Frozen Charlotte: Pearls and Peony

She got dressed for the ball same way she always did, humming under her breath, pearls around her neck and a peony pinned right at her throat like she had somewhere warm to be. Her mother held out a blanket for her, the way mothers do. Charlotte waved it off, the way daughters do, because the night was clear and the ball was fifteen miles off. She was not about to arrive looking bundled up like a sack of laundry.

What she did not know is that she was carrying her own ending with her the whole ride there. Pinned right over her heart, a little silver reliquary, a small window built for exactly one small girl, and inside it, a bisque porcelain girl already unable to move. Her future rode along with her present for the whole fifteen miles and neither she, nor the doll, said a word about it.

The doll inside the frame is authentic antique German bisque, the same early era as the first Frozen Charlottes, pale and brittle and small enough to disappear into your palm. This necklace has two strands, To memorialize the living Charlotte, an alternating glass pearl and faceted rose quartz bead strand hangs prettily above. Below, the bisque doll is enshrined inside a tiny house shaped silver frame, a window with nowhere left to go, hanging from a silver twisted link chain. 

Above it all sits a removable blush pink peony, soft and full, the kind of flower a girl pins on when she wants to look like spring even with a storm coming. Long ribbons of dusty pink silk trail down both sides of it, torn rather than cut, the way things tend to fray at the edges of a story like this one.

Read the full story: Frozen Charlotte – My Nostalgic Soul

Details

• Authentic antique German bisque Frozen Charlotte doll, same early era as the original dolls
• Small house shaped silver reliquary frame
• Two-strand necklace: silver twisted link chain and alternating glass pearl and faceted rose quartz beads
• Large removable blush pink peony with torn dusty pink silk ribbon streamers
• One of a kind — you will receive the exact necklace shown
• Handmade with love in my cottage studio in Kansas

From My Nostalgic Soul to yours. — Gwendalynn Grey