A/N I really liked this book until the last two chapters. Like, I really, REALLY liked it. So after the ending wrenched me apart, I thought it only appropriate I write my *own* epilogue.
Fuck you, Keith Donohue. I already hate the Orpheus myth, especially the version with the unsatisfying ending.
And so here we are.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own The Motion of Puppets—nor would I want to own such a travesty. Also I can't bear to bring myself to read the book again after the trauma of that stupid ending, so apologies in advance if any of the characters are OOC (or even if any names are wrong, which they probably are).
Kay Harper had never been one for Greek mythology in her youth.
Granted, it didn't exactly help that her mother eschewed the decidedly kid-friendly D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths in favor of Virgil and Ovid when it came to bedtime stories. When they weren't long and boring as fuck, they were either creepily disturbing or absurdly depressing. And young Kay wasn't one for any of the above.
Of course, these days she didn't remember any of that. It had already gone down the drain of "Stuff From Her Human Life That No Longer Mattered".
She didn't remember lying awake for hours one night as a twelve-year-old, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice circling through her mind like bats in the belfry.
She didn't remember thinking how stupid Orpheus was for not trusting in Eurydice to be behind him when he turned around and lost her for good.
She didn't remember being annoyed at the Greeks and their stupid friggin tragedy myths for denying Orpheus his reunion with Eurydice even in death, since after being torn to pieces he was never given a proper funeral to send his soul to the Underworld.
And now, she definitely didn't make the ironic connection between the myth and the events that had transpired in the barn last week.
Therefore, Kay had next to zero idea what she was doing OUTSIDE THE BARN in the wee hours of daylight on this particular late winter, early spring morning.
Stay calm, Kay. Focus.
It wasn't that she wanted to escape, not anymore. That had always been Noë's thing, and with the poor wraith of a girl long gone, there was no one else to whisper such treasonous thoughts in her ear.
Treasonous. Ha.
Nor was it that she wanted to be human again. There was nothing left for her in the outside world, and her real family was here, she knew that now. The Good Fairy was the devoted sister; the Devil like the brazen yet charming uncle; the Russian Sisters the trio of fussing, chattering aunts; Nix could be like the annoying older brother she sometimes hated and sometimes didn't mind; and even the Queen was warming up to her somewhat. And of course the Original. After all, he was the reason they were all here together in the first place. He deserved nothing but gratitude for his generosity, goodwill, and the fierce protection he showed them all.
Even if that protection had cost the life of the man she once held dear.
So be it.
And yet…that still didn't explain what Kay was doing OUTSIDE THE FUCKING BARN FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.
To be honest, Kay wasn't sure how she hadn't been spotted and stopped on her way out. No diversion necessary, she just…left. Undid the bar latching the heavy barn doors and walked right out. (She didn't trust herself to make her exit and reentry from the upper window.) Granted, even serving as the puppet's place of confinement during the off-season, the barn was decidedly not the Back Room and thus she didn't have to play by the Back Room's rules. Old habits died hard, though, meaning most of the puppets went to sleep anyhow once daybreak was imminent, so that was an added help. Still, if the Original had seen her, as he most certainly should have since he never shut his eyes for a moment, he did nothing to stop her. He didn't send those whooping and hollering dancers of his to tear her apart in a bloodlust, or even do so much as call out sharply when the waning moonlight and rosy hint of sunlight first cracked through the opening door.
Maybe it was because the Original somehow sensed she would be returning shortly. Maybe he sensed she could never shut off her devotion to him if she tried, and knew that just this once she was worth pitying. Maybe he knew why she had chosen to temporarily commit this act of treason.
Well, if he knows, he oughta explain it to me, cuz I sure as hell don't have a clue.
Kay took a deep breath. Focus, remember? Focus.
Her gamble that the guard dog outside was only interested in actual human beings, not puppets with a fragment of their original human essence, had paid off. Apart from a slight ear flicker and twitch of the nose, the dog was enjoying a quick and well-deserved nap at his post. Morning frost on the new-sprouting grass around him glistened in the early dawn, and the scene looked every inch the calendar stock photo. Satisfied she wouldn't be barked at, Kay crept around to the back of the barn and sized up the scene.
She had to hand it to the puppet mob, they didn't half-ass the job by any stretch. The tattered fabric shreds hanging on the branches above her were barely recognizable as fragments of what had once been clothes, and she figured at least three-fifths of them had already blown far and wide in the wind by now. A couple splintered (fingers?) were strewn around the edges of the clearing…a somewhat-intact shoe lay at the base of a tree a little further away…there was half an upper arm (or was it half a lower leg?) over there…tiny fibers of what had once been yarn that had once been hair danced on the tips of grass blades like wheat chaff swirling in the breeze…
How much of it had disappeared into the forest and lost itself in the underbrush?
How much of her husband would she be able to recover?
Was it even worth it?
A little sigh escaped her papier-mâché lips. She'd already gotten this far, she reminded herself. Might as well set to work, then.
It was rather odd, Kay pondered as she inched back inside the barn, arms full, slowly pushing the door shut with her hip. She was basically carrying a dead body, or what was left of one. Well, Unmade, to be precise. Yet she didn't at all feel repulsed or nauseated or anything of the sort. Sure, she'd shuddered at the thought of being Unmade oh so long ago when the Judges first disappeared, but never expected actually holding the remains of the Unmade to feel so…so…
Ordinary?
Like bringing in the laundry from the clothesline.
Hmm. Odd.
Kay made her way to the back corner of the barn where the Quatre Mains puppets were stationed, giving the area another cursory glance to satisfy herself that everyone was still dozing, and plopped down in her usual nook with her back to the other puppets. Then she spread out her loot on the floorboards and examined it.
Him. Examined what was left of him.
The man she once loved but now didn't know why.
Theo Harper.
Remembering the name sent a tiny little tremor through the blocks of wood that acted as her spine. All the old memories had disappeared down that drain, but flickers persistently lingered. They danced through her cotton-and-sawdust mind, tantalizingly close but always too far away to fully grasp even if she'd had the energy to pursue them. That one warm…that one funny…that one rather angsty, shame she couldn't remember the context…that one reeking of passion and desire…
A sharp breath caught in her throat as she looked down again. She'd spent the past week idly thinking of his remains drifting about forlornly in the outdoors, but now that he was once again very real and very tangible…
Her mind flashed back to that night the week before, watching the arrow pierce his back as he transformed before her very eyes…
I mean, sure, she'd long since come to terms with the fact that everyone in her little puppet family had to have come from somewhere in the Human World, though the when, whence, and wherefore mattered not so long as they were all here. But seeing someone who she'd known from her life before, who she'd loved, who she'd recognized as a human being and now saw shredded into thousands of fragments of wood and cloth…
Thousands of fragments.
Oh, dear.
Kay clucked her red-painted papier-mâché tongue, the enormity of the task ahead dawning on her. How was she to know which piece connected where, whether this splinter paired with that, what cloth scraps to patch together to create some decent semblance of clothing? Absentmindedly she picked up the bare little head, which she'd found quite a ways into the forest (near a riverbank, as it happened) surprisingly intact but with its painted face smudged mostly away by mud, and held it up in front of her in what looked every inch a grotesque recreation of Hamlet with the skull of Yorick—
"Kay, what on earth are you doing?!"
Startled, Kay dropped the head and whirled around.
Fuck.
The urgent whisper belonged to none other than the Queen, of course, who towered over Kay in all her intimidating royal highness. To be clear, Kay was no longer nearly as frightened of their odd little family's matriarch as she'd been back when Noë was around, but the jump scare and the Queen's gigantic imposing presence were enough to make her shirk back and remind her she'd been Caught In The Act. A sudden thrill of panic shot through her cloth innards and for a few moments she futilely scrambled to hide the dismembered puppet parts. It wasn't until she stopped, accepted her fate as a yet-again-traitor, and with no small ounce of dread looked up into the Queen's eyes that she saw it.
The Queen didn't look angry. Well okay, she did, but there was something else there, too…
Shock. Horror.
And fear.
Still uneasy, Kay tried to act nonchalant and nodded at the shreds of wood and cloth. "I…it…er…Theo."
"Theo." It was a pointed demand for an explanation.
"He's…er, he was…my hus—well, er, themanwhobrokeinhere."
"I see." An odd look of recognition crossed her face, gone faster than it came. Whatever reprimand or lecture Kay had been expecting didn't come. Instead, the Queen crouched down into as dignified of a position as her grand skirts would allow, leaned in close to Kay (who fought the instinct to flinch) and hissed a question in her ear.
"Does the Original know you left the barn?"
Kay didn't answer. The Queen pulled back. The two puppets eyed each other warily. Then both ever so slowly looked up at the barn loft.
And made eye contact with the Original himself.
There he sat, high up in the loft, perched on his little pedestal under the glass case like always. He was motionless, albeit most definitely awake and watching them.
But he made no sound. No shout of warning, just like before. Instead, he raised an arm and flicked it in a dismissive little gesture, as if to say, Carry on, as you were, don't mind me. Then he turned slightly away and the eye contact was broken, indicating the conversation was over.
Kay let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding, even if in her state of existence it didn't matter all that much. The Original, still the little puppet she'd fallen for in the shop window back in Quebec City, was a stern and just ruler, but a benevolent one as well.
Or maybe he just didn't mind it so much now that Theo was no longer a threat to the universe he'd created.
The Queen, meanwhile, didn't show her relief but was quickly becoming her old self again. "You do realize, my dear Kay," she said tersely as she stood up and brushed herself off as she regained composure, "that your husband was Unmade when he was torn apart and cast out? You'll never be able to put his soul back in there no matter how well you fix him up."
Kay chewed on her lip and looked down at the impossible mess before her. After a moment, she looked back up again with a shrug of her shoulders.
The Queen shook her head and sighed. "Why, Kay? What do you want out of all this?"
What did she want, indeed. To have him back? She'd already known that was impossible. To love him again? Her love was lost and she couldn't find it. To remember her life from before? It was too late for that, this wasn't going to help her now. To give his soul a proper sendoff? It was already vanished, what was the point?
So why was she going to all this effort in the first place, if she knew it would be for naught?
Kay gulped. "I…I don't know."
"And neither do I." She seemed to ponder something for a moment. Then, brushing off her skirts, the Queen deftly pulled something out of her fabric folds and tossed it at Kay.
The latter's circus reflexes kicked in and she caught it in midair, then regarded the object quizzically as she held it up to see. "Wood glue?"
It was the Queen's turn to shrug, a gesture one wouldn't expect to see from a puppet of her regal stature. "I have been here a long time, my dear. A punctured head full of bees is hardly the first surgery we've had to attend to. You still have your needle and thread, correct?"
Kay nodded dumbly. The Queen nodded back in satisfaction. "Good. Just don't make a disturbance to the rest of us."
And with that, she swept back to her corner and leaned against the wall, pretending to doze with the others.
Kay blinked. Or at least did the puppet equivalent of one. That went…well, she thought, bemused. The sun was barely up, and already this day had been full of surprises.
A daintily meaningless tune, left over from the last scraps of her humanity, came to mind, and she hummed it quietly as she set to work stitching, gluing, and piecing together the infinitely haphazard jigsaw before her.
She had no idea why she was doing it. She had no idea what she would do with it when she was done. But somewhere, somehow, she felt something that had long been tense deep inside her finally relax its grip.
Outside, a faint soul flitted about the barn, patiently biding his time.
In Ovid's tale, Orpheus lives on and eventually forgets about Eurydice. He forgoes the love of a virtuous woman and instead turns to sodomizing young virgin boys.
In Virgil's account, Orpheus's grieving for Eurydice goes on so long and makes the countryside so depressed with his music that the god Bacchus grows fed up, so he has his wild followers tear his body to pieces and cast them in a river. The tragic musician is never given proper funeral rites and is forever trapped in limbo.
In Monteverdi's opera, the god Apollo takes pity on Orpheus and brings him up to Mount Olympus to live in paradise with the gods and play his music for them for all eternity.
None of these retellings reunite Orpheus and Eurydice in the end. Which is stupid.
But for Kay and Theo Harper, it doesn't have to be that way.