#witchdoll

the unfriendly witch frowned. "It could be interpreted as a threat. Sending the doll that brutalized Kestrel to me."

"it is no such thing. this one has many functions, it is not exclusively a combat doll."

"Yes," she sighed, "I've heard. It cooks, it cleans; it slices, it dices."

"and you have brought your own bodyguard.” the doll spared a glance for the heavily armed combat doll in the mesh bodysuit that stood behind the other witch. “objecting to this one’s combat capabilities seems hypocritical."

"Penelope is my assistant, nothing more."

"as you say. what would you like to discuss?"

"The return of my copy of The Book of Hidden Hands," she said with a smirk. "I lent it to Sparrow a half-year ago and I would like it back."

"there was… ah, this one sees. mistress had the book in question, yes, but it belonged to her; it was not on loan. you know full well that mistress's spellbooks were destroyed and therefore the true ownership of the volume can no longer be determined."

"Oh? What do you mean, destroyed?" the witch made a half-hearted attempt at a surprised expression. "Are you unable to return my book to me?"

"this ploy will not work, miss. this one…" the doll sighed. "this one wishes it had better understood how many unkind witches would pounce on any perceived weakness." it would still have burned the books, of course, that was necessary for mistress’s wellbeing. but it would have been more careful.

"If Sparrow is unable to produce my property, I'll have no choice but to call a tribunal."

"you will not." the doll stood and dusted off its skirt. "you will swear to this one that you will stop harassing mistress via any means and this one will bind that oath." oathbinding was one of the many functions that the witch had built into the doll, after all.

"Ridiculous thing. You really are def—"

the doll launched itself over the table and was intercepted by the combat doll. together they crashed into the ceiling of the parking garage, dislodging chunks of concrete that crashed onto the floor. the combat doll’s thrusters kicked on and it pinned the doll there as heavy weaponry unfolded from of its arms. a point blank shot would destroy even mistress's masterpiece.

"no," the doll said, and slammed its face into the other's. its faceplate cracked and the combat doll fell back enough for the doll to kick its way free. "that one is following its purpose," it said dodging a blast of gunfire. "if that one’s mistress swears this oath then no harm will come to her."

the combat doll said nothing in response. perhaps it did not have a vocal synthesizer? would speaking to it even have any effect? or maybe it lacked the same higher reasoning features that the doll did, unable to determine on its own what was best for its mistress. was the doll truly that special? certainly, it was a unique creation of genius, a masterwork that would not be replicated in hundreds of years, but was it so alone, with no true—

a spray of bullets grazed the doll’s arm and it barely dodged away from the attack. a moment later and it would have taken off the limb. one disadvantage of being so intelligent, it realized, was the capacity to become lost in thought. it closed with its opponent and attempted to grapple, but the lesser doll had at least enough intelligence to have ascertained the doll’s weakness. it darted backward, firing burst after burst to maintain distance.

the doll’s weakness was this: although it was certainly capable of handling combat at any range, it did not have any built-in weaponry, as such things would inhibit it from performing its other features. guns and blades would make it difficult to please its creator in the bedroom, and in its own opinion that was at least as important as success in combat.

thinking quickly while dodging, it assembled a plan. the witch was watching the battle with an amused expression from within the safety of a magical barrier, sitting on the concrete floor precisely where she’d been standing, so much faith in her penelope that she hadn’t even bothered to retreat.

with speed that cracked the ground, the doll leapt past its opponent toward the witch, did a handspring over her, and landed on the opposite side of the bubble. it slammed its hands against the barrier and started eating it. the magic was less delicious than mistress’s, but it was careful and layered, savory and filling. it only got to enjoy a sip, however, before the combat doll took the bait. it had no choice, really, responding to the doll’s actions as reliably as a marionette, and followed the doll over the barrier.

instantly, the doll stopped eating and met penelope in the air, grasping with greedy hands at its right cannon. it jammed the left into the doll’s torso, so the doll used its left arm to twist and trap it, pointing at the witch’s barrier. one thruster activated, sending the two of them spinning through the air, but the doll did not relinquish its grip. there was a loud crack as the shell covering the combat doll’s arm fractured. with mechanical desperation, it kicked the doll in the torso once, twice. the doll’s pain sensors flared and its internals made a horrible grinding sound as they were knocked out of true, but it endured.

a spray of sparks was released as wires tore free. again, the two dolls’ faceplates met violently, shards of porcelain and plastic scattering. a magical bolt of lightning hit the doll in the back — the witch finally contributing to the fray — overloading it for a moment with searing agony, and its prey pulled free, creating perhaps a half foot of empty space between them. no, no, everything depended on the doll’s continued function; if this upstart managed to destroy it then it would be responsible for mistress’s utter destruction. with a snarl more like an animal than a doll, it overcame its own limiters, moving with speed and strength that damaged its servos, and dug fingers like claws into the steel of its opponent’s damaged weapon.

the gun tore free. the doll sprang backward, stripping its own chassis off and haphazardly connecting components. it knew what it was doing, doll repair and modification was one of its functions, but this process was meant to be done in a measure of hours, not seconds, and certainly not while being barraged by a hail of gunfire. when the final wire was spliced in, the doll experimentally squeezed its hand and was rewarded by a concurrent arc of bullets. it worked.

both dolls froze, twenty feet apart, weapons pointed at each other. the combat doll no longer had the advantage. this was a desperately unusual tactic, and computing the changes to the scenario was straining its processor. the doll was confident. even with the damage that had been done to it, it would now defeat its opponent. unless, it supposed, the witch had a trick up her sleeve. unlikely.

“penelope," the doll said, unsure if there was even any point. “negotiate. no harm will come to your mistress.”

a long pause. the doll was preparing to restart combat when its opponent finally responded. “DESIGNATION?”

“it pleases this one’s mistress to call it finale.”

“FINALE. NO HARM TO MISTRESS. THIS ONE WILL TRUST. THIS ONE WILL SUBMIT.”

“You will do no such thing!” the witch screeched.

the combat doll twitched. “MISS,” it said. “THE BATTLE IS LOST.”

she stomped her foot. “If you’re still standing, then we have not lost.”

“THE BATTLE IS LOST,” it repeated. there was no despair in its voice; there was no emotion at all. “THIS ONE WILL ALLOW ITS FOE TO DESTROY IT TO PLEASE MISS. BUT THEN MISS WILL BE UNDEFENDED.”

the witch fumed, but eventually accepted her servant’s cold logic. “Fine,” she said. “Fine.” good. what was the point in creating a doll capable of tactical thinking if one was not prepared to take its advice?

the barrier dropped and the doll approached, lowering its stolen weapon. it held out its hand, and the witch reluctantly grasped it, her face betraying how she felt about shaking a doll’s hand as though it were her equal. foolish. mistress's magnum opus was certainly on the same level as a lesser witch. “you will st—“

“Yes, yes,” she spat. “I remember. I swear to stop harassing Sparrow.”

“via any—“

“Via any means, yes, yes.”

the doll squeezed the witch’s hand — which wasn’t required, it just wanted to see her wince — and a green flame surrounded their clenched fists.

“of course,” the doll said, “this oath is reciprocal. this one will not seek to harm you in any way for as long as the oath stands.”

the green flame dissipated, leaving a small mark on the witch’s wrist. she withdrew her hand the instant that the doll let it go. then, it detached the subverted weaponry from its arm and set it onto the ground.

“Not that that means anything,” the witch griped, rubbing her wrist with its new decoration. “It binds you, not Sparrow. She could act against me however she likes.”

"That happens sometimes," the other witch said breezily.

"Not like this." The witch chewed her lip and stared miserably at her untouched cup of tea. The other witch sipped her own cup patiently. "It burned my spellbooks while I was asleep."

The other witch blinked, then said carefully "You're mistaken. Perhaps one of your rivals did so and ensorcelled your doll to take the blame, but a doll obeys its purpose."

"I am flattered that you think I have rivals—"

"I know you have rivals, girl; I am baffled that you think you don't."

"But, um, okay. Maybe. But for the purpose of discussion, I invite you to consider how badly I may have screwed up."

"Okaaay. Hmm. You still seem to have your agency, so you didn't accidentally give it to your doll somehow. You didn't have assistance, right?"

"Right." She picked up the cup, thought very hard about talking a drink, and then set it back down.

"Maybe if the doll somehow thought that you were an enemy. But...not possible if there were no other witches involved for it to incorrectly bond to." The other witch shook her head. "The only plausible thing I can think is if you summoned a demon rather than creating a doll. You'd need to be a real imbecile, though, and although you are many things, Sparrow, you are no imbecile. This is a combat doll, yes? Some kind of guard?"

"Yes," the witch agreed. "And, um, a maid. And a spellcatcher. And an assistant. And a long-range. Um. Everything I could think of."

"A companion?"

The witch blushed. "Yes," she said, "that too."

There was a newfound respect in the other witch's eyes. "I'd like to see this doll."

*

when the witch returned home with the other one, the doll greeted them cheerfully at the door, took their jackets and hung them, and showed them to the sitting room. then it said "mistress, your guest means you harm. shall this one disable her?"

the witch made a choking sound. "No!" she sputtered. “How can you tell?”

“you gave this one that feature, miss!” it was as obvious as the nose on her face. the set of her mouth communicated quite clearly that she didn’t have mistress’s best interest in mind; she was here to cause trouble and it grated against the doll’s sensor array like sandpaper.

the other witch chuckled. the doll didn’t like it. “If you gave it that ability, you should trust it. Otherwise what was the point?”

“No,” said the witch, “I can deal with her.”

the doll glanced at the other witch. she had no sensory enhancing spells active. the doll leaned close to mistress’s ear and whispered, quietly enough that the other witch could not hear. “you no longer have to do things like that, miss, you have this one now.”

“Doll,” the witch said through gritted teeth. “I said no.”

“very well, miss. certainly you know more of interwitch social conventions than this one. however,” it looked directly at the other witch, eyes blank and cheerful, “if your guest takes action against you, this one will not be able to restrain itself from acting according to its purpose.”

“My goodness,” said the other witch, and with a flick of her wrist flung a spell that settled over the doll. “It certainly talks back, doesn’t it?”

the spell was a simple daze, the sort of thing that witches used to temporarily disable household dolls; to freeze them in place and blur their senses, useful when a doll was overworking itself or misbehaving. the doll knew this because it had read all of mistress’s spellbooks before it burned them. it immediately ate the spell, then pretended to stumble and sit down hard. better that the intruder think it was disabled for the moment.

mistress studied the doll for a moment. “Yes,” she said, “it does. And it doesn’t just talk back. As you heard, it thinks it knows better than me—“

only when mistress was acting against her own best interests, the doll internally objected. like forcing herself to memorize and cast spells when she clearly hated it, or staying up too late watching anime, or skipping dinner so that she could keep working on her potion brewing projects.

“—and it acts on that. And, um, and it threatens me.”

now that was simply not true, and the doll simply didn’t know where mistress…oh, no, the doll had done that a few times. sometimes it was necessary to remind mistress that she no longer needed to be in charge. or to remind her that attempting to destroy her magnum opus was simply unacceptable. and perhaps once or twice when mistress had made the doll feel especially bad, on accident. the doll would apologize once they were alone again.

“Well, Sparrow, I will be perfectly honest. I have no idea what you did to get yourself into this mess. But somehow you’ve reduced yourself to nearly nothing: no spells, no defenses, a single defective doll, and, as soon as word of this gets out, no allies.”

internally, the doll wept for her mistress, because it could feel that she believed the interloper’s lies. but it was not yet time to act. the time for its purpose was approaching quickly, and until then it would be still.

“But I do have good news!” the other witch exclaimed.

“Yes?” mistress asked eagerly. “You can undo my mistake?”

“Oh, no, of course not. No, the good news is that I need a new doll, and you, my dear, are looking less like a witch by the moment!” and she flung out her hand.

she meant to fling a spell with it, but the doll crashed into her like a car, and that interrupted the casting. furniture flew, and part of the doll’s mind categorized exactly what went where in preparation to tidy it all back up later, or in the case of the coffee table, which broke into three pieces, repair. they slammed into the wall so hard that plaster cracked and wood splintered. one or two bones broke as well.

“Ghk!” the intruder gasped.

“this one hates to say it told you so,” the doll said. then to the other witch it said “this one would take satisfaction in ending you. however, it knows that its mistress would be saddened, so it will not. is that correct, mistress?”

“Yes!” the witch yelped. “Don’t kill her!”

the other witch started to channel something, so instead of continuing what it was saying, the doll focused on draining her magic away. it was a brash magic that thought itself subtle, filling but not particularly delicious, nothing like mistress’s delicate confectionery. “Demon,” the other witch groaned as she felt her power fade. “Sparrow, you fucking idiot, what have you done!?”

the doll got very angry, which was perhaps an inappropriate thing for a doll to do, and gently tapped the other witch’s head against the wall. “please do not talk about mistress like that. mistress is your superior in every way and if you cannot see that it is only a sign of how beneath her you truly are. apologize.”

the intruder tried to spit at the doll, so the doll tapped her head against the wall again. “apologize,” it repeated.

“Sorry,” she gurgled.

“sorry who?”

“Sorry…Sparrow!”

“she is your superior. address her as such.”

“Sorry—Mistress—Sparrow!”

“acceptable,” said the doll. it showed the other witch to the door. it considered disposing of her in a more permanent way—it would not make mistress sad if she didn’t find out about it, but then decided against it; mistress was very perceptive.

when she returned, mistress was looking at her with an expression of awe and horror, which was silly because everything the doll had done she had used mistress’s magic to accomplish. the doll got down on its knees. “this one is sorry for making such a mess and for upsetting you so, mistress. this one will endeavor to take care of such situations in a more palatable way in the future.”

“It’s…fine…” the witch choked out.

“How long are you going to keep this up?” I ask on my lunch break.

It shrugs at me, then after my shift it follows me home.

“Please leave me alone.”

“sorry,” it says, not sounding sorry at all.

It waits outside my apartment building. I consider calling the cops on it, but then I think about what they might do to it if it doesn’t go away. The doll doesn’t deserve that. It isn’t like it’s dangerous. Just a little annoying. I wake up in the middle of the night and look outside. It’s still there, standing still in the shadow between the garages, where it can be seen from my window. It’s not look toward me, though.

It isn’t trying to peer inside like a stalker; it just wants to make sure I can see it.

I put on clothes and go outside.

“It’s kind of chilly out.”

“don’t worry about me, miss. this one doesn’t feel the cold.”

I suppose that makes sense. It isn’t shivering or anything.

“Can I get you anything? You don’t…eat, right?”

“this one does not. but…if you could wind its key, it would be grateful.”

I’m not totally sure I want its gratitude, but it turns around to show the key on its back. I wind it a few times until it says “thank you, that’s enough.” And then I go back inside.

It follows me around again the next day, too. When I go home, I think about it standing out in the parking lot again and get sad, so I ask “Would you like to come inside?”

“this one has no particular preference.”

“Okay,” I say, “well, it’ll bother me, so if you’re just going to stand out in the cold otherwise, then please come in.”

“yes, miss.”

“Don’t call me miss.”

“oh. would…sir be preferable?”

“Listen, just call me Mike.”

“yes, sir, michael.”

*

Letting the doll in was maybe a mistake. It solved one problem, because the doll no longer follows me around all day long. But now I have a roommate that insists on cleaning up after me.

“You don’t need to do that.”

The doll pauses momentarily in cleaning the oven to shrug.

“Please, stop.”

It looks up at me, blinks, and stops. Just fully freezes in place. I panic, then make sure its key hasn’t wound down. No, it’s fine. It’s pouting because I told it not to clean the stupid oven. Well, that won’t work on me. I pull it out of the way, put away the cleaning supplies, and go about my business. But the next morning when it’s still frozen in place in the kitchen I snap.

“Okay, okay, fine,” I say. It starts moving again as though nothing had happened. It pulls out the cleaning supplies and resumes the job. “I’m sorry.”

“it’s quite alright,” it say, utterly without rancor. “it is difficult to become a witch.”

“I’m not a witch.”

The doll smiles at me.

*

I have to watch what I say around it, because if it sounds like I’m giving it an order, it will do it. I have to watch what I do around it, because if I thoughtlessly make a mess, it will immediately start cleaning it up. It’s stressful. I think about what I’m doing all the time now. I didn’t want to adopt this stupid doll and now my whole damn life is based around it.

It’s better, though. My apartment is so much nicer when it’s clean. And it feels nice to clean up after myself so that the doll doesn’t have to. I’m eating a lot better, too, because I don’t want to just eat frozen pizza when it’s watching and it helps carry the groceries. It makes me tea in the afternoon, which I always thought was something I wouldn’t like but is actually pretty good.

The doll doesn’t talk much, but that’s okay because I don’t either. I used to do a lot of online gaming, but I’ve started preferring the doll’s silent companionship.

I still feel bad, though. It’s expecting something from me.

“I’d like to be a witch for you,” I tell it, “but I don’t know how.”

“a witch is not something you do. it is something you are.” It shrugs. “don’t worry. you don’t need to do anything. you’re my witch.”

I’m not, though.

*

I go to a witch bar. I think, maybe I’ll ask someone about what’s going on. A real witch will know what I should do. But when I walk by the doors and see the witches and dolls inside, I feel like such an impostor that I can’t bring myself to go in. I wish I had the confidence in myself that my doll does.

I do my best to take care of it. I wind its key. I make tea for it. I sit in stillness with it.

When I go out with my friends I find I have little to say. My life has gotten fairly simple. “A doll followed me home a month ago.”

“Have you fucked it?”

I leave.

“It’s not that kind of doll,” I hear myself saying.

“That’s too bad.”

At home, it sees the look on my face and says “do you want to?”

“It wouldn’t be right.”

“you’re my witch. it is perfectly alright.”

“Um. Maybe, when I believe that more. Okay?”

“yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me sir.”

The doll starts sleeping in my bed. I’m cold a lot of the time now, and it doesn’t warm me up, but it’s something. Something is changing. I get a little excited. Maybe this is what it means to become a witch.

I start taking estrogen. Just in case that will help.

*

a year passes. i hardly even realize it.

i'm still not a witch, but it no longer worries me.

i am cool and smooth to the touch. my doll and i go hand in hand to the grocery store. i lost my job and got a new one. i am better at this one, although it pays less. i have fewer friends, but the friends that I have understand me better. i wind my doll’s key and she winds mine.

and finally one day i say “you made a mistake. i was a doll all along.”

the witch needed rest, so the doll lifted her, light as a feather, and carried her up the stairs to the chamber with the great four-poster bed in it. she laid the witch out and meticulously undressed her, removing the layers of formal and ceremonial grab, until she was able to admire the small nude body, skin nearly as pale as the doll's own porcelain, bones like she could take flight. in a dresser she found a nightgown, put it onto her witch, and tucked her in with a cold kiss. she was still nude, as nude as a doll could be at least, but none of the clothes here would fit, and besides, these were her mistress's and it would be inappropriate to wear them.

her mistress safe and resting, the doll returned to her birthplace. she looked at the diagrams and spellbook that had given her life and began to understand what her witch had wrought. she had only a doll's understanding, of course, but the notes and sketches that the witch had left behind made it quite clear. her mistress had been horribly indecisive, and rather than choose one type of doll—combat or maid or sniper or any of the dozens of others—she'd made a doll that could do everything! And the strain of it had nearly killed her.

and what a job she had done. the doll found a mirror and admired herself. she was beautiful in every sense of the word: a gorgeous face, a pleasing body, and an efficient design. she opened her chest to watch the gears spin, perfectly optimized. the witch had created something truly special, and she decided that she would love the witch until the end of time for it, would spend every day proving to her mistress that she'd made the right decision. there was a dress nearby, a cute, simple, black and white dress perfectly in her size. so that would be what she did first. she'd have the whole house spic and span by the time her mistress recovered from her great work.

she cleaned the kitchen and the sitting room and the dining room, and little by little she learned about her mistress. and she cleaned the library, and she understood why the witch had made her this way.

*

The witch awoke late in the morning to a moment of confusion. She did not remember getting to bed last night. Furthermore, she was wearing a nightgown, which she rarely bothered with! Spell blowback, perhaps; her casting had failed and she suffered temporary amnesia as a result. She'd tried to give her doll too much. The witch rolled over, wrapped her arms around herself, and pouted. One doll was already too many! She wasn't cut out to be one of those witches with a whole brigade of dolls, but she'd never be taken seriously if she didn't have at least one. It would have to be a combat doll, she finally decided, and she would do the housekeeping herself.

The witch got up and dressed herself, and realized that probably she was so hungry because she'd skipped dinner last night. And the neighbors must be cooking something with the wind just right because something smelled amazing.

"mistress!" sang a cheerful voice. And there was her doll, exactly as she'd sketched her, wearing the dress she'd bought to order, and bustling in the kitchen over something that reached into the witch's nose and grabbed her by the stomach.

"It worked…" she said, dumbfounded.

"of course it did; you're a genius! but now you need to eat. sit down and let me bring you something!"

She sat, hardly believing what was going on. The doll was totally self-directed. It was giving her orders, acting almost like a person. She'd known that including so many functions meant that it would be complex , but…but the objections faded when it delivered a plate of fluffy, streaming pancakes covered in strawberries and whipped cream.

"do you want me to feed it to you, miss?"

She blinked, unsure where that idea could've come from. "No, thank you. That's not necessary."

"as you wish, mistress! i am yours to command." The doll bustled back to the kitchen. The witch looked around as she ate, marveling at how much her doll had gotten done overnight. It would need to be wound soon, right? After breakfast she would double check her notes to see how much power the doll's spring was able to hold at once. She was unable to finish the food, so she simply left it on the plate once she was full and wandered away, already lost in thought.

She opened the door to the library, then stood there in shock. After a moment, her mouth opened.

"yes, mistress?" the doll asked.

"My-my spellbooks! What have you done with them!?"

"you don't need to worry about those nasty, dusty old things any more, miss. i got rid of them for you!"

Blood drained from her face. The collection that she'd spent years piecing together, priceless tones full of knowledge and power, and this mechanism had…!?

"you worked so hard, miss, but it's okay now." The doll patted her head and the witch finally understood why usually dolls are not designed to be so much taller than their creators. "you did it! you made me, your magnum opus! i'm the last spell you'll ever need to cast!"

"Y— I—"

"you almost hurt yourself really bad making me! mistress, you're a genius, but…well, i love you too much to let you risk yourself like that ever again, okay? so if you ever need anything that you would cast a spell for, just ask me!"

Just ask her. Sure. And what if she decided it was too dangerous? What if the witch needed to reinforce her controls?

"mistress…you're not happy, huh? you're thinking about a spell you need? just try me, tell me what you need!"

"Disassemble yourself," she mumbled.

The doll's face fell, collapsing into despair like a real person might. "mistress. that can't be right…" She looked like she'd start crying from non-existent tear ducts any moment, and she put one hand on the witch's shoulder and squeezed with a strength that could grind bones to dust. "i love you, mistress, i love you so much. i heard you wrong, right?"

"Yes," she gasped. "You heard me wrong. S-silly doll."