The first thing Kuroe and Shirona saw was a girl, maybe ten or twelve years old. She was a quiet child named Helica. She was, however, extremely good with her hands; she had built the twins, these dolls, in her spare time. She gave them the names Kuroe and Shirona, and they shared her life as her friends.
Making dolls was Helica’s one way to escape her loneliness—so she lost herself in it more and more. The twins observed her as she spent every day, silent, with her dolls.
Time passed, and when Helica was in her late teens, she brought a man home. From their conversations, the twins learned that this man was an entrepreneur strongly attracted by Helica’s talents. Even the twins could see how well the two suited each other.
Eventually Helica went into business with the man, making dolls as her job. She spent her time joyfully building, the days swathed in warmth and light.
The twins sat in their corner of the room and prayed that these days might go on forever. But their prayer was not heard.
Their happiness lasted a scant few months.
The man was a con man. Most of the money he’d borrowed to start their company was gone, as if it had never existed. All that remained was a tremendous amount of debt—and the new life growing in Helica’s belly.
Helica took to talking to the two of them frequently. I never deserved such happiness, she would say. It’s much better for me to work quietly by myself. At night, the tears would pour from her eyes.
The twins wished they could jump up and give her a hug. They wanted to shout at her to forget that swindler.
But no prayer had been given to them, and they couldn’t so much as nod their heads, let alone speak. They could only sit and gaze at the ground as the tears rolled on.
Eventually, Helica’s child was born, a healthy baby girl. Helica named her Sophie.
While raising her child, Helica built dolls as a job to pay off her debts. The days were busy, and Helica’s work tools lay around the house. So it was that Sophie grew up with dolls from her earliest days.
Whenever Helica could find a spare moment between housework and jobs, she would play with Sophie. But that meant she got only the barest minimum of sleep. Much as she tried to spend every moment she could with Sophie, by necessity the vast majority of each day was dedicated to work.
“I’m sorry, Sophie. Mommy’s working. Go play somewhere else.”
For as long as Sophie could remember, there had been a gulf between them. A chasm never to be bridged. As Sophie grew older, she came to speak to her mother less and less.
The last time they had talked was just before Sophie left home. Her mother had noticed Sophie falling under the influence of a shady man. Yet Helica had spoken to her daughter far too rarely to stop her; they didn’t have that history of conversation.
After an exchange almost too painful to remember, Sophie had left home.
It was that night that Helica had gone to the cathedral.
“I beg of you, please grant my wish.”
With the two dolls in tow, she offered her prayer.
“Please, stay on the right path…”
She prayed that her beloved daughter Sophie wouldn’t make the same mistakes she had.
If it ever seemed that she would walk the same road as her mother, Helica prayed that these two dolls would help her.
“Gracious. What a terrible thing to say to your mother, isn’t that right?” Helica said.
Thanks to the prayer that had been bestowed upon them, Kuroe and Shirona could understand human words—and they would offer a hand if Sophie was going to stray from the right path. To that end, they remembered everything Helica said, everything from their first meeting until this moment.
The first thing they recalled was these words, which she had said to them the day after the prayer had taken effect.
“Don’t you agree, Kuroe? Shirona?”
Helica knew full well that the prayer had been bestowed upon the dolls because of the pale light that had shone around them in the cathedral. Now she chatted with them pleasantly, almost as if she was leaving a message for her daughter. So the two listened carefully, making sure to catch every word.
“It’s all right. I do understand. I know you weren’t speaking from your heart of hearts.”
Even when they were far apart, even when much time had passed, Helica’s love for Sophie didn’t change.
“I went a little too far myself, and for that I’m sorry. I just didn’t want you to end up like me. Tricked by some fool, unhappy… That wasn’t the life I wanted for you.” Helica gazed at the dolls, who looked back silently, and her expression was one of calm. She didn’t even know where her daughter was now, or what she was doing. “Sophie. My Sophie…”
It didn’t change, even after Helica grew ill and weak. She kept talking.
“Don’t push yourself too hard, will you?”
Her face was peaceful as she spoke.
“You don’t have to be like me… Not the bad parts, at least.”
All the words Helica had spoken, Shirona and Kuroe conveyed to Sophie. Although they didn’t know whether she would take from them what her mother had hoped.
Sophie shook and sobbed, looking at the ground, as they spoke; she didn’t seem to be in a state of mind to really hear what they were saying.
When Sophie finally looked up, her face was as tear-stained as a little girl’s. She remembered her mother, the way she had always appeared to Sophie—turned away from her. When Sophie was little, she’d thought her mother was a cold woman, only focused on her work. But now, looking back after having fled her home, what she saw was a parent working desperately to support her daughter.
She saw her mother, who took every small opportunity she had to turn back and smile.
Sophie saw that she was the one who hadn’t been willing to face her mother squarely.
By the time she had realized that, the chance to see her mother again had gone forever. She had taken the wrong path.
“What…” Sophie asked, wiping away the tears with both sleeves, “What did my mother look like at the end?”
Kuroe and Shirona turned to each other. They remembered that very clearly.
“She looked just like she always did,” Kuroe said.
“Peaceful and beautiful,” Shirona said.
Helica looked just like she had when, as a young girl, she’d finished building Shirona and Kuroe and had gazed upon them with limpid, innocent eyes. She worried about nothing, had no cares in her heart.
Until the very end, Helica had been concerned for her daughter—and at the same time, confident of her safety.
To the end of her life, Helica knew that Sophie hadn’t gone off the right path. The two dolls who stood silently by her sickbed, listening to her speak, were the proof.