Masha du Toit

Another drawing for COMIX.  This one is based on the doll called Mevrou Karwats.  In the story I wrote to go with the doll, she has a different name: Mrs Muller.  I wonder which one suits her best.  Here is the first draft of the drawing in pencil:

Here are the first few paragraphs of her story, which is called “Thorn Rose”:

“It had taken her long enough  to ring the doorbell.  Now Tanya stood hesitating, half hoping that no one was at home. Just as she was about to run back down the hallway to where the lift still stood open, the doorknob turned and the door opened a hand’s breadth. Then it closed, a chain rattled, and the door opened.

Tanya stared. This was the closest she had ever been to Mrs Muller. She could only just make out the old woman’s face in the shadowed doorway. Light from the hallway glinted in her large, heavily lidded eyes. Her dark eyebrows were drawn down in a frown. Tanya could feel the carefully rehearsed words begin to drain away. She took a deep breath:

“Greetings, wise woman. I come to consult you in your wisdom on a matter of great importance”.

She was sure those were the right words. It was important to be polite when speaking to a witch. And Mrs Muller was a witch, no matter what everyone else said.

Mrs. Muller’s eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“A child.” Her voice was harsh with a flat, foreign accent. “A child who wishes to consult.”

“Yes, please” said Tanya.

She was relieved. Mrs. Muller must be a witch after all, if she understood the ritual greeting. It wasn’t just her imagination. You could see she was a witch. Those long, grey dresses with the high collars that buttoned up right under her chin and the way she wore her hair, scraped back from her face and coiled up in a hairnet. And then there were the black birds that flew in and out of her windows of he flat.”

And here is Mrs Muller / Karwats as a doll: