Doll Bones

“His father loved that Zach was on the basketball team. Sometimes that seemed as if it was the only thing about Zach he liked. He didn’t like that Zach played with girls after school instead of shooting hoops with the older kids a couple of blocks over. He didn’t like that Zach daydreamed all the time.”

Black introduces Zach’s main conflict, that between himself and his father. This passage describes the pressures Zach feels from his father to grow up and foreshadows the decision his father will soon make to trash Zach’s action figures.

“Even after he folded the questions back into the shape of a football and tucked it into the front pocket of his backpack, the feeling of the story being close stayed with him. Zach doodled pictures in the margins of his notebook, drawings of cutlasses and blast rifles and crowns next to geometry homework and facts about the Battle of Antietam.”

This passage exemplifies the power and lasting impact of stories. The stories Zach tells or hears linger and often influence his decisions. His connections to narratives such as the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings series influence what he packs for the quest. Playing William the Blade prompts him to learn to sail, which aids the trio’s journey to East Liverpool.

“Even Alice acted strange around him sometimes. When she was with her school friends, instead of her talking to him like she usually did, the whole bunch of them giggled uncomfortably. That very afternoon, after practice, he passed by Alice and a few girls from the theater crew. They fled in a fit of shrieking laughter before he could ask Alice what had been so funny or whether she wanted to walk home with him.”

In discussing Zach’s time at school, the book alludes to The Transition From Childhood to Adolescence. Alice acts strangely around Zach due to her crush on him. This shifts their friendship, and Zach often walks home alone. The narrative suggests that the shifting to adolescence—and all the complexities that come with it—can make teenagers feel lonely.

“It was important for William not to be missing. Because if William was missing, then there was no rest of the story, no more crazy ideas, no payoff, no ending, no more.”

This quote illustrates how powerful William’s character is to Zach. William is a persona that Zach enjoys playing as well as a reprieve from reality, illustrating The Importance of Stories and Escapism. Through William, Zach channels confidence and assertiveness, and without him, Zach feels their lack, as though his future is cut off. The repetition of “no” underscores Zach’s sense of loss.

“He felt tired, too, as though he hadn’t slept at all, even though he’d actually slept so deeply that the ringing of his alarm had seemed to bring him up from the bottom of something deep and dark. He’d had to fight through his dreams to wake.”

After Zach’s father throws out his action figures, Zach feels like Eleanor Kerchner’s ghost. Eleanor was herded toward death by her strict aunt who forbade her from any kind of play and pushed her toward adulthood with constant chores. Likewise, Zach’s father stifles him, making him feel as if he is experiencing a living death: “[H]e’d actually slept so deeply that the ringing of his alarm had seemed to bring him up from the bottom of something deep and dark.” This imagery alludes to what it might feel like to be in a coffin to claw oneself out of one’s grave.

“Zach thought again about the night before and the feeling of something right behind him, breathing on his neck, something that was about to reach out and grasp for him with its cold fingers. The story was like that, grabbing hold of him and promising that he’d think about it every time he was near a graveyard.”

From the beginning of the novel, Black uses physicality to create an uncanny atmosphere. Here, she personifies Poppy’s story of the supernatural, giving it the power to touch and grab and breathe. Allusions to ghosts from the book’s beginning plant the seeds for the revelation that the supernatural is real.

“He tried not to think about the story, which would go on without him, flowing around the empty spaces where his characters used to be until they were swallowed up and forgotten.”

After his father throws out his action figures, Zach doesn’t immediately grow up like his father wants him to. Instead, he struggles with anger and sadness. He loses interest in activities and feels like the world is moving on without him while he’s just stuck in place. This passage explores The Formative Nature of Play. Without play, Zach is stagnant. He retreats into himself, becoming a shadow of the person he used to be.

“Zach thought about the ghost story that Poppy had told on their last walk home, the one about holding your breath when you passed a cemetery. Was she trying to play a different kind of game? A game that she was making out of their real lives? But Poppy didn’t look gleeful, the way she did when she had a thrilling idea. She looked pale and nervous, like she hadn’t been sleeping well.”

Zach asks if Poppy is making a game out of their real lives and doesn’t see the appeal of it. The novel suggests that there is not a binary between real life and play: Eventually, the friends agree that life is, in many ways, a more confrontational and high-stakes version of play.

“He felt his gaze going to Poppy’s backpack, knowing the Queen was inside and knowing, without knowing how he knew, that her eyes were open. He felt the weight of her stare on his back when he turned away. The hairs on the back of his neck stuck up, tickling his skin and making him shiver.”

Black sets readers up to believe that there is something inside the doll from the very beginning. Black personifies the Queen, giving her lifelike and human qualities, such as the ability to stare and open her eyes.

“Alice bit her lip and looked hopefully at the stretch of empty road. She looked happier the longer they waited. Zach was pretty sure she was betting on the bus not coming and the three of them going back to their beds, having had a nice little middle-of-the-night adventure. He could tell Alice didn’t want to be the one who chickened out, but she obviously also didn’t want to go. If Alice’s grandmother found out about any of this, there would be no more play practice, no more sleepovers, no more chance of hanging out with Zach or Poppy. Ever.”

As easily as Alice had agreed to go on the quest, she worries about how her over-protective grandmother will react once she finds out. It isn’t until much later, when the consequences become a certainty, that Alice is finally able to let go and enjoy the quest as she’s always wanted to. Black shows how all three friends struggle with their home life in different ways and how this impacts their ability to play.

“The man laughed. ‘You all are real jumpy, you know that? Real paranoid. Well, I’m not gonna talk to the blonde, so you better forget that idea. I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. She’s going to tell you that she’d never hurt anybody, but don’t you listen. She’d hurt you, all right. She’d hurt you and she’d like it.’”

Tinshoe Jones creates a mood of foreboding when the children encounter him on the bus and presents their first moment of danger. In their play, there are no real-life consequences if their characters meet a gruesome fate. In reality, consequences hold weight. Tinshoe can see Eleanor’s ghost. Even without knowing her, he can see she means to do the children harm if she doesn’t get what she wants. Black uses repetition for emphasis and to create a sense of ominousness—“She’d hurt you.”

“There was a strange quiet in the air, as though every­one and everything was asleep. The echo of their foot­steps was the loudest sound for several blocks. It felt both eerie and kind of exciting to Zach. It seemed to him that the whole world had become theirs for a little while.”

As the friends delve deeper into their quest, Zach realizes the ways in which real life can resemble make-believe quests. As the trio’s journey progresses and they get further from home, Zach begins to view their new surroundings as he does his fantasy worlds, as separate from his everyday reality.

“Even though they were close to the highway, the branches swinging overhead and the smell of leaf mold rising up from the forest floor made Zach feel a million miles away from the world he knew. Like maybe they really were in some fantasy land where dragons flew overhead and magic was possible.”

Zach’s excitement grows. He once believed he could only find magic and possibility in his fantasy worlds and make-believe stories. Now, Zach realizes that maybe magic can exist in the real world. This possibility begins to revitalize his hope for his future.

“On her lap was the Queen, eyes open now as though she was on watch with Poppy, staring at nothing, the bone white of the doll’s face seeming to glow in the gloom. Poppy’s hand rested absently on the thing’s chest, like she was holding it still. As Zach looked, his imagination fed him a horrible image: the Queen staggering across the uneven ground toward him, her chubby arms reaching for him. He wondered if he could convince Poppy to put the Queen back in her bag.”

This quote takes place in the final moments before Zach becomes a real believer in the supernatural. Black gives one last passage speculating on the potentially supernatural nature of the Queen. Zach wonders if the Queen is actively on watch with Poppy and if Poppy is restraining her movements. This possibility is still fresh in readers’ minds when Zach dreams of Eleanor and wakes to find the camp destroyed by the doll.

“He’d wanted the ghost to be real, but the more real Eleanor seemed, the more scared he was. He tried not to look over at the Queen. He tried not to think about what it meant that she sounded hungry. He tried not to notice that her cheeks seemed a little rosier today, like she was feeding on something other than donuts.”

Zach considers the horrific possibility that the Queen is not just a doll and that she is malevolent. The repetition of “He tried not to” underscores Zach’s sense of dread. He realizes the contrast between quests in make-believe play versus reality. The courage he felt at the start of the journey begins to dwindle. He sinks further into himself, reverting to his self-conscious nature.

“‘I can see you changing.’ She turned to Zach. ‘You’re going to be one of those guys who hangs out with their teammates and dates cheerleaders and doesn’t remember what it was like to make up stuff. And you—’ She whirled on Alice. ‘You’re going to be too busy thinking about boys and trying out for school plays and whatever to remember. It’s like you’re both forgetting everything. You’re forgetting who you are. I thought this would remind you. And I’m sorry because it was stupid. I was stupid.’”

Poppy alludes to The Transition From Childhood to Adolescence when she shares her insecurities and fears with her friends. The transition has shifted their friendships, as Alice and Zach are pulled in different directions by his basketball teammates and her theater crew. Alice’s growing romantic feelings for Zach also threaten to change the dynamic of their three-way friendship, skewing it toward them and edging out Poppy.

“Poppy sounded just like his dad, except in reverse. He didn’t want to forget, and he wanted everyone to stop talking like it was inevitable, like it would happen whether he wanted it to or not.”

Zach reacts to Poppy’s accusation that he and Alice are growing up and leaving her behind. He does not hear Poppy’s fear, only an echo of his father. Both act as if Zach has no agency or choice in his future. They speak as if an inevitable part of growing up is forgetting and letting the past go, which he doesn’t want to do.

“She slumped at the table and rested her head in a gesture that mirrored his. He thought about the way they’d all been friends for so long that they even shared mannerisms. He thought about how they’d met, years ago. He thought about what Poppy had said about growing up and losing themselves.”

Zach ponders what Poppy said about transitioning to adolescence. The closeness of the trio’s friendship is shown by the way they reflect each other’s movements. This signifies that their friendship has a solid foundation and that it won’t disappear. At this point in the novel, all the characters believe that in order to grow up, they must give up the old version of themselves. Eventually, they will learn that this isn’t necessarily the case.

“As he was going out he looked back at Poppy. Alice was standing behind her chair, hand on her shoulder. And in that moment he realized that he didn’t want them to have to go back never having completed the quest. He wanted them to finish this thing the way Poppy had imagined: together.”

At the beginning of the novel, during a play session, Zach as William says that “no one gets left behind” (8). If they go on a quest, they do so together. As Zach is determined to see the quest through, it becomes clear that William isn’t fully lost. William has influenced Zach so much that Zach has internalized him.

“When I saw you with those figures, I pictured you getting hassled at school. I thought you needed to be tougher. But I’ve been thinking that protecting somebody by hurting them before someone else gets the chance isn’t the kind of protecting that anybody wants.”

Zach’s father shows his compassionate side. He didn’t throw Zach’s action figures away to be cruel, but to protect him. Previously, it seemed as if Zach had been following in Eleanor’s doomed footsteps, his father determined to control his life. However, Zach finally breaks free when his father embraces what Zach wants for himself.

“But here they were, within minutes of the cemetery. They might turn out to be the kind of people who finished quests after all.”

Earlier, all hope in the quest seemed to be lost. Zach had wondered whether the trio wouldn’t be heroes, but nameless failures. The narrative calls back to Zach’s thoughts when the friends are moments away from successfully completing the quest, exemplifying how far they’ve come. Their transition from failures to victors shows their growth.

“So maybe Poppy was just like Alice and him, doubting herself sometimes. Maybe all that meant was that she didn’t know everything.”

Previously, Poppy had seemed like a flat character, unwavering in her determination and perseverance. As the quest comes to a close, the ever-certain Poppy finally shows doubt in herself and admits that she fears being abandoned by her friends. Zach realizes that Poppy is just as uncertain and scared of growing up as the rest of them.

“Zach felt the wind rise, like the wind he’d heard singing through the trees the night he’d run home from basketball practice. He felt the same chill at his neck and he shivered, but this time he didn’t run. He let it pass over him, racing on and upward. And he thought he heard, very distantly, the sound of a girl laughing.”

This moment mirrors the passage in Chapter 3 where Zach feels the chill against his neck, compelling him to hurry past the graveyard. This time, he isn’t scared by the sensation, showing that he has grown during the quest.