The Angel of Eagle Hill

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=90 BGCOLOR="#CC9900" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="047005a0dwnjzk.gif"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Cassies Writing"><U><B>home</B></U></A><B>     | </B><B> </B><B> </B><B>  </B><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Verdana" ><B>Cassie's Writing</B></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jennys Story"><U><B>Jenny's Story</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><B>The Angel of Eagle Hill</B><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id51.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Taking Wooden Nickels"><U><B>Taking Wooden Nickels</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id115.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Christmas 1925"><U><B>Christmas 1925</B></U></A><B>   |   </B><A HREF="id107.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Alternate Destiny"><U><B>Alternate Destiny</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Saga of Quentin Collins"><U><B>The Saga of Quentin Collins</B></U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>The Angel of Eagle Hill</B></div> <div> <B>Quentin seemed to feel genuine remorse for setting up his brother Carl.  It was an act of self preservation--that was how he justified it to himself.</B></div> <div> <B>But how did Carl feel about this sacrifice?</B></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=390 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div>      We don't "talk" here.  Not in the way you think of "talking".  It is more like a communion of thoughts--we share images and ideas.  I was communing with Rebecca Collins, feeling secure that right now my Lenore was safe.  There was a disturbance in the texture of this place, and abruptly, violently, Carl Collins burst in.</div> <div>      "I don't belong here!"  He was livid with rage, and his feelings screamed in our collectiveness.  The effect of it was like a tidal wave, overwhelming all the other thoughts and purposes here.  "This is NOT supposed to be the way it happened!  I shouldn't be dead!  I shoulda been with my Pansy!  This is unfair!  I was murdered!  They'll be sorry--they're gonna pay and pay and pay!"  The depth of his emotion was enough to cause an uproar among the others murdered unjustly.  Soon there was a maelstrom of destructive feeling.  At such times, it is possible to strike out at the living.  Something had to be done.</div> <div>      "Carl, Carl, it's Jenny!"  I said.  The information barely registered with him.  "Carl, listen to me," I said soothingly but more insistently, "it's Jenny.  Do you know me?"</div> <div>      "Jenny?  Jenny!"</div> <div>      "Carl, I want to know what happened."  Actually, I already knew what happened.  I just wanted to get him away from the others.  There was still time to stop whatever violence might occur. "Come with me.  We'll go to another place."</div> <div>      "What?  Where?"</div> <div>      "Listen to me.  We'll go to another place."</div> <div>      Carl misheard.  "Back?  You can take me back?"  he asked hopefully.</div> <div>      I didn't want to lie to him, but here was not the place for truth.  "Carl, you have to trust me now.  I will link with your mind and we will go.  Do you trust me, Carl?"</div> <div>      "Yes, of course I trust you.  In spite of everything, I trust you, Jenny."</div> <div>      Using his childlike trust and his genuine good feeling toward me, I was able to combine with his consciousness and remove us to another plane where we could communicate alone.  He didn't like it.  "What is this?"  he asked suspiciously.  "I thought we were going back!"</div> <div>      "Carl, you must trust me.  I didn't lie to you.  I said we would go to another place, and that is where we are.  I must talk to you."</div> <div>      "But what is this?" he asked insistently, becoming angry again.  "I don't belong here, I tellya!  I was murdered, murdered by that vampire who killed my Pansy!  He said he was our cousin!  He betrayed us!  He killed my Pansy..."  Carl trailed off, and then began again, even angrier.  "And you know what's even worse, Jenny?  You know how I got killed?  My own brother let him do it!  I trusted him, that no-good son-of-a....</div> <div>      "Sh, sh, hush, my poor innocent Carl," I soothed, sending waves of empathy toward him.  "I know what happened to you and to Pansy, and I know how unjust it was.  There is yet another injustice, and that is that you do not belong here."</div> <div>      "That's right!  I don't belong here!  I need to go back!  I need to get Barnabas and Quentin and pay them back for what they did to me and Pansy!" Carl shouted.  I felt him beginning to slip away.</div> <div>      "Carl, listen to me, and I will help you," I said, very slowly so that my thoughts would penetrate.  I pulled him back to me.  Imagine a mother pulling a young child onto her lap and holding on tightly, rocking, comforting.  That is what I did.</div> <div>      "You will help me, Jenny?  You will?  I always did like you, Jenny.  I was so sorry about what happened to you."</div> <div>      "I know, I know," I murmured, rocking him gently.  "I will help you, Carl, I promise.  But you must promise me something, too.  While you are here you must trust me and listen to me.  Will you do that, Carl?  Promise me that you will listen to me and that you will trust me."</div> <div>      "Yes, Jenny," he answered, just like a small child.</div> <div>      "First I must tell you about here," I began explaining.  We are not alone, as you know.  There are others here who do not rest for one reason and another."</div> <div>      "Is Pansy here?"  Carl asked hopefully.</div> <div>      "No, Carl, I'm sorry.  She isn't buried in Eagle Hill.  Her spirit is elsewhere.  Please don't be sad.  Listen to me, and you may see her yet."  I went on, "There is something all of us must do to be able to rest. We can communicate with each other, and it helps to pass the time.  Sometimes, though, some of the lost can become very upset by another.  We can be very powerful, and we can do damage if we choose to."</div> <div>      "Good, good!  That's just what I want, and you can help me.  Right, Jenny?"</div> <div>      "Carl," I said patiently, "you must trust me as I said.  There are many things about this place you must learn.  I will teach you because I want to help you."</div> <div>      He looked at me eagerly, obviously misunderstanding everything I was telling him.  I sighed.  This was not going to be easy.  "Carl, sometimes things terrible things happen for reasons we don't understand at the time.  But here, we understand everything because we can see backward and forward in time."</div> <div>      "What do you mean?"  Carl asked.</div> <div>      "That we can see both the past and the future."</div> <div>      "No, no, I understood that.  What I meant was, what do you mean terrible things happen?  Do you mean what happened to me?  What is there to understand?"  He sounded really touchy and suspicious.</div> <div>      "Carl, did you know I killed my father?"  I asked.</div> <div>      He was shocked.  "No!  You didn't!"</div> <div>      "It was a terrible thing.  You are right to be shocked.  Let me show you what happened.  I will show you how to look forward and backward, and you can look through your own eyes or you can borrow from another.  Do you still trust me, Carl?"</div> <div>      "Yes, Jenny, I do."</div> <div>      He relaxed, and I was able to guide him.  "Look, Carl, and you can see."  I showed him our caravan first.  I let him see Mama's death, Papa's abuse, my self splitting into the others, the murder of Papa by the Angry One, my escape to the city, the other murders, and finally, I let him see our meeting at the dance hall.  He was appalled.</div> <div>      "Oh, my God, Jenny," he said, with great feeling.  "No one could blame you for what happened.  That was horrible!"  He was looking at me with new understanding.  "All those other people that you turned into--that was why you acted so different from day to day.  Sometimes you were so....so...."</div> <div>      "Yes, shameless.  Yes, Carl, that's why."</div> <div>      He still looked very stunned.  "Oh, Jenny, I would've killed that despicable man for you if I'd known you then."</div> <div>      "Carl, you were always so sweet.  I always loved you, you know."</div> <div>      Carl looked embarrassed.  "Well, I thought you did kind of like me like a little brother.  I liked that, Jenny.  No one really liked me very much.  Not even when I tried to make them laugh..."</div> <div>      "Let's practice a little more, Carl.  Let me show you how to look back with your eyes.  Relax like you did before and I can guide you."  I guided him back over his own years and let him look.  "What did you see?"</div> <div>      A wondering look was on his face.  "I saw something I never knew!  No one knows it."  He looked at me.  "When I was really, really little--I don't know, maybe 2 or 3--we had the scarlet fever in the house. Quentin got sick first, and my mother took care of him.  Then she got sick, and then my sister Edith.  I remember looking for Quentin and Edith cuz I was lonesome.  Nobody else seemed to want me around.  My mother and my sister Edith died.  I didn't understand, and I didn't know.  It wasn't just that fever that made Mama die.  I didn't know she was gonna have another baby.  Nobody knew it.  Maybe Mama didn't even know.  She got the scarlet fever, and she lost the baby, and that's why she died."  Carl was quiet, pensive.  "And I saw something else, too.  Edward and Judith--they blame Quentin.  They don't know that they do, but it's the truth.  Judith even thought, why didn't he die instead of Mama?  Quentin told me he found her crying, and she got really, really angry with him.  He thought she hated him, but she just felt guilty--you know?  Wishing her brother was dead?</div> <div>       You see, my Papa wasn't any good.  That's another thing I seen just now.  He drank and wasn't good for anything.  And I see why he drank.  He felt bad, like he was no good.  And he wasn't any use to Grandmama or Edward or Judith after Mama died.  Then he died, and they felt they hadda take care of Quentin and me.  And they didn't want to.  They didn't hate us, not really.  It was just too much."  The grief was growing in his voice.</div> <div>      "Carl, let's go back a little further," I said.  I didn't want him to become too sad.  "Now I can show you how to look back through another's eyes.  Listen to me, Carl.  When you do this, you don't have to let him know you're there.  You can look back, and the eyes you borrow never has to know."</div> <div>      "I don't know about this," Carl said fearfully.</div> <div>      "It's just new to you, that's all," I said.  "I am here with you, Carl.  You said you trusted me.  I'll help you.  I won't leave you."  However, when we began to look back through Barnabas' eyes, I felt Carl jerk back violently.</div> <div>      "No!  Not him!  I don't wanna!  No!  No!"</div> <div>      "It's all right, Carl.  There is another way."  There was another here, Naomi Collins, and she willingly joined the two of us to help Carl look back.  I knew that Naomi was here because she was unable to accept what had happened to her son.  Out of her love, she sought a way to restore peace to him.  Then she would be able to rest at last.  Carl hadn't recognized her, and so he willingly agreed to look back to her time.  Naomi showed him everything--Angelique's scheming, the spells, Jeremiah's death, the marriage by trickery, the curse...Naomi's own death by suicide.</div> <div>      When we came back, Carl said quietly, "I am sorry for you, Cousin Naomi."</div> <div>      "You are a gentle soul, my child," Naomi answered.  "What you wish for is not something you are capable of.  You must realize that and you must come to another realization to find your peace.  I want you to find peace."</div> <div>      Carl didn't respond.  "May I talk to him some more?"  I asked, and Naomi graciously left us.</div> <div>      "All right, I see," Carl said, sounding angry.  "I didn't ask you to show me all that.  It doesn't make it right what he did.  Does that justify him murdering me?  He didn't hafta do that.  And I don't understand why Quentin let him do it.  He always used to look out for me.  I thought I could trust him."</div> <div>      "Let me show you something else, something you know and something you don't know yet," I said.  I let him see the moments of my life.  He knew Quentin had been compelled to act and why, but no one can know all the details unless one is there.  I showed him something he learned after I died:  that I was Magda Rakosi's sister.  Finally, I let him see what came after--Magda's confrontation with Quentin; the laying on of the curse on not only Quentin, but all the first born males of his line.  I also let him see the agony of that first transformation, the murder that occurred afterward, the crushing guilt and despair and desperation that followed.  I showed him the hope of a cure.  I showed him that Quentin was truly alone, with only Beth and Barnabas to protect him.  The truth was, Barnabas was his only hope of being saved from the curse.  Carl was very overwhelmed; I could tell that it was all too much for him to absorb and so we rested.  I could see into his mind in spite of his perceived hatred for his brother, he was deeply grieved the tragedy that had occured to him.</div> <div>      "I don't hate Quentin, Carl, " I said after awhile.  "I know he didn't mean to kill me.  He thought I was going to harm Beth, and he was right.  I had every intention of killing her.  I was mad; I was the Angry One.  I am not saying that I think Quentin was right, Carl.  I am just saying that I forgive him."</div> <div>      Carl didn't respond to what I said.  I knew he needed time to absorb it.  Instead, he asked, "Why did Barnabas kill my Pansy?"</div> <div>      "Oh, but he didn't, Carl.  It was another."</div> <div>      "Who?"</div> <div>      "Look, and I will show you."  I showed him that night that he and Pansy arrived at the Old House.  He was so frightened about bring Pansy home to his brother and sister.  It was almost exactly like what had happened when Quentin had returned with me while on a vacation with Carl.  Carl anticipated the same angry scene.  I showed him what had happened when Pansy was alone in the Old House--that Dirk Wilkins had actually strangled her in order to get revenge on Barnabas.  Carl pulled away.  He couldn't watch; his lower lip was quivering.  He groaned.  "I'm sorry, Carl.  I know you loved her.  She loved you too, you know."</div> <div>      "I know, I know."  Carl had covered his eyes with his fists, grieving deeply.  "Pansy knew Barnabas didn't kill her.  I don't understand the dream."</div> <div>      I didn't want to tell Carl that I suspected that perhaps Pansy was unable to rest.  "Perhaps she knew that Barnabas was the one who'd attacked Dirk," I explained. "And he actually did that to protect your niece and nephew.  Your sister-in-law, Laura, was threatening their lives."</div> <div>      Carl groaned again.  "I remember the fire," he said finally.  "Edward didn't want to talk about it.  It was so strange, that fire."  He stared ahead blankly.  "I don't know what to do now.  When this first happened, I saw three people.  A woman with dark hair, holding a little baby.  A little girl with real thick, curly hair.  Thick, like yours, and long, like Nora's.  From what you showed me, I realize they were my mother and sisters.  I didn't recognize them. I didn't know who they were, and I didn't want to go there."</div> <div>      "I want to help you, Carl," I said.  "You don't remember your mother or sisters at all?"</div> <div>      "No," he said mournfully, "I was too little when they died.  After they were gone, there was just Quentin and me, you see.  We was close when we was little.  He looked out for me.  I was always kinda little and skinny.  And Quentin, he was always brave and strong.  He liked to try all kinds of crazy things.  He was always gettin into some kinda trouble.  And me, I just wanted everyone to be happy.  I'd act silly or play little jokes when Edward and Judith were mad cuz I just wanted them to like me a little, you see.  Or Edward would get so angry with Quentin and just beat on him, and it was scary, you know?  So I would try to make him laugh.  But Edward and Judith, they just thought I was stupid.  The only one that really laughed was Quentin.  He thought I was funny.  He took care of me, he did."</div> <div>      We were silent for a little while, Carl's thoughts were scattered.  Then they gathered again and became coherent as he remembered some more.  "They didn't want us, Edward and Judith, I mean. Edward felt like he hadda be the man of the house, and he wasn't really--not yet.  And Judith, well, she just didn't like kids, y'see.   Grandmama had the idea that Quentin and I should go to school.  She was really too old to raise us, I guess, and Edward and Judith were really kinda young--although they always SEEMED old to me.  So we went away to different schools.  I hated it.  I wanted to come home, and I'd just cry.  I think Quentin was glad to be away, but he felt sorry for me.  It's funny how we acted cuz we thought no one loved us.  Quentin, he just got more...I dunno the word for it, it's like he went out of his way to look for trouble to get into.  And me, I just foolled around and learned magic tricks and other little things to get people to laugh.  When people laughed, they seemed to like me.  Well, we'd get thrown out of these schools, see.  Sometimes it was something Quentin did that got us in trouble.  Other times it was me.  I was always scared about bein in trouble so Quentin, he-he always said he did it.  He always got punished, even for the things I did.  It was always Quentin gettin expelled and then me goin home too cuz there wasn't any sense in me stayin when he was gettin thrown out.  I guess I was just such a big baby.  Edward and Judith ever thought I'd done any of the tricks that got us thrown out.  They always believed Quentin and the headmasters, that it was him--that he was bad.  And I let them think it."  Carl became very quiet again.  "Jenny, you said we could see forward, too.  What's gonna happen to him?"</div> <div>      "Oh, Carl," I answered with discomfort.  "Sometimes, even here, it's better not to know."</div> <div>      Carl immediately became concerned.  "I can't be afraid forever and ever.  I really want to know what's gonna happen to him."  I was a little reluctant, but I thought it might be the best way to help Carl.  I showed him a few things that were in store for Quentin.  "I just can't believe this is happening to him.  You know, for all those times when we were kids and he helped me, I don't think I ever helped him back."</div> <div>      "You stood up with him when we married, Carl.  That took courage," I pointed out.</div> <div>      "Can I help him now?"</div> <div>      "You can forgive him.  Can you do that, Carl?"</div> <div>      "Can I see him?  I'd like to see him," Carl said instead of answering directly.</div> <div>      "We can see him.  He won't see us," I said.  "He won't see us unless you want."</div> <div>      "No, Jenny.  Not yet.  I just wanna see him first. Can you take me there?"</div> <div>      "Yes, Carl.  You know I can."</div> <bR> <div>      Carl and I stood looking down at his body, lying in his coffin in the drawing room.  "I thought I'd been gone a long time," Carl said in surprise.  He started a little when Edward strode into the room, Judith on his arm.</div> <div>      "Let's get outta here," Carl said, obviously uncomfortable.  "Quentin ain't here."  We were able to pass through the doors Edward had closed behind himself and Judith.  Quentin was coming down the stairs; his face was extremely pale and his gait was extemely uneven.  "Jeez, he's been drinkin," Carl remarked.  "He looks pretty drunk."  He jumped back as Quentin turned at the bottom of the stairs and started toward us, staggering a little.</div> <div>      "You don't have to do that," I said to Carl.  "He can't see you or feel you."</div> <div>      Quentin approached the doors to the drawing room very slowly.  His hand reached out for the doorknob and stopped.  He made a strangled sound in his throat, turned, and broke for the door.  The door swung wide open as Quentin ran out the door and turned toward the path.  He pushed his way into a stand of trees and doubled over, heaving.  Carl and I were there almost instantly, and I could feel Carl's concern.  Once outside, I looked around and discerned it was already nighttime here.  Quentin grabbed onto the side of a tree to support himself.  Already he'd begun to experience "dry heaves" and had begun to tremble uncontrollably.  We could hear someone approaching.</div> <div>      Carl gasped and backed up a little.  I didn't bother to repeat myself.  He'd learn.  It was Barnabas who was approaching, and of course, Carl couldn't help himself.  Barnabas immediately went to Quentin's side, putting his arm around Quentin's shoulder.  "What is it?"  Barnabas asked. </div> <div>      "I can't go in there," Quentin gasped.</div> <div>      "Well, not in this condition," Barnabas agreed.  "Come, let's go into the house.  I'll take you to your room."  He pulled Quentin's arm over his shoulders, and using his other arm to half support Quentin's weight, he turned toward the house.</div> <div>      "Not that way!"  Quentin protested immediately.  "Edward and Judith are in there with him!"  Barnabas understood and turned toward one of the secret side entrances to the house.</div> <div>      "You've been drinking quite a bit, haven't you?"  Barnabas remarked, as he half carried, half dragged Quentin back to his room.</div> <div>      "Yes, but not nearly enough," Quentin answered.  We'd all reached Quentin's room together, and Barnabas sat his cousin down in a chair.  Quentin immediately put his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands.</div> <div>      "Quentin, you have to stop torturing yourself like this," said Barnabas.  "It's not doing you any good."</div> <div>      "Well, I've never been much good, Barnabas," Quentin mumbled miserably.</div> <div>      "I didn't realize you had such depth of feeling," Barnabas mused.  "I feel sorry for you, Quentin."</div> <div>      Quentin lifted his head and looked at Barnabas with blood shot, bleary eyes.  "Thanks, Barnabas.  That's helpful," he said sarcastically.</div> <div>      "Quentin, I have felt the oppression of guilt as heavily as you do now.  I have done many terrible things, sometimes out of desperate actions.  I have blamed and reviled myself.  Quentin, you didn't kill Carl.  I did.  I did what I needed to do to protect myself and try and save you.  You must not do this to yourself."</div> <div>      Quentin chuckled.  "Yes, Barnabas, it was all your fault.  I had nothing to do with it at all."  He stopped laughing and leaned forward.  "You're forgetting--I pulled the gun on Carl.  I would've shot him.  I left him there for you to find.  That you didn't was some kind of stupid oversight on my part, I guess."  Quentin got up and staggered to his brandy decanter.  "I wear the mark of Cain, too, Barnabas."</div> <div>      "Quentin," Barnabas began and then stopped abruptly.  There was a pounding at the door.  Barnabas dematerialized right before our eyes and was gone.</div> <div>      "Quentin!  Quentin!"  Edward shouted.  "You open this door right now!"</div> <div>      "Don't do it," Carl advised, but Quentin was already making his way to the door.  He unlocked it, and Edward flung the door open.  Some of the brandy in Quentin's glass sloshed onto the floor.</div> <div>      Edward was purple with fury.  "You are absolutely despicable!" he shouted at Quentin.  "Do you realize that you have not been in to see your brother once?  Have you no common decency at all, you degenerate drunk?  How dare you behave so disrespectfully?"</div> <div>      "Has it occurred to you, dear brother, that I am behaving as respectfully as I can under the circumstances?"  Quentin responded, his lip curling in his familiar sneer.</div> <div>      Edward couldn't stand it.  He struck Quentin, hard.  Quentin dropped like a stone and lay on the floor, out cold.</div> <div>      "Bastard," said Carl.</div> <div>      "He wouldn't have tried that if Quentin had been sober," I agreed.</div> <div>      Carl looked down at his brother's unconscious form with real pity in his eyes.  "I can't leave him like this, Jenny.  I gotta do something for him."</div> <div>      "What do you want to do, Carl?"  I asked.</div> <div>      "Well, I can't talk to him now, but could I--later, I mean?  Could I make him see me?"</div> <div>      "Yes, Carl.  It takes a lot of energy.  We'll need to practice.  But I can teach you how."</div> <bR> <div>      We practiced and practiced until Carl got it right.  When we returned to the world, we saw that Carl's body was being buried in the family plot at Eagle Hill.  Quentin had managed to bring himself to the cemetery, but he stood apart from his brother and sister, head bowed, struggling to control himself.  After the service was over, Quentin went straight to his room and poured himself another drink.  He put his song on the gramophone and collapsed into his chair, brooding.</div> <div>      "Look inside, Carl," I advised.  Carl held his hand out and concentraed.  He stagged backward.</div> <div>      "He hates himself. He thinks he deserves to be cursed the way he is.  He thinks there's no hope for him--he'll always be bad."</div> <div>      "Do you think that's so?"</div> <div>      "No, I don't."  Carl steeled himself and with a great deal of purpose, he approached his suffering brother and laid his hand on his shoulder.  </div> <div>      Quentin jumped.  "Carl!"  He just about backed up the chair hie was sitting in.  Recovering, he recited, "Depart, thou angry spirit.  Depart and return to thy grave."</div> <div>      Carl laughed.  "Don't do that, Quentin.  That stuff doesn't work here.  I'm not going to hurt you.  I want to help you."</div> <div>      "Help me?"  Quentin was astounded.</div> <div>      "I know you did what you thought you had to do to save yourself.  I know you feel bad about what you did.  I know you're sorry.  What you did was bad, Quentin, and I was really mad before I understood it all.  But, listen to me, brother--YOU are not bad."</div> <div>      Quentin's eyes filled up.  "How can you say I'm not bad?  How can you say that when I--"</div> <div>      "You were wrong.  You did the wrong thing.  You were trying to save yourself.  But YOU, Quentin, you are not bad.  Down inside you is the brother who bailed me out of every jam I ever got into.  Down in there is the brother who took care of me."</div> <div>      "Except when it counted."</div> <div>      "Look, you gotta stop that.  Barnabas was right.  I don't wanna see you become some drunk like Papa dying in the street.  You're better than that, Quentin, you just don't know it yet.  But I do.  I wanna help you get better, so you gotta listen to me and you gotta trust me.  Do you?"</div> <div>      "I don't know that I have any choice at the moment."</div> <div>      "Okay, so you listen to me and you trust me, okay.  I'm tellin you what's real right now.  You can be good, Quentin, it's in you.  You just gotta stop fightin yourself.  And I want to get you started.  I forgive you, Quentin.  I don't hate you."</div> <div>      "How can you say that, Carl?  After what I did?"  Quentin moaned.</div> <div>      Carl put his arms around Quentin's neck and hugged him.  "I can say it because I love you, brother."  Harsh sobs racked Quentin's body as he could no longer contain his grief and shame.  Carl held and comforted him.  As Quentin began to quiet down, Carl stroked his hair.  "Quentin, I'm gonna have to go.  This isn't the place for me.  But I can't go unless I know you're gonna try."</div> <div>      "Yes," Quentin said raggedly, "I will."</div> <div>      "You'll be all right, Quentin," Carl promised.  "It'll end, I promise you.  It's gonna be hard, and you're gonna suffer, but it's gonna end.  You won't be that animal no more."</div> <div>      "How do you know?"</div> <div>      "I just do.  I know lots of stuff now.  And I know that I gotta go."</div> <div>      "Carl, don't go--I want to tell you--" Quentin began to break down and cry again.  "I--I--loved you, too--" he finally managed to get out.</div> <div>      "Yeah, I knew that, brother.  But it feels good to hear it," Carl said gently, with a genuine smile not born of silliness.</div> <div>      I took Carl back with me.  I didn't think it would be helpful to let Quentin know that I was there, too.  He'd have been ashamed that he cried in front of a woman (so old-fashioned!) and I knew I would have other encounters with him.  I guided Carl away from our place in Eagle Hill.  "You don't belong here," I explained.  "I am taking you where you will rest and be at peace.  It is there you belong."</div> <div>      Carl hesitated.  "Will I see Pansy?"</div> <div>      "I can't say yes or no to that, Carl.  I just don't know.  But you deserve to be a rest.  You have brought peace of mind to your brother and you have forgiven him.  You have a right to rest now in the beautiful kingdom."</div> <div>      "How will I get there?  Will you take me?"</div> <div>      "I will take you so far, Carl.  My time to go is not at hand, yet.  There are many who need to be watched over.  I have a little daughter, Lenore, who will grow up.  She will marry and have daughters of her own.  One will live and will also marry and bear a first born son."</div> <div>      Carl realized.  "Oh, Jenny, I am so sorry."</div> <div>      "How inestimably kind you are, Carl.  If I could've chosen a brother, it would have been you.  No one has been a truer brother to me than you have, dear Carl."</div> <div>      We embraced.  We'd reached the place, and the glowing light was beginning to grow.  "Jenny, are you an angel?" Carl asked.  I was too surprised by his question to answer I didn't think so. "No, don't say it.  You are an angel.  You are."</div> <div>       Into the light stepped the slight woman with brown hair, holding a small baby in one arm and a young girl with long, flowing, curly hair by the other.  The woman let go of the little girl's hand and reached her hand out to Carl.  At the same time, the little girl smiled and opened her arms as if to embrace her youngest brother.</div> <div>      "Goodbye, Carl," I said for the last time.  I had to go back.  I still had work to do.  When I was ready, I wondered who would come for me?  Would it be my own mother whom I'd loved so dearly?  Perhaps.  Perhaps she will bring my little son with her.  We will all be together again.  Someday. </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Jennys Story"><U>Jenny's Story</U></A>    <A HREF="id47.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Saga of Quentin Collins"><U>The Saga of Quentin Collins</U></A>    <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Cassies Writing"><U>Cassie's Writing</U></A></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>