The Motion of Puppets(75)

“Silenus,” the Devil said. “Move aside, uncle. We just want a word with the Original. My friend here knew him once, you see. Before she became one of us.”

“Better to keep the past in the past,” the old drunk said. “People are always chasing chimeras, trying to make things as they once were, but let me tell you a secret, Bub. That’s a fool’s game. The past isn’t there any longer, and it never was. Not as we remember it, not as we remake it over long years soaked by our imaginations. Let go, let go, I say. Better to keep it up here.” He tapped a finger on his skull and nearly knocked himself over. “Keep the past in the old noggin where it belongs.”

“Your brother Bottom has been looking for you,” the Devil said. “Making a complete ass of himself, but he has a full flagon of new wine.…”

Silenus nickered and trotted off, but he was quickly replaced on the spot by two maenads, one fierce in a leopard skin, one clad in ivy vines and carrying a wicked-looking spear. They blocked the path with crossed arms and deep frowns.

“Ladies,” the Devil said. “Looking lovely as ever—”

“No visitors,” the ivied guard said.

“But he sent for this dear child himself. She’s one of the Quatre Mains come to pay her respects.”

The two women conferred, and after some discussion they stepped aside. Kay passed between them, nervously aware of their barely contained fury, as if they might explode when triggered by a false move.

The noise in the room fell away when she saw him again. The man in the glass jar, the poupée ancienne from the toy shop window in Québec, now free and alive like the rest of them. He had not changed a bit. Made neither smaller nor taller, he was the puppet with whom she had fallen in love—how long ago was it now? Forever it seemed. He moved slowly and carefully, stepping toward her in the staccato walk of the stringed ones.

“You are the one I knew,” she said.

“And I knew you,” he said. “You would visit me in the window almost every day.”

“I wanted you for myself.”

The Devil whispered behind her ear. “He is very old, the oldest of us all. He is the Original.”

“Are you the first one?” she asked.

“Some say.” The puppet’s black eyes blazed to life, and he cast his gaze around the loft swarming with familiars. “I see you’ve brought almost everyone else from the Quatre Mains to our welcoming party, though I am sad to see that Mr. Firkin did not make it.”

“Oh, he’s here,” Kay said. “Down below. He chose not to come tonight. Out of loyalty to the Queen.”

The ancient puppet sighed heavily and looked distraught. “And she would not come. My old friend and foe.”

“She said to beware of the others. Beware of you.”

Around them the maenads began their frenzied dancing and somersaults. The satyrs whooped it up and were chasing any female in the room. The women screamed and the men bellowed. The music grew louder, and spirits emboldened by the celebration lifted and soared. He trembled where he stood. Kay could not believe they were meeting face-to-face at last, someone she was sure she would never see again. And yet, there he was right in front of her, at the center of the world.

*

When the man with the walrus mustache sneezed, Theo pressed his hand to his chest, certain that he was having a heart attack. He wanted to run away, to retch, to believe anything but what he could see right in front of him. The puppet brushed one finger under its nose and opened its eyes, dumbly staring at him with a sheepish grin, surprised to be caught doing what he ought not to have done.

“What strange place is this?” Theo asked. “What the hell kind of thing are you?”

The barrel-shaped man dropped his hand to his side and looked off into the distance, pretending that nothing had happened.

“I saw you,” Theo said. “I heard you sneeze. What on earth is going on?”

Unable to resist, the puppet snapped open his eyes and waggled his great mustache. Pressing a hidden lever, he magically lifted the derby from his head in greeting. “Mr. Firkin,” he said. “At your service. And who, may I ask, are you?”

“You can talk.…”

“Of course I can talk,” Firkin said. “So can you. Let me re-pose my original query and ask for your name.”

“Theo Harper. But you are a puppet.”

“How do you do, Theo Harper? A performer, really.”

“Made of papier-maché.”

“We prefer to be called actors. It’s what we do.”

“How is it that you can talk and move about without a man inside? Is there someone at the controls?”

Firkin raised his brows quizzically and looked down at his enormous belly to check his hollowness. “What time do you have?”

Theo checked his phone. “It’s after midnight. Nearly one o’clock in the morning.”

“After midnight and before dawn, we are free to move about here in our home. As long as we are alone.” His voice sounded as if it was being thrown into his mouth, like a ventriloquist’s dummy, slightly false and off-key.

The giant queen rested inertly against the wall. Theo pointed toward her with his thumb. “Just you? Or is that one alive, too?”

Like a windup doll, Firkin chirred into motion, and with a guiding arm, he escorted Theo to the farthest stall, looking back over his shoulder to check. “Do not trifle with the Queen.”