Doll Bones

Zach is woken up at midnight by Alice and Poppy throwing rocks at his bedroom window. Poppy reveals that she took the Queen out of her cabinet days ago in hopes that Zach would change his mind and play. Since then, she has been getting visits from the ghost of a girl named Eleanor Kerchner. Zach doesn’t believe Poppy at first, even when she produces the doll, whose eyes are now open. Poppy says Eleanor wants them to return her bones to her grave so she may finally rest. If they don’t, she “promised to make [them] miserable” (48).

Poppy claims Eleanor’s father worked for a china manufacturer. After her death, he struggled emotionally and turned her bones into bone china, which he then molded from a cast of Eleanor’s favorite doll—making the Queen. Poppy removes the doll’s head and pulls a burlap bag from inside. It reads East Liverpool, a town in Ohio. When Zach opens it, he discovers what they believe to be ashes and small pieces of bone. Zach agrees to travel with Alice and Poppy by bus to East Liverpool, as long as they promise never to ask him about playing the game again.