Eloise
"I'm your problem now." Did I arrive on your doorstep? It's time to play.
Discovery Notes
1983 — St. Dymphna’s Home for Girls, Illinois (abandoned dormitory, Room 9)
Warning Issued
If you choose to keep Eloise: Never separate her from her teddy bear. Do not place her near heaters, candles, or lightbulbs. At sunset, cover her face gently with a white cloth and whisper, “Sleep, Eloise.” If the cloth slips off by morning, she has been wandering. Should you smell smoke with no source or find your own reflection smiling when you are not, leave a stuffed animal on your porch overnight. If it’s gone by dawn, she has accepted your offering. If it remains — she is still inside.
Last Known Account
Eloise was one of fifteen girls living at St. Dymphna’s in the spring of 1983. The home’s heating system had failed repeatedly, and the staff often handed out handmade toys sewn from leftover bedding and uniforms. Eloise was rarely seen without her patchwork teddy bear — its button eyes uneven, one ear stitched with human hair.
One night, a fire broke out in the east dormitory. It was small at first — contained, they said — but by dawn, the entire wing was gone. When firefighters combed the wreckage, they found something sitting upright on a scorched bed frame: a doll with a half-melted mouth, clutching a singed teddy bear.
The strange part: no record of a child named Eloise ever existed at the home.
In the weeks after, local children claimed to see a girl’s reflection in their bedroom mirrors, holding a bear that wasn’t theirs. Some parents found burn marks on toys left too close to the window. One woman who collected antique dolls reported that her collection began to “sag” — porcelain faces drooping, eyes sliding downward like wax.
When authorities sealed the property, they found fresh handprints on the nursery walls, the size of a child’s, pressed in soot.