The form solidified into a figure that walked on legs, though its feet didn't touch the mud. It approached the city, striding across the swamp on legs like stone mesas.
"What?" said Turtle. "What did you say?"
Again Snake whispered the sacred name. "Ragged Anndy."
Anndy raised a foot like a swollen black planet at the end of a blue denim pants leg. The foot levitated across the mud flat and planted itself in the air. A second leg in a red-and-white striped stocking loomed forward. The first two legs were joined by a third, which came to rest between them. The third leg of the tripod was a doubled leg, two legs sewn together. For Ragged Anndy was Siamese twins.
The titanic stuffed goddess strode toward the riverbank. Her feet touched the mud now. Arabesques of frost formed in her footprints. Her heads were halfway to the sky.
Anndy's hair was giant loops of red yarn. Her eyes were four black buttons that glowed with compassion from the centers of radiating lash lines. Each face bore a triangular red nose and mouth of crimson embroidery thread. On the side where her right arm attached, Ann wore a frilly pink pinafore and a starched white apron with deep pockets. On the side where his left arm attached, Andy wore a light blue work shirt, bell-bottom trousers, and a navy blue pea jacket.
Anndy stood directly behind the dog. The dog went on raping the corpse. The water of Silk River squirmed like a flea-infested mattress. The moon balloon deflated herself slightly and crept down the ceiling of the world. Anndy's moon shadow fell across the dog's bent back. The little orange dog raped and raped and raped the little dead cat. "Ugh ugh ugh!" said the dog.
"Ik ik ik," said the corpse.
"Ugh ugh ugh!" said the dog.
"Jesus you're heavy," said the corpse.
Anndy shook her heads and rested her hands on her hips. Her arms bent like sausages, lacking bones. She waited to be noticed. She was fed up to here with these nightly visits to the Table Land, but what choice did she have? The curse lay on her heads just as much as it lay on theirs.
At last the dog noticed Anndy. He yanked his weenie free of the corpse and romped to and fro at the god's feet, yapping and slobbering blissfully. He ducked his head and wagged his gingham tail. Not a thought in his head that he'd misbehaved. Just the fervent undying hope that Anndy had come here to throw a stick for him.
Anndy knelt down and touched the cat's broken neck. She stirred and moaned and opened one swollen eye. She pushed aside the red ribbons that dripped from her brow, using a paw that was just a loop of wire with some cotton hanging off. She mewed piteously to Anndy.
Steam rose from her gaping belly. The air was filled with butcher shop smells, the smells of blood and meat. The smells made no sense in a world of stuffed toys, but the river rats could smell them just the same. Smelling them made the river rats feel very queer. They hadn't smelled meat since their half-remembered days on the material plane — that uncanny realm where all stuffies were forever mute and paralyzed. The river rats scurried deeper into their burrows.
Anndy spoke to his pets, and his voice echoed across the swamp. "It is midnight," he said. The dog cocked his head. "Midnight by the old Dutch clock in the Parlor Behind the Sky," Anndy elaborated.
"Bow wow wow!" said the dog, trying to hold up his end of the conversation.
"Meow?" said the cat, trying to be helpful.
"Do you know why we have come here, little dog?"
"Haven't a clue," the dog answered.
"And you, little cat?"
"Good evening. Boss."
"Do you know why we are here, Ragged Ann and I?"
"Sorry," said the cat. "I just woke up."
Anndy sighed deeply. "So again you have remembered nothing. Again you know nothing of the curse which makes a hell of your lives."
"Now I'm completely lost," said the cat.
"A curse?" said the dog. "Gosh! You mean like an enchantment?"
Anndy spoke again, his voice a shade louder this time, so that it churned up the river water. "What do you think will happen tomorrow night at midnight, little dog, little cat?"
"Can you give us a hint?" asked the cat.
"Tomorrow night at midnight," said Anndy, "we will return to plead with you again."
"Is there something we can do for you?" the dog asked hopefully.
"Anything at all, Boss. You name it," said the cat.
"Again we will plead with you, just as we stand here pleading now. And all because of your curse."
"There's that curse again," muttered the dog.
Anndy raised his voice, and windows broke all over the west side. The Dollhouse Mountains shivered and pulled their heads into their shoulders. "Could you please just stop killing each other every night?! You're keeping the whole house awake! People are trying to sleep for Christ's sake! How can we sleep with the two of you tearing around like that?!"
"We're keeping you awake?" said the dog in astonishment.
"We had no idea," said the cat.
"We'll be quiet as mice," the dog solemnly promised.
"You won't even know we're here," said the cat.
"No more crashing," said the dog.
"No more killing," said the cat.
Anndy rubbed his eyes and yawned. He sat down beside the monsters. "You could lift your curse tonight," he told them. "You could do it so easily. But you don't know how."
"So tell us!" said the dog.
Anndy hung his heads. "We can't. We're forbidden. It's part of the curse."
"How mysterious," mused the cat.
The dog whispered into the cat's tattered ear. "You talk to him. You're smarter than I am."
"Are we keeping you from something?" asked Anndy.
"Nothing important," said the dog. "I was raping her corpse, but we can do that after you leave."
"We won't make any noise," said the cat.
"I'll be in the parlor," said Anndy. "Playing solitaire and drinking warm milk."
"Sweet dreams."
"Nice seeing you."
"Drop in anytime."
"Don't be a stranger."
Ragged Anndy raised his colossal hand and touched the sequined sky. "Let all continue as before," he said, and he sounded as if he meant it. The waterworks shriveled in terror, and fuel tanks hid their faces in their pipes.
Anndy turned and walked back across the swamp, but her feet no longer touched the mud. She parted the silken veil of the night sky, ducked her heads, and stepped through the parting into some larger world beyond.
Everyone in Plush City fell asleep, and I do mean everyone. For hours the place was as dead as a coffin nail. No one came, no one went, nothing moved. While the stuffies slept, the city's ruined buildings and damaged roads and burst pipes and severed power lines regrew themselves like weeds. The cardboard city had no eyes, no thoughts, words, no hands. Yet in the stillness of the night, while the stars twinkled solely for their own amusement, the city quietly rebuilt itself. It happened every night, while the stuffies slept.
The sun sequin rose into the pale blue sky of day and chased away the moon balloon. Certain details of the city had altered overnight, but none of the citizens seemed to notice.
Snake and Turtle went for a stroll in the early morning. There was no school on Saturday, and Snake felt like a walk. Naturally Turtle tagged along. It had rained in the night. The air was cool and clean for a change. Turtle was happy just to be walking beside his friend and talking note of all the different stuffies that they passed.
There went a masked hero in yellow leotards and a green cape. There went an eggplant and a pumpkin. A fox in a beaver coat escorting a headless chicken. A mermaid walking on her tail between a satyr and a sea serpent. And here was a mother kangaroo pushing a stroller with dozens of her cute little two-headed babies bouncing in and out of it.
Snake and Turtle passed a hospital. On a patio out in front, some fire-damaged Dalmatians were sunbathing in lounge chairs, regrowing their skins. A nurse in a white uniform was serving them glasses of lemonade. "Nurses are sexy," said Snake. "I like the little white caps."