"Listen. There once was a doll owned by a minor noble family, whose house became diminished by cruel circumstance…"
Diminished all the way, in fact. The lord and the lady and their two grown sons and their doll servant, on their way back from wintering in the capital, drove onto a bridge and did not make it to the other side. The ravine was deep, the meltwater in the mountain streams in the spring was cold, and no one in the carriage could swim. These tragedies happen on treacherous mountain routes. However, while dolls are heavy and cannot swim, neither can they drown or suffer hypothermia, and the doll servant's story did not end there. She attempted to rescue the family that owned her, and when rescue proved impossible, she succeeded in burying them. It was her last duty to their line. Afterwards, as she sat in stillness on the bank of the very river that had claimed her household, the realization came to her that she was free.
While her owners had been little worse than many possible owners, judging by others she had observed at the queen's court in the capital, they were little better. There had been other nobles with their own retainers, humans and dolls both, and some of them had at least acknowledged the service of their servants. A "well done" here, a "thank you" there. Just a nod of appreciation once in a while was more than she usually got.
There had been a court witch who was always more than courteous to her when their paths crossed, which was too rarely. The witch was short, with grey eyes and grey hair, but the rich grey of those cats that are almost blue. She called herself Smoke. Smoke seemed concerned about the doll, and was always solicitous about her state of repair, the responsibility of a few court witches for nobles at court. She was also solicitous about her mood, which is not a concept that the doll had much experience of, at that date.
For some reason, it had deeply affected the doll when she learned that Smoke had a doll of her own: a tall, severe protector with hair of spun gold, a body carved from petrified wood bound in gilded brass, and a sword of heavy steel that no man could wield or even lift. Smoke referred to her with an actual name: Sunrise.
It had affected her even more to meet Sunrise, whose first words to her had been, "Smoke suggested you needed some kind of looking-after. What's the trouble?"
How could she explain heartbreak, of a kind, when she had no words for it, and no heart to break? How could she compete with gold and steel and a name? If Sunrise belonged to Smoke, then she couldn't belong to Smoke as well. And in any case, she was already owned.
But that had been before the river. The plan came to her then as she sat in stillness on its bank. She was free. She would find a name, or make one, or be given one, or steal one if she had to. She would find her own glory, her own versions of gold and steel, become a doll worthy of a witch. And then she would find a witch like Smoke.
The thought that "dolls don't find witches, witches make and own dolls" did not escape her, but there was a place in her mind for thoughts that did not serve a purpose, and she put it there.
Her home, such as it had been, was her former owners’ family seat, Estray Manor. It sat alongside a stream in a thick pine forest, set a little apart from the open fields and the peasants that the Estrays had indifferently ruled. The remaining household servants would be returning now, even as the Estrays themselves should have been, if not for the caprice of rot and the inevitability of gravity. Winters at Estray Manor were dark and oppressive, and this early in the spring, the days were still short and the nights still long.
She had no great attachment to the place, but as of now, she had nothing but the plan and one ragged dress. She needed shelter from the elements, she needed her spare clothes and the small tools with which she maintained her body, and she’d once overheard her lord and lady talking about money cached in the walls and in the cellars, beyond the sight of the queen's tax agents.
On top of that, even an owned thing such as a doll servant craves a home and a few things of its own. She was free now, and found she craved them no less, indeed, even more now that she had the plan to secure them, and with it, the chance that she would fail.
So she went home to Estray Manor, walking day and night at a pace nothing living could maintain, and with luck, outpaced any news of a collapsed bridge and four fresh graves.
She came to it as a ghost.
It was dark when the doll finally came in sight of Estray Manor, not the star-speckled and occasionally moonlit dark of the open road, but the cloying dark under a dense forest's canopy, through which no starlight or moonlight could reach the ground. There was a glimmer far off that could only be the chimneys of the manor and its outbuildings. She paused to reiterate her plan to herself before going any further.
Once the lord and lady of the manor were known to be dead, there would be questions asked as to why only their doll servant survived. She did not think the actual answer would satisfy the other servants, and so desired to avoid them — she was not well-liked by the staff in general. It would be easier if they didn't know that she was here.
Closer to the manor, she saw the bobbing torch of the groundskeeper, making his nightly rounds. When you carry a torch, what you see most readily is the circle of torchlight, not what lurks outside it, so he was easy enough to follow in the dark. She trailed noiselessly behind the groundskeeper until they passed the main servants' quarters. It was there she left him.
Inside the servants' quarters, it was even darker; the bare stub of a torch glowed in a wall bracket. Most of the few manor staff who stayed the full winter must have already gone to sleep for the night. The doll adjusted her gait by a fraction so that her footsteps on the stone floor made the tiniest amount of noise: nothing that would wake a human sleeper, but enough so that she could find her way by echosight to the stairwell.
The one place in Estray Manor that had been hers in any sense other than responsibility was a small attic room on the third floor. It had been allotted to her to hold her tools and a few changes of uniform. It also had a bed, which was an unused leftover from a previous occupant, and a heavy wooden door, which did not lock but did occasionally stick in the damp.
The door was open.
As the echoes from her last footfall returned, she sensed a gap. She turned to see who had followed her.
An insistent brush against her leg and a low rumbling purr told her it was just one of the manor cats. As quiet as she had been, maybe she hadn't been quiet enough, or maybe the creature had smelled her, and was now giving her the manor-cat-approved scent. It'd surely move on once it worked out that no treats or head-scratches were forthcoming. Indeed, in a moment, it left, and vanished in the direction of the open door to her room. She pulled it open all the way and followed the cat in, hoping to quietly shoo it on its way so she could get what she had come for.
Instead, the doll felt heat, and saw, by the light of a small brazier, that there was someone sleeping in the bed in her room, and that the cat was about to jump on top of them. It wiggled its hindquarters to find its balance, and then it leapt. She snatched for it, but the creature twisted out of her grasp and made a solid four-point landing directly on the sleeper's chest.
"Owww," a small voice said. "Chevron! I left the door open for you, but if you don't want to stay and sleep next to me…" The sleeper rolled over, and then stopped talking to the cat, because they had seen the doll.
"Go back to sleep."
"I'm sorry! I didn't think they were back yet!"
The girl in the bed sat up and clutched the covers to her chest, along with the cat.
"Be still."
"I just needed a place to sleep!"
The cat yowled and ran out into the hallway. The nameless doll closed the door after it, leaving the two of them alone in the doll's room.
"I don't care."
"I'll find somewhere else tomorrow!"
The doll reached down and grabbed the collar of the girl's nightdress.
"If you can't be still, at least be quiet."
Wide fearful eyes stared back at her. The girl's mouth was agape, but she didn't make a sound.
Something about this felt uncomfortably familiar.
After a moment, the nameless doll loosened her grasp.
"You're going to answer some questions for me. Just nod or shake your head, if you can; answer quietly out loud, if you must. First question: the lord and lady are expected back on the 17th. Is this correct as far as you know?"
A nod.
"By my estimation, it is the 14th, or perhaps very early on the 15th. Is this correct?
Another nod.
"You're the gardeners' child."
A third nod.
The gardeners had their own cabin on the outskirts of the manor, where a forest clearing brought in enough sunlight to make gardening actually possible. She'd been there numerous times, carrying vegetables between the cabin and the main house's kitchen. The cabin's living area was certainly more spacious than this room.
"Why did your parents force you to leave?"
"They think I'm a witch," the girl said, in a tiny voice.
"Are you a witch?"
"Just because I can do a few things with magic doesn't mean I'm a monster."
The doll let that one pass for now. She had met other witches since the one that made her, Smoke among them, and she was not sure that any of them were monsters… but she was not sure that they were not monsters, either.
"Final question: why this room?"
"Well, it's your room, right? Felt safest somehow. You've never once yelled at me, even so much as scowled."
"I cannot yell or scowl."
"It doesn't matter that you can't," the girl said bitterly, "just that you don't."
The doll considered this. Her plan still had so many gaps. This girl was the closest thing to a witch at hand.
"You can stay," the nameless doll told the gardeners' daughter. "Tell no one that I am here. I may have questions and tasks for you later."
"I'll do whatever you want," the girl said, and that was the first time anyone had ever said that to the nameless doll, but it was not the last.
That morning, the nameless doll had the gardeners' daughter help her change into a fresh uniform. They made a start on repairing the dozens of little injuries that the river and the return had inflicted on her; her hair was a mess, and the gardeners' daughter helped her replace it with materials from the doll's maintenance kit. It took long enough that the girl's stomach began to growl. She did not complain; the doll had to dismiss her to go seek her breakfast, bidding her to tell no one that the doll had returned.
Now that she was no longer compelled to serve, the doll explored the manor and its occupants anew. She was fast and quiet, and when she was not hidden by darkness, she used every corner and niche and shrub to conceal herself from slowly scanning human eyes. The manor staff never saw her, but she saw them; she saw their daily routines and their brief moments of leisure, she heard their conversations and their prayers.
The nameless doll returned to her room. She repeated her plan to herself, quietly: "I will find a name, or make one, or be given one, or steal one if I have to. I will find my own glory…" and then she trailed off. "…become a doll worthy of a witch. And then I will find a witch like Smoke."
She hadn't got a name yet. She didn't really know what glory would feel like when she found it. She might have found a witch.
The gardeners' daughter was a long way from being a witch like Smoke, but presumably Smoke wasn't born to her power either. Maybe the nameless doll could… somehow build? train? escalate? the girl into a witch, or at least figure out how to nudge her in the right direction to become a witch herself. She knew little about magic, even that which animated her, and less about witches except what they were like in person and what their magic felt like, but she was going to have to learn, sometime soon.
Glory was beyond her at the moment. She'd come back for her things, but also for treasure: money that might be hidden in the walls, which could be better put to ensuring the continued existence of the doll, probably somewhere far away. But as she'd circulated unseen around the manor, its outbuildings and grounds, she'd crystallized a long-held suspicion that while the manor as a whole served the lord and lady as she had, it, like her, didn't need them, and it would continue on without them. Bread would be baked. Wood would be cut. Roads would be maintained. Why not with her at its center, instead of the late Estrays?
Yes. She would claim the manor, in its entirety, for herself. "A home," she said out loud. "A place to start from." That sounded good. "People… to take care of." That sounded good too. "Who need me." That sounded even better.
This was her plan now. Once more, from the top:
"I will find a name, or make one, or be given one, or steal one if I have to. I will claim this manor and its people, and become a doll worthy of a witch. And then I will find, or make, a witch like Smoke."
The nameless doll and the gardener's daughter sat on a part of the roof where no one could see them, taking advantage of the last of the day's sunlight to mend those of the doll's clothes that had survived the river.
"You said you would do whatever I wanted," the doll said to the girl. "Last night, when I found you in my bed."
"I did say that," the girl said, with some trepidation.
"I want you to tell me your name. I'm sorry, I don't think I ever learned it."
"Oh! Everybody calls me Rylee."
"But what do you call yourself?"
"Rylee." She shrugged. "My name's all right, I suppose. It works for me, Rylee the gardeners' daughter, servant to parsnips. Not like I have much chance of becoming Captain Rylee, or Bishop Rylee, or Queen Rylee, or hah, Shade-Befouled Rylee, Thrice-Cursed Witch of the Dark Forest. My parents should stop their worrying; who ever heard of a witch named Rylee?"
"Witches choose their names," the doll said. That was one of a few things she knew about witches. "When they come into their power. Mostly names that aren't names at all, like Autumn, or Chain, or Smoke."
"Is that so? Why? How do they choose them?"
"I don't know," the doll admitted, then added, "The witch Smoke has grey eyes and grey hair. But it can't be all that simple."
The girl thought on that for a bit while she sewed. She was a deft seamstress, made even more so by her magic; six needles danced in the air over and under a torn petticoat, and none of them held in her hands.
"Sure it can," she concluded. "Who's going to tell her off? Being a witch can't be all bad or no one would do it. If she thinks that smoke is a pretty thing and wants to share its name, well, good for her."
The subject of names seemed fruitful. If the girl felt that being a witch couldn't be all bad, the doll wasn't going to argue. Instead, it asked, "What do you think is pretty?"
the file ends here.
