29.
At the Chinook Harvest Fest on a cold fall day many years ago, a girl named Emma Higginbottom was making a corncob doll. To
do this, you took a dried ear of corn, the husks still on. You pulled down the husks, and voilà, you had her skirt. The skirt
made a fine rustle, and Emma swayed the doll back and forth, listening to that dry, evocative sound. It was a sound that made
you think of winter, and the snows to come. It made you think of fires outside and dances in the barn, even if you were just
by yourself.
Emma was the daughter of the sheriff. She had a wide face and lips that turned purple in the cold. The whites of her eyes
were so white they looked blue. Her mom had called her Morning Glory when she was little. It was a bit of a joke: The girl’s
eyes were the perfect blue of the morning glories on the barn.
Now Emma was at the Harvest Fest, making her doll. She sat at a table in the community center by herself. There weren’t many
children in Chinook. People moved here to have kids, but somehow they never came.
For the eyes of the doll, Emma used a table knife to gently pluck out two corn kernels. You had to be careful, making a corncob
doll. One wrong move and it was ruined.
For the nose, another kernel gently plied loose. For the lips, she picked up a paintbrush and gently painted two of the kernels
a deep, sympathetic red.
For the hair, she picked up a clump of corn silk from among the supplies on the table, and used a dab of carpenter’s glue to set it.
There. Her corncob doll looked back at her: deep-set eyes, a dainty nose, very red lips, and long blond hair.
Now the doll needed clothes. She had her skirt, but her top was naked—Emma knew that wouldn’t do. Picking up two corn husks
from the stack, she quickly wove these into loose wings, and glued them on the back of the doll. For her front, she pasted
on two more pieces.
Now the doll was winged—and covered.
She rose from the table and flew into Emma’s hand. The doll was alive now, as all dolls become, but because she was made of
corn, Emma knew, she was special. Corncob dolls went way back in this area. Outside of some old cabins, you might find a row
of them, perched with their wings, sitting above a row of shrunken apple heads, bobbing on their rough twine strings.
“What will you name it, Emma?”
That was her father, a much younger sheriff, appearing above her. His wide face was flushed from the punch they were drinking.
The grown-ups had spiked one bowl. In the corner, near a stack of hay brought in for seating, a band was playing. They sound
like a racket of screws left in the bottom of a toolbox, Emma thought.
She looked up at her dad. She loved him, a lot, even if he wasn’t home much. Her mom had left two years before. Exactly what
had happened was not spoken about at home. Her dad got very red in the face when her mom was mentioned.
Emma knew better than to say what she had been thinking.
“I don’t know yet.”
“You keep an eye on that doll.” He smiled at her, and his eyes looked loose with drink.
“Sure, Dad.”
She ran off with the corncob doll, making her fly in her hand.
The next day was still and cold. They always managed to have the Harvest Fest the day before true winter arrived. Farmers
who grew pumpkins had left some on the edges of their fields, and the woods across the river were dark and still.
Emma had been told to stay away from the woods. She knew of the pigs. The story was that long ago—like a hundred years or
more—a herd of pigs had escaped from a cruel farmer named Henry. They had killed him and eaten his face before going, but
that part of the story Emma was never sure of. The pigs had lived in the woods ever since. They had not attacked anyone since
Henry, but the townspeople were still scared of them. Emma thought the grown-ups were being silly. They were just pigs.
On this day, her father left for work, and she was on her own, as she so often was. She ate congealed oatmeal from the bottom
of the pot. The milk had gone sour. She had left her doll on the table while she poured the milk down the sink, and from her
place, her cheek against the crumb-spotted wood, the doll spoke to her.
You know what to do, the doll said.
Strangely, Emma did.
She put on her warmest jacket, and zipped it up. Over her flaxen hair she pulled a scratchy but warm hat. Her mom had knitted
it. That’s what she told herself, at least. In truth, she had a hard time remembering her mom. When she thought of her mom,
she heard the sound of her rattling the pots and pans while her dad sat like a sullen lump next to the woodstove, looking
at his feet.
Now her mom was gone, but Emma had the doll, and the doll was warm in her hand as she let herself out of the small cottage where her mother’s curtains still hung stiff in the windows, hid the key under the green stone as her father had taught her—he was paranoid about leaving the girl with a key, as if she would give it away and invite a passel of robbers home with her—and carried the doll through the town. No one paid her much mind.
At the edge of town was the bluff, and down below, the river. To the north was a single cabin, where a Black boy lived. His
name was Mitchell. Emma was not allowed to play with him. Her father didn’t say why, but she knew it was because Mitchell
was Black.
She walked down toward the old railway bridge, looking back to see if anyone was following her. No one was.
She crossed the bridge, taking care on the old boards. On the other side, she hesitated only slightly before taking the path
into the forest.
Emma hadn’t told her dad the doll’s name, because it was Momma.
Momma was in her hand now, warm and tightly held. Her skirts lay down, obediently, under Emma’s fat palm. Her eyes looked
up at the minty sky. Her mouth smiled at Emma. Thank you for bringing me back to life, she said.
In the town, among some of the elders, they said a corncob doll was witchcraft. Emma knew better. It was magic.
Emma was afraid to ask the doll more about her mother. She didn’t want to find out—she was still hopeful that one day she
would come home from school and find her mom there, rattling pots and pans in the kitchen as before. She would be happy to
see Emma, and the tarnished cookie tray would be on the counter, the cookies still warm from the oven. They would be snickerdoodles,
Emma’s favorite.
The forest was so quiet. Emma could feel, and maybe even smell, the feral pigs that hid in the trees. She knew intuitively that they would not harm her. They liked children—that’s what the Momma doll told her.
Emma stopped. She was standing at the edge of the fields of the poorhouse. The place had closed a few years before. Her dad
said the state was going to try to sell the land, but he doubted that would ever happen.
This land is no good, Emma had heard often enough from the local farmers. Nothing wants to grow here, and if it does, it’s
mean-spirited.
Emma lifted the doll so she could see the distant building, already decaying. Her mother watched with her kernel eyes.
There was a crackle in the woods behind her. Emma whipped around, the blood rushing from her face in her sudden fear. She
was thinking of the wild pigs. Had she been wrong?
Expecting to see a wild boar, instead she saw her father.
He looked very angry.
“What are you doing here?”
His usual red face was white with cold, his eyes wet. He wore the jacket he wore when hunting. It was thick and smelled bad.
It was unusual because he should have been at work right now—he should be wearing his uniform.
“I was . . . just . . .” She didn’t know what to say. She had never seen her dad look so mad. Not since her mom had left.
He looked down at the doll clutched in her hand.
“Ain’t you got school?” he asked.
It was like him to not keep track.
“It’s teacher planning day.”
Every year, there was no school the day after the Harvest Fest. He should know that, she thought, and then: He wouldn’t.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I was just walking. . . .”
“I told you to stay out of the woods!”
Emma wanted to argue. She wasn’t allowed to play with Mitchell. She couldn’t go by the river, because of the rapids. She wasn’t
allowed in the woods. Her dad didn’t like most people in the town—he had bad things to say about them. There was so little
for her to do. She was tired of coloring books and the sound of the TV in an empty house.
The Momma doll had gone very quiet in her hand. She had no more to say. Emma was silent all the way home, obediently following
behind her dad. Emma didn’t like the way her dad’s jacket smelled, and now she was more afraid of the pigs than ever, which
made no sense.