Page 22 of She’s a Doll

I reached the edge of the sofa and kept moving, wobbling a little now that I no longer had anything to lean against, but not stopping. I couldn’t. At any moment, time could speed up again, and this window of opportunity would snap closed. I had to keep going.

Just like Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary walking up their hill.

Mad. Free. Victorious.

Oxygen deprived.

I smothered that thought before it could take hold and focused on the path ahead, winding between Grandma’s stacks of stuff. When I was human size, this route would’ve been tight but familiar. Now, at thirty centimeters tall, it felt like I was tottering along the dried riverbed in the belly of a canyon, alien and foreboding.

I didn’t have far to go.

The arts-and-crafts box was in the dining room, under the table. There was paper in there, and ink, and⁠—

A sensible brown shoe stepped into view.

I stopped moving, my head flopping back to stare up at Auntie Dawn. She was standing in the doorway wearing a tailored jacket, a new wig, and the pasta brooch I’d made for her when I was four years old. The lines around her face fell slack as she saw me, eyes widening, mouth forming a perfect O.

The shock of it sucked the anger out of my limbs. I teetered, then dropped, limbs splaying gracelessly on the carpet.

“Tiff!”

“Yeah?” My grandma’s voice sounded small through the walls.

“W-where did the doll come from?”

“What doll?”

“It was standing.”

“What doll?” Grandma repeated as I frantically tried to regroup.

Think angry thoughts. Think angry thoughts. Think angry thoughts.

A new pair of feet walked into the room. Dull pink slippers and knitted rainbow socks. Grandma.

“Oh. That’s one from my workroom. Did Cookie have it?”

“It was standing, Tiffany.”

I tried to twist my head, to look up at them. I couldn’t even manage a twitch.

Fingers wrapped around my middle, the ground dropped away with a sickening lurch, and then, in a blur, Grandma appeared, studying me with red-rimmed eyes.

Any chance I had of summoning up my anger died with a sad little sputter.

Grandma looked . . . thin. Her cheeks carved hollow, her eyes sunken, and her hair, normally braided, left to hang limp, frayed, and gray around her jaw. She was wearing her My other pair of shoes are skis shirt, which she’d always loved, even though she’d never even seen snow. It hung too loose off her frame.

“Don’t touch it,” Auntie Dawn said. “It’s filthy.”

“It’s fine,” Grandma muttered as if to herself, gently wiping my plastic blonde hair out of my face. “Just a little dog hair. I’ll clean it. Good as new.”

Her smell engulfed me. Unwashed skin, grilled cheese, and the sharp clash of too many perfumes.

The desperate need to cry was back, like a cluster bomb detonating behind my glass eyes, again and again and again. My stuffing felt like it was going to burst through my chest, my porcelain limbs hung as heavy as lead, and my stitches twisted, tight enough to snap. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and hug her so tight her bones clicked. I wanted to scream and cry and tell her that none of this was her fault. I wanted to be alive again, to be alive and hugging her, to feel her hugging me back.

“Leave the doll,” Auntie Dawn said. “We’re going to be late. You still need to get dressed.”

“I’m not going,” Grandma said.