The puppet's voice followed me.
Even when I dropped it. Even when I smashed it into splinters and buried the pieces beneath the old oak in my backyard.
It still spoke.
In dreams. In mirrors. In the sound of my own voice echoing off the shower tiles.
> "We gave you a voice to remember. Now give it back."
I didn't know what that meant. But I was starting to understand something awful:
The show wasn't over.
It had barely begun.
---
I went back to the library, but not to the archives. Not this time.
I needed someone who could remember before the forgetting began.
So I visited her.
Ms. Estelle Fray.
The town's unofficial historian. Ninety years old, eyes like cloudy quartz, and breath that smelled like old cedar.
She lived alone in a crumbling house near the cemetery.
And when I knocked, she opened the door before I touched it.
> "Took you long enough," she rasped.
Inside, her walls were lined with puppets.
Dozens of them.
Every size. Every style. Some smiling. Some crying. Some with their mouths sewn shut.
She served tea that tasted like dust and peppermint.
And then she spoke.
> "You've seen the teeth, haven't you?"
I didn't know how to answer.
She tapped her finger against her wrinkled cheek.
> "Grin's teeth. Carved from the mouths of oathbreakers. That smile isn't joy, boy. It's hunger."
She gestured to a puppet on the mantle.
It was me.
Not a guess. Not a likeness.
Me.
Even the scar on my chin.
> "Been carving your piece since you were eight. That's when the bargain was struck."
I was shaking.
> "What bargain?"
Her voice cracked like glass.
> "Your voice for Benny's. Your silence so the town could forget. You promised, Jonah."
I didn't remember making any promise.
But she wasn't done.
She stood slowly, moved to the wall, and pulled aside a curtain to reveal an old mirror—tall, oval, and ringed with carved teeth.
> "Look. Look and remember."
I looked.
And saw him.
Mr. Grin.
Standing behind me.
His mouth opened wider.
Too wide.
His teeth weren't teeth.
They were puppets.
Each one screaming silently.
Each one shaped like a child.
And I was next.
I turned—nothing there.
But when I looked back at the mirror...
My reflection smiled.
Not me.
The puppet in the mirror.
Smiling.
With Grin's teeth.
---
Ms. Fray handed me a box.
Inside: a reel of old film.
> "Play it. Midnight. The old projector room at the school. You'll find what he took."
> "What is it?"
> "The truth."
> "And if I don't watch?"
She stared at me, eyes suddenly clear as glass.
> "Then you'll smile too, Jonah. Forever."
---
That night, I went to the school.
The projector room was buried in the basement, behind a rusted door labeled A/V STORAGE – DO NOT ENTER.
I entered.
The room smelled like vinegar and rotted film.
I loaded the reel.
The screen flickered to life.
Footage of a puppet show.
Not just any show.
The last show.
1993.
There was Benny.
There was me.
There was the stage.
But then it changed.
We weren't in Velmont Hollow anymore.
We were inside something... wooden.
The world was a stage.
And the stage had teeth.
And Mr. Grin stepped forward and said:
> "We all make promises. But only the broken ones sing."
Then the film burned in the projector.
Smoke filled the room.
And in the smoke:
Strings.
Whispering.
Pulling.
And a voice:
> "Curtain rises, Jonah. Your part is next."