doll

I am back with anoter story!

The idea of this one came from a dream, I was watching some kind of short on my phone and when I woke up I thought that the idea could work out nicely as a story, so here we are :)

Enjoy!

(The original story is in Italian, this version has been translated using DeepL and then manually revised)

the story

“ninety-eight…

ninety-nine…

one hundred!

I’m coming.”

The doll shouted at the top of her lungs to be heard by the little girl. She opened her button eyes and looked around. The house was large and quiet. The smell of wood filled the still air. With small graceful movements she stepped off the sofa and landed with a gentle thud on the polished parquet floor. All around, the living room bookcases rose and soared toward the distant cream-colored ceiling. Up there old leather-bound books dreamed, who knows when they had last been opened. On the lower shelves she recognized some covers, a book of fairy tales their mother used to read before they fell asleep. A little further down was an adventure novel. That was the first book Eva had read on her own. She still remembered her uncertain voice wavering at the longest words. She stood on her haunches, keeping her company as she gazed dreamily at the figures flowing colorfully across the heavy paper.

She had to concentrate. Where could she have been hiding? She could have ruled out the living room; she had heard her running away from that room. Eva was certainly not able to sneak back to trick her, at the mere idea of such a plan she would have burst out laughing to herself and it would have been impossible for her to be stealthy. She started toward the hallway, her small padded feet barely touching the wood, but if she strained her ear she could still distinguish the creaking of the old planks. Perhaps next time when it was her turn to hide she could use her light step to turn back and trick her. He smiled at the thought of Eva’s frustration. But how could she have left clues without it being obvious that she had not moved. She should have thought it over.

She arrived at the doorway. A few faint rays of sunlight streamed in through the stained glass window above the door and onto the ground. There, bathed in that pool of color stood two little black woolen shoes. The stitches were imprecise, but the shape suited her padded feet perfectly. Eva was learning to crochet. Just that morning she had watched her for a long time from her desk as she was bent over weaving the strands. She loved to see her focused, completely lost in her work, searching for the direction of her fingers. A single wrinkle bisected her forehead between her eyebrows. Her lips barely moved as if she were reciting a prayer, perhaps addressed to that disobedient thread. She didn’t know exactly what she was working on, she had tried to ask her, but she said it was a surprise. She proudly admired those little shoes she now wore on her feet. She did not deserve something so elegant, she had walked barefoot all her life, there was no crease in the wood that the patch of her feet did not know. The black looked good on her, though, creating a pleasant contrast with the light blue of her little dress. She smiled. So that was the first clue. She looked around. The hallway continued toward the kitchen, but if she had left those shoes there there had to be a reason. She turned toward the staircase that led to the second floor. She had certainly gone in that direction. With some effort she began to climb one step after another.

Arriving at the top, she paused to catch her breath and clear her head. Where could she begin her search? She would start in the bedroom. On that floor her parents’ room was inaccessible and she would certainly avoid the bathroom. That place was full of water and she was terrified that her woolen hair might become matted with moisture. The little bedroom was the obvious choice.

From the barely ajar door a blade of light cut through the hallway. High above her head countless frames and photos hung on the walls. There were her parents, smiling, hugging, they were alone, probably before her birth. Farther on, there she came, a plump newborn in a little red dress, all clean and neatly pressed. She smiled, they must have put it on her just before taking the picture. Farther on the first steps, one hand outstretched toward the mother, one in the father’s, still that red dress, now too short and ruined. Still next door, right in the midst of the light coming from the camera there she is alone, sitting at a small wooden table, Her fist clenched around colored pencils. Her proud gaze turned toward the camera. Nothing was going to stop her from coloring that crumpled paper, or even the wood of the table judging by the colored lines that stretched across the entire surface. In her other hand there she was. That same little light blue dress, her hair a little tidier. She was also looking at the camera. And from there there were the two of them together, in every picture, in every facet of life. The day she had discovered clay, she still shuddered at the thought of mud. The first day of school, hiding in the bottom of her backpack, ready to console her if she needed it. She walked by running a fingerless hand over the walls, wrapped in that gallery of images.

She arrived at the ajar door and sneaked in.

“I found you!” she tried to bluff. No response, perhaps she was watching her and knew she was unseen.

She turned toward the bed; it seemed the most obvious hiding place. She bent down to peel back the covers and check that she was not there. In the half-light she spotted a silhouette abandoned on the floor. It had to be the second clue. It was a small woolen hat. The size was perfect for her. She had never worn it, but she knew that Eva had received a similar one as a gift, but winter was still far away. As much as she loved ponpons, she had not yet been able to try it on. He had told her that at the first snow they would wear them to go out and play. They had discussed at length what they would do together. It would start snowing in the evening. They would see the first flakes falling from the kitchen window during dinner. Their father would have started mumbling saying that the roads in the morning would be impassable, but then they would have asked him to tell about the time he improvised skiing with his friends down the school hill and about his companion who fell into the frozen pond, at each detail he would slowly smile again and forget about the slippery road. Before going to bed they would have all gone up to the attic together to admire the silent flakes that would cover the whole country. They would have opened their eyes enveloped in the glow of the morning sun reflected off the snow all the way up to the ceiling of their room. Their mother would have woken them up late because school would be closed and they would have gone out to play immediately after breakfast. They would build a palace and a castle, the walls would reach at least to the second floor windows, and there would be a ballroom with their throne in the center. The larger throne for Eva and a smaller one on the right armrest for her. They would have lived there, the commoners would have come for advice on how to handle winter and snow, and they would have dispensed wisdom, the kind of wisdom that only a child can have because when it snows she does not think about the condition of the roads.

If that was the second clue, where could she have hidden? The attic!

She returned with quick little steps toward the hallway. She ran in the half-light to the old door that hid the staircase to the attic. She was convinced that that door was locked; who knows how she had managed to open it. She effortlessly ajar it at the first push. She smiled in satisfaction. She was on her way!

“I’m almost there!” she shouted facing upward as she climbed from step to step.

The atmosphere of the attic was still and dusty, exactly as he had imagined it, Legs of chairs sprouted from old drapes, broken-down furniture lay in a mountain just below the sloping roof. A birdcage? When had they ever had birds? It would have taken her hours to find Eva if she was hiding there somewhere. As her eyes adjusted to the soft light she walked toward the center of the room. There lay an old trunk, huge. The lid was ajar; Eva was probably watching her. If she concentrated she could hear her smile. Completely distracted by that sight she stopped short when her little shoes touched something soft. A thin strip of ruined red cloth. Her headband! She bent down to pick it up. With deft movements she twisted the yellow woolen strands into a braid. Eva had told her that it was obtained from a dress she had when she was little, before they had even met. Who knows what life was like before she arrived. She had looked at the pictures hanging on the walls, but she could not really imagine the family without her. That unattainable past seemed more distant to her than their life as queens in the snow castle. She had walked without her, had laughed, had heard her laugh when she stood in the bottom of her backpack. She would have laughed another day, even without her. She recalled the feeling of being held between the little girl’s fingers. So soft, like that woolen cap. She would have laughed for sure, another day, watching the snow fall, hearing someone mutter about the condition of the roads. Maybe she would have even been the one mumbling and someone would have asked her to tell about the time she had been queen. The dust enveloped her, and with gentle movements she climbed over the side of the trunk and lifted its lid.

She looked inside into those depths of junk and forgotten objects. Who knows how long it had been since she had been in the attic. Her mother had told her to go look for some winter clothes; she might need them now that she had to move for college. She reached out her fingers and grabbed the dusty old doll. The little light blue dress was wrinkled but the color still shone through. So did the red of the little headband. An embroidered face watched her smiling in that dusty attic.