Puppet (2 page)

I see a smile tug at the corner of his mouth and he gives me a sidelong glance.  “I know,” he replies.

I try to hide my grin and begin playing with a loose thread at the end of my thin, gray dress.  It’s one of the only things from the orphanage that I still wear.  Jed bought me a whole new wardrobe when I came to live with them; a sort of compensation for what was to come, you might say.  Or he might’ve just been feeling charitable. 

I pick up a yellowed leaf from the grass and toss it into the pond, watching the ripples cascading into endlessness.  “People are still calling the marionettes magic.  What do you think they’ll call me?”  I say it with a timid laugh but it comes out strangled and scared, distorted by my fear.

“It’s just what they perceive,” he replies.  “Do you believe in it?”

I turn to him.  “What?”

“Magic.” 

I snort.  “Like witchcraft?”  The idea is so absurd it makes me giggle. 

He laughs.  “No, not witchcraft.  Just...magic.” 

I look at him oddly for a moment, wondering if I do or don’t.  I’ve never given it much of a thought.  It’s one of those things you easily forget about.  “I believe in things that make sense.  From what I’ve heard about magic, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” I point out. 

He shrugs, running his fingers through his dark brown hair.  “Seems to me that it’s just another word for dreaming.” 

“Sleeping,” I state, ready to laugh again.

He shakes his head with another grin.  “No, like believing in things.  Good things that happen.”

I watch him for a moment, my eyes narrowed in suspicious contemplation.

“Like coming here; being saved from that awful orphanage you talk about all the time.  That could be magic, couldn’t it?” 

I shrug, realizing it
was
pretty improbable.  Jed was a ridiculous savior.  I remember the first time I laid eyes on him.  I remember sitting in the dining hall at the orphanage, eating my food alone as Jed and James stepped through the door.  His blue eyes scanned the crowd hungrily, not a vicious hunger – more of a curious one.  It was James’s eyes that met mine first and he held my gaze longer than was comfortable, before Jed noticed me as well and began to walk my way.  It took me a moment to see the resemblance between the two – that James was Jed’s son.  I wondered where the mother was.  Usually it was families who came looking for children, but after a few conversations, I knew James’s mother was gone.  It wasn’t spoken out loud, but I knew. 

I remember the smile tugging at the corner of my lips as they both sat down across from me.  Jed had barely a few words out of his mouth before I realized that my smile was genuine and not forced – something so unusual that my expression had dropped for a few heartbeats.

“I guess.”  I’m staring off across the lake to the study window where I know Amabel is standing, slumped in the corner.  The doll I was supposed to become, in a way.  “But it’s not the same magic people talk about when they see the marionettes.” 

James nods.  “It’s just a word.”

Fear grips me as I think about everything Jed has done to change me.  And what frightens me even more is myself.  The fact that I’m still here, that I’m choosing to stay – that I’m attached to both Jed and James, in a way. 

Running is all I’ve ever done.  I ran from friendships, from people, from families looking to adopt.  Maybe it was because I never really knew how to care for someone.  But Jed had seemed to worm his way into my heart from his first idiotic smile.  And it scared me.  But not enough to start me running again.  And maybe that was the reason I agreed.  Not because of the orphanage, not because of what I was destined to face if I hadn’t gone with them.  Maybe it was Jed’s smile that sealed the deal. 

I think about Amabel, her periwinkle hair and lifeless form, how she has suddenly become useless and no longer important or special.  I almost feel bad for her before I remember that she’s nothing but a pile of rusty metal and circuits.  I’ve replaced Amabel.  And she’ll never know.  The thought chills me but I try to push it away.  I think about Jed – why I chose this, why I’ve somehow come to enjoy this new life with him and James.  Maybe because he was so happy.  So happy to meet me.  He’s eccentric, I saw that from the beginning.  He gabs on and on, flailing his arms and making silly expressions and although at first it seems unintentional, I slowly began to see the desperation in his rants.  The way he forces others to perceive him as absent minded when his mind isn’t absent at all.  He’s hiding from something, using his words to run away.  As I sat across from him on the first day we met, having talked for over an hour, I saw that Jed was lying to himself just as much as he lies to me.  And to James.  For someone so seemingly deep and observant, James doesn’t see his father.  It’s almost as if James is the only one Jed fools.

“You know,” James says from beside me.  “He’s going to call you his living marionette, now.”  I can almost hear pitied frustration in his voice, as if it’s him undergoing the experiment and not I.  I’ve always noticed his hesitation with Jed’s science.  His hesitation with most things, actually.  I remember when we first met, how he looked at me in that funny way of his – like he’s trying to put together a puzzle with only his mind.  I noticed right away that he’s a much quieter person than Jed.  Jed thinks out loud while James keeps his thoughts to himself.  James is good at hiding it, but after the months I’ve lived with them, I can almost see him coming apart at the seams.  I see it hidden in his eyes sometimes.  A sadness I can’t even begin to grasp.  It’s so deep and so hopeless.  But it’s only a flash before his mask is back – happy and more like Jed. 

I think of the months I’ve lived here – Jed and James slowly becoming my normality.  Jed and his horrible cooking, James and his sarcastic jokes.  But for all of the laughter and getting along, there’s something unspoken in James’s eyes that’s mirrored in Jed’s.  I have a feeling the happiness, however genuine it may be in the moment, is a way of covering things up.  Things that they aren’t even ready to face. 

They’re running.  And I’m running too.  Although I doubt they know that I am just like the are.

I stare at the window harder, wondering how so many emotions can be boiling around inside of me, mixing into something I can’t quite name, while I still feel dull and hollow.  I wonder what a marionette would feel if they could.  Would they feel emptiness? 

“I know,” I finally reply, the words spiraling through my head. 
Living Marionette. 
I think of them coming from Jed’s mouth as he points to me and something inside of me succumbs and murmurs,
Let him.
 

3

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I
hurl the remnants of the old, yellowed pencil at the wall, sighing in frustration as it leaves a small dent.  I’ve already broken three pencils today.  On accident.  I’ve been afraid to even pour myself a drink of water; the glass feels so light and fragile now; like paper-thin ice.

I sit down on the bed, pulling my red blanket around my shoulders, feeling glaringly bright in the dim room.  I feel like I’m growing into someone else’s body.  Amabel’s body.  Not my own.  My legs and arms are suddenly too quick and I’m knocking things over, tripping, and banging my arms against doorways and dressers.  I’d never been a clumsy child so this feeling of uneasiness with the one thing that’s supposed to be familiar, is unsettling.  I want my body to do what I tell it to and although it seems to be trying to carry out my orders, it’s as if it can’t quite grasp the concept.   

I grab the cross that lies on a chain around my neck and hold it in the palm of my hand.  Its once golden hue has faded to a rusty brown with time.  It’s the only thing I have from my parents; the only thing that brings back blurred memories and shapes, although I can’t quite tell if they’re real or just flashes of conjured images I created as a child.  The fact that this cross was my parents’ is probably the only reason I believed in God in the first place, although I wouldn’t say I’d ever felt especially close to Him.  The cross reminds me of my parents; in a way, it was the only thing they ever gave me.

I stare down at my hands again, still feeling oddly different.  My mind darts back to the time Jed visited me at the orphanage.  At the age of barely sixteen, I still had two more years to live out there before legal adulthood.  And then five more years to pay off a crime that was apparently unforgivable.  Anger burns within me as I think back to it.  I can’t say why I did it.  I don’t really know.  I guess I was just tired of the daily routine – tired of being nobody and tired of being bored.  It started with the necklace in the shop window – a string of sparkling beads.  Not all that expensive.  Not all that attractive, either.  I knew I would never wear it but something inside of me urged me to take it.  And from then on I never stopped.  The adrenaline rush, the triumph, made it all worth it.  It was something forbidden and something I could control.  Something that was mine and so undeniably
risky
.  I’ve never been one to really think things through.  The orphanage was so angry when they found out how many things I’d stolen.  Of course I was forced to give everything back and the orphanage was forced to pay for damages, as well as the things I no longer had.  I obviously had nothing to give them of mine so the orphanage made a deal.  They’d keep me out of prison and they wouldn’t force me to pay anyone back if I stayed on for five years after turning eighteen.  Apparently, work at an orphanage wasn’t something people were lining up to do, so my job was to fill in their place. 

That is, if I wasn’t adopted first. 

I can still remember Jed’s words, asking me if I understood, if I was okay with everything, if I would mind, but I wanted nothing more than to be set free – to not face what I had done.  I was ready to go and to do anything for it.  The orphanage seemed glad to be rid of me as well.  At first I wondered if they had told Jed about what I had done, but now I’m sure they didn’t.  And I’m glad.  The reason I agreed with Jed’s experiments was to leave it all behind.  I’m done with it now – completely.  There’s no need for him to know.   

My gaze slides from my hands, upward.  There’s still a mark on my arm; dark and slightly bruised because apparently Jed isn’t very good at giving shots.  I lean closer and notice that I can still see the small dot where the needle entered my skin.  The remembrance of it makes me shudder. 

He never told me what was in the murky, yellow liquid he injected into my body; I probably wouldn’t have understood the terms anyway.  All I knew was that it was supposed to make me capable of everything the marionettes could do.  Or at least, that’s what Jed had hoped.  I really didn’t think it would work.  I thought I
might
be a little more alert, a little faster. 

It scares me to realize how much I didn’t know.

The marionettes’ bodies are indestructible.  They are capable of shuffling and dealing cards faster than the eye can perceive, of crushing rocks in the palms of their hands, of darting across rooms in the blink of an eye.

And now I am too. 

It scares me more than it empowers me.  I don’t feel stronger, not on the inside at least.  I feel weak, like I don’t know how to control this new body I’ve been sucked into.  I can understand why James turned down his father time after time.  It’s not hard to see that when Jed needed a young, healthy experiment and James refused, that he sought out another one.  Me.  I doubt if James even agrees with what his father does. 

“Don’t you see, my dear Penelope?” Jed had said.  “You have been blessed beyond comprehension.  You are gifted now.  You are...superhuman.”  He had smiled in that delighted way of his. 

I’m not sure if I like the idea of being superhuman.  Strong and fast, maybe.  But being put on display because of some science experiment of Jed’s?  It makes my hands clammy and my stomach flip.

Not to mention that whatever drug he injected into my system has never been tested on anyone else but me.  Jed gives me weekly pills to counteract the “side effects”.  Just the fact that there are possible side effects terrifies me to no end.   

But whatever.  He had taken me from the orphanage – from my past – and given me a home.  He deserves this.  I owe it to him.  I can’t risk him sending me back.  Or the look of disappointment on his face if he ever did. 

“All of Portum will know of you as my living marionette,” Jed says to me from time to time, a silly grin plastered on his face, as if expecting me to be ecstatic as well.  I usually smile back at him, not wanting to shatter his moment of bliss, but all along, that very point is what I have been afraid of.  I don’t want the whole empire of Portum aware of me and my so called ‘magical’ abilities.  I don’t want to be famous.  Not in that way.  I’ve tried too long to be invisible.  I can just see the little old ladies, or superstitious fanatics lining up at my door, calling me an abomination and accusing Jed of witchcraft.   

But I’ll do it.  I’ll do it for Jed.  It’s better than facing the orphanage and dealing with what I did.  And besides, it’s one of the only things Jed’s been talking about recently.  He might be crazy, but at least he has a dream.  A dream that’s suddenly become a reality. 

Or magic, as James would call it.   

4

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“M
ay I present to you,” Jed’s voice floats through the thick, red curtains to my ears, slightly muffled but still melodic and animated.  I look down at my knee-length, soft, red dress, just a shade lighter than the obnoxiously bright drapes separating me and the audience.  I tug the dress downward at my thighs, suddenly feeling as if it’s too short.  What if I trip?  Why didn’t I wear pants?  

“...years to perfect and finally find a volunteer...” Jed’s voice comes at me again.  He’s addressing the audience of scientists who’ve come to observe his newest discovery.  He assured me before that there would only be about one hundred at the most, but the thought of a hundred people staring me down while I stand elevated on a stage makes my stomach knot.

For some reason, Jed’s voice suddenly seems farther away and harder to hear.  Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe I’m just nervous.  Scared.  Terrified.  The large curtains make me feel as if I’m at an opera or ballet, but being on the other side of them is odd, like I’m about to belt out an aria or dance across the floor once the thick fabric is pulled away.