Lazybones

a dark fairy tale

This was written for the 30 Days of Fright Writing Challenge, prompt 4: puppet-master.

Lazybones

There once was a man, an aging puppet-maker, who lived in a small village in this very valley. He traveled from town to town, putting on shows to amaze and delight—and to fill his purse with coins. His animal puppets were renowned far and wide.

When at home, the puppet-maker sold puppets—small wooden or clay playthings that were enjoyed by children, but did not rival the larger, more life-like marionettes he performed with. Rabbits, a fox, two cats, two dogs, a crow and even a small pig.

Those were special, and his alone.

Everyone who saw his shows marveled. “How does he make these animals seem so alive?” “What a skilled puppet-master he must be to make them seem so real in their movements.” “How utterly delightful.”

For the puppet-master had a secret. It was passed down to him from his father, and his father before him.

You see, the puppet-maker had learned that even though he was manipulating the strings, to make a puppet really “come alive,” one needed a special ingredient.

Somewhere within each puppet of wood and clay was hidden a real bone. Inside a rabbit puppet, a rabbit bone. In a fox, a fox bone. And so on. Then through a series of occult and ancient activities, these puppets were imbued with a certain… quality… that was not life, but something akin to it perhaps. A spark, one might say.

You may recall that I said the puppet-maker was aging, and you may know that for some folk, with age comes routine, boredom, a wish for something new. Such it was with him. He became tired of making his animal marionettes dance and chase and hop, and his audience was of a new generation, who yearned for something fresh and as yet unseen.

He would make a human puppet. A new character to add to his show.

But animal bones were easy. Where to get a human bone?

Ah, you are thinking, this will be his downfall. But how do you know there is a downfall to be had? The puppet-maker has done nothing wrong thus far, has he?

He would never resort to murder. What an abhorrent thought! In the end, while he didn’t like the idea of grave-robbing much better, he assured himself that taking one bone from one grave of someone long deceased and in no need of it, was hardly a case of robbery.

And so, under cover of a new-moon night, in a village not his own, the puppet-maker dug in the churchyard. The small headstone bore a worn-off name and the words “aged 5 years,” and a date sufficiently distant in the past. Just one small finger bone was all he needed, and all he took.

He crafted the doll of wood and clay lovingly, encasing the bone within the hand. When he had done, painted the face, attached the strings, he made the marionette boy dance a happy jig. There was such life in it that the man almost regretted never marrying, never having a son.

It was his finest work, he decided.

He hung the puppet on a hook next to all the others. His animal menagerie. He called the boy Lazybones.

The new boy-puppet caused a sensation at his next performance, frolicking with the animals, leading them in silly tricks. Children and adults alike loved Lazybones.

That night, the puppet-maker woke to a voice in the dark: “Why did you wake me?” the child-voice whispered. “Why disturb me from my slumber?”

The man started up in bed and gazed around his room in the darkness. All was still. No sound. No voice. A strange dream.

The following day, the puppet-master prepared for his next performance. “Come, Lazybones!” he said, taking the marionette down from his hook. “We have a show to do.” He bundled the animals into their wooden trunk for travel, but Lazybones had his very own trunk, with his name painted on it, all to himself. He folded the puppet gently and put him inside.

In this village, too, Lazybones brought delight. The puppet-maker began to think that maybe he ought to make a second human puppet—a girl perhaps this time.

At home, hanging Lazybones upon his hook, the man said happily, “Perhaps I will make you sister, eh, what do you say?”

That night, the man woke to a thud and then a child’s whisper: “Must we be your servants then—the poor animals and I?”

This time the puppet-maker leapt out of bed, lit his bedside candle and crept warily into the next room. There, all the animal marionettes hung on their hooks, but one puppet—Lazybones—sat hunched over on the floor, fallen from his hook.

Unnerved, the man scooped up Lazybones and stuffed him into his trunk. “There you’ll stay,” he said. “Until you’re needed.”

The next show went off without a hitch. Lazybones danced and leapt merrily and the animals frolicked beside him. “How droll!” a woman exclaimed. “How are they so full of life when you can clearly see they are wood and clay?” said another. “I want a friend like Lazybones,” said a child.

As the man packed Lazybones away in his trunk, he chastised himself for his late-night foolishness. “You’re nothing but wood and clay, my lad. But you’re a good boy, Lazybones.” And he shut the lid.

On that night, Lazybones lay folded in his trunk. The animals hung on their hooks. And the puppet-maker slept soundly in his bed in the next room.

He did not wake when a small wooden hand pushed open the trunk’s lid.

Or when Lazybones, with his jointed puppet-limbs, crawled quietly out of the trunk.

Nor did the man wake when the boy-puppet, who was not entirely a puppet, helped the animals off their hooks, one by one. The rabbits, the fox, the cats, the dogs, the crow and even the little pig.

He stirred in his sleep when Lazybones picked up a wood-carving knife and led the animals toward the darkened bedroom doorway. They moved on their wood and clay puppet-limbs, just as they had learned from all their performances for the puppet-master.

In the morning, when the puppet-master did not appear in the village, a group of men went to call upon him, fearing he was ill. They found the door to the cottage standing open.

And inside they discovered what remained of the puppet-maker, on the floor as if dragged from his bed. Blood soaked in and staining the wooden floorboards. Small red footprints all around. Bones picked clean. Just his bones. With no spark of life.

On the wall, ten empty hooks. In the corner, an open and empty trunk, painted on the side with the word: Lazybones.

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I’m also very in love with this marionette pattern I made a couple of months ago, for my more professional art portfolio, so I’m showing it off here.

If you’re interested in doing this 30-day horror-writing challenge, or reading other stories by other writers in the challenge, it’s hosted by

Wendy Cockcroft

so you should check it out!

Here are a few of my other stories for these prompts so far:

Rattle-Rattle

Knock-Knock

This is the Shrouded Grouse, and here you’ll find free supernatural short stories and novellas, essays and musings, zines, and illustrations that explore the liminal spaces and moody places.

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