For now, the puppeteer had a show to prepare.
Daystar Meadows was more terrible than Penny could ever have imagined.
She could see it sprawled below them as the sedan reached the peak of the bridge that crossed the river. Rows upon rows of identical houses, all curved upward like bland smiles. When she turned back to look at the hazy skyline across the water, she thought the city might as well have been across the ocean.
After exiting the bridge, the Bonvillains drove down Main Street. The buildings were fairly uniform; even their signs were in the same curly typeface: POST OFFICE. GROCERY. SEAFOOD RESTAURANT.
It became even more abhorrent when they entered the sea of houses. Penny stared through the window, aghast at the sameness of it all. It was as if a magician had conjured one picture-perfect house, complete with too-green lawn and too-white fence, and then replicated it over and over again. Even the sunshine seemed fake.
She completely understood why Chance had chosen the carnival over this.
“Here we are!” Mr. Bonvillain said triumphantly, swinging the sedan into a driveway. “What do you think?” Everyone climbed out of the car and gathered together on the bright green grass. The house was painted yellow with white trim. There were empty flower boxes under the windows, and a straw welcome mat on the front stoop. The only thing differentiating it from the houses to the right and left was the silver-plated numbers 2323 next to the front door instead of 2321 and 2325.
“It’s the prettiest house on the block!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonvillain.
Penny frowned. “What do you mean? It looks just like all the other houses.”
At that, Mr. and Mrs. Bonvillain shared an exasperated look. Then the moving truck pulled up, and they hurried over to greet the movers. Constance nudged Penny with her elbow.
“You do a really great Chance impression! That’s exactly what he would have said.”
“Oh. Good.” In all honesty, Penny had not thought much about whether or not she sounded like Chance. His parents had not given any indication that they suspected anything was different about their son. Perhaps Constance had been right. The Bonvillains did not look at their children beyond the surface.
The next several hours were dedicated to unpacking. While the movers did all the heavy lifting, Penny and Constance were kept busy unloading boxes of dishes and books and knickknacks. After that, Mrs. Bonvillain ordered them to their rooms, where they were to, as she put it, “set things up and make it feel like home.” Penny folded Chance’s clothes and put them in his dresser, made his bed with his blue plaid sheets and blanket, and shelved his books. Her delight upon finding a box labeled STORM AT DAWN quickly turned to disappointment when it contained only cheap plastic toys. Still, she placed each on Chance’s bookshelf with as much care as Fortunato gave to his oddities.
Fortunato. Penny’s brow furrowed as she recalled seeing the museum owner in the alley. He’d been so close, and she had failed to reach him.
She wondered why he hadn’t answered his door last night. If he had, Chance would not have been taken, and they might have been swapped back by now.
Penny felt a surge of energy, most likely brought on by guilt. She hurried down the hall to Constance’s room, taking care to be quiet lest Mrs. Bonvillain find her and set her with yet another chore.
“Constance…” Penny stopped in the doorway, blinking.
The canopy bed in the corner featured a fluffy pink comforter, much of which was covered in various stuffed animals. The dresser was painted white and included a vanity mirror and a dainty stool, while paintings of flowers and horses adorned the walls. It seemed as though everything, from the lampshades to the little pillows on her bed, was covered in frills. The effect was overwhelming.
Constance looked up from a box of books. “Are you finished unpacking?” she asked, and then, without waiting for a response, waved a book at her. “Look what I found!” Penny crossed the room and took the book. It was fairly thin and bore the title The Cabinetmaker’s Apprentice. Constance laughed at the exasperated look Penny gave her. “It’s still a good story, even if it’s not true. It’s always been my favorite book, actually.”
“Oh.” Penny handed it back, mildly surprised. She would have expected Constance’s favorite book to involve fairies or princesses or some such, not evil puppets. She watched as Constance tucked the book inside a small knapsack, which also contained a change of clothes and a coin purse. Constance zipped up the knapsack and got to her feet.
“Did you pack a bag?”
Penny blinked. “No. I unpacked, like your mother said to.”
“Yes, but I mean for our trip back into the city.” When Penny just blinked again, Constance crossed the room and closed her door. “We are going back to rescue Chance, aren’t we?”
“Of course! That’s why I came in here, to come up with a plan.”
“There’s a train that runs from Daystar Meadows into the financial district,” Constance replied promptly. “That’s how my father is going to get to and from work every day.” She pointed to a small brochure on her dresser. “His train schedule. I saw it in the car and took it when no one was looking. The last train for the city departs at quarter to midnight.” Penny opened her mouth, but Constance plowed ahead. “I know, I know, that means we’ll be wandering around the city in the middle of the night, and it would be safer to wait for the morning train. But if we leave as soon as my parents are asleep, that gives us a huge head start.”
“I wasn’t going to argue,” Penny said when the girl finally paused for breath. “Leaving tonight is a great plan. Where’s the train station?”
“There’s a map in that brochure,” Constance explained. “It’s two blocks north of Main Street, which isn’t even a mile from here. I have enough money for our tickets, plus some extra for food. You should pack a change of clothes, and we’ll take some fruit and crackers, too.”
Penny nodded, studying the girl’s face. Her eyes were bright with excitement, but not in the way they were around her parents. It was a very subtle difference, but Penny could see it now. Constance’s enthusiasm for Daystar Meadows had been forced. This was genuine.
“You’re looking forward to this,” Penny blurted out as realization dawned. “Even though it’s dangerous.”
Constance’s smile turned slightly shifty. “Well, maybe a little,” she admitted. “It’s going to be a real adventure, isn’t it? I’ve never had one before.”
“I suppose so,” Penny said. She felt a little spark in her chest at the thought.
Because unpacking left little time for cooking, dinner was sandwiches. Penny was pleased about this and slathered heaps of peanut butter on her bread. When Chance’s parents left the kitchen, she and Constance made two extra sandwiches to take with them that night. Afterward Penny took a bath, put on a pair of pajamas, and said good night to Mr. and Mrs. Bonvillain. Then she changed back into regular clothes and sat on Chance’s bed.
Now it was simply a matter of waiting, something marionettes were very good at. Penny gazed at the wall. Soon this would be her life again. Sitting and staring. Although she was sure Chance would move her around frequently.
Still, nothing compared with being able to move on one’s own.
At eleven o’clock on the nose, the door to Chance’s room opened quietly, and Constance slipped inside. Penny stood, picking up the backpack filled with sandwiches and a change of clothes and comic books. “Why are you dressed like that?” she whispered.
Constance looked down at herself. She wore a bright green dress with white polka dots, a rounded collar, and a pleated skirt. Her light brown hair was curled and pulled back with shiny barrettes.
“This is my traveling outfit,” she replied. “My mother bought it for me when we took the train upstate in the spring.”
“It’s not very practical for sneaking out.” Penny gestured at her
own outfit: jeans, a gray T-shirt, and sneakers. “The Storm recommends dark colors and comfortable shoes. And a mask, depending on the situation. I don’t think we need masks, though.”
Constance beamed. “Oh, I didn’t know you listened to Storm at Dawn! Well, you can dress like him if you want. I’m going to dress like me. Besides, my mother would kill me if I went out wearing that.”
Penny thought that was a strange thing to be concerned about, considering Mrs. Bonvillain would surely be more upset over the fact that her daughter had run away than over her choice of runaway attire. But Penny just shrugged and followed Constance out of the room.
They tiptoed down the carpeted hall, through the living room, and to the front door. When Penny reached for Chance’s blue key ring hanging next to the other sets, Constance placed a hand on her arm and shook her head. Once they were outside and the door was closed, Constance pulled back the welcome mat to reveal a spare key.
“I saw Dad put this here right before dinner,” she told Penny as she locked the door, then returned the key. “If he notices our keys are missing when he leaves for work at six-thirty, they’ll figure out we’re gone. This buys us a few more hours.”
Penny was impressed.
After consulting the map in the train brochure, they set off down the quiet residential street. As they walked, Constance kept up a stream of whispered conversation, most of which was about how Daystar Meadows differed from the city. After nearly ten minutes of this, Penny asked, “Do you like it better here?”
Constance hesitated. “I like both.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Penny said. “If you could choose to live here or in the city, which would you pick?”
“Well…” Constance looked around the deserted street nervously. “Honestly? The city,” she admitted. “But don’t tell my parents that!”
“Chance did,” Penny said. “He told them he didn’t want to move.”
“I know, and it upset them,” Constance said. “Plus, it’s different with Chance. He’s always been that way.”
“What way?”
“Kind of negative, I guess. I don’t mean that in a bad way,” Constance added quickly. “Really, he’s a lot more honest than I am. I’d rather keep my parents happy, so I don’t complain.”
“You lie to them?”
Constance’s eyes widened. “No!”
“But you just said—”
“There’s the station!” Constance said, quickening her pace. While she didn’t seem at all upset, Penny had the distinct impression she wanted to end the conversation.
The Daystar Meadows train station was small but unsurprisingly spotless. While it was by no means crowded, a few dozen people were milling up and down the platform. On a nearby bench, an older couple sat looking through brochures, and a young woman stood not far away, bent over a stroller and making cooing noises.
A security guard eyed Penny and Constance as they approached the ticket booth. Constance glanced at him before turning to the woman behind the glass and pulling out her coin purse.
“Hi!” she said in her perkiest voice. “Two tickets for the next train, please.” She slid the money under the glass, and the woman pushed two tickets forward without responding. “Thank you!” Constance took Penny by the arm and whispered: “Follow my lead.”
Penny allowed herself to be pulled over to the bench, where Constance promptly sat next to the older couple and motioned for Penny to sit as well. The woman, who had a kind face and perfectly coiffed gray hair, glanced up.
“Hello!” Constance said. “Are you moving to Daystar Meadows?” She gestured to the brochures, which Penny realized were for houses just like the Bonvillains’.
“We’re considering it,” the woman said. Her smile was kind but her eyes were sad.
“So quiet out here,” the man added, stifling a yawn. “Very peaceful.”
Very boring, Penny wanted to say, but she didn’t. Instead, she nudged Constance and gave her a questioning look. But Constance ignored her.
“We just moved out here,” she said. “It’s wonderful! You’ll love it.”
A bell began to chime, and there was a hissing sound as the train doors opened. The couple got to their feet, and Constance followed suit, grabbing Penny’s hand tightly. Penny saw her glance once or twice more at the security guard while maintaining a constant stream of chatter.
“Don’t you just love riding the train? Our parents took us upstate a few months ago, and the views were beautiful once we got out of the city. We stayed in this adorable little town in the middle of nowhere, and there was a lake, and we went hiking and…”
She continued this way as they boarded the train. Penny couldn’t help noticing that the man’s smile had become rather fixed, while the woman appeared to be enjoying Constance’s cheery jabbering. In fact, she invited them to sit in the seats across from her and her husband, at which point Penny distinctly saw him roll his eyes.
“I think you’re bothering that man,” Penny whispered to Constance as they stuffed their bags into the overhead apartment.
“Oh, I know,” Constance whispered back. “But that security guard was watching us, and I wanted him to think we were with our grandparents. Otherwise he might report two kids taking the train into the city in the middle of the night, you know?”
“Ah.”
Penny sat back in her seat. It occurred to her that her rescue mission would have been over before it had begun if it weren’t for Constance. It was Constance who had known what would happen if Penny told the Bonvillains the truth. It was Constance who had found the train schedule and formed a plan to sneak out successfully. It was Constance who had stopped them from getting caught by a security guard at the station.
Penny had thought of Constance as the typical early victim in an episode of Storm at Dawn: pretty, sweet, and thoroughly unprepared. But Constance was obviously quite capable. And there was something else, too. Something in the way Constance had taken Penny’s hand and squeezed it protectively as they walked past the security guard. That familiar feeling Penny couldn’t name but was starting to like very much.
Safety. That wasn’t the whole feeling, but it was part of it. Her eyelids drooped, and she rested her head on Constance’s shoulder.
“You’re obviously a wonderful big sister,” she heard the woman tell Constance. The last thing Penny felt before she drifted asleep was a light thump-thump in her chest.
The inside of the puppeteer’s trailer was covered in doors.
Not just on the walls, but on the floor and ceiling, too. All different types of wood, all polished to a gleam. It should have been pretty, but all Chance could think was that the trailer was made of puppet skin.
He did not remember anything between the puppeteer hiding in Fortunato’s cabinet back at the museum and arriving here. The cabinet door had closed, all had gone black, and then a different door had opened and Chance had found himself sitting in a cupboard overlooking the trailer’s interior. He hadn’t even known it was a trailer at first, and he’d wondered if he was looking at a small part of the cabinetmaker’s legendary chambers after all.
It wasn’t until the puppeteer had opened the door to outside and Chance had caught an achingly familiar glimpse of a Ferris wheel over the trees in the distance, accompanied by the sounds of shrieking laughter, that Chance realized where he was. He could not smell, because he was a marionette, but he knew the air must be thick with the scent of popcorn and cotton candy. The Bonvillains lived—had lived—only a few blocks from this park. Chance and Constance had spent nearly every day at the carnival last summer, and every other summer Chance could remember.
The fact that he knew exactly where he was yet could do nothing to escape made every passing second torturous. It was easier to forget.
And that was exactly what Chance’s mind began to do. Slowly, so slowly he d
idn’t notice it at first, the fog crept into his mind and began swallowing his earliest memories—the ones that were already a bit hazy. He allowed it to happen. Forgetting made the pain of loss easier to bear.
He spent most of his time pondering the cabinets and their contents. One in particular. While most of the other cabinets simply stored the puppeteer’s tools, this one contained a spinning wheel, sitting in the dark.
Even motionless, it fascinated Chance: the shiny spokes of the wooden wheel, the metallic pedals, the polished spindle—the very same spindle the puppeteer had slipped into Chance’s mail, now reattached. It dawned on Chance again how strange it was that Penny would even recognize a spindle. After all, there were no spinning wheels in the museum.
When the cabinet door was open, Chance would stare at the wheel for hours, his mind filled with fairy tales about greedy men spinning straw into gold, or princesses pricking their fingers and falling into a forever sleep.
He wondered what wickedness the puppeteer used his spinning wheel to perform. Because while the rest of his tools—knives and nails and screwdrivers of all sorts—had a clear purpose, Chance could not imagine what good a spinning wheel would be in the business of building marionettes.
Not that Chance had actually witnessed any marionette-building. He was grateful for that. He did not like imagining their parts strewn about, legs and arms and hollow heads.
The first time someone knocked on the trailer door, the puppeteer closed Chance’s cabinet before answering. A moment later Chance heard the muffled sound of a new voice. Another person was in the trailer.
Chance thought he had experienced the height of frustration when the puppeteer first kidnapped him. But now it increased tenfold. Worse was knowing that even if the visitor did happen upon Chance, all he would see was a pretty marionette, not a boy desperately in need of help.
He could hear them clearly. The newcomer’s voice could not have contrasted more with the puppeteer’s. It was warm and low and gravelly and made Chance feel safe. Or at least it made him remember what safety felt like.
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