Conjured

“She and I … we were together for a very long time. A very long time. I did not intend to trade her for you. But now … it’s you and me. We’re together now.” I heard his footsteps as he crossed the wagon, and I opened my eyes. He was kneeling next to me. I shrank away as far as I could. His lips didn’t touch mine, but he drew a breath close to me. “You may look human, but it’s only an illusion. It’s time for you to be what you truly are, what she and I created you to be.”

I felt my body change, softening inside and out. I saw my hair, which lay splayed across my cheek and the cot, thicken into yarn. I knew without a mirror that my face was cloth, my eyes were green marbles, and my mouth was embroidered. My body shrank and changed as my skin reverted to cloth.

“Welcome home,” the Magician said.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The doll laid on the bench and counted the boxes on the ribbon, the silk scarves, the potion bottles, and the bird skulls. And then she counted them again.

Across the wagon, the boy wouldn’t stop talking. “I think each skull is from a different kind of bird. You can see the differences in the shapes. Hooked bills … they have to be raptors. And the ones in the corner must be seed eaters. Sparrows and such. I think most are songbirds. Don’t know if that means he likes songbirds or hates them. He must have practiced killing birds and worked his way up to humans. You know, a common sign of a disturbed kid is torturing animals—it’s a sign he or she lacks empathy. You don’t lack empathy, Eve. When the Magician walked through the door, you hesitated. You’re more human than he is, not less.”

The boy was tied to a cot on the opposite side of the wagon. The doll was tied to a bench with the same steel-like yarn. The Magician was asleep—or feigning sleep—in his cot. She knew better than to trust he was truly asleep.

After the transformation, while the Magician slept, she’d used magic to sever the yarn and had tried to reach the boy. The Magician had caught her before she’d crossed the wagon, and the vision had taken her. The vision had been full of death and screams, and when she had woken, the Magician had hurt the boy.

Next time, she’d waited until she was certain his breathing was deep and even, and she’d used her magic to free the boy. Awakening, the Magician had broken the boy’s fingers.

She’d tried once more, changing the Magician into a tree, hardening his body with bark and sealing his face with leaves, but she’d lost consciousness before she could reach the boy. When she woke, it was five days later, and the boy’s face was streaked with blood and bruises. That was when she’d stopped thinking of him by name.

The Magician released the boy from his bindings twice a day, and the doll lay on her bench while the boy ate, drank, and relieved himself in a pot. The Magician never released the doll. But he did allow the boy to talk to her.

At first, the doll thought this was a kindness. But after a while, she changed her mind. It was a constant reminder that the boy was here because of her and that she couldn’t save him. He chattered fast, like a magpie. The doll found that if she didn’t focus on individual words, she could let his voice swirl around her like birdsong.

Every few days, the wagon would move. The boxes and skulls would sway as the wagon lurched forward, and she’d listen to the clatter and clang and clink of the bottles and bones. When the wagon reached its next destination, the Magician would entrap her and the boy in separate boxes and leave. Sometimes she slept, though as a doll she didn’t need to. Sometimes she’d lie awake, curled into a ball of cloth, and try not to think.

She’d be jolted awake when the Magician released her from the box, took her magic, and then trapped her again while he performed another show. When he returned, he’d release her, secure her to a bench, and talk for hours. He’d tell her about the new world outside and how much the audience had loved his show. The carnival had been dying, he said, but now that she’d returned, his shows were full of magic again and his tent was full of people. The other dolls had been too weak, too new, too empty, to give him what he needed, but she was marvelous! He’d be giddy for a while, even kind, and then he’d fall silent again.