Gary A. Braunbeck - Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys

I can’t listen to music anymore. Oh, I hear it, but I’ve trained myself to think of it as background noise, nothing to pay attention to.

It has to be this way, because I have been made aware of the sequence of notes that, if heard, recognized, and acknowledged, will bring something terrible into the world.

Of all the things I have lost in this life, it is music that I miss the most.

Ethel, God love her, has noticed that I don’t seem as “chipper” as I used to be. I smile, shrug, and tell her not to worry, that I’m fine, still seeing the doctor, still taking my medications. “You need to stay cheerful, Sam,” she says. “It’s a sad world, and you got to fight it or else it’ll eat you alive.” She has no idea. She tells me that I ought to be like the Seven Dwarves when I work, that I should whistle a happy tune. A happy tune. But I can’t remember any.

Tessellations

“The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.”

— Thomas Wolfe, “God’s Lonely Man.”

1

Make certain that all the tools you’ll need for cutting materials for your patchwork quilt are properly sharpened so as to ensure each edge-cut is as clean as possible.

* * *

There is a certain night when stories of the darkness and that which calls it home are commonplace, accompanied by a host of spirits who wait patiently for their chance to set foot upon soil where unknowing humankind shrugs off its fear with laughter and candy and the celebrating of an ancient ritual. The mouth of this night is the choice hour for the formless, nameless, restless dead as they drift in low-moaning winds, searching for something— an errant wish, an echo of joy or terror, a blind spot in someone’s peripheral vision— anything they can use to give themselves shape and dimension, however briefly. Many of them take joy in frightening the living out of the husk of their hearts; others wait quietly by the sides of those alone, a companion whose only wish is to bring a sense of friendship and comfort; still others are content to drift along, taking great pleasure in simply watching the bustle of humankind. The light that is shadowless, colorless, softer than moonglow shimmering over a snow-laden field, this light against which even the deepest darkness would appear bright as a star in supernova, this light is the place they call home.

The Romans called this night the Feast of Pomona; the Druids named it All Souls’ Day; in Mexico it is known as el Dia de los Muertos.

Most call it Hallowe’en.

The children here have a favorite story they like to tell one another as they pass down dark streets in search of houses whose porch lights bid welcome; it is a story that has been around as long as even many of the adults can remember, all about Grave-Hag and the Monster who lives with her, guarding her house from curiosity-seekers and passers-by until Hallowe’en arrives; then, say the tellers, and only then, do the two of them slip out of the house and into the night, skulking through shadows toward some hideous task....

And so it begins, this tale best told under a full autumn moon when the wind brings with it a chill that dances through the bones and the sounds from beyond the campfire grow ominously semi-human.

A sad and damaged little town.

In its center, an October-lonely cemetery.

A lone figure holding two red roses stands near a pair of graves— one still quite fresh, the other settled, comfortable, long at home— listening to the echoing laughter of children dressed as beasties and hobgoblins. A trace of unease. The smoky scent of dried leaves burning in a distant, unseen yard. A pulsing of blood through the temples. And the unseen presence of regrets both new and old about to become flesh.

2

Sort your materials into separate stacks, double check to make certain all detailing accessories have also been gathered and properly assembled into groups that correlate with their respective patches.

* * *

Marian knew that coming here first might be a mistake but, wanting to put off facing her brother, she came anyway. If the morbid tone of the phone call from Aunt Boots was any indication of what waited for her at the house, she wanted to avoid going there for as long as possible. After the paralyzing wreckage of the last few days she needed a quiet place to be alone, to find her bearings, to begin recovering from the awful thing that had happened and steel herself for whatever else was coming.

A small group of ghosts moved in the distance, bags in one hand, flashlights in the other, each giddy with anticipation of the treasures waiting— the candied apples, the chocolate bars, the popcorn balls and licorice sticks. Marian found herself envying them. The one night of the year when everyone— young and old, adult and child— cast away their fear of the dark for the sake of enjoying some good old-fashioned scares, decorating their houses with multicolored corn strung across doorways, pumpkins, stacked sheaves of straw leaning against the porch railings, even monster-masked scarecrows waiting on the steps.

The ghosts chanted: “ Tonight is the night when dead leaves fly/Like witches on switches across the sky …”

Her smile widened as she remembered the path that ran next to the north side of the gate at Cedar Hill Cemetery, providing the trick-or-treaters with a shortcut through the gravestones. On many Hallowe’ens past she’d taken the shortcut herself, climbing the tiny embankment and following the path through this place of the resting dead until it emerged near North Tenth. Every town has that one special street where all the ghouls, withes, goblins, and their like head toward on Beggar’s Night, that special street where the people gave out the best goodies in town, and in the case of Cedar Hill, that street was North Tenth. At least, that’s the way it had been when Marian was a child. She wondered if that were still the case.

On those Beggars’ Nights, so long ago, as she and Alan skulked their way past the tombstones and crypts and eternal flames, she would listen for the rhythmic thudding of the dead trying to beat their way out of their coffins— Let-us-OUT! Let us OUT!— all the while gripping her brother’s hand very tightly as he spooked her with stories of warlocks and demons and fog-shrouded moors where rotting hands suddenly shot up out of graves to snatch away innocent children and drag them down into the pits of darkness where some terrible, slobbering, hairy, starving, unspeakably grouchy Thing waited. God, what fun it had been!

As the first group of ghosts disappeared into a thick patch of trees, another, smaller group of creatures emerged next to the gate and moved stealthily along; there were devils in this batch, werewolves and misshapen monstrosities followed by a princess or two who looked over their shoulders at a fast-approaching vampire brigade, who chanted around their plastic fangs: “ Tonight is the night when pumpkins stare/Through sheaves and leaves everywhere ...”

Not wanting to pull herself away from the sights and her memories, wishing there was some way she could avoid having to deal with any of this, Marian sighed, felt a small shudder snake down her spine, and, with a smooth deliberation she’d spent most of her adult and professional life perfecting, turned to the business at hand.

“Well, you two,” she whispered, “looks like you can meet the rest of the family now.” Then she chuckled, albeit a bit morbidly, under her breath. There was as much truth as there was displaced irony in that statement.