Dolly's Head

Erin and Liza were picking apples one chilly, autumn day. They were way in the back of the orchard, where the apple trees were taller and where the dark, dense trees of the forest met the wide-spaced rows of the fruit trees.

The woods were mysterious, even in the bright midday sun, but nevertheless Liza and Erin felt drawn to them. The branches seemed to be open arms, inviting them in. They set down their baskets full of apples, and walked hesitantly into the shadowy edge of the woods where the sunlight seemed reluctant to follow.

Just as they stepped onto the mossy, damp ground they heard a young girl giggling. Liza thought she heard it to her left, but Erin thought she heard it coming from her right. They took a few steps away from each other, trying to locate the source of the giggling, but the further into the woods they looked, they only saw more trees and leaves, and less sky and sunlight.

When they turned back towards each other, though, they saw a young girl standing between them. Where had she come from? She certainly wasn’t standing there a moment ago, but maybe she made the giggling sound they had heard. Or was it crying? The little girl didn’t look very happy.

She was a small, thin girl, and she was out in the woods walking around barefoot. In her hand, she had what looked like a decapitated baby doll. She looked at Erin and then she looked at Liza, and then she hung her head down and said, just barely loud enough to hear, “Will you help me find my Dolly’s head?”

Before they could answer, she started walking away form them. For a small, barefoot girl, she walked fairly quickly though the woods -- and maybe it was just the way the leaves overhead played with the light -- but she seemed, now and then, to fade away a little bit as she led Erin and Liza deeper into the trees.

“Are you lost?” asked Erin. “Are you sure you’re taking us in the right direction?” The little girl just kept walking.

“Where are your parents?” Liza wanted to know. “How long have you been out here alone?” This made the little girl pause for a moment.

She looked back at Liza, then at Erin. She smiled a little bit, as if to reassure them they’d be okay, and then said, “My shoes are near Dolly’s head, I think,” and she turned away again and started walking down a sloping bank to a small stream.

The bank of the stream got surprisingly steep, and as they all walked along at the bottom of it the woods seemed to get darker and darker, as if it was much later in the evening. The little girl said, “My Dolly promised to always watch over me. We agreed to protect each other forever, no matter what. But I get so cold when it snows ... I don’t like winter at all.”

Liza felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Something was wrong. Erin felt it, too, and almost simultaneously they both stopped. But the little girl took a few more steps away from them and crouched down near a dark overhang -- it was almost a cave. “Don’t go in there,” Liza said.

Erin stepped toward the girl to try to stop her, but she seemed to dissolve right in front of them, whispEring one more time, “I don’t like winter at all.” And then she was gone.

Liza and Erin looked at each other, they were both scared of what they’d seen, and they were also both aware of just how far into the woods they’d been led by the little girl. Erin knelt down and looked into the little hollow opening that cut into the hillside. It was a covered grotto, about the size of a child’s room.

Growing in the center of the grotto was an oak tree. Despite having no direct sunlight, the tree seemed determined to flourish, and it had several branches pressing on the ceiling of the cavern, like hands holding the ground from collapsing.

Erin and Liza almost had to crawl to get close to the tree, but for some reason they both felt they needed to see what was in this wee little cave. Up in the crook of one of the tree branches something Liza’s eye. It was a ball or maybe a rolled up piece of fabric, with a black button sewn to it.

Erin saw it too, and slowly -- so slowly -- reached up to touch it. She couldn’t dislodge it from the branch, but she could see that there were two buttons, like little shiny eyes, staring down at the floor toward the back of the cavern.

“My Dolly promised to always watch over me,” the little girl had said. Liza followed Erin’s gaze and stepped toward the back of the cavern where a familiar shape caught her eye. It looked the silver buckle of a girls’ black shoe. She knelt down and pushed some old, dried leaves aside and saw another shoe next to it, as though a young girl had taken them off before climbing into bed.

Erin and Liza backed out of the grotto and ran back through the woods as fast as they could. They were surprised at how close to the apple orchard they still were -- it had just felt like they‘d gone so deep into the woods. Maybe the little girl led them along the same winding path she had taken when she got lost.

They were able to lead the police right to the cavern. The little girl they found in the back, by her shoes, had gone missing more than fifty years ago in the middle of winter. Her name was Ivory. Her house had caught fire one night and when she ran away to find help she must have got lost in the woods.

The police were able to gently remove the girl so she could be laid to rest properly, and Erin and Liza asked the officer in charge if he would please leave the rag doll’s head where it was. So it could always watch over where little Ivory had slept that cold winter’s night.

As they left the little grotto for the last time, Liza and Erin both heard a small sigh.

“Thank you,” it seemed to say, and a warm breeze hugged them on their walk back to the orchard.