Blog cover image by: https://www.dollprague.com/

Hey dinos! This is chapter 1 of my Pinocchio-inspired fantasy adventure story called Madelina.

It's about a disabled wood carver who needs to find a home for her wooden doll girl that has come to life because there is a ban on magical creatures in their world.

Let me know what you think either in the comments, or in my Discord server!  discord.gg/bYHXjgxQxZ

I dunno if I'm going to share as much of this story as I will be with Grimmy, but I'll try to post updates for it here and there.

CHAPTER I | THE WILL OF LOVE AND LIFE

SHE WOKE UP in a place that looked like how her body felt. The room was made of wood, and so was she.

It was dark. The only source of light was coming from the moon, through the windows behind her, and from those across the room. No, there was actually another light. A faint blue glow coming from her face, apparently her eyes were lights too.

It was a big place, but small enough where it would take only a few seconds to walk over and touch the other wall.

She hopped down and her feet made a fun clack noise when they touched the ground. It wasn’t a long fall, but enough to send a rumble through her legs, all the way up her body and into her teeth.

It took her a moment to balance on both legs. It felt to her as if she hadn’t walked since an unimaginable time ago, but also like she had just been walking yesterday.

She looked back and saw the thing she had been sleeping on. A table, or desk, that was coming out of the wall.

Where to now? She wondered.

In between two windows, there was a door that went outside. 

Not out there, she thought. Too dark.

Across from the door were some stairs, leading to a deeper darkness.

She felt something on the back of her neck, but nothing was touching her. The only thing she could think to call that feeling was like she was being looked at. She scanned the room and saw nothing, but could swear there had been a faint jingling sound coming from somewhere. Like little bells.

She checked under tables and opened cabinets but found nothing with bells, so she decided to go upstairs. 

The floorboards on the next floor creaked, not as loud as the ones on the steps, but still loud. She tried to be quiet with each step. If this were someone’s home, she hoped she wasn’t being rude.

The thought of a pair of eyes suddenly opening down the hall sent a chill through her pine skin. And before she could banish the thought, she heard a noise coming from one of the rooms. It sounded like footsteps, somewhat heavier than her own.

She froze in place. If she ran away, she would only make more noise and possibly upset this unknown entity even more. But if she didn’t hide, it would see her as soon as-

The door opened. 

A pale figure creeped out from the room, and a pair of dark eyes slowly floated ahead. She’d done it now. She must have awakened some ancient witch who had been slumbering in this cabin for a hundred years. She didn’t even know her own name, but she realized at that moment that she had to be a troublemaker, always causing one accident after another. That must have been the sort of girl she was.

Strangely, however, the entity looked more afraid itself than anything, and actually it looked a little familiar. She couldn’t quite figure out why, but she suddenly felt relaxed, and opened her mouth without much thought.

“Are you my mommy?” the wooden girl asked.

Her voice split through the dry air, and reverberated off the walls in a sharp irritating sort of way. Much louder than she had expected it to be.

The thing’s eyes widened.

“Go!” it shrieked. “Go back to the forest!”

✶

Earlier that day

Greta stumbled inside with a stack of chopped wood cradled in her arms. There were still more bundles waiting outside, but she needed to take a breather first, and pick the splinters out of her skin.

This is ridiculous, she thought, and then sat down.

Greta was only twenty-seven, but even her grandmother could have worked longer before needing a rest. Of course, that would never have been a fair comparison, Greta was convinced that her grandmother was part bear. 

She hadn’t always had poor health. Before what happened last summer, she was as spry as most women her age, and she still hadn’t gotten used to her new normal.

After she brought the rest of the wood inside, and put the cart away, it was time to rest again. She lay in bed, stewing on the past—back when she was healthy—as if it were the present. Greta’s pores cried sweaty tears, her breathing wavered, and her chest thumped so violently it felt like her heart crawled into her skull. She twiddled her fingers, trying to grip back those lost days. That lost youth.

She felt better after—she couldn’t tell how long. Felt like hours, but she doubted it had been that long, the sun was still up.

She needed something to do, something she could have complete control over. It was too early for dinner, so Greta went back downstairs and continued her wood carving project.

For the last handful of months, she had been working on a special doll. A life-size one, about the size of her eight-year old niece. She had built this one for reasons she wasn’t entirely sure of herself, or just not willing to admit. But one thing became dreadfully clear over the course of the last year… she was lonely. Even if she denied such feelings, she knew it to be true.

The doll was more or less complete. Its head was shaped like a stubby seed or maybe like a squished raindrop. She carved and painted on a girlish face with a slightly pouty lip, as well as a small round nose, bright blue eyes under sleepy eyelids, curious and kind little eyebrows that kept low, and just a hint of blush on the cheeks. 

There was a hidden ball-joint mechanism in between the upper torso and the waist, that allowed for a full-range of bodily motion. Its head, shoulders, arms, hands, legs, knees and feet functioned similarly. The thing was limp without any support, maybe she would build it a simple stand or just leave it in a chair.

It could’ve been better, more lifelike. But this project was just for herself, no need to sweat the details… and yet she did.

This was the largest doll she had ever carved, and even the most detailed one. It took four months to get it to this point, and it was far from perfect. Perhaps a reiteration was in order, but she couldn’t waste what little energy she had on any more pet projects. The next day, she planned to finish it, and that would be that. All it needed was some touch-up on the blue streaks of color she applied to the hair.

Before she knew it, her belly was full and her eyelids as she returned to bed, and she fell asleep. Then, an eternity in darkness, that somehow also felt like no time passed at all.

Creeeeeak—Creeeak

A sound woke her up. Greta’s heart jumped painfully when she recognized the noise. Someone—something was in the house.

Greta had the most energy in the day the moment she woke, and tonight she moved like a trained soldier. She tried to anyway, but she was more like a bumbling clown. She grabbed the tall lamp in her room. 

Greta accidentally stepped on a loose floorboard and made her own creaking noise. It alerted whatever was outside her door because it stopped. Well, whatever it was, it was about to get a face full of candle.

Greta opened the door, and peeked out with a vigilant eye. There in the hall stood a short pale figure that was shaped like a little person, but had that unnerving lifelike lifelessness that statues had. It was like a walking corpse. Most alarming of all were its blue glowing eyes. This thing stood on two legs, but its ghastly aura gave Greta the sense that it didn’t need them, and could fly around like a specter.

That’s what it was, Greta decided. A specter, a spirit, a magical creature, a demon. Actually, it looked to be made of wood… A spriggan then. 

“Are you my mommy?” the spriggan asked.

Greta nearly dropped her lamp. “Go! Go back to the forest!” she shrieked.

“Ah! I’m so sorry!” the spriggan said. “I-I leave at once ma’am! Addio!” it said, and ran downstairs.

For a demonic entity, it had a very sweet voice. Must be a trick, Greta figured. Spriggans were known to imitate the voices of little children to lure real children in for the kill. She read that in a book once…or, did she just now think that up? Her memory hadn’t been the same since last summer.

The little spriggan bolted out the front door. That was the end of that nightmare, she hoped. But to make doubly sure, Greta locked the door and every single window in the house, then headed back to bed. Perhaps she put too much sauce on her chicken. Whatever, not the worst nightmare she’d had.

Time to go back to bed and—”Yew idiot!” a blue light screamed in her face, blinding Greta. She fell on her butt and tried to blink her vision back.

The blue light was swearing and making jingly noises in her face. Greta swatted at the thing like a fly. She stood, and her vision came back and she smacked her head into a wall-mounted light. It was made of metal, so it hurt. Hurt enough to make her realize this was not the sauce messing with her head, and not even a dream.

“Aright ya mad bloker!” the tiny blue creature spoke in a crass, northern-accented voice. “Now that ya down—maybe you’ll listen, hmm?”

Greta groaned, and rubbed the spot on her forehead that must have been terribly red. 

“Wh-What?” she asked.

“The big lady said we were to look after the wee lass, and what do ya do? Ya run her off like a dog! Shame on thee woman! Big hackin’ shame!” the blue light said.

When her vision cleared, she saw a tiny blue girl who glowed brighter than the spriggan’s eyes. It had little multi-colored dots at the tops of her eyelashes in a neat pattern, and its eyes were pitch-black like a spider’s. Greta couldn’t tell where the eyes ended and where the lashes began. Four wings longer than the thing’s body fluttered, and held the little creature in the air with a subtle bounce. It wore clothes that made her think of a jester from the days of the old kings.

“Miss spirit,” Greta said. “I must admit, you’re rather beautiful, but I shan't fall for your tricks. Leave my house now, little bug! Follow the spriggan! Go on! Shoo!”

“You right crasser! Why I oughta shove your head in a bee’s hive for that!” the bug waved her finger. “First off, I ain’t no spirit, I surely ain’t no bug,” that last one she said with extra irritation, “I’m a faery! And that gal ain’t no spriggan! that’s your own handiwork ya knocker!”

Her insults made no sense, but extinct magical creatures probably had their own ways of having their feelings hurt. 

“Okay, okay, hold on.” Greta said. “Just what were you two doing in my home?”

“I think fate brought us here me darlin’... Or maybe it was just me stomach…” the bug tapped her chin. 

“Leave?!” Greta pleaded.

“Bah! Hag! The big lady shouldn’ta wasted her last breath on yew! If anything happens to that little lass, it’s on your conscience madam!” the bug said, and fluttered downstairs to the door. After unlocking and opening it, she said, “Not nice knowin’ ya—bunger!” she slammed the door.

Greta walked over with an awkwardly stiff face, and locked the door, for good. She would sleep this night off and never think about any of this ever again. It would be that simple, of course. Just had to get her breathing under control so the pain and nausea would subside. 

Greta laid down and shut her eyes. Time to forget about everything that just happened, easy as that, yep.

Blue eyes. 

Blue bug. 

Little girl. 

The woods. 

The dark. 

Moschan bears. 

Pishaka tigers. 

The police… 

Oh no, what have I done? 

It may have been a demon, but those eyes were not full of malice, they were with fear. That poor thing. Out in the woods all by herself.

Before Greta knew it, she threw on a nightgown, slippers, and grabbed that lamp again, then headed for the door. Shutting it behind her, she shouted, “Little girl! Little girl? Oh little one?”

She headed away from the path leading up the hill, and down towards the forest. After all, that’s where she told the creature to go, and if spriggan girls were like some human girls Greta knew, it might have taken that request literally. Poor thing.

“Yes, ma’am?” a gentle voice called out behind her.

Greta turned, and the spriggan was hugging her knees on the ground by the door. Under the cold light of the moon, there was no mistaking it… this was no spriggan. Or if it were, it had possessed the body of Greta’s pet project: Madelina.