1039: Story 1039: Demon of the Dollhouse 1039: Story 1039: Demon of the Dollhouse They said the dollhouse was once a gift for a grieving girl.
Hand-carved.
Hand-painted.
Each miniature piece crafted to perfection, down to the teacups and velvet drapes.
No one knew who built it—or how it ended up in the attic of the Gravenhurst Orphanage.
But when the screaming began, the whispers followed.
And the dollhouse waited.
Elsie, small for her age and too quiet for comfort, found it while hiding from bullies in the attic one storm-heavy night.
Lightning flashed across the sky as her hands brushed the dust away from the roof, revealing spindly spires and blood-painted shutters.
She was drawn to it, heart pounding.
Inside, tiny figures stood frozen—a mother, a father, a child, and… something else.
A dark figure crouched in the nursery, its face obscured by strands of human hair and its hands sewn together with black string.
The child figure looked just like her.
Elsie reached for it.
The attic door slammed shut.
That night, no one saw Elsie at dinner.
By morning, the bullies were found scattered through the halls—silent, staring, and each missing their tongues.
In the attic, the dollhouse had changed.
New figures now stood inside.
One resembled a teacher.
Another a cook.
One wore the janitor’s coat.
And in the nursery, the hair-faced figure had shifted.
Its hands were free now.
It was reaching.
Miss Warburton, the headmistress, blamed the children’s trauma.
“The war has twisted their minds,” she muttered, lighting yet another cigarette.
But the lights flickered each time she passed the attic.
And at night, the house echoed with scratching—not from mice, but from tiny nails across painted wood.
Then, one evening, she climbed the attic stairs herself, determined to destroy the thing.
She never came back down.
Instead, a new doll appeared in the nursery: a prim woman with a burning cigarette and fear etched into her tiny face.
Elsie returned a week later.
Different.
Eyes dark.
Voice light and sweet.
She spoke only to the dollhouse now.
Said its name was “Thimble.”
Said Thimble had shown her the truth.
That each figure in the dollhouse was a soul.
Trapped forever.
That it fed on cruelty, betrayal, and broken promises—until the dollhouse itself became a demon in wood and glass, building its own little afterlife, one soul at a time.
When Gravenhurst Orphanage mysteriously burned to the ground, only one child was never found among the ruins.
Elsie.
But months later, a new dollhouse appeared in a distant town’s antique shop.
Fully furnished.
One figure inside stood with her hand against a tiny window, smiling softly.
A little girl in gray.
Waiting for someone else to open the roof and play.