by Lani Lenore
He was almost begging to lead her onward, and she wondered again if she trusted him. But, once again, what choice did she have? Anne managed a nod, and before she knew it, they were back on their way toward completing her task.
4
Following through the shaft, Anne tried to memorize the way. They went straight on for a long while before starting to turn bends, and she played them over and over in her mind until they’d reached a place where they had to go down. She’d been apprehensive about it at first, but saw that there was a lift made with a system of strings and teacups. It was amazing and yet frightening, but the trip to the bottom of the shaft went off without incident.
Back on a straightway again, they passed by a vent. Anne veered close to it, grateful for the light, wishing she was once again back to her normal size and in one of those outside rooms, even if she was only having to search high and low for Olivia.
But Olivia wouldn’t be there, would she? At least this way, I know where she is and I cannot be reprimanded for her disappearance.
Selfish thoughts, true, but it was the only way she could hold onto herself.
She was about to move on after her guide, but through the grate, a shadowy movement made her stop. She leaned closer, peering through one of the spaces between the curling designs to investigate.
The room she found herself looking into was William’s study on the second floor–one of the only rooms there that wasn’t a bedroom. She had rarely seen the inside of this room, perhaps only twice in her entire career here.
It was deep in the night, but a lamp inside this room was burning. Wall lamps were always kept with a tiny flame, but this particular one on the desk was burning brightly. Surely William wasn’t working at this hour…not on the eve of Christmas…
Whispering voices. She leaned in even closer, pressing her face to the warm metal to look through at an angle, and on the far side of the room, she saw shadows–large ones without faces.
“One more application should do it. I’ll take care of that tomorrow at dinner. I know it’s been tearing you apart to have to handle it yourself,” the first voice whispered, and even though it was quiet, Anne could tell that the last part was spoken in a mocking tone.
“You asked me to come here just to tell me that?” asked the second voice, annoyed.
“No. It’s been a long while since we talked. I wanted to make sure you were still serious about our arrangement.”
“Seems a bit late to back out now, even if I did have doubts.”
The quality of the whispers was such that she couldn’t tell whom the voices belonged to. For the great number of people in the house on this night, it could have been anyone. But she was certain that both were male.
“She’s getting worse,” the second voice continued. “I see it every day.”
“I do believe that’s the point of it.”
Anne narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on the two figures, but the shadows did not like her game. They seemed to grow darker just because she was trying to see past them.
In the silence, a grip on her shoulder made her shriek.
“Naughty, naughty, Anne!” scolded the jester puppet, shoving her shoulder so that she spun around in a circle. Before she toppled over, he gripped her arms roughly. “Trying to slip away from me, hm? Tarrying behind? That’s a bad girl.”
“No,” she said, shaken from the things she heard and from the sudden scare that her escort had offered her. “I was just having a rest.”
The jester shook a long finger at her, chastising her in a singsong way. “You have to stay close. Losing you could get me into trou–ble.”
She nodded–a forced gesture.
“I won’t do it again,” she assured him.
The puppet eyed her a moment, then seemed satisfied and began to pull her along after him by her wrist. She let this happen, too busy thinking about the whispers she’d heard to be repulsed. Who was that talking? And what, exactly, had they been speaking of? Whatever it was, something wasn’t right about it.
Anne didn’t like it at all.
5
The jester pulled Anne along for a lengthy while before finally releasing her to simply follow him again, but even then he kept glancing behind him to make sure she was still there. She was a good girl; she didn’t veer far.
The air in the shaft had gotten colder, and Anne guessed that they had gone a good distance from the nearest lit fireplace. In what seemed to be the darkest part of the shaft, the jester stopped.
“This would be it,” he announced, though taking care not to broadcast it too loudly.
Anne stared into a cavernous opening that was filled with darkness. Cold air blew back at her, carrying unpleasant smells with it. The place smelled of rot and mold, of urine and feces, of blood and decay. The woman covered her mouth so she wouldn’t vomit. She wondered briefly if the puppet even had a sense of smell.
“We have to go in there?” she asked, though already knowing the answer.
“Now, now, Anne,” he said, forming a tight lip. He looped arms with her.
The jester took a deep breath and puffed out his chest. Interesting to her that she could actually hear the air enter his body through breath. Was it possible he had lungs?
“We just have to be brave,” he said, taking a step forward. Then he added for good measure: “And extremely cautious.”
Side by side, they stepped into the darkness of the rodents’ lair. The terrible smells made Anne’s head spin, but she forced herself to bear it, breathing only when necessary and always through her mouth–though it was so putrid that she could nearly taste it.
“This is only one of the many entrances,” the jester whispered to her. She could hardly see him, but he appeared quite fearful. Whether or not it was simply an act, she didn’t know.
“This one isn’t frequented much. It’s a back way. I figured it’d be deserted, and not too far at all from where the cat’s eye is kept.”
“Seems like this isn’t so difficult a task,” she whispered back, looking around her alertly. “Perhaps it just proves that I’m not loyal to the rodents if I would steal from them?”
“You think it’s easy,” he said with a shudder. “We haven’t gotten there yet.”
They continued forward, creeping now, passing beneath several black cloths that were hanging about in the long corridor. Each time Anne passed beneath one, her heart sped for fear that they would meet with an enemy and knowing that if she couldn’t protect herself from the tiny mouse that had bitten her ankle, she wouldn’t be able to defeat one her own size. Each time, she found herself lucky; they didn’t meet with any trouble.
Eventually, they came to a pit, and after scanning the area carefully, the jester led her near the edge and pointed downward.
“It’s down there,” he whispered with a regretful nod.
Anne looked over cautiously, not seeing much other than dark. Then, her eyes began to focus. Suspended in the shaft, on a raised pedestal, was a polished, green marble with a black center.
The cat’s eye.
“How can I get to it?” she asked, her mind searching for an answer.
Her companion said nothing, but when she looked toward him and his silence, he was holding something toward her in his hand. Strings. His own. They were attached to him, and with them, he would lower her down there?
Did she actually trust him? Did he believe that she did?
She stared at him hard for a few moments, and the toy grinned his wicked grin at her, knowing she didn’t have a choice–yet again.
“I must be out of my mind,” she muttered angrily, taking the strings and tying them around herself until she’d managed a decent harness.
He continued to smile after she’d finished, and when she looked at him once again, he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. If he’d been human, she would swear she was turning him on by wrapping herself with the strings. Then again, was this his idea of foreplay? She cringed at that thought, shutting it down immediately.
“Quickly,” she instructed. “So we can get out of here.”
The jester didn’t respond to her, simply giving her a shove that sent her off into the dark shaft. She had a mind to scream, but before she got the chance, the strings caught and she was suspended in the air.
Very good, Anne, she told herself. Just keep calm.
The cat’s eye was more to the center of the shaft, and the jester maneuvered her toward it, though it took a bit of effort. The marble became her focus–the center point of the universe. She reached out her hands to grip it when she was nearly close enough–
–and a sea of squirming movement below caught her attention. She gasped at the sight, withdrawing her hands close to her as if it mattered. Her breathing quickened, her heart sped, and she completely forgot about the center of the universe.
Bugs. Hundreds of them, along with their writhing larva, crawling over each other at the bottom of that shaft. Was this what the jester meant when he said it was not so easy? Bugs… Anne hated bugs!
“Get the marble!”
She heard the voice, but could hardly understand the words.
“W–what?”
“The cat’s eye!”
Below her, the bugs twisted, excited by her presence, and just as she’d nearly managed to calm down by telling herself that they were still several inches below her, one flew up and landed against her cloth boot.
Anne screamed. She couldn’t hold it in. She kicked, but that didn’t stop more bugs from flying up to crawl across her. They were brown, lightweight bugs with transparent wings, each about the length of her palm. Even though she struggled, she recognized them. Termites. This was indeed a trap set for wooden toys.
“Anne! You have to get the relic! It’s right there!”
She opened her eyes, fighting away the bugs that were swarming through the air around her. The jester was right; the marble was right in front of her. Before she could waste time on the bug that had lodged itself in her hair where her bun was wrapped, she grabbed the marble, curling herself into a ball around it as the bugs continued to light on her.
Immediately, she was pulled up. The jester tugged her to the top of the hole, battling the bugs that how now discovered him as well.
Back out of the pit, the strings came free of her as if magically loosed. They’d been tightly wound, and yet fell from her body as if they’d been simply lying across her. This was no time to question it, however. She ran, holding the cat’s eye tightly. The jester already had a head start. Behind them, the termites rose into the air in a thick swarm.
“You knew about this!” she accused, holding the marble tightly beneath her arm and freeing herself of bugs with the other.
“You’re not made of wood!” he yelled back defensively, picking up speed.
She roared in anger and did the same, cursing him silently.
6
They carried on back the same way they had come, though this time much less cautious. The farther they went, the less she could hear the insects swarming behind her until the sound died completely. It was a good thing, because Anne’s lungs and muscles couldn’t take anymore.
She dropped to the ground, out of breath, her grip on the marble so tight that she’d almost lost circulation within her arm. The jester fell to the floor as well, clumsily. When Anne managed to gather more breath, she spoke to him.
“That was dirty,” she gasped, glaring.
The puppet took in a few deep breaths and then shrugged carelessly. His ghastly grin renewed.
“Does it matter now?” he inquired, standing once again. “We escaped–you without a scratch and me without a hole–and you have your relic. All is well.”
He moved to help her up, but she jerked her arm away, insisting on doing this on her own. She had misplaced her trust in him. Anne moved on ahead, sure now that she could find her way out of here on her own if she had to. Her body was tired and aching, but her mind wouldn’t leave the last thing that the puppet had told her.
All is well.
Was it? Perhaps, as far as could be expected, it was. She’d completed the task without serious incident, and if nothing else, she would have Olivia’s acceptance and no soldiers would be hunting her. The more she ran it through her mind along the way, the more she calmed until her breathing was once again steady.
Back in the shaft where they’d ridden the teacup lift, the jester prepared to take them up once again. She watched him, wondering. Why had he helped her? Why, in the first place, had he offered to be her chaperone?
Was there some secret reason? He wouldn’t betray his Lady and country…? Perhaps to have the cat’s eye for himself? Was there something special about it?
She looked down, rubbing her hand over the smooth, green glass. It looked normal. Just a marble.
“All aboard!” her escort said, and she hastily stepped into the teacup before it began to haul them back to the top of the shaft.
The frightful toy beamed widely at her as the lift took them up, and while she couldn’t find a smile to give back to him, she began to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe he could even be a friend in this mess? Could he be trusted even though his smile and eyes told her otherwise? Anne didn’t know. She pulled the cat’s eye closer to her chest.
They traveled most of the way back in silence, with Anne contemplating something in her mind–something that she knew she should say but didn’t truly want to in the least bit. She knew that if she didn’t say it, she would eventually forget, and it wouldn’t trouble her again, but now it kept coming back to her. Nagging her.
Oh, don’t be stubborn. Just say it. Turn to him and say it.
For the sake of pretending to be a better person, she stopped her escort in the long stretch of shaft that led to the grate they’d entered this place from.
“Jester,” she said, standing with her head bowed toward the ground, a stray insect wing dangling from her hair.
The dark puppet turned back to her, and for the first time, she looked at his eyes. They were purple at the iris; all the rest was deep black.
“Thank you,” she managed. “I appreciate your help and couldn’t have done it so easily if you hadn’t been there.”
The jester looked back at her, clasping his hands and twisting them together nervously. On his face was a curling smile and his eyes turned down at the edges. If she hadn’t known better, Anne would guess that the puppet was on the verge of tears.
“Are you alright?” she asked, tilting her head in her uneasiness.
“You just don’t know how long I’ve waited to hear those words, Anne.”
An hour?
“What?”
Something about this wasn’t right. Slowly, Anne began to back away.
“From the moment I first laid eyes on you, I thought you were the most beautiful thing that I’d ever seen,” the jester confessed. “More perfect than any doll!
Anne’s brow furrowed in confusion. She shook her head. The jester stepped toward her.
“I saw how you looked at me–curled up your lip in disgust,” he went on. “It hurt. I watched you at night from that grate above your room and sometimes I let myself down through it, watching you sleep.”
This was shocking to her, but she wasn’t quite sure why she was surprised. The puppet had been sitting on top of her when she’d awoken in her bed tonight. All of these toys had been carrying on beneath her nose? She was dreaming. She wasn’t dreaming. Anne could hardly feel herself at all.
“But even though you loathed me, I knew that one day I would be able to prove you wrong! I knew that one day you would love me!”
Love? The mention of that shocked her.
“Wait a minute,” she said, finding her voice but still backing away defensively. “I didn’t say–”
“I even made something just because of you–for you!”
The puppet wrestled with the black cloth of his body, finally managing to find an opening within–and what he’d been looking for. From withi
n those folds emerged a post made of old, unpolished wood. The tip was cut into an arrowhead shape. It was nearly an inch long–comparative to her former size: over a foot.
“What in the world is that?” she cried, though she had immediately known what it was supposed to be. Something the puppet had never had on his own. He’d made one from a spare piece of wood and attached it to himself.
A crude, wooden phallus.
Anne clenched her eyes as if it would make all this go away. When she opened them, all was still the same. All was not well.
“It’s a tool, of course,” the jester explained innocently. “It’s what humans use on each other. I’ve seen it happen. It’s like what the dark–haired boy used on our Lady Sovereign.”
Anne could hardly focus on what he was saying, but this clicked with her.
“W–hat…?” Todd?
“Well…she didn’t seem to like it much, but he said he loved her, and then he used the tool. And I’ve seen it used in other places throughout the house as well!” His eyes once again grew sinister. “In fact, I’ve seen that other man use it on you. Filthy wretch, he is! And you! Guilty as sin! Making me jealous…”
“No,” Anne protested, pointing toward the jester’s splintered, wooden attachment. “That’s not…”
Her words fell off. She choked on them. She couldn’t think of anything to say about this. Dream? Nightmare? Reality? Oh God… Her breath caught in her throat. She backed away continually.
“I don’t fully understand it,” the puppet said. “I just know that I want it!”
His voice became a low growl. He clenched his fists tightly and she could see the frustration in his eyes–a long time of it built up inside. Toys with sexual desires, with no way to release them… It was too much for her! What part of her mind had produced these evil ideas? Was it Olivia’s influence on her that had forced her to dream these things?
But the trouble at hand quickly resurfaced past all her delving. It was not the insane world of toys that she needed to be concerned with, it was this toy before her now. With or without her permission, the puppet was intent on using that ghastly contraption on her.
