Wooden Bones (13 page)

“It's wood!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” Pino said.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

“Does it . . . feel different?”

Pino shrugged. “It feels like wood.”

“Was it always like that?”

“No. Well, yes. In the beginning. But then it wasn't. Now it's going back.”

She looked confused, so with a sigh he went ahead and told her his story. He started at the beginning, though he didn't tell her all the adventures he'd had before he became a real boy. He simply told her that he'd been a puppet in the beginning, and then he became flesh and blood. He told her about his special gift, about how he'd brought a dead tree to life and made a wooden suit for Elendrew. He told her how that was when the hand had started to change, so he and Geppetto decided that it must have something to do with his gift.

By the time he'd told her the whole story, the sky outside the window had darkened. Geppetto would be home soon. Pino had felt anxious when he started, not sure how she'd react, but by the end he was very glad he'd told her. And if they were a family now, then what was wrong with telling her? Maybe his papa would tell her their real names, too. She was right. They shouldn't keep secrets.

At some point they'd moved to the table. Olivia hadn't bothered to light a candle, so the room was dark, her face veiled with shadows.

“So you can make things out of wood and bring them to life?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“This puppet of Antoinette,” she said. “Did she look much like the real thing?”

“I don't know. Papa thought so.”

“So people thought she was real?”

“Well . . .”

“I bet you could do an even better job this time.”

Pino didn't understand. “But I don't want to make another Antoinette. I don't want to use my gift at all.”

“I bet you could even make one of me,” Olivia continued as if she hadn't heard.

“You?”

She rose from the table and went to the window, hardly more than a dark shape in front of the glass. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, you could make one of me. One with—with a whole face. One just as beautiful as I once was.”

“But I can't—I can't make it speak—”

“It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to have a voice. Don't you see?
I
have a voice. She could go into town, and people would see her and know that I was beautiful again.” Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality, as if she'd forgotten where she was. “Maybe I could even sing again. She would stand on the stage while I hid behind the curtains and sang. Then I could be as I once was.”

“But it wouldn't be you. It would be a puppet.”

“It doesn't matter. Other people would
think
it was me.”

Pino regretted he'd ever said anything to her. “No,” he said. “I won't do it.”

She turned and looked at him, her eyes invisible in the darkness. “Don't you want me to be happy, Francisco?”

“Yes. But—”

“Don't you want your papa to be happy?”

Pino hesitated. He didn't understand what she was trying to do. “I want him to be happy. He's the one who told me—”

“I'm sure he told you not to use your gift,” she said. “And after this last time you won't have to use it again, I promise. He doesn't have to know. You'll work on it when he goes into town. We'll surprise him at the end, and I'm sure he'll be happy for me.”

“I don't think—”

“YOU WILL DO IT!” she bellowed.

In all the weeks they'd lived with her, Olivia had never once raised her voice. She'd spoken sternly. She'd scolded him. But shouted? No, she'd never once shouted, and it wasn't just a shout; it was a full-throated roar. It shocked him, and it must have shocked her, too, because for a long time she simply stood there in the near darkness, filling the silence with the sound of her own harried breathing. Finally her breathing slowed and she spoke more softly.

“You will do it,” she warned, “or I will stop loving your papa.”

T
he next morning it snowed. It was just a light dusting that powdered the grass and the trees, but it was a harbinger of things to come. It snowed each day for the rest of the week, and each time the snow came down heavier. Soon the landscape was draped in white. Winter was no longer knocking on the door. It had arrived.

Seeing no other choice, Pino spent every moment that Geppetto was out of the cottage working on a puppet for Olivia. There were lots of opportunities because Olivia thought up many excuses to send Geppetto to town—for sugar or flour or something of the like—and of course he went into town plenty of his own accord too, saying he wanted to try to sell as many of his carvings as he could before it got so cold that venturing out was unbearable.

Pino worked in Olivia's room, on her soft, downy bed, which made it easier to hide the puppet when Olivia spotted Geppetto's bundled form clomping up the road. The bedroom was the one room where Geppetto didn't go. If the door was shut, he'd never see what was inside.

The puppet itself came along nicely. There was lots of wood about, and whenever Geppetto was gone, Pino had his choice of the tools. These tools weren't borrowed, but owned, since
Geppetto had used some of his first earnings to buy them. It was much easier to make the puppet look like a person when you had that person sitting in front of you. When he'd finished the face, Olivia wept tears of joy.

He started to think that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea making the puppet for Olivia. In a way, she was just like him. She wanted to feel more like a normal person. What could be wrong with that?

The only real problem were Pino's hands. Since both of them had turned into wood, it was much harder to hold the chisels and the rasps.

Now and then Pino caught Geppetto and Olivia kissing, a chaste sort of kiss that quickly ceased when they noticed Pino. Whenever he doubted whether he was doing the right thing with the puppet, Pino thought about those kisses. About how happy his papa looked.

After the puppet's face was done, the rest of the body came much faster. The closer he got to the finish, the more nervous Pino became. What would his papa do when he found it? He dreaded having to face him.

It turned out the moment came sooner than they'd anticipated. Pino was only a day or two from finishing the puppet when the front door suddenly swung open—a mere ten minutes after Geppetto had set out for town.

“I forgot the new chair,” Geppetto said, dusting the snow off his wool coat. “Silly me. I can't very well sell it if I . . .” He trailed off when he saw, through the open door into Olivia's room, what was on her bed.

“Teppo!” Olivia cried, leaping to her feet.

She'd been sitting in a chair next to the bed, with Pino sitting in a chair on the other side. The puppet of Olivia,
already dressed in one of her finest blue dresses, lay on the bed between them.

“What's—what's going on here?” Geppetto said.

She bustled over to him, taking him by the arms, trying to ward him away from her room. “What? Nothing!”

Geppetto pushed her gently aside. “What's that on your bed?”

“That? It's—it's supposed to be a surprise.”

“Oh no . . .”

“Teppo . . .”

But he wasn't listening. He'd already stepped past her into the bedroom, gazing upon the puppet with the same horror with which he'd looked upon the puppet of Antoinette months earlier. Pino knew, right away, he'd made a terrible mistake. He wished he could take it all back. Outside the snow fell heavier than ever on Olivia's pasture.

“I'm sorry, Papa,” Pino said.

Geppetto shook his head. “Why?”

“He did it for me,” Olivia explained. “He did it because I asked him. It's—it's almost finished, Teppo. It's almost finished, and then he can bring it to life.”

“But for what reason?” Geppetto asked. “A puppet of
you
? It makes no sense.”

“It's not me,” Olivia said. “It's a
better
me. It's me as I
should
be—still beautiful, still a woman who can turn people's heads.”

Geppetto looked sad. “You
are
beautiful, Olivia.”

“Don't be foolish,” she scoffed.

“I'm not. It's what I think.”

“Then you're an idiot.” She pointed at the scarred half of her face. “Don't you see this? Are you
blind
?”

“But the puppet won't change—”

“Of course it won't change my scars! That doesn't matter! It will change what people
think
about me!
That's all that matters!
”

She was screaming, fists clenched and pink color spreading up her neck into her face. Strangely, the scarred half of her face didn't become pink, but darker, nearly black. In the little bedroom, hardly big enough for the three of them, her shouts were deafening.

“Olivia,” Geppetto said softly, “please be calm.”

“I don't need to be calm. This is my life!”

“Olivia—”

“Francisco,” Olivia said, “bring the puppet to life. It's ready.”

“No,” Geppetto said. “Don't do it, son. Nothing good will come of it.”

“Bring it to life!” she cried.

“Has he told you about his hands? What using his gift does to him?”

“It's only
once
! Just do it, Francisco!”

Pino was afraid to move. They'd been a family, the three of them, and now it was all unraveling. Olivia pushed past Geppetto and fell to her knees, grasping Pino's shoulder, fingernails digging into his skin.

“Please!” she begged. “Please bring it to life.”

“Stop!” Geppetto said.

“If you do this for me, I'll love you!” she continued. “I'll love you both! I'll be the mother you always wanted!”

Geppetto shouted at her again to stop, but she didn't listen. She went on pleading with Pino until her words ran together, not making any sense, until Geppetto grabbed her and pried her away. She kicked and screamed and flailed at him. One of
her fingernails slashed his neck, drawing blood, and Geppetto tossed her onto the bed.

She landed right on top of the puppet, their noses inches apart. She gazed at it a long time, then started weeping.

“Look at me,” she said. “So beautiful . . . so very beautiful . . .”

“Olivia,” Geppetto whispered. “Olivia . . . please . . .”

He reached for her, touching her gently on the shoulder, and she slapped his hand away.

“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out, the both of you!”

Geppetto looked stricken. “Olivia!”

“Get out! Get out now!”

“It's the middle of a snowstorm!”

“I don't care! You're not welcome here! I hate you! I hate you both!”

In a soothing voice Geppetto tried to reason with her, but it only made Olivia more enraged. She came at him in a howling fury, clawing and scratching at his face, and it was all Geppetto could do to keep her at bay. Then she began grabbing whatever she could find and hurling it at them—a vase, several plates, even a lantern. A cup smashed through the window, shattering the glass, and chill winter air flowed into the cottage.

Nothing would dissuade her. “Out, out, out!” she cried again and again, until her beautiful voice grew hoarse. She hurled one of Geppetto's tools—a rasp he'd purchased in town only the previous week—and it struck Pino a glancing blow on the shoulder. It didn't draw any blood, but it seemed to change Geppetto.

He took Pino's hand and hurried to the loft, where he grabbed the two leather bags he'd been using to cart his wood carvings into town, shoving clothes, tools, and other items into
them. Below, Olivia was cursing and weeping, but she was no longer throwing things.

When Geppetto had stuffed the bags to the brim, he had Pino put on several layers of clothes and the wool coat that matched the one Geppetto wore. Then they climbed back downstairs.

The main room was oddly quiet. The chill air whistled through what remained of the window. Snowflakes, oblivious to the tension in the cottage, floated peacefully to the earth. Stepping into the middle of the room, they saw Olivia in her bedroom, bent over the puppet. She didn't make a sound.

“Olivia?” Geppetto said.

“Out,” she moaned.

“Are you sure?”

“OUT!”

Geppetto took Pino's hand and led him to the door. Olivia let loose with a terrible, mournful wail. As they stepped outside, into a white world both great in its beauty and terrible in its cold, Pino glanced over his shoulder.

Before the door shut, he got one last look at Olivia. He saw her leaning over the puppet, cupping her hands on either side of its face, her own tears falling on its wooden cheeks. She was murmuring something to it, the type of thing you would murmur to a sick child, too softly for him to make out the words.

Then a sudden gust of icy wind slammed the door.

T
hey staggered like wounded soldiers, Pino and Geppetto, over a blinding desert. It was a desert of snow instead of sand, of blistering cold instead of blistering heat, but it was a desert just the same. It soon stopped snowing, and the sun glared on the glistening white dunes, so bright Pino had to squint. The snow, though soft and billowing under their boots, smothered the life out of the world. It smothered the hills and the trees and the few cottages glimpsed amidst all that white. It even smothered their clothes, until Geppetto and Pino were part of the winter landscape too—not soldiers, but ghosts, marching in silence, alone with their own dark thoughts.

The only parts of Pino's body that weren't soon numb from the cold were his wooden hands—and he would have laughed at that if there were any laughter in him to be found. There had never been a time in his short life when he felt more desperate and afraid than he felt in that moment. He hated who he was and what he could do. If he were a normal boy, one who couldn't bring wood to life, then they would still be back at the cottage with Olivia. And Geppetto would be happy.