The Puppet Maker's Bones

by Alisa Tangredi

  Kevin navigated the streets up to Fillmore, then Magnolia, and arrived at his house, a typically pricey Pasadena Craftsman on a street lined with other traditional Craftsman, Italianate, and Queen Anne Victorians for which Pasadena was known, along with the occasional condominium complex, more prevalent now, as the economy deteriorated. He kicked the skateboard into his arms, bounded up the front stairs and through the front door. He ran up the steps to his room where he deposited the skateboard, then moved down the hall to more stairs which led to the attic. Once in the attic, Kevin sat and stared out the window at the big Victorian across the street. Kevin made a point to stare at the Victorian across the street at a different hour every day, to see if the old man who lived there would come outside. Kevin had never seen anyone go in or come out of the house. He watched plenty of delivery trucks pull up in front and take packages or boxes into what appeared to be some sort of anteroom at the side of the house. Kevin figured that room led to another door that would connect to the interior. Kevin had never seen so much as a silhouette behind a moving drapery to indicate that a person might inhabit the house. The house might indeed be empty; however, everyone in the neighborhood seemed to know that an old man lived there. People claimed he had lived there as long as anyone could remember. Everyone said that, but no one could claim to have ever seen him. Kevin watched the myriad of delivery people, but did not see anyone who was not in some way connected with a company that was providing a service. They certainly did not appear to be friends or family. No one stayed longer than the time it would take to drop off the mail. The longest anyone stayed were the yard people who came to do the “mow, blow and go” type of gardening service common to the area. Their comings and goings, however did prove to Kevin that there was indeed someone inside to receive the numerous packages and boxes and food items, but in all his vigilance, Kevin never once saw the old man. Very little interested the teen, yet the curiosity Kevin felt toward the unseen resident across the street was overwhelming, similar to what an overzealous anthropologist might experience when discovering a completely new culture that had been hidden from modern society for years.

  Kevin had watched the Victorian from the attic window every day for the past year, and he felt ready. The “music” on his mp3 player was beginning to bore him.

  Kevin backed away from the attic window and moved to the floor and the roll of architectural blueprints. He’d acquired them at the local historical society after telling the nice lady at the counter he needed them for a school project on Pasadena Victorians.

  “I absolutely have to have that Vic-tor-ian,” he’d whined.

  Kevin chuckled as he reflected on his power to annoy people into giving him what he wanted. Eventually, they all did. Their screams were a bonus.

  Kevin was a Cage Rattler, one of those types of people at the zoo, or the aquarium or school who derive satisfaction from taunting the animals by pounding on the cage bars or the aquarium glass, or by tormenting fellow students too insecure or frightened to protect themselves. Some were plain lonely and thought they had made a new friend. The difference between Kevin and other Cage Rattlers was that Kevin had an insatiable curiosity to see how animals or people would behave under the most extreme of circumstances, usually violent, so tapping on the glass at the aquarium or pounding the cage bars was, to Kevin, a relatively benign experiment. He liked to take things apart to see how they worked, though taking apart games or electronics or machines held no interest for him. Kevin thought he would make a brilliant doctor. He liked his research. Sometimes the objects of his cruelty would inexplicably disappear, or in some instances, show up in an empty parking lot, dismembered. The animals’ deaths were usually credited to either coyotes or practitioners of Santería, depending on when or where they were finally discovered. The shy students he chose from schools other than his own simply went “missing.” Usually.

  The first time Kevin ventured beyond the various neighborhood cats, dogs, and chinchillas even, often given to children as a fashionable alternative to rabbits——and once a tortoise that he later discovered was quite valuable—he focused his attention upon a child at one of the neighborhood grade schools; a small boy, playing off by himself. No friends, a little weird, a little off, thought Kevin.

  “Hey kid. Do you like sour gummies?”

  The child seemed to be so surprised that anyone noticed him, let alone spoke to him, that he was willing to go with Kevin, who handed the boy a sour gummy. The boy, eager for the candy, put it in his mouth and grinned. Kevin grinned back. The boy was small in build, with large brown eyes and close cropped hair—a buzz cut, some would call it. He was dressed in clothing inappropriate for any type of outdoor play. His clothes were so clean and neat; they appeared to have come straight from the dry cleaners, pressed and pristine.

  “Do you like to climb trees? I know where there are a lot of good climbing trees. At the dog park.”

  “That park is closed. My mom said. Too much poop.”

  Kevin laughed. “That’s right. Too much poop.” The city had closed the dog park to do the annual seeding of the lawn, and the entire circumference of the grounds was enclosed in yellow warning tape. Kevin led the child as far as the entrance with the promise of the sour gummies.

  “We’re not supposed to be in here. I’ll get dirty. Mom says I’m not supposed to get dirty.”

  “Well we can’t very well get more sour gummies, then, can we? The tree elves hide them in the tops of the trees!”

  The boy gawked at Kevin in wonder. Kevin grinned. “That’s right. There are more sour gummies at the top of the tree.”

  Kevin put his hand around the boy’s waist and hoisted him up to the crotch of the oak tree and jumped up after him.

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. We’ll go to the top together.”

  “I’m not supposed to get dirty.”

  “You’ll be fine. Have you ever seen a tree elf?”

  The boy shook his head and continued to climb with Kevin, though he was unsteady, clumsy, almost falling at one point, but his new friend Kevin held onto him and helped him in his effort to make it all the way to the top of the tree.

  Kevin’s science class was covering Sir Isaac Newton that week and rather than read the assigned chapters on the discovery of gravity, he decided to take a more active approach to his homework. As he pushed the boy from the top of the tree, he recorded the sound the boy made while he was falling—the animalistic wail accompanied by the crashing of branches, the scrape of leaves and twigs tearing at the bare skin of the boy’s face and arms—crows cawing in the air overhead and the grunt and exhalation of air as the boy landed on the ground and died from his injuries.

  That was the first “music” Kevin recorded for his mp3 player.

  The child was later discovered, scratched, broken and crumpled below the tree in the park. People went crazy in the belief that there was a child molester on the prowl, and every registered sex offender on the Megan’s Law directory that lived within a fifty mile radius was brought in by the police for questioning. It was determined to be an accident, however. After an exhaustive investigation, the child was believed to have fallen from the tree after climbing up much too high and had died as a result of the fall. How or why the child had left school and gone to that park to climb the tree was a mystery that had not been solved.

  ***

  Kevin had studied the blueprints over and over until he was sure he knew where each door, each window, each nook and cranny in all the rooms was located. The owner of the house had not filed permits with the city for any remodeling or additions, since the Victorian was under historical protection. Kevin noted that the anteroom on the side of the house where deliveries were made appeared to have been added forty years ago, but that was all. Kevin was confident he had what he needed.

  Perhaps he would pay his neighbor a visit tonight. Tonight was as good as any. He had a few activities planned for earlier in the day, but the night held a host of great possibilities.

 
Kevin went down the stairs, out of the attic, then back into his room. Kevin’s bedroom was a large room, with several expensive toys and games littering a built-in desk that ran along one wall, broke at the corner and extended at a right angle down the next wall. The room was immaculate because the housekeeper had cleaned it. Kevin surveyed the room and was grateful for the housekeeper’s violation of his space, for it maintained the illusion that he had nothing to hide from his family. Kevin was aware that the housekeeper had been instructed to look for contraband of any kind. All the contraband was in the attic where he stored his true treasures. He’d stowed those treasures in a small duffle on the floor at his feet. Kevin kicked it under the bed, picked up his skateboard and bounded down the stairs and out the door. He had something he needed to do.

  Pavel watched out through the window as the boy across the street exited his home and rode away on his skateboard as he did every day. Pavel made an everyday habit of watching his neighborhood and the comings and goings of all the people in it. He watched through drapes that didn’t move, because there was no need to open them when he could see out of them with such ease. He observed, year after year, the minutiae of the world outside. Sometimes he used a pair of opera glasses to increase his vision. He watched the little old ladies of Pasadena attempting to navigate cars too big for them to drive, making their way down the street in front of his house, or the children and teens coming and going into houses of the parent or parents that were responsible for them. One house at the end of the block had been converted into an inconspicuous halfway house for recovering drug addicts, the inhabitants thin, crushed, broken, hollow-eyed. Another house was inhabited by a young couple, and Pavel noticed the woman often wore turtleneck sweaters and sunglasses on sunny California days in an ineffective attempt to cover her bruises. He was not allowed to get involved, but thought he might write a letter to Mr. Trope about the woman in the turtleneck. He noticed other things as well, things that were supposed to go unnoticed. Secrets. So many people with things to hide, he thought, that could not stay hidden. Not to him. He watched everyone. He stood in his home, waiting for the day to end, for the dark to come and bring that hour when he could throw open the windows to let in the night air, that hour when he could step unseen into the walled garden at the back of the house. Then he could lift his face to the sky and feel the air, and breathe in the lingering odors of the day. This time of year, the strong aroma of phosphorous emanating from the plants and trees evoked memories of passion, of lovemaking, of Her. Sweat. Heat. The rise and fall of her petite body breathing in sleep afterward, while he watched her. Pavel stood among the shrouded furniture pieces and draped mirrors, lifted his chin and inhaled imagined night air. Another memory crept to the forefront of his thoughts: burying his face in the crook between Her neck and shoulder, biting in play as their bodies rose and fell together in complete and uninhibited passion.

  Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go, Friday’s child is loving and giving. He felt a sensation upon his face and reached up, ran his hand across the creases and furrows that made up the whole of his face. It had been smooth once. He touched something wet. Was it a tear? He could not be sure. He remembered having cried numerous times over the course of his life, but he could not recall when, if ever, he had experienced anything approaching tears in the last years. Why today would be different than any other was a bit of a curiosity to him. Another tear escaped from his eye to run unbidden down his face, leaving a drop upon his fastidiously laundered cardigan. A feeling of great remorse threatened to move closer to the front of his memory, which he took haste to dismiss.

  Pavel was sure of one thing. He had lived for almost three hundred years, but had loved fully and deeply only once. And now he was having difficulty remembering Her name.

  1714

  Pavel was a mere three years old when the people in his family and their village fell ill with the plague. A major outbreak occurred and would claim the lives of over ten thousand people. The plague was the last horrific disease to which people succumbed after being stricken by a series of other mysterious illnesses and deaths in the days following Pavel’s arrival in the world. The thriving collection of villages near Pavel’s, filled with families, children, farms, and merchants, all sickened over time. First cholera, then the wasting sickness—sometimes referred to as consumption, then more dysentery. Following those more minor, yet devastating illnesses, the plague let loose on the entire area, leaving waste, stink, blood, pain, coughing spasms, oozing wounds and finally death. Pavel’s first years were filled with one gruesome loss after another, the first being his mother who died during childbirth. The aunt who had served as his wet nurse following the death of his mother died soon after. His sisters died closely after that. The more superstitious among the villagers likened the series of illnesses to “vampirism,” and when the first deaths occurred, the corpses were burned. The villagers buried the bones with the skull placed between crossed leg bones so that the dead could not reassemble and chew their way out of their graves.

  The priest who baptized Pavel was the next person to die. The remaining villagers who were not yet ill began to look at the toddler with suspicion, though he was a defenseless and affectionate young boy who hugged and kissed anyone who came in contact with him. Their distrust was replaced with complete hysteria on the day that Pavel’s father, a stern and unaffectionate man, died, the last of the family, leaving the small boy an orphan.

  “The child is cursed!” claimed many.

  “A changeling!” cried others.

  “A vampire child!”

  Rather than put the child in a bag and drown him in the river, as had been demanded by many, the village clergy and doctors gave Pavel a series of examinations. Amidst clouds of incense and burning herbs, Pavel’s small body and head were poked, prodded and talked over. One of the first discoveries given significance by the examiners was the existence of two unexplained scars, one over each shoulder blade. Someone had removed two growths of some sort during Pavel’s infancy, and the areas had been stitched up with an inexpert hand. The clergy and doctor found no one still alive who might be able to explain the scars.

  “Could his father have done this?”

  “The midwife?”

  “They might be the horns of a demon!” cried one terrified examiner.

  “May I remind you this is an innocent child who has been baptized,” cautioned a clergyman.

  “That don’t make ‘im an angel,” said another.

  Having no family to protect or stand up for him, the affectionate child became the beaten child. Many villagers took out their anger, fear and frustration upon the boy with sticks, rocks, broomsticks or the occasionally thrown shoe. He remained a source of fear and curiosity, while those around him continued to sicken and die. Pavel no longer hugged or kissed people, but rather cowered when they came near and did his best to avoid contact with anyone.

  Arguments over Pavel and what to do with him came to an end when no one was left in the village. A passing traveler discovered Pavel wandering alone on the dusty trail, miles from where he lived. No one was left where Pavel came from, so no one knew who he was or where he called home. He was deposited by the traveler, who did not need an additional mouth to feed, at the infirmary of the nearest orphanage, where he was fed and given clothing, but never held or touched or loved. Pavel had become so fearful of the beatings that he was fine with the lack of contact. People feared the lone child found wandering the countryside with the strange scars on his back. Pavel remained at the orphanage until he was five when he was deemed old enough to live with and work for one of the local merchants. Pavel’s first job was sweeping out a bakery. Though still a small boy, Pavel knew that he was fortunate to be at the bakery instead of one of the factories, or going in and out of the chimneys, like some of the other small boys. The boys from the factories and chimneys resembled ghosts. To Pavel, they were no longer boys, but the shadows of boys. He did not want to end up a shadow. In a
few short years following Pavel’s apprenticeship to the baker, he was removed and sent to what he thought was to be a lumber factory near the center of the city of Prague. He was afraid of the factory, and thought that his days as a ghost were soon before him.

  ***

  “They call me Prochazka” said the large, red-faced man, who seemed to be inspecting the little boy.

  “I am Pavel,” said the boy.

  “Pavel. Well, Pavel, you are a young man of few words. That will serve us well in the workshop. I’ll need you to shut up and to listen to me. Can you do that?”

  Pavel looked through wide eyes at the large man and remained silent.

  “Have you ever chopped wood?”

  Pavel, afraid to speak, shook his head.

  “Well, we will have to teach you to do that, yes?”

  Pavel thought about the boys and girls that went into the factories or those he saw climbing in and out of the chimneys and imagined himself becoming one of them: skin gray, eyes lifeless, hungry. He raised his head high to show the large man he was not afraid.

  “Very good. Have you ever seen puppet theatre?”

  Pavel nodded.

  “And where was that?”

  Pavel had no idea why this man was asking him about puppets. What did that have to do with chopping wood?

  “It’s all right. Speak, child,” said Prochazka.

  “I worked in the square. I was sweeping out the bakery across from the plaza where they had the show.”

  “Do you remember what it was?”

  “No. I didn’t understand it.”

  The large man cocked his head and leveled a hard gaze at Pavel.

  “Did you like it, even if you did not understand it?”

  Pavel was not sure how to respond.

  “It is not a trick question. Was the show enjoyable? Did you smile?” Prochazka asked.

  “I liked it,” responded Pavel.