“Pardon?”
“Those pages left on me in that dark hole, as I slept, made up the Diary of the Doll. Not the writings I’ve already found, but something new. Something more. A continuation. Delivered seemingly from the clouds, or from some messenger that grew from the electric embrace of that final dream.”
“Pocket...you wouldn’t still...you know, have on you—”
“Yes. And you know what I’ve just realized, barkeep? I couldn’t finish this story without it.”
“Why?”
“Because I’d leave too many pieces in the puzzle box. So lean in close, friend, and I’ll show you what I mean. Before this adventure can end, we must walk through it once more with another set of eyes.”
“Mmm...and a mechanical set at that, right?”
“Mechanical, yes. But also the least mechanical I’ve ever seen.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Doll's Diary
Part the Second: Steps I’ve Walked
The nuns are gone now, and for that I am thankful. How selfish. They have been taking care of me, though I wish they would not. The colors are enough company for me now, the bluebirds without those awful voices, and as the moon moves through them, every moment is a new experience.
As I now have borrowed pen and paper in hand, there are steps I’ve walked that I wish to relive for what purpose I know not, other than I’ve had so few and it keeps my hand busy.
I had no name before you called me Dolly. Perhaps that is why it is you whose dreams I enter. In the darkness in the electric carriage, I hear your voice, and it is safe and it is comfortable and so I follow it. In books it may be called “fate” or perhaps something else I fear to see printed in my own hand, but as I have no book to confirm my story, I shall leave that event thus unnamed.
Do you have parts as I do, Mister Pocket?
I fall into your dream and the walls are leafed with gold and the flakes stick to my hands.
I hear that most people dream inside their heads. Am I inside yours now?
The flakes on my hands turn from gold to red. Like bits of blood on my skin. I want it to be mine, but perhaps I like thinking that it is yours even more. I know that is wrong but...
A kitty appears and he is wearing a nice suit. “It’s a dream,” he said.
“Well, it isn’t mine,” I said.
“No. It’s the tall boy’s.”
“No. I can’t—it isn’t right!” I backed away from the kitty because he wasn’t mine. The walls splashed into a downpour of red and I fell through them. I felt as though I was covered in blood, but you didn’t notice, Mister Pocket.
But I am ruining your dream. I am ruining your story.
“How else would anybody know I put something there? How would they know I was here?” you said in front of a blank canvas, my paintbrush in your hand. What a hurtful thing to say.
But perhaps that is what I’m attempting now with this ink, borrowed from the tea lady’s house. I had meant to return it.
“I want you,” she said, “to express your innermost passions, thoughts, and curiosities.” She thought about it. “In that order. Ladies of this era are so BOORISHLY silent. Here!” she said, grabbing my face. “I want you to try tasting your own tongue.” I’m not sure I know what taste is, but I think I do.
“Well, what does yours taste like?”
“My tongue tastes like potions and starlight and mysteries!” she said.
“And tea?”
“And tea!” Miss Alexia exclaims, clapping. “Use this!” She threw some papers on my lap. “Find a pen!” And she skipped away.
Maybe Kitt-Kitt would know.
“Sure, I have one, but lemme show you something. It’s chess. Well, kinda.”
Kitt-Kitt showed me a terrible game.
“I don’t really know how to play chess so—okay. These are the king and the queen, right? So maybe they need to round up the horseys. Okay, the poles too, ‘cause we don’t have enough horseys. They have to capture the white horseys and put them back in the stable, see? But we want to get rid of the black horseys, those are bad, so we put them over here, off the board. Those are dead.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you kill them?”
“I dunno, darkness is evil, right?”
“Evil?! Why?”
“I don’t know, it just is! Why are you so upset?”
I gathered all of the dark pieces in my skirt. “You have no right to kill any piece! Even if they came from a place in the dark.” I rescued them. They can go back into the darkness with me. But perhaps I should have let Kitt-Kitt finish his game after all.
Miss Alexia likes to know things about me. “Are you and Mister Pocket, by chance...”
I don’t know what she means. I don’t want to participate. “I have this,” I tell her, and I show her my waxy cylinder.
“Hmm,” she said. “Yes!” She calls it a phonograph and she puts my treasure on it. “Just come down whenever you’re done.”
“No, wait,” I say, and I don’t know why. But Father is in it. I’ve memorized it now. Do people do that? He says:
“With this recording, I, the owner and proprietor of this shop and the individual property within, do hereby put forward my final will and testament to whomever’s ear is around to bear witness to it. I will first speak to King Alexander I, the man at the helm of my dear Britain, God save him. Sire, I have devoted nearly the whole of my earthly life in servitude to your court. Though you are in no obligation to do as I ask, I would beg you to allow my wishes to be.”
He says a lot of names and I don’t think any of them are mine. Then he says:
“…I again beg his Highness to let my final instructions be carried out as I would have them. And now I’d like to say a few words to those who will help close the underwhelming book of my life. I would speak first to my wife, who has left this Earth countless years before. Violetta, my love, it seems that I was ultimately unable to properly live without you, and from that failure comes the joy of our upcoming reunion. I will take your hand soon, my love, and we will dance anew upon the rim of the orange sun.”
Father talks a lot about that lady but not me.
“To the young one I am leaving behind, I can only say…I am sorry. I abandoned you without word or warning, and I am about to do it once more. It has been months since we’ve last spoken, and the loneliness I have known without your shining eyes has been crushing. But I want you to know that you are my final legacy, and though my life is ending, you carry within you a remaining piece of myself. I cannot guarantee what future awaits you now. Perhaps you will sleep as eternally unbothered as the woman whose face yours mimics. I could wish nothing more for you. Goodbye, my little darling.”
The cylinder stops moving and I cannot start. Vi-o-let-ta.
There is a brief hug. “Let’s have cider now!” says the tea lady. She runs downstairs.
When there was steam, we dreamed together. Or maybe it was just you. To you, I am a girl with no reflection. Perhaps that is too generous.
But something happened between us on the deck of the Lucidia. I am not sure if it can be considered significant if it is not in print, but my modesty prevents me from printing it. Perhaps such an event is always significant by nature? Or perhaps it is significant if we agree that it is so, Mister Pocket? Would you agree to such a thing?
But you were supposed to be the one to wake me.
My body is stiff with sleep and I am being bent into a bundle of sheets with some force. I cannot move. I am pulled to the ground with a thud that somehow leaves you unstirred. My parts did not spill out of me. Please be grateful for that, Mister Pocket.
“Remind me in the morning, Mister Pocket, to tell you something important.”
Perhaps I am not the only one who has entered your dreams? Is that why you did not care to hear it?
The muffins and pomegranate treat was still in the shuttle when we arrived.
Ruined.
Kitt
-Kitt unwrapped me in a clearing like the remains of a picnic. There is oil in my hair. My dress is soaked in slime. He turns my key and I hit him.
I want it all to go away. So I run. The forest will hide me. Kitt-Kitt must have tried to clean me off, but I don’t care. I don’t care at all.
Am I crying? Or is it the oil? Do I cry oil? No...
The branches are tearing at my dress but it doesn’t matter anymore. The muffins were a gift. She made them just for me. I need something that is mine. Mine and not ruined.
A pile of rocks in a clearing seems right. A ray of light is hitting it just so. I lean against it and try to go back to the darkness Kitt-Kitt so despises.
“I think that might be a grave.” He found my rocks. They weren’t mine anymore. Oh well.
He propped my key up against the rocks and sat down. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. Sometimes he cleared his throat. Sometimes he moved some leaves. And then he said those awful words.
“Scrap all except the desired piece.”
Scrap...?
Kitt-Kitt gave me a bubblemaker. He said it was made of me. No, of scraps. Well, the bubbles it makes are mine. If only none of them would pop.
Desired piece. This hand? My eyes? Why can't I just rip it off and give it to them? Then would they leave you alone? Then what would be left?
Scrap.
The bubbles are endless. How do they keep coming? My parts can do this? My scraps?
“You carry within you a remaining piece of myself.” Father's piece. Is it what makes my other parts special?
“Alexander will be disappointed if he finds you,” the tea lady said. Why?
I don't want to find out. It is all upsetting. But now you are involved, Mister Pocket, so I should find out what part to remove. Then you can have my scraps and you won't have to worry anymore.
But what now? Find the tea lady, I guess. I don't know where I am, but she isn't here so I have to walk.
I walked until I was I in the city. It wasn't far. I smelled bread. I should replace the muffins.
Two bread ladies are outside. They are shaking broken glass out of a rug. They used unpleasant words, so for the sake of my femininity, I shall neglect to print them here.
“I've 'ad enough a them Magnates trashin' me store,” said the first bread lady.
“After yer muffins again, are they?” the second said.
“Well they say they're after that missin' doll or whateveritis, but there was a whole tray missin' this mornin'.”
“A whole tray! And all for that walkin' blueprint. I hope that electric plough she's got printed in 'er makes the king enough money to pay for the lost muffins!”
Electric...plough?
“Dun know why the king would make such a fuss over a blueprint, but's 'is kingdom, not mine!”
And that is how I learned the truth, Mister Pocket. You may disregard the previous information about dreams and such, seems it is irrelevant. I suppose I am a canvas of sorts. The Red Priest must have put a lot of mixture into that device.
Well then, if a blueprint is all, I will have to remove it.
The woods are quiet and I retreat there. The Priest's stitches are strong so I find a sharp rock and work until I see gears, but nothing like a blueprint. I think some pieces hit the dirt. Oh well.
I am tired, and I think I am in pain. How ordinary.
I miss you, Mister Pocket.
Rather than dissolve into the dirt, I am collected by nuns. My sleeping spot intersected their stroll.
“Oh you poor dear!”
“What happened to you?”
“Gears? Oh, she must be that missing doll! Oh, do pick up those pieces, we should fix her up.”
I should be happy to receive kindness, but I am not. I am more clockwork than ever.
My loose parts are stuffed back in “so that they won't be lost” and I am wrapped tight with linens around my middle. My attempt to sleep on a pew was hindered by this, so when the moon came out, I asked a nun for directions. I want to go back in my case.
“The watch shop? Oh dearie, you don't want to go back there. They've been looking for you, you know, and the place is...”
I need my case. Only the case.
She tells me and I embark on a moonlight stroll—no, I walk. The streets are empty and I am glad for that.
When I arrive, Father's house is ruined.
Fire, it seems.
A garden of shiny metal bits stick out from the rubble. A pretty little leaf—no, not a leaf—
A...spoon.
A spoon with holes, and oh, what's this? A hat attached and—
Covered with dirt, it's you, Mister Pocket. You can sleep through anything. I am envious. I dig you out of the dirt and your arms reach out to hug me. How you do talk in your sleep. Talk...
Don't laugh at me, all right?
I shouldn't write everything.
I hid with you in the basement and you slept. Your face is exhausted and dirty and sad and you won't wake up. Maybe you're not dreaming.
Days pass, I think. You need your rest.
It's all my fault.
Final kisses on your forehead. It is time to retrieve my bubblemaker from the nuns. All of my parts, together.
I write these words on borrowed paper scavenged from the cathedral. I am surrounded by bubbles. Turning the crank between sentences keeps them coming. I still have not run out. I will need their beautiful colors to give me strength to write what follows.
To the King who seeks me, you may not have Father's blueprint. This is purely for spite. I would like to continue believing that I am not scrap, though I know this to be untrue. You have upset Mister Pocket, and I hate you. If you shall not give up this pursuit, I have but one option.
When the sun rises, I shall end this life. I shall climb to the roof and plunge to my greatest sleep.
Please do not be sad, Mister Pocket. Your sleeps may now forever be peaceful. Unlike the one you are having now.
Is it terribly selfish of me? I couldn't bear to spend my final night alone without seeing you one more time. I hope I haven't put you in danger yet again. But you still won't wake up.
So, I close this brief diary by borrowed candlelight, next to you. Thank you, if you are reading these words, you have helped me to pass my final night.
To Mister Pocket, thank you. I am sorry, and I love you.
I will see my final sunrise upon the tall place with the bluebird shape in the colored glass. I hope that it will be a pretty one.
Please do not be sad for me.
Here ends the Diary of the Watchmaker's Doll. Goodnight, Mister Pocket.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Racing Moonlight
In the summer of the year 1850, the Parliament of Great Britain handed over the power of the kingdom to a man named Alexander Renton. They called his blood royal, his spirit fated, and his judgment absolute.
Thirty-eight years later, that same man called for my execution, a decree made in response to a picnic I took with a beautiful girl.
And do you know something? The decree was fulfilled.
Will Pocket died that year.
You who have followed this, my wonderful and maddening story of the turnkey girl, from beginning to now, will no doubt wonder how a dead man could sit in a bar and relate his tale over warm beer. And to you I say that the dead can do miraculous things. The man whose fingers crafted the girl I’ve loved ceased living long before I stepped into his shop, yet his role in my life has been immeasurably great.
On the night before Will Pocket’s death, the young man opened his eyes in a cobwebbed tomb, with only fading candlelight to hold vigil.
And only a girl’s diary for company.
Will Pocket didn’t realize, as he sat with those pages, hungrily taking each word into his being, that he was already dying.
Of course, dear reader, I’m not so untalented in my role of storyteller to close the book with the simple image of a dying man sitting in the dark. Not when I’v
e promised you a “big flash” to go out on. So let’s once more rejoin the story and chase after it to its final conclusion.
Here begins the end, my friends.
“Dolly,” I whispered.
“Dolly!” I shouted.
“Dolly!” I bellowed into the papers I held. I kept repeating the word—Dolly, Dolly, Dolly—as if I thought she would materialize from the text to answer my calling. One would think that a man in my position would be overtaken with lament upon finishing what was essentially his beloved’s suicide note. And I would love to tell you that I was, that my initial response was a deafening outflow of tears and tortured screams. But the first emotion to find me, I’m ashamed to say, was an overwhelming irritation, a feeling of childish insult. How dare she, I thought. How dare the Doll even consider something so incredibly selfish and heartless, yes, heartless! After the blood and sweat shed to preserve her life, to keep it safe! The great lengths I’ve, no, we’ve all gone to spare her the suffering!
But that’s why, I then thought to myself. The acts of others. That’s the reason, isn’t it, Pocket?
I was dizzy with all everything her words had taught me. The revelation she had meant to give me the morning of her capture, that she not only was aware of a world beyond her dreams, but had also occasionally drifted out and occupied my own…it…it was more than I could comprehend!
I slid my fingers up the curved, collective back of the Doll’s diary, brushing up against the paper like it was a tightly-bound corset riding the soft-skinned spine of every pubescent boy’s daydreams. I squeezed my fingernails into the paper so hard that it left marks.
“Damn it, Doll,” I spoke, crumbling in the dark. “Do you really think sacrificing yourself is going to spare me any pain? Do you really think yourself that worthless?”
That’s when the grief hit, and I nearly forgot the necessities of life.
How to breathe, to stand balanced on two feet.
How to feel.
My knees buckled for a moment and I slid into a miserable lump on the floor.
She takes the fall at dawn.
Another horrible thought struck me as I lie there. I had no idea of knowing how long had passed as I slept.
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