Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys Part 43

"Honey?" called Mom-thing's voice from outside.

Marian pushed herself up another stair, then two more, finally getting a delayed rush of adrenaline and taking them two at a time, blood dripping into her eyes, the pain spreading from her chest and ribs down to her pelvis. She kept climbing, thinking, Use the pain, use it, use it! She labored to breathe as smoke from the bonfire began rolling into the church and up the stairs, following her, nipping at her heels, then encircling her ankles and slithering up her legs, but then she rounded the first landing and found herself one flight away from the organ loft. The collapsed wall next to her allowed a harsh, cold breeze to cut through, holding back some the curling smoke. She filled her lungs with crisp air, blinking until her eyes cleared- -and looked down on the cemetery below.

The glow from the fire illuminated the grounds, casting everything is a sickly pall of burnt orange.

From every grave (except her parents', some part of her brain noted) came its occupant; many were old and feeble with little flesh left on their bones-what skin remained was shriveled, torn, and discolored; some were younger, perhaps her own age, housewives who'd died in accidents or factory workers killed in the riots or by their machines; a few were teenagers, buried in their favorite clothes, nice clothes, trendy clothes, who'd perhaps died drunk behind the wheel of a car or at the p.r.i.c.k of a needle; and, worst of all, there were babies, the small ones, slowly crawling up through the dirt that had lain upon their fragile bodies for so long. Behind them came the descendants, the settlers, the founding citizens of Cedar Hill, all of them only bones now, only bones, clicking, clacking, shuddering. She wondered if the remains of Josiah Comstock were walking amongst them.

Marian felt the tears in her eyes as she looked straight down and saw one baby that crawled on its arms because where its legs should have been hung a twisted, stumpy tangle of cartilage and skin, a sad trophy from thalidomide days. Her heart broke at the sight of it; to have been born so horribly misshapen, to die so early, only to be called back like this.

The sight of the awakened dead was horrible enough; the thalidomide baby made it worse.

Who moves in the shadow?

But what terrified Marian the most, what caused the blood to coagulate in her veins and her throat to contract and her bowls to twist into one excruciating knot of sick, was the sight of what each of these dead carried- Who rustles past unseen?

-their own heads, the ones they had been died with. Some had eyes, others only dark chasms, but all of their mouths were locked in death's eternal rictus grin.

With the dark so deep...

And on every set of shoulders sat a new head, one with carved eyes, a three-cornered nose, and a crescent moon mouth, all glowing brightly inside.

...I dare not sleep...

She watched as every member of Jack Pumpkinhead's lineage was greeted by those who had mourned at their graveside with calls of Mom or Darlin' or Grampa, then with open arms and loving embraces in the light of the gigantic fire- ...all night this Hallowe'en!

-the organ stopped screaming.

Marian turned and saw Boots standing at the top of the stairs. Her eyes were wide and glazed, her hair hung around her face in clumps, caked with blood, and her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

"He told me he wouldn't let Mama beat us anymore," she said to her niece. "He told me that he'd make it better, that I wasn't ugly because of my scar. That's why Burt wouldn't marry me, you know. He said he couldn't look at my scar, it was too ugly."

"Oh Boots...."

"Don't worry about them folks down there. Jack's gonna make everything fine again. All of 'em, see, all of 'em missed someone who was buried here. There ain't a person in this town who don't cry inside every day from some kinda loneliness. Even the spirits who live here, they cry, too. Loneliness follows you, hon, it follows you forever. But maybe that's all over now. You should feel good, having all the family back like this. They all think the world of you. Shame on you for not letting them know their love meant something."

"I'll not have you speaking to her that way, Boots," came the voice of Jack Pumpkinhead.

He was only a few feet away from Marian on the stairs. She had nowhere to go, except through the hole in the crumbled wall, and the drop was at least twenty feet. She bit her lower lip and cursed herself for getting trapped like this.

"I didn't mean anything," said Boots to Jack. "I only wanted her to know that-"

Jack raised a twig-finger as if to scold, then shook his head. "Don't apologize for anything. We've all spent way too much time being sorry for one thing or another."

Marian stared at him.

Something was wrong. He seemed...weaker now. The fire behind his eyes was growing dim.

I can't deny him a drink when he needs one.

Her fear suddenly vanished as Jack came up and joined her on the landing.

"Come along with me," he said, his voice soft and loving, no longer the horrid croak of before. He held out one of his twig-hands.

Deep within the human heart there lies a point at which there is no room for fear, no use for pity, and little consequence if old resentments are present or not; it is a place where failures are forgotten and past sins forgiven.

Looking at the thing she now, at last, recognized, Marian felt something in her change.

Grow stronger.

"D-dad?"

"Present and accounted for," said Jack. "I hope you can forgive me for all this, honey. I just needed to see you one more time."

She took her his hand. He led her down the stairs and through the pews, then across an aisle to a spot on the south side of the church where he pointed toward a small mosaic carved into the wall.

The Marvelous Land of Oz.

There was the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Tin Woodsman, along with Tip and the Gump and the Woggle-Bug and the Saw-Horse...and Jack Pumpkinhead, his arms spread wide like an old friend who was about to give you the biggest hug you could imagine.

"It's beautiful," she said.

"When I was overseas during the war," said her father, "it seemed like every church my unit found had been destroyed by the fighting. I thought it was awful. Those places had been so beautiful once. One day we came into this town where the church hadn't been blown to s.h.i.t and I decided to go in and light a penny candle, say a prayer that all of us'd get home all right. There was a sniper hiding in the organ loft. I guess he'd completely lost his mind. He shot me twice in the leg and once in my shoulder, then blew his own head off. I laid in there for almost an hour before somebody from my unit found me. I almost died from all the blood I lost.

"I promised myself that if I made it home alive, I was gonna spend the rest of my life building churches. I know it was that church that kept me alive. It was telling me I had to go on living because my life had a purpose. So I decided I was gonna be a great architect who'd go around the world fixing beautiful churches. I'd maybe even design a couple of them myself. The most beautiful thing I ever built was a tree house for your brother when he was seven." He doubled over in pain, then fell to the floor. Ignoring her own pain, Marian ran over to him and knelt by his side.

Marian cradled his head in her arms. "You're back now. You can build them. You can do anything you want. This place is yours. And you've got all those...people who have come to help you."

Jack's body hitched. His light was almost gone.

"You need a drink," said Marian, exposing her bandaged wrist and starting to tear at it with her teeth.

He gripped her hand, stopping her. "No. You listen to me. No matter what you think, I never blamed you for anything. You always made me happy. I really enjoyed seeing your commercials and shows on television. I'm sorry I never told what a good actress I think you are. I'll bet you'll be famous someday."

"I won't let it end like this," she whispered, her voice cracking.

"C'mon, Marian-you're an actress. You should know that when it's time to get off stage, you go. And don't milk your exit."

"Yeah," she said, ripping the remaining dressing from her wounded wrist, "but I've been known to demand re-writes."

She bit into the tender flesh of her wrist and tore away what little scabbing was there, then removed the stem from Jack's head and gave him a drink.

A good, long one.

And then he told exactly, precisely what needed to be done.

8.

Once you have reached this step in the process, the base-patches should reveal to you the overall pattern you need to follow in order to complete your quilt. How wide to make it and how many patches should be included is up to you. You're on your way to having a patchwork quilt! Congratulations! Now, go back, and repeat steps 1-7 as needed.

Marian and Jack came out with Boots by their side. Alan stood by the Mom-thing's along with everyone else. Marian walked over and embraced her brother.

"Okay, Alan. I know the rest of it."

"You'll have to stay here now, you know?"

"I know."

"Can you accept that?"

"Someday, I think." Marian then caught sight of a new figure entering the cemetery, and smiled when she saw Laura walking toward her. Her sister-in-law's skin was cadaverous, her eyes blank. She had been torn open from the center of her chest on down. Her stomach, liver, and uterus dangled within shiny loops of grey intestine, caught there as if in a spider's web. Everything drooped so low it nearly touched the ground.

She was carrying something that was almost too big for her to handle.

Walking up to Marian, Laura handed over her Story-Quilt-wrapped burden, then took her place by her husband's side, draping one cold-dead arm around his waist, resting her head on his shoulder. Alan kissed her cheek and pointed to the spot where they would rest come morning.

Marian pulled back a corner of the quilt and looked into the baby's face.

Its head was so much larger than the rest of its body, semi-round with deep horizontal grooves in the flesh as well as the skull beneath. Its eyes were so abnormally large and round, its mouth deformed, its nose misshapen and dwarfed by the rest of its features.

Marian wept joy for its hideousness and blessed the night for the pain it was in, a pain that she was now more than willing to share, to savor along with this creature, her nephew, her son, her lover-to-be.

The Quinlan bloodline would remain pure. She could almost see the faces of the children she would have with this after it grew up. How glorious they would be.

She checked her watch. It was nearly midnight. At sunrise on All Saints' Day the dead would have to return to their graves and wait for next Hallowe'en to come around before they could rise again.

She studied the pile of stones and human heads.

"A family cathedral," she said.

The thing in her arms cooed and coughed in approval.

There was a stone quarry not too far away. The lumber mill was even closer. She had the whole town here; young and old, the living and the dead.

They had until dawn.

Plenty of time for a good enough start.

She faced the crowd. "We all know what has to be done. If we don't finish tonight, we'll meet here again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. However long it takes." She stroked the surface of the Story Quilt, knowing what ill.u.s.tration she'd use for the final patch once this project was completed. She could be patient. She was not alone.

She never would be again. She lifted her head and faced the crowd once again. "Let's get to it."

Everyone smiled, the Hallowe'en moon grew brighter as the church bell gave a triumphant ring, and, as a family, they began to raise a dream from the silent, ancient dust of death.

In Loving Memory of My Father, Frank Henry Braunbeck May 22, 1926 - June 15, 2001 "No, good sir; the privilege was mine."

The Sisterhood.

of Plain-Faced Women.

"We will gather images and images of images.

until the last-which is blank: This one we agree on."

-Edmund Jabes, "Mirror and Scarf"

1. Ones Who By Nature.

As she watched people file into the pub Amanda found herself recalling some lines from an old T.S. Eliot poem: In the room the women come/and go/Talking of Michelangelo. How many women, she wondered, had come in here since she'd first sat down, come in quite alone but looking ever so lovely, only to leave with a man in tow, complimenting him on how wonderful he looked and getting the same in return? How much attention had these women relinquished on their faces, their lovely, just right, just so faces, making sure the eye shadow wasn't too heavy, the base not too thick, the rouge not too bright, all of it in an effort to-as that old cosmetics slogan used to say-Right Nature's Wrongs?

In the room the women come and go...

Lighting a cigarette, she blinked away a sad memory and shrank into herself.

There are lonely ones who by nature cannot smile; watching in silence as people pa.s.s by, they never dare to speak for fear they might say the wrong thing. It would be a mercy if the Pa.s.sing People became little more than vague shadow-shapes to the lonely ones, but that rarely happens; always there is something that draws attention: a knowing smile; a certain glint in the eyes; the lilt of a voice; the brief, sensuous, teasing scent of a woman's perfume or a man's cologne that still clings to the body of their partner; an echo of the embrace, the kiss, the humid pa.s.sions left amidst soft, rumpled sheets and in the damp, sculpted impressions that moistly reshaped downy pillows: O my love, my love, my love....

Amanda looked toward the left-If only I had a smile like hers-and the chill of her isolation deepened; she looked straight ahead-What I wouldn't give for her cheekbones-and suddenly the ache in her center widened, a pit, a chasm, threatening, as it always did, to swallow her whole.

In an attempt to make herself feel better and pull her thoughts out of the mire she reminded herself that, for a good long while now, by choice and thanks to a lot of hard work, hers was a life marked not by giddy emotional highs and gut-wrenching spiritual lows but a steady unbroken line of small disappointments occasionally counterbalanced by equally small satisfactions, all of them the sum total of an average woman's existence; for that was the word that best described Amanda: average.

Or so people told her.

She crushed out her cigarette much more violently than she'd intended, then rubbed her eyes much too hard, amazed again at how pliant they felt under their slightly quivering lids. It would take so little pressure for her thumb and index finger to become spears...

She pulled her hands away, opened her eyes, and caught a glimpse of her inverted reflection in the small silver spoon lying beside her gla.s.s.

At least the ugly, the scarred or deformed, were given pity ; awe was reserved for the truly beautiful, but at least the ugly were given some quarter; either way, both received attention from the people who pa.s.sed.

She stared at her half-empty gla.s.s, chastising herself for thinking this way. She'd never been the type to indulge in the false luxury of self-pity-well, maybe once, long ago in dead yesterday, when she'd been younger and so d.a.m.nably foolish and was quick to spill the contents of her heart; yes, then, probably at least once; but now-now these evenings of quiet soul-searching were the closest she ever came...still, there could be found, from time to time, when one person too many failed to return a look or a smile or an "h.e.l.lo," a certain edge in her voice, not quite bitter but more than dark enough, intended to cut not whomever she spoke with but herself. Call it resignation.