An Apple for the Creature

The cloth I used was old. Old enough that I’d had to dig up my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother for it. The oldest of them was a white wedding gown, turned brown with age; and then a black dress torn up with holes; and last, a gown made of muslin that tore so easily, I held my breath when I added it to the patchwork of poppet flesh.

Days I practiced stitches with Ruth, and nights I stitched to kill her, embroidering a fantasy of freedom upon the skin of the doll: an open road leading to its heart, and the blue sky, and birds with their wings outstretched. Black thread held the joints, but everywhere else, color sapped from forest dyes, from the walnut and woad, safflower and goldenrod, mixed double, double, to toil and trouble.

I poured my heart into the making of that poppet. I poured what was left of my soul. And when I was done, or near so, I cut open my arm to spill my blood upon its guts: strands of hair I’d gathered, sneak-like, over years in Ruth’s home; persimmon seeds she’d spit from her mouth into the yard; and chicken bones where her teeth left marks. Epsom salts for freedom, and blue salt for healing; gray talcum powder to protect from evil; and last, dirt from the graves of my mothers. Dirt from the graves of the men, along with a finger from each of their hands.

And when I was done I set a shroud upon the thing, because its eyes seemed to watch me, and I could not stand the judgment already waiting, on high and low, and inside my heart where there was no peace and never would be, even if I got what I wanted.

Even so.

—

“There’s something different about you,” Ruth said, setting down some knitting as I approached her cabin. The morning sun was on her: hair silver as frost, her skin pale, and those bone needles shining white around her throat.

“I’m tired,” I said. “Been thinking.”

“Dangerous.” Ruth heaved herself from the rocking chair and went inside. “I’ll make you tea.”

She said those words with kindness. I’d heard them a million times. Comforting, warm. Ruth, who had rescued me. Ruth, who had raised me as her own. Ruth, who had been my teacher and friend.

When she turned her back on me I reached inside the satchel, grabbed the poppet, and squeezed.

Her back arched so wild she went up on her toes, a rattling cry tearing from her throat. I squeezed harder and heard a cracking sound. Bone, breaking.

Ruth crumpled, slamming down with a thud that rattled the entire porch. For a moment she was completely still, and then her fingers twitched, and her hands and arms began to move, and she clawed at the planks, panting for air. Her legs remained still.

I took a long deep breath, and climbed the steps. My heart pounded. Dark spots floated in my vision. Ruth tried to grab my foot, hissing curses at me, but I sidestepped and went into the cabin.

I gathered the dolls on the shelf, including one with my name embroidered over the heart. My hands burned when I touched it, dizziness sweeping down, but I swallowed hard and held the doll close—burning, burning—and went back outside.

“I’ll kill you,” Ruth whispered, gaze burning with hate. “I should have killed you years ago.”

“You held the leash and thought that was enough.”

Foam touched her lips. “I cared for you.”

I held up the doll she had made to control me. “Not in the right way.”

“You would do the same!” Ruth tried to grab me again as I walked past her to the yard. I dumped the dolls on the hard frost, and then reached into the satchel for Ruth’s poppet. I went back and showed it to her, crouching a safe distance away. Her eyes narrowed, and even with her back broke I saw those wheels turning, how she examined every stitch, searching for a flaw. But of course there was none. If I’d done one thing wrong, I’d be dead and she would be kicking my corpse into the refuse pile for the pigs to eat.

“Impossible.” Ruth tore her gaze from the poppet. “I own you.”

“I found sympathy.” I pulled down my collar to reveal two necklaces of bone needles hanging from my neck. “Just enough.”

Her eyes widened. “Those men.”

I said nothing, and the silence was terrible and heavy, heavy on me because I saw myself in that moment; me, in Ruth’s place, sprawled on the porch with a broken back and some other girl standing over me, ready to take my place with a fury. Future or not, it chilled me.

“Oh, God kill you,” Ruth whispered. “God kill you, and the Devil, too.”

“In time,” I said, and twisted the poppet’s head.

—

Freedom should have a tingle, some flash of light, but I felt no different afterward. Maybe I wasn’t free. Maybe being free of Ruth wasn’t the same thing at all.

I burned all the dolls, except mine. I was too much a coward to tempt my own death, though I deserved it in a mighty way. Shadow of death over my heart, waiting, waiting, for the needle and thread. Wicked stitchery.

I wanted to learn a different kind.

Ruth, I burned with the dolls. I broke her needles.

But I kept her house.

—