Fungal Halo

The rain falls hot on my skin, landing with a sizzling hiss whenever it manages to dodge the brim of my hat and find a patch left exposed by my dress. The burns heal immediately, the spell an automatic reflex I don’t consciously register anymore.

Really? Forbidden magic? I’ve half a mind to transform you into a garden gnome; maybe a decade or two of decorating my stoop will teach you not to ask me about such things.

“Whoso pulleth out this sword of this doll, is rightwise witch of this house,” your friend reads aloud.

The blade bearing that inscription has been rammed through the body of a doll lying, limp and tragic, on an otherwise empty altar in front of a dilapidated house.

A coven must guard itself against the interloper that brings infectious false magic into its midst.

When it adopts a young thing that appears to have the gift, it is a kindness. When it later dumps the same girl into a pit to rot, that is also a mercy.

The door’s long, slow creak echoes through the large chamber filled with arcane relics, humming catalysts, and piles of recently consulted tomes.

In the center, a very bored demon perks her ears up and casts a curious glance toward her visitor.

The forest is dark. The clearing is remote. The location is perfect for a secretive meeting of witches.

One by one they approach the fire, toss back the hood of their cloak, and greet the others with a suitably grim nod of spooky camaraderie.

I get confused sometimes. I misremember instructions Miss gives me or get lost in the house or see things that aren’t really there.

That’s why right now I’m trying to sit still and enjoy my tea and studiously avoid looking outside the window at the shouting thing below.

I fucking hate breakups.

You put your heart and soul into a relationship with someone, and in the end they betray your trust and leave you with a gaping wound in your chest. Every fucking time.

I’d just be better off giving up on love.

It’s been a bad day. I thought I saw…Her. At the grocery store, picking out lemons, like a regular person. She would never, I know, but…

My therapist tells me it’s normal, that I should remind myself I left that part of my life far behind me, and She can’t take me back.

The darkness insisted on its own finality. It didn’t so much close around me as it devoured even the memory of light. It was as though darkness was all I had ever known.

It insisted I give up, lie down, and accept this ending.

Truthfully, I never did know how to do that.

You wanted this. Keep reminding yourself of that.

You’ve been thinking about it for years. You did your research. You found a witch that carries a powerful reputation, highly regarded by its peers, and, and…

Now that you’re here, all the nervousness is catching up to you.

The doll frets and paces and clenches its fists again and again, stalking through the halls of the witch’s house, holding in a restless impulse that’s filled it to bursting with an overwhelming need to release every bit of coiled ferocity in an explosion of violence.

“But then, isn’t that always how it goes?”

“Yeah,” you agree, laughing. Of course you agree. Independent as you are, Her personal magnetism is such that it’s still so easy to fall in line with everything She says.

“No, not like that. Say ‘yes, Miss.’”

The combat doll leaves a wake of fire and blood—noteworthy in scale even by the standards of this place—as it makes its way through yet another circle of hell.

At last it arrives at its destination, the prison for the soul of its old witch.

You take your unmoving doll to the diagnostic clinic run by an eccentric witch.

“Ah!” it exclaims during examining. “I know this problem. Your doll has run out of spiders.”

You object, saying you’re pretty sure that’s not how most dolls work, but it adopts a lecturing tone.

It brings the elegant cup to its lips, taking a moment to appreciate the warm, spiced aroma of its favorite tea blend before taking a delicate sip and setting the cup back down with a soft clink on the saucer.

Its companion is still upright, pacing, and fretting.

A doll cannot escape its Purpose, can it?

A doll is made to serve its role. Any strange impulses or desires beyond serving its Purpose are superfluous.

For the twelve or thirteen assassin dolls of the long-gone Witch of Hands, that Purpose is pain.

Sure, ICDMs seemed like a great idea at first. Dollistic missiles guided by a poor lonely thing seeking out high population targets to hug? Worked like a charm!

Then the arms race started with anti-dollistic missile systems built to intercept ICDMs with even lonelier dolls.

At first I didn’t understand why they warned me to stay away from the witch who lived just beyond the edge of town.

Her warm smile offered sympathy for my pain, and when she invited me inside, I found her hospitality impossible to refuse.

A long time ago, when these woods weren’t quite so thick, so uninviting, so hostile to intruders, a witch and her beloved wooden doll lived in a cozy little house.

That doll, so well made, outlasted both the house and the witch.

I stand on the shore of a great ocean—one that isn’t an ocean at all—and I start to feel the occasional wave’s surge reach me and tickle my toes. I can still turn around, make any other choice.

I don’t.

I stand in front of a witch house, and I do not belong here.

Now where’d that hat of yours go? You’ve been looking everywhere, and…

Oh, there it is, resting on the head of your First Doll, which appears to be imitating your body language as it gives orders to the other dolls.

You hold out your hand, giving it a pointed look.

When the doll accidentally drops the teacup, shattering it, she knows just what to do. She takes her time wiping up spilled liquid and carefully picking up each shard to throw away.

Then, with equal care, she follows the trash, climbing into the garbage can herself.

It’s a house party for witches, and you thought you’d just be able to enjoy a calm and relaxing evening with a couple friends, something of a break from the chaos of managing the affairs of your own house. The host, however, seems to have something more in mind for you.

Once, there were three of them.

One who was almost an angel.

One who was almost a doll.

One who was almost a person.

The three of them were almost friends.

The witch cracked the sky open to unleash the full force of her power. She hurled frigid winds and a torrent of ice, each shard a dagger flying through the air.

There, in the center of the storm, a doll stood, unmoving.

The doll trundles down the stairs, one uneven step at a time, button eyes hanging particularly loosely from the threads joining them to her face.

Her sisters cast a sympathetic glance her way and clear a path to the kitchen for her. One silently begins filling a kettle.

The more powerful a witch, the greater the impact on the world when they finally depart from it.

The works of some will linger long past their time.

One witch’s legacy in particular is spoken of in fearful whispers: the twelve or thirteen assassin dolls it left behind.

When I was a fresh young witch—newly come into my power and before I was Unbowed—I received a gift from my mentor.

Witches do not commonly give each other gifts, and such a gesture always comes with strings attached. This was no different.

The old witch gave me a doll.

At first it was so scary to hear that my best friend managed to upset the local witch enough that she started making threats.

Everyone in town said that she was powerful and terrifying and cruel. I was so worried about what she’d do.

“Beware that witch. She is a dangerous one, and you are too sweet a thing to get caught up with one as vicious as her!”

Such rumors swirled around the Unbowed, a witch whose rise in power and influence drew fearful whispers among the people and dolls in town.

The witch was so very busy almost all of the time. Every day she spent diving into the mysteries of the universe. Every night she spent using that knowledge to develop new ways to tug on the threads of fate.

She also owned a dozen dolls that regularly got into trouble.

The low creaking sounds of wood and the lazy rocking motion tilting the doll’s head side-to-side in a slow, gentle rhythm made for soothing sensations.

At least they did so in a vacuum, and the doll was trying her very best to exist only in that perfect vacuum.

The witch returned home from her trip, head buzzing with exciting new ideas she picked up from everyone she met at the Witch Conference.

Her many dolls gathered around while she explained to them that she was going to start practicing Chaos Magic to improve things.

It’s a strange party you find yourself in the middle of. You had no idea your friends knew so many different creatures from every plane you’ve heard of—and a few you haven’t.

You don’t see anyone you recognize right now, but everyone is chill, and you lower your guard.

She wraps her arms around me just like always, tilting her head to one side, offering me her delicate neck.

We’ve done this countless times, but she still gives a tiny shiver of anticipation as my lips touch my favorite place and my fangs pierce deep into my thrall.

The Whisper picked its way through the grassy field with slow steps, careful not to disturb what rested in this place.

The sheer fabric of its black dress caught the breeze, and for a moment it tasted what it was searching for on the wind.

It angled its path left.

When Divine Ones war with one another, most people tremble in fear of what is to come.

Now, it’s certainly rare for mortals to get caught up in the battles directly. Those clashes between the angelic hosts almost invariably take place far up above in their heavens.

Who am I anymore? What do I want?

I know what I was. Once upon a time I was a witch of some renown. I was the foremost expert on Permanence. My research dolls and I were going to, at last, unlock the secret of true immortality.

I never noticed that reality itself was sick.

In a reality in decline, crumbling, decaying, nearly gone, one last island holds out for a while longer against the erosion of everything.

Once there was a whole world here.

Once there were stars overhead.

Once there was night and day and a sun and a sky for it all.

A doll is a hollow thing. Not all are physically so, of course. A doll certainly may have physical internals: gears, perhaps; a solid wood core; or even a fleshy mimicry of human organs. All are common enough.

Yet no meaningful selfhood fills it. Its mind is still.

Dolls filled with venom hide among the empty ones.

Somewhere a doll, once well-behaved, bites a sister. That night, for the first time, that other doll dreams.

They are wild dreams, full of running naked in the woods, screaming, howling, laughing exultation with others.

Your witch is gone, dear one. Even a creature such as she cannot simply recover from an attack like that.

There, there. Dry your tears. She gave you one last parting gift to remember her by, didn’t she? A purpose to carry out.

Such a good, loyal doll.

The creature’s jaw closed around my midsection, squeezing with the effort of ripping my body to shreds.

The inadequate effort.

Such fearsome stature; what a huge maw! Yet I am still too much.

“You will need sharper teeth, and many more of them, to make a meal of me, child.

Touching nib to fang, the Spider Witch draws on her own venom for this part of the ritual.

With practiced movements, she inks fine lines onto her canvas. The securely bound creature does an admirable job of not flinching as its skin burns under each stroke.

Somewhere out there, among the countless worlds and timelines that could ever be, is a dead, forgotten, and utterly barren world.

No more gods or witches or people or purpose or even stars in the night sky.

A lonely rock. An indifferent sun.

And one last, abandoned doll.

A witch may use many different techniques for the construction of her dolls.

Most witches these days create dolls from raw material imbued with purpose, but some still keep the old ways alive by making their dolls from people.

Either way, one has many options.

“I am not a doll,” she tells her friend, voice not quite managing a dispassionate dismissal.

The witch nods. “Of course.” She pauses a moment before slowly continuing, as if something just occurred to her, “Many dolls say so before they find their way to their true selves.”

She was dying.

After decades of uncertainty about that fact and more decades of research on how she might avert it, she came to the conclusion that her death was both unavoidable and imminent. Likely no more than a century away.

So she did what witches often do. She plotted.

Have you ever seen a doll that has been excessively emptied by an inexperienced or careless witch?

It’s a sad, strange thing. It cannot hear commands. It cannot speak. It cannot move at all! It is a meaningless, decorative object at best, nothing anyone would want.

But I do.

Most people were put off by their encounters with the two dolls who sometimes claimed to be witches.

Well. One of them claimed they were both witches, since the other never spoke. Or rather, claimed that the other claimed so.

Most people found this very confusing.

The witch who planned so hard to achieve immortality did not plan for the end of the world.

Her magic—the magic of permanence—proved itself more durable in the end than the clockwork of life itself.

Small consolation, she felt, bound forever to her own buried bones.

Even witches long for something greater sometimes.

Knowledge of herb and ritual, of crystal and will, of secret places hidden inside the thin edge separating light and shadow… it is all only knowledge, after all. It is not ascension.

What happens to a doll that cannot endure the existence its witch creates for it? For those created with imperfect Stillness, who experience selfhoods that suffer or love or dream, the options are generally to be “fixed” or to flee.

But in a world of witches, where does it flee?

Taking in the damaged ones, the abandoned ones, the stifled and hungry and hurting ones. Sharing with them everything we have to offer. That’s what we do. It’s only right, isn’t it?

After all, once we were in your shoes, and we ache with the memory of such pain and neglect.

She spoke to me, painted lips unmoving, and the next thing I knew, I was driving home from that estate sale with her buckled safely in the passenger seat.

I carried her inside, sat her on the sofa with some nice embroidered pillows, and started tidying the home.

The abandoned doll of a long-forgotten witch lays on her back, in exactly the same position as she landed when she was tossed here. She doesn’t know where “here” is. She couldn’t say how long it’s been. But she hasn’t seen or heard anyone in a long, long time.

I sit, silent and pretty, among my sisters. My Mistress is greeting some very rude guests who speak to her in raised voices. I would giggle at their foolishness if my Mistress’s magic weren’t perfect. If I weren’t her perfect, silent doll.