The real Princess Charity, golden crown on her head, sat on the throne itself. I had never imagined what the throne would look like, and it certainly wasn’t this. Charity sat on a chair hacked out of one giant grey rock, and hacked badly at that. Pillows added some cushioning, but it was an ugly, crude, ancient, and extremely impressive piece of furniture. Charity’s sparkling gold and purple gown was a mere afternote under the looming stone.
The room went completely quiet. My arms and legs gripped Sandy’s shoulder tightly as she walked out into the middle of the carpet, and stood facing the other human.
Charity arose from the throne with royal majesty and pride—then let out a whoop, leaping down the stairs three at a time, charging down the hall with skirts flapping to throw her arms around Sandy in a tackling hug that spun us all around.
“This is great! You finally made it! Isn’t this place amazing? I love ruling Here!” babbled Charity, her gleeful enthusiasm, well, a lot like Sandy’s, when Sandy was in a good mood.
Sandy hugged her back. “It’s great to see you, too, and Everywhere is great. I couldn’t imagine a better magical kingdom.”
Charity pulled back, merely holding Sandy’s shoulders at arm’s length. This was my cue to slide as carefully as I could down Sandy’s body to the floor, and get several feet away. Among other things, this was their moment, not mine.
With a tug, Charity walked Sandy toward the dais. “I can, but that’s part of the fun. I feel like I was meant to rule this land. I would start with the throne. I mean, look at this thing. Is this royal? A three-year-old could build better. Except get this, no one knows where it came from. It’s older than the palace. It’s older than all the books and records. It’s older than everything. A three-year-old literally may have carved it. This throne is the center of the kingdom, and Princess Charity is not stupid enough to risk what might happen if she moves it, nope.”
Sandy rubbed a hand back through her ever-changing yellow hair, and gave Charity a meek grin. “I’m sorry. I hope you can forgive me, but I was actually getting worried about this meeting, it’s been so crazy just getting here. Now that we’re together, I know we can work out the misunderstanding.”
Charity hooked an arm around her shoulders, holding her side by side now. “You and me together? You know we will. It does require some figuring out.” Her voice dropped, suddenly serious and personal, as if they were alone sharing secrets. “You deserve to hear it from me, Sandy. I’m not going back. This is what I’ve been waiting for all my life, and this place has been waiting for me. You’ll have to leave soon, but with you here next to me the toys will know who’s in charge, and we can talk it out and enjoy ourselves. I have seen some crazy stuff, and I bet you have, too.”
Sandy let out a sudden laugh. “I wouldn’t know where to start!”
“Dinner, duh, goof brain.” Charity poked Sandy happily in the forehead. “You’re hungry, right? You want some food? Good food? Some of the robots or golems or whatever you call them in this palace can really cook.”
She dragged Sandy toward one of the little doors in the back of the hall, although from her grin and laughter Sandy couldn’t have needed much forcing. I started to scurry after them, until Charity waved a hand down at me. “The dolls don’t eat, and ours need to talk to each other anyway.”
That wasn’t entirely true about the eating part, but…
Pincushion stood up from where she’d been sitting next to the throne. Her black dress and black shorts were still stuck through with pins of all sizes, but she no longer wore Sandy’s gold hat like a cloak.
She scowled and stared at my feet. Apparently, I would have to start the conversation, so I went with the obvious. “So, um, the hat—”
Charity broke in loudly, “Somebody had it taken away from her for doing such a lousy job of fulfilling her owner’s desires!”
Pincushion and I both flinched and staggered. I’d thought Charity had left! No, she and Sandy had stopped to watch us.
“Punished for doing my best when everyone else is stupid,” Pincushion muttered, so quietly that I doubted anyone but me could hear. Adding to my conviction that only I had been supposed to hear that, she straightened up, looked me in the eyes (she had such pretty plastic eyes with black notched pupils) and said stiffly, “There’s something you need to see that will help me explain. Come on.”
Was this a plot to separate me and Sandy? I looked up at my heroine, who was already leaving, laughing with Princess Charity. She was happy and at ease. Well… I would keep an eye out.
“Alright,” I said, adjusting the strap of my book bag.
Beckoning with her hand, which had one of her smallest pins through it, Pincushion set off across the hall in the opposite direction of our humans. They had gone to the Here side of the Palace, and we were headed There. Admittedly, only a faint touch of shadow marked any difference. I followed, but watchfully. The door she led me to—the hallway beyond had several more. If she shut this one behind me, I’d have places to run. Besides, I could grab one of Pincushion’s pins, and when it came down to it, I was bigger than her.
Sure enough, as soon as we passed through, the door snapped shut. I tensed, picking a spot to run. Pincushion whirled—
—and hugged me.
Pincushion was even more surprised than me, and leaped back again immediately, shaking her arms. “Agh! Affection! Don’t tell anybody I did that, okay? I’ve just—I’ve missed you, fluff-head, okay? More and more all the time. Come on.”
She turned around and resumed leading me down the corridor. I searched for words. “Well. Um.”
Her arms waved, and the grief in her voice plucked at my heart. “Yeah, I know, but what choice did I have? You understand. You’re the only one who could understand what it’s like. Anticipating a human’s needs is a constantly changing duty. We’re constantly trying to out-think someone who’s smarter than us. Even china dolls don’t have to grow and adapt like we do.”
I nodded emphatically. “I know. I really know. Sandy is so nice about it, but I’m nagged by knowing I could mess this up at any moment. I’m a guide through pitch blackness for someone who thinks I’d be good at it because I’m blind. Um. Metaphorically. Does that make sense?”
Her voice heavy with relief, she agreed, “To me, yes. I have to change things. Princess Charity is change. That’s what orders are. If they didn’t change us, put a little bit of themselves in us, I don’t think we could do our jobs at all.”
Huh. An interesting interpretation of my condition. The repair work might or might not be significant, but Sandy’s glasses were. And Pincushion’s pins. “I told Sandy you were just doing your best. I’m glad I was right. I’m glad you survived the Picnic. Why didn’t Charity—”
Swiveling on a cute black-shoed foot, Pincushion waved a fist at my face, screaming, “Don’t you dare bring that up!” She sagged a little, breathing heavily, but still glared at me in furious, determined defiance. “You don’t know Charity. Not even a little. I won’t hear a word said against her.”
Oh, my.
Anger tugged at me. Charity had—
If it turned out one of Sandy’s spells had done terrible damage, how would I feel if someone tried to complain to me about it?
I didn’t trust Charity at all, but I wasn’t speaking to her. I was speaking to Pincushion, about her owner. About her heroine.
“I understand,” I answered quietly.
She stared at me, suspiciously at first, then growing into relief. “You do. You really do. The others think they know about loyalty, but they don’t.”
She held out a hand. I squeezed it, gently, just her fingers, but she still winced as the fabric pulled at the pin through her palm.
Her fingers closed around my hand, and she pulled me forward again. Her tone rapidly strengthened, into the sharp-edged perkiness I remembered from my old life. “It’s because of the Picnic that I’m so glad you’re here. I have you back, and I will take care of you forever. I mean it.”
Finding my own cheerfulness, I assured her, “I don’t think I need taking care of, anymore!”
She raised a warning finger. “Oh, it’s great now, but no matter what the humans work out, sooner or later Sandy is going back Elsewhere, and you can’t go with her. We can’t go through the mirrors. I think it’s about choices. Since I found out you were alive, that’s been haunting me. In here.”
We took a right turn through a doorless gap into a kitchen. You really couldn’t possibly mistake an active kitchen, even in use. Things bubbled audibly. The air felt hot and a bit moist. Pots and pans hung from walls, crockery sat in cupboards, ovens squatted like metal overlords amongst them. A pair of twin rubber marionettes washed dishes in a sudsy sink. A china doll sat on a rolling chair, with a particularly ragged and stained clothling pushing it around. Where her simple but puffy dress and apron revealed her arms, painted pictures of food covered the porcelain. She moved with a strength and surety I hadn’t seen in others of her kind, stirring pots, tasting them, shaking in seasonings, pouring things, flipping other things.
A pair of sturdy burlap clothlings paused chopping vegetables, and looked over at us. “Is that her?” asked one hopefully.
Pincushion gripped my shoulder tightly. The pin dug in painfully, but if she could deal with that, I could. Her voice was as thick with the emotion as the air was with aroma. “These are the nicest, friendliest clothlings in the palace. When the time comes, you will have friends, and I will look after you.”
Before I could figure out what to say to that, she grabbed my other shoulder and pulled me in for a hug. Ow. Now I felt downright perforated. She whispered hoarsely, “I don’t have much of a heart, and you are the only thing in it besides Charity.” Was she crying?
Another clothling looked over the edge of the big wooden table that dominated the center of the room. “That is her!” it squealed.
A mob descended on me. It seemed like the room had been hiding at least a dozen more clothlings, mostly on the table out of sight. I couldn’t even tell them apart, they threw themselves onto me in such an enthusiastic group hug. The mass heaved like an affectionate sea, then withdrew just enough that the inner ring could look me over without letting go.
The vegetable chopper grimaced. “Oog. Ow.”
A plump white bunny clothling covered in flour bit its knuckle. “She’s so… patched up.”
I pulled my head down into my shoulders awkwardly. That’s right. This was the first time I’d met anyone without Sandy as context. As a human’s sidekick, nobody had cared how mutilated I was. All the too-tight seams, the mismatched widths of my arms, my one button eye and one cracked plastic eye, the chunk of burned off hair in back—I suddenly felt it all keenly.
Pushed behind me by the crowd, Pincushion only had her hand laid on my shoulder now, but she said, “Yes, she’s hideous, there is no one Here sweeter than my Heartfelt, and I’m not letting her be sent to the trash heap.”
For the first time, the china doll noticed the conversation. Her face, with the broad smile and big red spots painted on the cheeks, turned to peer down at me. Rich and delighted, she asked, “You’ve brought us a replacement Heartfelt?”
The dolls drew back a little further. “Another Heartfelt?” one gasped.
The vegetable chopper’s identical vegetable chopping sister stroked her hand over the plastic on my chest. “Yes. It’s intact!”
“Does it still work?” asked the first vegetable chopper, and oh my, I was going to have to get some names pretty soon or this would be endless confusion.
“Let’s find out!” declared a sturdy boy clothling with wooden hands.
As one, the crowd embraced me. Heads lay against me, arms wrapped around every inch of my body, and they smiled as they squeezed me with open, simple affection. They didn’t care if I’d been ripped up and patched back together or not.
My heart lit up pink. That set off a chain of giggles and small cheers, which made it glow brighter.
“Hold her,” said Pincushion sharply. They already were, but everyone tightened their grip even as they gave her curious looks.
I couldn’t. She was right behind me. As I tried to twist my head around, something cold and sharp slipped in under my cap on one side, and the arm of my glasses fell loose. Then it did the same on the other.
When the grey metal slipped in front of me, I recognized it. A knife. Pincushion was cutting my glasses free!
“No! Wait! What are—” I started to shout, but arms held every inch of me below the neck, and twisting my head frantically didn’t prevent the knife from sliding in and cutting the threads that held the glasses to my nonexistent nose.
They fell off.
“Oh, my. I—I—what? Pincushion—what? Why?”
She pushed her way up in front of me, forcing other clothlings out of the way. Pulling a pin out of her palm, she laid the now smooth hand on my cheek, and said, “This is how you are meant to be, Heartfelt. You’re not smart. I meant it, you’ll be happy here, and I’ll protect you. Right now, I have to put these where Charity can use them to send Sandy back Elsewhere, but I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
“No. Those are… mine?” Were they?
Lifting a steaming kettle, the china doll asked, “Does anyone want tea?”
TEA.
I wanted tea. Everyone was so friendly here, and after all…
…I was a fluff-head again.
Chapter Eighteen
“What do you think, Heartfelt? Does the marinade work?” asked the doll with the red and white patterned clothing.
One of the vegetable sisters… um, Rutabaga? I’d better not admit I still couldn’t remember anyone’s name! Whoever she was, she was sitting next to me, so she held out a lump of red-brown stuff on what was probably a fork.
My poor broken eyes.
The red-brown stuff touched my mouth, and I licked it automatically. “Oh my! It’s so rich!”
“That sounds like a success to me!” said the red and white doll.
“We should put more lemon in it,” said the yellow clothling with the round yellow hat.
The purple clothling stood up on the table, whirling around and saying in an airy, girlish voice, “Rich is good, but rich should be for desserts!”
The brown and orange clothling with the glasses said in a soft but serious tone, “This is a fine sauce for meat, Cook.”
“I think so, too, Cook,” agreed the red and white doll. If I looked at her sideways, with the cracks in my vision not in the way, I could see the red-on-white spots pattern on her legs. Was the white picture on her red dress her name? That must be so easy!
I missed reading.
The brown and orange clothling… um, Sauce Muffins? said, “Indeed, Cook makes all things perfectly.”
“Yes,” agreed the vegetable sister next to me.
From the counter, the other sister called out, “We help!”
Purple doll stamped her purple foot. “Let’s find a new recipe book. A dessert recipe book. Charity loves ice cream!”
Maybe I should talk? “This food is all so fancy!”
Everyone nodded. Yay, I’d said something right!
The red and white doll said in a very important tone, “We’ve never made any recipes this complicated, but now that we have humans, we have to make the best of the best!”
“Cook remembers,” said the vegetable sister on the table.
“Cook has made everything,” agreed her sister on the counter.
Humans. Where was Sandy? Was she okay?
The most wonderful sharp smell stole my attention, and someone I couldn’t see said, “Tea is ready!”
Without a word, Cook passed a pot down to the table. I knew by the smell, she’d made it just right.
“Heartfelt loves tea. Have you tried honey in your tea?” asked another voice. I knew this voice. The doll who pushed Cook’s stool around climbed up on the table. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The voice didn’t help. Its whole body was covered i
n stains that hid everything.
What I knew was that it was very nice to me. I liked the grease doll.
“Oh my. No! That sounds deli…” I knew this word. I did. “Delicious!”
The purple doll gasped. “You haven’t?”
Waving a hand, yellow and brown doll chided her, “Honey is challenging to get, Velvet Cake. The vast majority of it goes to the palace. The Endless Picnic in all likelihood saw none at all.”
“Then it’s great we get to share when Heartfelt tries it for the first time,” said greasy doll, picking up the teapot and waddling over to me.
Vegetable sister stood up and held out her arms. “Can I pour for her? Please?”
Hands in her lap, the red and white doll said, “It’s a good thing your mouth wasn’t damaged, Heartfelt.”
I wanted to shrink into myself. I was so ugly! But all my new friends were so nice about it.
Even the yellow one, who said, “I like lemon in my tea more.”
Sandy was nicest to me of all. I missed her.
Pincushion was so mean to take away my glasses! At least she took me to a nice place where I belonged.
“Heartfelt? Are you in there?” asked the vegetable doll, leaning in front of me. Up this close, I could see her worried frown despite the cracks in my eyes.
Greasy doll waved its hand, and she backed away. Kneeling in front of me, it held up the cup. “You were waiting for the tea to cool, right?”
“I wouldn’t want it to cool wrong!” I squeaked. Everyone laughed, for some reason. I took a sip. Mmm, honey eased the bitterness so well! Tilting the cup up, I drank it all, leaned back, and sighed.
I still missed Sandy. Something was wrong. Sandy wouldn’t give me up. Would she? I was very ugly, and a fluff-head.
A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There Page 26