The Puppet Maker's Bones

by Alisa Tangredi

  “Why is that important?”

  McGovern got up again and moved to the drawers, opening and shutting them until he found pen and paper. He began writing.

  “What are you doing?”

  McGovern continued to write, ignoring the question, speaking as he went.

  “Why is that important? Because if any of us is ever exposed it appears it would be due to you and your careless and unconscionable actions. You cannot appear to be in any way responsible for your wife’s death. You had separate berths on the journey here. We need to make that separation extend to your getting off the boat, discovering she had taken ill during the journey and taking her to the hospital. There was no intimate contact. None. Do you understand? You cannot draw attention to the rest of us. We must protect ourselves.”

  “But I killed her.”

  “Yes, Pavel. Yes, you killed her.”

  McGovern handed the piece of paper to Pavel.

  “What is this?

  “This is the letter you have written to your wife’s father explaining the tragedy of her death. Please read it and sign it in your hand.”

  McGovern glared at Pavel until Pavel took the pen, and with a weak hand, signed the paper, sliding it back across the table to McGovern. It was then that the reality of Pavel’s actions seemed to sink in.

  There was no exclamation from Pavel, no outburst. The entirety of him seemed to break and come apart when McGovern said those words. First his eyes went dead. The bluish swirl that moved and changed within his pupils went dark. All color left his face. Then Pavel seemed to crumple in upon himself, like one of his puppets left to sit in repose, each part of him collapsing upon the next part, hands and arms hanging limp, head dropping forward as if unsupported by his neck, legs askew as if not supporting any weight. The fact he did not slide off the chair and onto the floor surprised McGovern, who got up and put the kettle back on to reheat the water. He sat down again and faced Pavel across the table. The two sat like that for several hours. McGovern would get up after long intervals to freshen the tea, and Pavel did not once move. After several hours had passed, Pavel lifted his head with effort, as if his neck no longer supported the weight of his head, and he merely watched McGovern. Because of the falling darkness, McGovern had lit the lamps and come back to the table to wait.

  “Drink this. It’s fresh.” McGovern put yet another cup of tea in front of Pavel, who did not take it.

  “I’m going to give you some answers that will lead to more questions,” McGovern said. “I ask for your respect and that you hear me out.” Pavel said nothing. McGovern took a sip from his tea. He seemed to be considering his words.

  “You appreciate the natural sciences. I do too. Imagine for a moment that there is a person who carries something physical in their blood or their liver, and that when that person is in a state of extreme passion, rage, for example, it spreads a sort of disease in a wave from the person while they are in that state and affects everyone in proximity. Is that something you can comprehend?”

  Pavel made no indication he was listening.

  McGovern shook his head. “How to explain something to someone who was so sheltered. It is obvious that living with people who kept you stimulated with those things that stretched your imagination and creativity, that your deeper passions were never compromised or fully ignited. We should have anticipated that.”

  McGovern got up again and began pacing. Pavel asked one question.

  “If the person is a carrier of some sort of biological disease, then explain the wings.”

  McGovern stopped. “This is where I need you to be silent and hear me out.”

  Pavel kept his mouth shut.

  “In ancient Egypt, students have found histories that have numerous stories of the god Ra, the Sun God. In one story, Ra becomes angry with his people, and decides to wipe them out. He sends winged children into the homes and temples of all his people to charm and enchant, but the winged children carry a terrible poison that will kill any and all who came in contact with them.” Pavel’s pupils remained dark and unresponsive.

  McGovern continued to pace, his arms becoming more animated as he spoke.

  “In Greek mythology, Zeus, God of the Heavens, becomes enraged with his human subjects one day and decides they should be destroyed, so he orders Hades, God of the Underworld, to kill all humans by sending winged demigod children into their midst who would play music on small flutes and harps that would lull the people into a permanent sleep. Hades, not wishing to have his Underworld overcrowded, puts a little wrench into the works. He removes the last remaining Virtue from Pandora’s box—Hope. He renders Hope into millions of tiny pieces and places a piece into the heart of each of the winged demigods. This tiny bit of hope in each of them makes it impossible for them to see the humans as something that should be annihilated, and they put down their instruments.”

  Pavel seemed to stir at that. McGovern held up his hand to silence him before he could interject. His pacing increased.

  “I mentioned the Daoine Sidhe from Celtic or Pagan mythology earlier, and the Pagans have creatures or beings or Gods and Goddesses for about every element that can be found in Nature, much like the Greeks; however, there is a darkness and a mischief to their gods, and they do not tolerate disrespect of any kind without some form of retribution. The punishment of humans for egregious acts by winged children was another variation. The Sidhe would replace a human child with one of its own to be raised by the humans. The winged child would come into the home and eventually poison the hearts of everyone in the house until they turned upon each other in acts of murderous rage.”

  “We have had nothing but time and years to study the various texts and apocryphal manuscripts attributed to many cultures. Ancient Babylonian gods who bring upon plague and destruction, rabbinic writings of the Jews in the Talmud, Arabic writings, et cetera, all show references to some sort of angel of death, always a child with wings. One of the many lost books of the Bible depicts God, angry yet again and desirous of wiping out the entirety of his human creation, sending an angel of death in the form of a new infant to homes all over the globe. The child is born with the wings of an angel to fool the people into believing that they have been somehow blessed and are held high in God’s favor. As soon as they kiss the baby, they fall into a poisoned and permanent sleep.”

  McGovern stopped his pacing, broke off another piece of chocolate and put it in his mouth, savoring it before he continued. He held the block of chocolate out to Pavel, who waved it away. Pavel sat expressionless. After so many hours, his exhaustion brought about by grief and extreme guilt caused him to shut down. His eyes went blank, the pupils no longer swirling, changing from blue to red and back to blue, but rather they remained deadened and black. He continued to listen to McGovern. He had no choice.

  “My point is, Pavel, that there are too many similar legends from too many different places from too many religions that normally disagree with each other, sometimes with violence, yet they all share a story of winged children coming into their homes to destroy mankind after their God or Gods are angered by them. Every single one. It warrants attention.”

  Pavel hugged his arms to his body.

  McGovern continued. “Alright, dismiss religion or mythology if you will. Let’s consider science. Scientifically speaking, I am sure there would be no end of fascination and wonder about our kind, all the while dissecting and experimenting on each and every one of us. Cutting us open, weighing our organs, cutting off the top of our scalp to test regions of our brains with needles and probes, examining our veins to see if blood flows through them like other people. Religion and science are not so very different from one another. One kills over fear, one kills over curiosity. Which one is right? Either way, it is our belief that if discovered, we would be annihilated or worse, used for murderous purposes.”

  “You mean used as weapons?”

  McGovern shrugged. His small physical action was almost dismissive.

  “And how doe
s Mr. Trope fits into all this? His leadership of the rest of us?” Pavel asked.

  McGovern ignored the question and excused himself to use the privy, exiting the kitchen, leaving Pavel to sit in his spot at the table. Pavel briefly considered bolting out the door, to disappear forever and never come back but he dismissed the thought as soon as it entered his mind. He knew well that the others like him would have no problem locating him. Insertion into the lives of those like Pavel was their specialty. Pavel reached over and poured himself a fresh cup of tea, set it down, then rubbed his face vigorously to make himself more alert. They had been up several hours, and the conversation and circumstances were emotionally draining.

  McGovern reentered the kitchen. “Ah, well, I see you haven’t run away while I’m gone.” Pavel looked stunned. Could McGovern read his mind?

  “Mr. Trope deserves your respect, not your scorn.” McGovern continued. “His offices are around the globe and their sole purpose is to protect our kind from discovery, and help our kind so that we do not resort to our baser nature. You ignored them and avoided them. You cannot blame Trope for this, Pavel.”

  Pavel considered McGovern’s words.

  “I have a question. We are supposedly bound by hope. We bring it to others and we are bound by it ourselves and that keeps us from acting out when impassioned.”

  McGovern waited for a question.

  “Do you believe this idea come from the Greek myth? Is that where you believe this comes from?”

  “Pavel, we live to be very old and there have been many of us along the way, philosophers, doctors, inventors, great minds that had years upon years to go back and forth examining our own natures. I guess you could say we did our own experimentation over time, without the torturous dissection. Yes, we researched similarities in all the mythology surrounding the winged children. The angels of death.”

  Pavel interrupted him. “The concept of hope was only in the Greek myth—the lost virtue.”

  McGovern rubbed his hand on his chin. They had been talking and sitting together for so long that red stubble was appearing on his face.

  “I suppose you might find the belief to be quaint or romantic. But yes, we do believe, whether it came from self-examination over time, trial and failure resulting in disaster, or from some myth about Zeus and Hades, that each of us possesses the ability to access hope during times of despair and loss, and times of passion. It keeps us from acting on our original purpose. A sort of built-in defense mechanism, so to speak. We do believe our original purpose was the destruction of mankind. We do not believe that we are an accident of nature, or a scientific mutation. We believe we were born into the world very deliberately with that intention, by whomever or whatever pulls the strings, to use an analogy to your own profession. Infants have no impulse control, no way of knowing that their cries for hunger or to be held, or their rage because they dropped a toy, will cause plague or destruction. An infant child is the embodiment of passion. That is why so much death surrounds the birth of one of our kind. It is only if we live beyond that, that we can learn to control our baser nature and be something else. Most of us take years to study how to get very quiet within ourselves so that we do not become angry or passionate in any way.

  Pavel considered that. His own upbringing had been about creating make believe, play, happiness for others. Prochazka and Nina had kept him in an environment where there would never be a reason to become overwhelmed by any extreme emotion. He experienced great happiness with them, but realized he never became impassioned to the degree alluded to by McGovern. Never to a degree that could cause harm. It was true. They had kept him like a china doll. Protected.

  McGovern continued. “We have an ability by our proximity to others, to mortal people, to make them feel hopeful when we are near. Perhaps that is why Žophie was so taken with you, and her father so trusting. Perhaps it is why Prochazka and Nina were so instantly smitten with you upon your arrival on their doorstep. Mr. Trope’s task, in his leadership, is to keep humans safe from us, while keeping us comfortable and content so that we do not become impassioned or enraged or vengeful about any one or more people. He protects us, because he does believe us to be sent by God or Gods. Mr. Trope and the people who work with him, like me, believe if the mortal population learned of our existence, we would be annihilated.”

  “They have already done their share of that,” Pavel said with contempt.

  “You mean the ones killed at birth? Yes, there have been so very many. Imagine evidence of gods that do not act randomly but in a calculated, vengeful manner. Mathematical even, if you factor in the location where some of us were born, our number and the timing of things. If the Church, if anyone were to find out, we would be hunted and destroyed. And as I mentioned before, Mr. Trope believes it might be worse than that. We might be used as weapons, which is a horrific thought.”

  “And Žophie?”

  “Your passion for her. The act of making love. It weakens them. The gradual death starts with a bloody nose. The blood changes from red, thinning to violet and then to a pale matter similar in appearance to water. Whatever force is contained in the healthy blood dissipates to nothing of value that can sustain a life.”

  Pavel had been holding his teacup. When they began speaking of Žophie’s death, his hand shook. He set the cup down with care. He did not want to break it. He had bought the set for her, though she would never drink from it.

  “We thought our heads bumped. We laughed about it when her nose started to bleed. We laughed. I had no idea she was dying.”

  “I’m sorry,” said McGovern.

  “And I did kill my family and all those people,” declared Pavel.

  “Accidents occur. We try to ensure against them, that is all.”

  Pavel put his head down on the table. McGovern watched as Pavel closed his eyes. After a few minutes, Pavel fell into a deep slumber. The last pot of tea McGovern brewed contained Valerian root, which succeeded in putting Pavel to sleep. McGovern picked Pavel up and carried him to the parlor where he laid him upon a sofa. McGovern chose a chair across from him and settled in for a long, much-needed nap. His report to Mr. Trope would have to wait until tomorrow, but it was not his belief at that time that Pavel Trusnik had broken the Great Rule with deliberate malice.

  Pavel would not be put to death.

  Kevin: Present Day

  Kevin sat in the dark of the attic and watched out the window at the goings on in his neighborhood. The house across the street was dark. Kevin moved to the corner of the attic where he kept his tools. He opened the duffle and double-checked the contents: a length of rope, a hammer, and a set of lock picks he’d ordered off the Internet with the help of his parents, who thought he needed them for a school project. Kevin did write a paper about Internet privacy and used the lock picks as a visual aid when giving his oral report. He received an “A” grade. His duffle also contained a roll of chefs’ knives and blister packs of ammonia inhalants for reviving the unconscious. Kevin did not want to be deprived of new music for his mp3 player in any way by the possibility his victim might go unconscious on him. He wanted his “instrument” to be awake and singing. The duffle also contained a small LED flashlight, a roll of plastic sheeting, surgical gloves, a surgical mask and safety goggles to protect his eyes. Kevin’s scalpel and digital recorder remained tucked away in the front pockets of his jeans.

  Kevin unrolled the blueprints one more time, though he had them memorized. He scanned the entry. Given the hour, the back door leading into the kitchen would be the easiest point of entry and was furthest from any rooms designated as bedrooms. He had taken great care in his attention to the details of every building addition or remodel to the home in the past thirty years and knew that there was no alarm system. The old guy had cable television, thought Kevin. He wondered if the old man was one of those people who liked to fall asleep in front of the television.

  Kevin left the attic with his duffle. He moved down the stairs and past the door to his parents’ be
droom where his mother slept on top of the covers. The bedroom television was turned on, volume low.

  Kevin was about to descend the stairs when he heard his father’s car turn into the driveway. He was supposed to be working late! Kevin sprinted to his bedroom, stowed the duffle under his bed and dived under the bedcovers, pulling them tight under his chin as he heard the back door open. He heard the sound of keys clinking into the bowl where his father tossed them when he got home. He listened to his father open the refrigerator and open something wrapped in foil. Kevin’s father must have found something worth eating. He hoped it wasn’t something that would involve cooking. His father would often make omelets when he got home after a late night at work, and Kevin hoped that tonight would not be an omelet night. The slight tinkling of glass could be heard followed by the sound of the ice crusher on the fridge. Kevin’s father was fixing a drink. Good. He almost never fixed a cocktail and an omelet on the same night. His father’s footsteps came up the stairs, down the hall, pausing for a moment outside Kevin’s door before continuing to the master bedroom.

  Kevin waited for an hour until he was sure his father had finished his drink and was probably asleep next to his mother, on top of the covers, the television on. Parents are so predictable, he thought. He got out of bed, threw the covers back into place, grabbed the duffle and crept from his room, down the stairs, and out the back door. Then he sprinted to the house across the street. Everything was quiet.

  ***

  Pavel watched the boy run across the street and through his garden. He knew he was moving toward the back door in the kitchen, where he now stood. People are foolish, he thought. And predictable. He opened the drawer where he kept the knives and selected one, then closed and locked the drawer. He took the magnetic child lock ‘key’ with him. No one else would be opening that drawer tonight.