The Dollmage

Chapter 3

Now, we are a people born into many promises. We promise to keep our promises, and we promise not to lie. That is enough for one life. But there are other promises! We promise to be the best friend of one other person in the world, and to be on his or her side whenever there is a side to be on. That is why, my people, if you will not free Annakey’s hands, I command you as Dollmage to let Manal give water to his Annakey, his best friend. Put down your rock, Manal. No one will hurt her until I have done speaking. It is the law. No? You will not? To look at Areth, I see that once again you are wise. Furthermore, the villagers do not soften their gaze, even to remember Annakey as an infant. How can they forget their hate when all around them is the consequence of her broken promise? Since the beginning we have been warned: One broken promise can a people break. Now we see it is true. Though I tell the story with great wit and talent, it may be required of you both to die this day

But you, Dantu, and you, Tawm, I see you have thrown your rocks away. Do you have the courage to loosen the ropes at Annakey’s wrists? There. There. A little longer and she would have lost her hands. Why this comforts me, I do not know. What matters hands if she is dead?

Now, where was I? Oh, yes, our other promises. We promise to feed our child and care for it until it becomes independent enough to be ungrateful. We promise to be inoffensive to others, which means we keep our bodies washed, our yards kept, our children quiet, and our outhouses downhill. These alone are enough promises to fill a whole day, every day. But there is more. We promise to bring peace and safety to our people by living wisely, working hard, and helping our neighbors. We promise to care for our old folk and to be faithful to our mates.

Our promises are what separate us from the robber people that infest the mountains around us. They beat and abuse their children, abandon the weak and old, leave their mates for any other that may come along, and love to live off the labor of others. Without the promise, we would be nothing more than they. It is what keeps us strong as a people. To break a promise is to bring weakness, sadness, even destruction to our people.

So you see why to grasp ones promise doll and make a promise before a congregation is a rash thing. To make a promise such as the one Vilsa made then was a danger.

It went according to my word. As if there were only so much happiness to be found in the world, all the happiness drained out of Vilsa’s life after that day so that it might be given to her daughter. She was more silent than before, more watchful for her husband who every day did not return.Year after year she did her work soberly so that I could not find fault. She also did the work of others in exchange for repairs to be done on her house. Year after year, she would stop in the middle of feeding the chickens or slopping the hog or weeding the garden, and she would stand and look past the grain fields to the deep and sunless woodland, and past the woodland to the uplands where only furze and bramble grew, until finally her eye would search the snowline. Never did she see a man come. Her eyes would go back to her work, dull with always searching and never seeing.

Only when she looked at her daughter, Annakey, did her face shine with joy. Only at the sound of her daughters laughter would she smile.

Annakey grew tall, dark-haired like her father and pretty like her mother, and as she grew, so too did my resentment. I had carved a frown into her promise doll, but the child never ceased to smile and laugh and sing. Even when her face was in repose, her lips curled up at the corners so that she appeared to be on the verge of smiling.

Only now, when her lips are swollen and bloodied, can I see no trace of a smile. This brings me no happiness, but at the time I was angered that Vilsa’s promise could be so powerful. It humiliated me to look at the child. I had made a frown on her promise doll. When would she frown? I began to think that she smiled just to show everyone in the village that my powers were aging.

I took revenge in subtle ways, in ways so soft and sly that I was able to keep them secret even from myself. I do not wish to tell you this, but I am compelled, for I am no longer in control of the story. Though it was often my lot to help villagers in need, I was usually silent on the subject of Vilsa. If someone came to me with extra wheat, or whitemeats, or a bushel of fruit, I would give it to someone else in need before I gave it to Vilsa. Vilsa only worked harder, and grew thinner and paler and more beautiful. I gave Vilsa the worst of the cast-off clothing that was mine to distribute, but she mended and altered and embroidered the things I gave her so that Annakey might be as charmingly dressed as any. Worst of all, year after year she kept her house cleaner than mine. She was a cliff-lily: delicate but tenacious, able to cling to the barest rock wall.

As Annakey grew I feared what she might do, having the promise doll of a Dollmage, but not her gift. Would she have a kind of power? Would she abuse it? I watched her hard as a toddler and as a young child, and I was strict with her. I saw no great fault in her, but just to be sure, when she seemed loud or overactive or selfish, I corrected her.

Still, she was always cheerful. One year, at the celebration of the Planter’s Moon, when all the children get large brittle-candy moons and suck on them slowly, Renoa bumped Annakey. Her moon fell to the floor and broke into pieces. Everyone around her made small sounds of sympathy, waiting for tears. Any child would have cried a little. Annakey knelt down, picked up the pieces, said, “Look, now I have a lot of little moons. Here is a crescent moon, and this one is jagged like a star....”

She frightened me.

Now, Renoa grew up the youngest of eight sisters. She was neglected by her mother and bullied by her sisters. Though her promise doll smiled, Renoa’s face was brown as bark, and stern. I pitied her and tried to protect her from her mother and her overbearing sisters. I babysat her when her mother was sick, which was often, and let her come into my house. Everyone looked on in envy for this rare privilege. I told her that her life would be better than that of her sisters. Not for her a life of cooking and weeding and scrubbing and chores. Others would do much of this for her while she practiced her art. I talked to her about the Sacred dolls, and told her stories, but she yawned and gazed longingly out the window.

Of course it was a mistake. I meant to encourage her. Instead she began to despise the people she must serve. Her sisters’ meanness did not make her meek and sensitive, it only made her mean. She ran away from them and me, and hid in the forests and glades of Mount Lair. She knew no one could find her there where there were no paths. She came to know where the berry bushes were, and the streams, and the beneficent roots and mushrooms. As she grew older, excused from womens work because of her calling, she stayed away for whole days at a time. Nevertheless, she began to show at an early age that she had a gift.

How could she not be imbued with the spirit of my gift, surrounded as she was with the makings of my magic? She had free access to my shelves and tables, covered with cloth and wood bits, with thread and odds of fur and ribbons and buttons. Every barrel, kettle, and crock was heaped with the stuff of my craft, and it was hers to explore. I gave her my baskets to dip into, full of bones and barley, teeth and shells, seeds, antlers, and colored glass. I let her play with any doll she might see: dolls made of clay and cookie, wire and wadding, apples, potatoes, socks, and bottles. When she was only five years old, I made her help in the making of Elna Greenpea’s worry doll. Remember, Elna, that you worried your daughter would marry someone with a temperament like your husband s? After you received the worry doll, your daughter married instead a man with a temperament like yours. Your worries were over as your troubles began.

One day, when Rerioa was still young, I forced her to make a one-handed beggar doll for Kopper Looseniggle. Kopper had borrowed a hammer from his neighbor and now claimed he had lost it. Now, here is a problem. Had Kopper truly lost the hammer? Or was he breaking his promise not to steal? If Kopper was innocent, the doll would help him find the hammer. If he was guilty, he would become just like the doll with only one hand. He would never know when it would happen, but someday, somehow, Kopper would lose his hand. Renoa was intrigued by the thought of making the doll, but refused to do so until I agreed to leave her alone to do it. I left and she made a fine doll indeed.

Renoa gave Kopper the doll and then followed him around for days, waiting and watching. The doll worked. He found the hammer.

Renoa was disappointed, bored, and lost interest in dollmaking just when I was about to name her as the new Dollmage. “When I am older, Dollmage,” she said as she ran away to play in the forests of the mountains like a wild thing.

I let her go, for I had seen my husband’s ghost lurking at the outskirts of the village. When he came to me that evening, I said, “Another year, and then she will be ready.”

After that I went home and made a ghost doll. I named it after my husband and put it deep into the forest where it would be hard for him to find his way out again. I loved my husband, but I was not ready to die.

Renoa grew strong and fearless. The people liked her, not only because one day she would be their Dollmage, but also because of her easy way with them. They thought she was familiar with them because she liked them. In truth, she was at her ease because she cared not a whit for their opinion. She had a way with animals as well.The orneriest cow would give milk for her. The dogs of the village became still for her, followed her about when she let them, as if she were their owner. Always she smelled of green herbs, sweet-scented. Often she did not return home from the mountain wood until late, ravenous and moon-glad. I loved her as the child I did not have, and so I was patient. I would let her have her childhood as I did not have mine.

From my earliest memories my grandmother made me study and practice the art of dollmaking, until my soft little fingers bled and became calloused. While other children played, I studied and worked, collected materials and sorted them. I made doll after doll, only-to have my grandmother throw them away and instruct me to begin again.

My grandmother taught me that a Dollmage must have both gift and skill.The gift I had, but the skill came only with tears and much rapping of knuckles. Renoa, it seemed, would be like me. I would give her another year. Or two.

It had become easy for me to continue as Dollmage as soon as Renoa was born. I was able to borrow upon her powers, and I supposed I would until the day came when she was formally named Dollmage.

Annakey, as soon as she was able, was required to go into the fields to watch the sheep. In this way she earned mutton and wool for her mother. Though she could not spend her days playing with the other girls, still Annakey smiled.

Mostly I forgot about her, until one day I saw her by the river collecting stones that looked like animals or faces of people she knew.

“Have you not enough work to do?” I asked her. She dropped the stones into the water and ran away. How well I remembered my own passion for the miniature, the copy, and it concerned me to see what might be the beginnings of it in Annakey.

I asked Grandmother Keepmoney to observe her, to see if she worked worthy of the hire.

“She does,” said Grandmother Keepmoney.

“Then why does she smile so, seeing she must work?” I asked my friend.

“Herding sheep is light enough work. She plays with the boys, with Areth and Manal and the others. They are happy in the fields because there are no adults to restrict them.”

“And what do they play at?” I asked.

“They play at being adults. They pretend marrying and babies and cooking and milking cows. They pretend storms and bears and raids from robber people. The boys love Annakey.”

“So,” I said. “They run away from their parents’ world only to build a make-believe world just like it.”

“Has it not always been so, Hobblefoot?” Grandmother Keepmoney said. “When you and I were young, did you not make cookies and babydolls of clay? Even in your play you were Dollmage.”

What she said was true. Thinking about what she had said made me uneasy about Annakey. What if she was growing Dollmage powers right under my chin? I decided to spy on her.

Annakey was a monster in my eyes — given the eyes of a Dollmage only because she was born on the promised day. She must never be allowed to practice any art she might have. It would cause confusion, disharmony, turmoil. It would split the valley, and the wild all around would creep in. She was a weed allowed to thrive in a garden.

I found the children in a little grove of trees in the west field. Most of the sheep were tended in the summer meadow high on the mountain, but some, lambs born too early or rams and ewes that were too old, stayed in the valley. Young children, field size, kept them. It was lazy work. They had only to keep the stock away from the drifts of bracken that marked the edge of the forest. Bears and wolves rarely came here, but there were foxes, and bogs to fall into.

As it was, only Manal was at his post with the sheep. The others were in a small grove of trees, seated around a tree stump that served as a table. There were seven boys: Areth Lowmeadow, Miller Gravepost, Nikko Nailsmith, Surry Wistnot, Dantu Three, Nid Maybenot, and Tawm Herdson. One girl: Annakey Rainsayer. They were all looking at her with adoration. Oblivious to their love, she was serving them, solemnly and with tender pats to their heads, wild berries in dried mud bowls.

The bowls were small, but perfectly made. In the center of the stump was a graceful clay vase and in that, a flower. In Annakey’s arms was a baby made of bark and branches and grass and leaves, all tied and knotted in clever ways so that it was easy to see it was a baby. She cradled the baby in one arm and poured water from a little clay pitcher into little clay cups for the boys.

“Am I not the best of all your children?” Surry asked quietly as Annakey poured him water.

“If she says yes, I shall black your eye later,” said Nid mildly and with a ferocious smile.

“I am the one who gathered the berries. She loves me best,” said Miller in his sweetest voice, as if he had just given the boys a generous compliment.

“Dullwits,” said Dantu gently and graciously. “It is easy to see why you love me best, Annakey, since they are all so lump-brained”

Annakey stopped pouring water. “Did I not speak to all of you about quarreling?” she said.

“You told us to speak in kindly tones,” Areth said, grinning. “Their tones sound kindly to me.”

The boys laughed, and then the laughter faded under Annakey’s stern gaze.

“All of you go play,” said Areth to the others. He was a head taller than the rest of them.

“I do not want to go,” said Dantu.

“Yes, we do not want to go, too.”

“You must go. Gather deadfall for the supper fire,” Areth said.

“Why must we always go?” Tawm protested.

“Because,” said Areth, “you are the children and I am the father. Now go. I want to speak to your mother alone for a moment.”

One by one, the other boys tumbled out of the grove and ran to the field where the sheep slept like lumps of wool in the deep grass. As soon as they were alone, Areth took Annakey’s hand.

“Annakey,” he said, “promise me you will be my wife.”

“I am already your wife,” Annakey said.

“I mean for real. When we grow up.”

Annakey drew her hand away and laughed. “Areth, what if I grow up to be nagging and ugly?” The child seemed a little afraid, as if she understood at a level beyond her years the nature of such a promise.

Just then Manal entered the grove.

Annakey held up a bowl of berries for him. “Areth wants me to promise to be his wife,” she said.

Manal said nothing. His manner was gentle and quiet. Areth lay down in the grass to sulk. Annakey watched as Manal ate the berries, looking into his bowl.

They talked quietly Manal told Annakey how Papa Naplong’s hog, wandering the fringes of the forest for worms and mice, had come upon a newborn lamb to eat it. Manal had had to chase him away with a stick.

“That is good, Manal,” Annakey said.

Manal shrugged. “It is my work, to care for the sheep.”

“Manal, why do you work with the sheep while the rest of us play?” she asked.

“You play at womens work,” Manal said.

“It makes me happy to do so,” Annakey said, after a moments thought.

Manal glanced at her and almost smiled. “Work makes me . . . happy.” He ate in silence for a time and then said, “These bowls are good, Annakey. They make the food taste better.”

I almost gasped aloud.

Annakey picked one up and inspected it closely to hide her blushes. She shook her head.

“And the babydoll is as good as one of Dollmage’s.”

That part was not true.

“If I were Dollmage,” Annakey said, “I would use my power to make my father come home.”

Manal stood. “By now the others are fighting amongst themselves and have forgotten the sheep.” He began to walk away but stopped before Areth. “Dollmage teaches that we are born into enough promises,” he said to him.Then he was gone.

I could hardly hear what was being said because my eyes were studying the bowls, the vase, and the babydoll too hard. Finally I decided the bowls were just homely toys, and nothing to punish her about. Still, it must be stopped. I emerged from my hiding place, startling Annakey and Areth.

“Hello, Grandmother Dollmage.”

Closer up, I could see that the bowls were clever indeed. For a moment the valley rocked beneath my feet. Then I saw the stubble geese squawking in the mown fields, and the hogs grunting after the acorn harvest at the woods edge, and the boys bleating among the sheep. All was as it should be, I told myself.

“You are too old to be with the boys now,” I said. “Go home, and tell your mother that she should be teaching you the arts of sewing and cooking and gardening.”

“Can we play later?” Areth said to her as she stood, cradling her babydoll.

“She will be too busy to play, for a long time,” I said.

She began to walk away with the babydoll. I thought to see a frown on her face, but she did not frown. “Perhaps, like Manal, I will find work better than play,” she said.

“Leave the baby, child,” I said.

She turned and looked at me for a long moment, and then put the babydoll carefully on the stump. She smoothed her skirt.

“Leave her,” I said, “and make no more dolls.You are forbidden.”

She stood still, looking at her babydoll, her hands at her sides trembling. “Her name is Nesbeth,” she said quietly and clearly.

Slowly she began to walk away again. Once, she stopped and looked back at the baby, and then she ran.

Areth kicked the ground sullenly and went to check on the sheep. When he was out of sight, I smashed the clever bowls and the vase. I took the babydoll home to give to my pig to eat.

For Renoa’s eleventh birthday I determined that I would make her a gift. I made a play doll of the finest clay, fired and painted and polished it until it was an exact replica of Renoa herself. I dressed it in fine lavender wool and plaited cornsilk for its hair. Even Renoa’s mother, when I presented it to her, was enchanted. Renoa tugged on the child doll’s hair, lifted her skirt, and scratched at its painted lips. Then she laid down the doll and ran off to play in the forest.

“She wastes her talent,” I said to her mother.

“It is not my fault,” Mabe said sullenly. “You chose her.”

“God chose her.”

“Then it is Gods Fault. Capital F. Maybe it is to be Annakey after all.”

“No,” I said. “Annakey’s promise doll has a frown.The bore hole in her doll is crookedy.”

“The villagers say until you name Renoa the Dollmage and give her all your powers, they will treat both girls the same. Just in case.”

I said, “That is probably wise,” but it angered me to think people doubted me. To spite Mabe, I made a play doll for Annakey as well. Out of my scrap barrel, I made a hasty creation with a painted face and mitten hands and plain pajamas. Then, because Vilsa had passed me in the village that day without greeting me, I painted on its face a frown.

Some of the stucco had peeled off Vilsa’s house, exposing the mud and lath beneath, but the ridges of turf that separated Vilsa’s land from the other had been planted bright with daisies and poppies. Vilsa was out of doors, busy tanning a fleece and rendering mutton fat for the wick that winter.

Annakey saw what was in my hands and ran to me, perhaps hoping that I was bringing her Nesbeth.

“Here, child,” I said, offering her the doll. “It is a gift for you, because you have been clever enough to live to be eleven years old.”

“Mama says it is because of her wheat bread and not because I am clever. May I please have the doll anyway?

She took the doll in her arms, saw the frown, and smiled.

She might have done nothing worse to fuel my resentment and wound my pride. Was I not Dollmage? Was I not supposed to be the wisest in the village?

Vilsa came and put her arm around Annakey.

“Annakey, you must thank Dollmage,” she said simply.

Annakey laughed. “Thank you, Dollmage. Look Mama, my baby frowns. She must be tired, or hungry....” She wandered away from the door, cuddling the doll, absorbed by its painted face.

“Are you teaching her to be a good wife?” I asked Vilsa.

She nodded. “She learns quickly.” Vilsa was one of those who is more beautiful when not smiling.

“Good, because she will not be Dollmage.”

Vilsa tilted her head to one side. “So you have said.” It seemed to please her that I felt I must say it again. With great irritation I noticed her cheese press was scrubbed and polished.

“It is time for you to don widow’s dark,” I said.

“My husband is not dead.”

“He is dead.”

She looked at me long, then. “How can you know, unless the valley doll you made is ...” Her face softened. “Dollmage, forgive me, but the valley doll you made for my husband — was there no power in it? Do not fear to tell me. I will forgive you.”

The gall rose into my throat. Nothing will make one anger more quickly than being forgiven. “How dare you question me?” I said.

She did not answer. She looked long into my face, and I could see in her eyes that there was more than a drop of my grandmother’s blood in her.

“Thank you for the gift you have given my daughter, Dollmage,” Vilsa said to me evenly. “Good night.” She closed the door slowly and softly.

After that day I rarely slept well. When I woke the next morning, the weight of the day was a comfort compared to the dreams that had pinned me to my pillow. I decided it was Vilsa’s fault. When her cow died of the bloat that spring, I forbade the villagers to give her a widow’s allotment. “She would be offended since she believes she is not a widow,” I said. The following year I made sure all the sick and feeble had more than enough firewood for the winter. There was little left for Vilsa and Annakey. “Annakey is young and strong,” I said. “Let her chop.”

I hated to go into my secret, locked room. When I did, I would furtively bring out a piece of the broken valley doll and throw it in the trash. Soon there was not any of it left, but still I could not sleep. One day, I arose before dawn to walk away my bad dreams. As the sun lightened the sky, I stopped behind the shed. I thought I had seen my husband. He was not there, but in the faint light I saw footprints in the soft soil of the path. Worse, the ax had been moved from its usual place. Had he found his way out of the forest to come and cut my kindling for me? It would be so like him. But the dreams of the night pushed in on my waking a moment later, for I saw a black feather in the path, a message from the robber people.

The robber people had taken my ax.

It meant I was losing the power to make the story of my village, and for the first time in my life, I feared for my people.