The Digger's Rest

by K. Patrick Malone

  “The noble family of Revelstoke was one of many who were either forced or volunteered to marry their sons to French noble women in order to please the new King, William the Conqueror, court favor with him and keep their holdings.

  “In this case, it was the young Lord Eadwyn Revelstoke who was set to marry a young Breton Princess, Alais. However, while they were away arranging for the marriage, something astonishing happened. Their castle Revelstoke had been the subject of another invasion, but of a very different nature, for when they returned they found their castle had been laid to ruin by a monster. What we would call today, a dragon.”

  A hush fell over the room, disbelief etching itself on the faces of everyone in the audience. Simon waited a moment then began again.

  “I know. I wouldn’t have believed it either, but it gets even more unbelievable. This dragon, most likely choosing Revelstoke for its remoteness and close access to the sea, was not just any dragon. It was a female needing to nest, to bear the offspring it carried from some far-off region. The testing on the remains you are about to see produced results like none other known to the current state of science as verified by The Museum of Natural History. The best the DNA could tell us was that it was most similar to a desert lizard common to the area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the country currently know as Iraq and even at that, one that they believe should have been extinct for thousands of years.”

  “As the story goes on, finding their castle in ruins and their people dead, used for food by the invader and believing it to be a devil or demon as their tradition would have told them, Lord Revelstoke enlisted the aid of the Catholic hierarchy of the area, who then joined forces with the still thriving indigenous Druid culture to storm the castle and slay the dragon. What they didn’t know at the time was that the creature was a gestating female in a weakened state by her labor, so when they burst in on her lair, they were faced with a sight that would haunt them to their graves, the mother dragon holding her newborn offspring, and they slew them both.” Simon stopped for a moment to take a breath, a drink of water, and to let the audience absorb what he’d just said.

  “Another fact they didn’t know was that in their absence, a cult arose around the castle, one which also believed that the creature was either the devil or some demon sent by him, and worshipped it. Once discovered, those cultists were also slain and burned by the local clerics of both religions, but not before they gave the creature and her child what they believed to be a proper burial.

  “The ‘gravestone’ you will also see here tonight, is one of the finest examples of mosaic work to survive the period, rivaling the artistry of the Roman Empire. Also on display is a collection of jewelry believed to be the heirlooms of the lady of the castle, also no less than a thousand years old, along with various other relics and artifacts that give us a unique look into the lives of the period, generally, and of those involved in the fantastic events of this castle in particular. To this end, Dr. Edgeworth, our dedicated and talented staff and I have taken great pains to reproduce for you here tonight the environment I have just described, using the authentic artifacts found in and around the site. I now give you, The Devon Dragon,” Simon finished, giving another sign with his hand.

  The long blue velvet curtain behind the platform rose to reveal a replica of the castle towers as they found them. The platform was then pulled away to the side and the entry way though the towers opened up for the audience to walk through.

  As each passer-by followed the arrowed signs around the velvet rope, they saw, first, a knight in armor, kneeling before the bejeweled sword they found. The next scene was of a noble woman, the Lady of the Manor, sitting at her dressing table; a grand display of jewels before her, appearing to choose from them what she would wear.

  The next tableau was of the young Lord Eadwyn, his page Peter dressing him in chain mail and armor, as if sending him into battle. The final scene was of a bed chamber with a maiden princess lying peacefully asleep, a large box of gold trinkets and items opened at the foot of the bed, her dowry.

  In the center area of the reproduced castle another blue velvet curtain was hung and when everyone had had a chance to view the scenes, they waited around it expectantly. When Jack was sure he had everyone’s attention, he spoke. “Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dr. Mitchell Bramson, Dr. Simon Holly and I present to you, The Devon Dragon,” and Simon pulled the cord, raising the curtain to reveal the large hermetically sealed clear glass case which held the skeletal remains of…the creature and her child, her jaw set open from her last cry of anguish before death, her long clawed hands wrapped around the child as a human might do, her wings retracted.

  The room went riot, camera flashes exploding, news cameras zooming in, chaotic applause, gasps, and shouts, some men grabbing their wives as they fainted at the sight if it, taking them back out into the larger room. Possibly even more frightening and disturbing than the creature itself was the mosaic tablet propped up behind it, the face and torso of the creature as it had been in life, entwined with the wolf and the serpent with the word below the image, Genetrix, translated below for the public, ‘Mother’, and rising behind it, the ancient granite Celtic cross that had guarded those remains from being disturbed.

  Chapter XXIV

  THE HUMAN TOUCH

  And if you're listening God, please, Don't make it

  hard

  To know if we should believe the things that we see

  Tell us, should we try to stay,

  Should we run away, or would it be better just to let

  things be?

  Living here in this brand new world

  Might be a fantasy,

  But its taught me to love

  So its real, real, real to me

  And I've learned

  That we must look inside our hearts

  To find

  A world full of love

  Like yours, Like mine

  Like Home

  Home

  ………...As performed by the Original Broadway

  Cast of The Wiz

  After the crowd had calmed down to a dull roar, Jack and Simon slipped away to the side of the room. “I really should go now, Dr. Edgeworth. It’s getting late and…Do you mind?” Simon asked, shuffling nervously. Jack took Simon gently by the arm, deeper into a corner farthest from the crowd. His eyes were pensive, penetrating, as he looked into Simon’s.

  “You think you can do it?” he asked under his breath.

  “Yes, I think I can,” Simon said nodding.

  “Anything you need, just tell me and you’ll have it. Anything at all,” Jack said staring into him. “You understand?” Jack asked, pulling up his shirt sleeve to show Simon the scar on his wrist.

  Simon nodded again, pulling up his own sleeve and showing his scar to Jack. “I understand.”

  Jack took Simon in his arms and hugged him tightly, “You’re a good boy, Simon. I’m so proud of you,” then went back to Alida who was waiting for him at the edge of the crowd. He still had so much PR to do to make it all work.

  ***

  Simon opened the door to his apartment at the Dakota, took off his jacket and messed up his hair, walking over to the figure with the long hair in the wheelchair sitting in front of the television set. He put his hand on his shoulder. “Whadja think?” he asked.

  A voice came from the figure; grinding, almost garbled. “I am so…very…proud of you,” he said. “You’ve become…everything I’ve always…wanted for you,” the voice said, his head dropping down, crying. “You’re so brilliant. You should have…just let me…die. Made a home…for yourself…lived your own life.”

  Simon walked around the chair and got down on one knee. He wiped the tears from the man’s face, but was unable to hold back his own. Simon raised the man’s head with his hand, looking into those green, catlike eyes, the eye socket and cheek bone on the right side crushed and scarred, his jaw disfigured and hanging slack, making it difficult
for him to speak.

  “But you are my home. There’ll never be any other for me,” Simon said and took him in his arms, sobbing. “I’ll make it better. I’ll fix everything. I promise. I took care of the pain, didn’t I?” he said looking back at him and waving his hand in front of his face. “Sleep.”

  ***

  Simon pushed the wheelchair over to the bed and maneuvered Mitch onto it, laying him out in a straight line, then went into the bathroom. He slowly took off his shirt, turning his back to face the mirror so he could look back over his shoulder. A blaze of color ran across his back, boughs of holly on one side trailing down the back of his arm, thick swirls of ivy vines on the other side, trailing down the back of his other arm, the figure of an ancient Celtic cross, gray granite, coming up the center of his back, stopping only at the base of his hairline.

  He went over to a small wooden box bound with wrought-iron straps, opened it and took out two small back roots, putting them in a wooden bowl beside the box and taking them both with him back into the bedroom.

  He turned on the light and set the bowl on the bedside table, the small knife he always carried in his pocket appeared in his hand. He sliced the two roots in half, making four pieces, then held out his wrist over the bowl and cut. The roots soaked, he took the bowl and sat down on the side of the bed, placing each of the four halves alongside Mitch’s jaw line. Confident that they were properly placed, he moved toward the foot of the bed and stood shirtless, raising his arms to the sky; chanting in the language the old man had taught him.

  The bed began to tremble slightly and the air seemed to take on the feel of whirling particle movement around the bed. When he was finished, he went back around to the side of the bed and took Mitch’s right hand in his, waving his left over his face. “Heal,” he said commandingly, and covered Mitch’s face with a light damp cloth.

  Drained and exhausted, he took his pillow and blanket from the foot of the bed and lay down on the floor next to it, concentrating on the healing he wanted to be done. Out of the back of his mind music came to his ears, putting words to his thoughts; a song he heard on the cab radio riding back from the museum earlier. He drifted off. “If I lay here. If I just lay here. Would you lay with me and forget about the world?…”

  ***

  That night Jack Edgeworth was twenty-three again. His hair was long and he had a beard; dressed in his old digging clothes. He was sitting at a table at the Village Vanguard, close to the stage.

  The room was crowded and smoky. He could smell the pot smoke wafting past him from the back of the room. He looked toward the smell and found a young man with long red hair was passing him a joint. He took it and hit it, then passed it to a black girl with a big Afro wearing a Dashiki and big dangly earrings at the table next to him.

  When he looked back up toward the stage, she was there on her stool with her long hair, hippy clothes and guitar, her feline green eyes sparkling and young again, like he was.

  The lights went down. He was mesmerized. She looked at him smiling, directly at him, and winked, then started to sing and play, “Through my child’s eyes.” The crowd went wild.

  He stood up, not being able to take his eyes off her, clapping and whistling. “He’s our boy,” Jack said to her under his breath. She nodded to him as if she’d heard what he’d said, happy again. “Yes, he is our boy,” he heard her whisper behind his ear.

  ***

  The next morning Simon got up, washed his face and put on a shirt before going back to the bed; newspaper, a damp wash cloth and a mirror in his hand. He took the root halves off Mitch’s face and gently washed away what was left of the dried blood.

  The scars along his jaw were gone and his bones had healed, looking the same as the day they had first met. Simon smiled to himself with a great heaving sigh of relief, satisfied now, that he could do it all. It might take some time, but yes, he could do it all.

  He waved his hand in front of Mitch’s face. “Awake.”

  Mitch opened his eyes to see Simon sitting there on the edge of his bed. Simon held up the mirror. “Look!” he said proudly, like a child who’d just brought home his first A. Mitch closed his eyes and turned his head away, afraid to see what had become of him.

  “Really, it’s okay. Please, look,” Simon said insistently, holding the mirror closer.

  Mitch looked, astonishment washing over his face like a ripple trailing through a still pond at what he saw there in the mirror.

  Simon helped him up into his chair again and pushed it back in front of the television, the mirror in his lap, and went into the kitchen to make their breakfast. When he came back with the breakfast tray, he was already dressed for work. Simon put the tray on the arms of the chair, whispering in his ear. “I told you I would take care of it.” Mitch looked up at him, his eyes shining again, like they used to. He reached for Simon’s hand with his crippled one, motioning with his head for Simon to come closer, then whispered in his ear. “You are the best of anything I could have ever done with my life,” he said in perfect but quavering voice.

  Simon kissed him on the forehead and stood up, taller and straighter than he ever in his life believed he could. “I have to go to work now, and I’d like to bring Jack back with me tonight for dinner. He misses you so much,” he said walking towards the door; the old roots wrapped in newspaper for the incinerator.

  Mitch nodded, smiling as he looked in the mirror again.

  “And I’m going to book us for a trip to China next summer on my lunch break, you, me and Jack. I’ve always wanted to see the Qin terra cotta soldiers and horses at Xian.”

  “Take your umbrella, Simon. It’s raining out and I don’t want you to catch a cold,” Mitch said lovingly, looking back at him through his reflection in the mirror, smiling.

  Putting up his umbrella, Simon started down the street away from the building then stopped, turning to look back up at the window where he knew Mitch sat. Another song came into his head, from a film with Sidney Poitier he saw late one night in the common room of Holy Family after Mitch had first come and he was feeling particularly hopeless and couldn’t sleep. Simon began to hum, then sing, “…a friend who taught me right from wrong, and weak from strong, that's a lot to learn. What, what can I give you in return? If you wanted the moon I would try to make a start, but I would rather you let me give my heart to Sir, with love.

  “Those awkward years have hurried by, why did they fly, fly away? Why is it, Sir, children grow up to be people one day? What takes the place of climbing trees, and dirty knees, in the world outside? What, what is there that I can buy? If you wanted the world, I'd surround it with a wall, I'd scrawl these words with letters ten feet tall…to Sir, with love.”

  Chapter XXV

  Le Petit Fils de France

  Little Son of France

  (December 24, 2006)

  Two A.M. and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake, "Can you help me unravel my latest mistake? I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season."

  Breathe (2 AM.),

  ………As performed by Anna Nalick

  “Push, push!” the big bosomed midwife urged authoritatively. “You must push, girl and breathe!” Soaked in sweat, her long red hair matted to her forehead, Ivy Farthing pushed, crying out in pain like she could have never imaged; a fireball pushing its way out of her, tearing her guts out along the way.

  “We’re almost there. I can see it now. Just keep pushing,” Sandrine said, taking Ivy’s hand and squeezing it tightly.

  “Just get it out of me,” Ivy screamed, clamping her teeth, grinding them together with the one last push she had in her after eight hours of excruciating pain. The midwife and Sandrine changed positions. The midwife put her hands under the sheet tent over Ivy’s knees, reaching in.

  “I’ve got it,” the midwife said, looking at Sandrine and smiling, then to Ivy. “One more big push, lassie and we’re done.” Ivy screamed, pushing as hard as she could and felt it come out of her, sighing with relief to know she was empty a
gain.

  There was the sharp sound of a slap and the wail of a newborn child. Ivy’s heaving breath slowly started coming back to normal as the midwife took the baby over to the sideboard to clean it up and make sure everything was in order. Sandrine stayed by Ivy’s side, wiping her head with a cool damp cloth.

  When the midwife came back to the bed, she had a tiny, blanket wrapped bundle in her arms. “What is it?” Ivy asked, coolly.

  “Oh, ’e’s a beautiful little boy,” the midwife said in her village’s accent, beaming proudly. “With lots and lots of bright red hair.” Ivy groaned in disgust, turning her head away. “Take it away. I don’t want to see it,” she said ruefully.

  “But Ivy, he’s your son,” Sandrine said, shocked at what seemed to be happening.

  “I don’t want it! I don’t want it! Just take it away,” Ivy screamed, crying and turning to bury her head in the pillow. “I don’t want it.” Sandrine looked at the midwife who just shrugged, nodding with her head for Sandrine to come outside as she left the room shaking her head, taking the baby with her. Sandrine followed, bursting into tears as soon as the door was shut behind her.

  “I knew this would happen. Ivy was never meant to be a mother,” Malcolm said, pacing nervously over in the corner of the hallway. He couldn’t help but hear her screaming through the thin walls.

  “It’s not fair. It’s just not fair. His father’s dead and his mother hates him. What’ll happen to him now?” Sandrine cried. “The poor little thing has no home. What is wrong with her? And he’s so beautiful. Who will love him?” she cried, putting her head on the midwife’s shoulder.

  “I will,” Deck said from the corner of the hall.

  “I will, too,” Malcolm said, his hair grown longer to cover the scar, and put his arm around his brother.