The Stuff I Read: Agatha Christie: Holy Crap, That's Creepy!

This is about Agatha Christie. She whose pen spouts the clever capers. Her very genteel detectives will make sure that everything is cleared up and everyone gets their cup of tea.

Right?

Yeah, not so much.

In The Last Séance, a parent begs a medium to call up the spirit of a dead child. The medium does this. Really, really well.

In A Glass Darkly has the protagonist seeing a crime reflected in a mirror...or does he? He tells the woman he thought he saw, and she changes the path of her life because of it. Years later the vision comes true anyway...or does it?

As for The House of Dreams...I won't tell you the plot. It's freaky and tragic.

What really kills me, is that these stories are in collections with her regular mysteries. Her horror stories (I'd classify them as that, anyway, though the Cool Kids may disagree) are woven in to what a typical reader expects, packing a greater "...the hell?" reaction than if they were put in a volume with "The Horror Stories of Agatha Christie" on the cover.

The first of these that I read remains my favorite. It got the best reaction (an inability to fall asleep).

When I saw the title The Dressmaker’s Doll, I expected a jewel thief would steal a large diamond from Lady Honoria Flotherling-West and hide it in the stuffing of a doll. Something like that.

Way off. Waaaaaay off.

The Doll sits in the fitting room of a dress shop. She matches the walls. She matches the drapes. She must always have been there. She clearly belongs there. Only...no one who works at the shop can remember seeing her before.

Alicia (the owner) starts finding The Doll at her desk every morning. It must be a junior employee being silly, surely. Then, things start to disappear, and are found under wherever The Doll is sitting. Customers complain that she gives them the creeps. They actually stop coming to the store because they don't want to see her. Whenever The Doll is moved to the sofa from where she seemed to begin, she is back at the desk the next time the employees enter the office.

Weeks pass, and the cleaning woman won’t go into The Doll’s room. The women become convinced that The Doll is evil. She consumes their thoughts: What does she want? How can they get rid of her? Can they, will she just come back? Can they destroy her? Why are they so afraid of a her in the first place?

They surrender. They lock her in the room she seems to want, keep the only key, and vow never to go in there again.

Locks don’t matter to The Doll.

I read this story late at night, six months ago.

When I finished, I looked up. Paige was staring at me.

Paige has a sweet rag doll face and purple streaks in her yarn hair. She wears a denim miniskirt and a T-shirt that says “Girls Rock”. My son loves Paige. When he was 9 months old he crawled around with her hand between his teeth. He tugs her hair and bites her feet and hugs her and she smiles all the while.

Before reading The Dressmaker’s Doll, I believed Paige to be precious.

After reading it, I believed Paige to be planning a subtle takeover of my house.

Ridiculous! It’s a story about a doll, for crying out loud. Remember what Costello said about Chucky?

"So, I don’t get it again. It’s a little talking doll. It tries to kill you. Kick it. Hit it with a broom. Whatever - it’s stupid." (Little Terrors, November 2004)

That was three years ago? Okay, maybe no one remembers that but me.

Anyway, he's right! It is stupid! Punt it out a window, you're fine.

I spent hours that night trying to get anything other than possessed dolls out of my head. Calvin and Hobbes, porn, Cartoon Network, yoga...nothing worked.

Damn you, Agatha Christie and your unpredicted creativity!