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Mina First Doll Blonde Jointed Porcelain
Chapter One — The Collection Begins
"The One Before She Knew She Was Collecting"
I was seven. The shop was closing. The doll was in the window, looking up at the rain. Her eyes were too big for her face. Her joints were too visible for a toy. She was wrong in every way that mattered.
"She's not for children," the old woman said. "She's for people who already know they're lonely."
I didn't know I was lonely. I just knew I had three dollars and a pocket full of lint and I wanted that doll more than I wanted dinner.
"Her name is — well, she doesn't have one. The maker forgot. Or died. Same result." The woman took my three dollars. She took my lint too. She said the lint was worth more.
I carried her home in my coat. Her wooden knees clicked when she walked. I didn't make her walk. She did that herself, when I wasn't looking. I learned not to look too closely at what happened when I wasn't looking.
She sits in the back now. Behind the cracked ones. Behind the ones with music boxes inside them. Behind the hundreds that came after. But she was first. She knows it. I know it. The others know it too. That's why they don't sit in her spot.
Current Status: Still clicking. Still walking when unobserved. Still nameless. Mina has offered seventeen names over the years. The doll has accepted none. She prefers the quiet.
— From "The Mina Collection: A History of Unpaid Debts and Unnamed Things," Volume 1 of 14.