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The box had changed a lot over the years; once-pristine paint had chipped and flaked, mahogany wood that had originally been firm and straight was now warped, the bright and cheery designs and lettering emblazoned across every surface had dimmed… becoming something that made her throat constrict. The crank handle still jutted out of one side, the lid’s hinges still moved without a sound, and the music-box mechanisms inside the box still worked just fine…
All of these, she expected to some degree. Time had a habit of making objects wear down, a phenomenon that effected practically all forms of life as well, and she couldn’t fault them for falling prey to such a powerful force as that.
She did, however, find the room she was in to be nothing like what she’d hoped it would be.
Watery eyes swept over the room yet again… The walls looked almost identical to the last time she’d been there, over a decade ago, if she ignored the tattered cobwebs and thick layer of dust mixed with splatters of blood and bits of flesh. The shelves that she remembered being on one wall had collapsed –that was where she’d found the neglected toy– and the bed had been converted into some manner of torture-table.
What she had yet to truly investigate, however, was the throne-like chair in the corner. The glances she’d either been unable to stop or had given it by accident had told her more than she ever wanted to know. It stood as a proud but twisted declaration of something that she couldn’t understand, and –more than anything else– it made bile rise in her throat, which she had to swallow back down several times while she simply stood there and stared forlornly at the box in her hands.
A sigh came unbidden from her mouth, and she knew what she had to do next. Her eyes closed as her hands started to glow and she disappeared from the agony-filled room; when she reopened them, she had been transported to a lonely carnival, and –just as she had with the dusty bedroom– she found herself staring around the fairground with her jaw hanging open, her eyes wide, and her brow deeply furrowed.
She knew intimately what the place was supposed to look like… It was supposed to be cheery, fun, and inviting… it was supposed to be somewhere that anyone with a sense of childish wonder could feel as if they belonged… Most importantly, however, it was not supposed to be silent, nor were any of the rides or stalls or tents supposed to look more than ready to collapse into themselves.
Chills prickled at every nerve in her body as a lilting voice wavered its way into her ears, singing a song that she had personally woven into the workings of the box. Ignoring the unease tightening in the pit of her stomach, she raced towards the sound, hoping to find something in the whole mess that she may still be able to salvage.
The voice cracked and dipped into silence more than once while she tried to find the source, eventually locating it in the shockingly-barren big-top. Sitting cross-legged in the performance ring and holding a stuffed toy with the delicacy of someone paranoid of breaking what they were touching… was the jack of the box. She paused long enough to steady her breathing before taking careful steps towards the lanky creature, trying to keep herself from panicking at the changes wrought upon the being she’d crafted over a decade before…
When she made the jack-in-the-box toy, everything had been colourful and the jack himself had been covered in a plethora of gaudy rainbows… now, however, her heart was twisting in sympathy for the monochrome creature before her, every colour bled out of his form as if he no longer knew any form of joy or even love.
As she drew closer to him, his voice hitched. As she knelt down beside him, the song stuttered to a halt. As she reached out for his feathered shoulder, his malleable body twisted away from her touch –the pied feathers lifting slightly as if they were hackles– at the same time as his head came around to face her. She shuddered at the wild yet lost expression on his face, then sheepishly withdrew her hand and offered him a small smile.
“Hello, Laughing Jack.” Almost as if hearing a voice other than his own had flicked a switch in the creature’s brain, his entire frame jolted, and a few seconds later found him moulding his expression into an insincere grin –she suppressed another shudder at the sight of sharklike teeth in his mouth. “It seems this visit is a bit overdue… How are you?”
The question seemed to catch him off-guard and his grin faltered for a moment. “What a strange thing to ask… Why, I’m perfectly fine, how are you?” His voice came out just as shaky and raspy as the singing had been, making the knot in her stomach tighten and sink into her gut.
It was such an obvious lie that she had to force herself not to berate him for it; now wasn’t the time to pick apart the creature’s word choices, and –taking the deflection in-stride– she widened her smile a bit. “I’ve been quite busy lately, and haven’t been able to stay on top of things. I’d have to say that I’m feeling a little confused today, though. Think you might be able to help me work a few things out?”
He blinked slowly a couple of times, tilting his head to one side as if to literally look at her from a new angle, making her smile gain some comforting honesty. “…Like what?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his new claws digging into the stuffed toy in his grasp, but –just like her other observations– she decided not to mention it. Instead, she tried to come up with how to phrase the questions burning in her brain. “Well… I suppose I should start with what’s that you’ve got there?” She gestured at the stuffed toy, and his gaze followed hers, giving a low hum in the back of his throat.
A strange sort of fragile quiet descended over them while she waited for any sort of response, and after a while, he finally heaved a sigh. Those long fingers that she had wanted to create wonder tightened around the soft fabric, twitching as if the jack was fighting with himself as to what to do next… Suddenly, with a feral-sounding snarl, he threw the toy at the side of the tent with all of the force that he could muster. “It’s nothing,” he hissed, curling in on himself for a moment before bounding to his feet and giving her another wide grin –this one even less sincere than the last.
“I… see. Uhm…” She allowed a small frown to appear on her face. “Alright. Then… can you tell me what happened to the carnival? When I was here last, it looked… well, newer?”
He bent his body to one side, bringing a hand up to his face to tap at his chin. “Hmm? You were ever here…? When was that? I don’t remember…” The playful tone that she’d originally expected to hear in his voice had finally shown itself, but concern soured the relief she felt at the change, and he must have seen it because his expression changed… although, not to what she’d expected it would. The creature’s grin widened even further than she’d thought possible, and he let out a quiet snicker.
She stood and brushed the sawdust off of her clothes, straightening her back, squaring her shoulders, and locking her eyes with his. “You didn’t answer my question, you know.”
“You didn’t answer my question, you know,” he parroted back at her with a short giggle as he righted his lanky form.
“I came here once, when you were still very young. When I last saw you, your nose was in the process of developing its colours.” She stated, pointing at the striped cone-shaped nose set in his pale face –the gesture had him crossing his eyes to blink owlishly at it for a second or two, then he shrugged and let out another low hum. Undaunted, she continued with the next question, the one that demanded an answer the most. “I left your box for a boy named Isaac… What happened to him?”
A frightening change came over the jack standing in front of her at the sound of the boy’s name –in truth, the child was also supposed to be his charge, not just hers– and the shift had her heart beginning to pound against her ribs. The nearly-relaxed ragdoll-like nature of his whole body tensed and he even started to curl his fingers into claw-like shapes, making the actual claws he possessed somehow seem even sharper. His pale eyes flickered from narrowed to wild and back again. His lips pulled away in all directions they could, baring even more of those unnaturally-sharp teeth…. and from behind the animalistic barrier, a full-blown cackle bubbled out into the air.
“What happened to Isaac?” she pressed, taking a step closer to her mutated creation, barely paying any mind to the hard glint materialising in the jack’s eyes. He wrapped his overly-long arms around himself as his laughter grew in volume and force, to the point that he was forced to bend over to keep from falling back to the floor. The noise was raucous and unsettling, but she stood her ground, shaping her expression into a firm grimace.
All of a sudden, the laughter stopped. The jack stayed doubled-over for a few moments before straightening and cocking his head to one side, a quiet chuckle starting to build up. “Oh, you want to know what happened to the kid? Do you really? Well, that’s a story and a half! You sure you’ve got the time for such a mundane little thing, Miss Important?” he jeered. He didn’t allow her to reply, raising his arms and making an overacted show of shading his eyes to look around the interior of the big-top. “He’s not here, that’s for sure! But then…”
She forced herself to swallow the lump that was trying to grow in her throat when he trailed off and seemed to become oddly blank, until his feathered shoulders puffed up and he hissed through his teeth. Cautiously, she urged him to continue. “But then… what?”
That brought his focus back to her from the nowhere that it’d retreated to. “He never did come here… not even once.” The monochrome creature paused, narrowing his eyes at her in a speculative manner and then –once again, before she could properly respond– he let loose another bark of laughter. “Bloody hell, that wasn’t what I wanted to say! See, the thing is… Isaac’s gone. He’s gone, gone, gone, gone! Went off to school and… never came back.”
“Never?” she interjected, frowning slightly. Had the most obvious changes to her charge’s childhood bedroom been done by someone else, then? She needed to know, but the jack’s strange behaviour unnerved her, switching gears at less than the drop of a hat and incorporating facets that she just couldn’t understand the source of.
“Nope!” he crowed, leaning in close to her face. “Sure, there was someone who looked a lot like him, but they weren’t my Isaac –far too old and grumpy. Not his father either, that waste of air went and got himself killed, I’m pretty sure…” A spark of sheer glee entered into his expression. “That reminds me! Isaac taught me this really interesting game… do you want to play?”
A cacophony of warnings rang in her head and she took a few steps back –away from him– before she’d even realised what her body was doing. At her reaction, he burst into a fit of giggles, sauntering around to her side in a couple of springy strides; she turned, determined to keep the creature in her sight for the time being, no matter what it took. He circled, she pivoted, and the cycle continued. “I thought you said that he never came back? Did Isaac teach you the game before he left?”
The jack’s movement faltered, resuming quickly as if nothing had happened. “Did I? Silly me, then. I meant to say that ‘my Isaac’ never did… That man, he wasn’t ‘my Isaac’, though I guess you could say he was ‘an Isaac’…?” His shoulders jerked in what she could only assume was an awkward shrug. “That one taught me the game, though I don’t think he knew I was watching for the first few playmates he had.”
It was now crystal-clear to her… if she wanted to know what had happened, she needed to take the risk and at least pretend to be interested in this ‘game’ he was talking about. With a small smile, she dipped her head in a tiny nod. “Tell me about the game you learned. I’d rather know how it goes before I play.”
“Ooh, goodie!” The childish shout was accompanied by the first true sign of the toy she had left in Isaac’s bedroom all those years ago –honest and even innocent cheer… it made her eyes start to water. He ignored the tears dribbling down her cheeks and looked around the tent with more purpose than his play-acting earlier. After a couple of seconds of this, he stuck out his tongue at the emptiness of the big-top and plopped himself back down into the sawdust, gesturing for her to do the same. “Now, I’m not entirely sure of the rules of the game, but I certainly know how to play it… It’s pretty simple, really, now that I think about it… very artsy too.”
She was confused, and felt her forehead crease. “I’m not sure I follow…?”
“I’m getting there,” he replied with a snicker. “I think you need at least two players, so we’re set. You also need… hmm…” Sharp claws tapped his chin once, twice, and then he shrugged and held out his hands; a long metal spike materialised an inch above his palm, which was held out for her to take –she did, but only once the eagerness in the jack’s face had slipped a little. “I used these, along with a few other things, to play with the ‘other Isaac’, just a… day… or two? I think? Not important! Anyway, things that break skin are really useful, it seems, though if you want to make anything out of it then it’s probably best to avoid too many holes—…”
Her stomach twisted and her hands dropped the spike to the floor before she could come up with a convincing reason not to. “H-holes? In skin…?” she asked, wincing inwardly at the way her voice shook.
The creature stared at her in wide-eyed surprise, his gaze flicking between the spike and her face. “…Yes? How else are you supposed to get it off? Or keep them from struggling?” He paused, letting out another laugh. “Oh, wait, I guess tying them up works, too, for that part. Silly me, that’s what the ‘other Isaac’ did, anyways.”
“And… then what…?” She didn’t really want to know the answer, but at this point she was far too deep into the situation to just get up and leave. Isaac was her charge, the jack of the box was her creation… Whatever had happened… was her responsibility.
He hummed. “You’re supposed to pick them apart like they’re huge presents and then make them into something nice. I made the ‘other Isaac’ into a sort of sock filled with sweets.”
She couldn’t take much more of it, knowing that the jack was referring to people with each and every statement… “That’s not what I made you for… I made you to make Isaac happy, not… that.” She turned her head away, unable to bring herself to watch the creature’s expression twist –first in confusion and then in boiling hatred– but she could feel the emotions rolling off of him in toxic waves. “You were supposed to be a perfect match for him, the best friend he could ever ask for, and you—…”
“Don’t say it like it happened all in one night, you goddamn twat!” the jack snarled, shifting his body into a half-crouch. “Thirteen years! It took thirteen bloody fucking years for him to come back!” He took advantage of her startled silence to lean in close to her face. “I was all that, and more! I was… but he… He forgot me. So I made sure he couldn’t forget me, ever again…”
“…You can’t forget anything if you’re dead, is that right…?” she said, barely above a whisper, eying him with open wariness.
To her surprise, the creature cocked his head to the side. “Dead? Nah, gone, but not dead.”
Her entire body felt cold as a horrific idea struck her. She scrambled to her feet, searching for the discarded stuffed toy. Behind her, the jack’s laughter had turned malicious and mocking, rising in volume with each and every peal that left his mouth. She found the toy in the folds of the tent walls, half-buried by the black-and-white striped fabric where the wall met the ground. Picking it up with trembling hands, she inspected it properly for the first time.
It looked like any other stuffed toy, taking the form of a dog if her idle guess was correct, and there wasn’t even anything that special about the materials it was made from… What made her blood run even icier than it had at her creation’s statement, however, was the definite impression of… another being, inside the velveteen exterior –a very familiar being, at that.
“This is Isaac…” she breathed out, certain that the jack wouldn’t hear her over the discordant mess of painfully-mirthless laughter he was producing.
The noise stopped entirely.
“What was that?” he hissed, mere centimetres away from her right ear, making her jump and step away from him before turning to face his frosty scowl. “I’m not quite sure I heard you, there… Could you repeat that?” When she did, more sickeningly-certain that she wasn’t wrong, he actually looked confused behind the anger. “Not sure where you’re getting that from, but… if it is, it’s only what’s left of him…”
The tenuous confirmation was too much, despite only reaffirming what she’d suspected in the first place. She cradled the toy dog to her chest and let out a small hiccoughing sob. Followed by another, and another, until she sank to her knees and was bawling at the monochrome jack’s feet. He watched her with an air of frustrated bewilderment, clicking his tongue a few times and cocking his head so far to the left that his torso had bent at a right-angle.
“I don’t see why you’re crying, Miss Important…” he stated flatly, squatting down and wrapping his arms around his legs. “You can’t’ve been that invested in this whole situation…”
Between the sobs, she managed to control her breathing enough to get out, “It was my job to keep him safe… my job to keep him happy, through you…” She didn’t notice one of the jack’s hands reaching out towards her until it came to a rest on top of her head; when he started to stroke her hair as if she were a child, it lit a spark of hope in her heart –maybe the creature was still salvageable if he could show such care to someone he clearly didn’t like that much.
“Oh, poor, poor little weasel… You’ve been chased a little too much, hmm?” the jack crooned. “Don’t worry, I’m sure this here monkey’d be glad to help out…”
She felt his fingers slide down to the back of her neck and curl around it until the tips of his claws tickled the thin skin of her throat, making her body freeze. “L-Laughing Jack…?” The tears still streamed down her face, and her chest still spasmed, but her mind had finally latched onto the potential danger being posed by their positions.
He shushed her, flexing his fingers for a bit before releasing her neck entirely, then grabbing her chin and tilting her head up to look at him. “Let go of the toy, little weasel, all the other children may need it…” Her confusion must have shown through her tears, because he snickered. “Simple… ‘My Isaac’ is gone, so… I’ll find more friends to play with.” He shifted his grip to encompass her entire lower jaw. “I’m not going to be left alone, trapped in that bloody box for years and years and years ever again!”
At last, she understood –not all of it, but enough to feel fresh sobs clawing at her throat. “This was never supposed to happen… I never wanted this, and I don’t know how to fix it… to fix you.”
“If only wishes actually mattered, eh, little weasel?” was the last thing she heard before her head was snapped to the side with a loud and painful crack.