Puppet

by Pauline C. Harris

  Suddenly, James takes my face in his hands and leans in, his lips pressing against mine, kissing me like it’s the first time and the last time, like he’s afraid I might slip away again, afraid because life is fragile. And he’s only just realized it. My heart beats rapidly against my chest and with a start, I wonder how it could have been still only moments before.

  Eight seconds. Eight seconds of nothing; no beating heart, no breathing lungs, no working mind. I am suddenly so immensely grateful that God let me live.

  James pulls away and I notice Jed standing a few steps back, his face stained with tears and fear because he just witnessed both me and James come so close to dying. He takes a step forward and I smile as he hugs me, careful to avoid holding me too tightly. “I’m sorry Penelope,” he says into my hair, so quietly I barely hear it, and I somehow know he means it for everything – the experiment, the lying, the fights, and the administrators. I shake my head, not wanting him to be sorry, because I know that without any of Jed’s science, his genius, his crazy mind, I wouldn’t be here. And oddly enough, right here is the only place I’d want to be.

  “What about Edelin?” I ask suddenly as Jed releases me. I remember Head Devere screaming at him and the guards at the door, but nothing more than that. The thought of him sends a burst of adrenaline through my veins.

  “He’s lost his control,” Jed states simply. “Because he lost you.”

  Suddenly I remember the remote control in my pocket and I reach down to make sure it’s still there. It feels heavy and warm. Dangerous. “I need it out,” I state. “The implant, it needs to be taken out.” I remember fighting the control, but I also remember the burning and Edelin’s fingers scrambling to regain his power. My body aches with the memory.

  “Duquesne can take it out,” Jed tells me. “When you’re feeling better.”

  I’m about to protest and insist he remove it now, but I realize how silly it is. I guess time is suddenly something I have a lot of right now. It just feels as if everything is still on acceleration, moving past me at dizzying speeds. I wonder how long it’s going to take me to calm down again.

  “Your stomach,” the doctor I just now remember is here, says from beside me, “should heal.”

  I nod distractedly, still thinking about Edelin and the implant and then I suddenly feel the need to find some new clothes. I feel sticky and like...death.

  I wonder at all the thoughts racing through my mind, jumbled, as if pouring in to make up for the lost eight seconds of my life. My whole body is quickening, as if my lungs and heart also realize the time lost.

  “How does it feel?” the doctor asks.

  I give him an odd look, wondering at the strange question. How does he think it feels? My stomach throbs and aches and my body is beginning to follow suit. “Fine,” I murmur, but just as the answer leaves my lips, I freeze. My mind whirls as I reach up to touch my throat, sliding my fingers across my skin. I don’t feel fine. My stomach burns. I was being sarcastic. I run my hand along my neck, my mouth partially open in shock as I realize I feel nothing unusual.

  “Jed,” I whisper in awe. I turn to him and after a few seconds, it looks like he’s slowly beginning to catch on. “I lied.”

  Jed’s eyebrows rise and his mouth opens in surprise. His look would be comical if I wasn’t so shocked.

  “I just lied,” I say again, feeling a smile begin to spread across my face and a giddy laugh escape me. I never thought I’d feel this happy about lying. I never thought I’d value this freedom like I do now.

  Jed runs to the bedside. “You’re sure?” he asks breathlessly.

  I nod. Funny how the same lie revealed my constraint and then took it away again. Suddenly wondering if my marionette abilities are gone as well, I reach for a metal instrument beside the bed, laughing as I squeeze it between my fingers and watch as it stays exactly the same. The doctor snatches it from my grasp, mumbling something about it being unsanitary, but I only laugh harder. I throw my arms around Jed and hug him. “It’s gone,” I say, but suddenly realize how ridiculous this is – how impossible. “But wait,” I start. “How is this possible?” I look between Jed and James, who’s now standing beside the bed, staring down at me. I notice Jed shifting his feet and I search his expression for some answer. “Did you do something?” I ask him.

  He looks up from where he was staring down at the ground, not exactly meeting my eyes. He shrugs.

  I frown in confusion.

  Jed sighs. “The pills I gave you,” he eventually tells me. “They weren’t to counter any side effects. There weren’t any...” he trails off momentarily. “The drug that gives you your marionette abilities wears off, so I had to continue giving it to you so your abilities would...stay.”

  I’m too shocked to say anything. Too shocked to truly comprehend his words. Jed could have taken away my abilities all along? He had the power right from the start, to simply give me my life back? My normality? I’m torn between shock and anger that he lied to me and overwhelming happiness that it’s now gone.

  “I...was selfish,” Jed admits quietly and I’m too surprised to say anything back. “I could have stopped all of this but...my experiments were all I cared about – the science, the achievement.” He stops for a moment and stares down at his hands, clenched together. “I stopped giving you the pills a short while ago so the abilities would go away. All of them.”

  I’m silent for a moment before I open my mouth. “But I was gone,” I say quietly, my voice hardening. “You didn’t exactly have a choice, did you?”

  Jed is shaking his head. “The drug lasts a long time. And you visited frequently. I had more than enough chances and at first, I did keep giving you the pills. You probably remember.” Jed slowly looks up and stares at James. “But something changed my mind...I thought my science was my life, but I was wrong. In fact, it might not even matter at all.”

  I watch the two of them, too conflicted to jump in and say anything. James is staring at Jed as if he’s never seen him before and I can’t read his expression. I can’t tell if it’s anger, shock, or a mixture of something else. He just stares at him with wide eyes.

  “You stopped,” he says slowly.

  Jed closes his eyes, his forehead wrinkling together in a pained look. “I know I should have told you. It was horrible of me and you must hate me now and I don’t blame you. I don’t.”

  But James shakes his head slowly. “No,” he says. “I don’t.” Jed’s expression changes to one of confusion. “Lying about the pills you gave Pen is something you would do,” James says matter-of-factly and Jed flinches ever so slightly. “But choosing to stop them...isn’t.” His tone is losing its hardness and his expression is softening. He stands there, staring at him for such a long moment that I begin to wonder if he intends on saying anything else at all. Jed is watching him, his eyes hopeful, wondering, waiting.

  “Thank you,” James says so quietly I’m almost uncertain I heard it. And I begin to realize that Jed didn’t take away my marionette abilities only for me, but for James as well. He wasn’t just proving to me that he could be decent, could be more – he was proving it to James. Because James was the one who needed the proof.

  I feel a small smile stretch across my face even though I know I should be angry at Jed. Furious. I know I should scream at him for what he did to me, but all I can do is grin. Because this was Jed’s life, his passion and he threw it all away. For James and I.

  My stomach is beginning to ache more and the doctor starts asking me to lie down, but I’m too excited. I feel freer than I’ve ever felt. Edelin no longer holds power over me. My body is my own again. My real body, the one that I understand and am no longer afraid of. I smile as James looks over at me, and I hold my arms around my waist, resisting the urge to break into an outright laugh.

  All my strings are gone.

  33

  As Duquesne slips the IV into my arm, this time I don’t flinch or feel any spark of anxiety. This time, I’m ready, I’m relieved. Lyi
ng back on the clean white table, I think of how free I’ll feel – real freedom – once the plate is gone for good. Along with everything else, leaving me just Pen.

  I wake up the same way I did when Duquesne first performed the surgery. My head aches and throbs and although I wince at the pain, I’m still ecstatic with relief. I stay still on the table, breathing in and out and waiting for the pain to subside and thanking God that it’s all over. My heart beats in my ears and for the first time in a long while, I feel like it’s actually mine again; like I really do own it.

  I think about Head Devere and Edelin and how he’s gone for good, never to come back and haunt me. Memories of what he had me do still play in my mind, but with a burst of relief, I remind myself that I’ll never be subject to him again. He’s no longer in control, my plate is gone, my old body is gone. Even if he could control me, there’d be no point.

  The loss of my marionette abilities makes me feel stronger and more in control than I did with them. I feel like a real person, the person I was supposed to be.

  I hear Duquesne talking to me and he slips me some sort of painkiller. I sit up slowly, gingerly touching my head and looking to him expectantly but the grin on his face tells me enough.

  “It worked,” Duquesne says and I can feel my face forming into a giddy smile. “You’re free, Penelope. It’s gone.”

  . . .

  I lie on my back on the grassy hill behind Jed’s house, looking up at the cloud-spotted sky, the sun occasionally peeking out from behind them. The air is chilly and I have a sweater wrapped tightly around me, my fingers entwined in the loose fabric of my sleeve. James lies beside me, close enough that our fingers barely touch. I feel warm next to him.

  “Jed told you it would be an adventure when you agreed to his experiment,” James says from beside me, a smile in his voice and I remember the first time I met both of them. James was shyer than he is now and Jed seemed a little bit crazier. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to it.

  I snort. “Much more than I bargained for.”

  He laughs. “Well if you had never agreed, I never would have met you,” he says and I see him shift positions so that he’s propped up on his elbow, looking at me. “And that would be sad, wouldn’t it?”

  I laugh. “I guess so,” I answer, making a face at him. “It would terribly sad.”

  He laughs and we sit in silence for a moment and I slowly begin to realize that we’ve never actually talked about the day where both of us came close to dying. I still have the scar on my stomach, the one that flaunts itself at me every time I take a shower, or change clothes. It reminds me what life is, how easy it is to lose. There was a scar above James’s heart where the blade scraped but never penetrated, but it’s faded and gone now.

  It seems strange that we both came so close to ruining what we had, to destroying each other, and still ended up together again. I wonder what James thought about when my knife hovered over his body and then his thoughts when his gun was pointed to my chest. I wonder how we both fought the control to save this feeling and end up alive when both of us really should be dead.

  James must read my expression because he leans closer, brushing his hand against mine. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, but I’m shaking my head. I don’t want him to feel sad for what he did because I turned around and did the exact same thing. Strength is a frail thing without control.

  “Would you call this magic, James?” I ask with a smile, thinking of all the wonderfully twisted things that brought us here; now, together. I’ve searched all my life for something beautiful and now I know I’ve found it. “This?” I say and I can tell by the look on his face that he doesn’t need further explanation.

  He nods. “Or a miracle,” he tells me with a smile. I grin as he leans in to kiss me and this time I feel like it’s real, more important; nothing hanging over us, nothing weighing us down. I can feel the curve of his lips against mine as he smiles but suddenly I hear a voice and after a few seconds, I recognize it as Jed’s, although I have no idea what he wants.

  James’s annoyed expression as he pulls away is almost comical and I laugh. “I swear, one day I’m going to be able to kiss you without being interrupted,” he says with a shake of his head as he gets up, grabbing my hand and pulling me up with him. I laugh as we begin to walk back to the house, assuming Jed has some theory he wants to run by us, or to inform us that we’ve missed a meal, and suddenly it hits me how normal this feels. James’s hand in mine, our talks, Jed’s interruptions and comical musings. I wonder at how long it took me to realize that the family I’d been looking for, the beauty in simplicity and normalcy was all here; right in front of me.

  I used to wonder what my life would have been like if I had only waited until leaving the orphanage and leading a normal existence. But I’m beginning to realize that God led me here because this is my normality. This is the life I’m supposed to be living. I smile up at James even though he has no idea what I’m thinking about and I suddenly laugh, feeling more normal than I’ve ever felt in my life.

  More natural.

  More Pen.

  Real.

  Acknowledgements

  I have a lot of people to thank for making Puppet what it is today.

  God: You’re the reason for everything in my life, for my family, my friends, my education, my writing. You’ve given me so much more than I could ever deserve.

  Mom: Thanks for encouraging me with this idea and being the first one to read it. You’ll always be my favorite beta reader. ;)

  Dad: Thanks for putting up with all the time I spent interrogating you on different sci-fi aspects. From biology to complicated plot points you always have good answers.

  Cliff: Thanks for being the person I bounce ideas off of time and time again. I know you’re honest so when you tell me something is a good idea or a bad one, I take your advice.

  Teresa Pesce: Thanks for all your help editing Puppet to perfection. I still remember talking with you after the first time you read Puppet and absolutely dying of happiness after you told me how much you liked it.

  Kellie Sheridan: You’ve been so awesome welcoming me to Patchwork Press and I’ve had the greatest time getting to know you and all the authors. You’ve been so helpful and I’ve already learned so much so thank you a million times over.

  Erica Crouch: Thank you so much for creating the gorgeous cover for Puppet. I’m so in love with it and it’s better than I could ever have imagined. And thanks for being so welcoming and helpful when it comes to any aspect of Patchwork Press/publishing. You’re amazing!

  NaNoWriMo: I feel like I should include you somewhere in here, considering you’re the main reason Puppet exists. It was my first time doing NaNoWriMo and on Novemeber 1st, on a whim, I decided to write a Pinocchio retelling. So thanks for sparking my imagination and helping me get Puppet out into the world.

  And YOU: Thank you so much for reading Puppet! You’re the reason I do this.

  Pauline C. Harris is the author of middle grade and young adult science fiction novels and published her first book at the age of fourteen. She's currently working toward a degree in English. Other than writing, her time is consumed mainly by reading, playing the violin, watching old black and white movies, and trying to survive her college classes. You can find her on Twitter at: @PaulineCHarris