The Dollmage

Chapter 7

Annakey was hard at cleaning my chicken coop the next morning when Areth and Manal came to me with the black feathers.

“This is not possible,” I said to Manal when he reported that Oda’s sheep Follownot was missing.

“It is true,” Oda said. She had come with the boys.

“In my hidden village doll, there is a sheep named Follownot,” I said to Oda. “He is hidden there still, beneath a sky blanket, behind closed doors. The robber people could not have found him here in the valley.You let him wander out of the safety of the valley onto the mountain where he was eaten by a cat.”

Manal cleared his throat. “Dollmage,” he said, “he was taken out of the sheepcote. That is where we found the feather they left for Follownot.”

I ran to check the village doll in my secret room. Had mice eaten holes in the blanket? No. How could I have known that the village story was being taken away from me?

When I returned, Oda was speaking harshly to Annakey while she kept to her work. “You have brought bad luck to my house. It is that frowning promise doll you wear. You killed your own mother with it, and now you will kill me. Already it has begun, for my sheep is stolen.”

Before you know what Annakey answered, you must know this: Annakey Rainsayer loved three things and feared only one thing. This makes her unusual from the beginning, for most of us love one thing — ourselves — and fear many things. Because we fear more things than we love, our lives are blown this way and that way by our fears.

I have already told you one thing Annakey loved: dollmaking. It was her first joy. The first joys last forever.

Now, in her concern for her people, Annakey discovered a new love. She loved her valley. She loved the crooked creek that wound through, changing its mind and twisting a different direction every league, and the little brick footbridges that arced over the creek at every twist and turn. She loved the mountains that made it a valley. She loved Mount Lair for its woods and waterfalls, and the stags among the firs, forgetting that it was unfriendly to men, that in its everchanging undergrowth men had been lost to death.

Who can account for the way Annakey thought? The mountains are dangerous, wild with forests that are filled with bears and wolves and cougar cats. Their brows are menacing, their snows impassable in winter. But Annakey saw that they offered their green feet for gardens, their meadows for summer grazing, their high pines for firewood, and their dark forests for game. Their rivers filled the valley with cold white water and fish in the water. The mountains frowned down the clouds and took the brunt of the cold winds so that the snow in Seekvalley fell gently and straight down.

Mostly the reason Annakey loved the valley was because in it was her people. Why did she — does she — love you? Perhaps, you think, it is because you cared for your yards, decorating them with rockeries and flowerbeds, ponds and trellises. Perhaps she loved you because you built little bridges, and gave them names like Coffee-At-My-House, and Come-Sit-By-My-Fire, and Visit More. Perhaps it was because she loved to see the mothers in their kitchens, wielding their rolling pins, making biscuits and pies and loaves, rubbing their knuckles off onto washerboards, then tending their babies gently with their worn, rough hands. Perhaps she loves you because you are a fair folk, tall and curly-haired and green-eyed. Surely she loves you for your songs and fine poetry.

It was none of these things that made her love you, her people, though she loved all these things. No. What was most precious to Annakey was that her people kept their promises. This, she recognized, was their worship. What they spoke became what was. Bagger Cornfield once promised Annakey the best melon from his garden. When harvest time came, Bagger, who was never the smartest one in the village, realized he could not tell which melon was the best. Though Annakey released him from his promise, he would not be released. He cut every ripe melon in two to see which was the pinkest and the sweetest and the most succulent. Of course the melons had to be eaten right away, so he held a melon party for the village.You remember? For a little while he regretted his promise, all his lovely melons eaten. But after the party — is it not true?—everyone loved him a little better than before. It is always best to keep one’s promises.

Annakey loved the way the old women cared for their old husbands long after they had stopped being of any use to them — because they had promised. She loved you for the way you raised your children and fed them, even when they were ugly babies, which seldom happens, and even when they became ugly adolescents, which often happens. This is why Annakey loved her people, and why, when she heard the robber people had taken Follownot, she was sick with fear and shame. She knew now the power in her hands, and she knew she was responsible.

Some of you nod your heads now and stroke the stones at your sides .You are right to stone her, you say. You do not care that she loved you, her people, that even now she loves you enough not to hate you for binding her, for dragging her to be executed. Look, look into her eyes.Yes, that is good. Look, and see, and remember.

Now I have told you two things that Annakey loved. The third I shall tell you shortly. The children say, “The story, the story.” They are right. What matters but the story? I continue.

“Leave her be, Oda,” Manal said when Oda accused Annakey. “It is not her fault.”

“Perhaps it is, Manal,” Annakey said softly. She propped the shovel and came closer. “I made a sheep. Yesterday. I called him Follownot.”

I looked at her long in silence. The skin at her throat was quivering and goose-fleshed. I said, “Bring me this sheep.”

Annakey began to walk away. Manal went with her. He followed her silently, without thinking, and she accepted his presence silently, without thought. As they walked I knew a thing.

I knew the third thing Annakey loved was Manal.

How can I tell you the strength of their love? Would my silence tell the matter more? How strange are words to both give and take away meaning. But you see him at her side now, willing to share her fate. That will tell you more than words will.

Annakey and Manal had befriended each other as only children can since they had herded the sheep together. But now Manal had come to love Annakey as a man loves a woman. I will tell you how.

Manal had been hunting the day Annakey ran to her secret place to bathe away the chicken manure from her body. The hunt had been unsuccessful. He decided to return home by the river way, tired of climbing over rotting timber and slogging through scummed pools in the bog forest. Just as Annakey emerged naked from the water, her hair gleaming wet and long down her back, her skin shining in the sun, Manal came to the bank on the opposite side of the river and saw what he thought was a wood nymph. A moment later he knew it was not a wood nymph, but that it was Annakey. Manal had thought Annakey the gentlest soul of all the village girls, and fair of face as well. He had cherished her as his childhood friend and was on her side whenever there was a side to be on. Now he saw her new, a wild thing, like the forest animals, and beautiful as the river.Though as a boy he had always cared for her, now as a man he desired her.

A lesser man might have taken advantage of Annakey then, far away as she was from the village. He might even have waited and watched as long as he could, or he might have come and spoken to her. But Manal was a fine hunter, wise in the knowledge that every footprint left in the virgin forest takes a winter to vanish, and that a misfired arrow will chase away the animals for an entire season. No, instead Manal walked in the woods along the riverbank until he was far from Annakey. Then he took his big boots and stomped through the cold, rushy river until his groin stopped tormenting him and the cold water made his fingernails blue and the cold sweat ran out of his long, dark hair. The next morning he was up at dawn, still thinking of Annakey, and that is when he heard Oda crying for her sheep.

How Manal glares. He does not want his story told. And yet, Manal, I must. It is no longer in my hands. If Annakey is executed, I know you will lose your life trying to defend her. Your story must be told, just in case.

This much all of you know: Manal was the best boy of the village. He was not the best at everything, but he was the one all the other boys measured themselves by. Atur Longbody was the best runner in the village because he was the only one who could sometimes outrun Manal. Areth was the best cattleman in the valley, because his were the only cows that were fatter than Manal’s. Kello Naplong grew the juiciest corn and Wagon Dogkeep the hardiest wheat because theirs was better than Manal’s. Manal was the second best at everything in fact, except hunting. For that Manal has been named Masterhunter.

As I had promised, he grew to be very like Mount Crownantler. He was the tallest boy in the village, just as Crownantler was the tallest of the mountains. He was a silent man, like the mountain. The mountain peak bore ice even in the summer, and so also did Manal keep his emotions cool even in anger. Crownantler was not friendly to the valley people, and no one but Renoa could climb it far. So also Manal kept a distance from most people.

But he promised his heart to Annakey.

It shows the depth of her trust that she took Manal to her secret place after I had sent her to fetch the sheep she had made. Manal never betrayed her trust. He was silent as she led him to her bower. He did not tell her he had the previous day seen this bower from the other side of the river.

“And here, in the hole of this tree, I have a blanket, and fishing wire and flint and dried fruit. I shall run away and stay here,”Annakey said. “I will make a story for my father.”

“Annakey, did you make this?”

Manal was standing over the valley doll that Annakey had begun on the large, flat rock by the river.

She nodded. “It is not quite right. It is not like our valley.” Manal turned to her. Now, in addition to his affection and desire, Manal loved her. He looked at her in wonder and admiration. “Now I know you are the Dollmage,” he said quietly. “You cannot run away. Our people need you.”

“It is what I have desired, Manal,” she said. “I cannot help seeing the story of the village with my hands.”

He turned back to the doll. “You must build the doll of a house. Make it a fine house.”

“A house?”

“Yes.”

“Whose?”

“Mine. Ours, if you will.”

Annakey bent and picked up the sheep Follownot. “Ours? You will do as Areth and ask me to promise to marry you?”

“No. I make a promise of myself. One day you may return my love, but if not, it will not change my promise to you that I will love only you.”

The best loves begin this way. The longest loves last this way.

No, I will not tell you what she answered. Have you no dignity? Will you give them no privacy?

Suffice it to say they returned to me.

She held the sheep in her hand, loose at her side, relaxed. She did not bow her head.

“Show it to me,” I said. Renoa leaned over my shoulder to look, too.

Annakey showed me the sheep. She hoped I would see the power in her hands. I did. It was more than a replica. It had the field in it, and when I looked in its eyes, I saw. I saw.

Renoa grabbed the clay sheep from Annakey’s hand. “This sheep is not like Follownot. Where is his ribbon?”

“It is like, but for that,” I said, my voice trembling. I did not think to ask Annakey if she had made anything else.

Renoa picked up a bit of thin ribbon and tied it around the clay sheep’s neck. “There. Oda Weedbridge always placed a ribbon around her sheep’s neck, like this.”

She smiled up at me, hoping for my approval, but saw only pity in my countenance.

“Yes,” Annakey said. “That is better, Renoa.” In her voice I could hear the confidence a Dollmage has in her art, and pity for Renoa. Renoa heard it, too.

She looked from me to Manal to Annakey. Then, before I could stop her, Renoa threw the clay sheep into the fire and ran out of the house.

I let her go.

“Did you not promise me that you would make no more animal dolls? To break a promise is punishable by death. I will counsel the villagers to be lenient, but one who has broken a promise can never be Dollmage.”

Annakey stood tall. Something inside her had changed, and I had not seen it. Or perhaps I changed, for until that moment I had interpreted her gentleness and cheer for weakness, not knowing the strength it took to choose it. Now I saw her strength.

“Release me from my promise, Dollmage, since I made the sheep for a companion to my father’s doll that I found in your chicken coop.”

So.

That was it. She knew my terrible secret, and what I had done to her father and to Vilsa and to herself.

So.

“I release you,” I said. I turned away from her and slammed the door.

That night I wept in my pillow for it. I prayed to God and asked him why he gave me to put a frown on her promise doll and then gave her the gift to make this sheep. He answered me in a puzzling way (so like Him): He told me the one thing that Annakey feared.

Now I will tell you.

Annakey was afraid of the power that she knew was in her hands.

Do not pretend you do not know of what I speak. Do we not all fear the power that is in us to do good, to love, to make the world better? It is not our dark souls that frighten us. We are familiar with that part of ourselves. It is the glory parts, the singing, ploughing, dreaming, loving parts that terrify us.

Annakey Rainsayer, deep in her heart where she would not look, was afraid that she was powerful indeed. It was her light that frightened her, her ability to make unspeakable beauty in the world. As a young girl she had thought to win love, to make others better by making herself small. She had thought to find peace by making herself invisible. Foolish girl. Not that she was entirely wrong, for one can win a certain peace by being small and invisible. But Annakey could not be Dollmage because she was afraid.

It comforted my heart to know that Annakey was afraid of something, and I said thank you to God. He seemed cold to me, as if I had not gotten the point.

The next day I told her what God had told me about her. I thought to punish her for humiliating me, and almost I thought it had worked. She nodded and said, “Yes, Dollmage. You are right.”

How was I to know that she would learn from my rebuke? It is so rare. I did not anticipate.

“The story! The story!” the children complain.The children speak, but even the adults tire of my wisdom and wish me only to get on with the story. You are helpless before it. Poor. Poor. I weep for you, for soon we come to the part of the story that will drag down your heart.

Men were set to watch the village at night, and in the day they searched for the robber people in the lower parts of the mountain. So it was that Manal Masterhunter found the remains of Oda’s sheep Follownot. He found her bones and the ribbon she had been wearing, all beside a fire built and left by the robber people. Follownot had been cooked.

Soon after I heard the news, I found Renoa hiding in her mother’s root shed.

“Come, Dollmage Renoa,” I said. “You threw the sheep into the fire and now it is cooked. Your naming ceremony will be at the next full moon. Prepare yourself.”