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A Mother’s Gift

It was the peak of the summer, and as expected, the Southern heat suffocated you with every breath. Typically one welcomed this with sweet iced tea and a powerful fan, but this particular summer welcomed something else.

And then this particular summer welcomed a winter colder than any other I could dare compare it to.

My girlfriend and I were browsing around the old antique shop looking for anything of interest.

I was at the back of the store when my eyes made contact with a rough looking wooden box sitting in a high chair on top of a tall wooden shelf. In fact, it was so high the box nearly touched the ceiling, and my arms could barely manage to grab the bottom legs of the high chair.

This box was not for sale. There was no price tag. We are both suckers for unique looking boxes.

I quickly found Christina so she could help me balance the high chair holding the box while I brought it to the floor.

This box was wicked to say the least.

The symbol instantly reminded me of the fleur-de-lis and my time as a scout during my much younger days. But the fleur-de-lis is rooted in legend itself.

It is believed the symbol, sharing the same characteristics as the lotus flower, represented perfection, light, and … life.

The lock for the box had been removed in an attempt to keep anybody from opening it.

Well, at least that is my best guess.

Please excuse the image quality of the box. All I had on me to take pictures with was a cheap cell phone.

The most peculiar part of the box was what appeared to be scratch marks.

Four scratch marks either trying to get in or desperately trying to get out.

But again, that is all speculation.

We glanced around the antique shop to see if anybody was looking.

I pulled out a pocket knife, stuck it in the hole at an angle where the lock used to be, and pulled the door open.

Upon opening the box, we discovered a doll and a God-awful odor. The smell of time and history.

Doll box missing lock.

Doll box missing lock.

Claw marks on the box.

Claw marks on the box.

Upon a closer look, we revealed his origin. The doll, named Matty Mattel, was originally created by the toy manufacturing company Mattel in 1961.

A quick search on my phone revealed all there was to know about our new discovery.

Before his physical creation, Matty acted as the boy mascot for the company.

From 1955 to 1970 he played a huge role in the marketing for the toy company. He even returned again in the 1980s.

In the 1960s, Matty was famous. He hosted television’s Sunday morning cartoon Matty’s Funday Funnies between 1961 and 1963.

Ironically, or coincidentally, depending on how you look at it, Casper the Friendly Ghost was a big part of Matty’s Funday Funnies.

After the introduction of their first talking doll, Chatty Cathy, in 1960, Mattel began producing talking versions of Matty and Casper the following year. Matty acted as the company’s official logo from 1959 until 1970. I doubt Mattel ever thought one of their creations would become a walking, talking shell harboring our soon-to-be hell.

But how in the world did he end up on the top shelf of an old antique shop?

At that point it didn’t matter. He was an antique and we wanted him.

Photo I took of Matty.

Photo I took of Matty.

I was mesmerized by his look. Like me, Christina was also captivated by his sly demeanor and weathered age.

This doll had a set of eyes, and I know you know the kind I am talking about. Those eyes that seem to follow your every movement no matter which direction you move.

He had a sinister little grin like that of a little boy knowing he just got away with doing something he should not have or that look of patiently waiting for a staged prank to go off.

Our research also indicated that the doll was not manufactured and distributed in the box we were holding.

So, he was stored differently by somebody else. And whoever it was made sure it wasn’t going to be easy to open it.

After getting him safely into our hands, I placed the high chair back up where it came from.

That’s when I noticed the entire back of the box had something written on it.

I quickly took a few pictures with my cell phone once again. In hindsight, I am glad I did.

On the back interior of the box was a poem, but this was no ordinary poem.

Some of the words were carved, while others appeared to have been written in pencil.

But one thing both Tina and I agreed on was it didn’t appear to have been written all at the same time. The style of handwriting changed with what seemed to be each passage.

Another photo I took of Matty.

Another photo I took of Matty.

Carving and writing inside the box.

Carving and writing inside the box.

I did my best to make out what the entire thing said at a later time based on the photographs and some video I shot with my cell phone. Some of it was very difficult to read, but in the end I figured it all out.

The twelve inch snow glistened under the cold, blank winter sky as the raging fire engulfed her home with a twinkle in her eye.

The snow appeared orange like light from a dream as the trees began crying from the death they had seen.

More carving and writing inside the box.

More carving and writing inside the box.

A girl stood shivering as she looked into the blaze and the six-year-old would never be the same.

Ashes rained down upon her like newly fallen snow. There she stood shivering with her arms dangling low.

Her face remained frozen for a while, holding only the hand of her best friend; a doll with a menacing smile.

A child’s Christmas never came for only death was delivered on the eve of that day.

Her mother and her dog burned to the ground in the midnight fog.

The sound of sirens and whistles filled the smoke glazed air as the little girl stood with a cold, blank stare.

No words would ever cross her bitter lips again for the night before Christmas smiled with a sinister grin.

So the story was told about an evil occurring when the lights went out and a creature was stirring.

This was definitely not something I would be reading to the grandchildren around the holidays. It was obvious that it was not written by a child. Not unless she was a six-year-old prodigy. As if that wasn’t haunting enough, the poem was validated by the clerks of the shop in the moments ahead.

Our attention went back to the doll.

We both noticed that the doll was not labeled for sale. He just appeared to be put up and out of the way to add to the already antique flair the store encompassed.

But I wanted him, and I was going to charm my way through the nice elderly ladies at the front counter to get him.

Christina and I made our way to the checkout counter, and we were pleasantly greeted by the two women who ran the store.

I immediately asked one of the ladies how much the doll cost. With deadpan faces, they quickly looked at one another without saying a word.

After a weird moment of silence, the one lady said the doll wasn’t for sale and insinuated in a very cryptic fashion that I would not want the doll anyway.

I played dumb and pulled out some reverse psychology. I basically said she was right and the doll was all dirty anyway, so it probably wasn’t worth anything.

But I couldn’t help but ask as to why the doll wasn’t for sale. I was assuming a childhood attachment, or that maybe the doll had sentimental value to somebody at the store, but I was wrong.

The lady behind the counter proceeded to tell us that the doll came from a very sad home and that whatever sadness was in the home came with him.

So I immediately asked if they believed there was some sort of spiritual attachment.

The other lady spoke up, questioning my interest in the doll.

So now the stage was set …

… I told the women who I was and what I had spent my life doing. Christina is professionally a nurse, but over the past seven years or so has become a paranormal investigator and has accompanied me during field work.

They were both intrigued, and that initial barrier disappeared in both of them and they let their guard down.

It was almost as if they were relieved to meet somebody so interested in spiritual phenomena.

They proceeded to give this author a story.

The ladies told us the doll had come from a woman who lost a child during birth. She was pregnant with twins—one boy and one girl.

In July 1962, Matty the doll was given as a gift to the expecting mother at the hospital from an unknown source. During the moments of childbirth, she tragically lost one of the twins due to medical complications.

Shortly after, she arrived home with her new daughter and “Matty.”

It was from that point, for whatever reasons and for whatever took place inside that house, the woman believed her dead son to be inside of Matty.

As they continued with the story, I could only imagine the heartache and psychological damage that the lady must have endured.

I was curious, however. Here we had a potentially haunted doll with the spirit of an unborn child. My mind was racing.

How does that work? If real, how does that work? I just kept repeating that to myself.

I mean, does the spirit grow inside the doll alongside his sister? I would certainly subscribe to the idea that a spirit could learn based on repeated observation.

It is scientific fact our bodies are of bioelectrical makeup. We have electricity in our bodies. When we die, that electricity or that energy goes somewhere. Energy is infinite and it does not die. It simply changes form.

So what’s to say the energy from that unborn baby wasn’t transferred into the-then “Matty?”

It seems believable to think that a spirit could watch and learn and become educated just as a child would over years and years of living with a family.

I don’t know how far this went behind closed doors with the bereaving mother. I don’t know what really happened. I have a yarn from two old ladies.

There was a fire that ultimately killed the mother. We do know that. We do know the daughter survived with Matty in hand.

According to the clerks at the shop, the fifty-year-old doll was brought into the store by the daughter in 2014.

It is interesting to think that the surviving twin had kept the doll for fifty-four years, since it came into the house in 1962. She grew up with it and kept it close well into her adulthood.

I guess she viewed Matty as the brother she was supposed to have but never did.

By that logic, we were looking at a fifty-four-year-old male soul attached to a doll.

That was a very interesting, yet depressing, story of the doll’s history, but at the moment it didn’t really mean anything.

At this point, one of the ladies looked at me and said, “How about five dollars?”

Both Christina and I, with almost too much enthusiasm, answered back, “We’ll take it!”

Looking back, I wish I would have realized the responsibility and risk of accepting such an offer.

When Matty was handed to me, I made a comment suggesting that he looked like hell.

The woman who sold me Matty replied by saying I was half right. She said that something coming from hell was bound to look like it.

I attempted to lighten the mood by digging up that classic phrase—you can’t judge a book by its cover.

Even then, the mood remained the same as she snapped back intently. She leaned over the counter toward my face and put her hand on the doll. She looked at me and said, “This is no book.”

I laughed, took a few steps back, and said, “Well, if everything you said is true, it will be one day.”

We left the store with our new addition, and I couldn’t help but think those two elderly women must have had experiences of their own. But they weren’t talking.

There was obviously a reason they believed the doll to be evil. There was obviously a reason the surviving twin gave him up.

At the time, that short and overdramatic conversation during the transaction seemed like nothing more than a funny and trivial story to tell friends.

That notion quickly went away.

There are many elements involved in rationalizing or accepting a paranormal event. First there is shock, then disbelief, then acceptance found in either proving or disproving. This particular chapter in my life was no exception.

As my brain tends to do, I was interweaving what was said and doing mathematical equations in my head, which ultimately led to a coincidence.

We left, in such a hurry to get home that we completely forgot the wooden box. That was the entire reason for us pulling it down in the first place.

I could kick myself now for leaving it. I decided we would just go back and pick it up some other time. I then mentioned to Christina that the doll was originally brought home fifty-four years ago in July, following that lady giving birth. I continued by pointing out that we had found the doll in July and we were now taking it home.

Everything is relative and one event sets in motion the next.

So, there we were.

It wasn’t Christmas Eve, but it was perplexing to ponder that a night of giving can easily become a night of taking away.

Maybe Matty felt cheated and jaded and wanted to bequeath the same fate on his family. They expected gifts. He expected the gift of life. His was taken, and so was his mother’s.

Did he blame her?

It was all speculation.

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