Puppet on a String chapter 9

Chapter 9

I remember my first scenario. It was quite disturbing. I must have been ten then. I had gone to the kitchen as usual that morning. The kitchen had been my one spot of normalcy — of consistency. It had always had a warm feel to it — with the glow of the old-fashioned stove. The smell of stew boiling away was a daily feature. Come to think of it, there were days when Nan seemed to like me then. It actually all appeared to change the day of that scenario. Or, perhaps I changed. After all, my sense of stability had fallen out from underneath me.

When I entered the room, I was shocked. There had appeared a large hole in the middle of the room. I blinked several times unable to process what I was seeing. Had this hole always been there but was merely covered up? Never had the landscape been altered this swiftly before.

“Nan?!” I called out. “Nan?”

There was no answer. And the smell — the familiar smell of the stew was absent. Something was desperately wrong. I began to feel a sense of panic well up inside of me. Some very early memory was threatening to break through. I had lost almost everything years before, and this situation reminded me of that — and I hated it. I also hadn’t realized before that I had emotionally latched on to this room and everything it contained.

Of course, I didn’t head down the foreboding staircase I had spotted inside the hole right away. I looked about me and considered my options. I could return to my room. I could stalk the halls. And yet, my eyes kept lighting upon the hole in the center of the floor. Maybe it was just a delusion, but it would seem that there was no resolution to my uncertainty apart from that staircase. Even though I knew on some level that I could wait out the situation, I was only ten. My curiosity got the better of me. Despite my past, I was still confident enough to believe I could handle myself no matter what the situation was.

So, I headed for the stairs. The first thing I noticed was a cool breeze wafting up towards me. The smell was odd. Instead of the expected smell of freshly cut wood, I detected a musty scent. I stopped briefly. This space couldn’t possibly have been here for a long time. How could this be? Where was this musty odor coming from? Despite my hesitation, I continued. I did look back up the stairs. I was tempted to go back up, but I didn’t. I wish I had.

The room below was circular. The floor was made up of precisely cut stone. The wood rafters above me seemed to be cut in such a way to make them appear as though they had been hastily made. But it was clear that it had been cut with the same precision as the stone. It was all a façade — just as everything else. Yet, there were elements that couldn’t be explained. Cobwebs and dust lined the rafters. I would discover later on that there is a room full of spiders, which produce the webs for the scenarios.

When some people who were down there caught sight of me, they flew into motion. I was seized by a hulky woman almost immediately. I don’t know why I was so passive about it. Then again, maybe I do. It was a shocking turn of events. Plus, I was so used to adult authority at that point that I didn’t think it wise to fight it — despite the fact that these were strangers to me. As it turned out, the Instructor would later insist that not blindly following authority figures was one of the chief lessons to be learned from this — the first scenario. He was proud of me for having figured this out — but mostly he was proud of himself for coming up with the lesson. Regardless … I was swiftly shoved into a cell, which seemed to be by design. Also, as most of the things around the complex, the cell was designed to appear to be different from the way it actually was. Artificial touches created the illusion that the cell had been there for some time. In actuality, it had been recently constructed. In other words, it had been made for me.

“What — what’s going on?” I had managed.

They shut the cell door behind me. The woman sneered at me.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to come down here. Hey, wait!” I pleaded as I watched the strangers head up the stairs toward the kitchen. I stood there for a moment in shock. What was going on? Perhaps I should have asked them to contact the Instructor on my behalf.

“Should I wait for them to come back or call out to them now?” I wondered.

I decided to sit down on the wooden bench. Something told me that if I annoyed these people too much they might never come back.

Still, as time passed, I began to believe I had made a mistake by not calling out before. Certainly, they weren’t still waiting around in the kitchen all this time. But perhaps, they had been there a little while after they disappeared from view, and they would have come back if I had called out to them then.

The only solace I had was that the opening at the top of the stairs hadn’t been sealed up. If it had been, I would have felt completely buried in that space. And yet, I wrung my hands. I was filled with self-recrimination. What was I thinking allowing mere curiosity to drive me down here? As I grew hungry and thirsty, I told myself that this alarming situation couldn’t last forever. After all, certainly nothing happened around here without the Instructor knowing about it, or at least finding out about it. In this case, I was right about that. Eventually, I had been released and received my lecture.

The next time I had a scenario it had been much easier to take. I could tell right away that something was different. The room had been altered in some subtle yet intentional ways. I had thought to myself, “It has the markings of scenario, and it has begun.”

I stop short, and Mark turns and looks at me. We have been searching for quite awhile by now. I am very worn out, and my reveries have caused a chill to crawl up my spine. Am I fooling myself? How could the Instructor not know what I am doing right now?

“What?” Mark wonders.

I look up at him. It can’t be helped. If the Instructor knows, he knows. All that means is that I don’t have much time. Certainly, it also means that a scenario is about to begin soon. I look behind me. The weird thing is that usually a scenario would begin when I went to a predetermined place at a predetermined time. Not only is this the first time I suspected a scenario long before it began, but it is also the only time I don’t know where to go or what to do to begin it.

I blink. Nothing. All is silent. Still, whatever is going on, I have no intention of letting my guard down again.

I shudder once more.

“We’d better get as much done as we can. I’m not sure how much time I have before they come looking for me. Actually …” I hesitate. What should I reveal? It occurs to me that I am actually ashamed to explain this aspect of my life to Mark. Trying to make it seem logical to him would just make me look weird. And the thing of it is, even though I would agree with him that my life is strange, I have a feeling I would become defensive if he views it that way. Like it or not, I feel my life here is a reflection on me.

“Someone who lives here enjoys playing games.” I decide to say. “I am almost expecting this to be one of those games.”

I am relieved when a look of understanding crosses Mark’s face.

“If this is one of the games, it will start soon enough.”

“Well, I don’t want to be caught here.” Mark notes quickly. “So, you’re right. We’d better cover as much ground as possible as quickly as possible.”

The rest of the search is uneventful. Then, we call it a day.

Copyright © Jennifer Alice Chandler 2020