The Turn: Chapter One

The Turn

Chapter One

~Shuppet’s a Puppet~

Three Years before the Turn

Zara opened her eyes. Light streamed into her room. She sat up in bed and looked out her window. A glorious tower stood against the horizon with a beautiful backdrop of the sea behind it. At the foot of the tower smaller buildings both business and residential paled in comparison to the glittering blue glass and shimmering white stone that was the Tower.

She would get there some day, Zara had promised herself, but first she would have to pass the entrance exam. Normally one would have to be eighteen to even apply to the Tower but there were a few exceptions to the rules.

One exception would be if she were personally invited by the Tower’s head, Sirius. Another exception would be if she went to training school at a young enough age. Both of which happened to her.

After her family’s devastating murder, she had lived in the streets for a large part of her child hood. When she got the gold engraved invitation in the mail she was a twelve year old pick-pocket who lived with her aunt off and on for about three years. Her aunt answered the invitation for her and before she knew it, a Tower representative was explaining what was to be expected of her. The very next day, she went to school.

At age sixteen, Zara didn’t have many friends in school or otherwise. She was the one in school that sat in a corner looking over her piles of notes before she aced another test, reading a complex science book that would help her understand the curriculum better or she was simply studying with a harsh concentrated look on her face. In high school, that was social suicide. Because of her “to school for cool” routine she didn’t have any friends at school. Even the nerds weren’t her friends because they were greatly intimidated by her natural beauty. She wasn’t ugly by all means. It was just too much of a contradiction in a high school setting; a beauty being a complete nerdy outcast.

Zara didn’t mind. It ensured that she focus on her studies and training. She was used to doing things by herself anyway especially after her parents and brother died. Her aunt tried to be a part of her life but Zara just found it hard after what had happened. She had gone through much more than what children her age should go through but she was determined to succeed in whatever was thrown at her. Quickly, she looked at the clock.

It was nearly nine. Since the individual assessment was today, they canceled training school for the day. The entrance exam was divided into two parts: individual and team assessments. Zara defiantly had the individual part in the bag but she dreaded the team assessment. In order to accomplish the team assessment, she kind of needed a team. Somehow she was going to have to pull together five other people in two weeks.

Zara climbed out of bed and changed out of her night clothes. She put on black leggings, a form fitting sleeveless shirt and black flats. Her hair was in an French braid starting from the base of her neck an up her scalp complemented her brown skin After one last look in the mirror, Zara sighed, grabbed a watch and walked out of her room.

She left her apartment, it was provided by the Tower as a gift for her good grades, and made her way down the street. A new Island was hustling and bustling. The buildings were always newer, the cars were always the latest model and people always seemed to be moving. A new train system had even been built over the years. Some of them even stopped at the Tower, high up where usually trains don’t go.

Zara walked along the busy sidewalk until she reached the apartment’s bike rack. She placed her thumb on the bicycle lock and after lock scanned her finger in opened. Zara pulled her bike into the sidewalk and started biking. She made her way through the streets.

After a while, the scenery around her changed as she entered a part of the Island that had managed to stay the same throughout the years. The roads started to empty as less and less cars were on the street. The smooth surface under her tires changed as the road’s concrete changed to brick tiles. Old style buildings started to take the place or white business buildings. She entered a large square with small little businesses on each side.

In the early morning hours when the temperature was cooler, stands of fruits, vegetables, and other sellable goods were lined up against the outside of the square. People from the neighborhood would come and buy their morning groceries. Because of this happening every day, rain or shine, people called it Transaction Square. As Zara rode through, the market was starting to close up.

She biked through the square and down one of the side roads that shot off from it. Zara stopped in front of an old building. She looked up at the sign. It read simply The Puppetmaster. She dismounted her bike and locked it around a nearby tree then walked inside. Even if she had no school friends, there was one person whom she could talk to and relate with.

A rusty bell rang above the door as Zara entered. She looked around the store. Shelves upon shelves were filled with small dolls. None of them had a real face but had smooth shallow indentations for eyes that allowed the imagination to fill in where the nose and mouth might be. Their heads were all bigger than the rest of their body. Their hands and feet were fingerless nubs and their bodies were a fraction of their head. Somehow they all sat upright. Each had a different hair style and color and each had their own outfit. Each doll was about a fifteen inches in height.

Looking to the floor, one could see sawdust scattered on the floor, some runaway buttons or strands of sting and hair. Zara looked up to see a large desk. The desk was elaborately decorated at the front with a dragon and flowers and what looked like a waterfall. The first time Zara entered the shop, the desk had been that just a desk but the shop owner couldn’t stand the blandness and slowly carved into it.

Sitting on top of the desk was the shopkeeper. He sat cross-legged and barefoot on the desk. He was hunched over a wooden circular object in his hand. In his other hand he held a small curved knife and was carving away at the object. His long white hair fell around him. If he were standing, his hair would fall up to his lower back. A braided strand of his hair fell over his face. Near the end of the long strand was a long skinny hair spool. Underneath it was a vibrant violet sphere. The sphere seemed to change color, from purple to white to purple again, in swirls as if there were a liquid inside a clear sphere. A neat knot was in his hair to prevent the sphere and spool from falling. Three inches of hair fell from the knot ending his interesting adornment. He wore black pants and a black shirt. A grey cloak hung loosely open on his arms.

He seemed to take no notice of her as his attention was on what he was doing. Zara took a step forward when he spoke.

“Would you consider donating that gorgeous hair of yours?” he asked casually, “This one will need it.”

Zara smiled, “Is that how you greet everyone?”

He looked up at her with vivid purple eyes and a half crazed smile, “Usually. I get tired of going to the Barber and asking him any extra strands. I promise I’m quite skilled with the scissors. Ask any one of them,” His gaze lazily shifted over to the shelves, “It’s all right, it’s just out friend.”

Unexpectedly, the dolls moved. They all slowly turned their heads toward her. Zara stood still as they examined her with their invisible eyes. When they felt comfortable some of them stood up and started walking around on their shelf. There was one doll on the back shelf behind the man that had a stunning likeness to its creator. It stood up and jumped from its vantage point onto the desk. It stood by its master and watched him create another doll.

Zara walked closer to the owner, “Who is that one going to be?” she paused, “Hello, Shuppet.” The puppet looked up at her in acknowledgement to its name.

Puppetmaster smiled, “I don’t know yet. What brings you all the way to the Square?”

“Today’s my individual assessment,” Zara explained.

Puppetmaster looked at her with a knowing look in his eyes, “I know. I just wasn’t expecting you until afterwards. You aren’t nervous are you?”

“Of course not!” Zara exclaimed, “I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for a long time now! I don’t have the option to be nervous!”

He placed on long finger to his lips, “Quiet now, some of them are sleeping.”

Zara looked where Puppet master’s eyes were looking. A few of the puppets were slumped over, lazily lying about. There were two who’s heads were supporting the other up but none of them were moving, supposedly in slumber. Zara shook her head.

“I don’t see how you can tell.”

“It’s a secret.”

Zara looked at him with skepticism, “They don’t talk to you do they?”

“Of course they do,” Puppetmaster chuckled, “how else would they tell me things?”

“You’re insane,” Zara smiled.

Puppetmaster shrugged, “It runs in the family, I guess.”

“That’s right,” Zara nodded, “a member of your family owned this place.”

A long slender arm pointed to a picture on the wall, “My father told me about this place. Said something about how an uncle of mine owned a pawn shop here but it hadn’t been bought since.”

Zara looked at the picture. A man in a black suit and tie stood beside a woman in a light pink dress. Both of their faces were shrouded in shadows except for the smiles on their faces. A younger Puppetmaster stood in between the two with a large smile on his face and missing front teeth.

“Why is the picture like that?” Zara asked, referring to the hidden faces.

Puppetmaster looked, “Don’t know. All the pictures of them ended up like that. Doesn’t that happen to your pictures?”

Zara stared at him with disbelief, “No.”

“Hmm,” Puppetmaster seemed unfazed, “Either way, one of my uncles owed this shop. I forget which one. Great uncle? Great, great uncle—either way it was the uncle that also gave me this,” he pointed to the strange purple sphere.

Zara looked around, “Is that how you bring your dolls to life?”

“Oh, no, I do that. That’s my own power,” Puppetmaster placed down his project and looked at her, “Let’s talk about you and your assessment, hmm.”

Zara sighed. She almost got an answer to what she had been asking for almost three years. Whenever she got to close to the topic of Puppetmaster’s sphere he would direct the topic away from him. Puppetmaster looked at her patiently. She quickly thought of something to say. He spoke first.

“He wants you to hold him, by the way,” Puppetmaster stated.

Zara looked at Shuppet. Its small arms were extended like a baby’s when it wanted to be held. Zara looked up at Puppetmaster again then back at Shuppet. She sighed and picked up the doll. After situating it in her arms so Shuppet’s head and arms were over her arms comfortably, she started talking.

“I can do the individual assessment, easy,” she sighed, “It’s the team assessment that I’m worried about.”

“Still can’t find a team?”

“Worse, I haven’t even started looking for one,” Zara looked to one side, “I need one for the assessment but finding one is the hardest thing.”

“Don’t they help you with that at school?”

“Yeah, but all the teams are basically all the clicks in school. All of which I am not a part of. All the popular people have their own teams; even the nerds have their own teams. I’m stuck in the middle with nowhere to go.”

Puppetmaster smiled, “I’d be on your team if I could.”

Shuppet flailed its tiny arms as if it were agreeing. Zara had to smile, “Thanks. You too, Shuppet.”

“You know,” Puppetmaster said quietly, “I think you’ll find someone to make a team with sooner than you think.”

“What, are you a fortune teller now, with all your predictions?” Zara raised an eyebrow with curiosity.

“Well, I wouldn’t call them ‘predictions’, just really good guesses,” Puppetmaster smiled warmly.

The bell above the door rang and all the puppets, even Shuppet, went limp. A small girl ran in and quickly spotted the doll she wanted for some time now. She jumped around excitedly as her father walked in. Zara stepped aside as the girl ran up to the desk and handed Puppetmaster the doll. The doll had golden locks and a cute pink and white dress. Puppetmaster took the doll and leaned forward to talk to the girl.

“Promise to take good care of her?” he asked.

The girl nodded. Puppetmaster placed the doll in a wooden box and handed it to the girl. The father paid the amount due. Both father and daughter walked out of the shop, the bell signaling their departure. When they left, the other dolls looked toward the door in a silent goodbye to their doll friend.

“Will she still be able to move?” Zara asked about the doll.

“If she cares too,” Puppetmaster also seemed a little sad to depart with something he created.

Zara placed Shuppet on the desk, “I should get going if I’m going to get to my assessment on time.”

Puppetmaster nodded his understanding, “Come back soon,” he said as she walked toward the door.