Preview

Officer Jena Macintyre pulled up to the garish pink house andparked her blue police cruiser. She sighed, somehow already knowingthis assignment was little more than busy work. She, and the rest of her department, were trying to find Cameron Pruritt, a girl about eighteen had gone missing less than ten hours ago. There was a policy to wait at least twenty four hours before an official missing person investigation was launched, but Cameron had the benefit of rich parents. The police had drudged up a few promising leads, and one not so promising one. Since Jena had just broken up with the Detective Will Shitface, who was leading this search, she got to follow up on the not-so-promising lead. Which was why she pulled up to the pink house on a hill just outside city limits.

Long famous for its yearly Christmas parties and other assorted events, the home was long rumored by the local populace that the wonderful dolls inside were once people who drew the wrath of the house's owner, Dr. Nicholas Coppelius. The police had once investigated the man and the house, back during the disappearance of his one and only daughter, and of course found no evidence that girls were turned into toys. But there was an oddity in this newest disappearance; Jena had found a scribbled letter to this address in Cameron's room. Knowing it was an end filled with more myth than fact, he sent Jena to investigate, repaying the messy breakup the officers had just gone through.

Jena sighed and stepped out of her cruiser. She cut an imposing figure, especially in uniform. She was descended from a band of Scandenavians, who gifted her a 6'2" height and frame to match, in addition to sea green eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. Her shimmering blond hair was long and straight, but pulled into a tight bun while on duty, and commnly off duty as well.
Jena kept her hands on the wide belt all police officers wore, long elbows sticking out to make her look even bigger than she was. The policewoman made it to the door in what seemed like two gapping steps and took a quick check of her corners before ringing the bell, then took a second, longer check afterward.

Jena heard slippers run along the floor on the other side, then a series of locks unlatch. The red door opened without a creak and revealed a hunched old man. His hair that still remained was scraggly white and his face like a road map. It was almost 11:00, but he was still in checkered pajamas and striped robe. He saw Jena, but it took a moment before his eyes were shaken open.

"Oh, officer! Are you lost?"

Jena glowered down at the man. "No." She pulled a picture of the missing girl from her pocket, "Have you seen or heard from this girl?" The photo showed Cameron as she was three months ago at the local zoo, posing near the penguin exhibit. Her hair was short, but shot out at all angles like a jester's cap. Eighteen years old, she had dimples on her cheeks and a rounded nose. The elderly man took it gingerly and pulled it close to his eyes until it almost touched his long nose. He squinted.

"Why, she's an elf! Worked for me just this Christmas, in fact. Tinsel, I think we called her."

"Her name is Cameron Pruitt, and she went missing last night." Jena
pulled out a notepad, "We weren't aware she had worked for you."


"Oh yes, splendid elf, that Tinsel. Could calm a crying child with just a tap." The old man demonstrated on Jena by bopping the officer on her nose. She allowed it, if only because he was a harmless coot. She relaxed her stance and pulled her sunglasses off.

"Anything else you could tell me? Anything about her recently?"

"I . . . thiiink." He scratched his head. "I might have talked to her last week."

More notes on the small pad, and a whirring mind started to fire once again."Can you elaborate?"

"I could, but it's almost my lunch time and I get quite imbalanced if I don't eat at the same time everyday. Do you mind joining me?"

"I can come inside, but I can't have anything; it's against regs." The man nodded and stepped aside to let the Valkyrie into his home. The interior was styled in old patterned wallpaper and rich wood floors; it had a very dollhouse sort of feel. But it had all been renovated recently, or was very well taken care of, and looked as new as the day it was built.

"My den is upstairs." The man said. He lead Jena to the stairs on the other side of foyer wall, and to the first room on the left of the landing. The policewoman gasped as she came into the room. It was some child's vision of a playroom. The walls were all dressed in yellow with white baseboards, and she walked on light colored wood. It was a long room, looking over both the front and back yards through tall arched windows. She craned her neck and saw the attic above had been cut down to just walkway around the room. She saw no stairs up, but did notice a door above. She followed hypothetical stairs down and realized they must be hiding behind a set of sky blue doors.

But the room itself, while impressive, was not the center of Jena's focus, which lay mostly on the dolls. Most were life sized and dressed in a Halloween menagerie of bright costumes. There
was a porcelain doll in a victorian maid's dress in a display case on the east wall; a copper mechanical doll bent at the waist next to a pink dollhouse; then a rag doll in peasant skirt lay slumped in a pile of blocks near a happy marionette with red pig tailed hair and colorful
striped legs. All her body was lifted off the ground by thick black cords, held up by a handle upstairs. And then a blue ballerina sat at the head of the room, calmly reading a book. These dolls and others Jena saw in the loft and down in the room took her breath away.

What you will see here.

So this is new territory for me. A Blog. A log of things about me on the web. There probably won't be a lot about me personally on this site, as I am in a world that exists not on the web (that is in the flesh) not a very open person to new and strange people. You who are reading this are all new and strange people.

But I am willing to give it a go, because Google told me to, and I trust Master Google in all things.

Most of what you will see here are previews and comments of stories, as well as, perhaps, said stories themselves, though, I do not think God intended Man to publish stories on a Blog. Similarly, he did not intend for man to play FPSs with a controller.