Dear Annabelle:
I’m writing you this letter to let you know that I think
I was wrong about not letting you borrow my doll. You’ll remember the doll? The little grey one on the mantel in the spare
bedroom? It’s the one you were looking
at when you were here last October. You
had picked him up and said he looked like the ugliest little voodoo doll you
had ever seen—whatever that is—but you wanted to take him home to scare the
class bully. I’m sorry about that razor
blade that was behind him and how it cut your hand so badly. Sometimes I’m so forgetful about where I put
things, and they end up in the strangest places. Anyhow, I hope your hand is okay now.
I just didn’t think it would be a good idea at the time
for you to get any blood on him because he really doesn’t like that. Lord have mercy, I’ll never forget that time
when Robert from down the street—God rest his soul—got in that lawnmower
accident. It took his foot clean off in
three seconds flat and scattered it in pieces all over the lawn. There was blood everywhere, and his
neighbor—old George—told me that’s why he shot himself in the head, after
firing five shots randomly into the lawn.
Well, that Robert never was very smart, you know. My poor doll got so much blood on him. You’re probably wondering how that happened,
but I guess one of my cats had dragged him over there. I had put the doll on the windowsill when I
was dusting the spare bedroom, and I think he fell right out the window. But anyways, what a time I had trying to
clean him up. George says that Robert
was trying to shoot the doll. Now, how
ridiculous is that? But then I told you
that Robert never was very smart. He was
a bully, too. He’s the one who kicked my
mailbox down.
And speaking of George, that man is just plain
unstable. Ever since his wife, Edna,
died a few years back, he just hasn’t been right in the head. Of course, there was a big scandal in the
neighborhood when she had gone and set herself on fire at the base of that old
apple tree. Good heavens! The gossiping went on for weeks! I actually missed the event because I was
busy making my apple pies to enter into the county fair. What a mess my kitchen was. Do you know that somehow I actually put my
doll in the oven with one of the pies?
It’s true. I had so many pies on the
table that I didn’t know what was what.
One of the cats must have left the doll right by one of the pies, and
into the oven it went!
Lord! What a
stench that was. It was a good thing I
was able to get him out of the oven in time.
I felt pretty bad about it for a spell, but with a little bit of water
and a needle and thread, he was just fine.
Well, he has a little less hair, I’m afraid, but it couldn’t be
helped. Anyhow, did I tell you that I
ended up winning all the blue ribbons that year for my apple pies? Yes, sir, I sure did. And it was the first year that Edna didn’t
beat me in the pie-making contest. Of
course, she wasn’t in any shape to do so, being burnt to cinders and all.
Pastor Brown was judging the contest that year, and I
heard that he darn near choked to death on something he was taste-testing. Somebody did that Heimlich maneuver thing on
him, and don’t you know that a huge piece of an apple came flying right out of
his throat? It was the strangest
thing. Anyhow, I had just finished
sewing up the hole in the doll and taking the pin out of his neck just before I
went down to the fair to see why all the ambulances were heading there, and
that’s when I heard about Pastor Brown.
Between you and me, I never did like that man. Imagine my surprise when he gave me the
first-place blue ribbons. You could have
heard a pin drop.
And speaking of pins, I only just remembered when your
mother came to visit me long ago. She
must have been about your age at the time, and isn’t it such a coincidence that
she used to call my little grey doll a voodoo doll, just like you did. Like mother, like daughter, I always
say. I’ll never forget the time I caught
her stuffing that poor doll right full of pins.
When I asked her why, she said she was pretending it was Joey Adams from
school, the one who had shoved her down in the mud and ruined her dress. Can you imagine that? I told her it was just plain silly.
He wasn’t much trouble anymore, though, after he had
caught the small pox. That boy was covered
from head to foot with blisters and scabs.
It’s a good thing we had all been immunized against it. His parents must have forgotten to bring him
to the doctor for that shot, but what do you expect from a bunch of
ne’er-do-wells? Come to think of it,
they were related to Robert from down the street—God rest his soul. Nothing but a bunch of pointy, sharp thistles
growing on that boy’s grave now and no one to do the mowing anymore. What’s the world coming to?
But anyways, your mother always was an impulsive
girl. She went ahead and married your
father against the will of her mother—my sister, Myrtle, your grandmother. I’ll never forget how angry Myrtle was. She just raged back and forth for days up in
that spare bedroom, which used to be her room before she passed away, screaming
and yelling at the top of her lungs, she was.
Because you see, they had eloped.
Myrtle never would have allowed that marriage.
And that reminds me of the oddest thing. I had been out at a church meeting late one
night when I came home and saw the strangest light ever glowing from Myrtle’s
window. At first I worried that there
was a fire, so I raced up to the room.
Fortunately, there was no fire, but instead Myrtle had been throwing
things all over the room. What a mess! My poor doll had landed on the lamp and got
his whole face roasted on the hot light bulb.
It’s a good thing I got there when I did because there probably would
have been a fire.
Myrtle did calm down quite a bit when you were born,
though. Of course, we were all very sad
about the welding accident your dad had down at the plant. He had taken his mask off just for a second,
which he shouldn’t have done, but one second was enough to roast his eyeballs
and lose his sight. Myrtle thought your
mother might divorce him then, but with you on the way, that wouldn’t have been
a very good idea. I never did count the
months between their marriage and your birth, at least not out loud and never
in Myrtle’s presence.
She certainly did get uppity and moody as she got older,
though. I wonder sometimes if her mind
wasn’t going at the end. You know, she
used to tell me that this house was haunted and that there was a terrible
“presence” in her room. Now, have you
ever heard anything so silly? And coming
from a grown woman who ought to have known better, no less. Still, I should have watched her more
closely. If I had, she might not have
fallen out the window and cracked her skull wide open on the sidewalk
below. What a mess to clean up! And my poor doll was stuck underneath her
until the ambulance crew lifted her up.
I swear those darn cats are going to be the death of me. Always going after something that doesn’t
belong to them and dragging it away to the oddest spot.
Anyhow, I’ve thought good and hard about it, and I think
you ought to borrow my doll for a while.
He might cheer you up. You must
promise me that you’ll place him in a room where he can look out and see
everything, and if it’s close to a window, even better. Oh, you probably think I’m foolish worrying
about an old doll and all. But when I
got this doll, I was asked to do the very same thing and I’m glad I did it,
eventually. I thought it was foolish
then, too, but sometimes old customs have their reasons even if we don’t know
them anymore.
I’m sure you know—or maybe you don’t?—that this doll was
given to me by old Elspeth, that midwife who used to live in town. What a character she was! My father said she was not to be trusted, but
he was quite wrong. She was the one who
told me that his ship would sink on his last voyage out, and she sure was right
about that. Mother was heartbroken, and
old Elspeth felt bad and gave me this doll so I wouldn’t cry so much. I didn’t listen to the instructions and I
used to sleep with the doll stuffed tightly under my pillow. What a kind lady old Elspeth was. It’s too bad she suffocated when that mine
shaft caved in on her. What she was doing
in a mine, I’ll never know, but mother said that herbalists sometimes use
crushed gems in their potions. She sure
was crushed, all right.
Oh, by the way, this is the second time I’ve tried to
send this dear little doll to you. The
first time was a couple of months ago when I had placed him in a little box
with just a tiny note. I was in a hurry
that day so the mail lady said she would bring it to the post office for
me. Of course, none of us had any way of
knowing that she’d get in such a terrible accident that day. The truck was completely totaled, and just
about everything in it was utterly destroyed beyond recognition, including the
mail lady. They found my little package,
though, right on the floor on the driver’s side. Now, how lucky is that?
So you do as I say and take good care of the doll. Let him breathe and give him a nice spot to
sit. I’ll be coming down for a visit in
a couple of months—God willing and the Devil don’t take me first. If I don’t make it, though, give my apologies
to your mother and father and tell them not to worry about Myrtle’s rambling
letters from long ago. After all, she
was senile and fell right out of a window.
And don’t you worry about that old bully at school, because these things
have a way of working themselves out.
I’ve learned that if you want something badly enough, you’ll get it for
sure.
Hugs and kisses,
Great Aunt Greta
