An unhinged out of print story from 2022
On January 1, 2022, I resolved to finally start taking this “writing thing” seriously. I guess it wasn’t really my fault that I had stopped writing for a while—after my dad passed away in 2020, I decided not to apply to MFA programs, and became a teacher instead. I was deeply unhappy in this career path, and desperate for a lifeline.
I decided that taking up writing again would be that lifeline. Every day after work for almost that entire year, I sat down and worked on either a novel or a short story. The result was two novels, dozens of short stories, and a few publications of which I’m still really proud. I sent over 100 short story submissions that year. I got used to a lot of rejection, but I also managed to earn a few acceptances.
When I sold “The Blessing” to Samantha Kolesnik’s Moonflowers and Nightshade anthology, everything changed for me. It was my first major short story sale, and it entrenched me in the horror writing community as the sale made me eligible to join the Horror Writers Association (HWA) as an affiliate member. Being part of HWA has given me a writing community. Last year I had the privilege of being the Scholarship from Hell recipient at StokerCon, the HWA convention, where I met icons like Catriona Ward and Paul Tremblay. I would have never learned about the resources that HWA has to offer if I hadn’t made that sale to Kolesnik.
Moonflowers and Nightshade is now out of print (it’s possible some copies may still be available at Bookshop Santa Cruz?) so I want to make “The Blessing” available to a wider audience.
THE BLESSING by Alex Luceli Jiménez
YOU HAVE HEARD how Maria came to town. It was passed around as chisme often enough. Maria came to town the night Adora lost her doll. Actually what happened was the airport lost her doll when it lost her luggage the night Adora made the trip from New York back to her small central California hometown to attend her mother’s funeral. She showed up at her dead mother’s house shaking and sobbing and her aunts and cousins hugged her and tried to calm her down, tried to tell her that her mother was in a better place, and it wasn’t until Adora had regained control of her breathing that she screamed out the name of her beloved doll: Maria. They were all in the living room huddled around Adora, who sat in her dead mother’s armchair and trembled and clutched at her sides like she was about to break. They all heard the unlocked door open, and thought it was another cousin, or another aunt, or a neighbor coming to pay their respects. Nobody turned around to see the woman entering the living room — not until they heard that sing-songy voice speak, “Adora, I’m here.”
When the huddled mass turned to look, there she was — blonde, beautiful, and wearing the same silk green dress Adora’s doll had always worn, the same stark white gloves that covered up the left porcelain hand that Adora had broken and hot-glued back on. Like an ocean being parted, they all moved so the woman who looked so much like Adora’s doll could fall at the weeping Adora’s feet. She fell with grace, her long arms reaching up to wipe away Adora’s tears. Adora stared at her in wonder, crying silently. She spoke the name again, “Maria?”
“It’s me,” said Maria, because it could only be Maria. “Don’t cry anymore. I’m here.”
Maria was the porcelain doll that Adora’s father gave her when she was six and he was still six months away from putting a bullet in his head. You know that because everyone in town knew that. You saw her carrying that doll in her arms, too. She carried that doll in her arms until she turned thirteen, and after that she started keeping it in her backpack or tote bag, but everyone knew she had it with her even if they couldn’t see it. Everyone was so used to it, they called Adora la güera and Maria la güerita with their matching blonde hair.
When Adora shut herself in her dead mother’s house after the funeral and told everyone to leave her alone, everyone listened. Even if they thought it was a little odd how that Maria woman looked so much like that Maria doll, no one wanted to say anything. Lord knows cruel kids and their gossiping parents could’ve done leagues more harm than just pressuring Adora into hiding Maria away in her later years, but there was something about that doll that made their tongues quake and quiver before stopping altogether. Like she’d been cast with some kind of protective magic that made her and Adora untouchable, or maybe the doll had cast the magic herself. That’s what they secretly believed, anyway, so they wouldn’t have to think too hard about what it must have been like to grow up the way Adora did, with a father who committed suicide and an overworked, alcoholic mother who emerged to socialize exclusively on Sunday mornings when she and Adora and Maria sat down at the church pew and bowed their heads and pretended they were good and loyal Catholics. The only Catholic sensibility about Adora, anyway, was that she’d named Maria after the Virgin of Guadalupe candles her aunts would bring around because she’d always liked watching the flames flicker.
So no one except Samantha Cruz, who lived across the street from Adora, cared enough to call it what it was: Maria hadn’t just come to town, she had come to life. Starting the night Maria came to life, Sam kept a watchful eye on the house from her bedroom window, which faced the street. So did Adora’s bedroom window, but Adora’s blinds were always shut. From her window, Sam watched Maria the one time she left the house to buy groceries from the corner store, watched her come back with an armful of paper bags and disappear right back into the house. Everyone in town had seen Adora and her doll, but with Sam it was different. She had been Adora’s only friend for years, a consequence of their proximity and their shared age and the fact that Sam’s mother felt bad for Adora and pressured Sam into playing with her when they were growing up. Sam had always thought Maria was creepy and when she asked Adora not to bring her doll when she came over, Adora listened. Sam was the only person for whom Adora would put away that damn doll. They were close in elementary and middle school, but more distant in high school. Everything between them came to a full stop when they were sixteen and Adora showed up on Sam’s doorstep with a love confession poem in a white envelope, Maria in her arms when she said, “Sam, I want you to know that I love you as more than a friend and I wrote this poem for you.”
And Sam, who could only look at Maria, shook her head and said, “I’m sorry, Adora, it’s not that I’m straight but I just don’t feel that way about you.”
And she wouldn’t accept the poem and they stopped talking after that but Sam still cared about Adora. How could she not when they’d known each other since they were infants? The truth is, Sam could see that something burned bright in Adora, something no one else in town wanted to see — don’t lie and act like you saw it, too — because all they saw was that doll.
Sam looked at Adora’s house and its closed blinds. The word wrong rang through her mind and she decided to do something.
Adora was in her childhood bed wearing the same clothes she’d been wearing at her mother’s funeral when the doorbell rang. Her face was rigid with dry tears. She hadn’t spoken to her mother since she left town at eighteen. Now her mother was dead and she had inherited her house. You know that, at least. It was passed around as chisme often enough.
But she wasn’t alone. She had Maria, who was taking care of her. Maria, who opened the door so Adora wouldn’t have to get up. Adora heard the door open and then the murmur of voices and then a familiar voice:
“What the hell do you mean I can’t come in?”
And then, from that same voice:
“Adora? Adora, can you hear me?”
Adora sat up in bed, and listened to loud footsteps crash their way up the stairs. She was stepping outside of her bedroom door when she saw Sam step up the top step, eyes blown wide and her hands balled into fists.
“Sam?”
“Adora?” Sam came closer, her hands flexing now, like she wanted to touch Adora to make sure she was real. “Are you okay?”
Then came Maria behind Sam, eyes narrowed and arms crossed. She was still in that green silk dress, and still wearing those stark white gloves. The material wasn’t so pristine after a week of life. She had dark stains on the dress and on the gloves; they weren’t so stark white anymore.
“I told her not to come in,” said Maria. “I told her you were sleeping.”
“It’s okay,” said Adora. “What’s going on, Sam?”
“I just wanted to make sure that you’re okay. You haven’t come out of the house in a week.”
“I’ve been tired.”
“So…” Sam was slumped now, like the fight in her was gone. “So you’re fine?”
“Yes, Sam. I’m fine.”
Sam looked at Maria behind her, warily, and then back at Adora.
“Still,” she said, “if you’re up for it, I’d like to take you to dinner tomorrow night. I know you’ve been going through a lot. We can catch up, like old times.”
Adora looked at Maria, whose face betrayed nothing. “I don’t know if I’m up for it.”
“C’mon, Adora — ”
“She said no,” said Maria.
“I wasn’t asking you,” said Sam, arms crossed now in a mirror image of Maria’s pose. She said this without looking at Maria, and again Adora looked at Maria and then at Sam. Sam kept going, “C’mon, Adora. It’ll be like old times.”
And Sam had always been the only person for whom Adora would leave Maria, so she closed her eyes and sighed and nodded.
“Okay,” she said.
You know Sam took Adora to that fancy Italian restaurant downtown, the only nice place in town. It was passed around as chisme. They did catch up, but it wasn’t like old times.
Sam asked, “So how have you been?”
And Adora said, “Well, my amá just died. So.”
And Sam asked, “So how’s New York?”
And Adora said, “Dirty. Loud.”
Sam laughed, and said, “I guess I wouldn’t know. You know I could never get out of this town. I’m still a checkout girl at the grocery store, but I’m taking night classes and I want to be a nurse.”
That finally made Adora smile, and she said, “You always wanted to be a nurse.”
“I’m living the dream,” said Sam, and after that it wasn’t awkward.
It was awkward again when dinner was over and they were walking to Sam’s car and Adora suddenly reached over and grabbed Sam’s hand, and both of them stopped in the middle of the parking lot. This was also passed around as chisme.
“Do you think,” began Adora, “that you might ever feel differently?”
And Sam knew what Adora was talking about, but she still said, “What?”
“I told you I loved you when we were sixteen,” said Adora. “What if I still do?”
And Sam knew she was going to break Adora’s heart again, but she still said, “I’m sorry, Adora — ”
Adora didn’t let her finish. She dropped Sam’s hand and said, “You pushed past Maria to get into my house. You asked me to have dinner.”
“I care about you. That doesn’t mean — it just didn’t mean I love you, but I still care.”
The car ride home was silent.
You can’t have known most of this, but you definitely didn’t know this — when Adora came home from dinner with Sam, Maria was sitting in her dead mother’s armchair and all it took was one look for Maria to say, “Come here.”
Then it was Adora’s turn to fall at Maria’s feet, in tears like the night Maria came to life. She sobbed in Maria’s lap and Maria stroked her hair and whispered, “You deserve better.”
Then Maria coaxed Adora to her feet, and they both stood, and whether it was Adora or Maria who kissed the other first, who could say.
Then they stumbled up the stairs and into Adora’s bedroom, and before they fell into bed together, Maria opened the blinds.
“I want to see you in the moonlight,” she told Adora, and Adora did not question this. And this was how Adora learned that underneath Maria’s left glove, her pale hand was connected to her pale wrist with a jagged black line, slightly unaligned, just like when Maria was still a doll.
Who knows if anyone but Sam saw them through the window. Sam saw them, and she did not pass it around as chisme.
You may have heard about how the day after Sam took Adora to dinner, Sam crossed the street at 8 a.m. and started pounding on Adora’s front door until Maria opened it, frowning.
“Yes?”
“I need to see Adora.”
“She’s sleeping.”
“I need to see her.”
Then she started pushing past Maria again, like she had before, but this time Maria shoved her once — hard — until Sam was standing on the welcome mat again with wide eyes and trembling hands. The mailman saw this, and it was passed around as chisme.
“Leave us alone or you’ll be sorry,” Maria told Sam. Then she shut and locked the door.
Something else you couldn’t have known: Adora woke up shortly after Maria shoved Sam, blinking her eyes open to see Maria sitting on the foot of her bed. Her back was turned to her but there was something in the curve of her back that alerted Adora. Maria never hunched over like that.
“Maria?”
“That girl Samantha came by.”
“Sam came by?” Adora sat up, interest piqued. “What’d she say?”
“She’s worrying me.”
“What do you mean?”
Now Maria stood, and came over so that she was standing over Adora, a solemn look on her face.
“She can be dangerous,” said Maria, “if we let her be.”
“I don’t understand,” said Adora.
“She knows who I am. What I am. I can tell.”
“You’re just Maria. What’s so bad about that?”
“Not everyone can see that. Not everyone can see that I’m a blessing.”
“But you are.” Then Adora reached up and grasped at Maria’s face, and Maria put her gloved hand over one of Adora’s.
That’s when a rock hit Adora’s window, and it made Adora jump, but Maria didn’t flinch.
“Adora!” Sam’s voice was muffled, and another rock hit the window. This, too, was passed around as chisme. The neighbors watched and whispered and someone even stuck their head out their front door and told Sam to shut up. “Adora!”
“Do you see what I mean?” Maria looked down at Adora, and another rock hit the window. “Do you see the lengths to which she will go?”
Adora shook her head, and stood to go over to her window, which she opened just as Sam was about to throw another rock.
“Sam, what’s going on?”
“Is she keeping you in there, Adora?”
Adora shook her head, and felt Maria come up behind her.
“I’m fine, Sam,” she called out, her voice nearly carried away in the breezy morning. “Go home.”
“I’m worried about you, Adora.”
You know she said that. It was passed around as chisme.
“Go home, Sam.”
Then Adora shut the window. That, too, was passed around as chisme.
But Sam did not go home. Sam sat with her legs crossed on Adora’s front lawn, covered in dead grass, and Adora watched her from her bedroom window with Maria by her side and sighed.
“I should go talk to her,” said Adora, and Maria shook her head.
“Why should you give her what she wants?” That, left unsaid, was clear enough — when had Sam ever given Adora what she wanted?
Adora said nothing for a long time. Finally, she turned and said, “I’m going to go talk to her.”
She made it all the way down to the living room before Maria’s hand touched her shoulder, and halted her.
“Wait,” said Maria. Then she walked into the kitchen, and came back with a butcher knife that Adora’s mother had used only once. She handed it to Adora, and Adora took it instinctively because it was Maria who was giving it to her.
“What’s this for?”
“Invite her in,” said Maria, “and get rid of her.”
Adora did not have to ask what Maria meant by that. She had spent a lifetime imagining what Maria might say to her if she came to life. She shook her head, and handed the knife back.
“I can’t do that to her,” she told Maria. She turned, and walked to the front door, and opened it. When Sam saw her, she scrambled to stand up and sprinted over.
“Adora,” said Sam, and all the questions she had were contained in that single utterance.
“I’m fine, Sam,” said Adora. “I don’t know why you’re so worried.”
“It’s just that I saw…” Sam shook her head. Her face was red. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter what I saw. It just matters that you’re okay.”
“Why don’t you come in?”
Sam stepped into the entryway, and Adora closed the door behind her. They stayed there in that entryway, with Adora’s back turned to the door and Sam’s back turned to the entrance that connected the entryway to the living room.
“What’s the matter, Sam? Why are you so worried?”
“I don’t know how you can stand it,” Sam said. “Being in here all alone with that — that thing. That doll.”
“She’s not a doll anymore, though, is she?”
“I guess not. But still. It’s insanity, that’s what it is.”
“You shouldn’t talk so much about things you can’t possibly understand.”
That’s when Maria appeared, knife in hand. Adora’s brown eyes met Maria’s blue ones, and she knew what Maria meant to do. She had spent a lifetime imagining what Maria might do if she came to life.
“Sam,” said Adora, slowly, “I need you to leave.”
“Already? But we just — ”
Adora reached behind herself, and flung the front door open, and Maria retreated into the living room unseen by Sam.
“Now,” said Adora, and Sam saw it then: something bright still burned in Adora, and it was asking her, with everything she had, to just listen. Before she left, she looked over her shoulder almost thoughtlessly — too late for it to be meaningful. Adora watched her until she was inside her own house, and then she closed the door.
Sam did not retreat further into her own house. She stayed there in her own entryway for a long time, back pressed against the door. She turned it around over and over in her mind — the way Adora had commanded that she leave. So much authority in her lanky frame that Sam had never seen before. The word wrong rang through her mind, like it had been ringing since that doll came to life. Finally she opened her front door again, and stood there on her porch steps staring at Adora’s house with its shut door, and that’s when she heard the scream. A top-of-your-lungs scream, with all the authority that Adora had possessed when she told Sam to leave. You know about this scream — it was passed around as chisme. Sam took off running towards Adora’s house. You know how fast she ran — it was passed around as chisme. Adora hadn’t locked the door and Sam opened it and let herself in. You know she let herself in — it was passed around as chisme.
What you cannot know is this: what Sam saw when she stepped into Adora’s living room, what she saw on the living room floor. What you do know is this — that Sam let out the second scream heard by that neighborhood, and it was even louder than the first.
You have heard that Adora left town. Sam heard the scream, ran into the house, and then she screamed, too. But no one knows why she screamed, or why there was a first scream in the first place. By the time Sam stepped foot into Adora’s house, Adora was already gone. Sam stumbled out of an empty house and into the middle of the street with two porcelain dolls in her arms. You know this; it was passed around as chisme. Sam’s mom, along with troves of nosy neighbors — don’t lie and say you weren’t among them — joined Sam out on the street until she was surrounded and shaking.
“What happened?” asked a chorus of voices. “What happened, what happened?”
And Sam clutched the dolls closer but everyone could see: la güerita they’d seen all their lives, in the arms of la güera, and one that looked just like la güera. One blonde doll wearing a dirty green silk dress and dirty white gloves, and one blonde doll wearing black lounge pants and a gray cardigan. Strange, you thought — because that’s what everyone thought — but did anyone ever look beyond that? They just heard that Adora was gone again. She’d found a way out again. A way out, again, after all she had been through? What a blessing.
NOTES:
I only think this story is unhinged because of the implication that Adora had sex with Maria, and Sam watched them from across the street. Maybe that’s not as unhinged as I think it is? IDK.
The first inklings of this story began in late 2019, and it all started with that unhinged idea—a doll comes to life, she has sex with her owner, and someone watches them from across the street. I was binge-listening to The NoSleep Podcast back then, and I had a goal of writing a story that they would accept.
It was actually so insane back then because I would come up with a new NoSleep-esque idea like every day, but didn’t have the attention span or discipline to write any of them. I thought “The Blessing” (then just loosely titled “The Doll Story”) would be one of those stories, but I could never figure out how to format it in a way that would be suitable for the kind of audio productions that NoSleep does. I thought I might write it as Sam’s diary entries, but I wanted Adora’s interiority to come into play as well.
Finally, in 2022, I came up with the “gossipy town” style and wrote it that way. It seemed to work best. I didn’t think it would be a good fit for NoSleep, and I’m a huge fan of Samantha Kolesnik, who was accepting submissions for her anthology at the time, so I sent it her way and she accepted it.
I still think about “The Blessing” fondly. With some of my published stories I think in retrospect of things I could have done differently, but with “The Blessing,” I think it turned out the only way it could have after years of mulling over the concept.
FUN FACT: The original title was “Maria, Come to Life,” which I didn’t like at all. I just couldn’t think of anything better. Finally I just changed it to “The Blessing” after writing that one line where Maria calls herself a blessing.
