Halloween Ghost Story Contest -- 2004
High School Winners

First Place

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Our first place High School winner is Eva Wright. Ms. Wright lives in London, England.

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Doll

by
Eva Wright

This Sunday was as black as ever. The thudding noises of the petrified rain spat out onto the Crosby’s Manor House’s black liquorice windows. The dimmed light ran down the corridor as the little last shred of hope that my mother would not be in her bedroom, staring into her closet, her eyes wide with greed.

My room seemed vast and foreign. The floor was stripped bare, the wooden panels mouldy and grey, and my bed was too hefty to feel secure in. The draping willowy curtains hung from each poster, the iron moulded posters, and each decorated repulsively with a yawning head of a gargoyle on it.

There was only one window in the room, and it too, like the others in proportion, was oversized. Its thick glass loomed at me, swirling like a mass of tears. It overlooked the city, which was far, far away from the Crosby Manor House. Crosby Manor was a large Black Maria house that stood in the middle of nowhere in the countryside in  England.

Everywhere in the house there were crosses. Crosses reminding me of how careful I had to be. The eyes of God watching us. I prayed that He would see the bad karma collecting like fat tubes in my mother’s heart. In the kitchen there was an awfully large cross with Jesus on it. It was the only feature denting the white washed walls. It was glazed with sticky resin, lifelike, and terrifying. I guessed that my mother didn’t even realise how terrifying. She never went inside the kitchen.

“Isla…” My mother’s screechy voice swivelled round my ears like a thousand pale chalks running down a blackboard. I felt a frisson of fear as I stepped into her room, which was even darker than mine. Luckily, my mother was not out of bed yet. I hurried out of the room again, despite her voice calling me.

Downstairs, I sat down at the extensive dining table. There was a tacky ugly doily in the middle of the table, which sat dead withered flowers that sucked in the moisture out of the air. As usual, there was a plate of sallow looking scrambled eggs that were so small that they could have passed as a plate of sickly yellow peas. On my right, there was a tumbler of water. I sat down on my chair, careful not to crumple my black dress. I heard the front door slam as the cleaning lady left. She was always careful to leave before my mother woke up. She would clean the whole house except for our rooms, and leave a plate of eggs and a glass of water on the table for my mother and me. My mother did not eat. She said her hunger was already quenched with satisfaction. Her face was always as white and as breakable as her collection.

Just like Heidi.

Heidi constantly dieted. My sister was perfect. Her face was perfect, just the right colour and not a single shade darker. Her hair was just enough black, sleek and glossy. Her smile was perfect, her set of pearls gleaming. Her hands and feet were just right, petite. I smiled as I remembered her telling me that she thought she looked like a monster.

My smile slipped as my mother entered the room. She sat down at the table and watched me, smiling. I was careful. I ate my food as sloppily as possible. I drained my water down my chin. I dropped my cutlery and the diminutive scrambled eggs were more on the table than in my mouth and in my stomach. I was careful not to wipe my mouth, and when I had finished I scraped back my chair as noisily as possible. She stood with me, looking sad. She was fingering the cross around her neck, a molten silver intersection glinting against the harsh sunlight.

“Maybe someday,” She said to me quietly, “You will be more like your sister.” She patted my pin straight straw coloured hair.

 More like my sister. I remembered how jealous I was when she was still here. I remembered how I envied her perfect porcelain skin, her black hair.

I remembered the day she left.

For months, mother had been planning this. She was keen on executing her plan, right till the end. She wouldn’t tell me what she was doing. She was always pleasant to Heidi, brushing her hair every night, washing it every two days, giving her new clothes to wear. For days, weeks, she acted out the perfect Stepford mother. She was uncontrollable, frightening even. Her priorities were always devastatingly overboard. Whenever I tried to interfere, to ask her what she was doing, or talk to Heidi, she would pierce me with a shot of her glance, and hiss in a low, menacing, yet silky voice ‘not now, Isla.’

Mother gave her a new cream to put on every night. The pot was large, but it had not labels, and the lid was covered with mother’s handwriting.

Put it on, she had said, it makes your skin better.  The cream was sticky, like glue, but hardened by the morning, leaving a fresh white residue on her skin. Heidi’s face was so stiff she couldn’t talk. She had to go around all day looking like a mute picture. She looked even more beautiful. I envied her. Her skin was enhanced by the porcelain layer, white, pure. It almost looked real.

She didn’t want the cream on any more, but she listened to mother. Daughters always listen to their mothers.

She put it on constantly under mother’s instruction. She had turned even whiter, and shiny. She grimaced at the sun, weakened by it. Her hair bore a new conditioner too. It was like varnish, yellow, gloopy. It turned her hair stiff , no longer keeping the body it had. It was still glossy, but it was as if mother had painted a clear varnish over it to keep it that way.

Mother then asked Heidi to put the conditioner on her face.

No way, Heidi had said. But she put it on eventually. Her face become a lacquered mask, and she could only speak where the words did not include moving her lips. She could not eat; she could only sip water when I fed it through her stiff lips. Sometimes I could see sweat drops of water shining on her white forehead.

It was at a different

At night, exactly ten o’clock, in the middle of summer, mother put a burning hot radiator in Heidi’s room when she was asleep. The sheer heat of it made my eyes water, and I was horrified to see Heidi sleep peacefully through the heat wave in her room. I could see her eyes sticking to her bottom eyelids, her lashes white with the cream. It was like paint. There were even delicate swirls of it in her ears.

I could not sleep that night. I could feel the radiation from her room next to mine, and although I tried to sleep without the covers, I couldn’t force myself to sleep. I could hear my mother checking up on Heidi every two hours, ghostly in her white nightgown, passing my room every so often, her long black hair hanging on her back. She was whispering. ‘Tonight, tonight,’ she was moaning.

Heidi took after my mother. I took after my father, whom I never knew. He must have had light brown, sandy hair, like me. I wonder if he had the same sad, red rimmed green eyes like me, the same droopy mouth, always tight-lipped.

I must have gone to sleep eventually, because when I woke up it was morning, and at last, the sun was shining. I got up and dressed, padded into Heidi’s room. Across the wooden floor, she was lying on her bed, still sleeping.

“Heidi?” I whispered, leaning over her.  She didn’t reply. It was then I noticed that her chest did not rise up and down. I shrieked loudly, pulling the covers over her, running downstairs. I heard my mother muttering, and I followed her, back into Heidi’s room. She looked at her hands, and slowly, pulled at Heidi’s eyelids, forcing them back to show Heidi’s beautiful brown diluted pupils.

“Isla, go get me scissors and a ribbon for your sister.” My mother said, tears streaming down her face. I stared at Heidi’s grey face, hardened by the radiator, my mouth slack.

“Go!” My mother said fiercely. I went. When I came back with the scissors and the ribbon, my mother was holding Heidi’s hand. She took the scissors and hacked at Heidi’s hair. It was way too long. My mother had wanted Heidi to shorten it, but Heidi didn’t want to. She cut it until her shoulders. Then she tied it in the ribbon, careful, slow, like encasing a perfect doll. I cried. I missed my sister. I couldn’t see what my mother was thinking. I couldn’t see that she looked perfect. I could only think of her breathless lungs, her still heart, her impassive eyes. I couldn’t take it any more. I ran downstairs, hiding in the doorway for the rest of the morning.

My mother watched my leave the dining room. I went back into my room, and stared at the mirror. With growing horror, I realised that my face was not longer fat. It was starting to form into a longish, oval shape. I pinched at it, forcing it to pull back into its fat, grotesque shape. It just sprang back, angry and red. I couldn’t bear it. I banged my head on the dresser, wanting to push it back into its child shape. I didn’t want to grow up. I didn’t want to be like Heidi. I didn’t want to be perfect. I felt sick and cold. There was an insane bubble of nervousness growing inside of me. I clutched my head, unable to think without the pain shooting out and in.

I didn’t want to end up like Heidi.

I didn’t want to end up like Heidi. But I knew it was in my fate. I knew what I had to do. Helping myself up by the chair, I ran all the way down to hall to my mother’s room, thrusting open her wardrobe. I tore down all her clothes, facing the back of the wardrobe, coming face to face with Heidi. She was still there, motionless. There were other things there too, animals, a rabbit, a mouse. There was a space where she left for me. Right next to Heidi. She looked perfect. So doll-like. So dead. I grabbed the mouse. I held it in my hands. It was surprisingly smooth, like porcelain. I stroked its once soft head, its hard, cold ears. Again, the madness bubbled inside of me.

I smashed it against her bed, again and again. My mother came bounding up the stairs, trying to stop me. I couldn’t stop. I did the rabbit next.

I went to take Heidi. My mother protested, her mouth an open O, but I pulled her down and smashed her to pieces, crying, sobbing. I smashed her again. Again. Again. Again and again. The pieces flew up like droplets of water, up everywhere.

My mother flounced out the room. I could hear her calling the police. I didn’t know she had a phone. Finally, exhausted, relieved, I lay around the broken pieces, my hands bleeding. I picked up a piece of Heidi’s face. It was perfect, just like it always was. That was how I wanted to remember her. I clutched it so hard that my fingers bled even more, the fresh dark scarlet blood trailing down Heidi’s cheeks.

My head was pounding. I cried. I cried for a few minutes. Not the things I had done. It was for that fact. That terrible unbearable fact. The fact that I was like my mother, not my father. We were both insane. All those crosses in the house. Protecting us. From what? The illogical passages of our own minds? The drumming of passion desperately pushing us to destroy? Was it to much to ask God for? A pretty face, a destroyed mind. I felt like my mother had sealed my fate for me, asked for the wrong christening present from Him.

I snuffed myself out, stopping the flow of tears and madness and anger all twisted into one big movement.

The police came. I did not cry. I was silent. I was silent all the way. And in the van, only then, when a policewoman whispered to her colleague:

“Look at that beautiful girl we have. She’s like a living doll.” And a tear slid slowly down my cold, white cheek.

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