When it came down with Dollpox the manor’s Head Doll struggled valiantly to carry on without a fuss, continue being a Convenient little sweetie. When it finally collapsed, its Witch tut-tutted her disapproval as she inspected it.
“This is an advanced case,” she said. “We’ll have to see a specialist.”
This was how the Witch and her doll came to approach the hovel at the end of the forest path. It was known to the dolls only by reputation, forbidden as they were from straying near the Fool’s Abode. As they stood outside in the chill autumn air, the doll stifled two tiny coughs behind its mittened hands.
“The Fool owes me a favor,” said the Witch. “But that doesn’t mean we can let our guard down.”
“What help can we get from a fool? This one thinks we’d be much better served-“
“I’d trust none better. You’ll learn to respect the wisdom of Fools, doll.”
The doll was unconvinced.
“Remember this above all else:” said the Witch. “You mustn’t forbid the Fool from beginning a story. But neither should you let it finish one it starts. Understand?”
It seemed a silly rule but the Head Doll was used to such seemingly arbitrary rules and knew well their importance. It obediently nodded its assent.
“Good. Now let’s-“
Before the Witch could walk to the door, it opened just wide enough for a mask to be seen in the shadows within. Checkered white black blue gray, toowide crescent grin and eyes wide circles, impossibly luminous.
“Well! If it isn’t sister Witch! And one of her… pets~”
“Good afternoon, Fool,” said the Witch, in that overly-polite tone she used when the manor was entertaining a particularly unpleasant guest.
A course of giggles flew out from behind the motionless mask. “Me? Fooled? Oh goodness I hope not! I do believe I’m seeing everything as it truly is… But then again, one never knows!”
“Certainly they do not,” said the Witch briskly, “now if you don’t mind-“
“Ah, but I have EVER been a fool in love!” interrupted the Fool. “Made a fool of to think that there was something more between us, my dearest Witch~”
The doll looked up at its Witch accusingly. She caught the glance and sputtered, “Quit making up lies, Fool! We don’t have time.”
“Of course! Your precious little one is ill, yes? Come, dear. We’ll get you fixed up right as rain!”
The doll wondered how the Fool had known of its illness- it hadn’t coughed once since the door opened- but there was no time to ask as it was already being whisked away inside.
The Witch followed behind, gingerly closing the door. Strangely enough, the space inside had no opening to the light, leaving the entire place pitch dark. The doll grabbed out instinctively and found itself clinging to the Fool.
“Now let’s see, where did I put those…” said the Fool, rummaging in its pockets. “Ah! Here we are!” With an invisible flourish, the Fool cast a handful of stones onto the floor, clacking and skittering. Then, before the doll’s eyes, what had fallen to the ground as ordinary rocks began to light up and glow, showing the room inside as more overgrown than the forest they’d left. The lightstones began to stir and come to life, taking to the air like insects.
The doll craned its neck upwards. Trees grew to a claustrophobic bough close overhead, lining a long corridor whose floor, though visibly lined with shrubbery, still felt like stone under each of the doll’s steps. Its gaping was interrupted by a hand on its back which pushed it forwards and elicited new paroxysms of sick-breath expulsion.
“You know,” said the Fool as the doll muffled its coughs behind articulated hand, “I haven’t had a Witch’s plaything come through here since, let’s see, back when I was still learning to fiddle! Come to think of it, where did I put that old… Oh, it was a different Witch than yours, you understand,” they said, addressing the doll. Then, over their shoulder: “Much nicer than you! And a bigger hat!”
The Witch’s eyeroll was audible. The doll couldn’t help but grow a bit excited when it imagined a hat that big.
“See, she was having some behavioral issues with the poor thing, so she asked me to-“
“Isn’t this your workshop?”
The Witch’s question stopped the Fool in their tracks.
“As a matter of fact, my workshop isn’t for another five doors. But thank you kindly for interrupting!”
The doll scanned the walls but could see no doors.
The Witch smiled sweetly. “My mistake. Let’s get going!”
It was as the thick trunks parted to reveal passage to a room lined with delicate metal implements that the doll realized that its Witch had prevented the Fool’s finishing their story. Good thing she was there, the doll would never have caught that! (Still, it didn’t seem that dangerous! It wondered what happened to that other doll.)
As it wondered, the doll was led into a soft reclining chair and winched backwards, curve of the headrest leaving its neck protruding on display. The Witch hovered by the door, discontent evident on her face. The doll couldn’t help but wonder at it’s Mistress’ unseasonably dour mood.
The Fool got to selecting artful sticks of metal, conjoined and bent and sharpened into tools that all reminded the doll of a metal nutcracker.
“Witchy-pie,” they said casually, “would you mind fetching some rubyroot from the next room over? Shouldn’t take long.”
The Witch and her doll locked eyes, a warning carried over silent air.
“Oh, very well.” The Witch glided away on a sigh.
The fool wiped sweat from its skinless face with exaggerated gesture. “Now that she’s out of the way! Maybe we can start to even out the vibes, eh doll?”
It was the first time the Fool had called it doll. Their mask drew closer. This room had lamplight, a diffuse oil contraption on the ceiling. In the light the doll could study its- benefactor? Its body was obscured by a cloak, a shimmering shade dark enough that whatever color it may be was indistinguishable from black. Its lining was a dizzying whorl. The doll was only given brief glimpses in as the Fool worked, and when they turned away it could see the linen cloth wrapped around the parts of the Fool’s head that its mask couldn’t cover.
The doll’s staring was interrupted by the swing of a bevel stopping centimeters from its throat.
“Curious thing, aren’t you! Not a trait one sees in many dolls. Well, not for long anyway!”
The Fool giggled and the doll made to defend itself, but flinched away when the words brought its skin too close to the sharp at its neck.
“Uh uh uh! No speaking now. Your ailment requires much delicacy to remove. Just be patient.”
The blade slipped into its neck. There was no pain. Somehow it found path past plate and connective gear that not even the doll could have pinpointed. For the first time it began to think it may be in competent hands.
“That doll I mentioned earlier,” began the Fool. “You remember, yes? Don’t nod, I know you do. You see, ts Witch wasn’t happy with it, you understand. Nice enough woman but a Witch all the same. You know how they are. And that doll, yes it was many bright things but foremost it was curious like you.”
Like it? Wait… was this a story? Had the Fool started yet? The doll wasn’t sure. And its Witch had told it only to interrupt during the story, not before! It should wait and make sure. Besides, it wanted to know what happened to that other doll!
“Sparks like that aren’t to be squandered. And imagine, the Witch wanted me to squash it out! So old-fashioned.”
The doll’s breathing hitched as one of the multitudinous tools began to scrape against the delicate copper tubing that allowed it to mimic breath.
“And so the doll and I made an agreement. Behind its Witch’s back! Never seen a doll so brave! Of course, some would say horrible.”
The doll wasn’t sure if it would call that one a Horrible Doll or not. One didn’t become head doll without seeing one’s fair share of what befell a misbehaving cog in the clockwork.
“I sent the doll back, told its Witch it was right as rain. If it kept up the act who would know? But you see, all I really did was give the doll an idea. A foolish idea, really, but an idea all the same. Do you know what it was?”
The doll didn’t. The pressure in its throat was making it lightheaded.
“As the doll left, I simply gave it my honest opinion.
“‘You could be a better Witch than she ever was.’”
The Witch stepped in the door holding a small pot. “It was a pigsty in there! Here, here’s what you asked for.”
The mask pivoted to gaze directly at the Witch as the Fool’s unwatched hand yanked away out of the Doll’s neck. With it was pulled a single strand of pox-ivy, twisted and gnarled and budding sharp. The doll felt a dizzy spell of weightlessness course through its body, radiating emptiness from the newly unfilled cavity.
“Oh, my mistake! Looks like I didn’t need it after all.”
The tendril wriggled in the air. If the doll didn’t know any better it would say that the vine’s sharp buds were beckoning it forward.
“Now, Witch,” said the Fool, unnatural firm. “If you don’t mind, I was in the middle of a story-“
“Oh, there’ll be no need for that. Come along, doll.”
The doll hopped out of its chair, savoring the lightness in its body, clarity in its throat and voice. Yet it knew its Witch would like to be gone as quickly as they could, and so it rushed to stand beside her.
“You can consider us even, if you like,” said the Witch sternly, and the air around the Fool stiffened for a long solid moment before it let out one final giggle, the longest the doll had heard them give.
“Of course of course! I know how busy a Witch’s life can be. But don’t you dare be a stranger, now! Nor should you, little one! Until next season, you two!”
On the way home the doll pondered the story fragment it had been given. Apparently there was more to come, even though to the doll it had seemed a proper ending. Luckily enough it wasn’t! Otherwise its Witch would have been too late to save it from… something? She’d never said. And the doll was having trouble imagining the outcome as anything too unpleasant.
“What was the Fool telling you about, doll?” The Witch’s voice was airy, but the doll could tell she was forcing it that way.
“Nothing interesting,” lied the doll. “It wasn’t really listening.”
As far as it could recall, it had never lied to Miss before, about anything. And yet this had slipped out so easily. It had seemed crucial. It still did, even as it bit back regret.
“As well you shouldn’t have! Last thing we need is a doll getting Foolish ideas in its head. Never ends well. For anyone!”
“Yes, miss. Of course, miss.”
Even as it spoke, the words still ringing through its head played louder than the ones emerging past its lips.
“You could be a better Witch than she ever was.”
Foolish, it knew, to be so hung up on words not even meant for it. And yet, it struggled to fall asleep that night.
In the days to come it found itself particularly attuned to its Witch’s small slip-ups. A mispronounced name from the Grimoire. Wrath that rose to the surface just a bit too slowly, a bit too artificial. (And her hat really could stand to be a bit bigger…)
As Winter fell the doll’s gnawing curiosity that had been so prized, so noticed, grew to a searing heat within it.
Would it- could it- be a better Witch than its own?
Surely not. It was a Foolish idea.
But it was an idea that would not leave, that it could not for an instant forget.
After all, smiles the Fool, as its scrawling penstroke maps the cosmos to the page:
Every unfinished story begs for its conclusion.
(originally published on Twitter here)