The Motion of Puppets(51)
“In a pile of dust in the workshop. But you must believe me, that place up there was filled with mad puppets and broken toys come to life.”
“They seem to have flown the coop.” Thompson stood up and gave a desultory look at the open boxes. “I will have Foucault make a full inventory. You never know, something may have turned up. Tell me, Mr. Harper, did you ever finish translating that book of yours? Who was that fella with the strange name?”
“Muybridge? No, I have a little ways to go.”
“You must persevere, Mr. Harper, and not give up.” He lowered himself from the attic and held the chair for Theo to follow. Clapping the dust from his suit, Thompson cast a quick glance around the room. “This must have been where the puppeteers lived. My brother would have loved to have seen it.”
Egon stepped between the two other men. “The notebook was up there as well. With all their plays and scripts. The one with the initials KH in the back.”
“We’ll look into that as well, monsieur. Could be something, but we often make clues out of coincidences.”
They retreated down the stairs, following the trail to the back room. At the doorway, Theo grabbed him by the arm. “Tell me, Inspector Thompson, what happened to your brother who loved the puppets?”
“Nico? Funny, he’s why I became a policeman. He’s why your wife’s disappearance bedevils me. My brother vanished when he was eight years old. Nicholas.”
“Did you ever find him?” Theo asked.
“No,” the detective said. He put a steadying hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Which is not to say that we won’t find Kay.”
*
Every puppet needed a person to bring the body to life. A hand would no longer do. Not even the Quatre Mains at the sticks would work, for none of them could be called a marionette. They were giants now. The newness of their size astonished them, as though the whole world had been transformed. What was once large was now small, and what had been small was of little accord.
The farm girl lifted Kay from her perch in the barn to carry her to the school bus waiting outside. She swayed in the girl’s arms, unsteady as a mast in a storm. With a grunt, the girl flipped her to a horizontal position and toted her on board, laying her next to the other puppets in the back of the bus. Most of the seats had been removed and a row of berths had been installed on each side, and the giant puppets rested in the makeshift bunk beds. Kay flinched when the Good Fairy was laid atop her, though she was light as a bird’s nest. The people loaded the Queen from the back emergency exit. Her body took up nearly a third of the length of the bus.
Through the Vermont countryside they rambled, along the artery that twisted its way south between the Green Mountains. Kay could just see enough through the window to feel at home, the landscape reminding her of the place where she first fell in love with the world. The trees had dropped their leaves, save a few papery brown stragglers, but the sun shone gloriously, and the crisp air flowed in from open windows. A minivan followed the bus, and behind that, a pickup truck with Nix and No? resting in the bed. The convoy passed cows lunching in the fields and roadside apple pickers, over hill and dale, and came at last to a crossroads town all done up for Halloween. They parked by a plain white Congregational church with a cemetery adjacent, the rows of gravestones casting long shadows in the slant light. Across the road stood a ruined mansion, weatherworn and gray, and as she was unloaded from the bus, Kay could not help but think of death and decay, all wrapped in the peacefulness of an ordinary day in late October.
He must be wondering where I am.
Some students from the college near town had been recruited to assist in the pageant, girls in dreadlocks, sandals, and skirts. A barefoot boy, a pair of young apostles in matching beards. Gathered around in a half circle, they listened to a quick tutorial from the Quatre Mains and memorized their parts, how to move, where to march. They selected their favorites, fumbling with the puppets as they sought the right balance, testing how to make them move, clapping their great hands together with a swing of the rods. At the head of the line, Deux Mains took on the part of roly-poly Mr. Firkin. The Quatre Mains had the Devil, the college girls the Three Sisters, a boy for Nix, a girl for No?. The Irishman was beneath the Old Hag, the farm girl was Kay, and the second beard was the Good Fairy. On either side Stern and Finch lifted the colossus of the Queen, and on they marched, at Firkin’s whistle, down an easy hill and onto the Main Street proper.
Dressed in their Halloween costumes, schoolchildren from across the county had been bused in for the occasion. They sat on the curbs, wide-eyed. Behind them on the sidewalks their parents, some with babes in arms, and their teachers stood for the procession, mingling with the shopkeepers and the townsfolk gathered for the annual festivities. From the little witches and ghosts, skeletons and monsters rose a bright cheer as the puppets swung into view, and the marching band from the high school broke into “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic,” heavy on the brass and percussion. Trimmed in black and orange, the whole town pulsed with joy and surprise. Each dog they passed erupted into barks or whimpers, as if they could tell what was behind the still and placid faces. On the corner where the two major roads intersected, a camera crew from WCAX in Burlington jumped into action, and as Kay moved closer, she could hear a blond woman in a jack-o’-lantern sweater report on the proceedings, gushing at the flair of the Good Fairy, her voice rising an octave at the majesty of the Queen.