The girl in the checkered scarf took a seat at the kitchen table. A tree had been cut straight down the middle, flat end turned up. The table was three such half-trees.
The chain at the younger girl’s wrist dragged on the floor as she made her way to the pot, stirring slowly. Each motion of her arm made the chain tap against the stone housing of the broad fireplace.
Minutes ticked on, and the girl in the checkered scarf became acutely aware of the passage of time, the lack of time she had before she became some kind of glimmer or husk.
“What do you do here?”
“I am cooking blood stew.”
“When you aren’t cooking, I mean.”
“I will chop firewood.”
“Okay, sounds like indentured servitude. Let me rephrase. What do you do when there aren’t chores?”
“There are always enough chores to fill the day.”
“Always?” the girl in the checkered scarf asked. “Every day, it’s just waking up, doing chores one after another, until you’re ready to go to bed?”
“Every day.”
The rhythmic clink of chain against stone continued, alongside the scrape of the large wooden spoon against the bottom of the pot. The child’s flesh was raw around the shackle.
That looks like it hurts like crazy.
This sounds like it would drive anyone insane.
“It sounds lonely. Never having fun. Do you talk, at least?”
“There are lessons. Basic things. How to do this or how to do that. How to maintain the hut”
“Uh huh. And games?”
“No games.”
“Stories?”
“Few stories. Only sometimes, to remind of why we are to fear and distrust the white people. Better to be in here.”
“Um, okay. What about singing?” How bad can singing be?
“Crone Mara does not sing very often. They sing when the quiet is too deep, or when I ask.”
The girl in the checkered scarf followed the pointing finger.
The dolls.
“Oh heck no,” she said. “Point taken, no need to demonstrate.”
But the dolls were already singing.
Faint at first, like rustles through the trees, whispering, reedy voices, they found the high notes.
Children’s voices.
A foreign language, some voices better at the singing than the others, some halting, creating a vaguely discordant sound, like a children’s choir where there hadn’t been enough practice.
“Alrighty,” she said. That does nothing to convince me you wouldn’t absolutely lose your mind in here. “Can we stop?”
“They will stop when they are finished. It depends on their mood. They sing more when they are sad. Lately they sang more than they have been silent.”
“Great, great. Any idea on when Crone Mara will return?”
The little girl shrugged, giving the door a momentary glance.
Discordant voices, scraping spoon, clink and scrape of chain against stone.
The chain was fat, coarse, old fashioned, a little rusty. It might well have predated Jacob’s Bell.
Her eye fell on the point where it had been banging the stone.
There were flecks on the ground.
The chain was being worn down, as was the thick stone that bordered the fireplace.
No way the chain had been that worn down in this generation alone.
The scraping of the spoon had stopped.
The little girl was looking her in the eyes for the first time.
The little girl looked old. Weary.
“Can you break the chain?” the child asked. “Crone Mara has the key. For you to free me, you would need to break the chain.”
“I’m really not looking to make more enemies,” the girl in the checkered scarf replied. “You’re putting me in an awkward position.”
“Can you break the chain? It is damaged, you see, right here. Can you show me that the white people are not so bad?”
“You’ve got to give me a chance to answer before-“
The child stepped closer, and chain scraped on floor.
The singing of the dolls grew louder.
The child’s hands clutched at the end of her jacket.
“Will you help me, white girl? You can, if you act now.”
“I’m thinking.”
There were tears on the girl’s face. “Please tell me you will help me. Please. Just say it.”
“I-“
“Please!”
The word was ragged, as if the child wasn’t used to anything but a dull monotone.
It was too much, the smoke in the hut, the singing, the pleas-
“I think-“
The girl’s hands clutched tighter.
“-That I’ve read too many fantasy novels to fall for this,” she finally managed to say.
A moment passed.
The singing quieted.
“Crone Mara,” the girl in the checkered scarf said, meeting the child’s eyes.
Crone Mara stood a little straighter. Tears still marked her cheeks, but there was a flinty look in her eyes.
“What would have happened if I’d said yes? How would I ‘help’?”
“You would be compost,” the girl said.
“Got it. No. Bad.“
The child reached into her shirt for a key on a string and undid her shackle.
“Will you negotiate with me?” she asked the child. “I need a hand with something.”
“Never. Not ever,” the child said.
“Got it,” the girl with the checkered scarf said. She stood from the table. “Had to ask.”
She stepped out into the cold.
One down.