The Winter of the Dollhouse

Prologue: Gretel
On the day before Thanksgiving, Mr. DiLucca, the owner of the dollhouse store, unlocked the wooden case where a four-inch doll had spent the past eleven months. He unwrapped her and stood her in the shop window.
The doll, Gretel, itched and tingled. Her whole body felt like a foot that had gone to sleep and was waking up again. There was so much to see outside the window: traffic lights shining like wet lollipops, lime and lemon and cherry. Cars swooped back and forth, and so did people on foot; sometimes there were children, sometimes there were dogs.
It was exciting to be out in the world again. Last Christmas, Mr. DiLucca had placed Gretel in the window next to a gingerbread house he’d bought from the bakery. From the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas Day, Gretel had stood with her hand raised, as if she were about to steal a dollop of icing. Gretel was a doll, so her hand couldn’t get tired, but she disliked the pose. She knew that gingerbread houses led to trouble: witches and cages and red-hot ovens.
She also found out that gingerbread houses attracted mice. Gretel had enjoyed the company of the mice, until Mr. DiLucca discovered mouse droppings in the window. That was the end of the gingerbread house. Gretel was afraid it was also the end of the mice, though she couldn’t be sure. After the gingerbread house was thrown away, she was shut up in the cabinet again.
Now she stood bright-eyed and wide awake as Mr. DiLucca arranged the window. He draped holly and red beads at the edge of the shelf and tiny gold lights that flashed like fireflies. To one side of Gretel he placed a round mirror and a ring of snowy cotton. Three-inch ice-skaters glided around and around the glass. On the other side was a miniature bakery, fifteen inches square. A motherly-looking doll in an apron stood behind the counter, serving a boy doll in a sailor suit. Gretel liked looking at the cakes and buns. If she had been human, her nostrils would have twitched like the nose of a rabbit.
Mr. DiLucca set an open book in front of Gretel. He sprinkled silver stars over the pages, and said under his breath, “That’ll do.”
Gretel didn’t bother to look at the book. She knew it was Grimms’ Fairy Tales, and she knew the picture by heart: a gingerbread house with two children beside it. That was her story, “Hansel and Gretel.” The doll maker who crafted her had made a Hansel doll as well. Sixty years ago, they had been gifts for a brother and sister.
The boy had complained when he found a doll in his Christmas stocking. He said that dolls were for girls. He said—loudly, too—that dolls were stupid. But when no one was looking, he scooped up Hansel and hid him in his pocket.
After that, Hansel was free. He was loved, and the boy provided him with splendid adventures. Hansel was a pirate in the bathtub and sailed on a ship made from scrap wood. He rode in the coal car of an electric train and between the spines of a plastic stegosaurus. In time, both his china hands chipped off and his face grew grimy. Then, somehow, he was lost. The boy cried and searched for him a long time, but Hansel was never found.
There was no danger of Gretel being lost. The sister who owned her was too old for dolls. She stored Gretel in a box at the back of her closet, next to a family of plastic horses she had also outgrown. After many years in the dark, the toys ended up in a secondhand store, where Mr. DiLucca found Gretel and bought her. “An original Von Schwangau!” he gloated, “and in perfect condition! She’s really a museum-quality doll. She’s worth a fortune.” But for some reason, Gretel had not sold. Her clothes were too plain, and her face was too serious. The price Mr. DiLucca set on her was too high. Two or three times a year, a serious collector would visit the shop, and he would unpack Gretel and try to sell her.
The serious collector was always an adult, which was a disappointment; Gretel didn’t like grown-ups very much. At worst—witches and stepmothers—they were dangerous; at best, they were less interesting than children. She didn’t want to belong to a collector, who would keep her in a glass case. She wanted to play.
She wanted a child.
Watching the street now, she felt the stirrings of hope. Children passed by. Some stopped to peer in the window. A few even dared to come inside. Mr. DiLucca smiled a false smile and told them not to touch.
Twilight turned from blue-violet to dim gray. Mr. DiLucca locked the shop door and turned off the lights. He went upstairs to his workroom or perhaps his apartment; Gretel didn’t know. What she did know was that nobody would buy her after the shop was closed.
Gretel slept.