Character · Book 6, The Eye of the Bedlam Bride

Asher

Carl's half-brother, six years old, found on the eighth floor in a memory spliced in from what looks like summer, at a trailer in Dallas County, Iowa: his father's nose and eyes and untameable hair, a matchbox car run up a wall, crayon storms destroying cities, a candy box with a shiny rock, two dollars and a plastic cowboy, a birthday party promised for tomorrow. 'Am I going to get a bike?' Carl never knew he existed; Bea did. His head, on a stalk, is the Reminiscence Hydra's lightning; a spider's eye muffles his echo. 'I wish I'd known you, too.'

Segment appearances

• Chapter 45 — Asher
• Chapter 46 — The Reminiscence Hydra
• Chapter 47 — Operation Slut Stomp
• Chapter 50 — Homestead
• Chapter 72 — Falling Up

Arc

Behind the hospital bed (ch. 45); a candy box and crayon storms; 'You won't be forgotten. Not ever.' (ch. 45). A hydra head with lightning — 'Carl, I wish I'd known you, too' (ch. 46); a photograph Bea kept and never mentioned (ch. 47); an airplane taped to Carl's wall (ch. 49); the name Carl swears to as the sky opens (ch. 72).