MicroHorror

The furor in the playroom couldn’t be ignored. Mother took the stairs two at a time.

“Okay, what is it about this time?”

“It’s Gilly,” protested Marta, letting go of her sibling’s throat.

Gilly coughed suitably hoarsely to indicate that she alone was the injured party.

“She keeps biting the heads off the Smiths at 41.”

Gilly coughed again and then smiled–a picture-book smile surrounded by blond curls and innocence.

“The Smiths at 41” was the name Marta had given to the family that lived in the rather splendid Victorian doll’s house she’d received for her birthday. It had windows you could look through and a front that opened right up. The rooms had authentic wallpaper designs, tiny candelabra, convincing fires and the most darling furniture–real porcelain washbowls and jugs. Best of all there was a family, a maid, a cook and a butler–“Butler,” Marta called him. Marta didn’t have a great imagination for names but the things that went on in that house were a constant source of amusement to her.

“That’s the third,” wailed a traumatized Marta. She blinked back the tears.

Daddy had stuck two of the heads back on but they didn’t look the same. Gilly had defiantly swallowed this one so that wasn’t going to happen.

Mother comforted her and promised to get replacement dolls, though she didn’t know how since they came with the house. “You, young lady, can go to bed now, and no supper.”

“No supper?” repeated Gilly.

“Well you can’t be hungry,” said Mother. “You’ve eaten.”

Gilly stomped out in a huff. Stupid doll’s house. Silly Marta treated them like real people. Don’t want to play this… don’t want to play that… I want to play with my doll’s house… nah, nah, nah!

Mother mentioned it to Daddy as they took their own supper later on.

“It’s just a spat, love. Sibling rivalry. All sisters fight, he said.”

“But biting their heads off, dear, I mean it’s horrible!”

He patted her knee. “If you ask me she’s only doing it because it got a great reaction the first time.”

She sighed, “I suppose you’re right.”

“You’ll see I am. It’ll work itself out. Children go through these ghoulish notions.”

Marta’s face beamed as she opened the doll’s house the next morning. They were all there–the Smiths! Mummy and Daddy Smith were there and Martina and baby Ronald. Butler was in his room below stairs and cook was in the kitchen and there was Grace the scullery maid and all with heads. And there was a new doll too–an older girl with blond curls.

“Thank you, Mummy!” she effused, coming out onto the landing to meet her.

“What for, darling?”

Marta dragged her in to look at the dolls.

“But I didn’t have a chance to…” Oh, clever man, she thought. He must have purchased a second set at the same time as the first.

Gilly came in. “Got more stupid dolls, I see,” she teased.

“And if you… do anything to them, I’ll not speak for the consequences. Do you understand?” said Mother.

“I wouldn’t touch her old dolls,” said Gilly, and she didn’t all that day.

“I think that’s done the trick,” said Mother at supper. “It was clever of you to replace the dolls so quickly.”

“I? The dolls?”

“Yes, dear. The new dolls in the doll’s house.”

“But I didn’t…”

His rebuttal was interrupted by a loud thud from upstairs. Both parents rushed from the table. The nursery door was ajar and inside stood Marta trembling, covered in blood. Strewn on the floor at her feet all the dolls lay headless and beside them was the torso of her sister Gilly. Her head had rolled across the floor towards the doll’s house. Her hand clutched fast the doll with the blond curls, still intact.