I have snip, snip, snipped pieces of arms and legs from the bodies of my puppets, and stitched them together to form my life-size monster’s face. Her eye sockets made from crushed papier-maché. arms and tiny hands. The cheeks stitched from tatters of fabric she ripped from my puppets’ bodies. I have stuck glassy, beady eyes as warts on her face, and collaged them together as a necklace for my monster. I have stitched tufts of hair into her body, and glued shards of clay and plastic into scales for her skin. I have stuffed her with foam and torn costumes and papier-maché.
And I have cried. I have cried as I used parts of my old, damaged friends. Cried as I recognized bits of characters I planned and crafted and loved. I had given my time and my care to each of them. They were beautiful. Now these broken pieces are ugly and are building something uglier and I can’t stop the tears falling onto my hands as I cut and stitch and glue and scrape.
But now I have made her.
And now I can destroy her.
August 15, 1982
I am ready. Last night I slid my monster puppet down the stairs and along into the kitchen. It was late and quiet. From Pete and Jane’s room I could hear muffled conversation. From hers, sobbing.
This time it was my turn to carry chairs down into the pantry, only I braced them together, back-to-back, between the narrow shelf-lined walls so that I could climb on their backs to reach up high. It took me a few attempts to throw the rope over the pipes that run across the ceiling, but I did it, and then twisted the rope to make a noose. I slipped the noose around my puppet’s neck and winched it into place so that it hung down, suspended from its neck. I put away the chairs and stood back to admire my handiwork. She looked magnificent, spinning slowly in the light from the high window, her scales and tufts of hair glinting in the moonlight, her face made from arms and legs and faces of other puppets more terrifying in the half light. I left her there and closed the door behind me.
Then I placed the two letters I had prepared on the main front doormat, one for Pete and one for Jane, so that it would look as if they had dropped there after the postman had delivered them. I took the keys I needed from the office, then I slipped the note I had written to her under her bedroom door. This time she didn’t open the door to watch me go back upstairs with those red eyes.
Now I am back up here. Waiting.
And as I wait I am excited. Excited about the plan I have made. I feel in control. I feel powerful.
August 16, 1982
I need to collect my thoughts. To work out what to do.
I want to remember as much of it as I can.
I was up before everyone else. I waited outside the fire door at the bottom of my stairs and watched it all unfold.
Jane emerged from Pete’s room and crossed the floor to the doormat where my letters had been joined by a few others from the real postman. They soon did the trick. Jane and Pete were scurrying back and forth, looking for their good shoes, and calling to each other to hurry. They rushed out to Pete’s car and were off to an imaginary meeting with Dr. Creane and social workers in the next town. I knew it would be hours before they realized their mistake and were able to get back. By which time it would all be over.
I stood back as I watched her open her bedroom door, my note in her hand. She looked up, but didn’t see me. She went back in.
I crept down to the kitchen and hid behind the cabinet unit next to the pantry door.
I waited and watched, remembering her promise of being a friend in front of everyone in the dining hall.
I watched and waited, thinking of salt in my water, spilled meat down my skirt.
I watched and waited, thinking of all the times I had eaten in that dining hall alone while girls laughed and chatted at other tables around me.
I waited and waited, thinking of the heads of my puppets, smashed and dented, staring up at me from my bedroom floor.
And then I heard the kitchen door click. “Mary?”
It was her.
I heard her walk into the kitchen, stepping around the workers’ tools, to get to the pantry door. She was almost beside me. She clicked open the pantry and called down the steps, “Mary? Are you there? I got your note.” And then she took a step down, and another …
I took my chance, leaping from where I was hiding, and gave her the hugest shove.
The sound of her tumbling down was horrid, but I banged the door shut behind her all the same, jamming the door handle with a chair.
I could hear her shouting, screaming, but I had to follow the plan. I went to each door—the main front door, the back door, the side entrance—and locked them all. It was perfect. She was trapped. She was afraid and now I had control.
I sat there with my back against the pantry door. At first I enjoyed her anger as she banged and thumped on the door.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Only this time she was on the inside. I felt completely calm as I poured out the kerosene I had taken from the shed onto the floor and began to sweep it under the gap in the door. I poured it little by little, sweeping it under the door, imagining it running around her feet and down the steps.
She screamed more. She shouted and raged, begged me to let her out and to get away from this hideous thing, asking what I was doing. What was this stuff?
Then I sat down again, the matches ready in my hands. I sat quietly and listened as the door bumped and trembled against my back. And I felt good. I enjoyed her fear.
And then she went quiet.
I heard her slide down the door and sit with her back to it. She must have been sitting in a pool of kerosene. Her shouts eased into hiccupping sobs, but mostly she was still. And we both sat there, back-to-back. Her on one side of the door, me on the other.
Then she started to talk.
“Mary, is that … thing … is that made out of your puppets? Is that what you have made from the pieces I left? Mary, it’s hideous and your puppets were so beautiful.