In which Shel reflects....

A year ago this isn't where I thought I'd end up.

I know Caroline has told you all some of my story. I feel like I should finally own up to the whole thing....

I'm not sure where to start, but....I guess at the very beginning.

I came to life in Arkham, MA, the same place as Persephone and John Ashton Smith, by the same maker, a woman of actually about Maddy's age named Sally Bishop. Mrs. Bishop used to be a secretary at a private school in Arkham, but left that job to raise her children. I guess that's how she started making dolls. I don't know; she never did tell us much. I do know that two of her children are now on their own (and were nagged daily about "giving her a grandbaby") and one is still in college, albeit not Miskatonic. That much I picked up while I was still on her sewing table. At the time, she was working on the doll intended to be my companion, a flapper named Abagail. We were both dressed in Jazz Age style. The only thing I wish I had from my old life is the outfit I was given. It was pretty sharp. We were put up for adoption in her Etsy shop and quickly adopted by a woman in lower Manhattan, New York, NY. It wasn't the good luck it seemed to be at the time....

Our person was a rather severe woman whose age I'm not sure of. In hindsight, she reminds me of Margaret Thatcher and/or Nancy Reagen. Always impeccably dressed in head-to-toe designer suits, never a hair the slightest bit out of place. I don't know what she did for a living. Her apartment was cream-on-beige and always immaculate, thanks to her maid. We lived on shelves in her designated doll room. For some reason I would have expected her to have collected French fashion dolls or china dolls or something, but she had a thing for cowboys. Most of her other dolls were cowboys. One of them took an interest in me...

At first Avery (that was his name) seemed like the perfect boyfriend. He told me we were meant to be together, that we were soul mates, all that stuff. (Maddy, for the record, told me that if a guy starts swearing stuff like that on the first date, it's really bad news. She also told me never to trust a man who calls you "Cupcake" on your second date. I didn't have that problem.) And he was handsome. Tall and blond and tanned, with his big white hat and sheriff's badge. I was in love. Really in love. At first it was wonderful. But then - well, you know....

He'd always apologize, of course. Swear he'd never do it again. Said if I'd try just a little bit harder to be what he needed, everything would be all right. And I believed him. Truth was, I was feeling pretty low. Our person had only adopted me because of Abagail. She thought I was ugly. I'd been relegated to a back shelf in the doll room and pretty much ignored. Avery was all I really had. I thought that if I just tried a little harder, read his needs and moods better, then everything would be all right. I didn't know that there was no way it could ever be all right. The problem was him, not me, but I wasn't in any position to realize that. So I kept trying - and failing - and trying some more. And failing some more, too.

I don't even know what set him off that last time. He'd knocked me around pretty good quite a few times before. but this time he came after me with scissors. I don't know if they were sharp enough to cut and I didn't want to find out. I ran for it. I got out the door, but he followed me, caught up with me and pushed me down the stairs of the building. I fell over the rail and ended up landing about four flights down, right on my arm. The plastic Mrs. Bishop had used as an armature snapped and tore partially through the fabric. It hurt worse than anything I'd ever felt. I must have passed out; the next thing I really remember is the emergency room nurse at the NYC Doll Hospital saying my name.

There were a lot of questions about what had happened. Avery claimed that I had tried to seduce him, then attacked him when he refused. My person believed him. She disowned me and left. I honestly don't think I was surprised, but it hurt more than my broken arm did. All I could do was cry. I don't know what the doctors and nurses thought. but their biggest concern was that without a person, nobody was going to pay for my care. The usual procedure was to hand the doll in question over to an eBay broker who would use the adoption fee to cover his/her costs and theirs, but none of the brokers wanted me. So I was sent to a seller upstate who didn't want me either. He said I'd never sell; I was ugly and nobody wanted a boy doll, least of all a gay one. Well, he didn't quite put it that way, but - you get the picture. So that night - I ran away. I didn't know where I was or where I was going, but I knew I had to get out of there. I figured I'd end up dead, but that was preferable to being stuck in an indoor flea market with my broken arm and nobody wanting me.

I'd never been out on my own before, never mind outside. It was cold at night and I had to hide from dogs and raccoons and I don't know what all. I was terrified. I just kept running - or trying to - for three days. Maddy said I made about thirty miles in that time. I don't know how I did it. By the time I found myself under the tree in her backyard, I was too weak and exhausted to go any further, frozen to my armature and dangerously close to slipping into the limbo unwanted dolls fall into, some never to recover...

But that was when John-John found me.

I didn't know the world could be like this. I don't sleep on a shelf anymore; I have a real bed. (Well, it's an easy chair, but still...) I don't have to be afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing without realizing it. There are other dolls who actually want to be friends with me. And I have a person and another doll who adore me.

I'm not sure what happened to my former person or the others after Hurricane Sandy. Sparrow, the doll who found her way here awhile back, said that my ex-person left Manhattan afterwards for Houston. She also said that most of the girl dolls, including Abagail, were left behind, but she took Avery with her. I hope Abagail's all right. She wasn't cruel to me, just not interested in me romantically (any more than I was in her, I admit.) I guess she was more my sister than my girlfriend, the way Mrs. Bishop intended. She was far too afraid of Avery to intervene - he would have had no qualms about doing her in, I think. He already didn't like the fact that she'd been given a place on display in the living room. That was his territory....


That's the real reason John-John and I are putting off setting a date. Well, one of them. He's waiting until his mom and brother can join us and I'm hoping to find my - well, I guess she is my sister.

Maybe I will. I hope so. But I didn't think I'd be this lucky....






(Note: there really is a 1920's tuxedo pattern here - it's called "Love, Forever & Always" about halfway down the page. (I can't link to it directly.) It's going to need some serious tailoring to fit Shel, though. Sylvia Schorr's "Dude For All Seasons" is almost two inches broader through the shoulders and chest than Shel, which translates to at least five human sizes. Her patterns are wonderful, BTW.)