Another day. They seemed to be rolling away so fast! She was in the stacks again. Something about this place made her want to come back. Like there was something to see and she just wasn't seeing it yet.

The place was packed. As usual. People bustled by, their eyes glazing over stores and people. The sky was an unnaturally light grey with blue tinges here and there. Rain was still falling but only lightly. Even then it made everything grayer.

Rain. Everytime it fell it seemed to intensify the smell of everything around you. It made every breathe you took over-loaded with different smells and textures. The Half-Moon Bakery always had a strong smell wafting from its chimney and slightly opened windows. But know it was almost unbearable walking past it.

Shouting travelling salesmen held up shiny trinkets over their heads. Caking their products with compliments hoping someone will buy. Aysel walked past them. It always made her uncomfortable when they came up to her and tried to sell things to her. It scared her slightly when they were persistant.

The Stacks was a place of pandemonium, but also excitement. It had lost its appeal to many people. The question she always wanted to ask them was why they still came. Every free day they had they would spend it here. Maybe it was the lure of beautiful food or that person they want to buy a gift for. Aysel always thought, it was the magic of it. Maybe she was naive and childish to think so. But she would never change her mind.

Aysel reached the quieter part of The Stacks. The part where most people never went. It was the place they never wanted to look at. A long time ago it had been the pride of The Stacks. Now it lay abandoned, with all its mysteries unsolved.

There was an odd squeaking noise a small distance off. It repeated in the air like a dying bell, the noise just audible over the sound of the rain and her footsteps in the muddy puddles.

As she rounded a corner, the source of the squeak revealed itself. A squat, crumbling building stood just across from her, it's sagging roof barely shielding a hanging sign from the rain. It swung back and forth, its rusted chain squeaking with each push the wind gave it.

The wooden sign was so drenched it was difficult to make out the black lettering, spelling out, "Mr. Twaine's Toy Store," but the red-and-white rocking horse symbol indicated what it was. A small phosphor lantern barely illuminated the entrance, the blue cast falling over a placard that propped open the door, simply stating, "Welcome."

There appeared to be another light somewhere deep within the bowels of the store, barely giving form to the shadows of the window dressings. Marionettes hung from hooks, their crooked, twisted limbs hanging like corpses; secondhand dolls with missing eyes and dirtied dresses peered out at her with dead eyes.

Lightning brightened the shop for a moment before blackness and thunder overtook her. The rain was picking up. It was building to a storm faster than anyone could have anticipated. She would have to find shelter, fast.

Without hesitation Aysel took cover in the shop. A little bell tingled as she entered. She almost wished she had stayed out in the rain. The toy store was leaking and breaking apart. It looked like that bell hadn't been rung in far too long for this place to still stand.

Many faces looked at her as she sat down. Fixed faces, determined to smile for the rest of their existence. Silently they followed her to the seat, the dusty chintz next to the door. Aysel swore she was seeing all of this in her head. Maybe she was getting paranoid.

The only source of light at this point was the outside. Aysel wanted to keep it dark. If she turned on the light what other horrors would she see then?

Lightning flashed again, confirming that she didn't want to see the store alight any more than that single phosphor lantern did. Stark shadows clung to half of everything, creating a black-and-white otherworldly image, all angles and strange.

The thunder followed, rattling the plate glass in their panes.

Silence followed, except for the sound of the rain on the roof, and, somewhere, leaking through to drip in a puddle on the floor.

Drip...

Drip...

Something shifted. There was a creak in the floor, and a shadow moved on the second level. Was her mind playing tricks on her, or did Aysel hear a cackle of laughter from above?

The stairs were at the back of the shop. There was only one way to discover who-- or what-- was up there, but she would have to walk the gauntlet of staring, secondhand dolls to find out.

She stood up and took a deep breathe, if this is what she wanted to do for a living, she had to start somewhere. One creepy store after another.
Even as she walked down the aisle to the counter she could feel their stares, their curiosity and possible envy. She almost sprinted to the staircase, why she was rushing to another suspicious and possibly more terrifying place she didn't know. She just had to get away from the dolls. What was she thinking? Dolls can't see!
Or can they?
Aysel looked back. They all stood frozen but for a split second the light tricked her mind into thinking their expressions had changed, instead of smiling they were frowning, huge painted frowns that maybe a child would have made. She blinked and they were back to their smiles. Was she going senile? She held the banister tightly and took one creaky stair at a time.

Something shattered at the top of the stairs. There was an ominous shuffle, then something started coming down them. The slow thunk, thunk, thunk, of something coming down, step by step, would send shivers down anyone's spine.

Slowly, something rolled into the light as it tumbled down the stairs, thunk, thunk, it rotated as it slowed, thunk... thunk... and faced her on the step above her feet.

The doll's head glared at her with one green eye and one empty socket, its once-polished cheeks dirtied and scuffed, its forehead bashed in like some victim of war, its fragile neck shattered from where it was severed from its porcelain body. Its eyes accused her, tresspasser!

A thin papery voice seemed to emanate from it, "Get out! Leave me be!"

Shadows shifted at the top of the stairs, and she could hear a shuffle on the upper level. There was something there that didn't want her to come closer...

"Who are you? What happened to this place? Why is it...decaying?"
Somehow knowing that their was another human being, however unpleasant, made her braver and possibly less insane. She tested her weight on the steps and cautiously made her way up.

Her heart was beating faster than normal and her palms grew sweaty. Throughout this whole store she had never been this scared. Her hands were shaking and her head was spinning.

"H-hello? M-my name is Ay-Ays-" Then she blacked out. She would like to think it was because of all the pent up fear from the store, the smell of decay and mould and half finished eyes finally making her fall apart.

When Aysel awoke, she was lying on a pallet on the floor. As the world slowly came into focus, she realized she was in a small room lit by a set of pillar candles placed precariously on a stack of papers. Well, less a stack and more a mess of them.

Dolls hung on the walls, all in varying states of completion. Some were bare skulled and un-eyed, others looked nearly ready for the shelves. All of them looked nearly the same. Brown, curly wigs topped heads that had hair, blue eyes filled sockets that had eyes, and they all looked almost the same.

There was a sound by the door off to her right, and a thin, waifish man entered, hunched over a bowl. He didn't look at Aysel, but he muttered audibly to himself, "Awake, awake, it's awake. She's- sh-sh-she-- it's awake."

He set the bowl in the middle of the floor then fled to a rickety rattan chair that creaked and groaned under his weight. His spider-thin fingers clutched a lump of charcoal, and he began drawing on one of the papers on his desk, "But she's not awake. She isn't... isn't awake, isn't right... Not right, not right, isn't right."

There was something distinctly... wrong about the way he moved. He twitched and jolted, his elbows jerked oddly, like the marionettes in the windows. His eyes never seemed to focus on anything, but then she could catch him staring daggers at something or another. His free hand curled against his chest, his neck. He carried on as a madman.

"H-hello. Would you be Mr.Twaine? I am sorry for intruding like this but your sign did say welcome so I thought it would be alright if I looked around. Does your store still sell dolls because I came in to...uhm...buy a doll for my n-niece. Who lives very very far away from here.You see I am very fond of her but I never get to see her so I thought it would be a nice gift since it is her birthday in a week could you help me?."

Aysel started blushing. To be honest she didn't think he noticed which was a good thing. Whenever Aysel lied she blushed. She didn't really have a niece. It was just a cover story that came to mind otherwise it would have seemed strange to come into a seemingly abandoned shop. Then again she could have just said that she came in because of the rain, which she could still hear from somewhere far off, and which would have been a perfectly good and well, honest tale but she thought of that too late.

The only indication that he heard her story was a tilt of his head in her direction. Otherwise, he seemed to lose the meaning of her words.

"Welcome, welcome, come in, come in, can I interest you in a rocking horse, perchance?" His hands trembled as he parroted off words that didn't seem to mean anything to him, "The dolls are five tallies. Tilly, tally, five tallies a doll. Hand made dolls. The dolls are handmade. Yes, I'm the artist, thank you... th-th-thank you...

He rubbed his charcoal-dirtied fingers across his forehead, leaving great black streaks across its dirty surface.

He seemed to become agitated and crumpled his drawing, throwing it to the floor in anger, "IT ISN'T RIGHT!! This isn't her face!"

The old, weathered man cowered into his chair, rocking back and forth in distress.

Aysel jumped but slowly she walked towards him, she walked into the light and stood a fair distance away from him.
"M-maybe I can help you. Help you remember her f-face. Would you like that?"

She tried to say this in what she hoped was a calm voice. Though she knew it trembled at the end. Maybe he'd be able to tell her what he meant, now that he had someone to help him.

His arms curled around his head like a spider's legs curled after it's been pinned to a collector's board. "Can't help you if you won't help yourself! Can't, won't stay at night, do it yourself, he said, he said, do it yourself, he said," He was rocking back and forth in his seat to the time of his own little singsong voice, "Open 'n close yourself, open, close, open. Won't, can't stay at night. Can't, won't be alone with you. Deserved it, deserved it, open, close, can't, won't."

He wasn't making much sense. The best anyone could gather from his mad ramblings was that someone must work in the store during the day but wouldn't, or couldn't, work with him at night. What he deserved was anyone's guess.

His dry, withered features crinkled as he jumped and snatched one of the dolls from the table, "Not her, you're not, just taunting me, taunting, taunting. Glass eyes and horsehair can't hold a candle, kindle, candle, can't hold a candle, won't hold a candle, can't, won't..."

He dropped the doll to the floor at Aysel's feet, its porcelain legs shattering beneath it. If she hadn't been wearing shoes, her feet surely would have been sliced open by a flying shard.

He was running his fingers through the candle's flame; whether it hurt him or not, he showed no sign. He didn't seem to be looking at the flame at all. He stopped and turned toward Aysel, as he yet cowered in his seat.

His head twitched, and suddenly there were unshed tears brimming in his eyes, sparkling in the candlelight. He seemed calmer, less mad, if just for this moment, as he asked, "Did you know her? Did you know my Mary?"

" I don't know. Maybe if you told me more about her. Like what she looked like or what her surname is. I could look her up and maybe find her. Is that what you want? Please, tell me more about Mary. Tell me everything."

His sudden moment of sanity calmed her down, made her more eager to talk to him. To find out about him. Maybe she could help him now. She smiled reassuringly, urging him to go on.

He looked confused. There was a tic, and he wrapped his hands around his thinning hair, "Tell you, Mary was... Mary is... They're almost right, they almost are, but they aren't. It's not her."

He pointed a crooked finger at the dolls on the walls, and she could see that the papers on his desk were pictures of a dark-haired girl. She looked to be about ten or eleven, with dimples and a sweet smile.

"Donny doesn't understand, he shakes his head and yells and pounds his fists, pounding pounding, banging, yelling, he doesn't understand. Doesn't understand that she isn't there anymore," a tear slipped down his face, and he pointed to his temple. He couldn't remember Mary, and couldn't capture her likeness before the memory slipped away completely.

"Mr.Twaine, I can only help you if you tell me what you need. This Donny man...is he your business partner? And...is Mary your daughter? Maybe you could remember her face more if you had something like a...portrait or what if someone else knew what she looked like maybe they could help you. Just don't get too worked up about it, you'll finish it. I promise."

Aysel smiled at him. She hoped she had helped in some way and if she hadn't then at-least she tried. He had said that the dolls were almost there. What were they missing? If only she could ask him and be able to get a straight answer.

She seemed to have gotten it right-- Mr. Twaine looked a little less lost as he nodded. But then he looked angry, "No one knows her anymore! No one understands! She's gone! Gone, gone, gone, open, close, gone!"

He flew up out of the chair, riled into a mad state again, and launched himself at a wall, pounding his hands against them and wailing to wake the dead. It was no wonder people avoided the place when it was dark-- anyone would think the place was haunted.

It was a frightful sight, but he quickly curled those spider-limbs back in on himself as he crouched to the floor, sobbing.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row..." he heaved a great wracking sigh, "forty years gone, and forty years sad, forty years gone without Mary to be had. Yell and bang, open and close..."

Aysel was scared. She wanted to say something but... she didn't know how he would take it. Her thoughts so far were maybe the death of his daughter had driven him to insanity? She didn't want to open up old wounds. She didn't want to ask him the one question that might make him worse. Sadness and Grief can lead someone to do the worst things or the things they never thought they would do.

Maybe making the doll version of her would maybe some how make it better. Aysel plucked up the courage and asked the three questions she needed to know. Before she could try and maybe help him finish the doll. According to what he said he could never keep her image in his mind for long enough. Maybe if there was someone who had some sort've image of her? If there was something like that and if he finished his doll maybe it would give him peace. At least for a little while.

" Does anyone have a picture of her? Who is Don? Can you tell me what happened to Mary? Can I help you in any way?" Aysel caught herself before she became too insistent. But it was too late to take back her words.

Mr. Twaine seemed to wither inward at her first question, almost a tacit "no," but he latched onto the second.

"Din dan Donny yells and bangs, bangs and yells," He wound his finger against his temple, those elbows jerking again, as he put on a strange voice, "You can stay in that pit upstairs, but you have to do your work," he raised his voice, shouting behind his spidery fingers, "Why can't you do what you're told?! Forget about her, and get on with it! BANG!!"

He snatched a candlestick from the table, flinging it into the floor, shattering the bowl he had set there before and scattering the rice it held across the floor.

"Forget, bang, bang! It's by my good graces, graces, graces, graces, my good graces get you by," his fingers began to tremble, "Scaring customers, custy customers, bang, bang, quite contrary, gotta do it right if you want to stay. BANG!"

He leaped from the chair, snatching a doll from the wall and flinging it by its leg against the floor, sending shards again across the floor. This time, though, a shard caught his foot. He winced and hit the floor with a cry.

Snatching a broken piece of the doll's face, he flung his hand toward his face, coming a hair's breadth away from his cheek, nearly cutting himself as he examined the small brushstrokes on the porcelain surface.

The madman had a sharp object, but at the moment he didn't seem to have any malicious intent. For the time being.

"There once was one, but it's gone, gone, gone, open, close, gone, close, close up yourself, do it right," he ran a fingertip along a sharp edge, leaving a line of red along its pristine white surface, "He has it, he has her, in his hands, his fingers, his hands, he has her face, so close, so far."

His face pulled in anger, "The only one, and he has her..."

Aysel was startled. She took a step back and had to steady herself before she could muster the courage to speak. This man seemed broken. Possibly beyond repair and Aysel didn't know what she could do to help him.

Perhaps if she talked to this man Donny? It would be very hard to track him down. It seemed like years ago that somebody had stepped over that threshold.
" I-if you can c-could you please tell me about D-donny?" she said in a small almost inaudible voice.

The husk of a man released a piteous wail, "Ahh, the one who holds her close, out of reach, won't let me see, see, see. Comes of a morning, leaves of a lunch, comes of a full, leaves of an evening. Open, close, open, close..."

He was rocking himself on the floor, scratching at it with the broken bit of face in his hand.

"Open twos through fives, eights through tens, twelve through twenty-three, except on fives, when it's twelve through twenty, open, close, have a nice day, close, close, close..."

The man seemed vacant. He wasn't ranting and railing, but it was only a small comfort, after seeing his swings before. There was an emptiness to him without him latching onto the idea of Mary he was trying to capture. There was nothing behind his eyes without it.

Aysel didn't know what to do. She wanted to help this man but she couldn't it was hopeless. He was too far gone. She was frustrated! What kind of explorer would she be if she can't help a grieving man just a little bit. What kind of person was she that she was giving up.

Angry tears sprang to her eyes but she kept them down, how long had he been there? Trying to draw his daughter? How many days had he spent here all of them in vain? She pitied him an awful lot and she had no idea how she could help him.

She wanted to, she really wanted to.
"Mr. Twaine. I am sorry that you lost your daughter. But unless I know what happened I can't help you. In fact right now I don't even know if I can help you. I need something! Anything!"

His eyes remained vacant. He sat still in his chair. He was quiet so long, one might have wondered if his spirit had given up on his body and mind and just... left. But he still breathed, small papery breaths.

Finally, he drew a rattling breath, "Mary was our life. Her mother named her. She was our joy. Precious thing that she was. One day, we were out in the stacks. Mary, her mother, and I. We turned about for one moment. And she was gone. We searched but could not find her. We cried her name. We spotted her. Just before the carriage struck her. Her mother refused to eat for days. She died not long after. I could do nothing for her. My business partner Donny gave me no time to grieve. He demanded I continue making toys for the shop. I couldn't. He stole my picture. My spectograph of my little Mary. He said I could only see it when I finished a batch of toys. But he let me see it less and less. And my memory of my little girl grew shadier and shadier. My mind grows desperate and overcome. I cannot keep hold of her face, her voice, her sweet eyes. Only the voices of others. Other faces. Other eyes. Nothing makes sense anymore. I don't remember the last time I saw her picture."

All the time he spoke, he didn't move. He seemed under a spell of paralysis, but for his mouth. He seemed so broken and lost.

He twitched.

"I don't remember. Don't remember. The picture. Mary, Mary. It's wrong... it's all wrong. Wrong Mary. Wrong eyes. Wring, wrang, wrong."

He was slipping back into himself, and the wild place his mind had become. It seemed the only thing that could help him was that spectagraph that the mysterious Donny had.

Aysel was struck with a sudden idea. If she could get him to answer one more question she could help him.
She could help him find the picture of his daughter.
" Mr.Twaine, I just need you to answer one more question for me. Do you know where Donny lives?"

Aysel's idea was risky and she didn't even know who this man was. But if she could persuade this man to give her the picture she could give it to Mr. Twaine if he didn't she would still get it.

She would find it somehow.
The rain outside seemed softer and more distant, like Aysel was in a different world. She couldn't even remember what she had been doing in the stacks in the first place. It was almost like she didn't remember anything. Aysel looked at Mr. Twaine, A determined smile on her face.

"Stick, stacks, tacks," he muttered, "Wear, tear, wear, tear, tacks, tear, teary tacks."

His arms wrapped around his head, "Wear, tear, rip and tear. Tear it down, down the street, wear it out."

His ramblings weren't cohesive, and he didn't seem to have even heard her question, until, "Down the street from Wear and Tear."

He continued rambling, "Tear and wear, tear it down, stacks, tacks, open, close..."