Day 9

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  Starla broke away from Quincy and hurried over. "Why, that's the Martian Invasion Fleet, of course."

  Dunne pushed through the brush and emerged between rows of wildly colorful obelisks. Each one was six feet high, consisting of a pyramidal base capped by an inverted cone. Beyond those basic similarities, however, the obelisks were vastly different in appearance. No two were exactly alike...or even close.

  Each cone had its own unique shape—spiraled or beveled or scalloped or pebbled or finned. Each had its own scheme of color and design—rippling purple stripes over lavender...red and blue swirls...crisscrossed honeycombs over lemon yellow melting into orange. One cone looked like the head of an arrow, aimed at the sky. One looked like a Christmas tree, swollen with clusters of deep green boughs.

  "'This is a replica of the Martian rocket armada,'" said Starla, reading from the crumpled map, "'poised to launch into space. These powerful ships will attack us any day now.'"

  Dunne gazed at the obelisks as he walked between them. Up close, he could see they were covered in the same skin of broken tile he'd noticed elsewhere in the park. Arrays of holes ran along each side, round or star-shaped or diamond-shaped, supplementing a larger opening at the apex of each cone.

  Dunne stopped to touch the Christmas tree-shaped obelisk, admiring the workmanship that had gone into it. One thing was clear to him: like "Castle Mars," this "rocket armada" had not been altered from its original appearance.

  "What was this place?" Dunne moved on to the yellow-orange obelisk with the crisscrossed honeycombs. "I've never seen anything like it."

  "It is rather alien," said Starla.

  "Don't you get it?" Quincy patted one of the cones—a white one with elaborate gold inlays. "This is a tribute to lampshades of the world."

  As usual, Hannahlee ignored the antics. "We need to search county records. The name of the place must be on the original permits and paperwork."

  "Assuming they still exist," said Starla.

  Hannahlee rubbed her chin. "What about those ghosts of yours, Quincy? What do they have to say?"

  "Let me just dial 'em up on my cell phone, and I'll letcha know," said Quincy. "'Cause it's that easy, isn't it? I'm like, 'Hey mysterious forces!'" He talked into his hand, with thumb and little finger extended to suggest a phone. "'What's the 411 on Martianland, little buddies?' And they're like, 'Yo, Q! That place used ta be Jupiterland, bro!'"

  While Quincy babbled, Dunne passed the last of the obelisks and continued along the path. Around a bend, he found a fork—a barely visible spur shunting off the main walkway into a dense thicket of brush. It was shaded from above by a canopy of low-hanging branches descending from a tall, expansive tree.

  As soon as Dunne saw that tree, he knew he had to follow the spur. The tree was a sign.

  A weeping willow.

  Crouching, Dunne pushed aside the willow fronds and hiked into the overgrown thicket. He squeezed between the fat bushes that clogged the narrow gap and stumbled over the roots that caught the toes of his sneakers.

  A few feet in, maybe ten, the brush fell away...and a hidden structure rose up before him.

  It was about seven feet high, built around the thick trunk of the willow tree. At first glance, it looked like an apartment building for elves—six stories with windows and rippling terraces, all scaled for creatures much smaller than men.

  As Dunne looked closer, however, he saw what looked like the outline of a man-sized door cut into the front of the building. Running his fingers along the outline, he found a recessed handhold...and pushed.

  The building's façade opened inward with a creak. Heart pounding, Dunne leaned in and looked around, hoping no wild animals were waiting for him.

  Seconds later, he shouted for the others to come after him...but not because he'd seen wild animals. It was because of a photo he'd seen in the house under the weeping willow.

  A photo of Cyrus Gowdy.

  CHAPTER 23

  Cyrus Gowdy was at least twenty years younger in the photo. It was in color, eight inches by ten, mounted in a simple frame of black plastic.

  And it was a revelation.

  Gowdy stood under the twenty-foot Martian with the Martianland sign in the parking lot...only the Martian was a statue of a man with a beard and a long, black coat.

  And the sign did not say "Martianland."

  "What the fuck is 'Gaudiland?'" said Quincy. He had to duck to keep from bumping his head on the rafters of the little house under the willow.

  It was more like a big shed, actually, extending ten feet from the tree's trunk in all directions. Light filtered in through the rows of tiny windows on all sides...but the brightness didn't change the fact that the place was extremely cramped and cluttered.

  Shelves ringed the tree trunk, four high, piled with big, yellowed rolls of paper and dusty paint cans and cardboard boxes. Plastic tubs formed a kind of workbench around the inside wall of the façade, heaped with old tools and parts and rags.

  Scattered amid the junk were a few framed and unframed photos. The one with Gowdy by the "Gaudíland" sign had been hanging from the trunk, right at eye level, when Dunne had first come in the door.

  "'Gaudiland.' 'Gaudiland.'" Giant Quincy scowled...then grinned. "Wait! I get it! It's a typo!"

  "Typo?" said Dunne.

  "'Gaudiland.' Sounds like 'Gowdyland.'" Quincy nodded excitedly. "It's Gowdy's park, Gowdyland...but they screwed up the sign in the photo!"

  “Not ‘Gowdyland.’” Hannahlee had spread out one of the big rolls of paper and was staring at it. “Not a typo, either.”

  Dunne, Quincy, and Starla crowded around her. As Dunne gazed over Hannahlee’s shoulder, he thought the top sheet of paper looked like some kind of plan for the park.

  “It’s ‘Gaudíland.’” Hannahlee stressed the “i” when she said it. “As in Antonio Gaudí. The famous Spanish architect.”

  “Really?” Starla leaned closer to the page.

  “Well of course!” said Quincy. “I knew it all along. Wanted to see how long it’d take for the rest of you to figure it out.”

  “When were these drawn?” Dunne, like Starla, had to lean closer to see the fine details, since the pencil on the plan had faded.

  Hannahlee lifted the plans higher and squinted at the bottom of the sheet. “The date on them is 1980.”

  “Wow.” The drawing was an elevated view, looking down from above, but Dunne still recognized some of the structures he’d seen in the park. “And Cyrus never mentioned this place?”

  Hannahlee shook her head and rolled away the top sheet. The next page was a building plan for a single structure—the very “house” in which they stood, complete with willow tree.

  In the information grid at the bottom of the sheet, Dunne saw the name of the building...and it wasn’t remotely Martian. “'Casa Milá,'” he said. “That’s what this place is supposed to be.”

  “Something Gaudí designed?” said Hannahlee.

  Dunne shrugged. “What’s next?”

  Hannahlee turned to the next sheet—a drawing of “Castle Mars,” complete with tower topped with abstract flowers. “'El Capricho,'” she read. “That’s our castle.”

  When Hannahlee rolled away the sheet for El Capricho to reveal the next, Dunne grinned and jabbed the paper with his finger. “I knew that wasn’t the original paint job.”

  The drawing on the page showed the “Great Wall of Mars” in all its original glory. Instead of coats of monochromatic paint, the rippling wall in the sketch was surfaced in jigsaws of fractured tile imprinted with fragments of a multitude of designs.

  “'Park Güell Bench,'” Dunne read from the sheet. “So much for the Great Wall of Mars.”

  Hannahlee flipped to the next sheet. “The Sphere-Beast and Dragon Lion are also from Park Güell." She turned another page. "And the Martian Invasion Rockets are the Palacio Güell Chimneys.”

  "Lots more pages, too." Dunne fingered the stack of sheets. "Enough for every attraction in the park, I'll bet."<
br />
  "Incredible." Starla hooked a finger through the loop of her sweater's zipper pull and tugged it down a fraction of an inch. "I never would have guessed."

  "Did Cyrus build this place, then?" Hannahlee slowly turned another page. "If so, why? And why have I never heard of it before?"

  "Who turned it into cheesy Martianland? That's what I want to know." Dunne admired the latest plan in Hannahlee's hands—a blocky structure covered in blue and white checkerboards. "The original buildings were awesome."

  "I can't even argue with that." Quincy scooped a handful of photos out of a shoebox. "These pictures of the early park kick ass."

  Dunne grabbed a few photos from the shoebox and flipped through them. Quincy was absolutely right.

  Some of the photos showed the original structures in the park, pre-Martianland...and some were clearly of the full-size Spanish buildings on which they were modeled. Aside from the difference in scale, the models and originals looked identical—showpieces of ingenuity and craftsmanship, each in its own right.

  One in particular leaped out at him—an immense, unearthly cathedral. Its towers looked like massive pods or fingers growing toward the sky. Its walls were a forest of statues surrounded by leaves and branches cut from stone. The whole thing looked raw and organic, not at all like a typical cathedral of squared-off corners and sharp spires and uncluttered walls.

  Flipping over the photo, Dunne read the name on the back:

  La Sagrada Familia.

  CHAPTER 24

  Barcelona, Spain - November 1906

  Though I have yet to understand my true purpose, I sense my destiny approaching like a rider on the horizon. It comes closer with each passing day as I continue to grow. As my magnificent bell towers slowly reach toward the sky.

  Someday, there will be four of them, unique and enormous, tips brushing the very clouds that drift overhead. They will be unlike anything ever built by mankind, anything ever imagined.

  Though only two have been started, and they are barely taller than forty meters, I can feel the full presence of all four of them already. I can feel their height and weight and shape like phantom limbs.

  And I know they will be great. I know they will overshadow every man and woman in Barcelona—in all Catalonia.

  Every one of them.

  "That window's off!" Gaudí stands inside the base of one of my towers and shouts up at the men on the high scaffolding. "Do I have to come up and do it myself?"

  "No, señor." One of the men looks down and waves. "We'll take care of it right away."

  "While you're at it," says Gaudí, "clean up that seam!"

  "This one, señor?" Another man runs his finger along a mortared joint between layers of stone block.

  "The one I'm talking about is directly across, on the other side of the tower." Gaudí points. "But while you're at it, clean up that seam, too."

  "You see that well from all the way down there?" says the man.

  "One of the benefits of living a God-fearing life." There is no lightheartedness in Gaudí's voice as he says it...only bite.

  Then, slipping his notebook back into the pocket of his black frock coat, he turns on his heel and marches out of the tower.

  What style! I cannot help but admire him. He knows his own genius and his place in the world, and he claims them. He acts with conviction, exercising his authority to ensure the realization of his vision.

  Others respect him. They fear him. But he doesn't let that stop him from getting things done. He doesn't let it get in his way.

  He uses it. He is always in control.

  Outside, Gaudí stops and gazes up at the rising heights of my tower. He strokes his white beard with one hand and lays the other against my stone wall.

  His heat flickers upon me, not much stronger than the warmth of a pigeon or a cat. It is weaker than it once was, though his influence in the world continues to grow.

  "You are coming along well, I think." He pats me as he says it. "The one thing in this world that has not failed me."

  It has been a long time since he last spoke to me. I have become more self-sufficient...but my spirit brightens as I hear his words. I am glad for his company.

  Even though his tone is sour.

  "Yes, Sagrada Família," says Gaudí. "Unlike my father, you will never let me down."

  I am pleased that he appreciates me...but I sense his praise is hollow. His words are heavy with sorrow and anger and exhaustion.

  With darkness.

  "And you will never be like Rosa, will you?" says Gaudí. "My niece, who is like a daughter to me?"

  Again, his voice is laden with darkness. He presses both hands to my wall and leans his full weight against me.

  As he bows his head, a single droplet falls to the ground. A tear from his eye.

  "It feels like my world is ending." His voice is choked with emotion. "My father died last week. My Rosa is drinking herself into oblivion. I think she is determined to follow my father into death as soon as she can."

  Gaudí draws and releases a shuddering breath. I have never seen him like this. I realize now how wrong I was about him being always in control.

  For the first time in my existence, I feel sorry for him.

  "My dream is coming true," says Gaudí. "You and I together...completely alone. All my family and friends gone. Nothing left but my work. But you."

  He does not say it with love. I wonder at the disappointment in his voice, the palpable regret directed at me.

  Where is the love he once so clearly expressed? The pride and hope that shone through when he referred to us as one self? When he told me he would "make of us a cathedral like no other?"

  Then again, where is my strong feeling?

  I've only just realized: I am not as moved by his condition as I should be. Pity is all I feel...and not much even of that. Something fundamental has changed between us.

  Have we simply been apart too long? Have we both grown in different directions?

  Or has only one of us grown?

  "Is this the price, then?" Gaudí's voice quavers, and more tears fall. "For one wonderful dream to come true, must a terrible dream come true, also? If I am to build this magnificent tribute to Our Lord's Holy Family, must I lose every loved one of flesh and blood? Must I die alone, in a prison of stone of my own making?"

  He slumps against the wall and begins to weep. There was a time when I would have ached to reach out and console him. A time when nothing mattered more.

  Now, as I listen, my mind begins to wander. My focus drifts to a conversation among the men on the high scaffolding. They are projecting how long it will take for my four bell towers to be finished.

  Next, I drift around to a dog peeing on one of my columns. From there, I follow a handful of young children running and hiding around my cloisters.

  By the time my attention returns to Gaudí, he has pushed away from my wall. He has not quite regained his composure, but the tears have stopped.

  He inhales deeply and exhales slowly, steadying himself. He straightens his coat and looks up at me.

  "At least you will succeed," he says. "Your destiny, at least, is clear." He points a finger at me. "I might be miserable, but you will rise above all this. You will soar."

  There is bitterness in his voice, but I overlook it. I take his words to heart. His prophecy.

  It comes in the midst of his suffering, but I believe there is truth to it. I've been searching my soul for ages to divine my true purpose...and now I've found it.

  For a while now, I've thought I was meant for more than drawing the faithful to worship or attracting companionship to relieve my creator's loneliness. I've suspected Gaudí has a grander plan in mind for me...that I contain too much greatness to be limited to a humble ambition. I've also come to believe that I myself might have to take a hand in shaping my own destiny.

  Now, I understand. I am not meant to be limited to a mundane purpose. I am too unique to be constrained by the expectations of mortal men. I will
have a role in controlling my destiny—an extraordinary, unprecedented role.

  What I will do is this: I will rise up, scaling new heights, ascending the heavens as no other cathedral before me ever has. Not simply by growing, stone by stone, inch by inch.

  Gaudí said it himself. I will soar.

  Literally.

  I will rise up out of the Earth and take to the air. I will explore the far corners of this world, learning and evolving as I go, imagining new destinies that expand my potential.

  And when I am done with this world, I will rise even further, climbing to meet the stars and powers of the night.

  As for the people, the roving spots of warmth not much bigger than a pigeon or a cat, they will do what they always do when it comes to me.

  They will gaze at me in wonder.

  CHAPTER 25

  Barcelona, Mississippi - Today

  "I wonder what happened to this place." Dunne tossed the photos back in the box and reached for another yellowed roll of paper from the shelf on the trunk of the willow tree. He unrolled it, revealing a new and different set of plans. "They were going to expand."

  "You're kidding," said Starla.

  "Nope." Dunne grinned as he gazed at the faded drawings. "They planned to add a whole new section, about the size of the original park. Ten more attractions, including rides."

  "All this for a Spanish architect," said Starla.

  "Must've been some architect," said Quincy.

  Hannahlee raised the lid of one of the plastic storage tubs. "But what's the link to Cyrus? Where is he right now?"

  Dunne set aside the roll of drawings and opened a plastic tub of his own. Squatting beside it, he fished through layers of financial material, stapled and wrapped in big rubber bands. Many of the pages bore Cyrus Gowdy's distinctive signature—the "R" shaped like a gun and the "O" like a peace symbol.

  Before long, though, he found something much more interesting. Snatching it out of the tub, he read the text on the cover, then unfolded it to read further.