The Dollmage

I see it now, in my mind’s eye. I am forced to see, for the story is not mine, and not of my choosing. It is Annakey’s story, and there is nothing like a story to make us see what we would not see. I refused to see that Vilsa had seen my husband’s ghost, that perhaps, being related to me, she might have the blood of a Dollmage in her veins.

I got down from Weeper’s Stump and walked back to the root shed. My husband’s ghost was there, and he was shelling the peas for me.

“Husband, I cannot come with you,” I said, “not now, and not next spring. The new Dollmage is not yet born.”

My husband left me. I was sad because I loved him, but I was happy because now I would live.

Those of you who are old will remember how the people milled around Mabe Willowknot, congratulating her. Mabe had seven daughters. I knew when she had this eighth daughter she would be happy enough to let me have her and raise her.

There had been one cloud on Mount Crownantler that morning. By midday the whole west sky was black with clouds, and at evening meal the storm broke.

“Mabe Willowknot labors with child,” Gilly Post reported to me, her face lit by distant lightning. I nodded and sent her away. I was making a trail of peas from the root shed to the bedroom in the hopes that I could entice my husband’s spirit to sleep with me that night. Now that I knew I would live, I missed him.

Someone else came to the door. The child is born already, I thought.

“Dollmage, I have news.” It was Greppa Lowmeadow’s oldest child, dripping with rain at my door.

“Wen?”

“My mother has gone early into childbirth.”

I did not answer. Once again, God had tricked me. We are friends that way.

“And Norda Bantercross, also, Dollmage. And Vilsa Rainsayer.”

Greppa’s child shrank back a little at the sight of my face, and then ran away when I began to laugh. When my laughter was spent, I wept. It was the first time I had wept since my husband died. I wept to lose him, the one who had been my husband, my child, my friend —and then I wept to lose my powers. Here was more proof that I was dwindling in power, for I had not foreseen that more than one child would be born. I prayed for three boys and only one girl. I prayed to have power enough to be Dollmage for my people until the next Dollmage was old enough. When I had done with tears, I picked up the peas one by one and ate them and mourned out my mourning.

That night, in the lightning and thunder, four children were born into the village. To Norda Bantercross was born a son, who she named Manal after her dead husband; to Greppa Lowmeadow a son, who she called Areth because she had no taste; and to Mabe Willowknot, a daughter she named Renoa. But God loved me so much he chose not to make my life too easy. Vilsa also was delivered of a daughter, who she named Annakey.

Now this was a puzzle indeed. “Which girl is the Dollmage?” the villagers asked. You older ones will remember how you asked me in just this way: “Which baby girl is the Dollmage? Which girl will have the gift and power to make promise dolls for our people, to make the story of our village?”

I stared at you. I did not know how to answer.

Finally I said, “The promise dolls will tell.”

But I had already decided in my heart that it must be Mabe Willownot’s daughter, Renoa. Why? I will tell you the truth. I had more than one reason to dislike Vilsa Rainsayer.

This is why I did not like Vilsa Rainsayer, even though she was my distant cousin. First, her house was always cleaner than mine. A woman who keeps her house so clean is asking to be disliked. Once I had tried sprinkling a little dust over her house in the village doll. It hadn’t worked at all. The next day I went to her house and it was cleaner than ever. My husband said, “Perhaps she has a little power of her own. Is she not your relative? Perhaps it is only enough to resist the story you make of her in the village doll.” His suggestion infuriated me, but not as much as what he said next.

He said she was beautiful. That is the second reason I disliked her. Since I loved my husband, there was no one to blame but her.

Do you think I enjoy confessing all my niggling faults? But if I must do it, be sure I will tell yours, also. How many of you harbor little resentments, almost invisible envyings? How many of you, when you hear of another’s misfortune, before you have had time to train your heart to be sad, feel first a tiny thrill of gladness? Ah, you think in the secret corners of your brains, because it has happened to him, it has not happened to me. If only for today, life has been kinder to me, and though I am not so fair or rich or strong or wise as he, I am unafflicted by his sorrow. Now you will see what great sadnesses can come from such tiny prides and baby hates.

Now I will tell you the third and biggest reason why I disliked Vilsa.