dollface | melanie martinez

𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫

clara felt her heartbeat begin to race as she sat for a moment, frozen by fear.

she knew she was alone in the house.

slowly, ever so slowly, she stood up and turned around;
what she saw made her jaw drop.

sat on the chair where she had placed cry baby was now a pretty woman.
she looked exactly like the doll; the dress, the hair, the single teardrop on her cheek- everything was identical.

when she smiled at clara, a gap showed between her teeth.

"that was some good playing," the doll woman complimented. "you have talent."

"w- who are you?" the small child asked, although with no more fear. this pretty doll woman did not seem scary at all.

the doll woman let out a tinkling laugh that made clara feel warm on the inside.

"why, i'm crybaby of course. didn't angel tell you about me?"

"she said you're gonna look after me... but you're a doll," said clara curiously, taking a few steps closer.

"i can't look after you if i'm a stiff old doll, silly," crybaby smiled. "but of course i'm going to look after you. i'm going to protect you from anything that could ever hurt you, but to do that i've got to be bigger than you. see?"

she stood up and demonstrated how she towered over the young girl.

"but why are you a doll if you're a person?" clara asked again.

cry baby dropped her voice a little, so clara had to lean in to hear.
"i used to be a person, but i did some naughty things. so someone very very mean trapped me in a doll's body."

"were they your friend?"

"no."

clara took this in for a moment before nodding. "will you be my friend? i don't have any friends anymore," she said sadly. "i used to have a kitty cat called mr. midnight. he was my best friend, but he ran away."

"of course i'll be your friend," crybaby said warmly, and scooped the little girl up in her arms, which earned a giggle. "and what's your name?"

"clara. but people call me dollface."

"crybaby and dollface. i like it, but- dollface? why?"

clara giggled again. "because i look like a doll, silly. i have a doll that looks just like me."

"oh?"

"she lives in my dollhouse. one of papa's special friends made her for me- come and see."
the little girl grabbed a hold of crybaby's hand excitedly and began to drag her in the direction of her bedroom.

the smile faded from crybaby's eyes a little. "special friend?"

"mhm! papa has lots of special friends. they're all pretty ladies. mama doesn't like any of them. they're nice to me, though.
look, this is my room!"

completely oblivious to the look on crybaby's face, clara dragged her over to a large pastel dollhouse beneath her windowsill.
she gently knocked on the miniature door before pushing it open, then pushing the whole wall open.

"look! this is mini dollface," said clara happily, picking the small doll up from the floor of one of the dollhouse rooms.

"she's beautiful," crybaby agreed certainly. "do you want to play dolls?"

a wide smile spread across clara's face. no one apart from angel had ever played dolls with her.
"of course!"

as she and crybaby began to play with the dolls,
clara couldn't help but smile to herself about the fact that she had a new friend.