The Dollmage

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.”