Turning Pages

by Brhi Stokes

Matthen and I glanced at one another before the two of us slowly turned around. The figure stood a few metres behind us, clad in a loose black robe that hid most of their form. Upon their face was a long porcelain mask in the shape of a canine head; a fox, I decided. Painted red lines ran beneath its eyes and down its nose. Behind the mask’s eyeholes, I could see nothing but blackness. There were no attachments, no ribbons or ties, and it was impossible to make out the figure’s head behind the white shape.

  The hand they extended was black-gloved and slender.

  Natsuko said something in Japanese, before, “Will you let me die?”

  The mask tilted from side to side, the figure was shaking its head.

  “Why?”

  The figure remained silent, simply holding out a hand towards Natsuko.

  “Why?!” she demanded in a shrill cry, a sob choking off any further words.

  The figure remained silent.

  “I tried to use that gun,” the girl was muttering to us, “the gun they said could kill tabibito. I shot myself through the head with it.” She paused, then, the sounds of the traffic below drifting up in the quiet between us. “But I woke up again. Like always. Because they will not let me die.”

  “No, they won’t,” I said, thoughts racing. “But if you give the Oath to us, they’ll never get it. You’ll at least have that victory over them.” I glanced back at the figure, hoping that however it told the Masters about my little act of rebellion, it at least gave the reason behind it.

  “I…” Natsuko shook her head, eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. “I…” She choked back another bitter sob as her shaking hand dropped the Oath to the ground.

  My own hands were warm and clammy as I stared down at the girl. It was Matthen who bent to pick up the necklace; he pressed the Sacred Oath gently into my palm. As I followed his gaze back to the messenger, I noticed the way its mask tilted up slightly. It was looking at me, now, its hand still outstretched.

  “You want this so that Evisalon falls apart,” I told it. “So that it drops in the- the hierarchy, or whatever you bloody-well want to call it.”

  The creature did not respond, but Matthen was nodding in my periphery. “Makes it easier for your world to climb,” he told me in a whisper.

  “But what’s the point? Evisalon is so far away from us - I mean it has to be, it’s so… tranquil - that it won’t do much, right? You can keep tearing down the other planes little by little, but you’ll not get anywhere while ours is still a bloody mess!” The limits of human cruelty never failed to surprise me. Comparing Earth to Evisalon was like comparing Hitler to Buddha. They could drag the other plane down into the muck with us, but I did not see how it would make ours any better.

  The masked figure did not react; nor did it lower its hand.

  “But if you let me return it…” What? I would be grateful? I would feel less rubbish about having stolen the thing in the first place? I knew this was not my battle and that a lot of what was happening was so much bigger than I was. However, for the first time in longer than I could remember, I wanted to at least try. “If you let me return it, it won’t make a difference to the Masters. And it will be the right thing to do. I can tell them that we’ve graciously returned it, you can - I don’t know - call in favours from them. Lord it over them. Who knows, it might even make this world a little less shitty because the things in charge have done what’s right.”

  Behind me, Natsuko was trembling so violently that I could hear her nails scraping along the ground. She was murmuring something in Japanese, talking to herself. No, she was saying the same thing over and over; chanting it like a mantra. She scrambled to her feet and thrust herself towards the edge of the building with blind desperation. I opened my mouth to shout to her, saw Matthen move to take a step forward, when she collided with something.

  The masked figure stood at the very edge of the roof, now. Its hands clasped the collar of the girl who had just run headlong into its chest in an attempt to hurtle towards the street once more. It looked down at her, lifted her by the scruff as if she weighed no more than a child, and deposited her back onto the safety of the roof. Natsuko crumpled into a ball at its feet and whimpered quietly.

  The figure raised its mask to look back at Matthen and I. This close, I could see that it was not just too dark to make out its eyes: the gap in the mask from which the wearer could see was as deep and endless as the night sky. Its hand was still extended towards me, its fingertips mingling with the darkness around us, refusing to catch in the ambient lights the way its mask did. It cocked its head as if it were listening to something. Then, it met my gaze as it dropped its hand.

  After that, it was simply gone. As if it had never been there in the first place.

  The quiet was broken only by Natsuko’s sobs and Matthen’s hard swallow. I released a breath I had not realised I had been holding.

  “Natsuko?” I asked softly.

  There was no response, save for her miserable whimpers. Her hands were balled into fists, her trembling belying frustration, rather than grief.

  “Natsuko, this isn’t all-” I looked around and knew this was no place to talk. “Come with us, please.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Matthen. “I think we could all use a drink.”

  When Natsuko did not move, Matthen stepped towards her, stooping down to lift her chin. “I know how you feel,” was all he said as he picked her up by the shoulders and propped her back on her feet.

  “Then let me stay,” she whispered.

  “You know that’s not the answer,” I told her softly.

  She met my gaze and held it for some time, lips quivering. I reached out my now-empty hand towards her.

  She was unsteady but, with both of us supporting her, she let herself be led towards the other edge of the roof and away from the steady flow of traffic.

  I did not know what I was going to say to her when we finally found a place to talk. I could not really imagine the apathy of doing this for years and years with nothing ever changing. It had never occurred to me that we could not die and thus would remain stagnant forms as we drifted through the passage of time. Even thinking about it sent a chill down my spine, the hair on the back of my arms standing on end as I considered what it would be like to be unchanged in a decade. Possibly longer.

  Natsuko refused to look at us as we reached the street below, her arms curled about her body as if she were freezing where she stood. She refused the offer of a jacket from both Matthen and myself, and only shrugged when we asked her where we should go.

  Either she did not know, or she did not care; I was going to hazard a guess that it was the latter. Nonetheless, she stepped out onto the street with us once we had found our way down to the bottom of the building. It may not have seemed like much, but having her accompany us was at least a step in the right direction.

  

  We wandered through small side-streets in silence for quite some time, stopping only so that Matthen could re-enter the restaurant and retrieve our shoes. He did not say anything as he handed them to us, but I could only imagine the strange conversation that his return had entailed. Then, we were on the move again.

  I felt light, as if I simply floated through the streets alongside the others, not taking into account where I was or what I was doing. It was not until Matthen’s firm hand was placed on my shoulder that I noticed we had stopped. I had clearly been staring straight at the small menu board for some time because my eyes were strangely watery. I blinked away the sensation and looked up at him as he ushered both Natsuko and myself inside the restaurant-bar. I could see a small patch of dark skin on his wrist where his external body was starting to wear away. One of his eyes was now a pale grey, too. That in mind, we took a seat by the back to avoid any strange looks from the staff.

  Natsuko excused herself to the bathroom to clean up once we had reached the booth. This time, at least, I had no concerns about her trying to run away. I watched her as she walked, frowning to myself.

 
“Guess that means you’re free to return the amulet,” Matthen told me as we sat side by side.

  I slumped down, not caring that I was leaning on Matthen in the small booth. He slung an arm around my shoulders, but I did not have the energy to tell him off for it. It was only as I glanced at him that I realised there was no ulterior motive to the movement; we simply fit better in the booth this way. The warm press of his body at my side staved off some of the iciness in my limbs. More than that, it reminded me of my own solidity; slowly, the buoyancy began to dissipate. My eyes closed and I almost forgot that he had spoken until the waitress arrived to take our order.

  “Does it?” I responded finally, as I pointed to what I wanted from the menu and the waitress nodded at me with a wide smile.

  “I hope so. The servants in Myrkdraw are a lot less polite than that thing. If one of them had wanted to get that trinket from you, they would’ve just taken it.”

  I did not want to think about what the messengers in Myrkdraw were like if he thought the fox masked creature had been polite.

  “I think it’s more than just a trinket. The fixers from Evisalon, they showed me what was happening without one of the Oaths there. It was… discomforting.”

  Matthen laughed softly, but it held less humour than normal. “I think that’s an understatement.” His arm tightened around me briefly, and I turned my head to look at him. It was hard to get a good look at his face from the haze of human imagery over the top of it, but I thought that he looked tired. There was much more to this than he was letting on, that I could tell.

  “An understatement? Why do you say that?”

  “Because you’re shaking.” He reached out to place his other hand over mine, where it rested on the table, and I saw that he was right: my hands were trembling.

  “It’s just been a long day,” I muttered as I withdrew my hands to the safety of my lap and looked up as Natsuko crossed back towards our table. She sat opposite us, her face now devoid of tears but her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. She simply stared at the drinks as they arrived and were deposited on the table.

  Matthen did not hesitate to begin drinking his. “What is this? It’s good ale. How’d they get it so cold?”

  “Asahi,” I told him absently, “and it’s beer.”

  “It’s what?”

  “Beer. Less fruity than ale, different yeasts used…” I felt my mouth contort strangely.

  “Why’re you smiling?” asked Matthen.

  “Because this is a trivial thing to be talking about after tonight.” With that, I took a long sip of my beer. Matthen was right: it was good. The strong taste felt as though it brought me back to myself.

  “You all right?” This time, his words were directed at Natsuko.

  She glanced up at us between her hands, her elbows resting on the table. “No… Yes…?” She frowned. “Long day,” she said by way of explanation.

  Matthen gave me a meaningful look, a small smile appearing on his lips. I avoided his gaze.

  “You’ve been doing this for some time now, haven’t you?” I asked carefully, feeling her gaze burn as she turned it on me.

  “Yes,” was all she said.

  “I haven’t,” I admitted. “So I don’t really have anything comforting to tell you. Just that maybe there are other things worth living for. I haven’t found them, but I have heard they’re out there. Hawaii’s nice,” I tried.

  “It fades but only for a while.” She pursed her lips for a moment, before sitting up straighter. “The nothingness. The… fuminshou.”

  “Insomnia,” Matthen translated.

  “Does it happen to everyone?” I asked, remembering Matthen’s words to Natsuko as he had lifted her to her feet.

  Their hesitation to speak was all the information I needed. Grimacing, I excused myself and Matthen slid out of my way to let me past. In the bathroom, I splashed water on my face and glanced at myself in the mirror. I was grateful, at least, that I was no longer barefoot. The pain in my soles had yet to disappear but, on the bright side, it gave me something to focus on.

  I had never considered the rest of this. This work, or whatever it was. I had been in a pretty bad place when a messenger had come to offer me the job, as it were. I had accepted their offer, and the experience of seeing something that no one else could comprehend had kept me focussed. It had given me something to do, and I had felt fine. Seeing Natsuko in that state had just dredged up memories I would rather forget. The idea of eventually going back to that place, while once having felt like an inevitability, had disappeared as I had traversed the planes. Until now.

  I shook the thoughts from my head and splashed some more water on my face before heading out. There was no point dwelling on it. One step at a time, Page, I told myself.

  Natsuko and Matthen were speaking softly, but their conversation died off as I approached the booth. Matthen slid across to give me a seat, pushing a plate of soybeans at me.

  “They’re warm,” he said, and I had to wonder at his fascination with food temperature.

  I took one and was in the process of putting it into my mouth when Natsuko made a sound. As I looked at her, I watched her pop the beans out of the green pod and eat them, before depositing the empty pod into a second bowl. I stopped short of trying to put the whole thing in my mouth and followed suit. Within seconds I was chuckling to myself. The laughter relieved some of the pressure that had been growing at the back of my skull, and I began to speak before I had entirely thought over what I wanted to say.

  “You did a good thing. They showed me what was happening to their plane and they told me what would have happened without the Oath. That matters, I think. It matters that you did that for them.”

  “Does it?” asked Natsuko.

  “It should.” That was Matthen.

  “You saw what Evisalon was like. You said you went there. You’d know how beautiful it was, how tranquil. You helped keep it that way,” I said.

  She nodded slowly, if reluctantly, and we sat in silence for the rest of our drinks. It was only as we finished the last of the bar food that Natsuko looked up at us.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I blinked, somewhat taken aback. It took me some time before I finally nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  She stood, and neither Matthen nor I said anything as she approached the cashier and paid. We continued to watch as she stepped out the door and into the night. I wanted to stop her, to try and explain to her what I was feeling; that her death would be a pointless waste. The words died in my throat, however, and I simply sighed. I could not have explained it properly, anyway, I realised. Even if I could, I did not think it would have helped her. This was not something that other people could explain away, I knew that. It was something she had to get through herself and she had made it clear that she did not want my help. Part of me wondered why I even wanted to try - it was none of my business what she did - but a distant sense of camaraderie had settled in my chest. I grimaced; this was why I refused to get involved with people.

  “Mood’s a little down now, huh?” asked Matthen, breaking me from my melancholic reverie.

  “You expected this to be a wild adventure?”

  “Dunno. Wasn’t expecting it to get so…”

  “Heavy?” I supplied.

  “Is that the right word?”

  I shrugged, turning to look at the man. For a moment we just stared at one another.

  “What did you say to her?” I said so suddenly that I startled myself.

  Matthen, who had been on the verge of a smile, let his lips curve into a grimace. “Nothing that’ll improve the mood.”

  “You’ve felt it before, though, haven’t you? The apathy that comes with doing this for too long.”

  “Something like that…”

  **

  Matthen and I shared a few more beers before we headed on our own way. Part of the flesh on his face had peeled away to reveal his dusky skin, but at least the dark streets hid it better than the lighting inside.<
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  “I always do this,” he explained as we headed towards a small park. “Eat something wherever I go. Meals back home are so tasteless that it’s always a little adventure, even if I’ve tried the food there before.”

  “It’s the little things, eh?”

  “Has to be,” he sounded grim.

  “There’s a restaurant nearby my home that serves the most amazing food I’ve ever eaten. It’s expensive but it’s definitely an ‘adventure’. Shame you didn’t mention this earlier, we had the time to go eat there.”

  “Careful,” Matthen said, leaning in towards me with a small smile, “where I come from, inviting someone to a meal’s a big thing.”

  “Why are you like this?” I asked as we reached the middle of a park and its central fountain.

  “Because it’s fun,” he told me, smiling fully now.

  “For you, perhaps,” I grumbled, slumping down at the edge of the fountain and watching the water shift in colour beneath the lights.

  We sat there for a while until Matthen finally shrugged. “I should go. You need to take one of those flights back soon, right?”

  “Aeroplanes,” I corrected absently, still looking at the water. “And yes. Not until tomorrow morning, but I can sleep in the airport.”

  “Air port.” Matthen rolled the words around his mouth with amusement. “A port for your air-o-planes?” I had never thought about it like that before, but I smiled regardless.

  “I’ve been wondering... Why did you come with me to help?” I studied him to no avail; I had a harder time reading his body language than I did with most, and he hid whatever he was thinking behind a carefree smile.

  “Because it was the right thing to do.”

  I did not know whether I wanted to thank him or punch him in the nose. Instead, I just looked up at him as he stood.

  “You should drop by sometime.”

  I frowned at him. “You know that’s not going to happen, Matthen.”

  He just smiled as he stepped away from the fountain towards the darkness. “Isn’t it?” He chuckled to himself. “I’ll see you around, Page.”