Yep, that's me. You're probably wondering how I got here. It all started because of a dare. Well, a series of escalating dares. I’m Kari, and I am a witch, and my coven likes to play a game of Witch’s Dare, where everyone is challenged by the rest to be enchanted in some way. Once bewitched, you can use your talent and willpower, and only your talent and willpower, to break the spell, or you can concede to the superior witch. The game continues until everyone has conceded, leaving only one “Most Daring Witch.”

I’ve. Never. Won.

It was starting to get on my nerves because I was the most talented of the group. But Witch’s Dare is more about willpower and bravery than raw talent. You have to have the bravery to let someone as crafty and devious as one of my friends cast a spell on you. And you have to have the stomach to bear the embarrassment that comes your way. And you have to have the willpower to unravel the spell you’ve been placed under.

After many rounds, it had come down to just me and Constance. She’s not the best with her weaves, but she’s got a clever mind who knows just the right way to push your buttons.

“Kari Evelyn Lewiston, I dare you to be a toy soldier doll in mind, in body, and in spirit, placed in a toy store for sale.”

The whole coven went quiet when Constance issued her challenge, and all eyes turned on me. They expected me to decline the dare. It had everything I hated: being stuck in a ridiculous costume, being something insignificant, being seen, and being in danger. The threat of being bought is a real danger in these games, because the purchase itself acts as a magical seal which makes the spell ten times stronger. But it wasn’t a real final round of Witch’s Dare without danger.

Truthfully, I almost backed down before the spell was even cast. But I didn’t think Constance had the skill to make the spell stick. It was too big, too complex, and I’d be able to willpower and talent my way out of being a toy soldier.

So I let Constance transform me, and pose me on a little shelf with other plush toys, giggling at me and calling me cute as she did. I knew then, as I fumed at the treatment, I had to beat her spell. And at first, it seemed like I could. Within an hour, and I could emote, I could (somewhat) talk, I could even move (just a bit). The whole “be a doll in body” was coming unraveled.

And then some little girl looked at me. Just looked, didn’t say anything, but her eyes lit up and I, a little plush toy soldier, made her smile. I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to be bought by her. My very soul yearned to be her cute little doll. Then, she walked past me. I blinked, and that’s when I realized how much danger I was in.

I couldn’t focus on unraveling the spell because every time a shopper strolled down the aisle, all I wanted was to be seen, to be touched, to be played with, and ultimately to be bought and owned. I wanted so bad to find myself in a personal collection, to belong to someone, to make them happy forever and ever and ever. I wanted it so badly that when a parent plucked a plush elephant from behind me, I was so jealous of it that I thought about cursing the doll. I couldn’t, of course, but I wanted to.

Thankfully, I made it through the day. Surely at night, I could have time to work on the spell, with no one to distract me, or make me yearn to become a possession. But that’s when I learned something I always knew about dolls, but had never realized: People enliven us, and without people nearby, we…well, we don’t really sleep, but we just…fade into the background. When the first workers came to open the store the next morning, I realized that I had spent the whole night in cozy, unthinking, simplicity.

And now that people were back, I was once again daydreaming of being bought and owned. What would it be like to have myself, all of myself, owned by another who could change my name, change my personality, who could do whatever they wanted to me, and be right about it?

I would have conceded then and there, if I could. But there’s one last part of Witch’s Dare I didn’t mention before: Constance and I had gone back and forth for three rounds, and we both agreed that this would be the final round. Sudden Death. No concessions. We would have to break the other’s spell with just our own skill and will. I was beginning to realize I wasn’t going to be able to break hers.

It's now the third day on the shelf, and getting late. I hadn’t made much more progress, and didn’t always want to, truth be told.

I hadn’t even noticed the man. He had moved quickly, assuredly, the way men do when they go shopping: They have one thing in mind, and go right to it. Only I was the it, and I didn’t even know it until his shadow swept over me.

My eyes went wide, my jaw went slack, my breath caught in my throat, and my heart pressed against my chest. Or, it felt like they did. He had barely said anything, and I knew before his hand squeezed me around the middle, that I was his target.

“Constance Melanie Marchant, I concede! I Concede to the greater witch!” I shouted in my mind. The rules said I couldn’t concede anymore, but I had to try; I was about to become someone’s property, and the already difficult spell was about to become impossible to break.

Nothing happened. No magic release, no last minute saving.

I was going to be bought, and I was mortified.

I was going to be bought, and I was elated.

As he carried me to the fated register, toward the machine that would scan me and sell me, I realized that I wasn’t the most daring witch, I wasn’t even the most foolish.

But I was the most Daring Toy Soldier. And I always would be.