A grim fairy tale
for wicked children

The dolls' mouths were opened in silent screams of terror. All of them, staring with wide-eyed dread at the walls; at each other.

Mrs. Morris was horrified. How had they all gotten that way? She didn't remember any of the dolls looking like that when she bought them.

"Dorothy?" Mrs. Morris called to her

granddaughter. "Dorothy, where are you?" When no answer came, Mrs. Morris stepped farther into Dorothy's room.

As the squeaky noises of the huge, old Victorian manor house were muffled by the walls, Mrs. Morris was able to pick up a sound she hadn't noticed before; humming, coming from the closed doors of Dorothy's walk-in closet.

'Dorothy?'� Mrs. Morris called again, walking slowly towards the closet. 'Dorothy, dear, are you in there?'�
The strange humming stopped abruptly and Mrs. Morris reached out for the closet door. The door swung open on silent hinges, revealing young Dorothy kneeling on the floor, surrounded by dolls. All the dolls had that horrid expression on their faces. Small, painted mouths opened in O's of terror.

'Hello, Grammy,'� Dorothy said cheerily, looking up. She quickly put both her hands behind her back, hiding what she was holding. 'Were you looking for me, Grammy?'� she asked sweetly.

Mrs. Morris looked around the small room and pursed her lips together tightly to keep a sound of disapproval from escaping. All of Dorothy's clothes and shoes were pressed against the back wall, crammed into a small space to keep the rest of the shelves free for the storage of Dorothy's twisted projects.

The shelves were covered with dismembered dolls. Everything from arm amputations to beheadings. There was even a tiny guillotine, the headless body of a doll and its terror stricken head lying beneath it. Mrs. Morris certainly hadn't bought that.

'Ah, yes, dear. I was looking for you. And, Dorothy, what have you got behind your back?'� Mrs. Morris asked.
'Behind my back?'� Dorothy repeated. 'Why, nothing, Grammy,'� she said. She drew out her empty hands and showed them to her grandmother.

Mrs. Morris thought about demanding that Dorothy show her what she'd been hiding, then looked again at the horrified faces of Dorothy's many dolls and changed her mind. Their tiny glass eyes seemed to scream, 'Leave! Leave this place!'� A silent warning that Mrs. Morris was more than happy to heed.

'All right then. I was just coming to tell you dinner is ready if you're hungry. It's beef stew and biscuits. There's milk in the refrigerator.'� Mrs. Morris turned to leave, then thought better of it and turned around. 'And, Dorothy? Why do all your dolls have that look on their faces?'�

Something strange and dangerous flashed in Dorothy's dark eyes and then was gone. 'What look, Grammy?'� Dorothy asked innocently.

'Why, that look of...'� Mrs. Morris's words trailed off as she looked around. All the dolls faces were back to normal.

#

Dorothy discarded her practiced look of innocence as her grandmother left her room. She stood up and snatched the sharp little scalpel she'd stolen from her grandfather's doctor's bag off the floor, waving it threateningly at the small faces surrounding her.

'You were trying to talk to her, weren't you?'� she accused the dolls, holding the scalpel out and pointing it at each of them as she turned in a slow circle. 'Weren't you!'� Dorothy collected herself, straightening and lowering the scalpel to her side. 'It doesn't really matter,'� she went on. She brushed an imaginary piece of lint from her pale pink dress. 'Doesn't really matter at all. She'll never believe she saw what she thinks she saw. Never!'�
With those final words, Dorothy stomped out of the closet and locked the doors behind her, the scalpel still in her hand.

'What are you looking at?'� she demanded of the dolls lined up on the long shelves running the length of her bedroom walls. Each of the little faces was contorted in a look of terror. 'What!'� she screamed at them, storming about the room, the scalpel clutched in her hand. When next she looked at them, they had their small hands held up before them, as if trying to fend her off.

'Fools!'� she cried merrily. 'Fools, the whole lot of you!'� She walked up to a large, beautiful porcelain doll seated in a rocking chair near her window. Dorothy, being the wicked child that she was, viciously smacked the doll across the face, knocking it to the floor.

With a look of triumph on her thin face, Dorothy seated herself with the grace of a queen in the rocking chair and glared haughtily at her helpless subjects. An evil grin twisted her small features and she rocked in the chair, hands folded over the scalpel that she now held in her lap. 'If you think Grammy shall save you, any of you, you're wrong. She doesn't understand, and she would never believe it in any case. You are all going to stay with me forever.'�

A low moan seemed to come from the dolls and the pretty lace curtains over the windows fluttered in a phantom wind. Dorothy threw back her head and laughed. 'Fools!'� she cried again.

The moaning erupted into an angry roar. The windows rattled in their casing. The curtains flared and whipped as if caught in a storm. The dolls shook on their shelves, the look of terror on their faces turning to one of anger.

Dorothy flung herself from the rocking chair and picked up the porcelain doll she'd knocked to the floor. She held the scalpel to the pretty doll's throat where the soft body met the porcelain neck. 'Stop it!'� she screamed. 'Stop that right now or... or... or I'll slice off her head! I'll slice it off and break it into dust! Do you hear me! Stop it now!'�

The roar turned back to a moan. The windows stopped rattling. The dolls stopped shaking. The curtains became still. Dorothy smirked triumphantly and flung the doll back into the rocking chair. She went to her jewelry box and locked the scalpel inside with a little key that hung on a chain around her neck.

'That's more like it,'� she said as she locked the box. 'You all would do well to remember who is the boss here.'� She turned to look at them all, the smirk still on her face. 'You would all do well to remember.'�

Then she tossed her long, straight black hair back over her shoulder and skipped out of the room, humming a tune under her breath that meant there would be a punishment in store for them when she came back.

#

Dorothy met her grandmother as she was coming down the stairs. 'Dorothy! What was all that racket coming from your room?'� she demanded from the girl.

'Racket? Oh! You mean me stomping around my room, Grammy? Why, I was just playing that I was queen and that the dolls were my subjects. I do suppose I got a bit carried away with my ordering and demanding, didn't I?'� Dorothy made her dark brown eyes go as round as she could and twisted a lock of black hair around her fingers.

Mrs. Morris frowned thoughtfully and stared up at Dorothy's closed bedroom door for a moment. Then she looked back down at her granddaughter and smiled slightly. 'All right then. I just heard all that noise and got worried is all. Are you coming down to dinner?'�
'You know I love stew and biscuits. Of course I'm coming, Grammy.'� Dorothy smiled sweetly, once again twirling her hair around her fingers.

'Good. Very good. Come along then, child,'� Mrs. Morris said and turned on the stairs, leading the girl to the dining room.

A pretty gray cat sat at the entrance of the dining room, cleaning his white paws with delicate licks of his pink tongue. As Dorothy got close, the cat looked up from his grooming, green eyes going wide and then narrow. He stood and arched his back, soft gray fur standing on end as an angry hiss of warning left his mouth. He bared his teeth menacingly.

'Hsst!'� Dorothy hissed back, stomping her foot at the cat and sending it scurrying for cover in the living room.

'Leave the cat be, Dorothy,'� Mrs. Morris ordered as she ushered Dorothy into the dining room. 'Leave him be and he'll let you be, young lady.'�

'Yes, Grammy,'� Dorothy said petulantly and then hurried to the table, seating herself before her plate at her usual spot.

Mrs. Morris dished stew into three bowls and set one before Mr. Morris, one before Dorothy, and then one at her own place at the table before seating herself. 'Dorothy, would you say grace?'�

Dorothy folded her hands together and clenched her eyes shut. It was hard to concentrate because all she wanted was to eat her food, which she could smell steaming up into her flaring nostrils. 'Our Lord, in Heaven, thank you for this food which you have provided. Thank you for all the things you give us, and thank you for each other. Please bless this food to our bodies so that we may stay healthy and live to better know you. Amen.'�

'Amen,'� Mr. and Mrs. Morris said in unison at the ending of Dorothy's prayer.

'That was a lovely prayer, Dorothy,'� Mr. Morris said. 'Would you like a biscuit?'�

'Yes, please, Granpapa.'�

'Would you like some butter on it, then?'�

'Yes, please, Granpapa.'�

Mr. Morris took a steaming biscuit from the covered basket and cut it in two with his butter knife. He cut a wedge of butter off the cube and pressed it between the two halves before passing it to Dorothy.

Dorothy dipped a half in her stew, blew on it, and took a bite. 'This is lovely, Grammy,'� she said after she'd swallowed. She was always careful to use perfect manners at the dining table. 'Thank you.'�

'You're welcome, Dorothy. How was school today?'�

'It was fine. But someone did something to Mr. Peterson's coffee this morning and he was so sick that he had to leave. The principal came to our classroom, but no one would fess up. We all had to miss recess because of it.'� Dorothy was careful to sound thoroughly disgusted with the mystery child's behavior, even though it had secretly been her that slipped the medicine into Mr. Peterson's coffee. She'd dropped in a few of her grandfather's pills that he took when something he ate didn't agree with him. Grammy said it made you go the bathroom, but if you took too many it would make you go the bathroom and throw up too. The way Mr. Peterson's face had turned white and then green about twenty minutes after he drank his coffee had been proof enough for Dorothy that Grammy hadn't been fibbing to her about the pills.

'That's horrible! But who took over your class when Mr. Peterson went home?'� Mr. Morris said.

'The principal, Mr. Grundy. He's a little friendlier than Mr. Peterson, so it wasn't all bad,'� Dorothy answered and quickly shoveled another bite of stew into her mouth so she couldn't answer any more questions.

Dorothy ate quickly, but tried hard to make it look like she wasn't in a hurry. She didn't want her grandparents to pry too much more because then she might make a slip and tell the truth about Mr. Peterson. Then she'd be in trouble. So she finished her dinner and asked to be excused.

'Yes, you may be excused, Dorothy. But I'll be up to your room in an hour, so be ready for bed by then. Do you understand?'�

'Yes, Grammy. I'll be ready by then. Goodnight, Granpapa!'� she called and rushed up the stairs, scaring the poor cat on her way.

#

The dolls were waiting for her, their faces fixed in stares of fear. 'I'm not going to punish any of you this time,'� Dorothy said in way of greeting. The tiny porcelain and plastic faces held their expressions of terror. 'No, not this time. But it had better not happen again.'�

Dorothy went to her bed and opened one of the drawers built in to the underneath part. She pulled out a large wooden box and laid it on the floor by her skinny knees. She unclamped the fasteners on the box and flipped open the lid. Inside there were bits of string and rope; pieces of wood she'd collected; nails; a small hammer. Different odds and ends she'd gathered sat in the box, waiting for her.

Dorothy carefully selected the items she would need. Then she pulled a thick book out of the bottom of the box. Devices of Torture and Execution in Medieval Times the book was titled. Dorothy opened the book to the page she'd marked earlier. She'd found the book at the library in town and had stuffed it in her satchel without checking it out. She didn't want to have to bring it back. Now she had the thick volume opened up to the page that diagramed and explained a frightening looking device called The Rack. Dorothy always thought of the devices in capitol letters; they were that important to her.

Dorothy laid out a good sized piece of rectangular wood. It was thin and sturdy and she carefully nailed legs onto it so that it sat at an angle. Then she nailed thin strips of wood about two inches high all around the edge.
She took out a little hand drill and drilled four holes into the pieces after they were nailed and inserted small wooden dowels into the holes so they laid crosswise at either end of the board. Then she tied heavy twine to both dowels; two pieces to each.

She fixed a smaller bit onto the hand drill and drilled holes through both ends of each of the dowels where they stuck out of the rectangular section. She slid long thin nails through the holes and then stood back to examine her handy work. She'd built a miniature rack. Oh, she thought happily, clapping her hands together. The dolls were just going to love this!

The dolls sat on their shelves, their faces reflecting the terror they felt.

#

'Mrs. Morris, I realize this must be difficult. I hate telling any concerned parent that I believe their child is having trouble.'� Mr. Grundy's elbows rested on his desk top and his fingers were steepled together. He pulled them apart and tapped them back together occasionally. Pinky to thumb, thumb to pinky. Mrs. Morris tried not to stare when he did it.

'Granddaughter, Mr. Grundy. Dorothy is my granddaughter,'� she corrected the younger man, smoothing imaginary wrinkles from her skirt.

'Yes, yes, of course. I realize that, but you are her guardian now that her parents have passed. Am I correct?'�

'Yes. That's right. Dorothy's parents died in a fire about three years ago. The little dear was only four years old. She's been with Mr. Morris and myself since then.'� Mrs. Morris didn't mention that she suspected Dorothy was responsible for the terrible blaze that had claimed the lives of her parents and had burnt their home to the ground all those years ago.

'Back to the matter at hand, Mrs. Morris, I believe Dorothy may be responsible for Mr. Peterson's violent illness yesterday. Mr. Peterson mentioned the girl had been near his desk when class started and had stuffed her hands into her sweater pockets before hurrying to her table. He hadn't thought anything of it until he was bent over the toilet.'� Mr. Grundy felt almost guilty for his frank words when Mrs. Morris frowned disapprovingly at the mention of the toilet, her eyes narrowing.

'Dorothy has always gotten good marks in school. She's never been in any real trouble,'� Mrs. Morris reminded him, folding her hands primly in her lap.

'I know that, Mrs. Morris, but Dorothy has been known for some abnormal behavior in the past as well. Other children refuse to allow her near their toys and animals act strangely around her. Children accuse her of hurting their dolls and she talks about torture like another child might talk about an outing to the zoo or eating candy.'� Mr. Gundy tapped his fingers together. 'Do you notice any strange behavior in Dorothy at home?'�

Mrs. Morris thought of the dismembered dolls. Their tortured faces. The tiny guillotine she hadn't bought. She thought of telling Mr. Gundy about all those things. 'No,'� she said finally, unsure why she lied. 'No unusual behavior at all.'�

#

The key was gone, and so was the scalpel. Her anger was like a furious storm that ripped through the room in pealing shrieks of terror inducing hate.

'Which one of you took it!'� Dorothy screeched. Her voice beat against the dolls like hammers and they shook on their shelves, mouths going wide, hands raising in defense. 'Which one of you dirty heathens took my things!'� she demanded.

Dorothy flung open the doors of her closet and stared at the dolls that had already paid the price for disobedience. She stalked to the guillotine and plucked up the head of the doll lying there. It has been a beautiful little porcelain doll with a head of curly red hair and pretty green eyes. The little pink mouth had been painted in a sweet smile when Mrs. Morris had given the doll to Dorothy, but now it was contorted. Twisted into an O of horror and the wide green eyes screamed a silent plea for help, for the doll couldn't speak. Her soft body had held the power of voice, and now, without the connection, she was silent.

Dorothy stepped into the main room, holding the doll's head aloft by its soft red hair and shaking it violently. 'Do you want this to be you?'� she questioned, shaking the head so that it bounced against her knuckles. 'Do you? I shall crush you all!'� And she hurled the tiny head against the wall, shattering it into a million pieces all over the floor.

A high wailing came from the dolls. The room came to life as the anger and fear the dolls felt became a living thing. The blankets were thrown from the bed. The curtains whipped about so furiously that they came loose from the curtain rod and shredded themselves from it. The windows shook and rattled as if they too would break loose and shatter.

The wailing became a shriek and Dorothy dropped to her knees, covering her ears. 'No!'� she cried. 'No! Stop this! Stop this at once! I order you! I shall punish you all!'�

The storm continued, becoming so violent that Dorothy began to scream and wail along with the dolls. Her hair whipped about her face and she cried.

'Stop!'� she screamed again and again. 'Please stop!'�

Suddenly the storm stopped. Dorothy sat with her hands over her ears and her eyes clenched shut for a long moment, her breath coming in ragged sobs. When she dared to open her eyes and look up the dolls were gathered around her, and they grinned at her with terrible intent.
The big doll that she'd so carefully tied to her miniature Rack sat directly in front of her. The big doll that usually sat in the rocking chair. The doll that had belonged to her mother.

'You,'� she whispered to the doll. 'This is your doing.'�

Anger surged up in Dorothy and she reached out to crush the doll with her hands, but the doll just grinned at her. It held the scalpel in its hand and had the chain with its key around its neck.

With a grin that screamed revenge, the doll opened its mouth wide. So wide that Dorothy felt sure that its beautiful porcelain head would split in two. But it just opened wider and wider and then, when it could open no more, the doll began to shriek. It shrieked louder, louder, louder, until Dorothy once again covered her ears and clenched her eyes shut.

Higher and higher, louder and louder, the doll shrieked. Dorothy could hear it in her head, ringing, and then the other dolls joined in, shrieking in unison.

Dorothy screamed, feeling her ear drums pulse and shudder under the onslaught. She couldn't stand anymore. Wicked Dorothy cracked.

#

'Only seven years old,'� she heard someone say, but it didn't make any sense. Nothing made any sense.

'What's the matter with her?'�

'Dunno. They found her in her room, surrounded by her dolls. I'm telling you, the child is twisted. She had all these little torture devices she'd made for them. It was like the Tower of London, it was.'�

'And? Why's she like this now?'�

'I think they got her back. That's how they found her, surrounded by them on the floor. She was shrieking and repeating, 'The dolls! They're getting me back! The dolls!''� The man shook his head. 'You can't treat toys that way. Something happens to them, it does.'�

The other man nodded and checked the straps. 'Do you think she'll ever come out of it?'� he asked.

The first man shook his head. 'No. I doubt it. I have a feeling Miss Dorothy here will be with us a good long time.'�

'I almost feel sorry for the little chit,' said the second man. He lifted her into the back of the van and secured her to one of the padded walls by the straps on the stiff, white straight jacket. Dorothy hadn't realized straight jackets came in such small sizes.

'Do you think we should bring one of her dolls along?'�

Dorothy blinked and looked up. Doll? 'No!'� she wailed and shrank back into herself.

The dolls watched from the window as Dorothy was driven away. They watched and were happy.

FINIS

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