by Hiromi Goto
“N-no!” Gee’s voice, long unused, was hoarse. The sound rang through the empty room.
Something clicked, like claws tapping against metal. Gee twisted his head to look behind him.
No one was there.
The air whooshed as the furnace kicked in. Gee’s heart thudded. He licked his dry lips. He folded his fear smaller and smaller, as he had folded the letter from Ms. Carlson. His rational mind took over.
The language of the book is vague, Gee thought. It’s symbolic. Symbolism can be decoded in whatever way the reader chooses. And who knew who wrote the book? Books like this weren’t meant to be taken literally—just like the Bible.
He whipt his white snake-like tongue and snatched the wise woman.
Wrapt her up and inside his maw.
He engulfed her.
Gee shook his head as the stanza, unbidden, formed in his consciousness. It couldn’t be real. None of it was real. He was a high school student. He would graduate next year and he would go to university like his older sister. There had been a stray cat in their home and he had imagined it had spoken to him because he was so very tired, and hungry, and his grandmother was ill.
Because he was scared….
Her mother cleaved him, cracking open like a peach pit
split the tender centre mewling, a monster turned a baby.
They snatched up the infant, innocent, beastly, from Half World they fled, they fled to the Realm of Flesh.
Gee could not stop the words in the terrible book from popping up in his mind. The images that formed filled him with fear and fascination. Confusion. A creeping sense of recognition. The déjà vu of dreams….
Half World. The words whispered, echoed inside him. Like something almost familiar. Something he’d forgotten—
How could Popo do this to him?
Gee pounded the heels of his fists on the thick table. He pounded and pounded until he could feel the physical pain. Maybe Popo had written this book herself…. Maybe it was an elaborate psychological experiment? Maybe she was a psychotic, abusive person.
Those irregularities in his adoption…. There were no papers. He had no birth certificate. His grandmother had found someone to forge documents. It had cost a lot of money.
Popo had kidnapped him from somewhere and his real parents were still looking for him, far far away. That made more sense than the gibberish book.
He wasn’t a murderous monster from a different Realm! Ridiculous! Mad.
Popo! he raged. You did this to me! It’s all your fault! That’s why he didn’t have a real name. Baby G. Like a foundling in a basket. Baby X. John Doe. Why hadn’t she given him a proper name? The school had written his name as “Gee” when they saw Ms. Wei, saw that his papers identified him only as “G.” They must have thought she was illiterate. Did the teachers think it would make him more Asian? Because it hadn’t! When he’d finally asked his popo about his real name, she had been silent for a long time.
You must seek your own name, she finally said. When the time comes.
Her words had turned him to stone. And he asked her nothing more.
Popo hadn’t given him a proper name. Because she felt guilty. She had no right to name him. She had kidnapped him during his infancy—she was the monster.
Gee thrust himself away from the table, the chair clattering loudly against the hardwood floor. He stood, staring down at the awful, awful book. “Not me!” he hissed. His hands knotted into fists.
What about your face, the dark little voice inside him crowed. How do you explain what happened in the car park? Everyone’s faces just dribble and melt off like that, don’t they?
He had to see. It was the only way.
Gee didn’t know that his arms were clamped around his middle. With his flop of dark hair hanging halfway down his face, he stared at his feet as he approached the washroom. His pale slender hand floated above the doorknob. The stickiness of his palm against smooth metal. The door creaked. An errant, muted ray of sunlight shone through the frosted glass of the window. A faint odour of mildew lingered in the air. Gee shuddered.
He approached the mirror above the sink. His footsteps heavy. His arms clutched his middle so tightly it bordered on pain. Gee slowly raised his head and his dark hair slid to the sides, revealing his face.
He stared. His skin was not rucked, twisted, like a burn victim’s. His skin was smooth, clear, as it was before everything had happened. His black irises, flat, expressionless, gazed back from his reflection. Everything was the same.
Everything was not the same.
“It’s not the outside that counts,” the cat singsonged in a preachy falsetto.
Gee twitched, but his expression did not change. The cat was crouched in the corner, almost perfectly camouflaged against the white walls. Only his cold yellow-green eyes stood out, distinct.
“What matters the most is what’s on the inside,” the cat concluded feelingly.
Gee left the room.
He was hungry. He would eat first. Everything was shifting, and he didn’t know who or what to believe. He needed corroboration. From another human being. After he ate he’d go back to the hospital and ask his grandmother about the book. About the cat.
A roaring inside his head. Like a winter storm in a nightmare forest.
What if his grandmother couldn’t be believed? What then? Who could he trust? Certainly not the cat. He couldn’t rely on the words of a talking cat.
Something erupted from his lips. A hoarse croaking sound. For a moment Gee wondered if he was going to vomit. The sound burst out again.
Laughing. He was laughing—
The phone rang.
Gee leapt. His heart thudded ponderously inside his narrow chest. The loud ringing filled up the hollow room. He did not want to answer it.
Make everything go away, the childishness inside him pleaded. Make it stop…. Gee shook his head. It was probably Ms. Carlson, calling to make sure he’d received the note, that he was okay. He picked up the phone. “Hello,” he said, his throat dry.
A digital silence.
The sudden static was so loud that Gee had to pull the receiver away from his ear.
“What’s happened?” The tinny voice on the other end of the line sounded very far away, but the strength and intensity still reached him.
For a moment Gee could not say who the familiar unfamiliar person was.
“Older Sister,” he whispered.
The line crackled. His sister was speaking, but the sound was morphing in and out of meaning.
“I can’t hear you!” Gee cried.
A mechanical static buzz.
Gee began shouting, in case his sister could hear him, even though he was unable to hear her. “Popo is in hospital. She fainted! Then had a bad headache. It might be a stroke!”
The receiver whined, high-pitched and awful.
“—in twenty-four hours!” the thin tinny voice reached him once more.
“What!” Gee shouted.
The line was dead.
Chapter Seven
Gee replaced the receiver in the cradle. Older Sister had phoned…. Twenty-four hours, she said. She must mean that she was on her way. From Peru…. Popo was right. Older Sister had realized something had happened. And she was coming back.
A wave of relief washed through him and Gee closed his eyes. Whatever was happening, whatever that cryptic book really meant, no matter if talking animals existed—he was not alone. Everything would be okay….
“It approaches.” The cat’s voice was small. Weary. He sat on his haunches by Gee’s feet.
Iciness skittered down Gee’s neck. “What….” He had meant to sound angry, but his voice wobbled and faded away.
The unpleasant cat was staring at his paws. His tail a flat dead thing upon the floorboards.
Silence.
Complete. Heavy, the very air was compressed with it. The inside of Gee’s ears rang. A sourness rose from his maw, spreading across his tongue. He wanted to spit the fou
l taste out of his mouth.
The cat leapt.
Shocked, Gee was paralyzed. The cat’s heavy body thudded against Gee’s chest, but his claws did not sink into his flesh. The cat’s claws were sheathed, and with nothing on which to snag, his round body began sliding downward.
Instinctively, Gee cradled his arms around the miserable creature.
The old cat’s long sigh ended with a little purr.
Or, Gee thought, the heartless creature had indigestion.
“You must take me with you,” the white cat hissed. His claws prickled against Gee’s chest for a brief moment before they were retracted. “Whatever happens, you must take me with you. Darkness comes and you are not ready. But still, you must go.” The cat shook his head. “Ming Wei! The things I do for you!”
The room was cold. The room was freezing. Yet the light that slipped through the cracks of the curtains was buttery yellow.
“What darkness? Take you where? Tell me!” Gee cried.
The cat did not respond. His head was tilted to one side, one ear sweeping for sounds Gee could not hear. The thudding of Gee’s heart filled his head.
“Your past,” the cat finally whispered. “It is your past … in Half World. Remember….” The cat’s voice was faint. Something was happening to his body; it was shifting, shimmering, from fur and flesh into a different kind of matter. “Your past does not have to be your future.” The cat faded, almost completely transparent and weightless, before suddenly contracting. Something small and solid fell to the wooden floor with a dull clunk.
A small white stone sculpture, slightly larger than a walnut, lolled from side to side before lying still.
Gee crouched down to pick it up. The details were worn down with age, with time, and all that remained were hints of pointed ears, a sweeping tail curled around the hindquarters of a crouching cat.
Creaaaak.
It was the first step at the bottom of the stairway.
Gee’s heart began to thud.
Slowly, steadily, each step screeched and squealed as someone began to climb the flight of stairs.
Gee stood, his fingers clenching the cat sculpture inside his fist. Someone had entered the store and was approaching their home.
They weren’t his popo’s footsteps. Popo stomped hard enough to frighten mice from entering the building. The person climbing the stairs took slow, measured steps. Careful. Implacable.
Gee’s heart thudded with pain.
Then a light bloomed inside his chest. It was completely irrational—he knew that. But didn’t the talking cat prove that irrational things were sometimes possible?
“Older Sister!” Gee cried out, his voice childish. Joyful. Melanie had magicked her way home somehow. She had special powers, too. Like the talking cat. Popo had been speaking the truth. Older Sister had known when there was trouble and she had phoned! And now she’d returned to make everything okay.
The creaking continued upward. Closer and closer.
“Older Sister….”
The person did not answer.
Cold, dankness began permeating the air. A deep-locked chill that sank into the bones. Aching. A waft of cold wintry brine…. It was the smell of the ocean. An icy, darkly, greenly ocean that claimed all who fell into its depths.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
The sound of the creaking boards, coming ever closer, could not drown out the other sound. Slightly liquid, moist. Dripping. The rich wet pungent odour of wet kelp.
Gee shuddered. It was not Older Sister. Not the older sister he knew.
What did he know? Maybe this was Older Sister. Her dark secret. Everything was coming undone.
The cat. He had said that it was his past, coming for him.
Half World…. Gee swallowed hard. He had wondered his whole life: Who was he? Where did he come from? What was his real name…? And now his past was coming up the stairs, smelling like death.
The ceiling spun a nauseatingly slow circle. Hungry. He was so intensely hungry. He wanted to vomit.
Squish. Slide. Squish. Slide.
The sound stopped.
It was on the other side of the door. Seeping beneath the door. It spread, slowly inward. The smell of cold wet salt. Staining the old wooden floor.
Gee watched it creep into the room from the other side of the closed door. The sound of breathing, like a distant tide, ebbing and flowing.
“Knock, knock?” a low playful voice said.
Gee clamped his empty hand over his mouth. He didn’t know if he was holding back a guffaw or a scream.
“Knock, knock!” the voice repeated.
Maybe it was like vampire lore, Gee thought desperately. If you don’t invite them in, you don’t have to be the victim. If he said nothing maybe the creature would move on to the next victim down the street. It wouldn’t have to be him. Not this time.
Gee squeezed hard on the stone sculpture inside his moist palm. Something stabbed his tender flesh. He twitched with pain, and opened his fist.
Protruding out of the stone, extending from one of the faintly defined paws, was a single live claw. Gee stared, mesmerized, as the living claw retracted inside the stone.
White Cat had said his past was coming for him. White Cat had said to take him with him….
Gee’s shoulders sagged as he closed his fist. He didn’t know what choices he had … if any at all. And in the end, would it make any difference? And beneath the awful fear—
He was curious….
“Knock, knock,” the low voice softly whispered once more.
The slow thud of his heart was so loud. Surely it could be heard from the other side of the door.
“W-who’s there?” Gee’s voice cracked.
Dank silence.
The low voice began to laugh. A rich sound, almost charming.
“Everything you want,” the voice promised seductively. “All that was yours in the past will be yours once again.” There was a pause. As if the person were taking a breath. Or swallowing. “Open the door.”
Gee didn’t know that his free hand was pressed against the hollow of his throat until he felt the slow, heavy thud, thud of his heartbeat throbbing against his sticky palm.
You don’t have to, the part of him that was still a small child pleaded. You can escape out the window, climb down the drainpipe. You can dangle from the ledge and jump. It’s not so far. You can run away and keep on running until all of this is so far behind it will never catch up again. It’s okay. It doesn’t mean you’re a coward. Sometimes you have to run away to save your life.
Please.
Don’t open the door.
Open it.
Don’t open it.
Open it.
Yes.
No.
Maybe so.
Yes, no, maybe so!
Like the games the other children used to play in kindergarten….
Gee sighed wearily, his slender shoulders sagging beneath the weight of darkness.
He felt a thousand years old. And maybe he was, after all.
He released the death grip on his own throat. Skin pulled away from skin with a moist squelch. He stretched his hand, slowly, toward the doorknob. Only the tips of his fingers betrayed his fear, shaking almost imperceptibly. The coolness of the metal knob felt pleasant beneath his moist palm. Shivers skittered down the length of his entire body.
Good boy, the dark voice inside him praised.
Gee opened the door.
Chapter Eight
The woman reeked of the sea; the dark underside of a winter dock, of the earth’s cold blood. Her wet, silky black hair was plastered to her head, clinging to the blue-white skin of her long neck like strands of seaweed. Her dark eyes were eloquent and liquid as a seal’s….
Gee’s heart clenched.
Her lips were grey in the pale, bloodless complexion of her face. And her dark, wet, patched dress clung to her body, the hem heavy, pooling behind her.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Water fel
l from her odd black sleeves. They were of different lengths. The right sleeve, with its tapered end, hung almost to her ankle, her hand completely covered by the skin-tight material. The other sleeve ended by her waist. And the edge was ragged. Chunky.
The skin at the base of Gee’s neck crawled. Something about her arms was wrong. Not because she was an amputee, but the sleeve, the torn place—
“Hasn’t it been such a long time?” the woman sighed.
Gee took a step backward. A half-smile quivered upon her lips. A glimpse of something black inside her mouth…. He grimaced. What was she eating?
“Your hair is black,” the woman murmured. “You’re so young!” Tipping her head back, her mouth wide open, she began to laugh and Gee could see … the black thing inside her mouth….
It was her tongue.
He backed away from her until the edge of the large table stopped him. The table leg dragged loudly against the floor.
The woman’s eyes narrowed. Her black eyes gleamed. “Don’t you remember me?”
Gee swallowed. He shook his head.
Popo! he begged. Help me! He sidled along the edge of the table, desperate to get to the other side.
The woman lowered her eyelids, tilting her head dramatically. “Ohhhh, he doesn’t remember.” She shook her head and water droplets flew from the tips of her hair, a spattering of wetness across Gee’s cheek. “After all the trouble I had to go through!” she snarled, her face twisting with rage and madness. “Lilla had to pay the toll!”
Gee froze. The solid lump of the cat clenched inside his hand. He had no idea what she was talking about. And he was afraid.
As if a switch had been flicked the madness melted from the woman’s face and she was lovely once more. “I’m Ilanna. Remember, stupid?” she teased, taking a step toward him. “We go waaaaay back, my darling.”
She began to move her right arm, the one that was intact. The shorter limb remained hanging limp and ragged at her slender waist. Her right arm, sinuous and seductive, began weaving through the air….
So beautiful, thought Gee. So fluid. He shuddered, unable to distinguish between desire and horror.
Writhing, bending, twining, jointless and impossible. The arm rippled like a ribbon in water, a supple strand of kelp undulating in deep currents. Goosebumps swept over Gee’s skin. His mouth dry. Disgusting.