The Bestiarum Vocabulum (TRES LIBRORUM PROHIBITUM)

by Dean M. Drinkel

  "Do you think he's had enough?" Her father said.

  She replied, "a few more days. How's our Kazuki feeling?"

  "He's almost ready to be mounted again," her father said. “He's almost as good as new. Kazuki has only a long scar left."

  "Then I think," she said, "that as soon as he's better, then that will be the day our yard work may be done. Of course, I did mention you might want to help us build a new outdoor bath. Doesn't that sound wonderful?"

  Hotaru said, "You are special, brave, amazingly bright young woman. Your tongue is worth its weight in gold."

  ***

  The wood was stained red. The outdoor bath was marvellous. Freshwater was gathered through a pump from Lake Tokai, heated, filtered, and brought into the back. There were the natural stones used as decorations. It was a wonderful addition to their home. The Kappa had even came up with the idea to make a wooden canopy so that it would be perfectly shaded. He showed her how he managed each step of making the outdoor bath. She learned quite a bit from him in a short amount of time. She found the Kappa to be quite charming, despite his offensive smell.

  "You've never joined us for a bath," she asked of the Kappa. "I thought that was something you always wished for in crafting this."

  The Kappa said, "You have given me so much. You have allowed me to work off one of my sins. I feel forever grateful to you and I do not wish to ask for anything else from you. Perhaps one day you will allow me to return to the lake. I will be able to sleep knowing I have done right by you. It is the way of the Kappa, you should know, to not be offensive."

  She agreed, "Yes. That is certain. And I do think you have been quite honourable in your dealings with us. The horse is doing much better. You have given us this wonderful bath and have shared your knowledge with me. You've ignited a passion for building. I'm quite intrigued and think I may pursue this further."

  The Kappa smiled and ate a slice of cucumber, which Kaori had prepared for them before she’d left for town with Hotaru. "That is absolutely wonderful news. I can barely believe what you have just told me. That makes me so happy, I don't think I can put it into words."

  She replied, "Then why don't you join me in the bath? It will be nice: a way for us to close the door on the past and celebrate the future. Both our futures."

  The Kappa nodded. “That doesn't seem like a bad idea to me at all. I am honoured you would think to have me join you. I look at you and I see a beautiful woman, and I wish I were a human boy so you may smile fondly upon me."

  She laughed and added, "Don't be silly. Love is blind to such silly things. You are like my brother. A much shorter brother, but a brother nonetheless."

  "So you only see me as a brother and not a lover?" The Kappa enquired. "I'll take what I can. To be next to such an exquisite woman for any amount of time has been something I will never forget. I have learned much from you, as well–mainly that I should be respectful of those around me. Even if I'm hungry."

  They laughed.

  ***

  Letting her white robe slip from her shoulders, she slid into the warm water of the outdoor bath. The Kappa was already inside, swimming around in little circles. He stopped to look at her. "Seeing you like this makes me feel crazy," he said. "I don't think I've seen anything more perfect in my entire life." He looked her up and down while she sat inside the water. "You are perfect."

  She smiled, embarrassed. "Stop being so silly. I told you: you are like a brother to me. I don't see you as a lover."

  "I cannot go to my grave and not tell you how I feel. That would drive me insane," he said.

  "I certainly can respect that. I want you to know that I am flattered by your words. I hold your opinions of all things, especially beautiful things, in high esteem. I don't think you would tell me something unless you truly meant it," she stated.

  "You're right. I learned long ago that not being direct was not my way. Who knows how long we have on this world? It may all be over much too soon. Best to know the truth."

  "The truth changes," Isamu said. "That is one of the things you've always told me."

  The Kappa swam over toward her. It sat next to her on the underwater seat in the bath. He didn't speak for a moment.

  "You look sad. What's going on?" she said.

  "It's just I wish I could have one last gift from you," he said. "A kiss to remember you forever."

  "A kiss? I don't think so," Isamu said. "That might be asking too much."

  "I don't mean something long, like something lovers might do. Just something quick. A fast kiss." He shut his eyes and opened and closed his reptilian mouth several times, doing his best impression of what a kiss might be.

  "Stop that. This is very weird. You're a good friend to me, and a brother, and a mentor."

  "Am I asking for that much? Just a small kiss to remember the love of my life as she is now before she will be, so that I may have her warmth in my heart past my dying day.”

  Isamu said, "I imagine it's fine if it will keep you quiet about the subject."

  "It will," he nodded. "I promise I won't bring it up again."

  "Good. Close your eyes," Isamu ordered.

  He did. She leaned in, put her hands on his shoulders, and kissed the front of his mouth. It was coarse and hard, like a tortoiseshell.

  As she pulled away, Isamu felt a stinging in her belly. She looked down to find a crimson cloud expanding in the water around her middle. The Kappa's hands were upon her.

  "What have you done?" she asked.

  "I don't want anybody else to have you. If I can't have you, no one shall have you. And I will have you. Forever."

  Isamu tried to speak, but the pain was immeasurable. She could only gasp. The Kappa had waited and had checked her. She should have known better. It lifted her out of the bath, stronger than she had estimated. She looked around, hoping her father would come out with his sword, or her mother with a metal pan, to save her.

  Neither arrived. The Kappa carried her across the great lawn toward the lake. She tasted blood in her mouth and her entire body went numb.

  The Kappa sang. She didn't recognize the words, or the language. The melody sounded as the sun set over the mountain, leaving long shadows across the yard.

  The Kappa waded up to his neck in the water. Isamu’s body floated.

  She looked out toward her family's home. No one was inside. She heard Kazuki and Kazuko eating inside the barn. They had no idea what was happening to her. She imagined them breaking free, dashing out toward the lake, rushing in, and delivering her into her father's precise hands. He could sew her back together. He would fix her until they could get her to a proper surgeon. She pictured her father’s face, and then her mother's.

  Hotaru.

  Kaori.

  Isamu looked up and imagined them in the clouds over Mount Shioma looking down at her.

  The Kappa lowered her body and the water pooled over her face. She tried to breathe, but nothing worked. Then she knew. When she’d kissed the Kappa, there must've been some substance on his mouth that had caused her to go numb and unable to move. He’d deceived her. How could she have be so foolish? How had she not seen it coming? Was this truly her end?

  Isamu strained to keep looking at the world through the water of Lake Tokai, even though everything was distorted. Soon she felt nothing. The outside world faded as the Kappa sang her name, its voice echoing underwater, until that, like the beating of her heart, went silent.

  L is for Lamia

  Everlasting

  Amelia Mangan

  Born again.

  My skin is tight upon me, and my hair is in my mouth, thick and tangled and foul with brine. Sand grazes my face. The sun eats my flesh and my eyes bleed salt.

  One arm in front of me, pressed into the sand, grasping at wet grit. I place my weight upon it and raise my body up. My dress, my brand new expensive summer dress, hangs off my limbs in waterlogged sheets. I swipe my other hand across my face and stare out over an expanse of white sand, shading into r
ocks, into dirt, into thick green jungle and away, far beyond. I look to my left.

  Blue sea. To my right. Blue sea.

  I arch and pull up my legs beneath me. One leg is numb. If I'm lucky the feeling will return with time. One deep breath, one heave and I’m on my feet, staggering up the shore. Don't want to lose momentum. If I stop and think I might never move again. I can hear blood, beating against my skull.

  The ship sank. This I know. I can't say I remember it, exactly. I remember black and wet. Lashing rain. Lightning splitting a cracked-glass sky. Not a single star. My body limp. Hitting the boards. Boards twisting, under me, over me. Falling up. Into the black and the wet.

  A cruise ship. A luxury cruise, through the exotic Greek Isles. You should go, everyone said. Take time off school. Recover from your loss. Get away from it all.

  I stand on the beach of an island I've never heard of in a part of the world I've never been, in sopping rags, with a leg that might be broken and a head full of blood, and I laugh like an idiot. Oh, I'm away from it all now. And it's all away from me. Very, very far away.

  ***

  My mother died three weeks ago.

  It wasn't sudden. It wasn't unexpected. It was slow and sickening and itched beneath my skin, gnawed into me no matter what I was doing, no matter where I was or who I was with. I stayed in school until I couldn't, until the itch got too bad to ignore.

  Back home there's an empty house where I never would've thought there'd be one. Back home there's a house where all the lights are off and nothing makes a sound.

  There's no sound here, either. I notice this as I build my shelter. Dead palms and branches. I tried not to make too much noise as I went into the jungle, as I gathered the fronds and sticks. Might be wild animals. Listening. But I haven't heard a sound since I got here. No insects. No birds. Not even any wind. The grass is still. The island is full of silence. No sound but the sea.

  Mom used to sing. All the time. Real loud. You could hear her all over the house. Songs from musicals, Sixties pop. I used to cringe and tell her to shut up. I thought it, she, was embarrassing.

  I could be alone here for a very long time.

  ***

  I lie in the shelter at night and I don't sleep. I tried to bend the branches into a kind of bivouac, a framework for the leaves, but there are holes in it all over the place and through the holes I can see the stars. They're close here, closer than I've ever seen, and so many of them. Looking at them makes me feel dizzy. I wonder if any of them are the same as the ones I used to see back home.

  I'm tired but my eyes won't close. They haven't closed in three weeks. Not really. Sometimes I'd blank out and stare at nothing in the middle of class, or in a park, or walking home, or at the front door with my key in the lock. But that's not the same as sleeping. I don't want to sleep, anyway. You miss too much. I was asleep when my aunt called from the hospital.

  My aunt. The one who paid for the cruise. I'll bet she's looking after the house now. I hope she is. Somebody ought to. All our stuff is there. Perfume bottles half-full, owl-shaped mugs with lipstick traces on the rim. Clothes in the closet. Skirts and dresses. Pills in the cabinet. She'd better not throw any of it away. Or split any of it up. It has to stay together, all of it, always. It won't survive otherwise.

  Maybe I will sleep tonight. I'm drifting, hazy. My thoughts come apart at the seams. Maybe I'm already there, already gone. Maybe I'm dreaming the sound I hear, the first sound I've heard, that harsh and lonely cry deep in the jungle night. It sounds like a baby. It sounds like a baby but it can't be a baby, of course it can't, and I'm awake again, eyes big, muscles stiff. Aware. Alert. There's something alive on the island, after all. Something wild.

  I'm awake all night. The stars burn themselves out all around me.

  ***

  I need food.

  I'm going to have to open my eyes and get out of the shelter and go look for food. The sun spackles my skin and stings my eyelids. My hands are folded on my chest, rising and falling with my ribs. My stomach hurts and my head hurts and my body hurts even more than yesterday. Bruises I didn't know I had. I roll onto my hip and my dress crackles around me, stiff as old paper.

  Back home, back when I slept, I slept under a quilted coverlet patched together with denim and linen. The linen had a daisy pattern. It smelled of lavender incense and lipstick and whatever it was that my mother, and only my mother, smelled of. First the coverlet was hers, bought at a garage sale a year before I was born. Then she piled it on top of me when I was fifteen and sick with the flu, and from that point on it was mine. After she died I walked around the house at four in the morning with the coverlet wrapped around me, over my bowed head, like the hood of a monk. It was soft, and my skin craved softness.

  Now I'm sunburned and tired and aching again, but I have to get up, I have to move. I leave the shelter and breathe in. The air is sharp and clean and has no scent whatsoever. There are flowers all around, huge and purple, wilting in the heat. You'd think they'd smell of something. Maybe it's just me.

  I take a step. Look around. Where do I start? Anything here could be edible. Anything here could kill me. I don't recognize the plant life; even the big purple flowers don't look like any flowers I've ever seen. Something about their shape, their texture. Close enough to orchids to make you look twice, to draw you closer, but once you're close enough you can see they're something very different.

  Something not right.

  I think about fishing. I don't want to go fishing. I don't want to kill anything. I've been vegetarian for two years now, ever since Mom and I saw that movie about the slaughterhouses. It didn't stop her from making pot roasts, even though I yelled at her about it. A lot of what I remember now is me yelling at her.

  Focus.

  Focus, focus, focus: food.

  Hunting. I could try hunting.

  Last night swims back into my brain. That cry. It sounded human but obviously it wasn't human, obviously animal, because obviously this is a desert island and if there were humans here I'd have seen some sign of them and they wouldn't be hiding from me on purpose because why would they hide, why would they not want me to see them, why would they lie in wait?

  I press a hand to my forehead. It comes away wet and clammy. Maybe I should go back to the shelter, lie down for a while.

  Ten feet away, in a tangled copse of trees, something shifts.

  My head whips to the side. All I see are leaves. But the leaves are swaying. There is no wind. Not even a breeze.

  I move forward. One step. Two. I squint past the green, into cool shade.

  Something squats there, darker than the dark. I hear wet breath, pulled in and pushed out through open lips.

  Closer. I peer between the leaves.

  An eye stares back at me. Black and hard and bright as polished stone.

  I pull away, stagger back on my bad leg. Pain shoots up the bone, into my spine. I cry out and fall backward into the long dry grass.

  The leaves part and a child looks down at me.

  About twelve, maybe. Thirteen. Could be a boy, could be a girl. Black hair knotted and twisted all around a stone-white face. Mouth open but otherwise no expression. A long strip of yellowing canvas is draped around its body. Looks like torn sailcloth.

  The child stares at me.

  I should say something. I have no idea what to say.

  “Hi.”

  It stares.

  “Do you live here?”

  Its eyes don't seem to have any pupils. Or else they're all pupil. Nothing but dark.

  “You speak English?”

  It slowly tilts its head. I can hear it breathing, in, out, in. It breathes in time with the waves.

  “Hurt,” the child says, eventually.

  It has an accent, very thick, but not Greek. No accent I know.

  “What?” I reply.

  The black eyes slide over my leg. “Hurt,” the child says again.

  “Oh.” I look at my leg, stretched out at my side. “Yes.
Yes. Hurt. I hurt my leg. Accident.” I wave my hands through the still air. “Ship. Out at sea. Rain. Wind. Whoosh! Ship...” I curve my hand, dip it down.“I swim...” Butterfly stroke. “To here. To...” Circle. “Island. You...” Point. “Live here?”

  The child looks at me. And nods. "Live."

  “Live. Okay. Alone?”

  “Live. Mother."

  The word stabs through me but this isn't the time. Focus. Mother means help. Mother means rescue. “Your mother's here?”

  Nod.

  “Where? Where is she...where does she stay?”

  The child raises an arm, points across the grass to the other side of the island. “Sea. By sea.” The pointing finger swings around to me. "Take to Mother."

  “Yes!” I nod. “Yes. Take to Mother. Thank you. Thank you.”

  The child keeps its arm extended. I realize it's offering to help me up. I grab its wrist and pull myself to my unsteady feet. The child's skin has a strange feel, supple and cool, like damp white clay. I let go as soon as I'm able.

  The child gestures. “With me.” It turns and heads back into the thicket. I follow, holding my hands out, pushing back against the close, curling green. The ground rises and falls under my feet, rotten leaves, shards of white rock. Shafts of hot light filter through the canopy overhead; as the child passes through them, its skin seems to gleam.

  “What's your name?”

  The child glances back. It looks a little tired. The flesh seems to sag around its eyes, around its jaw. It raises one thin shoulder and lets it fall, then turns back, keeps going.

  ***

  The underbrush is choked with black weeds. Thorns and nettles. I pick through and around them as carefully as I can, but can't avoid their sting. The child doesn't seem to feel it. Just plows right ahead. Never even looks back. Seems to be slowing down a little, though; I think I detect a slight limp. Its shoulders are starting to bow.