The Rotting Gift

The summer I turned seven, we moved from one sagging trailer to another just a stone’s throw away. The old one had a mildewed porch and a furnace that groaned like a dying animal; the new one was newer, but it had its own peculiarities. Ours was the fourth trailer in a loop of seven, with a gravel lot and a skinny pine that scraped the roof when the wind blew. The nearest neighbor was Mrs. Gable, a widow who kept her blinds drawn and her garden choked with weeds. Beyond the loop, a dirt road ran up a hill to an abandoned farmhouse, which the older kids said was haunted.

Our new home was cramped: a living room with a faded floral couch, a kitchen with sticky linoleum, and a narrow hallway that led to three small bedrooms. My room was the second door on the left, with a window that looked out onto the back yard and the treeline beyond. The first night, I heard scratching at the window. I thought it was a branch, but the pine was on the other side of the trailer. I didn’t sleep well.

A week after we moved in, I met a girl named Juniper. She lived in the fifth trailer, the one with the rusted awning. She was a year older than me, with tangled red hair and a way of staring that made me uncomfortable. We played in the field behind the trailers, catching grasshoppers and pretending the tall grass was a jungle. One day, she led me to the edge of the woods and pointed at a mound of earth.

‘There’s something buried there,’ she whispered. ‘It’s been there since before I was born.’

I asked what it was. She said, ‘A gift. But it’s not for us. It’s for whoever digs it up.’

She made me promise not to touch it. I promised, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

A few days later, I couldn’t sleep. The scratching at my window had started again, but this time it was louder, more insistent. I pulled back the curtain and saw a shape pressing against the glass. It was like a hand, but too long, with too many fingers. I screamed, and it vanished. My mother came in, but she didn’t see anything. She said it was a dream.

But I knew it wasn’t. The next day, I went to the mound alone. The ground was soft, and I started digging with my hands. The dirt was cold, even in the summer heat. I dug until my fingers were raw, and then I hit something. It was a small wooden box, rotted and splintered. I pried it open.

Inside was a doll. It was made of straw and cloth, with button eyes and a stitched smile. But the smile was wrong—it was too wide, and the stitches were black and coarse. The doll was dressed in a faded blue dress, and it smelled of rot.

I took it home. I hid it under my bed. That night, I heard whispering coming from under the bed. I couldn’t make out the words, but they were angry. I pushed my pillow over my ears, but the whispers seemed to seep through.

The next morning, I found the doll sitting on my pillow. Its button eyes were facing the door, as if it were waiting for something. I threw it in the trash, but when I came back from school, it was on my bed again, pristine, as if it hadn’t been in the trash at all.

I told my mother, but she just said I was imagining things. She was too busy with her boyfriend, who came and went at odd hours. She didn’t have time for my ‘foolishness.’

Desperate, I went to Juniper. I told her I had taken the doll. Her face went pale.

‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she said. ‘It’s not a gift. It’s a trap. It feeds on fear, and it will grow stronger every day until it takes your place.’

She told me that the mound was where a girl named Elsie had been buried years ago. Elsie was a child who had drowned in the creek, but her body was never found. Some said she was buried alive, and that her spirit seeped into the ground. The doll was her anchor, her way to reach the living.

Juniper said I had to put it back before it was too late. But when I went to the mound, the hole was gone. The ground was smooth, as if nothing had ever been disturbed. I dug again, but the dirt was packed hard, and my fingers bled.

That night, the whispers were louder. I saw the doll sitting on my dresser, its head tilted, its button eyes glinting in the dark. I felt a cold hand on my cheek. I screamed, but no sound came out.

The next morning, I found a photograph on my pillow. It was of me, but I wasn’t in the picture. Instead, a girl with tangled red hair stared back at me, wearing a faded blue dress. It was Elsie.

I ran out of the trailer, intending to find Juniper. But when I reached her door, it was unlocked. Inside, the trailer was empty, as if she had never lived there. The walls were bare, the floor dusty. On the counter was a single object: a straw doll, with button eyes and a stitched smile.

I backed away, but the doll started to move. Its head turned slowly, and its eyes fixed on me. The stitched smile seemed to widen. A voice, thin and childish, whispered in my ear: ‘You were supposed to be the one.’

The scratching at my window resumed, but now it came from inside my own head. The doll was still in my hand, but it was growing warm, as if it were alive. I tried to drop it, but my fingers wouldn’t obey. The doll’s button eyes became dark holes, and I saw a face forming in them—the face of a drowned girl, with waterlogged skin and hair like seaweed.

I don’t remember what happened after that. I woke up in my bed, the doll gone. My mother stood over me, her face pinched with worry. She said I had been asleep for two days, burning with fever. I asked about Juniper, but she frowned. ‘There’s no Juniper here, honey. The only girl in that trailer is an old woman named Mrs. Gable.’

I never saw Juniper again. But sometimes, at night, I hear a scratching at the window. And when I look out, I see a girl with red hair standing at the edge of the woods, holding a doll. She waves, and her smile is too wide, stitched into place.

Years later, I moved away. I thought I had escaped. But in my new house, I found a small wooden box in the attic. It was rotted and splintered, and it smelled of damp earth. I didn’t open it. I burned it. But I can still feel its eyes on me, watching from somewhere unseen.

Last week, I received a letter without a return address. Inside was a photograph of me, taken recently, standing in front of my new house. But in the photo, I’m not alone. A shadowy figure stands behind me, holding something that looks like a doll. And written on the back, in handwriting that looks like a child’s, were the words: ‘You can’t bury a gift. It always comes back.’

I looked in the mirror and saw a second figure flicker over my shoulder. For a moment, its smile was the same as the doll’s. Then it was gone. But I know it will be back, and when it comes, it will find me. Because I opened the box, and now the rot is part of me.