Page 11

10

Helpless

Gwendoly.

..n...

T he rest of Gwendolyn’s closing shift was normal.

So normal that Gwendolyn zoned out sometime around five in the afternoon.

A sugar crash, perhaps.

With the upcoming holiday, business had started to wind down.

She spent the early evening running abandoned items back to their proper aisles.

Pushing the rickety, old shopping carts down aisles with the singular purpose of dragging out the time for as long as she could.

She stopped in fabrics on the way back, searching the scrap bin for material she needed for the doll.

The fabric was always a bit hit or miss, but Gwendolyn was successful in finding the diamond pattern she wanted.

Her head was filled with the soon-to-be made doll waiting for her at home.

At eight, Gwendolyn exited the front door with George, her closing manager.

He was a little too perky for her liking, but George was one of the few people at work who at least respected her need for quiet.

She said the usual goodbye—insisting that he didn’t need to walk her to the bus stop, as it was right across the street—and said a firmer goodbye.

“The sun is still out, it’s fine,” she said as she waved, feet already moving.

The bus ride home was also incredibly normal.

No awkward stares from men who didn’t know how to talk or be around women.

No bored teens and no crying babies.

Gwendolyn exited the bus with thirty minutes of sun left on the horizon.

She walked past a group of kids playing with sparklers in the parking lot, and hoped they wouldn’t set any of the apartments on fire as she entered the building.

Even the elevator was normal and blissfully empty when Gwendolyn got in.

Quiet, ordinary, and with zero signs of any blue backed spiders as she exited onto her floor.

Both her neighbor and the package were gone, but Gwendolyn still cautiously looked over her shoulder as she entered her apartment.

She flicked on the lights, hung her purse, and removed her shoes.

A TV dinner of macaroni and cheese went into the microwave before Gwendolyn stripped down in front of her washer.

She dumped her clothes, rubbed her poor shoulders, and shrugged on the replacement sleeping shirt from her closet.

She undid her signature braid, shaking her wavy hair free with a sigh.

Gwendolyn would wait for her dinner to finish cooking, scarf it down, and then get straight to work.

She had the next day off, which meant the temptation of a late work night was calling her name.

After all, her dolls wouldn’t just make themselves.

All perfectly normal …

And yet Gwendolyn couldn’t shake the eerie feeling in the air.

She watched her dinner make its final rotation inside the microwave.

The hum only temporarily muffled the sounds of her upstairs neighbors’ still criminally boring sex.

Everything was normal for what her life was, but somehow, Gwendolyn felt like something was just …

off.

The feeling stayed throughout her dinner, and lingered after she made a cup of coffee.

Gwendolyn was so preoccupied with her thoughts, she mistakenly sipped her drink too soon.

The hot liquid burned her tongue, causing Gwendolyn to spit it into the nearby sink.

“Ow, ow, ow,” she groaned as she opened the freezer.

Gwendolyn cursed when she realized she had forgotten to refill her ice tray.

In a moment of desperation, she opened a bag of frozen peas and popped a handful of them into her mouth.

Her tongue wasn’t happy with her attempts to soothe the pain as the awful taste of freezer burn exploded along her taste buds.

This is ridiculous, you accident prone bitch, Gwendolyn thought tiredly.

She spat the lukewarm peas into the garbage and filled her ice tray with shame.

By the time her coffee was cool enough to drink, the fireworks were shooting into the air.

An exploding irritation that would soon become white noise.

“Okay, Gwen,” she said, newly acquired fabric in one hand and her coffee mug in the other.

“Let’s go make a doll.”

When she came around the corner, her dolls were facing the balcony as they always did.

Gwendolyn stared. Had she made up seeing the doll heads move that morning?

The longer Gwendolyn thought on it, the less she was certain she had seen them move at all .

It must have been a dream.

The Maddie Doll was still where Gwendolyn left her.

Bald headed and with no face, laying on her work station next to her drawing pad.

Gwendolyn set her coffee down, turned on her work station light, and got to work.

The process once she stripped a doll was different depending on the doll.

Sometimes Gwendolyn liked to start with the hair, and others, she’d start with the outfit.

Tonight was more about the outfit, specifically the diamond pattern fabric she had bought.

It was the only piece she needed to complete the design, and Gwendolyn was determined to get more of the doll completed before the Fourth of July.

With the aid of several old doll patterns, Gwendolyn fashioned a cropped, long sleeve jacket with puffy sleeves.

The lapel was dramatic and high, with pink buttons over a black fabric.

The diamond material was converted into a bodysuit with a cute peekaboo heart for the chest. Gwendolyn planned on sewing gold thread around the heart.

Gwendolyn set the patterns and pinned pieces next to her sewing machine.

She still had several other pieces to cut and pin, but at least it was a good start.

She set up her sewing machine and made quick work of stitching the two pieces.

Gwendolyn would have to hand sew the more delicate details later.

Doll making looked cute from the outside, but the intricate detailing involved usually came at the cost of her hands.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t do other things, though.

Gwendolyn retrieved the hair she had set aside while waiting for her second cup of coffee, making sure to wait a whole thirty minutes before drinking this one.

Her tongue still stung, but the extra caffeine got her through several rows of hair.

Plugging each of the strands into the doll was meticulous and slow, but there was something soothing about it.

Gwendolyn didn’t even notice when she finally succumbed to exhaustion at her desk…

And her nightmares were there to welcome her with several arms and a hot, insistent tongue.

The first thing Gwendolyn saw when she woke the next day was her dolls.

They were still facing the balcony, all exactly as she left them the night before.

The same lovely rainbow that she saw every day.

“Morning,” she croaked, voice stiff.

Her tongue wasn’t doing much better.

It was tender in her mouth and she hissed as she ran it across one of her canines to test the damage.

She’d really messed up the night before.

Gwendolyn realized in her blurry state that she had fallen asleep at her work desk again.

She tried not to make a habit of it, but Gwendolyn often forgot about time when she was working.

Heavy hands rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

Dried tears fell from her face.

She had forgotten to take allergy medicine last night.

The nasty flavor in the back of her throat was an indicator that she had most likely been snoring, because she couldn’t breathe through her nose.

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Okay, okay, let’s start this day.”

Preparing herself for the incoming body pinches, Gwendolyn straightened in her chair.

Her back protested— a lot.

A sharp pain between her shoulder blades.

Her chest wasn’t faring any better.

There was a hard line across her chest, where all her weight had pressed into the table.

Luckily my nipples are okay, Gwendolyn sighed.

Leaning back in her chair, she raised her arms above her head and stretched.

Gwendolyn quickly came to the conclusion that she would be taking as much pain reliever as she could.

The sharp ache between her shoulder blades was also in her lower back.

“Why do I do this to myself?” she sighed as she looked up at the ceiling.

Then Gwendolyn frowned as something came into her vision.

Above her head hung thin wisps of string?

Gwendolyn squinted, it was close to her face.

Is that … doll hair?

Gwendolyn frowned, reaching for her forehead.

She pinched the strands of pink between her fingers and pulled—

“Ow!”

—and immediately let go.

What the…

Sitting up, Gwendolyn reached up again.

Instead of yanking as she had before, she slowly gathered the doll hair and followed the strand down.

Gwendolyn saw the pink—though it was fuzzy so close to her eye—and she delicately pulled again.

Her eyes widened as she felt the hair pull at her scalp and she dropped her hand again.

Apprehensively, Gwendolyn slowly lowered her gaze toward her lap.

It was impossible for her eyes to grow any wider as she stared in shock at the clumps of dusty rose pink doll hair in her lap.

Her hands grew clammy as she helplessly touched the doll hair.

Only, Gwendolyn realized it couldn’t be doll hair.

There was too much, it was too long, and more importantly, it felt human.

Gwendolyn had a small supply of human hair made for dolls.

It was ideal for creating unique hairstyles but—

She remembered now that she had left her hair down last night instead of a messy bun.

Gwendolyn reached up, hands shaking as she touched the hair on her head.

What Gwendolyn felt was a mess.

A good portion of it was missing, save for one section along her back.

The rest was all jagged edges and rough cuts and—

Gwendolyn darted from the chair.

She didn’t stop until she came face to face with her own reflection in her bathroom, wincing on the way in after she slammed her pinkie toe in the door frame.

Her stomach dropped as she stared open-mouthed at the mirror.

Her hair … her hair was …

Gwendolyn swallowed hard, hands reaching up to touch her hair.

Despite her hopes, the dusty rose pink color was in fact her hair.

Not a wig, not some of the dolls hair that had transferred and clung to her hair.

No, this was her hair.

A sound escaped her open mouth.

It sounded a lot like the exhale of a dying goose as Gwendolyn started frantically running her hands through her hair.

It wasn’t enough that it was such an attention grabbing color.

No, it was also completely fucked.

The longest piece was at the back, cut only between her shoulders.

The shortest side—outside of her brand-new bangs— was on the right side of her face.

“ Mother fucker! ” she cried in outrage.

Gwendolyn knew she would have to cut the rest of her hair at that length.

If only to make some sense of whatever was happening with her hair.

She felt sick, shaking as her fingers continued to run through her hair.

How the fuck did this happen?

Why did this happen?

Thoughts scrambled in her head like eggs in a frying pan, but she couldn’t hold still long enough to stop them.

Gwendolyn opened the top drawer of her bathroom sink and retrieved a pair of scissors.

If she couldn’t think, Gwendolyn would act.

She only used the scissors she kept in the bathroom to trim the split ends, since her last hair stylist had moved.

Gwendolyn didn’t want a new one, she liked her old stylist just fine.

That was over seven years ago, and now Gwendolyn was dividing her hair to do a home cut on the fly.

I have to go OUTSIDE like this!

What are people going to think?

What’s my work going to think?

!

Gwendolyn sincerely doubted her conservative employers would appreciate her new hair.

Although, even in the chaos of cutting the longer strands, a small part of Gwendolyn was shamefully delighted.

She loved pink. She had always loved it, but pink was a color associated with shame.

A color that boys had teased her for, and even some girls.

Gwendolyn had dolls that were pink, had a few mugs with small hints of pink, but Gwendolyn didn’t wear pink.

“Okay, okay, okay…” she murmured to herself.

She felt way too hot.

Sweat had broken out along her back, her armpits drenched as she continued to carefully cut the jagged pieces of hair into something that resembled a normal haircut.

By the time her hair was mostly the same length, Gwendolyn didn’t recognize the woman in the mirror.

She had to layer it a bit, but overall, it was a sharply shaped bob.

The natural waves, gave it a bit of volume and her bangs were just above her eyebrows— fuck.

Even her eyebrows were pink!

She had to do a double take to make sure her eyelashes weren’t pink, and she felt momentary relief that they weren’t.

“Oh, no…” Gwendolyn murmured, apprehension raising as she stared at the area where her mound was under her shirt .

I swear to fucking hell, if this is some magical anime girl bullshit, I will destroy my apartment!

Gwendolyn pulled her underwear away and sighed in relief.

Same black, wiry hair.

A win for her, she supposed.

Wait, what was she doing?

She shook her head, dropping her shirt to look at herself in the mirror again.

“Your hair is pink,” Gwendolyn told herself in the mirror.

“It’s pink, and you have no fucking idea how— wait! ”

The doll.

Its hair had fallen off—its dusty rose pink hair had fallen off when Gwendolyn had picked it up.

Memories replayed all the weird things that had started ever since bringing the doll home from that antique store and—

But I can guarantee that if you were to take this doll home, it will change your life…

Gwendolyn stared at her own amber eyes for a long moment.

When the blue backed spider crept along the mirror, only one thought crossed her mind. You liar.