it comes to you!" That sentence brought out an even wider smile from Victoria as she motioned for me to put her back down onto the floor.
"I'm so glad you said that, my darling. But it is very late and you need your rest. Go on back downstairs and sleep. I promise to be here tomorrow when you return."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
The weeks that followed were all memories of Mother and I in the attic. My old mother eventually grew worried, bumbling something about "getting behind in school" and "not good for my health," but these concerns barely registered. My days were consumed by sharing my every thought with Victoria. She stayed by my side, nodding appropriately and consoling any uneasiness from the hard life of an eleven year old. In her and the other dolls around me, I found true friends I could share everything with. My old mother always told me to 'be reasonable' and never bothered to listen to my 'childish woes.' When those things happened, Victoria would comfort me and tell me what my real mother thought wasn't important—that she would always love me, and that was all that mattered, and the more time I spent with Victoria, the more I started to believe her...
Cold December air slipped through the cracks of my slightly open window when it happened. I remember being woken up by shivers making their way up my spine beneath my tattered patchwork quilt. It had been a week exactly since I had taken Victoria out of the attic and back down into my room where she spent school days sitting on a faded, splintered rocking chair that sat in the corner of my room from when I was a baby and the evening hours by my side talking about everything and nothing.
"Victoria...are you there?" My voice received only an empty echo in response. "Victoria?" Again, no response. My pulse quickening against my throat, I stumbled out of bed and headed down the long hallway that ended with the spiral staircase that lead into the kitchen.
"Victoria? Where did you go, Mother?" I called out again, tears starting to spill onto my cheeks. Just before a powerful sob was about to wrack my shoulders, I felt a thud vibrate the floor in the direction of my mother's room. My naked feet shifted in a half-circle on the carpet and padded towards her room, the door slightly ajar. With each passing inch, my breath grew heavy and uneven, blood surging its way through my throbbing temples. I peered through the crack in the door and was met with a sea of crimson. There was my Victoria, standing on my mother's back, a shining steel blade in her stained hand.
My eyes darted around the room, taking in the scene before me. The beige carpet dampened my bare feet with warm, red blood, the nearby wall stained with dark spatters. My old mother laid on her stomach, her face turned towards the door, eyes still half open. Victoria turned slowly to face me, dropping the knife with a definitive 'thud.'
"My darling Helena...," Victoria cooed as she straightened the skirt of her dress that was covered in blood.
"What...what did you do?" I said in a near whisper. "Mother...what did you do to my mom?" Victoria tilted her head to the side, amused, and walked toward me. Despite the red stains on her hand, I didn't hesitate to pick her up when she outstretched her arms.
"Helena...darling, you know as well as I do that your mother didn't really love you. When you started to play with me again, what did she do?" Victoria paused, waiting for my answer.
"She...she got angry with me..."
"That's right, darling, she did. Would a loving mother do that to their daughter?" She didn't wait for an answer this time. "You have taken such good care of me, I just couldn't stand to see that horrible person be so mean to you anymore."
Before I could speak, Victoria locked eyes with me just as she did when we first spoke, and once again my mind was polluted with visions of my old mother. Her constant threats to send me to boarding school away from my dolls and Victoria, her angry expressions as I climbed the attic ladder in the middle of the afternoon, the times she smacked my mouth when I said that Victoria loved me more than she did. Tears once again returned to my unblinking green eyes, willing the visions to stop. After an eternity the images ceased, leaving an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"She never loved me...," I said quietly, my voice hoarse from crying. Victoria nodded and patting my shoulder to console me.
"Isn't it a horrible feeling, Helena? Not having a mother's love? Anastasia, my creator and first owner, her mother didn't love her either, and she spent her entire life alone. She was always so sad...but it doesn't have to be like that for you."
"It doesn't?" I asked, sniffling a little as the flow of tears ebbed. Victoria shook her dirty blonde curls and smiled softly.
"No, love, it doesn't. I know of a way to make you my real daughter, and I can promise that I will always love you. Forever."
I imagined my life with Victoria, and saw nothing but happiness. I envisioned tea parties in the middle of the afternoon, and play dates in the old attic with trunks left by the previous owner to explore and discover. A smile spread across my tear-stained face and I held Victoria close to me.
"Mother, I want to be with you always." Victoria nodded knowingly and looked out beyond the bedroom and into the dark hallway.
"Go to the attic, Helena. You're ready."
Only slightly curious about the wetness beneath my feet, I followed Victoria's instructions and headed up to the attic, my feet leaving dark stains on the wood. The familiar musty attic draft brought goose bumps to the surface of my arms as I pulled the ladder back up to its place on the attic floor. Before I had a chance to ask why Victoria wanted me to go to the attic, I let out a gasp that nearly caused my heart to stop. Behind Victoria, my entire doll collection stood upright, smiling in my direction.
"This is your family now, Helena. You have taken good care of them and they all love you very much. They want you to be part of their family, too," Victoria said as she held a small knife in her hand. The mixture of porcelain dolls, antique marionettes, and baby dolls nodded in agreement, the smiles never leaving their faces.
"I want to...I want to have a family that loves me like you do, Mother," I replied, a sort of giddiness rising up into my chest. Victoria's expression suddenly grew very serious, her single blue eye holding mine in a steady gaze.
"Darling, there is something that we must do first before we can be together." Victoria turned to face my new family and each of them produced a series of needles, thread, wires, and scissors. In the opposite hand that contained the knife, Victoria produced a small pair of glassy green doll eyes.
I stared at the pair of eyes as if they were the most precious objects in existence. I realized in that moment that my entire future lay within those emerald green spheres, and my own human eyes wouldn't leave them for a second, not even to look more closely at the smiles plastered on my dolls' faces.
"A-are you sure this is okay?" I stammered in barely a whisper. Mother nodded and closed her hand around the spheres.
"This is more than okay, Helena. You have waited for this day for so long, as I have. You want someone to love you and treasure you forever, and I can give you that. But you have to trust me." The playful light that I saw in Mother's eye in the past had all but disappeared, leaving shiny, reflective determination. Without speaking, I sat cross-legged on the floor, at eye level with my new family, and closed my eyes.
"I'm ready."
In that instant, I felt multiple cold hands attach themselves to my body, pinning me down to the hard wood floor of the attic. I let out a yell in surprise, and then felt a larger hand cover my mouth. Panic tugged at my gut, but I found it useless to struggle. As Mother placed the sharp edge of the knife against my stomach for the first time, I began to watch the events unfold from a bird's eye view of my own motionless form. I watched in awe as my human muscles and bones were replaced with thick, metal wire and screws of all kinds, and my pale skin painted over with an unfamiliar thick substance, its pungent aroma flowing out into the dark winter night through the small attic window. I was torn apart and stitched back together in a matter of minutes, and my once flawless pale skin was covered in stitches, lines of staples, and large screws. Once my new body was finished, Mother walked slowly up to my face and pulled open my eyelids with her tiny fingers, pulling out my lifeless eyes and substituting the emerald glass globes that I was so fixated on moments ago. As she let go of my lids, I fell back into my own body and slowly opened my eyes...
"Hello, Mother."
3,496
"Tell me a story, mama! I want a scary one!" My bright, human eyes shone with anticipation as I sat on my pale pink bed beneath heavy blankets, my beloved doll Victoria propped up beside me.
"Alright, alright, settle down," my old mother said laughing lightly. Her long, black curls that mirrored my own bounced off of her shoulders as she reached down to the bed to sit beside me, the bed creaking under the excess weight. Our house was built well over 100 years ago, and when I was small I was more than convinced that every single thing IN the house was just as ancient. Before we moved to Hungary for my old father's business, we lived in a brand-new three story house that made our current living conditions seem medieval at best.
"Let's see now...," my old mother paused for a moment before her crystal blue eyes lit up with an idea. "You know what? I have a challenge for you." Without saying another word she got up off of the bed and padded down the hallway to her bedroom. After a moment, she returned with a large brown book covered with various stains from years of use.
"I want you to try to read a story out of this book tonight. If you can finish it without my help, I will read any story you want tomorrow," she said, handing the heavy book into my outstretched hands. My mother smiled at me and turned to leave, making sure to leave the light on in my bedroom. Once I heard the soft 'click' of her door down the hall, I turned to a random page in the book and began to read:
"Long ago near the house we live in now, there was a beautiful woman named Elizabeth Bathory. She lived in a tall castle with many rooms and she had many young maids that did whatever she wished. Elizabeth was a countess of the country, so she had many people looking up to her. One day, Elizabeth realized that she was aging. Her head started to sprout silver strands of gray hair and her skin began to wrinkle. She was so upset by this, she tried all sorts of different methods to try to make herself look young again."
"That's not scary! Ladies do that all the time!" I commented aloud, remembering the dozens of commercials with screams and green mud that promised to 'erase those fine lines and wrinkles.' Despite the obvious fault in the story, I continued to read.
"Elizabeth found her own special way to look young again, and how she went about it was truly frightening. After an accident with one of her maids, Elizabeth became convinced that the girl's blood made her skin smoother, younger. She soon became obsessed with the search for beauty, killing many innocent girls in the process. Only sparing her own children, Elizabeth continued for many years until eventually she was caught. However, since Elizabeth was very powerful in her country, she could not be put in jail, so the police of the time locked her away at the very top of her tower, where she stayed until the day she died."
"But...what happened to her kids? Where did they go? Did she have a little girl like me?" The book refused to answer these questions, so I climbed out of my warm bed to ask my mother. I knocked once on the solid wood frame before entering and speaking before I was even fully in the room.
"Did Elizabeth have any little girls? What happened to her kids?"
My old mother smiled solemnly. "She did have girls...2 of them, actually, and 2 boys. They were all sent away to live with other wealthy people. It is very sad that the children were separated from her family, and her very first little girl, Anastasia,was the saddest one of all."
"What happened to her?"
"No one really knows...the only trace of her that is still around is sitting patiently on your bed waiting for you to go to sleep," my mother said, shooing me out of the room and closing the door.
That same night, I remember having a strangely vivid dream. In it, a young woman with sleek raven hair sat at a wooden table with a flickering candle as her only source of light. Her eyes burned almost red with hatred as her thin hand expertly maneuvered a paint brush along the contours of the object in her hand. Eventually I was able to see what it was that the girl had red lips topped with a head of blonde curls that I recognized immediately to be my Victoria. The woman swiftly turned the doll over in her hands, revealing the back half of the doll that had yet to receive body parts. On the inside of the doll's stomach, the woman signed her name in thick black ink: Anastasia Bathory.
My eyes flew open once the dream had ended, and I found Victoria to be looking over at me from her perch on the over side of the bed. I reached out and gently caressed her face, a smile on my lips.
"Poor Anastasia...don't worry, Victoria, my momma loves me very much so you'll be safe with us." After my reassurance I rolled over and felt myself falling back to sleep, but not without hearing a faint voice whisper, "Liar."
As I grew up, I eventually grew out of my doll collection and moved them upstairs into the attic. I feigned complete disinterest with the family I had moved into the dark cobwebs, but in truth I visited them all quite often during the night, mainly so I could see my Victoria.
The attic was fitting of a Hollywood movie, completely covered in dusty cobwebs; the small window at the front pushing in whispers of the winter air outside. The rotting beams that hung limply from the ceiling warded away any stray boxes and trunks that my parents might have wanted to banish from overfilled hallway closets. I made sure that I kept my family of dolls up high out of the way of any stray mice that took homage in the rotting beams. I took very good care of all of them, but that couldn't help a little disrepair—my Victoria only had one fading icy-blue glass eye with a tint of red from when I accidentally dropped a cup full of kool-aid. Her perfect blonde ringlets had bits and pieces that fell out on occasion, leaving only a few scattered patches of dingy golden clumps. Her lovely white lace dress had a small dark red spot on it, although to this day I am not completely sure of its source. But I still thought she was beautiful...her single eye glistened with more love and kindness than anyone's parents would ever show.
After a while I stopped even glancing in the direction of my other dolls. When I climbed up into the attic, I always called out for Victoria and reached out for her pale hand. I spent hours brushing her fragile hair and unwrinkling her dress. I continued this ritual up until I was 11 years old, and that was the year I had learned Victoria's secret.
That night at exactly 3 a.m., my internal alarm clock woke me up and pushed me into a state of restlessness. I climbed the rotting attic ladder as quietly as the moaning old house would allow and witnessed the most amazing thing in my 11 years of life. There was my darling Victoria, dancing by herself in the pale moonlight shining from the tiny window. Her stiff porcelain limbs twirled against the splintery unpolished floor, her single eye invisible behind her plastic lid. My gasp caused the spinning to cease immediately as she slowly opened her eyes...
"Hello, Helena."
At that moment I was at a loss for words and my hands began to tremble as they fumbled behind me, looking for something to lean on. Victoria smiled at my reaction, walking over towards me and holding out her hand. Instinct told me to reach for it, and her cold fingers snatched my own before common sense could argue anything else.
"Aren't you happy to see me, Helena? I'm your family, remember?" Victoria's voice seemed to croak out puffs of dust from years of silence, but as she continued, her words flowed with a warm, silky quality. She continued to move close, climbing on top of nearby boxes that I kept old clothes in. Our eyes then met, my own green eyes locked intently on her blue one. Suddenly, it felt as if I had been given clarity and insight into my own life. I saw visions of my mother, her black hair coming down like a raven as she berated me, leaving me with strangers as she went out in fancy dresses with my father, the emotionless gaze he gave me as he walked out the door for the last time 3 years ago, the birthday parties I had spent alone with my mother, and the many hugs and kisses I had never received simply to say "I love you."
Tears brimmed in my eyes and I wanted the visions to stop, but they continued flashing across the back of my eyelids, showing images of my angry or disappointed parents countered by all of the hours I had spent venting and crying to Victoria to make myself feel better. I saw our many tea parties together, the days where we played dress up, and the hugs that she never failed to return. All too soon the visions ended and my mind was filled only with the thoughts of my family.
"I'm always happy to see you, Mother," I replied after a moment, a warm smile spreading across my face to match hers. "I wish you would have told me about this sooner, Mother...why did you have to wait so long?" Victoria released my hand from her grasp and I took her up in my arms.
"These things take time, love. I wanted to be sure you were ready." My ****-eyed stare must have suggested my confusion, and Victoria sighed. "I am very old, Helena, and I have had many children before you. Sometimes they were not ready for this, and I lost them. I love you very much, and I wanted to be absolutely positive that you could handle this."
"Oooh," I said quietly, my breath blowing back Victoria's bangs from her round face. I held Victoria closer to my chest and laughed quietly. "Don't worry, Mother; I'll be ready for anything when it comes to you!" That sentence brought out an even wider smile from Victoria as she motioned for me to put her back down onto the floor.
"I'm so glad you said that, my darling. But it is very late and you need your rest. Go on back downstairs and sleep. I promise to be here tomorrow when you return."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
The weeks that followed were all memories of Mother and I in the attic. My old mother eventually grew worried, bumbling something about "getting behind in school" and "not good for my health," but these concerns barely registered. My days were consumed by sharing my every thought with Victoria. She stayed by my side, nodding appropriately and consoling any uneasiness from the hard life of an eleven year old. In her and the other dolls around me, I found true friends I could share everything with. My old mother always told me to 'be reasonable' and never bothered to listen to my 'childish woes.' When those things happened, Victoria would comfort me and tell me what my real mother thought wasn't important—that she would always love me, and that was all that mattered, and the more time I spent with Victoria, the more I started to believe her...
Cold December air slipped through the cracks of my slightly open window when it happened. I remember being woken up by shivers making their way up my spine beneath my tattered patchwork quilt. It had been a week exactly since I had taken Victoria out of the attic and back down into my room where she spent school days sitting on a faded, splintered rocking chair that sat in the corner of my room from when I was a baby and the evening hours by my side talking about everything and nothing.
"Victoria...are you there?" My voice received only an empty echo in response. "Victoria?" Again, no response. My pulse quickening against my throat, I stumbled out of bed and headed down the long hallway that ended with the spiral staircase that lead into the kitchen.
"Victoria? Where did you go, Mother?" I called out again, tears starting to spill onto my cheeks. Just before a powerful sob was about to wrack my shoulders, I felt a thud vibrate the floor in the direction of my mother's room. My naked feet shifted in a half-circle on the carpet and padded towards her room, the door slightly ajar. With each passing inch, my breath grew heavy and uneven, blood surging its way through my throbbing temples. I peered through the crack in the door and was met with a sea of crimson. There was my Victoria, standing on my mother's back, a shining steel blade in her stained hand.
My eyes darted around the room, taking in the scene before me. The beige carpet dampened my bare feet with warm, red blood, the nearby wall stained with dark spatters. My old mother laid on her stomach, her face turned towards the door, eyes still half open. Victoria turned slowly to face me, dropping the knife with a definitive 'thud.'
"My darling Helena...," Victoria cooed as she straightened the skirt of her dress that was covered in blood.
"What...what did you do?" I said in a near whisper. "Mother...what did you do to my mom?" Victoria tilted her head to the side, amused, and walked toward me. Despite the red stains on her hand, I didn't hesitate to pick her up when she outstretched her arms.
"Helena...darling, you know as well as I do that your mother didn't really love you. When you started to play with me again, what did she do?" Victoria paused, waiting for my answer.
"She...she got angry with me..."
"That's right, darling, she did. Would a loving mother do that to their daughter?" She didn't wait for an answer this time. "You have taken such good care of me, I just couldn't stand to see that horrible person be so mean to you anymore."
Before I could speak, Victoria locked eyes with me just as she did when we first spoke, and once again my mind was polluted with visions of my old mother. Her constant threats to send me to boarding school away from my dolls and Victoria, her angry expressions as I climbed the attic ladder in the middle of the afternoon, the times she smacked my mouth when I said that Victoria loved me more than she did. Tears once again returned to my unblinking green eyes, willing the visions to stop. After an eternity the images ceased, leaving an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"She never loved me...," I said quietly, my voice hoarse from crying. Victoria nodded and patting my shoulder to console me.
"Isn't it a horrible feeling, Helena? Not having a mother's love? Anastasia, my creator and first owner, her mother didn't love her either, and she spent her entire life alone. She was always so sad...but it doesn't have to be like that for you."
"It doesn't?" I asked, sniffling a little as the flow of tears ebbed. Victoria shook her dirty blonde curls and smiled softly.
"No, love, it doesn't. I know of a way to make you my real daughter, and I can promise that I will always love you. Forever."
I imagined my life with Victoria, and saw nothing but happiness. I envisioned tea parties in the middle of the afternoon, and play dates in the old attic with trunks left by the previous owner to explore and discover. A smile spread across my tear-stained face and I held Victoria close to me.
"Mother, I want to be with you always." Victoria nodded knowingly and looked out beyond the bedroom and into the dark hallway.
"Go to the attic, Helena. You're ready."
Only slightly curious about the wetness beneath my feet, I followed Victoria's instructions and headed up to the attic, my feet leaving dark stains on the wood. The familiar musty attic draft brought goose bumps to the surface of my arms as I pulled the ladder back up to its place on the attic floor. Before I had a chance to ask why Victoria wanted me to go to the attic, I let out a gasp that nearly caused my heart to stop. Behind Victoria, my entire doll collection stood upright, smiling in my direction.
"This is your family now, Helena. You have taken good care of them and they all love you very much. They want you to be part of their family, too," Victoria said as she held a small knife in her hand. The mixture of porcelain dolls, antique marionettes, and baby dolls nodded in agreement, the smiles never leaving their faces.
"I want to...I want to have a family that loves me like you do, Mother," I replied, a sort of giddiness rising up into my chest. Victoria's expression suddenly grew very serious, her single blue eye holding mine in a steady gaze.
"Darling, there is something that we must do first before we can be together." Victoria turned to face my new family and each of them produced a series of needles, thread, wires, and scissors. In the opposite hand that contained the knife, Victoria produced a small pair of glassy green doll eyes.
I stared at the pair of eyes as if they were the most precious objects in existence. I realized in that moment that my entire future lay within those emerald green spheres, and my own human eyes wouldn't leave them for a second, not even to look more closely at the smiles plastered on my dolls' faces.
"A-are you sure this is okay?" I stammered in barely a whisper. Mother nodded and closed her hand around the spheres.
"This is more than okay, Helena. You have waited for this day for so long, as I have. You want someone to love you and treasure you forever, and I can give you that. But you have to trust me." The playful light that I saw in Mother's eye in the past had all but disappeared, leaving shiny, reflective determination. Without speaking, I sat cross-legged on the floor, at eye level with my new family, and closed my eyes.
"I'm ready."
In that instant, I felt multiple cold hands attach themselves to my body, pinning me down to the hard wood floor of the attic. I let out a yell in surprise, and then felt a larger hand cover my mouth. Panic tugged at my gut, but I found it useless to struggle. As Mother placed the sharp edge of the knife against my stomach for the first time, I began to watch the events unfold from a bird's eye view of my own motionless form. I watched in awe as my human muscles and bones were replaced with thick, metal wire and screws of all kinds, and my pale skin painted over with an unfamiliar thick substance, its pungent aroma flowing out into the dark winter night through the small attic window. I was torn apart and stitched back together in a matter of minutes, and my once flawless pale skin was covered in stitches, lines of staples, and large screws. Once my new body was finished, Mother walked slowly up to my face and pulled open my eyelids with her tiny fingers, pulling out my lifeless eyes and substituting the emerald glass globes that I was so fixated on moments ago. As she let go of my lids, I fell back into my own body and slowly opened my eyes...
"Hello, Mother."
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