Maker-shaped golems

Maker-shaped golems are wooden figures animated by Duncan, whose craft makes his whittled creations more than ordinary objects. The book first presents them as a child’s source of wonder: four carved animals that move in a carefully staged parade. Later, the possibility of a much larger force of such figures becomes part of a dispute over Duncan’s intentions, shifting the image of animated wood from enchantment toward threat.

Craft and Animation

Duncan is identified as a golem maker, and his whittling is shown as more than decorative handiwork. When Ava was five, he gave her four carved animals: a pony five inches high, a dog, a cat, and a wooden bird no larger than his thumb. They looked so lifelike that Ava expected them to breathe. Duncan tapped each one, and the figures sprang to life, lined up from largest to smallest, then pranced through the house to the beat of Ava’s clapping. At the end of the performance they froze mid-prance. Their animation is presented through a concrete act of making and a shared demonstration, rather than through an explanation of how the craft works.

A Childhood Keepsake

The figures belong to one of Ava’s rare memories of being home with her mother and Cade. During a week snowed in for the holidays, Duncan visited and gave her the carved animals; she fell asleep in his lap clutching them. She had to leave them behind when the family went back on the run, but Cade kept them for her. They remained on a shelf in her room. Ava sometimes wanted to ask Duncan to make them dance again, yet held back because she feared seeing the performance twice would diminish its magic. The golems therefore persist not only as examples of Duncan’s power, but as physical keepsakes bound to a brief, cherished period of safety and family life.

From Wonder to Suspected Force

Much later, Venus says she has well-substantiated reports that Duncan is building an army. Ava immediately asks whether this means an army of golems. Venus dismisses the idea that an army of wood could threaten Owen, but the exchange leaves the allegation unresolved: it establishes the possibility of such a force as a political concern, not as a confirmed fact. Set against the four small figures that once paraded through a house at a child’s command, the rumored army magnifies Duncan’s craft into a question of power. The contrast changes the stakes attached to animated wood without erasing the wonder of Ava’s remembered encounter.