by Mav Skye
Daddy looked up at Sabel. She nodded and then replaced the fancy hat back on his head. He stood and picked up the toolbox with one hand, and held her hand with the other.
She knew where they were going without having to ask.
* * *
They drove four hours to the beach. The sun was sinking into the ashy clouds when they arrived, and the tide was all the way out. A few gulls cried while knocking empty shells over in the sand.
Daddy sat Sabel in the pickup bed, and she watched him walk out into the wet sand, carrying the heavy toolbox with him. When he finally reached the water, the clouds had lifted some. The setting sun cast a bloody glare over the sky, reflecting off the water.
Sabel shivered and crossed her arms over her chest. She thought of the warmth of her mother’s arms, the smell of her hair, the gentle expression in her eyes. The wish suddenly came to her before the toolbox left her father’s hands. I wish mommy came back. She clasped her hands over her mouth as if she had spoken the wish out loud. She tried to un-think it. Un-wish it. But she couldn’t.
Even from here, Sabel sensed the China doll stir, raise her sharp gleaming fingernails to the wood of the box and begin to claw. She closed her eyes and could hear it.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
The splash was loud when the toolbox hit the water. Sabel hoped with all her heart that the sea would catch up the toolbox in its cold, frothy arms and whisk it away. She prayed that she and daddy would drive far enough away, so far that her wish couldn’t—wouldn’t come true.
Sabel tried to erase it from her mind when her daddy came trotting back over the sand. He hugged her, put her in the front seat of the pick up, and they drove off into the bloody sunset.
She asked him. “Did the doll really bring luck to the Empress Wu?”
Her daddy was very silent before answering. “Do you know how she became Empress?”
Sabel shook her head.
He said, “All her brothers were murdered in their sleep.”
Sabel turned and looked at him, feeling even more dread in her heart.
Daddy said, “But I don’t want you to worry about that, I told you because I want you to know that I believe you. I believe what you saw. It’s gone now. The doll is gone and…” He hesitated, “dead.” He reached over and squeezed Sabel’s hand.
But she knew it was alive in the box. Scratching, clawing, scraping at the wood, and then she would get to work on the metal, determined to make Sabel’s wish come true. The China doll may not make her way out tonight.
Or tomorrow.
But she would. And when she did, Sabel wondered who would find her first: the China doll or her dead mother?
Sabel closed her eyes and made one last wish.
* * *
Simply Wicked
It was not an evil doll, definitely, absolutely not evil; it was simply wicked. Jane nodded the gangly elf's head up and down in agreement. They both wore matching black and white checkers, sewn special by Grandma, Jane in a dress, the elf in pants.
Grandma had given her a good tongue lashing earlier about how she, Jane, definitely, absolutely, was not evil, but simply wicked. Wicked is smidgens away from evil, and if you're evil, you go to hell.
Wicked was the elf's secret name. The name Jane called him when no one was around and they played together in the closet in the back of Grandma's hallway. Here's another secret that happened in the closet when it was especially dark and nobody knew. Wicked spoke to her. Not out loud, no, no, that would be crazy! But in her head, he told her all sorts of things. Some of the secrets weren't wicked at all, like putting on extra underwear before you get a spanking so it doesn't hurt so bad. Mostly, though, the things he told Jane were wicked. Yes, sir, she found that out when she told Grandma about the things she heard. And that is how she got into trouble with the wicked/evil business in the first place.
She carried Wicked with her everywhere she went. Yesterday, she had gone to the lake with all of her ugly boy cousins. The biggest one, Guy, had yanked Wicked out of her arms and thrown him in the water.
"He's drowning, Guy! He'll die!" Jane had screamed at him. She’d spent a half hour holding her breath, plugging her nose, and looking underneath the shallow water for Wicked. When she finally found him, she squeezed him tight trying not to cry.
Later, when Grandma wasn't paying attention, Jane and Wicked had slipped off to the closet together. Jane wiped her tears away as she whispered to the elf, "Wicked, I don't ever want you to die. Not never!"
The doll, still damp from his plunge, whispered back, "Dying isn't so bad, Jane. Sinking in the water feels good. Sometimes, you feel a pinch in your chest, but then it goes away."
"But Grandma says if I die, I almost could go to hell. So, I better not die," she said.
"Oh, silly Jane, your Grandma doesn't want you to know, she doesn't want you to know that you won't die. There is no hell. You'll just live different and you get to know more stuff."
"I like to know about stuff," Jane replied.
"Listen close, Jane. And I will tell you what your Grandma doesn't want you to know."
Jane had leaned in close and watched the sharp, angled face of the doll. The elf was so still, so silent, yet she heard his gentle, wicked words in her mind, telling her what she needed to do.
* * *
“Jane, time for the lake,” Grandma called to her. The ugly boy cousins came over again. She scrambled out of the closet, and into her bathing suit just in time to catch up with the boys and Grandma.
Jane clutched Wicked tight in her trembling arms as Grandma herded them down to the lake. Sweat tickled down the back of her neck. She felt so scared, but so brave. She knew things that adults knew, and she was going to find out about things that even her Grandma didn't know.
Jane stood at the edge of the pond forcing a fake whine as Guy taunted her about Wicked. She let her arms go limp when Guy took the doll away and threw it out into the deepest part of the lake. "Come on, cry baby! Go and get your baby toy!"
She nodded her head solemnly. "Okay."
Guy laughed and elbowed another cousin in the arm. When she didn’t scream or cry, he dove off and disappeared into the lake.
"Wicked, where are you?" she called out.
She began to wade through the water. The water covered her thighs, her hips, and now was up to her chest. "Wicked, tell me where you are!"
"Jane? Jane? Who in the devil's name are you talking to?"
Jane looked back at Grandma. The sun glistened off her silvery gray hair, and her eyes looked as deep and blue as the water. Concern filled her face, and that made Jane feel special. But she knew what would make her feel even more special. "Don't worry! There isn't a hell, Grandma!" she called back.
Grandma's face puckered funny. "Jane! Come back here!"
Jane shook her head and looked down into the water. "Wicked, where are you? I want to be with you when I go to the other place."
She held her nose and plunged into the lake. She swam slow motion to the bottom feeling for his soft, stuffed limbs. She touched rocks, branches, slimy things, but not her doll. Jane began to lose her breath, but she needed Wicked to help her be brave. She pushed her feet off the bottom and surfaced, gasping for air.
"Jane! Guy, go get Jane!" Grandma screamed.
She heard Guy laughing, laughing at her. "Grandma, I told ya, she's just looking for that stupid doll!"
Jane swam out further into the lake. Yes, this is where he was, she could feel it. "Please, Wicked, speak to me. I can't do this without you. Speak to me and tell me where you are."
Jane heard the wicked whispers inside her mind, and she dove straight down to the bottom. She felt along the lake's floor and found his soft hand reaching for her. She grabbed it and sat Indian style in the murky, squishy mud.
Her breath escaped her, and at first, Jane didn't think it so bad. But then the pinching, the horrible pinching began in her chest. It hurt! It hurt way more than Wicked had told her. He lied, Wicked had lie
d! Up, she tried to pull up to the surface, but the tiny, elf hand held her down. She kicked and tried to scream. That is when her lungs filled. A moment later, Jane relaxed, and Wicked let her go.
Poison Lip Gloss
The doll had been stashed under a Juniper bush, forgotten after a late summer’s game of hide and seek. When the witch found her, the doll was desperate to escape the October frost. One glass eye had already cracked, and the doll was worried about the other.
The witch paused to powder her own turquoise nose, before placing the doll in a cauldron with warm water. The doll sat mesmerized as fiery flames licked the tub like an affectionate kitten. The doll had never had a bath before, though she had watched her young owner, the girl who had left her behind, take many.
The witch cackled as she gathered glass bottles and jars from her many shelves. She poured three drops of rain water from the cemetery, a spoonful of brimstone, a single tooth of a wolf pup, a tiny salamander tail, and a dash of hemlock and devil’s club. Finally, she lifted the small sapphire potion bottle from around her neck and withdrew the cork. It contained the liquid pearl life force of innocence, a rare and precious ingredient. She let one iridescent drop fall into the cauldron, and then she began to rapidly stir, chanting in the old tongue. Only the ancient trees recognized the language and its magic, and their gnarled roots curled even more.
The water in the cauldron grew warmer, warmer until the doll felt she was burning in a lake of fire. The doll pleaded with the witch with her one big blue eye, her arms outstretched to the side of the pot.
But the witch only cackled, and when the doll’s arm caught fire. The witch pushed her all the way under the boiling water.
Beneath the simmering brew, the doll dreamed she was back in the factory, only this one was even crueler than the first. Spidery silver arms snatched her from the water, and after plucking out her single blue eye, melted, stretched and molded her delicate skin. Then the silver arms held her over an open flame, until her porcelain face, arms and legs were baked to creamy perfection. The spider arms then placed her on a belt where a thousand needles attacked every inch of her body. She felt them in her toes, ankles, thighs, waist, breasts, throat and her face. They painted poison red gloss on her lips, and a single lead heart on her cheek. Her glass eye was sewn back into place.
A heavy stick caught her hair, pulling her up and out of the dream, and out of the caldron. The witch held the doll in front of her turquoise face, batting her thick black lashes like the wicked ghoul she was. “Better,” she muttered. “You are human size now.”
The witch sat the doll against an old dead stump and placed her hands on her tiny waist. “The troll under the swamp bridge has bet me that I couldn’t bring you to life if I was the grand witch herself. But you, my naughty little thing, are going to prove him wrong. What he doesn’t know and what I do, is that it’s Halloween. A night of tricks and treats, though you be more trick than treat.” The witch smiled mischievously, then leaned forward in her tightly corseted gown. She placed a sharp, gleaming object across the doll’s pink and black striped knees. “Tonight is a night of magic. Tonight is your night, my dear.”
The doll stared back with her one glass eye.
The witch said, “Do you know what that object in your hand is? Don’t just lie there like a rag doll. Sit up and use your voice. The magic will only work so long.”
The doll sat up from her slump. She glanced down at her pale long arms of porcelain. She bent her elbows and stretched her fingers—they worked! Slowly, slowly, she lifted the gleaming, sharp object to her face. It was pretty.
The witch flipped her long, glossy hair over her shoulder. Her scarlet red lips commanded, “Answer me.”
The doll opened her poison red gloss mouth. She felt a purr and a sigh escape her lips, which led to a tiny, dolly giggle. She clasped her porcelain hand over her mouth and gazed at the witch in amazement.
The witch grinned. “What you hold is called an axe.”
“Axe,” said the doll, and hugged it to her like a dainty flower.
“Do you wish to be real?” the witch asked.
The doll nodded her head vigorously and a hiccup rocked her chest. The witch placed a finger to the side of her dainty turquoise nose, then tapped a beauty mark above her lip. “By the stroke of midnight, you must accomplish three tasks if, that is, you wish to be real.”
The doll nodded.
The witch pointed a black manicured fingernail at her. “First, you must carve a face. I don’t care what or whom you carve it on. Second, you must find an eye to replace the one you lost.”
The doll felt her face. She had indeed lost the cracked glass eye.
“And third, you must prove that you want life by taking a life.” The witch said these words with rasp and gravel in her voice. “Do you understand?”
The doll bobbed her head once more, then stood, lifting the axe with her.
“Good. Very good.” The witch nodded her approval. “Do you see that bright star in the sky?”
The doll followed the witch’s finger to the night draping and curling about the tree tops. One star shone above all the rest.
“When that star is above the Tree of the Enchanted,” she pointed at a gnarled old tree that seemed to rise and kiss the sky, “then it will be midnight. You must accomplish these three things before then.”
The witch brought two fists of silver glitter to her lips, and with a wink she pursed her lips and blew on the glitter. Poof!
The sparkles blinded the doll, and by the time she had blinked them out of her one eye, the witch and her cauldron had disappeared.
The doll trailed to the fire, feeling the warmth of flames on her porcelain hands. When she closed her eyes, the nightmares of her birth reemerged. Flames baking her, needles sewing their sharp teeth into her flesh. She opened her eyes and glanced at her axe. Now that she had a needle of her own, she could create things too.
She turned away from the fire, and glanced at the swamp and bridge to the left. She thought she might find something to carve there, so she tromped through the forest. The brambles and thorns tore holes into her black and pink striped tights. She was okay with that, soon she would be real, and she could stitch her own clothes.
As the doll drew closer to the swamp, she came across a dirt path (much more preferable than stomping through the brambles) and she followed it. It didn’t lead her to the bridge, but to a clearing where vines grew and clung to great orange berries. She bent and touched an orange berry, smiling at the feel of rough skin. She picked it up, and glancing around, found a wide flat tree stump to place it on. She turned the orange berry this way and that, a word came to mind, she said it out loud. “Pumpkin.”
The word felt funny on her tongue. The doll giggled as she gripped the axe head and gently carved two eyes and a mouth. She fingered the deep curves.
It was beautiful. She set it beside the stump, and picked up another pumpkin.
Instead of carving a face, she raised the axe above her head and chopped it straight through. One half fell to the side of the stump, while the other half stood upright; its guts pouring over the side.
“Hmm…” she dipped her porcelain fingers into the goo and brought a seed to her lips. She licked it at first, enjoying the taste. She popped it into her mouth and chewed, then spit it out. The taste was good, but the feel of the seed’s wood on her tongue was not.
She lifted her axe and chopped the half into quarters, enjoying the pumpkin guts splatter. It was art.
She turned to the other pumpkins in the field, raising her axe to the full moon above… then she brought it down in frenzy. She sliced and diced one pumpkin, then turned around smashed another and another. She massacred the great orange berries going from one to the other. Enjoying the feel of the juice splatter on her face, the taste on her lips… the thrill of wielding the axe. With every swing she pictured the needles that punctured her. (Swing!) The flames that had licked her face into glass. (Dice!) The taste of the poison glos
s that had stilled her from ever moving, ever breathing. (Smash!) She hacked and swung until she tripped over vines and went flying into her pumpkin graveyard. She lay still, staring up at the golden moon.
A high-pitched shriek punctured her eardrums.
She covered her ears, glancing first to the left and then the right, searching for the sound. When the screech began to quiet, she rose, picked up her axe and followed the sound. It drew her back to the dirt path winding back into the forest.
The doll grew closer and closer to the sound. She paused, listening again, when a black shadow jumped out of a pine branch at her.
Its claws sank into her hair and the doll screamed. She flailed her arms and swung the axe, turning in circles until she grabbed the creature’s ribs and flung it to the ground, then stepped on its tail before it could run away.
The cat arched its back and hissed at her. Deep crimson, red as the witch’s lips, streamed down its wet, matted face.
The doll observed that the black cat had one green eye, and the other hung by gooey red threads from its eye socket.
“Ssshhhh….” The doll soothed, bending and plucking the loose eyeball straight out of its socket. “All better now.”
She went to pet the kitty, but the black cat wailed and scratched at her. “Ouch!” she yelped, bringing her hand to her mouth. The doll lifted her porcelain foot and the cat leapt back into the shadows of the night, leaving a trail of scarlet behind it.
The doll watched it run away, then smiled at the green eye cupped in her fingers. It was hers. She raised it to her own empty eye socket and popped it in. At first, everything was blurry, but after a few blinks. Her vision cleared and she could see better than she ever had before.
She searched for the bright star, surprised at how close it had inched to the enchanted tree. What was the third task?
The witch’s voice whispered in her mind, prove that you want life by taking a life.
