The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Hollow
by Sonora Taylor

Mrs. Sassafras was Lindsay’s favorite doll. Lindsay spotted Mrs. Sassafras at the church rummage sale, her porcelain cheeks dull and her linen dress yellowed. But it was her eyes that drew Lindsay in. Their irises were gone, perhaps faded with time. Wherever they’d gone, Lindsay didn’t care. She wanted the doll, and once her mother bought it, it became her favorite.

Lindsay liked that Mrs. Sassafras couldn’t look at her. Her mother often looked at her with a sigh, her teachers with frustration as she answered questions wrong, her classmates with mocking and laughter as they asked why she was so quiet. Her cousin Bethany, who was her age and also in her class, was the worst. She always picked on her, both at home and at school. She pretended she wasn’t Lindsay’s cousin when she was around her friends…