There's a toy shop on the outskirts of town run by an elderly couple out of their front room. I suppose that having a five storey bakery-turned-house has its perks, what with two underground floors, built in ovens the size of a small car and a rumoured road running down to the river. If asked, the couple will say they make and sell children's toys for fun, both living quite comfortably from a tidy retirement fund and both seemingly normal enough.
Playground stories say that there's a dollhouse for every child around on the lowest floor, the one that leads out to the riverside. It's commonly agreed that there are several key phrases you need to say before the couple give you your dollhouse, the one they made just for you that contains something vital to your life. In some stories the children say that whatever is inside will let you live forever, never ageing and never getting sick while others say that opening any of the doors will show you a possible future.
I remember when my cousin was given my dollhouse. I knew it was mine - I could feel that somehow every inch of it knew me too. It was five weeks before my cousin admitted that she knew it was meant to be mine too but she'd wanted to know if she could see my future through the doors.
There aren't words for the anger that coursed through my body, it was beyond my seven years, beyond anything I've ever felt since. How dare she try to look at my future, how dare she! I did what any child would have done, being so full of emotions too strong for me to know what else to do with.
I lashed out.
And then I hid my mistake where nobody would think to look for quite some time.
It was almost five days before they found her broken body, curled up tightly inside the dollhouse - my dollhouse.
Playground stories say that there's a dollhouse for every child around on the lowest floor, the one that leads out to the riverside. It's commonly agreed that there are several key phrases you need to say before the couple give you your dollhouse, the one they made just for you that contains something vital to your life. In some stories the children say that whatever is inside will let you live forever, never ageing and never getting sick while others say that opening any of the doors will show you a possible future.
I remember when my cousin was given my dollhouse. I knew it was mine - I could feel that somehow every inch of it knew me too. It was five weeks before my cousin admitted that she knew it was meant to be mine too but she'd wanted to know if she could see my future through the doors.
There aren't words for the anger that coursed through my body, it was beyond my seven years, beyond anything I've ever felt since. How dare she try to look at my future, how dare she! I did what any child would have done, being so full of emotions too strong for me to know what else to do with.
I lashed out.
And then I hid my mistake where nobody would think to look for quite some time.
It was almost five days before they found her broken body, curled up tightly inside the dollhouse - my dollhouse.
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