All Dolled Up!

Charlotte’s POV

I heard the sound of Charlie’s automobile starting and leaving. His engine sounded slightly different from the one owned by his sister. I wouldn’t normally have really paid attention to something so small, but it was nearly life and death for me to know when Charlie was in and when he wasn’t, and more so regarding Suzy.

I thought I would pass the time reading up on something on my phone when I heard faint footsteps coming. Charlie had told me he was at work, so there was only one person this could be!

I hid my phone and returned to my usual position when the door opened. I assumed that Suzy was here to look for something, but instead, she turned towards me.

She was looking directly at me so intensely I nearly flinched. She had a mischievous smile on her face as she slowly approached. I had to fight my instinct to recoil. I was still trying to hide what I was - or did she somehow know? Had Charlie told her?

She then did something I hadn’t been expecting - she lifted me up, and none too gently at that. Charlie was far more gentle any time he had to handle me like this. It took all of my self-restraint to not jump out of her arms.

“Wow, you’re heavy,” she said, though I don’t think she was actually speaking to me. “And your skin feels pretty real.” She stroked my cheek, and I came so very close to almost slapping her hand away. I worked hard to hold my breath as much as possible and prayed that she didn’t check my wrist for a pulse like Charlie had that one time.

With a bit of difficulty, she took me downstairs and into Charlie’s room, dumping me unceremoniously onto his bed. She then let out a huge sigh as if she had taken a huge weight off of her shoulders, but then took a look at me, lying there, with a smirk on her face, before leaving.

I was extremely confused and a bit sore from when she had banged parts of my body on the walls while lugging me around like I was a sack of potatoes. What was the deal with this? Why was she doing something like this? Was she trying to see if I was actually alive?

No, if you wanted to see that, you could do that in some other way, like bringing a candle near my hand. I’d have had to withdraw from the pain no matter how resolved I was, but it was like… she still didn’t know that I was a living doll.

So why put me here? I racked my brains and could only come to the conclusion that this was a prank. But what could I do? If I moved, she’d know that I had moved, and so I could do nothing but stay like this. No, I thought, as I hopped out of bed. I could still walk around the room, I just had to be careful to dive back to where she had left me if I heard her footsteps. I highly doubted that she was the kind to take notice of the exact position she had left me in.

Charlie’s POV

I got home and thought I heard Suzy packing, but I figured I’d go freshen up before speaking to her.

As I opened my bedroom door though, I was a bit taken aback.

There, laying on my bed, was Charlotte. Now, the sun had come up hours past, so she couldn’t move, but I couldn’t understand why she was here of all places.

She did occasionally come into my bedroom, and had even watched over me while I was sick that one time, but I had never seen her end up like this. Of course, the exact time of sunrise was a bit hard to predict which was why I occasionally found her frozen in odd spots around the house, but still never this-

-and then, a light bulb moment as I thought about what this meant. She was lying in my bed. We had never gone much further than kissing up until now, and I hadn’t been one to push it given Charlotte did cling to a lot of old-fashioned values, so I figured that she would likely want to wait things out on that end. But, on the other hand, she had been like this for over a hundred years, which was a very long time to wait.

Was this her way of saying that she wanted to take things a step further? I found that women could be frustratingly opaque when it came to things like that, and you could ruin the mood by just asking about it.

Another thought occurred to me - her dress always reappeared on her in the morning. But, had she forgotten about that rule? My mind began to race as I thought of her taking off her dress and lying in bed, only for it to ‘reset’ in the morning.

Well, I figured, if this was what she wanted, I had no problems going ahead with it. Though this did also raise some… uncomfortable questions in my mind. She was very much like a real woman when she turned ‘alive’ so everything should be able to work but still…

I rubbed my eyes, resolving to deal with this problem later when I saw my sister making breakfast.

“Mind making some coffee for me too?” I asked.

“Mmmhmm,” she said, strangely enough doing what I asked without question while having a stupidly large grin on her face every time she glanced at me.

“Are you that happy to leave?” I asked her after she did this for what felt like the twentieth time, as if there was an inside joke I wasn’t in on.

“No, I just hope you enjoyed that little present I set up for you,” she said, giggling.

“What present?”

“Didn’t you see that doll when you walked in your bedroom?”

“Wait, so the one who put Char- I mean, the one who put the doll on my bed was… you?”

An actual light bulb moment.

Of course Charlotte hadn’t wandered into my bed! Suzy had kept her there as a prank, just like with the gnomes! She had probably expected it to unnerve me - and in a way it did, but for the wrong reasons! And to think that my mind had gone there of all places!

“Well duh,” she said matter-of-factually. “Who do you think did it? Santa Claus?”

I nearly face-palmed. Really, the long hours had to have been getting to me if I wasn’t able to figure something as simple as this out.

“By the way,” she continued. “Her skin is pretty realistic… I think the person who bought her didn’t intend for her to be a display piece, if you catch my drift. I think you should really throw her out, and never shine a blacklight on her.”

“Right,” I said, still trying to come to terms with how dumb I’d been and that I might’ve nearly made a huge mistake. “Here, let me help you out.”

“Ah no, you can go to sleep, it’s fine.”

“No, no, let me help you out.”

I probably would be too busy cringing if I went to sleep, so I did my best to distract myself by helping her pack up.

“Alright then,” I said as she had loaded up everything and was about to drive off. “See you at Thanksgiving then, I guess!” she said.

“Sure!”

“And don’t get killed by ghosts in this weird house while I’m gone!”

Once her car was out of sight I ran back and immediately wanted to go to sleep - only to remember, when I saw her, that Charlotte was still there. I carried her as delicately as I could back upstairs, and then went downstairs to sleep.

I woke up feeling like I was still tired, but I had to get up nonetheless. I didn’t see Charlotte outside, but I realized that she might not know that my sister was gone yet. I walked upstairs, to see that yes, she was there, pretending to be a statue.

“Relax, Suzy’s left,” I told her.

“Left? For something that came up or-”

“-no, she’s actually left and is not coming back.”

“Why so?”

“Oh, she actually found a job - or rather the one she got rejected for accepted her now,” I told her. “So, I think we can put a pin in trying to tell her about… us. But, what happened last night?”

“Oh, she picked me up and put me on your bed - I couldn’t understand why, though I think it was to scare you. I didn’t give myself away though,” she said the last line with a sense of pride, and to her credit, I couldn’t imagine that that was an easy thing to do.

“Yeah, I was kind of sleepy when she last talked to me so she probably wanted to get back at me somehow for not paying attention to her,” I explained.

Speaking to Charlotte did confirm though, that I absolutely had the wrong idea as to what she was getting at. “Is something wrong?”

“What? Wrong with me, no,” I told her. “I’m just worried… about you is all.”

“Oh, yes, Charlie, that had to be one of the scariest experiences of my whole life,’ Charlotte said. “I was terrified.”

“Yeah, I can imagine it was really scary, but well done,” I said while trying to sound serious while keeping thoughts of undoing Charlotte’s dress out of my mind-

“-uh, Charlie?”

“Yes?” I replied instantly, wondering if she could somehow read my mind.

“Shouldn’t you have been at work by now?”

I looked out the window. It was dark out. Charlotte could talk.

“You’re right!” I yelled as I flew down the stairs.

I had to say that all things considered, Stuart was pretty understanding and pretty much left me off with a warning.