The Hand That Held the Doll

When I was four, in the autumn of 1987, my family lived in a cramped apartment above a laundromat called Suds & Scents. My room was a converted pantry, its walls the color of stale oatmeal, with a single window that overlooked a sickly elm tree. I spent most of my afternoons on the floor, orchestrating elaborate tea parties for my plastic dolls, their painted smiles a comfort against the humming of the dryers below.

One gray afternoon, as I maneuvered a doll named Beatrice into a tutu, a prickling sensation crawled up my neck. My head swiveled to the right, toward the closet door, which stood slightly ajar. I didn’t want to look, but my gaze was yanked there like a fish hooked on a line. Inside the darkness, a boy was crouched. He was maybe six, with hair that stuck up in wild, tangled spikes, and his clothes were strangely neat—a red striped shirt and corduroy pants, free of the dust that should have coated them from a hasty hiding. He stared at me, unblinking, his eyes too wide, the whites glistening. Then he blinked, and the door was shut.

I told my mother, of course, pointing at the closet. She opened it, shoved aside the shoe boxes and winter coats, and showed me there was nothing but the back wall painted a fading blue. ‘Don’t make up stories,’ she said, her voice weary from a double shift. But I knew what I saw.

Two days later, I was walking with my best friend, Lila, to the corner store for penny candies. We swung a woven basket between us, our dolls inside—mine was Beatrice, hers was Suzie. As we passed the row of mailboxes, something seized the right side of my body. My head turned, my shoulder dipped, and my hand uncurled from the basket’s handle. The boy was there, walking beside me, his small fingers slipping into my palm. He felt eerily solid, cold as a wind off the bay. His hand curled around my doll’s leg, too, because my hand was still clenched, knuckles white. Lila didn’t seem to notice; she chattered on about her cat. I tried to pull away, but my arm was lead. We walked three blocks like that, the boy not saying a word, his face a mask. At the store, he vanished, leaving only a cold ring around my wrist.

I didn’t see him again for months, but I heard him. Every night, from my closet, came a scratching, like small claws dragging across the wood. I’d lie in my bed, my eyes fixed on the slatted door, and the sound would creep out, rhythmic, patient. My mother said it was mice. I knew better.

When I turned five, we moved across town to a house with a real backyard, and I left the closet behind. The scratching stopped. I almost convinced myself it was a dream. Then, in my first week of preschool, it happened. We were in the reading corner, sitting cross-legged on a nubby carpet, pretending we could decode the words in picture books. I was stuck on a Snoopy comic, tracing the panels, when a familiar cold pricked my right hand. I looked down. The boy was there, crouching beside me, his hand outstretched. His hair was messier now, his clothes still pristine, but his mouth was twisted into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. I dropped the book. ‘You forgot me,’ he said, his voice a dry rustle. ‘But I brought someone.’ He opened his palm, and there was a tiny doll—one of mine, with a cracked ceramic face and missing an arm. It had been lost for months. I looked from the doll to him, my heart hammering. ‘Where did you get that?’ I whispered. He leaned in, his breath a cold mint, and said, ‘From your new closet. I’ve been waiting. Now we can play.’ The room around us seemed to blur, the other kids’ laughter fading into static. I felt my right hand rise against my will, reaching for his. And I knew, with a certainty that made my bones ache, that this was only the beginning of a game I had no rules for.