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

“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 shit 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 illustration 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