All Dolled Up!

Charlotte

With it reaching the height of summer, the time that I could be active had dwindled to the point where I could usually no longer even speak to Charlie before he got up to work otherwise he would be late. I could only hope that winter would set in soon - though I hadn't been much of a fan of winter while still alive given how cold it often got, and the snow that usually made it harder to go outside, and the fact that the darkness set in so soon (which was something I did not look forward to back then).

Also, I had died during winter.

Now though, it was only during the darkness when I was ever truly alive. Even though, if I was being perfectly honest, the dark still scared me.

More so now that the house was as abandoned and empty as it was. It was much easier now for my mind to imagine the silhouette of someone standing there in the shadows. Every sound the house made sounded alarming, even if I was noticing them now only because they were no longer masked by the noises of other people in the house.

Watching those modern horror movies with Charlie hadn't really helped, and it was made all the worse whenever I couldn’t move.

Indeed, while sitting in my case during daytime hours, I had encountered people who came to see me.

I was unable to do anything about it, and the fear about what would happen, as irrational as it was - that they might throw me out the window and I would be stuck there, in the grass, motionless and utterly powerless would sometimes grip me. Even worse if it was some kind of monster that happened upon me - though I had often comforted myself by remembering that monsters and ghosts only came out at night. Which is when, at the very least, I could attempt to run if I saw someone wearing a ski mask and wielding a chainsaw running at me.

With that said, this was a weekend, and I normally would've been able to spend all the hours of night, no matter how short and scary they otherwise were, with Charlie.

But he had left last night, and with how the daylight seemed to drag on and on it was nearly maddening being left there. Especially because I could hear the 'ping' of the notifications going off on my phone, and I knew some of them could be texts from Charlie, but I couldn't even turn my head to look down and see what they were.

Finally, though, life entered my muscles and I picked up the phone to see him saying that he would be arriving shortly. He also said the necklace was ready, and ecstatic, I began pacing around the house.

Sure enough, he soon arrived, though this time I began to hear the sound of his automobile long before I saw the lights from a distance. I made a point to not rush him as he walked in through the door this time.

"Welcome back!" I said.

"Hey," he replied, smiling. He had a bit of dirt in his hair, and I remembered that I did say that his shampoo seemed to smell a bit too strong. He didn't just stop using shampoo entirely now then because of that, did he?

No, his clothes also had some mud on them, though I couldn't fathom as to why that would be. "Did ya miss me?"

"I certainly did," I said. "How is your family?" His smile wavered a little at this, though I wasn't sure about all the details of the matter, there seemed to be some sort of discord between Charlie and his parents. He hadn't opened up about why that was, and I didn't want to pry, but it seemed to have something to do with an incident that had happened a while back from what I could gather. I did hope that he would eventually open up as to what it was though.

"Both of them are good," he said. He then paused, as if he had realized something. "Right, there's something I'll need to do.... you know, that can wait a while. Let me get you this first."

He was holding a velvet box in his hands, which he laid out on the kitchen counter. "Feel free to open it, I'm going to go and grab something to drink."

I opened it like a child at Christmas, and nearly gasped at what I saw laid out inside. It was exactly as I remembered - and it shone as if the last century had done nothing to it. I traced the necklace with my fingers. It was cool to touch, and now I was worried about getting it dirty with my unwashed hands. "This is amazing!" I exclaimed.

"Right, you can keep these," he said, pulling out two earrings and keeping them near the necklace. At first, I didn't even recognize them as the ones I had found by the necklace, but I quickly did.

"Why do you still have these? Weren't you going to sell them?" I asked.

"Well," he began while pouring himself a drink. "I thought about it, but these also belonged to your family, in some way, didn't they? It didn't feel right selling them. As for the price of cleaning it up well... I'll have to see how I'll handle that, but I wanted you to keep them."

"But... why?" I asked him. The earrings were probably made at least in part of real gold, so even if they were dirty they should've fetched a decent price. Granted, I was not expert, so they could've just been made of paste, but the only way he'd know that is if he tried to sell them.

"Don't you think that maybe... May would've wanted you to have them? If she was the one who left them there?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I wasn't even supposed to get this necklace - it was hers technically." I didn't even know why it was still there, with everything said and done. Had May just forgotten about it? That seemed doubtful, or did something happen to her before she could retrieve it? I'm pretty sure that Aunt Emily would've wanted to gift it to her on her wedding day or something along those lines. And the fact that that book was found along with them... "Oh!"

"Huh? What happened?"

"I just remembered something," I said. "I didn't notice it before when I went looking for these things, but someone had moved them from where May would've usually kept them." I tapped my chin- yes, that wasn't how the hiding place had been set up before. But, I didn't really remember it all that clearly after all this time. "No, someone had put something in front of it, yes, it was that board I had to move to get to it."

That was probably why May didn't retrieve it - if she thought that someone else had taken it. She probably thought that her mother had found it, or alternatively, that one of the servants had discovered the place and stolen it. Whoever dropped the book there though, that was probably the person who had rearranged it somewhat. "So it definitely wasn't May's book then... but like I said earlier, I don't really care for those earrings. You can sell them to cover the cost of polishing this. Not to mention that I can't even wear them in the first place."

He frowned. "You can't... wear them?"

I tapped my foot. Really, my mother was definitely right about one thing - men can be completely clueless when it comes to certain things sometimes. I propped my ears forward like an elephant's using my hands so that my earlobes were more noticeable. "Do you see a place where the earrings would go?"

"Oh.... wait, you never got your ears pierced?"

"Well, I did, but this doll's body doesn't have ear piercings," I explained to him. I had no idea why that was, but it was just like that. Then again, most dolls did not have actual pierced ears from what I knew. "Even if I got them pierced again, the.... ah.... holes would probably just close up again when dawn comes, and I'm not willing to do that every single day just to wear earrings."

He tapped his chin. "There are earrings you can wear without having your ears pierced, you know."

"But these are not those kind of earrings, are they?" I asked.

"Well no but..." he seemed to struggle to find a reason to keep them. "They were found with the book, right? Maybe they have some sort of connection?"

I doubted that. I took a closer look at the earrings, they were covered in grime so much so that I couldn't make it out, but it looked like they had some sort of design on them... which could be said for any kind of earring, really. "I suppose so... still, where will you get the money for the polishing?"

"Um, I think I can work it out somehow," he said. "I might finally sell my engagement ring, I mean, I couldn't get a good price for it, but at least I'll get some of it back. Something's better than nothing, as my father always said."

"Are you sure?" I asked him. I didn't know why I was so concerned- no, I did know, I just didn't want to admit it.

I liked that ring.

Now, I knew that it hadn't been given to me with that intent in mind, but I still was quite fond of it. Even though it hadn't been intended for me at all, I had to say that I quite admired the design. Granted, Charlie should've logically been able to get another one as good as what he had bought, though from the sounds of it it seemed like he was losing money selling it. And though I wasn't completely privy to his financial situation, his new job didn't pay as well as the old one. So perhaps he couldn’t get something as good as that one again.

It really didn't matter to me - at this point I was way beyond having a ring as a token of love. I knew that with my current financial status (of having no money whatsoever) we probably couldn't even have a real wedding, and not even something approaching what I would've imagined my wedding would've been like as a young girl.

That said, I had waited over a century to fall in love, and I wasn't going to give it up because of a shiny rock.

As a matter of fact, it might even become an issue as to how I would even keep such a ring on me. It wouldn’t be part of my original doll body, so it would likely slip off my finger repeatedly. Not to mention I couldn't stand it if someone stole it while I was immobile.

Not to mention, Charlie had helped me retrieve Aunt Emily's necklace, and also restored it to its former glory. This was probably worth more than any ring he could ever afford as it was, and I was more than happy to just have this. "Ah, you might want to not be so hasty selling it, and wait until you can get a good price. You wouldn't want the jeweler to rip you off or something," I said this, and despite how irrational and greedy it was, I was kind of hoping deep down he would give it to me once again. Maybe because it was the first 'gift' I had gotten from a lover, even if it wasn't intended as such at the moment? Or perhaps it was really just because I loved the design?

Or maybe, far simpler, I didn't want him to pay to clean something that was mine out of his own pocket? If only I had a way of accessing even a fraction of what had been my family's fortune at the time...