Saturday Shorts: House of Broken Dolls

by lilith

"You really shouldn't break your dolls."

"But I want them to look just like me."

"You're not broken, Christina, you're whole, like I am."

Libby stopped writing on her tablet and smiled at the eight-year-old, always enchanted by her long, chestnut hair and amber eyes. Her fingers twirled her pen thoughtfully, the barrel made of thick glass in alternating stripes of brown, yellow, sea green, and white - the colors Christina said reminded her of a faerie forest.

Christina sighed and continued to mangle her dolls, brushing the silken black hair of a severed head with a brush made out of the same striped glass. "I so love the stripes, Mommy."

"I know." Libby's eyes welled up, but she fought back the burning tears. "I carry a piece of you around with me wherever I go."

In the small room there was a vanity filled with objects of striped glass - hairpins, rings, beads, bracelets- as well as macabre mobiles of pieces of dolls hanging from the ceiling, small shards of glass attached, making them tinkle like chimes in the breeze of the fan. Libby's heart wrenched as she watched her daughter, knowing that dawn was swiftly approaching, knowing that time was not on her side.

"Come here." Libby streched out her arms, her hands flexing as Christina ran to her. She grabbed her into her embrace, holding tight while the tears and sobs finally broke free."I don't want to lose you again, stay with me, please. I miss you."

"I miss you, too, Mommy, but you know I have to go." Christina whined, slipping from Libby's embrace, the once beautiful child now laying among the dolls with shattered limbs, bone and blood where skin should be, matted hair and fleshless face. "See, I told you I was broken like them."

Libby's shriek of anguish rang through the empty air as morning peeked through the blinds, her child fading before her, leaving nothing but damaged dolls and mutilated memories. Dashing the pen against a wall, she barely flinched when the small shards bit her cheek, trickles of blood mixing in with her tears.

Within an instant she was composed, rising and picking up the fragments to take them her workbench, laying them among the others along with her drimmel and filament. She would see the glassblower again tomorrow, take him more ashes which he at first had thought to question, yet she paid him handsomely and besides, the ashes lent the glass an ethereal irridescence. In the meantime, she would methodically pick up the pieces like she always did, singing to break the suffocating silence.

Don't you know
I've lost my way
can't find my way
Don't you know
I've lost my way

But I'll try and I'll try
until I die....

*lyrics from Ba da da da, copyright Angel'n Irons*

by lilith