Keo gathered all the strength he could to fight back. He stood from the floor, pressing a hand to his leg where the crack lay buried beneath his shorts. “You always say you created me because you loved me,” he bit back, “but you created me to be your executioner. Nothing more.”
A loud smack radiated throughout the room, and it took Keo a moment to realize it had been his head being pushed to the side by his mother’s hand.
Gwendolyn’s palm turned beet red, but she didn’t seem to notice or care as he pressed his wooden fingertips to his cheek. It wasn’t the first time she had hit him, and it wouldn’t be the last.
“Tonight will be Peony, and then next week, Mrs. Krause,” Gwendolyn said. “After that, it will be whomever I say, for as long as I see fit. Do you understand me?”
Keo blinked his wooden lids. “Yes, Mother.” He found it better to agree with her because she would only make him do her tasks anyway, with or without his choosing to. But if he agreed, maybe she wouldn’t control him this one time, so he could find a way to escape it.
“You’re such a good boy.” Gwendolyn pressed the palm of her hand to the cheek she had slapped, before turning to walk into the other room to prepare supper.
“Not always,” Keo mumbled to himself, and the crack in his arm closed at the truth of it. “I don’t want to live in this house anymore.” The wound in his leg returned to perfect condition, the painful throb no longer there.
Somehow Gwendolyn could command him to do anything she wanted. Freewill was something he wished he had, more than being human. He wondered what the taste of that would be. Most likely chocolate and licorice dipped in frosting.
“Oh, and Keo?” His mother came out of the room, wearing her ruffled apron. “Finish making the last spool of yarn that Peony didn’t.”
His body moved of its own accord. It was a command from his mother and he hated it. Grabbing the fibers from the desk, he sat on the round stool and fed them into the spinning wheel as his booted foot tapped the pedal. Keo worked and worked but grew tired, so he went to the desk where he placed his head against a stack of papers.
“Keo!” Gwendolyn shouted from the other room where she was preparing supper.
With a yawn, he finally lifted his head from the desk, finding his mother already hovering over him. “Yes?”
“You didn’t finish.” Her tone was condescending and laced with rage.
He looked over at the unfinished spool of yarn. “I’m sorry.” A crack tore at his shoulder, creating a sound akin to miniature thunder. He cringed at the bite of pain.
His mother’s eyes narrowed, knowing his lie. The one thing he wished he could do, but he couldn’t.
“I mean, I was just so tired that I needed to rest my head.”
“Grab the ax and go.” She smiled with deviousness. “It’s time.”
Keo’s heart and chest tensed up. He wanted so badly to deny what she was forcing him to do. As much as his insides screamed, his eyes glazed over anyway. She was supposed to trust him this time, trust that he would do as she told him to. Even if he wouldn’t have. Now there was no choice.
“Yes, Mother.” Keo’s lips moved, even though it was not him truly speaking. His feet shuffled forward of their own accord and he screamed inside his head, shouting to stop, but he couldn’t. His torturous body wouldn’t obey his thoughts.
Gwendolyn handed him the ax and he gripped it firmly between his wooden hands. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to take the ax to his mother’s arms and legs. She’d made him do things, unspeakable things to the villagers with this ax. It was always removing the head, then the arms, followed by the legs. The images stayed with him, no matter how hard he attempted to block them away. Yet no one in town would ever suspect poor widowed Gwendolyn, or her wooden marionette, would have done something so heinous.
Keo’s mother draped his body in a long cloak and placed the fur-lined hood over his head.
“Do me proud, my boy.” She patted his back and pushed him through the door. “You will find Peony’s house up the dirt road where Mr. Schultz once lived.”
Keo knew that house because his mother had made him eliminate the man who refused to purchase yarn from her. But Keo had already known where Peony was staying. He cursed internally over and over as his legs strolled across the field. Nothing he would do could make his body stop. He couldn’t feel the grass touching his legs, the wind rumpling his hair, the smell of the outdoors. As his arms moved to prop the ax over his shoulder, all he could do was sit back and watch how everything would unfold.
Everyone in town knew there was a murderer about, but they couldn’t figure out who it was. Gwendolyn had told him there were talks of a large burly man with a taste for blood. None of that was true, not even close.
The past year since he’d awoken, he’d been treated this way. Murder after murder, and his control didn’t exist in those moments. Even if he’d tried to escape, Gwendolyn could always call him back with the enchantment she had over him.
Up ahead, a small rectangular lantern hung beside a door, where the candle inside burned like a beacon. The cottage was small and old, but had a coat of fresh paint that he’d seen in daylight. He’d passed by it several times but never ventured close, especially not this close. But oh, how he wished he had, yet not like this. Not with an ax gripped in his wooden-knuckled hands.
He shouted again, trying his hardest to turn himself around. His body didn’t listen. It was possible Peony wouldn’t be home. It was possible she was with someone having a tumble somewhere else. Anything was possible. If he’d been able to speak the lie aloud, he expected that a crack might have formed right across his chest, exposing his wooden heart.
The sound of his boots hitting the cottage steps boomed in his ears. His torturous hand reached for the door—it must have been locked because he lifted the ax and swung it down to the wood with perfect precision. Keo wondered how he hadn’t been caught yet, because sometimes his body did things that weren’t the least bit quiet. His commanded self wouldn’t have cared, though. It would have swung at anyone who chose to interrupt.
He chopped and chopped—he hoped the sounds would wake Peony if she were home, and give her enough time to escape.
Behind him, feet swished, passing through the grass. His body must have heard it too because it spun around, holding the ax high.
If Keo could truly feel his body, it would have stopped moving. It wasn’t a new intruder—Peony stood before him wearing dark trousers and a white tunic, with her short curls messy and sticking up in odd places.
She must have gone out the back and come around to the front, he thought.
The ax went back a few inches more, and he wanted to command his eyes to shut, to not see Peony’s beautiful body parts wind up in pieces. Yet, his eyes remained open. He’d have to remember this forever—like the others.
“Keo, stop!” she shouted, holding up a hand, not the least bit afraid.
He waited and waited and waited for the ax to swing down and remove her head, or maybe her arms first this time, or maybe Gwendolyn would choose for him to do the legs instead. But nothing happened. His body stayed frozen like he had wished.
Maybe he could command himself? He tried to wiggle his fingers and not a single one of them even twitched.