Chương 38: The key

Caspar sits up on his sofa. His crocheted blanket, his lumpy cushions. He's bathed in the stormcloud static of his crummy old television set. Lying on his chest is the paperback he was reading the night before his life was taken from him. He lifts its crinkled cover. It's right where he left off. Wren's violet orbs shone in the dying sun.

"I think you've never truly felt love for anyone but yourself," she uttered.

"Not for Harriet, and not for me." With this leaden pronouncement, and a rustle of skirts, she turned from Andre and made for the train car door. A tight grip on her wrist stopped her in her tracks. Her reach went like lighting for the pistol under her sash. Caspar turns the page. Hey stud. I don't know what happens next, either. I was reading this over your shoulder. Sorry!!! I'm in our room. Come hang out •;) XOXO Irene The rest of the spread is blank. Caspar stands up. It's his apartment, to a T.

The photo of his unit on the mantel. The bookshelves Ernie carved him, one crooked brass nail in the burl. His hydrangeas in the window. He goes into the kitchen. His chipped mug next to the teakettle has been joined by a delicate ceramic cup and saucer, both violet. The hand towels stuffed into the oven handle have been straightened and folded. His utilitarian sugar bowl has been replaced by one shaped like a little ceramic peach, its lid a stylized stem. He notices the little touches.

The sunny encroachment of femininity on his bachelor's living space. He opens the icebox. The pound cake is nestled next to the remains of Salome's thank-you cake. He opens the door to the bedroom. I'm laying across his quilted comforter, wearing one of his shirts and a pair of tall, knitted socks, fumbling with a crochet hook. A ball of periwinkle fabric yarn nestles between my knees where they stick out of his oversized tee.

"Hi, hubby."

"It's perfect," he says.

"Curtains in here were blue, but it's perfect."

"The purple curtains," I say, scooting over to make room for him, "are what made it perfect." He slides into bed next to me and I raise my project off my lap to let his arm close around my stomach.

"What are you working on?" he asks.

"Originally it was gonna be a coaster, and then I got ambitious and it became a potholder, and then I fucked up like five times and now it's gonna be a washcloth." He chuckles. I lay a light slap on his wrist.

"It's my first try! Gimme a break."

"It's not that. It's just you went and copied this whole place, no flaws, and now you're crocheting a, uh—""Washcloth." He eyes the lumpy agglomeration of purple cradled in my lap.

"Yeah."

"I'm getting ready," I say.

"For life with you. Gotta get good at some lazy day activities."

"You can make a potholder fast as I blink," he says.

"Sure. But this is a fun thing to do with my hands. Even though I'm awful at it. And I know you, dude. You like your quiet evenings in. Put a serial on, read a book, get some cooking and some tidying done."

"It's a bit boring, I know. In Heaven, I promise I'll get out more."

"You don't have to promise anything," I say.

"This is what I'm most excited about. The whole time we've been together, it's been crisis, crisis, crisis. But I've been watching you your whole life, remember? I've seen all the quiet, cozy moments. I want those." His stubble rubs my neck as he cuddles up to me. I squirm further into the cavity of his arms.

"Don't get me wrong," I say.

"Most of the time, I intend to be draining you dry. But I imagine I'll need additional hobbies unless you want me to mutate that pesky refractory period out of you."

"I'd miss the crossword, gotta admit."

"When we're in charge, you can do dictionaries of crosswords. You can have all the lives you imagined having. You can be a hot-shot pilot. You can climb mountains in the tundra. You can have a fleet of those gaudy cars you and Jordan like."

"Temple Cruiser?"

"Temple Cruisers, aerostats, motorcycles, whatever you want. But it doesn't have to be all champagne swimming pools and lobster tails. Heaven can be everything you had and lost. Heaven can be can be coming home in the evening to a cute little apartment in the countryside, and a cute little wife in your cute little bed. Well." I stretch a stripy-socked leg out and there's a scraping sound as the bed expands from a twin to a queen.

"Maybe not that little. You're not a bachelor anymore."

"Do you need closet space?"

"Nope. I make all my clothes on-demand. Out of skin."

"I'm gonna make you a closet anyway," he decides.

"Woodworking. That could be nice to try. Maybe I could rent a workshop in town." I set aside my crochet and fold myself onto my side.

"And you could come home smelling like varnish. And I could say, how was your day, baby? And pretend like I don't already know."

"Kind of a tough one today," he says.

"Maybe not as tough as tomorrow. But tomorrow's its own kettle of worms."

"A whole kettle of them. Gosh." I spin the crochet hook in my fingers and transform it into a strand of tendon for a moment before it's a hair tie. I bind my hair tendrils into a wiggly ponytail as I slide further onto my husband, nuzzling up between his legs.

"I think I have a way to make you feel better—oh shoot." I watch the yarn ball drop off the bed and roll into the living room.

"I'll get it." Caspar starts to rise. The coverlet slips around his leg and tugs him gently back into bed. I giggle.

"That's me, remember?" The yarn ball reverses course, and winds itself up as it rolls its return into the room. For a moment, I turn enough of it back into twitch muscle fibers to make it motile, and it hops onto the bed again. Caspar settles back.

"Nice trick." The nature of this place doesn't alarm him anymore. The bed, so perfectly copied from his cold and foreclosed apartment, is me. He doesn't mind. In fact, he's curious: "Can you feel this?" He tickles a bedpost.

"Kinda. Not in the typical way, but I have a sense without a name in your tongue. One that keeps me abreast." He pokes it.

"How's it feel?"

"Muted cognitive pressure. Sort of like how I feel when you get touched. More like reading about a touch than a touch."

"You can feel when I get touched?"

"Mmhmm." I lift the hem of his shirt.

"I feel this." I kiss the dusting of hair above his waistband.

"I feel this, too." His hands stray across the back of my neck.

"And this." I rub my cheek on the growing hardness waiting for me.

"But you know what I really had to try firsthand to appreciate?"

"What's that?" I slip up his broad chest and whisper into his ear." Taste." I slide back down to my seat between his thighs.

"You wanna see another trick?" His open, deep-breathing mouth curves up at the edges.

"Always." Two of my tendrils slip the hair tie and cling to his waistband. They pop the button of his fly.

"Ta-daaa," I singsong, as they tug his zipper down. Be right back, reader. I know I sometimes share these moments with you. But this one might be the last one. This one I'm keeping for myself. We lie together after, tangled in one another and in Caspar's soft cotton sheets, and I decide it's not a big deal. And I won't cry or bring any great weight to it, to his body warm on mine and the way his palm rests on my heart. This isn't the last time. There will be no last time. This is eternity.

I must keep believing that. I can't be distempered, because I know he is. One of us has to have our shit together.

"What Adaire said." I rub his chin with a tendril and draw that agate gaze back to me. The ring of Irene-gold around his irises has grown.

"It's still disturbing you." Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"I worry about where we'd leave everything," he says.

"Diamante. Pastornos. I don't know. Just knocking off the Suzerain, not bothering to put anything up in his wake. Feels off."

"And?" I ask it softly, even though I've already heard it.

"And I guess I'm scared. Of how it'll be when they identify my body, of the way they'll talk about me and treat the people who knew me. And…" I watch the Adam's apple work under his skin.

"And I'm scared of dying. Did it once already, and I didn't want to be scared, but I was. And even now, now that I know and love what's next. I'm scared anyway." The stubble of his close-cropped hair rasps on the pillowcase as he turns his head to me.

"Damn foolish of me, I know. But I'm still hoping to find a way out."

"What if…" I start it and can't finish it. His fingers interlace with mine.

"Go on."

"What if I asked you not to?" There's a lump in my throat. I hear the soft membranous sound of him blinking.

"Not to…"

"Not to find one." I roll my chest onto his. I feel his heartbeat.

"To leave that place. To come to me."

"To die?"

"Maybe we could get you out of there, to somewhere they wouldn't find you. And then the next time you fell asleep, we could just…" I feel a prickling behind my eyes.

"You could just not wake up. And I could keep you." He gazes at me in contemplative silence.

"I'm tired of saying goodbye every morning. I'm tired of watching you get hurt and being unable to take care of you. To touch you. I'm tired of sharing you with Diamante." The tear I've been keeping back escapes.

"I'm trying so hard to be patient for you. But I see Bina and Jordan, and I want that. I want you to stay." Something resolves behind his eyes.

"Okay. Yes." My body tenses.

"Yes?"

"Yes," he repeats. It settles like a stone in him, in that immobile resolve at his core. I would die for Irene is the load-bearing pillar of his existence. I would becomes I will. The fear goes away. And he kisses me, and I command time to stop, and it doesn't. I can slow it to a crawl, I can block it from my mind, I can fill it with sweet things and loving caresses. But I can't stop it. I can't stop the morning that's coming for us.

₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ I really wish that the dead people were not calling this whole shindig the End of the World party, but Caspar laughs when he finds out about it. I don't share your resilience, I guess, faced with peril. Something else to admire about humans. I hope I'll have the time to. The dance hall is ready. It's bright and loud and full of laughter and the scent of pine.

I've given them that jukebox they begged and pleaded for after extracting a promise that, should we survive, Sam will finally stop putting off learning drums in order to give poor Hollis someone to jam alongside. (I could study the bass, Kai thinks. Bass goes good with drums.)"I remember shaking your hand like this before you went away to Tabarka." Edgar solemnly clasps Caspar's hand.

"I thought I was proud of you then. I taught that boy right. I hope neither of us are being the same blind bastards we were back then."

"Hope not, Ed." Caspar squeezes his hand.

"Y'know. If you really trace everything back, I mean if you really think about it, what you did was really the—""Please." Edgar ahems.

"Please do not try and make me feel good about it. There is only so virtuous virtue can be and stay on the right side of idiocy." Caspar grins.

"I know. Just yanking your chain."

"Perhaps," Tilliam says.

"Perhaps after we've taken the key, and things are better, we could… not start over. But start somewhere." Rebecca gives him a sad smile.

"I don't know, Paul. I really don't. If it was down to this moment, I'd tell you: not a chance, not in a million years. But if you manage it, we do have forever. So who knows?" Paul tries to hide the spark of hope that kicked off.

"All right. Well. I best be getting on. Saving the world has to improve my chances, right?" Rebecca titters.

"Didn't say that. Can't hold me to it."

"I just don't get why you want to learn to shoot so bad, kid," Jordan says.

"You got acid. You've got the best acid out of all of us. You're a little assassin with that stuff."

"That's not the point," Peat Moss says.

"I don't think I wanna be a deer monster. I wanna be a person. And all the people I know use guns."

"That, uh." Jordan pinches the bridge of her nose.

"That's a uniquely troubling thing to hear a kid say." Peat Moss blinks.

"Sorry."

"Not your fault, Peaty." Jordan crouches to his level.

"Look, you're already way more of a person than I was at your age. Even in deer years. And you've had a tough go, your first couple weeks. You get through, me and Caspar will teach you how a life is actually supposed to be."

"How's that?"

"More pastries," she says.

"Fewer gunfights."

"Oh." Peat Moss tilts his head up and gives her scratches access to his chin.

"That sounds nice."

"It's time, Mr. Moss." Adaire waits where the light ends, in the lengthening dark at the celebration's edge. She's already collected Caspar and Tilliam. Jordan pats Peat's head and slaps Caspar's back and gives Paul an enjoyably (for her) mean stare. She walks with the warlocks to where the sisters await.

"Feels weird to be on this side of it," she murmurs to me, as Peat and Adaire are awakened from the dream and disappear from the evening.

"You'll behave." Bina towers over Paul Tilliam, her arms folded.

"Of course, ma'am."

"And if you need to, you'll get shot and killed."

"Yes."

"Maybe jump in front of Caspar," she says.

"He's the most valuable player. Absorb some bullets for him."

"Surely the armor would do that, ma'am?"

"Look, mister. You're the one who wants redemption. I'm just making suggestions."

"I shouldn't be crying. I don't know why I'm crying." I scoff at myself.

"I'm being so ridiculous. We've done this so many times now."

"So many times," Caspar agrees.

"But this is the last. No more goodbyes."

"No more goodbyes." One way or the other. He winks at me.

"Be right back, baby." I laugh through my tears. I kiss him and he's gone. ₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪₪ His Sacredness Armos Pastornos CDXXXI is having another one of those itchy days. Itchy on the inverse of the skull, which is tricky when you think it's on the outside and spend half an hour scratching your scalp. He blames the cold. It gets colder earlier every year. He's sure of it. Damn cold in the throne room, that's for certain. Drafty old basilica.

They budget too much for gargoyles and cherubs and not enough for proper insulation. That's the Temple for you, though. In all its spleen and bravado to leave the flesh behind. All well and good when you're young. But he supposes the young take up their own yoke on the wagon. Take Arthur and Octavian here. Two good doughty boys for sure. He's not sure why they're here. A reason, surely, but not one he recalls at the moment.

They ought to be enjoying one of the last nice days before the cold really starts in on Pastornos, and here they are in their great big suits. Glamorous things, for certain. They must get their picks of the ladies, if they could ever figure out how to get those shiny metal trousers off. Easy, now, Armos. Perennials 14: 21. The joys of the flesh are joys espousal.

"We're here early, yes?" he asks Cardinal Wyreth. He adjusts the chain around his neck. Heavy old thing, the Key. All scraping metal edges and bubbled-up glass. But ceremony is unsparing.

"Yes, your Sacredness. It's ten o'clock."

"And the liturgy is at ten thirty. So we're here early."

"As you say, your Sacredness."

"Good. Good." He leans into the Cardinal's atmosphere.

"Why are we here early?"

"Archbishop Tilliam, your Sacredness. He wishes to present a bishop in bellicus, to be made a full brother in cloth."

"Ah. Of course. Well, we ought to get started, then."

"We have, your Sacredness." Wyreth subtly points. Armos squints.

"Ah." He chuckles.

"So we have. Joyfully received, pilgrims. Kindly announce yourselves for an old fellow, hmm? The Father welcomes us gradually back into His kingdom, and for His own secret reasons, He was rather keen on a reunion with my eyesight."

"Paul Tilliam, your Sacredness." The fellow in black removes his cavalier hat and kneels.

"Archbishop of the Chamchek diocese. And my better half, Rebecca. We had the pleasure of attending your last Grand Covenant."

"Ahh, Paul. My boy. With the joke about the cactus." Tilliam smiles, he thinks. Faces are tough from all the way up on the throne.

"That's right, Sacredness."

"How are you?"

"I've been vexed, your Sacredness; I've had the kind of long night that lasts a few long nights. But I'm happy to tell you the light's back on me."

"And your wife—Rebecca, yes?" Even a memory as patchwork as his has room for Rebecca. Paul's wife smiles.

"Never better, your Sacredness. Never stronger. Oh—and Paul forgot Petey. Say hi, Petey." Petey barks. Armos Pastornos sits up a little and rests one varicose hand on his chest. His look of surprise melts into a smile.

"Well, hello there, brother Petey. Venturers 16: 17. My visage might be seen even unto the fundamental beasts of nature, by those whose hearts reflect Me in all things."

"Amen," his guests chorus.

"It gives me so much pleasure, your Sacredness, to introduce my friend here." Tilliam gestures.

"This is Bishop in bellicus Peter Darius. He's been instrumental in getting my feet back on the ground after my high-flying crisis." Armos munches over this. Crisis, crisis.

"Crisis?"

"The hostage-taking, your Sacredness. I was trapped on my airship."

"Ah. Ah, yes. I remember this now. I remember hearing about it. How frightful it must have been. And thank the Father you had a brother-in-the-light to help you through."

"Yessir. And we were hoping you might see to granting him his official peacetime commission." Armos's rheumy eyes settle on the Tilliams' bulky companion.

"You're a big fellow, eh?"

"The Father saw fit to bless me with a martial frame, Sacredness. To serve best where I was put."

"And what's your name, my martial friend? Remind me?"

"Bishop Peter, Sacredness. Peter Darius."

"Peter. A sturdy name. And so similar to the Tilliams' furry friend." Armos Pastornos CDXXXI chuckles. The bishop joins him.

"Yes, Sacredness. They've given me some good-natured ribbing about it on our way around."

"Tell me, Bishop Peter, what worthy crusade granted you such a solemn commission."

"The Tabarkan, your Sacredness."

"Uh—and which Tabarkan crusade, again?"

"The Third Tabarkan crusade, your Sacredness. The second was before my birth."

"Ahh, of course. Of course. Before mine, almost." He tuts at himself.

"Forgive an old man his little slips. As the years gather round you, their faces have a way of melding, like the brothers and sisters you meet along the way. You see the same ones again, sometimes. In the spirit if not the flesh." Armos Pastornos leans forward, tightening his grip on the silver bulb of his cane.

"Let's have a look at you, then, Bishop Peter. Come a little closer." Caspar stands. He takes one final encompassing glance around the throne room. He looks back at the half-dozen templar guards. He looks forward at the two hulking dominions flanking their frail leader. He wishes he weren't so scared. He wishes the windows were larger. He wishes they showed more of the sky he's leaving behind. Adaire's focus is steely behind her plastic smile. Tilliam's forehead shines with sweat. Peat Moss licks his chops.

In Heaven, our prime forms assemble before the Kingdom gate. Its seven hundred and seventy-seven spokes extend miles into the filthy sky. Its grand lock has seven hundred and seventy-seven chains that span its horizon like a great rusted spider's web. A decade, at least, since I've laid eyes on the gate. And then I had nothing but ambition. Now I have my sisters and I have Caspar, and I have hope. Bina hasn't blinked in minutes. Ganea stands silent as a pylon. Salome's pacing.

Even Saoirse is paying attention, despite the grasshopper climbing across her nosebone. Jordan leans forward by my side.

"Come on, Cas. For all the marbles, motherfucker." Caspar is halfway to the dais when he leaps. Adaire, Peat Moss, even poor Tilliam. They're all up as well. But my husband is close. Blessedly close. Close enough that it counts. His hand opens and snaps toward the key to the Kingdom in its place around the Suzerain's neck. His palm slams into black chitin. Armor is spreading across the Suzerain's chest. His yellowing smile widens as he stands. His cane is abandoned.

His skeletal hands are as firm as steel where they seize Caspar's arm. His mind changes. Expands like a jet-black airbag. I'm pushed from his skull. A block over him, suddenly. The block a sister can put over a warlock.

"Welcome to the end, Caspar Cartwright," His Sacredness Armos Pastornos CDXXXI says. No. No, no, no. The chains snap. The spokes scream. The gate to the Kingdom opens. The world beyond it is full of teeth and hunger. Eight says: Sisters.