Canto 15 – Dolls with White Wigs
Dora McMaster had been carefully studying the doll that she thought she had somehow made and forgotten. She seemed especially interested in the white-haired wig the doll wore.
“This wig on the doll… Did you know that it is made with real human hair?” Dora asked Brittany.
“No, I did not. It is the only thing that isn’t like my own daughter. She has black hair.”
“Molly had black hair too before…”
“Before what?”
“The news came about her father, and both she and her mother took sick. Apparently high fever, or something like it, turned Molly’s hair ghost white.”
“That’s strange.”
“Yes, and stranger still that I don’t remember ever making a white wig before. But I have been planning to make one for the doll who is supposed to be Molly. To remember her as…”
“…As she was before you lost your chance to save her.”
“Yes. But where did the doll-maker who made this wig get white human hair? And why put it on my creation in Aunt Phillia’s horrible store?”
“Is it dyed, perhaps?”
“No. It contains strands that still have black roots, and the color all seems natural, just like Molly’s own. But it couldn’t be made from Molly’s hair… not after the fire.”
“You will make the Molly doll with white hair?”
“Yes, of course… but where to get white-colored human hair to make such a wig?”
“Mention her own white hair,” said Molly to Brittany in a voice Dora apparently couldn’t also hear.
“You have some white hair on your own head the same color as that,” said Brittany.
“Why, yes… I do. It will take time to grow out enough to use it without making myself bald,” Dora said, giggling to herself.
“Why do you have white hair?” Brittany whispered to the doll.
“Not here. We will talk later in private. I can show you at the witching hour.”
Brittany nodded to herself at the doll’s answer. She didn’t much like how demonic and spooky the doll seemed. But the doll was also so like Hannah, and endearing enough to make it necessary for Brittany to know everything. In a ghost story, it is the unknown thing that scares you the most. And it could only be a good thing to make the unknown a little more known.
Dora had taken out the pieces of a doll’s skull cap and began singing softly to herself as she began to sew and prepare the cap to have human hair added.
“Dora? Would it be all right if I step out in the yard for some air while you do that?” Brittany asked.
“Certainly. And thank you so much for the inspiration.”
Brittany took the doll with her out onto the veranda in the back of the house opposite the flower garden.
“Okay, Molly. I need some answers.”
“Honest answers? Or do you prefer to be lied to?”
“Honest answers, of course!”
“About what, then?”
“Why did you bring me here?”
“You mean to Dora’s house?”
“I mean, this time… this place… this world?”
“I paid the toy man to get my momma back again.”
“What? What does that have to do with me?”
“The toy man said that if I chose you to play with, that could help me get momma back.”
“Play with me? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know all the details… yet. But you are alive… and my momma is not. I need to use you to make her alive again.”
Brittany stared at the smiling porcelain face. The creepy smile chilled her to the bone.
Catch a Falling Star 
Nutzy Nuts
Things are not what they seem. Life throws curve balls across the plate ninety percent of the time. Fastballs are rare. And fastballs you can hit are even rarer. But if Life is pitching, who is the batter? Does it change the metaphor and who you are rooting for if the batter is Death?
If you think this means that I am planning on dying because of the Coronavirus pandemic, well, you would be right. Of course, I am always planning for death with every dark thing that bounces down the hopscotch squares of the immediate future. That’s what it means to be a pessimist. No matter what bad thing we are talking about, it will not take ME by surprise. And if I think everything is going to kill me, sooner or later I have to be right… though, hopefully, much later.
I keep seeing things that aren’t there. Childlike faces keep looking at me from the top of the stairs, but when I focus my attention there, they disappear. And I know there are no children in the house anymore since my youngest is now legally an adult. And the chimpanzee that peeked at me from behind the couch in the family room was definitely not there. I swear, it looked exactly like Roddy McDowell from the Planet of the Apes movies, whom I know for a fact to be deceased. So, obviously, it has to be Roddy McDowell’s monkey-ghost. I believe I may have mentioned before that there is a ghost dog in our house. I often catch glimpses of its tail rounding the corner ahead of me when my own dog is definitely behind me. And I am sure I shared the facts before that Parkinson’s sufferers often see partial visions of people and faces (and apparently dogs) that aren’t really there, and that my father suffers from Parkinson’s Disease. So, obviously it is my father and not me that is seeing these things… He’s just using my eyeballs to do it with.
But… and this is absolutely true even if it starts with a butt… the best way to deal with scary possibilities is to laugh at them. Jokes, satire, mockery, and ludicrous hilarity expressed in big words are the proper things to use against the fearful things you cannot change. So, this essay is nothing but a can of mixed nutz. Nutzy nuts. And fortunately, peanut allergies are one incurable and possibly fatal disease I don’t have. One of the few.
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