Doll House

XVI. The House in the Woods

On the other side of the door, there is the shuffling of footsteps. Miss Francine walks slowly. She has not hurried for anything or anyone in over twelve years and she sees no reason to start now. And perhaps it would be better for her if someone were to shout out suddenly, tell her to stop. Do not open the door. If an accident were to happen inside the room upstairs where the children and playing. If someone would call her back and then she'd forget there was every anyone outside their door.

Yet nobody does, so after a brief inspection through the hole in the door, she sighs and opens the door.

As always, the door is not locked, but today more than ever, she will wish she'd come down early in the morning light, turned the key in the door and kept it that way. Because now the door's opened, nothing can save her or the children upstairs.

"Good morning, Miss Francine," the old man says, his eyes clear once more. He is now the Overall Man once again, and was only just now Joshua Clack, but that's put behind him now. He remembers what he came into this forest to do.

Thank God, he has the good sense to hide the doll and the bear at his back, otherwise the old woman would surely think he'd lost his mind.

"Mr Clack, but I haven't called for you."

"Indeed you have not, Miss, but I... I've brought a present for the children. You see, I told you long ago when you first asked that I give the toys away, but I'm afraid that was something of an untruth. I change them, I..." he hesitated, because save them sounded more desperate than he was willing to admit, "... I repair them. Look."

He brought out both toys, one she recognized vaguely, for the sheer amount of anger it had produced her, and the other not at all. The bear, in turn, did not know the old woman to look at her. He had lived here long before her time, when the woman in charge had been kinder. There was once an old woman who lived in a forest and she would've got on really well with the old man, because like him she too had a mission to save little broken things. Children. And she'd loved her children deeply. she'd taught them to wash the dolls' clothes and to sew back buttons where eyes had been lost. But she stayed inside the forest longer than she should have and in the end, the woods ate her up whole.

"That is commendable," Miss Francine said coldly. "But I don't see how that would interest me. Once I've given a toy away, I do not expect it returned, Mr. Clack."

"I can appreciate that, but they're completely new toys now. As good as new, anyway, and I thought maybe they could give the children some joy. I'm sure a kind-hearted woman like you would not deny them that."

The trick was to believe it. They both knew it was a lie, that Miss Francine was not in the slightest a 'kind-hearted woman', but she could be. In his imagination, in her own, for a moment or two. She smiled again and the sight of her yellowing teeth chilled Tara to the bone. Figuratively speaking, of course.

Seeing the old woman was still not convinced, the Overall Man decided to try his luck.

"I thought the girl I met in the woods last week, the one who gave me this doll might be particularly happy to see her again."

"So changed. I'm sure it would cause her quite the surprise."

"Yes. After all, it's the twenty-first century, is it not? I thought the doll could do with a more modern look. Perhaps I could give it to the girl myself?"

And he remembered, too late, what his original story was going to be. It was the woods, they'd confused him, made him forget and show his hand too soon, perhaps.

"I-I've just remembered, my car broke down at the entrance to the forest. I was going to ask you to phone someone for me. A company perhaps, if you know of any, someone who might help take the car away."