Fredric Brown's "The Geezenstacks" (short story, mysterious gadget, free)
Uncle Richard gave the package containing the 4 wax dolls to his nine-year old niece Aubrey Walters; he'd found the package under strange circumstances.
Over the following days, the child's dad will discover strange things apparently linked to dolls. Child has associated her own family members with each doll - Papa Geezenstack, Mama Geezenstack, Aubrey Geezenstack, & Uncle. Whatever she makes her dolls do during a play actually happens to corresponding member of the family soon!
Notes.
- I didn't quite follow the ending.
Fact sheet.
First published: Weird Tales, September 1943.Rating: B.
Download full text from Internet Archive.
Included in SciFiction's classics archives.
Related: Stories of Fredric Brown; Mysterious gadget stories.
1 comments:
The ending is deliberately ambiguous. The readers are invited to draw their own conclusions. Here are my own suggestions (** NOTE SPOILERS **):
- Is the female driver of the taxi the same woman that Edith gives the dolls to?
- Is the woman that Edith gives the dolls to a witch, as Edith supposes?
- Was it that woman who arranged for Richard to find the dolls?
- Perhaps the woman is a red herring, and the family are simply suffering the effect of Edith having given the dolls away 'forever' - they have themselves now been given away forever into the hands of some monstrous power.
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