Momo's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Momo set the last cloth doll on the windowsill of her small wooden cafe and stepped back into the shade. Three years of searching had taught her that words sent strangers running. So she built a place where her hands could speak first. The dolls smiled where she could not. Somewhere out in the swamp was a face that had once looked at her without flinching, and she meant to find it. A traveler approached the door. Momo opened her mouth to ask the question she always asked. The traveler glanced up, saw her bulging eyes and stringy hair, and bolted into the reeds. A doll tumbled from his pack onto the mossy path. Momo followed at a careful distance and stopped where the trail of abandoned dolls began. Dozens of them lay scattered along the swamp's edge, faces upturned in the damp grass. Each one marked a person who had fled before she could speak. She knelt and counted, then made herself stop counting. Back inside, she swept the flowered cloth on her coffee table clean and spread her tarot deck. She drew one card, desperate. The Star, reversed — a face hidden behind light. The cards whispered what mouths would not: stop chasing. Let them come to you. Momo gathered the fallen dolls and carried them home. She placed each one in the cafe window, a quiet army of small smiling faces. She would not chase anymore. She would wait, and let the dolls ask for her.