The Troupe

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  It was very dark, but he could see a little. For a while there was nothing. Then the sound of slow, small footsteps came from the far end, near the staircase. Something walked into the shadowy hall, very casually, like a person out on a stroll. It was very, very small, not more than two feet tall, and as it moved it happened to cross a stream of light that pierced the sheet across the window, and George glimpsed a tiny, manlike form with a bald, comically large head, tiny, stiff arms, and a ragged little suit, one that any Cockney aspiring to greater class would wear.

  The little figure stopped when it saw George watching. It leaned forward, as if it could not believe what it’d seen, and leaped back. “There! There!” cried a voice in the darkness, and the little thing sprinted across the hall to hide in another room.

  George began to tremble. He remembered what Franny had said: I guess the professor’s right. They’re getting harder to control every day.

  “It’s the boy, the boy,” whispered a voice from the floor below, and George thought he heard many voices in it, somehow.

  “We hate the boy,” said another from below, this one in a different part of the hotel. “Father talked to it, trusted it. Not worthy of Father’s love, no, no. Only we are worthy of Father’s love.”

  “We are blessings,” said the voice from down the hall. “Blessings.”

  It was one voice, coming from many directions. He recognized it as the voice behind the professor’s marionettes, voicing each separate puppet as if they had their own personalities. But he realized now that it had all been one intelligence, one mind, somehow…

  “Father sleeps,” said the voice downstairs. “Must not wake him, must not disturb him.”

  “Fed us too much,” said another. “And now we are whole, finally whole and free, but he sleeps. But no worries, no worries. Father will wake in the morning and then he will be whole too, won’t he?”

  “Unless the boy wakes him,” said the voice down the hall. “Then he will be cross, so cross.”

  “Kill him,” said a voice downstairs. “Kill the boy. Break his bones, rend his flesh.”

  “No!” called George. He began backing down the hall, away from the voices in the dark. “Why would you do that?”

  “Shouldn’t wake Father,” said the voice. More tiny footsteps from downstairs. And there, in the room at the end, was that a tiny bald head peeking out to look at him?

  “Father made us from himself, just as the angry man said to do,” said the voice from downstairs.

  The angry man? George thought. Did they mean Harry? He wasn’t sure, but he kept backing down the hall. He glanced around. Surely there had to be someone here? Could they all be at the rehearsal? Of course they could, he realized with a sinking stomach. They would think he was tending to Kingsley. Only last night he’d been furious with his father, but now he would give anything to have him there.

  “Gave us voices, gave us lives,” said the second voice from downstairs.

  “Gave us himself, gave us his own life,” said the voice at the end of the hall.

  The second voice from downstairs affected a womanly tone: “He made us just as the Maker made Eve from Adam. He took a part of himself and filled us up with it, gave us love, gave us freedoms.”

  “No, not freedoms, no, no,” said the voice at the end of the hall angrily.

  “Father kept us in boxes, in the dark, never let us live our own lives.”

  “True, true,” said the womanly voice from downstairs.

  “Tied to him, always tied down, making us dance through our bondage,” said the other voice below.

  “Out of the dark now. Out, out, and whole, and free.”

  There was more movement at the dark end of the hall. George thought he could make out two more figures crowning the stairs, their heavy, balloon-like heads peering around the corner. They emerged and stood still in the middle of the hall, staring at him. One’s gleaming pate was ringed with golden curls, the other wore a tiny black bowler. As they stared a third childlike figure emerged from the room it was hiding in and joined them. Then they began slowly walking toward him with the dreamy canter of children at play.

  “The boy knows,” said the voice. “Kill the boy.”

  “Throw him down, break his bones.”

  “Pluck his eyes out.”

  “No!” cried George. “No, please! Please, don’t! I didn’t mean to do anything! I just talked to him, that’s all!” He ran to the end of the hall and ripped the sheet off. The window looked out on the road outside, but it was at least three floors below, and he’d never make that jump without breaking a leg. Surely there had to be a clerk or an innkeeper downstairs? He shouted for help, but there was no answer.

  The three little figures were now halfway down the hallway to him. George tried one of the doors and found it locked. He tried another, but it was locked as well.

  Then he remembered—the door. Silenus had said his office door would appear to him in emergencies. But how to get it to come? Harry had never said how to do that. He had always just walked forward from door to door, looking at them…

  Walked forward, thought George with a sinking stomach. Perhaps that was how he called it to him. But for George to try it now, he’d be moving toward the three little figures.

  He swallowed and steeled himself. It was his only chance.

  He walked to one room door and inspected it, trying to mimic

  Silenus’s movements in his head.

  “It comes to us, yes, yes,” whispered the voice.

  “Gives itself to us, yes.”

  His legs shivering, George walked to the opposite room door and inspected it. Still nothing.

  The little figures were less than a dozen feet away now. He could see their tiny lacquered eyes shining in the light from the window. Their movements were so human one would think them real children, dressed in colorful rags and shambling down the hall to impart a funny secret.

  He turned to the next door on the opposite side of the wall, and as he did he felt something move under his feet: it was as if he were standing on a very small boat, and someone very large had moved from the prow to the stern on the opposite side from him, upsetting the balance when he hadn’t been looking.

  George turned around. The great black door stared down at him.

  “What?” said the voices. “What is that?”

  Before they had time to realize what was happening, George leaped for the door and grabbed its handle. All of the locks sprang open as if they’d been waiting for him. He flung the door open and threw himself in and slammed it behind him just as a piercing scream rang through the hallway.

  “No, no!” cried the voices on the other side of the door. “No, no! Can’t get away, won’t get away! Won’t let you, no!”

  There was a scrabbling at the wood on the bottom of the door. Then it shook as though it’d been struck a hefty blow, one much stronger than such small figures should have ever managed.

  “Let us in, let us in,” said a voice from the crack at the bottom.

  “I won’t,” said George. “And good luck getting through there! My father made that door, and there’s no breaking in!”

  More scrabbling and scratching. Then another heavy blow. Then there was silence.

  “We just have to wait, yes,” said a voice then. “Wait, wait.”

  “Wait all you want!” said George. “I’ll never come out, not while you’re there. And when my father gets back—”

  “Not waiting for you. For the girl.”

  George stared at the door. “What?”

  “We’ll wait for the girl, yes. The little darky girl. You stare at her, yes, yes. We’ve seen it. We can hide, and wait. Wait for her. And she’ll never know we’re there…”

  “No!” said George. “No, you wouldn’t!”

  “Cut off her hands, cut off her feets,” said the voice.

  “Burn her skin, her back, her face.”

  “We will ruin her, yes. Break her, yes, yes.”

  “No!”
said George. “Stop it! You won’t! I won’t let you!”

  “Can’t stop us. Not on the other side of the door.”

  “But if you open it, and let us in…”

  George glanced around the room, looking for something useful. There was nothing besides the hangman’s beam, and he did not think he would be much good with that. He tried a few of the cabinets, but they would not open for him. Then he spied the window, and had an idea.

  It would depend on if Kingsley’s children really counted as alive, he guessed. And he did not think they did. They were false things, something monstrous dolled up and treated as if it were sweet. They were not real; Kingsley had said so himself in the very first performance George had seen.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll let you in. But you have to promise not to touch her.”

  “Open the door.”

  “No. Promise me.”

  “Open it. Open the door.”

  “Promise me first, and I will.”

  A pause. “Yes, yes. We promise, yes.”

  “All right then.” George breathed deep and pulled his coat up to cover his neck and the top of his head. Then he took hold of the handle. “I’m about to open it.”

  “Do it. Do it now!”

  Greedy as little children, thought George, and he threw the door open.

  He did not wait to see what was on the other side. He turned and bolted away and, with an agility that surprised even him, leaped up onto his father’s desk and dove through the bay window, leading with his arms and his covered head.

  Glass shattered around him, but that was not the worst part: passing through the window was like falling into arctic seas. The cold seemed to close in on him from either side the moment he passed through the window, and the air was knocked from him. He heard shrill cries behind him as the things on the other side of the door watched him fall. His coat obstructed his vision, so he could not see what was around him as he fell, but after a moment he knew he’d been falling for a long time so he was sure he’d be dashed apart upon the rocky ground below…

  He was wrong. Luckily he fell flat on his face, rather than on his head or ankles. Any remaining air in his body went shooting out of him. He moaned a little and tried to sit up, but found he couldn’t: his coat and pants were somehow stuck to the rock.

  Then he remembered Stanley holding up his blackboard in the mill lots, just after he’d removed his shoes, and it had read: BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT THEM TO BE FROZEN TO THE GROUND.

  George struggled against his clothing, bending his back and trying to push with his knees, but it did not budge. It was frozen fast to the rocky cliffs, and he was cocooned to the ground by it.

  He stopped struggling. He heard scrabbling from somewhere above him, but he could not see. Then a voice: “There, lying on the ground, there!”

  They were coming after him. George fought even harder against his frozen coat, and heard something tearing somewhere. He placed a bare hand on the icy ground (so cold it hurt, almost burned) and pushed as hard as he could.

  Somewhere a lining gave way and he was free. He twisted and saw he was lying at the foot of one of the enormous, sloping cliffs with the distant, starry sky above him, and just overhead was what looked like three golden rectangles floating before the cliff face. It took him a moment to realize it was the office bay window as seen from the outside, and there were three small figures hanging from the center window, ready to vault down to the cliff.

  “Will they ever stop?” moaned George. He tried to sit up, but the seat of his pants had frozen to the ground as well. He stared down in horror and began clawing at his pants button with numb fingers.

  He saw movement out of his eye, and one little figure jumped down to the cliff, then another, and another. The three little black shadows slowly climbed down the ridge toward him. He struggled faster to unbutton his pants, but the button seemed to somehow be stuck, and he could not maneuver it with his frigid fingers…

  Then one of the little figures stopped in the middle of its climb, and there was a cry from the shadows: “So cold! So cold! Cannot move! Father, Father! Where are you! Where are you!”

  George stopped and looked up. He’d been right: the marionettes were not real, so they could not carry the First Song in them. They could not last in these wastes.

  That did not mean they were not going to try, he saw. The frozen marionette struggled against its frozen limbs, and it snapped them off with a scream and tried to take another step down. When that leg froze as well, it howled and snapped it off too. Then its body fell to the ground and it lay there, sobbing to itself as frost crawled over its chest to envelop its head and face.

  The two others learned quickly, and bounded forward, avoiding the ground as much as they could. They screamed and wailed, leaving behind a foot, a thigh, a hand or a shin, little trails of broken body parts leading back into the shadows in the cliff. George lay where he was, watching their tortured procession.

  “Father, Father! Help us, Father!”

  “Help us! We are dying, Father! Can you hear us, Father?”

  When they entered the starlight he saw it was the two who’d been called Mary-Anne and Denny. What their true names had been, or what the name of the thing that voiced them was, George could not guess. Mary-Anne stumbled and her face grazed the cold rock. When it froze to the surface she howled and gave a mighty pull, and her head split down the middle, exposing old, worn wood with a center of wriggling red worms that clutched a glistening, fleshy interior. Something brown-red sloshed onto the ground as the doll fell, as if it had been carrying around a core of septic blood, and the worms spilled out onto the ground and shriveled as if caught in a fire.

  Denny tried his hardest to make it to George, but soon he’d lost his hands, his feet, his elbows, and one knee. He dragged himself along as far as he could, trying to resist the creeping rime, but then he lay still with his gleaming, painted eyes staring up at George.

  “Father, Father,” whispered the voice. “Why, Father? Why?”

  George watched him, certain the doll would move again. When it did not he finally exhaled, his frosted breath curling around his head. He looked around to try to figure out how to free himself, yet before he could try anything the windows above him quivered.

  He looked up. The bay window seemed to blur at the edges, and George was reminded of a torch flame being whipped around through the dark, its fire fluttering madly.

  “It moves,” he said, realizing what was happening. “He moves it all the time…”

  Then the window seemed to fracture, little black seams running through its golden face. George cried, “No! No!” but then it burst apart into what looked like hundreds of little glowing fireflies, and they gathered into a swarm and flew away into the darkness. He tried to track their progress, but they moved so fast that they were miles away (if such a place had miles) within seconds. Then they were gone, and he was alone.

  CHAPTER 19

  An Unexpected Return

  George wandered over the peaks and valleys of the gray wasteland. He was forced to walk barefoot, as his shoes had indeed frozen to the ground, as Stanley had warned. His clothes were in tatters from where he’d torn free of the icy stones, and he’d been burned in many new places besides the soles of his feet. But he reasoned that discoloration was the least of his problems right now. It was terribly cold there, and he ached in many places, and the images of the horrors he’d just witnessed haunted him with every step.

  He was not sure where he was going, or if there was anywhere to go in a place like this. Which, if Silenus was right, was no place at all. George was lost among all the nothing that had filtered down from the remaining world to gather at the bottom of the deepest shadows, a place so slight it could barely be said to exist at all. Places like this did not start and end. They simply were, to a very small degree.

  Sometimes he felt as if he were walking along the sides of a cliff. Other times he felt as if he were walking along the roof of a massive cave
. When he had to hop across a large gulch his leap seemed to take far longer than it should. Then he realized he was moving much more slowly than he’d thought. Movement did not work right among this endless desolation, it seemed. That explained how he’d survived the fall from the bay window.

  Sometimes he spied ruins on the starlit cliffs. Were they dead cities? he wondered. Places the wolves had pillaged until nothing but the bones were left? Or had people somehow found themselves here and built a settlement? At times he thought he saw movement among their crumbled arches, but he did not wish to investigate.

  Still other times he saw the tiny, meager stars blacken out overhead, as though something vast and dark was sailing across the sky, and he could not see it. He did not think the things were wolves … Was it possible something had learned to live here? Whatever they were, he wanted to avoid them at all costs.

  Finally George came to one of the huge abysses. He nervously walked to the edge and looked down. It did not seem to ever stop, just continue straight down into darkness. Yet George noticed that small lights were spread along the sides of the abyss, shining from within deep, deep clefts.

  He remembered when Silenus had first showed him the wastelands, and how he’d seen what he thought were stars buried in the cliffsides … and they’d turned around to leave, and the way out had been hanging behind them.

  He began trying to find a way down. There was a fragmented, dangerous little path down along one side of the abyss. It’d eroded away in places, so George had to step carefully or even jump across the larger gaps, but the peculiar nature of physics here made it easy to control his leaps. Eventually he came to one of the clefts with the soft lights shining within, and he squatted to peer in.

  After his eyes adjusted, he blinked in surprise. At the end of the cleft was a hole that looked out on what appeared to be a collection of rakes, hoes, and other common gardening tools. It was powerfully surreal to see such mundane little items sitting at the far end of the cleft as if they belonged there. When George squinted he thought he could discern that all the tools were leaning against a background of old wood, and the tops of some were dappled with sunlight, as if from a window he could not see.