The Motion of Puppets(62)
Dolores pressed Play, and Kay walked out of the frame. There was the fantastical creature made of sticks and the titanic queen, and then the scene shifted to the parking lots, interviews with children not quite charming enough to air. The puppets moved about in the background, and now and then, he caught a glimpse of Kay. Toward the end, a few of the handlers unburdened themselves of the effigies. They were just college kids, the same as his own charges. A few seconds of the puppets leaning against light poles and walls like a gang of hooligans, and then the tape suddenly scrambled and another story picked up, something about a moose, that had been recorded over. Just as the original B roll would have been by now. Theo was grateful for Dolores’s quick thinking and tenacity in securing a copy before it was too late. They had proof. But of what?
“I know who they are,” Dolores said. “I’ve tracked them down.”
“She’s a Sherlock on the Internet,” said Mrs. Mackintosh.
Dolores reached for a folder on the end table and triumphantly held up the evidence. “The Northeast Kingdom Puppet Company, established in 1973. Right here in Vermont. ‘Making street art and political theater to reenchant and reclaim the world.’ Whatever that might mean.”
Mitchell cleared his throat. “So how did your daughter come to be a puppet?”
Nobody seemed to notice that he had misspoken.
“That, my friend, is what I expect you to find out and report back to me. Could be someone remembers her when she lived here, but that hasn’t been for years, and, besides, why does she show up now? If there’s a connection, maybe we can find out what’s happened to Kay.”
From his spot in the middle of the sofa, Egon jumped into action. “Let’s go, if we are to find this place.”
“Not tonight,” Dolores said. “It’s a three-hour drive on some mighty windy back roads, almost to Canada, and you boys need your beauty sleep. Mackintosh here has made up beds for you all. Get a fresh start in the morning.”
Mrs. Mackintosh showed Egon and Mitchell to their bedroom on the upper floor, cleaned and aired out for their stay, leaving Dolores and Theo alone in the parlor. They watched the tape again, stopping it whenever Kay appeared, moving ahead frame by frame, until they could bear it no longer. She flicked the switch, and silence pressed down like a stone.
“I blamed you,” Dolores said. “Thought you should have taken better care of her.”
“Not just that. You held me responsible. You seemed suspicious that I had something to do with her disappearance. As if I could ever hurt her.”
“I don’t know you, Theo. Not really. Just a man, the older man who took my daughter away. So, yes, I thought that maybe you had grown tired of her, that some foul play was the reason you kept your distance when I was trying to help. I thought you were protecting yourself, but I was wrong. I can see how much you loved Kay.”
“I am heartbroken.”
She motioned for him to come closer and reached out her hand for him to take. They sat for a few minutes, not speaking, looking for some accommodation for each other. Dolores patted him and told him he could sleep in Kay’s old bedroom, and then she wheeled off to her room at the back of the house, the hound trailing her in devotion.
Nothing had changed since the last time he had stayed in Kay’s room. Her mother had not kept it as a shrine exactly, for most of the childhood mementos had long ago been put away, and the new furnishings were simple, almost austere. Yet the mere fact that Kay had long inhabited the space gave him the sense that she had just recently departed. Her essence lingered. On the nightstand beneath a lamp stood a photograph taken no more than two or three years before, Kay at her finest, togged out in ski clothes in some northern chalet, snow on the trees outside the window, cheeks red with blood. The dresser, which once held her clothes, stood empty, but in the closet were the formal gown she wore to her high school prom and her wedding dress. Their wedding. A row of childhood books stood on a birch shelf. He ran his fingers along the spines, looked for her name hand-printed on the endpapers.
He crawled into her bed and fought for sleep against the spirits that roamed the house and slipped into the room. Midway through the night, as he dreamt of Kay dangling from a set of marionette strings, he was awakened by someone wandering in the darkness. Not Mitchell or Egon prowling for leftovers, the sound was not right. When he poked his head out of the doorway, he heard the chair being pushed across the floor. Dolores was startled to see him as well, her white hair loose for sleeping, her brown eyes wide in the darkness. She put a finger to her lips and bade him follow.
Mugs in hand they sat at the kitchen table, the clock ticking away the time. She was a firm believer in the soporific power of warm milk, and he had not had such a treat since boyhood. He drank it quickly, as if downing a potion. They spoke in whispers, the quiet of the country night unnerving and insistent. “You’re not the only one with a broken heart.”
“I am so sorry, Dolores.”
“I haven’t slept in months, and now this is my first real hope in ages. You have to find her. Or find out whatever happened to her.”
“Do you think that after all this time we might? That she might—”
She smiled at him. “She is an independent girl. And strong. If something has happened to her, if she’s just lost. Let’s think she is just lost. She will survive and you will find her.”