Marilyn and the King
Ruth Berman

Ruth Berman only occasionally contributes to the small magazines, the majority of her fiction appearing in the major magazines and anthologies. Among the littler journals blessed with her talents are Space & Time, Fantasy & Terror, and Fantasy Macabre including, in the latter, translations from the French. Her perfect horror tale "Marilyn and the King" appeared only in the surrealist journal Grimoire, edited by Tom Wiloch. That magazine's suspension was a real loss, as it was a unique voice in the field, much to be lamented, one of the few journals cited in Sullivan's Encyclopedia of Horror. Ruth's story is a fine sampling of that magazine's overall excellence.

It was mostly Howdy-Doody's fault. Marilyn did not have much idea what kind of a puppet Howdy had been, though from die name she imagined him chiefly as an immense right hand. But Poppa had loved the show when he was little, except that Poppa's parents thought that puppets were dolls, and dolls were not for little boys.
So they went to the store one day and bought a puppet. Not a Howdy puppet. Stores didn't carry those nowadays, said the salesclerk. She was bright and cheerful, except for the abstracted look that came of chewing gum. Poppa didn't like the movie-related, and Punch-and-Judy, and animal puppets that were on display up front. "Something special," he said. "Something off the usual track."
The salesclerk chewed, and fiddled with her necklace. It was a pendant with a stone like a full moon. Crescents of light moved back and forth in it as she thought. "Something made by hand?" she offered.
Poppa thought that sounded good.
The salesclerk brought out a puppet half as big as Marilyn. He had a Rumpelstiltskin sort of face, the features ugly and funny, with his mouth open as if he were shouting. He wore black robes and a silver crown, with a stone in it like the salesclerk's necklace and another on a ring on his tiny wooden forefinger. "That's the elf king," she said, and smiled at him fondly.
Poppa was taken aback at first. He wasn't at all a friendly, Howdying sort of puppet. But he was carved in finer detail than the rest, and his clothes were better tailored, and he wasn't like anything else there. So they took him.
The salesclerk nodded when she saw the address on the check. "He's probably going home," she said. "When that cedar there was cut down, a lot of the wood was used locally."
"A cedar?" said Poppa.
"Used to grow at your place," said the salesclerk. "The old owners took it down -- said it kept the apple tree from good bearing. Cedar and apple are always at odds."
"Our apple tree has nice apples," said Marilyn. "And a swing."
"Come along, Marilyn," said Poppa. And they took the king home with them.

The king was too tall for Marilyn to operate from the ground. She had to stand on a chair to get enough height to hold the control bars. A big cardboard box with one side open and the top cut off made a fine stage for the king. With Poppa directing and Momma for the audience, Marilyn gave her first performance.
It didn't go very well. When she tried to waggle her middle finger to move the jaws, the rest of her fingers waggled, too, and threw the arms around. The bar with the strings for the legs was hard to hold. Somehow she kept jerking it, and the legs kept getting caught in the other strings. Momma said it was a good start, and applauded.
Poppa was very patient. He would put his hand over Marilyn's hand and help her practice moving one finger at a time. She asked him to take the king and show her, but he said it wasn't a sort of thing that you did by looking at it. Your hands had to do it, and hands learn by feeling where the muscles go. When he got home from work he'd call Marilyn in, and they'd practice.
Actually, it took him kind of a lot of calling to get her in. The weather was sunny and gentle, and Marilyn was usually swinging and trying to spot the tiny green bits of apples growing on the twigs above her feet. She didn't like to stop and come in.
The annoying thing was that it never seemed to go any better. The strings were always twisted, and after she worked them straight and got started they got twisted up again as she tried to operate the king. The king, with his open mouth, seemed to be laughing at her silently from the floor when the bars slipped out of her hands. The muscles in her fingers hurt.
The days grew longer, and there was more time after school when Marilyn could be outside, swinging, and instead she was inside, trying to get the king to dance. She could get him to bow. She could get him to kneel, sometimes, although the legs -seemed to get caught in the other strings about half the time when he got up again. She could hold him still and recite a long speech Momma found for her, the king telling about how he had heard a mermaid singing in the moonlight -- and certain stars shot madly from their spheres, to hear the sea-maid's music -- and how he sent for the flower that grew that night to help him steal a changeling child. It was hard to understand, but interesting to say, and it didn't make her hands hurt.

She gave another performance when they had a party for their friends. She did it very badly. She even had to get down and climb in the box to undo the king after she had only just had him bow to the audience, and she gave up on the dance entirely, and swayed him back and forth for a while instead.
The guests applauded, though, because they were polite. Besides, they didn't know how well or badly someone her age ought to do anything anyway, and they always acted impressed at anything their friends' kids did. It was hard to tell when they meant it, because they weren't sure themselves. And the mermaid speech went pretty well. It would have been better if a wind hadn't started blowing outside. It was loud, and some of the people couldn't hear her over it.
As she went off to bed Marilyn heard them laughing, and when she said goodnight she saw that Poppa's face was closed up. It was too bad the guests couldn't have seen a more interesting show, Marilyn thought. Hopefully, she stuck the king out at him. "Poppa, why don't you do some tricks for the people now?"
"No, you were just fine, Mar," he said, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
There was nothing for it but to hoist the king over her shoulder, grab up the strings, and go upstairs.
Marilyn brushed her teeth grudgingly and put on her pajamas. Outside the wind was louder still, and the stars disappeared. Her room faced north, and it began to get cold. She put her socks back on, and then her shoes, to get her feet warm.
A streak of lightning lit up the room, and she could see the king sneering at her in the milky light.
Marilyn jumped on him as the thunder rolled and began pulling him to pieces, bashing him against the wall.
Downstairs, people were saying it was a pity to leave so early, but they really thought they'd better be going. There was too much bustle getting them into coats and out the front door for anyone to hear the unusual thumps upstairs.
Marilyn sat back, panting, The king's arms and legs and head were all disconnected from the body, and the jaw hung dangling from the head, so that the open-mouthed smile had become an idiotic yawn. But the sections were still connected by the strings. The silver crown swung loose on the string from the head. She could not snap the strings, and they were too tough for her to cut with her blunt scissors. It was not meant for anything much stronger than construction paper. She worked away with it at the head-string for a while without success. Another flash of lightning hit, and she could see the yard through her window, the apple tree shining into existence and out of it again in an instant.
She jerked her head resolutely, put the king down, and felt her way to her toy chest. Rummaging about in it, she found a pail, which she discarded, and under it a shovel. Although meant for sand at the beach, it was quite sturdy. She took it in her hand, put the king under her arm, and slipped down the stairs and out the back door.
She dug between fee roots of the apple tree. Above her the swing was creaking as the wind blew it about. By the time the hole was big enough, it was raining hard, and her back and knees were stiff, and her arms sore. Marilyn didn't mind. She tumbled the king into his grave. Then she stood up, trying to ease her cramped muscles, forgetting to watch her head. The swing came down on her, and her head caught in the ropes on one side. She was pulled off her feet, spinning as the wind shifted and danced her about.
They found them there in the morning.