I was beautiful once. I was worshipped and doted upon by a special little girl. I didn't mind her occasional rough handling for I knew she loved me. She would twirl me around and sing to me,

Baby Blue Eyes,

I love you and I always will

My Love and Baby Blue Eyes

I didn't make a sound when she cracked my face, for I knew My Love didn't mean it. And when she played Dentist on me and twisted my lovely lips askew, I didn't hold it against her. She painted my mouth blood red and made me attack other toys. The act alone made me a pariah and shunned by all the other toys. Such isolation, but I knew she didn't know what she was doing. She loved me.

We had lovely tea parties, sleepovers and dress up dates. I was with My Love through good days and bad. I was her confidant, her friend, her Baby Blue Eyes. I loved her and she loved me.

And then one day she didn't. I was on her bed, nestled between pillows, watching over her bedroom like a queen watching over her kingdom, then suddenly she grabbed me and I grew excited, waiting to see what sort of adventure awaited us. It had been so long since we'd played together, but I was dropped into a cardboard box.

I tried to protest, which is hard when you have a vocabulary limited to Mamma. Something else fell on me, then something else. It was oppressive and stuffy in that box.

"What do you want to do with this?" I was moving again.

"I guess the attic," I heard my little friend say. "I don't want that stuff anymore, especially that creepy old doll. I should have thrown her out years ago."

She must mean someone else. I struggled to see if there was another doll in the bow, a doll that was beneath me.

"You sure loved her."

"Mother! I was a child!"

"You called her Baby Blue Eyes."

"Now I call her scary creepy, especially those eyes. If I could, I'd pluck them out and crush them like bugs."

"You don't mean that."

"Don't I? You see what I did to the rest of her. I guess I just never thought of it before now."

It's interesting how quickly love can turn to hate.

It was hate that drove me to find a way out of that box. My teeth mangled and twisted worked well for chewing through the thick cardboard. It took time, but I had nothing but time these days. It took me days to navigate through the attic, occasionally stopped and talking with fellow castoffs. Some were passive about their discarding, but not me. It drove me to the edge of the stairs and then down.

Every moment, I was terrified that someone would come upon me and take me back to that horrid box. That terror fueled my hatred and I worked twice as hard. What I hadn't counted on was the door.

I sat there for days, wondering how to surmount that obstacle when I heard a voice grow louder. I did the best I could to tuck myself into a corner and be very small.

"Napoleon, have you checked the attic?"

"Not yet, champ."

The door suddenly opened and the light spilled in. It didn't quite reach my corner and for that I was thankful.

A slender blond man was standing in the doorway and he looked up the narrow staircase and then found the light switch. He pulled something from beneath his coat. I remember seeing My Love's brother playing with one of those. This man seemed old to be playing with toys, but that made me admire him just a little.

Without looking left or right, he mounted the stairs and I smiled. Well, I tried to smile; it's hard with what I have left for a mouth.

I toppled over the threshold and onto the familiar carpet of the hallway. How many times I'd seen that carpet and thought it was forever lost to me.

Another set of feet approached. This time the man was brown haired, like My Love or perhaps I should now call her My Hate, for that was all I had left.

"Illya?"

"Up here."

"Anything?"

"No, just a mess of odds and ends, although I think they have mice or rats. One of the boxes looked chewed. He meant my box and again, I felt growing admiration for this man. Perhaps not all people were awful.

"What do you think?"

"I think it's as secure as it's going to be."

"Then we retreat and wait. With any luck our little bird will fly straight home."

"You are going to be in trouble if she heads for Canada or Mexico instead."

"I've studied her files. I think this is exactly where she will head. Scene of the crime and all that."

"I still can't believe she'd kill her entire family just to get in good with THRUSH."

"Who knows what motives them, Illya. It's just our job to see that she doesn't hurt anyone else."

My Love? She'd killed her family? It didn't seem possible. How had the sweet girl who'd pour gallons of putrid water down my throat, she called it tea, become so twisted?

Then I was alone, which was exactly the way I liked it. It took me most of the night, the next day and into the twilight of the following day to reach the bedroom. I was expecting it to be much altered, but it really wasn't. I got to the edge of the bed and rolled underneath to rest and prepare myself for the next task.

As I said before, I really have no sense of time, but a stab of light darted under the edge of the bedspread and flashed into my eyes. That was when I realized someone had come in, someone using a flashlight.

"Finally. Home, sweet home."

My heart stopped. It was My Love. I would recognize her voice anywhere.

"Are you sure about this, Gladys?" There was a second voice, a man's voice. "This will be the first place UNCLE will look."

"UNCLE already has. They wouldn't dream that I would be foolish enough to come back here."

There was a loud crack and the man gasped. "What was that?"

"This house really talks especially at night."

"Just to be sure, I'm going to go stand guard until morning."

"You do that, Sparky. You go protect THRUSH's most valuable asset. I'm going to grab a nap. When do we rendezvous?"

"Four hours."

Four hours? I had work to do. Still, I didn't want to tip my hand too soon.

All that work was worth it. The look of panic and sheer terror in her eyes when I inflicted the first blow.

"Mamma," I said, biting into the soft flesh of her neck. "Mamma."

She screamed and tried to pull me off. Those red lips with those jutting teeth, they were really good for one thing and one thing only. I bit again and again. I could feel myself growing warm and red from her blood.

Then she was still and I nestled down against her, happy at least to be back by her side and in a place of honor.

The bedroom door opened and the lights came on. The blond man was there, disheveled and panting. "Napoleon! She's in here!"

He approached the bed and gasped. The second man, Napoleon, joined him. "What the hell? "

The stood there for a moment and then the blond man lifted me. "I think Hell might very well be the answer.

"Look at those eyes."

"I'm more inclined to look at those teeth." He paused. "A single box chewed through, an obviously misused toy and this…"

I smiled as best I could, "My Love no more."

And then I was done.