The Motion of Puppets(46)
Scattered in front of the barn doors, the puppets were left alone, each next to its replica. Unable to move and wary of being heard, they spoke with one another in hushed whispers.
“Is everyone okay?” Mr. Firkin asked.
“I don’t like this place,” said No?. “Everything is too big and scary.”
“Not to mention this infernal stake straight through my heart,” said the Queen. “If I had a heart.”
“Ugh,” said Nix. “What is happening to us?”
Swinging from the branch like a Salem witch, Olya spoke with a world-weariness. “We are being transformed. Made over to fit in with all the others here. A change will do you good, Nixie.”
“These are our bodies,” said the Devil. He ogled the shapes on the ground. “Getting ready for our souls. It is not every day that you get to see the next step on life’s journey.”
Kay stole a peek at the unfinished papier-maché torso not four feet from where she hung, bound to a fence post with a lash of baling wire. A river of melancholy threaded its way from puppet to puppet. She remembered her first days in the Back Room in Québec and the freedom they enjoyed there during the long, dark nights. “What do you mean about our souls? Are they to inhabit these new forms?”
The Devil’s wooden joints creaked in the soft breeze. He was more hideous than usual, captured and trussed like some wild thing ready for the slaughter. “My guess is that they will destroy the old in order to create the new. Not the first time this has happened to me. Once upon a time, I was little more than a horned totem, and over the decades, I cannot begin to tell you how many lives I’ve led. One more will do no harm. The Original decides, the Quatre Mains does his bidding. Are we not puppets after all, bound to the master’s whims?”
“Is there no end to this?” No? said. “I will go mad.”
From the bare limb of the maple, Olya cleared her throat. “There’s always the possibility of an ending. How soon you have forgotten our friends, the Judges. The end is always the same for each of us. One ending, and not a heppy one.” On each side, her sisters grinned in the starlight.
“Count your blessings,” said the Devil.
Over the next four days, the bodies took shape layer by layer, new skin, new limbs, hands and feet, and the heads attached at the end. The Irishman and his two young artisans worked longest on the faces, crafting the features in meticulous detail, the last strokes of the brush articulating the eyes. Some puppets had hinged jaws to give the illusion of speech, while other faces were frozen in a single aspect. Olya, Masha, and Irina wore masks in three shades of melancholia. The Queen’s visage was majestic and disdainful. A nearly mad look was plastered on Nix, and the Old Hag had reverted from her time as Marmee into her familiar hundred-years’ gaze. From the Québec troupe only the Dog retained his original form, a toy that roamed the barn while the others were bound to their spots. And the Worm had gone missing. Whispers at night intimated that it had been consigned to the old animal pens in the abandoned barn basement. Strange lowings emanated from the bowels of the building in the cramped stalls that led out to a grassy hillside.
On the fourth night, after all the new forms had been completed, the puppeteers were in a festive mood. They built a fire in a ring of stones, the bark from the birch logs popping and hissing and filling the air with thick smoke. Bottles of stout were passed around, and the Irishman regaled the others with stories and songs. Stern and Finch took turns telling long and complicated jokes that ended in dreadful puns and groans and claps of appreciation for the skill of the telling. Even the tall farm girl overcame her shyness and sang a tragic air, and the towheaded boy sat wide-eyed, soaking in the camaraderie of the evening. A million stars filled the cold sky, the constellations slowly spinning away the hours of anticipation.
With a start, the Quatre Mains rose from a log and motioned for quiet. He glanced at the ancient puppet, his face bright from the flames, and announced that the time had come. The Deux Mains held in her hands a pair of long thin spears with sharp, barbed blades strapped to the ends. With a bow, she handed one of the primitive weapons to the Quatre Mains and kept the other for herself. Holding it at eye level, he regarded the sharpness, tapping the point with the pad of his index finger, drawing a dot of blood.
Striding without hesitation, the Quatre Mains confronted the Queen nailed to her post and thrust the spear into her body at the bottom of her rib cage. A sigh escaped from the puppet’s mouth, a puff somewhere between shock and satisfaction. With a quick clockwise twist, the Quatre Mains pulled back the spear, a clot of red snagged in the barbs, and the puppet slouched limp and lifeless. He pivoted to the new Queen, a giantess sprawled against the side of the barn, and pierced her chest at the same spot and twisted counterclockwise. When he withdrew the point, the red clot had disappeared into her. Taking turns with the Deux Mains, they repeated the process, piercing the Three Sisters, Nix and No?, the Good Fairy, the Old Hag, and the Devil, transferring the substance from the old into the new.
Kay was the last to go. She had witnessed the sober reaction of the humans gathered round the fire and seen the terror in her comrades’ eyes. They were dying, sacrificed in some bizarre ritual, and she wanted to escape her restraints or cry out, but even in such dire circumstances, she knew it was impossible. Her thoughts raced from the slaughter to memories of her mother, old comforter, young and singing sweetly on her walk from the henhouse, a basket of warm eggs swinging against her hip. And then her husband. She suddenly remembered his name again, Theo, Theo, Theo, but the snap of recognition was wiped away at the approach of the spear. She stole one last look at the ancient puppet she had long adored. Instead of malice, the Quatre Mains wore love and generosity on his face, as though he was presenting her with a gift rather than ending her life. He smiled when he stabbed her, and as the spear twisted where her heart had been, she said “oh,” and then the world went dark. Gasping, she regained consciousness in her new body. The hole in her chest closed like a flower.