At the Seams

Chapter 29: The Castle

Chapter 29: The Castle

Mary stops a few feet from the figure, which, as if sensing her approach, ceases pacing and stands still, showing Mary a cloaked back. Mary says nothing, but slowly reaches to touch one of the shrouded shoulders. Just before she makes contact, a familiar voice—deep and gravely, like a blues singer who can’t part with his cigarettes, and wavering distinctly, as if coming to her through a poor telephone connection—issues from the figure beneath the hood. The voice, actually originating from flesh for the first time, possesses a richness Mary does not remember. “You made it,” the voice says.

“Jay died,” Mary replies, no inflection in her voice.

“He was true to his nature, and thus served his important purpose.”

“His death hurts.”

“It should hurt. Here, the hole Jay left in your reality is more than conceptual—it is metaphysical. Your imagination aches in trying to eject Jay from the body of its understanding. Will you let that pain render his death meaningless?”

“Never,” Mary says, her voice finally showing feeling—determination. The cloaked figure nods. Mary finds the sudden humanity Karn depicts disconcerting. She struggles to identify with it, now; she had grown comfortable with the nothing it once was. “You have taken a full form, after all this time, and now you hide.” Mary’s words are not exactly a question, but demand an answer nonetheless.

Karn’s shoulders shake slightly, and Mary realizes she is seeing the laughter that boiled behind Karn’s every utterance since they met. It speaks, still hiding its face. “Would you like to see my face, Mary?”

That tormenting tone has been absent from Karn’s voice for some time, and Mary finds it curious now, but she nods. Hands Mary recognizes appear from the folds of the cloak and lift to the hood. Karn pulls the disguise slowly from its face, revealing, inch by inch, a baffling, terrifying visage.

Staring at Karn’s face in complete shock, Mary falls back a step. Karn smiles. At least that hasn’t changed—still swollen lips and yellow, rotten teeth. But now it has cocoa-colored eyes that dance gleefully to accompany the merry grin. Its face is comely and caramel colored. Full, wavy locks of auburn hair tumble to its sloping shoulders. Its chin is soft, slightly recessive, but just shapely enough to be cute. Its nose is a tiny bubble, its cheekbones regal and flushed, with a light smattering of freckles. Mary’s jaw works as she tries unsuccessfully to speak.

Karn grins wider and speaks for her. “Almost like looking in a mirror, right?”

Mary finally finds her voice hiding beneath her bewilderment. “Why do you have my face?”

“It’s mine, too, Mary.”

Mary stares and says nothing.

Still smiling, Karn continues. “Why should I not have your face? You gave me my name, my voice, why not the face?”

Mary cannot pull her eyes from Karn’s mouth, which looks alien amidst Mary’s other soft features. “But the mouth, the form you’ve carried all this time, it’s yours?”

“No, nope, that’s yours, too. You invented it in the midst of temporary madness, I’m afraid, when you first discovered your physical handicap. But it’s still yours.”

“So, I created everything about you?”

Karn laughs. The wavering warble of glee sounds stranger for the face from which it issues. “Where I come from—and possibly where you’re going—names, bodies, voices, none of it has any use. None of it exists. Only thought and one’s nature exists. I have your face for an important reason. Do you know what it is?”

“No,” Mary says slowly. “But you can have my face.”

Karn’s expression changes, from fun-loving to intensely curious. “Why do you give me your face?”

“I am not my face, but I am anchored to it.” She stares at her feet, lost in deep contemplation. Finally she smiles and looks up. She shrugs. “Without it, I disappear. I am not.”

Karn’s grin consumes its assumed face. “You’re ready for the Castle,” it says, and the massive door lumbers open, rolling sideways into the stone of the walls. Mary strides calmly toward the dark mouth into the unknown. Karn speaks from behind her. “For what do you seek?”

Mary doesn’t stop, doesn’t turn. “For a pink door. I’ll know it when I find it.” The shadows of the castle swallow her.