The Doll's Hand

The Doll's Hand

By Richard Sherwick

Should she, or shouldn't she?

Gilly is twelve when she finds the hand of an old-fashioned china doll in a forgotten drawer in her parents' barn. She finds no sign of the rest of the doll, but Gilly feels a strange connection with the hand. What did the doll look like, she wonders? Who did it belong to? And why was the hand abandoned? 

Should she take the hand, or should she leave it where she found it?

Gilly takes the hand to her bedroom. When she starts to imagine the answers to her questions, the story flows too easily from her pen. She writes about a cherished doll named Bedina, a family like her own, and the girl who owned the doll. But when the tale takes an uncomfortably dark turn, Gilly lays down her pen, and puts the hand away.

Should she, or shouldn't she?

Fifteen years later, Gilly rediscovers the doll's hand in a box in the attic. When she traces the owner of the doll, she finds herself drawn into the dark and mysterious events that have followed Bedina from owner to owner for decades.

As Gilly pieces together the truth behind the doll's hand, she finds Bedina's dark secrets leading her far closer to home than she ever imagined. How much can she reveal before the doll's curse catches up with her? Can she let the secret out?

Should she, or shouldn't she?