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The Puppet That Bites
On top of the cabinet in the back of randfather’s workshop and will one day be mine, if I want it – there is a puppet This is unsurprising, since it’s a puppet workshop But this puppet, alone of the that’s driven me crazy my whole life is this: The case doesn’t open It was my job to dust it when I was little, and I can tell you for a certainty: It has no door, no keyhole, no hinges It’s a solid cube, and was constructed around the puppet
To get the puppet out – or ‘let it out,’ in lass
This has been discouraged
It’s a nasty-looking little bastard, soarb – fur hat, leather boots Its head is a real fox skull, plain yellowed bone, unadorned except for the eyes in its sockets, which are black glass set in leather eyelids, too realistic for comfort Its teeth are sharpened to little knifepoints, because whoever h
‘Sharp enough for what?’ ht her home to Český Krumlov with me
‘What do you think?’ I replied with a creepy smile It was Christmas Eve We were fifteen, the poas out due to a storm, and my brother, Tomas, and I had led her out to the workshop with only a candle for light I ad to freak her out
The joke was so going to be on us
‘Your grandfather didn’t ht up to the glass to see the puppet better It looked evenreflections in its black eyesit seem to conteht it’
‘Caught it,’ Karou repeated ‘And where do grandfathers catch…undead fox Cossacks?’
‘In Russia, of course’
‘Of course’
It’s Deda’s best, , and all-ti, because Deda has a lot of stories, each one absolutely true ‘If I’ bolt slicebolt has yet obliged him, on top of which, for every story, he furnishes ‘proof’ Newspaper clippings, artifacts, trinkets When ere little, Tomas and I believed devoutly that Deda hioleh shape of a toe), hunted the witch Baba Yaga across the taiga at the behest of Catherine the Great (who presented hieundead fox Cossack in a Sevastopol cellar in the final days of the Crimean War Proof of that escapade? Well, aside fro the knuckles of his left hand
Because, yeah, that’s the story The puppet…bites
‘What do you mean, it bites?’ asked Karou
‘When you put your hand in its mouth,’ I said, cool, ‘it bites’
‘And ould you put your hand in its mouth?’
‘Because it doesn’t just bite’ I dropped my voice to a whisper ‘It also talks, but only if you let it taste your blood You can ask it a question, and it will answer’
‘Any question,’ said To He’s two years older thanaround withto do witharound like an assigned manservant He said, ‘But only one question per person per lifetirandfather ask it?’ Karou wanted to knohich is exactly anted her to ask
‘Let me just put it this way: It’s in the case for a reason’
The story is elaborate and grueso, the newspapers can pretty much say, She didn’t have a chance to be normal Her family twisted her from the day she was born Because what bedtime stories to tell little kids! They’re full of corpses and devils and infestations, unnatural things hatching fro I thought everyone was like this, that every family had their secret haruspex uncles, their ventriloquist Resistance fighters, their biting puppets A nor like, ‘And Baba Yaga has been hunting me ever since,’ and then ck his head to listen at the‘That doesn’t sound like claws on the roof, does it, Podivná? Well, it’s probably just crows Good night’ And then he’d kisswitch scaling the roof
And I wouldn’t have it any other way I mean, ould I be if I’d been raised on lass prison of a psychotic undead fox Cossack? I shudder to think
I h flower petals and pearls People ers the puppy-kitten reflex – Must touch – and I’ve found that since you can’t electrify yourself like a fence, the next best thing is to have murderer’s eyes
The point is, I wouldn’t be ‘rabid fairy,’ which is Karou’s nickname for me, or ‘Podivná,’ either, which is Deda’s It’s for mucholapka podivná, or Venus flytrap, in honor ofith To is required Even if you’re not ood ht when in despair, which is way too often lately – er Their fists are heavier Physically, we don’t stand a chance Hence the evolution of ‘little-sister brain’
Artful, conniving, pitiless No doubt about it, being a little sister – eh I take pride in knowing that To withelse, it’s Deda who is responsible for the landscape of my mind, the mood and scenery, the spires and shadows When I think about kids (which isn’t often, except to wish the theetting any (in a theoretical sense, in the far-distant future) is so that I can practice upon srandfather has practiced on us
I want to terrify little kids, too! I want to build spires in their h like marionettes, chased by whispers and hints of the unspeakable
I want to torture future generations with the Puppet That Bites