Porcelain dolls

While looking at these I spoke to someone who said that her mother would refuse to be in the same room as one. A very sensible precaution I think: you really never can be sure how whether they're just dolls or something else.

And, usually, they are indeed something else. Only very few porcelain dolls were ever made: the great majority of them simply arrived in Victorian nurseries, where they proceeded to do whatever it is they do to the unfortunate children trapped with them. It's commonly believed that their lives, as dolls, were quite short: after devouring the souls of their victims they would assume their form leaving behind empty shells which are now quite safe. I do not believe this. Their lifecycle is, I believe, more complex: a kind of egg is laid in the child's mind where it devours its host from within, while the parent 'doll' becomes merely dormant, awaiting its next victim. I don't know what stimulus is needed to reawaken the dormant horror which lurks there, nor do I have any desire to find out.

It's still not known what made the Victorians so uniquely vulnerable to them, or whether this was just the first stage of the infection.

Do not, under any circumstances, look into their eyes.