"Discover," she would say, "what you can do. You'll always find something. One day your father will return, and he'll see what a good and useful child you are."

"Thank you, Mother. I shall be most useful, I do wish it."

"What a creature you are!"

"Am I? A creature?"

"Yes, my own little creature."

Mother brushed my hair with extraordinary vigor. Sometimes she touched my cheek or patted my bonnet. She was probably not very beautiful, but I thought her so. She had a small mole just beneath one of her eyelids. I wish I could remember her smile. I do know she had one.

By the age of five I had grown to the height of the old dog in the house next to ours. Later I would be the height of doorknobs, which I liked to rub. Later still, and here I would stop, I would be the height of many people's hearts. Women observing me in the village were sometimes heard to mutter, as they kissed me, "Finding a husband will not be easy."

On my fifth birthday, my dear mother gave me a doll. This was Marta. I named her myself. I knew her little body, about a sixth the size of my own; I learned it entirely as I moved it about, sometimes roughly, sometimes with great tenderness. She came to me naked and without a face. She was a collection of seven wooden pegs, which could be assembled in a certain order to roughly resemble the human figure. Marta, save my mother, was my first intimate connection with the world; I was never without her. We were happy together: Mother, Marta, and me.

Excerpted from Little by Edward Carey. Copyright © 2018 by Edward Carey. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.