Chapter 40 – The Wooden Witness

I was staring at the ceiling again.

The wooden beams crossed overhead in the same pattern they had for the last three centuries. I knew every knot, every grain line, every tiny imperfection in the wood. I’d counted them approximately fourteen thousand times. Give or take a few hundred. The mountain air drifted through the open window, carrying the scent of pine and that weird floral thing that bloomed near the cliffs. Peaceful. Quiet. Suffocating.

I rolled onto my side and grabbed the pillow, pressing it over my face.

Boredom was a special kind of torture, lowkey worse than any cosmic horror I’d ever faced. At least monsters kept things interesting. This was just endless, mind-numbing nothing. My students were off doing their training arcs or whatever. The weather was too nice to complain about. Even my favorite napping spot felt stale.

Then I remembered.

The Oakhaven Gauntlet was coming up this week.

I sat up so fast the bed frame creaked. That tournament was supposed to be huge this year. Fighters from all over the region, rare techniques on display, food stalls with those meat skewers that actually had seasoning. Entertainment. Distraction. A reason to exist for a few hours.

There was just one tiny problem.

I couldn’t actually go there.

I flopped back down onto the mattress and groaned into my hands. Every single time I tried to visit the lower towns, things got weird. People would start sweating and shaking for no reason. Some would drop to their knees like their legs stopped working. Others would straight up faint. The town elders kept calling it “divine presence” or whatever, but I was pretty sure the air pressure down there was just wrong. Too thin. Made people lightheaded.

Plus I was kind of clumsy.

Last time I visited a marketplace, three stalls collapsed when I walked past them. The merchant blamed it on “sacred weight” but that was clearly just poor craftsmanship. You can’t build a vegetable stand with that little structural support and expect it to last. I’d tried to help fix it and somehow made it worse. The wood kind of disintegrated when I touched it. Cheap materials, probably.

I stared at my hands, flexing my fingers.

Maybe that was the issue. Maybe I was too hands-on. Too physical. Too present.

What if I wasn’t?

The idea hit me like a spark catching on dry kindling. I didn’t need to go down there in person. I just needed eyes, ears, and a vessel that could sit in the bleachers without causing a scene. Something disposable. Something that wouldn’t draw attention.

A puppet.

I swung my legs off the bed and padded over to the fireplace. The wood pile sat in the corner, leftover scraps from when I’d repaired the porch last spring. I grabbed a decent-sized branch, maybe as thick as my forearm, smooth bark with a nice weight to it. A little too fancy for firewood, honestly. Probably should’ve used it for something better. Oh well.

I needed clay too.

The garden outside had that sticky red earth near the pond. I’d been meaning to move it because it kept clumping on my boots, but it had a nice texture. Dense. Moldable. I scooped up a double handful and brought it back inside, dumping it on my work table next to the branch.

Right. Time to build.

I pulled out my carving knife, the one I used for whittling when I got bored on slow afternoons. The branch was tougher than expected. The blade skipped off the surface the first two tries before finally biting in. Weird. Must’ve dried out more than I thought.

I worked quickly, shaving away chunks and curls of wood. No time for detail. This was a rush job. Functional over fancy. I carved out a basic human shape, arms and legs and a torso that looked vaguely proportional. The head was a lumpy sphere. The face was two eye holes, a nose bump, and a slash for a mouth.

It looked terrible.

I held it up to the light and winced. The proportions were all wrong. One arm was slightly longer than the other. The neck was too thick. The surface was rough and unfinished, covered in tool marks and splinters.

This was what happened when you rushed.

I sighed and grabbed the clay, pressing it into the wooden frame to add bulk and smooth out the worst of the mistakes. The clay stuck like it had been waiting its whole existence for this moment. It filled the gaps, rounded out the joints, gave the thing a slightly more human silhouette.

Still ugly though.

The face especially. I tried to sculpt some cheekbones and a jaw, but it ended up looking like a department store mannequin that had been left in the sun too long. Creepy. Stiff. Dead-eyed.

Good enough.

I set the puppet on the table and stepped back, wiping my hands on my pants. It stood there, lifeless and weird, like a bad art project. The kind of thing you’d see at a student craft fair and politely avoid eye contact with.

It would have to do.

Now came the hard part. I needed to link my consciousness to this thing, which meant I needed privacy. Sakura had a habit of checking on me every hour or so. Overprotective. Sweet, but annoying when you were trying to do something that looked suspicious.

I walked to the door and pressed my palm against the wood.

“Sakura?”

Her reply came immediately from the hallway outside, sharp and alert.

“Yes, Master?”

“I’m entering a state of Deep Meditation. Do not open this door, no matter what happens. Understand?”

Silence. Then her voice dropped an octave, vibrating with intensity.

“I understand, Master. I will guard this threshold with my life. No force in this world or the next shall disturb your transcendence.”

I blinked.

That was a little intense, but sure. Whatever kept her out.

“Cool. Just don’t freak out if I don’t answer for a while. I’ll be fine.”

“Your will is absolute.”

I heard her footsteps retreat down the hall, followed by the distinct sound of her taking up a guard stance. Solid. I locked the door from the inside, double-checked the window latch, and returned to the puppet.

Time to move in.

I lay down on my bed, folding my hands over my chest. The puppet sat on the table across the room, staring at nothing. I closed my eyes and reached out with my awareness, extending a thread of consciousness toward the wooden vessel.

The connection snapped into place like a rope pulling taut.

And everything went wrong.

My vision fractured into double images. I could see the ceiling above me and the table surface below me at the same time. My body felt too large and too small simultaneously. Breathing became optional. I couldn’t feel my heartbeat in the puppet. Did it even have a heartbeat? Should I give it one?

I tried to move the puppet’s hand.

The fingers twitched. Barely. It felt like trying to move underwater while wearing a suit of armor three sizes too small. Every motion required ten times the normal effort. The spiritual link between me and the vessel was thin and stretched, like a guitar string tuned way too tight.

This sucked.

I focused harder, pouring more awareness into the puppet. The fingers moved again, curling into a fist. Progress. I tried the arm next. It lifted an inch off the table before dropping back down with a wooden thunk.

Why was this so hard?

The puppet felt stiff. Unresponsive. Fragile. Like it might snap apart if I pushed too much force through it. I’d carved it too thin, probably. Cheap materials. Rushed craftsmanship. This is what I got for not taking my time.

I spent the next twenty minutes just trying to get the thing to sit up.

When it finally did, the motion was jerky and wrong. The joints didn’t bend smoothly. The weight distribution was off. It toppled sideways twice before I figured out how to balance it. This was lowkey humiliating. I’d built furniture more responsive than this.

Walking was going to be a nightmare.

I disconnected from my physical body completely, funneling all my consciousness into the puppet. The world shifted. My real body went limp on the bed, breathing shallow and automatic. The puppet’s senses flared to life.

Vision first. Blurry. Hazy. Like looking through dirty glass. I blinked, but the puppet didn’t have eyelids that worked properly. The eyes were just carved holes. I’d have to deal with the weird static-filled peripheral vision.

Hearing next. Muffled. Distant. Sounds reached me a half-second late, like my brain was lagging behind reality.

Touch was the worst. Everything felt dull and wooden. Literally. I pressed the puppet’s hand against the table and barely registered the sensation. It was like wearing thick gloves made of cork.

This was definitely a downgrade.

I stood the puppet up, gripping the edge of the table for support. The legs wobbled. The ankles felt weak. One wrong move and this whole thing would collapse into kindling.

I took a step.

The puppet lurched forward like a drunk marionette. I overcorrected and nearly fell backward. My weight shifted too far to the left and I had to grab the chair to steady myself.

Walking. I was bad at walking now.

This was fine. Totally fine. I just needed practice. And maybe a miracle.

I shuffled toward the window, moving with all the grace of a reanimated scarecrow. Each step was a calculated risk. Each joint felt like it might give out. I was pretty sure a strong wind could knock this body over.

I really hoped I didn’t break this thing before I even got to the tournament.

I reached the window and pushed it open. Cool night air rushed in, carrying the scent of grass and distant campfires. The mountain dropped away below, a cascade of cliffs and forests stretching down toward the valley. Somewhere out there, past the trees and the roads, Oakhaven sat waiting.

I climbed onto the windowsill, gripping the frame.

This was a terrible idea.

I jumped.

The puppet plummeted like a stone, wind screaming past the wooden joints. The ground rushed up to meet me and I braced for impact.

I landed in a crouch.

The shock rattled through the puppet’s legs, but nothing broke. Nice. I stood slowly, testing each joint. Everything still worked. Barely. The landing had been rougher than expected. The knees felt loose now. Great.

I was standing in the woods below the mountain, surrounded by pine trees and underbrush. The moon filtered through the canopy, casting everything in silver-blue light. Peaceful. Quiet. Way better than staring at my ceiling.

I took a step forward and immediately stumbled over a root.

The puppet’s arms windmilled as I fought for balance. I crashed into a tree trunk, shoulder-first. The impact sent a dull vibration through the wooden frame. Nothing snapped, but I definitely felt something crack.

I pushed off the tree and straightened, brushing bark off the puppet’s chest.

“Okay. Walking. Let’s figure this out.”

My voice came out weird. Flat. Echoey. The puppet’s mouth didn’t move right when I talked. It looked like a bad ventriloquist act. I sounded like I was speaking from the bottom of a well.

Cool. Another thing to worry about.

I practiced walking in a small circle, trying to get a feel for the puppet’s weight distribution. Left foot. Right foot. Don’t trip. Don’t fall. Don’t shatter into a million wooden pieces.

After about five minutes, I had it mostly figured out. The key was moving slowly. Deliberately. Like I was walking on ice. Rush it and the puppet’s joints couldn’t keep up.

This body was so clunky.

I oriented myself toward the valley and started walking. Oakhaven was maybe two hours away at this pace. The tournament didn’t start until tomorrow afternoon. Plenty of time.

I just had to get there without falling apart.

Literally.

The woods opened up ahead, revealing a dirt path that wound down the mountainside. I stepped onto it, feeling the puppet’s wooden feet crunch against gravel.

I took another step. Then another. The rhythm was getting easier. Less thinking required.

I glanced back at the mountain peak, where my real body lay sleeping in the locked room. Sakura was probably still standing guard outside the door, ready to fight off cosmic horrors.

I smiled. Or tried to. The puppet’s face didn’t really cooperate.

Tournament, here I come.

Let’s just hope this cheap wooden body holds together long enough to watch a few fights.