Wax Dolls

Wax Dolls
By Michael Thomas-Knight

Father crashed through the door in a drunken stupor. Elizabeth froze in her bed, silent and still at this late hour, trying to ignore the inevitable. He soon found his way up the stairs, bumping the walls, feeling his way through the darkness to her bedroom. He touched her in a way that no one, especially a step-father, should ever touch a young woman of her age. He ripped her night-clothes and engulfed her with whisky breath. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, but tears managed to escape from the corners and fall to her ears. She wished she could be deaf and not have to hear his animalistic grunts as saliva drooled onto her face and neck. She kept her arms to her sides and prayed it would be over quickly. He left her crying in her bedroom and retired to the master bedroom with his wife.

Elizabeth longed to get away from this New England home, the dread, the burden she had to endure since she was eleven years old when she had first shown signs of womanhood. But her step-father kept his money under lock and key, and was tight fisted in matters of his family and his appreciating wealth. The furthest she could get from the home was the servant quarters on the property. She spent much of her time there during the day, avoiding her family, especially now that her sister, Emma, was away at boarding school.

The room smelled of strange exotic foods and spices. The house-maid, Tichiban, always had some interesting foods, offerings and customs from her homeland. Elizabeth enjoyed coming here to learn about them. Elizabeth sat at the table across from the servant, where she was slicing a fuzzy green fruit. Tichiban pushed a few pieces of the fruit across the table in Elizabeth’s direction.

“Kiwi. Eat it child. It is good for you.”
“Kiwi?”
Elizabeth placed a piece in her mouth and juice ran from her lips. Tichiban laughed out loud. Barely a smile purged Elizabeth’s face.

“What troubles you so, my child?” Tichiban inquired.
“I heard my step-father, Isaac, speaking with an attorney today. He is signing over the lake property to his brother and sister. That was my father’s property, my real father. It was promised to me and my sister before he died.”
“What do your Mums say about it?” Tichiban asked.
She reached over and dabbed the juice from Elizabeth’s face with a cloth.

“She agrees with everything he says and does. Everything! I hate her as much as I hate him!” the young woman screeched.
Tichiban’s whole face frowned and she tilted her head to look Elizabeth in the eyes.
“Hate is a strong word, my child, you are so young to hate,” the house servant said.
She put a finger under Elizabeth's chin and pushed her head up. She moved the hair away from Elizabeth’s face with gentle fingers. Elizabeth wanted to soften her stance for her friend, knowing she disapproved, but she could not quell the anger within her.

“But, I do. I hate them both. I would like to leave this place. As soon as Emma is old enough, I will. We both will!”

Elizabeth squeezed the piece of fruit she had been holding, until it squished out between her fingers like green putty. She had not told Tichiban about what goes on in the dark hours of night, with the man she is forced to call father by day. She debated about telling her now, but held back. One day she would tell; she trusted this woman more than anyone else in her life, excluding her sister. She hoped that when the time came, Tichiban would help her and Emma escape this place. She had remained in this situation all these years to protect Emma from the fate she had endured, hoping one day to take her away.

As morning stretched into afternoon, Isaac had gone to Cape Cod on business. Tichiban needed to tend the house laundry so Elizabeth decided to trek into town. Riverfalls Township had a small trading market where farm goods could be purchased. It also had a well-stocked general store. Her intent was to purchase rat poison. She had gotten some the week previous and laced it into the daily milk. While everyone in the house fell ill, the poison had not claimed its intended victim. Today she planned to buy twice as much as last week and would administer higher doses to her step-father. She walked several miles into town. The trip took her over an hour, but she was rebuffed at the general store.

“You can put this purchase on my family’s account,” she insisted.
“Your father’s account is overdue and I shall put no more onto his credit until I speak with him,” the proprietor exclaimed.
“My family’s money is good as gold in this town. How dare you treat me with such insolence,” Elizabeth shouted.

But for all her shouting, the proprietor would not yield. She left the store red-faced and angry, having to walk the several miles back to her home, empty handed.

Nearing the house from the dirt road, she noticed her step-father’s carriage had returned. Not wanting to look into his craggy face and scraggy mustache, she went to the servant quarters out back. When Elizabeth entered the room, Tichiban had been busy at the fireplace. She turned to Elizabeth with two dolls made from soap wax. The larger one was male and the other obviously female.

“What are those,” Elizabeth asked.
‘They are presents, for you,” Tichiban replied, “But they are not finished yet. I need some items from you to make them whole.” Tichiban had a thick West-Indies accent and was sometimes hard to understand, but Elizabeth had gotten used to her way of speaking.

“What are they for?”
“They are special dolls. When you get angered at your parents and want them to stop what they are doing, you merely have to stick a pin in the dolls and they will be halted in their intentions.”
“Really? When will they be ready, I mean, what do you need from me?”

Tichiban explained what she needed. In a matter of days, Elizabeth collected the items used to finish the dolls. From her step-father she collected, shaven whiskers, a sweaty rag, and fingernail clippings. From her mother she obtained a small amount of her favorite perfume, hair from a comb, and a rag with her menstrual blood on it. Tichiban incorporated these items into the dolls. She waved her hands over them and chanted in a foreign tongue. Candles flickered as Tichiban blew a dry dust over the figures and sprinkled them with oil from an unlabelled jar. After an hour long ceremony, she gave the dolls to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth hid the dolls in the barn, which was rarely used these days and had become a sanctuary she often visited to collect her thoughts in solitude.

Watching from the upper level of the barn through a window, Elizabeth tested her doll. She poked the needle into the doll’s back. Standing at the front of the house, her step-father grabbed his back in pain. She pulled the needle out and poked it in again. Isaac arched his back, the pain more intense than the first time and retreated into the house forgetting his original intentions. Elizabeth was amazed and excited with the newfound power she possessed. She giggled aloud and ran to hide her wax doll in its hiding spot between the wood panels of the barn wall.

The next morning, Elizabeth sat at the breakfast table confidently, basking in the knowledge of her secret power over the world. A young lady with an Irish accent set a plate before her, and then set plates before her parents.

“Who is this stranger?” Elizabeth asked, eyes wide with curiosity.
“Whatever do you mean, dear Elizabeth?” her mother, Abby, questioned.
“Who is this woman serving me food?” Elizabeth returned with distrust in her voice. She knew something was afoot.
“She is the new house maid, Eleanor.”
Elizabeth darted her gaze to her step-father then back to her mother with disbelief.

“Where is Tichiban?” she asked. Nervousness was clearly present in her voice.

“We have relieved Tichiban of her services,” Isaac stated firmly.

“What? Why?” Elizabeth asked. Her voice was two pitches higher in tone than her normal speaking voice.

“Your mother and I consider her a bad influence on you and your sister - what, with all her strange religious beliefs and pagan customs.”

Isaac said this with a smirk on his face and a satisfaction in his voice, knowing Elizabeth would not be pleased. He reveled in causing her harm, distress and misery, whether it was physical or emotional. Elizabeth’s eyes grew wide with shock and brimmed with tears. Her brows raised on her forehead and her mouth hung slack. Fighting back tears, she found her voice.

“But…But, I must see her. That is, I would like to say goodbye to her. She has been my friend for all these years.” Elizabeth gripped the table edge and dug her nails into the wood as she attempted to control her anger.

“It is too late. Tichiban and her family vacated the servant house just after dawn. Perhaps if you had awakened at a decent hour this morning, you may have been able to say your goodbyes,” Abby said.

It seemed to Elizabeth that her own mother had been somehow influenced by Isaac to inflict hurt and misery upon her for their shared enjoyment.

“No, no. Please I must find her,” Elizabeth shouted, finally bursting into a torrent of tears. She stood, ready to go and find her old friend.

”Sit back down this instant,” Isaac demanded. “I will not have you running down the road full of tears over a servant.”

Elizabeth backed away from the table in horror, a hand over her mouth, unable to speak through the pain.

“Elizabeth! Did you hear what I said?” Isaac screamed.

She backed up into the dining room wall and straightened her arms to her sides. A fury mounted inside of her and her face turned bright red. She clenched her fists together and her eyes flashed wildly from her step-father to her mother and back.

“I hate you! I hate you both!” she screamed in a rage at her loudest possible capabilities, forcing her mother to cover her ears and Isaac to be startled at the depth and power of rage let loose from her.

The new house maid re-entered the room at that moment with a large silver tray brimming with food. Elizabeth ran at her and smashed her fists upward into the bottom of the tray. Fried eggs were sent hurling across the room, and cereal oats splattered in a fan-shape across the table, floor and walls. The tray hit the ceiling with a dull clank. Elizabeth kept running and left the house through the back door. Abby stood and motioned to go after her daughter but Isaac stopped her.

“Leave her be,” Isaac said, “She’ll get over it soon enough.”

Elizabeth ran from the house and hid in the barn, away from her parents and the house of lies that her home had become. She fell asleep on a bed of hay for over an hour. When she awakened, she remembered her dolls. She retrieved them from their hiding space inside the wood panels of the barn wall and placed them upon the workbench. She scrutinized them with such anger as if scrutinizing the very souls of the people they represented. A fury grew within her until she could see nothing else but the fire in her mind‘s eye. She pulled a small hatchet from the tool wall behind the work bench. She plunged the axe into the doll of her mother, into its skull. In the distance, from the second story of the house, she heard her mother cry out.

In the house, Abby sat up in bed, disturbed from a rare afternoon nap. She touched her trembling hand to her forehead and pulled her fingers away feeling wetness. She gazed upon her bloody hand. Had she been struck by some invisible force? Although she could not see the assailant, she felt its malevolent presence. It was coming closer, preparing to strike again.

“Lizzie, no!” she screamed.

It was too late. The invisible weapon cut deep into her head and she fell back onto the bed. She felt herself being struck again and again. She felt the warmth of her own blood on the back of her neck and pooling on the bed under her body as her life ebbed from the wounds in her head. Then she was gone.

In the barn, Elizabeth had hit the doll more than a dozen times in the head before stopping. She gazed at her handiwork with some gratification but knew the job was not done. She placed the doll figure of her step-father into position on the bench. She stabbed the hatchet into the bench top so it stood erect in the wood. She climbed to the second story of the barn and sat by the window so she could see the front of her house clearly. She waited for her step-father to return home.

Isaac returned from Providence in the early afternoon and discovered the house to be quiet and serene. Assuming his wife had gone to market with the new house-maid he decided to rest before tending to the afternoon chores. He had been ill for several days with a stomach virus and then with stabbing pains in his lower back near his kidneys. Too weak to venture upstairs, he reclined upon the day-bed in the main parlor and fell asleep.

Isaac awakened suddenly. From a lying position, he felt a hard strike upon his forehead. He reached up to feel blood running from his skull. In a daze, he looked at the blood upon his fingertips wondering how this could have happened. Without warning, he was struck again with tremendous force. His arm immediately dropped to his side and hung from the day-bed uselessly. He could not move a muscle as he felt several more blows to his head by some invisible perpetrator. He thought he could actually feel an axe cleaving its way into his skull.

In the barn, Elizabeth plunged the axe into the head of the doll many more times, twenty-one times in all, until the head was no longer recognizable or round and the little bead used for the right eye dislodged and hung loosely in the deformed wax.

During the last few blows of the blade, Tichiban entered the barn screaming.

“No. No Elizabeth!”

She ran to the young lady’s side and physically stopped her from swinging the axe.

“This is not a game my child. This is forever,” Tichiban hollered. “You were not meant to do something like this. I gave you this as a diversion to take your anger out upon - not to destroy your life and the life of all around you.”

Elizabeth dropped the hatchet and grabbed Tichiban, wrapping her arms tight around her and exploding into a fit of tears.

“Oh, Tichiban. They told me you had left, that I would never see you again.”
“I am sorry my child. I do have to go. But I would not leave without saying goodbye to you.”

“Can I come with you, away from this place?”
“What about your sister, she will be home from boarding school shortly. You must stay and take care of her - and this.”

Tichiban separated their hug and looked Elizabeth in the eyes.
“You must be strong now; you must ensure that your sister is taken care of and that she lives a good life. You must make something good of this misfortune, so it is not in vain.”

Tichiban picked up the small hatchet.
“Go hide this, my child, in the floor boards of the barn attic,” she suggested.

Tichiban stripped the two wax dolls of their meager clothing and personal possessions. She threw them onto the fading coals in the fireplace. After a few moments they burst into flame. Tichiban held the dolls near the burning embers making them warm. They softened. She rolled the raw wax in her hands while saying words in her native tongue. They were no longer dolls; they were just balls of wax.



This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to events and persons living or dead is used in a purely fictional way for the purpose of entertainment.