Silent Doll by Sonnet O'Dell

spirit here.” She placed her hand on her chest. “I know that I was someone before I was this, but I have no memory of whom. I’ve been Trinket since I sat up on his work bench and he smiled at me. I loved him very much. But he was very ill; I was the last he was able to make.”
    As she spoke, oil oozed from the corners of her eyes. She dabbed at the fake tears with a lace handkerchief she pulled from her puffed sleeve.
    “It devastated our mother. Even now she refuses to let us talk about him–not that my sisters do.”
    “Your sisters?”
    “Yes. He made all of us. Then Mother bound us to her, used her magic to keep us alive, to give us our spirits. We’re all connected, but I don’t want to be anymore.”
    “Why not?”
    “Mother isn’t the same anymore.”
    I reached over to pat her hand. Up close, Trinket was a little unnerving. Once, when I was a kid, maybe six or seven, we’d agreed to help clear out an elderly tenant’s apartment. The woman had collected dolls. Her apartment was crammed full of them; they lined the walls and furniture in every room. I swear the little eyes followed you everywhere. Consequently, I have doll issues.
    “How so?”
    I found myself staring at the roses in the vase rather than at her as she went on.
    “She,” she paused and started again. “She makes me clean my dressing room. She orders me to, I just have to do it. I don’t want to.” Again she paused. “Being made to do things isn’t right. She makes me practice long hours, she doesn’t get that I’m only pretending to mess up routines so I don’t have to…”
    She sounded like a teen complaining about her mother treating her like a child—then going ahead and acting like one. I was completely prepared to write this off as a domestic situation, one that I had no real experience with as an only child. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but I had other concerns. The police were going to need me, I had to prioritize that. Also my locket was drained, it needed recharging. I’d spent too much time recently using it to work over here during the day. That meant, like it or not, I would be spending tomorrow on the normal side, where I wouldn’t have access to any of my paranormal resources. It took me a minute to notice that Trinket had stopped talking.
    She stared at me, it was if she was trying to force words out but she couldn’t. Finally she said, “I can’t tell you everything. She’s got power over me and certain dealings she wants kept secret. If she forbids us to speak of something, we cannot breathe a word of it.”
    “How long ago did your father die?”
    “Fifteen years. He was a very kind, very gentle man. He couldn’t give Mother real children, so he created them for her. He was very skilled. Losing him broke something in Mother, I think.” She looked sad again.
    I found that more than anything, I was curious about how she worked; how the mechanical and magical were blended so that she saw through glass eyes, talk without a human throat. How did she think and feel without a brain or a heart?
    “I didn’t know what to do,” she said, “and then I read an article about you in a magazine. I thought that if I could just meet you, talk to you, that I could ask you to help me. You’ve helped so many.”
    I felt my cheeks flush with the compliments, then something dawned on me. “ You sent me the tickets?”
    “Yes, I came here and I went to the vampire club. I didn’t know where you would be, but I had to make sure you came to the show. I saw you sitting in the audience at the curtain call, and I was so pleased. By the time I managed to get free from the backstage area, though, I saw you rushing out of the building with your friend. I couldn’t chase after you.”
    “How did you get out here tonight then?”
    “I…I agreed to run an errand. They will not be pleased with me when I return without what I was sent for.”
    “What is it? If I have it here then you can have it.”
    Her large eyes