The Dollmage

“No, Prim, do not be sad. This has nothing to do with you.” She lowered her voice. “Would you like me to make a pregnancy doll for you, Prim? I will make it the most beautiful baby. Only you must say nothing of this thing you found in your bread.”

Prim smiled wanly “I asked Dollmage to make a pregnancy doll for me, but she said she was too old and her powers too weak. She said to wait until the contest decided things and then Renoa would make one for me. Will you make it today?”

Annakey swallowed. If she made it today, when would she make her contest doll?

“I will make it today,” she said.

She looked at the Evil doll as she walked away, and almost called it “Renoa.” Renoa was the source of all her trouble and her unhappiness. She threw the doll into the river, watched it float downstream, and returned to my house.

Renoa was still sleeping when Annakey returned to the house. When she awoke she looked for the Evil doll, but it was gone. She tried to explain to me that Annakey had made a monster doll, but when I asked Annakey about it, she told me she had thrown it in the river. “It was a mistake,” she said. I was too busy to press her further and so I dropped it, but I could see Renoa haunting her all day about it.

All morning, Annakey worked on a doll. She was secretive. She would not let me see it. Toward noon, she disappeared with it.

“In the morning,” I called after her.“In the morning, I will see your contest doll anyway.”

At the Highchimneys’ house, only Deen was there.

“I have the pregnancy doll finished,” Annakey said.

Deen looked at it and smiled and nodded. “It is just like her,” he said.

“Where is she?”

“She has gone to the mountain to pray that her child will not be ugly.”

“Deen! Alone?”

“Alone.”

“But the robber people ... Did not Dollmage go to Weepers Stump to tell the people not to go out of the village alone?”

Deen frowned. “Dollmage has not stood on Weepers Stump since last spring.”

“But the robber people ... Could you not realize of yourself how dangerous it would be to let her go alone?”

Deen’s frown turned to fear. “I told her not to go, but she would not listen to me. I wanted to go with her, but she refused, said it was womens worship.”

Annakey ran outside and stood looking into the near mountain, the pregnancy doll hanging from her hand.

“When did she say she would return?” Annakey demanded.

Deen shook his head. He was almost crying now. “She said she would be back in time to make my dinner, and now it is almost suppertime.”

Annakey dropped the pregnancy doll and ran to my house.

Of course I called together all the men of the village and we began to search for her. I saw the accusation in Annakey’s eyes when she told me that Prim was late coming home from her pilgrimage. She had told me to warn the villagers at Weeper’s Stump and I had not. Was it my fault that a villager could be so stupid? No, it was God’s Fault, capital F.

We searched until the sunlight failed and then we searched in the twilight. It was Annakey that saw Prim running along a narrow path cut into the cliffside of the mountain face opposite us. She called out. Prim saw us, stopped, and then, with a glance behind her, continued running as fast as her pregnant body would let her. Only then did we see two robber men pursuing her.

The men of the search party screamed threats at the robber men. When they were almost upon her, Prim lost her footing and fell.

She did not die. Some feet below her was a gravel shelf, and there she lay, out of reach of the robber men. They turned back, and were gone by the time we came to her.

Prim was bruised about her bottom, and for that reason I did not bruise her bottom myself. That night she was delivered of twins, a boy and a girl. At dawn, half of you were outside her door waiting to see the babies.

“There. You see there was nothing to worry about,” I said to Prim.

“It is because of the pregnancy doll Annakey made for us,” Deen said in his joy. He held it up for me to see. Some of you villagers were peering in the door.

“This is your contest doll?” I asked.

“No,” Annakey said, “I have not had time yet to make my contest doll.”

“Dollmage, Annakey made us a doll and now all is well. Is she not your successor then?” Prim asked weakly.

“It was not her pregnancy doll but mine that made everything well,” Renoa said.

She stood in the doorway, having elbowed her way through to the front. The new day’s light was behind her so that her face was in shadow. “You said the contest would be over in the morning, Dollmage. It is morning. This is the contest doll I made. It is a pregnancy doll for Prim.”

I looked at the doll. It, too, was good.

I looked at the curious faces of the villagers in the door and windows, and those behind craning their necks to see. “How can I tell whose doll is responsible for delivering Prim safely?” I said aloud.

“Judge you, Dollmage,” Renoa said. “Look inside my pregnancy doll.”