Chapters Dollhood: A Woman's Choice Book 1 Chapter 1
“…and so, the Lily stayed where the Gardener planted her, for He knew best. He would come along, every day, and shower her with water. Not too much, and not too little, because He was so wise, He knew exactly what she needed.
“Little Lily the Perfect Flower just gathered the rays the sun gave out as it admired her glow, making herself even more beautiful for all who walked through the garden. And the guests smiled, smelling the roses, and the chrysanthemums, until they finally came to the Perfect Flower. They would look at Sweet Lily, and wish that their gardens were so pretty, but they never knew the secret of her beauty. No, only she knew the secret.”
“What is it? What is it!?” We chimed in. Chastity and I had heard this story many times, but it was more fun when we pretended it was brand new.
Nanny smiled down at us, cross-legged in the garden, we couldn’t have been older than six or seven years old, “Well, the secret was that Lily always did what she was told! How could she be a Perfect Flower without the Gardener’s grand design? What if she had moved her pot to where she thought best, and then no sun had shone on her petals at all? No, it was His job to think, and hers to be silent and beautiful, because He said so. And Lily the Flower was happy, because she accepted this, and had made Him truly proud.”
Chastity giggled and clapped. This was her favourite story, and she was especially giddy once it reached its end.
“Now go along to the playhouse, girls! You have a little bit of time before your Pappa gets home.” With that, Chastity dashed off, but I remember taking my time, holding back. “What is it, Hope?”
This was one of those moments. As much as our Nanny treated us like we were her own flesh and blood, she still had to glance at the engraved ‘H’ on the monogrammed locket about my neck sometimes to see which one I was, so absolutely identical were Chastity and I.
So I was never one of a kind, really.
“Miss, why aren’t you a Doll like Mummy?” I remember the look on my nanny’s face like it was yesterday, a mix of puzzlement and restraint, like she had been preparing for this question since we were born, even though it quickly disappeared to the warm smile we always knew her for as I was picked up onto her lap. “Well I can’t be, no matter how much I want to. To be a true Lady, not of Leisure but of Dollhood, like your Mummy, an honourable nobleman would have to whisk away alllll my silly worries, pay for my changes, clip my wings, and then take care of me like I take care of you girls. Like the Strong Knight in yesterday’s story, remember? Or your husband someday. But that’s not my place, little one, that’s for good girls like you and your sister. You’ll understand when you grow up.”
I thought I understood then of course, like all kids do. That evening when we all sat in the drawing room watching the telly, that is, my whole family, I looked up from the plush rug to Mother seated on the chesterfield next to Pappa. She didn’t look down at me, I knew she couldn’t, but Father always told us how proud of us she was, how happy she was when we were behaving, or spending time with her. He would kiss her on the cheek often in those years, one hand holding her close and playing with her breast, as her only signs of life — blinking and breathing — would get faster and deeper as he did.
One of my warmest memories is getting up and sitting at her side, and resting my tiny hand on the semi-glossy plastic skin of her finely-manicured ones, daintily tied together in her lap with a white lace bow1. She couldn’t move her arms to reciprocate, nor tell us her love first-hand, but Pappa always told us she could still feel and hear everything, and he communicated for her, so we did our best to be on our best behaviour in her presence. You might think, as a Doll, silent and still, she wasn’t really a mother to us; I mean it’s common knowledge that Dolls need a surrogate to have children in the first place, but Chastity and I held our mother in the highest regard, like something expensive and fragile, like a silent angel watching over us. Oh how we wished to be her, to be a good wife for an honourable Knight, a careful Gardener.
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This was the style before the dolling innovations of the 2030s and 40s. The skin treatments were not so refined then, and arms were almost never removed wholly, or “clipped,” just deadened to the motor signals of the brain. You might be inclined to know that even this was not always successful, as Mother had a twitch in her left thumb. These surgical inconsistencies, the aesthetic legacy of the reverse prayer, and other changes in contemporary fashions led to the rise of the cleaner “venus look,” which you are familiar with from the armlessness of Emily Battersby and countless others from 2040 onward. ↩