A Huntress arrived at a crossroads, just south of small farming community known as Templeton. Her march, denoted by the sound of canvas boots thudding against the rocks making up the countryside road, had a calm pace. It felt refreshing to be in the countryside again, away from the asphalt and smog she didn’t grow up with. She’d been walking for the last two hour, but wasn’t exhausted under the cool, late September morning sunlight. At the center of the crossroads, a sign on a small patch a grass pointed down a north westerly road leading to Templeton. She paused for a brief moment to set her backpack and rifle down, surveying the mustard field to her west while sipping on a flask of water. The figure of an old farmer, with a white shirt and a wide brimmed hat rose above the field, leaning over to gather seeds by hand. Tools from the city hadn’t made their way out this far just yet.

The figure leaned up for a moment and noticed the Huntress, looking in her direction without fully turning towards her. From the Huntress’s perspective, he quietly raised a hand to wave without making much of it. Huntress replied in turn, flask in hand, and the old farmer turned back around to his work. Huntress started south on the road to a forest the locals of Templeton and surrounding communities don’t approach.

The stone road ended about five kilometers after the farmer’s mustard field, leading to a wooded area which seemed to grow denser every few paces. A slight worn trail in the brush, winding between and under the gowns of pine trees suggested a general direction, which Huntress could tell hadn’t been used recently. It wasn’t too long before a clearing with a small hut came into view. Upon first glance, it almost looked quaint. A short porch with two chairs out front gave the place an almost homely impression, but the glass windows of differing makes were odd, likely taken from evacuated houses outside the forest. It was shockingly clean for being so far the town.

The tell that Huntress was in the right place was the single doll arm and hand below the stoop of the porch. Huntress stared at it for a quiet moment, thinking of the stories she was told at the neighboring Edli township before making her way here. Almost without making a sound, Huntress takes a step into the clearing. Another quiet moment passes, everything still. Out of the corner of her eye, a candle burns in the hut’s window where one didn’t a moment before. Huntress has no measure for how keen the eye of a Witch is, but it’s obvious she’s being watched.

She debated whether or not she should’ve readied her rifle by the time she took her first step onto the stoop, but her entrance was met with the door opening. Stood behind it was a woman of long black hair, a dark cloak, wide brimmed hat with a pointed top, and knowing smile.

”Well, Visitor. Are you going to observe my yard or come inside? Lunch was just finished but a moment ago, so some soup is ready if you haven’t eaten today,” the Witch’s solitary voice spoke. Huntress started up the porch steps, but couldn’t shake the feeling any hospitality from the Witch comes with a sinister tinge.

”Thanks, I’ll have a bowl. It’s quite the walk here from Edli.” Huntress said, entering the hut cautiously. She knew very little about witches or their servants, and she didn’t want a fight to break out.

”Lovely! My most recent doll has acceptable culinary skills, but at least it does a great job tending to my needs. Kehehe~,” the Witch casually says with a little giggle at the end as she leads Huntress into her kitchen. Huntress furrows her brow reflexively, startled that the Witch would mention her twisted craft so innocuously but-

”Oh? What a face! I see word of my craft is making the rounds?” The Witch interrupted Huntress’s train of thought.

”I’m . . . aware of your work, but that’s only part of why I’m here,” Huntress replied choosing her words. The Witch hid a slight grin as she faced away to pour a bowl of soup. Huntress took a careful seat at her table and set her belongings next to the chair. Her eye’s scanned the room but all seemed shockingly ordinary for a cabin, despite the Edli townsfolk’s fanciful tales of the place. More importantly: no sign of him. Huntress was fearing the worst. The Witch handed Huntress her lunch and took a seat across the table.

”I’m more than willing to answer a few questions kehehehe~. I suspect you know some specifics of my craft, but I am curious what your interest is.” The Witch looked at Huntress from across the table, pleasantly lent back in her chair. On the other end of the table, Huntress read the Witch’s expression and mannerisms as totally neutral but couldn’t shake her anxiety. After taking a sip of the soup before her, Huntress started. . .

”Five months ago, the Templeton town center posted it’s first missing person’s listing since the war ended. Young man, former militia, unmarried, one living relative, didn’t return home from the tavern one night in March. News eventually found it’s way to me, and I got a tip in Edli that a wheat seller saw the man talking to an unfamiliar woman the night he disappeared.”

”And someone mentioned the Witch who lives in the forest Grandmothers tell the children not to visit?” The Witch rhetorically asked, measuring the pace of the conversation.

”Yes.” Huntress replied sternly, taking another sip of soup. She couldn’t taste any poisons she was familiar with, a small comfort. Instead, the soup had a familiar, homely quality to it. Huntress’s heart was beginning to sink but she needed to keep stone faced. The Witch brushed her long black hair from her face, almost annoyed.

”I normally prefer purchasing inquiries above all, discussing whether or not I took one from the village is a private matter,” the Witch said. Huntress nodded, reaching into her bag to grab a small envelope. Three months of savings from boar hunting.

”My~! The currency of man is certainly one way to press the issue. Many of my ilk don’t take this form of payment, you know. Consider this a conversation starter for now, but a deal hasn’t fully been reached. Yet.” The Witch’s words perked up, but Huntress felt like something had just been set in motion without her full consent.

”Is he here?” Huntress asked, finishing the bowl. Her thumb starting to loop around the rifle’s neck, just below the table to stay out of the Witch’s sight. Across the table, the Witch smiled and looked to the far side of the room behind Huntress.

”Doll!” The Witch called. “Finished cleaning up yet? We have a customer here who’s interested in purchasing you!~” Huntress turned in the direction the Witch looked to, spotting a wooden door next to a window. The midday light shone down onto a sleepy rocking chair next to the window. A moment later the door creaked open, and a figure crept out into the kitchen. Huntress, looking away from the Witch, tried in vain to not react with a mix of shock and distress.

He. . .She. . . It? They were no longer the same height as Huntress, the top of their head barely passing Huntress’s shoulder height in estimate. Long flowing white hair. Their eyes were glassy. . . Wait, were they glass? How could he see? He was dressed in a long white gown that looked to be fashioned from a spare table cloth, stained with juices from cooking. But his. . . their hands. The lack of sleeves revealed articulating joints running along their hands, and their elbows too. And the. . . skin? Pearlescent in the sun. . . porcelain? The sunlight behind the gown revealed a form that looked demure and femme, with ridges along where the modest chest, abdomen, and hips articulate. Its everything he would’v-

”Miss, w-why are you s-staring so intently?” The Doll asked in a curious tone, observing Huntress. Huntress and the Doll did not break eye contact as it made it’s way over to the Witch. The Witch was beaming with delight at the scene, and the slight disruptions in Huntress’s demeanor only seemed to make the Witch glow.

Huntress tried to muster something to say, but what happened next continued to leave her equally curious and distraught. The Doll faced away from the Witch, showing the wings of a moderately sized turn key on it’s back. Using one hand, the Witch turned the key twice, before quietly cooing, “That should help the stuttering for a bit. Doll did such a wonderful job preparing lunch, but it’ll need to stay awake a little while longer for a rare customer!” The Doll nodded and arranged itself a chair across from Huntress, making sure the ‘customer’ was in view. Huntress felt a chill overhearing that title.

”Alright.” Huntress said, trying her best to recompose herself. “This is definitely more than what I imagined from the descriptions. Is . . . Is that. . .” She trailed off looking once again at the Doll’s face. The outline and shape of it’s face was so close to who Huntress remembered. The gestalt of a person she personally knew but emptied out and rebuilt with the same parts.

”It’s alive as you or me, but objecthood is fairing it’s soul better than when it was a creature of man. It’s former ‘self,’ whatever that was, requested this, you know?” The Witch said, leaning slightly forward expectantly. Huntress shifted a bit. “I don’t normally like taking toys from their set, but it came to plead for this.”

Huntress took a deep breath. “So this confirms you were behind his-”

”It’s.” Witch interjected, clicking her tongue.

”. . . The thing sitting across the table from me once was, at one point, perceived as a man from Templeton?” Huntress said, making eye contact with Doll. The Doll sat there with a contemplative expression. Tilting its head in a cute way. Huntress couldn’t gauge the Doll’s thoughts on the matter, but it never broke its appraising gaze towards Huntress.

”Exactly~! It’s actually quite common in mortal circles to not know you’re a doll. And this one makes such a lovely doll maid, you could almost forget who it was before.” The Witch trailed a hand from the Doll’s shoulder to it’s chin, causing it to shudder slightly. It’s glassy eyes rolled back for a moment. Huntress squinted.

”We can have differing opinions. That man w- It used to be quite the person, Templeton owes a lot to them.” Huntress was still dodging around some facts. A brief silence fell across the room as Witch thought, meanwhile Huntress kept looking at Doll. The villagers at Edli mentioned the local witch may have taken up doll making but to see it in motion was unsettling. Was his old body even. . . recoverable?

”Mistress, is this lady here to purchase this one?” Doll pushed the question, and Huntress felt the need to speak up. ”Yes. Me and your mistress will make a deal and you’ll be coming back to Templeton with me, Re-”

”If you’re thinking you can prompt it with memories it doesn’t have anymore, you’re quite wrong.” The Witch said, raising her voice. That silence returned. The Witch’s gaze started intense but slowly inched back to relaxed.

”Would you like to try holding it?” The Witch asked in a calmer tone, which got an embarrassed response out of the doll to her right.

”Wh-why?” Huntress shrank for a moment.

”You are here to purchase one of my best dolls, right? Surely you at least want to examine it before committing to a long term purchase? I can even get one of the dresses I made for it if you want, you should see how flustered it gets dolled up for the occasion.” The Witch asked, placing both hands on the Doll’s shoulders. The Doll blushed and looked away from Huntress, having no say in the matter.

”I’ll. . . It can’t hurt?” Huntress stumbled a bit but agreed, not wanting to start a scene. The Doll timidly moved from it’s chair around the table, standing before Huntress expectantly. Huntress was never good with delicate things like this, but let go of her rifle for a moment to reach both arms below the shoulder joints. Though the motion was inelegant, the Doll eventually found itself sitting in Huntress’s lap. Almost a princess carry, with the turn key gently whirring behind it’s body. Huntress was surprised how light it’s body was, how it responded to her gloved hands stabilizing it in her grasp. The Doll’s long silvery hair draped over Huntress’s shoulders. Smelled. . . nice.

”Should I leave the room for a moment or two?” The Witch asked teasingly.

”N-No, we should be fine if we stay like this.” In a vacuum, this was pleasant. Doll was a cold body and Huntress, though rugged, was a bit of warmth. Though Huntress’s fixation was the stillness, the pliability. Equal parts vacant but also present. She glanced over to the Doll’s face, noticing that it’d had gone into a trance of sorts. Making a sweet, delicate whimper occasionally. For some reason, Huntress felt invited to explore more, hold it more, love it more. Almost hypnotic. A curious hand shifted Doll into a proper sitting position in Huntress’s arms and began tracing around the edges of the Doll’s cloth dress. Doll arched back into Huntress and the two stayed together for a quiet moment, gloved hands creeping under and up her. . . new companion?

Huntress was lost in this act, but she struggled to think of much else. She’d held a few ethereal lovers before but. But something here, the total submission and response. The act of tracing her hands along the ridge beneath Doll’s chest felt lewd but it’s soft voice coed for more. Huntress’s ability to think was sliding away.

”It’s quite the intimate process to make a Doll like this.” The Witch said, making eye contact with a blissed out Huntress. “You get to see the outline, a fake shape of a person inside-out. Sensations. Tendencies. . .” Witch trailed her gaze to the Doll. It’s hazy expression overloaded from touch, just as she wanted. “Memories.”

Huntress froze. A spell was broken.

”There were some peculiar ones in there. A shoemaker’s daughter and the baker’s son spending lazy summers together. Villagers sometimes asking why the son was the princess and the daughter the knight when they played. Both drafted once, the one volunteered and went away. A secret, solemn maiden waiting for the awfully devoted woman she trusted to retur-”

”Those were our memories!” Huntress stood up out of the chair in anger, stabilizing the doll’s limp body in her arm. The Witch began cackling but the sight before was proof of an esoteric victory, unbeknownst to Huntress. A cloaked woman with a rifle in one hand and a damsel of a doll in the other.

”KhehahahHAA! Such a determined look! Are you sure you won’t leave it this time? Fully committed for a lifetime together with it?”

”You don’t get it all! Anything will be better than them being with you any longer!” Amidst more joyful laughing from the Witch, Huntress’s shouting rose Doll from it’s haze. “Unless you’re intent in getting in our way, we’re leaving.”

”M-miss. . . “ The Doll uttered, causing a small silence to grip the room. “Can you set this o-one down? Doll is getting-ing sleepy . . .” The winding turn-key on it’s back was slowing down. Huntress quietly lowered Doll til it could stand, but Doll remained close to it’s new owner. “Thank you. . . N-New Mistress?”

Huntress placed a hand on the Doll’s shoulder. ”Don’t call me, Mistress. It is time to leave though.” Huntress said, feeling compelled to be a little softer.

”You two are quite precious together. Imbuing a calming and sensory magic into the Doll’s stitches feels great, but seeing how it effects a person secondhand is quite the treat.” The Witch said, proud of her work. “Don’t get lost in the moment, you could be there for eternity~”

”Stop it. You of all people know I’m not buying her. . . her for that reason. I don’t know how, but I'm sure she’s in there.” Huntress said, slightly tearing up. Doll slowly sunk to the floor, her key stopping. “Consider whats in the envelope and us never seeing each other again as payment.”

”Keep the envelope and think nothing of it! I got what I wanted out of you, and I’m a busy lady.” The Witch said, concluding their conversation.

When the Witch stood up, she disappeared into the other room and returned with a luggage box, some small dresses that made Doll blush to see, and a small booklet. Carrying case for storage. Booklet for care. ‘Dresses which are pleasant to touch.’ Huntress was surprised the Doll could fit in the box, but needed to rewind her so she could settle her body in place. Huntress departed shortly after, she knew picking a fight with the Witch wouldn’t end well. It was just a matter of getting as far away as possible and keeping her safe.

It was late afternoon by the time Huntress got back to the crossroads. Lugging Doll’s box through the forest path took more time, but not enough where asking the Doll to get out and walk with her would’ve been a good idea. She figured she should hash out a proper ‘girl name’ for Doll but she was exhausted. Emotionally and physically. Taking another swig of her water flask, she stared out across the mustard field once more. The familiar figure of the farmer, bent over into the field was some comfort to her, but she started wondering. How could anyone live this close to the forest? The farmer’s gaze rose up for a moment, and he noticed Huntress. Huntress took another swig and waved like before. The Farmer waved back, the warm afternoon sun illuminating the ridge of the doll joints on it’s hand.

Huntress could feel knocking coming from the case in her hand. Standing at the crossroads, a cold wind seemed to blow towards Templeton.