The Dollmage

Chapter 9

Ah. It is difficult for me to go on. My neck aches with the heaviness of my memories, with the horror of what happened next. That is what comes with a lifetime of sin and stupidity. What should I expect? Part of my neck-ache comes from the gristly stew and the bad egg, Greppa.

This is the part of the story when Annakey truly becomes wise. How we all wish for wisdom, and yet there is a price to pay for it. After wisdom comes, gone is the joy that fills each morning upon waking, simply because it is another day. That inexplicable, unblamable joy — it makes my back arch with pleasure just to remember it. But it is only a memory, for now I, too, am wise.

I will give you an example.

A child there was once, in the days of my grandmother, who was a careful child. She was obedient and manageable, and all the old folks thought her to be much like themselves when they were young: perfect. She liked always to be clean, and to play in a sedate and cautious manner. She took no risks, tried nothing new, and never failed. Needless to say nothing bad ever happened to her. She took to hanging a little hood over her promise doll so that it remained as unmarked by soil or sun as it had been in the beginning. We all know that as the wood ages it discolors, cracks, and peels, never in the same way as another. That explains how we get wrinkles and age spots. Now, this girl never aged. Her skin stayed as smooth and bland as a child’s. Many men courted her, but none wanted to marry her. She was good to look at, but boring. She was never wise. She stayed with her mother all her life and was a burden to her in her old age.

A sad story.

I am full of them.

The next morning, Annakey left early, her pack full with the things she would need for a journey to the summer meadow up on the mountain. She had packed extra flatbread and fruit leather for Manal, who Renoa had again assured her would meet her on the trail by midmorning.

Annakey was happy.The day was bright on the mountains, the shadows small and cherry black beneath the pine. Birdsong echoed in the wood, and in Annakey’s heart. She was not afraid of the bears. They are late sleepers. She had hiked far by midmorning, passing the woodcutters cabin and the rotting bee tree, when she heard Manal’s footsteps coming up the path behind her. She stopped and waited for him.

It was not Manal. It was Areth.

Annakey could not hide the disappointment in her face for a moment. She had learned, however, that there was more happiness in being kind to others than in having what you want. So she smiled.

That was the last time Annakey smiled, for a long time. Finally, her frowning promise doll would have its way.

“It is me and not Manal,” Areth said. He was not smiling.

“So I see. Is Manal coming behind?”

“No.”

“Come then. We will climb a while, and then we will eat. I brought extra for — for you.”

“No. We will rest now,”Areth said.

“Come,” Annakey said, gesturing to him. She was already walking.

“Now, I said.”

There was danger in his voice. Annakey stopped. If she had known just how much danger, she would have run.

Slowly, she took the food from her pack. Areth was sweating and breathing hard. He did not look at the food, but at Annakey.

“What is troubling you, Areth?” Annakey said at last.

“You know.”

Areth was one of those people who always assumed that when hurt came to him the other person had done it purposely.

“I do not know,” Annakey said. “But we are friends, and so you can tell me.”

“Why did you lead me to believe that you loved me, when all along you loved Manal?” Areth said.

He was not really asking, and deep in his heart he knew that she had led him to believe no such thing. He was merely justifying in his own ears what he knew he was going to do.

“I have promised myself to no one,” Annakey said. She put down the buttered bread. She felt as if there were a worm in her stomach.

“You smiled at me, and you were kind to me, and praised my husbandry.”

“Everyone praises your husbandry, Areth. You are the best in the village, even better than Manal.”

Areth spat. “I am tired of everyone comparing themselves to Manal, as if to be better than him is a true feat.”

Annakey took a bite of her bread as if everything was all right, as if the air was not singing with danger. She chewed and chewed, but the bread would not go down.

“There are unspoken promises,” Areth said. “The way you treated me was an unspoken promise that you would be mine.”

“I am your friend, Areth,” Annakey said. “I have always been your friend—”

Areth slapped her mouth shut.

“We will be more than friends, you and I,” he said hoarsely. He pulled her near him and clutched at her breast. Annakey pulled away so violently she freed herself.

“How dare you treat a virgin of the village so,” Annakey said, panting with fear and fury.

“No virgin,” Areth said. “Last night I slept in the field with the other men on guard. In his sleep, I heard Manal speak about your breasts as a man who had seen them.”

Annakey shook her head. “No. Manal has always treated me with respect.”

“What you gave to Manal, you will give to me,” Areth said.

She was standing now. Only a little while ago, the forest on either side of the path had been dark and full of cougar and wolf. Now it seemed welcome, a place full of only childish nightmares. On the path she could not outrun Areth, but perhaps in the forest. Annakey ran.

She could not outrun Areth.

When he caught up to her, he pushed her hard and then was on top of her before she could get her breath.

“You have promised me with your eyes and your smile and your gentle ways,” Areth said. With one hand he covered her mouth and with the other he pulled up her dress and looked at her breasts. Annakey bit his hand and he pulled it away with a yelp. That gave him reason to do what he was going to do anyway.

“Areth!” she cried. “Do not force me.”Annakey began to weep. “I will promise you anything....”

Areth could not remember having seen her cry before. He stopped, there on top of her, crushing her. He looked around himself as if waking up from a dream. He pushed himself up on one arm. “Promise me you will marry me,” he said.

Annakey’s mouth moved but she did not speak.

“Promise me you will marry me,” he said angrily. His hand closed around her neck as he said it.

“I promise,” she said.The agony in her voice rang through the forest.

Areth looked at her. Now that she was his, she was not so beautiful in his eyes anymore. Now that she was his, she was no more to him than one of his fine cows that he cared for— not because he loved them, but because then he would be the best in the village. Now that she was his, he despised her.

And because he despised her, he forced her anyway.

Annakey did not scream. Horrors come in silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said, when he was done. He began to cry, and then he stopped, angry that she did not sympathize with his pain.

Annakey stood, shaking, and without looking back, began to climb the hill.

You look at me and look at me, expecting me to go on. Ah. What has gone out of me? Why can I not make words tor what Annakey felt? Is it because I am old? Have I traded every passion for wisdom, every love for tolerance, every wild and wicked dream for a full stomach and a soft bed? When did I know that there was nothing to know? All the sharpness and selfishness and wild laughter is gone, and I am never in one moment. Now when I laugh, I see a child who died. When I weep, I know that weeping will cease and I will laugh again. Well. There will be no more first tastes, but also gone are the fears that lived in all my dark places. Now, all the dark places have been plunged into, and I cannot see where the light ends and the dark begins. I am fearless and speechless. I cannot mourn out your mourning for Annakey with words. You must find them in your own heart, in your own memory.

Old woman, the children say, what matters but the story? Put aside your whining and tell us the story.

I will tell you another story for a moment to relieve the pain of this one.

Aula Leeside, you remember, was famous for her stew. It had a fragrant flavor that no one else could duplicate. One day her neighbor, Etta Peekhole, spied on her stew making. She watched as Aula gathered the little mushrooms that grew in the clover, plucking their little white caps. She watched as she placed them in her stew, and when it had cooked for a long time, Aula plucked the little boiled bodies out. Their flavor had been left in the juices. So that was her secret! Etta Peekhole plucked a few mushrooms of her own, polka-dotted ones, and put them in her stew. She died screaming. The end.

There.

That is better.

You all remember that night, the night that Etra screamed and screamed, how in your fear you sucked the shadows into your mouths. That night, all the little children stopped being children.

In the same way, that day Annakey stopped being a child. It was her soul that screamed. There were no forest shadows anymore, because all the shadows were in her soul. The wild animals that snuffled near the path were stuffed dolls to the wild things that bit away at her heart. She climbed the mountain almost at a run, until she moaned from the pain in her side. She did not stop until she reached the summer meadow. When Annakey reached the outskirts of the summer meadow, she found she could not go in. She could not go to the ones who were keeping the sheep there. She felt that they would be able to smell her shame on her. In the woods outside the summer meadow, she found a fallen tree upon which to sit, and she watched the shepherds through the veil of the forest’s edge.

For two days, she sat watching the shepherds at their work, smelling the smoke of their breakfast fires. At night when they were asleep in the sheep shelter, she buried herself beneath the dry leaves of last year’s fall. In the day, she watched as an outsider, as one who no longer belonged. On the first day, her food ran out and she did not care. On the second day, she fasted. There was no smile on her face. She made a meadow, and out of twigs and twine she built a sheepcote, not knowing if her heart would let her live to bring it to me. With bits of wool she found caught on thorn bushes around the edges of the meadow, she made each sheep in the meadow. It did not ease her frown.

On the third morning, Annakey’s rage came with her hunger.

She laid aside the sheepcote and began to make a doll, chanting Areth’s name as she made it.

The body she made of the black clay mud of the forest floor. It was a bloated, distorted body, hardly recognizable as human. She wove clothing and hair of twigs and stems. She put a real spider in the dolls head for bad dreams and wicked imaginings, and closed the spider in, alive, with a lump of clay. She pierced her finger with a thorn, and in the chest of the doll she dripped real blood for a wounded heart. In the doll’s stomach she placed a worm, and that too she closed in alive. She made arms and legs of sticks, as one who is unable to help himself. She gave the doll no eyes, and especially no mouth.

Annakey was untucking. She was untucking all that she had suffered in her young life, drawing it out of her heart like long slivers. Into the doll she poked small slivers of dried pine needles. Into the doll went all the sadness and hurts, all her hungry nights and her cold days, her lost father and her dead mother and her rage against Areth.The last was so glaring she could see nothing else. She did not know that she had poured all the bitter bits behind her heart into the doll. She called the doll, “Areth.”

Annakey set the doll in the crook of a tree and looked at it for a long time.

This was a doll of power.

She looked at her hands in wonder, but the knowledge of her gift was not equal to her sorrow. If she should show this to Dollmage... But she would never show this to Dollmage. In its blank face she saw, mute and burning, the wish to return evil for evil. She could not show the doll, but she could put her anger in it.

Just then, she heard a rustling in the bushes. She buried herself in her bed of last year’s leaves, thinking to hide herself from a shepherd.

It was two men of the robber people. They came on silent feet and spoke their rough language within her hearing.

Annakey knew her evil doll had drawn them.

Annakey knew also that if they saw the summer meadow, by morning many of the sheep would be gone. The robber people would not care for the sheep. They were hunters only, and excellent thieves. They would steal the sheep, and Annakey’s people would be forced to leave their beautiful valley in the spring.

As quietly as she could, Annakey pushed a few leaves onto the doll of the sheepcote she had made. The robber men came closer. She could not yet see them from her lair, but she could hear them laughing low, talking to each other in their strange tongue. She pushed a few more leaves onto the sheepcote, and then a few more. She could see the robber men now, naked but for animal skins, their skin leathered from the sun, for they did not build houses. They lived in caves in the winter and wandered in the summer. Annakey pushed enough leaves onto the sheepcote doll to hide it completely.

The robber men stopped short. They seemed to be lost.

They sat down near enough to Annakey that she could hear their talk. The robber people have a different language than the valley people, of course, but since the coming of our people we have learned some few words of their language. From her hiding place Annakey could see the robber men gesturing down toward her village and using the word “beautiful” and laughing. She knew that the robber people had a plan to steal women from the village.

A beetle crawled on Annakey’s arm, but she did not care, for a spider crawled in her heart. Around her neck hung her promise doll, and it was speaking to her. “Did you not promise to save your people? You must not die.”

After a little time the robber men stood and continued on their way, in the opposite direction from which they had come. The summer meadow with its sheep was safe for now The robber men would return to their people and tell them they had scouted this part of the forest and had found nothing. They would not come this way again for a long time.

Annakey emerged from her bed of leaves. She looked up at the evil doll she had made, still hanging in the tree. She could either live or hate, not both. There was no time for hating right now. She knocked it out of the tree and kicked some dirt and leaves over it.

Annakey said aloud. “You are the Evil doll. Stay here, buried on the mountain, for I will not have evil follow me.” Annakey began her trek back to the village.

Even in my eloquence I am unable to tell you how Annakey felt at that time. I can tell you, however, that as Annakey began her walk back down to the village, carrying the sheepcote doll, she saw the mayster robins red among the green leaves, and the fulsome bluejays. She saw the fine, manly forest and the lady sky, she smelled the peppernut smell of leaves turning to dust, she heard the chatter of birds and the fall of water on rocks. I can tell you that Annakey’s heart decided to live. I can tell you that Annakey was no longer afraid.

I saw Annakey next standing in my doorway, leaves in her wild hair, and thin and pale as a wood nymph. I had not made her comfortable enough in my house for her to come in without invitation as Renoa did, and so she stood there.

“Manal was ready to go look for you, but Areth came down from the mountain saying that you had promised to marry him. He forbade Manal to look for you. Is it true, Annakey?” Her chest rose as if she would speak, but no word came out. When she did not answer, I said, “When you did not come, Areth told Manal that it was taking you longer to make the sheepcote doll than you had anticipated. Manal insisted upon looking for you, but Areth told him it would be unseemly to go looking for a girl who belonged to someone else. The village elders agreed.”

In Annakey’s arms was the doll of the summer meadow and the sheepcote. She looked at me silently, begging me to see what I would not see.

“Greppa Lowmeadow has announced that your wedding day will take place on the same day that Renoa is named Dollmage. It is strange. I thought you loved Manal.... Ah. This is why you took so long. It is good,” I said, and took the sheepcote greedily from her arms. It pleasured me to look at her work. Somehow it was sweeter, the way a meal is sweeter when prepared by hands other than your own.

“I will add my power to it,” I said.

“There is no need, Dollmage. Can you not see?” She reminded me so much of Vilsa at that moment. Her presumption took all the joy out of my seeing. She had lost her fear of me. Then she said, “Manal believed that I agreed to marry Areth?”

“He did not believe him, until Areth described your breasts to him.”

Annakey clutched at her promise doll. Her head hung, and I could not see her face for her wild hair. “What did Manal do?”

“A strange thing,” I said, looking closely at the sheepcote. I could find no imperfections. “He began to build a house. He is not supposed to build a house until I have built it for the village doll. I will not punish him under the law. I see that his madness is a result of his suffering.

Finally, she raised her head. Her mouth was not smiling. It was clamped shut, as if she were carrying a great burden. I looked into her eyes.What was it about her eyes? I wanted to be pleased that finally her frowning doll had won and vindicated my powers, but what was it about her eyes?

“You say he is building?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“A house?”

“Yes,” I answered irritably, adding, “I have warned him it will fall unless I have made the doll of it first, but he builds tirelessly.”

What was it in her eyes?

“Dollmage,” she said,“Areth came upon me in the mountains and . . . and violated me.”

So. So. That was what was in her eyes: a sadness too deep. You must believe me, I had not wanted her to frown at such a price.

“You must go to the House of Women and ask for justice,” I said at last, and quietly.

She nodded and closed her eyes and I saw her eyelids tremble. “My second promise, Dollmage, was to save my people. The robber people — I know they plan next to steal a woman. Let me help you make a plan to save our people.”

“Make your contest doll,” I said.

“The villagers must be warned,” she said. “None of the women or children should go out alone....Tell them.”

“Common sense tells them that.”

“Please,” Annakey said.

“Very well. I will go to Weepers Stump today” Then my heart reached out to her and I said, “Before you begin your doll for the contest, I have another thing for you to do.”

She had turned away. Now she turned back again.

“Would you leave Manal vulnerable? I want you to make a doll of his house and bring it to me. Who knows what will happen if he continues?”

I could scarcely see her face in the twilight. She knew I had asked her to do this out of compassion for her. “I will do it,” she said, “but you must know, I will not keep my promise to Areth.”

“A promise breaker can never be Dollmage,” I said.

“Why do you say that, if there is no danger that I will be Dollmage?” she asked.

I stammered a moment, and then said, “A promise breaker is in danger of her life.”

“There are worse things than dying,” she said.

“That is why your promise doll frowns,” I called after her, for she was walking away from me. “It frowns in disapproval over a broken promise.”

Annakey disappeared into the twilight. I heard Manals saw make a long, hard song until past dark.

That night Annakey went to the House of Women. The men endured the House of Women out of long tradition and feared it a little. Men are the bosses. Even I, as Dollmage, have no say as to what crop will go where, or when to build a new plough or who will attend to the hunt and who to the fences. They do not ask me. But we have, in the House of Women, done a thing or two. Once, it came out in the House that Dug Shallowslough was hitting his wife. Each woman went home and did not please her man until he told Dug to hit no one less hairy than himself. Dug was the hairiest man in the village. He became a very peaceful man.

As I said, that night Annakey went to the House of Women. Grandmother Keepmoney sat at the door, stick in hand. She stood up and held the stick out to prevent Annakey from entering.

“You may not enter,” Grandmother Keepmoney said. Annakey stood still, unbelieving. “Why?”

“It is my duty to prevent the unworthy.”

“You never prevent anyone.”

“Tonight I do.”

Annakey swallowed. “How am I unworthy?” Grandmother Keepmoney put her stick down and leaned on it. “Greppa Lowmeadow says that you came to her and said you would not keep your promise to marry her son Areth with whom you have shared your body.”

Annakey’s head bent as if her promise doll were dragging it down. “No. That is why I have come, to ask for justice. I did not share. I was forced.”

Grandmother Keepmoney put up her stick again wearily. “So you say. I hear otherwise.”

“From who?”

“Areth Lowmeadow himself.”

“Have you ever known me to lie, Grandmother Keepmoney?”

“Perhaps you do not know what is real, child.”

Annakey stared. The old woman looked at her and her face drew down and her shoulders sagged.

“I believe you, child. Some will not. It does not matter. I cannot let you in, a promise breaker. Only deny that you have broken your promise, and I will let you in.”

Annakey said nothing.

Grandmother Keepmoney said, “Grave consequences will come of this, Annakey. The people are afraid, and they speak as if they want to take their fear out on you.”

“I will ask Areth to release me from my promise,” Annakey said. Then, because Grandmother Keepmoney still guarded the door, she walked away.

My people.

Now you understand much.

Will you forgive Annakey, free her, ask for her forgiveness? No, perhaps not, but I see you do not touch your stones so lovingly. No matter. Even if you are persuaded, Areth will let fly his stone, and that is enough to kill her. Now that the truth is out and he has lost the respect of his people, he has nothing to lose. You see as I do that he will kill Annakey, and anyone in the way of that rock.You forget, though, that I have a secret still.

Yes, Manal, rub her wrists, and give her bread to eat.

Why, you ask, for she has broken a promise and brought this fate upon our village. What good is bread to a dead girl? That is true.

That I cannot deny.

Nevertheless, listen on.

That night I stared at the sheepcote a long time. How old I felt, how pressed down and part of the earth I felt.Then I saw, in one of the trees of the sheepcote doll, a tiny nest, and in it, three almost invisible eggs. I could not stop the welling tears.

I went to Areth Lowmeadow.

“Will you release her?” I asked, low and in the dark. “No,” he said.

“If you do not, she may die.”

“Let her die,” he said.

“Is this your love?” I asked, and then I grasped his promise doll in my hand. I took my carving knife and slashed it across his doll, once, between the head and the body

“What have you done?” he whined pitifully.

“Only what you have done to another’s heart,” I said.

“But I am within the law.”

“That is not what I hear.”

“She is a liar.”

“Then you need not fear,” I said.

When I arrived home I took my husband’s ghost doll and put it near my house in the village model. Now, now I was ready to die.