Doll rinses and spits just like she’s always been told to. Not too aggressively, not enough to drain her mouth of the taste of cold mint; just enough for comfort. Comfortingly routine. But (of course there’s a but) the sink growls at her as she spits. For a long moment she doesn’t realize that she’s heard it. Her mind is so far away, yet not far enough to catch her eyes and hold them fast; her gaze sinks down as inevitably as any sunset. ...
Doll stumbles as she rushes home, one fine little foot caught in the cracked sidewalk, stone-teeth gnawing at protective leather. Her bag’s too heavy today, rattling and clanking against her bruised hip; each step brings a fresh gasp of pain to her tightly sealed lips. Oh, if only she didn’t have to hurry, if only she could take her time—! But the sun’s grasping rim is already teasing against the horizon, so far off across the sea that Doll’s eyes can barely see the superheated steam which always veils those nightly indulgences; the sea is reaching up towards it and every clock in the city is about to chime out out the 19th hour’s song and there’s no time held in wait for her belated need. ...
When doll slips from the confines of her bed-box and stumbles downstairs, there’s an odd rectangle waiting at the table: a folded sheet of thick, creamy paper. It’s for her, obviously—why else would her miss have put it there, next to her oatmeal and tea? But doll isn’t sure. “Miss, what’s this?” Across the kitchen (a distance which doll’s eyes easily skip over and her body has never managed to cross), her witch doesn’t glance up from the stove’s vast fire. Doll smells the ashy tang of crumbling pine and the rich, rotting musk of burnt deer. ...
He’s rock-hard already when she stops teasing him to fetch the gorgon, dolldick waving proudly (or perhaps desperately, if the little drips oozing from its tip are any indication) in her workshop’s warm air. She’s been careful not to touch it, but that’s hardly a barrier; his body has so many other sensitive places for her hands to linger, and the plug buzzing against his prostate certainly helped—it’s always been his weak point, though she’s been careful not to give it the sort of hammering that might push him over the edge. That would ruin things. ...
“I’m glad you’re broken too.” The murmured words linger in her ears just like the sticky sweat covering both their bodies, its wet horny smell slowly fading into a memory of itself as the little room’s littler AC unit struggled to catch up with the heat. The room smells like sex, like her body and theirs, like all the gasps and touches and shuddering moments of release they’d filled each other with all through the movie murmuring its background noise from her laptop’s little speakers and long past its end— ...
Ever since the prince’s new tutor arrived at the castle, everything has been just humming along. It’s really almost uncanny! It’s like someone’s filled off all the edges that used to cause so much friction; the chefs haven’t bitten anyone’s head off, let alone snapped at them, and the scullery maids have grown so quiet and efficient that you almost wouldn’t know they’re there. The footmen move in well-rehearsed motions, the horses kneel down to be mounted …
“Be a dear and fetch my dancing body, will you? I feel like going out tonight.” Cam doesn’t bother to reply to his nameless mxtress, not with his mainspring as deteriorated as it is; he just opens the closet and carefully pulls out the shell they want. Each shell is different, dozens of bodies for every purpose they might possibly need: bodies for strength and speed and stealth, bodies for all the quiet arts of the courtroom and boudoir, bodies they haven’t worn in years and bodies worn thin from overuse. ...
The Witch of Forgotten Sounds (such an unwieldy title! She preferred to go by “Terri, with an i”) woke to find a doll in her bed. An everyday occurrence for many witches, of course, but Terri made a point of not keeping dolls (“they’re always so busy, I can’t stand it!”). She didn’t scream. Witches are made of better stuff than that. Instead she carefully untangled the doll’s limbs from her own, slipped out of bed, and stepped into her screaming room (a converted closet) to scream herself hoarse. ...
Moonstruck toys staring up at pale silver eyes, lost in wonder as the sky’s thin shell cracks and the void rushes in … Dolls can’t drown in the dark places Between, don’t fade away into dusty memories—but their gears seize up, and their screams find no purchase on the void. Worlds crack like dying bubbles and spill their precious cargo out into cruel emptiness. They do exactly what they were made to do, and the things Outside eagerly drink them up. ...
“Wake up, doll. Something is coming.” Her words echo in the doll’s mind as she wakes, just as they have for years—ever since the doll’s new mistress ate her old one and dragged her back into its lair. Such a small memory to be burned so deeply, but she’s thankful for it. Today she wakes as she always does, words echoing in her mind and the monster’s looming vastness crouched on spindly legs above her stony bed. A drop of venom sizzles on her skin, another hole burned through her ruined dress. ...