Vilsa smiled and said respectfully, “Dollmage, did our grandmother not teach us that a child who is loved in her own home will grow to look for love everywhere?”
Why must she remind me of our shared heritage? Why must she ever contradict me?
She saw my look and said quietly, “Dollmage, in my joy for my child, 1 have forgotten your sorrow in losing your husband. I am so sorry for your loss.”
“Your husband, too, is dead,” I said. I wanted to hurt her. Had she not hurt me?
She looked at me for a long moment. She was pale from childbirth, but she became even paler then. Finally, she shook her head. “I would know.”
“You cannot know.”
“Dollmage, you have made a valley doll. My husband had great faith in your art. He will find the valley, and then he will return.”
“If he does not, it will not be my fault,” I said. “I told you all before I made it that there is nothing beyond these mountains.”
Vilsa looked down at her child and held her even more tightly. “My husband will come home with a story to tell.”
Then she forgot me, and began to sing to her child a sweet song of love.Vilsa’s husband was gone, but God had given her a child to comfort her heart.
Summer turned into fall as I found the perfect wood for each infant’s doll. I fasted and prayed to find the promise that lay hidden within.
It did not come to me. It would not. I went without sleep many nights. One day I went to Mabe Willowknot’s home. I picked up the baby Renoa and took her to my house.
“Poor babe,” I said. “You waited too long to come, and now there is no power in me even to make you a promise doll.”
Baby Renoa began to wail, but even as she did, I knew how to make Manal’s promise doll. I let God guide my hands as I carved away the wood that hid the promise of the child’s life. When it was done, I knew how to make Areth’s, and then the dolls of the infant girls. I borrowed on tiny Renoa’s powers.
One day I climbed upon Weepers Stump to announce the day of the promise doll ceremony for the four babies. As you gathered, I rejoiced to be alive, and to have found a way to serve you until Renoa was old enough. I rejoiced in our good valley, for black cows in a gold field, and for white geese growing fat on the hay stubble. My husband’s ghost was nowhere to be seen.
“The promise doll ceremony for Renoa, Annakey, Manal, and Areth will be at the next full moon,” I said.
Many tried to find out about the dolls before the ceremony. Some asked subtle questions and reminded me of all the favors they had done for me. Some brought whitemeats and puddings to my door and tried peeking around while I thanked them. It was for naught. I had hidden the dolls in the secret, locked room of my house.
Before sunrise, on the day of the promise doll ceremony for the new babies, the women were moving quietly in the dark, covering the tables in the village common with hot bread, with dishes of fresh butter, stewed fruits, crisped salt-meats, baked brown eggs, and baskets of sweet buns. Milk still warm from the cows’ udders steamed from clay jugs.
The sun rose while the moon was still in the sky. Men and children tumbled out of their cottages and crossed the arched bridges to the common. The mountain forests gleamed green, polished by the heavy rains.The mountaintops were blue and there was no snow on them. The rushy waters of Shrink Creek were swollen to the tops of the banks, spilling over in places throughout the valley to water the fields already deep in corn. It was an auspicious day.
As the villagers gathered, they eyed the food but they would not touch it until after the ceremony. The four new mothers, holding their infants, stood in the center of the common. One by one I would hang the promise dolls, each as small as a child’s thumb, round the necks of the infants in the presence of the witnesses.
Because it was the day I would give the promise doll to the new Dollmage, I had also made memory dolls for each member of the village.
“Take them,” I said as you assembled. “Take them, one to a person. There are some of cloth and some of wax. Here, for you, the one who lingers in the back, who did not reach out to grab — for you, I have a glass one. Put it in the window of your home and see what happens. Here, little ones, whose arms are short for the grabbing, I have dolls filled with pebbles and corn and wheat, and for the infants I have some filled with horsehair or sheep’s wool or feathers.”
You pressed around me, my people, talking and laughing, for your memory dolls. Some of you did not want memory dolls, for you saw no benefit in remembering. To those I gave dolls with more than one purpose. For those, I had dolls with beaks and bills and snouts. “As you keep them,” I said, “so will your barnyard animals be healthy and avoid hoofrot and lice.
I may have forgotten to tell them that their memories, too, would have beaks and bills. That is what you get.
For a woman whose child whimpered at her breast, I had a fever doll, and for Old Man Peel, who had many sins, I gave a memory doll that was also a mercy doll. “Who said old age is a time of rest?” I said as I gave it to him.
Finally, when everyone had been given his gift, I stood upon Weepers Stump. In the ritual way I said, “God has given me the gift to fashion the god of your spirit. It is my gift and power to do so, and will any of you gainsay it?” Normally I do not wait for an answer, but today I let the silence hang in the air for a time.
“So have I done for the four babes.” I cleared my throat. “I have used two different types of wood for the boys, but the same wise beech for the girls. With my knife and many incantations I have carved the woods into small totems, each with ear markings, to ensure that we hear the promises others make and so encourage them in the keeping of those promises. Each has eye markings, so they can watch that we keep the promises we ourselves make. The other markings are different for each child. The markings of a Dollmage are given to none else. The powers of a Dollmage are breathed upon her by God, fallen down from heaven, dream-given. It is the gift. It cannot be taught or learned. It comes out of the sky and lands in a baby when she is born.The only things that can be learned are the dollmaking skills, and the ability to interpret the promise God has given each soul.” The crowd looked up at me expectantly, but some murmured among themselves.
“What is it?” I asked. No one answered.
“What is it?” I asked again.
Only Oda Weedbridge had the courage to speak up. “Dollmage,” she said, “they are wondering how you made promise dolls for the two girls, both born on the day upon which the Dollmage was to be born.”
I smiled patiently and nodded. “I will reveal to you now what I did. Both girls’ promise dolls have the eyes of a Dollmage: slightly askant so they may not see the world straight on, but that they might see under the corners of the everyday world. As I made them I will confess to you that I was amazed. How, I asked God, can there be two? I had searched the scripts of the Sacred dolls, and the law was clear: There shall be only one Dollmage in one village.
“Then God told me what to do, something that I have never seen done before. I made an important difference in the promise dolls. Then, he told me to allow the babes to choose before all the people.”
There was a silence, then a murmuring of agreement, and I could see that you, my people, loved me for my wisdom. Is it my fault? I told you clear as clear that God had given me the wisdom. If you still chose to honor me instead, it could hardly be my fault.
“These children,” I said, “are like the mountains that cradle our valley. Out of storm were they born, but they will be unmoved. They will have stories told of them. For Greppa Lowmeadow’s son, Areth, I have made a beautiful promise doll. Like Southslope Mountain, he will be fair of face. Remember, though, that Southslope Mountain in winter can send down the avalanche. Areth must make sure winter never lives in his heart.”