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 waswarm 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.
