The Puppetmaster's Apprentice

by Lisa DeSelm

  “You are alone, young one?”

  The simple question comes out like a statement. She calls me what the trees call me.

  “Yes.”

  “Your maker is gone?”

  Her voice is high and light, the sound of wind racing through treetops. I have nothing to hide from her; the tree woman sees me as I am.

  “Yes,” I croak.

  She nods, looking mournful for a brief flash. “I saw his resting place.”

  I think of the mound of dirt not far from where we sit, exposed to the night air and the stars. I haven’t been able to bring myself to walk to it yet.

  “You know me?” I ask stupidly.

  She blinks. “I remember when you were naught but a sapling, all eager shoots and limbs. I watched over you. I watch over them all,” she says, waving her fingers to the trees standing sentinel around us. “When a puppetmaster takes a tree from the woods, who do you think plants a new one?”

  Something small inside me bursts open, like a seed splitting its husk. It feels good to be known. To be seen.

  “Why have you returned to the wood?” she asks.

  My answer comes tumbling out in a heap of grievances. “Because I cannot abide the sadness at home. With my father gone, it hurts too much. I’m all alone now. And even hearing the trees’ warning, I didn’t get there in time to save my friend; he was killed! I fear this curse will be the end of me as well, if I’m not careful.”

  Her brows furrow.

  “Curse?”

  “When I lie … something happens,” I stammer. “I think it’s a mistake—or a punishment, perhaps. Splinters burst out of me. Maybe I deserve it, even. For the lies. But it ruins everything,” I add angrily, touching the still-tender tip of my nose.

  Indignant, I pull the small bundle filled with my tell-tale splinters from my bag. As I hastily gathered my things to run away, it suddenly felt foolish and risky to leave such a strange thing behind for someone else to find. Why have I kept them all these years?

  “It’s not fair! I didn’t ask for this!” I say, opening the bundle, holding a fistful out as evidence. “Or for these scars!” I pull up a sleeve and point to my arms.

  She raises an eyebrow. “I see.”

  Resuming her intense scrutiny, she then commands, “Give that big stick here, girl.”

  Cautiously, I reach across the fire, passing her the stick I had grabbed in defense, a branch nearly as tall as I am. She snaps it in half as neatly as if it were a piece of kindling, a mere twig.

  “A tree cannot lie, girl. It’s impossible,” she says, pointing to the jagged interior of the stick, where I see the white core exposed. “You cut a tree and you can see its history, its age, its injuries. By its very nature, it’s telling the truth about who it is and where it comes from. That is why the splinters find you. You are no different.”

  Anger rises like bile in my throat. “But I am! And that’s just the problem. I am different from everyone in Tavia. And trying to explain to anyone what I really am, well, it’s impossible! Not to mention forbidden,” I hiss, lowering my voice as best as I can, suddenly remembering that anyone could be out among the trees watching or listening. “Whatever magic made me was banished from Tavia long ago, don’t you realize that? Surely you’ve heard? If I let anyone see me as I am, I put us all in danger, just as you endangered my father by giving him the blue moon’s spell years ago. Why, if anyone saw me here, right now, with you … it’s unthinkable! We’d both be tossed into this fire as kindling!”

  I take a deep breath. “Tell me why you did it? Why did you come to him, just as you’ve come to me now, on a night like tonight? It would have been far better if you’d left him alone. He would have been better off without me!”

  “Your father chose his path. Just as you will choose yours.”

  “But what if my splinters give me away? I didn’t choose them. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days shunned or locked in a cell, and I certainly don’t want to be burned alive!”

  Tears pool at the edges of my vision as I remember the dark corridors filled with filth and desperation spanning the length of Wolfspire Keep.

  “You are human in every way that matters, girl.”

  “Then why do slivers of wood pierce me from the inside out every time I lie? Others don’t have this difficulty,” I say bitterly.

  “But they do; some carry a family birthmark, or inherit a crooked nose from a grandfather, or a mother’s hasty temper. Part of who we are is who we come from. There’s no escaping that, not for any living creature.”

  I ponder that for a moment, knowing she’s right but hating the stupidity of it all.

  “Isn’t there any way to change it?” I plead. “For me to be free of this curse? Is there a spell you can give me, something you can do to make me wholly human and not part of the wood any longer? How do I rid myself of these splinters?”

  The trees begin to murmur, disappointed by my longing to be different from them.

  “Shun falsehoods.”

  “I don’t want to lie,” I say, exasperated. “Please understand, it’s not that I want to be able to lie, it’s just that now that my father is gone, I have no one else to hide behind. The splinters will give me away. I’ll be cast aside as something less than human, something to be hated and feared.”

  “What if I were to tell you your wooden nature makes you more than human, not less?” she asks, one wispy eyebrow cocking up like the spread of a bird’s wing.

  “My curse is not helpful in any way!” I grumble. “And I still don’t know what it means, my splinters, for … for love,” I say, a wash of heat burning my cheeks. “Can I marry one day without harming my husband or my children? Without making them swear to keep the truth hidden, endangering those I love most?”

  “There is one that you love?”

  I nod, my thoughts filling with Bran.

  Her eyes bore into mine like two black beetles tunneling into a burrow. “Understand, the moon’s spell may have bought you breath, but the power of your father’s love gave you life, girl. The heart of the maker will determine the course of the marionette.

  “You will become as you wish when you give life to another under the blue moon’s magic, just as your father did for you. You know the words already, I daresay,” she says, stirring the fire with the broken end of my stick.

  Of course I know the words. The words of the blue moon spell are as branded into my skin as the lingering tracks of my lies. Is there really a way for my splinters to be gone?

  The tree woman stands abruptly, ready to depart my fire just as quickly as she arrived. She gazes upwards to the canopy, the bespeckled shell of night sky hollowed out between the treetops. I don’t want her to go, don’t want to be left here alone.

  “It will rise again you know,” she warns, still holding tightly to the two halves of my broken branch, which she plunges into the ground on either side of her. “Soon. There’s no such thing as once in a blue moon. The sacred blue moon will rise again while you walk ’neath the night. Trust it and you’ll have your chance. Remember to count the cost.”

  Afraid she might disappear again, I blurt out a final question for this strange half-woman, half-wild thing. “Please, what was the cost of my father making me? He warned the magic always has a cost. What cost?”

  “His strength,” she rasps bluntly. “The blue moon is a patient mercenary, girl. She may bide her time, sometimes for years, but she always collects.”

  My heart squeezes in misery. My father lost his strength because of me? It wasn’t just the burden of the Margrave’s demands or his stay in the Keep?

  He had grown weaker, aging so rapidly these past months. Tears burn my eyes and they drop on the tops of my knees, which I clutch like they are all I have left in the world.

  I am the real reason for my father’s death.

  In gaining me, he ultimately lost a vital part of himself. I cannot swallow; grief clogs my throat.

  “Better to hold the seed of the great oa
k in your hand and sense its towering potential, than to never let it pass through your fingers at all,” she answers, reading the thoughts crowding my mind.

  “I beg to differ,” I mutter bitterly. Especially if that seed steals your precious life while it grows.

  She turns her back on me and stalks through the shadows to another massive beech. Placing a hand fondly on its broad trunk, she aims a final piercing glare over her bony shoulder.

  “Take heed, young one: a figment created for good will collect less from the maker, but one born of dark purposes always takes more. Sometimes much more.”

  “But what—”

  The old creature vanishes into the bark like a fleeing vapor, leaving me full of questions and emptier than ever.

  CHAPTER 15

  I WAKE AT DAWN TO A PILE OF COLD ASHES IN THE FIRE, A DAY drizzly with mist and fog. As I sit up and look around, I rub my eyes to make sure I’m not hallucinating. Overnight, the two halves of the dead branch the old woman stuck into the earth grew covered in buds, fat and ready to burst. Winter is just around the corner, but here they are, growing right from where she’d grafted them to the forest floor as if it’s the first day of spring. Her message is not lost on me; a reminder that impossible things can happen, that even dead and broken things find a way to grow.

  The two new trees growing from the broken halves look as if they’ve been here all along, and weren’t remnants of a dying season just hours before. I can’t stop examining the waxy buds that hold within their grasp flags of green ready to unfurl as soon as the sun reaches them. The tree woman is a strange magic all her own.

  I reluctantly clean up my little camp near the beech tree, using an evergreen branch to scatter the remains of my fire and sweep away my footprints. I wish it to be like I was never here at all, as if a girl named Pirouette never came to seek solace among the trees, never met a dryad with a blue moon premonition on her lips. Also, I’ve run out of food.

  I am resolved to return to Curio, back to the makers who will be trying to piece together the remnants of our little family, now without the puppetmaster or the clockmaker. Though I’m sure I will have to keep my mouth shut more than I’d like to survive, I will keep the shop going, if only for my father’s sake. I owe it to him to try. He lost his strength because of me, so at the very least I can keep him from losing his legacy in Tavia, keep his name from fading like a memory.

  Before leaving the shelter of the wood, my feet carry me a few moments’ walk away in the gloom. Early fog swirls through the forest like a cat wrapping itself around cold ankles. At Papa’s grave, the lumberjack marionette’s legs dance in the breeze, swinging from the wooden cross marking his head.

  I stoop down, sinking my fingers into the soil, just knuckle-deep. Closing my eyes, I pause a moment, just to breathe. And to … talk? Think? Pray? I don’t know how to describe the torrent of feelings surging against the walls of my heart. The trees are silent around me, for once.

  With tears rolling down my cheeks, I find myself taking out my bundle of splinters and unwrapping them for the last time. Near where my father lies I dig a few shallow scoops of damp earth and drop the remains of my lies into a grave of their own. I don’t need to keep or carry them any longer. According to the old tree woman, someday I might be free of them completely.

  Before I leave him, I settle for simply saying, “I love you, Papa. A maker will always prevail.”

  He would understand this is the best I can do right now. I will come again, when I can.

  I leave feeling a little lighter, though the air this deep in the wood gathers thicker than Gita’s pea soup. I can scarcely see the next tree in front me. From time to time, the split of a twig or the crackle of leaves shifting sends a jolt down my neck. My fingers tighten around the handle of the axe hanging at my belt. I turn to look behind me, staring blindly into the fog.

  I am being followed. I am sure of it. But my eyes see nothing. Nothing but trees and haze.

  I hear whispers, the old trees fretting and shushing, “Shadows are on the move.”

  The same warning they gave the night Emmitt died.

  I half expect to see the tree woman emerge from the mist, but when I look again, still nothing. I plunge on, unable to ignore the feeling that someone is near. Fear coats my palms with an inescapable itch.

  I stop to rest, leaning back against a halsa to draw some strength from its deceptively solid trunk. I close my eyes a moment to rid myself of the dryness plaguing them after days spent crying. Even then, the sensation of being watched raises the hair on my arms to gooseflesh. I open my eyes, straining into the fog. Still nothing.

  Suddenly, from behind, soft as a breath, I feel a tap on my shoulder. Stifling a scream, I force my eyes downward. A trio of fingers rests on the exposed skin at my collar. Spruce and ash!

  It is a hand I know well. I created it.

  The masked face of the saboteur stares unblinkingly at me from behind the tree. Out of habit, my fingers clutch at my axe, trying to squeeze some comfort from its blunt edges. I squint and blink again, sure the fog is playing tricks on me. With little rest and even less breakfast, no doubt I am prone to seeing things in my state of grief. Especially things that cannot be.

  But when I look again, the creature is moving from behind the halsa, wide eyes searching, watching my every move. With sickening fascination, I can’t help but stare back. She’s still all wired joints and carved limbs, same as when she was taken away in the cold stateroom at Wolfspire Hall. But the strings connecting her to the crossbar controls have been cut. Walking freely, the saboteur comes closer, splayed hands swinging loose at her sides, knees bent so she might bolt at any moment, like a deer. Instinctively, I take a few steps back. She’s alive.

  Yet … she is not like me. The blue moon hasn’t risen yet. She’s not human. She can’t be. What is she?

  “How?” I breathe aloud.

  The saboteur glances around quickly, as if afraid of what my voice might summon.

  She hears me. Can she speak?

  Quickly putting a claw-like, gloved finger to her lips, she motions for me to be quiet. Oh, saints and stars. Anyone with eyes can see her sharp finger drips with blood. Dread fills my lungs instead of air. My legs are locked in place, unable to move.

  The saboteur’s painted eyes examine me, trying to understand my response. She seems as curious about me as I am of her, if that’s even possible.

  “What—” I croak again, but the saboteur cuts me off with a shake of her head, beckoning me forward with long, slender fingers.

  Unsatisfied with my stupefied inability to comply with her orders, she tugs at my arm, dragging me through the fog, into a dense stand of pines. Her bloody fingers curl solidly around me, her grasp like iron. She points, indicating I should tuck myself into a small space between two tall overhanging branches. Shaking and wobbly, I don’t fight her. She wedges herself in front of me, standing silent sentry between me and the thinly veiled opening in the pines.

  Touching her shoulder, I pick up the sound of her voice, a silky remoteness repeating over and over words I don’t understand.

  “Leben consurgé! Danger among us. Consurgé! Danger among us!”

  It’s dark between the trees; the pine boughs gouge at my neck and face. I fidget worriedly, unsheathing my axe to have it at the ready, wondering what on earth is happening and how I will explain to all of Tavia that a marionette of mine walks the woods before dawn.

  The saboteur’s body tenses, a string down her spine tightening. Then I hear the reason: through the trees comes the distinct sound of marching, of men moving in metered unison. I wait, holding my breath, peeking over the saboteur’s black-clad shoulder, the leather tunic Bran hand cut providing the frame to my view. At first, we can only hear them; a small army on the move. Surely this is the duke’s doing, sending men in the direction of Brylov under the cover of near darkness and fog. And then, to my dismay, I see them.

  They are not men at all.

  My father’s wooden
soldiers, fully animated, destroy the forest floor beneath dirtied boots as they sweep across in lines five deep. It’s like my nightmare from the gate of Wolfspire Hall come to pass. They stomp onwards, their gait brittle, their advance unyielding. The soldiers pass us by, never noticing us sequestered among the pines. I recognize each blocky face, a set of eyebrows here, a bulbous nose there.

  Like the saboteur, they do not blink; their eyes stare ahead undaunted, summoned by an invisible beacon. Their boots gather muck from the forest floor, but even in the graying light, their uniforms are as crisp as they were when my father and I delivered them. I take this as a sign that this is their first time out of Wolfspire Hall.

  The saboteur doesn’t allow me to move a muscle until they are long gone from sight, their footfalls a distant echo. Only then does she break from the pines, indicating I should follow. I realize she’s been protecting me, keeping me from the path of the soldiers who would have been on me in minutes had she not found me first.

  Has she been sent on the same mission as the soldiers or was she sent ahead to spy or stir up trouble? Whose blood is on her hands? The possibilities set my stomach churning.

  I have so many questions, yet I know from her eyes and stiff-jointed mouth she can’t give me real answers. If I were seen with her now, what would people say? Old Josipa’s wrinkled face rises up to haunt my mind. The saboteur lives by some form of the same old magic, that banned and dangerous kind.

  Unconcerned about the soldiers now, she crouches down beside me, intently scooping up a little of the black soil. She sifts it through her gloved fingers, and dirt clings to the bloody, sticky patches. Perhaps she hears the forest speaking through the earth, for she plunges five fingers down farther and dips her head, listening.