“Oh no, she’s here again.”
You follow your coworker’s look to a small table near the corner of the café. The first thing that catches your eye is the Very Big Hat the figure is wearing. The silhouette almost makes you laugh.
“New guy, you take care of it.”
“Huh? Why me…?”
“Well I’m not gonna serve a Witch.”
“Is she- dangerous?”
He shrugs. “Dunno. Haven’t heard of her causing anything while she’s been here, but I’m not gonna take my chances. So get over there before I get your pay docked.”
“S-sure, fine.”
You wait until he’s in the back before you roll your eyes. Jerk.
The table is shaded from the hat of the person seated at it. They seem mysterious until you’re close enough to see that they’re on their phone underneath there. Hardly intimidating.
“Um, hi! What would you-“
The swift snap of their head upwards interrupts your sentence. The only parseable detail of their face is their bluegrey eyes, piercing, set against dark skin.
For a moment you are transparent.
“Oh! You poor thing,” they say, eyebrows knotting. “Just look at the state of you!”
“Um, exc-?”
But they cut you off, and you notice they’re not speaking so much to you as above you, around you.
“By the looks of you I’d almost say it’s been years since you’d been maintenanced! Imagine!”
“Mainten- Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about, can I j-“
“Hand. Here.” And before you know it you’ve placed your right hand atop her outstretched left. You blink, mouth struggling to form words your brain can’t provide
“Honestly,” they say, reaching into a bag by their side, “if only little dolls like you would learn to speak up! You always let it get so bad…”
Something about that seems weird. You shake your head.
“N-no, ‘m not a- doll…” Your words come out slurred but linger on the last word.
“Oh, isn’t that interesting!” Their smile becomes warm, knowing. “And just how sure of that are you?”
You’re about to protest that you are, in fact, very sure, until they bring out two metal instruments from their bag, one spacer, and one with a long, thin hook. They bring them close to your elbow, and as they do your skin fades to illusion, exposing the ball joint beneath.
Oh. Hm. The thought occurs to you that you might be a doll after all.
“Be Still, dear.” You quickly nod once, before finding your head settling in a stiff but comfortable position, same as the rest of you.
With practiced hand they slide the first tool into your joint. Holding it there, they take the second and begin to scrape. The feeling is indescribable, an itch you never knew needed scratched, a balm for a spot you never knew existed.
The Witch peels cruft and crumb away, dust caked in grease, horrible brown rot you almost can’t look at. You feel revulsion that this has been in your body and yet, how rapidly pristine you’re becoming! What your human body had parsed as cramp, inflammation, RSI, all of it cleaned away in an instant. A dopey, irrepressible smile rises to your face, and they smile back.
“One isn’t supposed to do these things pro bono,” they say, moving down to your wrist. “But with a make as lovely as yours? How could I not?”
Something inside you preens, demands response. “Th-thank you, Mx-!” you say, as if the words are pulled from you.
You look at your hand and see it as the delicately articulated thing it is, connections and gaps the Witch navigates effortlessly. Wear and grind polished away, a particularly difficult piece of filth wedged in the hollow under your pinky. It all falls away. Your mind recedes into Still bliss under their ministrations, only returning when the tools are away and your arm is returned to you. Blearily, you flex it. Free of the aches you’d learned to forget.
They’re speaking before you can. “Take this with you, darling.” They hand you a vial.
“A- potion?” you guess.
They laugh. “Industrial solvent. Only slightly magical. Put it in a bath, it’ll help get the places I didn’t have time to.”
You nod, dutifully. As you tuck it away, an anxiety grips you. This is a Witch, after all.
“D-do you- How should I- no, th- this one repay you?”
They laugh. “All I ask is that you take care of yourself! You really are a beautiful piece of work. They don’t make them like they used to.”
At the praise, you feel a warmth tingle across the parts of your body they cleaned.
“Oh, and also,” they say, for the first time looking at the menu, “two blueberry scones, please. And some butter.”
They smile up at you and you nod three times in quick suggestion.
“Right away, Mx!!” you say, scurrying off into the back to Serve your Witch.
(originally published on Twitter here)