A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There

by Richard Roberts

  Sandy clearly needed a moment, so I tugged on my hat as if I could tip it, and made the introductions. “Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. I’m Heartfelt, and this is Sandy, the wandering human heroine. Are you the innkeepers?”

  The bundliss bobbed her head. “We are! Well, there was a need.”

  Opening the door wide in invitation, the bundler explained, “So many folks have to stop the night in Cul-De-Sac, from all over Here and There, someone had to give them nice rooms to sleep in.”

  Stepping out of our way, the bundliss curtseyed deeply, holding her skirts out, but leaving the cloak draped over them. “My name is Lucretia, and this is my husband Parsimony. The princess declined our hospitality, but now we have a second chance!”

  Sandy stepped inside nervously, but as she looked around, I could feel her relax. It was a nice place! Dimly lit, but with polished wooden tables and padded booths. I could smell tea, sharp and enticing.

  Maybe the bundliss could read my expression, because she asked, “Are you hungry, sweet ones?”

  “Yes!” Sandy answered instantly.

  Lucretia rubbed her hands together gleefully, bobbing her head up and down. “Hee hee hee! Wonderful! Parsimony, is the pantry well stocked? I’ve heard that humans have a healthy appetite.”

  On cue, a thump echoed from outside the front door. The bundler leaned out, and with a grunt and a lot of scraping noises dragged in a wicker basket more than half his height, piled so high that a bundle of carrots fell off as he pulled it back around the counter to the kitchen. “It… is… now!”

  Sandy sat down in a booth, and sat me on the tabletop next to her. I hadn’t had time to notice her leave, but Lucretia swooped down on us from the kitchen, laying out plates and silverware and bowls and glasses and a little basket with a carefully arranged circle of slices of bread that smelled strongly of butter and garlic.

  Sandy’s arm extended eagerly for the bread, but her hand stopped an inch from grabbing a slice. Her face tightened in guilt, and she shook her head as she looked up at Lucretia. “I can’t take this. I can’t pay, and I can’t make you feed me for free because I happen to be human.”

  Lucretia clapped her delicately gloved hands together and squealed, “Aren’t you sweet!” Leaning down, she touched the mouth of her mask to Sandy’s head in a kiss. “The stories all say humans are very noble and selfless, and aren’t you the very avatar? Eat up, eat up! Gorge yourself until you swell like the flops! What would we do with all this food if no one ate it?”

  “Are you—” Sandy started to ask, but Lucretia spun around and whisked back into the kitchen.

  That was good enough. Sandy grabbed a slice and stuffed the entire thing into her mouth, chewing with a blissful expression. I tore off a particularly damp and garlicy bit of crust and tapped it against my mouth—carefully, so as not to smear. It was tasty, but I had the wrong kind of mouth. I was waiting for…

  The bundliss returned holding a teapot bigger than Sandy’s head up like a prize. The dark tea steamed as she poured it into our cups, but of course her gloves would protect her from burns.

  Picking up the cup in both hands, I drank and drank and drank. I normally would have waited for as much sugar as the tea would hold, but the hot, bitter flavor filled me with much-needed strength. Oh, my. Tea, what would I do without you?

  Sandy swallowed her second slice of bread just as Lucretia arrived once more with a tiny plate of white blobs of rice with red goo on them, and another tiny plate of green stuff. Instead of leaping on the next course, Sandy asked her, “How long have you lived in Cul-De-Sac, Mrs. Lucretia?”

  She bobbed her head, and reached out to pat Sandy’s hand. “Oh, just a few years. The Bundlovich sent us here as spies, didn’t he, Parsimony?”

  “Perfect place for it!” the bundler called back from the kitchen.

  Another nod from Lucretia. “Oh, yes. If we don’t hear a piece of news the first time, we hear it when a traveler comes back from the Picnic. It’s a very important job, and we get to feed the hungry and give the tired a place to rest, and we even got titles! Why, Parsimony is a bundlate, and I’m a bundless!”

  Only because I’d lived with Threadbare all my life did I catch the subtle difference in pronunciation between bundliss and bundless. I clapped for her approvingly.

  “That’s—” Sandy started to say, but Lucretia put her finger to Sandy’s lips.

  “Hush, now. Questions are never as important as a well stuffed belly. Ask your clothling friend!” Then she turned in a swirl of cloak and skirts, and darted off into the kitchen again.

  Sandy took her advice, and soon spaghetti arrived, and then deep-fried croquettes, and then a pie, and ice cream. I had another two cups of tea, with a little cream and lots of sugar. By the end of the meal, Sandy’s stomach did bulge rather like a flops, and she groaned as Lucretia led her down a back hallway to a little bedroom. One candle provided a low but cheery light, and the bed had so many pillows and sheets and blankets and quilts it looked a little bundlish itself.

  Sandy picked two of the softer pillows, and lay back on the bed with a sigh. She laid me on her stomach, and stroked my cap and my hair. When she spoke, it wasn’t much more than a whisper. “Thank you so much, Heartfelt. I was so nervous I couldn’t think when I got here, but thanks to you, I’m starting to enjoy this place.”

  I folded my arms under my head and looked up at her. “I hope I’ve made it clear that I owe you everything. You’ve given me a new life, both in a literal and metaphorical sense, and a vastly increased intelligence that I’m quite enjoying. Still, are you certain about giving me your glasses? I can get along without them, but don’t you need them to see?”

  I bent my arms up so I could grab the arms of my new glasses and give them a wriggle, a token gesture at taking them off which of course could not be done without cutting the threads tying them in place. Sandy’s hand slid forward, and her thumb pressed the nose guard back against my face. “No, I see okay. Mom and Dad insisted, and I thought big glasses might cover up my nose.”

  She reached up and took hold of her bent nose, giving it a wiggle. I watched this curious gesture, searching for meaning. “Is your nose a problem?” Half the fabric of my arm and dress was now plaid flannel, and it was a bit embarrassing. Oh, my, and my eyes must be hideous. On the other hand, these huge brown glasses would add style and mystery that any clothling would envy!

  Sandy watched me think for a few seconds, and put her hand back on top of my head. “Not for somebody without a nose, I guess.”

  That was less than half an answer, but if she did not want to talk about her nose—or anything else—presumably I should respect that. Confirming my suspicion, she immediately changed the subject. “Can I trust those two…?”

  “Bundlish. You refer to the bundlish as bundlers and bundlisses, until you become aware of their proper title. The bundlish do like titles almost as much as they like clothes.” I tried to sound knowledgeable on very little experience.

  “But can I trust them? They seem too friendly. And why are they all covered up?” She did sound nervous.

  I rattled off the sum total of everything I knew about the bundlish from a lifetime of sitting in one place and giggling. “I believe you can take their friendliness at face value until you get a good reason not to. Bundleton, or Bundlevania, I can never remember the name, is over There, which is why they look a bit dangerous, but most of the bundlish are more comfortable living Here. We had a bundliss at the Picnic named Threadbare. I believe you used her sewing kit to repair me.” I veered away from that topic. “As for why they wear so much clothing, I never thought to ask. The most initially obvious answer would be ‘for the same reason you do’, only perhaps a bit more.”

  Sandy pressed on. “But what do they look like underneath? I tried looking through the eye holes in Lucretia’s mask, but all I saw was darkness.”

  It was another question I never thought to ask, and now it took hold of me. I squinted, dredging my memory. How much had I re
ally looked at Threadbare? And the other bundlish who visited the Picnic sometimes? “I believe Threadbare was the same. Yes. I had several occasions to look her right in the face as she examined my stitches, and I never saw anything through the eyeholes of her mask. Neither did she ever take off even a single piece of clothing. I do remember when Flops gave her his old jacket, and she put it on and never took it off again. She never did anything or said anything that addressed the issue. It’s an interesting question, isn’t it? What is under there?”

  “I wish I knew,” came Sandy’s whispered reply. The question had enlivened me. It appeared to have sapped the last of her energy. She said nothing else, and I felt her chest move more and more slowly underneath me as her breathing drifted into sleep.

  I tried to do the same, while curiosity nagged me. After this chaotic day when I lost everything and gained everything, the thing I couldn’t let go of was wondering about the bundlish. Was something wrong with me? Was something wrong with them? The Endless Picnic had received bundlish visitors regularly, I knew that. Could I remember any? There was the one with the funny looking helmet that brought Threadbare her new sewing kit when the old one ran out. What had his helmet looked like? Yes, it had been funny looking, but why? I mostly remembered Noble getting caught in the string as he marched, and when he tangled Little Miss Snippybritches up with him I laughed until I fell over. Afterward, Little Miss Snippybritches gave me quite a lecture on being polite.

  This wasn’t answering the real question. What were the bundlish hiding under those clothes? Perhaps they were the clothes? That would have been my first assumption before, but now the answer did not satisfy. I had seen Threadbare put on new clothes without any hesitation or visible changes. I was not in a position to observe, but no doubt Lumber Jack’s sensible flannel had altered my personality and identity.

  No, the bundlish were inside the clothes, but kept themselves completely covered. Why? Were they shy? Did there need to be a reason? I wore a dress, but there was no particular reason I knew of why I had to. It was just part of me.

  Sandy wanted to know, but I had to know. I pulled my head out from under her limp hand, slid slowly down her sweater so as not to wake her, and dropped almost silently onto the floor.

  I had this advantage, at least. My padded feet made less noise than a curtain blowing in the draft. Sandy hadn’t been paying attention when Lucretia led us in here, and the door to the room was still open a crack. I tiptoed over and pushed it open a few more inches, then slipped out.

  Perhaps I had slept some. Night had clearly fallen. The dimly lit inn had slipped into darkness. Thanks to my magic glasses I seemed to possess excellent night vision, and I crept down the hallway to the main dining room again. The windows showed blackness, but light shone from behind the counter. I followed that light back through the door into the kitchen, and past ovens and chopping tables much taller than my head.

  Oh, my. At the other end of the kitchen, Parsimony was having exactly the difficulty I predicted. Flops’ huge basket of food sat next to the open door of a pantry, and the bundlate kept bending down, picking up a couple of loaves of bread or a can of fish, and rearranging the already packed shelves of the pantry until he could find a way to stuff this latest item in.

  I should ask. I really should just ask.

  No, the chances of him answering were extremely low. If the bundlish were willing to talk about this, the information would be common knowledge.

  Well, he was highly distracted, moving predictably, and I possessed the element of absolute surprise. How should I handle this? He kept bending. If I climbed up on the table behind him, when he bent forward, I could jump on his back and pull back the hood of his robe. With all that moving around, some part of his neck would surely be exposed.

  My goodness, Heartfelt. That entire plan was unnecessarily rude and extreme. Given our height differences, I could step under his robe and peek behind his socks and he would never even know I was there.

  I did that. I felt a bit nervous walking down the length of the kitchen right in the open, but he couldn’t hear me and had shown no inclination to look back. When Parsimony bent down to heave a watermelon out of the bottom of the basket, I stepped under his cloak.

  “How is it coming, my sunshine?” Lucretia’s voice called out. I froze. Oh, jeepers.

  Parsimony straightened up, lifting his head and answering loudly, “Almost unpacked, but I still must set out ingredients for a breakfast our human visitor will remember the rest of her life.”

  Lucretia was upstairs. That was it. In fact, all her interruption had done was distract Parsimony further! His boots stood right in front of me. I could see a pair of black leather shoes tucked inside, and with all the bending his pants had come loose. He bent forward again, and I pulled up the hem of his pants leg, pulled down the tops of his two pairs of socks, and peeked between.

  Darkness. I only saw darkness inside. Not pitch black, not mist, just a heavy shadow that made the far side of his socks a bit harder to make out than they should have been in this brightly lit room.

  The shadow rippled, and vanished. The inside of Parsimony’s socks achieved the level of brightness I thought appropriate to the lighting.

  Then his clothes fell on me.

  I staggered out, throwing the bundler’s cloak off of my head, and looked back at what I’d done. Oh, my. Oh, my seams and stitches. What had I done?

  Parsimony’s clothes lay in a pile at the door to the pantry. They didn’t move. They showed no signs of life, or of ever having supported life.

  I turned and ran, hearing Lucretia ask, “Did that magnificent bulging rascal leave us any buttermilk? You do make very fine pancakes, light of my life. Light of my life? Parsimony?”

  My feet pattered down the hall. Now I kind of wished they could be heard. I threw the door to Sandy’s bedroom open, ran over to the bed, and yelled, “Sandy! Sandy!”

  She was far too asleep. Jumping up, I grabbed the bedframe and pulled myself up, then climbed up the mattresses. I jumped onto Sandy’s stomach. I kept jumping up and down. Oh, my whillickers, did I have to be so light?

  “Sandy! Sandy, we need a hero right now, Sandy!” I yelled.

  She sat up, sending me tumbling onto my back in her lap. As she blinked, Lucretia screamed from the kitchen. The bundless’s voice spiked higher and higher, turning into a wail of despair.

  “I can’t—” she started to argue.

  I cut over that. “Of course you can! Please!”

  That was enough. Sandy grabbed me in one hand, jumped out of bed, and ran to the kitchen. Lucretia crouched over her husband’s pile of empty clothes, holding his cloak over her face and crying.

  Sandy stood and gaped, then asked, “What happened?”

  Oh my, I didn’t want to do this. I fessed up anyway. “I happened. I got so obsessed with wondering what the bundlish really look like that I snuck out of bed and peeked inside his clothes!”

  Lucretia winced, visibly, and that made me wince. Yes, this was no coincidence. The bundlish hid themselves because being seen was fatal.

  “Well, what did you see?” Sandy tried again.

  “She saw…” Lucretia started, but couldn’t finish.

  I had to. “A shadow. And then that shadow disappeared.”

  Sandy shuddered. Her hand around my stomach tightened until it hurt. Above me, I heard her say in a very flat voice, “I told you to do this.”

  I twisted my head around, looking up her arm from where I hung sideways by her hip. I gave her wrist a sharp whap with my hand, and corrected her, “No, you certainly did not!”

  Then I had to correct myself. “Well, you didn’t order me to. You did express your interest. It’s quite possible that because I belong to you now, I have no choice but to follow up on that kind of implied command. That’s entirely speculative, however, and I certainly had interest of my own. I could and likely would have caused this disaster on my own, but only you can fix it!”

  My conclusion jolted Sand
y. She lifted me up to her face, and gave me a wild-eyed stare. “What?”

  Was this a sidekick’s job? To remind a hero of how amazing she is during desperate situations? I reached out and clasped both of Sandy’s cheeks, looking her square in the eyes. “You brought me back to life. I was dead. I was much more dead than this.”

  Lucretia’s red and white mask looked up at us. It might not have an expression, but the whispery hope in her voice could not be mistaken. “You can raise the dead?”

  Sandy took a half step backward, which helped her retreat from me not at all. Her head shook, such small and rapid jerks that she almost seemed to vibrate. “I just stitched a doll back together. I don’t know how to bring back a shadow!”

  I leaned forward a little further, until my glasses touched brow, and said very quietly, “You have the magic. I know, I’ve felt it. Are you sure you don’t know how to make a shadow?”

  She opened her mouth, and stopped. Relief flooded through me, and I only felt more confident as she told Lucretia, “I need the brightest lights you can get.”

  Minutes passed. I hung from Sandy’s hand as she rummaged around in the pantry, then the closet. While she considered a broom, I suggested the hat rack back in our bedroom. She dragged it out to the dining room, pushed all the tables and chairs out of the way, and stood the rack next to the wall. By the door, Lucretia set up three big oil lamps. Flops arrived with a shining crystal ball hung from a fishing line. The tinker had a brass lantern with a little fire fairy buzzing around in it, much brighter than all the other lamps. Drawn by the midnight fuss, the first guide bat arrived, and another, until two dozen bats perched on the regular lamps holding their own bright, white lanterns in their mouths.

  Sandy draped the cloak over the hat rack, hung Parsimony’s mask from the top hook, fastened his shirts onto hooks underneath it, hung his pants up, and set his shoes on the bottom. I sat on her shoulder, tucking shirts into pants and collar into mask and hooking buttons on his shirt cuffs into the bundler’s heavy gauntlets.