Wooden Bones (3 page)

Geppetto yanked the puppet into the cottage. “Get my pistol,” he said.

Pino obeyed. When he returned with it, he found Geppetto shoving the puppet in the closet. Unfortunately, the doorjamb had been badly splintered during the puppet's escape, and the door wouldn't stay shut.

Cursing, Papa kicked the door a few times, then took a chair from the kitchen and braced it under the knob. By this time Pino could hear the chattering crowd. Geppetto took his pistol to the window, peering beyond the edge of a curtain. When Pino went to join him, Geppetto held up his hand.

“Stay back,” he said.

The crowd grew louder; it was only now that Pino could hear the anger in the voices. Geppetto watched for a moment, then set his jaw and stepped to the door.

“No, Papa!” Pino said.

Geppetto made a motion for Pino to remain, then went outside.

Pino caught only a glimpse of the amassing storm of people, a flurry of pale faces and fogging breaths. Eyes glimmered in the frigid air, the sun glinting on shiny black barrels. Before the door shut, Pino saw that the crowd wrapped most of the way around their cottage.

“Hold there!” Geppetto cried.

There was a murmur of discontent. The closet door rattled, making Pino jump. He hurried over to it, leaning his back against the door.

“We've come for the truth!” a man shouted. It was a familiar voice, and then Pino realized it was the town's barber. “Did you create that puppet, Signore Geppetto?”

There was a moment's pause, and then Geppetto answered in a quiet voice. “Yes, I did.”

Another murmur rose from the crowd, this one more excited than angry. Pino did not understand why his papa would lie.

“But it was a grave mistake,” Geppetto said. “It can't be done again.”

“Liar!” a woman shouted.

“Go home!” Geppetto cried. “Go home and forget all this nonsense!”

“Don't be greedy, wood-carver!” another man said. “We just want our loved ones back!”

“It can't be! Go away!”

Later Pino would have a hard time remembering exactly how it started. There was lots of shouting back and forth. Someone fired a gun. Perhaps it was Geppetto, firing into the sky to try to scare them off, or perhaps someone in the crowd twitched
a trigger finger by mistake, but then lots of bullets were flying.

Windows smashed and the glass rained down all around them. Geppetto fired back, aiming high, but then a bullet sliced into his shoulder.

He cried out in agony and slumped to the floor, pressing his hand against the blood blooming on his shirt.

“Papa!” Pino cried, rushing to him.

They crouched on the floor beneath the window. Bullets still plowed into the cottage, smashing glasses in the cupboard and a vase on the table.

A flaming torch sailed through a broken window and immediately set fire to their rug. Then another sailed through and landed on the table. Smoke filled the room, stinging their eyes and choking their lungs.

“What're we going to do?” Pino said.

Geppetto looked at him. For the first time in his short life Pino saw that the man who had made him, the man who had fashioned him out of wood and given him life, did not always have the answer. Before he had much time to think about it, the closet door banged open and the puppet lurched into the hazy room, stopping when it saw them, oblivious to the flaming carpet beneath its feet.

“Move!” Geppetto said. “Don't just stand there, Antoinette!”

But it was too late. Pino had made her out of old wood, the kind that has had months to dry and become rich food for a hungry fire.

The flames exploded up her legs, lighting her dress as if it were newspaper. Only when she was completely engulfed did she seem to realize what was happening, and then she ran around in circles, flapping flaming arms.

It was at that moment that Pino realized a way to escape. With the walls burning and crackling all around him, and bullets
still flying, he lunged for the door. He threw it open, staying out of sight of the crowd.

“Pino!” Geppetto said. “No!”

“Antoinette!” Pino shouted. “Go to the well! It'll put out the fire!”

For a moment Pino didn't think it would work. The flaming puppet continued its mad pirouettes.

But then it stopped, looked at Pino with its black eyes encased in shimmering flames, and ran for the door. As soon as the dull thuds of its feet reached the deck, the sight of the puppet—fully afire, lurching crazily, waving its arms—had the effect Pino wanted.

A woman screamed. Then another. The gunshots stopped, and then there were the sounds of people fleeing. “A monster! A monster!” the people cried.

“Let's go, Papa!” Pino said.

They grabbed their bags and fled out the door, using the cover of the smoke and the crowd's hysteria to escape to the forest unnoticed.

Geppetto's right arm was as red as if he'd dipped it in a barrel of paint. Before disappearing into the trees, Pino took one last glance back at the mayhem surrounding what had been the only home he had ever known—the flaming roof of their cottage, the smoky outlines of people fleeing, and the shrieks and screams rising up from the townsfolk who had once been Geppetto's loyal customers.

The last thing Pino saw, before they vanished into the forest, was the flaming puppet of Antoinette running in circles in front of the cottage, grasping at the air as if she were trying to hug someone who wasn't there.

A
ll their running took Geppetto and Pino deep into the woods surrounding their home. If you've ever been truly frightened—not just startled or surprised, like you might feel when someone pops out of a closet as a sort of joke, but truly frightened—then you know exactly how Pino felt in that moment.

You know what it's like to be so scared that your heart is a loud drum in your ears; to be so scared that every snap of a twig and every moving shadow is your enemy; to be so scared that your mind itself feels like it's on fire.

Run! They're coming! They're going to get us!

Those were the only thoughts going through Pino's mind. If he'd been paying attention, he never would have chosen to flee into the dark woods—and certainly not the woods that lay to the west, which were the darkest of all. The canopy of trees thickened until nearly all the morning light was squeezed from the world and the way ahead was steeped in shadows. It wasn't long before the sound of their burning cottage was left far behind, replaced by an eerie silence that was broken only by the snap of twigs from their footsteps or by their own haggard breathing.

The air cooled, moisture beading on their faces. A wispy fog curled around mossy stumps and pooled in shallow ravines.
The trees—they began to look less healthy. Some were bent and stooped like old men. Others looked withered, sporting few leaves.

They ran still farther, and the trees were not only bent and withered, but blackened and charred as well. A great fire had obviously swept through the woods long ago—one that had burned so deeply that the forest had still not recovered.

It was a dead and lonely place.

Finally Geppetto collapsed on a bed of half-rotted ferns, gasping for breath. He pressed a hand against his wound and clenched his teeth. The blood dripped between his fingers and smeared the wet leaves.

“Papa!” Pino cried.

“It's—it's all right, boy,” Geppetto said. His cheeks were so pale that they made Pino think of the whitest elm. “Just—just need to rest . . . a moment . . .”

“But they're coming!”

Geppetto shook his head. “No. Not here. They won't come in here.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . . because we're in the bad woods, boy. People—people don't go in here. Not ever.”

He tried to say more but then lost the words in a fit coughing. Pino glanced behind them. With his heart still pounding in his ears, he wouldn't have been able to hear people coming even if they were, but he didn't
see
anyone. At least not with any certainty. The tapestry of shadows in their wake made it seem as if there were both hundreds of people crouching back there—and no one at all.

When he looked back at Geppetto, he was alarmed that his papa's eyes were closed.

“Papa?” he said.

Geppetto remained motionless. Pino tried to speak again, but his throat tightened and choked off the sound. Could he have lost his papa already? It was not fair, not fair at all. Other boys and girls got to be with their papas for many years. Pino could not lose him. He wouldn't know what to do. He wouldn't know how to take care of himself.

Papa might be gruff and moody at times, but he was a good papa. On the slow days he would often take Pino fishing at the pond. He always made Pino's tea just the way he liked it, with extra lemon. And during thunderstorms he never complained when Pino crawled into bed with him, not even once. He was a good papa.

Pino didn't want to lose him.

He didn't want to be alone.

Cautiously, afraid of what he was going to find, he touched the side of Geppetto's face. He was afraid the flesh was going to be as cold as a winter stone, but it wasn't. It was still warm. He held his fingers over Geppetto's open mouth . . . waiting . . . hoping . . . and felt a breath.

“Papa?” Pino said. “Papa, can you hear me?”

Geppetto murmured. It was hardly any sound at all, only the slight movement of air through the throat, but it made Pino's heart leap for joy. He hugged him, not even caring that the blood would seep into his own clothes.

“Papa, Papa!”

“So very . . . tired . . .”

“You
must
wake up, Papa. We can't stay here.”

“Tired . . .”

It took enormous effort, but Pino shifted Geppetto to a sitting position. It was like trying to pull up a sack of potatoes;
his papa didn't have any strength of his own. His head drooped to the side, the white hair falling in front of his face.

“Papa,” he said, “Papa, we have to go. You have to get up now. Please get up.” He knew they couldn't stay there long. His papa needed help from someone who could give it. Without it, he really would die. “Please, Papa, I need you to get up.”

“Huhnnn . . .”

“Can you get up?”

“Up . . .”

“Papa—”

“Antoinette?” Geppetto murmured. “Is that you?”

The name sent a chill creeping up Pino's spine. Since he was behind Geppetto, he could not see his face, but he could see that Geppetto's head was no longer rolling aimlessly from side to side—it was fixed, pointed toward an area of the forest where the shadows were deepest. He was obviously looking at something, but there was nothing there.

Then Pino saw it—a pair of red eyes emerging from the dark.

The eyes glowed like hot embers from a fire. They grew brighter and larger, until the light from the eyes themselves illuminated a long snout and oily black fur. A wolf. Not just a wolf. A
giant
wolf, nearly as big as a horse, it seemed. The snout opened, baring rows of jagged teeth. Except for the red eyes and the white teeth—which seemed to float, suspended, in the shadows—the rest of the beast blended with the dark forest around it.

The wolf greeted him with a low, rumbling growl that raised the hairs on the back of Pino's neck.

“Antoinette?” Geppetto said.

“No, Papa.” Then, to the wolf, Pino shouted: “Go away! We don't want you here!”

The growling stopped, but the eyes went on staring.

“Leave!” Pino cried.

When the wolf still wouldn't go, Pino felt the panic rising up within him, like a flurry of hornets stirring inside his stomach. It could not end here. Not like this—eaten by a wolf. Didn't they have enough troubles? It made Pino angry, and the anger gave him a surge of courage. He spotted a stone, one big enough to do some damage, and without hesitation he snatched it up and hurled it at the wolf.

The stone sailed far over the wolf's head, but the act seemed to take the wolf by surprise. It gaped at them as if it didn't know what to do.

“Leave!” Pino cried again.

When the wolf merely blinked, Pino picked up another stone and threw it. And a third. And a fourth. With the fourth his aim was better, and he winged the wolf's pointed ear.

The wolf yelped and scurried away, the red eyes fading into the darkness.

Pino felt victorious. He'd stared down a menacing threat and forced it to go away. Now he turned his attention to his papa, who was again slipping into unconsciousness, peering up at him through slit eyelids. Pino grabbed him by his bloodied shirt. It took all the strength he had—his arms straining, his legs threatening to buckle—but he managed to get Geppetto to his feet.

The fog curling between the trees thickened. What little light remained in the forest drained away, leaving the world darker than before.

“Papa,” Pino pleaded, “we have to go back. Get help for you.”

Geppetto groaned. Pino started to lead him back the way they'd come, but that seemed to rouse Geppetto—he bucked upright, resisting.

“No, no,” he said, “can't go back—no, they'd kill us.”

“But Papa—”

“They—they hate us, boy. Done with those folks. Done forever . . .”

“We need the doctor!”

“Another town. Another—”

“Where?” Pino cried. “Which way? Tell me.”

But Geppetto had no answer. If his papa did not know the way to another town, then Pino saw only one solution—return home. Of course, Pino couldn't think of it as home anymore, not after the way they'd been treated, but there was a doctor there. A man who could help. Pino again tugged Geppetto in the direction they'd come, and again Geppetto offered resistance. But this time the resistance was short lived, and he reluctantly agreed to be led.

They'd taken only a few stumbling steps, though, when Pino again heard a menacing growl from the darkness.