Alan Bradley - The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Rupert's eyes widened as he spotted Nialla.

"Who told you we were here?" he shouted, pointing. "Her?"

"Hold on, hold on," Mutt said, his voice rising for the first time. "Don't go blaming Nialla. As a matter of fact it was a Mrs. Something right here in Bishop's Lacey. Her boy saw your van by the church and scooted off home to tell Mummy he'd hold his breath and pop if he couldn't have Porson's Puppets for his birthday party, but by the time he dragged her back, you were gone. She made a long-distance call to the BBC, and the switchboard put her through to Tony's secretary. Tony told me to come and fetch you straightaway. And here I am. End of story. So don't go blaming Nialla."

"All snug with Nialla, are you?" Rupert fumed. "Sneaking round on — "

Mutt placed the palm of his hand on Rupert's chest. "And while we're at it, Rupert, I might as well tell you that if you lay so much as a fingerprint on her again, I'll — "

Rupert shoved Mutt's hand away roughly. "Don't threaten me, you vile little snail. Not if you value living!"

"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! What on earth? You must stop this at once."

It was the vicar. He stood in the open doorway, a dark figure against the daylight.

Nialla ducked past him and fled. I quickly followed.

"Dear lady," the vicar said, holding out an engraved brass collection plate. "Try a cucumber and lettuce sandwich. They're said to be remarkably soothing. I made them myself." Made them himself? Had domestic warfare been declared at the vicarage?

We were outside in the churchyard again, quite near the spot where I had first seen Nialla weeping facedown on the gravestone. Had it been only two days ago? It seemed an eternity.

"No, thank you, Vicar," Nialla said. "I'm quite myself again, and I have things to do."

Lunch was a trial. Because the windows of the hall had been covered with heavy blackout curtains for the performance, we sat in near darkness as the vicar fussed with sandwiches and a jug of lemonade he must have conjured from thin air. Nialla and I sat at one end of the front row of chairs, with Mutt at the other. Rupert had vanished backstage some time before.

"We shall soon have to open the doors," said the vicar, drawing back the edge of a curtain for a peek outside. "Our public has already begun to queue up, their pockets heavy with coins of the realm."

He consulted his watch. "Ninety minutes to curtain time," he called through cupped hands. "Ninety minutes."

"Flavia," Nialla said, "be a dear — run backstage and tell Rupert to fade the music down when I begin speaking. He botched it in Fringford, and I don't want it to happen again."

I looked at her questioningly.

"Please — as a favor. I've my costume to get ready, and I don't much want to see him right now."

Actually, I didn't much want to see Rupert either. As I plodded up the steps to the stage, I thought of Sydney Carton ascending the scaffold to meet Madame Guillotine. I found the opening in the black tormentor drapes that hung on either side of the puppet stage, and stepped through into another world.

Little pools of light were everywhere, illuminating rows of electrical switches and controls, their wires and cables snaking off in all directions. Behind the stage, everything fell away into darkness, and the glow of the little lamps, gentle as it was, made it impossible to see beyond the shadows.

"Come up," said a voice from the darkness above me. It was Rupert.

"There's a ladder on the other side. Watch your step."

I felt my way round the back of the stage and found the rungs with my hands. A few steps up and I found myself standing on a raised wooden platform that ran across and above the back of the puppet stage.

A sturdy rail of black metal piping provided support for Rupert's waist as he leaned forward to operate his puppets. Although they were turned away so that I could not see their faces, several of these jointed characters were hanging from a rod behind me: an old woman, a man, and a boy, judging from their peasant clothing.

To one side, and within easy reach, the magnetic tape recorder was mounted, its two spools loaded with a shiny brown ribbon which, judging by its color, I thought must be coated with an emulsion of iron oxide.

"Nialla said to remember to lower the music volume when she starts speaking," I whispered, as if telling him a secret.

"All right," he said. "No need to whisper. The curtains absorb the sound. No one can hear us up here."

This was not a particularly comforting thought. If he were so inclined, Rupert could put his powerful hands around my neck and strangle me in luxurious silence. No one out front would be any the wiser until there was nothing left of me but a limp corpse.

"Well, I'd better be getting back," I said. "I'm helping with the tickets."

"Right," Rupert said, "but have a look at this before you go. Not many kids get a chance to come backstage."

As he spoke, he reached out and rotated a large knob, and the lights faded up on the stage below us. I nearly lost my balance as the little world seemed to materialize from nothingness beneath my feet. I found myself suddenly gazing down, like God, into a dreamy countryside of blue sky and green painted hills. Nestled in a valley was a thatched cottage with a bench in the yard, and a ramshackle cowshed.

It took my breath away.

"You made all this?"

Rupert smiled and reached for another control. As he moved it, the daylight faded away to darkness and the lights came on in the windows of the cottage.

Even though I was looking at it upside down, as it were, from above, I felt a pang — a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before.

It was homesickness.

Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.

Rupert had been transformed, too. I could see it in his face. Lit from below, his features completely at peace, his broad features relaxed in a gentle and benevolent smile.

Leaning against the piping of the rail, he reached forward and pulled a black cotton hood from a bulky object at the side of the stage.

"Meet Galligantus the giant," he said. "Last chance before he gets his comeuppance."

It was the face of a monster, its features twisted into a look of perpetual anger and spotted with boils, its chin covered with grizzled black whiskers like carpet tacks.

I let out a squeak and took a step backwards.

"He's only papier-mache," Rupert said. "Don't be alarmed — he's not as horrid as he looks. Poor old Galligantus — I'm quite fond of him, actually. We spend a lot of time together up here, waiting for the end of the show."

"He's ... marvelous," I said, swallowing. "But he has no strings."

"No, he's not actually a marionette — no more than a head and shoulders, really. He has no legs. He's hinged where his waist should be, held upright out of sight just offstage, and — promise you won't repeat this: It's a trade secret."

"I promise," I said.

"At the end of the play, as Jack is chopping down the beanstalk, I only have to lift this bar — he's spring-loaded, you see, and — "

As he touched one end of it, a little metal bar flew up like a railway signal, and Galligantus tumbled forward, crashing down in front of the cottage, nearly filling the opening of the stage.

"Never fails to get a gasp from out front," Rupert said. "Always makes me laugh to hear it. I have to take care, though, that Jack and his poor old mother don't get in his way. Can't have them being smashed by a falling giant."

Reaching down and seizing Galligantus by the hair, Rupert pulled him upright and locked him back into position.