Doll House

XVIII. Flat Head

 It's an accident that ushers in the beginning of the end. Joshua Clack's hand, grown slippery from the running that's really just fast walking and the agitation, lets go. It doesn't mean to let go and to its credit, it reaches out again almost immediately, hoping to prevent a disaster – if he's fast enough, no one will know how close he was.

Except he is not fast enough. The doll slips from his hand and falls head-first into the tall grass. There is an unmistakable cracking sound that fills the forest for a second. The old man scrambles to one knee and picks the doll up in one trembling hand.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he cries and he is. He didn't mean to drop her, it just happened this way. And though normally quick to assess damage, his fingers hover in the air above Tara's pretty blonde head. Her face isn't cracked, thank God. And it shouldn't be – porcelain doesn't break that easily. And yet something inside her head has broken.

The Overall Man pushes his fingers gently down on the top of her head.

"Does it...?"

He knows the answer, but feels like he should say something.

"Not really. It doesn't feel like anything. It just feels...numb. So numb."

And sure enough, there's a hole, right in the middle of her head – it hadn't been there a moment ago and it hadn't been porcelain – thank Heaven – otherwise her whole head would be going. It wasn't big and it didn't seem to be spreading; it reminded the Overall Man of that part of a baby's head that's really soft and breakable. He used to have proper nightmares about that, when Saul was born, kept thinking he'd touch his head and that his fingers would sink into that soft spot, mash his little brains.

Sort of like they were doing now, with Tara. It was horrid, yet he couldn't quite stop himself. Watching her honey-blonde hair fold in on itself.

"Stop that!"

It was the boy had spoken. He was looking with horrified eyes at the old man's fingers disappearing into the doll's head.

"I'm so sorry," Joshua Clack mumbled again. "I didn't mean to."

"Hey, not to sound unkind or something, but might I just remind you why we're in these woods in the first place? And how we were supposed to be getting out of them?"

He looked down at the teddy bear, sat in the grass – he didn't get it. He could fall a thousand times and not break. And he'd never cared for a child, he didn't know the fear that went with that, the overwhelming certainty you would, sooner or later, do something wrong.

And he had, hadn't he? Sooner, rather that later. And now there was all this talk of another, a child he hadn't even known or wronged, a child who was still alive out there. The old man lost himself, because this was the forest of nightmares, after all, and even though the nightmares had ceased their attack momentarily, there were forces at work inside these woods that were even beyond their power.

"Of course," he said eventually, getting to his feet with great difficulty. The boy picked up the doll and bear and held them up to him. "How are you feeling? Thank you."

"Numb," she says again, her voice shakier this time."Like the lights have gone out inside my head."

"I'm sorry. I promise I'll fix you when we get back."

He gets the sudden urge to clean her face, to scrub away any lingering dirt he might've missed and make her pretty again. He can fix this, what, only a week ago, he made these clothes for her, cleaned her eyes, made her as she should be. He would fix this.

Inside her mind, Tara remembers a moment long ago, seeing Natasha's head shatter against the wall. Not like glass, not turning into a spider-web of broken pieces. Just a few, big chunks falling out of her head. She doesn't remember what was underneath, but she has a dead-certain feeling she saw in there, as they carried Natasha's body out – she saw what was in there, what the Overall Man's fingers had been close to touching inside her own skull. She always thought that when the time came for her to be taken, she didn't want to be like that, didn't want for anyone to see behind her face. And now, they had.