A Rag Doll's Guide to Here and There

by Richard Roberts

  “But how to get up there?” asked Sandy, quietly. Everything we’d said had been in a hush, hadn’t it? This was a place for reverent stillness. Any noise louder than the trickles and splashes of the falling water jarred the senses.

  The quiet was entirely good for concentration and thought, so I immediately gestured off around the pool. “The fall is all on one side. We can climb up from the back.”

  Taking long, awkward steps to balance sure spots to stand and not stepping on anyone who even might be alive, Sandy circled around. My assessment proved correct. In fact, not only was the back a mostly dry pile of broken metallings, but without the direct flow they formed mounds like stepping stones up to the base.

  “Miss Sandy, this doesn’t look safe to climb,” I said, eying the stacked up broken dolls. The tower stayed up because the metallings had locked their arms and legs together, not because they were even in size and shape. Most were visibly crushed or split. Their surfaces gleamed. Maybe the oil wasn’t falling on this side, but any hand or foothold might be dangerously slick and there would be no warning of that.

  She nodded. “I was thinking that, too. Any suggestions, guide?”

  I couldn’t help but giggle happily, even here, even after the last few hours. I loved being called that, and intended to live up to the title. “The string the bundlish gave you must be magical, correct? Anything that could be readily torn, or you might run out of, wouldn’t be worth sending with you. Assuming I’m correct and it will hold our weight, tie it around my waist and throw me up to the top. I can tie it to a secure spot, and you will have a support to keep you from falling in case you slip.”

  Frowning doubtfully, she said, “One problem. My aim isn’t very good. What if you land in the oil? Or in the rift?”

  “The former will clean off eventually, and the latter does not seem harmful as long as you don’t get lost—and the string will prevent that. Such a mistake would be unpleasant, but not dangerous. I suggest you aim right for the top middle, where I can climb up the rest of the way even if you miss.”

  Sandy considered that in silence, her pursed lips clearly not liking the suggestion. While she failed to find any way I was wrong, I heard another voice. Someone around here, somewhere, was sobbing. Or… was I just mishearing the patter of oil on metal? Stray drops plinking off cold, stiff bodies?

  I got squeezed particularly tightly in the crook of Sandy’s elbow as she unwound the magic thread, then tied it around my waist. When she said, “You’re sure about this,” it was in a peculiar tone, doubtful and resigned, and not a question. She understood that I was sure, and she wasn’t.

  Which meant it was very flattering that she trusted—whoawhoaWHOA!

  Being spun around in a circle to build up speed was not fun! The loop of thread dug painfully into my middle, my glasses wanted to fly of my face, and the world blurred and swam disturbingly in front of my eyes. Then it ended, switching to a stage of feeling like a poofy, floating cloud as I sailed through the air toward… um…

  Alright, so Sandy was right about her aim. She missed the main tower entirely, but I grabbed my trailing string in time and whipped it to the side, so that it hooked over a couple of prongs that looked like legs sticking out of the peak on one side. My heroine pulled the cord short on her end, and with an uncomfortable jerk around my middle, I ended up hanging safely from… oh my, they really did look exactly like human legs, didn’t they? With pointy shoes on the end. Except humans were very definitely not made of metal. The metal showed no seams, so this had to be a statue embedded in the top of the pile, not any sort of doll.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” Sandy called up to me, in the faintest voice that would carry.

  I saluted her so she’d know it was all right, and grabbed hold of the statue’s leg, pulling myself up. Sitting on its knee, I reeled in a lot of string, and wound it several times around both legs. That would give us both a perfect anchor if I messed up the next step.

  Draping some of the twine over my own shoulder now, I climbed. There wasn’t far to go. Up here at the very top, a round metalling sat on a barrel metalling that sat on a box, and I had to inch around the rim of the box carefully toward a tube-shaped arm sticking out of the barrel. The scratchy, sobbing noise was clearly audible now. It came from the oval ball right above-

  “You’re alive!” I squeaked in shock, lost my grip, and lunged to grab the metalling’s arm. One metalling, even bigger than a human and close to the same shape. A reflexive look down was not comforting. I had eased around to the front of the tower, and the rift hung literal inches from me, a blurry mess mostly visible because so much of the fountain of tears fell into it.

  Definitely tears. From this side, round eyes stuck out of the huge metalling’s head in thick frames, from which poured oil in a never-ending torrent. A grill mouth shivered as she—I was pretty sure she, mostly from the high voice—wept.

  Responsibilities, Heartfelt. I wound the twine securely around this person’s arm, and beckoned to Sandy below. The arm held a statue of a human girl against the weeper, and would be as secure as anything in the whole world.

  That done, I patted her metal shoulder, and asked, “Hello?”

  No response. Just more tears, and those that didn’t fall into the rift fell onto the statue she held, then poured from it down the front of the spire.

  Below me, Sandy muttered, “I’m pretty sure tetanus isn’t a thing Here or There, at least.” With the string wrapped around one arm, she climbed the tower the hard way. At several stages she leaned most of her weight on the string, which let her lift her foot past metallings in the pile that still had lights on.

  I was particularly grateful for the cord when Sandy reached the top, because she leaned back with a jolt the same way I had when she realized the crying figure at the top was alive. When she recovered, Sandy reached up to run her fine human fingers over the metalling’s cheek.

  That got no response, so Sandy pulled herself up onto the peak of the tower next to me, drew her needle, and got to work. Like in Bundleberg, she looped it around the end of the rift and started sewing it closed.

  Below us, quite audibly, Charity declared, “Wow.”

  “Oh, my,” I whispered.

  Sandy did bounce with surprise, but instead of anxiety she leaned over the slowly shrinking rip and called down, “Don’t even think about interrupting me until I finish.”

  Scooting to the side, I got a clear view of Charity, crown on her head and witch hat in one hand, standing by the edge of the pool. She had half a dozen guards with her, regular suits of armor except for the axe-bladed spears they carried instead of spoons.

  Leaning to get a better look past the rift, Charity gaped at Sandy with obvious surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “Closing this hole so no one falls in. What are you doing here?” Sandy snapped back with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

  “Protecting my kingdom by closing up holes,” Charity snapped back. Then her demeanor changed, and she folded her arms, watching Sandy pull the tear shut, stitch by stitch. “Sewing it closed? I guess that works. Looks ragged, but it’s more compact than what I’ve got. I found some big stone disks in the castle basement. You screw them on over a hole like a bottle cap, and it sucks them in. It’s not perfect, but then I’m not the one who broke the world.”

  Hardly fair, considering the tense circumstances Charity created— but Sandy interrupted my thought. “I’m surprised you care. What are a few puppets more or less?”

  Folded arms became a fist on Charity’s hip, and her purple dress swishing around her legs. “I’m the princess. It’s my responsibility to protect Here and There.”

  Sandy grunted a little, squeezing around the head of the bulky crying metalling, which involved ducking past ears—or possibly pigtails? — like spikes with disks set into them. On the other side now, she got to work sewing shut that half of the rift. Not that she abandoned the argument. “By destroying There?”

  Charity swept one arm around, causing
her guards to back up nervously. “Do you see a mirror? There’s no way we’re getting a good reflection in that puddle of oil. No? Then we don’t have to fight.”

  Sandy yanked the last stitches tight, and closed the rift. The pool around the base of the statue did not reflect details well, or turn into a portal to Elsewhere. What it did was reflect the sky.

  Without the rift, the top of the junk tower was now fully visible. The metal legs I’d first gotten hold of were part of a whole statue of a human girl in a dress, still and metal with closed eyes. The doll at the top’s tears drenched the statue, pouring over it, off of it, and now that they filled the pool properly the moon and stars shone from the surface of the oil, lighting up the area. In the reflection, the statue’s hanging arms looked upraised instead, and it held the moon in its hand. The canopy encircling the miniature desert glowed like a halo.

  Sandy tied off the end of the rift, straightened up, and tucked her needle into her belt. “Good.”

  Out of nowhere, a massive, soft, squiggly shape dropped onto the ground by the pool. Lemon Drop! How…? Where did they come from?! Where had they been? I’d forgotten all about them!

  Okay, think about this, Heartfelt. Clearly, this was powerful magic, which meant it was Sandy’s doing. It made perfect sense for her to be on guard and want Lemon Drop lurking unnoticed by anyone. I had gotten caught in the spell, that’s all.

  “…because you’re surrounded,” finished Sandy. Lemon Drop reached their tails up, wrapping around Sandy in multiple coils, and lowered her to the ground in front of Charity. Well, the back half of Lemon Drop did that. The front half was a bit more confused, its beaked face studying a bulbous metalling it dug out of the debris that it turned over and over in one foot, and the rag doll face grinning and bobbing as it watched the guards.

  Charity gave the monster a good, long look. So did her guards, although in their case they did it while shuffling together into a nervous pack. Taking a halberd from their unresisting hands, Charity pointed it at Lemon Drop, lowered the weapon again, and shrugged. “I could kill it.”

  With that she appeared to dismiss the monster from her mind entirely. Tossing the halberd back to her guards, she bent down and lifted something up off the ground. This doll was oblong, and had two little lights like eyes. They flickered when she picked it up, and it waved a pair of skinny arms with two blunt claws each on the ends. The top of what was presumably its head opened up, and a spiral fan emerged, then began to spin.

  Raising it in both hands, Charity smiled over at Sandy, her demeanor suddenly excited. “As for getting rid of There, I’m changing my mind. I had no idea anything like this existed. I didn’t know it was even an option. I want a whole city like this! Stuff like this is just what Here needs!”

  Sandy stepped closer, cautiously touching the arm of the little boxy creature. “They’re so different. Where did they come from?” It buzzed at her, and waved its arm even more excitedly.

  Right next to me, the pig-tailed metalling answered in a voice scratchy from crying, “We were made by my heroine, Lilith. There were no other humans like her, and never will be.”

  Sandy brushed her fingertips over the twitchy doll in Charity’s hands. “That makes them lilim, the children of Lilith.”

  The stove-pipe arm I was clinging to shuddered and squeaked subtly, tightening around the statue it held.

  In a hushed, reverent voice, Sandy said, “This is a memorial.”

  The metal— no, lilim’s arm squeaked again, now trembling, and she whispered to the statue, “I will never let you go.”

  Wrapping my own arms around hers, I gave the lilim sidekick the tightest hug I could, and called out, “It’s a grave.”

  Both humans were silent. The lilim kept weeping. I kept hugging, although I knew nothing would comfort her. Eventually, Sandy beckoned awkwardly at Lemon Drop and said, “Please help Heartfelt down.”

  I understood why Sandy would want me with her right now, but when Lemon Drop extended their tail, I ignored it. “She—what is your name?”

  “I am Jane-ella Mark Two,” croaked the crying lilim.

  “Jane-ella needs me more,” I finished, grunting a bit as I pulled myself up onto her shoulder.

  Her head swiveled in a slight “no,” sending a ripple through the waterfall of tears. “It is too late to help me.”

  Charity put her fist on her hip again. Sounding more confused than doubting, she asked, “How could a place like Here and There kill anyone? Choke them with hugs? Maybe she was sick when she got Here?”

  Jane-ella’s answer came cold, hopeless, and dull. “The Digs went mad when a human took their prey away. Lilith gave them peace, but while the spell was still taking hold one of them ripped—”

  Her recitation broke off in a wave of louder sobs, and for a few seconds the waterfall of tears poured even harder, sloshing around the pool until she settled back into her endless grief.

  I held onto her cheek, and stroked it with one hand. Just to her, I whispered, “I know. They can’t understand, because they’re greater than us. Without Sandy, I will be nothing.”

  My words were enough for her to finish her story. “My heroine’s children covered her in the metal she loved, and now we will sit in this place and mourn her until the end of the world.”

  Softly now from sympathy rather than awe, Sandy said, “I can ease your pain and give you new purpose. You don’t have to suffer forever.”

  “NO!” shouted Jane-ella. Not only did her arms squeeze the body of her creator again, the whole tower underneath us shuddered. “I don’t want to love Lilith one single tear less. No one will look at me again the way she did when a House Cuckoo stole my leg to make a chimney, and she built me a new one. No one will love me so much that repairing me makes her laugh with joy.”

  Charity shook her head, hands on her hips. “Well, I’m certainly not going to force her. This is by far the greatest thing in my kingdom. It’s giving me all kinds of ideas.”

  Sandy gave her a shocked stare in turn. “You really want to bring back the danger? Kids used to die There, and even Here.”

  “I’m the one that will be facing that danger, so, yes,” Charity answered flatly.

  Sandy held up her hand toward me, and as she did Lemon Drop extended their tail the same way. “I’m sorry, Heartfelt, but please come down now.”

  “Do not waste a second of your time together. It will end sooner than you think,” Jane-ella Mark Two whispered to me.

  I kissed her on the cheek, and sat down on the end of Lemon Drop’s tails. They rippled, sliding me down to the monster’s bulbous body. As I passed, I reached out and brushed my hand against Lilith’s head. That left a dark, oily stain on my palm, which I intended to keep and be proud of. I had touched something great and sad that should be remembered.

  Sandy reached out reflexively to touch my cap as I scooted up next to her, even though her attention was on her human friend. “Charity…”

  The princess held up both hands, looking down with an awkward frown almost like guilt. “I know, but we’re stuck with this. You won’t stop doing what you think is right, and I can’t get through to you. I wish we could talk, but…”

  “…we have more holes to fill,” finished Sandy.

  “Yeah.”

  They stood there in silence for a couple of seconds, looking at each other with human expressions I couldn’t read, until Charity raised her arms. “Can we pretend for one moment…?”

  Sandy stepped up to her, and they hugged each other with desperate tightness. When they let go, Sandy’s face had turned sad again. She scooped me up in one hand, and said, “We both agree this is important at least.”

  With no further farewell, Sandy walked back to her horse with no name, and rode it around the circle of desert, taking us well away from the oily tears that fell like rain in the center. Lemon Drop galloped haphazardly next to us as we slid into one of There’s many forest tunnels.

  When the desert and Charity were completely out of sig
ht, Sandy tucked me into her lap and shuddered, brushing at her arms and front like she was getting into cobwebs. “I can’t believe I went through with that,” she muttered.

  Twisting around in the saddle, I hugged Sandy’s stomach and stared up at her in concern.

  She stroked my cap, and said, “It’s okay, Heartfelt. Well, no, it’s not, but I know what we have to do now.”

  “In general or in detail?” I asked.

  Her legs tightened around the rocking horse, which slowed down and stopped. Sandy lifted me up and sat me on the top of the horse’s head, one hand around my middle, the other stroking my cap with anxious force. Her face looked bleak, but slowly settled into calm, solemn determination. “I have a plan. Charity does too, I’m sure. She can track the rifts, and she’s going to try to catch me at one. I’m going to make a new rift, and ambush her there.”

  I tapped my chin. “Those sound like uncomfortably even odds, Miss Sandy. I strongly suggest you rig them in some fashion and make the confrontation unfair.”

  She nodded. “That’s the point. We’re both going to cheat. We’ll both have some kind of ace in the hole. I know what Charity’s will be. You’ve seen the dresses she’s wearing now? She’s hidden the clothing she came here from Elsewhere wearing, so she can’t be sent home.”

  I held up my mitten excitedly. “I know where they are! I saw them in Pincushion’s bedroom!”

  Sandy grinned. It was a harsh grin, but still, I glowed a bit because she was so clearly happy with me. With an extra pat on my head, she said, “Then that’s one step complete already. Now, I need you to go to the palace, steal that clothing, and take it to the temple in the mists. Charity will have at least one other trick, but she’ll be sloppy because she’ll think she’s safe. She’ll be wrong.”