Lucy

12 year old Violet is attached to her favourite doll, Lucy. When her family decides to shift homes, they throw Lucy away. Violet isn't okay with it. Lucy isn't either.

*Her glassy blue eyes shone bright as the LED lights reflected off of them. Her shiny pink dress, with its ruffles and patterns, attracts everyone’s attention as they walk past the dolls aisle. Right now, it had caught the eye of eight year old Violet, who screamed in delight on seeing that her eyes were blinking when she tipped the box backwards. She clutched the box in her chubby little arms and squealed “Daddy, I want her!”.
Her father kneels to see what had caught his little girl’s attention, and seeing a doll as pretty as the one she held, immediately made up his mind to buy it for her.
On hearing that he was buying it for her, she squeals in delight. She had already decided where her pretty doll would sleep, what games they would play, and all the places they would see. *

Violet, now 12 years old, remembered the day she bought Lucy and squirmed under the duvet, feeling her eyes spill with tears. Things were so much better back then, she thinks to herself. She remembers her room back then, the room she bought her new doll into. Surrounded with baby pink curtains and pink wallpaper, Jas always said it looked like a bubblegum exploded in there. Violet loved how it looked, it made her feel very comfortable sitting between her teddies, sharing water in her tea set.
She pulled her duvet from her head and looked around her room. The walls were bare; traces of her pink wallpaper could be seen in the moonlight. She knew that her curtains and fairy lights were all packed and sealed in a box in the living room. Everything was gone. Everything was bare.

It was Jas who had named her beautiful doll. "We should call her Lucy" said the thirteen year Jas in her memory. ‘Cause she definitely looks like her name would be Lucy!' she had advised at the counter while their parents placed all the items in the cart. And the name stuck. Violet thought it fit perfectly for her beautiful doll.

It was the last day her mother had been with them.
She remembered the next day, waking up clutching Lucy to find her father, puffy eyed, sitting in the kitchen alone; Jas hushing her, telling her that Mummy had left their family to be with another one.
She cried for days, wondering if she was the reason Mummy left.

Lucy always told her not to cry, that it wasn’t her fault. It was just the two of them - Violet sobbing into her little palms and Lucy, sitting glassy eyed at her table. Its always been that way, and she thought it would always be.

Jas wondered where her sister was. She was usually an early bird, but today even after it had been 10 am, her sister was no where to be seen.
An hour later, Violet trudged into the kitchen. Her hair and clothes were ruffled and messy. In her hands, she held her old doll.
“What the hell, Violet? I thought we threw Lucy away.”
“She came to me” said Violet, hugging the doll.
“Dad threw her into the dump. I remember. Did you go into the dump? That is disgusting! Eww” she said, wrinkling her nose.
Their father walked in while she was teasing her sister. Seeing Violet holding a doll with mud stains all over, frowned.
“Violet, where did you pick that doll up?”
“Daddy, she came to me”
“I’ve told you, dear. In our new house, you’ll have even prettier dolls. And a new dollhouse. Don’t you want that? If you do, throw away your old things” he said, gently tugging at the doll out of Violet’s hands.
She snatched her doll away. “Daddy, no. She told me that she’ll do bad things to you if you throw her away”
“Okay then, I’ll throw her away” laughed Jas, trying to snatch the doll way.
“NOOOO” Violet screamed, running fom the halls, holding the doll towards her chest.
Jas and her father watched Violet running away - Jas laughing, him frowning. This wasn’t right, he thought to herself.

The next few day were a blur to Violet. The nightmares. The darkness. The pain. All she could hear, all she could see was Lucy, telling her that she loved her. Tellling her to stay.
Her father and Jas noticed the changes in her. They saw the dark circles and the lack of attention, and they thought it was the blues since they were shifting. He bought her chocolates, and tried to prise Lucy away from her arms. It was best to throw away old memories, he’d thought to himself. But she’d scream so loud, he would give up and sigh.
One day, after being fed up of this routine, he decided to get rid of the doll once and for all. He waited for Violet to sleep and gently pulled it out of her clutches. He then threw it into a bonfire at the dump near their house. Right where that dirty doll belongs, he thought to himself. He knew the consequences of what he had done, how his daughter would react. For a few days, he would have to adjust to the constant crying.

As he’d thought, the next morning, Violet was hysterical. “Daddy, she wont spare you for this. She will punish you. Get her back” she kept screaming.
He patted her sympathetically. “I'll tell her to go home. Okay? Now sleep”
She didn't. Jas and her father heard screams all night, hysterical loud screaming, and then it stopped.

At the stroke of midnight, Violet heard a creak of her door, and woke up to the smell of burnt plastic. She switched her lights on and found Lucy at the foot of her bed. Lucy was back!
“You know what punishment I had promised, don't you dearie?”
“Please…. Daddy didn't do anything….. Please don't do anything to him…..” she cried.
“I'm not going to do anything, you are” whispered Lucy.
Violet closed her eyes. She was ready.
*

The police walked in to the hall, after knocking down the main door. The sound of a child crying could be heard coming from the end of the house, just like what the complaint from the neighbours described it to be.
The police followed the voice, flashing a torch around the house.
At the source of the sound, a room, a trail of dark blood was spotted on the floor by one of them.
They walked in to the room and saw a little girl crying, surrounded by two gruesome bleeding bodies of a teenager and a man.
All the girl had in her hands was a doll.
“she made me do it” was all the girl was repeatedly saying, crying.
A doll who seemed to smile at the policemen, its plastic arms drenched in blood.