The Motion of Puppets (10 page)

“So they are just in a puppet show for now? They will be coming back?”

The Queen stared at her shoes. “You can never tell. The ways of the artist are mysterious. Sometimes the puppets return, sometimes they never come back. Sometimes they last forever. Do you remember the wooden man in the bell jar?”

“What do you mean never come back?”

“Don't worry yourself, child. Just be happy for them. They have a chance to be under the spotlight.” She patted Kay atop her head and then went off with the Dog, playing fetch with a ball with a nose attached to it.

The night went on as other nights had, though with a lingering bittersweetness. There aren't too many occasions when a new role comes your way, but on the other hand, she expected to see everything in its proper place—the Judges exchanging pawns and bottle caps, the Old Hag cupping her ear to catch the latest mischief. But they had vanished.

With no companion of her own, Noë seemed particularly forlorn. Kay found her in a far corner, whittling with a nail file at the stub of a pencil, intent on her task. Dark circles ringed her button eyes, and here and there, pieces of straw had fallen—or had been pulled—from her head. She jangled her right foot rapidly over the edge of the box on which she sat, and she hummed a song to herself under her breath.

“What are you making?” Kay asked.

“A point.” Her voice had an odd rasping sound, like a duck with a cold. Noë glared at her, but Kay did not take the hint.

“A pencil point, I get it. What do you want a pencil for?”

“In case I ever find a paper, so I can write a note. You don't happen to have a paper?” She whittled more furiously, the shavings popping from the wood.

Kay shook her head, and then suddenly remembered where she had seen paper of a sort. On tiptoe, she stole over to the abandoned chess set that the Judges had contrived from a few real chessmen and the odd flotsam and jetsam of the Back Room—a few bottle caps, an eraser, the lid to a tube of glue. Among these treasures was a spent matchbook, the outside printed with a picture of a dancing woman and the advertisement for a club called Les Déesses and an address in Montreal. But the inside was gloriously blank. She tucked the matchbook under her jumper and wound her way back to the corner. Making sure nobody was watching her, she sat next to Noë, her bottom resting on the cold bare floor, and handed over the piece of cardboard.

“There,” she said triumphantly. “Write to your heart's content.”

“Are you sure nobody saw you? There are spies everywhere.”

Using her body as a shield, Kay made the corner secluded from the rest of the room. The straw-haired girl printed in block letters:
HELP. Get me out of here.
When she finished, Noë folded the cover to hide the note and concealed it under her blouse. “We need to get a message to the outside world to come rescue me.”

“But you can never leave. Besides, why would you want to leave the Back Room? Is it because the Old Hag was chosen to be in the show? Don't worry, the Queen said that she will return.”

“Maybe she will, maybe she won't. I've seen them come, and I've seen them go, and I've rarely seen them back in here, no matter what she might say.” Her eyes danced in her skull. “Depends on what the puppeteers decide, or what the man in the bell jar tells them to do. Listen, kid, you haven't been here so long, but it is a hell of a way to live. I don't want to end up on a shelf. Or worse. We gotta figure out how to get this note under the locked door. We gotta find some way to let the people outside know that we are trapped in here.”

Kay studied her friend's sad face. “I will help you,” she said.

They hatched a plan in the corner. When Mr. Firkin rang the bell for the end of the day, Noë would run across the room as though to part the curtain and escape into the toy shop. She would never make it, of course, but in the diversion as the others ran to trap her, Kay could slide the flattened matchbook under the back door, for no one would suspect her of such a thing. Heads together, they conspired in whispers, and she felt an almost human intimacy in how their voices mingled, how the secret bound them together in the moment.

Had it not been for the Worm, they might have carried off the plot. The moment Mr. Firkin called for time, Noë let out a banshee cry and raced for the exit, her wooden feet clattering against the floor. The Devil chased her, wailing and gnashing his jaws. Nix dropped his juggling, sending the balls bouncing wildly, and stepped in her path, and the rest of the puppets moved forward in the rush, the Dog barking at the sport, the Queen aflutter, even old Firkin gasping to intercept her mad dash for freedom. Seeing her chance, Kay slipped away to the back door, the matchbook clutched in her hands, looking for a blank space to slide it through, when the Worm threw its body across the bottom draft, its crazed eyes spinning, and hissed at her to stop.

 

8

The trial had to go forward without the Judges. In their absence, the Queen presided from her oatmeal box, and Mr. Firkin agreed to play the prosecutor, with the Devil on defense. The puppets spent most of the night constructing a courtroom out of wooden boxes, old tools, and spare parts. Ordinarily they would have preferred a few rehearsals, but given the gravity of the charges, they decided there was no time and ultimately improvised as they went. The Worm acted as bailiff and led the prisoners past the jury of the Three Sisters, the Good Fairy, and Nix. To have included the Dog in passing judgment would have made a farce of justice, so he was left to wander, sniffing at the two women in the dock.

Kay was penitent, head bowed, hands folded as if in prayer. Next to her, Noë stared straight ahead, her straw hair sticking out like a dandelion puff, a hint of anger shining in her button eyes. The Queen brought down her gavel and Mr. Firkin rose for the prosecution, a scrap of lamb's wool serving as a wig.

“Mum.” He bowed first to the Queen and then to the jury box. “Ladies and gentleman, the province intends to show, beyond the doubt of a shadow, that the defendants on the night before tonight, that is to say last night, did willfully and knowingly conspire, plot, scheme, and connive to make good their escape from this place. Using a forbidden pencil and paper—Exhibits A and B, my friends—they did write a note and then tried to slip said note under the door.” He turned on his heels to face the accused and pointed his finger at their faces. “This is well known to be in direct violation of the rules, what you are allowed to do. Furthermore it is, on a personal level, disappointing. And upsetting. Especially from those of you who have been here a long time and should know better.” He dabbed his eyes with the tail of his shirt.

“Thank you, counselor,” the Queen said. “Does the defense wish to make opening remarks?”

The Devil stood on cloven feet and paced in front of the jury box. He was trying to make eye contact with the jurors, but they would have none of it, averting their gazes at the last possible moment. “Who among us is not guilty of having a dream? My friend the prosecutor would like you to think that a crime has been committed. He'll show you a pencil stub, a matchbook, a note. Mere props in this sordid drama. And he'll say that my clients were attempting to contact people outside the Back Room in some wild cock-and-bull fairytale notion that said matchbook, said note would convince a human bean—”

The Good Fairy burst out laughing and had to cover her mouth. The chuckle infected the whole courtroom. Two swift bangs from the Queen's gavel silenced her.

Raising a black eyebrow, the Devil continued. “As I was saying, as though this pitiful scrap of paper, this so-called Exhibit B, would a) be found by a real person and b) mean what it was supposed to mean. To wit, that there was a puppet inside the toy shop asking to be saved. Imagine such a thing, ladies and gentleman of the jury, and you will have an imagination that outstrips my own. The absurdity of such an SOS, why, it beggars credulity. As if a body would happen to pass by, discover said note among the debris of the alleyway, and break down the door. No, my clients were not attempting their escape. They, my friends, were only pulling your collective leg.”

The Three Sisters put their foreheads together in a private consultation, with Olya keeping watch at the Devil's retreat. From the bench, the Queen motioned for Mr. Firkin to begin.

“Call Nix the clown,” he said.

“Objection!” the Devil roared. “Nix is a member of the jury, Your Honor, and you cannot expect him to be a witness for the prosecution as well.”

After a second's thought, the Queen ruled. “As we are so few in number, I will allow it. But, Mr. Nix, your own testimony must not prejudice your deliberations. Bailiff, if you please.”

Carrying a miniature book in its mouth, the Worm sidled up to Nix, who placed his hand on it and swore to tell the truth. Mr. Firkin hitched his thumbs into a pair of suspenders he had fashioned for the occasion. “Now, then, if you will kindly tell the jury—including yourself—where you were on the night in question.”

“Last night? Here, same as always, m'lord.”

Firkin paced before the witness box, contemplating the phrasing of his next line of attack. “Tell us in your own words what you saw those two hoodlums getting themselves up to on the night in question.”

“They were conferring in the corner, Mr. Firkin. I could not hear what they were saying, but I had my eye out. Not literally, of course. And that one—”

“Let the record show,” Mr. Firkin intoned, “that Nix the clown is pointing to the codefendant, Miss Harper.”

The Queen gaveled on the makeshift desk. “There is no record, Mr. Firkin, just so you know. We have no stenographer. We have no paper on which to write, and our pencil is currently Exhibit A, so I see no need for a record.”

Hiding her voice behind her hand, Noë whispered in Kay's ear, “Do you see a pouch on the Queen? For this is fast becoming a kangaroo court.”

“I heard that,” snapped the Queen. “May I remind the defendant that my feelings are very easily hurt?”

Nix jumped in to fill the awkward silence brought about by the embarrassing remark. “I saw Kay Harper fetch the matchbook, Your Grace, and next thing, Mr. Firkin here is saying it's time for us to go to bed. Quick as a wink, Noë makes a break for the curtain. Chaos ensues, I don't mind telling you, but you were there. You saw it. Everyone here is a witness. I had to stop her from trying to run through between the strands of beads. She would have been injured. Or worse. She may have awakened the Original.”

The Three Sisters crossed themselves. “Without a cat in the room,” Olya said, “the mice feel free.”

Mr. Firkin scowled at her to keep quiet and then clapped Nix on the shoulder to show how well he had done. “Your witness, Devil.”

“I have no questions for this clown. The province concedes the point that he stopped her in what he believed to be an attempted escape. His bravery is not germane to our case.” He winked and gestured for Nix to step down.

On his way back to the jury box, Nix waved to the defendants and honked a toy bicycle horn concealed in his trousers pocket. When the laughter died down, Mr. Firkin announced in a loud voice, “The prosecution calls the Devil.”

“Your Honor, please, this is preposterous. I cannot be expected to testify against my own clients.”

“Overruled,” she said and beckoned him to sit. There was no show of swearing him in.

“May I remind you,” Mr. Firkin said, “that as an officer of the court, you are bound to tell the truth, even if that is against your nature. Did you not last night pursue Noë as she tried to escape through the curtains?”

The Devil nodded. A fat white spider slipped from one of his horns and hung from a silken thread.

Picking up the matchbook, Mr. Firkin said, “Please the court, Your Majesty, Your Honor, I place into evidence Exhibit B, and now ask the witness if he did not retrieve said matchbook from one Worm. And then, Old Devil, did you not read the note for yourself and give it to me as guardian of the entrance to the Back Room?”

“Firkin, Firkin. You know that I did.”

Having no rebuttal questions for himself, the Devil was dismissed.

With his thumbs again hooked around his suspenders, Mr. Firkin took a dramatic pause. “Call the two defendants to the stand.”

“I really must object, Your Honor. My clients are not required to incriminate themselves, and it is most unusual to put two into one box.”

“Mr. Devil,” said the Queen, “we are not amused. The hour of our long sleep is at hand, and much remains to be done. We must finish the trial, decide the punishment, and then make ready.”

“String them up.” Someone in the room was throwing his voice.

The gavel crashed down. “Order, order. If that voice was not a marionette's, well, that is just in extremely poor taste. There will be no stringing, there will be no up. Now, Kay and Noë, please step forward and be quick about it.”

The two puppets held hands and walked gingerly to the witness box. The Worm slithered in to give the oath, but one joint sneer scared him away. Mr. Firkin marched forward like a Dutch uncle and handed the matchbook to Noë. “Did you write this note? Would you please read it out so everyone can hear?”

Noë nodded. “I don't see why I've got to say the words. Everyone already knows what I wrote: ‘Help! Get me out of here.'”

“And you, young lady.” He trained a stern eye on Kay. “What were you thinking by trying to slip it under the door?”

Kay sighed and did not know what to say.

He left her quaking in her chair and returned to his own, a faraway look in his eyes, as if he were contemplating the eternal verities, or perhaps he was merely daydreaming or thinking of nothing at all.

The Devil rose to cross-examine the witnesses. In the hollow of his left clavicle, the spider had found space to knit a web. The Devil snatched the matchbook from Noë's fingers and read the message again to himself. “Surely, you were only joking. You were having your way with us.”