Chapter 21: The Doll Part 2

After washing my hair and rinsing off, I step out and grab my towel. Hearing someone speak, I ask, 'Hello. Mom is that you?" Frowning when no one answers, I hurry to dry off when I feel a brisk chill in the air and the hairs on my arms stand on end. Turning around, I see a chilling image in the mirror. It is me, but not really. There is something off just a little and I can't put my finger on it till I blink, and then it goes back to normal. The image was of the doll Marybelle. Her eyes were so dead and empty that I could tell it's what I saw and when I realize this, the first thing I want to do is throw that doll in the fire and burn it to ashes. After a few minutes, I decide that it was just a figment of my imagination and that because it looks so real it just freaks me out a little, that's all. Shaking my head to get her mental image out of my head, I hurry to pull my pants on and button up my shirt before returning to my mother's side for a few hours. Then I must retire to my room before I go to bed and finish my project. Several hours later, as we sit talking about my childhood and then what has been going on in the neighborhood, my mother turns to me and places her hand on my shoulder before finally breaking down and says, 'I love you so much. You have no idea just how much I miss you every day. Isn't there any way you can go to a college closer to us so you can live at home and commute to school and then work?" The hopelessness in her voice makes me feel so bad that I almost give in and decide to move back in, but then I think about it for a moment and realize that there is no way. I gaze into my mother's eyes before I say, 'Mom, the colleges around here don't have my program. The only way I can get my degree is to go to Stand Holly. That is the most prestigious school for my chosen profession, and you know it. I am sorry that you need me, but I can't. Can Aunt Emily come visit for a while or your friend Betty? Maybe you could go visit them for a couple weeks if they can't come here instead?" I desperately try to figure out some way, so I stop feeling so guilty for leaving my poor mother at a time when everything seems to be going so wrong for us. With tears in her eyes, she glances at me and then away before stating, 'That's O.K., really. I suppose I can go visit my sister Emily, after all it has been a long time since I went to see her in Montana." Her voice suddenly sounds quite a bit happier and then she stops for a moment and stares out the window at the snow falling in thick chunks to the ground. 'Well, mom I hate to do this, but I really have to get to work on my project or I will never get it done before bedtime and I will be working throughout the whole night otherwise. I love you." I say as I give her one more hug and a kiss on the cheek before standing. Before I start to walk to my room, my mother interrupts and says, 'Don't forget your present." I turn around and see the box in her hands with a warm smile on her face. I can't turn it down because it seems to mean so much to her that it hurts. So, I take it and quickly make my way to my room where I place it on the nightstand. I plan on only temporarily placing it there, till I put it in the closet with my other so-called treasures. After all, mom doesn't have to know that I am not taking it with me to school, does she? I mean what is the odds that she will open my closet while I am gone and clean out everything. Probably not a lot and there are so many things in there that I have forgotten about over the years that it would take her at least a month to go through everything. With a sore neck and a migraine, I glance over at the clock when I finally finish the project. Rubbing the back of my neck, I try to massage the tense muscles, but it doesn't seem to help so I decide to run into the bathroom and grab some pain medicine. On the way back, I can't shake this feeling that something is wrong, so on the way past my mom's room, I glance in and see that she is sitting and watching television like always. Smiling, I walk back to my room and take the medicine with a glass of pop and then get ready for bed. Once I slide under the covers I look over and notice that the box I could have sworn that I through into the closet just a few minutes before, is still sitting there and now the end is open. I hear something at the other side of the bed and decide to investigate because we have been known to have rodents living with us. I certainly don't need them chewing on my books in the middle of the night or even worse my project, because then I would simply have to hunt them down and kill them. Scratching my neck again, I frown and then look around when I don't see it. 'Hm." I murmur to myself softly before climbing back under the covers and closing my eyes as soon as my head hits the pillow. Feeling something wrong again, my eyes pop open and I listen. I hear footsteps, but they sound off somehow and I have no idea how or why something would be in here with me. Glancing over at the door, I see that it is closed and there is no way anything else got in without opening it. Hearing the footsteps closer this time, I look quickly down to the side of my bed on the floor and there she is. Marybelle, and you know what? This time her eyes don't look so lifeless. When I peer into them, I see an exact resemblance of me. Realizing that I am no longer on the bed, and I feel foreign and cold, I look down at the floor and see a doll's feet instead of my own. Shocked and scared, I glance back up to my bed and there she is peering back at me with those eyes that are not mine, but Marybelle's. She laughs before climbing off the bed and scooping me up in one hand. Then the next thing she does is to rip off my head and then throw me into the garbage bin. The last thing I remember before it all goes dark is a horrible laughter coming from somewhere in the room, which is Marybelle's real voice. So, lying there in the garbage with my body next to my head, I keep hearing that laughter till there is nothing and I assume I am dead.