The Sunday Palm

I’d been staying at my grandmother’s place in the hill town of Brindlewick for a month, recovering from a bad breakup and the kind of work burnout that leaves you staring at walls. My aunt Marta lived a short walk away, in a creaky Victorian house that smelled of lavender and old wood. I loved visiting her, but her three-year-old, Toby, was a terror. Not in a malicious way, just… intensely affectionate. He’d climb into my lap and plant wet, sloppy kisses all over my face, tug at my hair, and squeeze my cheeks until they stung. So I timed my visits around his naps or his outings with his father, Uncle Carl.

That Sunday, I was lounging in my grandmother’s sunroom, pretending to read a book but really dozing off in the warmth. I had my eyes closed, feeling the gentle hum of the old house, when I felt a small, warm, slightly sweaty palm press against my cheek. My heart sank. Toby. He must have slipped in through the back door. I kept my eyes shut, hoping he’d think I was asleep and leave me alone. But instead, he started tugging at my nose and pinching my cheeks, harder than usual. I swatted at his hand, a bit too roughly, and muttered, ‘Cut it out, Toby.’

But when I opened my eyes, there was no one there. The room was empty. A cold draft crept over my skin despite the sun. I sat up, looking around, but the only movement was the sway of the curtain. I shrugged it off, thinking I’d imagined it, and decided to head over to Aunt Marta’s anyway, since I hadn’t seen her in a few days. I grabbed my jacket and walked the short path, the gravel crunching under my feet.

When I arrived, Aunt Marta was in the kitchen, humming as she kneaded dough. ‘Oh, hello dear! Toby’s with Carl at the park, so we have some peace,’ she said with a wink. We chatted for a while, and I helped her with the bread. But as we sat down for tea, I noticed something odd. In the corner of the living room, near the old piano, stood a child’s toy – a small, cloth doll. I’d never seen it before. It was crude, with button eyes and a stitched mouth, and it wore a tiny dress. When I asked Marta about it, she looked puzzled. ‘That’s not ours,’ she said. ‘Carl must have brought it from a garage sale. He has a thing for old junk.’ She shrugged.

Later, as I was about to leave, I felt that same clammy palm on my cheek again. I spun around, but no one was there. Marta was in the hallway, looking at me strangely. ‘You okay?’ she asked. I forced a laugh. ‘Just tired.’ But when I got back to Grandma’s, I couldn’t shake the feeling. That night, I lay in bed, the room lit only by the moon, and I felt it again – a tiny hand pressing on my face, tugging at my nose, squeezing my cheeks. I swatted at it, but my hand went through nothing. I flicked on the lamp, gasping. There, on my pillow, was that same cloth doll, its button eyes glinting. I hadn’t brought it.

I grabbed the doll and marched to the trash, but as I held it, I felt a tremor, like a tiny heartbeat. I dropped it hurriedly into the bin. The next day, I told Aunt Marta about it. She paled. ‘I thought I was imagining things,’ she said. She confessed that Toby had been complaining of a ‘little girl’ who visits him at night and asks to play. She’d brushed it off as a imaginary friend. I told her about the doll, and she admitted she’d thrown it away too, but it kept reappearing in Toby’s room, under his bed, in his crib.

We tried everything: burning it, burying it, throwing it in the river. But the next day, there it would be, sitting on a windowsill or on a chair, staring. And the touches grew bolder. I’d wake with red marks on my cheeks, and Toby started having nightmares, waking up screaming about a girl with no face. One night, I woke to find the doll at the foot of my bed, its stitched mouth stretched into a wider grin. I heard a child’s giggle, but it was distorted, like it was coming from under the floorboards.

Desperate, I searched the attic and found an old journal belonging to a woman who’d lived there years ago. She wrote about her daughter, Effie, who had died in that house of a fever. She had a favorite doll, which she’d buried in the backyard, but the mother dug it up later, unable to let go. The journal described how the doll would ‘cry’ at night, and how the mother felt watched. The final entry was frantic, claiming the doll was moving on its own, and that she’d tried to destroy it but it kept coming back.

I decided to find the doll’s original burial spot, thinking maybe we needed to return it. I dug around the garden, but found nothing. I was about to give up when I noticed a loose floorboard in the basement. When I lifted it, I found a small, rusted tin. Inside was a photograph of a little girl and a note that read: ‘She won’t rest until she has a friend. Give her what she wants.’

It hit me then: the doll wasn’t the entity; it was a vessel. Effie’s spirit was attached to it, and she was looking for a playmate – specifically, Toby. I ran back to Marta’s house, but it was too late. Toby was sitting in his room, the doll in his lap, and he was talking to it in a cheerful voice. ‘Let’s play, Effie. Forever and ever.’

I grabbed the doll, but as I did, the room grew cold, and I saw a faint outline of a girl forming in the corner, her face blank, featureless. She tilted her head and said, in a voice that was both childlike and ancient, ‘You’ll do too.’ Before I could react, the door slammed shut, and the lights flickered. The last thing I remember was Toby’s laughter turning into a scream, and then darkness.

I woke up in a hospital, my aunt and grandmother beside me, their faces streaked with tears. They told me I’d been found unconscious in Toby’s room, clutching the doll. Toby was missing. The police searched for days, but they never found him. They think he wandered off. But I know the truth. I still feel that tiny, warm palm on my cheek sometimes, especially at night. And sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I see a small figure standing at the foot of my bed, holding a cloth doll with button eyes, and I hear a child’s giggle echoing in the dark, waiting for me to open my eyes.