“Who would leave a soul behind?” the Deux Mains replied. “They are the spirit of our shows. Take each and every one.”
A wave of relief doused the fuse of panic. A giant approached, two legs and a forest-green cabled sweater, and with his fingers rolled Kay over on her back. Wrapping his grip around her, he lifted her high into the air, her limbs gone limp, and raised her to his face. His eyes were like two china plates, blue and gray with black saucers in the middle, and his nose was pocked with old scars like a hill on the moon. Deep wrinkles lined his face, fissures in the parchment of his skin, and wiry hairs looked like strands of twine sprouting from his eyebrows and the caterpillar of his mustache. He brought his other hand to her head and with the nail of his index finger inspected the jagged cut of her mouth, his touch gentle and curious. When he cracked a smile, his teeth looked like old stones weathered by scores of winters. He smoothed her hair with his free palm, his gesture reminding her of her husband’s affection. “A little mischief,” he said. He laid her in a partitioned wooden box, her space no wider than a coffin and lined with newspaper shreds. She watched as he brought the others. To her left, he laid No?, after a quick brush of her straw hair, and to her right, he placed Nix. The Deux Mains had three dolls in hand when she arrived, and Kay had only the briefest glimpse of her. She was a dark-haired woman, with olive skin and green eyes, younger than the Quatre Mains, perhaps by a dozen years. Setting down the Three Sisters, she then covered Kay and her companions with a flat divider, darkening the space. Olya, Masha, and Irina were stored atop them, and then a lid was fixed to the box that now contained six. Strips of packing tape sealed them in. Judging by the muffled sounds, a second box was prepared, which Kay could only assume held the Queen and Mr. Firkin, the Good Fairy and the Devil, and the Worm and the Dog. And then the giants went away again.
Midnight arrived in the catacombs, but the puppets were buried in confetti. Kay could hear them awaken into the half life, but for all her squirming and wriggling, she could not move. They were all stuck in space like the dead and buried. To shake the claustrophobia, she blew out a string of quick puffs and tried to calm down. From the left came a gentle sobbing, and she imagined poor No? full of sorrow. On her right, Nix began to whistle the “Entry of the Gladiators,” which she recognized from her circus days, the old chromatic tune to send in the clowns.
“Pipe down.” A voice overhead, Olya’s, cut through the noise. “For God’s sake, if we are to share the same grave, we can’t have that whistlink and that sobbink night and day.”
“Olya,” Kay said, “is that you? What is happening to us? Why did they pack away the man in the bell jar?”
“Do not despair, Kay Harper. We are just on a holiday. Taking a little trip.”
“We are leaving the Back Room?”
“Dahlink, the Back Room is not a place, it is a state of mind. We go where the wind blows. We might travel for a bit, we might find a new home.”
Her sister Masha cleared her throat. “Is not the first time, kitten. Live for a century, learn for a century. I remember the time we were just in the middle of a performance of Macbeth, when they had to skedaddle.”
“The three witches,” said Irina.
“‘Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,’” Masha answered. “‘Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.’”
“How did it go, sister?” Irina asked. “‘Fillet of a fenny snake.’ You remember the Worm, eh? How he hated the part. ‘In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt—’”
“All right,” Olya said. “That will do for the Memory Lane. These poor gills are worried sick.”
Irina could not resist. “‘By the pricking of my thumb, Something wicked this way comes.’”
“Enough,” Olya shouted. From the box next door came soft titters. “Calm down, everyone. Now and then, it is time to go. The Quatre Mains knows best. Perhaps he has heard whispers in the dark, rumors in the audience that this puppet or that is too lifelike, too real, and they start poking around in his business.”
Masha offered another theory. “Or perhaps the two puppeteers have simply grown tired of this place. The road is in their blood. Gypsies.”
“Living out of a suitcase,” Irina said. “Better than living in one, eh?”
Nix laughed. “You saw they packed away the Original, too. I am sure we will not come back to this place. Our happy home.”
“But what about my people?” Kay asked. “How will they know where to find us?”
“We are your people,” Olya said. “You are one of us, and you go where we go.”