Three shadows crouched in the bushes outside the pink house. They weren’t thieves - thieves wouldn’t have made so much noise.
“Parker, why are you doing this?” There was a slight quiver in Ryan’s voice as he looked up to the house, which was one of the oldest in the town. In daylight the building was painted a light pink and blue, and it sat on a hill with perfectly manicured groves and trees. It looked for all the world like a dollhouse come to life. But in the moonless night it looked just as any other house, and perhaps a little more ominous.
“I just . . . I need to, honey.” Parker whispered in reply. She pushed her brunette brunette hair behind her ear and turned to him and her companions, “I really want you both to see her. I want you to see how beautiful she is.” Ryan, a tall and handsome boy with shaggy and dirty blond hair, took a moment before nodding.
"We’re with you,” Emily said, squeezing Parker’s hand. She was a shade shorter than her best friend, but lighter with frizzy red hair.
An intoxicating smile blossomed on Parker’s face. “Thank you. I swear this is going to be worth it.”
She moved to the back door with Emily and Ryan in tow. She jiggled the handle and the door swung open without a squeak or creak. Memories of a Christmas time long past flooded Parker, as this was not the first time she had been to this house.
It was almost seven years ago when she had last been here, back when the owner made his home into a wonderland of toys and elves for local children to come and gawk at. Back then, Parker was a gangly girl just about to enter middle school. She got separated and lost in the many roomed house and stumbled upon a door hidden behind decorations. Though scared, the curiosity of knowing what was behind the door pushed her to open it.
On the other side of that door she found a hidden room and a hidden doll. The toy sat on a chair in the center of the room holding a book across her lap. Her feet were propped up en pointe and her blue tutu and peasant top were trimmed with red flowers. Her hair was braided into a knot and held back by a wreath of white flowers with red tassels that fell to her shoulders. Red spots marked her cheeks. She was the most beautiful doll Parker had ever seen.
The girl walked over to her, but jumped back when the toy looked at Parker with piercing blue eyes. The ballerina doll smiled and set her book aside so she could stand up on pointed feet and dance around a shocked Parker. Then the doll gave her hand to the girl, inviting the wobbly, unsure child to dance. And without a thought Parker gripped the toy’s hand and began a duet through the empty room.
Time lost meaning as she and the doll danced and twirled, the toy pulling and leading the girl, until a booming voice broke the silence. “What is going on in here!?” The doll froze and fell over as if she was never more than wood. The man’s lips twitched with a slightly crazy tilt. “Get out! Get out and never come back here!” he shouted at Parker, who squealed and ran away in tears.
It took seven years, but Parker came back to that very house. She didn’t remember much besides that one room, and only vaguely remembered that it was upstairs. She found the wooden steps in the corner of the living room and she took careful steps to the second floor. She couldn't recognize anything in the dark, but with the help of soft night lights she saw three doors sitting on the hallway, one on the left and two on the right.
Parker opened the door closest to her and looked inside. Her jaw dropped wide. “This is it!” She whispered. The room had changed over the years and there were many more dolls now, but the ballerina still sat in her chair and read her book. No longer in the center of the room, the ballerina had been placed next to the window overlooking the front lawn. There was a set of double doors opposite her and a plush red chair off to her right that faced the menagerie of dolls.
But she kept her attention on the ballerina. In the years since her trip here Parker had come to call the doll Coppelia after the doll in the ballet of the same name. In the play the toy was so lifelike that men loved with her and women were jealous of her. Parker walked to Coppelia and she knelt down next to her chair. The toy looked every bit as alive and vibrant as she had seven years ago, and Parker was glad the doll had been so well taken care of.
Emily and Ryan gaped at the rest of the room while Parker adored Coppelia. Large windows overlooked the north and south lawns, and the room had a u-shaped balcony stretching above it. But what drew their attention were the dolls blithely scattered around the playroom.
Ryan wandered off to the back corner of the room where he investigated a gypsy dancer in a purple dress and a flamenco dancer with long slender legs and fiery red dress beside her. He gave attention to each, noting every perfect detail of their faces and their bodies.
Emily took a careful walk around the room. She found a large pink dollhouse in another corner, and a glass case in which stood a porcelain Victorian doll. She came back to a small display made of a few large alphabet blocks near the center of the room. She also found a thick black cord next to the blocks, almost invisible in the darkness of the room.
She investigated it a moment, then pulled on it. Something gave way and a wooden jester fell from the ceiling, her wooden body and jingling bells throwing up a racket. Emily yelped and jumped backwards. The jester wobbled for a moment, and then collapsed all the way to the ground, the sound of her fall reverberated through the room. Everyone held their breath, and hoped no one in the house had heard their mess.
After a few moments of silence Ryan turned to the redhead. “What the hell, Emily?” Ryan hissed. “Don’t touch anything.” She glared back at him and replied with a flip of her middle finger. He shook his head and turned back to the startlingly sexy gypsy doll. Parker gave her friend a reassuring smile.
Emily looked back to the fallen jester, who was splayed in a bizarre way with her ass held in the air. Though the doll smiled, Emily knew she couldn’t terribly like it. The girl bent down and reached her hand out to help the doll back to a more comfortable position. Before she could touch her wooden skin, however, the doll picked herself up all on her own. She took a seat on an alphabet block with her arms wrapped around her knees and froze once again.
“Oh my God! She moved.” Emily took a close look at the doll’s face, just to make sure she wasn’t a person playing a prank.
“They do that.” Parker said with a strange detachment in her voice as she took a curious glance to the closed double doors.
Emily looked over the jester once more. The doll had a few clown marks on her face, but more interesting was her hair that was cut from thin strips of yellow cloth. She wore an adorable green and yellow costume made from a motley tunic and vertically striped tights. Little jester booties with curly toes covered her feet, and a two pronged jester hat sat on her head. There were bells in abundance on every tassel on the doll.
Ryan stayed by the intriguing dancing dolls and rapped his knuckle on the gypsy’s wooden head. He turned back to the flamenco dancer and admired the detail of her long and slender leg partially revealed by a slit in her fiery skirt. The gypsy doll did not take kindly to Ryan’s behaviors and slapped the back of his head, returning to her demure position before he could turn around.
Parker stood in front of the double doors and bit her lip. It felt like something was calling her here. She twisted the handle and held her breath as the door opened. Parker took a few tentative steps into the room, but could see nothing in the dark. It had no windows and the moon’s silvered light couldn’t reach inside. She felt along the wall and found a light switch. Dim yellow light flooded the room, and it was enough to take Parker’s breath.
The closet was filled like the backstage of a play, racks covered with a hundred bright doll costumes for all occasions. She stepped up the first rack and ran her fingers through the soft fabrics, keeping an eye out for something she might like. Parker’s vision crossed a glittering pink ballet dress, and she reached for it without hesitation. The dress and corset were embellished with silver thread and had a round pancake tutu attached. Before realizing that it might be crazy, Parker began to change into the costume.
Emily kept a vigilant watch on the jester, walking around her and trying to figure how she could move her wooden body. “You probably don’t want me to push you over again. I know I wouldn’t.” The doll kept still, and Emily finally gave in and sat down next to the doll, mimicking the doll's posture on the block beside her. She watched as Ryan grew increasingly bored with dolls and increasingly annoyed by the pain on the back of his head. He finally sat down in the stately red chair and looked over to the closet door.
“I don’t get it. What are we even doing here? Are we just visiting?”
Emily sighed, “You really don’t get Parker, do you?”
“Of course I get. . .”
“No, you don’t. You don’t understand Parker. I knew her before she came here. She used to be this gangly, awkward girl. She had no confidence in herself, and no drive to do anything. Then she danced with that doll.”
“So she says.”
Emily gritted her teeth. “She danced with that doll, and just . . . everything changed. She began ballet the next month. She got into theater a year later. She blossomed into the beautiful girl with this beautiful body you so love to leer at. This room, more than anything else, turned her into who she is today.”
“Yeah, but . . .” Ryan started before the creaking sound of the closet door opening broke his thought. Emily gasped when she saw her friend, and noticed from the corner of her eye that all the dolls in the room seemed to turn their attention to Parker.
Her old clothes had been discarded and replaced with a pink leotard with silver roses embroidered across the bodice. A pink jeweled choker circled her neck; the choker and her tutu glittered in the soft light of the playroom. Parker’s long and slender legs were clad in nearly opaque white tights and she wore gold pointe slippers. Like Coppelia, her hair was pulled back by a wreath of tassels and flowers. She looked the spitting image of the one of the playroom dolls.