Wooden Bones, page 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author
For Katarina and Calvin
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Knowing that it’s impossible to thank all the people who helped bring this book into being, I would like to single out a special few with the hope that those my faulty memory forgets will be forgiving. Again, at the top of the list are my trusty editors, David Gale and Navah Wolfe. Special thanks to John Silbersack, my literary agent, for his guidance and expertise. To the wonderful owners of the Historic Anchor Inn on the Oregon coast, where a chunk of this book was written: You always make me feel like family. A warm and loving thank-you to my children, Katarina and Calvin, for getting so excited when I was describing the book to you that first time. You don’t know how much that meant to me. And, as always, to Heidi, my first reader, chief publicist, and partner-in-crime in life: I wouldn’t be where I am today without you. Thanks for sticking with me.
CHAPTER ONE
In the old days news traveled quite slowly. Even if something amazing happened, it still took a long time for people to hear about it. So although something extraordinary had certainly happened in this little town at the edge of a great forest, the first strange person didn’t show up asking about it until nearly winter.
By then Pino had worked as an apprentice alongside his papa for nearly six weeks. It had been long enough that he’d started to forget all about his old terrible life. It had been long enough that he’d started to feel like nothing bad would ever happen to him again.
The knock came as he was learning how to sharpen the rasps, watching the master wood-carver swipe the stone across the blades with swift confidence. This made a sound that was quite loud and unpleasant, so they did not hear the knocking until the person was pounding hard on the door, startling them both.
The wood-carver handed Pino a rasp and told him to try—they were making a table—then wiped the dust and sweat off his face with a dirty rag and went to the door.
With the weather having only recently turned toward fall, they’d just begun to use the stove, keeping all the windows in the workshop shuttered after the sun went down to trap in the heat. If not, they would have seen the man coming, and Pino probably would have gotten a good look at him instead of only hearing his voice.
His papa opened the door, the man said hello, and then the wood-carver stepped into the night. Crisp air snaked into the room, sending goose bumps crawling up Pino’s arms. The door was left partially open, but from Pino’s vantage point he could not see either of them.
They spoke in low, murmuring voices, and because Pino was afraid to stop sharpening for fear his papa would be angry, he could not make out what they were saying. But there was something quite odd about the man’s voice.
He sounded terribly sad, just as his papa used to sound before the change.
A few minutes later his papa returned. Without a word he shut the door and returned to his stool next to Pino, his head low, his curly white hair shading his eyes. The lantern on the hook above them cast long shadows throughout the workshop. His papa picked up another rasp from the table and set to work.
“Who was it, Papa?” Pino asked.
“Oh, just a man from the neighboring village.”
“What did he want?”
The wood-carver focused on his work, sharpening, not looking at Pino.
“Papa?”
“To make something,” his papa said gruffly.
“What?”
The wood-carver sighed impatiently and looked at Pino with a stern expression. Then, as if he was reconsidering what he was about to say, his eyes softened and he reached out and tousled the boy’s hair. “Doesn’t matter, Pino. It’s something I can’t make.”
Pino had not been with the wood-carver long, but he found that comment very strange. As far as he knew, there was nothing his papa could not make out of wood.
He could make anything.
Anything at all.
* * *
It wasn’t until the second strange person came calling that Pino began to get some idea of what they wanted. He and his papa were at the well, drawing a bucket of water for dinner, when they heard a mournful sound coming from the other side of the blackberry bushes—a terrible moaning that made the hairs on the back of Pino’s neck rise.
Dusk had fallen, the sky was slipping into lavender, and a cold wind shriveled the leaves.
“Who’s there?” his papa said. “Show yourself.”
The moaning stopped. His house and workshop resided at the distant edge of the village, and so there was no one close by to help if the person in the bushes wished them harm. Pino seized his papa’s rough hand. He did not know what he would do without his papa. It was too terrible to even imagine.
“Come now,” his papa said, “we know you’re there. Don’t make me get my pistol.”
Finally the bushes stirred. Out rolled a slender person in a brown cloak spotted and blotched with blackberries. The face came up, and Pino saw that it was a young blond woman, hardly more than a girl, but her face was so twisted and contorted in strange ways that she looked much older.
In the fading light Pino could not see her well, but he could still tell that she had been crying. Her cheeks glistened like the dew-coated bark of an oak.
“Signore Geppetto,” she said. “Signore Geppetto, you must bring back my husband.”
“What?”
“He—he was a good man. A sailor. There was an accident—he fell overboard. I miss him so terribly much.”
Geppetto bowed his head. “I’m very sorry for your loss. Now, if you’ll excuse us—”
“It wasn’t supposed to be! It wasn’t his time!”
“Yes, I’m sorry. These things happen. Now, it is getting late and my boy has not had his supper.” He turned away.
“I—I know what you’ve told everyone, signore,” the woman said. “I know you said it can’t be done again. But can’t you try? I will pay you whatever you want.”
Geppetto headed back to the house, tugging Pino along. He gripped Pino’s hand so tightly that it caused Pino pain, but Pino was too afraid to complain. The woman’s face—he had never seen anything like it, so grotesque were her features. It reminded him of his bedside candle when it was burned nearly to the bottom, what remained of the wax all misshapen and lumpy.
They hadn’t gone far when the woman caught up to them, grasping Geppetto’s hand.
“Please,” she said.
“Let go,” Geppetto said.
“Please. I’ll—I’ll do anything.”
“Let me go!” Geppetto cried.
There was a brief tussle, Geppetto managed to free himself, and then Pino and his papa fled into the house. Geppetto was sobbing, and that was almost as horrible as seeing the woman’s face. Pino could not remember ever seeing his papa cry in such a way.
The woman cursed and screamed and kicked at the door. Pino was very afraid. She stayed for a long time, but eventually they heard her walk away. Pino would never forget the last thing she said, a shout from far down the road.
“We want what you have, Signore Geppetto!” she cried. “We just want what you have!”
CHAPTER TWO
What does ‘died’ mean, Papa?”
Pino did not ask the question to cause trouble, but he saw right away, by the expression on his papa’s face, that this was not a question like the others he had asked.
It was not like asking what it meant when food spoiled or where the sun went at night or why goose bumps formed on the backs of his arms in a cold wind. Geppetto always answered these questions with a smile. This time his papa froze, like the way a leaf in the wind froze when a fierce wind pressed it against the window.
Dinner had been eaten, the dishes washed, and Geppetto was pulling the wool blanket up to the boy’s chin. Behind the closed curtains icy rain clicked against the windowpanes like someone’s fingernails.
“Well,” Geppetto said, as if he meant to say more, but he didn’t.
“I heard that woman say it,” Pino explained.
Geppetto scratched his chin. The day’s stubble had formed, making the scratching rough, like the sound maple made when Papa took a plane to it. “Well, died is . . . it’s like somebody not being around anymore. They’re here and then they’re not.”
“Oh,” Pino said. “Like the customers? They’re here and then they’re not.”
“Mmm. In a way. But when someone dies, they don’t come back. Not ever.”
“Why don’t they come back?”
Geppetto looked at Pino a long time, then rose and opened the first drawer in his dresser. He fished around until he pulled out a tiny wooden box.
It was stained a dark reddish hue, inlaid with an intricate pattern in black iron. He sat on the bed with the box in his lap, looking down on it, until finally he opened it and pulled out a yellowed sheet of paper. After contemplating it for a time, he turned it around
It was a sketch of a beautiful woman. Her skin was as white and smooth as finely polished ivory. Her long black hair rippled like the feathers of a raven in flight.
“This was my wife,” Geppetto said. “Antoinette.”
“Where is she?” Pino asked.
“Well, my boy, that’s why I’m showing this to you. You see . . . excuse me, this is difficult.” He swallowed and tried again. “You see, Pino, she died. So she was here and now she’s not. She died in childbirth.”
“Was she my mother?”
“Oh, no. The child died too. It was . . . a very sad day. But she would have been your mother if she were still here. She would have liked you very much.”
Pino looked at the picture again. “I would have liked her too.”
“I think so, yes.”
“What about me?”
“What’s that, Pino?”
“I wasn’t here and now I am.”
“Yes,” Geppetto said. “Yes, that’s . . . being born. In a way, it is the opposite of dying.”
Pino thought about this for a while. “Is that what that woman wanted? She wanted her husband to be born?”
Geppetto smiled sadly, then ruffled Pino’s hair. “You’re a very smart boy—as sharp as our sharpest blade. Yes, in a way, that was what she wanted. She wanted me to make him out of wood. She thought . . . she thought this would make him alive again.”
“Would it?”
“No.”
Pino was quiet. Even under the covers he felt cold. He was afraid to ask the next question, but he had to know the answer.
“Papa, aren’t you glad I was born?”
Geppetto’s face darkened. He lifted the boy and hugged him fiercely. He smelled of sweat and woodsmoke, but it was not at all a bad smell. It was just the smell of his papa.
“Oh, my dear boy,” he said, “of course. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“So, it would be good to be born again?” Pino said.
Geppetto pulled away, searching the boy’s eyes. “Again?” he said.
“Yes,” he said. He pointed at the picture in Geppetto’s lap. “You could make her just as you made me. She could be born again. Then I would have a father and a mother. And we would all be happy.”
Pino expected his papa to be delighted by this suggestion, but instead his eyes misted. He seized the boy’s hands. “No, my dear Pino, you mustn’t think that way. What happened to you, it was a miracle. You were once made out of wood, and now you’re a real boy—only a miracle could make that happen. That’s what I have told the others, and what I will tell anyone who comes asking. It could never happen again. It would be foolish to even try. Nothing—nothing good could come of it.”
“But Papa—”
“No, no, speak no more of it. It’s useless to wish for something that can never be.”
* * *
But Pino did think more of it. He couldn’t help it.
When they were in town buying flour, milk, and other goods at the store, he saw a horse and buggy pass the store’s window, kicking up dust in the sunbaked afternoon. In the seat were four people—a man, a woman, and between them, a boy and a girl. The boy and the girl were nibbling on golden brown biscotti they must have gotten from the bakery down the road.
The children looked so happy, and the man and the woman were laughing. Pino thought how wonderful it would be to have a family like that. He thought how happy Papa would be too, to have a wife who smiled and laughed the way that woman smiled and laughed.
Maybe if Pino had that kind of family, he would finally feel like a real boy. He might look like a real boy, but he never really felt like one. Sometimes when he talked with other children who came to the workshop, they would look at him in a strange way or tell him that he said funny things. He hated that. He didn’t like being treated differently. He wanted to be just like everyone else.
Later that night Pino waited in bed until he heard his papa’s breathing become slow and heavy, then he crept to the workshop in his nightgown. The dew-laden grass felt wet against his bare feet. He didn’t dare light even a candle, but fortunately the half-moon was bright enough slanting through the windows that he needed no other light.
There, kept company only by the few chirping crickets who still lingered from summer, he set to work.
* * *
It took nearly two weeks, and by the end Pino was struggling to keep his eyes open during the day, but finally he was ready to show his surprise to his papa.
In truth, he would have liked to work on it a little longer, to apply a few finishing coats of polish, but Geppetto woke one Sunday in an exceptionally foul mood. A ferocious thunderstorm had blown in overnight, rattling the windows and shaking the roof, and Pino asked his papa if he was grumpy because of the weather.
Geppetto snapped that it would be ridiculous to be upset about a little lightning and thunder—or anything else you couldn’t control, for that matter. He wouldn’t say what was bothering him, but simply gazed morosely out the rain-streaked window.
He told Pino that they’d take the day off, and when Pino asked him what taking the day off meant, Geppetto shouted at the boy to go play with some of his toys and leave his papa alone.
This set Pino to crying, and then Geppetto begged forgiveness, and the two embraced. Pino waited until Geppetto went out to use the outhouse, then he hurried through the wind and rain to the workshop, returning to their cottage with his creation just seconds before his papa entered as well.
“What’s that you have there, Pino?” Geppetto asked.
Pino moved away from the rocking chair, revealing the product of all his hours of labor: a life-size puppet carved with great care to resemble the sketch of Geppetto’s lost wife, Antoinette.
His papa stared, eyes wide and mouth open. Pino wasn’t sure if the puppet was any good, though he’d done his very best. He’d used mostly scraps, a little cherry for the arms, some elm for the neck, a few pieces of oak for the torso. But he’d gouged and chiseled and rasped every divot and mole with great care, hoping that if he did it well enough, Papa would not be angry with him for using some of their wood.
He’d had to be sneaky for the hair, shearing off some horsetail hairs when the customers were preoccupied, but he thought she came across quite well. Of course, a little paint would make her skin look even more realistic, but he could always do that later.
“Do you like it?” Pino asked.
“That—that dress,” Geppetto said, his voice strangely gurgled. He brought a fist to his mouth, biting the heavily calloused skin.
“I found it in the bottom of the chest at the back of the closet,” Pino said. The dress was made of red cotton with white lace, a bit wrinkled, but still pretty. “I hope it’s all right, Papa. I wanted her to look just right . . . what is it? Did I do something wrong?”
“Oh, my dear boy,” Geppetto said. “Oh, my dear boy, what have you done?”
“I’m sorry, Papa. I didn’t—I didn’t mean—”
“Do you know what today is? Today is the day my wife and unborn child died. A terrible day! I try not think of it. I—I try so very hard, and yet always, always, I remember. And now look what you’ve done! You create something that forces me to remember!”
“I didn’t know!” Pino pleaded. “I’m sorry!”
“We have to take it apart.”
“But, Papa!”
Geppetto brushed past Pino. He took hold of the puppet’s head with both hands, his fingers digging into the horsehair.
“Papa!” Pino cried. “Please!”
“I’m sorry, boy.”
Gritting his teeth, Geppetto yanked the head from side to side. It was too terrible to watch, so Pino buried his face in his hands. He kept waiting for the awful sound of splintering wood.
But then Geppetto cried out in surprise, and it was such a shock that Pino looked at what was happening.
To his astonishment, the puppet had seized Geppetto’s arms, wooden fingers clamping on to his papa’s wrists as sure as any vise. That wasn’t all. The once immobile puppet was rising, black coal eyes blinking up at Geppetto with a face that revealed nothing. Geppetto gaped back in utter shock, fingers groping at empty air, still struggling to grab the puppet’s head. The puppet moved jerkily, gears and sockets and joints stiff, but it was still much stronger than the wood-carver.
