The Motion of Puppets(52)
They came to the end of the parade at the town parking lot, the children in full pursuit. Arms and shoulders aching from the trek, the college kids shed their puppets, but the puppeteers stayed in character, the Devil babbling strange spells, Mr. Firkin twirling like a top, and the Old Hag reaching out with spindly arms to wrap each munchkin in a terrible embrace. Hoofing it with her cameraman, the reporter stopped to interview the Queen.
“Last show of the season,” the Irishman told her, as he stepped out from beneath the puppet. “We’ll start again in April. Can’t have these paper folks out in the winter elements.”
Squeals of laughter rang out, and toddlers wandered in crazy circles. Kay sidled over to a clutch of third graders, the girls and boys wary at first, but with the adults’ urging, one dared to approach and touch the hem of her paper skirt. The rest of the children, seeing no danger, swarmed over, posing for pictures holding the puppet’s oversized hand. One bespectacled girl smiled at her through a mouth of teeth and gaps. “Is she real?” she asked. Kay bent closer to better hear her. “Are you alive?” The farm girl shook Kay’s head from side to side and slunk off to another gaggle of children. The thrill of performing and the chaos of strangers filled her with a long-forgotten delight. She felt almost human again.
He is probably looking for me.
As the afternoon began to fade, busloads from the more rural areas left first, and the local parents with small children headed home. The Irishman, Stern, and Finch hiked back to the vehicles, and the college kids piled into a jalopy and headed back to campus up on the hill. A few gawkers kept the puppeteers company, asking questions about how such creatures are made. The Deux Mains passed out flyers for the shows to come next spring after the mud season had passed. Heaped together like corpses for a common grave, the puppets were largely forgotten, remnants of the day’s festivities, but of no more consequence than the Halloween decorations.
On the long ride home, Kay watched the sun disappear and reappear as it set over the staggered mountains, the branches of the trees at the crests breaking the red light into shards of fire, until all at once night arrived and the windows of the bus settled into black, and a million stars came out above the sheltered country roads. The old engine huffed and gurgled over the hills, and Finch switched on a classical music station on the radio, and the farm girl and the towheaded boy stretched out sleeping on the pair of long benches behind the driver’s seat. With a tilt of her head, Kay could reach the Good Fairy’s ear. She chanced a whisper.
“It was good to be out among the people today.”
“Not too loud,” the Good Fairy said, which Kay found ironic, for her husky voice had deepened after she had grown large and her wooden mouth creaked with each sentence.
“What a lot of kids at the parade. How I’ve missed seeing children.”
“Better to miss them than to have them nearby. I always dread the children. Some of them are too young and know so little that they can instantly guess who we are. Closer to nature, they know our true nature. Children and dogs. Don’t get me started on dogs. Try being around dogs when you are made of sticks.”
“Still, it was like a memory from another life.”
“You should just try to forget that other life.”
Noisy springs from the passenger seats alerted them to the stirrings of the humans. The bus had turned onto the dark and bumpy side road to the farm. Lamps had been left on in the house, giving it a cheerful glow like the face of a waiting grandparent. The wheels crunched gravel as the bus slowed to a stop, and the van and the pickup soon followed and parked nearby. The night air was noticeably colder, and the smell of burning birch poured from the chimney. Weary now, the humans were much slower in reversing the day’s process, unloading the puppets from the vehicles and toting them back into the barn. The blond boy asked if they could wait till morning, and the Quatre Mains cuffed him softly on the back of the neck. “Never,” he said. “Never leave these puppets alone and out of the barn after dark.”
Chagrined, the boy went straight to work, hurrying to put the puppets away. He made sure to close the barn door after the last was safely inside. When he threw the bolt through the lock with a shudder, the sound echoed in the stillness, a note of finality to the day. Whistling a few bars of a wistful melody, the boy headed for the farmhouse, the notes trailing behind. The puppets were clustered in three groups, settled into a trough and two stalls, presided over by the Queen, who loomed against an outer wall. No more shows or appearances had been planned for the season, and the prospect of a long winter inside made the mood somber and bound them in the silence of their private thoughts.
He would come find me if only he knew where to look.
17
The red light blinked like a semaphore. Had Egon not taken notice and alerted him to the signal, Theo might have neglected the answering machine altogether. Most people reached him via his cell phone, and he had nearly forgotten about the landline that sat next to his computer. He pressed the button marked Play and flinched at the sound of a voice from the past.
“Theo, this is your mother-in-law. Dolores. Are you home? I saw Katharine on the TV. Kay. Or something like her. Please call when you get this message.”
He listened again. Echoes of a ghost.
“Are you going to call her?” Egon asked. “Or should I?”
Their suitcases sat next to the front door, and Theo had just sloughed off his jacket and draped it on the back of his desk chair. Road weary, he wanted nothing more than a long shower and a night’s rest. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Maybe in the morning. It’s late, and she’s probably asleep by now.”