Hex Who [D7] complete

They were celebrating Hex's third birthday on the back patio when her mother, Nita, first heard the rasping, starved voice of a demon calling out for her young daughter. It was faint, but her spot-on motherly intuition told her it was real, growling her young one's name from somewhere between far away and inside her own ears. Hex's attention stayed on the metallic blue wrapping paper that had moments before covered an elaborately carved doll house, of which her father spent many days bragging to Nita. “She won't be able to take her sweet little hands off the thing, Ni, I'm telling you.” A one dimpled smirk. “It's my best work.” The gift remained out of focus as Hex spun the paper over and over between her tiny, spindly fingers. Hex didn't hear anything beyond the constant crinkle, but Nita's wide eyes couldn't stop scanning the room back and forth. Something was with them. She had never been more sure of anything.


That day changed everything for the Whos. Nita withdrew in all aspects of her life, disconnected from society, and grew despondent to stimulation. Her daughter would pull out her doll house and put on the most detailed, melodramatic performances for her near daily. After a while Hex began incorporating handcrafted dolls into her shows, in an increasingly desperate attempt to impress her mother, who to young Hex seemed impossible to please, who carved canyons of doubt into her mind, who filled those canyons with empty, unmoving rivers. And while Nita could do nothing to console her family, she remained comforted knowing without her everlasting vigil the beautiful recreation of her own mother, who blossomed each day and persisted through anything, would be fraught with terrors brought about by the demon, The Prosperous One, who she alone kept at bay.

And persisted Hex did, through years of silence and disregard, years of flooded valleys begging to bring her under, years of inadequacy that couldn't be unlearned. Persisted in perfecting her dolls, which became more and then less realistic as time passed, the strange and eerie and the forlorn and surreal paving over the natural human qualities of her little plaster pariahs. They became who she was, how she felt, what she dreamed. Freedom to express herself wasn't a badge to be worn in the Who home, with an unresponsive mother that seemed to stifle any and all creativity, who smothered emotions with a blanket of hushed tones and wide, unflinching eyes. The joy of being a teenager was the backtalk, the smart-assery, the screaming and shouting and yelling till she was sent to her room, but she warranted nothing outside of a blank stare or a non-committal “ask your mother” that may as well have been a disrespect sandwich shoved in her mouth.

She grew to hate her father more than her mother. Hidden away in his shed, he never seemed to care once Nita left her body behind. He made beautiful tables and chairs and a wildly popular combination of the two, but when he came inside he went to his bedroom and locked the door and didn't make a sound till morning. It was only on Saturdays, when he would haul his wagon of work to the market, that he would even speak to Hex at all. She started tagging along, initially just because, but eventually to haul her dolls to sell alongside her father. Which was a fairly profitable business, as far as surrealist dolls were concerned.

Until the day Ms. Dorkus, the widowed baker who always brought by customers in need of the perfect stool, led a slew of people straight past Mr. Who and his polished furnishings. She stopped in front of Hex, tinkering with the last touches on a lanky, bug-eyed doll with bushy black hair brushed straight from a horse's tail billowing around its form. “Here's the star of the market, I'm telling you girls what!” With a wink, Ms. Dorkus slid a loaf of nut bread into Hex's hand, and their partnership began instantly. The back and forth between the doll sales and the bought bread mocked Mr. Who's fragile demeanor and sensibilities, which previously had never held him back. But Nita's withdrawal had altered him in innumerable ways every day, and he was not the same man he knew him to be, and he was not a man Hex knew at all.

He stopped letting her ride with him, and Hex had to try and carry her craft, her art, all in her arms down the twisting path to town, and the wind howled and the tears stung her eyes and thoughts of her unimpressed mother laughing at her misfortune plagued her the whole while. But she made it to market, all on her own, and when she sat her boxes of dolls and tools down beside her father's tables he scoffed. If nothing else, she was persistent. But to him, she was nothing but a tumor that he couldn't afford to remove. Too close to his heart. Too heavy for his hopes.

On her way home, she tripped.

Her boxes of dolls spilled over, heads cracking against the dirt, torsos splitting in half. Inside her blood boiled, and Hex stormed home with the pieces of dolls left littering the road. Throwing open the front door, she screamed for her dad, at her dad, because she couldn't withhold her anger anymore. Bug eyes crossed with the heat of her wildfires, spreading through her long-dried valleys, desperate for a good rain that could no longer be contained. The sky opened up around her, and the steep slope of her mind was slick with perspiration, with the impending overflow, and she screamed louder than she had ever believed imaginable.

Her father was already locked in his room. He wasn't coming out despite her shrieks. He didn't act like a father should have. And she was far from a normal daughter, she knew, but nothing prepared her for a life of limited reaction. She screamed and she screamed and she screamed until a hand slapped her left cheek so hard her voice chirped, a shriveled up end to her mania, and Nita stood behind the flashing lights repeating words in a language Hex couldn't comprehend.

And then she was off, her mother racing out the door and into the woods and no one but Hex to do anything about it. She was equally unprepared for reaction. But only a few moments later, after a brief and tender stroke of her throbbing cheek, she took off, too. She had never seen her mother move much at all, but the sudden air of energy made a tiny seed in Hex's heart take root for the first time in ages, and the breeze past her face reminded her of the times Nita pushed her in their swingset, before she coiled up and disappeared.

Nita disappeared again that night, leaning backwards over the wall of their well, eyes linked with Hex's as her dried lips curled into an homage of a smile. She had just caught up, mentally preparing her words through heavy pants, and it was over in an instant. As Nita careened back, almost gracefully, almost fluidly, Hex could muster nothing but deep breaths.

Two weeks later, Nita Who was laid to rest through nothing but symbolism and spirit. Her grave was empty, as the well was found corpseless. Nita was never seen again, and Hex was deemed an overdramatic, attention-seeking brat by Mr. Who who hired a team to drag a body out of a well, only to be told there's no body in that well. Hex fell into herself, the begging of the canyon finally winning its first hand in decades of gambling. She was a wreck, but she was empty all the while, and nothing seemed to fix that. Her dad only spoke to her when he had to, which was far from often, and she would spend all her time in her room, making more dolls, and staring out her window at the woods behind their home. And she always felt it.

Something was with them. She had never been more sure of anything