"That's nice dear," the woman says, not bothering to look.

"But Mommy, it's you."

"Of course dear," she says.

The child turns, and runs.

"Mommy never looks," she says to the doll. "She," the child bangs the head of the doll down. "Never," again, "Looks," and again. Stuffing as started to fall out of the doll.

The woman screams off in the distance, and the child runs back, dragging the doll behind. The woman sits on the floor, blood spilling out.

The child's eyes widen, "I'm sorry, mommy."

"Don't follow your grandmother's line," the woman says. "Promise me, Lucy."

"I promise, Mommy," the child says.

 

The child went to live with he only living relative after her mother's death, her grandmother. The grandmother taught her more about the dolls. The child grew along with her doll making skills. On the child's sixteen birthday, the grandmother gave her an old staff.

"This was my mother's, and her mother's before that. Use it well."

 

The child is now a woman with her little dolls, and their human counterparts.

 

Boys are simpler, she thinks as she heads down to her doll's room.

"Who is going to play today?"

 

 

 

 

 

(-<) <3 ^_^