All Dolled Up!

Charlie

I had originally come to Pine Grove to get away from everyone- family and friends included. I needed the seclusion, or so I thought- only to end up with a sentient doll living in my house. So the idea of living on my own went out the window really fast.

Despite that though, strangely enough, even given how odd the situation was, I didn't mind her at all. I guess humans will adjust to a lot if it turns into a habit- a ghost walking into your house at ten P.M. every day is odd, but a month of him doing the same thing over and over and you'd eventually just say, "Yeah, that's Jeremy, don't mind him, he'll just watch some television and then leave. Relax, he’s harmless."

As a matter of fact, there were stories in European folklore about elves and fairies living in people's houses - who helped out the residents so long as they were given small offerings. Like the stories of Brownies or Domovoi.

Charlotte was a lot like that - she had decided to lend quite a bit of a helping hand now with things that she could do like dusting or mopping, and even aside from that, her presence was surprisingly comforting. She rarely got in the way with what I was doing, and even with things as simple as reading, she was usually with me doing the same, and even if we didn't speak a word to each other for hours, just knowing the other was there made the experience far better- at least, I hoped she felt that way too.

How odd that I now found her presence to not only be tolerable, but comforting in a way. Looking back, I think I would’ve slowly started to lose my mind if I’d been staying in that house all by myself for too long. I had been looking for seclusion, but it was possible for a place to be too secluded.

We had made quite a bit of progress in fixing up the house - the roof was now fully repaired and most of the rooms, though empty, were free of grime and dust. There were still some things that were out of whack, but they would be fixed in time.

Not to mention I guess I was quite invested in figuring out what it was that plagued Charlotte - I had often leant an ear to problems like sickness, alcoholism, financial woes, and the like- but perhaps it was because her problem was so bizarre it didn't feel like it weighed on my mind like it had used to. Instead, it was more of a strange puzzle that I could take my time trying to solve.

Her bicycle came in at one point, and it had to be adjusted not only for her height but also to be more comfortable for her to ride on given she insisted on wearing her dress constantly. Come to think of it - she never changed out of her clothes, only sometimes removing her hat - but given they were always dusted off at the end of the day, did that mean that they were somehow considered a part of her body, like they came as a 'set' with her? I was a bit too embarrassed to ask her about that, but she was handling it fine.

She could only ride it in one of the two main halls given she couldn't go outside the house, and while she was doing this, she suddenly stopped, got off the seat, took a look at the bicycle, and then marched towards me, looking upset.

"What happened?"

She pointed to the bicycle. "I thought it was a bit too easy to use, which is why I realized... what are those things?"

"Training wheels? They help you balance," I told her.

"So I wasn't using it like an actual bicycle then?" she asked.

"No, but..."

"I wanted to learn how to ride a real bicycle like a real person though! Not something like this!"

"Look, calm down... the thing is that there's just not enough space here for you to be able to actually practice cycling," I told her. "I first learned how to ride a bicycle when I was eight years old, and I had a large area of grass to use. If we try something like that here, you're definitely going to crash into the wall and hurt yourself." Her new body was not immune to pain. She seemed to hesitate at that - though I didn't know whether she was going to double down on wanting to learn it anyway, or whether she would realize what it was that I was saying and drop it. "Not to mention riding one without training wheels is only kind of relevant if you have a lot of freedom of movement - which you don't have inside the house."

Silence greeted me, which meant that she wasn't going to insist on learning how to do it for now. "Anyway, if you want to think about it, we can go back to this once I come back."

"Come back?" she asked, confused.

"You don't remember? I told you I'm going to my folks for this Fourth of July weekend," I told her. I had promised them that, and now that I thought about it- hadn't she been the one to speak to my sister about it? Then again, it was possible that she never really paid much attention to the date, given that very little in her life changed based on it.

"Oh... so, you won't be here this weekend?" she asked.

"No," I said, and then shook my head. "I'll be back Monday, and I'll have work that night."

There was a moment of silence between the two of us - this would be the first weekend since the one that I'd first discovered who she was that we wouldn't be together. It was an odd thought - not hearing her footsteps once the sun set like I usually did. It had been just under a month, and I would only be gone for a few days, but as I thought about it, I realized that those were days off that I was missing and not even your usual working days. It would certainly feel like longer than three days. "I uh, I'll be gone by the time you'll be up next night, um, but if there's anything that comes up, you can always call me."

"Oh, yes, that's true," she said. "I didn't think it would be this week though." Her face seemed quite downcast at the realization, and it definitely occurred to me that this was a lot harder for her than it was for me given that I was the only person she had contact with - while I was going to be with my family over the weekend.

"Hey, don't worry," I said. "I'll be back before you know it - and I think my mother can help me find a place that will clean up your necklace, so hopefully I'll have that back by then as well." I was also going to be taking that book along with me, seeing if I could find someone over the weekend who might know more about it.

I reassured her of that, and I had to head out for my shift, but it was clear that this news had hit her harder than she had been expecting.

The only thing was that I had no idea as to how I could make it up to her or make her feel better, other than deciding to stay and canceling my plans which I really couldn't as I had made the commitment some time ago, and I don't think she would appreciate the gesture either given how much stock she put in her own family.

As I drove to work I kept thinking of a way that I might make her a bit less uncomfortable over the weekend, but nothing really came to mind.

I did, however, get a message from the ancestry site that said that the sample I had sent of Charlotte's DNA was degraded and they couldn't work with it. They offered to send me a replacement at no cost, but I figured the reason it didn't work was likely because either her bodily fluids had no DNA in them, or they stopped being real bodily fluids the moment the sun set and she 'reset' so to speak. In other words, trying to repeat it would just be futile, so I wouldn't even bother with it. Whatever, I never had that much hope for it in the first place.

I did let her know this via message, though I don't think she even cared that much in the first place - it had been more of my idea than hers.

On a whim though, while going back to the house to finish packing, I bought two cups of Boba tea. My sister liked it - and it seemed popular with the girls in general, so I kept it in the fridge and left her a message saying that she could try it. Charlotte did like trying new things from our time together, so maybe she would end up enjoying it? Though it was entirely possible that she would think that it, much like my breakfast cereal, was too sweet. It was a sort of small consolation from my end.