Recently, things have been rough for me. I was kicked out of the house my friends let me stay in because of some issues between us, and I had no place to stay. I posted about it on my socials, and my mother messaged me for the first time in probably about a year. You’d think I’d be happy, but my mother is… a bit weird.
My mother has always loved making dolls and toys. Ever since I was little, she would make me little plush toys of characters I liked from television shows: she was always adamant on never spending money on merchandise. Recently, though, she’s gotten so much better at it. I’m not sure if she’s watched a bunch of tutorials or what, but from when I started college to now, her skills have changed so much. She’s gone from making plush toys out of rough felt to human size dolls and figurines, made out of silicon and porcelain. I think. She’s even started selling them, and is planning on buying a building she can turn into a store. That doesn’t make her weird, I know, but let me explain.
During family gatherings, she always has three spaces at the table for her three favourite dolls: Lillibet, Betsy and Beth. They’re made of felt and have hair made of wool. They all basically look the same, except for hairclips she made for them. She treats them like her children. They each have an equal serving of the food that’s given to everyone but my mother leaves it on the table for them. She says they’ll eat it later. Once, I came back a week later and the food was still on the table, and the dolls were still sat there. The meal was crawling with maggots and god knows what else, I had to clean it up, and when I did she got angry, and said that ‘Lillibet hadn’t finished her dinner yet’. It’s vile.
So you’d imagine my anguish at having to come here, but I had nowhere else to go.
The drive was slow, down winding alleys and fields where horses would stay. It was in the middle of nowhere, with one single road that went down to three houses. From there, I had to walk through a clearing in the forest to find her house: a huge, old fashioned one. Like a stereotypical haunted house. When I was younger, she always wanted to keep it clean, but now dirt was painted along every outside wall, and vines hung down, covering every window and door.
The first day was normal. The basement had been converted into a workshop, which she promised she would take me down once she had cleaned the place up. My room was still the same as it always had been, except now, each shelf was covered with dolls, the window ledge was completely covered too, and even the plushies she had made when I was younger were gone, replaced by, you guessed it, more dolls. It was honestly creepy. My room had been turned into a storage room with a bed in the middle. At night, she went out to go get supplies, which was weird, since no stores were open at night, except for dodgy corner shops and the takeaways. She was up all night talking with someone once she got back.
At 10:30, I got up and went downstairs, noticing a girl sat at the breakfast table, the dolls all lined up next to her. I asked my mother who she was, and she said “Annabelle. Her parents are on holiday, I’m taking care of her.” The little girl looked at me and smiled, and I didn’t think much of it. After all, why would you?
That night, I went to bed early, straight after I had got back from work. When I awoke, it was still dark, and nobody in the house was up. Yet, I still heard noises. Not talking like the night before, but doors opening and closing, and mumbling. I sat up and I saw my mother stood in the corner of my room, holding something tightly within her fingers.
“Why are you in my room?” I asked.
No answer.
“What are you holding, mum?” I asked again.
No answer.
“Can you leave, please?” I asked for the final time, and she slowly shuffled out of my room.
I couldn’t sleep again that night. The paranoia of what she would’ve done if I hadn’t woken up scared me. What would she do to me the next day? Would I ever be able to sleep again?
The next few days were the hardest. I didn’t sleep at all, hardly even left my room. I didn’t eat, either. It made me wonder if my dinner would be left on the table, like the dolls, until the meat rotted and squirmed with bugs. Made me want to vomit just thinking about it.
One night, my mother went out to get supplies again, and I went downstairs to watch the television. To my surprise, Annabelle was stood by the TV, cuts and scabs all over her legs, though it seemed a lot were hidden due to the dress she was wearing. She didn’t speak, just inviting me to sit down and turning on the news.
‘Late Night News: Clues have been found to kidnapped girls disappearance, though detectives believe she may have been murdered. Last week, 12 year old girl Anna Stevens was taken from her home in the middle of the night and has not been seen since. A suspect has been discovered, however their location is unknown at this moment.’
In that moment, my mouth dropped agape. The girl on the screen was Annabelle. Same eyes, same face shape, even same birthmark, a small, triangular shaped one on their ears. Finally, Annabelle spoke up.
“You’re going to be next. You need to listen to me, or we’ll both be tortured.” I nodded silently, letting her speak.
“Tomorrow at noon, she will take me down to the basement. I will not be allowed out again until the next day. She has a nap at around 1, and leaves her keys on the kitchen table. Use these keys to get down into the basement and release me. Then, we must run.” I nodded again. Annabelle switched off the television, running down into the basement again. I took that as a sign to go back upstairs, going to bed earlier. I didn’t want to talk to my mother knowing she had done things like that. I had nowhere else to go. Where would we run to? Although I was paranoid, I somehow managed to fall asleep.
I jerked awake in the middle of the night to my mother putting some sort of medical mask on my face, the type used to induce anaesthesia. I punched and kicked her, trying to get it off, but I eventually succumbed to my slumber.
When I woke up, there was a pain in my leg. I got up, opening my curtains to the sun. The clock read 12:30PM, so we weren’t behind on our plan. Thank god. I looked at my bedsheets, quickly realising they were drenched in blood. I looked down at my leg, which was wrapped in a bandage, and suddenly remembered what had happened the night before. What had she done to me? I unwrapped my leg and saw a square of my skin missing. I winced at it immediately, and the pain somehow became worse. I wrapped it back up, heading downstairs to ‘watch the tv’ so my mother didn’t suspect anything.
An hour later, my mother went to sleep, just like the girl had said. I took the keys from the kitchen table, trying each key in the door until I found the one that would open it. I twisted the rusty doorknob and the door creaked open.
The basement was dark, lit by a singular lightbulb that hung precariously from the ceiling. This room was full with dolls, too, even more than my room. There were multiple drawers on a desk, labelled different things, some normal, some weird. For example, one was labelled ‘Doll wigs’ and one was labelled ‘Skin bags’. In that moment, something clicked. I frantically opened the drawer labelled ‘Skin bags’ and saw one at the front. A bag of skin shaped in a square, with a sticky note stuck onto it.
‘Leg skin, daughter, perfect colour for a doll.’
It was my skin.
I resisted the urge to vomit, throwing the bag into the drawer and slamming it shut. Interrupting my possible panic attack, I heard a knock. I spun around to look at the main door, but it didn’t seem like the knock came from there. I looked around, noticing a door I missed on my way in. I knocked back on it, opening the door, and if you thought the basement was bad, just wait.
In the room were bodies. Dead bodies. Some were completely skeletal, just bones laying in piles on the ground, others seemed as if they had only died a few weeks before. But they were all children. That was the worst part. All of the bodies had skin missing, and they looked as if they had died of blood loss. The walls were splattered with dry blood, and the stench was horrendous. Maggots crawled across the floor, and flies landed on every body, being swatted away by Annabelle, who was sat in the middle of it all. A new bandage had appeared on her leg since the last time I had seen her. I vomited onto the floor, my hands shaking.
“You get used to the smell after a while. Anyways, we need to go.” She spoke, standing up and dusting herself off. I wiped vomit from my mouth, following her slowly through the corridors of the house to our front door. I unlocked it with the keys I had in hand, and we ran outside.
She looked around frantically for directions, and I pointed in the direction I had parked my car. We ran through the clearings, eventually getting to my car and driving. Anna was in the passenger seat, and we drove through endless trees and hills before coming to a small town nearby, where Anna gestured to get out. She waved at me, and I watched her run to a house, knocking on the door and greeting her family again. I drove away, down more roads, before I came to my fathers house. He had divorced my mother a few years ago, and for good reasons.
Both me and Anna are safe now, her parents found my socials and we have been getting in touch. My mother will be on trial soon for kidnapping and first degree murder, and I live with my father, who is a lot more sane than my mother. I’m on the way to getting a stable job and my own house, but I’m still paranoid my mother will find me again.