Doll Collection

With their daughter, Rory, happily married and living in California, Graham and Cynthia Hayes decided it was time to leave the empty nest. They sold their house in an upscale suburb of Boston and moved to the quaint, quiet village of Oyster Cove. Graham, tired of the hectic pace of Boston General Hospital, decided to go into private practice. It had long been his dream to be an old-fashioned family doctor, one who could take the time to get to know the people he was treating and develop a good doctor-patient rapport with them.

With the help of a local realtor, Cynthia found the perfect home in which to start the next chapter in her and Graham's lives: a spacious, three-story colonial with a breathtaking view of the ocean. Situated on a large parcel of land that included a trellised garden and a gazebo, the house on Atlantic Avenue looked like the setting for a happily-ever-after fairytale. Not only was it a comfortable home, but Graham was also able to convert several of the rooms on the lower floor into an office, waiting room and two examining rooms.

While Dr. Hayes was kept busy tending to the sick and injured of Oyster Cove, Mrs. Hayes, after organizing her new home, was free to arrange her large doll collection in the house's spacious attic. Ever since she was a child, Cynthia had been collecting dolls, and although many of them were of sentimental value only, she did own several that were worth a good deal of money: Brus, Jummeaus, Gaultiers, Thuilliers, Heubachs and Steiners—all antique porcelain treasures. Also in her collection were the dolls she played with as a child: the original 1959 ponytail Barbie, Ken, Midge and Skipper, Patty Play Pal, Betsy McCall, Thumbelina, Penny Brite, Tressy, Tammy and Pepper.

Back in the '70s, when Cynthia quit work to become a full-time mother, she made it a hobby to search yard sales and flea markets for unwanted dolls that she would restore by repairing cracked porcelain, replacing a wig, repainting a face or sewing a new outfit. The hobby soon developed into a part-time business that she called the Little Treasures Doll Hospital. After moving to Oyster Cove, Cynthia put an ad in the Oyster Cove Banner. A week later, she got her first customer.

"I've had this doll since I was a newlywed," explained Emily McIntyre, the principal of the Oyster Cove Elementary School. "I bought the pair of them, the bride and groom, while I was on my honeymoon. This poor fellow fell off my dresser, and now there's a large crack in his head. Do you think you might be able to fix it?"

The following day when Cynthia went to her workroom to repair Principal McIntyre's doll she found the little groom lying on the table, smashed to pieces.

"Graham," she called as she headed for her husband's office. "Did you accidentally knock over that doll on my worktable?"

"Hardly. It's in a million pieces. It looks as though someone took a hammer to it."

"Maybe someone broke into the house while we were out last night. Perhaps we should phone the police and report it."

"Let me check and see if anything has been stolen. I doubt someone would break into our house just to smash a doll."

"Unless it was one of the kids at the school. Principals aren't always popular with students," Graham laughed.

After confirming that the stereo, televisions, DVD player, computer, jewelry and other valuables had not been stolen, Cynthia tended to agree with the idea that it was a student playing a heartless trick on the poor principal.

When Cynthia went back to the work table and examined the remains of the porcelain doll, she recognized the mold. She had a Cinderella doll manufactured by the same company. If she replaced Cinderella's gold locks and ball gown with the groom's short wig and suit, Mrs. McIntyre might not notice the difference. Although she hated parting with her own doll, she didn't have the heart to tell poor Emily what someone had so cruelly done to her keepsake.

Having made up her mind, Cynthia went up to the attic to get the Cinderella doll. When she opened the door, she screamed. Graham came running up the stairs behind her.

"My dolls!" she cried, as her husband gently cradled her in his arms. "Why would someone do such a thing?"

Over his wife's shoulder, Graham could see into the attic. The dolls that had been so carefully and lovingly displayed throughout the large room were now tossed about as though they were the victims of a hurricane or an earthquake. But no natural disaster had been the culprit. Only human hands could have torn the clothes from several of the dolls and ripped them to pieces.

When Cynthia finally found the strength to face the wanton destruction, she walked through the room like a zombie, picking up dolls and ripped clothing and performing doll hospital triage, determining which ones could be salvaged and which could not. Surprisingly, most of them seemed to be undamaged. By early afternoon she had straightened up most of the mess.

"Well?" Graham asked after he said goodbye to his last patient of the day and joined his wife in the living room. "How bad is it?"

"It's bizarre. All the adult male dolls—and only the male dolls—were destroyed. My bride dolls were stripped of their wedding gowns and veils. The dolls themselves weren't harmed, but the costumes were torn apart. And the baby dolls—the ones that were the size of real infants—have all disappeared."

"Did they determine how someone could get in and out of the house with the doors and windows locked?"

"Their best guess is that someone snuck into the house while we were still at home and hid until we left."

"I thought we left all that behind us in Boston. I suppose there's no safe place anymore," Cynthia said despondently.

"As your husband and your personal physician, I think that what you need right now is a night out. Why don't we go try that little Italian restaurant over on Quincy Street?" Graham suggested, trying to cheer his wife up.

"That's a great idea. I'm going to drown my sorrows in fettuccini Alfredo, half a loaf of garlic bread and a large glass of wine, and then I intend to top it all off with a cup of espresso and a big, fattening helping of tiramisu."

"Then you'll wear out your treadmill for the next two weeks trying to work off the calories," Graham teased.

"Oh, but first I want to drop that doll off at Emily's house. You never know what might happen to it here."

Mrs. McIntyre was delighted when she saw her restored doll. As Cynthia had surmised, the principal didn't even notice the switch.

"I don't know how to thank you, Cindy. You have no idea how much this doll means to me."

Tears suddenly sprang up in Cynthia's eyes as she was reminded of the loss of her own dolls.

"Someone apparently broke into our house last night," Graham explained. "They stole some of the dolls in my wife's collection and destroyed several others."

When Cynthia and Graham filled Ms. McIntyre in on the details of the break-in, the principal looked decidedly alarmed.

Graham and Cynthia exchanged puzzled glances—what did the history of the house have to do with it?

"Not too much," Graham admitted. "The real estate agent said it was built in the early 1800s by a sea captain. Over the years, electricity, indoor plumbing, a new heating system and central air were added. Other than that, the structure is pretty much the same as it was back then."

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, but as far back as I can remember, people have claimed that your house was haunted."

"By the daughter of Captain Ezra Daniels, the man who built the house. She inherited it after her father died. According to local legends, Rachel was in love with the man who took over command of her father's ship, his former first mate. Whenever he went to sea, she would go up to the widow's walk and search the horizon for a sign of his ship. Then one day, he left and never came back. They say she died of a broken heart and that her ghost still appears on the widow's walk, waiting for the return of her missing love."

Later that evening, while the couple was eating dinner in Mama Rosa's Italian Restaurant, Graham turned to his wife and said, "Cindy, promise me one thing."

"Don't go out onto that widow's walk. It's old and probably rotted. I know how curious you must be after that story Emily told us, but stay off it until we're sure it's safe, okay?"

"Spoilsport! I planned on doing some ghost-busting right after dinner," she laughed. "Okay, I promise—no venturing out onto any dangerous ledges."

When she and her husband returned home after their evening out, Cynthia couldn't help glancing up at the widow's walk as the car pulled into the circular driveway. Was there something up there? It was so hard to see it from ground level, three stories below.

"You can look, but don't go up there," Graham declared when he saw his wife staring at the roof of the house.

Cynthia smiled and followed him into the house. For the rest of the night, she forced herself to put the dolls and the break-in out of her mind.

While they were eating breakfast the following morning, Graham kept a keen eye on his wife.

"I want to finish cleaning up the mess in the attic," she responded almost too casually.

After rearranging the undamaged dolls to suit her taste, Cynthia put the wigs, glass eyes, eyelashes, joints, body parts and clothing she was able to salvage from the broken dolls into cardboard storage boxes.

As she carried the boxes to the attic crawlspace, she passed the door leading out to the widow's walk. She had promised Graham she would not go out there, but surely there was no danger in simply opening the door and peeking outside. When she tried to open it, however, the door wouldn't budge. It had probably been years since anyone tried to open it.

"You can put your mind to rest," she told Graham later at lunch. "The door to the widow's walk must have been nailed or painted shut; it's impossible to open."

Then she suggested, "Why don't we go out to the carriage house and have a look at the furniture Jacqueline told us is out there?"

Graham stared at the mountain of old furniture, family portraits, rolled rugs and cardboard boxes piled high in what was once a carriage house but over the years had become a depository for discarded family heirlooms.

"What happened to your sense of adventure?" Cynthia teased as she opened one of the cardboard cartons.

By dinnertime, they had managed to sort through about one-quarter of the boxes and nearly all of the furniture, most of which would be donated to Good Will. However, they did find a few things they wanted to keep: a pair of brass candlesticks, a hand-sewn quilt, a Wedgwood pitcher and bowl set, a Shaker-style rocking chair and an intricately carved wooden chest.

"This looks like a sea chest, and it appears to be in good shape underneath all the dust," Graham observed.

"Great! Then I won't have to refinish it," Cynthia said, as she stretched to relieve the soreness in her muscles from the lifting and carrying she'd done all afternoon.

"Let's call it quits. I think we've both had enough adventure for one day," Graham declared. "Besides, I'm starved."

"Sounds good. I'll go call the order in after I wash some of this dust off. Aren't you coming inside?" he asked.

Cynthia couldn't find the key, but the old, rusted padlock opened easily when she took a hammer and screwdriver to it. When she lifted the lid, she was struck by the strong scent of dried flower-and-herb sachets mixed with the smell of camphor used to protect the contents from moths. Carefully, she removed a garment from the chest and held it at arm's length. Yards of ivory silk and delicate lace unfolded in her hands, revealing the most exquisite wedding gown Cynthia had ever seen. The weight of the dress was amazingly heavy, no doubt due to the long flowing train and the hundreds of seed pearls sewn on the bodice.

"Cindy, are you still out here? What's taking you so long? I'm starving," Graham called as he entered the carriage house. "A wedding gown? Did you find that in the chest?"

"Yes. Isn't it beautiful? It must be well over a hundred years old. And it's so small. Whoever wore this dress was either still a child or quite petite for her age."

"Girls did get married awfully young back then," Graham pointed out. "Of course, if I don't get something to eat soon, I'll be able to fit into that dress myself."

"All right, all right. Let me just put the gown in the house. I don't want to leave it out here in all this dust."

As she went to close the lid of the chest, she found a small book that had been lying beneath the dress. She picked it up, put it in her pocket and went into the house.

Later that night, after dinner and a much-needed shower, Cynthia picked up her dirty clothes and carried them to the hamper. She felt a bulge in her shirt pocket and remembered the book she had found in the old sea chest. As she crawled into bed beside her sleeping husband, she turned on the reading lamp on the nightstand, opened the book to the first page and discovered that it was the journal of Miss Rachel Daniels, the young woman whose ghost was said to haunt the widow's walk.

When Graham woke early the next morning, he found his wife sitting up in bed, her eyes red and puffy from lack of sleep.

"Remember the woman Emily McIntyre told us about—Ezra Daniel's daughter, Rachel?"

"That was her wedding gown, carefully locked away in the sea chest, waiting for a marriage ceremony that never took place. And this," she said holding up the book, "is her journal. I found it underneath the dress."

Graham wanted to scold his wife for staying up all night, but he knew what she wanted most now was for him to listen.

"What did the young woman write?" he asked, knowing she was probably aching to tell him.

Cynthia had marked several pages of the journal with little strips of paper. It was from those pages that she read excerpts of the tragic events in Rachel Daniels' life.

I never knew my heart could feel such happiness. I have loved Caleb since I was a child, when he, not much older than I, served as my father's cabin boy. Now, after all these years, I have learned that he loves me, too. Although he never spoke the words, what happened between us last night speaks for itself ....

Caleb has been at sea for more than two months now. Every day I look to the horizon, but I see no sign of the Seafarer ....

Each day I grow more worried. How will Caleb react when he learns that I am going to have his child? ...

Oh, great joy! My beloved Caleb has come home. I told him the news, and he is delighted. He says we will be married as soon as he returns from a short voyage to New York. While he is gone, I intend to have Mrs. Wentworth make me the most beautiful wedding dress in all of New England ....

My dress is finished, and it is even more beautiful than I dreamed it would be. I can't wait for Caleb to return from New York so that we can be married.

"This is her final entry," she told Graham, tears spilling down her cheeks as she read.

How could I have been so stupid? It was all a lie, and I believed it! I thought Caleb loved me and planned to marry me. Now I know he never will, for I have learned from one of the former crewmen aboard the Seafarer that Caleb already has a wife in New York. What am I to do? I have nowhere to go, no one to turn to. I have only one course of action left to me that will not bring scandal to my good name. May God forgive me!

"Graham! I'll bet Rachel's ghost took the dress, and she must have been the one who created havoc in the attic, too. That would explain why the male dolls were destroyed and the wedding dresses were torn apart. Her spirit must still be upset about being abandoned by Caleb."

"To her, they must represent her unborn child; that's probably why she took them."

"Do you realize you're talking about a woman who has been dead for over a hundred years?"

Cynthia spent the following two weeks searching through public records and phoning dozens of people in both Oyster Cove and New York. At last, she was able to discover the full truth behind the legend of Rachel Daniels. She learned that Caleb Bradshaw indeed had a wife in New York, but he had married her years earlier when he was just a young lad. The marriage had failed, and Caleb got an annulment. When he made that fateful voyage to New York it was to get proof of the annulment so he could marry the woman he truly loved.

"So he really did care for Rachel," Graham surmised. "Whatever happened to Caleb?"

"He came back to Massachusetts with his annulment papers, anxious to get married. But by then Rachel was dead. Officially, the cause of death was an accidental fall, but the doctor suspected that she jumped off the widow's walk. After that, Caleb went back to sea. Heartbroken, he started drinking heavily and eventually went broke and lost command of the Seafarer. On his forty-second birthday, destitute and alone, he put a pistol to his head, and just as Rachel had done, he ended his own life."

When Cynthia finished her account, the lights throughout the house flickered, and a cold breeze blew through the room. Then Graham and Cynthia heard the door to the attic open. Cautiously, they climbed the stairs, hand in hand, not knowing what to expect. Graham slowly reached his hand through the open attic door and turned on the lights.

"I don't see anything," he said, peering inside. "Wait a minute. The door leading out to the widow's walk is ajar. I thought you said it wouldn't open?"

They crossed the attic toward the door, and as Graham reached for the handle, Cynthia grabbed his arm.

He stuck his arm out and started bringing the dolls inside. Then when he leaned out the door to reach the last one, he spotted Rachel's wedding gown. He pulled the dress inside, and something fell to the floor. Cynthia reached down and picked up a small box bearing the name of a jeweler from New York. Inside was a gold wedding band.

As Cynthia and Graham watched in wonder, a glowing white light surrounded the silken wedding dress and a second surrounded the gold ring. Then the two lights merged and became one blindingly bright light. When the radiance was at last extinguished, both the dress and the ring, like the spirits that had claimed them, were gone.

"I think it means that Caleb has finally come home and that Rachel no longer has to keep her lonely vigil out on the widow's walk."

Guess who has his own doll collection? Hint: Every doll in the collection is a black cat.