Bailey was a rather popular girl at school, though she had always seemed to be a bit strange. She choose track over cheerleading, and had more fun programming than chatting on her computer. She had an athletic and somewhat tall body with long and lean legs which Bailey frequently covered in tights. She never really knew what to do with her hair, and had kept a simple straight cut for nearly all her life.
While she was popular, Bailey had always kept her birthday parties, even her important ones, small and private. Today was her eighteenth birthday and it was held at her aunt's house with just a few people from her family and only a select group of friends whom Bailey trusted. Among those trusted people, strangely, was a girl named Christine. The two had climbed the same school ladder for their entire lives, and been in many of the same classes. Yet, Bailey never really knew Christine.
She was a quiet girl, interested in drawing and painting. On occasion, Bailey had asked to see her work, but Christine blushed and declined her offer. When she could, Christine always sat near Bailey, but always on the outer rim of the clique that surrounded her. And, though she didn't really know Christine, Bailey trusted her.
Throughout the party, Christine sat as she always did, on the edge of the commotion. Her head remained down for much of the time, and when the cake came out and everyone sang, her voice would have been barely audible, even without a crowd of people around her. Earlier, Bailey had pulled Christine aside and asked what was wrong, but the girl tried to put on a valiant face that wouldn't have fooled a blind man and lied, saying that nothing was wrong. But Bailey didn't believe it, and gave the girl a long hug. She only thought she heard the girl whisper, "Please take care of her."
The time came for presents deep in the afternoon, and it appeared to be one of those birthdays where Bailey wouldn't get the thing she wanted most. And so, she wasn't terribly excited as she opened Christine's present. Bailey ripped apart green wrapping paper from her last present, revealing a plain white box. Tentatively, she opened it and saw a rag doll inside wrapped in tissue cloth.
"She's so cute." Bailey said, but she held the little doll by one arm as if it was a dirty wash rag. Christine smiled sweetly.
"Thanks." She said with a voice only half an octave above a whisper. With another smile, Bailey put the doll back down and the party continued on. She never noticed Christine leave after that.
Later that night, Bailey was performing the highest of crimes that could be committed on the day of her eighteenth birthday: she was doing her homework. Splayed out upon her bed, she had math and history books spread around her. But Bailey was one of those miraculous people who enjoyed math, and was known to use math puzzles to relax and unwind the day.
That was on a normal night. But tonight, Bailey had a strange, uncomfortable feeling of paranoia. When she couldn't shake it, she stood up and sat at her computer desk, which her small pile of presents sat. Three impersonal gift cards and cash had come from four of her guests; a book she would never read came from another. Bailey's eyes drifted to Christine's doll, and she quickly realized that was what was causing her paranoia.
There was something unsettling about the little rag doll and her green dress. It was such a strange gift and didn't fit Bailey or Christine. The girl looked her doll over carefully. Her black cloth feet were oblong ovals connected to green striped legs. She wore a green dirndl dress, with corset and skirt trimmed in red and white flowers. Little white mittens were sewn onto each hand, and her green hair was capped by an overly large white bow.
But it wasn't the doll's costume that drew Bailey's attention, but rather her face. Where the rest of the toy was puffy, round, and soft, her face looked so very real. Egg shaped and proportioned perfectly, the doll's face was painted a bit whiter than the rest of her. Bright red lips and soft pink cheeks drew out the verdant green of the little doll's eyes. Bailey drew the doll closer and looked deep into her eyes. Made of plastic, they had a perfect sheen to them that made them sparkle with life.
A ringing sound pulled Bailey from the doll's face and returned back to a wider view of the toy, and decided that the little toy was the best present she got that year. The ringing sound continued, and Bailey suddenly realized her cell phone was ringing. She didn't recognize the number, but took the call anyway. She said hello, but no one replied and hung up a second later. Bailey shook her head, thought about calling them back, but turned back to her little green toy.
"Little doll, I think you need a name." Bailey said, placing the toy on her desk, and sitting so she could look directly at the doll. She worked through each letter of the alphabet in a haphazard way. "Sarah." She said. "Your name is Sarah." Bailey's doll, of course, didn't respond but with a smile. Bailey smiled back and propped Sarah up on her desk, then returned to finish her homework before going to sleep.
Bailey was deeply involved in a perfectly normal dream wherein she conversed with sines, cosines, and other trigonometric functions, all while falling amid a sea of numbers. But a voice began to break into her conversations. It was quiet and unassuming, spoken an octave just above a whisper. Bailey turned to a tangent function and asked if he heard the voice, and she replied that she did not.
Bailey didn't believe her, saying that tangents had a habit of being selfish. And so she left the functions and equations and walked into her window. It was smaller than usual. The tangent tried to follow her, but Bailey reminded him that wave functions couldn't fit through windows.
The voice was louder in her room, and Bailey scanned around it to find its source. She saw Sarah and thought the little doll might know where the voice was coming from.
"Sarah, do you hear that?" She said. The little doll didn't reply, and that worried Bailey. She turned to look at the toy and saw that she was the source of the voice. She sounded so scared, and Bailey picked her little doll up and wrapped her up like a mother would a child. She looked down into Sarah's plastic eyes. "It's going to be all right."
Bailey looked deeper and deeper in her toy's green eyes until they enveloped her entire view. And then she snapped back into her room, except Sarah was suddenly a person and Bailey was suddenly a toy sitting on a desk. The green haired former doll paced back and forth between the window and the desk, her gloved hands grasping her hair while Bailey looked at her new rag doll body dressed in blue pajamas.
"It's my fault." She said. "It's my fault."
Bailey stood up on wobbly cloth legs and yelled to her toy, "Relax. This is just a dream. I'm not really a doll."
Sarah knelt down and looked at Bailey. "No, see, I broke the set. The set was complete and I broke it." She thought for a moment. "You need to take me back. I need to go back Ye Olde Toys. It's in the mall."
"First of all, I know where Ye Olde Toys is." Bailey said, bringing a hand up and trying to hold up a finger before remembering she didn't have fingers. "Second, you're my doll and the best present I got this year. I'm not taking you back."
Sarah looked back at Bailey with pleading green eyes. "It's the only way you can help me. It's the only way you can help yourself." Bailey crossed her cotton arms in defiance.
"You're my doll."
Sarah let out a frustrated ugghh and threw her arms into the air. "Just do it!" She shouted.
Bailey jumped up in her bed, surprised to find daylight pouring into her room and birds conversing outside. Sarah was still propped up on her desk. Bailey walked over to her little doll and looked into her green eyes.
"Why do I get the feeling that wasn't a dream?" The doll smiled and Bailey sat back in her chair. She looked outside into the vibrant blue sky and rapped her fingers on her desk before turning back to Sarah. "I'm not taking you back."
Bailey sat at her kitchen island eating a pop tart while her mom, dad, and brother desperately tried to get ready for the day. But Bailey was, shockingly, ready to go. Dressed in her common funky clothing, including diamond patterned tights, shoddy canvas shoes, and multi-colored dress, she kept her long blonde hair simple. Sarah sat in front of her, and Bailey pondered the meaning of the so-called dream she had earlier in the morning.
"What did you mean about a complete set?" She asked.
"I'm sorry, honey?" Bailey quickly looked up to her mom.
"Oh, I didn't say anything." Bailey finished her pop tart, put Sarah in her purse, and began to walk to the front door. The news was on the TV, and didn't really interest Bailey. The story, she knew, was about a missing white girl.
"Authorities" the Hispanic reporter was saying, "are beginning the second day of searching for Sarah Jenson, who vanished from her home sometime late Saturday." Bailey stopped dead in her tracks. Her mind first flashed to her new doll, then to Christine. More specifically, Bailey remembered Christine's last name was Jenson.
Bailey received a few straggling happy birthdays as she walked through the cafeteria, but ignored them and instead looked around for Christine. But she realized that would be a futile effort; there would be no way she would be in school today.
"I heard she was involved in some kind of occult group. They all dress . . ."
". . .Police called me about it . . ."
". . . her sister is all weird and stuff. I mean, who dresses like that?"
Sarah and Christine were certainly the talk of the school that day, and every conversation Bailey passed made the hairs on her neck stand on end. Every now and again, Bailey checked her purse to make sure Sarah was still inside. Once, when no one was around, Bailey looked inside and looked into her doll's eyes.
"I'm going to get you fixed."
As the day progressed, Bailey's heart kept a fast tempo, and kept her short of breath. She ignored everybody, even, on occasion, her teachers. She tried to think about what she needed to do to help Sarah. Going to Ye Olde Toys wasn't an option, at least not at first. They may have been the ones to do this to her, and they may have no qualm about doing the same to Bailey.
She thought about Christine, who had lost a sister to some strange happening. Christine must have known what happened to her sister, but could never tell a soul. The poor girl, haunted by what happened, must have given Sarah to Bailey because she couldn't bear to look at the doll. So she gave her sister over to one of the few people in the world who had never been mean to her, in the hope that Bailey would take care of Sarah.
Bailey thought about these things and didn't learn anything that day. The bell rang, and she knew that staying in school would be pointless. She needed to find Christine and try to get everything fixed. Bailey stuffed her books back into her bag, careful to avoid Sarah, and was almost out the door when her teacher, the old white haired Mrs. Kelly called her back.
"Yes, Mrs. Kelly?"
"Bailey, I just wanted you to know I'm giving you a warning about your hair."
"My hair? What's the . . ." Bailey didn't finish the sentence, and had a frightened feeling form in her stomach.
"Well, Bailey, for starters, it's violet."