Chapter Text
It wasn't too difficult to walk, but you weren't used to hobbling around on one leg -especially over the uneven terrain and hugging tight to the cliffside as to not look over or slip. The man also left you with his name and an elaborate cane to help your journey, those made as much sense as his instructions to just walk forward on the straight path and take the elevator up. He warned that you were staying with a real nutty woman, a recluse who barely ever spoke and 'sat around and made dolls all day because she has no friends'. Dropping you off in front of what looked to be a graveyard, of all places.
"Well gee, thanks Karl." You scoffed quietly to yourself as you examined the roughly welded together metal bar, topped with a horse that you'd seen several times and you now associated with Heisenberg.
Not that his treatment of you was any different than how you've been towards most people in your life. You were often bullied for one reason or another as a child and you grew up in a house with everybody at everybody else's throats due to their upbringing and their status in life. This resulted in a cynical, jaded woman who left the house with as much stuff as she could steal and pawn at eighteen and shacked up with the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who you were seeing and sneaking into the bedroom window of. You graduated with her, and hand in her already tattooed hand as you sped up the beater car, never looked back . Normally the story goes bad from there, but things only got better and better for the two of you as she fled her own childhood house of pain. Adult life got rocky here and there but your relationship with her never did. Until recently anyways.
The graveyard walk was tiring, but set your mind at ease with just how quiet and peaceful it all was. Here in the graveyard. You hobbled past a few shambling shacks, past a large gravestone in front of the chapel-like building, and up to the door with a mail slot. The man didn't exaggerate the dollmaking mention as every few feet within the graveyard there was one. Elaborately handmade and painted, with handmade clothes to boot. Relaxing on the gravestones, standing in the dirt between the patches of flowers and grass, or looking out at you from the windows of the destroyed houses.
You didn't let your nerves get the best of you, and you were still oddly at ease. You didn't think too much on the dolls as you made your way through the door, and into the elevator. At least you didn't have to ride an elevator with one. The lift arrived to another cave, but this one you could see light at the end of the tunnel and heard whit noise in the distance.
As you rounded the corner and your eyes settled on the estate, you couldn't help but take a moment to gaze in awe at the sight. It was indeed serene and atmospheric with a waterfall framing a vintage, large house colored and styled like it had been torn out of the old European novels and films you loved.
Truthfully, you could have stopped to stare at the gorgeous mountain tops and mist and scant vegetation that hugged the rocks until you decomposed there on the spot. You'd always wanted to retire to a place like this with her. You were here now, but she wasn't and would never be again a part of your life. So you continued your walk, past the outer gates, past the plots of yellow flowers, and stepped to the old wood double doors.
Heisenberg wasn't kidding about just how creepy some of the dolls got, just the front entrance itself next to the door there sat the most unsettling one you'd ever seen in your life. Her face was downturned, and she was slumped over lifeless, but from what you could see from your standing position was a bridal doll with all-too-long limbs. What you could make out of her face you saw cracks and signs of age, scraps of blonde hair with a mildewing hue as signs of the decades the thing has probably been around. You didn't pay it much mind as you didn't pay still objects much attention.
You knocked a few times on the door, waiting for an answer, your knuckles coming back a bit sore from how solid everything was built. A few minutes had passed but you were enjoying the scenery and the sounds and smells of the garden and waterfall behind the estate to be impatient. Your eyes began to wander around and what they didn't see gave you a jolt of shock. The doll was gone.
You did a double take, almost falling over as the doll was now completely gone from its seated position near the entrance. A moment after that you heard something of a giggle, then a creak of the door as it opened slowly by itself. Once it was open enough to accommodate your size, you stepped inside and out of the humid mist. Though the inside wasn't any less damp than the outside. You came across a foyer, natural brown due to its wooden interior with cracking hallways leading to places you couldn't quite make out. The inside indeed set you at ease, reminding you of a grandmother's house complete with portrait of a beautiful woman in the middle of the stairway.
You gasped through your teeth as you saw the doll in the portrait, same as the one outside. Though the painting of it made it out to look just-made and far less menacing. Or maybe that was just the effect that the woman looking forward in the portrait had on you.
You took in all her features at once and was instantly enamored of them - plump shapely lips, a wreath of black hair, deathly pallid skin, a filled jawline and healthy looking face. To top it off, she wore rather conservative but black, almost funeral-like attire. Who could blame you for staring at the portrait like some madwoman, your ex-girlfriend shared some of the features that the woman in the portrait did. Particularly those eyes, that seemed to brim with life and death at the same time. Unnaturally black, though with a liveliness behind them.
The moment you took your eyes off the portrait you spotted a standing figure, ghostly and with what you perceived to be an executioner's hood but then saw to be a funeral veil. This sent you back, as you felt your other leg buckle beneath you, throwing your cane to the side and landing on your rear as you took in the phantom before you, holding the same doll now degrading with time.
As you fell and came to your senses, the doll chuckled in a high, nasally pitch, watching you as you as your leg gave out and laughing menacingly once you did hit the ground, slapping its knee with its elongated arm.
The figure grasping the doll gave a gentle caress to the side of its head and its veil, ceasing the laughter to a light chuckle. "Yeah yeah, I know. But it's funny every time, Donna!"
...was the voice coming from the doll? It certainly seemed like it. You had been told of the lady of the house's skills in ventriloquism but goodness, you could make out the voice coming from within the doll's flapping jaw.
"Well, get up! You're our guest, right?" It continued, waiting for you to get your cane and stand back up, which you did. "I'm Angie, and this is Donna!" She announced, not waiting for you to steady yourself before continuing on. "What's your name, beautiful?"
You didn't care for compliments from creepy porcelain hunks of junk. But that thought of scorn for the doll didn't make its way into your introduction. "I'm (y/n), I was told I would be staying here while my leg recovered." You tapped your cane against your splint, sending a big jolt of pain through your whole body and making you wince.
The doll laughed at this, hopping up and down in the phantom's arms. But maybe she wasn't a ghost or entity. Maybe underneath it she was the woman in the portrait you figured. Whatever the reason, there wasn't a need for her to wear the veil she did and emit such a mortifying visage. "So you can't run, even if you want to!" Angie cackled, to which Donna gave her a light, but elegant and low-energy swat to the back of the head. "Fine, fine." Angie replied to her holder.
Whatever the reason she was wearing the veil, you'd seen similar in Victorian non-fiction books and articles online. You wouldn't ask about it, or ask her to take it off as to not come off as insensitive. "Did anybody take my things? I had a backpack in the car and a suitcase."
"Yeah, let me take you to your room first. We put it up there! What was left of it." Angie said with a chuckle, somehow leaping from Donna's arms and hobbling up the stairs on her own.
You stood there mouth agape, trying to work out in your mind just how she was moving on her own so smoothly, so fluidly as if she were a toddler made of wood. Donna silently followed her doll up the stairs, seemingly pausing for a moment in front of her portrait before continuing her steps.
Angie looked down at your through the bannisters, rolling her beaded eyes and throwing her hands up. "C'mon slow poke! Don't stand there with your mouth open like a fish!" She chuckled again, tapping her foot and crossing her arms. You obliged, learning to traverse the stairs despite your mangled leg.
The three of you stopped in front of another hallway, still going forward from the entrance of the house. "Down the hall is Donna's room. Don't go there." Angie didn't laugh this time, pointing towards the end of an uncluttered hall with a door to the left and the right. You followed as she continued along the balcony, stopping at the end where a room was immediately on your right and a small stretch leading to another door on the left.
"The right is your room, and that one's a bathroom!" Angie instructed, pointing to the left door, open for you to walk towards minus a few dolls along the bannister, facing Donna's room on the opposite end of the balcony.
"Get settled in, we'll have some food ready for you in a few hours." Angie finally stopped, climbing back up to Donna's arms and taking a seat.
"Thank you, Angie." You gulped, prying your eyes away from the amount of dolls littering the hallways and how some of them seemed to be watching you. And the ones that were looking into your room and looking out of it, as you saw more already within the room.
Angie took notice of what you were beholding, giving you a single forward wave of her hand and stating "Aw, those are just our friends! They won't hurt ya!" Her shrill sentence ended with a giggle.
"Do you mind if I move these dolls out of my room? I'd sleep better at night." You came very forward with your request as you opened the door wider and saw many more dolls already in the room, surrounding your damaged backpack without your suitcase.
"Fine. If it makes you more comfortable. Miranda wants you as stress-free as you can get!" Angie replied, rather than the black figure still standing eerily and watching your every movement without a word. Just to keep things uncomplicated you would play along, and hey, you'd certainly respected people who weren't quite like other people. God knows you had your oddities.
You stepped into your room, paused for a moment to look at the backpack, noticing its contents were spilled on the floor and rifled through. You returned your face to a neutral look after an upset frown and downturned brow came across it. "Did you find my suitcase?" You asked, to which Angie shook her head no. "Well, thanks anyway." You muttered in a neutral tone, making your way towards your backpack. It was to your surprise Angie yet again left her owner's arms and walked up to you as you began to sort out what didn't spill in the accident.
"You have a lot of things I'd never seen! Me and Donna don't go out much so it was all so weird!" Angie exclaimed, doing a short leap in the air. "And who's this?" Angie got closer to an open side pocket and pulled a small pocket-sized photo from its open position.
You blushed a bit, as you weren't one to let strangers pry but you also weren't one to bite the hand that feeds you or will keep you in her house for however long it'll take.
"That was my former lover. I took that photo along so I could burn it while on vacation." You spitted with a reddened face. Your ex-girlfriend and you were clothed in the picture, sure, but you were very much wrapped up in a heavy kiss, your hands around her and her hand on your thigh.
Donna was standing just outside the door but as Angie looked over the photo, you could see the black garbs shift in discomfort, with her dark nailed hand being brought to where her left eye was as if the nature of the photo brought a strong reaction out in the woman.
Angie looked it over again with a chuckle. "Good to know you and Donna already have something in common!" The doll was giddy with the discovery and threw her hands in the air.
"Angie!" The quietest yell you'd ever heard came from beneath the veil this time. In a voice hushed and more around your age. A voice that had hints of sorrowful cracking as if coming from a woman who sobbed her afternoons away, but was ultimately honeysweet and feminine. Angie's head snapped towards Donna, falling quiet and retreating to her owner and jumping back in her arms.
"Sorry, I get so excited sometimes." Angie explained, still unable to shake off her giggles. "We'll give you a tour after dinner. For now, stick around, girly! We have some books for you if you get bored." With that, Donna quickly made her way out of your line of sight from the doorway, taking Angie with her.