The Crying Puppet

The Crying Puppet
By Jason Masters © 2015

This is a work of fiction.  This story is not based on any real events.

The wizard stared disapprovingly at the woodcutter who clutched his infant son protectively in his lap while seated on the other side of the ornately carved oak desk.  It had been a long journey for a man with so small a baby, the wizard knew.  He hated to disappoint such a determined customer.

The wizard's disapproving look was tempered somewhat by the sight of the small bag of gold coins which the woodcutter was offering in exchange for a particularly dangerous and difficult-to-cast spell.  The bag of coins must have represented the man's life's savings.  All the same, the wizard wasn't a total mercenary and was trying to impress certain warnings upon his potential client's mind, more than half hoping to dissuade him in spite of the potential profit.

"A spell of this nature is not only extremely difficult to successfully cast, but also has consequences, some of which you may not be willing to endure..." the wizard asserted.

"I don't care!" The father's tone was adamant as he interrupted the wizard's warning.  "I've already lost my wife.  I simply couldn't go on living if I also lost the son whom she underwent such agony to give me.  I couldn't endure it!"

"I can understand that you are grieving," replied the wizard, "but this is not the best way to protect your son.  The consequences to him if the spell goes wrong could be disastrous."

"And I'm telling you that I can't take the chance of losing my son.  If you won't help me, then I'll just have to find another wizard..." the woodcutter half-rose but sat once again as the wizard raised his hand and spoke.

"I know of no greater wizard in any land than I, and certainly there is no other who could cast this particular spell successfully.  Very well, if you are determined to engage in this foolish course of action, it had better be I who casts the spell in order to minimise any potential for harm.  I will merely add the warning that you will almost certainly regret your decision, and your son may end up paying an even worse price."

The wizard paused a moment for a response but, seeing from the look in the man's eyes that the woodcutter was still determined to continue, the wizard scooped up the bag of gold, placed it into a magically-warded drawer then turned to his spell book, opening it to one of the later pages.  "Let us get started.  First, I will explain what you will need to do in order to activate the spell once it has been cast."

The woodcutter leaned forwards, listening eagerly to the wizard's instructions.

* * * * *

That night, even while still on the journey home, the woodcutter began to carve a small, wooden puppet in the likeness of a baby.  He carefully studied his infant son's features as he slept and just as carefully carved their likeness into the puppet-baby's face.  He then snipped off a lock of his son's hair and used it to create as lifelike a hairstyle as he could manage, which he glued to the puppet's head.  He thought it not a bad likeness at all, but of course he had made toys like this before, to be bought by the parents of the children in the village near his home as gifts for their offspring.

Since the woodcutter's infant son was not yet one year old, this particular puppet was numbered with a zero and, once the two of them arrived home, was placed carefully aside in a special drawer, never to be sold.

Each year, when the boy turned one, two, three and four, the woodcutter carved a new puppet, carefully studying his child while he slept and taking a small lock of his hair to become the puppet's hair in order to be sure the likeness would be as close as possible.  But the woodcutter always did the carving in secret, for not everyone approved of wizardry.

As the wizard had advised, the woodcutter waited until his son was about to turn six before he began work on what was to prove to be the final puppet, although it is certain that the woodcutter had no idea at the time that this would be the case.  It was also the most lifelike of all the puppets.  Indeed, the likeness between puppet number five and the woodcutter's son was remarkable.

It was extremely unfortunate that the woodcutter had a problem with drink, as it led to the tragedy which followed.

The woodcutter decided to celebrate his latest success with a small ale.  Then another small ale.  Then another, and another, and yet more and more, until the man was almost falling-down drunk.  Finally, he fell asleep in his chair, still holding the puppet which looked so much like his son.

It was not long after this that the child returned home from his day with the woman who cared for him while his father was working and, seeing his father in a drunken stupor (a condition all too familiar to the boy) and holding a wooden puppet, naturally assumed that the toy had been meant as a surprise present for him on his birthday.

Taking the wooden puppet, the boy tied strings to its limbs to complete its transformation into a puppet and began to play with his new toy, making it walk and dance and pretending it could talk.

Soon after, the father awoke and saw his son playing with the precious device.  He immediately feared the boy would damage the puppet, thus rendering it useless for its intended purpose.

Being still quite intoxicated, the woodcutter's judgement was not exactly at its best.  He seized the toy, threw it into the drawer with the other puppets and then pushed his son into the cellar and closed and bolted the trap-door, stating that the boy had to be "taught a lesson" for "meddling with what he doesn't understand."

Of course the poor boy had no idea what he had done wrong, and so wept bitterly in his imprisonment, hoping that his father would soon release him as it was terribly cold in the cellar at that time of year.

Unfortunately, the woodcutter decided that more ale was what he needed to calm himself down and was so successful that he managed to calm himself down until he fell once again into a deep sleep.  In this condition, he was oblivious to his son's cries and his begging for release from the freezing cellar, and so within a few short hours, the boy died of the cold.

This would not have been so very bad, if only his father had awakened and used the spell for which he had paid so much gold, but he was so well intoxicated that he remained asleep as the fire died and the room grew colder, so that not long after his son's death, the woodcutter too passed away from the cold, without waking from his drunken stupor.

Naturally, when the woodcutter did not make his usual deliveries of firewood, the people of the village came to enquire as to the reason why, whereupon the tragedy was discovered.

Funerals were held and much was said, some of it sincere and some of it merely polite flattery.

A new woodcutter was hired and life in the village went very much back to normal, although the new woodcutter declined to take over the old woodcutter's dwelling and instead built a new house further into the forest to be nearer to the timber, so the old place was left to fall into wrack and ruin.

Children are very curious, and it only took a few weeks before the village children decided to investigate the abandoned cottage.  This led to them opening the drawers and finding the puppets which were quickly claimed by various children.

The children's parents all decided that there was no harm in the children keeping the puppets, since the woodcutter had no living relatives to claim his former belongings.  And besides, he had often carved wooden toys for the village children, so surely these were toys meant to be played with?

If anyone noticed the disturbing resemblance between the puppets and the woodcutter's deceased child, nobody bothered to mention it.

As it happened, puppet number five went to a small girl, who named him 'Oliver.'

The small girl often told Oliver that she loved him, but she eventually became frustrated with how the puppet seemed to repeatedly leak water from around its eyes at the oddest times, just as though it was crying.

Like, when she kissed her parents goodnight.

Or when she played at feeding the puppet, using real food.

And when she accidentally bumped the puppet's head or limbs, it would exude moisture copiously.

In time, the girl simply put the puppet on a shelf and left it there.  It would still leak water from around the eye area at times, but at least while on the shelf, it could no longer get anything wet which mattered.

When the girl grew older, the crying puppet was stored away in a box with other cast-off relics of her past childhood.  There it stayed for a long time, quite forgotten.

In the course of time, the box was unpacked and, the puppet being discovered, it was passed on to another child who named him 'Max.'

Thus did the cycle begin again, and thus did a new generation discover that the puppet cried at the most disturbing times.  Thence did interest in keeping the puppet as a toy wane.  Once more, the child grew older and the puppet was returned to storage.

Over a great length of time, the cycle repeated itself many times.  Magic and wizardry were all but forgotten over the centuries as the puppet was repeatedly discovered, given to a child to play with, renamed, then played with for a while before being rejected and placed back into storage.

Then came Basil, the antique dealer.

Puppet number five had been taken out of storage and, the latest discoverer having both realised the age and noticed the excellent condition of the puppet (which in fact never seemed to show wear and tear), it was decided to find out what it was worth with a view to selling it as an antique.

An auction took place, in which the ancient puppet was the star item.  Bidding went on for a long while but Basil, who had become quite wealthy in his career as an antique dealer, topped the bidding.  Something about that almost-lifelike facsimile of a human child attracted the attention of the man, and when the auction ended, he was the new owner.

Basil paid immediately and collected his prize immediately too.  The auctioneer and the vendor - the latter of which happened to be the local judge - both signed the bill of sale to prove that they had each been paid while the cashier stood by to witness both copies after Basil had signed to prove receipt of the item in question.

While standing there in the auctioneer's office awaiting his turn to sign, Basil looked over the puppet, noticing the deep green eyes painted onto the puppet.  Immediately Basil decided on a name for the puppet:  'Jasper.'  Basil wondered at how a mere puppet could evoke such an emotional reaction in him; a man who had chosen to remain unmarried and childless for the sake of his career.

Both the auctioneer and the vendor noticed Basil's enraptured gaze and jokingly commented on it.

Basil didn't care if they thought he was eccentric.  All the better if they did, since if people underestimated Basil as a buyer, he might gain an advantage in any negotiations.  So, Basil played up to them.

Laughing as he bent to sign the bill of sale, and in order to amuse his audience, Basil addressed the puppet directly and, to his own surprise, truthfully, "I love you, Jasper."

A blast of energy swept outward through the room from the puppet, knocking all present backwards, although the strange part was how it seemed to only have an effect on the humans and not on anything else in the room.  There was a thud from something falling to the floor, then silence for a thickly apprehensive moment.

Basil shook his head.  He had bumped it against a desk as he fell, but he wasn't injured.  He looked toward where the puppet - his puppet - must have fallen to the floor, and stared in shock at what he saw.

The auctioneer and his cashier, as well as the vendor, all struggled to their feet.  They too looked toward the source of that unexpected blast of energy, then they too stared in shock at what now replaced the puppet.

Sitting on the floor, curled up almost into the foetal position, was a small, naked boy who appeared to be no more than six years old.  A boy who had deep green eyes.

As all four adults watched, the boy lifted his head and looked around, then at himself, moving his arms and feeling his face and body as though he could not believe that they were real.

Then, putting his face in his hands, the boy began to cry.

Basil, still staring in wonder, intoned, "Wh-what... what happened?"  Then, remembering his valuable purchase, "Where's the puppet?"

Still almost as stunned as Basil, the auctioneer started to say, "I... I think that..."

His cashier finished the sentence for him.  "That's your puppet!"  The cashier pointed to the naked, crying small boy.

Disbelieving, Basil stared at the crying boy, then looked around to see where the puppet had landed but, having satisfied himself that the puppet was nowhere nearby, Basil stared once again at the boy, his mind only now beginning to allow him to believe the truth.

"You..." Basil questioned the boy, hesitantly and still disbelievingly, "... were the puppet?"

Still crying and without looking up, the small boy nodded his head briefly but unmistakably.

"But... how..."

"I don't know!" The small boy almost shouted the words, ceasing to sob although his tears continued to flow.  "Daddy locked me in the cellar, just for playing with a puppet, then it got really, really cold, then the next thing I knew, I was in darkness and I couldn't move.  After a long time, some people found me and then I found that I was the puppet I'd been playing with.  It looked like me.  That's all I know."

"Then... your parents...?"  The auctioneer began, hesitantly.

Fresh sobbing accompanied the confirmation, "Dead.  Mummy died when I was born and now Daddy's dead too!  I'm all alone!  Six hundred years alone!" The boy wailed and sobbed anew under the gaze of his stunned audience before continuing, "I could see and hear everything.  I remember everything that happened.  But. I. Couldn't. Move!  I couldn't even speak!"  More furious crying followed this revelation.

Basil was used to thinking quickly.  A career where you had to quickly evaluate the value of items and bid carefully helped with that.  He had begun to think, now.

Basil hadn't meant to ignore his love life, but somehow he'd always seemed to be too busy for romance, thus he had no heir.  But perhaps that problem could be fixed, now.

And besides, just as he had developed a soft spot in his heart for the puppet-child, so Basil recognised that he was already becoming attached to this green-eyed boy who looked so similar to the puppet.  He stood tall and fixed his gaze on the auctioneer, speaking in aggrieved tones.

"The puppet is gone.  I have not received what I paid for, thus the transaction is void and the price I paid must be refunded."

As the auctioneer and the vendor both gaped in astonishment at this unexpected pronouncement, Basil continued, "Unless, of course, you are suggesting that this child is the goods for which I paid?  Selling a person would be slavery and illegal, would it not, judge?"  This last comment being directed toward the vendor who, as mentioned before, was the local judge.

After a few moments of astonishment, both auctioneer and vendor began to bluster, trying to argue that Basil had indeed received the artefact for which he had paid and that what happened to it after it left their hands was none of their business.

Basil pointed out, very strongly, that he had yet to sign the bill of sale to acknowledge that he had received the goods, and thus, according to the law, he was quite entitled to sue for either the delivery of the goods (now impossible) or for the return of the full price paid.

Then Basil made his final play.

He would consider the debt settled if... he were permitted to adopt the child.  Basil pointed out that, with the approval of a local judge, this small matter could be quickly settled.

* * * * *

Although Jasper required considerable love and care to get over his ordeal, Basil proved equal to the task, so Basil and Jasper had very happy lives together as father and son.

But that is a story none have ever told because, the spell having been broken and the age of magic having ended long ago, the lives of Basil and Jasper became mundane and uninteresting to anyone but them.

Thus comes to a happy ending the story of The Crying Puppet.