by Hiromi Goto
A tinny sound rang inside Melanie’s ears. Somewhere, her heart seized, tight like a cramp, but the pain was someone else’s.
A mistake.
Melanie staggered to her feet, grabbed Fumiko’s shoulders, and pulled her close to her face. “See my eyes!” she hissed. “I’m alive! I’m asking you to come back with me to Life! You’re notdead! You still have a chance! All you have to do is remember.”
Fumiko backed away from Melanie’s hysteria, edging toward the door. “I couldn’t possibly be your mother,” Fumiko said flatly. “You’re too old. You must be at least thirty.”
Melanie’s hands jerked upward to touch her own face. “It’s just makeup,” she babbled, trying to laugh. “It’s just a disguise. Because I’m still alivealive. And you are, too! Not like everyone else in Half World.” Her fingers brushed against something sharp and it bit painfully into the flesh of her cheek. She flinched.
Hands shaking, she stared at her fingers. Bright red against the black-and-white shades of Half World, marked with her living blood.
“What . . . ” Fumiko whispered.
“Mmmm, mmmmm! I smell something tasty. I smell something fresh!” Mr. Glueskin called from the living room.
Melanie shuddered with revulsion. Oh, they had to get away. And now she was marked. A small sliver of glass stuck from her finger. A shard of mirror from her mother’s frightening dress. If she washed off the revealing blood she would expose the living tones of her skin. Was her face dotted with the brilliant red smears of a living thing?
Fumiko leaned closer, something changing in her expression. A brief moment—
Melanie grabbed both of her mother’s hands. One of the fingers of her black glove flopped, empty. Her pinkie. It was gone.
Realization filled Melanie’s chest with hot tears. “Mummy. You bit off your own finger. To get back into Half World. You did that to try to save me. . . . You have to come back with me,” she whispered urgently. She pulled her toward the doorway. “Mr. Glueskin. He’s tricked you. Remember, Mummy! I’m Melanie! I’m your daughter. Remember D-Dad? Shinobu Tamaki. You said you were waiting to see him again. That’s why you never found someone else. You have pictures of Frida Kahlo and Escher! Bosch’s paintings remind you of Half World.” Her voice began to falter. “R-remember? You always said that I’m the best thing that’s happened to you for all time. . . . You always said that. . . . ” Her voice finally broke.
Her mother shuddered. She shook her head slowly, a great weariness sagging the flesh of her overpainted face.
“I do not know you,” Fumiko said tonelessly. Her hands were dead things in Melanie’s grip. “I have never seen you before in my life.”
Melanie’s nerveless fingers released their hold and her hands fell heavily to her sides. The weight of everything she had endured was more than she could bear. And she suddenly felt it all. The unspeakable despair was complete, and she finally understood how people could take their own lives, how her mother had succumbed to hopeless sadness and become alcoholic.
The knowledge just didn’t matter anymore.
“Leave,” Fumiko said. “We’ll find another maid.”
A small sound slipped from Melanie’s lips.
She had struggled so hard, suffered and endured. And for what? Not only was she rejected as a daughter, but she was unwanted even as a maid.
She couldn’t stand it.
Melanie began to laugh. She smacked her hand against her knee and laughed and laughed until tears ran down her face. She fell to the cool tiles, arms clamped around her sore middle, laughing so hard that her shaking bordered on convulsions.
The high-pitched stink of vinegar poured into the room.
“Well,” Mr. Glueskin said, “it’s time to throw out this maid with the rubbish. She has gone mad.”
Melanie opened her eyes to see Mr. Glueskin standing directly above her.
“What,” Mr. Glueskin asked ever so slowly, “do we have here?”
The sharp prickle of her abraded cheeks began to burn.
Belatedly she pressed her hands to cover them up.
She could feel the stickiness of blood upon her palms.
Fumiko drew close to Mr. Glueskin and slipped her hand into his. Melanie felt sick as she watched his sticky fingers elongate and squeeze possessively, an elastic smile beginning to spread across his expressive face.
“Hello, Melanie,” he said gently. “I’m so glad you could join us.”
THIRTEEN
MR. GLUESKIN’S MOUTH seemed to move in slow motion, his elastic lips mouthing vowels with exaggerated care. It’s funny, Melanie thought numbly. People look silly if you stare at their mouths and you don’t know what they’re saying. She stared vacantly as his words washed over her, morphing beyond meaning into malformed sounds. It was so nice not to understand. . . .
“—fun games now!” Mr. Glueskin said, as Melanie returned to meaning with an elastic snap.
She blinked slowly.
Mr. Glueskin closed his hand into a fist and rapped the top of Melanie’s head. “Hel-lohhhh,” he inflected. “Anyone home? Dimwit! Nitwit! Half-wit!” He began clouting her skull, harder and harder with each word. Melanie could not stop the tears from falling from her eyes.
Why did her mother not stop him?
The doorbell rang throughout the suite.
“Oh! My first guests have arrived! We must welcome them. It’s going to be sooo much fun!” Mr. Glueskin, one comforting arm around Fumiko, squelched his other hand around Melanie’s wrist, melting his fingers and thumb into one seamless bond. Elongating his arm, he pulled her behind him like a dog on a leash. Melanie tried to pull out of his clasp but he yanked hard and she almost fell on her face.
Melanie followed.
Mr. Glueskin, Fumiko slightly behind him, stood at the door. He yanked downward on his arm-leash. “Sit!” he commanded.
Melanie, gritting her teeth, awkwardly lowered into a crouch.
Mr. Glueskin swung open the door.
A motley group of creatures stood at the entrance. A bird-headed man, naked except for a pair of faux fur shorts, a woman in a gown with eels instead of arms, a starfish with the face of a beautiful child at its tender center, wearing rubber boots, as if it was trying to look like Mr. Glueskin. The beauty queen pageant girl who had a hole in her face and her wallaby companion were there as well as several tall, twiggy bone people who clicked and clacked nervously in the background.
“My lovely friends,” Mr. Glueskin said warmly.
“Hello!” everyone said simultaneously, as if they were an audience being cued in a game show.
Mr. Glueskin looked at each and every one, his expression growing tight, mean, as his gaze passed over them. “Where are my presents?” he asked in a completely neutral voice.
His friends looked down at their empty hands, at their neighbors’ empty hands, and began to shuffle with agitation. Someone giggled nervously, “Hee, hee, hee—” until it was cut off.
Mr. Glueskin’s pupils turned into tiny black pinpricks. “WHERE ARE MY FREAKING PRESENTS?” he screamed. His vinegar stink filled the air.
Melanie could scarcely bear watching. Fumiko, she noted, was looking down at her feet.
Horror filled Melanie’s heart. What awful thing had Mr. Glueskin done to her mother? She had not thought about the time her mother had been forced to spend with this most despicable of creatures. She had been so dismayed that her mother didn’t recognize her she hadn’t given any thought to what her mother might have suffered. Melanie shook her head. Was it any wonder that she did not know her?
The cluster of “friends” at the entrance huddled together, like prey fish surrounded by predators. Just run! Melanie wanted to scream. Why didn’t the fools just run? Why did they come here at all?
Because they are afraid, a tiny sober part of Melanie’s mind assessed. This is what happens when you are ruled by fear. . . .
Melanie didn’t know who or what it was, if it was an individual choice, or if some kind o
f silent decision had been made by the group, but suddenly the little wallaby with a man’s head was thrust outside the protective huddle of the group. He stood there, exposed, his large dark eyes wide like a baby seal’s.
“Awwwwww,” Mr. Glueskin cooed. “You shouldn’t have!” Something white flew, faster than the eye could track, and suddenly the wallaby’s head was engulfed in an almost transparent skin of glue.
The party guests gasped simultaneously, then began to clap. “Hear! Hear!” someone called out with a jovial voice tinged heavily with relief.
The wallaby-man, unable to breathe, began hopping up and down, swiping with his front paws at the length of tongue that protruded from Mr. Glueskin’s mouth. Choking, desperate for air, the wallaby-man tried to gasp, but the thin skin of the elastic tongue that covered his entire head bulged in and out of his own open mouth as though he were ineptly trying to blow bubbles out of gum.
Mr. Glueskin began to laugh. “Haw, haw, haw, haw!” He beat a rapid staccato with his stinking rubber boots. “Thaghhht kaw-cawwls!” he garbled.
He yanked back his tongue as he simultaneously unlocked his jaw, letting it sag, dropping open to his chest. For a moment the wallaby-man’s bent back legs and tail stuck out from Mr. Glueskin’s mouth. His hind paws pattered their last, the tail swinging side to side.
It took several slow seconds for Mr. Glueskin to gulp him down.
Melanie, unable to help herself, dry-retched with abject horror. When she looked up once more Mr. Glueskin had a satisfied smirk upon his face, and his middle bulged as if he were carrying a baby.
“Come in! Welcome! We have a live show, today, and it’s going to be spectacular!” He stepped aside so that the guests could file in. They caught sight of Melanie, the bright spots of blood upon her cheeks, and they stared with wonder as they began whispering among each other. The beauty pageant girl had somehow slipped away. She did not pass into the room. Maybe, Melanie thought grimly, she was going back to the kiddie zoo to wait for her friend to reappear once more.
The guests clustered together by the piano like a herd of nervous gazelle.
Mr. Glueskin stood back and stared at Melanie’s housecleaning uniform with disdain. “Che, che, che!” he tsked. “You look so ugly and you have so little to work with. You need to freshen up. You need an outfit.” He began dragging Melanie toward a new passage. “You entertain each other for now,” he called back to his guests. “Fumiko, get her a dress.”
Mr. Glueskin tossed Melanie into the bathing room. It was enormous. Larger than the family living room of her home, it was completely covered in white tiles, silver chrome and black towels, the bathtub the size of a small swimming pool. A shower, large enough for a basketball team, took up the corner. Beside it was a lumpy white sack, like a laundry bag.
Mr. Glueskin spoke slowly and enunciated his words. “Bathe. Change your clothing. You’re going to be the star of the show.” He mimed showering and scrubbing, blinking dramatically, his tiny pinprick pupils so disturbing in the large polished whites of his eyes.
Melanie backed away. His moods were so mercurial. She did not know when he would fall into a fit of rage. When his joking would veer into violence.
Mr. Glueskin bowed low, several times, as he backed out of the bathroom. The door snicked shut.
Rage flared inside Melanie’s chest, threatening to burst up through her head. Her face flushed bright red with it. She wanted to beat him to a pulp. She wanted to punch his face in. She wanted to stomp his body until he was completely broken.
Melanie breathed hard and fast—
She covered her mouth with a trembling hand. How easy it was, after all, to turn into a monster.
Well, he would deserve it! a tight, mean voice inside her spat. The hateful and vicious things that he did, he would deserve everything that he got! Everyone would think so. He should die the way he lived.
Half lived . . .
Melanie wrapped her arms tightly around her middle. She caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Dark shadows encircled her eyes. Her eyes were bruises, wounds upon her face. She looked like she was close to thirty, not a teenaged girl. . . .
She looked an awful lot like her mother.
Melanie gave a ragged sigh.
Movement.
The white laundry lump writhed, stretched, like a larva wrapped in rubber.
The hairs stood up on Melanie’s neck at the grotesque wriggling and humping. Suddenly, something poked outward, and the material stretched thin, transparent. Melanie could make out a foot, a leg, trying to kick out of the confines. A hand pawed against the white fabric—not fabric! It was someone encased inside a skin of glue.
She rushed to the trapped creature and tore at the material. It was drier than the skein of Mr. Glueskin’s tongue that had bound her wrist. Melanie scratched and ripped at the white material and it seemed to grow stiffer, and finally she opened a seam. She grabbed the two edges and pulled her hands away from each other, the skin tearing like damp canvas.
Gao Zhen Xi’s wrinkled face was soaked wet and pale like a cadaver’s. Her hair was plastered upon her head, and the hand she extended shook with weakness. Melanie made to grab her wrist, but the worn old woman shook her head. She gestured with her chin and Melanie finally understood. She extended her own hand, palm upward, and Gao Zhen Xi sighed as she opened her closed fist.
The jade amulet felt sticky against Melanie’s skin.
Gao Zhen Xi’s mouth worked but words failed her. She gestured to her mouth, her throat, and Melanie dashed to the sink for a glass of water.
The old woman, still encased in the white skin, drank like it was the finest liquid in the world.
“Ahhhh,” she sighed. “Thank you, child.”
Melanie, eyes wide, nodded with relief. Gao Zhen Xi was all right. And she wouldn’t have to face Mr. Glueskin and his horrible friends alone.
Gao Zhen Xi’s eyes narrowed. “What has happened?”
Melanie’s eyes filled, a wave of emotion washing over her at the sound of a concerned and strong adult voice. To feel relieved and inadequate made her feel so young and vulnerable. She wanted someone else, someone better than she was, to take over.
“I’ve found my mum. But she doesn’t know me anymore. Mr. Glueskin has caught me—” Melanie’s choked words were interrupted as the door banged open.
Fumiko, completely expressionless, threw a white gown at Melanie’s feet. “Mr. Glueskin said to change into this,” she said in a monotone. She returned to the raucous noise of the guests. Someone, not the program, was playing “Chopsticks” unevenly on the piano once more.
Melanie dragged the back of her hand across her eyes. “See,” she whispered. “My mother doesn’t know me anymore. I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have bothered!”
“Melanie!” Gao Zhen Xi snapped. Melanie reared back.
“Your mother is caught in a trap. Half World should not be a trap for all who suffer, but because the Three Realms have been divided we cannot help but fall back, again and again, into a cycle of suffering. It is the same for your Realm and for the Realm of Spirit. We need the Three Realms reunited for there to be balance and wholeness. Without it we are all trapped creatures, only ever partially ourselves. No one is whole.”
“What can we do?” Melanie asked, despairingly.
“What can you do?” Gao Zhen Xi asked softly.
“What do you mean?” Melanie crumpled beside the old woman on the floor. Her voice trembled. “Won’t you help me?”
Gao Zhen Xi’s head bobbed with weariness. “Child,” she said gently, “you know not what our Half Lives have been in this Realm. Those of us who have some strength have somehow retained self-awareness; we can carve out a longer pocket of Half Life before we are flung back to our breaking moment. When we are thrown back the trauma and pain of that time is every bit as awful as when it first occurred in the Realm of Flesh. That is why so many here have become monsters. It takes much time to reach awareness that we are
caught in that same loop once more. The realization is followed by despair. Many in Half World cannot rise above the despair. This is why your mother behaves as if she doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know you right now. She is caught in her trauma. She has not yet woken. And I—” Gao Zhen Xi’s voice broke.
Melanie blinked anxiously. It wasn’t just the old woman’s voice that quavered. For a moment her substance seemed to shiver in and out of existence.
“I’m being pulled back once again.” Gao Zhen Xi shook her head, her eyes more weary than ten thousand years. “Child, it is up to you. Only you are truly alive here. And with this Life you carry the capacity to change the pattern.” The old woman seemed to grow transparent.
“Wait!” Melanie cried out, unable to help herself.
By some extreme act of will Gao Zhen Xi seemed to hold on to the fabric of her being.
“What must I do? I can’t begin to know what to do! How can one girl change three Realms? I can’t even stop Mr. Glueskin. I can’t even save my mother.” Melanie smacked her chest with the flat of her hand.
Gao Zhen Xi closed her eyes.
Melanie’s rigid shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She did not want to add to the old woman’s suffering.
Gao Zhen Xi’s eyes flew open. They glinted, momentarily, with a jade green fire. “It is not a matter of knowing the solution to righting all the wrongs. That is an impossible task. Even for one such as you.” She smiled fiercely, and Melanie wondered at the respect in the old woman’s voice. Respect, for her!
Despite the brief fire in her eyes, Gao Zhen Xi’s voice began to grow faint. “It is only choice. In the end. When the moment comes. And it is a terrible thing. How will you choose?”
The elements that held the old woman together finally faded and she simply vanished, the sack of glueskin falling flat upon the cold white tiles.
Melanie slumped, alone.
FOURTEEN
CHOICES.
No magic words, no cure-all potion, no ultimate key that unlocked the prize door, no sorcerer’s sword or special super latent power inside her waiting to burst free to save herself and her mother’s life and everyone else in all three Realms.