half of it i dreamed, and the other half i fitted on as i woke up.
there’s a girl named marley. she has at the start of things a mother, and a little brother, and they loved each other. her father died but she and her mother and brother had only pulled closer together. they take a cruise that year, on a ship to see the world, and on that cruise they meet a gentleman, a tall pale creepy guy like a vulture who talks to marley, takes her aside, tells her about dolls. her shows her a machine he’s made, all black iron and spines, and talks about ageless beauty, and the power to transcend flesh. he pressures her into changing her corneas for shells of milk glass. when he takes her back to her mother he is charming, and she is lonely. the mother accepts that he indulged marley in a harmless bit of cosmetics, reversible, but much in fashion with young ladies these days
the mother grows sicker the more the gentleman comes to call, each time they have tea and talk of grownup matters, but always he’s looking at marley.