The Ragdoll

                       The Ragdoll.

                              Chapter One.

                                The Ragdoll

          The village of Othermoor was so small it hardly deserved to have a name at all. It was just a small collection of houses and shops on either side of the road.

          There was an inn called The Red Lion that catered for the few travellers who used the road that wound its way across the moors to the city far to the west. More often than not though the only customers were the villagers themselves and farmers and farm hands from around the village.

          However, the shops were not like those found in a modern town. These were just the front room of a house. There were shutters that could be opened so that people passing by could see what goods were to be bought. There was a butcher's shop and a shoemaker's. The shoemaker not only made the stout leather boots that all the farmers wore, but he also mended anything made from leather.

          There was a Smithy with a roaring furnace in the back. This was a good place to be on a cold winter’s day and was the meeting place for the men of the village when they were not working.

          The last shop and the last building in the village sold all sorts of different things. Here the women folk of the village could buy ribbons, or a paper of pins or a card of buttons.

          There were other things on sale too. One might call it a junk shop. People would often call in with something that they no longer wanted, and after a few minutes discussing its worth, a few coins would change hands and the object would be placed on a shelf for someone else to buy.

          If you wanted something like a left handed bobbin remover, this was the place to go. Again, there would be a few minutes of discussion about how much one was prepared to pay, a few coins would change hands, and both owner and buyer parted company happily.

          The owner of this shop was an  old lady who spent most of the opening hours sitting in a rocking chair by her front door, knitting. As people went about their business, they would smile and greet her, and she would smile back and carry on with whatever she was making.

          Everything in the shop was for sale, except for an old rag doll that sat at the other end of the counter next to the old lady’s chair.

          It was an odd thing, that doll, shabby, silent, and somehow watchful. Adults sometimes asked about the price of the doll, thinking it would make a nice present for some poor child with nothing to play with. When they did, the old lady would shake her head, stroke the jewel she had on a gold chain around her neck, and tell them firmly that the doll was not for sale.

           Children however, never asked if the doll was for sale. They would go to it, take one look, shake their heads, and go play with something else.

          The jewel looked to be far more expensive than anything an old shopkeeper could afford to buy. Someone did offer to buy it from her, but she just shook her head and said that it was not for sale. Even her own children did not know where the jewel came from or even when she had got it.

          On the first Sunday of every month, her sons, who lived and worked in the city, would come and visit, bringing their wives and children.

           Knitted garments would be handed over and more wool put in the old lady's knitting bag. The children spent hours playing with the things in the shop. They never played with the rag doll though.

          If anyone had asked them why they left it alone, they could only say, "It does not want to be played with." If  asked why they said that, they would begin to cry. The old lady herself, when asked about the doll, would smile and shake her head and change the subject.

  Like many grown-ups, she had a lot of names. To her sons and daughters-in-law, she was ‘Mam.’ To her grandchildren, she was, ‘Nan’. To her nephews and nieces, she was 'Aunty'. To younger people in the village, she was ‘Mrs. Forrester’. Finally, to her friends and neighbours of her own age, she was LP. No-one seemed to know her real name.

          She had been called LP for longer than she could remember. It began when her older brother, Flick, saw her as a new born baby for the first time. "Oh, what a little, perfect baby!" He had exclaimed. So, LP she became, and LP she stayed all her life.

          LP was born, the youngest child and only daughter of a farmer. She had two older brothers, and as often happens when a girl has no other girls to follow, she followed her brothers.

          Little perfect might have been her nickname, but she was far from it. She scraped her knees, she banged her elbows, she cut her chin, and she bruised her shins doing everything that her brothers did. Whatever mischief they got up to, you could guarantee that LP was somewhere around copying them. Her mother’s frequent cry was, “Oh, LP, that is not the way a respectable girl should behave!”

          In the end, LP’s mother found some rather nice checked material that she cut and sewed into a doll. It had brown wool for hair, buttons for eyes, and a rather nice embroidered smile. The finishing touch was a neat little pinafore, just like the one LP’s mother wore when she was baking.

          "There," she said to LP. "I have made this for you."

          LP was not an ungrateful child and said "Thank-you!"

           Doll, as it was christened, went everywhere that LP went. Admittedly, it was almost always dragged along by an arm or a leg or even by the hair, and it soon looked very dirty and bedraggled, but she never left it behind. LP even insisted that Doll be tucked up in bed with her at night.

          In one way, LP was very lucky.. In those days, girls did not go to school, but her mother could read and write, so when the boys went off to school, LP had lessons with her mother. As well as learning to read, LP was taught how to sew and how to knit.

          She also had her share of farm-work to do. She fed the hens and geese and collected their eggs. She helped her mother make cheese in the dairy.

          Everything went on happily until LP was ten years old. In the local town, every year there was a market and a fair. Everybody from miles around went.

          There were stalls where one could buy anything from a pin to a farm cart. For the children, there were swings and roundabouts.

          There were people who sold honeycomb and other sticky delights. There were acrobats and clowns. There were prizes to be won in all kinds of competitions. It was the prize for one of these which led to trouble.

          Flick entered the horseshoe tossing event. The idea of the game was to see who could throw a horseshoe and make it land closest to a wooden pole in the ground. Each person had three horseshoes to throw. Flick had been practising every spare moment all year for just this occasion.

 He won, much to LP’s delight. The prize was a piglet, a real live squealing piglet!

          At the end of the day, the family climbed on to their cart and drove home, with the piglet grasped firmly in Flick’s arms. As it was dark when they reached home, the piglet was locked in the barn, and everyone went off to bed, well satisfied with their day.

          The next morning, LP, trailing Doll, was up early. She had her glass of fresh milk and went to the barn to see the piglet. There was no noise coming from the barn, so she opened the door just a little. Nothing moved. She opened the door a little more. There was no sound. She opened the door wider and went in. There was a startlingly loud squeal, and the piglet galloped past LP and out into the farm yard.

          "Ooops!" gasped LP and turned to give chase.

          "Squeal!" squealed the piglet and ran through the yard. LP gave chase. The hens, geese, and ducks scattered as the pair ran through the flock on its early morning food hunt. As quick as lightning, the piglet went under the farm gate and set off down the farm track towards the road.

          "Ooooops!" gasped LP and went after it. She opened the gate, though, rather than going under it. Being a good farm-raised child, she carefully closed the gate after her before following the piglet down the track.

          She reached the road just in time to see the piglet turn and run along the middle of the road.

          "Oooooooooooops!" said LP and went after it.

Try as she might, she could not catch up with the animal, but she had to keep on trying. Flick would be very upset if she lost his prize. So it was that LP did not notice that she had gone further away from the farm down the road than she had ever been before and that she was no longer on a road across farmland. The hedges had given way to trees. The piglet had led LP into the Dark Forest.

          Even though the piglet and LP were on the road which led through the Dark Forest, it was still a very dangerous place to be.

          LP's luck was really bad that day, for who should happen to be coming along the road but the Wicked Witch of the Dark Forest. The Witch claimed to own all of the Dark Forest.

The witch pointed a finger at the piglet and muttered something under her breath. The piglet stopped squealing and floated into the air until it reached the Witch’s eye level.

The piglet carried on running, but with its trotters five feet off the ground.

          LP caught up, rather out of breath. She did not immediately realise who the tall woman dressed all in black was.

          "That’s my piglet!" she said, rather breathlessly. "Give it to me!"

          The witch looked down at the panting girl. "I give nothing for free!" she said. "You must give me something for the piglet."

          LP thought for a moment. She had nothing to give...........except Doll. She offered Doll to the witch.

          "That scrap of material is not enough. You must make a choice. Either you or the piglet." The Witch said. "Make your choice."

          "But the piglet is Flick’s. I mustn't lose it," wailed LP.

          "Then the choice is simple. The pig goes free, and you come with me. Or you go free and the piglet is mine," said the witch.

          LP sighed. It was her fault the piglet escaped. "Me," she said, very quietly.

          "Fair enough," said the witch. She waved her fingers at the piglet and it floated gently to the ground, turned tail and fled, squealing back down the road towards the farm.

          The Witch said, "It will not stop running until it gets home. Now you come with me." She made some more movements with her hand, muttered something under her breath, and in an instant, both her and LP were standing outside a small cottage in a clearing in the forest.

          "This is your home now," said the witch. "In you go!"

          LP had no choice. Her feet obeyed the Witch and they took her into the Cottage.

          Back at the farm, once it was realised that LP was missing, there was pandemonium. All the farm people were organised into search parties. They searched the farm, the fields, and followed the road down towards the town and up into the Dark Forest. Of LP, there was no sign and no one had seen or heard anything. When the piglet came squealing along the road from the forest, people looked at each other and shook their heads. If LP had followed the piglet into the Dark Forest, then they would never find her.

          Sadly, they made their way home. The farm work still had to be done. Flick took a message to the King’s Foresters. They were the people who looked after the roads through the forest. If anyone could find LP, it was them. They promised to search and search they did, but never a sign of the little girl did they find.

          Flick refused to give up, and every moment of his spare time he spent wandering the forest paths looking for his little sister.

          This witch was not like the one who fattened children up to eat.. This witch was more interested in having a house maid than a lunch.

          LP was set to work cleaning, scrubbing and dusting. The witch was not cruel, LP had a bed that was quite comfortable and cosy, once she had got used to the spiders and bats that lived in the rafters and were not to be disturbed.

          She was given enough food, not as good as her mother made, but nourishing enough. There were even clothes for her, not good quality, but wearable.

          She was allowed to go outside into the garden, but when she tried to go through the garden gate, she found she could not take another step.

 "Hah!" said the witch. "You are mine now, and the only way you can leave here is if I come with you."