A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck

by Jade Brieanne

  Beautiful or not, Jin’s panic returned. She’d lost her ability to trust strangers. Her hand flew to her neck. Her necklace had always managed to ground her, to calm her down but she felt nothing but clammy skin. Her eyes widened. Where is it? Without it, her panic heightened. Her gaze jutted to the nightstand. A knife with a phoenix feather etched into the handle sat there, the silver blade reflecting the white of its surroundings. She lunged for the knife, her hand wrapping around the ivory handle before swinging it towards the woman standing in the doorway.

  “Who are you?” Jin demanded, her voice hard.

  “Onyu,” the woman answered as if the two syllables explained everything. She took a step into the room, her long legs peeking out of the slits in her white dress. Heavy golden dzilla wrapped around her neck and Jin’s mind supplied a quick “Ndebele” before she realized the woman was drawing closer and closer. Before she could take another step, Jin brandished the knife.

  “Don’t! Don’t come any closer!” she croaked, her voice quivering.

  The woman raised a brow at her before she did just that, coming closer by taking another step into the room. “You frighten easily. That is unexpected.”

  Jin raised the knife higher. “Please don’t come any closer! I don’t want to hurt you!” she pleaded.

  Onyu laughed. It had a tinkling sound to it like wind chimes. “It’s obvious you overestimate yourself. You cannot hurt me. You may look like her but you are not her.”

  She swiped at Onyu, hoping to show her that she could and would hurt her.

  “And here I was thinking you would have an issue with sharp pointy things,” Onyu challenged, her voice rich with humor. She walked across the room, closer and closer, and Jin shrank back against the headboard. Onyu stopped at Jin’s side and motioned with her fingers. “Give me that.”

  “I–I can’t,” Jin admitted, her voice small.

  Onyu sighed. Turning around, she placed her hand on a chair that had popped out of thin air. She studied it for a long moment. In the seat of the chair was a rough, thick roll of tawny-colored rope, a loose cigarette and a lighter. Never taking her eyes off Jin, she plucked the cigarette and lighter from its perch and pushed the rope from the chair to the ground before bringing the chair closer to her bedside. She sat, tossing incredibly long jet black hair over her shoulder, continuing to stare at Jin as if she were expecting something different.

  Onyu lit the cigarette and inhaled. The end lit up, orange, and Jin blinked through visions of a glowing end in the darkness, a madman waving a gun and making threats that didn’t make sense. Panic clawed at her throat and she flinched.

  “Does this cigarette bother you?”

  Jin swallowed the temptation to say yes, to admit that it did. It triggered visions. Instead, Jin said, “No.”

  Onyu narrowed her eyes. “Suit yourself.” She blew out a thick cloud of smoke, tendrils of it dancing in the air. “Are you scared of me? You shouldn’t be. I’m not going to hurt you. I can’t.”

  “How am I supposed to know that?”

  The woman tilted her head and blew out more smoke, grey against white. “You don’t.”

  A thought struck Jin. “Am I dead?”

  “Why do you care?”

  In her astonishment, her hand dropped and the blade fell to her lap. “What kind of question is that?” Jin looked around the all-white room. “I am, aren’t I? Is this like the Heaviside Layer? Are you–are you God?”

  “Was that a Cats reference?”

  “Yes! No! I mean…is this heaven?”

  “Is this heaven? Am I God?” Onyu asked, laughing. “Yuh head gone child?” she said, her voice sliding into an accent Jin recognized.

  “No, I’m not crazy, thank you,” Jin answered, her arms crossed. “I believe I asked a valid question.”

  Onyu looked impressed. “You speak patois?”

  Jin stuttered into an explanation. “M–my great-grandmother was a sharecropper in South Carolina. She spoke so fast that I had no choice but to learn. She would–”

  Onyu held her hand up. “That’s adorably useless information. I didn’t ask for your life story.” She inhaled and blew out more smoke. “No, I am not God. No, this is not heaven.”

  “Okay,” Jin replied, holding the note. “What about my other question?”

  Onyu studied her for a moment and Jin felt naked. Onyu had cool accessing black eyes with unwavering steel behind them. They seemed very honest and Jin wondered if she stared long enough, would she find answers. She hoped that despite the situation, despite Jin’s apprehension and confusion, that Onyu might, just might, be the first person to be honest with her.

  “Can I have your hand,” Onyu asked instead.

  So much for that. “Absolutely not.”

  Onyu shrugged. She stood, with a silent grace that confused Jin, and slid the chair back by the wall. She placed the rope back on the seat and put out the cigarette against the wall. Grey marred the white again. She turned for the door, her hair trailing behind her.

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  “I’m going back,” Onyu said over her shoulder.

  Jin’s mouth dropped open. “Back to where?” Jin asked, her voice strained. “And why won’t you answer my questions? You’re the only person here!”

  Onyu rounded on her, her gaze unimpressed. “I’m not your magic genie. I’m not your all-knowing psychic. For this to work, it is give and take.” She turned from Jin and reached for the door. “You know where the shower is. There is clothing in the closet. Soon I’ll have someone bring you something to eat. Gumbo. You like gumbo? You should like gumbo.”

  The door opened and closed with a quiet click, leaving Jin by herself.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next morning–not that Jin could tell what time it was–she was still in the same room. The clock was still useless and its constant ticking was getting on her nerves. She wore white linen pajamas that didn’t belong to her and her hair was pushed back from her face

  After Onyu had left, she’d tried a number of ways to escape. Without a way of knowing what was on the other side of the door–her living room, maybe, possibly, but probably not–her first attempt were the windows. She fingered the closed blinds.

  She noticed something spectacular. The room was in the condition before Shen attacked them. She almost couldn’t remember what it looked like before that but here the memory stained her mind. The lamp, the one she’d got while in Seoul, the one that Aiden said was “the ugliest shit lamp he’d ever seen” was in one piece on her nightstand. The walls were

  pristine, not riddled with bullet holes. Even the texture of the sheets was the same. Everything was the same…except for the closed blinds. In their room, the blinds would never be closed.

  Why are the blinds closed?

  She wanted to fix that. She wanted to because even if it was silly and fruitless, it would be a small reminder of Aiden. Something to keep her sane.

  Jin tried the cord but nothing happened. She tried prying them apart but it was like they were glued together–possibly the strongest glue ever because they would not budge. She thought, only for a fleeting moment, about bringing the whole damn thing down but that required height and Jin didn’t have height. That fell to Aiden. Whenever she couldn’t reach for something over the fridge or had to swipe high onto of a chair to dust, he would come to her rescue. She glanced back at the chair but the rope was still there and the rope made her uneasy. That left her with the one option–the door.

  Walking to the nightstand, she picked up the knife before padding towards the door. Jin pulled short of it and stared at it for a long moment, wondering what could be on the other side. Would she find the rest of her house in shades of blinding white or would she find something else? Did it matter? She put her ear to the door. “Anybody there?” No, nothing. Silence.

  Setting her shoulders, Jin pulled the door open. It opened with a soft click and a loud beep, one that made her heart clench. The sound triggered a fear in
her but she didn’t have time to be scared.

  She pulled the door open enough to look through the crack, hoping to see her living room but found nothing but pitch black darkness, much different from the blinding white behind her. It had to be an escape! She threw the door back hard enough that it slammed into the wall and she ran into the abyss.

  The black shifted to white, the darkness to light.

  She was staring at her bedroom in all white but reversed. Everything that was on the left was on the right and everything that was on the right was on the left.

  “No way,” she whispered. She looked over her shoulder through the open door. Darkness. She began to back up, out of the room, out of the light, and back to where she came.

  She was in her room yet again and everything was back in its correct position, except this time she had a visitor. Onyu stood by the window in all of her ethereal beauty and stubbornness, her finger poking through the blinds as she glanced out the window.

  “How are you today, Jin?” she said without turning. Her hair was different today, plaited straight back in neat, precise cornrows, conch shells at the ends and the edges slicked down like Jin used to do in high school with gel and a toothbrush.

  Jin didn’t have time for Onyu’s fake hospitality. “Am I trapped here?”

  The woman hummed. “Define trapped.”

  Jin’s fingers sunk into her hair and she yanked in frustration. “You are worse than Key! At least he let me know he was being an evasive ass!”

  Onyu chuckled. “It’s funny you say that seeing as Kithlish is just as uninformed as you are. The expression “the blind leading the blind” comes to mind. The irony in that is that I’m the one who is actually blind.”

  Jin paused. “You can’t see?”

  “No, I said I’m blind.”

  Jin glanced at the knife in her hand.

  “Do you have the courage to kill her”? a voice echoed in her head.

  No. I don’t.

  She could never ever see herself killing someone but maybe if she could force Onyu to show her the way out of here…

  She tiptoed across the room, her chest tight as she held her breath. The sound of her steps were swallowed by the carpet. She snuck up behind Onyu, staring at the tall woman’s graceful neck. Her grip tightened around the ivory handle and she raised it above her head and–

  A blur of movement. Jin cried out when a vise-like grip around her wrist squeezed to the point of pain. Jin’s hand spasmed in surprise and hurt and the knife dropped to the floor with a thud.

  “You lied,” Jin growled, wincing. “You are not blind.”

  “Oh, I’m very blind and I’ve always been. I am a spiritualist–a very powerful one. Spiritualist such as I can see spiritual mass, particles, pressure, essence, as your eyes see waves of light.” Onyu glanced at Jin out of the corner of her eye. “You are swarming with it. Now, you’ve got a choice to make. You can either choose to trust me,” Onyu warned, “or you can continue wandering and failing. I have all the time in the world whereas you do not.”

  Jin snatched her wrist out of Onyu’s grip and rubbed her chaffed raw skin. “Give me something to trust.”

  Onyu grin was slow and exacting. “Give me your hand and I will.”

  Jin continued her campaign of stubbornness, crossing her arms across her chest. Onyu answered, displaying her stance of apathy with a shrug.

  “Suit yourself.”

  And again Jin was left by herself.

  Days passed like that: Jin trying to escape, failing, spinning herself in circles with how many times she’d entered and re-entered her own bedroom. And as always, she was greeted in her bedroom by Onyu, always the moment when Jin had given up for the day. She would ask for Jin’s hand and Jin would refuse.

  Sometime later a different woman entered the room. She had sun-kissed skin and auburn hair that was plaited in a single goddess braid around the edges of her scalp. She was plump, carrying most of the weight in her chest and hips. She wore a high collared wool robe coat embroidered with teal and golden strands and under it, a champagne colored silk dress with long sleeves that brushed the tips of her fingers. She gave off an air of class and beauty, different from Onyu’s grace, but grace all the same. The woman greeted Jin with a smile, her teeth black and shiny, as she carried a tray in with her, some sort of soup steaming up from a white marble bowl.

  Probably more gumbo.

  The woman placed the soup on Jin’s nightstand and pulled a spoon out of the pockets of her long sleeves.

  Jin eyed her carefully and the woman eyed her back in silence, stark interest playing in her silvery grey eyes. The look mirrored those she’d met in Caeli–The Above–the ones who set her up and led her to slaughter. It unsettled her just a bit more than their advantageous stares because Jin doubted this woman had an ulterior motive other than being creepy.

  “Hi,” she said after a spell of silence, her smile bright and wide and Jin noticed her teeth were perfect under the lacquer of black. “I’m Benja’in-su. I’m here to assist you. Teka’te Ka is finally making her journey to Median so I’ll be assisting you going forward. I’ve learned all your favorite meals. Onyu told me you like gumbo. So, tada!” She motioned towards the bowl. “It’s so nice to meet you while you’re awake!” Without warning, she reached out and grabbed the back of Jin’s head.

  “What are you–” Jin was cut off when Benja’in-su laid a big kiss across her lips. When Jin sputtered and drew back, Benja’in-su’s mouth rounded into an O.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She tapped her forehead with the spoon. “I forget I can’t greet strangers that way! See, it is custom for newcomers but you’re not a newcomer, you’re just…here. Wait. Let me get that.” She bent towards and with her sleeve clutched in her fleshy hand, tried to wipe Jin’s lips with it. Jin knocked her hand away.

  “It’s fine. It’s just a kiss,” she said, more interested in the other thing Benja’in-su mentioned. “But where is here?”

  “Here?” Benja’in-su said as she straightened. She smelled warm like sunflowers and ginger root. She tongued her cheek, looking around before she spotted something of interest. Her dress rustled as she walked over to the window and with a slight twist on the blind rod, they opened. “Here is Discord,” she announced, bubbly.

  Jin’s mouth fell open and she clambered from her bed, throwing her sheets aside and knocking pillows out of the way. She came to a stop in front of the window and her eyes jutted back and forth as she looked through the open blinds.

  You’ve got to be kidding me.

  It was another replica of her room, this time her bed, the nightstand, and the chair were attached to the ceiling of the room. How is that even freaking possible?

  Her shoulders slumped. “You must be as blind as Onyu.”

  Benja’in-su tilted her head. “That’s impossible. No one is as blind as Onyu.”

  “It was a joke,” Jin deadpanned. “Aria told me Discord was a bridge and you’re telling me this,” she gestured wildly at the window, “is it. This is just another funky version of my room.”

  Benja’in-su glanced at Jin, her brow raised as if Jin were speaking an alien language before glancing back out the blinds. Then she gasped. “Ooooh! I understand why you can’t see what I see. You haven’t pledged your trust to Onyu yet! That’s why you see…whatever it is that you see, while I see Kowloon Nuh. Trust begets truth here. She is a 3rd order spiritualist, the only 3rd order spiritualist in Discord. If you want to get anywhere, you’ll have to play by her rules.”

  “So she’s like in charge?”

  Benja’in-su shook her head. “Not exactly. The Old Goat who owns The Silent Temple is. However, Onyu is very strong, very gifted. Her energy feeds the discarded timelines, the discarded timelines feed Discord and she feeds off Discord like the other realms do. It makes Discord and her stronger at the same time. At this point, Discord depends on Onyu for its survival.”

  Jin nodded sage-like. “You make a good
point. Onyu belongs here. You belong here. I don’t. I’m here by accident.”

  Benja’in-su giggled behind her hand. “No one ends up here on accident, Jin. The realm has claimed you. It’s not going to let you go easily. You will belong to it until you don’t.”

  “I get it. This is like a rest station before the Pearly Gates. Not quite hell, but real close. I am dead, like dead dead, aren’t I?”

  “Life isn’t your beginning and death isn’t a destination.”

  Jin frowned. “Why can’t anyone around here just answer a question?” she mumbled.

  The woman laughed, black teeth gleaming. “Onyu will help you if you trust her,” she said before she picked up the tray and turned to leave. “You have a look in your eyes like you’ve forgotten how to trust. You’ll just have to relearn.”

  Then she walked through the door and into the darkness and Jin was alone again

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  George’s Tire World

  Manhattan, New York

  6:16 am

  George Elder had a weekend routine. He would wake up early on Friday mornings, cook for his wife, send his daughter a text she wouldn’t read until she arrived safely at her bakery, and then take a long bike ride from his condo in Jackson Heights to George’s Tire World, Zicon’s halfway house for those who saw the good in themselves and wanted to change their lives.

  He only did this on Fridays. He didn’t want Zicon to see him as some sort of overseer so he tried to keep his distance. Zicon owned the warehouse; it was his property, his responsibility, his bank account the lenders drafted the mortgage from. However, there was something about