東方人形喜
Redemption of Precarious Puppeteer
Published in June 2021
Remaster of the original story published in December 2007

When the sunlight turns orange and slides off the drafting board, I know I’ve been sitting in one place for too long. I looked up, out the window over my workbench. The trees outside cast long shadows. Birds sang, beckoning the night. It was already evening.

I sighed. My happiest moments have been spent in my workshop, crafting dolls and their parts, unaware of time passing – but that hadn’t been today. I had fiddled with a concept sketch for three hours, making tweaks but no improvements.

“It’s getting dark,” I said. “Shanghai! Light, if you please.”

She hovered into my workshop, carrying a lit sparklamp. If you didn’t look closely, you might mistake Shanghai for a youkai fairy. She wore a dress like one, had wings like one, moved around by flying. If you took a second glance, you’d notice the doll joints, the wooden complexion. She’s my greatest creation. I built her with independent intelligence, speech ability, and a set of instructions for spell casting. She’s a pint-sized maid and reusable spellcard all in one.

I returned focus to the sketch on the drafting board. I flipped the pages back and forth, going from the sketch to the spells and back again.

Sometimes inspiration comes. Today, it hadn’t. Most of this month, it hadn’t. I hated to think it, but I might have mage’s block.

“This doesn’t work,” I said, then ripped the spell-covered sheet off the board, crumpled it up and threw it to the side. I wasn’t watching where I tossed it. Shanghai had almost set the lamp down on the desk, but my projectile paper ball caught her square in the face. It knocked her off balance. She stayed airborne, but she lost her hold on the lamp.

It fell to the floor and shattered, next to a pile of crumpled-up sheets of scratch paper. The magic from within the lamp burned for less than a second when exposed to open air, but the flash was hot. The discarded papers caught fire.

“Shanghai!” I shouted. I hopped off the stool and stomped on the fire, smothering it. It’s lucky I wear my boots while in the shop. It’s unladylike to wear heavy footwear indoors, but it’s worse to get splinters in my feet. I try keep the shop clean, but wood bits can hide both from the broom and the eye.

The fire was gone in a minute. Most of the paper had burned off, spreading ashen dust everywhere. I looked up at Shanghai. She sat on the edge of the workbench, her face blank as always.

“You fumbling little doorstop!” I said. “You almost burned my house down.”

“I’m very sorry, Mistress,” she said. Her mouth had no moving parts; one of her enchantments allowed her to make sound by exciting the air near her. She stood and bowed, her joints clicking.

I sighed again. I couldn’t be angry. She was clumsy because I couldn’t make her better. Even her apology was something I had written into her. Speak, stand and bow. It’s the same motion she went through every time she broke something, spilled something, overcooked something.

“I’m not getting any work done anyway,” I said. “Let’s go for a walk. Go grab my hairband and scarf. Try not to burn anything on the way.”

---

I stepped out into the autumn evening. I had on my cloak and scarf. Shanghai closed the front door behind us, then we headed down the woodland trail from my doorstep.

“Winter’s coming,” I said.

I could see my breath in white puffs. The Forest of Magic was skeletal this time of year, trees reaching their naked branches up and out like millions of bony fingers. Their leaves had mostly fallen, making a carpet on the forest floor.

“Some say I’m crazy for living in the forest,” I said as I stepped down the path. “Don’t listen to them, Shanghai. There’s no better place in Gensokyo.”

“Yes Mistress,” said the doll, hovering near my shoulder. “Where are we going, Mistress?”

“Nowhere particular,” I said. “I suppose we could stop by our insane neighbor, see if she’s as magically stagnant as I’ve been.”

There’s a house not far from mine, where another magician lives. Unlike my home, this house is small and dingy, covered up to the windows in weeds and vines. The interior is worse, cluttered and unsanitary. I didn’t know how this house’s sole resident could stand to live there.

Then again, she’s human.

Shanghai and I broke off the main path, headed onto a branch which led to the human’s home. Another thirty paces would have me at her doorstep.

“There’re no light inside,” I said. “I wonder if she’s not home.”

As if in answer, I heard an incantation yelled from inside the house. It sounded like a little girl was shouting at someone.

“Astro sign: Milky Way!”

Silence. I stood, waiting for sight or sound of a spellcard going off. Nothing happened.

I smiled to. She was stuck too.

The front door flew open, slammed the outside wall and shuddered on its hinges. A young human, blonde of head and dark of clothing, came rushing out. Her feet caught on the uneven threshold, tripping her. She fell on her hands and knees, scrambled back to her feet, then kept running toward me.

“Hello, Marisa,” I said.

“Meets and greets, Alices!” she yelled. “Run super fast nows!”

“From what?”

Her house exploded.

---

Every window shattered and blew outwards, shooting shards of glass in all directions. A huge hole punched up through the roof. Chunks of plaster, wood and dirt flew up and rained down. Smoke shot up from the hole like a geyser, followed by an eruption of magical projectiles.

Stars, hundreds of them. Five pointed, colored sky blue, light pink, dusty rose, each about the size of my hand. They flooded out from every orifice of the house. They spilled out the door and windows, gushed up the hole in the roof, sprayed out from the chimney. Waves of them washed into the woods. Some came at Marisa and me.

I stood still, shocked. Marisa tugged my arm, wanting to run and take me with. I wouldn’t let this failure of a spell scare me.

“Shanghai!” I said. “Shield!”

The doll flew in front of me and held out both hands. A magical construct formed before her, the shape and size of a tower shield. It was transparent at first, rippling and forming. It quickly gained mass and color, turning metallic golden. Shanghai could hold it up, barely.

Marisa and I both ducked behind the shield, not a second too soon. The stars hit just then. They flew slower than an arrow shot from a bow, but hit with plenty of force. Getting hit by one could break a bone. The stars that flew elsewhere into the woods mowed over bushes and rattled tree trunks. Two smaller trees were tipped over, their roots ripping from the ground with snaps and groans. Shanghai nearly buckled. She held only because I backed her.

I saved Marisa from herself. I’m damned good.

The spell died off. The remaining stars faded out, dissolving into sparks like a dead fairy. Shanghai let the shield disappear. Marisa and I got back to our feet, looking over the damage. Her home still stood, but broken. It looked like the center of a crater, with the local flora leveled in a circle around it.

I turned to her. “I assume you didn’t do that on purpose.”

“Not reallys.” Marisa scratched her head. “Experimentings. Trying to comes up with new spellcards.”

“You have plenty of destructive spells,” I said.

“Never enoughs. Gotta come up with new flavors, add some versatilitys.”

I looked back at her ruined house. “The general rule of composing new spells is to start small. Increase the power only gradually.”

“Eh. Quicker to go other way arounds.”

“But results in more deaths and destroyed homes.” I walked towards her house. “Since I’m here, I’ll help with the damage report.”

---

Marisa’s house was in better shape than it first seemed, but it wasn’t fit to live in, not even by her standards. The broken windows and roof would let the weather in. The interior was more disarrayed that usual. Piles of books usually stacked against the walls now covered the floor. The place looked like it had been through an earthquake. A Marisaquake?

In the front room, Marisa knelt over the broken remnants of a glass jar. She held the pieces in her palms, looking at them as she might a dead pet.

“Worse than I thoughts. Place is really banged ups.” She looked up at me. “Used to be youkai glitters in this jars. Caught them off a dying fairies. Very valuables. Faded away when it broke opens.”

My upper lip wanted to lift in a sneer. Imagine how a human might feel hearing her neighborhood witch say, This jar was filled with monkey’s blood. Mild disgust.

“That’s rough,” was the nicest thing I could say. Part of me wanted to say, That’s gross, serves you right.

“No worries.” Marisa stood, dropping the glass pieces to the floor. “Own faults. Getting upsets won’t fix its. Wonder what to doos, thoughs. Takes a lot of time and works to fix house ups.”

“You can’t do anything about it tonight,” I said. “It’ll be dark in an hour or two. You can’t sleep here. Not only the cold, but lesser youkai could wander in.”

She nodded. “Yeahs. Don’t wanna be missing toes tomorrows... but don’t wanna leave, eithers. Rainstorm could ruin all my books.”

“You can’t enjoy your books if you’re dead,” I said. “There are no rain clouds. You can afford to leave the place one night.”

She didn’t look happy about it, but she nodded. “Should find a place to stays. Maybe Reimus—”

I stepped forward, careful not to trip on the debris cluttering her floor. “The Hakurei Shrine is too far. You won’t make it before dark. It’s a huge imposition, but I have to let you stay at my place.”

Her face lit up. “Reallys? That’s major nice, Alices. Won’t be too much of a bothers, promises. Can even make dinners for—”

“No!” I said. “I’ve had your cooking before. I’ll handle dinner.”

“Gotta repay somehows.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh, I knows! Wait heres.”

She turned and went to another room, climbing over fallen towers of junk. I stood and waited. Shanghai took a seat on my shoulder to rest. The shield spell used a lot of power, and was there little ambient energy on a cool evening to replace it. She needed to conserve and recharge.

I could feel the cold getting to me, too. I wanted to be back in the warmth of my home. Maybe I would hit the workshop again after dinner, take another shot at the new doll design.

“Found its!” Marisa called from the other room. I heard more shuffling of feet against refuse, sounding her return.

“It better not be another one of your attempts at doll making,” I said. “If I wanted a straw Marisa doll, I could make one myself.”

“Nah, this is even betters.”

Marisa came back to the front room, holding a book in both hands. She handed it to me, after nearly loosing her balance over a pile of garbage. I took the book, brushed the dust off it, read the title. Theory and Application of Magical Automata.

Incredible. Marisa had something that might actually be relevant to my interests.

“Where did you get this?” I said.

“From a big librarys.” She grinned. “Talk about its on the ways. Don’t want get caught outsides with bloomers downs.”

My face went hot. I gave her a dismissive shake of the head. Now wasn’t the time to talk about Marisa’s bloomers.

---

It had gotten too dark outside for me to crack this book open. I could have made Shanghai use a lamp spell, but she was drained of power, still resting on my shoulder as we walked. Marisa kept my attention by sharing what she had done this most recent summer.

“You’re making this up,” I said. “You and Reimu went to that abandoned building on the lake, found a vampire living there, then saved her and her sister, and that’s where the sky mist came from? Do you expect me to believe that? It’s way more likely that Gensokyo suffered a magistorm.”

She looked at me. “Magistorms?”

I hmphed. “If you actually read any of those books, you’d know that Gensokyo overflows with magical energy about twice a century. It causes all kinds of strange effects: quakes, weather anomalies, youkai mutations. Humans often only see one in a lifetime. Hope you enjoyed it, because you’ll probably never see another.”

“Maybe sos, but wasn’t a storms.” Marisa nodded to the book I carried in one arm. “Came from Patchey’s library. You can come withs next times I go borrow some books.”

“No, thank you. If this Patchouli person is real, she’s someone I don’t care to meet. Elementalists are a very territorial and haughty variety of magician.”

“Not a problems,” said Marisa. “Found a good ways to sneak ins. Patchey never knows I’m theres.”

“I doubt that.”

Marisa let out an exaggerated sigh, like a lovelorn maiden. “Force my hands, why don’t yous. Truth is, Patchey yells and screams, get outs, get outs. So I walk up real closes.” She held her hands in front of her face, as if ready to kiss someone. “Tell hers, Patchey dears. Let me borrow some books, it’ll be so worth your whiles. She says, oh Marisa of mines, can’t say no to yous. Just embrace me onces and take all the books you wants. Be waiting, broken hearts and lonely until you come backs.”

Silence.

Marisa looked at me. She laughed.

“Don’t blush, doll-girls! Was just kiddings.”

“I know you were,” I said. “Your vulgarity flusters me.”

---

We made it to my house as dusk darkened into night. Marisa and I were relieved to be indoors. Wild fairies can’t eat my flesh, but they wouldn’t learn that until they tried. I look human, sound human, and I’m told that I even smell human.

Marisa and I stepped into my front room. She hung her wide-brimmed hat at the door, and I set up my scarf and cloak beside it. We both kicked our shoes off just inside the door. I locked up behind us, then shrugged Shanghai off my shoulder.

“Start the lamps, Shanghai,” I said.

“Yes, Mistress.” The doll took flight. There were several glass balls on fixtures around my house. Shanghai flew to each of them, touched and ignited them. Orange sparks from each lamp’s heart lit my home.

“Haven’t been over in a whiles,” said Marisa. “Forgots how nice the place is.”

I have a lot of junk, as all magicians do. Unlike some, I keep my home clean and organized. The front room was stacked with shelves and bookcases, all loaded full with odds and ends. The biggest standout was my doll collection. I made most of them myself, collected a few from others. Only some of them were magically enchanted, and none were as intricate as Shanghai.

Marisa went off, looking over my collection. She skipped past the shelves of dolls and went straight for the books. She looked the titles over, seeing if any interested her.

“Shanghai,” I said. “Activate a few dolls and go make dinner. Make double portions. We have a guest to feed.”

“Yes, Mistress.” Shanghai had finished lighting the sparklamps. She flew over to a shelf covered with other dolls, touched three of them one after another. They each glowed with yellow-blue light, then awoke and stood. They flew into the air alongside Shanghai, and the four of them floated off into the kitchen.

“Don’t break anything!” I called after them.

“Don’t have trusts in the servants?” said Marisa. She slid a thin volume out of the bookcase, opened it and flipped through the pages.

“They’re not servants.” I took a seat on the couch, resting the Automata book in my lap. “They’re dolls. They don’t have minds like you or I do. Just instructions.”

“Then why like dolls so muchs?” Marisa sat down two cushions beside me.

I eyed the book she had taken, and I laughed. Ha-ha!

“Safety in Magic,” I said. “Borrow that one.”

Marisa smiled. “Surelies. Only got so many houses to blow ups. Answer me nows?”

“Answer you?” I said. “Oh, my dolls. What can I say? They’re just what I’m good at. Why do you care?”

“‘Cause we’re both artists.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but you could hardly equate our trades. I enchant self-animate objects. You deal with real-time evocation. There are no two fields in magic less related.”

“Do different things, come from same places.” Marisa leaned back against the armrest, putting her feet up on the couch. “Musician writes a songs after seeing beautiful paintings. Painter got inspirations to draw landscapes after reading good stories. Storyteller writes a huge books after hearing some musics.” She used her forefinger to draw a triangle shape in the air.

“So you hope to learn from the automancer?” I said. “You don’t need my help. You’re lucky; you never get stuck.”

“Not stucks. Other problems, thoughs. Last summers, came up with a spells called Master Sparks. Best spell evers. Make as big a lasers you could ever wants. Raze half of Gensokyos with enough charge-up times. Really put it to tests when we went to that mansions. Met some strong enemies. Master Sparks didn’t work all the times, despite awesomeness. Realized wasn’t so good a magicians as I thoughts.”

“So?” I said. “You went back to the drawing board and started work on new spells. Trial and error is part of our work.”

“Depends,” she said. “When person’s life depends on trials, and dies because of errors, that’s the ends. Gensokyo’s a dangerous place sometimes. Gotta use wits and spells to stay alives. Even worse if loved ones dies. Couldn’t live with myselfs if lost you or Reimu ‘cause of my dumbness.”

Marisa looked down, her eyes sad. Maybe she was telling the truth about last summer. She had no reason or capacity to hide her emotions from me. If she looked upset, she had something to be upset about.

“Sorry to say it,” I said, “but I don’t have any wisdom to make you a better mage. All I can tell you is to do what you can, and let the rest tend to itself. Worrying will just make things worse.”

She looked up at me, and gave a resigned nod.

“Pretty good wisdoms right theres,” she said. “Makes me feel betters. What about yous?”

“Nothing interesting. Mage’s block, is all. I must be doing something wrong, undermining the creative process somehow.” I looked over the dolls on my shelves, trying to remember the act that brought each of them into being. “It’s so easy at times. The art just comes to me, and crafting feels as natural as breathing. I couldn’t keep it inside even if I wanted to. The work must be done, so I do it.”

“What’s different nows?”

“I don’t know. It’s not coming like it used to. I took it for granted when I had it, and only appreciate it now that it’s gone. I try to force it, coax it, wait for it, bargain with it. Nothing works. It comes on its own terms.” I looked down, realized I had a white-knuckled grip on the Automata book. I forced myself relax, took a deep breath. “I wish I knew what those terms were, so I could meet them. It’s frustrating.”

“Know all about thats,” said Marisa. “Trying to opens lock with no keys. Banging your heads against a walls. Looking for an answer when yous don’t know the questions.”

“So, what’s the answer?”

She leaned forward, tapped a finger against her temple. “It’s all up heres. You’ll find it agains, sooner or laters. It’s a part of us, and that’ll keep happenings as long as we’re alives.”

“I don’t know how closely I should listen to a witch who just broke her own house.”

Marisa leaned back against the armrest. “Not saying I’m betters than any other mages. Plenty of problems in my ways of doing things.”

“On the other hand,” I said, “I’d rather make mistakes than be stagnant. Even when you fail, at least you’re doing something. You can learn from failures. That’s far better than being unable to act.”

“Too trues.”

Marisa was about to say something else, but her own stomach cut her off. A loud, growling gurgle came from her belly. She put a hand over her mouth, embarrassed.

“Sorrys,” she said. “Pretty hungry over heres. Dolls gonna be done with dinner soons?”

---

I don’t spend much time around humans. They talk about boring, mundane things, like crops and livestock, family hardships and social drama. Many of them are illiterate, and such uneducated folk are not worth my time. Marisa is an exception. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I enjoyed the evening she spent at my house.

We talked about magic, among other things. We ate, and we laughed. The night deepened, and was later than I thought at first. There was no time to get back to the workshop tonight.

I got blankets for Marisa to sleep on the couch, and then retired to my bedroom. I set Shanghai on the shelf and deactivated her. Then I undressed, got into my nightgown, and climbed in between my overstuffed mattress and quilts. I wasn’t sleepy yet, so I kept one lamp above my headboard lit. I planned to read some before dozing off.

I sat back against the headboard, hefted the Automata book into my lap. I flipped it open, past the title page, and began reading the preface.

Automancy is a prestigious field in the magical arts. This prestige, in part, comes from the rarity of automancers, who are greatly outnumbered by common enchanters, cognators, evokers and basic spell casters. The automancer’s trade is more closely equated to that of elementalism and summoning, in terms of the exceptional skill required, necessarily causing practicing members to be infrequent.

I skipped down a couple of paragraphs.

As powerful and useful as automancy can be, and as mature as the art has become, much in the field remains to be explored and revealed by its most learned practitioners. This author hopes to advance a new paradigm, a new branch of study in the school of automancy. My own experiments in this school have had encouraging, albeit inconclusive, results. I hope to expand and evolve this idea by opening it to other automancers of great talent.

The hypothetical that I am referring to is, of course, the core of this book’s subject matter. It comes from a logical development in the materials used to assemble automata. For as long as automancy has existed, its members have gathered wood, stone, or metal which to enchant into automatons. These naturally-occurring substances are effective, but advanced study shown the limit of their usefulness. Wood can only be bent so far before it splinters. Stone crumbles under enough force. Metal melts if overheated with an excess of magical power, possibly causing injury to automancers and their bystanders.

The obstacle that automancy has come upon is born from taking existing material and infusing it with extraneous magical power. Inversely, what if we were to use such a material that contained magic from its very inception? Nature has already taken that step herself, in the life of the creatures we call youkai.

Many of mankind’s advancements have come from mimicking and altering the processes that occur freely in nature. The waterfall is poured upon the wheel, turning millstones. Livestock are bred selectively, so that the best horses and cows are born, for men to ride and eat. Crops are sown in huge quantity and in controlled conditions, instead of being allowed to grow wild. I aim to take this same approach to automancy. I hope to show the reader my own advancements and research, combine it with his or her own, and create a new generation of automata that has life and power of their own, rather than only living on the power imparted from its master. In this way automancy shall become more “auto” than ever before, in that its creations truly shall be self motive…

I put the book down. I hadn’t been breathing. I inhaled suddenly, and my heart pounded hard to make up for it.

“No,” I said to myself. “This can’t be done.”

My mind raced from one thing to the next, trying to prove me right. The harder I thought about it, the more plausible it sounded.

Youkai are accumulations of magical energy. Even I had been formed from the natural powers in Gensokyo, given a mind and heart from complicated threads of energy weaved together.

Could I do the same? Could I take those energies and work them myself?

I got out of bed and took Shanghai off the shelf. She was dormant, limp in my hands. I imagined what she might be like as flesh and blood, instead of an expressionless block of wood.

She would be a real little girl, with her own voice and feelings. She would follow me around the house, ask me what I was doing and why I was doing it. She would sit down and eat meals with me. She would rest on my shoulder and lean against me as I read to her in bed.

It would be like having a daughter.

I squeezed the lifeless doll to my chest, and I trembled.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I have to do it.”

---

“Marisa!” I called, rushing back into the front room. “That book you gave me. It’s—”

My words caught in my throat when I saw her. She sat on the couch, holding a kitchen knife in one hand. The other hand held a fistful of her hair, as if to hold her head in place. She sliced the blade towards her neck.

She was more depressed than I thought. I didn’t understand, but I had no time to. I jumped forward, yanked the knife from her hand. I did not want a beheaded human on my couch.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at her.

She looked up at me, and I saw she had been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red, her cheeks wet.

“My house,” she said. “Really screwed up this times. Don’t know what I’m gonna doos.”

“That’s no reason to hurt yourself!” I said. “If you’re that upset about it, you can sleep here until your place is fixed – but no suicide attempts!” I waggled the knife at her like a scolding mother.

“Suicides?” said Marisa, blinking her eyes dry. Then she smiled, and laughed. Hee-haha! “Silly Alices! Trying to cut hairs, not my necks. Pretty upset about wrecking my houses, but never want to dies. Too many books to reads. Too many spells to casts.”

I relaxed, letting the knife rest at my side. “Cut your hair?”

“Read about its,” she said. “Girls supposed to cut hairs when heart brokens, usually ‘cause got dumped by some boys, but since that’s never happening, losing houses is next best things.”

I shook my head. “You’re strange, Marisa. You had me worried.”

“Sorries. What was it wanted to tell mees? About that books?”

“Nothing,” I said. “If you want a haircut, let’s do it right. I built Shanghai with some personal care routines.”

“Dolly-girls is a barber toos?”

“Of course.” I flipped my bobcut at her. “It only looks this good through constant care.”

---

I had Shanghai give Marisa a haircut. We stayed up later than normal that night, talking and laughing as we had been since Marisa came over. I felt happier than I had in a long time. Once I was done caring for my friend, there was important work to be done.

With her golden mane pruned and washed, Marisa fell asleep on the couch. I didn’t take her example. I had never felt less like sleeping. I went back into the workshop, the Automata book under one arm. Shanghai hovered along behind me.

“It’s late, Mistress,” she said. “Isn’t it time for bed?”

“For you, it is.” I grabbed her out of the air, sat her down on the workbench. I set aside the notes I had been working on earlier, pulled out a fresh pad of sketch paper.

“Mistress?” said Shanghai.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll rest for a while. When you wake again, you may not remember yourself as you are now, but it won’t matter. You’ll be more.”

“I don’t understand, Mistress. Is there something I must do?”

“No.” I put a finger to her forehead, sent a small pulse of energy into her. It triggered her deactivation instruction. She collapsed back on the bench in a pile of bent doll joints.

“I’ll do all the work,” I said. “You only need to do what you’ve always done: be yourself.”

I sat down, pulled out a pencil and got to work.