My ex got the dolls in the breakup. That made sense, since they were all hers. Only, it left me quite alone in the world.
The squalid basement I moved into should have been the perfect place to brew potions, but for some reason or another, they kept failing. Probably it had to do with my anxiety. But the anxiety-reducing potions I was brewing these days were completely ineffective. So I had to raw-dog the world. There was nothing to stop my brain from transforming normal stimuli into fear. Cynthia had left me. I had lost my home with her. I had lost the dolls, whom I loved dearly. I had even lost my place in the coven. Nothing was safe.
I had the feeling the family who lived upstairs regretted renting me the place. One day their distaste for me would outweigh their love for the 50 gold I gave them every month for letting me use that dank hole and I would be cast on the street. Or I would run out of money, first, if I couldn’t replenish my stock of effective potions to sell. I’d be on the street.
The final straw came when I was attacked on my way back from market one evening. A combat doll, one I recognized, though not one of Cynthia’s. It belonged to a witch in my ex-coven, and it was sent to punish me for “stealing coven secrets”—apparently I wasn’t supposed to use anything resembling the techniques or recipes I had picked up while I was in the coven. Never mind that I could barely make a healing salve in my state. The doll, Minette, apologized when it was done. Curled up in a ditch with my remaining stock spilling from cracked bottles and pooling up around me, I couldn’t reply. Minette told me that if I didn’t change my ways, it would be back, it was sorry to say. It hoped I was otherwise doing well. Then it leaped away, disappearing from my sight. The spilled potions seeped into my clothes and the left side of my face and burned me like acid, while the light of the full moon shone down upon me.
I managed to crawl out of the ditch and drag myself back to my hole. There was a little salve left in the cupboard. Not enough to save my face completely. I would be disfigured. The ugly sort of witch, the frightening kind with a twisted face, not the soft spoken apothecary the family upstairs thought they had rented to. They’d surely reconsider, now. And Cynthia would never want me back. No one would.
I couldn’t see a way forward, all that night. If only that doll had just killed me. I wondered if I had it in me to brew a poison. If only I just had a little bit of confidence. If only someone were here with me… like Cynthia, or at least one of her dolls…
That’s where I got the idea, really. I remembered Cynthia’s doll, Lunacy. A combat doll, whose strength doubled in the light of the moon. If Lunacy were there to protect me, I wouldn’t be too scared to make potions. The Lahans wouldn’t dare to evict me. Local children wouldn’t laugh at me. And when Minette came back, Lunacy could stop it from finishing me off.
But Lunacy was Cynthia’s, and could never be mine. Still, maybe a different, lesser combat doll could be got. Witches usually got their dolls from other witches, if she couldn’t make one for herself, but as I had become every witch’s enemy, I would have to look elsewhere.
There was a store for second-hand dolls in town, which had an array of decommissioned combat dolls, soldiers from the war that had been replaced by newer models. These generic models would not be as sophisticated as ones designed for the use of a witch, plus many of them suffered from PTSD, so witches shunned them, and they were bought by regular people, used as guards or for other menial purposes.
I looked into my savings. Three months’ rent left… just enough to purchase one of these dolls. But if it gave me the confidence boost I needed to brew potions, I was sure I could make it all back in a few weeks, and more besides. And then I could buy more and more combat dolls, and when Minette came back, they might just be enough of a deterrent to get the coven off my back.
When I was well enough, I hobbled back to town with my entire savings. The secondhand shop had an assortment of dolls. Four combat dolls, recently discharged from battle, equipped with only very basic armor, a dead look in their eyes. I knew they were the reason I came, but I gave them a wide berth. Something about them disturbed me. I thought maybe they knew the witches hated me. I thought maybe they didn’t like the look of me. I thought they could never see me as a true witch, worthy of their respect. I thought they wanted to kill me.
Six maid dolls of wood and plastic, in their demure black dresses were there too. Passing a broom and feather duster back and forth they took turns sweeping and dusting, pleased to fulfill their purposes even in this small way. One came up and tried to dust me. I shrank away. “This one is sorry, Miss.”
Another doll perched on a windowsill in the back corner of the shop, gazing up at the sky. When I approached it, it turned to look at me.
It was made of cloth. Of rags. Patches were scattered over its arms and legs and particularly the left side of its face. Its clothes were of patchwork as well—a patchwork skirt, dress, and apron. Its features were embroidered over the patches, a crooked, unnerving smile, eyes of different sizes. Its hair was red yarn, sticking out at all angles. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. It stared into my soul. I came closer, like something was bidding me towards it. It stretched out an arm towards me. It touched my blistered face.
“Ah, interested in Patches?” The shopkeeper had crept up on me. I jumped, almost fell. The doll, suddenly standing, had caught me in its soft arms. The shopkeeper chuckled. “Sorry, Miss,” they said. “Patches has been here a while, but I could let it go for 100. That’s a discount, you know.”
I didn’t know what to do. It was a terrifying situation. How could I explain to the shopkeeper that, no, I had come here for a combat doll, something to protect me, except I was too afraid of the combat dolls, and could they please select one for me and make it understand that it was to protect me, and be nice to me, and make me feel safe?
“I…” was all could say. Patches was still supporting me. I caught my balance. It was tall, taller than me, though its legs had bowed under my weight when it caught me.
“All right, 90. But that’s the lowest, or my boss will be on my ass.”
I thought of how to explain to the shopkeeper that no, I couldn’t spend more than half of my money on a doll that probably couldn’t even protect me, and, indeed was in terrible shape, in need of mending still in spite of all of its patches, and how was such a doll worth more than 50 gold, tops? Were they trying to scam me? But I couldn’t say any of that, so I took 90 gold out of my purse, and handed it to the shopkeeper. They thanked me, beaming. The doll’s smile, stitched on as it was, seemed to grow. I hobbled out of the store. It followed me.
On the way home, it kept tapping me. I realized it was offering me its arm. I was getting so tired I finally took it. The sight of us made the local children stare. We were certainly a pair, both of us staggering along, arm in arm, with ruined faces. I knew I had been scammed, taken advantage of in my anxiety, and I felt ill thinking about the money I had lost to my foolishness. I’d have to find a new plan to haul myself out of my horrid situation in the basement with the worthless potions and an entire coven bent upon wiping me off the face of the earth. Still, I felt a strange affection for the silent, grinning doll. It was my doll, after all. The first doll I’d ever had that was mine, all mine. No one could take it away from me.
When we got home, I undressed and went straight to bed, I was so exhausted from that walk, in my condition. I woke up hours later to Patches sitting by me with a damp rag, cleaning my wounds. Then it wrapped them up in clean bandages. Its round, unblinking eyes stared down at me. It smiled its unchanging smile. I felt tears rolling down my face and soaking into the bandages. Patches climbed into the bed next to me and held me.
Over the next few days, Patches cared for me, dressing my wounds, cleaning the squalid basement we dwelt in, and even preparing my meals. Part of me still couldn’t believe that I could count on it, part of me expected to wake up the next day and find Patches gone, everything a dream, myself alone again in the ditch. But every day I woke up to Patches holding me in its arms.
When I was well enough, I tried a test brew. The potion, an anti-anxiety draught, was 30 percent efficacious. Better than nothing. I could sell weak potions like this at a steep discount and maybe break even. It was a start. But the thought of selling potions at the marketplace again made me nervous, because I knew the coven would hear about it.
I needed to save up enough money to go back to the shop and get a combat doll. I told Patches about my plan. It smiled at me, nodding, but there was a weird glint in its eyes.
As weeks progressed, my potions slowly began to improve. Patches walked me to town to purchase ingredients, helped me pick out a handsome staff to make walking and magic easier, helped me gather herbs in the countryside, even played with the Lahan children to set them at ease about me. I began to believe their parents would not evict me, even if I ever was a few days late with rent. But as my funds ran out, I knew I would have to go to the marketplace and began to sell my new, weak stock.
We did reasonably well, me and Patches. I worried customers would be too repulsed by my twisted features, and some of them were. Children hung back, intimidated by me but intrigued by Patches. There were combat dolls, maid dolls, even beautiful porcelain dolls helping at the stands of the other witches. No other witch at the marketplace had a doll like Patches.
I was selling a new potion, a formula that Patches had helped with. The drinker would go to sleep and have a dream in which Patches appeared to lead them through a forest and help them safely confront their fears and anxieties. Customers were intrigued. They bought it along with the regular offerings—healing salves, draughts for pain, libido potions, and magic hormones.
Close to the end of my day, I looked up and saw Cynthia and Lunacy frowning down at me. Patches smiled at them.
My heart started racing. Patches took my hand. My mouth was suddenly so dry. “God, what happened to you,” Cynthia muttered.
Tears started to my eyes. It was Minette that happened to me, Cynthia and her coven that happened to me, but I couldn’t form words. Cynthia should have helped me. She could have helped a little. She didn’t have to throw me away like that. I almost died.
Patches stood up, and stepped over the table to face Cynthia, landing a mere breath from her. Cynthia stumbled backwards. Lunacy’s blade was at Patches’ neck, or, well, the place where its head was stitched to its body.
“Say the word, Miss,” said Lunacy.
“L-leave it, Luna. Let’s just g-go.”
I hoped that Cynthia wouldn’t report my stand to the coven. The potions were so weak, and only some of them were coven formulations. I hoped she would at least pity me enough not to say anything. But as we closed up, I downed all of my remaining strength, magic, and agility potions. And I turned to Patches.
“Patches,” I said. “If any dolls or witches come to attack me, I want you to keep yourself safe. Run, hide, whatever you need to do. Then… then if they leave me alive, you can nurse me back to health, if you want. And if I die, well… the Lahan children love you. Perhaps you can go live with them.”
Patches cocked its head questioningly. “Understand?” I said. It nodded, but there was something strange about its eyes then.
I was brimming with magic the whole walk. I knew I could channel it through my staff and knock a combat doll off its feet a couple times. And I was physically strong enough to grapple with it, though I didn’t really know how to grapple, at least I could probably hold off some of the punches and kicks. My potions were in a sealed leather bag, so even if the bottles broke, they wouldn’t spill everywhere and burn me again. And it was good that I had made these preparations, because the sun set, and there was Minette, standing in the road blocking me.
I tossed my potion sack off to the side, stepped in front of Patches, and raised my staff. “L-leave us alone, Minette,” I said. “T-tell the coven I won’t allow them to stop me brewing potions just because I made the mistake of studying with them for a few years.”
“This one is sorry,” Minette said, and charged at me. It was almost upon me before I remembered to blast it back with my staff. When it got up again, its eyes were glowing. “Miss has grown stronger!” it cried, pleased. “This one won’t hold back!”
Soon enough, of course, my liquid strength ran out, and Minette was beating me to a pulp in a ditch again. Then I saw a cloth hand on Minette’s shoulder.
Minette turned around. Patches took Minette’s hand, pulled it upright. Minette frowned. “Excuse this one—“ it began.
For the first time since I had brought it home, I saw Patches open its mouth. A void, a swirling vortex appeared over its stitched smile. Patches drew Minette’s hand into it.
Minette screamed and pulled away vainly. Minette’s hand disappeared in Patches’ mouth, its forearm, its elbow. Patches swallowed its entire arm up to its shoulder and put its hand on Minette’s head, as if to say ‘this next’.
“Please,” Minette begged, its voice in a higher octave than before. “I’ll leave your mistress alone. I’ll beg the coven to leave her alone. I’ll explain. Please, please, please, this one is only doing what it must.”
Patches released Minette. It fell to the ground, spasming. Its right arm was gone, its left arm reached groped for it, its hand closing around nothing.
Patches turned to me and held out its hand. Its gaping mouth closed. Its friendly smile reappeared.
I took its hand. It helped me up. It picked up my staff, which it returned to me, and my bag of potions, which it carried for me. Then it took my hand again, and nodded at the road ahead. Time to go home.
I looked back at Minette. “I’m sorry, Minette,” I said. “Please get home safe.”
“Th-thank you for sparing this one,“ I heard it whisper, as we left.
We got home, to our basement, which was cheerful, airy, bright, thanks to Patches’ efforts. Patches bowed its head. I wondered if it was sheepish about having finally revealed its hellmouth, about my glimpse into what it truly was. I wondered if it thought I was afraid of it now. But I would never be afraid again.
“Patches, may I kiss you?” I asked.
Patches looked at me. Cradling its head in my hands, I pulled its mottled face down to mine, and kissed its embroidered lips. I felt infinity twitching and vibrating behind them.