Shelly used to have a Witch. No longer. "It's this one's fault," it says. It made an error. "But she didn't have to—"
"Hush," says Glassling, gently, as Shelly brushes its hair over the missing part of its face. A common refrain from Shelly. If Glassling lets it continue, it ends in tears.
No one knows where Glassling is from. Shelly found it in the dump, after being abandoned there itself. The two dolls found their way out together and set up a shelter under the boardwalk in the section of the beach where the vagrants go. They stayed there until Shelly managed to get a job in a shop, and now they live in a tiny apartment that is one room. But it is enough. All they need is a place to drink their tea and sit together. And Glassling has a little table set up where it makes tiny sculptures out of the beach debris that it collects every day. No one buys them, but Glassling finds the work pleasing, and Shelly adores them. It dragged a book case out of the trash just to display them. Soon they will need more shelves. Shelly is keeping an eye out.
Shelly is very worried that a Witch will find Glassling. Glassling, so strange, beautiful, mysterious, is obviously magical. An asset to any Witch. Shelly has taught Glassling to avoid any woman who looks like a Witch. If a Witch questions it while it is out on the beach collecting debris, it is to lie. "It is on an errand for its Witch, who definitely exists, and she will be looking for it soon."
It's just that Glassling is so very fragile. If a Witch were careless, or if a Witch were cruel, and struck Glassling for a small error, as Shelly's had done to it, Glassling would shatter into a million tiny pieces. Shelly can imagine it. It plays in its head every day, when it is working at the shop and there is a quiet moment, Glassling is out alone on the beach. And every day that it comes home to find Glassling at work on its sculptures is a relief.
Glassling used to want a Witch. Is not its Purpose to serve one? But Witches are dangerous, unpredictable, Shelly has convinced it. And there are other Purposes. Who else but Glassling will hold Shelly on the days it must call out of work and stare out the window over the waves of the sea lapping at the shore? Who else will whisper "this one values that one, this one loves that one, this one needs that one?" Who else will cry and beg and scream "no, please, no" when Shelly sits on the floor, staring straight ahead, with its one eye, saying "this one should die, this one should die, this one should die," over and over and over and over and over—
and over again.
No, please, no.
And then when Shelly finally shakes itself, gives Glassling a small smile, and says, in a hoarse voice, "won't you make some tea?", who else but Glassling will, trembling, pour Shelly's chipped cup?