A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There

by Richard Roberts

  The monster was so big! It rushed forward on a bunch of feet, stampeding into the bundlish at the door and knocking them aside. One… two… three legs grabbed hold of the bundlevich, and a tailtip curled around to trace the edge of his mask.

  Inches from his face, the beaked monster head hissed, “So even. So symmetrical. So orderly. I hate order.”

  The rag doll head pushed him aside, rubbing up against the mask. She had a beautiful voice. “No, silly. I love order. If there weren’t any order, how could I break it?”

  Opening her mouth wide, she dug her teeth into the mask, scraping them down the surface. The sound was awful, but when she was done she giggled, “There you are. You’re so much prettier now!”

  The bundless sewing me up slid Sandy’s glasses over my eyes, wrapped cloth around them, and began stitching them semi-permanently into place. With my improved vision, I could now see the erratic grooves the monster’s teeth left in the bundlevich’s once-beautiful mask. Having defaced him, it lost interest, dropped him, and scrambled back to Sandy.

  Oh, my. Seeing it better… well. It had so many legs! Seven? I thought seven. They were hard to count because they were scattered all over its underside, not lined up in rows. Each one had different claws. Four wings nearly as tall as Sandy, made of light white fabric, stuck out of its back, and flapped whenever they felt like it. It did have the two heads sticking out of its head, and three tails that all twisted together into a stitched-up knot, with four tails coming out the other end. One of those had a large knife stuck to it.

  Sandy was in no danger. It helped her to her feet as tenderly as I would, and wound itself in loose, loving, constantly-moving coils around her.

  The bundlevich stood up. For a second, everyone was quiet.

  The bundlish applauded. The bundlevich ran his hands over his mask, then regarded it in a mirror handed to him by an underling. Or perhaps minion. Crony? Tentatively, I concluded that there must be a wealth of such labels, each carefully doled out and jealously guarded.

  I had time to wince as the old bundler crossed the room to Sandy. My seamstress was sewing a triangular patch between my eyes to fasten the glasses to. Tentatively, I gave a sniff, and almost sneezed. So much dust! Having a nose was a magnificently mixed blessing!

  Sandy gave the bundlevich a warm smile. “You did better than I could have hoped. It’s adorable.”

  He genuflected, arms spread. “Great Witch of There, I, and those beneath me, will accept all praise of its beauty and personality, but cloth and stuffing are poor materials for a monster. It is soft and vulnerable. Worse, it took an entire day to make, and more would take even longer. We beg you consider breaking the seals and releasing the monsters of old, for they are destroyers truly worthy of your war.”

  My heroine gave him a look of wide-eyed surprise. “There are sealed away monsters?”

  “Of course, spreader of corruption. Righteous—” his voice crawled over that word with disgust, “—heroes hate killing their enemies, and many of the worst beasts were near-impervious to harm. We bundlish have records of where three are imprisoned, and believe there to be at least four more across There who would swear to your service if you released them.”

  As he spoke, the monster eyed him, slithering around until it could take hold of his sides with two sets of claws again. One of the bundless seamstresses hurriedly spoke up. “We did make something a little extra to go along. What’s a special toy without accessories? Here you go, darling!”

  From behind the box she pulled out a big cloth ball, and threw it to the monster. Abandoning the bundlevich, it grabbed hold eagerly, savaging the fabric with its beaked mouth. It was made of tough stuff, and didn’t break. It also quickly poofed back out to perfect sphericality moments after the pressure let up. This set off a tussle, as the monster twisted and kneaded the ball, trying to deform it too far to return to its original even, orderly shape, but it always did.

  Sandy’s head snapped up suddenly, looking over at the door. “Is that…?” she asked.

  A messenger bird without a cycle pushed its way through the skirts of the bundlish around the door, flapping a wing and wheezing.

  My heroine took that as confirmation. The seamstress fixing me up hurriedly tied the last stitch closed as Sandy swept up the hall to us, picking me up and tucking me onto her shoulder. She snapped a finger, and ordered a bundlish, “Fetch our things. Whether the monster works or not, we will be leaving after.”

  As I took a secure hold of Sandy’s neck, I asked her, “What’s going on?”

  She whispered back, “This is why I couldn’t let you sleep. The bundlish spies reported that Charity has sent an army to Bundleberg.”

  I gulped. “Is she with them?”

  “We’re about to find out. By the way, your new nose is the cutest thing. Did they tell you it’s pink?” She kissed me on the cheek, and my heart lit up so bright that I couldn’t answer her.

  Sandy stepped out into the street, followed by the bundlish and her monster, which dragged its ball along with one leg. That couldn’t make its lopsided, galumphing walk any less awkward.

  The royal army had arrived. Or at least, part of them. They marched up the street from the forest of There, an even dozen guards with halberds, and two, uh… enhanced guards? Big, shiny things taller than a human, built more or less like guards but more bulky and with huge, boxy heads.

  No Charity. No Pincushion. Despite the giants, I relaxed a little.

  Of course, that growly thing we’d heard at the Dotted Line had to be one of these guard giants, but it was nice to get a confirmation. With almost the exact same voice, one roared, “Princess Charity, ruler of Anywhere and Everywhere, has declared the separation of Here and There over! Pay homage and declare your fealty to her, or be conquered by force!”

  “I hate them,” hissed the monster’s beaked head.

  “I love them!” squealed the monster’s doll head.

  “I love to hate them?” suggested the beaked head. Then they both laughed as the heads wrestled, chewing on each other.

  The bundlevich stepped past Sandy, and held out his glove, palm-forward. A hint of scratch and squeak had entered his voice to match the damaged faceplate. “There belongs to Witch Sandy, and we are her faithful and loving subjects. Charity and her crown will find only despair among the bundlish.”

  “Then there will be no bundlish,” growled the enhanced guard. It lifted a stubby hand, and ordered, “Slay them.”

  Boots clanking in time; the regular guards leveled their halberds and advanced.

  “Too orderly!” shrieked the monster with both heads at once. It dropped its ball and rushed down the street, the back of its lumpy body swaying from side to side as its uneven legs never quite kept up with each other. Twice it buzzed its wings excitedly, and lifted into the air. It could fly!

  The monster plowed into the guards. It didn’t fight. It thrashed and bit wildly, aiming at nothing, but its bulky body still knocked the suits of armor everywhere. A couple came apart, arms twitching feebly.

  “If you will not submit, you will be torn apart,” growled the nearer giant, and it tackled Sandy’s monster. The giant wasn’t as big, but it did fight with direction. It clamped its huge jaws over the rag doll head, wrapped one arm around the monster’s middle, and grabbed the neck of the beaked head.

  “Don’t like you,” whined the rag doll head from inside its mouth.

  “Going to love you to death,” cackled the beaked head.

  The monster convulsed, wrapping around the giant. Its tails slipped into the gap between its jaws, pulling the lower jaw down, while three legs forced the upper jaw up. Released now, the rag doll licked the giant’s face with a felt tongue as the monster pulled wider and wider.

  “Chop… it… up,” croaked the shiny super guard as it struggled to keep its head from being ripped in half—a struggle it was slowly losing.

  Meanwhile, we had another problem. The other giant didn’t move to help its companion. It lumbered
up the street toward us. It opened its own jaws, and…

  I tugged on my human’s ear. “Miss Sandy! Its mouth is a mirror! These things are a trap!”

  The whole giant was shiny. Its armor gleamed, and it had flat places on its stomach and legs that just might be good enough to shove a human through back to Elsewhere. Its inner mouth already rippled, turning from gleaming reflection to an image of a room of bricks and rusty pipes.

  Metal rippled again, in a far more unexpected way. Every bundlish in town drew a weapon. They stepped out of doors holding daggers, kitchen knives, long scissors, long metal bars, and axes.

  The bundlevich said, “Kill for your—”

  “STOP!” screamed Sandy at the top of her lungs.

  Everyone stopped. The monster, the bundlish, the guards, even the enhanced guard charging Sandy froze in mid-step as if in the grip of an invisible fist.

  “Lemon Drop! Come here, Lemon Drop!” Sandy called out, patting her thigh.

  The monster’s grip on its opponent relaxed. In a few more inches, it would have decapitated him. Together, confused and plaintive, both heads asked, “Me?”

  Sandy nodded, and patted her legs some more. “That’s your name now. Come to me.”

  Releasing the giant, Lemon Drop galloped clumsily up the street back to Sandy, tripping over its own legs and rolling twice, although that didn’t seem to slow it down at all.

  She held out her arms, and when it stuck its heads into her embrace, she kissed the top of its ahrivener beak. Laying her face on its neck, her eyes shining with tears, she murmured, “I’m so sorry. I thought this was better than killing you, but what I’ve done to you is awful. If I thought I could make it better by returning you to your original form I would, but that would be killing who you are now. I can’t take this mistake back.”

  Confused, the beaked head said, “But… I’m happy!”

  The rag doll head begged, “Let me rip them apart. I’ll be serious this time, I promise!”

  Finally, the nearer shiny giant got the strength to lower its foot and growl, “We will fulfill our orders from Princess Charity.”

  The bundlevich spun a dagger that curved like a snake in his palm. “You will be cut into scrap and used to make the witch’s next monster.”

  “Oh, what we can do with you…” chortled the bundless who had sewed me up, wriggling with gleeful anticipation.

  Stroking Lemon Drop’s beak, Sandy spoke over them all. She wasn’t loud, but her voice filled the street with its solemn finality. “There will be no fighting and especially no killing. Bundleberg will surrender.”

  The bundlevich shrank back from her in surprise. “What?! No. Please. We belong to you!”

  Letting go of Lemon Drop’s heads, she stepped up and gave the bundlevich a tight hug instead. I patted his magnificent hat as she answered him, “And I value you too much to use you as pawns in my fight. I would rather give you away, so you can continue to be bundlish. You belong to Charity now.”

  Nervously, awkwardly, bundlish at the far end of the street slipped out of their houses and pushed the pieces of broken guards together, then helped them stand. The super guard who had nearly had his head torn in half climbed to his feet with a rattle of metal and growled, “If there is no battle, we must follow our next set of orders. Bring the sealing stones. We will close the hole in Bundleberg and protect Charity’s kingdom.”

  “We must also exile the Pretender Sandy,” added its companion.

  Sandy smiled at it. “I knew you weren’t evil. Don’t worry. No one’s going to try to stop you from obeying your orders. You won’t get the chance. I’m leaving.”

  Shivering, I whispered into her ear, “I suggest urgency, Miss Sandy. The spell is weakening. I’m free already.”

  She kissed my cheek. “Confidence,” was all she said. At least to me. Holding out an arm, she declared, “My things.”

  A bundler handed her a pair of heavy leather sacks. She draped them over Lemon Drop’s rag doll neck, and with me on her shoulder and the monster toddling at her side, she walked up the street past silent, watching guards and bundlish, none of them able to move more than required to watch her go.

  At the end of the street, where the buildings gave way to trees, waited Sandy’s horse. She draped the bags over its back, which worked perfectly because the bags were connected by thongs so one would drape on each side. Saddle bags? Yes, that was the term.

  Climbing onto its back, she took hold of the handles, and suddenly her whole body began to shake. I squeezed her head in the fiercest hug I could as she whispered to me, “I don’t want anyone to die for me, Heartfelt. Not to support me, and not fighting against me. I won’t become Charity to stop her. I won’t.”

  Lifting her head, face and voice grim, she tapped her ankles against the rocking horse’s sides. “Giddyup.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Miss Sandy, where are we going?” I asked in a worried hush.

  She didn’t respond. She stared ahead of us, mouth pulled into a shallow, tight frown. She stared into the arboreal shadows with eyes so wide they seemed to bulge, but if there was either rhyme or reason to how she picked paths, I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe she just wanted to get lost.

  I would just have to wait, tense and wondering what was going through my heroine’s head, with only the hiss of rocking horse runners on dirt and the occasional rustle of dead leaves to listen to.

  Much too long for me to think she was answering my question, Sandy pulled her nameless horse to a halt in an intersection whose sign had broken off, and whose lantern now lay on the ground, throwing more shadows than light. She leaned down and rummaged with one arm in a leather bag. That scrunched me up a bit under her belly, but I was more than willing to accept that discomfort if it meant whatever nightmare she was suffering had eased.

  Her hand came out holding a doll. A china doll? Did they make them that small, or that simple? She sat, pale and feminine in Sand’s hand, with no hair or engravings or clothing to hide the grooved spheres of her joints. The only decorations she had were cracks. They almost covered her, and surely only magic held her together.

  “Which way?” Sandy asked.

  The doll lifted an arm, and pointed. Sandy slid the doll into my grip and turned the horse to slide down the path nearest that direction.

  The little doll felt cold and stiff and smooth in my arms. Light, as well. Maybe plastic instead of china? Holding her securely against my chest, I leaned over her head and asked, “Hello?”

  No answer.

  “My name is Heartfelt. What’s yours?” I tried.

  The broken doll’s eyes didn’t even flick up toward me.

  So. It wasn’t alive. This was an implement of witchcraft.

  Sandy must have heard me, but didn’t respond either. I didn’t press. At least we had a purpose now, and her bleak glare had eased into a frown. This also explained why she still had the huge needle and ball of twine strapped to her belt. A cracked doll to locate cracks in the world.

  Even with its directions, she pulled up suddenly and let out a gasp of surprise when we arrived. Of course, so did the horse and I. The doll surely would have, if it had been alive.

  A large—“small town” large—clearing opened up in front of us. The trees gave way to grass, which in a matter of inches gave way to dirt, which a few yards past turned to sand, and then to gravel, and after that irregular chunks of dark… stuff. Some of it shined, some was dull, almost all of it seemed to be brown, although There’s night time shadows made colors iffy. Light came partly from scattered fireflies, partly from brightly glowing spots on the piled-up debris, and quite a lot rippled off the waterfall descending along the tower.

  Tower? Mountain? Too small to be a mountain. A heap of jumbled objects taller than the Town Hall spire in Bundleberg rose from the very center of the clearing. Liquid too opaque to be water poured down from its top, and into an irregular circular pool at the base.

  Slowly, we rode up to where gravel became
chunks of clutter, near the fountain. It would have been too awkward for a rocking horse to traverse that, so Sandy slid off the horse, scooping me up into the crook of her arm as she did. I deposited the magic doll back in its pouch along the way.

  Carefully, my heroine picked her way through the loose and irregular mess to the edge of the pool. It smelled oily, and a bit salty. She crouched down to sniff, and wrinkled her nose.

  I was looking straight down, and noticed something else. “Miss Sandy, I don’t think you’re standing on rocks.”

  That pulled her attention away from the pool. Her free hand pried a piece of debris out of ground, and lifted it up for us to examine.

  It was… well, a box. It had bolts stuck into it around the edges, and one acting as a nose between two broken holes that must have been eyes. The mouth actually sat on top, round and with triangular teeth that spiraled closed. The whole thing wasn’t much taller than me, with stumpy arms and legs no longer than my mittens.

  That was only one. Its siblings covered the ground, paved the bottom of the pool, and piled on top of each other to make the tower. No two were the same. Some had longer arms and legs, or no arms and legs. Bendy arms or stick arms. Bodies as simple as this box, or with balls and cones stuck together to make heads and dresses that would be shiny and pretty if they hadn’t fallen to rust. Faces covered in buttons and with elaborate goggle eyes, or just a few bolts.

  These had been dolls like me, although with much more variety of shape. What should I call these poor, forgotten people? Well, they all had one thing in common, so I would call them metallings.

  My eyes rose to the lights that shone mostly from the central spire. Tugging on Sandy’s sleeve, I murmured, “Some of them are still alive.”

  “Then it’s all the more important we save them,” she whispered back, sounding, thank goodness, merely glum. Placing the broken metalling down, she pointed up at the top of the fountain. For a moment I couldn’t see what she meant, but that was because I literally could not see it. The rift we were looking for was here, a blank spot right up at the top of the spire, interrupting the flow of half the oily waterfall. Oilfall? No, that sounded too clumsy. “Oily waterfall” would have to do.