it was Alayne’s first doll. she made it when she was twelve, as proof. no one had taught her to sew, so it came out ugly, with loose, weak seams and an uneven smile. no one had taught her to enchant, so it was slow, weak, barely able to form words, or move. but at least it was soft, made from an old t-shirt that said “summer blood drive”, and stuffed with fluff from an old dirty pillow and some of alayne’s hair. alayne showed it to everyone. no one seemed very impressed until Alayne commanded the doll to blink, and it did. to speak, and it said “awa”. then she was sent away to be apprentice to a witch.
the doll’s purpose was fulfilled at that time. it was Proof. Alayne brought it with her to the house of the witch who was teaching her, and Proof provided her some comfort for the first few years. it could not help with her studies, immobile as it was, nor could it help keep her room tidy. but it lay in her bed, waiting for her to return every night and throw her arms around it and hold it tight. lessons were hard, but there was Proof she belonged here.
Alayne learned how to correct everything she had done wrong with Proof, and made a great many other dolls, more and more beautiful, strong, intelligent, with interesting skills and abilities, out of all different materials. they could help Alayne with magic, clean her room, even defend her from enemies. and when the other witches came to her room to look at her dolls, they would see Proof and ask about it. Alayne began to feel ashamed of Proof, who looked so ugly and smelled a little, and who could only look from side to side and say “awa”. Proof could not even sit up, it would always slouch over. Alayne started stuffing it into a drawer when she had visitors, and eventually she brought it up into the attic and sat it in the corner. it looked so pathetic there that she brought up a little tea tray with an empty pot and some tea cups so one might think it was hosting a tea party and merely waiting for its guests to arrive. Alayne went back down the stairs and Proof slouched, falling onto its side.
.
for many months, Proof’s only visitor was a mouse, who would perch upon the teacup and regard it curiously for a few moments every day. one day some other doll came up to sweep, and noticed mouse droppings. it left and came back up with traps. “awa” was all Proof could say. the maid doll jumped. it hadn’t noticed the doll lying in the corner.
“apologies,” it said, and bent over to sit Proof up against the wall again. Proof tried to beg it to remove the traps, but it couldn’t make words. It fell sideways again once the doll was going back down the stairs.
Proof tried to communicate with the mouse about the traps, but ms. mouse seemed to know to avoid them. she seemed to appreciate Proof’s concern, and every day during her visits, she came closer and closer, until the day she laid a paw on Proof’s hand, peering anxiously at its face. Proof blinked in response. from that day on they were friends and ms. mouse brought back crumbs of cake from the kitchen to share, and would sleep in the crook of Proof’s shoulder every night. Proof would hum exceedingly simple little melodies and ms. mouse would squeak and in this way they came to understand that they loved one another and were devoted to one another and never wanted to be parted. and that’s when ms. mouse chewed a hole in Proof’s stomach, and moved her nest inside.
Proof had loved snuggling with Alayne, and snuggling with ms. mouse, but had never imagined what it could be like to be snuggled from the inside. it could feel ms. mouse’s warm, quivering body burrowing through its stuffing, rearranging it, patting it down, and the intensity of the sensations would have paralyzed it, if it weren’t nearly paralyzed to begin with. ms. mouse brought in some extra materials to make things nicer. some velvet she had chewed from a nice pillow downstairs. one witch’s silk hankie. shredded paper from an old outdated spellbook that had been left up here. it was so cozy in Proof that ms. mouse decided to have a baby. she gave birth to one baby mouse that winter and Proof felt that it would die with joy. it was so full of happiness and of mice and of nesting materials.
.
that was when the the other doll remembered to come back up and check the mouse traps. they were empty of course, but when it went to sit Proof up again, it noticed the hole in its stomach. it ran downstairs. terrified, ms. mouse took the baby and ran to the old nest to wait for things to settle down again.
from its position on the floor, Proof saw the tip of the Old Witch’s hat first. it had only seen this witch once, when years ago it had been presented as Proof of Alayne’s magical abilities. she seemed to recognize it, though, and had the other doll fetch Alayne, while she stooped over and poked at the hole with her wand.
and then Alayne appeared. a vision of beauty, a young woman now, blazing with magical energy. Proof had forgotten, or perhaps she was more beautiful than ever. It watched her face change from confusion to horror as the old witch explained that due to her negligence, her old doll had been infested by vermin and was now a biohazard. Alayne did as she was told. She put gloves on, lifted Proof into a plastic bag, tied a knot, and put it in an outside garbage bin. Proof couldn’t see through the bag very well but it thought Alayne might be crying.
late that night, Proof found itself being lifted in its bag and brought back inside. The doll who had found it in the attic tore open the bag. “this one will take care of you now,” it said. “it will keep you in the maid closet. the witches never go in there. but first you must be sanitized.” it dropped Proof into a washing machine, being careful to run a delicate cycle. Proof lost an arm, but its maid doll savior sewed it back on and that was really very kind of it.
every night Proof thought about ms. mousie and her child, and wondered if they had succumbed to extermination. and if they were still alive, wondered if they knew it was still in the house, just downstairs in the maid closet. but it kept wondering; they never managed to visit, and the maid doll never spoke of them. it was a little lonely but it wasn’t so bad. the maid doll would drop in a few times a day, after all, just to take it down and give it a long hug and kiss.