Dollhouse

Chapter 2

After my first day came many others. Most of them were cold, uneventful and left Zenith very hungry. We couldn't stay in the tent for much longer than three days as Zenith grew ravenous and I had no clothes.
When we left, we always moved at night. The night to humans is too silent and untrustworthy to warrant any sort of activity outside the house, so to Zenith we were always welcomed there.
Even then we would never travel in overly public areas, snaking through the dark alleyways and avoiding the high-street as if the plague were making a reappearance.

I liked the large towns the most, mainly because I got to see them. If the journey to the next town was long or we were only passing through a small village, I would be put at rest (or stasis as Zenith called it) and stuffed inside a large, wooden trunk. Zenith said it was better for me to only be awake when I needed to be, which even before I started getting back pains, I protested against.
I wanted to see everything; I wanted to witness the entire world.

Putting a doll into stasis is an incredibly difficult task... if you're Zenith. I never did anything childish like bite him or knee him in the crotch, but I was never 100% pleasant about being put under.
Most other living dolls don't have free will (or an incredible aversion to being stuffed into a box) so putting them at rest is simple, you put your index finger at the top of the bridge of the nose and the middle finger on the tip. Then you just press hard and they'll go straight to sleep.
This is one of the many details written into the spell that's keeping me alive.

Though just staying alive wasn't enough. With our worn out clothes, complete lack of money or semi permanent asylum, our constant travelling held meaning. Zenith was relentlessly scouting for work, searching every dodgy street and back alley for someone who needed something to be done.
The public domain is unaccustomed to people like us, so we hoped that when Zenith found something, it wouldn't be too unorthodox or demeaning.
Not that he cared all that much, if he was hungry enough Zenith would be willing to commit murder; for someone else. He's always said that scrounging around for work is what lead him into the doll making profession, but he's never told me the full story. I don't really believe he remembers any of it.

There were few jobs that weren't one off and fewer jobs that Zenith could actually hold down.
I wished I could have worked too, but that was out of the question. Though many factories and large businesses had use for someone as small and youthful as I, Zenith would not allow it.
"You aren't meant for these kinds of things," he said to me, moments after I had received an offer to work in a match factory.
When I tried to ask him what I WAS meant for, he just tugged my arm and pulled me down the street.

Eventually Zenith found something that lasted more than a week, in a small village filled with old women and young families called Clearwood.
We had made miscalculations about how long the journey that day would be, or even where we would end up when it came to an end. We didn't have a carriage, so we were travelling on foot, keeping to the darkness of the forests rather than following the main roads. Zenith didn't put me to sleep because he thought the journey would only take an hour or so, but it took over ten. When he realised the mistake he'd made, Zenith didn't bother trying to stuff me into the box as I was already running far ahead of him.

We arrived in Clearwood just as dawn broke; there was no time to find proper lodging so Zenith had to take shelter in a nearby barn. I remember that day very clearly, it was the first time I had been left completely on my own. I spent most of that day in the meadow under a tree, just outside the barn Zenith was sleeping in. My hair had started to grow back and had formed a spiky brown tuft that stuck up in all directions. I dreaded to brush it because it always felt like dead grass whenever I ran my hands through it.
I set a goal for myself that day.
My appearance was shockingly ragged and boyish, whenever I did get to speak to someone, I would always be mistaken for a young man of 12. It didn't bother me much at first for I thought the issue would resolve itself quickly, but with no dresses, no makeup and no long, well-kept hair my boyish exterior remained, bugging me greatly in the process.
I scrambled through the fields, collecting as many different flowers as I could before racing back to the tree.

The flowers spilled over my rags as I sat down with the large bundle. I spent almost the entire day making flower crowns and daisy chains, placing all of my creations in front me.
I saved the most beautiful and delicate looking flower for myself.
It was white with tinges of pink and purple exploding out of its centre. I still don't know the kind of flower it was, but I liked it all the same and tucked it behind my left ear.

As dusk broke I rushed over to the barn, my arms filled my flowery bundle. I stood just outside the door as it slid open, Zenith stumbling out the entrance while rubbing his eyes. He yawned then opened his eyes to see me beaming up at him.
"Good evening," I chirped, "How did you sleep?"
"Quite well Arianna, considering the circumstances," He replied, brushing the stray hairs out of his eyes.
"What do you have there?"

I grinned, placing my flowers on the ground and then taking a particularly pink flower crown from the small pile and placing it on Zenith's head.
He gave me an uncomfortable smile and tried to clamp his fingers around the crown and remove it, but I stopped him, staring directly into his eyes with a look of "I'll be very disappointed if you do".
"Okay then," he sighed.
"So what are we going to do now, shall we leave this place?" I asked.
"No, I want to stay for a while."
"Why?"
"Does there have to be a reason?" He replied, smirking.

I had grown to such ridiculous responses at that point, so I just shrugged him off as he began sauntering to the centre of the village.
"What are you doing?" I hissed, "Aren't you afraid we'll be seen?"
Zenith looked at me like I was a complete idiot.
"My dear, small towns welcome weary travellers; they couldn't care less what they look like."
I frowned. I'd never been in a village before, you couldn't have blamed me!

At that moment, a rather tall, fat woman came bursting out of one the nearby buildings. She looked at the two of us with a great amount of fear, but she wasn't afraid of us. She was afraid FOR us.
"You two! Come inside, it's not safe out here at this hour" She said, gesturing for us to come inside.
Zenith looked at me with great amusement.
"I told you."