The Bone Doll’s Twin. Lynn Flewelling
that old demon away.’
Tobin could hear the others still whispering to each other as she led him towards the stairs.
‘It’s true, what they say!’ Sarilla was whimpering. ‘Who else does it attack like that? Born cursed!’
‘That’s enough, girl,’ Mynir hissed back. ‘There’s a cold, lonesome road outside for those who can’t keep their mouths shut.’
Tobin shivered. So even here, people whispered.
He slept deeply with Nari close beside him. He woke alone, but well tucked in and could tell by the slant of the sun through the shutters that it was mid-morning.
Disappointment swept away all the terror of the night before. At the dawn of Sakor’s day he and Mynir always woke the household to the new year, beating on the shield gong by the shrine. The steward must have done it without him this year and he hadn’t even heard.
He padded barefoot across the cold floor to the small bronze mirror above his washbasin and inspected his cheek. Yes, there it was; a double line of red teeth marks, curved like the outline of an eye. Tobin bit his forearm just hard enough to leave an impression in the skin and saw that the two marks looked very much the same. Tobin looked back at the mirror, staring into his own blue eyes and wondering what sort of invisible body the demon had. Until now it had only been a dark blur he sometimes saw from the corner of his eye. Now he imagined it as one of the goblins in Nari’s bedtime tales – the ones she said looked like a boy burned all over in a fire. A goblin with teeth like his. Was that what had been lurking at the edges of his world all this time?
Tobin glanced nervously around the room and made the warding sign three times over before he felt brave enough to get dressed.
He was sitting on the bed tying the leather lacings over his trouser legs when he heard the door latch lift. He glanced up, expecting Nari.
Instead, his mother stood framed in the doorway with the doll. ‘I heard Mynir and Cook talking about what happened last night,’ she said softly. ‘You slept late this Sakor’s Day.’
This was the first time in more than year that they’d been alone together. Since that day in the tower.
He couldn’t move. He just sat staring, with the leather lacing biting into his fingers as she walked to him and reached to touch his cheek.
Her hair was combed and plaited today. Her dress was clean and she smelled faintly of flowers. Her fingers were cool and gentle as she smoothed his hair back and examined the swollen flesh around the bite. There were no shadows in her face today that Tobin could see. She just looked sad. Laying the doll aside on the bed, she cradled his face in both hands and kissed him on the brow.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. Then she pushed his left sleeve back and kissed the wisdom mark on his forearm. ‘We’re living in an ill-starred dream, you and I. I must do better by you, little love. What else do we have but each other?’
‘Sarilla says I’m cursed,’ Tobin mumbled, undone by such tenderness.
His mother’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but her touch remained gentle. ‘Sarilla is an ignorant peasant. You mustn’t ever listen to such talk.’
She took up the doll again, then reached for Tobin’s hand. Smiling, she said, ‘Come, my dears, let’s see what Cook has for our breakfast.’
Since that strange Sakor’s Day morning, his mother ceased to be a ghost in her own household.
Her first acts were to dismiss Sarilla and then dispatch Mynir to the town to find a suitable replacement. He returned the following day with a quiet, good-natured widow named Tyra who became her serving maid.
Sarilla’s dismissal frightened Tobin. He hadn’t cared much for the girl, but she’d been a part of the household for as long as he could remember. His mother’s dislike of Nari was no secret, and he was terrified that she might send the nurse away, too. But Nari stayed and cared for him as she always had, without any interference.
His mother came downstairs nearly every morning now, properly dressed with her shining black hair braided or combed in a smooth veil over her shoulders. She even wore some scent that smelled like spring flowers in the meadow. She still spent much of the day sewing dolls by the fire in her bedchamber, but she took time now to look over the accounts with Mynir and came out to the kitchen yard with Cook to meet the farmers and peddlers who called. Tobin came along, too, and was surprised to hear of famine and disease striking in nearby towns. Before now, those were things that always happened far away.
Still, as bright as she was during the day, as soon as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen the light seemed to go out of her, too, and she’d retreat upstairs to the forbidden third floor. This saddened Tobin at first, but he was never tempted to follow and the next morning she would reappear, smiling again.
The demon seemed to come and go with the daylight, too, but it was most active in the dark.
The teeth marks it left on Tobin’s cheek soon healed and faded, but his terror of it did not. Lying in bed beside Nari each night, Tobin could not rid himself of the image of a wizened black form lurking in the shadows, reaching out with taloned fingers to pinch and pull, its sharp teeth bared to bite again. He kept the covers pulled up to his eyes and learned to drink nothing after supper, so that he wouldn’t have to get up in the dark to use the chamber pot.
The fragile peace with his mother held, and a few weeks later Tobin walked into his toy room to find her waiting for him at a new table.
‘For our lessons,’ his mother explained, waving him to the other chair.
Tobin’s heart sank as he saw the parchments and writing materials. ‘Father tried to teach me,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t learn.’
A small frown creased her forehead at the mention of his father, but it quickly passed. Dipping a quill into the inkpot, she held it out to him. ‘Let’s try again, shall we? Perhaps I’ll be a better teacher.’
Still dubious, Tobin took it and tried to write his name, the only word he knew. She watched him struggle for a few moments, then gently took back the quill.
Tobin sat very still, wondering if there would be an outburst of some sort. Instead, she rose and went to the windowsill, where a row of his little wax and wooden carvings stood in a row. Picking up a fox, she looked back at him. ‘You made these, didn’t you?’
Tobin nodded.
She examined each of the others: the hawk, the bear, the eagle, a running horse, and the attempt he’d made at modelling Tharin holding a wood splinter sword.
‘Those aren’t my best ones,’ he told her shyly. ‘I give them away.’
‘To whom?’
He shrugged. ‘Everyone.’ The servants and soldiers had always praised his work and even asked for particular animals. Manies had wanted an otter and Laris a bear. Koni liked birds; in return for an eagle he’d given Tobin one of his sharp little knives and found him soft bits of wood that were easy to shape.
As much as Tobin loved pleasing them all, he always saved his best carvings for his father and Tharin. It had never occurred to him to give one to his mother. He wondered if her feelings were hurt.
‘Would you like to have that one?’ he asked, pointing to the fox she still held.
She bowed slightly, smiling. ‘Why, thank you, my lord.’
Returning to her chair, she placed it on the table between them and handed him the quill. ‘Can you draw this for me?’
Tobin had never thought to draw anything when it was so easy to model them. He looked down at the blank parchment, flicking the feathered end of the quill against his chin. Pulling the shape