“They called the puppeteer Quatre Mains because his performances were impossible, as though he had four hands to keep so much in motion. Him and his wife, that’s it. Just the two of them hidden from view, and there could be six or eight marionettes on stage at once. I was a devotee, but Nico adored the puppets.”
He found a twisted set of sticks and wires and worked an invisible doll. “Halloween was his favorite. This time of year, the puppeteers would do a show filled with ghosts and goblins which would have made you believe. Afterward, late at night lying in bed, Nico would talk about the puppet show and swear to me which ones were just toys and which ones were real. Alive.” He walked over to the staircase and stopped on the first step. “Silly boy.”
The upper rooms appeared less menacing with Thompson’s escort. With no fanfare, he climbed the chair and lifted himself into the attic. Theo followed, leaving Egon in the bedroom below.
“You found the shoes up here? Funny place to leave shoes.”
“Nearly broke my neck tripping over them.”
Leaning over the edge, Thompson asked Egon where he had found the matchbook.
“In a pile of dust in the workshop. But you must believe me, that place up there was filled with mad puppets and broken toys come to life.”
“They seem to have flown the coop.” Thompson stood up and gave a desultory look at the open boxes. “I will have Foucault make a full inventory. You never know, something may have turned up. Tell me, Mr. Harper, did you ever finish translating that book of yours? Who was that fella with the strange name?”
“Muybridge? No, I have a little ways to go.”
“You must persevere, Mr. Harper, and not give up.” He lowered himself from the attic and held the chair for Theo to follow. Clapping the dust from his suit, Thompson cast a quick glance around the room. “This must have been where the puppeteers lived. My brother would have loved to have seen it.”
Egon stepped between the two other men. “The notebook was up there as well. With all their plays and scripts. The one with the initials KH in the back.”
“We’ll look into that as well, monsieur. Could be something, but we often make clues out of coincidences.”
They retreated down the stairs, following the trail to the back room. At the doorway, Theo grabbed him by the arm. “Tell me, Inspector Thompson, what happened to your brother who loved the puppets?”
“Nico? Funny, he’s why I became a policeman. He’s why your wife’s disappearance bedevils me. My brother vanished when he was eight years old. Nicholas.”
“Did you ever find him?” Theo asked.
“No,” the detective said. He put a steadying hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Which is not to say that we won’t find Kay.”
*
Every puppet needed a person to bring the body to life. A hand would no longer do. Not even the Quatre Mains at the sticks would work, for none of them could be called a marionette. They were giants now. The newness of their size astonished them, as though the whole world had been transformed. What was once large was now small, and what had been small was of little accord.
The farm girl lifted Kay from her perch in the barn to carry her to the school bus waiting outside. She swayed in the girl’s arms, unsteady as a mast in a storm. With a grunt, the girl flipped her to a horizontal position and toted her on board, laying her next to the other puppets in the back of the bus. Most of the seats had been removed and a row of berths had been installed on each side, and the giant puppets rested in the makeshift bunk beds. Kay flinched when the Good Fairy was laid atop her, though she was light as a bird’s nest. The people loaded the Queen from the back emergency exit. Her body took up nearly a third of the length of the bus.
Through the Vermont countryside they rambled, along the artery that twisted its way south between the Green Mountains. Kay could just see enough through the window to feel at home, the landscape reminding her of the place where she first fell in love with the world. The trees had dropped their leaves, save a few papery brown stragglers, but the sun shone gloriously, and the crisp air flowed in from open windows. A minivan followed the bus, and behind that, a pickup truck with Nix and No? resting in the bed. The convoy passed cows lunching in the fields and roadside apple pickers, over hill and dale, and came at last to a crossroads town all done up for Halloween. They parked by a plain white Congregational church with a cemetery adjacent, the rows of gravestones casting long shadows in the slant light. Across the road stood a ruined mansion, weatherworn and gray, and as she was unloaded from the bus, Kay could not help but think of death and decay, all wrapped in the peacefulness of an ordinary day in late October.