The Dollmage

Chapter 4

I hid the black feather so as not to alarm the village. The next morning, while the light was new and sideways, I went to summon Renoa to my house.

The clouds pinked up as I walked the path between the trees. In the clearing my shadow stretched out long and thin. I crossed the river and saw the waterbugs pluck at the water, and butterflies the color of new green leaves fly from under the bridge where they slept. No one could know by the beauty of the day that the robber people had discovered our valley. Because my house was farthest away from the other houses of the valley, because it was alone in the trees, the robber people had first come there. It was a precious thing to take, my ax, for it had belonged to my husband’s grandfather, but I knew from stories my grandmother told me of the other village that the ax would be only the beginning. The robber people are a cowardly people and would be timid at first. First they would steal an ax, then food from the gardens and sheds, then a cow. One day a woman would be gone, never to appear again, then children. The fear I felt as a child when my grandmother told me the stories returned to me now in my old age.

At the Willowknots’ house Renoa was peeling rutabagas.

“I need Renoa to come with me,” I said to Mabe.

“When she is done her work,” Mabe said. We had begun to despise one another. Mabe saw that I was causing dissension among her daughters by telling Renoa that she would be the village storymaker, that hers would be a life of seeing and making, far above her sisters who would labor all their lives in kitchens and gardens and fields. For my part, I felt to inspire Renoa to show her talent. Today, however, I had no heart to offend Mabe further and so I said, “Come, Renoa, when you are done your work.”

“No, Dollmage Hobblefoot,” Renoa said. “I would go with you now. I shall destroy my hands on these thick peelings.”

“Do as your mother says,” I answered.

Renoa was appalled. It was the first time I had upheld her mothers decision. One of her sisters laughed low from a corner of the house, and Renoa’s eyes slid from me to her mother to her sister. She went back to her peeling, but before I was out the door Renoa’s sister cried aloud. I turned to see blood dripping from Renoa’s hand.

“I told you I should destroy my hands if I were made to do such work. My hands are for dollmaking” Renoa said calmly.

Mabe’s skin went the color of the rutabaga. Her mouth would not close.

“It is not so bad,” I said to Mabe, thinking that she was fearful of the blood. “She will come with me, and I will bandage it.” Mabe’s fear was not assuaged by my words.

“Do you not see, Dollmage Hobblefoot? She draws her own blood to have her way,” Mabe said. She said it wonderingly, as if she had not given birth to the girl herself.

“Is this true?” I asked Renoa.“Did you cut yourself intentionally?”

She did not answer. She drew herself up tall and looked at her mother, defying her. I bound her hand myself, in silence, and a little roughly. After that day, Mabe Willowknot had little to do with disciplining her daughter. She became mine.

To punish Renoa I said, “Now we will fetch Annakey.” I said it also to arouse Renoa’s jealousy, to provoke her to study and work. I did not think of Annakey. God has since forgiven my ignorance, but punished me for my selfishness. That is the way he has always loved me.

“Why must she come?” Renoa asked.

“Because you are too lazy and willful to be Dollmage.”

“You are willful.”

“I am. And I will that Annakey come.”

“Why do you not name me the Dollmage?”

“When I do so, I will relinquish all my power. The villagers will need you to do the work of the Dollmage. You cannot work if you are off playing in the mountains.”

Renoa answered nothing. Even as she walked beside me, her heart was upon the mountain. I knew it. I had been grateful for it until now. As long as she was unnamed, I could delay my promise to go with my husband. Now, however, I was afraid. I walked resolutely to Annakey’s house, glad for Renoa’s sour face.

We found Annakey, already finished breakfast and bent over a blanket she was stitching.

She stood up. “There. It is done. See, Dollmage, what I have made.”

I could not help gasping.

The blanket was sky blue, with a yellow sun and pink and white clouds. Charming, but nothing that could not be done by another girl her age. What was startling was that there were birds embroidered into the sky. They were so cleverly sewn that one could distinguish what kind of bird each was, though none were bigger than my thumbnail: a plump robin, a bit-o’-sky, a jay, a dove, a thrush, a sparrow, a roof swallow, and a mill-thief. There were wild birds of the forest, tiny and perfect: quail, hawks, larks, and eagles. There was an entire flock of blackbirds. The blanket had been bordered in a darker blue, with tiny stars, and at the corners were clever moons in their stages. It had been made from scraps of yarn that others did not want. On the other side of the blanket was a worn, gray flannel lining. “For fog,”Annakey said, laughing.

“What have you done?” I said to Vilsa.

She said, “You told me to teach her the womanly arts.”

Renoa stared at the blanket and then at Annakey.

“It is a wonder,” I said sincerely, then. My admiration overcame my anger. God was right in giving Annakey the totem of a Dollmage, for in her hands it seemed there was skill. Nevertheless, the gift, I knew, was with Renoa. I knew this because of the beggar doll Renoa had made, and the worry doll she had helped to make. I knew this because I fed upon her power to do my work.

“My mother helped,” Annakey said, smiling at my praise. It was easy to see that her work had brought her much joy.

“I need Annakey to come with me,” I said to Vilsa. Her eyes asked for explanation, but I offered none.

“Dollmage,” Renoa said, “I want a blanket like this one.”

Ah, I thought, at last she is showing a desire to create in miniature.

“You will have to study it, to know how it was done, Renoa,” I said, smiling at her.

She frowned. “I want you to make it for me.”

“I can teach you,” Annakey said to Renoa.

“I cannot sew such things. My hands are made only for dollmaking,” Renoa said, and her voice was not dismayed but sharp. She glared at Annakey.

Annakey studied her hands and then looked at me. “I, too, want to make the beautiful things that you make, Dollmage.”

Renoa knew that Annakey had the promise doll of a Dollmage. She also knew that Annakey’s promise doll had a frown where hers had a smile, and that Annakey’s doll hung crookedly where hers hung straight. She had not feared that Annakey would have any power.

Now she looked at the charming sky blanket and for the first time she wondered if Annakey would not compete for her place as Dollmage. “The gift of dollmaking is not for you, but for me,” she said.

“You have not yet been named Dollmage,” Vilsa said quietly.

“She has a frowning promise doll. Mine smiles. Dollmage, I want a blanket just like this one. I want it, I want it.” She started to cry. “I hate her,” she said more quietly.

Vilsa’s face was pale, as if her whole soul was clenched in a fist. I saw her look from Renoa’s promise doll, to Annakey’s, then to her own. She placed her fingers lightly on her own promise doll and closed her eyes briefly.

“Annakey,” she said, “give Renoa the blanket.”

There was a silence in the room. The fire settled.

Annakey clutched the blanket. “Mama, no,” she said, so softly I barely heard.

“You see how Renoa weeps for it,”Vilsa said gently.

“It is mine,” Annakey said, more loudly now. She did not take her eyes away from her mothers.

“It would make her happy to have it. But it would make you happier still to give it. Do you understand, Annakey?”

Annakey shook her head and clutched the blanket close.

“Will you trust me?” Vilsa asked.

Annakey shook her head again, but her grip on the blanket loosened a little.

“You can make another blanket, Annakey,” her mother said. “But you may never get another chance to do so generous a thing for Renoa.”

“But, perhaps later, after I have slept with it one night?”

Her mother did not answer, but clutched her promise doll.

Annakey stared at Renoa with a frozen face. Finally, shaking, she slowly held out the blanket. Renoa snatched it with a cry of delight. She danced around the room with it. Annakey did not speak or move for a moment. Her face was blotched as if she had been struck.

“Can I keep it?” Renoa asked, not of Annakey but of me.

“Yes,” Annakey said. She said it breathlessly, as if she had fallen into a winter river. “It is for you, Renoa, for you, who will one day be my Dollmage.”

Renoa held the blanket to her as if she thought Annakey would change her mind and take it away.

I had disliked Vilsa before, but now I felt contempt for her. It seemed obvious to me that she hoped to ingratiate the future Dollmage to her daughter, and I thought it cruel of her to make Annakey give up the wondrous blanket. Is it not curious how we can justify only our own cruelties? I held my tongue, however, for Annakey was not smiling now, and that put my mind at peace.

The peace was short-lived. Slowly Annakey did begin to smile again, and more and more, until her whole face shone like polished porcelain. She turned to her mother. “You are right, Mama. It is in the making, not the having, that I was happy,” Annakey said. She turned back to Renoa. “And in the giving.”

Only then did I realize what Vilsa had done. She had not done it to ingratiate Renoa to her daughter. She had taught Annakey how to have a happiness that is beyond making oneself happy.

I saw that it had cost Vilsa. Her eyes were more shadowed with sadness, and her hand trembled as she bade Annakey good-bye.

It was the first time Annakey had been in my house, and she was stupid with wonder. She could barely listen to my words, so taken was she with the dolls that hung from the rafters and the curios on the shelves and the stuff upon my tables. She held her arms stiffly, forbidding herself to touch, though Renoa carelessly picked up this bauble and that brightly colored ribbon, and tossed them back on the table. I was seduced by Renoa’s confidence, whereas Annakey’s respect made me want to be lordly in her eyes. I resisted, as any good Dollmage would do. I bade them both to come into another room of my house.

“You have long wanted to see what lies behind this door, Renoa,” I said. “Now you shall see.”

“And shall she see, also?” Renoa said, pointing to Annakey with one hand and clutching the sky blanket with the other.

“Yes,” I said. We spoke to each other and did not look at Annakey.

I opened the door.

The girls looked. There were shelves on three walls of the room, and on them were Sacred dolls, filled with the lore and wisdom of our people. In the middle of the room was a large, round table, and on the table was a model of Seekvalley.

It was easily immediately recognizable as our village, so true was the replica, complete with a painted river, tiny models of each bridge and house, and trees to represent the wood. Renoa looked and then looked around, as if to say that this was not enough to be kept secret in another room. She went back to examining her blanket. Annakey swallowed the sight with her eyes, raised her hands as if she could not keep them from touching it, then folded them over her breast.

“These are the Sacred dolls,” I said, gesturing to the shelves holding them. “As Dollmage, I care for them, study them, guard the stories that are hidden in them. See. Here is the Charter doll, with a scroll in it, describing the limits of each family’s land. Here is the War doll. It is all right to fear it. I, too, am afraid when I look at it. Here is the Calendar doll, and here, most sacred, the God doll. Someday, Renoa, when you are Dollmage, you may study the scrolls hidden in them. By them and by the laws written there, will you guide and judge our people.”

“Who made them?” Annakey asked softly.

“Certain great Dollmages have added to them over the ages. There have been many Dollmages, but few have made a doll worthy of becoming a Sacred doll. Not even I have done so, nor will I now in my old age.” I swept my arm toward the table. “On the table is our village doll. No house is built in Seekvalley until it is first made here in miniature. No bridge is built until it is first fashioned for the village doll. I am the storymaker. I make the story of the village. It is the most important part of my work as a Dollmage. Look.”

I took a bucket of water and poured it over the center of the village. All the water ran to the rivers and flowed off the doll. Annakey laughed with delight, but Renoa shrugged. “It is nothing more than what I have seen from the heights ot the mountains,” she said.

Annakey looked at the blanket Renoa was tightly clutching. “Renoa’s blanket is like a doll of the sky,” she said, smiling, as if she had just figured out the rules of an intricate game. We ignored her.

“Here is my house,” Renoa said, poking at one of the tiny houses.

“Renoa, be gentle and pay attention,” I said. “I will tell you what no one else in the village can know, and the reason why I brought you here. Last night I found a black feather behind my shed.”

“Black?” Renoa said.

“Black”.

“It was blue.Your eyes are old.”

“It was black.”

“Someone is playing a trick on you because you are a rude old woman.”

“My ax is gone.”

Renoa grimaced as if she had just bitten into a sour apple.

“It is your husband playing tricks on you.”

“My husband is dead.”

“I see his ghost sometimes.”

I smiled a fleeting smile. “In the woods you see him,” I said, “not in the village.”

She did not argue.

I fetched the feather and held it before her eyes. “We have been found,” I said.

I could see her remembering all the stories she had heard concerning the robber people. “Why have the robber people found us?” She said it shrilly. “It is your job as Dollmage to hide us.”

I covered my chin to hide my shame. “That is one reason why the village doll stays here, locked in this dark room, away from all eyes but mine. It is to hide us from the robber people. But they have found us. It is no secret that I am old and my power is worn out. Renoa, you must find within yourself the power to help us.”

“What can I do?” Renoa asked crossly. “You have not taught me well.”

“You blame me? You have not listened well.”

“You are boring.”

“You are lazy!”

Renoa was weeping with fear and rage now. “I can do nothing when you are around me. You draw all the power from me. I can only feel it when I am far away from you, high in the mountains....”

“You have not studied well. You have not been willing. Now something must be done, immediately.”

Annakey, so taken with the village doll, had scarcely been listening. Now, during a pause of silence in our bickering, she said, “If I had not given my sky blanket to Renoa, I would cover the village with it. I would put the sky side down so that we would still see the sun, and the fog side being up would hide our village from the robber people.”

It was a moment before I listened to what what my ears had heard. I turned slowly away from Renoa and looked at Annakey. Then I looked at the blanket. I looked at the village doll, and back again at the blanket. Renoa must have read my face, for she balled her sky blanket close to her heart.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” I said.

“No!”

“Renoa,” I explained as patiently as I could, “do you want the robber people creeping around your bed at night? They steal more than axes and chickens, you know. Have you not heard the tales?”

“My sisters frightened me with tales when I was little. I am no longer little,” she said.

“No, you are not. Could you not do, then, as Annakey did, and give up something for the good of another? For the good of the village?” My voice was not so soft as Vilsa’s had been. Renoa did not move. “You will do as I say, Renoa. You will put the sky blanket on the village doll.”

Her eyes were as hard as the painted eyes of the Justice doll. At last, slowly, she put the blanket over the village doll. I looked to see if the same happiness that had been in Annakey’s eyes was in her own. I could not see it.

“There,” she said. “I have saved the village.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It might work. But if it does, it is Annakey that has saved the village, is it not? She made the blanket.” I said it to punish Renoa for resisting me.

Renoa glared at Annakey as if she had said those words, and not I. “In her hands is skill,” Renoa said, “but it is my hands that placed it over the village. In my hands is the power.”

Three days later, I knew it had worked. No one complained that they were missing anything, and I found no more black feathers. The blanket had changed the story of the village. The robber people might have forgotten about us, or been frightened off by some sign or omen, or perhaps the one who stole the ax died before he could bring it back to his people. In any case the sky blanket had saved our village for a time and had given me time to teach the young Dollmage.

I forbade Annakey to speak of anything she had seen in my house. Now I will tell you what I could not know if it were not that Annakey makes this story. When she arrived home, her mother asked her a question.

“Annakey, did you see the new valley doll that Dollmage made before you were born? Did you see it safe? Did you see the man doll in it? That is your father.”

Annakey obeyed my injunction not to speak, but remembered that she had seen nothing of a new valley doll. She never forgot about the man doll.

Renoa returned to her exploring and Annakey returned to her work. Vilsa was often weak and her mind adrift. It was for Annakey to milk the goat and churn the cream, to harvest the garden and dry it, to kill the chicken and roast it. She learned to card and spin, weave and knit, and tan hides. She could shear a sheep, deliver a lamb, and cook a mutton stew. Even so, she was often seen making shawls for old people, and mittens and hats for children. All were embroidered in the finest detail with birds and animals and flowers. In spite of her frowning promise doll, people regarded the embroidery with wonder and asked among themselves, “Can Renoa do such things with her hands?”

Finally I realized what was happening. “You must no longer embroider,” I told her.

“But what harm . . . ?”

“It is too much like the Dollmage’s art,” I said.

She stopped. She did not know anymore what to do with her hands when they were not working. Sometimes I saw her hands twitch and squeeze, but only for a few days did she forget to smile. Her persistent cheer was enough to make me take to my bed. Can you blame me for disliking the girl?

No, I see you do not blame me, you who think to punish Annakey for the fate that has come to our village. She broke her promise and brought Gods wrath upon us, you say. You refuse to loosen the ropes at her ankles, though they have become wet with blood. Only touch the memory dolls I gave you to your foreheads and you will remember that you liked her then.

I insisted that Annakey come to my house almost every day to do me some small service.

“If you had time for handwork, you have time to help an old woman,” I said.

She swept my floors, washed pots, dusted, scrubbed, and tidied. Her mother had taught her well. I forbade her to touch any of the doll stuff, but I could not stop her from looking. How she looked. How she strained to watch me a little if I was working. She would do anything to sneak peeks as I made dolls. For a time I suffered it, until one day she asked, “Dollmage, where is my father’s doll?”

It took the breath out of me, as if she had struck me.

Finally I said, “He is where he should be.” I bade her leave. She must have felt my anger, for she did not speak of it again.

One day in winter, when the mountain paths were snowed in, Renoa came into the house and began playing with the material on the table and in the baskets.

“Dollmage does not let us touch,” Annakey said, watching Renoa handle the doll stuff the way a starving mian watches bread being sliced and buttered.

“She lets me,” Renoa said. I was standing in the room and did not contradict Renoa. Annakey stood still a moment, the broom in her hand, watching as Renoa worked more earnestly with the doll stuff than she ever had before.

“Do you not have work to do?” I asked Annakey. I was pleased whenever Renoa showed an interest, even if it had begun as a desire to taunt Annakey.

“No, Dollmage, I am done,” she said. She was not smiling, and so my heart softened.

“Not done. Please sweep the room that houses the village doll, only you must not touch it ”

Annakey went about her work. As soon as Annakey was out of sight in the other room, Renoa ran away. I called out to her, but she did not listen. She ran to the feet of Mount Lair where she played as wild as a deer fawn. In a little while, Annakey came to me with the dustpan. She was staring into it.

“Look, Dollmage,” she said. “Look what I found on the floor.”

My stomach sickened at the sight. It was one of the men I had made for the new valley doll that I had broken and thrown away. It had been in a dusty corner of the room all these years, a little piece of a story I had not been able to make.

“Who is it?” Annakey asked.

“Never mind,” I said. “You should not have found this.” I took the man piece and threw it out the window to the chickens. “Now go away, and do not come back. I told you not to touch anything. And never tell your mother about this”.

Annakey stared out the window after the man doll, and then looked at me a long moment. Her arms hung still at her sides. Did she guess what I had done? Perhaps she hoped that her fears were for nothing.

“I will go,” she said. She made as if to walk away, then stopped. “Dollmage, you must let me come back.”

“Do not tell me what I must do,” I said, turning away from her.

“Dollmage, I have such longings inside me for the things of your art. I think of it all the time. I dream of things I could make, beautiful things....” She blushed to hear herself say it. Her voice lost its pleading edge. “The village is growing, the men say. Perhaps Renoa will need help when she is Dollmage. Perhaps there is some gift in my hands also.”

I did not answer. Still she was not discouraged. She stepped closer to me.

“Dollmage, I feel something in me.... As soon as I saw the Sacred dolls, I felt it.”

Her tone moved me to wonder if I had made an error. Renoa was wild and haughty. Annakey was skilled and kind. Then I remembered that around her neck hung the frowning promise doll. Suddenly, her presence pained me like a tooth that aches at sweets.

“If you revere the Sacred dolls, then listen to what they say, Annakey Rainsayer: There cannot be two Dollmages in a village. Never two.”

“Then perhaps I am the one.” She said it quietly, but as if she had wanted to say it all her life.

I sighed. “You must accept, Annakey. Your promise doll frowns.”

“But what if it means something else? Are you sure that the frowning doll means that I will not be Dollmage?”

Now she was behaving like her mother, questioning my art. “Would I not know the meaning of the work of my own hands?”

If she heard the edge in my voice it did not deter her. “Mother says there may be more than one meaning—”

“Enough.”

“She says we may make things mean what we will—”

“Leave!” I said. She started at the anger in my voice, as if it had not been there all along.

If she made the smallest sound as she left I did not hear it. My hand grasped the edge of the table beside me and I bent over it to keep myself from falling. If I was wrong, if things did not mean what they meant, if I could not make the story of the village without it turning and making me, then the whole world was upside down and I could barely hold on.

I went to bed for several days, and when I got up I went to the river for a walk. The young people played at the river. Annakey did her mothers wash a little way downstream. I had been right about the way Vilsa raised Annakey. She was dismayed by the way the other young ones played, teasing and arguing and pinching each other. When she finished the wash, she went off a little by herself. She glanced about her to see if anyone was watching and then began taking bits of clay from the shallows of the river. Almost without thinking, it seemed, she began fashioning the clay into tiny replicas of animals — a chicken, a dog, a bird, a rabbit. Her hands were deft, her movements graceful as if it were an ecstasy to her, and she worked the clay masterfully. I should have run to her, punished her, but I could not take my eyes away.

Manal on silent feet came up behind Annakey and he too became entranced as he watched her work the clay. Annakey was disappointed with her first efforts and began again, this time making a pig. Manal laughed to see the exactness with which she reproduced the animal.

“You have made a pig exactly like the pig my uncle slaughtered this fall,” he said.

“I hate the fall slaughter,” Annakey said.

“And I,” answered Manal. “When I am grown I will be a hunter instead.That way the animal will have a chance to run away.”

Annakey smiled, and then frowned. “This pig is not very good,” she said. She squeezed the clay together and began again. This time she made a cow, and it was all I could do not to come from my hiding spot and look at it more closely. Manal thrilled to see it. He laughed out loud.

Renoa and her friends Willa and Hasty came to see what Manal’s laughter was about. Areth came too. Everyone but Renoa laughed delightedly to see the cow, so like a cow in every detail.

“Look, Renoa, it is your mother’s cow Roily. It has the same crooked tail,” Willa said. Her smile faded when she looked at Renoa’s face. They were used to Renoa’s tempers, but never had they seen her face so green, so aghast, so enraged. A moment later her face relaxed, but her eyes were as dull as if they were painted on.

“I can do that, too, of course,” Renoa said. “Only better.”

“Yes, better,” Willa and Hasty chimed in.

Areth looked away and his smile faded.

“I have never seen you do it,” Manal challenged.

Renoa picked up a piece of damp clay and fashioned it into a deer.

“Oh, Renoa,” Willa said.

“It is good,” Manal said grudgingly, “but not better than Annakey’s.” He was an ear of corn, covered by a tough husk, underneath sweet and tender.

Renoa looked from one set of eyes to another, then reached for Annakey’s cow and threw it in the river.

“Come here, all of you,” Renoa said after a moment. The others gathered around Renoa quickly. Manal stayed seated, but Annakey stood up, glad that Renoa did not appear to be angry anymore. “Not you,” Renoa said to Annakey, and then she beckoned to Manal. “Come listen, and I will tell you about a party I am going to have.”

Manal did not move. Finally Renoa moved away, chattering, and the group, including Areth, followed her. Once they stopped, looked back at Annakey, and laughed together. Areth’s face went red with shame, shame that he allowed the group to taunt Annakey, shame also that he was her friend.

They were too far away for Annakey to hear what was being said. She turned and ran away.

Manal called after her, but she did not hear. She could only hear the laughter of the others, and her own mind telling her a hundred reasons why they were justified in despising her.

I knew I must speak to Renoa. A terrible thing is a Dollmage without compassion for her people. Can you not see that by observing me? Some part of me was secredy glad at what had happened. I had placed a frown on Annakey’s promise doll, but never was there a child who smiled so much. Now, I thought, somewhere in the bad bits of my brain, she had finally lost her smile. Still, I meant to punish Renoa. No sooner had I emerged from my hiding place to do so than Areth Lowmeadow came running to me, the dust flying around him.

“Dollmage! Dollmage! Come quick. Mabe Willowknot’s cow has fallen into the river and is like to drown.”

“Roily?”

“Yes. Come.”

It was too late.The cow’s leg was broken in the fall and she drowned. I found Renoa standing on the bank. She was old enough to understand the great hardship it would be to her family to lose their milk cow.

“Annakey did this, Dollmage Hobblefoot. She made a clay cow just like Roily, and .. .”

“And . . . ?”

She stared up at me. “I threw it in the river. She looked at her hands as if they were not her own.”

“So who has the power, Renoa? Is it Annakey who made the cow, or yourself who threw it in the river?”

“Annakey must pay,” she said bitterly.

“To ask her to pay will convince the villagers that it was all her doing. They will wonder if you are indeed the true Dollmage. Need we complicate this matter?”

She thought a moment. “No.”

“Then hush.”

“Teach me, Dollmage.”

“I will begin to teach you tomorrow. Finally you have shown a desire. It is what I have been waiting for.”

Renoa smiled.

I said, “It will be hard for your mother without her cow. I am sorry.”

“Perhaps it would be better if I came and lived with you,” she said. “Then my mother would not need as much milk and cheese.” .

And so it was that out of a bad thing came that which was good. As for Annakey, out of a bad thing came that which was even worse.

Manal and the other children told their parents what had happened. Some of you believed that the power was in Annakey’s hands and not Renoa’s. A small delegation of you came to my house a few nights after Renoa had moved into my house.

“The young ones say it was Annakey that fashioned the doll of Roily,” Ham Wifebury said. “Could it be that she and not Renoa is the Dollmage to come after you?”

“Her promise doll has the eyes of a Dollmage, so it is reasonable to think that she has a small power,” I said. “But you see what becomes of the use of her power.” I softened my voice, knowing that my words had already recreated Annakey in your minds. “She is only a child. It is not her fault. It is Gods Fault. Capital F.What else can we expect from someone with a frowning promise doll?”

Everyone was frowning after I said that, as you are frowning now. Do you not see how I planted the seed of your hatred? “But what does the frown mean?” Ham asked.

“As I said, it means she will not be Dollmage.”

“Are ... are you . .. s-sure?” he stammered. “Perhaps—”

“It was Renoa who threw the cow in the river. It is her hands that made the end of the story for Roily.” I said it sharply. “If Renoa hadn’t done it herself, she would have tried to get payment from Annakey.”

This quieted them until Manal said, “What of the deer that Renoa made? Was there any power in that?”

“See for yourself,” I said, gesturing toward the gloom of the trees behind my house. There Renoa frolicked with a small deer, teasing it with sweet flowers. The day after Roily drowned she had found it in the forest, left motherless by wolves. It became her pet. The men watched as the young deer ate salt out of her pocket.

They left, but not before Manal said, “If Annakey has even a small power, should it not be trained and under your eye?” Because his father was dead and he did the work of a grown man, he had the vote of an adult.

I bent my head. “Thank you for helping me to see this. She will be ever under my eye.”

You thought I was humble, but in truth I was only saying I would watch Annakey more closely, that she might not cause any more trouble. I felt it my place to care for you in this way.

“Words are like dolls,” Renoa said later when I told her what the men had said. “They make things happen.”

“Now you begin to see,” I said.

I took the God doll down from the shelf in the other room and took the parchment out of its hiding place. “‘Words are Gods dolls,’ ” I read.“ ‘With a word he made us. Only to us, his children, did he give words and the power to make.’ That is why the promise is so important. If we break a promise, a word means nothing, and if a word means nothing, then we have lost the power God gave us.”

“But ... but with that power came the freedom to lie, the ability to destroy a real thing with words,” Renoa said. You see how clever she was at a young age.

“Yes. That is why we have promise dolls, to watch our words, and to help us keep the promise that God placed in us. Now here is our power: to make the story of our village by the art of our hands. Dollmage is storymaker. Through the eyes of the Dollmage is the story told.”

Renoa looked at me boldly and as an equal. “Yes, I begin to see.”

I picked up a carving knife and a piece of wood and began to teach her, but my old hands shook and I could not think why.