by Hiromi Goto
So sensual….
The dark skin-tight material extended past the woman’s wrist and completely encased her hand. Why was it hidden, Gee wondered. He could see how the tapered tip was pinned down with a shiny button with a black centre. Her arm was so very long….
The smaller dark circle in the button contracted.
Gee frowned. It must have been the angle of light, he thought. That’s all.
The tip of the sleeve began to part. Splitting open, wider and wider. Gee couldn’t help staring, entranced, waiting to see her mysterious hand revealed…. But there was no hand. Nothing but the open V of the sleeve—
Sharp needle teeth. The inside of her sleeve was lined with teeth.
Gee’s heart thudded inside his hollow chest. Her arm wasn’t covered with a long sleeve. It wasn’t wet dark cloth.
Skin. Black, shiny, moist skin, slightly mottled with faint circles. Not a glinting button. It was an eye. The open sleeve was the gaping maw of a thick black eel….
The eel twisted, whipped toward Gee’s face, snapping, a hair’s breadth from his cheek. He choked, swinging his arms belatedly as he stumbled backward. But the eel had already retreated, posing S-shaped beside its mistress, ready to strike once more.
“Rilla,” the woman chided. “Stop it! I’m still very cross with you. For what you did to Lilla.” She gazed sadly upon the black stump of her partial left arm hanging dead beside her waist. “You should have waited until I had decided who would pay the toll. I only keep you now because you’re the only eel I have left to serve as my arm!”
Gee swallowed. Not her arm.
Her left eel.
A sound erupted from between his lips. “Ha, ha, ha, ha!” Gee couldn’t help himself. “Hee, hee, hee, hee!”
Ilanna threw back her head and laughed with him.
A needle of pain pierced the centre of Gee’s palm. He yelped and opened his hand. The stone cat fell to the wooden floor with a loud clunk. Gee’s heart stopped.
Rilla slowly lowered her tapered head toward the fallen object, Ilanna bending at the waist so that the eel could reach it. Rilla poked the stone with her snout and the figurine slid a few inches across the floor. The eel turned her head to stare up at the woman with her glittering eyes.
“Th-that’s mine!” Gee’s heartbeat thudded too loud inside his head.
Ilanna’s eyes narrowed. Something passed between the woman and her eel— Rilla swung her head back to the stone cat and retrieved it in her jaws.
Fool, Gee thought. You’re giving everything away. She says she knows you. If it’s true that gives her the advantage. He observed the eel placing the cat in a patched pocket of Ilanna’s dress. He had to hide his uncertainty from her.
“I’ll keep it for you,” she smiled. “Keep it safe.”
Gee thought for a few seconds. “Thank you,” he said. His right hand tightened into a fist. How strong was an eel? How strong, Ilanna? Had Rilla really ripped away the other eel arm? What did this monstrosity want?
Ilanna behaved as if she knew him…. He had never seen her before in his life. Where did they come from? Not his world. Not the world he shared with his popo.
The other place, the dark voice inside him whispered. Deep inside, you know, you know, you know…. Half World.
Gee’s head sagged. He stared at the floor. Please, the childish part of him begged. Anyone. Help me.
“What am I going to do with you.” Ilanna shook her head. “You’re so pathetically weak. You’re still such a child. Karu will destroy you and all this delightful travel would have been for nothing!”
Gee slowly raised his head. He stepped toward the corpse-white woman, close enough to feel the cold emanating from her core. The reek of kelp filled his nostrils. She was half a head shorter than he was and he stared into her eyes. Down, down, he looked his fill, and she did not break his gaze. Her eyes seemed to widen, eager, greedy. He reached for her darkness with his own.
“Ohhhhhh, yes,” she smiled, “I knew it! I knew that horrid girl could not keep you from us. I knew it was only a matter of time for you to ripen and return to us in Half World.”
Older Sister, he thought dimly. As the old book said. Melanie had carried him out and brought him to the Realm of Flesh.
It was all true.
The eel began nosing into the gap of his jacket sleeve.
“That Melanie stole you from your true inheritance,” Ilanna whispered as Rilla’s gelid, slimy body swirled around his slender arm, sliding upward, inside his clothing. “She took you away from what is rightfully yours.”
Gee swallowed. “M-my real parents?”
Ilanna’s eyes widened and she smiled, nodding encouragingly. “Yesssss. Your true father and mother are waiting for you,” she breathed. “They’ve missed you so. As I have. We need you to come back….”
The eel slicked upward to the opening at his neck. Gee’s skin crawled. Grotesque. Delicious.
“Everyone’s waiting for you in Half World.”
The little boy inside him almost cried aloud. His real parents—the parents he could not remember. A place where he might have belonged.
The eel squeezed its dense muscles around the length of Gee’s arm. Slimy. His skin began to burn and itch. He was yanked close against Ilanna’s icy body.
“You’re very pretty right now,” Ilanna whispered. “We can take the time to get reacquainted.”
“Gee?”
The young voice, slightly muffled and uncertain, rose up from the store below.
Gee went still.
Rilla whipped out of Gee’s sleeve and reared back toward her mistress. Ilanna’s eyes narrowed, her thin nostrils quivering. Her little black tongue began peeking out from between her lips. “Is that what you’re called now? Gee?” she whispered. “How quaint. How amusing.”
“Gee, are you upstairs?” the voice called.
Something writhed inside Gee’s chest. What was she doing here?
“I’m coming up,” Cracker said. The wooden boards began shrieking as she climbed the stairs. “Okay?”
A little smile quivered on Ilanna’s thin lips. Rilla flopped down to hang motionlessly at her side.
And Gee finally saw— The tattered edges at Ilanna’s shoulder weren’t messy seams of her dress, but ragged grey pieces of skin and flesh. The eel’s tail was wedged inside the woman’s empty shoulder socket. Where her human arm had once been brutally torn out.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood out. Was she even alive?
Are you? the darkness inside him tittered.
“I’m coming in….” Cracker was right outside the door.
If he warned her, would she listen? If he warned her would she be more at risk? What should he do? The cat was right, after all. Ignorance was no one’s ally…. Gee’s lips parted, his hand rising—
The door swung open.
Cracker stood, both arms outstretched, holding her canister of pepper spray like a gun.
Chapter Nine
Cracker pointed the nozzle directly at Gee’s face. Her bright eyes were wide with caution, suspicion.
Gee glared. Go away! he emoted. Run while you can!
Cracker took in Ilanna, the dripping wet dress, the cold seeping from her body. She stared at Ilanna’s mismatched black arms. Rilla, unable to stop herself, quivered with glee.
Cracker swung the spray can toward Ilanna’s face instead.
“Is this your little friend?” Ilanna smiled. “What an absolute darling.” Her black tongue peeked from between her lips. “She smells very nice….”
“I think you should leave,” Gee stated. “Now.”
“What’s going on?” Cracker’s voice was hoarse.
“Your friend can come with us. She looks like she likes parties. Every day’s a party in Half World.” Ilanna slowly winked. She took a sliding step toward Cracker as Rilla began rising into an S-curve.
Cracker reacted. Psssssssssssssssssst.
Gee clamped his forearm over his face.
Ilanna shrieked. When the particles of the spray hit Rilla’s moist skin the eel began thrashing spasmodically.
“Come on!” Cracker shouted.
Both arms raised to protect his face, Gee stumbled blindly to the door. Cracker grabbed his sleeve and they thudded down the wooden steps.
Ilanna shrieked and shrieked. Rilla hissed with pain, thumping against the wall, thrashing against her mistress.
When the familiar odour of musty lemon grass and overripe fruit seeped into Gee’s consciousness he finally lowered his hands. He stared down at the crooked part in Cracker’s hair with anger and admiration and shook his head. The floorboards above them were thudding with uneven steps. They didn’t have long. They burst out of the store. The air was cold, sweet. Wet.
Gee clenched his teeth. The cat! The cat had said to take him with him. And Ilanna had him in her pocket.
“What have you done!” a low voice rasped.
Cracker swallowed a shriek. Gee leapt backward. Cracker fumbled with her pepper spray but it was knocked from her hand. The can clattered on the pavement until it rolled to a stop.
The man—the bird. Bird man, Gee thought. Bird man. It’s not funny.
Shirtless, his muscled torso was lean, gleaming with old white scars against his dark skin. His arms were ropey, his hands enormous. The grey feathers began at his neck and completely covered his avian head.
His curved beak. He moved so quickly Gee could only watch, stunned as a rabbit, as the gun-metal-grey beak bent down to tear out his throat.
A white blur flew through the air.
The bird man screeched with pain as a puff of feathers scattered from the top of his head. He swung his arms blindly as an enormous white cat thudded heavily to the ground.
“Karu!” Ilanna’s muffled voice echoed from the second floor. “Karu!” she screamed.
The bird man hissed. He snapped his beak in the cat’s direction before running into the store.
“Follow me,” White Cat snapped. Cracker cast incredulous looks between Gee and the cat. “What the hell!” she choked. “What the fuck!”
The fat cat ran to the nearest alley and disappeared into the darkness, moving a lot faster than Gee would have thought possible. Cursing beneath his breath, he ran after the creature. After a few seconds he heard Cracker’s pounding, jangling footsteps from behind. “Don’t follow us!” Gee yelled without turning around. “Go home!”
Cracker did not answer.
The cat was gaining distance. Gee began to pant. He wasn’t athletic and it was all he could do to keep the bounding spot of white fur in his sight. Cracker’ll give up soon, he thought. She has a hole in her heart. She can’t run forever.
Nor could he, Gee realized.
With White Cat in the lead, then Gee, and Cracker staggering behind him, they darted across double-lane roads to the honking of startled drivers. They sidled in the crevasse between close-standing buildings. They ran. They ran.
Gasping, Gee finally caught up to White Cat. The miserable creature was sitting on the sidewalk, staring at the dirty underside of one paw. “Look at that!” The soft pink nap of his pads was covered with filth. The cat shuddered. “Disgusting.”
Gee took a deep breath. His shoulders slumped with exhaustion as he exhaled. The distant sound of jangling metal pieces—Gee shook his head. Cracker hadn’t turned back.
White Cat was trying to rub his paws on damp grass. “Dirty, dirty,” he muttered underneath his breath.
“I’ve only ever seen cats lick themselves clean,” Gee murmured.
White Cat glared. “Thank you for sharing your remarkable observations. Why don’t you lick the bottom of your shoes?”
“The cat—” Cracker wheezed. “Is really—” Pant, pant. “Talking!” The air whistled in her lungs.
White Cat’s eyes widened with incredulity. “Are you still working with the one thought?” He turned back to Gee as if it were his fault. “Get rid of her.”
“You are so rude!” Cracker gasped.
“No one asked you to follow us,” Gee said. The cat was rude, but Cracker had no idea what kind of danger they were in. Gee swallowed. He didn’t know either.
This is nothing, the dark voice inside him chortled. We haven’t gotten to the best part yet.
Gee scanned the neighbourhood. A few people stood at a bus stop, but there was no sign of the monstrous eel woman, the bird man. Karu, she had called out. And her name was Ilanna. It sounded so pretty….
“I’m following the White Cat. Like the White Rabbit. Down the rabbit hole,” Cracker said happily. “This is the best thing that’s happened to me in years!”
The cat leapt. A blur of white fur. And before Gee could react, the awful creature had chomped on the back of his calf, then leapt away.
“Ow!” Gee yelped, and belatedly shook his leg. “What are you biting me for?”
“She’s your problem. Not mine!” The cat narrowed his yellow-green eyes.
Gee pulled up his jeans and twisted around to look for puncture marks in the back of his leg. But his white skin was smooth.
Cracker crouched down. “Do you shave?” she asked, running her fingers across his hairless skin.
“Excuse me!” Gee dropped his pant leg.
Cracker’s grin was crooked.
“This is serious,” Gee said. “The cat and I are running from very bad people.” He shook his head. She had no idea.
People? the dark voice inside him snickered. They’re as much “people” as you are. You mean monsters!
Gee shuddered. “It’s dangerous for you to follow us. I don’t even know where we’re going.”
“Half World,” White Cat growled. “I told you!”
Gee stared at the smooth skin of his palms. The heavy sound of his heart thudded inside his skull.
Half World.
That was where his real parents were. That was what that monstrous eel woman had said. The grotesque, sensual Ilanna….
“Come on!” Cracker’s eyes gleamed. “A woman with a snake arm? A bird-headed man? Like, are we going to Wonderland or ancient Egypt or a side show at a circus? This is too trippy, and I haven’t even taken anything! No hangover. No withdrawal symptoms. It’s all for free!”
“We are not going to a drug-induced Disneyland.” White Cat was icy. “We will be entering Half World, a place of suffering, a place of pain. It is the Realm that all living things must enter after death. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Cracker’s eyes widened. “You mean Hell?” her voice was hoarse.
White Cat’s tail quivered. “No, not Hell as you understand it. It is Half World. Everyone enters that Realm to return to the moment of the greatest suffering they experienced when they were alive. The source of their worst trauma. In Half World, the sufferers suffer this psychic pain, over and over again, until they pass through their suffering and attain Spirit.”
A tiny frown rippled across Gee’s smooth brow. Were his parents in pain? Did they suffer also?
Cracker blinked slowly. Her voice was small. “Even the good people?” she asked. “Do good people have to go to Half World too?”
White Cat made a noise like he was coughing up a fur ball. “You’re still thinking of a model based on ‘good’ and ‘evil’! Everyone suffers. Everyone goes to Half World.”
Cracker took a step backward. She was shaking her head. “I’ve never heard about it before. I don’t believe you.”
White Cat mimicked a child’s high-pitched voice. “And yesterday you didn’t believe in talking cats.”
Gee glanced at Cracker’s face. Were there tears in her eyes?
“Go home,” White Cat said curtly.
A single tear rolled down Cracker’s pale cheek. She dragged the back of her hand angrily across her face, streaking her black eyeliner.
“No!” Her voice was low. “I’m going with you.”
White Cat glared at Gee before turning to the girl who had suddenly become so grimly resolute. “You have no idea what
kind of suffering you seek to enter!” the cat hissed.
“You have no idea what kind of suffering I live in now!” Cracker was fierce.
“You seek to enter a Realm before it’s your time to do so. Mortals are meant to enter Half World only upon death. Even if you gain entry, there’s no saying what will happen to your living body.”
“I don’t care!” Cracker shouted.
Something bulged in Gee’s maw. It plugged his breath and he clamped both hands over his throat. What was it? He gasped.
Fear, the dark voice crowed. Terror, anxiety—get used to it. That is what you breathe in Half World.
He was choking. Not enough oxygen. Eyes bulging, he desperately wheezed for air.
Cracker’s eyes narrowed. “Sit down,” she ordered. She pulled, hard, on Gee’s arm, and he was too panicked to resist. He crumpled to the cold sidewalk. Cracker pushed his head down toward his knees. “Breathe slower. Slower!”
Air caught in the back of Gee’s throat in ragged fragments. He shuddered and rasped as he concentrated on inhaling, exhaling.
The monstrous fear in his throat receded. He began to shake. Popo…. He wanted to be in the same room with her. To see her face. That’s all. Popo. Help me.
She’s dead, the dark voice hissed.
Gee’s arms hung lifelessly at his sides. His eyes were blank. “I don’t want to go.” His voice was flat.
“What!” White Cat shouted. “What did you say?”
“He doesn’t want to go,” Cracker repeated. She began rubbing Gee’s back. Her touch was kind.
Gee’s lip wobbled. He would not cry! He couldn’t bear it if the freakish waxy tears fell once again.
“He doesn’t want to goooo,” White Cat mimicked, prancing up and down the sidewalk.
Gee stared at the cracks in the concrete. They had been patched with black pitch, but that was splitting apart as well. “No one can force me to,” he whispered. “I can choose not to. Everyone has choices.”
The fat cat whipped around and leapt. He landed with a heavy thud on Gee’s chest, and he slowly toppled backward. The cold concrete seeped into his back. The weight of the cat was oppressive, his small paws digging into the thin flesh between his rib bones.