In which John Ashton Smith tells a little more of his story....

It's me again. I do hope you don't mind. My lovely lady and her person are measuring the other bookcase to see if the terrarium on the shelf below will fit. I think it will be about an inch too small, but we'll see. Maddy said she'd like to give us space for a living room, even though we haven't any proper living room furniture at the moment. It's all quite different than living atop a file cabinet. Shel asked me if I missed life at the university. I quite honestly don't. He said he didn't remember Mrs. Bishop making smaller dolls. She actually doesn't....


She had an idea to market a doll family she named "The Cuddles Family." There was to be a happy, handsome father, a beautiful doting mother and two adorable baby twins - myself and Persephone, in other words. Obviously she didn't name us John and Persephone, though. What she did name us, I shan't reveal. Suffice it to say that we were given the most thoroughly humiliating names and outfits one could imagine. Worse, by the time she was actually finished with us, it was obvious that we weren't tiny children - just tiny dolls. I think we rather horrified her. I don't think she's comfortable at all with the fact that sometimes, we dolls turn out to be very different from what our maker intended. We were sold to Dr. Armitage at a crafts fair that next weekend. He intended us to be a birthday present for his daughter, but - you already know how his wife reacted to that idea. So he took us to his office. His secretary felt quite sorry for us and made us some actual clothing - not onesies and diapers - and redid our hair. (In my case, it wasn't redoing so much as actually doing it. Mrs. Bishop hadn't given me any.) Oddly enough, somewhere along the line she decided I quite resembled the human bloke my lady (and her person, I should add) fancy and nicknamed me John Ashton Smith, a cross between his name and the great paranormal writer Clark Ashton Smith. It was far more dignified than my original name, so I kept it. Percy obviously took her name from Greek mythology, although I'm not sure why she chose Persephone. It was because of Percy that I first heard of the original Hitty. Percy discovered her autobiography in the university library and was utterly fascinated. I was, too. Up until then I hadn't thought there were any other dolls even close to our size. Richard Morris is taller by some four inches - quite the difference when one is a doll. We were even privileged to meet the lady herself when Dr. Armitage had to travel to Stockbridge in search of some documents related to the building of the Arkham reservoir in the 1920s. Suffice it to say that she is indeed as delightful in person. From there we learned of her many descendants. Although I never expected that one would be the love of my life...

"Well, crud...." Maddy's voice interrupted my thoughts. "It's about an inch too small..."