Stitch Head

by Guy Bass

  What do you hide?

  Monsters! Creatures!

  Mad things inside!

  “I have to go!” cried Stitch Head. He grabbed a blanket off his bed and his potion bag and raced out of the dungeon and up the stairs.

  “GREAT!” cried the Creature. “Where are we going now? I love going places!”

  “No! I mean . . . you have to stay here! You can’t be seen. None of you can. You have to stay here,” said Stitch Head, looking back.

  “But . . . but . . .” began the Creature. But before it could add another three buts, Stitch Head had disappeared.

  “Faster,” muttered Stitch Head, as he raced through the courtyard toward the Great Door on his tiny second-hand legs. Not that he had any idea what he was going to do when he got there. How could he repel an angry human mob all by himself? Or what if someone had simply chanced upon the castle by accident? He’d need to get rid of them before they started to wonder what was inside. Either way, he had to answer the door.

  By the time he reached the Great Door, the knocking was louder than ever, but it was still just knocking. Would an angry mob knock? Stitch Head wondered. Wouldn’t they try to knock the door down or climb the walls?

  He pushed a wooden crate up to the door and clambered on to it. Then he wrapped the blanket around his head to disguise his strangeness, took a deep, uneasy breath — and slid open the viewing hatch.

  “Who — who’s there?” he whimpered, careful to stay hidden in the shadows. A large pair of eyes peered back at him. Human eyes. Stitch Head gasped. It had been so long since he’d looked into a human being’s eyes (while they still belonged to an actual human being), he had forgotten how alive they looked.

  “What an unearthly pleasure it is to make your acquaintance, good sir!” said the human. As he peered through the hatch, Stitch Head could make out a fat, shabby-looking fellow in a top hat. “Allow me to introduce myself. Fulbert Freakfinder, very much at your service. You may have heard of my Travelin’ Carnival of Unnatural Wonders. Never has a more terrifyin’ sight been seen by the eyes of man!”

  This doesn’t sound like the beginning of an attack, thought Stitch Head. Why is he here? What does he want?

  “We’ve been travelin’ the world, my comrades and I,” continued Freakfinder, “makin’ our honest fortune in the only way we know how . . . by scarin’ folks witless.”

  “No visitors,” whispered Stitch Head, hoping not to enrage the human.

  “Aha! Mother taught you not to talk to strangers — I admire that! But you’ve got nothing to fear from old Fulbert,” replied Freakfinder. “Now let me start by sayin’ that I know people can be so very cruel. Why, there’s even folks down in Chuggers Nubbin says there’s some nutty professor makin’ monsters in this ’ere castle. Is that so? Is there a professor in here who can make monsters?”

  “My master . . .” whispered Stitch Head. “I mean, no! There’s no professor, no monsters, no creatures!”

  “Ha! Don’t worry! Your master’s secret is safe with me, lad,” chuckled Freakfinder. “Anyway, I say one person’s monster is another’s poor, misunderstood creature, cursed by cruel fate to look just that little bit different. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “No visitors,” repeated Stitch Head. By now, he was pretty sure the human wasn’t there to lay waste to the castle, but he still had to get rid of him, for the professor’s sake. He was about to close the hatch, when:

  “I ain’t here to cause bother for you or your master,” Freakfinder assured him. “Fact is, I’m here on business. Freakfinder’s Carnival needs a shot in the arm — and word has it there are things inside these walls that’d scare a fellow out of his trousers. Well, let me tell you — that’s music to my ears. Perhaps you could open this big door, and we could have a chat about enterprisin’ opportunities.”

  “Open the . . . No, I can’t,” whispered Stitch Head, shaking his head.

  The blanket slipped a little, giving Freakfinder a glimpse of his stitches. “Lugs and mumbles! What a face!” he cried.

  “Go away,” Stitch Head whispered, pulling the blanket tightly around his head.

  “My most sincere apologies, my boy,” Freakfinder said. “Please don’t for even a moment think that I’m recoilin’ in horror. No, no — in fact, I couldn’t be more impressed. Your master must be a very clever fellow, to make someone as extraordinary as you! I think you could be exactly what I’m after — a better class of freak! Why, you could drag Fulbert Freakfinder’s Carnival of Unnatural Wonders out of the pigsty and into the limelight. My boy, I think you could be a star.” He pushed a single sheet of paper through the open hatch. “Here, take a look at this — it should tell you everything you need to know.”

  “No visitors!” said Stitch Head again, as firmly as he’d ever said anything. He grabbed the piece of paper and slammed the hatch shut.

  “Wait! How about that chat? Eh? What about the enterprisin’ opportunities?” cried Freakfinder. He shivered in the cold night air. “Tell you what — I’ll be back, same time tomorrow, and we can talk more! You have a look at that poster in the meantime, okay?”

  There was no answer.

  “Any luck, boss?” asked Doctor Contortion, climbing down from Freakfinder’s carriage.

  “Hard to tell, Maurice. Hard to tell,” replied Freakfinder as the performers gathered around. “But one thing’s for certain sure — that girl in the town was right. There’s things in this castle . . . not-human things. And do you know what that means?”

  “You’re going to start being nicer to kids?” asked Madame Moustache.

  “No, you halfwit.” Freakfinder stroked his moustache with chubby, grubby fingers. “It means I’m going to be rich!”

  Stitch Head took his time getting back to the dungeon. His sewn-together head was spinning. He had often feared the day that visitors would come to Grotteskew, but he rather assumed there would be more torches and pitchforks and angry mobs screaming, “Burn the monsters!” — not a seemingly friendly fellow in a top hat.

  The professor had once told him that the humans were scared of the castle, for they were scared of the unknown. Stitch Head assumed that as long as that fear never turned into anger, the humans would stay away. But this human didn’t seem scared or angry.

  In fact, he seemed . . . nice.

  As he strolled down the winding stairs to the dungeon, Stitch Head stared at the poster in his tiny hands.

  “Fulbert Freakfinder’s Carnival of Unnatural Wonders . . . unfathomable oddities . . . malformed monsters . . . behold the forgotten freaks.”

  Stitch Head looked at the blurry pictures of the so-called “forgotten freaks” and ran his fingers along one of his stitches. He had never for a second considered that there were creatures like him in the world beyond Grotteskew. What was this “carnival”? Were these “monsters” out in the open, for everyone to see? Did they have a purpose after their creation?

  As he made his way down the last few steps to the dungeon, Stitch Head noticed a strange glow coming from within.

  “What’s that?” he muttered, stuffing the poster in his pocket and hurrying inside.

  “Oh! Oh, no . . . what did you do?” Stitch Head whimpered, surveying the dungeon in horror.

  “SURPRISE!” giggled the Creature.

  The dungeon was filled to bursting with candles — hundreds of them, of all shapes and sizes!

  The whole dungeon seemed to gleam with white light, as if every single shadow had been banished for misbehaving.

  “I tripped over a whole CRATE of candles when I was trying to get to the pantry,” said the Creature as it licked several of its fingers. “You don’t have to be in the dark any more! Isn’t it the BESTEST thing you’ve even seen?”

  “What? But no, it’s too bright . . . too clean . . . too much!” replied Stitch Head, blowing out candles as fast as he could.

&n
bsp; “But now you can see what you’re doing!” said the Creature. “It’s a total PARTY pad! All of the other creations will be knocking down the door to come here! No more HIDING!”

  “But — but I don’t want to be noticed! I don’t want to be seen!” began Stitch Head. “I just . . . I just want to be left alone.”

  “Look, I know you’re a bit hideous and everything,” noted the Creature sympathetically. “But you’re NOTHING like as hideous as the OTHER hideous creatures in the castle. You REALLY don’t need to hide down here.”

  “I’m sorry — I don’t mean to . . .” began Stitch Head. “But you wouldn’t understand. I don’t . . . I don’t want any friends. Except . . .”

  “Except ME?” bellowed the Creature. “Well, obviously we’re BESTEST friends, but there’s no limit on numbers!”

  Stitch Head looked down at his feet — one slightly bigger than the other.

  “No, except . . . my master. The professor,” said Stitch Head finally. “He . . . forgot me.”

  “The professor?” repeated the Creature. “But he forgets EVERYONE, doesn’t he? I mean, this castle’s FULL of his forgotten creations. You can’t take it PERSONALLY.”

  “But it’s different!” blurted Stitch Head.

  He rubbed his mismatched eyes and looked up at the Creature. “Sorry . . . it doesn’t matter. It’s sort of a long story, anyway . . .”

  “GREAT! I love stories!” said the Creature. “At least, I THINK I do. Hang on, let me get comfy!” The Creature grabbed a large crate to sit on.

  “Uh, I’d really rather not, if you don’t —” began Stitch Head.

  “READY!” boomed the Creature, flattening the crate with its monstrous bottom.

  Stitch Head took a deep breath. He had never told his story to anyone. The thought of it made him feel a little more almost-alive.

  “Well . . . I suppose it started with my first memory,” he began. “I remember . . . waking up. The light hurt my eyes. After a moment, I saw a face smiling back at me. The professor was just a boy then. He told me that he was my master . . . that he’d made me. Put me together with leftovers from his father’s experiments. An arm here, a leg there, an ear, an eye . . . ‘Time to wake up,’ he said. ‘Wake up, Stitch Head.’ He called me Stitch Head.”

  Stitch Head felt a tear well up in his bright blue eye as the memories flooded back.

  “We did everything together. My master liked to make things, and I would help him with his experiments. We’d play from dawn until dusk, making whatever my master could imagine — a spider with wings, a sparrow with eight legs. The hours and days and weeks passed by in a blur, and we were inseparable. We made a promise — to be friends forever, no matter what. But then . . .”

  “But then what?” asked the Creature.

  “Then . . . the master’s father decided he was ready for his son to take over the family business and become the next mad professor of Castle Grotteskew,” continued Stitch Head. “One day, he burst into the room and said that the time for childish things was over. It was time to grow up. He banished my master from his room and shut the door . . . but I was still inside. Then I heard the key turning in the lock . . .”

  “He locked you in? Suddenly, this doesn’t sound like a very HAPPY story,” whimpered the Creature nervously.

  “I sat there, in front of the door, waiting for my master to come back for me. I knew he would — of course he would. We were best friends, after all,” continued Stitch Head. “So I waited. I waited all day . . . and then all night. Dawn came and I kept waiting. I didn’t even move. I just waited. Another day passed, and then another, and I — I remember thinking, Three whole days and he hasn’t come for me. But I knew he’d come. The days turned into a week . . . and the week into a month. Soon, the weather outside grew cold. I started to forget what day it was. Long months passed. Occasionally I heard laughter, screams, roars, but still he didn’t come for me. The months became years. Years and years and years. I lost count. And still I waited.”

  “But — but you’re here! You made it out, right? Oh, tell me you made it OUT!” cried the Creature, tears stinging its eye.

  “One day,” replied Stitch Head, “I was waiting when I heard an almighty roar. Suddenly, the door was smashed to pieces! A huge, hairy monster with a dog’s head and three wooden legs burst into the room. It didn’t even notice me — just kept on rampaging through the next wall. Later, I found out it was the first of the professor’s truly ‘mad’ monsters. My master had started using dangerous ingredients to make his creations even more almost-alive.”

  Stitch Head looked up, his right eye gleaming in the candlelight.

  “For a while I just stared at the hole in the door. Then I wiped the dust from my eyes and pulled the cobwebs off my arms and legs. Finally, I got up . . . and I walked through the doorway. I was free.”

  “YAY!” cried the Creature. “I was SO worried this was going to be a SAD story.”

  “I went looking for my master, but it was too late,” said Stitch Head. “Forty years had passed. My master had become a fully grown mad professor. He had brought almost-life to a hundred amazing creations, all roaming around the castle . . . and I was long since forgotten. All he cared about now was his next experiment. From that moment, I hid in the shadows, only coming out to stop my master’s new creations from destroying the castle — or worse.”

  “This is the SADDEST story I have ever heard!” bawled the Creature. “You’ve GOT to let the professor know you’re FREE!”

  “No! No, I can’t,” said Stitch Head. “This is my almost-life now, here in the dungeon. Well, except for all of the candles.”

  “But you stop this castle from falling APART! You made these MAD monsters into FRIENDLY freaks! Plus, you stopped me from eating that WHOLE town. The professor couldn’t cope without you.”

  Stitch Head sighed and shook his head. “The professor wouldn’t remember me even if I was dangling in front of him.”

  “But how do you know unless you try? Come on, let’s go and see the professor together. We can DINGLE DANGLE you right in front of his nose! He’ll DEFINITELY remember you! And I’ll hold your hand through the whole thing. I have three — take your pick!” offered the Creature.

  “No, I can’t . . . I can’t!” cried Stitch Head. Memories of the years he spent waiting for his master to set him free came flooding back. He was forgotten, insignificant — and nothing was going to change that. As his mismatched eyes filled with tears, he began ushering the Creature out of the dungeon. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to see the professor! I don’t want to see anyone!”

  “But I want to HELP you, like you helped me! We’re BESTEST friends!”

  “We’re — we’re not friends! I don’t have any friends! And I don’t want your help! I just want to be left alone! Please, just — just go!” cried Stitch Head, and before the Creature could bellow another word, he slammed the dungeon door in its face.

  Stitch Head sat in the middle of the candle-lit room and pulled out Freakfinder’s poster from his pocket. Then he stared at it until every candle in the room had burned itself out.

  Lo! Yon Castle Grotteskew!

  (I wouldn’t go there if I were you.)

  It wasn’t long before almost-life at Grotteskew Castle settled back into a more familiar pattern. Mad Professor Erasmus was toiling on his latest creation, while the Creature had, for the moment, disappeared into the deep shadows of the castle. Perhaps it was busy bothering the other creations, or looking for a name . . . either way, the trumpets were quiet. Stitch Head did feel bad about shouting at it, but he felt much better being alone — at least things were back to normal.

  Well, almost.

  True to his word, Fulbert Freakfinder visited the castle at the same time every evening, knocking on the Great Door until Stitch Head answered. Each time, he would regale Stitch Head with a tale of his exciting l
ife, traveling the world with his remarkable carnival and being welcomed with open arms (and horrified screams) at every new town. And, of course, he would politely request that Stitch Head open the Great Door. Each time, Stitch Head simply replied, “No visitors,” and closed the hatch. It was almost like a game — and Stitch Head actually started to look forward to the knock at the door. With each visit, he listened to Freakfinder a little longer, and became a little more curious about the possibility of a life beyond the walls of Castle Grotteskew.

  On the twenty-ninth night, however, the knock at the Great Door did not come as expected. As Stitch Head languished in the dungeon, he started to wonder if Fulbert Freakfinder had given up at last. To his surprise, he felt rather sad — and realized that for the first time in years, he no longer wanted to be left alone. He lay down on his bed and listened to the murmurs and rumbles of the trumpets. . . .

  “Hold it steady, you dog-brains!”

  Stitch Head sat bolt upright at the sound. It was a voice . . . and it was coming from outside the castle. He leaned into the trumpets. After a moment, he heard the voice again.

  “Lugs and mumbles, I said steady! Are you trying to kill me, you muck-headed morons?”

  “It’s him!” said Stitch Head excitedly. “It’s Fulbert Freakfinder! He came back!” He was so excited he thought he might pop a stitch.

  He raced to the dungeon door, flung it open and sped up the winding stairs, following the metal pipe higher and higher until he reached one of the castle’s vast towers. It wasn’t until Stitch Head had braved the cold night air and stepped on to the high ramparts that he heard Freakfinder’s voice once more.

  “You misfit dimwits! I’m wavin’ around like a snot-rag in a high wind here!”

  Stitch Head followed the sound to the edge of the parapet and peered over. There, in the bright blue moonlight, he could see the top of a ladder leaning against the wall. Or rather, twelve ladders, all tied together end to end, to create one incredibly long, ridiculously wobbly ladder.