Sign Here(78)

“Yes, sir!” they said.

“That is why I wanted all of you to do this today, even if today we have only lost one.”

The General walked the length of the holes, peering over some edges, kicking sand into others.

“How does it feel, men?” he asked. “To know you’ve made your last home?”

“All home on Earth is temporary,” Cal responded, and the rest glared at her. These boys hadn’t learned that line yet. Her father said nothing, but she could tell by his shoulders that he was proud.

He came to a stop in front of the last grave, the one she had dug. He shifted his shoulder forward and lowered the tarp inside.

“Samuel here died a warrior of God, and his war is just beginning,” he said as he knelt beside the grave. “But I have something for him. A gift. I couldn’t give it to him while he was still alive, because when we are alive, we are sinners. But now that he is gone, it is time for all of you to learn that there is one thing we have to look forward to.”

Cal watched a few of her brothers sit up, come to their knees to get closer to the General. As if the more eager they seemed for the bright part of their future, the quicker it would come. He stood up and pulled the leather strap loose from his neck, where a key had always hung. It was long and thin, not so ornate as to be considered terribly precious, but no ordinary house key either. Cal had its simple handle memorized; she had drawn the design on her skin at night countless times when she couldn’t sleep.

The General turned to the remnants of their fire and dangled the key over the embers. Cal watched the metal take on heat like it was growing a soul.

“When we are human, we are barely better than beasts. But where Samuel is now, he has nothing but potential. And with this mark, he can prove whose side he’s on. He can prove he fights for God in the Almighty War, no matter what he has to do in Hell.”

The General watched the key where it nestled against crackling logs, turning from red to yellow to white to the color beyond white, the one that leaves its imprint on your eyeballs for hours, all the way until you sleep.

“Being the bearer of the key is the greatest honor I have, and it is an honor that I can bestow upon each and every one of you. I swear on my holy rank that if you die here, I will give you the Mark of the Key so that when we win this war in Hell, you can come home to Heaven a victor.”

There was a sigh of relief or admiration or maybe just exhaustion; Cal couldn’t tell. There wasn’t much time to contemplate, because then the metal was hot enough and the General was leaning over where the boy they’d named Samuel lay, the hole plenty deep but not quite wide enough, so he looked like he was asleep on a bus seat. His shirt stretched up around his middle within the tarp, exposing the curve of his waist where, uninterrupted, he would’ve grown muscles that guided the eye down past his belt—or not. Now it was all just soft.

When the key landed against Samuel’s stilled middle, all of her brothers gasped or flinched, but not Cal. She closed her eyes and listened to the hiss and pretended it was her flesh that burned.

She had never wanted anything more.

Once satisfied, the General pulled back the leather strap, but not before reaching for the collar of the dead boy’s shirt. He grabbed the simple ball chain that rested there and gave a solid tug. He held the chain up to be backlit by the waning light of the key, just enough to illuminate the single soda tab that hung there.

“We honor the lives we take, for we did not take them in vain. We merely sent them on to the next battle, and we will all, sooner or later, see them there.”

When he looked up, he saw one of the boys raising a hand.

“What is it, Joseph?” The General wasn’t accustomed to questions, and Cal was surprised to see Joseph risk asking one.

“If you are the only one who can bestow the Mark of the Key, what happens to us if we die and you’re not there to give it? What if we don’t die here?”

The General stood up and wiped the sand from his jeans. He touched the metal to his fingertip, winced, and looped the leather strap over his neck once more. The key nestled into his chest, and Cal knew the plastic buttons on his shirt would melt and need replacing. She would have to find some more white thread.

“Joseph,” he said, “this is only your second week here, and you’ve killed two in the arena, including Samuel here.” The General threw the necklace to Joseph, who slid the soda tab off the chain and onto his own, where it jingled softly next to his other one. “If you don’t die as my soldier, you’re going to have a lot more to worry about when eternity comes.

“Now,” the General said as he picked up a shovel and threw it at Joseph, so that the boy had to cover his face to avoid the cutting edge, “bury your brother.”





LILY





AT FIRST IT FELT good, in a sky-diving-before-the-parachute-malfunctions kind of way, to have the words out of her. I’m in love with him. But since Silas had left with the kids and the car to get groceries for dinner, she’d found herself in a new position: facing the unknown. Would they get divorced? Would Sean and Mickey spend their last couple of years at home shuttling between two new houses, their bedrooms painted the same as their originals in a thin attempt at normalcy? Would she introduce them to Gavin? Would she even be with him? Sure, they had spent many an afternoon in their motel bed, tangled up in sheets and sticky promises about the future. But those were motel promises. Everyone knows you can’t believe anything said in a motel bed.