Night of Cake & Puppets (5 page)

He came.

He came to find me.

When Mik rounds the corner out of sight, I sag against the wall of my hiding place – behind a lace curtain in the foyer of the building across the street – feeling as spent as if I’ve actually been conjuring spells and not just holding colored beads between my fingers. I let out a long breath.

Mik came to find me.

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.

Whereas the devil has a little canary on a swing where its heart would be, the angel has a heart-shaped hole carved in its chest, and in it, a sparkler…which has just ignited, turning its heart into a mini-firework. In the show, I had to light it with a match. In this case, I wished it alight. I hope it looks fancy. I can’t really see it from here, though, and anyway, with that done, I have less pleasant business to attend to. I turn around.

‘What do
you
want.’ No question inflection. Nothing but sticky, poisonous disdain.

For Kaz. Kazimir Andrasko, Karou’s disaster of a first boyfriend. First and last. Her despoiler. She thinks I don’t know, but I know. And let me tell you something about me. I love vengeance like normal people love sunsets and long walks on the beach. I eat vengeance with a spoon like it’s honey. In fact, I may not even be a real person, but just a vow of vengeance made flesh. My parents swear I was a real baby and not a demonic bargain, but of course they would say that. Bottom line: There is enough spare vengeance in me to act on behalf of mistreated, undervalued, toyed-with girls everywhere, and this is
Karou
we’re talking about.

On behalf of Karou, Kaz has achieved the rarified status of Nemesis First Class, but has not yet been subjected to his personalized, Zuzana-tailored Scheme of Total Annihilation.

Yet.

‘Just saying hi,’ he says, looking taken aback, like he actually thought I’d be happy to see him. ‘What’s your
problem
?’ he asks.

‘What’s my problem? I have so many, but violent tendencies and probable demonic origins are the ones that should concern you.’

‘Huh?’ He gives me dumb-face, which is such a disappointing response to a good nemesis zinger. Kaz might deserve First Class status for Crimes of High Douchebaggery, but he’s just not quality enemy material.

I sigh, and tell him so. ‘You are not a worthy opponent.’

‘What are you talking about? Opponent at what?’

‘Opponent at
opponenting
. Duh. What are you doing here, Jackass?’

‘What do you think? Is Karou here? Are you meeting her?’

I laugh. ‘You’re not seriously looking for Karou,’ I say, but I see by the persistence of dumb-face that he is. ‘She put you through a window the last time she saw you. Does that somehow leave room for hope?’

‘She didn’t know it was me when she did that,’ he argues. ‘What was up with her that night, anyway? Is she okay?’

Is Karou okay? No. No, she’s really not, but in the scheme of her problems now, Kaz has become about as significant as a gnat inhaled by god.
Snuff
. I just shake my head. ‘Oh, Jackass,’ I say with what I hope comes across as gentle pity. ‘Poor Jackass. Let me explain something. You know in fairy tales, when a bunch of princes all try to win the princess’s hand, but they’re all vain and entitled and self-involved and they fail at the task and get put to death? And then there’s one who comes along who’s clever and good and he wins and gets to live happily ever after with her? Yeah, well, you’re the first kind.’ I pat him on the shoulder. ‘It’s all over for you.’

Still dumb-face. And then he says, ‘You mean she’s seeing someone else?’

‘Oh my god!’ I can only laugh. ‘Talking to you is like playing catch with a toddler. Get out of here, Kaz. Did you think I was kidding before? You’re not welcome here. Imrich
will
put you in a coffin, and I
will
nail it shut.’

The tables in Poison Kitchen are actual coffins, and the one-eyed owner, Imrich, is fond of me and Karou. We’ve been coming here at least three times a week for two and a half years. We painted murals in the bathrooms in exchange for goulash. Imrich is on our side.

‘Right,’ says Kaz, rolling his eyes, not believing – or fearing – it for a second. ‘Let’s go in, then. I hope you have your coffin nails ready.’ And he takes a step toward the door, calling my bluff.

Damn. It.

It’s not a bluff! Imrich will do it. He’s not entirely sane. I mean, look at his cafe! It’s full of gas masks and skulls, for god’s sake. Real ones. He will totally put Kaz in a coffin, and yes, he does have coffin nails. Like everything else in Poison Kitchen, they’re antique, and authentic. He says they’re from the coffins exhumed in Kutná Hora after some monk sprinkled Golgotha dirt there in the Middle Ages, making it the most popular graveyard in Central Europe. Most popular graveyard, what a thing! You’d only get to stay in the ground for so long before they’d dig you up to make room for the next guy. And – oh! Then in the late nineteenth century they hired some wood carver to make art out of all the dug-up bones. It’s
awesome
. Imagine afterlife as part of a skeleton chandelier.
For real.

The point is: coffin nails,
check
. Coffin,
check
. Crazy one-eyed Imrich and his bar cronies ready to take hold of pretty boy here and introduce him to the satiny interior of a hexagonal box?

Check.

Me, able to participate?
Not
check.

Any other night. Any. Other. Night. But tonight is not for vengeance. I take a deep breath. It’s for a dazzling.

I do not look to the window. I so strenuously don’t look to the window that my neck feels turned to concrete. I’m dying to know what’s going on with Mik, but I don’t want Kaz to catch me looking. He could mess everything up. I’m on a carefully calibrated schedule here.

Has Imrich brought Mik’s tea yet? That’s the plan. Pestilence – Karou’s and my table, tucked under the giant equestrian Marcus Aurelius statue – was to be kept clear by a
RESERVED
sign, the angel puppet sitting there with its legs crossed on the velvet settee, and when –
if
– Imrich saw a guy come in and sit there, he was supposed to bring him a tea tray. Mik’s last clue will be tucked in the arsenic bowl. (The
sugar
bowl, that is. Tea at Poison is served in antique silver services, the cream and sugar dishes engraved
arsenic
and
strychnine
,
hemlock
,
cyanide
. Cute, right?)