Post by lawrenceliberty on Jan 5, 2019 20:48:29 GMT
The Marionette
By lawenceliberty
Prologue
A hauntingly graceful figure moved across a rooftop and peered through a grimy skylight. The woman who seemed as delicate and waifish as a girl peered down at a scene of several rough looking men sitting around a table covered with drinks and assorted guns.
She balanced effortlessly and leaned over the glass for a closer look. As moonlight reflected off the skylight her own features were more clearly defined but there was no one else on the rooftop to see this creature whose demeanor so easily mixed the beautiful with the bizarre.
She was slender but her delicate build was truly that of a trained ballerina. She had blonde hair that was combed forward across her forehead in evenly layered bangs. Her face was painted a chalky white with artfully painted eyelashes and stylized brows. Two small round pink circles of rouge dotted each cheek and her lips were heavily painted a bright red. She wore a sleeveless black dance leotard that ended in a brief black feathered tutu and black and white striped hosiery with red ballet slippers adorned with carefully tied bows. The red bows on her shoes matched a large red bow that she wore in her head. She wore black kid gloves on each hand.
She called herself the Marionette and had very deliberately crafted her costume and make-up to reflect the image of a living puppet! Any ungainliness was also an affectation since she was a very agile woman. Her eyes were equally intelligent and quick to take in details. She looked like a child’s plaything but she was a smart woman and as the gang below would learn, she was a dangerous one as well!
She heard them cursing and bragging and laughing and she paused for a moment as another laugh rang out but only in her memories. …memories that tugged at her as strongly and surely as the strings of a real marionette controlled the type of puppet she so resembled.
1
From the diary of Ashley Covington
July 1988
My family’s tragedy began with a giggle. I guess that would be the best word to describe the sound of my Aunt Julia’s laughter, although she laughed in a robust manner that expressed her wild sense of fun while never exactly going beyond the boundaries of the Newport finishing school/debutant definition of proper decorum. When my older sister Ellen and I were little girls we adored that laugh and everything else about our mother’s blonde and beautiful older sister. While we loved our mom, she was not as playful and unpredictable as Julia was and we embraced that crazy side of our aunt and competed in our little girl ways to see which of us could make her laugh more often. Ellen was always more outgoing than I was even when we were little. We’d race up and down the stairs of our family home- Covington House and stick our tongues out at the dour expressions of the ancestors whose portraits hung along those hallways like a row of judgmental and disapproving ghosts! Ellen was louder and full of fun herself but Aunt Julia seemed to enjoy my company just as much. I had the looks and in time everyone said I had the brains too. I was more serious than Ellen but being the baby of the family gave me my own charms. In any event, my sister and I found much to love about our crazy Aunt Julia and when she visited our house the stately manor seemed more like a real home than it ever did when she was on one of her trips to the beach or some other exotic bohemian spot.
Sometimes Ellen and I would sneak out of bed and slip past our nanny who had certain vices of her own that kept her from noticing our occasionally nightly escapes from the nursery. Ellen would often stop by the kitchen and grab a snack but our main goal was to listen to what our parents were saying. The allure of the secret world of grown- ups was powerful and never more appealing that when they were talking about Julia herself!
“She has taken up with some kind of beachcomber! He’s a common drifter!” hissed my mother one evening. Ellen and I exchanged glances since we both knew the “she” in question could only be Aunt Julia!
Daddy huff and puff and blustered but he was completely under mother’s thumb and all he could really do was appease her and agree with her if he wanted to keep the peace.
“I know dear! I did a background check on the boy. He has a record for petty theft and comes from a rough background. Not our type at all but you know your sister. We can’t say anything to Julia or she’d become serious about him just to spite us!” he said.
Mother said, “Shh! Don’t wake Ellen and Ashley. They dote on Julia…just like I always have. I wish the very traits that make her so appealing weren’t expressed so often in ways society would disapprove of if you get my drift!”
Daddy said, “What was she talking about when she called last week? Didn’t you say she was joining a circus? She certainly has the ability for it. It is such a waste that she never used her dancing skills for something worthwhile!”
Mom replied, “You don’t serious mean you’d like to see her become a performer. I mean ballet is fine as a hobby but we are Newport aristocrats and even becoming a ballerina would be demeaning for her. People would certainly talk. However, it is much worse than the circus. That poor dizzy girl is hanging around with common carnival people! You know how much Julia always loved puppets and dolls! Apparently the boy has a skill for creating that kind of thing!”
Ellen and I never learned more because we both fell asleep on the stairs. When we awakened the next morning we found out that we had been carried back to our beds in the night.
For a long time afterward we didn’t see Aunt Julia nor could we get anything out of our parents about where she was or what she was doing. We had our own ideas and it was almost as if Julia continued to dominate us both even in her absence. Ellen became something of a flirt in spite of her own weight problem while I seemed to embody Julia’s love of dance even while becoming a bit of a bookworm. My dance lessons were my opportunity to express myself through movement and perhaps they helped me come out of my shell at least when I wasn’t studying. Ellen teased me about being a teacher’s pet and she made little effort with her own schoolwork since she knew our wealth meant we’d never need to work and she was popular with boys because of her somewhat forward manner. Still, even if Ellen had Julia’s way with men and I had her graceful athleticism, neither of us could really equal her in terms of her outrageous charm or humor and of course we couldn’t forget her manic giggle! Daddy was always easier to manipulate than Mom and he did eventually admit to us that Aunt Julia had fallen in with a bad crowd and that it would be better for us to not mention her again since talking about her made Mommy sad. Even after Mom passed away we obeyed this request and only discussed our missing aunt when we were alone in our room.
Neither of us had much to laugh about in the next few years. Mother died suddenly in 1972 and Daddy did his best to soldier on but he never realized throwing money at us was no substitute for his own time and attention. I sometimes think Ellen would much later eventually become serious with one of Daddy’s employees simply because she needed an older man in her life to make up for what we couldn’t really receive from our father. Harry Douglas was pleasant and good looking and he knew it. Some people in Narragansett Bay society whispered he only wanted Ellen for her money and for a connection to his employer our father. Still, they seemed happy enough for a time. I eventually made the decision to give up my own ballet lessons since I had progressed to the point where there was really nothing more for me to learn unless I made the commitment to become a professional and that was out of the question. I continued to maintain my skills but I devoted my time to studying since I had my own rebellion in mind. I wanted to defy the code of Newport socialites and become a businesswoman. I wanted to use my brain and achieve something more than being a pretty girl with money and an established old family. Thus, I defied everyone and attended college. I graduated with top marks and set out to enter the business world. I didn’t yet realize that even in the modern world of commerce workers could be seen as mere commodities with as little value or individualism as a mass- produced doll or puppet.
2
The Marionette dropped down through the skylight and landed on her toes. She spun around in a pirouette that enabled her to kick several of the startled thugs with a single movement. She jumped on top of the table and casually pressed one hand on a fat man’s head. She pushed up and vaulted over him to roll across the room and vanish into the shadows.
“Get her! Get that freak!” cried a bearded man who wore a dark suit.
“Thomas Singleton! He leads these thugs!” she mused as she watched from within the shadows.
As the thugs rushed after the intruder, the Marionette casually rolled something across the dirty floor. A gleaming gemstone reached the first goon and a blinding flash of light illuminated the room and left the closest men temporarily without sight. She smiled broadly and hurled a second gem that exploded in a cloud of choking gas.
She seemed immune to the fumes and the glare and danced closer with no sense of urgency.
She kicked a thug in the face and punched a second one in the throat.
As the last three gangsters moved closer toward her with raised guns, she paused and blew a kiss at the shocked criminals.
They fired their guns at the maddening apparition but she seemed to wink at them in a flirtatious manner as the bullets passed harmlessly through her.
As the men gazed at one another in confusion, the Marionette laughed in a girlish manner and shoved a crate down on them from one side. She had crossed the room without being seen by them.
“The hypnotic power of the gem worked like a charm. They never saw where the real me was at but thought I was across the room! She mused.
She dropped down on Singleton and spoke in a husky whisper.
“Tell me where the Mime is. I just want to find her. That’s all!” she said.
Singleton said, “She’s not here! I swear it! We may work for her but she comes and goes when she pleases!”
The Marionette stared at him with wide eyes and then as her gloves hands made contact with his face, an electrical charge surged through him and he collapsed at her slipper clad feet.
“Oh Ellen, what have you gotten me into!” she thought.
2
From the diary of Ashley Covington
I wonder if Aunt Julia’s giggle that Ellen and I so loved was truly a mocking laugh aimed at what the two of us would one day become? Did Julia know our futures? She seemed capable of any mad trick or crazy stunt. I guess we may never know. We never saw her again in person but she continued to dominate our lives in so many ways. She was a kind of beautiful blonde puppet master and she pulled her strings from afar even as the memory of her laughter tugged at our heart strings.
Like I said, I may never know. I did know that as a fast rising administrator at a division of a famous industrial giant, I was living my dream of becoming a businesswoman. I had a very good salary, stock options, and the ear of my boss. There was talk of promotion and there was another kind of talk. I looked the part. I talked the part. I was dressed in the most expensive and appropriate of office attire. I had the customary number of fawning employees but I also knew something more. I knew that I had rivals and enemies and I was the subject of office gossip. According to various rumors: I only had my job because of my family name. I only had my job because I was sleeping with the boss. I only had my job because I used other people and played upon their own weaknesses and desires. I used people and I used my looks. I felt nothing for anyone else and I remained untouched by any emotions but ambition and a desire for power. I don’t know why I listed those accusations as if I was complaining about them. The truth was I was smart and I did work harder than anyone else. My boss and many others did desire me; however, I had never engaged in any kind of romantic relationship with anyone at the company. I suppose it was true that I used others at times for my own advantage. It seemed to come naturally to me and I wonder if that trait came not from my passive father or distant mother but from capricious and calculating Aunt Julia?
My career seemed to suddenly skid to a halt when a new boss took over and she felt nothing but jealous toward me. In a matter of months, she eliminated my position as a desperate “cost-cutting measure.” I knew her true motivation was a fear that I might claim her job because of the very things others whispered about me when they gossiped about me.
At that time Ellen called me in tears. My big sister was not weeping because of my career setback. She was furious because her beloved husband Harry was cheating on her with one of his own co-workers. At least this was what Ellen suspected.
We agreed to spend some time together. I certainly had plenty of freedom since I was unemployed. We decided to take a “sisters only” vacation and open up our family’s seldom used beach house near Long Island. That vacation would change both our lives.
I dropped my bags inside the door of the spacious beach house and looked around the dusty place. We had not returned to it since before our mother’s death all those years ago. It was full of family photos of mother as a young bride and as a small girl Naturally, there were photos of Julia as well. She seemed to be the center of every photo and her charisma was so strong that even in sun-faded photos from the past, she drew my attention and I shivered.
Ellen bellowed my name and rushed inside. She was looking decidedly worse for wear. She was heavier than ever and she was broken like a child’s discarded toy. She smiled and hugged me but she was hurting and she didn’t try to conceal her pain.
We talked late into the night and between her tears she revealed the Harry had hired a new secretary and this young woman was a threat to their marriage.
Ellen held up a company magazine and turned to one well-thumbed page.
“This is Kay at the company gala!” she said.
Kay Harrington was a radiant raven haired beauty who looked like a pageant queen. She was perky and full of that sorority girl appeal that never seemed to go out of style.
I said, “Are you sure? Harry has always been flighty. Maybe, he just flirts with her. I’ve seen more than one married man who was all bark and no bite!”
Ellen shook her head and hurled the crumpled magazine across the room. She was always quick with her emotions and could switch from joy to anger in the blink of an eye.
“I know he’s cheating on me! I know it!” she said.
I said, “Honey, what are you going to do? Leave him or perhaps get therapy?”
She said, “I’m going to kill her! I swear I’m going to kill her!”
I took her hands in my own and tried to comfort her. Then, being slightly obsessive I walked over to retrieve the magazine. As I bent over to pick it up and I noticed something odd. There was a stone panel on the old fireplace that was slightly crooked. I pushed on it and the whole fireplace slide to the side and revealed a concealed closet. I led Ellen over to where a small but heavy trunk rested in layers of dust.
“That thing has been hidden for years! I sure didn’t know it was there!” she said.
I nodded and recognized an engraving on the trunk’s dirty surface.
“A “j” for Julia!” I announced as I pried open the trunk. We temporarily forgot about Harry and my own career woes as we eagerly sorted through the contents and wondered if this would finally reveal what had happened to Aunt Julia.
The trunk contained several odd items. While most of them initially looked like ordinary objects like marionettes and costumed jewelry a closer look revealed them to be bizarrely rigged weapons of exotic design. Beneath the gleaming strings and flickering gemstones was a garish costume of black, orange, green, and gold. A diamond pattern decorated the leggings of the costume. I held up a small black domino mask and said, “I’ve seen this before. This costume belonged to the Action Criminal Jewelee of the criminal couple Punch and Jewelee! They fought Captain Atom and Nightshade back in the sixties!”
Ellen said, “You would know. You always loved to study up on Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and all those other heroes. It was one of your geeky hobbies!”
She said, “So, Aunt Julia liked to dress up! I’m not surprised! She was with a carnival puppet show!”
I said, “Yes, but this goes far beyond wearing a kooky costume. I think Aunt Julia really was Jewelee and her boyfriend was Punch! She didn’t vanish. She went to jail!” I held up a battered old journal that had Julia’s spidery handwriting inside it. It was dated 1967.
Hours passed by and we finally hugged each other in excitement after reading the little book.
“Aunt Julia used these odd weapons to become a thief! She used gems to hypnotize genius types and had them build her a lair near the old Coney Island amusement park. She found the items in another locked chest on the beach. After she was finally captured by Nightshade on her second outing, she served a long jail sentence. That’s why mother never told us anything about her!” said Ellen.
I nodded and said, “But why didn’t she ever write to us even after Mom’s death and when exactly did she come here to the beach house and hide this stuff? It would have had to have been before she was arrested in 1967. The journal ends in July of that year.”
Ellen said, “If she ever wrote to us, Daddy or his lawyers would have destroyed the letters. He wanted to protect his little girls!”
“None of the newspapers ever named Jewelee as Julia Covington. From what I can recall while Nightshade arrested her in 1967, Jewelee vanished on the way to being booked!”
The next day we scoured the library for any reference to Punch and Jewelee.
“Punch served a long jail sentence. He and Jewlee committed treason by trying to brainwash scientific greats and turn their data over to the Russians! I can’t figure it out. We knew Julia was wild and fun and didn’t care much about society and law and order but I never saw her as a criminal!”
“ Punch was finally released from jail in the 1980s. As for Jewelee, I can’t find any trace of her since 1967 although she could have turned up during that time with the weird red skies in 1985!” I said.
Note: Due to magical memory alteration few remember Punch and Jewelee taking part in a Crisis on Earth 4 in 1982.
In our consuming interest in Julia’s secret, we forgot temporarily about our own problems. I didn’t know Ellen was going to make things much worse for us.
That evening I heard a noise and padded downstairs to see Ellen wearing a strange contraption on her head. It looked like some kind of headset from the future!
She was staring into empty space and she gasped as I gently touched her shoulder. She removed the device and said, “This thing is some kind of recording device but it records mental images. I watched and seemed to live vicariously through Aunt Julia’s life when I put it on! It even explained how to use these gems and strings and those odd shoes in the trunk!”
I said, ”That thing could be dangerous! I mean we know Julia didn’t invent his stuff. In her journal she says she found the items in another trunk on the beach. She and Punch never deduced where it all came from but they figured it was either from another world or a lost civilization like Atlantis or something!”
Ellen shook her head. “You have to try it. I feel like I really understand Julia for the first time!”
I obeyed my sister and placed the device on my head. My senses seemed to explode with sights and sounds from another woman’s memories. I also realized that like Ellen, I was now living Aunt Julia’s life!
When I finally removed the device I understood everything Julia’s had known about the alien gadgets. I also shuddered at just how crazy she had been and a part of me stifled a desire to giggle as madly as our aunt used to do.
“She became Jewelee out of some desire to rebel against society and to have kicks as she called them! Still, what happened to her? How did she disappear all those years ago after Nightshade captured her and why didn’t she try to free Punch?” I thought.
3
Back in the present the Marionette (Ashley Covington) continued her search for the mysterious woman called the Mime. The silent killer had taken over a large section of the underworld in the last few months and Ashley had adopted her Aunt Julia’s alien gadgets and the role of Marionette to stop her for very personal reasons. As she walked down a darkened alley, she recalled the end of her beach vacation.
Shortly after using the memory recording device the already emotionally distraught Ellen began to act strangely. She left the beach house at odd hours and refused to explain her actions to Ashley.
Finally, having agreed to keep Julia’s secret life to themselves, the sisters parted at the end of their vacation with Ellen agreeing to try to work things out with her husband and Ashley deciding to look for a more rewarding role for herself. They returned the chest to its hiding place and locked up the beach house.
Weeks passed and Ashley began to enjoy using her own wealth to merely buy herself time to think about her own priorities. She was not going to rush back to the world of big business but she did long for something that would satisfy her.
She had kept a secret from Ellen. She retained some of the exotic gemstones since she had learned that they could hypnotically boost one’s physical abilities through some kind of unexplained mental energy. Ashley used the gem to regain her long neglected dance skills. She began to excel once more at physical tasks and relished her newly won acrobatic skills.
She also regained her own teen passion for Action Heroes and began to read voraciously about as many of them as possible. She read books, articles, and studied old footage of the Mystery Men of America and of the Sentinels of Justice.
A current crime story caught her attention as she flipped through a newspaper. The Mime was a violent criminal who had taken over a several gangs and made them her own through a combination of almost hypnotic appeal and lethal combat skills. She wore a costume with a diamond pattern running down each leg and Ashley recognized the motif from her Aunt Julia’s old costume.
The Mime was a lovely woman with black hair styled in even bangs. She wore chalky white make-up with brightly painted red lips and rouge spots on each cheek. Her costume consisted of a brief black bustier, long black evening gloves, a brief fluffy white tutu and the sheer white tights with the glittery diamond pattern that reminded Ashley of Julia’s Jewelee costume. The Mime also wore shiny black Mary Jane shoes. The photos came from a noted press photographer and from the angles, it was clear that the silent Mime relished publicity. to the point of posing for photos before escaping into the night.
Ashley shuddered as something made her realize that this woman was connected to her family in more than a mere cosmetic resemblance to Jewelee.
“I don’t know if it is some weird effect from our joint use of the the memory recorder or something like a sisterly bond, but when I see this Mime in the paper I think of Ellen!” she thought.
She called Ellen and to her surprise her sister burst out with a painful confession!
“Harry wouldn’t give up Kay. He admitted the affair. I used one of the hypno gems to take control of Kay Harrington. I altered her mind and forced her to assume the costumed role of the Mime. I even gave her extra abilities so she could pull it off. I twisted that little tramp’s so-called morality so she would steal and kill as easily as she take another woman’s man! That’s how I got her out of our lives. She doesn’t even remember Harry or her old life anymore!” said Ellen smugly.
Ashley couldn’t believe her ears. She knew her sister was emotional. She understood her feelings of shame and loss. Still, she wondered if this terrible act was caused by the memory reader. Did it alter her sister’s mind? She put the phone down and stared into space.
“How can I fix this?” she whispered.
Now, as the Marionette Ashley continued her relentless pursuit of the Mime.
“I have to stop her. I have to cure her. If I can free her from the hypnotic personality alteration, I can undo the damage Ellen did. Then, I’ll have to find a way to get my sister back to normal. I think that strange mental recorder damaged her mind. “
She gasped as a sudden impact struck her from behind. She looked up to see the Mime standing over her prone figure.
She flipped over and regained her footing.
“Kay, you’re not really a killer! I can explain. I can help you!” she pleaded.
The Mime silently leaped at her with the grace of an Olympian. Marionette ducked and spun around to catch the other woman with a glowing string that uncoiled from her gloves and snagged the taller woman’s leg.
The Mime convulsed but made no sound. The string snapped as the agile villainess pulled free and circled her foe warily.
The Marionette dodged another rapid attack and countered with two swift blows to the other woman’s face.
She grunted in pain as the Mime rammed her knee into the Marionette’s stomach.
Then, the blonde tackled the Mime and the two women rolled across the ground.
The Mime began to choke the Marionette and her eyes widened with pleasure.
The Marionette struggled and finally slammed her head into the Mime’s face.
She shoved the Mime aside and connected with a punch then raised a gemstone and bathed the silent killer in a reddish glow.
“You will stop fighting! You will go to sleep. You are not the Mime. You are not a killer. You will forget that you ever were the Mime. You are Kay Harrington and no one else. You will … you will leave the city and never return! She demanded.
The glow faded the Mime’s expression changed. Her features seemed to soften and she slowly walked away. She had different body language now and to Ashley’s perspective it seemed as if the gem had completely transformed her back into the harmless secretary she had been before Ellen had tampered with her mind and body.
As the Marionette waited in the still of the night, she realized two things. She liked being the Marinette. She had money. She had time. She now had a purpose. She would not just try to redeem her family and make up for Julia’s crimes but she would regain her own self-respect and become a heroine in her own right. She smiled as she realized she had enjoyed the role playing and the thrills of being this exciting new creation! She would try to help her sister but as she started to vanish into the shadows, Ashley Covington giggled wildly and wondered if her own mind had been damaged in some way by her use of the exotic memory device. If a giggle had started her family’s tragedy, perhaps, it also signaled the beginning of a more personal one all her own!
Epilogue
At that moment in another dimension removed from their own by an immeasurable distance, a costumed man chuckled and looked at a blonde woman who glared at him with hatred in her blue eyes.
“Your nieces can’t understand that you’ve been with me here in my mirrorworld. Oh, you were naughty and escaped once or twice and met up with your insipid husband but you always came back to me didn’t you? You care too much about preserving those youthful looks to leave me for long. Ever since I spotted you while spying in Nightshade in 1967, I’ve known we belong together. You are mine now and forever!” he said.
Jewelee, who did indeed still look in her thirties, said nothing but glared at the Action Villain known as the Image in silent hatred.
By lawenceliberty
Prologue
A hauntingly graceful figure moved across a rooftop and peered through a grimy skylight. The woman who seemed as delicate and waifish as a girl peered down at a scene of several rough looking men sitting around a table covered with drinks and assorted guns.
She balanced effortlessly and leaned over the glass for a closer look. As moonlight reflected off the skylight her own features were more clearly defined but there was no one else on the rooftop to see this creature whose demeanor so easily mixed the beautiful with the bizarre.
She was slender but her delicate build was truly that of a trained ballerina. She had blonde hair that was combed forward across her forehead in evenly layered bangs. Her face was painted a chalky white with artfully painted eyelashes and stylized brows. Two small round pink circles of rouge dotted each cheek and her lips were heavily painted a bright red. She wore a sleeveless black dance leotard that ended in a brief black feathered tutu and black and white striped hosiery with red ballet slippers adorned with carefully tied bows. The red bows on her shoes matched a large red bow that she wore in her head. She wore black kid gloves on each hand.
She called herself the Marionette and had very deliberately crafted her costume and make-up to reflect the image of a living puppet! Any ungainliness was also an affectation since she was a very agile woman. Her eyes were equally intelligent and quick to take in details. She looked like a child’s plaything but she was a smart woman and as the gang below would learn, she was a dangerous one as well!
She heard them cursing and bragging and laughing and she paused for a moment as another laugh rang out but only in her memories. …memories that tugged at her as strongly and surely as the strings of a real marionette controlled the type of puppet she so resembled.
1
From the diary of Ashley Covington
July 1988
My family’s tragedy began with a giggle. I guess that would be the best word to describe the sound of my Aunt Julia’s laughter, although she laughed in a robust manner that expressed her wild sense of fun while never exactly going beyond the boundaries of the Newport finishing school/debutant definition of proper decorum. When my older sister Ellen and I were little girls we adored that laugh and everything else about our mother’s blonde and beautiful older sister. While we loved our mom, she was not as playful and unpredictable as Julia was and we embraced that crazy side of our aunt and competed in our little girl ways to see which of us could make her laugh more often. Ellen was always more outgoing than I was even when we were little. We’d race up and down the stairs of our family home- Covington House and stick our tongues out at the dour expressions of the ancestors whose portraits hung along those hallways like a row of judgmental and disapproving ghosts! Ellen was louder and full of fun herself but Aunt Julia seemed to enjoy my company just as much. I had the looks and in time everyone said I had the brains too. I was more serious than Ellen but being the baby of the family gave me my own charms. In any event, my sister and I found much to love about our crazy Aunt Julia and when she visited our house the stately manor seemed more like a real home than it ever did when she was on one of her trips to the beach or some other exotic bohemian spot.
Sometimes Ellen and I would sneak out of bed and slip past our nanny who had certain vices of her own that kept her from noticing our occasionally nightly escapes from the nursery. Ellen would often stop by the kitchen and grab a snack but our main goal was to listen to what our parents were saying. The allure of the secret world of grown- ups was powerful and never more appealing that when they were talking about Julia herself!
“She has taken up with some kind of beachcomber! He’s a common drifter!” hissed my mother one evening. Ellen and I exchanged glances since we both knew the “she” in question could only be Aunt Julia!
Daddy huff and puff and blustered but he was completely under mother’s thumb and all he could really do was appease her and agree with her if he wanted to keep the peace.
“I know dear! I did a background check on the boy. He has a record for petty theft and comes from a rough background. Not our type at all but you know your sister. We can’t say anything to Julia or she’d become serious about him just to spite us!” he said.
Mother said, “Shh! Don’t wake Ellen and Ashley. They dote on Julia…just like I always have. I wish the very traits that make her so appealing weren’t expressed so often in ways society would disapprove of if you get my drift!”
Daddy said, “What was she talking about when she called last week? Didn’t you say she was joining a circus? She certainly has the ability for it. It is such a waste that she never used her dancing skills for something worthwhile!”
Mom replied, “You don’t serious mean you’d like to see her become a performer. I mean ballet is fine as a hobby but we are Newport aristocrats and even becoming a ballerina would be demeaning for her. People would certainly talk. However, it is much worse than the circus. That poor dizzy girl is hanging around with common carnival people! You know how much Julia always loved puppets and dolls! Apparently the boy has a skill for creating that kind of thing!”
Ellen and I never learned more because we both fell asleep on the stairs. When we awakened the next morning we found out that we had been carried back to our beds in the night.
For a long time afterward we didn’t see Aunt Julia nor could we get anything out of our parents about where she was or what she was doing. We had our own ideas and it was almost as if Julia continued to dominate us both even in her absence. Ellen became something of a flirt in spite of her own weight problem while I seemed to embody Julia’s love of dance even while becoming a bit of a bookworm. My dance lessons were my opportunity to express myself through movement and perhaps they helped me come out of my shell at least when I wasn’t studying. Ellen teased me about being a teacher’s pet and she made little effort with her own schoolwork since she knew our wealth meant we’d never need to work and she was popular with boys because of her somewhat forward manner. Still, even if Ellen had Julia’s way with men and I had her graceful athleticism, neither of us could really equal her in terms of her outrageous charm or humor and of course we couldn’t forget her manic giggle! Daddy was always easier to manipulate than Mom and he did eventually admit to us that Aunt Julia had fallen in with a bad crowd and that it would be better for us to not mention her again since talking about her made Mommy sad. Even after Mom passed away we obeyed this request and only discussed our missing aunt when we were alone in our room.
Neither of us had much to laugh about in the next few years. Mother died suddenly in 1972 and Daddy did his best to soldier on but he never realized throwing money at us was no substitute for his own time and attention. I sometimes think Ellen would much later eventually become serious with one of Daddy’s employees simply because she needed an older man in her life to make up for what we couldn’t really receive from our father. Harry Douglas was pleasant and good looking and he knew it. Some people in Narragansett Bay society whispered he only wanted Ellen for her money and for a connection to his employer our father. Still, they seemed happy enough for a time. I eventually made the decision to give up my own ballet lessons since I had progressed to the point where there was really nothing more for me to learn unless I made the commitment to become a professional and that was out of the question. I continued to maintain my skills but I devoted my time to studying since I had my own rebellion in mind. I wanted to defy the code of Newport socialites and become a businesswoman. I wanted to use my brain and achieve something more than being a pretty girl with money and an established old family. Thus, I defied everyone and attended college. I graduated with top marks and set out to enter the business world. I didn’t yet realize that even in the modern world of commerce workers could be seen as mere commodities with as little value or individualism as a mass- produced doll or puppet.
2
The Marionette dropped down through the skylight and landed on her toes. She spun around in a pirouette that enabled her to kick several of the startled thugs with a single movement. She jumped on top of the table and casually pressed one hand on a fat man’s head. She pushed up and vaulted over him to roll across the room and vanish into the shadows.
“Get her! Get that freak!” cried a bearded man who wore a dark suit.
“Thomas Singleton! He leads these thugs!” she mused as she watched from within the shadows.
As the thugs rushed after the intruder, the Marionette casually rolled something across the dirty floor. A gleaming gemstone reached the first goon and a blinding flash of light illuminated the room and left the closest men temporarily without sight. She smiled broadly and hurled a second gem that exploded in a cloud of choking gas.
She seemed immune to the fumes and the glare and danced closer with no sense of urgency.
She kicked a thug in the face and punched a second one in the throat.
As the last three gangsters moved closer toward her with raised guns, she paused and blew a kiss at the shocked criminals.
They fired their guns at the maddening apparition but she seemed to wink at them in a flirtatious manner as the bullets passed harmlessly through her.
As the men gazed at one another in confusion, the Marionette laughed in a girlish manner and shoved a crate down on them from one side. She had crossed the room without being seen by them.
“The hypnotic power of the gem worked like a charm. They never saw where the real me was at but thought I was across the room! She mused.
She dropped down on Singleton and spoke in a husky whisper.
“Tell me where the Mime is. I just want to find her. That’s all!” she said.
Singleton said, “She’s not here! I swear it! We may work for her but she comes and goes when she pleases!”
The Marionette stared at him with wide eyes and then as her gloves hands made contact with his face, an electrical charge surged through him and he collapsed at her slipper clad feet.
“Oh Ellen, what have you gotten me into!” she thought.
2
From the diary of Ashley Covington
I wonder if Aunt Julia’s giggle that Ellen and I so loved was truly a mocking laugh aimed at what the two of us would one day become? Did Julia know our futures? She seemed capable of any mad trick or crazy stunt. I guess we may never know. We never saw her again in person but she continued to dominate our lives in so many ways. She was a kind of beautiful blonde puppet master and she pulled her strings from afar even as the memory of her laughter tugged at our heart strings.
Like I said, I may never know. I did know that as a fast rising administrator at a division of a famous industrial giant, I was living my dream of becoming a businesswoman. I had a very good salary, stock options, and the ear of my boss. There was talk of promotion and there was another kind of talk. I looked the part. I talked the part. I was dressed in the most expensive and appropriate of office attire. I had the customary number of fawning employees but I also knew something more. I knew that I had rivals and enemies and I was the subject of office gossip. According to various rumors: I only had my job because of my family name. I only had my job because I was sleeping with the boss. I only had my job because I used other people and played upon their own weaknesses and desires. I used people and I used my looks. I felt nothing for anyone else and I remained untouched by any emotions but ambition and a desire for power. I don’t know why I listed those accusations as if I was complaining about them. The truth was I was smart and I did work harder than anyone else. My boss and many others did desire me; however, I had never engaged in any kind of romantic relationship with anyone at the company. I suppose it was true that I used others at times for my own advantage. It seemed to come naturally to me and I wonder if that trait came not from my passive father or distant mother but from capricious and calculating Aunt Julia?
My career seemed to suddenly skid to a halt when a new boss took over and she felt nothing but jealous toward me. In a matter of months, she eliminated my position as a desperate “cost-cutting measure.” I knew her true motivation was a fear that I might claim her job because of the very things others whispered about me when they gossiped about me.
At that time Ellen called me in tears. My big sister was not weeping because of my career setback. She was furious because her beloved husband Harry was cheating on her with one of his own co-workers. At least this was what Ellen suspected.
We agreed to spend some time together. I certainly had plenty of freedom since I was unemployed. We decided to take a “sisters only” vacation and open up our family’s seldom used beach house near Long Island. That vacation would change both our lives.
I dropped my bags inside the door of the spacious beach house and looked around the dusty place. We had not returned to it since before our mother’s death all those years ago. It was full of family photos of mother as a young bride and as a small girl Naturally, there were photos of Julia as well. She seemed to be the center of every photo and her charisma was so strong that even in sun-faded photos from the past, she drew my attention and I shivered.
Ellen bellowed my name and rushed inside. She was looking decidedly worse for wear. She was heavier than ever and she was broken like a child’s discarded toy. She smiled and hugged me but she was hurting and she didn’t try to conceal her pain.
We talked late into the night and between her tears she revealed the Harry had hired a new secretary and this young woman was a threat to their marriage.
Ellen held up a company magazine and turned to one well-thumbed page.
“This is Kay at the company gala!” she said.
Kay Harrington was a radiant raven haired beauty who looked like a pageant queen. She was perky and full of that sorority girl appeal that never seemed to go out of style.
I said, “Are you sure? Harry has always been flighty. Maybe, he just flirts with her. I’ve seen more than one married man who was all bark and no bite!”
Ellen shook her head and hurled the crumpled magazine across the room. She was always quick with her emotions and could switch from joy to anger in the blink of an eye.
“I know he’s cheating on me! I know it!” she said.
I said, “Honey, what are you going to do? Leave him or perhaps get therapy?”
She said, “I’m going to kill her! I swear I’m going to kill her!”
I took her hands in my own and tried to comfort her. Then, being slightly obsessive I walked over to retrieve the magazine. As I bent over to pick it up and I noticed something odd. There was a stone panel on the old fireplace that was slightly crooked. I pushed on it and the whole fireplace slide to the side and revealed a concealed closet. I led Ellen over to where a small but heavy trunk rested in layers of dust.
“That thing has been hidden for years! I sure didn’t know it was there!” she said.
I nodded and recognized an engraving on the trunk’s dirty surface.
“A “j” for Julia!” I announced as I pried open the trunk. We temporarily forgot about Harry and my own career woes as we eagerly sorted through the contents and wondered if this would finally reveal what had happened to Aunt Julia.
The trunk contained several odd items. While most of them initially looked like ordinary objects like marionettes and costumed jewelry a closer look revealed them to be bizarrely rigged weapons of exotic design. Beneath the gleaming strings and flickering gemstones was a garish costume of black, orange, green, and gold. A diamond pattern decorated the leggings of the costume. I held up a small black domino mask and said, “I’ve seen this before. This costume belonged to the Action Criminal Jewelee of the criminal couple Punch and Jewelee! They fought Captain Atom and Nightshade back in the sixties!”
Ellen said, “You would know. You always loved to study up on Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, and all those other heroes. It was one of your geeky hobbies!”
She said, “So, Aunt Julia liked to dress up! I’m not surprised! She was with a carnival puppet show!”
I said, “Yes, but this goes far beyond wearing a kooky costume. I think Aunt Julia really was Jewelee and her boyfriend was Punch! She didn’t vanish. She went to jail!” I held up a battered old journal that had Julia’s spidery handwriting inside it. It was dated 1967.
Hours passed by and we finally hugged each other in excitement after reading the little book.
“Aunt Julia used these odd weapons to become a thief! She used gems to hypnotize genius types and had them build her a lair near the old Coney Island amusement park. She found the items in another locked chest on the beach. After she was finally captured by Nightshade on her second outing, she served a long jail sentence. That’s why mother never told us anything about her!” said Ellen.
I nodded and said, “But why didn’t she ever write to us even after Mom’s death and when exactly did she come here to the beach house and hide this stuff? It would have had to have been before she was arrested in 1967. The journal ends in July of that year.”
Ellen said, “If she ever wrote to us, Daddy or his lawyers would have destroyed the letters. He wanted to protect his little girls!”
“None of the newspapers ever named Jewelee as Julia Covington. From what I can recall while Nightshade arrested her in 1967, Jewelee vanished on the way to being booked!”
The next day we scoured the library for any reference to Punch and Jewelee.
“Punch served a long jail sentence. He and Jewlee committed treason by trying to brainwash scientific greats and turn their data over to the Russians! I can’t figure it out. We knew Julia was wild and fun and didn’t care much about society and law and order but I never saw her as a criminal!”
“ Punch was finally released from jail in the 1980s. As for Jewelee, I can’t find any trace of her since 1967 although she could have turned up during that time with the weird red skies in 1985!” I said.
Note: Due to magical memory alteration few remember Punch and Jewelee taking part in a Crisis on Earth 4 in 1982.
In our consuming interest in Julia’s secret, we forgot temporarily about our own problems. I didn’t know Ellen was going to make things much worse for us.
That evening I heard a noise and padded downstairs to see Ellen wearing a strange contraption on her head. It looked like some kind of headset from the future!
She was staring into empty space and she gasped as I gently touched her shoulder. She removed the device and said, “This thing is some kind of recording device but it records mental images. I watched and seemed to live vicariously through Aunt Julia’s life when I put it on! It even explained how to use these gems and strings and those odd shoes in the trunk!”
I said, ”That thing could be dangerous! I mean we know Julia didn’t invent his stuff. In her journal she says she found the items in another trunk on the beach. She and Punch never deduced where it all came from but they figured it was either from another world or a lost civilization like Atlantis or something!”
Ellen shook her head. “You have to try it. I feel like I really understand Julia for the first time!”
I obeyed my sister and placed the device on my head. My senses seemed to explode with sights and sounds from another woman’s memories. I also realized that like Ellen, I was now living Aunt Julia’s life!
When I finally removed the device I understood everything Julia’s had known about the alien gadgets. I also shuddered at just how crazy she had been and a part of me stifled a desire to giggle as madly as our aunt used to do.
“She became Jewelee out of some desire to rebel against society and to have kicks as she called them! Still, what happened to her? How did she disappear all those years ago after Nightshade captured her and why didn’t she try to free Punch?” I thought.
3
Back in the present the Marionette (Ashley Covington) continued her search for the mysterious woman called the Mime. The silent killer had taken over a large section of the underworld in the last few months and Ashley had adopted her Aunt Julia’s alien gadgets and the role of Marionette to stop her for very personal reasons. As she walked down a darkened alley, she recalled the end of her beach vacation.
Shortly after using the memory recording device the already emotionally distraught Ellen began to act strangely. She left the beach house at odd hours and refused to explain her actions to Ashley.
Finally, having agreed to keep Julia’s secret life to themselves, the sisters parted at the end of their vacation with Ellen agreeing to try to work things out with her husband and Ashley deciding to look for a more rewarding role for herself. They returned the chest to its hiding place and locked up the beach house.
Weeks passed and Ashley began to enjoy using her own wealth to merely buy herself time to think about her own priorities. She was not going to rush back to the world of big business but she did long for something that would satisfy her.
She had kept a secret from Ellen. She retained some of the exotic gemstones since she had learned that they could hypnotically boost one’s physical abilities through some kind of unexplained mental energy. Ashley used the gem to regain her long neglected dance skills. She began to excel once more at physical tasks and relished her newly won acrobatic skills.
She also regained her own teen passion for Action Heroes and began to read voraciously about as many of them as possible. She read books, articles, and studied old footage of the Mystery Men of America and of the Sentinels of Justice.
A current crime story caught her attention as she flipped through a newspaper. The Mime was a violent criminal who had taken over a several gangs and made them her own through a combination of almost hypnotic appeal and lethal combat skills. She wore a costume with a diamond pattern running down each leg and Ashley recognized the motif from her Aunt Julia’s old costume.
The Mime was a lovely woman with black hair styled in even bangs. She wore chalky white make-up with brightly painted red lips and rouge spots on each cheek. Her costume consisted of a brief black bustier, long black evening gloves, a brief fluffy white tutu and the sheer white tights with the glittery diamond pattern that reminded Ashley of Julia’s Jewelee costume. The Mime also wore shiny black Mary Jane shoes. The photos came from a noted press photographer and from the angles, it was clear that the silent Mime relished publicity. to the point of posing for photos before escaping into the night.
Ashley shuddered as something made her realize that this woman was connected to her family in more than a mere cosmetic resemblance to Jewelee.
“I don’t know if it is some weird effect from our joint use of the the memory recorder or something like a sisterly bond, but when I see this Mime in the paper I think of Ellen!” she thought.
She called Ellen and to her surprise her sister burst out with a painful confession!
“Harry wouldn’t give up Kay. He admitted the affair. I used one of the hypno gems to take control of Kay Harrington. I altered her mind and forced her to assume the costumed role of the Mime. I even gave her extra abilities so she could pull it off. I twisted that little tramp’s so-called morality so she would steal and kill as easily as she take another woman’s man! That’s how I got her out of our lives. She doesn’t even remember Harry or her old life anymore!” said Ellen smugly.
Ashley couldn’t believe her ears. She knew her sister was emotional. She understood her feelings of shame and loss. Still, she wondered if this terrible act was caused by the memory reader. Did it alter her sister’s mind? She put the phone down and stared into space.
“How can I fix this?” she whispered.
Now, as the Marionette Ashley continued her relentless pursuit of the Mime.
“I have to stop her. I have to cure her. If I can free her from the hypnotic personality alteration, I can undo the damage Ellen did. Then, I’ll have to find a way to get my sister back to normal. I think that strange mental recorder damaged her mind. “
She gasped as a sudden impact struck her from behind. She looked up to see the Mime standing over her prone figure.
She flipped over and regained her footing.
“Kay, you’re not really a killer! I can explain. I can help you!” she pleaded.
The Mime silently leaped at her with the grace of an Olympian. Marionette ducked and spun around to catch the other woman with a glowing string that uncoiled from her gloves and snagged the taller woman’s leg.
The Mime convulsed but made no sound. The string snapped as the agile villainess pulled free and circled her foe warily.
The Marionette dodged another rapid attack and countered with two swift blows to the other woman’s face.
She grunted in pain as the Mime rammed her knee into the Marionette’s stomach.
Then, the blonde tackled the Mime and the two women rolled across the ground.
The Mime began to choke the Marionette and her eyes widened with pleasure.
The Marionette struggled and finally slammed her head into the Mime’s face.
She shoved the Mime aside and connected with a punch then raised a gemstone and bathed the silent killer in a reddish glow.
“You will stop fighting! You will go to sleep. You are not the Mime. You are not a killer. You will forget that you ever were the Mime. You are Kay Harrington and no one else. You will … you will leave the city and never return! She demanded.
The glow faded the Mime’s expression changed. Her features seemed to soften and she slowly walked away. She had different body language now and to Ashley’s perspective it seemed as if the gem had completely transformed her back into the harmless secretary she had been before Ellen had tampered with her mind and body.
As the Marionette waited in the still of the night, she realized two things. She liked being the Marinette. She had money. She had time. She now had a purpose. She would not just try to redeem her family and make up for Julia’s crimes but she would regain her own self-respect and become a heroine in her own right. She smiled as she realized she had enjoyed the role playing and the thrills of being this exciting new creation! She would try to help her sister but as she started to vanish into the shadows, Ashley Covington giggled wildly and wondered if her own mind had been damaged in some way by her use of the exotic memory device. If a giggle had started her family’s tragedy, perhaps, it also signaled the beginning of a more personal one all her own!
Epilogue
At that moment in another dimension removed from their own by an immeasurable distance, a costumed man chuckled and looked at a blonde woman who glared at him with hatred in her blue eyes.
“Your nieces can’t understand that you’ve been with me here in my mirrorworld. Oh, you were naughty and escaped once or twice and met up with your insipid husband but you always came back to me didn’t you? You care too much about preserving those youthful looks to leave me for long. Ever since I spotted you while spying in Nightshade in 1967, I’ve known we belong together. You are mine now and forever!” he said.
Jewelee, who did indeed still look in her thirties, said nothing but glared at the Action Villain known as the Image in silent hatred.
