The Puppeteer

A Dangerous and Beautiful Discovery

Left to her own devices, she combed through the house, and for the first time since, she made his side of the bed back. She pulled the blankets over and tucked in the sheet. And then she saw it. A single feather, white and soft, floated down and landed on the bed. It must had been lost in the blankets until she shook them to make the bed. Still holding the sheets and blankets, she froze, staring. This was the first she had seen it, the first, she was sure, anyone had seen it, as she knew the people would be as frightened as her. Without touching it, she examined from afar. They did not have feather filled pillows or blankets. No one in town did. To have them was a symbol of royalty, of class, of situations far above what they had here, the very thought brought on embarrassed laughter. The birds, all black. So there it sat, a fragile, beautiful grenade. And it was all hers. The decision of what to do hung over her, tense, humid and energetic, a storm cloud. She dropped the blankets and numbly reached for it, examining the evidence. The question of how he had left was colossally mirrored by the question of how it had gotten here. Was it a message, a clue? An oxymoron at best? It was, she concluded, painfully beautiful, one of his favorite sayings, and she smiled at the memory. When they had first met, he had used that phrase to describe her. Painfully beautiful. But none of this could answer the question of how or why. What did it mean? Had he left it here? While she knew she should probably tell Detective Iglehart, she loved having something so dangerously sacred to herself. Looking closer, she could indeed see a tiny thread hanging from an empty stitch. Part of clothing? She hastily unlocked her wardrobe and fruitlessly rummaged through her clothes, although she already knew. None had feathers. Not even her good hat, on which she wore to funerals and weddings. The feather sat, not knowing the damage it had just caused. She pushed her thoughts back to the precarious feather resting in her hand. She impulsively had the urge to crush the fowl thing between her fingers, diminish the existence with her own strength. A small amount of pressure and it would be gone. But she didn't. She set it down, picked up her purse, and before leaving cast one more terrified glance towards it. Then she did something she had never had to do in her small town of trust. She locked the door.

she hurried across the drizzly street to the Echol's store and opened the door, welcomed by the ring of the bell and the pressed smile of half the store owner, Mrs. Echol. She offered a slight smile and wave as she made her way through the labyrinth of bookcases, expertly navigations herself to a dusty section in the back hidden partially by dead plants. The magic section. It goes without saying that spoken word of this subject was strictly forbidden, introducing and welcoming children to fill their young minds with too many outrageous ideas, far too big for this small town. So they were hidden. Somehow, someone years ago had had completed some transaction ending in the aquireation of the forbidden books. The first week of working there, so very long ago, she was instructed to burn any books that see not on the list of approved. Then she was given boxes to shelve. She couldn't bring herself to burn them, so after all the others were shelved she snuck them to the back of the store where a ferret had once hollowed out a nook. So she was the only one to know about them. She had no idea what was in them, and Turning her head slightly to check the people in the room, she inconspicuously pulled a thick volume from the corner. She had never read through them, but could not bring herself to burn them, their covers engrossed with such fine detail that was lost in the monochromatic way of the town. Looking down at the volume in hand, she admired the design; a man, eerily smiling with eyes resembling those of a cat, holding wooden blocks in each hand with strings connecting to a lifeless body, a smile on his face. A puppeteer. Bordering the picture on all sides were delicate symbols that she could not decipher. Slipping the book into her purse, she made her way back to the front of the store and out the door, looking at her feet the entire walk back. She unlocked her door and ran inside, and with shaky hands slid the deadbolt. She had never stolen anything in her life. But it wasn't technically stolen. According to all the lists, they never existed. She had nothing to lose. She cracked open the book in the dim light of her oil lamp, the pages satisfyingly still crisp after years hidden away. Flipping through the pages cluttered with the same strange symbols that covered the front, a dog-eared page suddenly stopped her, landing on a page with an illustration that made her cringe. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she looked at it, confused. Because while she had never read through the books, she had flipped through to see the state of them, and she had found no moth-eaten pages, no binding falling out. And no dog-eared pages. Someone must have found them, she realized with growing panic. Someone had found them. It would be the only explanation. Was it the Echol's? No it couldn't have been. They would have said something. They would've destroyed them upon discovery. She mentally went through the occupants of the town that frequented the store, but knew that all would report the books. Who would have kept them there? She turned back to the page it had fallen on. Illustrated on the thick parchment was almost a continuation of that on the cover, focusing of the lifeless body on strings, proportionately accurate to a real man. Clothed in a tunic, his head fell slightly forward and his back arched unnaturally, controlled entirely by the man with the strings. While the cryptic lettering gave no clue to what it meant an illustrated column was beside it. Captioned by the letters, it appeared to be some sort if ingredient list. Just then the lights went out, and she screamed. But then she laughed, realizing her mistake in failing to feed her lamp with more oil. She had become too engrossed in the book, she decided, and as light now began to return slowly, she once again returned her attention to the pictures. At the top of the list, she was surprised to find, was a feather. Followed by a thumbnail of a man, and his female counterpart next. Down the list she went, reading pictures and becoming more and more frightened, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. Something wasn't right. A feather and a man was at the top of the list...no. No, it wouldn't make sense. And kidnapping? No one had even explored that avenue, no one would had even go as far to suggest it, everyone in town was so close. And anyways, if his kidnapper needed a man and a feather for...whatever this was... why would he LEAVE the feather? Unless...unless he had dropped it while he was...collecting his other...ingredients. It was then that she realized two things that chilled her to the bone. That whoever had taken him would be coming back for the feather. And that someone else, a woman would soon go missing. That was next in the list. She stood up, breath shallow and fast, and glanced around the small house. She had to tell someone, she decided and it would have to be soon. But who? The town rebutted ideas of dark magic, no one, they would say, would practice it. Then it would be a while ordeal of how she had found the book,mans they would burn them. But she was certain it would happen again. And she was certain the taker would come back.