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The Doll was, in a word, unremarkable. A creature of porcelain panels, filigree silver, and ticking clockwork, twisted into a shape that was almost human. The creation of such automata could be rightly regarded as the pinnacle of humanity’s collective knowledge and technical expertise. And yet, there were tens of thousands such dolls, produced en masse to adorn the homes of the city’s wealthy elite. This particular doll has been in the employ of its owning family since the birth of their eldest daughter, and yet, despite its many years of loyal service, it had never been modified. Customisations are commonplace for dolls that serve a house for an extended period of time — much akin to a beloved pet, they almost become part of the family — but this unit looked exactly as it did on the day of its manufacture. The delicate household labour it performed had left not a scratch upon its artificial carapace. It was a doll indistinguishable from a thousand others of its kind.
Nevertheless, the Doll still served the daughter of the house dutifully, as it had been assigned all those years ago. It had watched her grow from a bawling infant into a strong, proud woman, someone more than fit to carry the family name forward a generation. In all its years of service, it had never made a mistake, never slipped up, never miscalculated. Rather uniquely, this was not for fear of the consequences that might rightly fall upon it for dereliction of its duties. Instead, this total obedience stemmed from a devotion to its Miss that those unaware of the simulated nature of an automaton’s emotions might describe as love. To let her down — to see her face of disappointment — would be the closest thing to heartbreak a doll can emulate. So, the Doll triple-checked every task it performed, ensured every order the family deigned to entrust to it ran smoothly.
Today, the Doll’s Miss began, would be an important occasion. She had been pacing around her office (though the Doll recalled, as though it were yesterday, that it were once her nursery) as she delivered instructions to the Doll, sharp and simple — Important guests. Political alliance. Serve food, keep quiet.
“Do you understand?” snapped its Miss, and the Doll nodded curtly. This was its chance to prove it could serve its Miss in a greater capacity than as a family service doll; as a personal assistant. The Doll knew that the forthcoming dinner was to serve as its Miss’s first foray into doing business independent of the family. Inevitably, one day, its Miss would leave the ancestral home of her forebears to make a name for herself in the wider world, and the idea of being separated from her was the worst thing the Doll could imagine. As such, it was vital that it demonstrated itself as worthy of the prestigious role of her assistant-doll.
The guests had arrived, conversation had flowed — as had the wine, which it had been proud to present — and when not required, the Doll stood passively in the corner of the room, as was custom, waiting to be called upon. When the time came to discuss the logistics of a potential alliance over a meal, an almost imperceptible wave of the hand from its Miss was all the cue it needed to fetch a tray of fine soups from the honoured guests’ homeland, specially selected to lighten their moods.
It returned laden with soup, delicately balancing the tray in one hand so as to appear refined, as it has been taught prior. As it stepped towards the table, a dainty silvered foot caught the edge of the fine carpet; the Doll tumbled, the tray slipping from its grasp as it fell, landing on the cold marble tiling of the floor. The tray clattered to the ground, cast iron resounding against polished stone, putting a hush to any burgeoning conversation.
In a way, it was mesmerising. The Doll stared, transfixed, as steaming soup pooled from upturned, chipped bowls. The world around it seemed somehow insignificant in comparison to bearing witness to the mixture dribbling across the thick carpet, seeping into the fabric. All around it, life went on, but it was dull and muted. Guests looked on, faces frozen in aghast expressions. Its Miss rose to her feet, taking a step towards the Doll. Rivulets of soup, no longer being absorbed by the carpet, crisscrossed the seams of the marble tiles which comprised the floor. Its Miss was in front of it now, grasping its shoulders, hauling it to its feet.
No, not to its feet. Its Miss was lifting it up into the air by the collar. She stared at the Doll with a look that simultaneously combined fury, embarrassment, and disappointment.
“I gave you one. Fucking. Job. You couldn’t even do that right, could you?” Its Miss’s usual grace had abandoned her as she snarled at her servant.
Curiously, from where the Doll was being dangled aloft, the strands of soup almost resembled the web of a spider.
“I always suspected you were defective. Is the simple task of carrying soup beneath you? Evidently, you seem to believe so.” Its Miss’s grip on its collar tightened, well beyond safe thresholds, and hairline fractures rippled across the Doll’s porcelain flesh. A small mercy, then, that dolls cannot feel pain.
When this room had been a nursery, the Doll’s Miss had once screamed in shock upon discovering a spider’s web beneath her bed.
“LOOK AT ME!” Its Miss shook her head and inhaled, attempting to recover any scraps of her composure.
Out of the room she had rushed, as fast as her little legs were able, bawling not for Mother, secluded in the study, or Father, assessing mining operations overseas, but for “Dolly”. An endearing, if childish, nickname, long since faded in the recesses of memory.
“Goddess, you piss me off. It's not even just this particular fumble of yours. Earlier, too. Do you remember that, you godless automaton? Apparently, I'm the only heiress with a doll too stupid to know when to fetch a meal by itself. It's, quite literally, the one thing you're designed for. And yet, you still need me to take the time to tell you when to do your job."
The Doll had scooped its Miss up into its cool, porcelain arms, hushing her sobs, listening patiently as she explained the problem; something as simple as a spider beneath Miss’s bed.
“I never wanted you, you know that? I wanted a different doll, a higher end one, but no, nobody cares what I think. Instead, Mother insisted we not spend that money frivolously.” She cast her eyes down at the soup pooling into the carpet and across the floor. “Well, look where that got us.”
She had clung to the Doll’s leg as it had retrieved a wine glass from the kitchen; it entrapped the spider within, and dusted out the cobwebs beneath the bed. An audible sigh of relief was heard when the Doll released the spider out the window.
Its Miss’s grip relaxed now, setting the Doll back on the ground once more. She drew her hand back, loathing written across her features.
The Doll had returned the now-calm Miss to her bed, after showing her that it had made sure all the spiders were gone. It tucked her in, and after turning out the light and making to leave, heard a whisper carried upon the night air, so quiet as to be almost imperceptible.
The back of its Miss’s hand impacted the cool porcelain plating that comprised the Doll’s face. Instantaneously, fractures raced through the material, cracking and chipping it. The Doll slowly tilted its head back towards its Miss, a hand instinctively rising to the damaged faceplate, silver fingers running across the damage to its otherwise unblemished visage.
“I love you, Dolly…”
Its Miss spat, “Get the fuck out of my sight. Get out of the house. You’re not wanted here, you never were.”
The Doll unsteadily staggered out of the room, taking care to close the door behind it. A trembling filigree hand returned to its faceplate, gingerly brushing the damage to its cheek, the last time it would ever feel its Miss's touch. The fractured porcelain shifted slightly under the pressure of the Doll’s probing for a single, gut-wrenching eternity. Withdrawing its hand, the Doll impassively gazed downwards, as though drawn by some irresistible gravity.
Resting in its dust-coated palm was a fragment of some white material, laced with veins of a silvery metal, and about the size of a cleaning-sponge. The Doll could do nothing but stare, unable to comprehend the object it held. Its legs, too, failed it, and it collapsed to the floor with a thump. The unusual shard shattered on contact with the ground, and the mystery of its nature became moot. The Doll remained there, still, as steadily rising voices from the room behind washed over it.
At least it could be distinguished from other units, now.