Seven Sisters: II Home

Chapter Two

My first home was not the glorious experience I had hoped it would be. The old lady’s house smelled like darkness, laxatives, and stale cigarettes. It was the first time I recalled having the urge to smoke.

Considering my painted-on expression, it was essentially destiny that I would smoke at some point. This home made it especially easy with its peeling wallpaper, easy access to cigarettes, easier access to matches, and the oppressive despair.

The first week of our stay there was in the bags we came home in, and I would have been content to stay in the box in the bag in the corner, surrounded by nicotine, but I literally could not stare at Alice’s blank expression one moment longer, or I was bound to actually commit doll-i-cide. I’m not even sure what exactly that would have meant. Was I going to kill her or myself?

It doesn’t really matter. It’s not murder if it’s just a doll.

The old lady slept surprisingly little, but I discovered that she was essentially guaranteed to fall asleep right after The Price Is Right ended, and that I had solidly two hours to explore and return safely to my corner before she woke up.

The first thing I discovered, to my horror, obviously, was Playgirl. This is a magazine with some surprisingly raunchy and heartfelt stories mixed in with pictures of human men that don’t look quite real. Is that why the humans like dolls? So that they can be more like us?

The magazines were fine, but after a few weeks, they began to make me feel odd and not built quite right, and made my maid's outfit feel a bit too sexy, and I had to stop. I think the old lady read and re-read those magazines so that she could feel not-quite-right. The stories made me hate her, not a new feeling for me, but it was more visceral with her, and the house, and the darkness of our corner.

I never noticed Alice leave her box, but one day, when I had finally figured out how to climb the kitchen shelves, there she was, staring blankly out at me from the cracker cabinet.

“Dammit, Alice!” I had screamed, “Make a little more noise so you don’t freak me out so much. At least warn me that you’re in here.”

She did her weird little giggle, “I lost my socks, mommy.”

Creepy, right?

“Alice, you’re a doll. You don’t have a mommy. We are all dolls.”

“We are all dolls,” she echoed. I closed the door, shimmied down to the floor, and used the broomstick to wedge the door shut. I don’t know what was wrong with her, and I was not about to discover the hard way.

“Be careful,” I heard Camilla’s perfect southern drawl echo behind me, “Mommy is coming.”

“Camillia! Stop that! You’re freaking me out!”

Camilla's smile was benign as she held out a cigarette for me. I rolled my eyes and took it.

“You’d be prettier if you smiled, you know,” she grinned innocently.

“I would like you more if you smiled less. I think you read too many of Mommy’s magazines. You’re starting to become one of those creepy old men.” I hated how much I had grown to love smoking so quickly. I needed them to get buy in the old lady’s tomb; they were the best cure for boredom. Camilla always had what I felt I needed.

“You know,” she pulled with her perfect pink lips and lit both of our cigarettes, the tips of them just lightly pressed together, “it’s more interesting in the basement.”

“I couldn’t find a way down there! How did you get past the boxes? They are piled so high.” We both heard Alice’s sing-song voice ask about her socks, and I nearly jumped out of my skin, figuratively.

“I thought cigarettes were supposed to make us less jumpy,” Camilla glared at the cabinet as if Alice would suddenly leap from it with a knife. Within a blink, her look of terror morphed into earnest excitement. “I’ll show you, but you have to promise,” she paused, her eyelashes asking for promises I had no choice but to keep.

“Of course, anything,” I replied.

“Anything?” Camilla winked. “Dolls never forget, Bea. Trust me, what you see down there is worth whatever you’re willing to give up.”

She grabbed my hand, somehow warm despite the dank coolness that surrounded us.

“Shouldn’t we at least move the broom?” It felt safer to stay with Alice.

“No, no,” Camilla sweetened her gaze, my knees grew weak, and if I could blush, I am sure I was doing it, “Dolls can’t starve or get lonely. It’ll be fun, and we’ll be back before Mommy even suspects.”

I hated that she called the old woman Mommy.

It was Camilla, and she was perfect. and fluttery, and braver than I.

Camilla smiled slyly, “Come on.”