Theo examined the matchbook. On the printed side was a silhouette of an exotic dancer at a Montreal club called Les Déesses. He turned it over and read the inscription on the blank side: “HELP. Get me out of here.” The letters penciled in a faint, unsettled hand, as though the message had been written in a hurry. He handed it to Mitchell, who seemed equally puzzled.
“Don’t you see?” Egon asked. “The message was from someone inside the toy shop, trying to get out.”
Shaking his head in disbelief, Theo took the matchbook from Mitchell and examined the note more carefully.
Egon looked him in the eye. “Some might say this message is a mere coincidence. I say the place is haunted. Or something terrible happened here. And I cannot help but feel that I was led there by the memory of a puppet in the window. The puppet you said your wife adored. I am not a superstitious man, did you ever think so? But I can’t help but feel that I was led there to find the note. I hope I have not upset you, Harper, with all this speculation, but it was a powerful feeling. Down to my bones.”
Like a magician, Theo twirled the matchbook between his fingers.
14
The van stopped and started, rolled forward a car length, and idled again in park. While they were in line, the giants switched off the air conditioning and cracked open the windows, but it was hotter than hell in back. Kay squirmed in the straw. They had been playing the theatrical vagabonds, setting up their shows and staying for a day or two at provincial hamlets, performing cleaned-up variety skits in high school auditoriums and Grange halls for clutches of country people desperate for entertainment, or afternoons with restless children, the worst of all, a crowd of tots expecting Sesame Street and getting an old slapstick Punch and Judy instead. Now they were waiting in the heat and the dark to get to the next place. Soon after the engine had been stopped, the giants began talking English with another person. Muffled by the boxes, their voices were indistinct, but Kay could tell by the rise and fall that a strange man was asking a series of questions to which the giants replied softly and politely. The doors opened and the people moved toward the back. All at once, the cargo space was flooded with light.
“Puppets,” the man said. “Now I’ve heard everything.”
“We are going down to perform a few shows here in Vermont,” the Quatre Mains said, “with our American friends.”
“So you said. Would you mind opening up a box, so’s I can have a look?”
“Any which one?” the Quatre Mains asked.
“As long as it has these puppets you were talking about. Let’s try this one here.” He tapped the edge where Kay lay. The giants removed the box and placed it on the pavement. Opening the lid, the Deux Mains took out the Three Sisters and lifted the separator above Kay and No? and Nix. It was like looking up from an open grave. Dressed in a green uniform and a wide-brimmed hat, he towered over them and bent for a closer examination. His grip felt strange on her body as he held Kay in the air and poked around in the straw with his free hand.
“So you made all these puppets?” the green man asked.
“Every last one of them,” said the Quatre Mains. “Wood and foam and stuffing and sticks.”
“They seem so lifelike. Ever get scared that they’ll wake up in the middle of the night and come to get you?”
The Deux Mains laughed. “We keep them under lock and key when we’re asleep. No use taking any chances.”
The green man looked over her. “My partner’s giving me the thumbs-up, so your paperwork must be in order.” He handed Kay to the Deux Mains, and she could have sighed with relief over the familiar touch. “Welcome to the United States of America. Enjoy your visit to Vermont.”
The giants repacked the puppets and were about to close up the van when the green man interrupted. “And good luck with your puppet show. No, that’s not right—what are you supposed to say? Break a leg. Or break a string, I guess, since they’re puppets.”
Once they started rolling again, Kay whispered to No?. “Did he say we’re in Vermont? Back in America?”
“Land of the free,” No? answered. “The Green Mountains.”