The travelers settled in the front parlor, and Mrs. Mackintosh went into the kitchen for the tea things. The house held memories of Kay in unexpected places. Dozens of framed photographs on the wall marking Kay’s childhood and a few more recent shots. Her father had been the photographer in the family, and it was clear that he had doted on her. Their only child. But the objects held an associate power, a reminder of the world from which she had come. The feel of the doorknob in his hand, the cones of lamplight on the corner tables, the cut-glass dish of hard candies centered on the coffee table. A roast in the oven reminded him of Sunday nights. On the mantel, a great clock ticked, an antique machine with painted oval portraits of Washington and Lincoln said to have once belonged to the latter’s son Robert, down at Hildene. The click of nails on the hardwood floors preceded the appearance of a great beast sauntering from the back rooms. Their old bluetick coonhound named Sal, a last connection to Kay’s father, recognized Theo at once with a look from her mournful brown eyes. Her tail spun in circles as she trotted to his side and buried her head in his lap, and when he reached down to greet her, she drank in the scent of him and rolled onto her back, begging for attention.
“Get on offa that,” Mrs. Mackintosh scolded the dog. She set down a pot of tea and the service, complete with a plate of shortbread, and the men fell to it, pushing aside the dog’s curious nose.
“I want you to know, Theo, just how sorry I am for your loss. Miss Kay was a fine young woman, much loved, and sorely missed.”
Theo looked up from the dog. “Missing, yes. But not yet gone.”
The smile melted from her face. “Dolores says as much. She has been going on about those puppets ever since they showed up on the telly, but I’m afraid there’ll be no good of it. You mustn’t get her hopes too high.”
Mitchell and Egon munched their cookies, staying out of the way.
“It could be a wild goose chase,” Theo said, “but we aim to find those people who made that puppet that looks like Kay. You have to admit the resemblance. I’ve reason to believe they might tell me something.”
“Aye, but it’s a lang road that’s no goat a turnin’.”
“Inscrutable as ever, my dear.” Dolores had rolled silently into the parlor. The dog left Theo’s side and loped over to greet her. Looking older now, and careworn, she lifted her arms to Theo, and as he embraced her, he fought back tears. She was a ghost. He had forgotten how much she looked like her daughter, a resemblance that pierced him yet again and opened the hole in his heart.
*
They put No? in a corner and wrapped her in a musty old horse blanket, and for the next three nights, someone always sat beside her, holding her hand and telling her everything was going to be all right. She pulled at the paper skin of her scalp, peeling back layers, so Firkin and Nix forcibly bound her hands in gloves crafted from twine. The hardest moments were just after midnight when everyone woke, groggy from slumber, and just before dawn when everyone had to return to their places and forgo control. No? yelled upon waking and cursed before sleeping, always the same plea to be allowed to go home, and at first they reminded her just how impossible that was, and how she would survive in any case, as a puppet in the wind and the rain, not to mention the coming ice and snow. Such bitter foreshadowings of winter only made matters worse.
On the fourth night, Kay took her turn to watch over No?. She sang to her, tunes her mother used to sing, lullabies and nonsense songs, and the music seemed to ease her troubled mind. They nestled in the corner of the stall, warm against the chilly night. “You’re the only one who cares,” No? said. “The only one who understands. There is something inside my head. Please untie my hands.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Kay said. “The Queen would have my head.”
“You must let me be free. Pay no attention to the Queen.”
“But Mr. Firkin would catch us.”
“Surely you jest. He’s nothing more than a tub of hot air.”
“I can’t, No?, I wish I could.”
She let out a drawn-out hiss. “Listen, then, and tell me if you hear it, too, and perhaps once you hear the noises in my brain, you’ll change your mind.” Opening her mouth wide, No? pressed her lips against Kay’s ear and held still. All Kay could hear was breathing, and she shook her head. So No? shifted and pressed her ear against Kay’s ear, and they sat cheek to cheek for some time until the hum, faint and distant, began. An electric current going up and down in volume like an oscillating fan.
Alarmed, Kay faced her. “There is something in your head besides thoughts and ideas.”
“And I can’t very well do anything about it like this.” No? held up her twine-bound hands, useless as mittens. “My brain is going to explode. I’ll go mad.”
“I can’t untie you.”
“Poke a hole in it,” No? said. “It doesn’t have to be big. A little puncture, just enough to let out the pressure, or I’ll just burst.”
The thought of stabbing her friend in the head mortified Kay, but she could see the agony and need in her eyes. Making sure the others were occupied, she searched for a sharp object. When she dropped to her hands and knees, Kay had to fight off the advances of the little dog, who thought she was playing a game. On the floor, she spied wedged in a corner an old horseshoe nail, a bit rusted but keen enough. She pricked a hole in her thumb, surprised by how little pain she felt, and returning to No?’s side, she double-checked on the weird noise by pressing ear to ear. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“It won’t. Just a small incision, somewhere no one will notice.” No? turned and bowed her head, exposing the base of her skull.