Story 1020: The Puppeteer of Screams

The village of Calder’s Hollow had no birds.

No laughter.

No wind.

Just the click-clack of strings tightening in the night.

They said the house on the hill breathed. Not from its chimney, but from beneath the floorboards—slow, wheezing exhales, like lungs stitched from shadows.

And at its heart lived the Puppeteer.

Not a man.

Not anymore.

Elinor was just a scavenger, slipping into abandoned places to find scraps of survival. When she entered the house, it wasn’t to summon evil—just to escape a storm.

But the moment the door shut behind her, it locked without a latch. The air was thick with dust and something sweeter, something rotting just beneath lavender.

And then the strings dropped.

Dozens of them. Silken. Singing like violin bows.

The room was a theater. Broken marionettes dangled from the rafters—some carved from bone, some from bark, and others… once human.

Their mouths were stretched open. Screaming.

But no sound came.

Until Elinor touched one.