There’s a cursed doll that plays “hide and seek.” You have ten days to find it, or you die. I bought the doll thinking it was fake. Now it’s missing—for the love of God, help me find it!

Here’s the deal: there’s this cloth doll. Vintage. It’s called “Little Boy Blue.” Goes up for sale online, with a warning: Anyone who holds this doll dies. Not right away, no. But according to the seller, the doll has a history. It always disappears ten days before a horrific accident befalls its owner… and then reappears beside the owner’s corpse.

Which sounds staged.

Or bogus.

So who came up with this bullshit story?

Turns out the doll is being sold by The Archive of Arcane Artifacts, an independent “museum” which is really more of a modest building filled with supposedly haunted paraphernalia. But we’re deep in an economic crash and they’re deep in the red, so selling some of their stock is their only hope of staying afloat. They’ve got a listing for a haunted recorder (“It plays itself!”), a creepy painting of a smiling girl (“Her expressions change, and so does your luck!”), an old telephone (“The line is dead… just like the callers you’ll hear!”), etc. Every haunted item comes with a disclaimer about how the museum is not liable for any misfortune incurred by the purchase of said item.

Little Boy Blue, in particular, comes with extra warnings in bold lettering on the glass case housing the doll:

DO NOT OPEN THE CASE.

DO NOT TOUCH THE DOLL.

ALWAYS KEEP THE DOLL ON CAMERA.

The doll sits with other items under a surveillance camera in its locked case until a man named Theo spots it in a hokey online advert and decides it will make a great conversation piece and that his buddies will get a kick out of it. Little Boy Blue arrives packed in a crate, still locked in its glass display case. Later that week at a party at his cushy California home, Theo puts Little Boy Blue on display and promptly breaks every warning.

He opens the case.

He picks up the doll.

Fast-forward to today—the doll has disappeared.

I, con-artist turned paranormal investigator Jack, am currently on video call with Theo. I have a reputation for cracking the most cryptic cases. Theo’s ask for me is simple:

Find the doll.

Return it to its case.

*         *         *

“… I’m like ninety percent sure one of my buddies has it. It vanished, like, three days after the party. I mean, fuckin’ dumb.” He laughs, the camera wobbling as he walks. “Like bro, such an obvious prank!”

Behind his tanned, 20-something face are palm trees, traffic, blue sky. The sun winks off his shades as he repeats in a too-chipper tone about how he’s certain it’s a prank, haha. He talked to Steve. Steve is a douche and had that shitty grin that means he’s up to something. It’s gotta be Steve. His mouth is motoring a mile a minute, his eyes too wide, his laugh too loud, and he adds, “But just in case. How much for your services?”

My services. LOL. Makes it sound like he’s paying me for a blowjob in the park. I don’t list fees for my “services” because I operate on a sliding scale—as in, when I see you’re a trust fund kid livin’ it up in on the West Coast with selfies shot in Sao Paulo and the Galapagos, I slide up my scale. I tick off on my fingers the expenses I’d incur traveling to California—airfare, hotel—

“I’ll cover all that,” he says. “But I need you today.”

“Today?”

“Yeah, you know this thing is on, like, a timer—”

“I have other bookings.”

I don’t have other bookings. But I’ve got Theo here by the balls, and pretty soon I’ve negotiated an all-expenses paid gig to sunny SoCal for myself and my “assistant” Emma (actually my fiancée and the two of us have been hitting some discordant notes lately so we could use the vacay). Theo lays out the details of the doll’s disappearance:

“I have the only key.” The camera shakes wildly and then goes black as he tucks his phone into his pocket, and there’s rustling and a metallic tinkle and the phone comes out and focuses on a small silver key he’s dropped on the sidewalk. “See? I keep it with me. So…” More shuffling around until he gets the key back in his pocket and resumes his walk. “Like, someone had to have pickpocketed it and put it back, somehow without my noticing. Or made a copy. Or the doll magically unlocked itself from inside.”

“You got any cameras in the house?” I ask.

“Yeah, hang on, I’m sending you a pic…” He taps on his phone. “I took this at 9am on the morning it disappeared. When I got home around 1pm it was gone. Cameras are only on the entrances and didn’t catch any vehicles in the driveway or anybody approaching or leaving, just me pulling into the garage. But somehow, poof! It’s gone. So like, any ideas, investigator-man?”

“How many days since it disappeared?”

He pauses. Puffs out a breath and then looks up at the blue sky. “Uh…. Since, um… last Saturday.”

I glance at my calendar. Then I look again and frown.

“Last Saturday?”

“Yeah.”

“Nine days?”

He laughs nervously and bites his lip. “Yeah…” He adds, “I mean, that’s why I’m willing to pay so much for you to find it, ya know? Just… get here today.”

Nine days.

On the tenth day, the doll reappears… on the corpse of the victim at the scene of a horrible accident.

Tomorrow is his final day.

*         *         *

Little Boy Blue looks exactly like you’d expect a cursed doll to look.

In the photo Theo sent, it sits inside its glass case partially obscured by the laminated rules pasted onto the door. Sewn of a peach-colored fabric, with stubby arms and legs like a sock doll, it has no buttons for eyes or yarn for hair. Instead, its face has been painted in ink. But the ink has faded, so that its nose and mouth have blurred together in a reddish smear. Its eyes are ovals with two pinprick black dots in the center, as if someone colored them with a magic marker. Its hair is a dark brown stain on the back of its cloth head. At a squint, it almost looks like it is smiling—a pink smile drooling down its chin. It wears a checked blue gown, the old-fashioned sort children wore back in whatever early American period this was made.

Words really can’t do justice to this cloth doll. Lil’ BB is creepy af.

The description on the Archive of Arcane Artifacts website reads:

Little Boy Blue is a vintage cloth doll estimated to be about a century old. Nothing is known about its early history. It was discovered in an attic in the early 2000’s and sold in a box lot at auction to a woman named Frances S. Frances died several months after purchasing the lot when she fell from a ladder at her home. She was allegedly found with the doll lying beside her.

Little Boy Blue was subsequently sold to a collector named Santiago N., who put the doll on display in his antique shop, where it garnered the admiration of visitors until it disappeared suddenly one afternoon in 2006. Santiago searched everywhere but Little Boy Blue could not be found. Ten days later, he was involved in a fatal car crash. The cloth doll was found beside him in the wreckage.

The most tragic occurrence was in 2016, after Little Boy Blue resurfaced at a flea market, where a tween boy purchased it as a joke to scare his sisters. After he scared the older sister with it, he moved it to their littlest sibling Sarah’s room, from where the doll disappeared. Ten days later, the boy woke up to screams. Little Sarah had drowned in the pool, and was floating there alongside Little Boy Blue. (For privacy reasons, the children’s names have been withheld.)

The bereaved family donated the accursed doll to The Archive of Arcane Artifacts in order that its paranormal effects be documented. Today, it remains an object of fascination for supernatural researchers. It sits inside its locked glass case, monitored 24/7 by security cameras, waiting for its opportunity to escape and be claimed by its next owner…

*         *         *

Color me skeptical, but I am pretty sure the reason the names are withheld is less to do with them being private and more to do with them being fictional—can’t fact check ‘em if they aren’t there! As for Santiago and Frances—sure, there are obituaries matching those names and describing accidents. BUT, no mention of any doll in connection with their deaths.

Now, did Santiago own the doll, and have it on display in his antique shop? Sure. In fact, his obituary shows a picture of him smiling in the store, and on a shelf behind him is Little Boy Blue. I’m guessing the museum acquired the doll because it was vintage and creepy, then strung together details from these obituaries into this totally bogus story. (Totally bogus, that is, unless you’re named Theo. Which reminds me I have a joke for Theo when we meet. If you say “gullible” really slowly it sounds like “oranges.”)

But hey, one man’s prank is another man’s paid vacay! I’m lounging in the airport bar with a pina colada in hand, having refused to do any research until we land in Cali because it’s probably a crock and the easiest way to know if more effort is needed is to meet Theo in person. Instead, I have been looking up restaurants and tourist attractions and (as I admit to Emma when she asks me how it’s going) trying to figure out, “which beach has the hottest bab—sand,” I correct.

Emma doesn’t laugh. “We’re being paid so we should put in the hours.” She sounds exactly like the teacher’s pet who insists “study hall” is for studying. “You said his last sighting of the doll was at 9am that Saturday. By the time we arrive, it’ll be close to 10pm… that only gives us tonight and early morning to prep for his last day. I’ve reached out to the families of Frances and Santiago and to the museum. That’s about as much as I can do for now to verify the history of Little Boy Blue.”

“Why’s it called ‘Little Boy Blue’ anyway? Isn’t that a nursery rhyme or something?” I muse. “‘Little boy blue, come blow my’…” I pause as I sip my drink. “Huh… that can’t be right.”

“It’s not yours, it’s his own he’s blowing,” says Emma. I start to giggle, and she smacks my shoulder. “His own horn. He’s blowing his own horn.”

“Wish I were that flexible.”

“’Little boy blue, come blow your horn, the sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn.’ Stop ruining nursery rhymes and just focus for a minute! Jack, what if we walk in, and you get tingles?”

She means the unpleasant skittering sensation along my skin, that chill like spiders in my flesh and frost in my veins. I have what you might call a “sensitivity” to hauntings, ever since my own personal (and nearly fatal) encounter.

“I won’t,” I say.

“But if you do?” she insists.

I shrug. “RIP Theo.”

Emma glares.

I sigh and put down my pina colada. “Ok, if that happens, we tell Theo that tomorrow being his last day really only leaves him with two options.”

“Which are?”

“Cremation or burial.”

“Jack!”

“Emma. If discount-Annabelle really is haunting him, it’s gonna be tough to catch it.” I lean back in my chair and spread my hands. “But I’m telling you, it’s a hoax! You know why? ‘Cause if the doll were able to disappear from its locked case, it woulda done that years ago!”

“Maybe it didn’t because they kept a camera on it.”

“Pffft. This is a vintage doll. Cameras didn’t even exist a hundred years ago, so how would any spirit inhabiting the doll even know to look out for them? Come on. He told an entire party of college-aged buddies about it—obviously one of them’s pranking him! Besides, not like we can prevent an accident if that’s how he goes.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that if it is real…” Emma’s eyes narrow because she can sense what’s coming but I just can’t help myself as I finish, “… It means Theo won’t just be in a jam—he’ll be toast.”

*         *         *

It turns out there actually is a specific nursery rhyme associated with Little Boy Blue. Not the traditional one. No, per the museum’s website: “The doll was discovered with a yellowed paper tucked into its frock, on which was written a rhyme—or curse. This terrifying rhyme is thought to be as old as the doll itself.”

So how did a hundred-year-old scrap of paper manage to remain with the doll through auctions, flea markets, car accidents, and drownings? Just one of those funny things, I guess, like how if you say “coincidence” really slowly it sounds like “oranges.” (Emma maintains that it could’ve been with the doll when it was first found and replaced by a replica later.)

In any case, this is the rhyme:

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn.

The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn.

Where is the boy who is dressed all in blue?

He’s counting the days, he’s hiding from you!

Is he in the meadow? Or under the bed?

Ten days he’s gone missing—oh whence has he fled?

They’ll find him beside you—stone, cold, dead.

*         *         *

Emma has relegated me to the window seat while she takes the aisle, her headphones on while she focuses on “work,” leaving an empty seat between us to give her some space from my jokes.

We’re 30,000 feet up, the sun igniting the sky in passionate colors outside the window. I suspect she’s irritable because she’s hungry, vegan, and has just declined the flight attendant’s offer of a meal due to the lack of options. I tell the flight attendant I’ll have their sandwich plate and tell Emma, “You know the worst part of being vegan? It’s a big missed steak.” She grumbles that I need a permaban from r/ dadjokes and as soon as the flight crew has moved on, gets up to go to the bathroom. Disappointingly, she is going to pee, and not slipping off a few minutes ahead of me so that we can join the mile high club.

The seatbelt sign flashes on, and the captain announces a rough patch. It all feels like an on-the-nose metaphor. Every morning I wake next to this incredible girl, we have stupendous sex in a big gorgeous house and she’s chasing her dreams and I’m living mine and yet… I exasperate her on a daily basis. Anything from forgetting to restock the toilet paper to what she calls my signature sock move (she once asked me to proofread a paper but when I opened the attachment it was titled: “The hamper is right there: the story of a breakup”). Most of my adult life I’ve been living single. Now that I’m cohabiting I’m realizing that 90% of our future marriage is likely to be arguing about when to load the dishwasher or make the bed (the only correct answer is never, because you just unmake it when you go to sleep, but Emma says that is “typical bachelor” behavior and as usually happens when we argue about laundry, I fold).

Strip away the love hormones and I’m not sure we’re domestically compatible. I chalk up our longevity to her fetish for saving lost souls. She has a history of dating self-absorbed assholes. Her exes are like Russian nesting dolls, full of themselves.

And I don’t know whether I fit that mold or break it.

Lately, even my jokes don’t land—Emma looked at me after that “missed steak” pun like I’d just told her I drop-kick puppies for pleasure. So this vacay? Sure, it’s a gig. But I look out the window at the blazing sky and hope we can bring some of that fire back with us.

I resign myself to enduring the rest of the flight in relative solitude. I’m just settling back in my chair and putting my earbuds in when—

Ping!

I glance over at Emma’s phone in her seat.

Ping!

Ping!

Ping!

I peer over my shoulder down the aisle but Emma is still in the bathroom. And while normally I don’t touch her phone without her permission, some hunch leads me to pick it up after the next ping.

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: Please read! There was a mixup among our staff. The doll you received, “Little Boy Blue,” was incorrectly listed despite not being for sale. We would be happy to immediately replace it with any of the other dolls in our collection or to refund you the cost. Please contact us immediately at [redacted].

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: Urgent! Mr. Theo W., we are contacting you again about Little Boy Blue. We would be happy to reimburse you for the cost of the doll and shipping for its return, as well as send you a replacement from our vintage collection at no cost to you. This doll was not for sale and we would greatly appreciate its return.

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: Urgent! My name is Mai, I am the director for The Archive. Please contact me immediately at [redacted]…

The messages get more and more frantic. They’ve come through so rapidly, it’s obvious they’ve been copied and pasted, presumably from messages sent originally to Theo. The last few are directed to Emma:

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: See forwarded msgs above

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: My calls to you are going to voicemail. Please reach me at [redacted]

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: If you are in contact with Theo W., you MUST convince him to return the doll.

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: Little Boy Blue is strongly believed to cause a fatal outcome to its owner. This is not a hoax. I will forward you what I sent to him. My name is Mai, I am the person who procured the doll in the aftermath of the tragic death of Sarah W. (I ask you not share that name out of respect for the family’s privacy)

THE ARCHIVE OF ARCANE ARTIFACTS: See attached. DO NOT SHARE

The link is to a folder on Google drive.

When I open it, inside the folder are a mix of images and videos. They are all from July of 2016, all from the same device according to the metadata. There are a series of photos of a flea market, one of them showing a pudgy, pale hand holding up Little Boy Blue against the backdrop of fold-out tables covered in boxes of antiques and junk.

There’s also a photo of a small child, maybe four years old, sitting on her bed holding Little Boy Blue, her expression comically frightened. It’s the sort of photo that would be funny to share years later, if not for the videos.

There are three videos.

The first shows the sun-drenched grass, the camera wobbling as it approaches a girl of about ten who is plucking weeds from the driveway. A tween boy’s voice speaks (from the volume, it’s clear he’s the person holding the phone) and says, “I got you a present.” The girl squints against the sun, and the boy’s pudgy hand thrusts Little Boy Blue at her. She grabs the doll and turns it around, looks at its face with the smear of a mouth and says, “That’s disgusting!” Then she flings it like a champion quarterback, and the camera pivots to catch its distant shape thudding in the grass. “How ungrateful,” huffs the boy’s voice as he marches across the grass to retrieve the doll.

Cute. Silly. It seems like typical little kid stuff. I cannot decide if it is staged. Vaguely, I am aware of Emma returning from the bathroom. She asks sharply why I am on her phone and I tell her it was pinging like crazy and she reads through the messages and asks, “Do you think it’s legit?”

I don’t know. We each take an earbud as she opens the next video.

This one is only a few seconds, showing Little Boy Blue being carried up the stairs. The boy’s voice says, “Maybe Sarah will like you better.” The doll is set down on a bed, and the boy snickers and the video ends.

The third—and final—video has a timestamp of August 2—more than two weeks after the previous ones. It opens with blurry motion as distantly a girl’s high-pitched scream rings out, and the boy’s voice whispers, “Oh shit.” The camera veers wildly and blurs to a window and then angles down, showing the screened patio and pool. In the grayish dawn light, the image is dim and pixelated, but two figures are floating face down. Vaguely, I am aware of Emma’s gasp. Then the shape of an adult plunges into the water, grabs one of the figures. The camera shakes. The boy draws a ragged breath, and the video stops.

I rewind and freeze the frame on the two figures floating face down. Zoom in. And even through the blurry pixelation, it’s obvious that one of the figures is the four-year-old.

The other is Little Boy Blue, its nubby hand rigidly clutched by the fingers of the drowned child.

*         *         *

Our winding drive up to Theo’s West Coast home takes us along a breathtaking valley ringed by scrubby mountains under the star-studded sky. Technically it’s his parents’ property (his folks are currently in Milan), and Theo has offered to put us up in the guesthouse, which if the scenery en route is any indication, is a picture-perfect vacation spot. Palm trees line the driveway, and the air is cool and fresh—we’re far enough from the city to smell desert more than smog, close enough to see the glow of lights on the horizon.

Emma and I park the rental car and approach the sleek house of wood and stucco, taking in the floor-to-ceiling windows, the deck and wraparound balcony.

There’s a fire going in a perfectly cylindrical stone firepit with cushy chairs around it, and it would be great to sit there and light up a joint, shoot the shit, joke about this doll hoax. About how well-staged those videos are of the family. Emma couldn’t verify the drowning of Sarah W., and though she called Mai when we landed, it’s an East Coast number. Past midnight there. Mai didn’t pick up, so we probably won’t get a reply ‘till morning.

My eyes search the sky full of stars and I wish on all of them for my instincts to be right and for it to be a hoax.

Emma laces her fingers in mine and we knock on the door.

“Be right there!” calls a voice. And then footsteps. “… thanks for coming all this way,” says Theo’s voice as the door unlocks and swings open.

Golden light spills from inside. I catch only a glimpse of his silhouette, wavering in my vision, and then the world tilts—

—and the sandwich comes up. I heave it out on his front doorstep, the vertigo so intense I’m clinging to the pavement for balance, sputtering bits of digested croissant and turkey onto my fingers as Emma gasps, “Babe! Are you OK?”

“—gross man,” comes Theo’s voice. “Is he all right?”

—and fuck me, my stomach bucks again as I think of that boy and his little sister and fuck, I don’t know what’s making me sicker, the sudden certainty that the videos aren’t a hoax, or the fact that the man standing only a foot away is oozing with the effects of the doll’s curse. My flesh is crawling, crawling as if a thousand ants are wriggling their way under my skin. And as his face dances before my swirling vision, I hear it in my mind—the last lines of that fucking rhyme:

Ten days he’s gone missing—oh whence has he fled?

Day nine. Tonight is the end of day nine. And tomorrow, unless we can find the doll before it’s too late, it’ll show up beside this unlucky dude’s body—stone, cold, dead.