The Motion of Puppets

by Keith Donohue

  “That’s her. I would know my own daughter anywhere.”

  Mrs. Mackintosh swiveled on the ottoman to face the three men. “I nearly fainted when I saw her. Whoever made that doll surely knew Miss Kay.”

  Theo stared at the image on the screen. So much time had passed since he had last seen her. Lately he had been wondering just how true the face he conjured in his imagination was, between the idealized and the real, the desire to see her again so great that he had forgotten precisely what she looked like. Sometimes he could not picture her at all, and other times, he could close his eyes and re-create all the colors of her eyes, a rough patch of skin on her hand, a beauty mark behind her left ear. The paradox fell apart as he stared at the face on the TV. He, too, was certain that the puppet had been copied from his wife’s face.

  Dolores pressed Play, and Kay walked out of the frame. There was the fantastical creature made of sticks and the titanic queen, and then the scene shifted to the parking lots, interviews with children not quite charming enough to air. The puppets moved about in the background, and now and then, he caught a glimpse of Kay. Toward the end, a few of the handlers unburdened themselves of the effigies. They were just college kids, the same as his own charges. A few seconds of the puppets leaning against light poles and walls like a gang of hooligans, and then the tape suddenly scrambled and another story picked up, something about a moose, that had been recorded over. Just as the original B roll would have been by now. Theo was grateful for Dolores’s quick thinking and tenacity in securing a copy before it was too late. They had proof. But of what?

  “I know who they are,” Dolores said. “I’ve tracked them down.”

  “She’s a Sherlock on the Internet,” said Mrs. Mackintosh.

  Dolores reached for a folder on the end table and triumphantly held up the evidence. “The Northeast Kingdom Puppet Company, established in 1973. Right here in Vermont. ‘Making street art and political theater to reenchant and reclaim the world.’ Whatever that might mean.”

  Mitchell cleared his throat. “So how did your daughter come to be a puppet?”

  Nobody seemed to notice that he had misspoken.

  “That, my friend, is what I expect you to find out and report back to me. Could be someone remembers her when she lived here, but that hasn’t been for years, and, besides, why does she show up now? If there’s a connection, maybe we can find out what’s happened to Kay.”

  From his spot in the middle of the sofa, Egon jumped into action. “Let’s go, if we are to find this place.”

  “Not tonight,” Dolores said. “It’s a three-hour drive on some mighty windy back roads, almost to Canada, and you boys need your beauty sleep. Mackintosh here has made up beds for you all. Get a fresh start in the morning.”

  Mrs. Mackintosh showed Egon and Mitchell to their bedroom on the upper floor, cleaned and aired out for their stay, leaving Dolores and Theo alone in the parlor. They watched the tape again, stopping it whenever Kay appeared, moving ahead frame by frame, until they could bear it no longer. She flicked the switch, and silence pressed down like a stone.

  “I blamed you,” Dolores said. “Thought you should have taken better care of her.”

  “Not just that. You held me responsible. You seemed suspicious that I had something to do with her disappearance. As if I could ever hurt her.”

  “I don’t know you, Theo. Not really. Just a man, the older man who took my daughter away. So, yes, I thought that maybe you had grown tired of her, that some foul play was the reason you kept your distance when I was trying to help. I thought you were protecting yourself, but I was wrong. I can see how much you loved Kay.”

  “I am heartbroken.”

  She motioned for him to come closer and reached out her hand for him to take. They sat for a few minutes, not speaking, looking for some accommodation for each other. Dolores patted him and told him he could sleep in Kay’s old bedroom, and then she wheeled off to her room at the back of the house, the hound trailing her in devotion.

  Nothing had changed since the last time he had stayed in Kay’s room. Her mother had not kept it as a shrine exactly, for most of the childhood mementos had long ago been put away, and the new furnishings were simple, almost austere. Yet the mere fact that Kay had long inhabited the space gave him the sense that she had just recently departed. Her essence lingered. On the nightstand beneath a lamp stood a photograph taken no more than two or three years before, Kay at her finest, togged out in ski clothes in some northern chalet, snow on the trees outside the window, cheeks red with blood. The dresser, which once held her clothes, stood empty, but in the closet were the formal gown she wore to her high school prom and her wedding dress. Their wedding. A row of childhood books stood on a birch shelf. He ran his fingers along the spines, looked for her name hand-printed on the endpapers.

  He crawled into her bed and fought for sleep against the spirits that roamed the house and slipped into the room. Midway through the night, as he dreamt of Kay dangling from a set of marionette strings, he was awakened by someone wandering in the darkness. Not Mitchell or Egon prowling for leftovers, the sound was not right. When he poked his head out of the doorway, he heard the chair being pushed across the floor. Dolores was startled to see him as well, her white hair loose for sleeping, her brown eyes wide in the darkness. She put a finger to her lips and bade him follow.

  Mugs in hand they sat at the kitchen table, the clock ticking away the time. She was a firm believer in the soporific power of warm milk, and he had not had such a treat since boyhood. He drank it quickly, as if downing a potion. They spoke in whispers, the quiet of the country night unnerving and insistent. “You’re not the only one with a broken heart.”

  “I am so sorry, Dolores.”

  “I haven’t slept in months, and now this is my first real hope in ages. You have to find her. Or find out whatever happened to her.”

  “Do you think that after all this time we might? That she might—”

  She smiled at him. “She is an independent girl. And strong. If something has happened to her, if she’s just lost. Let’s think she is just lost. She will survive and you will find her.”

  “But we can’t know for sure.”

  The smile faded. She finished her milk and let him take the two empty mugs to the sink. “I know what Mackintosh really thinks, and maybe that Dr. Mitchell you brought along. The puppets are just a coincidence. Maybe, maybe not. The mind sees what it wants to see, but all I know is that you will not find her if you do not look. I’m off to bed now, if I’m to be up making breakfast for the lot of you in the morning.” He nodded from his chair, and as she wheeled behind him, she laid a hand upon his shoulder to say good night, a kind and simple gesture, but he felt the weight long after she departed, conjuring complexities of emotion, memories of the last time Kay had touched him so. He wondered for the millionth time if he would ever see her again.

  * * *

  The barn door swung open and the late afternoon sunshine blasted the shadows, bits of old straw and dust swirling in the light. A calico cat slunk in and trotted over to where the puppets rested, rubbing its head and body against the legs of the Three Sisters and stopping to scratch its back on the Good Fairy. Behind the cat tromped the Quatre Mains, dressed like a country squire in long boots and a field jacket, and the Deux Mains in a hunter-green flannel and new blue jeans. He carried a small bag of tools. She was eating an apple, the snap of each bite sharp as a gunshot. A crow, curious about the visitors, flew in and paced in the yard. Together the puppeteers inspected their creations, straightening a crooked limb, folding the hem of the Queen’s robes, wiping a line of frass from Nix’s shoulders.

  “Where is the Devil?” the Deux Mains asked. “Did you put away the Devil?”

  “I don’t see him. Maybe the boy misplaced him in one of the other rooms. We’ll have to ask.” Pausing before Noë, the Quatre Mains stared at the patches of broken straw upon her head. “What do we have here?”

  “The poor dear.”
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br />   He looked confused at the puppet’s changed condition, and with the gentleness of a father, he cradled and set her down upon the ground. The Deux Mains, who had been attending to the Good Fairy’s branches, hurried over for a closer look.

  “Do you think this happened when we last had them out? At the parade? Or has someone not been behaving herself?”

  “The latter,” the Quatre Mains said, and he flipped Noë to her side to reveal the crude stitches at the base of her skull. Working quickly, he popped off her head and set it atop a post.

  The Deux Mains disappeared into the maze of back rooms and brought back a length of muslin and a sheath of broomcorn straw, brightly colored, some of the stalks with panicles intact, delicate as oats. In the meantime, The Quatre Mains picked the broken follicles from the top of Noë’s head and removed the twine sutures. He fashioned a patch from the muslin and cemented it in place with a dab of wood glue, and together they wove her a bright new hairpiece strand by strand.

  “What on earth got into her?” the Deux Mains wondered as they worked.

  The Quatre Mains stopped, picked up the head, and gave it a few good shakes. From the neck hole, the dried husks of two honeybees fell into his open palm. He blew and they drifted to the floor like snowflakes. They finished the hairdo, and while his wife held the head in place, he sewed it back onto the body. Satisfied with their handiwork, they put her back in the stall, jostling Kay in the process. She would have fallen over had not the Quatre Mains caught her. The feel of his hands on her was electric.

  “We’ll have no more funny business,” he said to them all. “Winter is a-comin’, and I don’t want to have to be traipsing through the snow drifts to check on you, and I surely do not want to find more trouble next spring after the hibernation.”

  The puppets stood impassive but listening. Slipping her arm into the crook of his, the Deux Mains rested by his side and faced Mr. Firkin and the Queen. “It is a long wait, I know, but not forever. Keep your wits. You may go anywhere you like as long as you do not try to leave the barn. Be well, my pets. And where has that cat gone off to?”

  They stood still and listened. A low rumbling came from the belly of the barn, and the Deux Mains called “Mimi, Mimi,” but when the cat did not come, a note of panic rose in her voice. “Come, ma minette, time for dinner.” From below came another grumble, louder still, and she unhooked her arm from her husband and ran out of the room.

  “The Worm,” the Quatre Mains said. “Oh, that stupid fearless cat.”

  The floorboards lifted and gave a sudden lurch, and the Quatre Mains moved quickly down the stairs to aid his wife. Something long and large was squirming in the basement, moist earth moving, and banging into the side walls. The cat hissed and screamed. The Deux Mains shouted a warning in French, and the Quatre Mains bellowed for everything to just stop. An animal mewed deeply as a cello. More commands were issued—stop, drop it—and then the Worm went quiet.

  Moments later, the cat reappeared in the stalls, no worse for wear. It roped its way through Kay’s legs and meandered to the front door. Huffing from the climb, the Quatre Mains rested in the doorway. “Go anywhere you like. Except down in the cellar. That one has gotten away from us a bit. And for heaven’s sake, keep an eye out for the Devil.”

  “Have a nice long rest,” the Deux Mains said. She laid her hand briefly against Kay’s papery cheek. “Bonne nuit, mon chouchou.”

  After they shut and locked the door a soft whimper came from below. A sigh of missed opportunity.

  At midnight, they exploded with talk. Nix went down on his hands and knees searching the floorboards for cracks or chinks through which he might locate the Worm, but at that late hour, all he could see was the dark basement and perhaps, he reported, the bare outline of a form that took up most of the space. He whispered “Worm, Worm,” but the thing did not respond. Curious, the little dog sniffed for clues, pawing at the sawdust whenever Nix spied through a hole. The Three Sisters parried the notion that the Devil had been misplaced somehow, while the Old Hag insisted that he was dead, killed by the others lurking in the other rooms. On the whim of the Original. The Queen and Mr. Firkin were engaged in a dialectic over the new rules and restrictions imposed by the Quatre Mains and how best to maintain law and order.

  Gathering together the scraps of muslin and sorghum straw, the ball of twine, and scissors the Deux Mains left behind, the Good Fairy sat on the corncrib making puppets. Primitive little marionettes who could dangle from the ends of her twiggy hands. By her side, Noë, resplendent with her full head of new hair, played idly with each doll as it was finished. Kay found herself drawn to their game, and the three sat in a triangle pursuing the goal of one puppet to tie to each finger.

  Kay watched her friend for signs of disturbance. “I was afraid when they took off your head that they were not going to put it back on.”

  Noë wiggled the doll back and forth. “I call this one Pinkie because she fits just fine on my littlest finger.”

  “And I was afraid about what might happen to that cat when it went to the cellar.”

  “Cats have nine lives,” the Good Fairy said. “Perhaps it had one to spare.”

  “Your feet,” Noë said. “It would be terrible to lose your feet. Or your hands, how would you play with a puppet? No, I guess the worst would be to lose your body. No, I take that back. Your mind! Maybe it is the head after all?”

  “They’ve done a good job with your new hair.”

  “Do you like it? I feel much better with no more bees. I call this one Tom Thumbkin. He is in love with Pinkie on the other hand. Were you ever in love, Kay?”

  “Yes, of course. My husband.”

  “Theo.”

  “That’s right, Theo. I was in love with Theo. Back in the other world.”

  “What other world?”

  Leaning in close to Kay’s ear, the Good Fairy whispered, “There are worse things to lose than your heart, poor dear.”

  “The real world,” Kay insisted. “The world of the living. Where you come from, the real people, don’t you remember?”

  Noë looked up with a mad glint in her eyes and showed them a puppet mounted on her middle finger. “This one’s name is too rude to say.”

  With a laugh they went back to their craft, making puppets, putting on a show in the wee hours of the night.

  21

  The dog wanted to follow them out to the car, but she was afraid of the rain. Instead the travelers said their good-byes on the porch, Sal bouncing among the three of them, and Dolores stoic in her chair with Mrs. Mackintosh faithfully stationed behind her. They had made a late start to the expedition, dawdling over their pancakes with maple syrup. All discussion of their mission was put off until the last moments.

  “You’ll keep in touch,” Dolores said. “And let me know the minute you find out anything. Call as soon as you get cellular service. It’s miles from nowhere, so I’ll understand.”

  “Don’t forget—we’ll be by the phone,” said Mrs. Mackintosh.

  Theo promised and kissed his mother-in-law. “You have my word.”

  With a disconcerting swiftness, she grabbed his hand in hers and held it close, silently imploring and wishing him success. Mitchell and Egon jogged through the raindrops to the car.

  “You know the way?” she asked.

  “I have my trusty guides. Listen, if she can be found…”

  He looked over his shoulder as they rolled down the driveway, and the tableau had not shifted. The dog wagged her tail, considering whether to chase the car. The women raised their hands, offering a final salute.

  They got lost along the way, stopped for lunch, stopped again for directions, and reached the farm in the shank of the afternoon. Rain had given way to a misty drizzle shrouding the red barn in gray. A pair of wet chickens foraged in the grass before a yellow farmhouse. A handmade arrow, inset with the word Museum, pointed to the barn. A ramshackle school bus—Northeast Kingdom Puppet Co. painted on the side—stood in the driveway, b
ut no other vehicles were about, and no lights shone in the windows against the gloom.

  “Nobody home,” Mitchell said from behind the wheel.

  “Looks abandoned,” Egon said. “Like a graveyard after the last funeral of the day.”

  “Knock and it shall be opened,” Theo said.

  Nobody answered when they banged on the storm door. Egon went to the window and peered into the front room, which was dark and empty. “Maybe we should have called first.”

  “Try again,” said Mitchell.

  Theo hammered on the door.

  A teenage boy with a crown of white-blond hair appeared, framed in the window of the storm door. He stared blankly, surprised to have visitors and uncertain what to do next. For a few moments, a standoff ensued.

  “Good afternoon, young man.” Mitchell broke the silence. “Is this the Northeast Kingdom Puppet Company?”

  The boy nodded and gestured toward the barn and the bus.

  “We’ve come a long way,” Mitchell said. “Do you think we might see the puppets?”

  The boy looked confused and did not say a word.

  Egon stepped closer. “Is there a grown-up around? Someone in charge we might speak with?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Would you mind opening the door?” Theo asked. “Could I bother you for a glass of water? A chance to use your bathroom? We mean no harm, we’ve just come to see the puppets.”

  With a push of his hip, the boy opened the storm door and made way for them to enter. Hanging on the walls of the foyer were posters from past shows. The puppet adaptation of Kafka’s The Trial, with a sad effigy behind bars. I, Claudius, with the puppet emperor raising a bloody fist. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a tortured line of puppets marching through the snow. The boy led them into the living room, where even the furniture appeared handmade and primitive, and bade them sit.