Laini Taylor - Night of Cake & Puppets

Did I think he wouldn’t? I don’t know. I don’t know. I get too flustered around him to attempt anything like sustained eye contact, and without that, it’s kind of hard to gauge interest. But watching him from hiding like a creepy serial killer, I could actually focus on his face long enough to believe that…he looked interested. Didn’t he? Well, he always looks interested, he’s that kind of alien, but just now he looked…dazzled.

‘Don’t you think he looked dazzled?’ I ask the black cat that’s rubbing against my legs. It slipped in here right when Mik showed up, like it was bloody well trying to lead him to me, and when it started purring as loud as a farm truck, I thought for sure Mik would hear. I may have shushed it. Shushed a cat. And what do you think it did? It purred louder.

‘I will do just as you wish,’ said no cat ever .

In the safety of aftermath, though, my concern seems a little foolish. What did I think, that Mik would thrust open the door and demand, ‘ Why purrest thou, feline? ’

The cat continues its purr-fest, which I take to mean: Yes, Mik was definitely dazzled. How could he not be? I ensorcelled him. For which, thank you, scuppies. Two down. One for the tapping, one to lift the butterfly into the air. Poof! Poof! They go fast. I wish I had Karou’s whole necklace. Karou. I text her: Phase One a success. The Puppet That Bites would be proud.

Because, yeah, using scuppies to animate a puppet, where on earth did I come up with that idea?

It’s not copying, though. It’s an homage. Of course, that’s what artists always say when they steal from other artists. In this case, though, it really is an homage, to my own magical awakening two years ago. It seems right that Mik should be awakened in the same way. That we should lose our magic virginity the same way. To creepy puppets, during snowstorms.

(Okay. That sounds so wrong. But you know what I mean.)

The butterfly was my idea, though, and I think it was really the cherry on the cake, the thing that said, Oh, you think this is a trick? So how am I doing this , smart guy? I try to imagine what I’d think if it happened to me, but I can’t. Once you know magic is real, it’s really hard to remember what it was like not to know. It’s kind of like trying to see how you look with your eyes closed.

(I did that once. I was a kid. It occurred to me out of nowhere to wonder what I looked like with my eyes closed, so I…um, went to the mirror and…closed my eyes.)

(Yeah. I looked exactly like the inside of a pair of eyelids.)

(I’ve never claimed to be a genius.)

I wait, giving the black cat a good scratch and letting Mik put some distance between us before I emerge from hiding. It’s cold. I’m exhilarated. My heartbeat feels like a jaunty tune and my lips might as well be a parade float, and the rest of me just the little people on the ground holding the tethers.

Also, I’m starving, and I crazy have to pee.

I kind of wish I was just meeting Mik at Poison Kitchen. I mean, I could . I could just walk in behind him and say, ‘Well played, handsome man. Now let us eat strudel and then kiss. Just as soon as I get back from the bathroom.’

But I’m not done dazzling him yet. I have more scuppies to spend before we reach the talking portion of the evening. I’m hoping the talking portion is just a thin layer between the dazzling portion and the kissing portion, like the frosting between layers of a cake.

(Mmm. Cake.)

Not that I’m not keen to talk to him. I am – in the fantasy version of tonight, anyway, in which I actually manage to string words into sentences, and not just random magnetic-poetry sentences, but sentences that don’t lead to the logical conclusion that I have brain damage. It’s just…I can’t begin to account for the intensity of my urgency to get kissing. The most likely explanation, after long thought, is that I’m a clone preprogrammed to perform this activity now or self-destruct.

Or else it’s just Mik’s velvety sweetness. Like a cupcake, in boy form.

I start walking, pausing to peer around the corner and make sure he’s gone. I proceed toward the Malá Strana, stopping in a cafe on the way to alleviate the more pressing of my physical urges (neither lips nor stomach, no; nothing trumps the bladder), and then continue on, hurrying, but careful to scan the way ahead and make sure I don’t overtake my stalkee. I don’t see any sign of him, though, and amuse myself by wondering which set of footprints through the snow on the Charles Bridge might be his.

Those? Maybe.

When I feel a surge of fondness for Mik’s maybe-footprints, I know I’m in serious trouble. The fact that I can’t even muster any true self-disgust tells me how deep this goes. I’m doomed.

It’s about the time I’m creeping into the courtyard of Poison Kitchen – under the archway draped in black, frozen ivy, into the garden of medieval tombstones where the murdered monks lie buried – that I start to wonder if I’m being creepy. I mean, I am creeping. Does creep- ing automatically make one creep- y ? Or are there dispensations for…romance?

I bet all stalkers believe they’re being romantic. I did it for love, officer.

Have I crossed the line? I’m about to peer in through a window at Mik. For some reason, this feels worse than peering out a window, as I was just doing with a fairly clear conscience. After all, peeping toms peep in , not out . But this is still a public space, I argue to myself. I’m not peeping in his window. I would never do that. This is a cafe. Moreover, it’s kind of my cafe. Mine and Karou’s. In no legally recognized way, of course. We don’t own it, except spiritually.

Which is a much higher court than actual real estate ownership. So I creep, totally uncreepily, up to the window.

And…there are…there are some little downy black feathers on the ledge. I know whose they are. Whose they were . Kishmish used to come here and tap at the glass to summon Karou. I get a lump in my throat remembering his little charred body falling still in Karou’s hands, and these feathers serve as a reminder of how simple my life is, how lightweight this evening is, and how un-life-threatening the consequences of failure. It also reminds me of my duty to provide Karou with a rabid fairy tale, so I look through the window boldly, ready to make some magic.

And just as I see Mik, right where he’s supposed to be, someone says my name. Well, not my name. A version of my name. ‘Zuzachka?’ From behind me, in the courtyard.

Only one person calls me that, if he even deserves the designation ‘person,’ which he doesn’t. Only one jackass calls me that, and I feel the cool of venom spreading through me, ready for deployment. Patience. I don’t turn to respond yet, because I’m watching Mik, who is right this very moment sitting on a velvet settee at Pestilence – Karou’s and my spiritual domain, which had been kept waiting for him by way of a RESERVED sign and a lovingly carved angel puppet – and I need to make magic happen right now .

‘What are you doing?’ asks jackass-voice.

My hand is already in my pocket. My fingers find a scuppy. Mik’s facing the new puppet like it’s a friend who saved a seat for him. It’s the counterpart to the devil (which he’s holding in his lap): an angel of the same proportions. I made them last semester, for a St. Nicholas Day performance for my Puppetry grade, which of course was an A.

I make the wish. I can’t see it come true, but the bead vanishes between my fingertips and I know from the way Mik rocks back in surprise that something has happened.