FicWad

Beatrix gasped and sat up, hurriedly wiping at her eyes. "J-Just a moment! I'm coming!" She hopped off the bed, stamped absentmindedly at a smoldering spark on the bedroom floor, and scurried out to the main room of the shop. "Sorry. I was in the back."

Leonard stood awkwardly at the front counter, dressed in an expensive-looking suit of burgundy velvet. he coughed slightly when he saw her, glancing away to avoid eye contact. Beatrix rolled her eyes, smoothed her shirt (smearing ash down her front), and forced a smile. "Mr. Flute. What a . . . surprise. Can I help you? I mean, are you a customer today?"

"No, I just . . ." Leonard cleared his throat. "I simply wanted to check on you. You, ah, you really haven't come outside in the past week, and people were hoping - er, I mean, I mean worried that perhaps you - that you didn't - that, I mean, maybe -"

"For a poet, you aren't very good with words, Mr. Flute," Beatrix observed dryly.

Leonard glared at her, flustered. "Well, many of us - the townspeople, I mean - we think that you're not, well, sound of mind, and . . . well, people think you may not be taking proper care of yourself."

Beatrix snorted. For the first time, she was in a bad mood, a truly bad mood, and she felt like . . . like being . . . well, she certainly didn't feel like sweet, optimistic Beatrix. "Oh, right. Like the old woman who dies in the back of her apartment, surrounded by her cats. I can take care of myself, Mr. Flute. I don't need you checking in on me."

"Well!" Leonard bristled, adjusting his crushed brocade top hat. He emanated indignation. Indignation and expensive heirloom cologne. "I was only trying to help!"

"Trying to help?" Beatrix echoed, her brow creasing in fury. "Trying to help?! Oh, sure! After telling me I have a week to make you all stop hating me, when - when I didn't even -" The sleepless nights, the stress, the emotional burden - it all crashed onto the young woman like a tidal wave, gallons of hurt and frustration, and she turned away so he couldn't see the first of the tears fall.

Leonard leaned back slightly. Crying people made him uncomfortable. "Uh . . . there, there," he mumbled, in what he hoped was a consoling way. "It's . . . it's okay . . ."

"Don't tell me what's okay!" she snapped. She pulled the back of her hand across her eyes, slightly smudging the thin lines of kohl that rimmed her eyes. "It's . . . it's not. I can't move. Not again."

"Why not?" Leonard swept the hat off his head and dropped it on the counter, leaning forward. "If we - I mean they, I mean the townspeople - if they don't like you, why not? You haven't been here that long. You moved here from somewhere else, didn't you?"

Beatrix laughed hollowly and leaned back against the counter, still not facing him. "You don't get it."

"No, I don't. That's why I'm asking you to explain your reasoning to me, Miss Gordon."

"Look at these dolls," she murmured. "Look at all of them. How many do you think there are?"

Leonard turned his head slightly, his honey-gold eyes scanning the shelves of dolls. "Oh . . . I don't know. Two hundred, maybe three. Why does that matter?"

Beatrix sighed heavily. "I . . . I can't take them all with me. If I need to move . . . they'd have to be destroyed, or given away."

"But you sell them anyway," Leonard said, confused.

"That's different. People come in and chose a doll specifically, one at a time. There's love there. Do orphanages just hand out children, Mr. Flute? Buy one, get two free? I don't think so." She turned around, startling him with her sudden closeness, the piercing earnestness of her wide hazel eyes. "They are children to me, Mr. Flute. If I leave without them . . . it's nothing but abandonment."

Leonard stared at her, bewildered by her raw intensity. "They're just toys, Bea- Miss Gordon. They're . . . they're wood and paint."

"You don't get it," Beatrix repeated, wearily this time. "You don't understand. When I make a doll . . . it's like . . . it's like creating a little soul. I think to myself, 'I love this doll, and someone else will love it.' If something can be loved, it's important. It almost has its own soul. My work brings joy to people - that makes it so much more than wood and paint."

He stood quietly for a moment, contemplating this. The silence crept up between them like a wall, solid, tangible.

"If you're not going to buy, and you're not looking," she whispered, "please leave my shop."

"Miss Gordon, I'm sorr-"

"Please leave my shop." Beatrix turned away, heading towards the workshop.

Leonard grabbed his hat up again, fumbling foolishly, tripping over both his words and his pricey shoes. "But - But I - I've rethought my previous assessment of you and -"

"Please!" It came out louder than she meant it to, almost an impassioned scream. The pure frustration in her voice startled both of them. She paused in the doorway of the workshop, wondering whether or not she should apologize.

Leonard beat her to it. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. He clutched his hat to his chest and made an awkward little bow, still trapped in chains of poise and protocol. "I . . . I won't call again, Miss Gordon. I'm sorry to have intruded."

"It's quite all right . . . Mr. Flute." She disappeared into the workshop, and the snap of the door closing had a finality that seemed to settle uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. He found himself wishing he had called her Beatrix, and wishing even more fervently that she had called him Leonard. At least once.

Beatrix listened intently, waiting until she heard the cheery chime of the shop's bell. Then she collapsed into her chair, her face in her small hands. "Oh, Goddess. What am I going to do with this . . ." she moaned softly. "I can't . . . I don't remember anything . . . I don't have time to relearn . . ." She put her head down on the worktable and took a few deep, shuddering breaths. One hand dropped down and brushed a block of wood on the floor.

She suddenly sat upright, blinking in surprise. "Oh . . ." She glanced down at the wood curiously. It was a rectangular block, about two by one by one, big enough to carve an entire doll out of, if she was careful. Beatrix picked it up and turned it over in her hands, wondering. There's something in here that wants to get out, she thought to herself. Something spoke.

She wasn't in the mood for dollmaking. For once, she didn't want to put the effort in, didn't want to deal with the concentration and detail and work. In spite of this, she picked up a knife and began shaving away at the wood.

She worked until the gas lights had to be turned on, far past when all the other shops closed. The moon had risen, though she didn't know it, and had peaked over her shop when she finally finished carving all the pieces and jointing them together.

Beatrix checked the elbows, the hips, the knees, swiveling them back and forth to make sure they were smooth. She had been taken with an urge to make this doll particularly detailed, and so she had carved him - for she had known from the beginning that it would be a male - with separated jointed hands. The little wooden hands, which looked like flat mittens, were jointed at the top of the palms and then again at the middle knuckle line, so the doll's hand could curl into a little fist. The rest of the body was sublime - sleek and perfectly proportioned. He was by far the most beautiful doll she had ever made.

A pale flesh tone soon coated the wood, though she thinned the paint so the faintest ghost of the wood grain could still be seen. For some reason it seemed right to do so. Elegant, doe-like eyes with dark irises soon followed, and a small, thin mouth set in a delicate frown.

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Still not done! Sooooo sorry . . . TT.TT