Parade of Possessed Dolls
The first time I discovered the collection, the storm had washed away half the night and nothing remained but the whisper of rain tapping at the attic window. Harrow House kept its secrets in plain sight, arranged like a town square after curfew, where every doll had a story and every story had a mouth that couldn’t quite stay shut.
I kept them for study, for the thrill of cataloging the uncanny, until the clock struck twelve and the room grew too quiet to ignore the soft, synchronized shuffles of tiny feet advancing in a line from the wardrobe to the center table.
- Madame Mire — a pale porcelain face with a smile that never stays still, teeth gleaming when the lamp swings.
- The Clockmaker — a boy with a pocket watch pressed to his chest, whose ticks echo in the ribs of the shelves.
- Sister Olive — a cloth figure stitched with careful care, eyes always watching, never blinking.
- The Rag Duke — a duke-like doll, mouth mended with red thread, bowtie stained with something old and sweet.
- Little Latch — a silent girl with a bell on her bonnet; when she tilts her head, a faint chime follows the breath in the room.
The parade did not march in a lane; it formed a circle around the pedestal where I kept their ledgers, a circle that grew tighter with every whisper that bled through the gaps in the walls. It began with a note snagged in the seam of the carpet, a handwriting I couldn't place, and ended with a footprint of dust that looked suspiciously like a bootprint, only smaller, smaller, smaller.
“We remember your visits,” they seemed to murmur in unison, “and we remember your leaving.”
That night, the air tasted of iron and honey, a strange sweetness that followed the rhythm of the caravan. The dolls arranged themselves into a procession, a parade not seen with the eyes but heard with the heart. When I tried to leave, the door refused to budge; when I pressed my ear to the velvet curtain, I heard the soft clacking of heels in time with my own pulse.
By then, I knew the collection was no longer mine to study, but mine to guard or to vanish. If you ever hear a chorus of tiny feet crossing your floor at midnight, listen for the silence that follows—the moment when the parade passes, and the house inhales anew, as if nothing had ever been the same.