When I got back from the Academy, Rose wasn’t the same witch I’d left. In her loneliness she had turned to dollmaking. Some of her new companions had been built from scratch. Others I recognized as former folks from around town.
(One had been my school buddy, Jerms— I was incensed, at first, that she would turn one of my friends into a doll without even, I don’t know, consulting me? Or at least giving me a heads up of what to expect?— Yes, that was more reasonable. It’s not like Jerms needed my permission to Become. They hadn’t belonged to me, we were just friends— But now they belonged to Rose. And were we still friends? I thought at first we must be. But Jerms did not seem to care about me at all anymore— It never noticed when I said anything clever or made a silly joke. Half the time I had to repeat myself before it would even hear me. It would say “oh, this one sees!” but its eyes lit up only for Rose— It’s fine. It’s just a stupid doll, I would say in my head, to try and dispel the anger? hurt? betrayal? But I did not really believe it.)
It didn’t really matter, though. Rose was the one I wanted, and now that I was done with school, we were together again. She wanted to know all about my courses, what I’d learned—I’d majored in Magical Theory with a concentration in Earth/Space Magic—and she wanted to read all of my textbooks and have me explain everything.
We were supposed to go to the Academy together, after all, but at the last minute she withdrew— something about money— and had to figure out more advanced magic on her own. That’s when she got into the dollmaking, a common vocation of uneducated witches. (I admit I looked down on her for it a little, at first— the mages at the Academy thought dolls were mostly silly little pests— they did employ some, as laborers, of course, but nobody specialized in doll-making— making dolls was just something you do in between more important magic, to make ends meet or as a party trick.)
So after four years of self-teaching my sweetheart was desperate for access to my course materials and knowledge. Turned out it was all over her head. Maybe another branch of theoretical magic would have suited her better, or maybe she would have gone into History or something Practical. I tried to explain things, but she had a problem with my tone. She said I was condescending, patronizing her— I didn’t mean to— but I really couldn’t figure out how to talk in a way that she found acceptable. She made me leave the room and went over the texts with some of her more intellectually-minded dolls.
In the end, she gave up, saying Theory of Earth/Space Magic was useless, a waste of time, irrelevant! I went and slept at my parents’ that night. I thought about ending the whole thing. I was writing an article for TESMT (Theory of Earth and Space Magic Today) and if the woman at my side couldn’t respect my field… a dollmaker, of all things…and yet, I knew I couldn’t leave her.
-
When I went over the next day she apologized. Said she was just insecure that she might never measure up as a mage since she couldn’t go to the Academy. Wanted to try and prove that she could catch up on her own, but an Academy education of course involved qualified teachers, prerequisites, discussion with classmates, different subjects that might suit her better—it was folly to think she could pretend none of that mattered and she could make do with just my old textbooks. She said, “it’s okay. We went different directions, but I’m obviously still very magical. I may not have a degree, but just look at all of these dolls!”
It would have been rude to disparage dollmaking at that point, so I agreed with her. And so we lived together—her dolls and potions bringing in modest sums (for she had also learned potion making while I was in school) and my academic papers bringing in even more modest sums (but soon I would be hired at an institution, and get tenure, and provide for us all, I was certain).
We lived together, yes, though we did not sleep together. (Four or five dolls shared Rose’s bed— there was not room for me— I did not want to be in bed with the dolls— Rose did not want me in bed with the dolls—I got the sense nobody wanted me in bed with the dolls.) I had my own bed, which I shared whenever Rose chose to be intimate with me. Often when she was done she would crawl back to her own bed (where her dolls waited for her.) Sometimes she would stay and snuggle for a few hours, or until I fell asleep— then in the morning she would be gone.
If we were to marry, I thought, this might change. The Marriage Bed had a certain gravitas, even to witches. But then, I wasn’t sure. When Rose had herself closeted away one evening, with the finance dolls, going over the taxes, I tracked down Jerms.
Jerms was playing a game we used to always play together in school. I insisted it let me join. It handed me a controller.
Since becoming a doll, Jerms had gotten very good at the game. Or maybe it was that I was inebriated. Anyway, I got up the courage to ask Jerms if it thought its mistress even loved me.
“Yes,” said Jerms. “Mistress has loved you since you were in school together. What’s more, Mistress gives you your own room, and your own bed, and does not even require obedience or loyalty in return.”
“But I am loyal,” I said.
“This one supposes it is a type of loyalty,” said Jerms. “Good game.” The race was over. Jerms had won.
-
I mulled over what it said for a good while. I had my own room and my own bed in Rose’s house, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to be in her room, in her bed— No— I wanted to live with her in Our house, sleep with her in Our bed. That would feel like real love. Now it was like she was my room mate— No!— like she was my landlady, who had sex with me sometimes. If we were married, would that change? Would I take the dolls’ place in her bed? Would they at least allow me to share?
No—she loves the dolls more, I could not help but conclude.
When I asked her about this, she said “Of course I don’t love the dolls more than you.” But then she said “a love a witch has for her dolls is different. It is unexplainable. You wouldn’t understand.”
I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave Rose. In that moment she felt like my entire world—my earth, my space, my magic. Without her there was no point to anything. Plus, leaving somehow felt like giving her the upper hand… she could say I left of my own volition, claim I had done her wrong, even, when she would still have her home and her dolls and I would have nothing.
I tried not to reveal my anguish on my face, but she could tell I was not comforted by her answer. She stroked my hair. “Have you ever thought of marriage, my dear? Sometimes I think it would be nice… only you spend so much time shut up in your room, my dolls hardly know you. I couldn’t marry someone my dolls weren’t comfortable with. Why don’t you try and get to know them better?”
It was not easy. The dolls were not my intellectual equals— the Academy had impressed this upon me— and now they were my rivals. But they were Rose’s, and they weren’t going anywhere. She loved them— She wanted me to love them too, perhaps— If I could understand a witch’s love for a doll, I could understand her, perhaps— If I could love the dolls, get them to love me, then maybe I’d finally be her equal in the household— We could both be Mistresses to the dolls!— instead of one Mistress and one weird academic the Mistress housed and clothed and sometimes slept with— Then we could marry! That had to be what she was getting at. That was the only outcome that felt right.
Of course I would have to go about this delicately. The dolls would not immediately accept me as a second Mistress, I would have to insinuate myself gradually.
I spent more time with Jerms, an easy entry point, I thought, considering our shared history. While it beat me over and over again in our games together, I recalled some fond memories to it.
“Remember that time we were watching that scary movie and we were all jammed up together on the couch and I was basically in your lap and you leaned forward and whispered something in my ear?” I said. I couldn’t remember what it had said, just that its breath had felt so tingly.
It did not respond. A few moments passed. “Good game,” said Jerms. It started another race.
“And then—,” I said, “you held my hand during the scary parts— You knew I was scared!— You were trying to comfort me!— And then… when Rose got there and…you wanted to make space for her— you pulled me further onto your lap— and I felt—”
Jerms turned off the game then. “This one prefers not to think about things it did before it Became. Apologies.” It got up and left.
-
“Jerms is worried you’re lonely,” Rose said to me the next day.
“Oh, of course not. How could I be lonely? I’m living with the love of my life.” I tried to smile.
Rose sighed. “Well, the love of your life is very busy,” she said. “Anyway, I was wondering if you’d do something for me. My little Anisette wants to know more about your Earth Space Theory. Would you teach it? It won’t mind your condescending manner.”
“Oh, of course,” I said. I agreed, but it was a little insulting. Rose was implying I was less busy than her— true— but rude to point out. Bringing up that frustrating time when I tried to explain Earth Space Theory to her and she said I was condescending— Plus, Anisette was one of Rose’s favorite dolls, one she had made from scratch. My greatest rival, I thought.
It wouldn’t behoove me to be cruel to the doll, I thought, so in our lessons I tried to stay neutral. But the creature was endearing, I softened towards it. It’s not just that it was beautiful, though it was. Rose had designed it to be beautiful— in fact, it looked a lot like her. It was small, a foot shorter than me, and made out of delicate, glazed porcelain, like the really expensive kind you see in the shops. Rose had put all her efforts into making this one look special. I had previously brushed it off as a frivolous, ornamental thing, with no good reason to even exist, but— it really wanted to learn about Earth/Space Magic Theory.
It loved Earth/Space Magic. It saw the beauty that its Mistress could not. I began to wonder if I had been mislead— perhaps dolls could be intellectual equals after all. Anisette was the equal of its mistress, at least, even considering all of its silly mannerisms. It liked to sit in my lap while we read together, and kiss me goodbye at the end of every lesson, and I started getting shivers just being in the same room as it. When it wasn’t there I found myself thinking about it, what we could talk about in the next course, what it would think about new developments in the field, if I should try to find it some nice presents.
Anisette helped me become acquainted with the other dolls as well. There were five, besides it and Jerms: Iris (strong, silent type), Buttonhole (affectionately known as B-hole), Parquor (liked jumping around and spreadsheets), Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (only answered to its full name), and Kelpy (patchwork mermaid doll). Jerms seemed to want to keep its distance at first—which I understood, considering my indiscretion with the memories—but it warmed up to me again as well, playing video games with me once more.
So I was getting on with the dolls, and finally I heard back from Stelton Magic Academy about the adjunct position I had applied for. They were interested!
I told Rose about the adjunct position. She seemed indifferent. “You would have to move back out there,” she said.
“We… I was thinking we would. Together.”
She shrugged, and looked me in the eye. She was smiling but she sounded angry. “I have a home here. I have a business here. I don’t want to live near your Academy where everyone has a degree or is pursuing a degree and I’d just be the Theory adjunct’s girlfriend with her dollies.”
“I-I could help you get into a program—”
“No! Don’t you get it? I’m not interested in magic school anymore. I like it here. I’m my own mistress here. I’m not going to fucking Stelton.”
“S-so… you’re saying I should… go alone.” I tried to smile, but my voice was wobbling like when you’re going to cry.
“No,” she softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I love you. I want you to live here, with me. But what if you got a job someplace near here? You could… teach basic theory at a primary or secondary school.”
“But you’ve seen me teach. I couldn’t teach kids.”
She booped me on the snoot. “From what Anisette tells me, your teaching has improved a lot.”
-
I was in my room writing a letter declining the adjunct position when Rose came storming in. She didn’t knock or anything. I was so startled my inkwell went flying.
“Anisette,” she hissed, “says it loves you.”
This would have been lovely to hear if the tone accompanying it had been any gentler.
“Anisette,” she went on, “says that you told it that if you and I got married, we could both be its Mistress. It says it wants that.”
“…” I had mentioned something to that effect, though it had just been in a hypothetical kind of way. Like seeing if it was even a possibility, if that was something Anisette had room for in its brain.
“You will never be Mistress here. You will never be my equal. How dare you. What were you thinking?…WELL?”
“I thought you—wanted me—to get—to know them—”
“There is a difference between making friends with someone else’s dolls, and trying to seduce them. There is a difference between making friends with someone’s dolls, and a fucking coup.”
It was clear that I had crossed a boundary. It had been, for the most part, unintentional. Silly to think that she could ever have seen me as anything but the academic in the spare room. Silly to think she would ever share her domain, be a co-mistress. Silly to think she would ever share Anisette, for that matter. Her favorite.
I realized then that I had done it. I had made her jealous. She was jealous that Anisette loved me, even a little bit. It hadn’t been intentional but I couldn’t deny I wanted it. I wanted to shake her dolls’ devotion. I wanted to shake her world. I wanted her to see me.
She saw these thoughts crossing my mind and I knew she was desperate to know what they were. “Say something!” she demanded. “Answer me!”
I knew whatever I said would be met with a rebuttal, to put me in my place. I didn’t have the wherewithal to say anything that would really cut her. It was just happening so fast.
“You worthless quack, you’ve been looking down at me this whole time,” she seethed. “Think you can be Mistress here? Think you can command my dolls? You don’t even respect dollmancy. Now answer me!”
I didn’t really want to hear anymore at that point. I got up, crumpling the destroyed rejection letter in my hand. “I guess you don’t want to get married,” I said.
She laughed, but I knew she was even more angry. “Get out. I’ll have the dolls bring your things to your parents’ house.”
-
I accepted the adjunct position after all and made arrangements to move back to Stelton. I didn’t reach out to Rose, and she didn’t reach out to me. I had left—had been ejected—and as predicted, I had nothing. But at least I knew that she’d think of me, and hurt, every time she looked at Anisette. For a few terrible days, that was my only consolation. Then I felt numb.
That’s when Anisette came. “This one is a bad doll,” is the only thing it could say for the first five minutes, through tears. “Mistress hates it,” it finally got out. “She won’t speak, she won’t look at it. This one thought she wanted it to love you. It promises! But now Miss has thrown you away. It’s this one’s fault.”
Perhaps I should have tried to comfort it. But seeing it just made me feel empty.
“Th…this one,” it said, tears streaming down its cheeks. I did not know dolls could weep, “this one is very bad, but it wonders if you will take it with you to the Academy. It would serve you. It would help with your classes. You would be its Mistress. And it…could keep learning.”
Fascinating. “Rose isn’t allowing you to offer this? You’re doing it of your own accord?”
“Sh-she doesn’t know I’m here, and I know she wouldn’t want this,” Anisette wept, “I’m so very bad. But if you became my Mistress… then it wouldn’t matter.”
“Hm,” I said, and I came up with something cruel, my last chance at getting back at Rose. “So if I don’t become your Mistress, you have to go back to Rose and confess, then?”
“Y-yes,” said Anisette. “A-and…she will punish this one.”
“Then you’ll have to tell her you asked me to be your Mistress instead of her, and you’ll tell her I said no. You’ll tell her, you’ll tell her I said, you’re getting this? You’ll tell her I said it’s beneath me.”
Still weeping, the little doll took its leave.
-
I never made it to Stelton. I was about to get on the bus with my luggage when I heard someone calling my name.
It was Jerms. “Something has happened,” it explained, taking my arm. “You’ll have to come with us.” Buttonhole and Iris grabbed my luggage.
As a human, I could have taken Jerms in a fight. But I knew Doll Jerms was very much reinforced. No point resisting.
It was kind of nice, anyway. I remembered the last time Jerms had been this close, it was on that couch, when we were watching that movie together. They had liked me. I had liked them. Could I have done something differently, ended up with them somehow? Now it couldn’t bear to think of our past together.
“What happened, Jerms? At least tell me what happened.”
“Mistress has to tell you that,” Buttonhole said. There was a tear in its eye.
-
Rose said “Anisette tried to Unmake itself. I need you to corroborate its note.”
I looked at the crumpled sheet of paper in my hand. We were in her workshop. Jerms hovered behind me. “W-what? Unmake, what does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like,” said Rose. She sounds composed. “It didn’t fully succeed. But it is very heavily damaged. I don’t know if you care either way, it just seemed cruel to leave you wondering. I do try not to be needlessly cruel.”
“Is… is it okay?” Stupid question. Regretted it as soon as it left my mouth.
I wondered if that’s why we were in the workshop. Was Anisette going to be brought in here so I could see the damage?
“It may be, someday. For the moment it is barely conscious. I have sent it to stay with a friend. It will receive the utmost care during its recovery. Meanwhile, as Mistress of the house, I need to address the mistakes I have made that got us here. Read the note, if you please. I’m sure Anisette told the truth, but I need you to confirm.”
Anisette’s note was its confession. How it had come to me…how it had begged…I hadn’t thought much of it at the time but I realized maybe it wasn’t very sensitive to use Anisette to get one last dig at Rose. “It’s true,” I said. “I shouldn’t have said… but…”
“You were cruel, yes. But I know you were in pain and I did not expect any better. As Mistress, any fault in the loyalty of my dolls comes from me. It was wrong to have you living in my house all that time with your relationship to my dolls so ambiguous. We should have outlined boundaries, drawn up contracts even.”
“Like marriage?”
“Actually, I don’t think marriage would have worked out between us,” said Rose. “But I have a better idea now.” She gave Jerms a subtle nod.
Before I could process what happened, I was on my back on the work table, and Jerms, Rose, Iris, and Buttonhole were strapping down my arms and legs.
“W-what are you doing?” I whimpered at her.
“Something I should have done long ago,” said Rose. She grabbed a big saw from her shelf.
“Look at this one,” Jerms whispered. It was holding my hand. There was a warmth, a gentleness to its gaze. “Lilac.” It squeezed my hand. “Don’t look at her. Look at this one. It’s going to be—”
.
thanks for reading! inspired by Heartless.