The Dollmage

“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.

Chapter 5

Inscription on the Lullaby doll:

Promise doll, do not weep,

This promise I must keep.

Promise doll, do not sleep,

This promise I will keep.

As I said, Annakey ran away when Renoa led the other young people to taunt her. Now I will tell you where Annakey ran. How do you know, Dollmage? you ask with your eyes. How can you tell us the truth about Annakey, where she went and what she thought? The children know, but I forbid them to tell. Believe me only when I tell you that the Dollmage is the storymaker. Listen to me then, as the children do.