The Dollmage

When Annakey put the man doll in the little meadow, she began to make her own story.You must understand this if you are to understand how it happened that the next day Manal and Areth brought to my house black feathers that they had found. Within hours the whole village knew that the robber people had found our valley. There was weeping and wailing while everyone searched their houses and fields to see if the robber people had stolen anything. The only thing that came up missing was Oda Weedbridge’s sheep, Follownot.

Chapter 7

Inscription on the Recipe doll:

Rutabagas: Oil the greens, toss with salt. Boil the root with butter and bones. Mash the meat or bake into bread. Give the peelings to the pig.

Annakey was hard at cleaning my chicken coop the next morning when Areth and Manal came to me with the black feathers.

“This is not possible,” I said to Manal when he reported that Oda’s sheep Follownot was missing.

“It is true,” Oda said. She had come with the boys.

“In my hidden village doll, there is a sheep named Follownot,” I said to Oda. “He is hidden there still, beneath a sky blanket, behind closed doors. The robber people could not have found him here in the valley.You let him wander out of the safety of the valley onto the mountain where he was eaten by a cat.”

Manal cleared his throat. “Dollmage,” he said, “he was taken out of the sheepcote. That is where we found the feather they left for Follownot.”

I ran to check the village doll in my secret room. Had mice eaten holes in the blanket? No. How could I have known that the village story was being taken away from me?

When I returned, Oda was speaking harshly to Annakey while she kept to her work. “You have brought bad luck to my house. It is that frowning promise doll you wear. You killed your own mother with it, and now you will kill me. Already it has begun, for my sheep is stolen.”

Before you know what Annakey answered, you must know this: Annakey Rainsayer loved three things and feared only one thing. This makes her unusual from the beginning, for most of us love one thing — ourselves — and fear many things. Because we fear more things than we love, our lives are blown this way and that way by our fears.

I have already told you one thing Annakey loved: dollmaking. It was her first joy. The first joys last forever.

Now, in her concern for her people, Annakey discovered a new love. She loved her valley. She loved the crooked creek that wound through, changing its mind and twisting a different direction every league, and the little brick footbridges that arced over the creek at every twist and turn. She loved the mountains that made it a valley. She loved Mount Lair for its woods and waterfalls, and the stags among the firs, forgetting that it was unfriendly to men, that in its everchanging undergrowth men had been lost to death.

Who can account for the way Annakey thought? The mountains are dangerous, wild with forests that are filled with bears and wolves and cougar cats. Their brows are menacing, their snows impassable in winter. But Annakey saw that they offered their green feet for gardens, their meadows for summer grazing, their high pines for firewood, and their dark forests for game. Their rivers filled the valley with cold white water and fish in the water. The mountains frowned down the clouds and took the brunt of the cold winds so that the snow in Seekvalley fell gently and straight down.

Mostly the reason Annakey loved the valley was because in it was her people. Why did she — does she — love you? Perhaps, you think, it is because you cared for your yards, decorating them with rockeries and flowerbeds, ponds and trellises. Perhaps she loved you because you built little bridges, and gave them names like Coffee-At-My-House, and Come-Sit-By-My-Fire, and Visit More. Perhaps it was because she loved to see the mothers in their kitchens, wielding their rolling pins, making biscuits and pies and loaves, rubbing their knuckles off onto washerboards, then tending their babies gently with their worn, rough hands. Perhaps she loves you because you are a fair folk, tall and curly-haired and green-eyed. Surely she loves you for your songs and fine poetry.