Marked Doll

It had been fifteen weeks since Mindy's master died. Too often, Mindy found herself working in her late masters workshop. Finishing the porcelain dolls he had abandoned in his wake. 

Days before his death, his nurses had interrupted Mindy's work and brought her to the master's bedroom. 

Mindy recalled the tremble of his hand as he blindly reached out for her. She had sat at his bedside, only a few inches from his shriveled form but he couldn’t see her. His illness had rendered him blind, lord knows if his hearing remained intact. Speckles of blood had dried on the corners of his mouth, his cloudy eyes wandered without a clear direction, as he called weakly for the girl. His only apprentice. 

Careful to avoid the pail of vomit resting at the foot of his bed, Mindy leaned over the frail old man and clasped his hand, squeezing firmly. Relief changed Master Wayne for a moment. The man who had first taken her as an apprentice sightlessly stared back at her with a smile. 

At that moment Mindy promised the dollmaker to continue his work. 

After master Wayne's coffin had been lowered into a modest grave, the vultures made their move. Eighth cousins and distant relatives of his came forward to claim his estate. Mindy took delight in their shock the night her master's will was read.

Mindy couldn’t help but glance at master Wayne's client ledger and shake her head. What good had they been on his death bed? Master Wayne's most loyal customers had known he was gravely ill. It had been pronounced to the townsfolk in the local papers. Death of the Dollmaker, the title had been dramatic but eye catching compared to their daily drivel. Why hadn’t his customers come to mourn him? Even if they were preoccupied they could have hailed a message boy and delivered mourning flowers to the estate.

Poorly grieved spirits seek retribution. That was what Master Wayne had told her one evening as they walked through the estates gardens. The grounds keepers had uncovered a family of unmarked graves near the stables that morning. Being that the graves had been discovered on the Waynes property, Master assumed they had been some long-forgotten ancestors of his. Perhaps bastards or tossed aside mistresses from a time when the Waynes' wealth had come from sources other than porcelain dolls. 

None the less, Master had the graves christened with Gardey mountain ashes and given proper rites. So that their trapped spirits may move on, and know everlasting peace. Mindy couldn’t help but wonder if her Master had found peace. 

Rain beat against the windows of Master Wayne's workshop. Master Wayne's forefathers had set each window pane in place by hand. The studio had been built by Masters' great grandfather and handed down between father and son for decades. Master Wayne had no sons. With his facial disfigurement, no woman had desired to become his wife, let alone come close to him.

Along the workshops walls towered dressers and shelves of doll making supplies - drawers of buttons, faux hair, gently used silks and printed cotton textiles. Upon an on wooden table in the center of the room stacks of boxes, books and porcelain bodies rest astray. An ornate fireplace across from the general work area stood warm with crackling light. Mindy would feel the tender warmth from where she sat across from it, in her arm chair. 

Mindy's eyes returned from the fireplace to the porcelain doll in her lap. Its crystal green eyes sparkled in the after light of the fire. Mindy reached down to the sewing kit she’d placed next to her seat and rummaged through it for a moment. Her gaze never broke from the dolls. Once her fingers brushed against what she assumed was the soft, smooth caress of velvet, she plucked the fabric from her kit and pulled it to her lap, resting it along the doll's dress.

Against the pleated white and green plaid of the doll's hand-sewn dress, the fabric had looked like a rich, blue river, bending and crossing with the dresses folds. Mindy felt her heart flutter, a small smile bloomed against her rosy cheeks. She would have to trim the fabric into a ribbon. She couldn’t help but think it would make a lovely addition to the dress. She might add an additional ribbon to the doll's brimmed hat, for stylistic cohesion. 

If she had been a little girl, and this her doll, Mindy would name her Lore. After her mother. The dolls her mother had given her as a child were cheaply made - she’d learned to judge a doll's craftsmanship under Wayne's tutelage. Her mother wouldn’t have known their shoddy quality. Just that those chipped ceramic dolls, with their burlap dresses, and stapled on bows made her daughter beam with joy. 

Innocent memories tickled tears to the corner of Mindy’s eyes. She briskly whipped them away with the back of her sleeved wrist. Her mother had been a maid, she had worked diligently for the Waynes. They’d paid her well enough to live and support her daughter. Lorenida died, leaving her girl behind. Three months later, master Wayne followed.

Reaching back into her kit, she retrieved a pair of silver plated shears and began to trim the blue fabric. 

Mindy dropped the scissors back into her kit, pulled a bronze needle from behind her ear and wet it’s thread with her lips. In moments the glistening blue ribbon had been fastened to the doll's dress. The dolls' long-lashed eyes seemed to beg for more detail, more fabrics, and jewels. Real jewels, not just rhinestones and painted shells. 

Mindy loved the doll's lively personality. Its bold design had been one of Wayne's last. Whichever aristocratic little girl held it next would cherish it, she hoped.

Mindy rose from her seat and brought the doll she had completed to the workshop table. She gingerly laid the little maiden in a ready cassette, smoothed out her dress and hair, and then fastened the cassette with its lid. She traced her fingers along the lid's cursive label, following the curl of each scripted letter. 

“Waynes Dolls & Porcelain Beautys”, Mindy would have to change their business name. She would have to ring Wayne's old business partners in the coming weeks to update packaging labels, signatures, and calling cards. 

Mindy tied a scarlet ribbon into a bow across the top to hold the lid in place and carried the cassette to a collection of other completed cassettes at the end of the table. All wrapped in lovely red ribbons. Wayne's signature. Mindy would see to it that those red ribbons never retire. Standing at the workshop table, Mindy collected the next doll to be completed and returned to her seat.

Beyond the workshop's door she could hear the clattering of dishes followed by a masculine voice humming and the whistling of a kettle. Mindy gazed down at the unfinished doll in her lap. Its porcelain was cold against her fingers but not uncomfortably so. 

To maintain this life of hers, Mindy planned to work until she dropped. She’d trim, mend, and make until blood pooled beneath her fingernails. Until the cold of porcelain became more than uncomfortable to handle. One dollmaker in Candlewood is disposable, the debts of those she loves are not.

Mindy's gaze sharpened on the doll's face. Near its painted red lips was an odd marking. No bigger than a speck. Mindy gently rubbed her index finger over the mark. When she removed her finger, the mark hadn’t budged. 

The door to the workshop creaked open and a neatly groomed man stepped in with a tea tray. He gently closed the door behind him and placed the tray on the workshop table. Mindy's focus refused to unlock from the doll's mysterious marking. 

The man cleared his throat loudly, “ Miss Arna, if you couldn’t tell from the windows, the sun set hours ago, I don’t believe it’s unreasonable to consider this a good time to rest for the night”. 

The man picked up the kettle from the tray and poured its hot contents into a delicate tea cup. The spicy scent of Licorice and barber-root spoil Mindy's senses as they mingle in the air. Mindy's eyes found the man and granted him a polite smile.

“I’m almost done with this batch of dolls Beauford, let me just finish this last piece. The Millford girls are expecting this one by Saturday, and I intended to deliver it to them at the market directly”. Mindy tries again to rub away the odd stain, this time counter-clockwise. Its forked shape and ashy coloration distracted from the doll's cherub-like beauty. It was unpleasant. and highly undesirable for a soon-to-be delivered product.

Using a pair of small silver tongs he’d brought with the tea tray, Beauford plucked a sugar cube from a small bowl and plopped it into the tea he’d poured. “The Lorden boy dropped by earlier, he’d almost caught the kitchen women by surprise when he arrived”.

 Beauford sighed, “ He’s all smiles, that one. He’d had a bundle of daisy in hand, wrapped up with a cotton bow and old newspaper”.  

Mindy's eyes never strayed from the doll's odd mark as she began searching through her sewing kit for a heavier blemish remover. She would have to avoid spilling whichever she finds first on her petticoat.

“You sent him away?” Mindy retrieved a small burgundy flask and a cotton swab from the kit. Holding the cotton swab between the tips of two fingers, she dabbed it against the mouth of the flask. 

“As you’ve frequently instructed me to, my lady” Beauford returned, his face set like stone. As usual.

Satisfied with the cotton swabs ample saturation she closed the flask tightly with her free hand and returned it to her sewing kit. 

Before the silence between them could grow awkward, Beauford picked up the tea cup he had prepared and set it on the floor next to Mindy's sewing kit. Mindy didn’t need to instruct him on her tea preferences or where she liked her cup set, Beauford made it his business to know the needs and wants of every member of the Wayne household. Mindy appreciated that about the old butler.

As Mindy began to rub at the mark, Beauford spared a few curious glances at the doll. 

Mindy grit her teeth. Her love seat shook and creaked along with her vigorous scrubbing. “Miss Arna, what are you scrubbing so hard on that doll's face?” Beauford crept closer, peering over her shoulder.

The mark was still there! She had paused her frantic scrubbing and allowed herself to exhale before moving her hands from the spot. 

Mindy's brows rose as she stared down at the doll. She had used the strongest stain remover in her arsenal. What on earth could have bled so deeply into the doll's porcelain? Mindy readjusted her braid which had loosened at the end, and glanced up at Beauford. 

He’d been more so watching the doll than observing her desperate attempts to clean it. 

“Miss Arna, that’s no ordinary stain”, Beauford placed a steady hand on Mindy's shoulder, and turned her to face him slightly. There was something in his eyes, a shadow of fear or superstition that refused to fade with the times. Arna shrunk back in her chair and searched her trusted butler's face.

“That’s a maker's brand. Any good dollmaker would be able to recognize the shape”.

Mindy looked closer at the bizarre mark. She traced one finger along into’s uneven borders. The doll's eyes had not been the brown she’d thought they were. No. They appeared darker, more thirsty, like the pits of a centuries old ravine. The doll's gaze buried her. The mark had been a symbol. The seemingly disorganized edges and curves of the mark had been an illusion. The parts created a whole, an imp with jagged teeth and witless eyes appeared frozen mid cackle. 

How had she not noticed this? 

Mindy pushed the doll from her lap as if it had come to life, and held onto Beauford's wrist. The porcelain doll pummeled the floor as it fell, Mindy had no doubt she’d cracked it.

“Beauford, what’s a maker's brand” How did such a cursed thing find its way into Wayne's workshop? Unsettled, Mindy pulled her legs up onto the look seat and glanced at the doll. It lay on the rug before her, its long hair shielded its face and the marking.

Beauford held her gaze. “It’s a sign”.