The door was yanked open. Emika almost completely vanished within the dolls. At least, that’s what she thought, especially with Melisande having turned off the desk lamp.

“I’m doing nothing,” Melisande said. “I was just dancing. And singing. Living my life, you know?”

The woman let out an unhappy growl. “Since when do you do such nonsense? Either way, knock it off, I can’t sleep.” Emika heard the door creak open wider. “Also, don’t you have work to do still? You’ve been behind your quota for a week.”

“Well…” Melisande mumbled, sounding a little sheepish.

Emika shuddered. It couldn’t be? Is she behind because she’s spending all her time chatting with… me?

The woman raised her voice a bit, sounding boastful, saying, “Keep on like this and I’ll decrease your cut. See if you can pay your damn phone bills then.”

“Yes, I understand,” said Melisande in a very unusual, polite and defeated tone. “I will get right back to work.”

“Good,” the woman grunted. “Now let me sleep,” she said, and hammered the door shut.

Immediately upon hearing her walk back up the stairs, Emika unburied herself and ushered over to Melisande, whose button eyes scrunched up looking at the unfinished doll as if in frustration. “Well, fuck me,” she whispered.

Emika gestured to the door, with a hint of anger. “Who was that?”

Melisande shrugged. “My warden.”

Letting her eyes wander over the room in the basement, thinking of all the dolls in the shop, and the bits and pieces Melisande mentioned in her chats before… Emika made a step back and stared at her friend. “Wait…” There were too many words circling in her head, but she tried to focus. “Wait, is this… Are you in prison?”

“Yep. Built and paid for by my own work. An ingenious machination by the old Durand. Just so he didn’t have to kill me. May he rest in a lot of peace.”

“Who’s that? And why wouldn’t he want to kill you?”

Melisande pulled up the corner of her mouth. “I mean, I’m grateful that he didn’t. He was a Cursebreaker. Long ago. The witch who built me put in a good work and… Durand’s family has a tradition of… avoiding kills if possible. I guess they sleep better that way.”

“But you aren’t locked in, right? Can’t you just walk out? Or did they put some magical seals on to keep you here?”

“Nah, nothing of the sort. Way too expensive to keep maintenance up for that. The hag checks on me daily. If I’m not here, or he doesn’t hear back from her, Durand’s descendant will cast a divination spell and kill me within a day or so. ”

Emika stared, and uttered the only words she could come up with. “I thought you don’t do dying.”

Melisande chuckled. “It’s a figure of speech! If the guy tears me to shreds, I’ll be done. Sure, someone could sew me back together and put new tea leaves in, and I’d probably heal. But like. I’m sure he can irreversibly off me once I’m in that state, so…”

Again, Melisande shrugged, and Emika just walked up to her and closed her into a hug. “That really sucks. And you were going on about saving me? You’d die!” Suddenly, Emika realised something very uncomfortable. “Wait. Wait one second. Are you risking your life right now by having me here?”

Melisande bit her own lip. “You sounded like you needed help.”

Emika ended the hug, and stepped back, all blood vanishing from her face. “Oh my god,” she whispered. She’d lost enough friends. No way she’d risk it again. “I need to go home.”

“No,” Melisande cut in rather sharply, and when she continued, her voice softened. “I mean… Not gonna keep you here, but… It’s the middle of the night. She won’t come down again, especially if we’re quiet. You can stay if you wanna.”

Emika shook her head, starting to get dizzy from shock. The scenes from the incident came back up in her mind, now overlaid by flashes of Melisande ripped apart. “How can you be so careless?”

“What? Are you the right person to ask me that? Plus, what am I gonna lose, exactly?”

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Emika hesitated. On that front, there was nothing to argue about. She fully understood the feeling. She glanced back at that old flip phone; apparently the only grant of respite that Melisande ever felt. And she thought about how she, too, was pretty much confined in her own home, at least while she wasn’t out recklessly endangering herself and others. So that was her choice? She could either leave against Melisande’s wishes and return her to her lonely life, or stay and risk her getting killed off?

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down, then said, “And that woman is so stingy, she won’t even give you a good phone?”

Melisande smiled sadly. “It’s not that. I mean, it would probably be a big mess to ask but, it’s not like I can use those modern types anyway. They don’t register my fingers’ touch, because I’m… well. Not warm enough, I guess? No clue. That old ass forum we met on is one of the few sites that even load on my thing, so… yeah…” Her eyes met with Emika’s for a second, then she added, “Anyway, what I’m saying is, you can stay here if you want. I’d like you to stay.”

“Okay,” Emika replied, and slowly moved back to sit down on the dolls. She wasn’t going to give herself the ‘trust Melisande’ speech again, but she was too tired to argue anyway. Even with herself.

“I should probably work, though. Mind?”

“Of course not.”

However, contrary to Emika’s expectations, Melisande did not sit back down at her desk. Instead, she moved the desk lamp to the shelf, and pointed it towards the doll sofa. Then, she took a pair of scissors, some more fabric, threads, and the doll she was working on, and brought them with her to sit down as well.

And soon, with her head leaning against Emika’s shoulder, she started sewing. Almost immediately, Emika’s tension left her body. Again, for what she hoped would be the last time that day, her eyes welled up. What a precious being Melisande was. And for now, with the doll’s low weight on her, even the worries of messing it all up again eventually washed away.

“By the way,” Melisande asked after a while of silence, “The hell happened to your arm?”

“Oh,” Emika responded. She hadn’t even fully grasped that situation yet. Things were going to get much harder from now on, wouldn’t they? “I messed up. Fed it to the ring, thinking it would cure me. Well. To be honest, I wasn’t really thinking anything when it happened.”

“… You telling me it grew back like this?”

Emika nodded. “I can’t move it, though. Or rather, it does nonsense.”

Melisande gave a short hum in acknowledgement. “Maybe you just need to wait a bit. Or practice.”

“So you think I might actually be able to use it?”

She felt a shrug. “Dunno. It wouldn’t just randomly grow back that way, would it?”

“At this point, I don’t expect anything to make sense, ever. But I guess you are right.”

Looking at her new hand, Emika tried moving it again. It didn’t do what she wanted it to. But… perhaps it was worth practising.

“You know,” Emika said. “I could just break you out. And then kill them if they try to stop us.”

Somehow, she expected Melisande to laugh. Instead, she felt her head shake on her shoulder. “Nah. The guy’s way too strong.”

Emika’s heart sank. She found herself just watching Melisande make stitches for a long time.

However, contrary to Melisande, she did require food and sleep, things she hadn’t gotten enough of over the last day by any means. So, with the sunrise, Emika finally got up.

“I think I need to go,” she said.

Melisande looked up from her doll. “Okay. Doll’s finished, anyway.”

Emika laughed. “I was wondering what you’ve been doing for a little while, didn’t seem like you were making much progress. It’s really pretty.”

“Yea, I… I figured you’d leave when I finish…”

What a cutie. “I’ll be back,” Emika assured, and gave her a hug. “Promised.”

“Can’t wait.”

When Emika arrived back at her home with a foggy mind, the first thing she noticed was that her new phone had finally arrived. Immediately, she sent Lester a message, telling him he could come and fetch his at his leisure.

Would he actually do it, though? Risking his life to get an expensive phone back? Of course, by now, Emika had absolutely no intention to do anything to him, but she wasn’t sure whether he knew that.

After sending the message, she sat down on the stone path to her house next to her gate. She figured she might as well put her plans into action now. Her plans of buying stuff to make Melisande’s life even just a little easier. The first one was a new phone. Emika was fairly certain that there were ways for Melisande to interact with one, even if she had fingers filled with tea leaves instead of flesh. After ordering some other things for her as well, she got back up, ready to finally crash into her bed.

She made a few wonky, exhausted steps. And then, her gaze fell on what currently sat there in her garden, just leisurely grazing as if it was the most normal thing in the world.

Was she hallucinating? Why was there that Well of Abstraction? Hadn’t she had enough of it?

It had changed somewhat, though. Now, it featured growths similar to Emika’s, coming out from its body and limbs, even the neck. Most notably, as if out of nowhere, two strong branches of juniper wood, together with brushes of needle like leaves at their ends, emanated out from the edges of both sides of the red ring like antlers, without actually being connected to it. As if they were attached to air.

Emika clenched her fist. “You. You.”

She stomped closer.