The Dollmage

“If you insist her father lives, she will be denied an orphans portion. But I will do my best to see that she is cared for.”

Annakey knelt beside her mother. She was not smiling now. Her face was full of astonishment, as if she had never seen death before.

“Is it true, Mother? Did I take your happiness for my own? I will give it back.”

Vilsa touched her daughter’s hand. “Things have been as they were meant.”

“I will make things to be as I wish them,” Annakey said. She was weeping openly now.

“Someday you will understand about daughters, how their happiness becomes your own,” Vilsa said.

“Are you afraid to die?”

“A little.You can help me to be less afraid.”

“Tell me, Mama. I will do anything.”

“Take your promise doll in your hand.”

Annakey did so.

“Promise me, now, that you will be happy, that you will make your life good.”

I gasped. “She will do no such thing. That is for God to decide.”

“Promise me, child,” Vilsa said. “It is my dying wish.”

“I promise, Mother,” she said.

Vilsa closed her eyes and her hands were still. “Tell your father,” she whispered, “that I died speaking of my love for him.” She looked out the window and I saw her smile for the first time in years.

Then she died.

Annakey moaned as if her stomach were in pain. She laid her head on her mother’s chest.

“Come,” I said.

“Dollmage Hobblefoot, I feel I am going to be sad forever,” Annakey said, and in her face was real fear.

So. Finally. The promise doll I had made her was not without power after all.

“Come. I have an idea of someone who will take you in.” She closed her eyes. After a time she stood up. “No. I am not an orphan. I have a father yet, and I am old enough to live here on my own until he returns.”

The way she said it made me look at her differently. I was astonished to realize how grown she was. She was as tall as I, and with the breasts of a woman. My Renoa was the same age, of course, but she seemed younger to me. By the time I was this age I was doing all the work of a full Dollmage. Renoa still dabbled and played, and had no taste for the labor.

“You’ll get no orphan’s portion unless you raise your father’s tombstone along with your mother’s,” I said.

“My father promised my mother that he would return,” she said. “If I give up on the promise he made, it will kill him. My faith will keep him alive. I will do extra work for my keep.”

I thought of the smashed valley doll, its pieces long since broken beyond recognition, and I was sick with guilt.

“What will you do for work?” I demanded.

“I — I do not know. . . ”

“Have you manure shovels? Buckets?”

She shrugged, defeated.

“Come. I know who does.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the house.

The truth is I believed I was God’s defender. Was it not for him to decide who would be happy and who would not? Was it not for him to send the fruitful field, the long-milking cow and good health? If we lacked for anything, was it not God’s Fault? Capital F? He it was who had given Annakey a frowning promise doll. I encouraged her promise doll to keep its promise by taking Annakey to work for the egg-woman.

The egg-woman was Oda Woodbridge. She was a spring berry, small and bright red, but so sour as to bring tears to the eyes. She lived at the far end of the village, in the last house, in fact, that Annakey would run past on the way to her secret place. She was a spinster who refused to accept the help due her from the village. She burned dried cow dung for fuel, saving for rainy days the little wood she could forage for herself.

She had worn the same dress for five years, and to cover it had made herself new aprons out of the scraps that others could not use. She ate from her own garden, and grew her own grain. What she could not grow or make herself, she bought with money she earned as the egg-woman.

Though everyone had their own chicken coop in their yard, few people looked forward to the task of entering the smelly coop to search for eggs. Oda did it every morning for people, and in return they let her keep an egg or two. Of course she could not consume that many eggs herself, and so she sold the rest to those whose chickens were not laying at the time. Oda was a proud woman even though she had great ugliness to keep her humble, and she became prouder as year after year she refused her due as a spinster. When I asked her why she would not take her spinster’s allotment, she replied, “Because then I would have to be grateful, and that is more exhausting than work.” She was wise in a sour sort of way.

“What have you brought her here for?” Oda said to me when I arrived at her door with Annakey.

“Vilsa died,” I said. “She needs work.”

“Give her the due of an orphan,” Oda replied. “I have no work for her.”

“She is not an orphan. Her father is alive, or so her mother claimed. She must work for her living.”

“Again I ask: Why do you bring her to me? There are not enough eggs for two of us.”

“Think, Oda, how much more money you could make if you could clean out the chicken coops for people.”