Just a Solemn Puppet

     The puppet's eyes were dirty, drooping out of their sockets limply.  Like a stray pamphlet on the side of a gusty street, a girl's hand passed over the glassy eyes, and the mask to which they belonged. She picked the bare thing up off of the table it laid upon, the joints lolling with no control over the side of her hand, fingers curling loosely over the round edges of its dome head, and over the corners of its pale jaw. Porcelain, perfect, beautiful, yet all wasn't as well as the girl's first glance revealed.
     The girl slowly popped the green eyes back into their caves, completing the doll's soft features of its face. There was still something wrong.
The doll was bare, with only its eyes to keep it company. It had no hair, it had no clothes. Its mouth was turned down in a melancholy frown of sorts, plump, soft lips narrowed. It wasn't happy, like all dolls should be. It wasn't satisfied. It seemed empty. There was no life behind those eyes.
     The girl's tart mouth pouted and her head tilted slightly, perfect brown curls darting about her face. She repositioned her feathered bonnet on her head with her spare hand, before caressing the curves of the silent doll's silk-smooth body. The craftsman must have been a master to create such a piece.
     Her fingers made their way to wrap themselves around the gossamer strings connected to the puppet-doll's hands, feet, and head. She hadn't noticed them at first—they were very fine, almost invisible. Eyelashes lowered over the girl's eyes as she suspiciously traced the lines to their source, dipping with the line. They were tangled up, all five of the strings, like points of a star. One string—the one connected to the head—was snapped. They were connected to the table middle, like chains holding the doll in place.
     "Humm…" The girl softly sounded to herself, one slender finger rising to her lip in thought. Her skirts rustled as she shifted, slippered feet stirring the dust on the floor into little dust devils. From outside of the dank—empty and dreary—room came the caw of a raven.
     Already spooked enough, the girl turned, dropping the fragile doll unto the table, facing the window. It was misted up with age, yellowed and cobwebbed, the panes cracked. "It's nothing…" she told herself, turning back to the doll "Simply nothing. Elly-Anne, you're making a fool of yourself… Now hmm… where did the pretty little puppet go?" She searched for where she had found it, and beamed a smile, flashing her teeth as she spotted it near the edge of the table. The strings had prevented it from falling off.
     Its tiny jointed fingers were wrapped around the end of a pair of scissors.
The girl giggled "Silly thing, come back here! Don't want you hurting yourself!" she scooted the scissors away from the thing, picking it back up in her hand. For some reason, the doll seemed even more solemn, and its sad eyes seemed even sadder. She tuts, thinking to herself, Poor thing, why did your master create you so sad? What is your story to tell? However, its distant fox-fire eyes never stirred, and its cold lips never parted to utter a word. It was as cold and still as the moment that the girl had found it.
     She continued talking, however, as if the doll could hear her, "Dear thing, oh I wish I could take you back home, and show you to my mum! Oh how she would love a pleasant doll like you… Oh but never-the-mind, she'd chide, that you're too mellow, and that you're too dark for her. She only likes the pretty dolls you see, but ah! Not to say that you're any less; you're beautiful! But it's just she doesn't care for your sort—the sad dolls."
     The young girl gave a weak smile to it, staring into its green eyes, still searching.  "I'd give you a home, pretty doll..." she said, "I'd give you a nice name, and an even nicer dress! I'd make sure to sew you pretty clothes, with all my mum's fabric scraps from quilting, and I'd make you pretty bonnet, like mine! I'd give you wonderful silky hair that I'd brush a hundred times a day! And I'd give you little butterfly wings, and a pretty little flower crown, and oh! You'd be my fairy princess doll, my best-est doll ever! I've got a lovely prince doll for you too! You'd be so happy, and so pretty, and maybe you wouldn't be so sad…" She trailed off, and glanced once more to the threads chaining the doll to this dark room.
     The girl's squirrely eyes grew dim, and mournful, her pouting mouth turned downwards at the edges. "But you're stuck here, aren't you? And you're trapped here. That's why you're so sad. You're just an empty little puppet…" She paused, then squeaked—quietly—glancing to the scissors that she'd set aside. "You'd like to be free, wouldn't you, little doll?" The smile was back once more, as she picked up the rusty scissors in one hand. "All you need is a bit of love! This wouldn't be at all hard to snap!" she said, picking one thread up with a lone fingertip.
     But she hesitated, that little girl. She stopped, the scissors almost embracing the thin string. "But maybe you're not meant to be free…" her hand drooped. "Maybe you're meant to be stuck here, but oh! I won't have that!"  Without another thought, she cut the threads, one by one. Snip, snip, snip, snip.
     She held the doll close to her, stroking its bald head. "There now. You're free." She smiled, and then, without looking back to the claw mark-streaked wooden table, she walked out of the room to the sound of her mother's call in the distance. "Elly-Anne!"
     As she walked into the spring sunlight, with the birds chirping to her, she didn't notice the doll growing slightly warmer in her embrace.
     Nor did she notice the slight smile creeping up on the doll's face, and the corners of its eyes lifting happily as it was carried farther and farther away from its prison.