A little girl, named Lucy, was given a small doll by her parents. The doll was a gift from an ancient great aunt who had now passed away. Lucy was secretly unnerved by the doll which had nasty little black eyes that seemed to follow her around the room and a cross expression on it´s face. Nevertheless, Lucy had to accept the doll, as she was well brought up and didn´t want to upset her parents by informing them of how uneasy she felt around the doll. Her parents told her the doll was

called Arabella. Lucy was even more afraid now that the doll had a name. It seemed to make it more human.

Even so, Lucy never really believed on a conscious level that the doll could do anything to her. It was just a doll, after all, and only reached up to just above her knee. So, to put her mind at rest, she stuffed Arabella into the little cupboard under the stairs, behind a pile of shoes where her parents wouldn´t see her. It was

not until a few nights later, when Lucy was lying in bed that she heard a noise. A shuffling sound, which went on for about five minutes. Then, a brief dragging noise and finally, a scuttling of light footsteps walking extremely fast. Lucy was pinned to the bed with fear, unable to move. Then, she heard a voice - like a very deep, almost masculine tone - but quiet enough not to wake her parents. Lucy always slept with the door open and the landing light on, as she was a little scared of the dark.

Therefore she could hear more through her open door. Lucy heard the voice say ¨Lucy, I´m on the first step,¨ And then loud scrabbling again as whatever was speaking apparently turned tail and returned to it´s place of hiding.

Lucy didn´t sleep a wink that night but laid in fear until the break of dawn when her mother got her up for school. Lucy tried to explain to her mother what had happened the night before, but was so tired that, when her mother passed it off as ¨just a dream" she didn´t have the strength to argue.

Lucy begged her parents to get rid of the doll, but they insisted that it had been the great aunts wish that Lucy would have her