Shelf Sitters
The big idea came to Miriam Brinsley one December day when she entered the church basement where, every Sunday, she told Bible stories to youngsters of the congregation and attempted to instill in them the principles of right and wrong. By the time she reached the age of fifty, that noble pursuit had become her life's ambition. Unfortunately, she felt it was a mission at which she was failing. One had only to read the newspaper or watch the TV news to see that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
"When I first began teaching Sunday school," she had complained to Reverend Oxford earlier that day, "I had more than fifty students. Now, I'm lucky if ten children show up."
"Church attendance has fallen, not just here at our church but across America. I recently read on the internet that during the past twenty-five years, one in eight Americans stopped going to services. That's twelve and a half percent!"
"There must be something we can do to bring the young lambs into the fold!" she cried.
"You know both my predecessor, Father Simeon, and I have tried to initiate several youth programs, but none of them have been successful. It seems our community's youngers would rather play sports or video games than save their souls."
As she stood in front of the old Xerox machine, making copies of a nativity scene for her students to color, she spotted a doll that had become a widespread phenomenon: the Elf on a Shelf.
What's that doing here? she wondered, reaching up for the posable elf doll.
Miriam slipped the doll into the pocket of her smock and removed pages from the copier. She then placed the sheets on the child-size table beside a bucket of crayons. Before sitting down on the adult-size chair at the front of the room, she removed the elf from her pocket and placed it on her desk. Soon thereafter, the first two students, Danny and Amy Elgin, entered the classroom.
"Good morning, children," the fifty-eight-year-old spinster called to them.
"Good morning, Miss Brinsley," the brother and sister said in unison.
Danny's eyes were drawn to the elf on the desk.
"You found it!" he cried with joy.
"Is that yours?" the Sunday school teacher asked.
"Yes. I've been looking all over for him."
"Someone put him on the shelf near the Xerox machine."
"It had to have been Santa!" Danny exclaimed. "That's a scout elf. He watches over me and my brother during the day, and then at night, he flies to the North Pole to tell Santa if we've been good or bad."
"Did your mother and father tell you that?" Miriam laughed.
"No," the boy answered. "I read about all about it in the book."
Miriam, although she had worked as a librarian since graduating college, had not kept up with trends in children's literature.
"What book is that?"
"The Elf on the Shelf. I got it for Christmas last year. It came with Webster. That's the name I gave to my scout elf."
"I call mine Dusty," Tanner Poague said as he walked through the door with two other students who had different names for their dolls.
"It seems like everyone must have one of these elves," the teacher remarked.
"All the kids in my class do," Danny replied.
"Mine, too," his sister added.
Ten minutes later, Miriam looked at the clock on the wall. It was 9:40, ten minutes past the class's scheduled start time. The seven students who had bothered to show up were sitting at the table watching Danny pretend his scout elf was dancing while he sang "Jingle Bells."
"It doesn't look as though anyone else is coming today," the teacher announced with disappointment. "Why don't we start coloring? After you're done, I'll tell you the story of Noah's Ark."
While the youngsters rummaged through the crayons in the plastic bucket for appropriate colors, the teacher wondered how she could persuade more parishioners to send their offspring to her class. As she pondered her dilemma, she saw Danny's scout elf on the table. Several images flashed through her mind in quick succession, the two most prominent being the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg from The Great Gatsby and a cartoon image of a devil and angel sitting on either shoulder of a person, trying to urge that character to do wrong or right. Moments later, inspiration struck her. With felt, wire, a glue gun and a vinyl doll head—items that could be found at most craft stores—she could create an angel shelf sitter that, hopefully, would be a positive influence on impressionable young minds.
* * *
On her way home from church, Miriam stopped at Michaels and purchased four yards of white felt, two spools of wire, yellow yarn, a glue gun and extra glue sticks. Then she went home and bought a package of twenty plastic doll heads from Amazon. The heads would not arrive until Wednesday, her prime delivery day, so she spent the balance of Sunday afternoon designing a paper pattern for the doll. Since she had been making her own clothes since she was a teenager, she had the necessary skills for the task. The angel's full dress, arms, hands and wings were cut out of white felt. Rummaging through her craft supplies, she found a gold glitter pen that she used to "spruce up" the wings and metallic pipe cleaners that she fashioned into halos.
"All I need are the heads," she said after completing the angel's body.
Although she had more than enough felt to make several more dolls, Miriam put her supplies aside for the evening. It had been a busy day and she was hungry. She made herself a large salad with strawberries, goat cheese, glazed pecans and poppyseed dressing which she ate in the living room while watching a Christmas romance on the Hallmark Channel. After rinsing off her plate and fork, she took a hot bath and curled up on her sofa with Jean Plaidy's The Reluctant Queen, a historical romance novel about Anne Neville, wife of Richard III. Her cat, Alexandra, slept on her lap as she read.
It was half past ten when the cat got up and ran to the litter box. The librarian yawned, put her book down and went to bed. Her sleep was not a restful one. It was plagued by nightmares in which a miniature red-clad Satan urged her to make matching devil dolls and distribute the pair to not just the parishioners' children but also the youngsters in the entire town.
"You can't expect them to learn about good without learning about evil," the devil doll reasoned. "They must learn from an early age to avoid temptation."
Early on Monday morning, the alarm clock blared, waking her from a fitful slumber. She reached out her hand and turned off the noise. Then she stumbled out of bed and headed first toward the bathroom and then the kitchen.
"I need coffee!" the librarian announced to her cat as she put a serving of Sheba in Alexandra's bowl.
After turning on the burner beneath the coffee pot, she pushed the power button on her radio. She smiled because the oldies station was playing a song by Elvis, one of her favorite singers. Although she preferred his ballads, she sang along with the more fast-paced "(You're the) Devil in Disguise." By the time the coffee was brewed, the song had come to an end, and the deejay played "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band. This was followed by The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Devil with a Blue Dress On" by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.
What is it with all the devil songs? she wondered.
The strange pattern continued with Van Halen's "Runnin' with the Devil" and "Devil or Angel" by Bobby Vee. When the latter song came to an end, the station's deejay broke for a news update. That was Miriam's cue to turn off the radio and get dressed for work.
After a short commute, the librarian unlocked the door and entered her domain. A smile immediately came to her lips as she crossed the threshold. She liked the peaceful atmosphere and being surrounded by books. When she stepped inside the library, it was as though she were leaving the turmoil of the twenty-first century behind her. Frankly, it was better than being in church.
With her assistant librarian not expected to start work for another half an hour, she got a second cup of coffee from the Keurig in the breakroom and then began to work. There was a cart behind the main desk filled with books that had to be returned to the shelves. She always began this task by dividing them into piles according to the main categories of the Dewey Decimal System.
A chill caused her to shiver when she saw the title of the first book: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. Surely, the reference to Satan was a coincidence! She glanced down at the second book. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho.
"What is going on?" she wondered aloud and rifled through the remaining volumes on the cart.
Tales of the Jersey Devil by Geoffrey Girard. The Advocate's Devil by Alan Dershowitz. The Devil in Velvet by John Dickson Carr. The Devil in Me by Christopher Fowler. The Devils of Loudun by Aldoux Huxley.
"No!" she whimpered, shuffling through book after book and seeing that they all had the word devil in the title.
"Is something wrong?"
Miriam looked up and saw that Stella Leland had come into work ten minutes early.
"No. Everything is fine."
"Just leave those books," the assistant said. "I'll put them back."
She reached out and picked one up.
"Oh, Harlan Coben. I Will Find You. I don't think I've read this one yet."
The librarian was speechless. She glanced at the book in her assistant's hand. The title was The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benét!
Am I losing my mind? she worried as she headed back to the breakroom for a third cup of coffee.
By the end of the day, however, Miriam managed to convince herself that the episode was the result of her nightmare. Between her dreams of the Prince of Darkness and the devil-themed songs on the radio, it was only natural—she reasoned—that her mind would play tricks on her. Surely, she was not going crazy!
Rather than heat a frozen dinner in the microwave, she went through Wendy's drive-thru and got a grilled chicken wrap and a salad. Even though she opened a can of Fancy Feast for Alexandra, she shared her chicken with the cat. Once she was done with her dinner, she went into the living room and turned on the TV. She wondered if there were any new limited series on Netflix.
At the familiar red "N" appeared on the screen, the streaming service's home page appeared. Rather than the usual eclectic mix of movies and television shows, there were only feature films to choose from. The titles gave her cause for renewed fear for her sanity. The Devil Wears Prada, The Devil's Advocate, The Devil You Know, The Devil's Rejects and The Devil's Own. Her hand shook as she pressed the power button and turned the TV and Roku streaming device off.
"Why is this happening to me?" she cried.
Alexandra meowed.
Miriam picked up her book and tried to immerse herself in the tragic life of the last Plantagenet queen. However, she could not take her mind off her mounting dread. After rereading the same page four times and not comprehending a single sentence she had read, she tossed the book onto the coffee table.
Unable to read and unwilling to turn the TV set back on, she retrieved the white felt, paper pattern pieces and scissors from her sewing basket and began to cut out more parts for the angel dolls. As she cut out the gowns, arms and wings, she recalled details from her bizarre dream.
"Satan had wanted me to make devil dolls to go with the angels."
Obviously, it was not really Satan who spoke to her. It had been merely a figment of her imagination. Or could it be a form of inspiration? Maybe a pair of shelf sitters—devil and angel—would teach the children the difference between right and wrong.
Suddenly, it felt as though a great weight had been lifted from Miriam's shoulders.
"That's what I'll do! For every angel I've made, I'll make a devil to go with it."
There was no nightmare that night. No sooner did she crawl beneath the sheets and lay her head on her pillow than she fell into a deep, restful sleep.
* * *
After a dinner of chicken pot pie, Miriam laid the recently purchased length of red felt out on her table. Since she could not finish the angels until the doll heads were delivered the following day, she drew a paper pattern for the devils. Then she cut out the necessary pieces from the red felt. Once the arms, legs and torsos were cut, she wrapped the pieces around the wire and glued them together.
"That's all I can do for now," she told her cat who was nibbling on a bowl of dry cat food.
As she sipped a mug of hot cocoa, she made a list of the names of children who might benefit from the lessons the dolls would teach. She started with all her Sunday school students although many of them only attended sporadically. Then she added the children of the churchgoers who did not attend her religious classes.
"That's a lot of names," she declared. "I'm going to need more than ten pairs of dolls."
Hoping to give the shelf sitters out as Christmas presents, she opened her laptop and ordered more doll heads from Amazon. She would stop at Michaels again the following day and buy more felt, glue sticks, glitter pens and pipe cleaners.
"How should I package them?" she wondered. "I can't just hand out loose dolls."
She returned to amazon.com and ordered gift boxes that would hold the two shelf sitters nicely. While she had her computer out, she searched the internet for sayings and quotes about right and wrong. She typed them into a Word file and printed them out. She would eventually include one with each pair of completed dolls.
With a sense of having accomplished a great deal that evening, she headed for bed with Alexandra not far behind. Tomorrow would be a big day. The first order of doll heads would be delivered, and she could see what the finished pairs would look like.
The next day, Miriam hurried home from the library and found the package from Prime waiting on her porch. After putting two Nathan's hot dogs in a pan of boiling water, she cut open the box and removed the doll heads. The faces were blank. She would have to paint the eyes and then add color to the brows, lips and cheeks.
"It shouldn't take long to paint twenty faces," she surmised.
As she ate the two hot dogs, topped with mustard and pickle relish, she envisioned what the completed faces would look like. The angel would have blue eyes, dark lashes, rosy cheeks and pink lips. Yellow wool would be glued onto the bald head, and then the halo would add the finishing touch. Since she did not want to frighten young children by making the devil look too scary, she would simply give him brown eyes, frowning brows and a smirking smile.
"And since the angel has her halo, it's only fair I add horns to the devil. But what can I use to make them?"
After searching through her existing craft supplies, she located a piece of thin red foam rubber. She could cut out small triangles and glue them to the red felt cap that covered the devil's head. As an added touch, she cut out a third triangle and attached it to a piece of red wool that she then fashioned into a pointed tail. Once the first devil and angel shelf sitters were completed to her satisfaction, she was ready to begin assembling the remaining eighteen. She put the card table in her living room, laid out her supplies upon it and, while binge-watching Boston Legal on Hulu, she painted faces, glued the heads to the felt bodies and added hair, halos, horns and tails.
By eleven o'clock, she was finished. She watched the last ten minutes of Boston Legal—she adored William Shatner and James Spader as the irrepressible Denny Crane and Alan Shore—and then went to bed. Once the gift boxes were delivered, she would put the dolls inside them, include one of the quotes she had printed out and then wrap them with Christmas paper. Hopefully, they would serve their purpose!
* * *
The angel and devil dolls Miriam Brinsley gave out as Christmas presents to the children on her list were a big hit. They were so well-liked that she received requests for additional pairs. Word of their popularity spread. Soon reporters from local newspapers wanted to interview her. Shortly after her name appeared in print, she was invited to showcase her dolls on a cable TV show. As the demand for the product grew, however, she was unable to keep up with production. After all, she still had a full-time job as the town librarian.
"I suppose I could hire someone to help me make them," she told Stella Leland as the two women prepared for the library's annual used book sale. "Would you be interested?"
"Not really," her assistant replied. "I'm not into arts and crafts. Why don't you put an ad on the lobby bulletin board? I'm sure someone will answer it."
When her home phone rang two nights later, Miriam assumed someone was calling to inquire about the position. However, it was Neil McAfee, vice president in charge of sales for Trimble Toys, Inc., who wanted to offer her a golden opportunity.
"I'd rather not discuss the particulars over the phone," he said. "Why don't we talk over dinner tomorrow night?"
Intrigued by his mysterious proposal, she agreed to meet with him.
The restaurant was one Miriam had never visited. It was much too fancy a place for her humble lifestyle. Although she made a good salary at the library, her needs were simple. She never went anywhere on vacation, never entertained at home and only bought food from inexpensive takeout restaurants. She was not a woman who longed for expensive jewelry, designer clothes or high-priced shoes and handbags. Furthermore, she inherited her parents' house when her mother passed away, so she had no mortgage looming over her head. Barring any unforeseen health issues, the money in her bank account should see her through a comfortable retirement.
"I heard about your devil and angel shelf sitters," McAfee said after ordering a bottle of before-dinner wine. "I understand you can't keep up with all the orders you receive. I'm interested in helping you meet the increasing demand."
"Are you applying for a job?" she asked with surprise.
"Not exactly. I want to take over production and have the shelf sitters mass-produced in a factory."
"I have to admit I never thought they would take off like they have."
"Did you know the Elf on the Shelf book and doll set has sold more than eleven million units worldwide?"
"No, I didn't."
"I know toys, Miss Brinsley," he boasted. "And I believe your shelf sitters will sell as many if not more than that. Imagine millions of children owning your cute little devils and angels."
"I never dreamed ...."
"I'm prepared to pay you fifty thousand dollars if you allow me to buy into your business."
It was not money that tempted the librarian. It was the idea of millions of children benefitting from the lessons her dolls taught that appealed to her.
"Yes!" she cried, actual tears forming in her eyes. "I accept your generous offer!"
"Good," Neil said, reaching for his briefcase. "I took the liberty of having a contract prepared. All you have to do is sign it."
As the librarian scrawled her name on the dotted line—she had not bothered reading the document first—she looked across the table. She couldn't help noticing that the smile on her business partner's face resembled the one painted on her devil doll.
* * *
Neil McAfee made good on his promises. After cashing in his 401(k) fund, mortgaging his house and selling off stocks, he used the money to open a factory. Once it was up and running, turning out angel and devil dolls much faster than Miriam could have ever accomplished by hand even if she had hired a dozen assistants, he resigned from his position at Trimble Toys to devote all his time and energy to promoting the shelf sitters.
Within a year, his new company was making a profit. He then expanded his product line by including a preschool book. Three months after that, he released a coloring book. Profits continued to grow. The librarian/Sunday school was delighted by what he had managed to accomplish. Church groups from all over the country were praising her dolls.
After the company celebrated its fourth anniversary, Neil announced the release of a full-length animated film featuring the devil and angel shelf sitters. Miriam, who took no part in the running of the company or the mass production of the dolls, was unaware of the nature of the movie. When she showed up at the New York premiere, she had assumed the screenplay would reflect her deeply held Christian values. After viewing the movie, however, she was on the verge of tears.
"What have you done?" she cried when she walked into the afterparty Neil hosted at Mandarin Oriental.
"I've done what you would never have been able to do," he proudly replied. "I sold more than a million pairs of your little shelf sitters. And once this movie goes into general distribution, I'll sell a few million more, not just in America but in Europe as well. Hell, I've even got salespeople in Tokyo and Seul making a big deal to expand into Asia even as we speak."
"But you've made the devil seem like nothing more than a mischievous little boy."
"All the better to appeal to youngsters."
"They're supposed to be teaching them a moral lesson not amusing them."
"For the first three years, the popularity of the shelf sitters grew," Neil explained. "Then the sales began to dip. I now need to do something to widen our target market. To do that, I have to rebrand the dolls to appeal to other than church groups and religious-minded parents."
"As he appears in this film," Miriam argued, "the devil will be no more a deterrent to bad behavior than Bart Simpson is."
"The Simpsons are cultural icons. They've been on TV for thirty-five years. I'd be happy if we can achieve half the staying power they have!"
"You've destroyed everything I set out to create. I'm going to see a lawyer and try to stop this corruption before it goes any further."
"Go ahead and try," Neil said, showing no sign that he felt the least bit intimidated by her threat. "See how far it gets you."
* * *
Miriam left the attorney's office feeling like a shell-shocked World War 1 doughboy. Louis Halderman made it abundantly clear to her that she had no say in what Neil McAfee did with the devil and angel shelf sitters. In exchange for fifty thousand dollars, she had relinquished all rights to her creation.
"But I made them! They were all my idea," she argued.
"And you sold it to McAfee. They're his now, and he can do what he wants with them," Louis reiterated.
After leaving the lawyer's office, she returned to her home. She still lived in the house she inherited from her parents. The house was furnished just as it had been when her name replaced theirs on the deed. Alexandra, although getting older and less active, still greeted her with a meow when she unlocked the front door.
"You want to eat, girl?" she asked as she opened the cabinet and reached for a can of cat food.
Normally, she would prepare a meal for herself, but she had no appetite for food.
"I never should have signed that contract without reading it," she realized. "In fact, I ought to have flatly refused to have anything to do with that ... that despicable businessman!"
But she had signed her name and accepted the money he offered thereby giving up all rights to her idea. There was no point in contacting another lawyer; he would tell her the same thing Halderman had.
"I'll just have to live with my mistake," she realized gloomily.
That proved easier said than done. The devil and angel shelf sitter movie became as popular as Disney and Pixar's Toy Story, and plans were in the making to create several sequels. Following in the footsteps of Star Wars, which holds the Guinness World Record for the most successful film franchise in terms of merchandising, Neil put the devil and angel images on all sorts of products from jigsaw puzzles and board games to T-shirts and baseball caps. Before the second movie was released in theaters, stores were flooded with skateboards, action figures, backpacks, Halloween costumes, banks, beach towels, video games and much more.
Miriam attempted to turn a blind eye to all things related to her creation. When the devil and angel books showed up in the library, she stacked them on the shelf without opening the cover. At the grocery store, she paid no attention to the candy bars, cereal, juice boxes, canned pasta and cookies that licensed the popular images. For close to a year, her willful ignorance of all things related to her pair of dolls, if not blissful, at least made her life bearable.
It was not until one Sunday in October that she found she could no longer remain oblivious to what Neil McAfee had done with her well-intentioned dolls. She was in the church basement, preparing to teach a class about the Ten Commandments, when Tyler Slotkin, the seven-year-old son of the church organist, entered the room. Like most children, he did not dress up for Sunday school. Instead, he wore jeans and a T-shirt. The shirt he wore bore the smiling image of Neil's movie devil, and written above it were two words: TEAM DEVIL.
"What is the meaning of that shirt you're wearing?" the dismayed teacher demanded to know.
"It means I'm a fan of the devil," the boy happily replied.
"I can't believe such a blasphemous item of clothing is allowed to be sold to children! And your parents let you wear it?"
"It's cool. Lots of kids in school have a shirt like this."
"Surely, good boys and girls prefer the angel."
"No way! She's boring!"
"Yeah," six-year-old Kenzie Gossett agreed. "She's a wimp!"
"She sure is," her eight-year-old brother added.
A chorus of like-minded comments by the rest of the students followed.
"No, no, no!" Miriam cried. "Have you learned nothing at all in your Sunday school classes? Have I been wasting my time trying to teach you how to tell good from evil?"
"Good is no fun," Tyler laughed.
"Evil is better," Kenzie declared.
Feeling as though she had failed in her life's mission, Miriam sat down at her desk, put her head in her hands and cried.
* * *
Miriam mixed the gravy from the Salisbury steak in her TV dinner with the mashed potatoes to give them more flavor. It was an automatic action she did out of a long-held habit, not from any desire to make the food more palatable. She could have been eating wallpaper paste for all the enjoyment she got out of it. Staring into space, oblivious to what her eyes were seeing, she mechanically conveyed the food from the disposable tray to her mouth as though she were an automaton. Potatoes, corn, meat. She then washed everything down with a glass of diet root beer.
It was not until Alexandra jumped into her lap that Miriam came out of her trance-like state.
"What's the matter, girl? You look as though something spooked you."
The cat meowed and turned its head toward the living room bookcase. On the top shelf was a pair of the original handmade devil and angel dolls.
"It's all your fault," the blue-eyed angel said.
Alexandra jumped down, ran into the bedroom and hid beneath her owner's bed. Miriam's eyes widened in fear, and her jaw dropped in surprise.
"You should have stopped after me and not made him!" the white-felt shelf sitter chastised.
"Y-you're t-talking!" the librarian stammered.
"Just like in the cartoons," the devil said, putting his two cents into the conversation. "Only we're not hovering above your shoulders."
Miriam stared at the plastic doll heads. Neither the eyes nor the lips were moving. How then could the shelf sitters talk?
"But you're only made of wire and felt. You can't possibly speak."
"Obviously we can. But getting back to you, Did you really believe young children were capable of resisting temptation?" the angel asked.
Before the poor woman could answer, the devil jumped in and responded.
"You can't blame her," he argued. "Her intentions were pure. It was Neil McAfee who corrupted those poor little innocent minds."
"That's right!" Miriam exclaimed. "He gave the devil a personality that appealed to youngsters. It was his greed that turned my creative idea into a nightmare."
"You can change that," the devil said.
Because his plastic face was incapable of movement, the librarian could not comprehend the emotion behind his words.
"How could I do that?" she asked.
"He as to go."
"Go? Go where?"
"He means Neil McAfee has to die," the angel explained.
"But he's a fairly healthy young man. He could easily live for thirty or forty more years."
"You just don't get it, do you?" the white-felt shelf sitter asked with exasperation. "My other half is suggesting you kill him."
"I'm not a killer! I'm a moral, god-fearing Christian woman. A Sunday school teacher!"
"Whose creations are destroying the souls of the young generation," the devil pointed out. "They will all be damned to hell unless you take action."
Oddly enough, it never occurred to Miriam to question her sanity. Had she done so, she may never have committed such an evil act.
* * *
The naïve librarian was surprised at how easy it was to purchase a firearm. For once, she was glad that America did not have tougher gun control laws. Although she had never taken target practice, Miriam believed that at least one of the six bullets would hit its mark.
"Miss Brinsley, what a pleasant surprise!" Neil McAfee exclaimed when she was shown into his office. "Or have you come to threaten me with another lawsuit?"
The smile never left the woman's face even when she reached into her purse and withdrew the handgun.
"What is this?" the doomed man asked. "What do you think you're doing?"
He received no answer.
Despite the shooter's complete lack of experience, her marksmanship was impressive. All six shots struck the victim in the heart. Neil McAfee was dead before his body hit the floor.
Rather than receiving a life sentence for murder, Miriam Brinsley was committed to a hospital for the criminally insane. The court's decision seemed warranted since the defendant claimed to not have acted on her own accord; rather, she had only carried out the instructions of the devil.
During her confinement, the former librarian and Sunday school teacher continued to insist that a red felt-clad demon with the face of Neil McAfee continued to prompt her to commit evil. In particular, it urged her to take her own life. After ten years of this constant harassment, she complied.
This is just a costume. The only devil in Salem is a devil's food cake.
