The Painted Porcelain

The Driftwood Inn had a reputation for its seafood chowder and the kind of patrons who preferred their pints in silence. It sat on a wind-scoured stretch of the Oregon coast, its salt-bleached siding peeling like old skin. I took the evening shift, mostly because the pay was decent and the owner, a taciturn woman named Marta, didn’t ask questions. The Inn had three floors: the ground held the bar and dining room, the second held a few guest rooms, and the third was off-limits, used for storage. A narrow, creaking staircase led from the second-floor hallway to that top floor, and at its head, a door with a rusted bolt.

My duties rarely took me above the second floor, but one night, Marta asked me to fetch a box of vintage china she’d sold to a collector. ‘It’s in the storage room on the third floor,’ she said, handing me a key. ‘Mind the step near the top. It’s loose.’ I climbed the stairs, the wood groaning under my boots. The air grew colder, and a faint smell of damp plaster and old cigarette smoke clung to the walls. At the top, I unbolted the door and stepped into a cramped space filled with stacked chairs, rolled carpets, and shelves of dusty porcelain. In the corner, a battered cardboard box sat under a tarp. As I lifted it, I noticed a small figurine—a shepherdess with a cracked face, her painted eyes following me. I shrugged it off, grabbed the box, and descended.

That night, I dreamt of the figurine. In the dream, she stood on my bedside table, her porcelain mouth moving silently. I woke with a start, the image vivid. The next evening, while cleaning the second-floor hallway, I saw the figurine on a windowsill. Marta denied placing it there. I picked it up; it was ice-cold. I put it back in storage, locking the door.

But the figurine kept returning. I found it on the bar, on a table in the dining room, once in the men’s toilet, its cracked face tilted as if listening. Each time, the air around it felt denser, and I began to hear a faint scratching behind the walls, like dry fingers. I asked Marta about the third floor’s history. She hesitated, then said, ‘There was a girl, long ago. A dishwasher. She fell down those stairs. Broke her neck. They said she was chasing something.’ She would not say more.

One night, after closing, I went to the third floor to search the storage room. The door was unlocked, the bolt dangling. Inside, I found a gap behind a shelf, hidden by a mildewed curtain. Beyond it, a tiny room with a child’s cot and a collection of porcelain dolls, all with cracked faces, all missing pieces—an arm, a leg, an eye. In the center, the shepherdess sat, her lips now forming a soundless word. I stepped closer, and the scratching grew louder. I realized it came from the doll’s mouth. It was counting down.

I fled, but the dream came again. This time, the shepherdess stood at the foot of my bed, her face whole, her eyes alive. She spoke in a voice like grinding teeth: ‘You found me. You must take me home.’ I woke screaming. The figurine was on my nightstand.

I quit the next day. I didn’t say goodbye to Marta. I only packed a bag and drove inland, miles away, until the coast was a memory. But when I checked into a motel, the shepherdess was in my luggage. She is with me now, on this desk, her eyes glinting under the lamp. I have tried to break her, but she repairs herself overnight. I have tried to bury her, but she appears at my door. The scratching is constant now, a ticking clock. I know she is patient. She is waiting for me to listen to the rest of her countdown, and when it reaches zero, she will finish what she started on that staircase. I only hope I have the courage to turn away when she speaks again, but I fear I am already too deep in her porcelain world.

There is no escape. The painted porcelain follows, and it always finds me.