All Dolled Up!

Charlie’s POV

“Are you sure you don’t want to visit them?” Charlotte asked. “It’s been a few months since you’ve last seen them.”

“No, honestly, I feel like that would just make me sicker,” I said. “Well, not literally, but let’s say even if I’m fighting fit in three days, then I go back to work in four or five, and then it’s the weekend again and I have to go see them, and travel, and then reset my internal clock again. It’s just - it just feels like too much work. Not to mention part of the stairwell in the East Wing is broken and needs to be fixed, I’d rather spend my time doing that.” I grabbed Charlotte by the waist and tried to give her my most charming smile as I said, “And anyway I would much rather spend that time resting and recovering with you, my dear.”

Rather than swooning in my arms like I expected, Charlotte gave me a pointed, “Your breath smells and you should brush your teeth.” She then put the finishing touches on breakfast. “But, I see what you’re saying Charlie, and if that’s how you feel, that’s fine with me.” She gave me a smile. “If you ever need anything, feel free to ask me.”

“Sure,” I said.

I went back to reading. We had long since exhausted pretty much every single occult book at our local library, and now we were back to the one that Charlotte had found.

I honestly wish that whoever wrote it would just get to the point. They seemed to meander pointlessly from topic to topic, though they always seemed to come back to some sort of Egyptian practice and some philosophical diatribe on the nature of the soul. Again, nothing I found in there could be said to be helpful in any way, but I had given up hope on us ever finding something inside it at this point. That was why I was only around six-tenths of the way through even after all this time, because I didn’t actually think we would find something and I had focused on other books and materials.

Over the next few days, my health returned and a lot of the aches and soreness that I had felt over the past few weeks also somewhat subsided. Charlotte did her best to try to take care of me - unfortunately, a lot of what she understood about disease was either wrong or horribly outdated, still I did greatly appreciate the gestures.

I had to fend off calls from both my mother and sister, who were both angry that I had decided to stick this out alone. My mother even insisted on driving all the way just to see me, and seemed to also be furious at my father that he hadn’t done so the moment I called them, but she calmed down somewhat when I let her know that I wasn’t alone and that I had Charlotte with me. Not to mention by this point I really was feeling much better and let her know that there was nothing to worry about.

My test results came back, and I thought that some of them still looked abnormal, but I wasn’t sure how significant they were. I managed to get an appointment at a primary care doctor’s office two days before Thanksgiving, as they told me that it looked like someone had canceled.

The doctor who worked there was a heavyset man who was going over my records. “So, what brings you here today?”

“Well, I had a bout of pneumonia a few days ago, and that’s gotten better, but my white cell count was really high - I mean they were almost thinking maybe leukemia, so I just really wanted to follow up on that,” I said.

“Well, let’s start from the beginning…” he said, asking me a bunch of questions about my occupation, did I smoke or not, etc. I let him know that I was a nurse before - I didn’t know if it would lead him to treating me somewhat better or not and it really wasn’t a card I wanted to play, but at this point I couldn’t deny that I was a bit worried and I wanted any kind of help I could get.

“Your lungs sound fine,” he said, after examining me. “So the pneumonia’s gone. Your white count’s come down, but it is still high. Alright, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to get another white count today, and you can see me again next week.”

“What about the other labs they took in the ER?”

“Well, I can’t really say that they’re normal,” he said. “But all of these things could very well be explained by the pneumonia.”

“Do I need another chest x-ray?” I asked.

“No, your lungs sound fine, no need for that,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you after Thanksgiving then.”

That didn’t relieve my anxiety by much, but at least I knew that things were getting better.

Charlotte and I spent Thanksgiving together. I didn’t have much of an appetite, and she technically didn’t even need to eat, so there was no point in ordering an actual turkey or anything. Charlotte had managed to watch nearly every single ‘haunted doll’ movie in existence, a fact that I was quite proud of, though she did seem to always be more jumpy whenever we finished one of them. One night, she had even asked that I keep her, even when immobile, in my line of sight because she didn’t want to be alone. This had been after a particularly terrifying movie, and I obliged.

Still, even after all this time, I couldn’t get over the irony of her being afraid of being attacked by a ghost or demon.

“Something wrong?” Charlotte asked.

“No- nothing,” I told her. I could see the results from the last blood test they had taken on my phone. My white count was still pretty high, even though I didn’t have a fever or anything. Granted, it was Thanksgiving, and this wasn’t an emergency so I knew there was little point in reaching out now, but I shot the doctor’s office a message the next day asking them if something was up.