All Dolled Up!

Charlie

"I wanted this to be cleaned and polished," I said, bringing out Charlotte's necklace.

Though the workers there were no doubt very professional, even they couldn’t help but make faces when I showed them the state of the necklace. But they still said they could return it to its former glory - though it would take a week after the next for it to be done, and as for the price tag - well, I had thought that I could maybe pay for it without having to sell those earrings, though it was clearly not going to be possible. At least, not without making a few sacrifices of my own.

"I just hope she appreciates that," was all my mother said after I had paid for it.

I left it with them, and then my mom and I stopped by a local restaurant she liked, chatting- which really meant that I nodded along while she told me all the gossip she had been storing over the last few months, and then went back home.

My father and Suzy were in the middle of watching a movie together, and we joined them, enjoying a nice family evening for once. I texted Charlotte before going to bed that her necklace was going to be cleaned, to be met with several 'hearts' emojis.

However, they were not cartoon hearts but anatomical heart emojis instead. I think she meant to send the former as I had explained offhandedly what it meant to 'heart' something, but she probably got confused on what that meant somewhat, though I appreciated the sentiment nonetheless.

I also let her know that the following night I would be returning home. I couldn’t see her face, but I imagined she would be quite excited about that.

The next day was the main event of course- actual Fourth of July. Funnily enough, I found the shop I had wanted to visit earlier was actually open till noon despite the holiday. I was going to just lie around and chill for the day, but this was an opportunity I definitely wanted to take advantage of. I would have to drop by here again for the necklace, but that would have to be on a weekend and I might as well have gotten this done instead of leaving it for future me. Hopefully future me appreciates the effort.

This would've gone without a hitch - but my sister really insisted on tagging along - to the point where I knew there was something up as to why she wanted to tag along with me so badly.

She let out a sigh of relief the moment we were out the driveway- and I was guessing that my dad wanted to talk to her more about her life decisions, which is likely why she was so eager to bail on them right now.

"So, where are you going exactly?" she asked me.

"Ah, to this shop I wanted to check out," I told her the same answer that I had told my parents - though unlike my parents, she wanted to know far more about it.

"A shop? Today? What's that important?" she asked.

"Do you really care, or did you just want to get out of the house?" I asked her.

"I did - but I still wanna know where you're going," she said. She then whispered, "Hey - about those other pills I found - anything else going on?"

She clearly thought that if I had that kind of an issue I wouldn't tell my parents the truth about it - and she was right, but there was nothing there for her to dig up. "No, I threw them out anyway like I had been planning to earlier. Everything’s cool. Everything’s good." I can’t say I sounded very convincing, but then again- how exactly can you sound any more convincing when speaking about subject matter like this?

"Suit yourself," she said, and then gave me a confused look when we stopped at our destination. "Wait- is that where you wanted to go?"

"Yes," I told her.

It was hard to mistake it for anything else - the shop was designed like a witch’s house- but not like what an actual witch's house would look like, more of what someone just doing a cosplay would think one would look like. At least that was the impression it made on me - that the owner wanted to make it look as ‘spooky’ and out of place as possible, but hadn’t really gone the full mile. I actually thought that the house I had moved into had looked scarier, at least in the beginning, than this place.

It was painted a deep shade of black and made of wood, with the windows broken in a way that was clearly designed to be that way, and the slanted roof had been painted over to look like the house was wearing a pointy hat. There was a gremlin-looking creature peeking out of a window and a large plastic spider on another one. 'Vanessa's Shop of Oddities' was written across the front.

People around the area might have called it 'creepy' but it looked more cute in my opinion instead - like a five-year-old kid trying to yell 'boo' at you while wearing a white sheet, but clearly visible under it. In a way that also sort of summed up my feelings regarding Charlotte as well.

"So, what're you looking for here?" Suzy asked. "Is your new house haunted? Or is that girl you're dating into this stuff?"

She was somehow right about the first thing, though I gave no indication of it.

"Hey- you're free to stay in the car while I go inside."

"Nah, I wanna see what you're up to," Suzy said. I rolled my eyes at her comment as she followed me while I grabbed the book Charlotte and I had found.

I didn't know how I would play this - what exactly was I looking for? I wasn't even sure, but I was hoping to find an answer- though how was I going to go ahead with that without sounding crazy?

I opened the door and was greeted by a plump lady who looked a few years younger than my mother- she was dressed up in a plain brown outfit and looked surprisingly... normal for lack of a better word. She could've been a shopkeeper in your run-of-the-mill grocery store and wouldn’t’ve looked out of place.

I guess I was just expecting her to look a bit more... odd?

"Ah... can I help you?" she asked, noticing my blank expression.

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I was just a little surprised you were open today," I said.

"Oh, I don't care for the holidays everyone else celebrates," she said. "Only those that have a real spiritual significance."

The smell of lavender pervaded the shop, and it looked quite a bit more eerie on the inside than the outside, I'll give it that. Several shrunken skulls were on display within a glass case, there were art pieces I can only describe as 'bizarre' on display, and there was what looked like an actual haunted doll on another shelf.

"I was hoping you could help me with this," I told her. I took out the book and showed it to her. "My friend has this book, but it's missing its cover. I was wondering if I could get a fresh copy of it?"

She took a look at the book, opening it to a random page while flipping through it. "No author or title?"

I shook my head. I had even copied and pasted segments of the text in German as it was into various search engines - to see if it would match up with any text that had been scanned online. I couldn't find anything.

"Well, I can't really help you there," she said.

"Do you recognize some of the symbols though?"

"Yes, but countless texts use them," she said. "You're not going to get far with just asking people at random." She took another look at the book. "But... if you're not too attached to it- I'd be willing to buy it from you for a fair price."

"I'm sorry, it's not for sale," I told her. The likelihood that it was just some random book that happened to be hidden in Charlotte's house was miniscule, it was probably important in some way. Charlotte swore that no one but her and May knew about the hiding place - but the book was as far from what May would usually read, as per Charlotte, that it couldn't be hers.

Not to mention whoever stuck the book there hadn't taken the necklace or earrings - which was rather strange.

"Oh well," she said, shrugging. "Anything else I can help you with?"

My sister had wandered over to another display case, though was she far enough out of earshot for me to ask something I really wanted to?

I almost asked about haunted dolls - I almost did, but I somehow knew the moment the words would leave my mouth my sister would strut over like a demon when its name had been invoked.

"No, thank you for your time," I said.