The Saturday spent with Cassandra had left Mari with a burning question she’ll need to find answers for sooner or later, but before she could focus on that she had other important tasks to help keep her distracted for the time being. Namely, the creation of another doll to help out around the house. As such, her Sunday ended up playing out similarly to when she made Naomi, but recent developments around the house had allowed for some welcome improvements to the process.
The sudden appearance of the garden a few weeks ago, and the mysterious yet apparently valuable plants it brought with it, meant that Mari already possessed some of the ingredients she needed for the new doll, and the ones she didn’t have could be traded for instead of purchasing with money, meaning that was yet another instance of something she no longer needed to pay for thanks to her continued efforts in learning witchcraft. She also ordered some slightly different ingredients from the Witch Wide Web on Dolly’s advice, who claimed that it’s good to learn how different ingredients can have an effect on the resulting doll.
Shortly after, the exchange was made with the delivery doll, and Mari spent the rest of the day in the workshop, bringing her creation to life. The process went by a bit faster than last time, but it was still fairly late by the time she was done, so there was only a short amount of time to help the new doll settle in before it was time to get to bed. This takes us to Monday morning, where Mari is in the lobby making sure Naomi and Leona, the new doll, are ready to get to work.
“Okay Naomi, you know what to do, right?”
“Indeed this one does, Miss!” Naomi gives a salute with an arm that’s adorned with a variety of colourful stickers. “This one is to show Leona the ropes, and help it understand what sort of work it will be doing!”
“Great, and do you have any questions before I let you get going, Leona?”
“No, Miss.” It dutifully replies. “This one is ready to carry out its duties.”
Leona is wearing a tank top, and a pair of shorts not too dissimilar to the ones Naomi wears. Both are older items that ended up becoming a bit too small for Mari after the dosage of her medication went up a few years ago, and she never bothered to throw them out. This seemed like a safe choice after Naomi grew attached to the outfit it was given and objected to wearing anything else, even though it’s a bit big for the doll. Mari hopes this behaviour will change when proper clothes for the dolls are eventually sorted out, she doesn’t really have that many spare outfits to offer, especially considering how many dolls she’ll eventually need around here.
While Naomi’s dark hair is fairly similar to its creator’s, albeit shorter and neater, Leona sports longer, light brown hair that reaches down past its shoulders. Mari figured giving the dolls distinct looks would help them stand out from each other, especially if they’re all going to have similar builds.
Leona has been making a good first impression on Mari so far. If nothing else, it seems to be taking its role a bit more seriously than Naomi has, which is one of the reasons she decided to make her using “Distilled Diligence”, as opposed to the curiosity she used in that first doll. One of her hopes for Leona was that it wouldn’t be as much effort to handle as Naomi is, and if she’s lucky, having a second doll around would even help it deal with its emotional outbursts, reducing the need for her to come to the rescue with stickers several times a day. If Leona’s attitude and apparent work ethic are any indication, it would seem that at the very least that first hope is on track to be met.
“Cool, I’m sure you two can handle it, but you know where to find me if anything happens.”
“Sure thing, Miss! Let’s go Leona!” Naomi says before grabbing the other doll’s hand and excitedly leading it to the kitchen, where they’ll begin their tasks for the day.
After watching them head off, Mari goes upstairs to the study to begin her shift, hoping that the dolls don’t cause any problems. It will likely be at least a few days before she hears back about her request for reduced hours, and even longer before the change is put in place, so she’s still working five days a week for the time being. She’s been finding herself a little worn out recently with everything that’s been going on, but luckily her job isn’t too intense most of the time, she’s not sure how she’d handle that extra stress.
Several hours pass without incident, allowing Mari to focus on her work for most of the morning, but that suddenly changes when she starts to experience a strange sensation. It was similar to the unexplained emotions she had been sensing with Cassandra the other day, but this felt a little different. Last time she was able to tell that the emotions were clearly coming from somewhere else, but for some reason it feels a little murkier now, like it’s harder to separate it from her own emotions. She’s also having trouble telling exactly what emotions are coming through, it’s like there’s too much coming at her all at once, and she can’t get anything more than a general idea of the emotions assaulting her.
The feeling is stronger than it was previously as well, much more intense than when it happened on Saturday. Mari finds it somewhat overwhelming, and is having trouble focusing on her work through the waves of sadness, confusion, and various other feelings washing over her. She decides that this is a good chance to try and figure out what’s causing these incidents, not that she has many other options since she clearly can’t keep working like this anyway. The fact that she isn’t looking after Cassandra this time means she can focus all her attention on the issue as well.
Mari tries to focus on the feelings she can sense, instead of ignoring it like last time, just to see if it has any effect. To her surprise she finds that she can partially sense what direction it seems to be coming from, and if she’s correct then the source seems to be downstairs, in the general area of the kitchen. She sighs as she worries that Naomi has gotten itself worked up again, when she notices some quiet sobbing, which seems to have been going on for a while. How long has the sobbing been going on? Has she been tuning it out this whole time?
To make things even more confusing, the sobbing is soft enough that it has to be coming from inside the room, there’s no way she’d be able to hear it otherwise, but she’s the only one there. It seems like a safe assumption that the sobbing is somehow connected to the emotions she’s feeling from downstairs, but if that’s the case then why can she hear it from all the way upstairs? Mari realises that sitting here trying to figure that out won’t help much, and decides to head in the direction of the emotions in hopes of getting to the bottom of things.
She decides to walk instead of using her magic to jump there so she can keep better track of where the sensations are coming from, and the first thing she notices as she leaves the study and starts heading down the stairs is that the sobbing isn’t getting any quieter. It’s like the sound is coming from her immediate vicinity no matter where she goes and which direction she faces, which is yet another thing she’s going to need to find answers to once she’s figured out where the emotions are coming from. Upon getting to the bottom of the stairs and heading towards the feelings, she realises that they’re actually coming from two different places, albeit not too far apart from each other.
Mari wonders if that’s part of the reason she’s struggling to identify the emotions this time around, and if it coming from two places at once is the equivalent of the signals getting mixed together, but she doesn’t stay on that thought for too long, as she wants to resolve the current situation before worrying about the smaller details. She’s worried that this might not just be Naomi, and there could also be something wrong with Leona as well, or even something else entirely.
Of the two sources, one seems to be coming from the kitchen, and the other is in the laundry room, which is a few doors further down. She decides to investigate the nearest one first, and upon entering the room she finds the sobbing noise no longer surrounds her. It’s now muffled and seems to be coming from the opposite side of the long room, so she walks across, and upon getting closer to the noise she finds that it’s coming from one of the cabinets that she didn’t have anything to put inside yet.
Mari braces herself before opening the cabinet doors, only to find that Naomi has managed to stuff itself inside, and has been sobbing in there for who knows how long.
“S-Sorry… Miss…” The doll manages to say between sobs. “T-This one did… a bad job of teaching Leona… M-Miss probably wants this one to… G-Go away forever…”
Mari can barely bring herself to do anything but sigh and slowly run a hand across her brow.
“What have you two managed to get yourselves into…”
