Cages and Those Who Hold the Keys Part 40

"Afterward, I closed my eyes and let the scent cover me. And then I sensed him in the room with me. I looked up and he was just standing there, shaking his head at me."

Marian shuddered. "Wh-who?"

"He said his name was Joseph-Something-or-Other, I don't quite remember."

Marian swallowed. Once. Very loudly. "Comstock?"

"What?"

"Comstock. Was his last name 'Comstock'?"

"How'd you know that?" Alan didn't wait for an answer. "So Joseph says to me, 'You should turn the gas off.' So I did. I even opened all the doors and windows so nothing would go wrong. Then he told me what he'd come for, and asked me if I'd lead him to where he needed to go.

"I led him to the spot in the front room, under that hanging of The Last Supper, the spot where Grampa died. He stood there a long time, like he was searching for something, then he turned around and said there'd been a lot Grampa had forgotten about.

"I took him upstairs next, to the guest room where Grandma died. The first thing he did was ask me how she died, and I told him about how Grandma moved in with us after Grampa's funeral because she felt so bad about things, and I told him about how I'd bring her an orange soda every night so she could read and take her pills, then about that last night when I brought her the soda and she hugged me so hard and kissed me and told me I didn't have to sit with her if I didn't want to, she'd understand. I told him about how I left her and how, the next morning, we found her dead because she'd taken all her pills. He just nodded at me and then sat on the bed and then found the things she'd forgotten about, as well. Then I brought him down here and he went right to the spot Dad died-I didn't even have to show him where. He stumbled a little bit because of all the guilt and regret Dad had inside him when he died.

"The hardest part was finding Mom. I knew she had her stroke at the market and that she DOA at the hospital, but the hard part was going to be finding the exact spot where she died. We wandered through the store for a while- they're open all night now, isn't that nice?- until we hit the 'Miscellaneous' aisle. She'd gone into that aisle to get some more thread to use on her story quilt because she was almost finished with it. Joseph turned around and told me it started there, the first waves of dizziness and pain and breathing problems.

"Mom always checked-out through lane 7 because it was closest to the payphone so she could call a cab. And she had to call a cab- I'm sure we all know- because all my life I've been too chickens.h.i.+t to drive. If I did drive then maybe- "-but that's nothing. We walked outside and he found the spot where it really hit her.

"Then he looked at me.

"Took three steps.

"And found her.

"Those f.u.c.kers at the hospital lied to us when they said she died on the way! She was dead before they even got there. He even told me what it was she whispered to some woman who was near.

"She was worried that no one would remember to feed the dog, Midnight. Our dog that's been dead for six G.o.dd.a.m.n years!

"By then Joseph had everything that he came for, so we went back to the house and down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. He found Dad's old tool box and took out the hammer.

"'It's the only way you can find out,'" he said to me. I knew he was right. I took the hammer from him and turned it around so the claw was facing out. He turned and knelt down in front of me like he was praying. I put my free hand on the back of his head to steady myself because I was so scared, but he said, 'Don't be afraid,' and I wasn't. It was all there waiting for me, all the ugly little guilts that had found their way into the tapestries.

"I took a breath, pulled back with the hammer, started crying, and swung down at the back of his skull. I remember thinking his head made an interesting sound when it split open. You know the sound a watermelon makes after you cut it down the center and then pry the halves apart? It's not really a pop or a crunch, but something wet in between the two? That's what it sounded like when I opened his skull. Then I had to put the hammer down and pry the halves apart with my hands.

"G.o.d, it was a mess, but it was worth it. They all spread out before me; all their tapestries with all that unremembered, disfiguring guilt. And I fixed them, Marian, I did it. I wallowed in the ugliness, then took it away, removed it from all of their tapestries until all that was left were the whole, finished, beautiful tessellations of love and memory and happiness. And the things I found out! Did you know Mom once had an affair she never told anyone about? It was with some old friend from her days in the Childrens' Home. It lasted three weeks and then the guy moved away. Afterward she had these little fantasies about him, which is why she and Dad seemed to have such a new marriage after their twenty-fifth anniversary. Dad never suspected, and wherever he is now, he'll never know because I've got that memory, that guilt, right up here in my mind and in my heart. It's part of my tapestry now and can't touch them where they are.

"Oh, and Dad. You know why he always had a problem with his mother? b.i.t.c.h used to beat him with her shoes when he was a little boy. High heeled shoes. Just take them off and pound at his back until it looked like Swiss cheese. Poor Aunt Boots used to stick him back together afterward and then they'd hug each other and hide in their room, scared to death she'd bust in with a ball bat and kill them both. And everyone wondered why he didn't cry at her funeral. But the thing is, he never blamed her- he always felt guilty because he was such a bad boy and got his mother mad enough to do that to him! Well, he doesn't have that anymore, I've got it! And I hope his mother is burning in h.e.l.l right now, I really do.

"I can't tell you what it felt like, taking it away like that. It feels awful now- the worst thing I've ever felt- but at that moment, up to my eyes in it, it was the greatest sensation I've ever known. But when it was over, Joseph's body flopped over onto its back and spoke to me. The two halves of his face kind of squirmed like worms, but I could understand him just fine, and he told me about you, about how it had to be like this. Then he fell back down and stopped moving.

"I wanted to call someone and tell them all about, how miraculous the whole thing was, but I knew if I called Aunt Boots or Laura they'd have the Twinkie Mobile over here in no time flat, so I did the next best thing; ;I walked over to the Western Union office and sent you a telegram. I knew where your show was so it was easy. It was always great of you to send us your schedule, really it was.

"And here you are. It's great to see you, Marian. I knew this would just bring us closer together. I just knew it."

Marian stared the man standing across from her. Closer together? She'd never felt so distanced from anyone or anything in her life. Or afraid. So afraid.

"So," Alan said in calm, conversational tone. "How's the show going?"

Marian blinked. Small talk? How-are-you?-chit-chat? Now? Hey, Sis, there's a mangled body in the bas.e.m.e.nt and by the way how are things with your career?

"Okay," said Alan, "since you don't feel like playing catch-up, what say you go find out for yourself." He nodded at Jack, who began moving Marian toward the bas.e.m.e.nt door.

"Turn on the light, and go down there. What do you say, Sis? If you really want to know if I've gone the Permanent Bye-Bye, that's all you have to do."

There was no threat in his eyes.

"I love you, Alan."

"You keep saying that. Look, no one's going to hurt you, I swear. You'll walk out that front door as alive as you came in. I'd never let anything happen to you. Never."

By now they were in front of the bas.e.m.e.nt door. Alan opened it and Jack eased Marian forward. She took a deep breath and turned on the light.

"Want me to come with you?" said Alan.

Marian swallowed. Her mouth tasted of bile and fear.

"If you'd like." Strange, that even now he wanted to look after her, take care of her.

He put a warm and rea.s.suring hand on her shoulder. "Don't be afraid. I'm not. Not anymore."

She looked at him and wondered why in the h.e.l.l she hadn't gone over to Aunt Boots's house first.

Then she tried to smile.

And they started down the steps.

Marian was only aware of time pa.s.sing. She held her breath as she descended the stairs, trying to keep herself from shaking. She became aware of all the underneath-sounds you never hear during the day because you're too busy to notice them; the faint, irregular drip of water as condensation fell from the pipes, her own breathing, the creak of a house still settling. She wet her lips, then squeezed the wooden railing for rea.s.surance. No good; she was still petrified.

The stairs groaned and rasped with her every step; it would not have surprised her had the d.a.m.n things simply splintered in half and sent her falling straight down, Alice in the Rabbit's Hole.

Then came a sound from somewhere behind him.

A soft sound.

But close.

"Doing fine," said Jack.

The doorbell rang upstairs. Alan grabbed Marian's shoulder, halting her, then turned to Jack and said, "You'd better stay up there and take care of the beggars. Make sure you tell all of them about tonight."

Wordlessly, Jack did as he was told.

Every muscle in Marian's body seemed to knot up all at once; her skin broke out in gooseflesh and her breath suddenly caught in her throat. She briefly flashed on an incident from her childhood when Dad had bagged a deer while hunting and split it open from its neck down to its hind legs, then hung it upside-down in the bas.e.m.e.nt to drain. She hadn't know it was there when she went down to get something for Mom, and it was dark and she didn't want to go because the light switch wasn't working and that meant she had to go down the stairs and then walk all the way over on the other wall, which meant going across the bas.e.m.e.nt in order to turn it on, which always seemed like a twenty-mile hike through the darkest woods to her, but she managed to get to the bottom of the stairs and took a deep breath and start hiking through the forest, then slipped in a puddle of something and fell on her stomach. She yelled because she was having trouble getting up, so Mom came down and walked over and turned on the light and there was so much blood everywhere because the deer was hanging right over her, its eyes wide, staring at her as a steady flow of blood and pieces of guts spattered down on her face and arms and she just knew that if Mom didn't pull her away the light would go out again and she'd die there with the deer in the dark forest....

That same feeling returned to her as she came off the last step and found herself in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

In the center of the floor, illuminated by the single bulb which hung from the center of the ceiling, was a pond of blood; there was no mistaking its color of its sharp, coppery scent. Though it had not turned the shade of rust as that in the bathroom, it was old enough to have begun coagulating.

Just a deer, she forced herself to think. It's just the blood from Dad's deer.

Her eyes followed the path of the arterial spray on the wall to the left of the blood, as well as the one directly behind it. She saw clumped bits of viscera and small chunks of shattered bone.

"Look at it," said Alan, pus.h.i.+ng her toward the pond. "See how it glimmers? Isn't it beautiful?"

Deer blood, remember. Has to be deer blood.

Even though she knew that wasn't the case, Marian called on her training as an actress to make herself believe it; as long as she could do that, she might get out of her in one living piece.

"This is where you killed Joseph?"

"Yes," whispered Alan, staring into his reflection as he knelt by the edge of the pond.

"Joseph Comstock?" Marian asked once again.

"Yes."

"Then where's his body, Alan?"

"It's here."

"Joseph Comstock's body is here?"

"Yes. Our great-great-great-great-grandfather."

A layer of ice formed in the pit of Marian's stomach. "What?"

Alan looked at her. "Joseph Comstock was our ancestor, only he used to call himself Josiah. Came over here in the early 1800s and helped settled Cedar Hill. During the cholera epidemic he came down with a fever that drove him mad, picked up a scythe, and murdered his entire family. They hanged him for that, but when they went to cut down his body, it wasn't there. He couldn't be allowed to die, you see, because if he had, the bloodline which eventually led to you and me being born...it wouldn't have survived. We never would have been. So he's been hanging around, you see, in the cemetery, and can only move around during the month of October because it's the month for ghosts, you see?" He stared back into the pond.

Marian shook her head, but only slightly. I did not f.u.c.k the ghost of my great-great-great-great-grandfather. I. Did. Not.

"The bloodline has to be kept strong," Alan continued, "so it was up to us-you and me-to accept him."

Marian looked around for something heavy-but not too heavy. Something just weighty enough with which to knock him unconscious; then she could sneak back up the stairs and get out through the back door.

She saw a pile of old pipes in one corner and started edging her way toward them.

"So beautiful," Alan repeated. "Come look."

Marian pa.s.sed close enough to her brother to look over Alan's shoulders and see his reflection in the blood- -only his was not alone; on either side of him were the faces of Mom and Dad, with Grandma and Grampa behind them, as well as countless others whose faces she did not recognize but knew they were Quinlan ancestors, be it from the shape of the jaw or the set of the eyes or the fullness of the lips, they were the rest of the family bloodline, going all the way back to- -Josiah Comstock, whom she had known as Joseph, who stood at the very back in the puddle of faces, slightly higher than the rest, the original patriarch smiling down at his lineage.

Marian, dizzy, reached out and placed one hand on her brother's shoulder to steady her balance.

"I knew you'd come around, Sis," Alan said. "Do you want to see the body?"

Marian said nothing.

Alan straightened himself, still kneeling, and removed his baseball cap.

The back of his head was clump of raw, seeping meat speckled with strands of bloodied hair, bone slivers, and brain matter, covered with maggots. Both the skull and the brain had been split in half and pried apart, leaving a jagged, black horizontal gap where blood trickled down and out, drawing a straight line of crimson down his neck that disappeared into the collar of his s.h.i.+rt.

Before she could pull away, Alan's right hand snapped up and gripped her wrist, pulling her hand closer to the ruins of his skull.

"You have to touch them now, Sis, you have to know what I know-"

She kicked out at his back but it did not good; his grip was iron, and before Marian could pull in enough breath to shout or scream or laugh, Alan was shoving her fingertips deep into the bloodied chasm, and it was wet and crumbly and thick and cold, sucking her fingers in deeper as the pupa swarmed over her skin.

"Feel them now?"

"...ohG.o.d," she chocked, on the brink of vomiting.

"Give in to it, Sis, it's the only way."

The bas.e.m.e.nt spun, the blood mixing with the light and the stench. Marian went down on one knee, her chest pounding, and felt a small part of her mind start to shut down- -and then heard herself speak: "...my G.o.dd.a.m.n prom dress...Mom spent months working on it in secret because she wanted to surprise me with it, she lost sleep staying up nights after we'd gone to sleep, and when she finally gave it to me I threw...oh, f.u.c.k!...I threw a fit because it was the wrong color, it didn't match my shoes, and she felt so stupid because she'd never thought to ask me what color my shoes were, but I wasn't about to wear any other shoes, so Dad had to dig into the savings to give me the money for a prom dress..."

Alan continued: "...and Mom felt like she'd failed you again."

Marian felt one tear slip from her eye and slide down her cheek. "I never apologized for that. All these years, and I never apologized."

"Know what she did with the dress?"

Marian shook her head and began to reach out with her left arm toward the stack of old pipes. "...no...."

"She cut it up and used the material to start her Story Quilt. She's got your prom dress, my Cub Scout uniform, a bunch of stuff from her and Dad, our grandparents and great-grandparents, a bunch of stuff. I even made a new patch from the top of the pajamas Dad was wearing the night he died. Now the time's come for you to complete it; one Story Patch, and it's done."

"Let go of me." The strain of reaching was beginning to rip her shoulder apart, but she would not stop trying.

"Just one, tonight, at the bonfire, just one and...you'll see."

The rest happened quickly; she managed to grab onto one of the smaller pipes, swing it up, then down in a smooth arc, and connected solidly with the side of what was left of her brother's head; he released his grip on her and tumbled forward. Her hand pulled from the grisly chasm with the sound of a plastic bag melting on a fire. She rose to her feet and staggered toward the stairs, made her up to the kitchen, and thought she saw Jack coming toward her from the corner of her eye; not bothering to check if he was indeed there or if she were imagining it, Marian pulled in a deep breath and ran out the back door, leaving behind her coat and car keys, sprinting through the yard, over the neighbors' fence, and into the street, racing past dozens of goblins and witches and vampires and ghosts, all of them drawn toward the house of her childhood by the hypnotic figure of Jack Pumpkinhead.

Candy and s.h.i.+vers.

I want our family again.

Giggles and whispers.

Come to the shortcut tonight. We're gonna build a bonfire and tell ghosts stories.

She stumbled through the night.

Make sure to bring your pumpkins and your magic seeds.

She rounded a corner, clutching at her bleeding wrist, and nearly collided with a group of tiny clowns. She mumbled some apology, then took off again, not noticing the small spatters of blood that fell behind her like a trail of breadcrumbs through a fairy-tale forest.

An unseen group of children chanted: "Who blows at my candle? Whose fiery grin and eyes/Behind me pa.s.s in the looking gla.s.s/And make my gooseflesh rise?"