Cross Stitch: Finale (complete)

I loved my father very much. For the longest time, it was just the two of us. I never knew my mother, and all my father said was that she had run away. It didn’t matter to me. As long as I had him, I was happy. I didn’t need a mom at all. He was everything.

There were times when I was told things about myself. My father would tell me I had nightmares and I would sleepwalk, which was why he locked my door for me at night. That way I wouldn’t get hurt. I just had to tell myself that anything I heard or saw at night was a nightmare. I believed him. Why would I believe anything else?

My nightmares often sounded like babies crying. I could hear them screaming all night. My heart would race and I would sit up in bed, terrified. I would tell myself over and over it was just the nightmares Dad warned me about. That’s all it was. I should lie down before I sleepwalked and did something.

But there came a night where I didn’t listen to myself. Instead, I got up out of bed because the crying was so loud and so terrifying. I just wanted my dad. I wanted to see him and hold him, to feel safe in his arms. I found the door unlocked, so I left. If it was a dream, it felt so real. I wandered down the hallway to my father’s bedroom, but he wasn’t there. The crying was coming from downstairs, and there was a light on.

I was told that the basement wasn’t safe for me. My dad made me promise I wouldn’t go down there, or I could get hurt. He told me there were all sorts of wires that could electrocute me, pipes that could burn me. But I told myself that this was a nightmare, and maybe if I could find my dad, it would end for good.

I went slowly down the stairs and I could see my father’s back. He was bent over a table, and something smelled horrible. The baby’s crying had faded, and now there was just the sound of my dad sobbing.

“Dad?” I said sleepily. “What are you doing?”

He whipped around so fast, but he didn’t look like my father. There was blood on his hands and face. Behind him on the table was a small baby, and on the floor there was a woman crumpled into a ball.

“Amy! Little one.” He removed his bloody gloves and came to the foot of the stairs. “You’re having a nightmare again. Go back to your room.”

“What’s going on?” I whispered. “Dad. What’s happening?”

I was in a nightmare, and I had been since I was born. It took a long time for me to realize I was not having nightmares. My father had been doing this for years. In fact, he had done it to my mother. I wasn’t even his daughter. I was just the first of his so-called experiments to find God.

I was left in the care of a couple who I came to call my parents; they tried hard to help me, to help me feel safe. My father was killed before he went to trial, beaten to death in his cell. After that, I really did start having nightmares. I saw him everywhere. He stayed with me no matter what I did or where I went. I was told he was a manifestation of my guilt, but it really wasn’t so simple. He was there with me, so I locked him in a box.

It wasn’t until I met Ivan that I was able to understand what was happening to me. I was haunted, plagued by the spirit of my father. With Ivan’s help, I was able to lock him away. But he was still there. He hadn’t left like I told Ivan. My father was simply locked away with me, and I kept him chained and hidden. I ignored him as best I could. But there were still moments when I could feel him lingering beside me.

Ivan had always wanted children, but he knew what I had gone through would probably mean it was never going to happen. But I felt I owed it to Ivan. He saved me, he protected me. I loved him more than I ever thought I could love someone. So I agreed to a baby. And I was terrified, but I just told myself that the fear was like having nightmares. As long as I had Ivan beside me, I had nothing to fear.

Ethelinda sits me at a table, and all around us, there are dress forms covered in leathery dresses and shirts. I can see the man with scissors stalking through them, hiding between them and scurrying around, avoiding Ethelinda as she stokes the smoldering coals in the fireplace.

“Are you cold, Mrs. Young?” she asks. “It’s important to keep a nice warm temperature for the baby.”

I look down at the arms of the chair, and see claw marks from a struggle. I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that.” Ethelinda stands stiffly and looks back at me. “I don’t think you are, though.”

“Keeping me trapped here isn’t good for the baby,” I throw back at her.

She grits her teeth and tilts her head to the side. “Don’t have a sour mouth, Mrs. Young,” she sneers. “It doesn’t suit such a pretty woman.” She struts across the room, her limbs twitching and her knees buckling. Her movements jerk and she grabs hold of the wall, snarling under her breath and shoving a fist into her stomach. Then she stands erect and turns slowly.

I look towards the man with scissors again. He stops amongst the dress forms and looks out at me, eyes wide and hands wrapped around the waist of a mannequin, which is wearing a dress made of old, rotting skin. Several dress forms are made from stitched leather. The dresses that hang from them look sad and weeping. There’s a wedding dress in the far corner, and it would be beautiful if it weren’t made from bone and skin. On one side the shoulder is covered by blonde hair, the other shoulder by black hair. The hair still appears to be growing.

I chew on the edge of my tongue, trying to make my mouth wet enough to swallow. My throat is so dry it feels like sand when I breathe. “If you have that body, then why not just go out into the world and get your own baby?” I keep my eyes on the man with the scissors, whose body seems strangely put together the more I look. His shoulders are uneven because his arms are too big. His legs seem too awkward for the body, too long and too knobby. The torso is slim and petite, giving him an awful silhouette.

The look on her face becomes blissful and uncaring. “Because I am done with men.” She smooths her hands down her body. “The body of this little nun is untouched. It is pure and perfect, unspoiled by original sin. Once I have my baby, I will have everything I want.” She walks back to the fire, staring inside the fireplace. A smile spreads across her face and she holds her hands together as if in prayer. “I don’t need a man nor a woman anymore. I don’t need either. I pray I don’t need them.”

I look around the room while her back is turned. The man with scissors continues to stare at me, his eyes mismatched and uneven. Stitches go up the center of his face, creasing sharply to create a brow ridge. He is the least of my problems now. “You possessed that poor girl. So was it her or you that reached out to me?”

“She did,” Ethelinda answers quietly. “And what luck that she found you in the condition you are now.”

My main objective is to save Ivan. I need to get him out of this house and find him help before it’s too late. I have to keep her distracted, so I can think. “Is she your child? The baby you were pregnant with?”

Her laugh is rough and gravelly. “You studied the pages of my diary well.” Ethelinda turns around with a smug smile on her face. “But no. Marni is not my daughter.”

In the diary the man with scissors gave me, she was told that Mary Alice had become pregnant by her husband Erique as well. Perhaps that means Marni is the daughter of Mary Alice, and was spared the fate of living in this house.

“What happened to your baby, Ethelinda?” I ask. If I can keep her mind off of me long enough, then perhaps I can find a way to overpower her.

Her face shifts, becoming dour, almost ancient-looking. She struggles with grief, and she clutches the shoulders of a mannequin to balance herself. “I was not pregnant with a baby. The joy I had inside me turned out to be a punishment because of my husband and his ways.” Ethelinda turns, her eyes falling on the man with scissors, who flees her scrutiny. “Just like his father, the child was born with a great wickedness in him.”

“You had a son,” I say softly. “Boys can be difficult, but they are not inherently evil.” I feel something under the table, and the man with scissors is there, hiding. “My husband is a good man. My father...” The words choke in my throat, as chains rattle behind me. “... he was a doctor, a good man.” I don’t mean that father.

Ethelinda takes a deep breath and removes her hands from the dress form, making it wobble. The man with scissors skitters away. “How many lives have you seen ruined, Mrs. Young? You and your husband go all around this world seeing the effects that violence and hatred can leave behind. Like me.” She turns on her heel and looks back at me. “How many were started because of someone calling themselves a man?”

Her eyes twitch and vibrate in a way that leaves trails behind them. Something tells me she is struggling to keep hold of Marni, the real Marni. Her fingers twist in a way that looks painful, but she gives it little notice.

I feel the blade of a pair of scissors on my legs, and grip hard onto the arms of the chair. “It’s your own hatred that traps you here, Ethelinda. You need to realize that.” I look down to see the man with scissors. His coat hangs open, and I spy something that looks like sagging breasts swaying.

Ethelinda grabs my head forcefully. Her eyes shake about inside her skull, like the last remaining gumballs in a machine. “How can you blame me when everything has been thrust upon me?” Her fingers dig sharply into my skull.

I can’t panic now. I have to stay calm and keep my breathing tempered. “I have hatred,” I tell her very slowly. “I know it when I see it.”

She throws her head back, cackling. “What does a child like you know of hate? Of real suffering? Girls like you nowadays are spoiled, given everything you will ever desire on a silver platter. Life is easy for you! What hatred could you possibly come across in your lifetime? Didn’t get the doll you wanted?” She turns back around, striking her head against the mantle and clutching it with all her strength.

The scissors move away from my legs, and the man lurches and grunts under the table. “My father was after children too,” I whisper. “He thought he was going to find the next god in the womb of a whore.”

Ethelinda laughs and hits her head against the brick again.

I stand up slowly, moving the chair back so it won’t scrape against the floor. I take a candlestick from the table into my hand. “He took me that way.” I raise my voice to cover my movements.

“Then why did he keep searching?” Ethelinda snarls.

I stand directly behind her, holding my breath. Her head turns slightly. There’s a crunch and a crack, and her head continues to turn. Ever so slowly, it rotates like an owl’s. Her eyes are twitching, and foam flecks the corners of the mouth.

“You weren’t God.” She lunges at me, but I strike her in the head. Then I run, crashing through the dress forms and mannequins. The skin clothing hanging from them sticks to me, groping at me. I rip myself free and run along the wall, rushing back down the corridor. I need to get to Ivan, but all our equipment is in the foyer. I could possibly perform an exorcism, but I’ve never done it on my own.

A door swings open and hits me directly in the face. I collapse to the floor, holding my bloody and broken nose in my hand. I gurgle and grunt as warm blood fills my hands. My hair is grabbed from behind and nearly ripped from my scalp.

“I suppose you want your husband to die!” Ethelinda snarls.

“No! No! Please!” I grab her wrists, but my palms are slick with blood.

“Filthy!” Ethelinda rips me up off the floor by my hair, and I scream like a caught pig. She turns me to face her. One of her eyes is soft green while the other is bulging and throbbing against her skull.

“Pray, Marni!” I start to sob. “Oh god! Marni! Pray!”

“Shut up!” Ethelinda shakes me in midair. “You and I are all that’s left!” She drops me and drags me down the hall by my hair.

I hear chains dragging. “Come now, little one,” my father whispers.

“No!” I cry out.

Ethelinda gives me a hard shake. “Be quiet!”

The chains continue to drag alongside me. “You can’t fight her. You can’t even touch her. I can,” he snarls into my ear. “Let me protect you.”

“No!” I shout again.

Ethelinda stops and opens a door that leads down a flight of stairs. She pulls me to my feet and points down. “You throw yourself. Your husband is dead.”

Chains rattle and drag down the stairs, but I will not let him loose. I lick the blood from my lips and take a deep, shuddering breath. “Pray, Marni. For the love of God, pray.”

Her one green eye turns and looks up at me.

“Who are you trying to reach?” Ethelinda snarls. “Go down those stairs now or I’ll...” Her voice chokes in her throat. She grabs hold of the doorway, struggling to keep her feet from descending. She throws her head back and tries to ram it against the frame, but she misses. I jump out of the way, and for a split second I see both her eyes are soft green.

“Take my hand!” I grab Marni's hands. “I’ve got you!”

Marni’s soft and beautiful eyes focus on me, and she smiles. “God is protecting you.”  Then Marni pushes herself off of me, tossing her body down the stairs.

I scream, standing there as her body thuds over each individual step until she lies at the foot of the stairs, motionless and at an angle. The light falls on her, making jagged peaks and slopes over her body. She twitches, and I throw the door shut and lock it behind me, racing back down the hall.

I run into the bedroom and throw back the canopy on Ivan. His eyelids flutter and his hand trembles as it reaches up for me. “Amy?”

“I’m here,” I gasp. “Come on! We have to go, now!”

“Amy…?” Ivan sounds weak and confused. I help him up off the bed and throw his arm around me to support him. Then I take the diary from the bed and shove it into my dress pocket. I manage to get Ivan into the hall, half dragging him as he slowly comes to.

“Where are we?” he groans.

I feel him slipping, so I heft him up. “We just need to get to the foyer.” I look around, trying to find something familiar. I carry him until I find the door with my blood on it. Then I use the blood from my nose to continue marking the halls, like some awful fairy tale.

I finally get to the end of the hallway, and I can see the light from the foyer spilling down. “We’re almost there,” I breathe. “We’re almost there.”

Ivan is grabbed and pulled away from me, tossed to the floor like a rag doll. I scream for him, trying to take him back, but my face is slashed by the blade of a pair of scissors. I run, heading for the light. I hear the scissors scraping at the floor behind me.

I trip and fall, hitting the floor hard, but I reach the foyer and grab Ivan’s bag from the ground. I swing it, knocking the man with scissors aside. As I scramble to take the exorcism book from the bag, the man with scissors rises and stands there, just outside the light in the shadows. His shirt falls open, and I see his stomach has been stitched together from an open wound of a cesarean.

I thought this was a man with scissors, but has this been a woman all along? I lower the book and study this creature more closely. They do not move if I do not move, and I can see now that, like the dresses made of flesh, this creature is a patchwork creation of Ethelinda. Only this one is made of the two people she loved most, and hurt her most.

Parts of the body are pale, others are darker. The mismatched eyes, one green, one black. The limbs are Erique’s, but the torso is Mary Alice’s. The wedding dress I saw had been stitched together from what remained.

I feel awful for them, almost sick. They aren’t monsters, but victims.

“What has she done to you?” I whisper in fear and horror.

Their eyes bulge as their mouth strains against the thread. They lift their hands to their face as if they wish to weep. They reach out a twisted hand, and the light shows the crust on the blade of the scissors. Layers of blood and viscera, including my own from where she attacked me. The patchwork creation then races back into the depths of the darkness.

“Ivan!” I race after them until I come across Ivan’s body in the hall. I drag him away, pulling him into the foyer. I try to force open the door, but Ethelinda has locked it. Marni’s body still has the key with her.

I prop Ivan up in the sunlight and smooth my hand over his forehead. His eyes slowly open and he looks at me. His eyes are a bit unfocused, but I think he sees me.

“You’re bleeding,” he whispers.

“Yeah, kind of.” I force a smile as I look at him. “It’s gonna be okay. I just have to go and find the key.”

“Don’t go.” Ivan touches my face.

“I have to.” I hold his wrist. “Just stay here and stay awake. Agreed?”

His eyes flutter and his head wobbles.

“Do you agree?” I give his face a slap. “Come on! Agree with me!”

“Agreed,” he coughs.

I press my forehead to his and sniffle. “Good.” I stand back up, taking his book with me. As I start back down the hall, I see Marni’s rosary kicked aside. I pick it up and rub it between my fingers.

I follow the markings of my blood back through the house to the basement door. I have to gather myself, building up the strength to even look downstairs. I open the door, and the body isn’t at the bottom anymore. “Fuck,” I curse under my breath.

I feel something brush against the nape of my neck, and I brush it away. “No. Go away. Please just go away.”

I take my first step downstairs, gripping the banister tightly. I take another step, and then another. I’m halfway down when I hear breathing somewhere in the shadows. It’s ragged, gurgling with something wet.

My hands shake as I open Ivan’s book. The rosary clatters against the hard leather, but I keep it tight between my fingers. “Crux sacra sit mihi lux...” My voice quivers in my throat, becoming a painful lump there.

There is a cruel laugh from the darkness.

My teeth chatter as I raise the book. I know I have to be stronger than this. But I have never performed one of these without Ivan by my side. He’s my rock, my strength, my everything. I don’t do this, I will lose him forever. I steady my breath and I screw all my courage to the sticking place.

With a stern voice I belt out, “Nunquam draco sit mihi dux!”

The sound of babies crying fills the room, their screams of anguish choking me and pushing me back up the stairs. I close the door and hunker there, trembling so hard I can’t stand upright.

“You can’t do this alone, little one,” he snarls against my ear. “Let me out and let me upon her.”

“No!” I snarl. “No!”

“Let go,” he growls. “I will hold her.”

I look up to see him standing there, covered in chains and bones. His head is wrapped in a cage, and all I can see inside are his blue eyes. “If I perform the exorcism...”

“I know,” he whispers.

I rise up from the floor, struggling to keep myself erect. I open the door again to the sound of babies crying and the red glow of the glass above. My father descends the stairs, chains unwrapping and falling from his body.

“Crux sacra sit mihi lux.” I begin the chant again, going slowly and strongly as I do.

My father stands at the bottom of the stairs, and the patchwork creation, with their scissors, charges at him. He grabs them, breaking their wrist as they try to claw at his face. “I’m not here for you.” He tosses the creation aside, and it skitters back into the shadows.

“Nunquam draco sit mihi dux.” I go down the stairs, standing at the foot while my father drags Ethelinda in Marni’s twisted corpse into the light. “Vade retro Satana!”

My father reaches inside her, pulling Ethelinda out of the body, and she screams like the open gates of hell. The body drops to the floor, and my father holds Ethelinda up towards me.

“Nunquam suade mihi vana!” I shout over her screams and the wailing of babies. The room goes completely blood-red as the ceiling above us becomes red glass. “Sunt mala quae libas.” I close my eyes and clutch the rosary to my heart. “Ipse venena bibas!”

I open my eyes to silence and darkness. I breathe in and sob, clutching a hand around my mouth. I want to run to Ivan, but I need to find that key. I step down into the darkness of the basement, raising the flashlight to scan around the room.

I hear sobbing, and nestled under the furnace is the creation. I kneel beside it as it sobs. “I need the key out, please.”

It sobs bitterly, not moving from its mourning spot. I have tears in my eyes. I want to help it, but I don’t know what else to do. “I have the diary. I promise I’ll read it.”

Mary Alice and Erique toss the key to me.

I start to go, but I see Marni’s body laying near the stairs. I understand the creation’s sobbing, and I kneel beside the woman. They are weeping for their daughter, a child taken from them, but still greatly loved.

“I can’t carry her right now. I’m so sorry, but...” I lay out Marni’s body to rest. I shut her eyes and tuck the rosary into her clasped hands, then close my eyes and say a silent prayer over her. “I’m sorry,” I whisper to her, “that I didn’t get a chance to know the real you. I’m sorry I didn’t come when you first begged for help.” I sob into my palms. “I should have listened. I knew it was the right thing to do, but I was… You saved my life. You saved my child. My husband.” I bend down and kiss her forehead. “God bless you.” I turn back, and the creation is no longer cowering under the furnace. Only a discarded pair of scissors remains.

Walking through the house, the dress forms have all fallen. They lie there with their dresses and clothes pooled on the floor. The flesh is drying, cracking, slowly turning to dust. Sunlight filters through the cracks in the drapes, and then floods the room as they rot off the rods. Outside everything is normal. The sun shines through storm clouds, and rain drips lazily from the eaves. The house is empty. No more life lingers here. It’s all outside.

I touch my hand to the cold glass and my breath fogs it over. I can see the road going up the hill and through the trees. In only a short while, I can leave this place and go home. I hear no more chains, and I feel no more heaviness from the lockbox in my mind. He’s gone, but he is not my concern. Ivan is.

I return to Ivan, finding him still awake and more coherent than before. “Amy!” He opens his arm up as I run to him, falling into his embrace and sobbing against his shoulder. I hold tight to him, more afraid to let him go than ever.

“You did it,” he whispers. “You did it.” He kisses all over my face and takes a deep breath. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I want to go home,” I weep.

Ivan holds me and presses his cheek to the top of my head. “Me too.”

I have to get stitches on my face, something that makes me grit my teeth in disgust. I’ve had enough of stitches for this lifetime. Ivan has to go through therapy because of his head injury. His hand is bandaged and sealed inside a cast. He’s lucky that all he lost was the little finger. At least that’s what the doctors told us.

We return home, maybe not in one piece, but together, like we agreed upon. As we stand at the bottom of the steps going up to our house, Ivan becomes still and looks down at me. “We have a lot to discuss.”

I give him the faintest, smallest smile. “You said that after Wakefield too,” I say with a shrug. “But we made it out.”

He smiles and shakes his head. “We didn’t have a baby on the way then. We have much more to discuss. We can’t keep running towards danger, Amy. You can’t keep trying to save everyone. You can’t protect them, but you can protect your baby.”

I lay my hand over my stomach. “I know.”

Ivan takes hold of my hand and kisses it. “We can’t do this again, Amy. We just can’t.”

I guide him up the stairs and unlock the front door. “For now.” I take him inside and close the door behind us, then set the bags down and sit in the living room. The house smells like us, familiar and safe. Ivan takes the seat across from me, easing his body into the chair until it creaks.

It’s silent for a long while, and we don’t mind it.

“He’s gone,” I say quietly. Tears stream down from my eyes. “He’s gone.” I press the heels of my hands over my eyes. He doesn’t deserve tears, and yet I feel as though my heart is broken.

Ivan takes off his glasses and sets them on the table. “I know.”

“I should hate him.” My voice catches in the back of my throat. “But I miss him, Ivan. Why am I like this?”

“Because you are, Amy, and love can be a tricky thing.” Ivan moves into the chair with me, placing me in his lap and making me rest my head upon his chest.

“We’ll be alright from here,” he whispers. His hand rubs slowly up and down my back. “For now, we are going to be still. We’re going to heal, and we’re going to bring our baby into a world more peaceful than we knew.”

“I know.” Tears slip down my cheeks. “I know.” I close my eyes, resting myself against him and giving in. I fall asleep in his arms, cradled so sweetly against his chest. I’ve not felt this safe since before we left. I close my eyes and drift to sleep.

I open my eyes at the same time, lying there with the red glass above me. I know he’s gone, so what is this room still doing here? I take a deep breath and slowly let out. “Hello?” My voice cracks. “Is someone here?”

I see a shadow move, and I turn my head. “Who goes there?”

Scissors scrape across the floor, and glimmer in the red light.