The Puppet Theater in My Attic

It was the last thing I remembered before my dad’s passing. The first time I saw it.

I was eight years old at the time. It was dark outside my bedroom window and my eyes had a familiar burn. Tears dampened my young cheeks. My breath stuttered as it visited my lungs. What I’m sure was once a roaring cry had simmered down to a few sniffles. I tried to occupy my mind with the meaningless task of twirling my favorite multi-colored ink pen in spirals at my desk. With the bright red cam pressed down I drew little fire tornadoes on the white page. That was when I heard it. A long winded string of notes that announced the arrival of an upbeat and jumpy tune from an accordion. The joyous tune narrowed my brow briefly before shooting a wide-eyed grin across my face. The song gave me vivid images of clowns slapping pies into one another, daring trapeze artists soaring through the air, and humongous elephants tooting their trunks on a grand stage. I was convinced a great show awaited me, and it seemed all I had to do was open my closet.

I got to my feet and sliced the path of my chair legs into the wood floor. I wiped the final tear from my eye and made my way to the closet door. Each step I took caused the old floorboards to creak beneath me, and with each step the notes of the accordion hit my ears faster. The song was frantic as I stood in front of the door knob. I imagined the accordionist soaked in a puddle of sweat as his fingers flew across the keys. I paused at the door as if he could see me. As if he would say ‘Hurry up kid I’m dying here.’ as his bright red face puffed for air. I giggled at the thought, but decided to relieve him of his misery by turning the knob and swinging it open. Nothing. At least nothing new. Just my clothes hanging from the rod, my cowboy bed set that was far too cool for a frigid night such as this one, and a metal baseball bat resting on the floor.

A moment of disappointment came to me but hope was still present in the form of a song. The accordion was still frantic, if not even more so. It was also a little louder. It took me a moment to realize that the song wasn’t coming from the closet. I noticed that I couldn’t tell where it was coming from by tracking the sound. I only knew, as if it were innate to my being, that the sound was coming from the attic. I smiled realizing that the circus may have still come to my house. Only a thin sheet of wood separated the attic from my closet. It rested in its slot at the top of a steep, wooden slope with five horizontal wood planks to keep a foothold. Nerves crept into my chest, but excitement outweighed suspicion in my eight-year old mind. The song became an onslaught of notes seemingly impossible to perform with each step I took up the slope. Once at the top, I shoved the wooden sheet cover out of the way. The song was so loud in that moment, like the accordionist crawled into my ear to play. Above, was only a void. A pitch black square cut into the ceiling a mere inches above my head. I reached above into the pitch black attic fishing my hand through the pitch black nothing. A brief panic filled me as I smacked all around the post I knew held the light switch. Mercifully it made itself known and I flicked it on with a relieving click.

I hoisted myself into the now dimly lit attic. Silence was ushered in as I crossed the threshold. To my disappointment, the cone of light from the lone lightbulb didn’t reveal a single clown. No trapeze artist summersaulted through the air at daring heights. No elephants swayed as they balanced on a large concrete ball. Only the attic’s common clutter. Cobwebs draped from the rafters. Decorations sentenced to dust collection for the crime of being out of season, and the husks of items once loved now doomed to the title ‘antiques’ that my mother began collecting that year. However, there was at least something new. Peaking its corner into the light was a sliver of pink painted wood. I squinted to get a better look and, as if on cue, another light snapped on. A light I had never seen before in the attic. It washed the pink object in a coat of light. It was a puppet theater. The pink was embroidered by intricate blue and gold patterns, surgically eased onto the piece by a loving artist’s hand. The artist, I determined, belonged to centuries passed as I observed the chips, cracks, and splinters given to the wood by time. A mural was painted on the front of the theater. It depicted a child dancing with strings that descended from the misty edges of the painting and tied taut around the child’s joints. Above it was a stage concealed by royal blue curtains. The attic light dimmed to a miniscule glow. Then, a spotlight snapped on and cut a circle of floor from dim lighting. It startled me at first. I was certain it didn’t exist before but still I happily took it as an invitation and stood in its center.

The curtains drew to reveal a forest of trees hand cut from construction paper and pasted on a white backdrop. Though I couldn’t see the instrument itself, the accordion played a relaxed melody to set the scene. In the bottom left corner of the stage was a hand puppet of a deer. It stretched to show it nubby, finger filled arms and plastic antlers glued to its head. Then it tucked into a ball and fell asleep with a comical snore. The melody eased to an end and after a pause only filled by snoring, A new puppet jumped from underneath the stage. It was a bear puppet. The bear jerked its head to the sleeping deer then me, then back to the deer then back to me. The accordion played a trill of notes with each whip of its head. The exaggerated gestures made me laugh. Then it put its nub arm spiked with a pointy claw over its mouth and shushed with a long hiss. The accordion stopped briefly.

The bear began sneaking up to the deer, bouncing and swaying to the repetitive notes of the accordion. Then with a swell in the song the bear huffed and huffed and huffed, and shot out a sneeze that boomed through the attic, accompanied by a clatter of tumbling notes from the accordion. I laughed again, until the deer popped its head up and froze me in an instant. It looked around the stage, then to me. It yawned and fell back asleep. I was relieved that we weren’t caught. The bear looked at me again and said ‘shhhhhh’. I mimicked his gesture to show my understanding. His sneaking continued, comically bouncing to the accordion until he stood over top of the sleeping deer. He looked at me again. Covering his mouth with both hands he let out a snicker. I did the same, feeling mischievous with our shared little secret. Then the bear raised his claw into the air, and plunged it into the deer, just below its chin. My eyes shot wide open, my mouth agape at the display. The deer laid there. It choked and gasped for air. Crimson liquid pooled in its mouth as it tried to move its lips. I watched in shock as the stab left the poor deer puppet drowning in its own blood. Then in an instant, I was in bed and it was morning.

I dismissed it as a dream at first. A vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless. “It was an accident.” My mother repeated to me that morning as she choked on her sorrow. It was hard to wrap my head around what she said. To an eight year old boy, his father is indestructible. How could a simple fall take him out of our lives? My mother couldn’t handle the fact either. For the next couple of years, her mind protected her through constant fear. She pulled me from school shortly after. She replaced my education with books. Some bored me into exhaustion to read but I had to complete one before she would get me another. My favorites were always westerns. Especially when a lone, courageous sheriff would defeat the odds and save the town. Any time I remembered being scared I pictured myself in a ten gallon hat with an iron revolver strapped to my hip. Each time my mom handed me a new book I dawned the outfit. Nothing scared me more than seeing her hand grow thinner, and thinner, and thinner as the paranoia starved her. Until she left without a trace when I was ten.

Her disappearance was the final broken stone in a path to my grandma’s spare bedroom. I watched a light rain speckle the window. The inhospitable circumstances of the past two years left my memory almost entirely frozen. My grandma’s brittle, age speckled hand soothed my upper back with gentle circles as she attempted to melt the frigid prison away. I could hardly feel it. My only thoughts were with my mother. Where had she gone? Why did she leave?

“You’re going to be okay.” My grandma spoke with the same gentleness of her hand. As though her words could soothe the questions that chewed at me.

I pulled my eyes from the window and met hers. Through her pupils I could see the sorrow was mutual. She forced a smirk across her face which lit a candle of happiness in my endless shadows of worry. I wanted to reciprocate but couldn’t manage. All I could do was ask the question that chewed at me the most.

“Was it my fault?” I whimpered. The question was like a rock lodged in my chest. I barely found the air necessary to speak it. She reached for my cheeks with both hands as if to stop the flood from a pipe that just burst under the pressure. She shook her head ‘no’ frantically.

“You can always talk to me.” She assured me. I wanted to tell her anything I could but I didn’t know what to say. I had barely any recollection of the past two years. Instead I gave her my promise through the slight nod of my head that I would, some day. She pursed her lips and reciprocated the nod to accept that I couldn’t yet.

“I love you, you know. Until there’s nothing left.” She said with care. I was overcome by a full smile for a brief instant. A rare occurrence since my fathers passing. She stood and glanced over her shoulder back at me. One last glance before leaving for the night. After she disappeared behind the click of a door, I realized I didn’t care that I had nothing to say. I wanted to ask her every other question that raced through my mind but I stayed silent in fear of what may come out. I was afraid to burden her with finding answers she didn’t have. With the imagined cowboy hat on my head and pistol on my hip I determined it wouldn’t be the brave thing to do. I knew I needed to find what happened to my mom, and my only hope for answers lay hidden in the old house. So I opened my bedroom window, grabbed my flashlight and went to find them.

I made it after a thirty minute hike across town. It was a small single story home. The shingles had gaps in their uniform pattern. The plastic shutters were left cracked and chipped. Shadows swayed over the broken walkway, cast by the hip-high grass in the front yard. A blue tarp still whipped in the breeze, covering a broken window at the side of the house. Strangely, I remember it being broken after my fathers passing but not the faintest inkling of how. I rushed up to the front porch, avoiding all the snakes my mind imagined in the tall grass. I rummaged in my pocket for my key to the door. I stuffed it into the lock and with a twist, the door popped open.

The blankets were still clumped up on the couch. Porcelain nick-nacks remained intact on the dining room shelves from my mothers collection. Pictures of us still hung in their original position. I could have easily convinced myself I still lived there if it wasn’t for a subdued musky scent sneaking onto my pallet. I walked down the hall letting the beam from my flashlight guide the way. My room was just across from my parents’. I noticed a silver bolt lock drilled into my bedroom’s door frame from the outside, left unlocked. Something I don’t remember being there but I decided to leave it alone. I entered my parent’s room. Darting the flashlight beam around to see the familiar furniture. A bed, a nightstand, and a matching set of drawers were dispersed around the room without reason. Deep gashes striped the bedroom floor, heavily clustered in front of the entrance.

I dug through drawers of clothing and items accumulated over a lifetime too valuable for the trash, yet not valuable enough to be seen. I rummaged through my dads old sock drawer, left untampered since his passing. My finger collided with a cold object. I recovered it from the depths of the sock drawer and displayed it in the full light of the flashlight. It was all too familiar. A collapsible pocket knife with a royal blue handle glistened in my hand. Seeing the object brought a memory back to me.

My dad sat me down at the edge of my bed months before his accident. He told me stories of frigid November mornings with his father. They watched the sun rise from tree stands, the barrels of their rifles pointed at the grass below as they hoped a deer would manifest in the cross hairs. Most of the time it never did. Their time was spent talking in hushed tones. But, the rush that could be felt when a deer actually appeared. He used that blue handled pocket knife to dress them each time. Once he handed it to me I ran a finger along its four inch blade. His childhood was not kind to its edge and I hoped that mine wouldn’t be either. I kept it by my side any time I could. I asked myself, then why would it be buried in my dads sock drawer? My memory was no use. Nor was it any use in recalling why brown specks clung to the blade. Rust? Deer blood? It was hard to tell in the flashlight glow by my inexperienced eyes. But I knew it wasn’t going to bring me any closer to finding my mom. So I tucked it into my pocket and continued the search.

I scoured under the bed and behind the furniture only to reveal clumps of dust. I checked in the closet pushing aside luggage bags and parting the clothes on the rod. Behind them was a wood panel, fastened to its frame by a single black screw. Though I had no recollection of its presence in my mothers closet, it opened a chasm in my stomach. It felt so deep that my heart sank into its depths. I slammed the closet door and pinned it shut against my back. Defeated, I slouched and tried to fight back tears. I put the imaginary cowboy hat on once again as I clenched my jaw and scowled the tears back. I grinded my teeth at the thought of being nearly brought to tears by something I couldn’t even remember. I got to my feet, stomped over to the bed and gave the nightstand a hard kick that caused an immediate THUD. I paused for a moment, fearing I had broken something. As if anyone was around to reprimand me for the outburst. I took my flashlight and checked under the nightstand. A book fell onto the floor. I pulled it out to see tape wrapped around the cover. I set it on the bed and felt for anything else stuck under the night stand. Another book, roughly the same size also taped to the nightstand. On the covers, one was written ‘January 1, 2006’ with pristine penmanship in permanent marker and the other ‘2007’ in pencil.

I took a moment to contemplate what I just found. Before my fathers accident my mom was dedicated to her journal. I caught her often jotting down the highlights of her day after the sunset. At the end of many pleasant days she would even invite me into her room to read her recollections. She invited me into her thoughts through the door of ink on paper. I always made a dash onto the bed to listen to her retell her day. Those memories never left me. In hindsight, it was very brave to share her vulnerable thoughts with someone. Even if that someone is just her child.

I grabbed the cover, ready to turn the page with a smile on my face, but I found myself frozen. My fathers accident was late in 2006. I knew I would have to get there eventually. I knew I would have to watch my mothers descent into an ever-fearful stranger. I considered just skipping through the pages quickly to find any answers as to where she might have gone. I worried I might miss something if I did and most importantly, I missed her. I missed how she was before the paranoia and wanted to read all of her sane words that I could. So I flipped open the cover of the book titled ‘January 1, 2006’ and started reading.

January 1st, 2006:

My new year’s resolution begins! I bought two journals a couple of weeks ago in anticipation. They were buy-one-get-one so I couldn’t pass it up! I’ve been sitting here for at least thirty minutes trying to think of what to say. Something about a blank page is so scary. I feel like a teenager with her diary of little secrets! Anyway, little bit about myself. I am a wife of 12 years to the handsome man I met in high school, Noah. Sure, he gets on my nerves sometimes but I still love him I guess. I’m also the mom of 8 years to my little cub Berry. Bear is such a sweet boy. He wanted to show me an ant he found a couple days ago and got mad at me when I smacked it onto the ground. He was afraid I hurt it, so we spent the next 10 minutes looking for his little ant friend to make sure he was okay. He is such a blessing. Now, I’m plenty more than just a mother and wife. I’m also an avid antiquer! Avid might be a strong word (I just started recently) but I’m enjoying it so far.

Anyways, I guess I should write down how I plan to use this journal. I want this to be a stream of consciousness. A record for my keeping, and the occasional antiques update thrown in for good measure. Mainly though, I don’t want time to take moments of my life from me. They’re far too precious.

***

My eyes misted over reading it. An inevitable smile pinched at my cheeks. I didn’t recall the story she told about an ant in the slightest but it didn’t matter. It was undoubtedly her. Her voice, her meticulous penmanship, it was my mother. I suppressed a sniffle with the back of my hand. After collecting myself with a hard squint before I clicked the flashlight on again. I flicked the halo of light around the dark room so I could reaffirm that I was alone and most importantly, collect my emotions. As I turned the flashlight back to the book, it caught the shimmer of the closet door handle. Again, I felt a pit form in my stomach. An urge to run nibbled at my heels. ‘There’s nothing in the closet.’ I assured myself. My hand gripping my thigh where the imaginary revolver hung. I pointed the flashlight back to my mom’s journal. I pinched it between my shoulder and jaw, then flipped the page.

Reading further, I was met with retellings of ordinary days. Doctors and dentist appointments for each of us, my failed tryout for the baseball team that still leads to ice cream and brief updates on her antique collection like she promised. Despite the punctured tire, the leaking water heater, and a few broken antiques at my hand it was an ordinary, yet enjoyable time in our lives. There were occasional breaks in entries, none were more than a week, and after a break there was an apology written in the very next entry as though the book were offended. Days led to weeks then months and with each turn of the page dread grew from the cheery soil. Then like a reaper, December came.

December 8, 2006:

To start with some good news. I got a gorgeous antique puppet theater! I thought about giving it to Bear but he’s probably getting too old for that kind of thing. Other than that, it was a pretty bitter-sweet day. Noah was offered a job in Savannah. The pay will be fantastic, a much needed boost to our finances. But I hated the look on Berry’s face when we told him at dinner. Now he has to fly all the way down the east coast to make new friends and leave his old ones behind. I feel terrible for him. I could hear him crying in his room after dinner. I tried to talk to him but how could I convince an 8 year old that the world isn’t ending when he’s already made up his mind? Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

***

This was the day. I knew that hours or minutes or even before the ink dried on the paper that my father would take his fatal fall. I knew in the next entry I would see a mountain of grief, disbelief, and pain. I hesitated before turning the page but I decided the band-aid approach would be best. I flipped it without further thought.

December 9, 2006:

I had to lie… I had to.

***

That was it. I flipped page after page past the disturbing December 9th entry and nothing was there. Simply blank pages all the way to the back cover. I closed the book and sat it aside. I paused in stunned confusion before I took the ‘2007’ book in my hands. Its title was scratchy and messy as opposed to the previous book. ‘What was the lie?’ The question rattled in my brain like a buzzing fly. I worried what the price would be to get an answer. I considered putting the books back where I found them, never to be touched again. I thought today may be the day I could talk to my grandma. Maybe I could tell her about the books and she could help. But again, I put the brave hat on and pretended a shiny badge stuck to my chest. A sheriff wouldn’t burden her with his duty. So I flipped open the cover.

Each entry grew less and less coherent. The words were scratched in pencil, then marker, then back to pencil, then ink with no reasoning behind the choice. The pages were left mostly white, with her message only consisting of a couple of sentences. The only common thread between them was the message. She was awoken each night by eyes staring at her from the corner. No matter what she barred the door with she claimed that ‘He’ was able to push the door open enough to slide through. I imagined a figure hunched. Its eyes were two yellow beads blinking in the dark. The rest of its form just out of reach from the streetlights glow. I pictured it unfolding, elevating its golden beady eyes to the ceiling as my mother lay helplessly on the bed. A cool air flicked the back of my neck, freezing my bones. I jumped up and took my dad’s knife and flipped it open as I slashed the flashlight’s beam through the darkness. I was alone. I sighed and scolded my mind for the fright. There was no towering beast in the corner and likely there never was. The only evidence of a watcher was written in the journal with no description beyond ‘He’. This ‘He’ continued to only watch and stalk until late January.

January 21, 2007:

He wants me dead. I don’t know what happened but he wants me dead. The little cubby in my closet saved me last night. It felt like hours before I finally got the screw out. I was so scared there all night. He almost got me.

***

My eyes went back to the closet. I kept the flashlight on the book, leaving the door in its shadowy haze. Was that what scared me about the closet? Did I see my mother crawl into that tiny hole to run from the monsters conjured in her mind? Maybe that was the moment I lost her. That would explain why the dead memory haunted me. But it didn’t feel right. No great revelation was born from the thought. I may have vaguely remembered my mother crawling through the entrance of the cubby but it didn’t spark the gut wrenching dread I associated with the door. There had to be something else. Something more behind that small space in my mothers closet.

Three to five days spanned between entries over the next couple of months. Again, they devolved with each one. ‘He chased me’, ‘He’s coming, I hear him’, and ‘I need to be ready’ were common phrases. Underneath the written entries were crudely drawn pictures. Flowers sprouting from the bottom edge of the page, houses rolling along a grass hill, little bears all smiling a single-line grin. Eventually, the drawings were replaced with the words ‘I still love you’. The words repeated for pages. In cursive, then capital letters, then in italics. Anything to keep her from lulling to sleep and lowering her guard. It hurt me to read them. She must have grieved my dad’s loss on a loop, hidden in the pages of her diary. The end of January and the first week of March was more of the same. Nothing stood out to me besides how deeply disturbed she must have been at that time. Until, I turned the page to March 8th.

March 8, 2007:

I can’t sit in this anticipation anymore. He’s coming, he’s always coming. I know Berry is exhausted too. He’ll tell me about his little bear show tomorrow morning with bags under his eyes like every other morning and I’m not going to give a shit like every other morning.

***

At its mention, the puppet show came to me in pieces. Memories of many shows where the bear would stalk the sleeping deer until she awoke. Shows where the deer would try to hide, only for the little bear to heave any obstacles out of the way. A memory of a show where the bear puppet was trapped in a cage came to me next. It growled and roared as its little paws banged against the wood plank that separated it from the deer. The doe whimpered to the bear as he desperately tried to free himself. Another where the bear manages to break through, swinging a stick at the barrier shattering it after multiple swings. It crawled through the newly created hole and stared at the doe puppet for the entire show. Safe behind a separate clear wall. Despite these pieces, only one show came to me in its entirety. A show I knew was the last time I saw it.

I stood in my spot, once marked by the spotlight. My nose ran, the reminisce of sadness soon to be washed away by the puppet theater. My only friend. The bear had awoken from a slumber. The cage he was once in was left unlocked, the door wide open. On the other side of a wood plank was the doe, standing deathly still. Her fuzzy body was bone thin. Like it was stuffed with pencils instead of a hand. The bear cartoonishly hopped forward through the gate of his prison. The bear tripped on the barrier between his prison and the outside with an exaggerated tumble before landing face first onto the ground. The thud was accompanied by a thud of deep accordion notes. I tried to hold my laughter to spare the little bear from embarrassment but still allowed a snicker. The bear jolted up right, dusted himself off with his nubby limbs. The accordion played a curious progression of notes and the bear spun its head around the stage and then to me.

I buried my mouth in my shirt hoping that the bear would not be angry with me for laughing. Instead, he put his nub paw up to his mouth and hissed a sharp ‘shh’ around his pointed claw. I nodded as if he could see me. The bear began his creep up to the wooden plank separating him from the doe. The accordion whispered its tune to mimic the creaking ground beneath the bear’s implied feet. I looked at the doe while the bear snuck towards her room. The stage light caused a glimmer under her sewed on bead eyes. It was damp, and it grew more so with each creaking step the bear took.

The bear reached the wood barrier between him and the doe. He turned to me and snickered, again hoping I shared in the delight of our secret. But it wasn’t a secret any longer. The doe now covered its mouth, sniffling. The air was sharp. It pricked at my lungs as it entered. My heart stomped in my chest as the bear knocked on the door. It took effort from the bear to dislodge his spiked claw from the door. The doe began to whimper. Water stained dark streaks in the velvet beneath its eyes. The music swelled to a comedic crescendo as the bear looked at me and gave the wood a hard push. The wood twisted open and dropped from the scene beneath the stage. The accordion stopped. Only the air stood between the bear and the doe.

The doe whispered something. Something mumbled through its trembling lips. The bear closed the distance, one painstaking step at a time. The muffled whispers turned to shouts. None of the words she screamed could be comprehended. The bear grabbed her. Her screams were piercing. They tore at her throat as they shot from her diaphragm. She tried slapping at the bear but her brittle body couldn’t put up much of a fight. The bear turned to me methodically. Then for the first time in my memory, the puppet show provided words.

“What should we do with her?” The bear’s head jostled as it spoke.

The answer came to me immediately. As if I had studied for months for this question. I fought the urge to speak it. Though its meaning was a mystery to me I knew nothing good would come from answering. The attic was silent for a moment. The bear shook its head slowly from side to side. Then spoke again. Giving each word it’s time to sink in.

“What… should… we… do… with… her?”

I buried my mouth in my shirt again. Sealing the obvious answer behind my lips. Dread pounded the back of my mind like a hammer. I wanted to hide myself within my shirt never to be seen again. I wanted to throw myself down the attic ramp and back into my room. I wanted to run, but after locking eyes with the bear puppet one last time I couldn’t move. It rose from the stage floor. The hand housed behind its skin pushed towards me through the attic at a snail’s pace. The bear pushed until the arm attached to it had met its limits. Then it pushed further. Without strain it stretched far past the limits of any human without disturbing the silence of the attic. The puppet’s fur concealed any flesh of the puppeteer. It held its position. Without a single sway its black eyes stayed fixated on mine. Finally, I caved and whispered the words from behind my shirt collar.

“Put her in the bear cave.”

It smiled. It was only a stitched line on fabric but as I recalled the event sitting on my mothers bed, it smiled a stringy grin at my words. The arm retracted as the bear reentered the scene along with a tiny wooden box that descended from the rafters. The doe bolted for the box, the bear hot on its tail. The doe couldn’t seal the box before the bear’s paw caught her. The doe’s pleads were masked by an upbeat, ragtime jaunt skipping across the invisible accordion keys. The bear entered the claustrophobic box and began to cut at the doe’s skin. Bits and chunks of tan fabric came flying off of the doe. The bear’s claw cutting through the doe was an instrument slicing perfectly on beat to the rapid and joyous accordion tune. The doe’s screams of agony were not on beat. It continued for seemingly hours like this. Until, the bear finally exited stage left. Behind him, in the tiny box, was the musculature of a bone-thin hand that pulsated to an adrenaline fueled breath.

I took another scan of the bedroom with a hand on my dads knife for assurance. To no surprise nothing was there. Dreams fade in the mind over time, sometimes over the course of hours or even minutes. This dream felt recent. Reliving the puppet show left a coat of sweat over my forehead. I could’ve turned back at that moment. My grandma was only a half hour away. I wanted to see her. To ease the fear that soaked me. But against every instinct in my being I turned the page.

March continued with much of the same. ‘He almost got me’. ‘He wants to kill me’. ‘Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake’. Pictures and ‘I still love you’ at the bottom of the page turned to scribbles, turned to crosses, turned to prayers. Words turned to panicked lead stains defacing the paper. Nearly every night she ran and hid from the “He” that haunted her. I felt a familiar sting behind my eyes. My bottom lip began to quiver until I pinched it between my teeth. Then I turned the page to March twenty-first.

March 21, 2007:

I’m so sorry Berry. I can hear him crying in his room as I write this but I can’t help him. I gave him a bucket to use. I gave my own son a bucket like a hostage in his own home. But it’s for his own good. For our own good.

***

A bucket. A little pale red bucket that, early in my life, sat unsuspectingly in the corner. It only made a cameo once or twice a year when my mother insisted the house needed a ‘good mop’. At that moment, I remember that bucket sitting in my room. It sat in the corner furthest from my bed were hours and days would give it a suffocating odor of excrement. It was my only option I remembered. My door wouldn’t move its hinges. Not for a lack of me trying. I would beat at the door until my hands were numb. I would kick at the wood until my toe nails bled, and scream until my voice was too hoarse to breathe comfortably. But, on the first night. The night of March twenty-first. I held the bucket gifted from my mother in my hands. A pristine little pale red bucket that would soon receive the foul substances my body discarded, first received my tears. Brought on by the oppression of a brand new, silver bolt lock drilled into the doorframe from the outside.

I continued trudging through the journal. Breaks were common during this time. Only two diatribes of guilt filled ramblings were between the last entry and the following.

April 19, 2007:

He’s outside my window. I’ve done everything I could think of to keep him away from me but he gets so strong at night that nothing works. He’s been tapping on the glass for hours. I know he could break in if he wanted. But he’s not. God please save us.

***

I glance up at the window in front of me. The set of eyes froze me solid. My toes dug into the souls of my shoes ready to bolt from the room. They eased after I noticed a familiarity in the pair of eyes. My reflection stared back at me. I huffed at the fright I gave myself in an attempt to ease the tension, but it remained like a knot in my chest. Doubt crept into my mind that this ‘He’ was a figment of her grief. It may have been a real person that tore our family apart. That took my mother from me on a frigid autumn night. I begged that the next page would contain some kind of further detail about who this ‘he’ was standing in the window. Any detail of his appearance, how he sounded, even the clothes he wore. I didn’t get any of that. What I got was the following.

June 3, 2007

It was so hot outside. Berry and I played the Cub game tonight. I was so happy to play with him. He was so excited. Then he cried. He cried so hard and kicked and screamed. I can’t stand that sound.

***

Immediately, I could recall that night. My mom was standing under the doorframe. Her silhouette was like a stick figure drawn against the light from the hallway. I saw her through the haze of my eyelashes, using the last bit of energy I had to pry them open. She flicked the overhead light on, burning the shapes of the room into my eyes. I took cover under my cool cowboy comforter. The harsh light still pierced through the horses and cacti.

“Wake up Bear. Let’s play a game.” my mother called.

Her voice was almost foreign to me. It raddled from her throat like it had suffered decades of strain. I found it odd since she had been so distant since dad died. Despite this and the roots I planted in my bed for the night, I tightened like a coil ready to jump. A smile grew across my face as I dug myself out of the covers. I sat up and rubbed my eyes into the palms of my hands until they properly adjusted to the brightness. I hopped to my feet and reached my balled up fists to the ceiling, stretching life into my body with a yawn.

“What kind of game?” I asked, looking up at her.

“I’ll show you.”

She turned and stepped towards her bedroom. A metallic glint caught my eye from her hand. Wrapped in her spindly fingers was a screwdriver. Thinking nothing of it, I followed her into her bedroom. Even then the furniture was scattered haphazardly. Scars remained in the wood from their feet. A large cluster of scars piled in front of the door. She rested at the foot of her bed. Her knuckles whitened around the screwdriver. She chewed at her lip, a nervous tick I noticed when she told me about our move that never came to be. She rubbed her palm on the bed sheets as an invitation. I accepted and sat next to her. I watched her rub the end of the screwdriver handle with the print of her thumb. Around it went in light, aching circles. It paused at the interruption of a drop splashing against the back of her hand. A tear that jumped from her now prominent cheekbone.

“What’s wrong, mom?” I asked with a quiver forming in my throat. She didn’t answer the question. Her lips shook as breath passed between them. Her eyes focused miles beyond the floorboards.

“Let’s play.” After a sniffle, she stood and walked to the closet.

“What’s it called?” I asked as she creaked open the closet door. Inside lay the plank that covered the storage cubby. All it stored in that moment was pure darkness. She paused, racking her brain for an answer to a question she never anticipated would come.

“The Cub Game… Every little cub needs to be safe in their den at night.” She dressed the words as pleasantly as she could. Fear still shot up my back. I shook my head violently, shouted in protest, and tried to bolt for the door but her boney frame was faster than it appeared. Her needle-like fingered jabbed purple bruises into my upper arm, ensnaring me in their grip. Each step she took towards the closet brought more desperation in me to escape. I couldn’t come up with a reason why she would do this to me. I thought it had to be a cruel punishment but I couldn’t remember doing anything so wrong. I wanted to go back to bed more than anything but she wouldn’t allow it. She tossed me into the tight space and sealed it with the plank. No light was permitted in that space. Only the sound of my screams. I banged my knuckles against the plank hoping to free myself but it was secured from the other side by my mother. My defiant screams gave out, and were replaced with a quiet sob. Over which I could hear the black screw grinding back into position through the wood and my mothers remorseful plea.

“Please forgive me Berry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I was back on my mothers bed. My heart pumped rapidly. I grabbed my moms comforter in tight fists at my side. I let her journal slide from my lap onto the floor. I took my flashlight and clicked it on, aiming its sights at the closet door. The circular glow quivered with my hand. It was just a door but my instincts told me to run from it. I shot to my feet and bolted out of my mothers room and into mine. Its bare contents left ample room to fill with my sorrow. The betrayal I shielded myself from for years finally resurfaced, melted through my eyelashes and dripped on the floor. I sat on the grown and let my knees conceal my face. I sunk into a hardened state of hysterics. Hysterics that were chipped by a single prolonged note from a breathy accordion.

The bubbly song came to my ear like a rescuing hand plunging beneath the depths of the water. Reaching to pull me back to air. The soundtrack that remedied my childhood misery returned. Though, after recalling the last puppet show, its presence in my attic felt ominous. I tried to seal myself away from the music with the palm of my hands. Baffled, I took my hands from my ears briefly before pressing them again. Then again, and again, and again until I was slamming my palms to my ears repeatedly. The song never changed. It wasn’t muffled or distorted as it passed through my hands. It was like it didn’t need to pass through them at all. Like the musician played the song from inside my skull even though I knew as a deep truth it came from the attic.

The realization boiled me to terror. I bolted from the house, the door slammed shut behind me. With the souls of my feet I shoved ground between me and the dreadful sound, but time is what gave it it’s volume. The distance gave it distortion. Notes started to fall out of place. Long, purposeful chords became sickly sounding groans. The song became maddening as it slowly dissolved my mind. All I wanted was to be home. I wanted to feel the little circles my grandma eased into my back. I wanted to see the pity in her eyes, or even the anger brought on by me sneaking out at such a late hour. But most of all I wanted to confide in her. To tell her the fragments of the past two years that I recovered from my memory. As I imagined talking to her, the music seemed to fade. It never died completely, but it dimmed until it was manageable. While I was so focused on the imagined conversation with my grandma, I did not give any attention to the very real curb ahead of me. It caught me by the shoe and sent me careening forward. My knee grating against the hard pavement left a patch of cherry red blood. But the pain was unnoticeable behind the sudden, pounding abomination of the accordion. I stood in the dim cone of a streetlight weighted down by the immensity of the noise. I was no further than five minutes from my grandma’s house but still I was convinced by the fictional bravery found in my favorite western books. I decided the only chance of making the noise leave for good was to face it. I turned back.

By the time I stuffed my key into the lock, my only concern was making the music stop. Notes fell back into their original position on the walk home. The original upbeat and jumpy tune was recovered , but the volume was relentless. Without thought I twisted the key and entered. I locked the door behind me, purely out of habit. I swayed down the hall. One hand pressed against my forehead and the other grazing against the wall to keep me steady. I swung the bedroom door open and then straight to the closet door. The tempo of the song once again surpassed what I understood as possible. I crawled up the ramp, salvation was only a thin square of plywood away. I pushed it up into the black void of the attic and jumped through.

The music silenced as soon as I crossed the threshold, My flashlight’s beam led the way. I relished in the peace with a sigh as I lay sprawled on my back. I aimed my flashlight at the light switch and got to my feet. I clicked it on and glanced around the attic. The single bulb gave clarity to the sprawling clutter of my mothers antique collection. I focused just beyond the glow of the bulb to see the corner of a dainty structure. I started to regain my composure after the recollection of ‘The Cub Game’. The pulsing ache between my ears numbed. As I settled into the relief brought on by the absence of the song, I thought maybe the answers weren’t worth it. Maybe there was a better way to find my mother. I sat with my feet dangling into the closet when the spotlight that hadn’t existed before snapped on. The same way it did before. I winced before adjusting to its harsh glow. It was the exact same as the night I first saw it. The pink base coat, graced with blue and gold details. All of which was scarred with the punishment of time. But there was more to it now. I got closer to see the details. The curtain was a blue tarp that crinkled in the nonexistent breeze, black screws drilled into the wood like that of the cubby in my mothers closet, and the boy in the mural was controlled by bright fire red tornadoes that replaced the strings. I dropped the flashlight and froze at the onslaught of panic. Tears welled up in my eyes.

I thought back to each sliver of my memory left that featured the puppet show. In each one there was a tear on my face. A sniffle I performed to keep the lingering effects of sadness at bay. A quiver to my bottom lip. I remembered each time I was in a deep well of misery. The accordion sang and a rope descended to rescue me. Each time I heard the call of the accordion I smiled. I believed it existed to bring a smile to my face. I thought it existed to relieve me of my burdens. I thought of it like a friend. But in that moment it taunted me with my burdens. I don’t even know if the additions were real but it had just enough of a grip on my mind to show me pieces of my past and cause me anguish. It wanted me to break a little further so its grip could tighten. A tear rolled down my cheek. And it succeeded.

The house lights dimmed for the performance. The spotlight focused its narrow beam on the same wood plank it always did, just a few feet from the stage. I crossed my arms over my chest as I nervously rubbed my shoulders. My feet were hesitant to move.. I told my body to turn. I told it to jump down the wooden ramp into my old room and leave this place. But from the moment a tear fell from my eye it had me. I was under its control as if the strings of the puppet master were tied around my limbs. It walked me into the spotlight.

The accordion swelled in anticipation for the show. It crescendoed with a high pitched note as the tarp drew with a crinkle. My throat tightened at the sight before me. There were no hand puppets moving through the scene to the sound of accordion keys. Only a living, blinking head. The rest of its body hidden beneath the stage. Tufts of brown fur pasted to his face in clumps concealed his identity. His eyes gave me a sense of familiarity that twisted my stomach. They stared right at me, wide eyed. His mouth agape in astonishment. I couldn’t move. The unseeable accordion began another rag-time song. The head cocked to one side and plastered a cartoonishly wide grin across it before bouncing up and down, facing stage right. The background displayed cardboard buildings and rolled towards him, the intended effect of walking through the city. The head gleefully hummed along to the tune. He wore his merry expression boldly through his stroll across town. I felt in my gut that he was the one tormenting my mother. That he was the reason she disappeared. I wanted to shout at the man. I wanted to demand what he did with my mother. I wanted to jab my dads knife through his eye, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t permitted to do any of it. I just sat and watched the show.

The background had to have rolled past the same buildings ten times but somehow it turned to trees when it stopped. Another hand puppet of a deer lay sleeping in the corner. The man’s head gestured to it with his forehead in sync with a trill of high accordion notes. His eyes were wide and mouth extended from his face and pursed like a straw. The deer character snored in the pitch of a mouse squeak. The man smiled and stared at me once again. A booming, deep, accordion chord preceded the arrival of a hand from beneath the stage. It too was covered in tufts of hair and glue. The hand posed as a ‘V’ and rested beneath the man’s chin. He pondered with a clear expression, his eyes rolled left and right, left and right. The accordion rolled back and forth on two low notes, like the precursor to a daredevils final stunt. Then the trunk of a tree descended into the scene. Far too long to have been concealed. The man pretended not to see it for a moment as the accordion rolled.

Once the man noticed the tree trunk he exploded with a face of eureka. The hand pointed its index finger straight to the sky and the accordion played a tone signaling a wonderful achievement. The hand’s finger waved rapidly and the man stared darts into the sleeping deer as he licked his lips. The ragtime tune played again as the man’s head playfully bobbed back and forth as he approached the deer from across the stage, giving the impression of dancing. He was right in front of the deer puppet. It raised and fell with the sound of its snores. I feared what I was about to see but I physically couldn’t avert my eyes. The hand raised far above the man’s head, and like a cobra, snapped around the helpless deer.

The deer’s screams sounded human. They ached from its vocal chords like the helpless squeal of an elderly woman. The man’s face still pantomimed his joy to the accompanying song. He drug the panic-stricken deer up the trunk of the tree with great effort. The curtains closed as the scene continued above the theater. The deer, pleading for its life and the man’s disembodied head stood alone. The man loaded his head far from the deer, his jaws wide open to display both rows of teeth. With the whip of his neck, he snapped his jaws down on the deer.

The accordion stopped immediately. I again tried to run, close my eyes, stop myself from viewing the scene in any way but nothing could be done. The only sound was the clapping of teeth around skin. The rip of flesh and muscle from bone. The shrill screeches of a person already sentenced to death, and the pop of fresh tendons between molars. Clap of teeth, rip of muscle, screech of death, pop of tendon. Clap, rip, screech, pop, clap, rip, pop. Until the man had his fill and his face was soaked in blood. He turned, and his eyes met mine. Astonishment widened his eyes and gaped his lips. I was sure it matched mine like a mirror. The head descended back onto the stage. The curtains drew again with a crinkle to show a bathroom cut from construction paper. A shower of water poured from above the theater and over the man’s blood-stained head. The water rinsed the blood from his face in streaks. Clumps of hair washed from his head as well. Hair by hair, clump by clump fell from his face to reveal his identity. My identity. In painfully aching words through my own menacing jaws he whispered.

“What have you done?”

I awoke to the glint of dawn peaking beneath my blinds. A damp halo soaked the case of my pillow. I shot up and scanned my surroundings desperately searching for the puppet theater I just saw moments ago. But I was alone and in the spare bedroom of my grandma’s house. Somehow I must have made my way home and into my bed. I must have slept so heavily that I didn’t recall but my eyes were anvils. They pleaded for sleep with a constant sting. Confused, I eased myself out of bed. As I moved I noticed more than just the pillow was damp. I flung the comforter off of my body to verify the strange liquid. Relief washed over me as I saw the liquid was not a maroon stain of blood but clear. I didn’t allow myself the time to decide if it was water or sweat. I knew the puppet show was not as simple as a dream. It felt as real now as it did in the attic last night. I knew anytime I shed a tear it would call to me again as if I opened the door and welcomed it into my mind. I couldn’t live with that possibility. I knew I had to put an end to it.

I put an ear to my bedroom door. I inspected the sounds of my grandmother’s house to see if she was awake. She would always be up at the crack of dawn slaving away on that morning’s breakfast. The aroma of pancakes and bacon didn’t waft through the crack under my door. Strangely, the hiss of the showerhead pouring its water met my ear. She usually took her showers in the evening but her routine could be broken from time to time. I used the running shower to cover the slap of my bedroom window from her ears. I was on my way to destroy the puppet theater and find my mom.

The streets were empty that morning. The driveways were left vacant from the adults morning commutes. Their children slogged through the remaining few weeks of school before Thanksgiving vacation. Birds cooed their morning hymns from the powerlines dangling above my journey. The last lonely crickets bowed a methodical melody against the violins of their legs. Dew speckled the yards and dazzled in the sun’s peak above the hillcrests behind me. It was a cool morning, made cooler by the breeze that rolled against my walk. The tree leaves flipped in anticipation of an oncoming rain. A rain that announced its presence in the form of an aroma, and the midnight clouds that crafted the canopy above my destination. I continued until its darkness snuffed out the sun and I was in front of the house.

I walked down the overgrown walkway to the front door, guided by the gentle brush of tall grass against my dangling forearms. The porch steps squealed under my weight. The crack of thunder introduced a light drizzle of rain that patterned against the house’s shingles. My nerves rattled with fear throughout my body. I closed my eyes and focused on subduing them with a firm grip. Once again, I opted for the band-aid approach. I grabbed the door knob and twisted it with no further thought, but it didn’t budge. I shoulder-bumped the door with the assumption that it would open to no avail. I fished through my pockets for my keys but only found my dad’s knife. I must have misplaced them since I was in the attic the night before. The wind whistled past the side of the house and caused the blue tarp to whip and crackle. I trudged through the grass. Each stem, like a brush, painted my legs with their recently acquired rain. I gripped the tarp with both hands and yanked at it until it ripped from the nails holding it. As it fell to the grass it unveiled my old bedroom window frame. A few daggers of glass still clung to their original position. Not a surprise to me as I remembered it was broken somehow. But what was a surprise was the nails hammered into the window that clamped it shut from the outside.

I ducked through the window frame being careful to avoid the points of the surviving shards. Once inside, it was quiet. All that could be heard was the patter of calm rain and the occasional pop of a mature house settling into the shifting earth. The strange musk reintroduced itself to my pallet. It was a subtle note of disgust but it made my lip curl nonetheless. The closet door was only a few feet away. A taste of fear came to me. I could feel a wisp of cold mist brush over my bones. A warning in the form of a chill telling me to leave that place. To not dig any further than I already had. To go back to my grandma. I thought back to the night before. How the accordion was hushed by the idea of confiding in her. If I had continued, could it have silenced entirely? A foolish thought. The puppet show had already broken through my resolve, it wouldn’t have let me go entirely. But as I stood just in front of the closet door, there was no accordion seeping into my head. No pounding demands to return in the form of a song. I could have turned back and told my grandma what was going on. How brave it would have been. But in my ten-year-old mind, bravery was a duel between good and evil at high noon. My mom was still missing. And I felt sure that the puppet theater had a hand in it. My cerement was an imaginary cowboy hat, red handkerchief tied at the neck, and a big iron strapped to my hip. I opened the closet.

The closet was nearly barren. The clothes hung in my new closet at grandma’s house, the cowboy bed set resting beneath them. All that remained was a metal bat laying across the floor. I was under no illusion that I could one day make the baseball team. I had the strength for it, but I was far too uncoordinated. Still, I was glad to see it. I picked it up and choked the grip with clenched fists. The rain picked up its tempo and a boom of thunder interrupted the rapid taps. With a swallow, I climbed the wooden ramp until I was within reaching distance of the square plywood separating me from the puppet theater. Without further thought, I pushed the plywood into the dark attic with the end of the bat and hoisted myself into the void.

I flipped the light switch on. Again, just a corner of pink poked into the light. I crept closer. The squeal of floorboards was masked by the intensifying rain just above my head. My foot kicked something hard that sent the unknown object pattering against the floor. I winced as though the sound would alert the theater in some way. I looked down to identify the object as my flashlight. In a swift motion I scooped it up into my grasp and went to click it on. The theater was just as I left it. The pink theater with blue and gold detailing made into a shrine to my past. The blue tarp dangled above the stage. The black screws fastened to the wood haphazardly. The mural of the puppet boy defaced by red spirals plastered over the strings. It was all the same as the night before. All except for the object resting on the slice of stage left unmasked by the tarp. My favorite multi-colored pen that I hadn’t seen since the night of the first puppet show dipped in crimson red blood. In the back of my mind I knew the additions to the puppet theater were a mirage. A collection of tricks by the theater to break my resolve and sink its strings into me. At the moment I had no idea why the pen would be bloodied, but that didn’t prevent the dull hammer of dread from smashing a crack into my feigned courage. Then, just as the theater planned, in seeped the accordion.

I wasted no time before charging at the theater, my bat raised above my head ready to smash it to pieces, but it took me. It took me back to a puppet show I had watched many months ago. This one depicted the bear as it stalked the sleeping deer. Many shows started the same. Show after show the bear would push any obstacles out of the way so he could see the deer. The theater took the show away in an instant. Like ripping pretty wrapping paper from a foul truth. It was me in the position of the bear that stared at my mother as the deer. It was me that watched her from a crack in the door after giving all of my effort to shoving the dresser just far enough to have a peek. The furniture used to barricade etched their path into the floor each night. It continued until I was tossed in my room one night. The door slammed shut followed by a metallic slap. I was trapped by the silver bolt lock drilled into the doorframe from the outside of my bedroom door. I screamed and banged on the door as I begged to be let free. The deer that cooed on the other side was my mother begging for my forgiveness saying she had to for our safety.

I shook my head to rattle my brain back into my control.

“Lie!” I shouted. The image it conjured for me made my chest boil in a confused rage. I slammed the bat down over my head and cracked the puppet theater. Splinters exploded from the harsh impact, but yet it stood. The accordion still played, and I raised the bat above my head. Immediately, the theater took me back to another puppet show.

This time the bear struggled to escape his cage. He found a stick and smashed it against the cage again and again and again until it shattered. The little bear then scurried through the newly created hole in his cage, to taunt the deer with a constant stare through her clear cage. Again, the show was ripped away and I was replaced with the bear. I descended from the attic and into my room. I was trapped on one end by a bolt lock and another by a window clamped shut by a cluster of nails hammered into the window frame from the outside. A desperate attempt by my mom to keep me at bay. As though I was commanded, I took the bat from my closet and swung it at my window. It cracked and splintered, and finally shattered. Shards of glistening glass sprayed from the windowpane. I crawled through and made my way around the house to watch my mother rest through her bedroom window.

My consciousness returned to me, the bat still loaded above my head.

“Lie!” CRACK! The theater caved inward from the blow. Pieces flew into the air like shrapnel. But it still stood. The accordion still played. I raised my bat to deliver a final, crushing blow when it took me back again.

The first puppet show. An innocent beady-eyes deer slept peacefully. The bear comically snuck towards it. In the end the deer was left with a trickle of red running from the corners of its mouth like tears of betrayal caused by the hole stabbed in its throat. It the theater again placed me in the role of the bear. I stood at the precipice of my parent’s bedroom. They slept soundly together. My mom faced away from the door on her side. My dad laid flat on his back. I crept into the room with care not to alert them to my presence. I did as I was forced to do. What was left was my dad choking. He gasped for air but only gargled on the pool of blood that filled his mouth until it overflowed in thin streaks at the corners. His desperate efforts to return to air only made the object half-submerged in his esophagus shake back and forth like tight spirals. In his throat twitched my favorite multi-colored ink pen with the bright red cam pressed down.

CRACK!

I was taken back again. The bear stretched in my face from far behind the stage.

“What… should… we… do… with… her?” It said.

“Put her in the bear cave.” I whispered.

The theater ripped the scene away, leaving-

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! The theater exploded into bits with each swing. It crumbled onto the floor and the accordion quieted in my mind but I didn’t stop. I wanted to swing until it was pulverized to dust. Until I could blow it away, scatter it to the wind. I swung and swung until my energy was depleted and I collapsed on the ground and gasped for air. I looked over at the rubble I made of the puppet show. There was no blue tarp. No twirling, red spirals on the painting, no little back screws in the wood and no pen dipped in my dad’s blood. I wasn’t sure if what it showed me was true, or if the replacement of my puppet show memories was a trick like the additions to the theater. All I did know was that it was over.

I may have laid there for hours listening to the rain patter against the shingles. The white noise, untainted by the accordion, was soothing. Although the images the puppet theater forced me to see in its dying moments replayed in my mind, I was relieved that it was over. But, the more times the theater’s desperate flashes replayed in my head the more real they felt. They felt less like attempts at deceit and more like genuine memories until I could practically feel the warm spatter of my dad’s blood on my wrist.

More pieces came to me on the attic floor as well. My mother was awoken by her husband’s gargled cries. She sluggishly sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes with her hand. When her eyes opened, it was like the curtains rising on the next two years of misery. All of which seemingly at my blood speckled hand. She would recite her line to any cop or nosey neighbor brave enough to question her.

“He tripped while holding a pen.” The great lie my mother crafted about an hour after the pen was planted in his throat. I remembered watching her dust my prints from the pen before she slammed my door shut and hearing the thud of my dad’s body to match the bruises before I dozed to sleep. The police bought it, or at least believed it enough to not spend anymore time in our impoverished part of town. The memories came with a realization. My mom’s lie was to protect me, only for me to spend the next two years tormenting her. The thought misted my eyes but I quickly flicked them away. I couldn’t risk cracking my feigned courage again, even though the theater was no more than rubble. Beneath the fragile shell of courage was just a boy who wanted to see his mom again. Even if she never wanted to see me again I knew I had to keep looking for her, to tell her I was sorry.

My only hope for clues was in the remaining pages of her journal. I forced myself off of the ground as my newly found guilt attempted to hold me down. Before I turned out the light, I turned to get a final look at the remnants of the puppet theater. Perhaps it was a trick of the dim light, or a final dying attempt at deceit but it seemed to move. A faint twitch towards a central cluster of broken wood. I paused my glare on the remains to see if it would move again. I could feel a creeping sense of fear overcoming me as I waited, but I didn’t see it again. With a click of the light switch I banished the attic in total darkness and sealed it away behind the thin, square plywood. Upon reentering the main floor of the home I was again reintroduced to the subtle musk that lingered through the air, but it was not my concern.

My mom’s journal, simply titled ‘2007’ laid on her bedroom floor. Its pages sprawled and some bent from its jump out of my lap the evening prior. I rescued it from the floor and set it on my lap. I rummaged through the pages in search of her final entry. I hoped to find some location she would be heading to. Some well thought out exit plan that would give me an address or at least a direction to look. As the scribbles abruptly ended in blank pages, I turned back to her final entry. Her final words.

September 9, 2007

I couldn’t bear to hear Berry cry anymore. He was going to sleep in his bed again no matter what. I hear him coming down from the attic now. Berry if you ever find this, I know it’s not you in there. I’m so sorry for how I treated you. I love you.

***

What had I done? The question pounded in my head. A knife of dread stabbed at my chest. I slammed the book shut as though I would recapture the words and remove them from my memory. My mind raced from one thought to another. I wouldn’t have done anything to my mom. I would never have killed my dad either. This can’t be real. None of this can be real. I must be in another one of its tricks. The puppet show must have me somehow. My mom would have gotten away, she would have hid… Like the clapper of a church bell, the final images from the puppet show rang.

“Put her in the bear cave.”

I turned to my mothers closet. With a click of my flashlight the door knob was in light. It shimmered with the beauty of a siren. I regretted each step I took towards the closet. The old floorboards begged me to stop with each step. To turn back and never return. But I felt I had to know the truth. I took the knob in my palm. Its brass material was cool to the touch and transferred its chill through my body. I twisted the knob and with a sickening pop, the closet was revealed.

“Put her in the bear cave.”

The musk grew stronger. I shoved a pathway through the luggage bags and parted the clothes to reveal the wood panel, fastened into place by a single, sickening black screw. I pulled my dad’s knife from my pocket and flicked the blade out. The brown specks that blemished it now made my stomach churn. I carefully set the blade in the screw head and began to twist. The wood groaned with each rotation. I wished the little black screw was a mile long. That I would sit there for hours twisting, and twisting, and twisting without being confronted by what it was concealing. But eventually enough of the threading was removed from the panel, and it fell inward with a thud.

“Put her in the bear cave.”

I smelled her first. The pungent odor charged through my nostrils like a platoon with raised bayonets that stabbed at the back of my throat. My eyes watered as I immediately recoiled from the assault. The sickening flavor of death seeped onto the back of my tongue and made me retch. I sat in it for a moment to gather my composure. I just needed to see what it was. I lit my flashlight and aimed into the cubby. A pile of leathered flesh sat in the orange glow of the flashlight. Each strand was ripped and tattered like the velvet of a puppet, skinned by the edge of a dull knife. I leaned in. Just enough to get a glimpse around the corner. Her musculature was shrunk to the bone. Bits of it were missing into the bellies of rats. All that remained somewhat intact was her feet. But the skin still receded to show the bruised outlining of veins.

I butchered her. Skinned her like an animal. And I wish I never would have remembered it, but it came to me like every other memory. I heard her cries for mercy when my hand caught the wood panel. Her emaciated body wasn’t strong enough to hold the panel shut against my weight. She whispered something through the air between us. Something mumbled through trembling lips that I could now understand.

“Please Bear, Please stop. This isn’t you… Please.” Her voice had more love in it than I deserved, but that was my mother. Then I sunk the tip of the knife into her flesh. I heard her screams as piece by piece her skin was removed by my dad’s dull pocket knife. And when it was over, I heard her frantic breathing through an adrenaline filled state that wouldn’t allow her to die just yet. I just got up, buried the knife in my dad’s sock drawer, and went to my room to wait for the theater to release me in the morning.

I hyperventilated and vomited into the cubby. Every foolish idea of courage that brought me to the little black screw was cursed by my thoughts as I gripped my hair with tight fists, ready to tear them from their follicles. I couldn’t handle this alone and I hated myself for believing I could. I thought back to my grandmother the night I snuck into this horrible place. I wish I had called her after she disappeared behind the click of the door. I wish I had asked her all of the questions that raced in my head. I wish I had the courage to be vulnerable with her. I threw my imaginary, courageous cowboy image in the recesses of my mind and cried as I ran far from that house and to my grandma’s.

My lungs burned after the run across town. I gasped for air in between wavering breaths. My vision distorted through the tears. I ran up to my grandma’s porch and dabbed the tears that clung to my eyelashes away with the collar of my shirt. With my vision restored, I noticed that her front door was already ajar. I eased it open and the hinges squealed with every inch it moved.

“Grandma?… Grandma!” I called out, desperate for a response. There was no lingering smell of bacon and pancakes from her breakfast. No game show rambling on the TV about the price of a microwave. And no response from my grandmother. Only the sound of a hissing showerhead, still running from that morning. I stepped into the living room. Water trickled under the bathroom door. The puddle extended its reach down the hallway and encircled the feet of a ladder that stretched into the attic like the trunk of a tree. Something glimmered at the foot of the attic ladder. I slowly approached it. My feet sloshed in the soaked carpet as I picked up the glistening object. My keys.

“Grandma?” I said, though my feeble words were snuffed out by the hiss of water.

With no other clue as to where she might be I climbed the ladder. I forced my legs to take each step with more effort than the last. Once I was at the top I shined my flashlight around in the darkness until I found her. Or at least what was left of the deer that the bear devoured. As that memory came to me, the accordion again played its terrible song.

I write this from a library a few blocks from my old house. I spent seventeen years running from the song. I traveled as far as I could to prevent the temptation to give in. I thought I might be able to read as a distraction from the distorted noise as it grew ever louder. When it inevitably grew too loud to concentrate, I thought I could turn myself in to the police and be unable to return, but it wouldn’t let me. Each time I thought about it, the theater would conjure up the disturbing images I made of my mother and my grandmother until I abandoned the thought. Eventually I broke. In a futile attempt to find peace I burst my eardrums with a pencil. Yet the accordion still played. After years of trying to think of ways to escape, it drowned out every thought I had. I returned to burn the place to the ground a few hours ago, but by now the fire must have been quelled and yet the sound still splits my head. I am so taken by the puppet theater now that even if it is reduced to ash I am under its control. So now I will return to it. I can’t take the sound anymore. After this I will keep my composure and I will not let it in again. If I hurt any of you, or anyone that you love. Please, know that I am sorry.

Credit: Kevin Jones

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