“No wonder we heard voices from our room,” Kay said.
“Wait,” the Devil said. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Some of the gulag refugees stayed behind in the impromptu celebration, but the Devil and his entourage crowded into the narrow hallway and proceeded toward the next room. Stopping suddenly and holding his hand for silence, he motioned for Kay and the Good Fairy to join him. The space was dark and cool, and a small circle of light appeared and expanded from the size of a dime to the size of a dinner plate. Delicate notes from a koto set the tone, and a bunraku puppet took the stage, a beautiful Japanese woman in a marvelous embroidered kimono whose movements harmonized with the music for six measures. Then a switch in her head was thrown, and she rolled back her eyes to a hideous yellow, horns popped out of the front of her skull, and she grimaced to reveal two rows of sharp teeth. Kay yelped at the sudden transformation, and the demon quickly changed back into the young woman and began laughing hysterically at her own joke. A deranged monkey clapped its hands against a gong. Two samurai drew their swords and waved them in a blur, and a braggart waggled his bushy eyebrows.
Introductions followed all around, and bowing low, the ningyō proved gracious and begged forgiveness for having scared the visitors. The Devil took delight in the machinations set in place but could barely contain his enthusiasm to show them the next chamber. He led them into a tableau which Kay recognized at once from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Fairy marionettes hung from the ceiling and spun slowly, the light reflecting off their silken wings—Cobweb, Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Moth, and the rest surrounding a life-size Oberon and Titania reclining on a mountain of pillows brocaded with gold and silver threads. The changeling boy, an Indian prince, done as a rod puppet, nestled in the bed between the fairy king and queen, and off to one side lolled the rude mechanical Bottom in his ass’s head crowned with a garland of paper hibiscus. The four youthful lovers were shadow puppets flat against the wall, and perched on a cider barrel, Puck awaited his cue.
“My people,” the Good Fairy exclaimed.
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” Puck shouted, and all at once, the puppets danced to life, shouting their huzzahs. Bottom brayed. The lovers swapped places and swapped back. Oberon joked, “Ill met by moonlight” to Kay, and the fairies swam in the air on invisible wires. Kay felt as though she was back in the cirque and stretched her limbs, wondering if she might ever be so fluid as to tumble and balance again. The others from the other rooms jammed into the scene till it nearly burst with puppets exuberant with performing before a new audience.
“I had no idea you were so many,” Kay said to Puck.
“This is but the floor below. Wait till he takes you to the loft. Wait till you see the Original.” He pointed to the wooden staircase leading up.
“The Original?”
“The man in the glass jar.” Puck clapped his hand to his mouth, suddenly aware that he had let out a secret.
Intrigued by the prospect, Kay pestered the Devil, pulling on his tail to get his attention. “Will you take us there? To the upper floor.”
In the din, he pretended not to hear her question. The Russians were singing about vodka, the bunraku witch played a surfing song on the koto, and Puck ran amok, spreading mischief. Even the Good Fairy had joined the party, branches thrown into the air, allowing the children from the shoe to have a good climb.
“I want to see more,” Kay said.
The Devil took her hand. “All in good time. We should be getting back. We can’t leave Noë swinging from a rope all night long.”
“How did you know about what we were doing in the stalls?”
“This barn is at least a century old and is filled with cracks and chinks and holes through which one might easily spy. You don’t think I would just up and abandon my old friends without keeping an eye on you. We’ve covered the whole perimeter of the bottom floor and are nearly back where we started. Take a look.…”
Through a sliver in the wall, Kay could see the stalls and the trough, the backside of the Queen obscuring most of the view, but she glimpsed Noë on the beam, the noose around her neck, continuing her filibuster.
“Before we go any farther, we should rescue our old comrades. Let them know that this is everyone’s barn and that they have nothing to fear from these so-called others. There are no others, only us, all the same. One big happy family.”
“And then you’ll take us all to the loft?” Kay asked. “To see the Original?”
“If you hadn’t come to investigate the noises at the door, I would have come back to you in any case. There’s a great celebration to be held tonight in our honor, for the puppets of the Quatre Mains. All we need do is convince old Firkin and the Queen to let our people go. Now, go fetch our bosky friend. We have an entrance to make. Not every day one comes back from the dead.”
“Good-bye, good-bye,” the fairies cried in their twinkling voices.
“Hurry back,” the samurai said. “Don’t miss the shindig.” A Russian dissident blew a kiss and winked as they passed. They wound their way back through the maze, astonished a second time at the new worlds just around each corner.
* * *
They were lost. Driving around rural Vermont in the dark looking for a place to eat, they were not only hopelessly off course but shaken by the events back at the farm. That dog had been all teeth, and those two children of the corn had given them the creeps. At one point, Mitchell suggested that they head back toward Bennington for the night or better yet to forget the whole thing and go home to New York, but with the help of the GPS, they found an inn still serving supper.
Over onion rings and ales, they hatched a new plot. On the back page of the menu, Theo drew a crude map of the property, the position of the farmhouse, the bus, and the barn. He penciled in the meadow and the stream and the small wood. With his friends’ assistance, he added the road that curved past the property.
“We’ll go back when they are asleep. Dr. Mitchell, you will let us out here on the road behind the barn and then circle round past the farmhouse and park just out of sight. We will hike through the woods, across the stream, over the fence, and up the hill. Egon, are you certain there will be an entrance at the back?”
Raising his tipsy head, Egon wobbled. “Mon ami, one is never certain of a theory until confronted by proof, and even then I am not sure about anything having to do with these puppets and the crazies back at that place. Before I met you, life was a simple thing: a warm bed, a cold beer, now and then a hot woman. But let us leave that all aside. We are here now and must see it through. What was your question?”
“Another way into the barn?”
“Yes, that’s where the sheeps and the goats would go in and out. A cote. Why would they lock the back door? Perhaps there is no door at all, merely a hole in the wall.”
Theo stared at his friend, trying to judge his sobriety. “Good, then we sneak in, look for this puppet—”
“How will you see in the dark?” Mitchell asked.
“Flashlights.” Egon rubbed his hands together. “I never travel without them. And I know what to do if we meet up with that hound from hell.” Glancing around to make sure none of the waitstaff was watching, he wrapped a piece of steak in a napkin and crammed it into his jacket pocket.
“This is more complicated than I thought,” Mitchell said. “And more dangerous.”
Theo offered him a way out. “Let us take your car, then. You could spend the night at the inn, and we’ll be back in the morning.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. All of my life I have been reading about gods and monsters, the great quests, and I have gotten no further than a book in the armchair. Count me in, Harper. I am honored to be one of the Argonauts.”
Flush with drink and food, the route well mapped, they set out and arrived at the farm just after midnight. A light appeared in one upstairs window, but no new vehicles were parked in the drive. The girl would be reading in her room, the boy would be asleep, hope
fully next to the dog. Mitchell continued on as planned and drove around the bend to the spot on the road at the edge of the woods.
“How long should I wait?” Mitchell asked. “Before I get worried?”
Egon calculated the distance. “Fifteen minutes’ walk, twenty if we run into trouble.”
“Give us another half hour or so in the barn to find the puppets,” Theo said. “There were what … a dozen in the Halloween parade? We might not find Kay at first. Wait two hours, just to be safe. If we are not at the rendezvous, drive up to the house, and we’ll meet you there.”
As they stepped out of the car, Mitchell called out from the driver’s seat. “What should I do if something happens to you?”
Theo popped his head through the open window. “Make sure my book gets published. And tell Kay’s mother that we tried.”
“No,” Mitchell said. “Nothing quite so … final. I meant, what do I do if you don’t show up at the house?”
“Knock on the door and wake that harridan and that half-wit,” Egon said. “Tell them the truth and pray that dog is asleep.”
“Audentes Fortuna iuvat,” Mitchell said. He waved good-bye as they climbed over the guardrail and disappeared into the woods.
“Forward,” Theo said.
With no path to follow, Theo and Egon had to pick their way down the incline through the trees, alert for any roots or ditches buried beneath the shag of fallen leaves. Up on the road, Mitchell started the car and drove away to the meeting spot. They had decided beforehand to walk blind through the forest without using their flashlights until they were actually in the barn, so as to not give themselves away. But that meant being alone in the forest in the dark and subject to its bewitchments. The pines brushed against their faces and arms and the white birch glowed like skeletons. The slightest noise became a fox or black bear. Stirring in the undergrowth meant a snake. Every breath escaped in a small cloud. Theo could feel the beating of his heart, hear the suddenness of his gasps. They stumbled and stopped to a rest at the bottom of the hill.
The stream was dead ahead, shards of moonlight breaking on the gliding water. They were nearly upon it before realizing how wide it was, and of course, there was no way to tell just how deep it might be. Huffing from exertion, Egon put his hands on his knees when they reached the banks of the stream. Theo turned on his flashlight and played the beam across the surface, a few stones hunched against black water.
“Looks like we could use a boat,” Egon said.
“A ferry across the Styx, Mitchell would say.”
“We could turn back now. Or I could try to find a way stone by stone.” Egon hopped from the bank to the first stone, and Theo followed him, conscious of the music of the water against the rocks. They forded the stream until the very last stone. Egon gauged the leap incorrectly and landed on the edge with a splash. “Christ!” he shouted and hopped to the bank. “Cold as a grave.”
With his longer legs, Theo jumped onto the soft shore. “Are you all right?”
“Mes souliers sont chiés,” Egon said. “And my socks are sopping, too. But here we are.”
Running along the edge of the pasture was a wooden fence topped by a thin strand of wire.
Theo flicked on his light and studied the obstacle. “You don’t think it’s electrified, do you? I wouldn’t want you getting zapped, wet as you are.”
“Fortune favors the brave,” Egon said, and without hesitation, he climbed up and over to the other side, with Theo fast behind him. At the top of the meadow, the barn loomed in the darkness, blotting out the moon and stars.
An owl, white as a ghost, screeched as it passed overhead. Beating its wings soft as a whisper, it flew to the cupola atop the roof. Faint notes from a mandolin reverberated as it landed, and a round of laughter came from the upper loft of the barn.
“What the hell is that?” Egon whispered.
“Music.”
“I’ll be damned.”
“Coming from the barn or from the house? You don’t suppose they’re dancing in there?”
“It’s the puppets.”
“Are you sure about this?”
Egon said, “I am certain she is one of them somehow. A puppet. Black magic. Two kinds of people come to the supernatural: some who don’t believe and some who approach the world in all its inexplicable dread and wonder. There’s only one way to know if I am right or wrong. If I’m wrong, what harm to us? And if I’m right, then there is a chance we’ve found your Kay.”
“Ridiculous, can’t be…”
“Don’t let doubt be your enemy, mon ami. Trust what you hear and see, and let your heart be your guide.”
Following the old goat trails, they zigzagged up the hillside. Halfway to the barn, they could see the light seeping through the cracks between the boards and hear stray voices and the clomp of dancing feet coming from the loft. The whole building seemed strangely pulsing and alive. Atop the rocky ledge by the cote, they stopped and found a small doorway just the right size for a goat or a sheep.
“That’s my entrance,” Egon said. “No use you crawling in on hands and knees through the muck. You go round to the front, and I’ll make my way through and unlock it and let you in, unless I get caught up in the polka. Just be careful if you hear that hellhound. Go on, then. Bonne chance.”
23
Noë screamed and struggled for her balance when she saw them return with the Devil in tow, quite nearly hanging herself by accident. The Quatre Mains puppets turned as one to witness the Devil’s entrance, a demonic grin across his face, his forked tail wagging like a hound’s. They forgot all about Noë’s threatened suicide and rushed to welcome him home with astonished embraces. Wrapping his arms around the Devil’s belly, Mr. Firkin lifted him atop the corncrib to be more easily applauded and admired. During the homecoming, Noë stepped out from under the noose and cornered her friends.
“So he’s been hiding this whole time?”
“Not hiding,” the Good Fairy said. “Playing the diplomat. Winning us new friends. You’ll be so happy when you meet them all.”
Turning her back on the celebrations, Noë was determined to find answers. “What about the front door? Was it locked? Did someone come for us?”
“In all the excitement, I nearly forgot,” the Good Fairy said. “There was nobody at the door.”
Kay whispered in her friend’s ear. “But we left it unlocked. Just in case.”
To stop the little dog from whimpering and pestering, the Devil scooped him up in one hand, and for his troubles, he was nearly licked to death. He handed the beast over to Nix as the puppets gathered round for the sermon.
“Ladies and gentlemen”—he bowed to the Queen—“Your Majesty. I come back from the dead with great news. The others are us. Or should I say we are the others. Or there are no others, only us.”
“But they tried to kill you,” said the Old Hag. “We all heard the screams that night. It was a most horrible noise, and you were surely unmade or near death throes.”
“Nothing of the sort, madam.”
“Was so, was so,” Nix insisted. “Never heard nothing like it in my life.”
“What you heard were shouts of joy and astonishment. There are great wonders and enchantments in other rooms. Ask your friends the Good Fairy and Kay.”
Commanding silence, the Queen rose to her full height and paced back and forth, casting a pall over the whole room, everyone anxious over her reaction to the Devil’s story. She was thinking, never a good sign. Tucking his hands behind his back, Mr. Firkin trailed her footsteps, a look of great consternation on his face, as the little dog bounced along at their feet.
“We are not amused,” the Queen said at last. “Not amused in the slightest. First, Devil, you left our person without permission, without so much as a by-your-leave, and made yourself absent these several nights, bringing grief and consternation to us all. We thought you had perished, my dear friend, at the hands of the others. But rather, you were on a spree. And were discourteous
enough not to let us know your whereabouts or of your general health and well-being.”
The Devil hung his head contritely.
“Second, and I see now what rogues you are, the three of you—Noë and Kay I understand, but you, too, Good Fairy? The three of you conspired and colluded to fashion this most distasteful ruse. That you would concoct a hanging, not even as a mere public execution but as a diversion so that you conspirators could sneak away to search for the Devil here—”
“That’s not what happened,” Kay interrupted. “We heard a noise at the door and—”
“Silence!” The Queen stomped her foot. From the cellar came a horrible yawn, a growling lip-smacking groan as the Worm awoke from its sleep and slithered in its tight compartment, banging its body on the side walls. Nix dropped to his knees and looked through the cracks.
“Now you’ve gone and done it,” he said. “The thing’s awake.”
Mr. Firkin reached for an old shovel and banged the blunt end three times on the floor. “You needn’t worry about the Worm. Just restless. He’s totally harmless and can be trained like a dog if you show him who is boss.”
Pressing her hand to her brow, the Queen shook her head. “Enough of these constant interruptions. What, pray tell, am I to do with the lot of you?”
“Begging your pardon,” said the Devil. “We have been invited to a fête tonight. In our honor, up in the loft. You will have the chance to meet the other puppets and see for yourself that we have absolutely nothing to fear. Why, the Original himself extended the invitation—”
“Enough!” cried the Queen. “No more. There will be no celebration, and I forbid each and all to leave this room without my express permission.”
“But I assure Your Majesty, I assure you all. You have my word. This is but a kindness, a way to meet the neighbors and join the company of puppets in the museum.”
“How do we know this is not some other plot and fancy? No, I say, I forbid it. And I’ll not have another word on the subject.”
The Motion of Puppets Page 22
