Where The Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy

by Law, Lucas K.

  I lay still and silent, hands fisted close to my body. I wanted to tell Ethan he would be more afraid of violent death if he’d been through more of them. Did you know that when you burn to death, you actually bleed? You bleed a lot. You would think the blood would steam off or something, but it doesn’t. It drips and hisses in the flames.

  I didn’t say that. I said, “Let’s not talk about this right now.”

  I turned over and pulled up the covers. After a while, he sighed and put his arms around me. He fell asleep as I lay awake. But he hasn’t said it again. He hasn’t said he loves me.

  My volunteer work in the VA office starts out as filing and photocopying, but a week later I catch a break. The receptionist is diagnosed with mono and doesn’t know how long she’ll be out sick. I offer myself as a fill-in, and soon, I’m sitting at the front desk, greeting everyone who comes in. I see plenty of soldiers and their family members when they come in to apply for benefits. I read each of them as carefully as I can, shaking everyone’s hand to get a stronger impression, taking my time, making small talk as I check them in. They think I’m friendly and always willing to chat. A few of the younger vets get flirty and ask for my number. I feel awkward having to disappoint them.

  If I was looking to score a date, I’d consider this time well spent, but for my purposes and Pearl’s, it’s a bust so far. Several of the people I meet have a pattern of military service in their prior incarnations, but I don’t find anyone who matches the description Pearl gave me. I’ve never actively tried to search people’s pasts the way I’m trying now, and after my shifts I leave the office with a dull headache. I take the bus home in the spitting rain, only to crack open my textbooks; the dense paragraphs swim before my eyes as I struggle to study for midterms.

  One night, as I am about to fall asleep in the middle of a page about Islamic relations with the Byzantine Empire, I think: This is so useless. Both the searching and the studying.

  I look at my phone; it’s almost midnight. I pull up the number Pearl gave me. “Call me when you find him,” she’d said, “but only when you find him.” I consider phoning now to tell her I’m giving up. She ought to give up too, stop longing for someone who’s gone on to another life. Maybe it’s not such a great idea for me to string her hope out like this anyway. Even if I find this person, Pearl probably can’t be a part of his or her life anymore, just like I can’t go back to Jeanne or any of my past families. My finger hovers over the phone screen. Move on, I’ll say when she picks up.

  Then, I think about how ridiculous that sounds, coming from me. I need her help. I need answers. If I were oblivious of my pattern, I could live each day in blissful ignorance, up until the final, shocking end. Would that be better? Instead, I’m as burdened and captive to my memories as she is. She’s not going to give up. Neither will I.

  I close my book and rest my head on top of my arms, sniffing back tears of fatigue and hopelessness. Kelly is up late too, working on a lab report that’s due. “Claire bear?” she says. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say unconvincingly. My roommate’s pattern is enviably simple. She can’t stay away from the ocean. She’s been a Micronesian sailor, a Venetian naval officer, a U-boat engineer, and a Makah whale hunter. Now she’s studying to be a marine biologist. She’s drowned twice, but she doesn’t remember it, and it doesn’t deter her. Drowning isn’t the worst way to go, relatively speaking.

  She comes over and gives me a hug. “Is something wrong? Is it Ethan?”

  “No,” I say, “Well, not exactly.” Maybe something is wrong. I wonder if he’s pulling away from me a little. Last week, he asked me to come with him to visit his family over Thanksgiving, and when I hemmed and hawed, I think he took it as a rejection. He can sense there’s something I’m not telling him.

  “You should go,” says Kelly. “I think he really wants you to meet his family. He’s mad about you, can’t you tell? Unless—you’re not really into him?”

  I try to nod and shake my head at the same time. “It’s not that. I mean, yes, I am into him. I’m just, I don’t know—worried.”

  “You should do it,” she says again. “You’ve got to take a chance on this really working out. Live a little, you know?”

  Ethan’s parents live in Tacoma, but his dad is a travel writer and they spend months in exotic places like Morocco and Tibet. “Claire has studied Buddhism,” Ethan volunteers while setting the table, which sets me up for a long period of listening to Ethan’s dad talk about the devotion of the Tibetan monks and how their harmonious culture is being destroyed.

  It’s true, there was a time I devoured everything I could read about reincarnation. I wondered if I quit school, became a vegan, and took up a life of austerity and meditation whether I could achieve nirvana. But I don’t want to stop being reborn, and I’m not seeking enlightenment. I just want to stop having horrible deaths at a young age, which seems like a modest goal in comparison. I considered the possibility that I have some karmic debt to pay, but what? I don’t believe I’ve been a bad person in any of my lives, not bad enough to deserve what I’ve gotten. I mean, I donate to the Salvation Army. I give my seat to old people on the bus. I recycle.

  Ethan’s mom lights up when I ask for a tour of her garden. She isn’t the first person I’ve met who’s been a farmer several times: twice in China, once in Russia, and once in Ireland, from what I can see. Ethan’s dad has been a Mongolian nomad, a Bedouin shepherd, and a Southeast Asian trader whose geography and ethnicity I can’t quite place at first glance; so it doesn’t surprise me when his wife laments they haven’t been home enough to finish raising the vegetable beds. Ethan’s older brother, Kegan, shows up just before dinner. He’s as handsome as Ethan, but he’s quieter and smiles less. He seems to be five or six years older than Ethan, instead of only three. When Ethan introduces us, I say, “I’m really glad to finally meet you,” because it’s obvious Ethan looks up to his brother. “Kegan’s the go-getter,” I’ve heard him say before.

  “Nice to meet you, Claire.” Kegan shakes my hand.

  A general sits atop his war stallion in flared helmet and crimson armour, watching the flames below.

  A guerrilla fighter rests his rifle atop his knees as he empties water from his boots.

  A woman in a dark suit walks into the room and sits down across from a man handcuffed to his chair.

  “Kegan just got back from Egypt,” Ethan’s mom says proudly. “He was on a six-week exchange program with the State Department.”

  We sit down for dinner. My heart races. I barely hear the conversation around me.

  Ethan’s mom passes me the mashed potatoes and asks Kegan, “How’s your Arabic, sweetheart?”

  “Good enough.” Kegan is matter-of-fact; there’s no pride or modesty in his voice. He is too old to be twenty-three.

  Ethan’s father leans toward me. “Kegan wants to work for the CIA,” he explains. “I think he would’ve joined the military if it hadn’t been for his asthma. Michelle and I are staunch Democrats; we don’t even own any guns!” He shakes his head. “I don’t know where he gets it from.”

  After dinner, I step outside onto the back porch under the pretense of phoning my parents. My fingers shake as I call the number. After three rings, I hear Pearl’s voice.

  “You’ve found him?”

  “Yes,” I whisper breathlessly. “You won’t believe this. He’s my boyfriend’s brother!” I want to laugh hysterically. I’ve been searching for months, and he’s been one degree away from me this whole time.

  There is a long pause. “Tell me about him.”

  “He’s twenty-three. Really handsome. Single, I think.” There hadn’t been any mention of a girlfriend over dinner. “He hasn’t been around lately because he was on an exchange trip, but it shouldn’t be hard to find a way to meet him now.”

  I try to picture how it will go. Will he be drawn to her, the way she is to him? She is over five hundred years old—will that matter?

  I promise to inv
ite him to visit us, and then I can find a chance to introduce them.

  “Thank you, Claire.” She sighs in relief. Then she hangs up.

  Convincing Kegan to visit is easy. He hasn’t seen his brother’s place and is happy to spend the last day of the long weekend in the city with us. We drive up together on Saturday afternoon and arrive right around dinner time at the small house Ethan shares with two roommates. They are all out of town, so we have the place to ourselves. Ethan orders in pizza. We’re here, I text Pearl. Would you like to meet him tomorrow?

  We sit on the sofa, watching the Seahawks game and eating pizza. I sit next to Ethan on one side of the sofa. Kegan takes the armchair. I study him. I am not completely comfortable with Kegan. He looks like Ethan, but he is not like him. Ethan searches for answers to the unknown; Kegan knows the answers. He sees the world in black and white, and there is a coldness, a ruthlessness that I sense in his prior selves. They are resolute people, but they are not nice.

  It’s tempting to judge people based on who they were before, even though I often remind myself it’s unfair. My sweet roommate Kelly set enemy ships ablaze and ordered men hung. Ethan once stabbed another man in a drunken knife fight in the South American jungle. When I was Hassad, I owned so many slaves that it makes me squirm a little to think about it now. Our lives are shaped by circumstances; we have patterns, but we do change. I haven’t known Kegan long enough to see many details of his past, but I’m not sure I want to. He’s Ethan’s brother, and it’s better I try to get to know him for who he is in this life.

  I wonder again what his reaction will be to meeting Pearl. What if he doesn’t feel any connection to her at all? Will she move on, or pine after him? I try to think of how to bring up my idea to invite her over. So, I have a friend who would really like to meet you. Who is she? Oh, uh, she’s a TA in one of my classes . . .

  Before I can formulate my suggestion, Kegan takes another slice of pizza and says, “So, how did you two get together?”

  I glance at Ethan. “We met during freshman orientation,” I say. “But we didn’t start dating until after that camping trip.”

  Ethan picks up the thread. “I’d had my eye on Claire for weeks, and then I spied her sitting at the very back of the campfire, practically in the woods, all by herself.”

  “I’m scared of fire,” I explain, embarrassed.

  “So I moved my chair to sit next to her, and we stayed up talking after everyone else had gone to sleep and the fire had burned out.”

  Kegan nods. He pops open a can of soda and says, dead sober, “I’m terrified of fire.”

  Ethan laughs. “You’re not terrified of anything.”

  “I had nightmares as a kid,” Kegan says. “You were too young to remember. I still have them sometimes—nightmares about burning to death.”

  I pull my legs up to my chest and hug them. “Me too.”

  “Claire says she’s scared of fire because it’s how she died in a past life. You think that’s what happened to you too, macho man?” Ethan’s voice is just a notch past teasing. He sounds a little hurt that we are commiserating over a deep phobia his brother never bothered to share with him.

  Kegan looks at Ethan, then looks at me. He mutes the volume on the television. “Yes,” he says. “I could believe that. In my dream, there’s a woman who’s chasing me. It’s always the same woman. I don’t know why I’m trying to get away from her, but I am. I’m running or driving or riding a horse, always trying to get away, and in the end, I’m trapped by a fire. And I burn to death. And she watches me burn.”

  We are both silent for a minute. Ethan is stunned, but not for the same reason I am. “That is so screwy, bro. Maybe it means you’re afraid of women.” He has a half-teasing smirk on his face, but neither Kegan nor I am smiling.

  Kegan shakes his head, his left eye squinting in annoyance at his little brother. “No, dipstick. It’s just one woman.”

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. An iciness bathes me from head to toe. What have I done?

  The living room window shatters inward.

  I scream. All three of us leap off the sofa, scattering pizza and soda. A hulking figure steps through the window frame. Cold air sweeps into the room around his menacing shape. His combat boots crunch the broken glass against the hardwood floor. I can’t see his face; he’s wearing a black ski mask. All I can see is the barrel of the gun he is pointing at us.

  “Jesus,” Ethan breathes. We are both too stunned to move, but Kegan scans the room for the nearest weapon. There’s nothing. He grabs the wooden chip bowl off the coffee table and hurls it at the intruder. The man ducks, raising his arm to avoid the flying object. Tortilla chips and salsa spray the wall. Kegan shoves his brother, and together, we run for the front door.

  Ethan pulls the door open. A second masked man stands on the doorstep. He starts to bring up his own gun, but before he can aim it, Kegan tackles him. They slam into the door frame together. The man who came through the window shoves his bulk in front of me and Ethan, his pistol raised, his mouth open in a snarl.

  “On your knees!” he shouts at us.

  Ethan pulls me roughly behind him. “What do you want?” he shouts back. “You want money? The TV? Just take them!” His voice shakes. He is standing with his arms spread in front of me. I am terrified the man will shoot him.

  Kegan struggles with the shorter intruder. He has his hands clamped over the frame of the pistol, pushing the muzzle down toward the floor. The man’s right hand is trapped against his weapon, but he cocks his left fist and punches Kegan in the face. Kegan’s grip slides. The man yanks his gun free; he swings it up and cracks Kegan across the head. Kegan staggers and falls sideways, barely managing to put a hand out to catch himself. He tries to surge up; his eyes are wild and desperate. The butt of the pistol comes down on the back of his skull, and he collapses like a sack.

  “No!” Ethan jerks toward his brother, but the hulking man shifts his gun to my temple.

  “I said on your knees!” he yells at Ethan. “Or you pick which one we shoot first.”

  Ethan goes colourless. His hand on my arm, he lowers himself to the floor. I kneel next to him. I can feel the pulse in his hand beating in rapid tempo against my own.

  “What do you want?” he asks again, his voice low so it hides his fear. He looks at his prone brother and swallows hard.

  “Dumb prick,” the short man exclaims. He shoves Kegan’s figure with his boot, then reaches his gloved fingers awkwardly into the eye hole of his mask, wiping his brow.

  My heart is pounding so hard I think it might escape my body. This is it. This is the brutal end I’ve been expecting for years. I wonder how they will kill us and whether it will be fast. Though I am scared out of my mind, I’m more worried about Ethan and Kegan than I am about myself. I’m not surprised that I’m going to die. But they shouldn’t have to; they shouldn’t be sucked into the merciless magnetism of my pattern, ancillary tragedies to my own.

  I have a switchblade in my pocket. Can I reach it? What can I possibly do against two men with guns?

  “Which one of them is he?” the big man asks.

  The two of them look from Ethan to Kegan and back again. Their eyes are like black pits in the slits of their masks. “I’m not sure,” the short one replies. “Put them in the bedroom closet. She’ll know when she gets here.”

  She’ll know. These men work for Pearl. My insides turn over.

  “What about the girl?”

  “The girl too.”

  “Let her go,” Ethan says. “Please, don’t hurt her.” I cringe at the pleading in his voice, though I know he is only trying to protect me. I want to berate him for ever having doubted my fatalism.

  The big man pulls a roll of silver duct tape from his jacket and bends over Kegan, pulling his wrists together behind his back and taping them together tightly. When he’s done, he winds duct tape around Kegan’s ankles. Then he drags Kegan down the hallway, pulling him backwards by his armpits. Kegan’s head lolls limply
on his neck, the left side of his face swollen a reddish-purple.

  Ethan trembles, enraged and helpless.

  “Hands where I can see them, punk,” the short man says.

  His accomplice returns. More duct tape for Ethan and me. My wrist bones rub together painfully as they’re bound. When the big man touches me, I get past-life glimpses: a mercenary soldier, a prison guard, an elephant poacher. I choke back a whimper. Suffering isn’t going to move him.

  “Get up,” he orders.

  They march the two of us into Ethan’s bedroom. The room is dark, and the shades are drawn. Ethan’s clothes and books have been thrown willy-nilly from the closet, which is now bare, except for Kegan, who is lying on its floor. Our captors back us into the closet beside him. “Sit down,” the big man orders. We do as he says.

  They tape our ankles together and then stand back, looking down at us. Behind them, I can see the outlines of Ethan’s unmade bed, his duffel bag lying open on the floor, his stereo. The big man lights a cigarette. It dangles from fat, chapped lips set in the mouth hole of the ski mask. He checks his wristwatch.

  The short one licks his lips nervously. “Who do you think these kids are? What would anyone want with them?”

  “The hell should I know?” says the big man. “Maybe daddy pissed off the Mob? We’re being paid is all I care.”

  Ethan tries to speak up. “There’s been a mistake,” he says. “You’ve got the wrong people. We’re not mixed up with the mafia. We don’t have any enemies. We’re just students. I’m telling you, you have the wrong people.”

  The men ignore him. They close the closet, shutting us in the dark. Their footsteps move around, then leave the room. In the silence that follows, I pray for the sound of sirens, for the police to surround the house and rescue us. It’s possible one of the neighbours called 911, but I am not optimistic. The houses here are spaced far apart and full of student renters, all of them gone for the Thanksgiving break. No one knows what’s happening to us.