by Hiromi Goto
Everything hinged on choices.
Her choices.
A flutter of panic tried to burst from Melanie’s throat at the enormity, the overwhelming responsibility that bore down upon her. She took a deep, long breath and released it slowly. Twice. Three times.
She felt calmer.
She was not responsible for righting all the wrongs done to the Realms.
She was responsible for the things she chose.
That was all.
She almost managed a tiny smile. It was simultaneously an incredible responsibility and almost nothing at all, she thought wonderingly. “How remarkable,” she whispered.
The jade amulet, still clutched tightly in her sticky palm, shuddered, and Melanie turned over her hand and unfurled her fingers.
The stone slowly shimmered from mineral to animal.
She was smaller than before. No longer the size of a small guinea pig, she was scarcely larger than a mouse.
“You’re remarkable,” Jade Rat said respectfully. She even bowed, and Melanie found herself bowing in return.
Then, solemnity fled as Melanie joyfully clutched her friend to her chest. “Thank you! You came back,” she whispered. “You’re so much smaller. Are you okay?”
Jade Rat snuffled Melanie’s hand. “It is because much of the livingness of my Spirit was borrowed from Gao Zhen Xi’s. Only a little remains within me. Soon I will revert to my stone self. But I will try to do what I can until then. I will try to seek help for you.”
Melanie raised the small rat to her face and kissed her delicate nose. “Thank you. From all my heart.”
“Don’t give up your entire heart yet! I greatly doubt you have even fallen in love!” Jade Rat said sharply, sounding like her former bossy self.
Melanie blushed.
“I will turn back to stone. Flush me down the toilet. I’ll escape out the septic system.” The rat sounded confident, but her tail gave a betraying twitch.
“Brave rat,” Melanie whispered. “Be careful.”
With a tiny click, the rat turned into an amulet once more. Melanie did not hesitate. She flushed the jade pendant down the toilet. Her mouth dry, she watched the red strings swirl in the water before they disappeared.
“Choices,” Melanie murmured.
Someone banged hard on the door. Melanie jumped around to face whoever entered, but the door remained shut.
“Ten minutes to showtime!” a muffled voice giggled.
Melanie stared down at her grubby self. She had nothing left to hide. She took a quick, hot, roaring shower. It felt amazingly good. She washed everything away, dried herself off, and put on the horrid white dress. It looked like something for a wedding, Melanie thought grimly, or for a sacrifice.
Her dark, wet hair hung straight to her shoulders. She parted her long bangs so that her face was revealed—so filled with Life, it shone like a beacon. Her cheeks were pink from the heat and her brown eyes glittered between amber and umber.
She would hide no more.
The party guests gasped when they caught sight of Melanie. In the black-and-white shades of Half World, she stood out like a golden candle in the darkest part of night. The sleeveless gown exposed her rounded arms, her ginger skin, and the flush of blood beneath the surface.
“Ohhhhhhh,” the guests sighed longingly, as if they wanted to be like her, as if they wanted to have her. Their beady black eyes glinted, beaks clacked with desire and tails thumped the floor with a heavy and excited beat.
Mr. Glueskin, who had been playing with Fumiko the single most overplayed piano duet in school gyms everywhere, rose up from the bench with a loose and awful grin.
“Isn’t she loveleeeeeeee,” Mr. Glueskin sang. “Isn’t she deeeelicious?” He released his tongue and it sailed fifteen feet across the room to land with a friendly splatupon her upper arm.
Melanie did not flinch.
He was licking her, she realized. He was trying to frighten her. That was his way. To toy with people, to trick them and terrorize them.
More than the actual suffering, what he wanted most was to witness the fear he inspired.
Melanie flicked the round blob of tongue that adhered to her skin. The tip sailed off and everyone gasped with shock as Mr. Glueskin sucked back his long tongue with a loud snap.
Fumiko, still seated on the piano bench, was staring out the wall of windows. White and gray neon lights flicked off and on in the Half World city, along with pale burning torches, gas lamps, and lanterns.
Melanie, after darting a glance, did not stare at her mother. Her mother was not being harmed, so it served no purpose to focus upon her.
Her purpose now was to reach Mr. Glueskin. To somehow reach his humanity. Because hadn’t he been human, just like Gao Zhen Xi, even if it was so very long ago? He was not born evil. He had turned to evil. . . .
Melanie, unbowed, resolute, met Mr. Glueskin’s inhuman eyes with her steady gaze.
The party guests held their breath. They stared, horrified, enraptured, at the dramatic tableau before them.
“Well,” Mr. Glueskin said after several seconds had passed, “there is life in you after all. You wouldn’t have thought it to see you so sniveling and pathetic earlier. Perhaps you will fight for your life fiercely, as we slowly drain it away. Your struggles, your pathetic efforts will entertain and delight us. Should we bleed you? Beat you? Drown you or eat you?”
Although her heart beat faster, Melanie did not look away.
“Should we feed you to your mother? Or would you like to take a little bite out of Mommy?”
Melanie flinched.
The party guests began whistling and applauding.
Mr. Glueskin bowed. “Thank you, thank you.”
Melanie knew she could not withstand a game of cruelty against Mr. Glueskin. She had to take the ball. . . . She hated sports, stupid basketball with the layup tests, softball, volleyball, the cruelty of dodgeball.
Not a competition, she thought. Not a contest.
Time.
She should try to make more time for Jade Rat, who was looking for help. To rouse Gao Zhen Xi from her moment of trauma? Who else, in this Realm, had enough of their selves left intact to lend help to another? Someone, Melanie thought. If Gao Zhen Xi, after millennia, could still keep a part of her humanity, she had faith there would be others.
She would not try to beat Mr. Glueskin. She would befriend him. She would earn his trust by being compassionate. And he would come to see that there was nothing to be gained in breaking and destroying—that there were other ways of existing, even in Half Life. And after she had won his trust she would flee, forcing her mother to come with her if she had to.
Melanie bestowed a smile upon Mr. Glueskin.
The guests gasped in unison.
“Beautiful,” someone sighed.
Melanie blushed at the compliment and the guests ahhhhhhhed at her heightened color.
“Your home is beautiful.” Melanie, sweeping her arm sideways, glanced at Mr. Glueskin from below her eyelashes. “And thank you for lending me this dress. I’ve never worn anything so lovely.”
The guests swung their gaze toward Mr. Glueskin as though they were watching a tennis match. They looked uncertain of how they should respond, and they sought cues from his mobile face.
Mr. Glueskin’s expression morphed from maliciousness to suspicion to jaw-dropped delight. “Darling girl,” he mouthed with exaggerated care as he winked at his guests. “Fumiko, get your daughter a grown-up drink, why don’tcha! I think Half World agrees with her.” As Fumiko silently went to the kitchen Mr. Glueskin turned to Melanie and crooked his long, thin finger to beckon her over. “I have something you might like to see,” he whispered in a conspiratorial voice.
Melanie, keeping a smile on her face, casually approached him.
Mr. Glueskin looped his long, gluey arm through hers and led her toward an open book on a book stand. “I love literature, don’t you?” He did not wait for Melanie’s response. “Awfully upli
fting. So satisfying and educational. Books make me feel so inadequate and inconsequential I just want to make a nice crackling fire with them to keep me warm at night!” He giggled with delight until something caught in his throat and he had to stop and bend over at the waist, to hack, snort, retch out a ball of phlegm. He spat a gluey mass the size of a golf ball across the room, and it splatted in the dead center of the starfish-child’s face. She toppled backward, her many slow-moving arms trying to stretch her tube feet to remove the smothering mass.
The tall lady with the eel arms rushed to lend aid. The other guests just ignored them, so that they would not draw Mr. Glueskin’s attention.
Rage burned hard and deep inside Melanie’s chest, but she clamped it down. She could not overcome Mr. Glueskin and his guests with physical force. Time. She would bide her time. The starfish-child suffered, but she would not die.
The cruelty was that she would never die. . . .
“I love books,” Melanie said lightly. “Especially antique books in used bookstores. They’re like finding treasure.”
Mr. Glue squealed with excitement. “You’re going to love this!” Flecks of white spit flew from his lips as he skipped with excitement. “See! This is the oldest book I’ve ever seen,” he whispered moistly in Melanie’s ear. “It’s filled with secrets and prophecies, and I want you to tell me what you see. Because they tell me the words change depending upon who reads them!”
A seed of dread swelled inside Melanie’s throat.
The open book upon the stand: it was The Book of the Realms.
Mr. Glueskin began a singsong chant. “I found it! I found it! Nana nana booboo!” He yanked his friendly arm from the crook of Melanie’s elbow and shoved her, hard, to the ground. Her knees skidded on the thick carpet, abrading the skin. Melanie did not cry out.
“Did you think you could sneak into this Realm without me finding out? Did you think you could save your mommy and go back home? You’re an abomination! You should not exist! That you are here, in Half World, tainting the entire Realm with your Life, your capacity to affect changes, makes me CRAZY!” Mr. Glueskin shot upward, elastic, until his head nearly touched the ceiling, even while his jaw remained at its original height. Stretched out, hideously elongated, he was almost entirely mouth, arms, and legs. The stink of vinegar and mildew ballooned around him, stinging eyes and throats.
Snap! He contracted and then crouched down to draw Melanie up to her feet, a look of insincere concern etched upon his face. “Just think,” he cooed. “All these years, a book of prophecy was right under my nose, inside this very hotel, and that hideous troll woman kept it from me! Intolerable! But now I know where she lives. I can visit her every day! It’s all because of you, Melanie. I followed your stinking flesh. Did you know?” He cupped his hand around her ear, as if to speak to her privately, but his voice was raised for all to hear. “You have a really bad case of b.o.”
Melanie’s ears burned. Don’t get triggered, Melanie told herself. He’s trying to trick you into playing his game. Humiliation, she realized. It wasn’t just terror and fear that he fed on—he also wanted to humiliate.
“I didn’t know,” Melanie said slowly. “Thank you for telling me. I’ll be sure to pick up some deodorant as soon as I can.”
The bony people and the bird-headed man looked nervously at one another, uncertain of Melanie’s standing. The starfish-child, with the help of the eel-lady, had managed to pry off the clot of glue from her face. “Hurrah!” she cheered before the lady slapped an eel arm over her mouth.
Mr. Glueskin’s pinprick eyes narrowed.
Melanie’s heart gave a little flutter. The guests: all were not against her.
Fumiko returned with a bottle of champagne cooling in a bucket of ice and a tray of champagne flutes.
“Ah! Refreshments! Serve the bubbly, darling.” Mr. Glueskin’s tone was light and cheery.
The cork flew up with a pressurized pop! and the guests laughed too gaily.
Mr. Glueskin squelched his gluey hand at the base of Melanie’s neck and forced her upward. Toward the book stand. He pressed her face to the open pages, much too close for her to be able to focus. The dark letters wiggled and swam like fish against a current.
“What do you see?” Mr. Glueskin hissed.
“I can’t read it,” Melanie said grimly.
He shoved her face into the page and rubbed her head from side to side. “Can you see it now!” he screamed. “Is that close enough for you!”
He released her so suddenly that she fell backward. The ceiling was so high above her, for a moment it swirled like a whirlpool. Melanie could hear the sound of champagne being poured into tall glasses, the individual bubbles popping, distinct, like microscopic musical notes. Mr. Glueskin’s guests murmured, the bone people clattering like strands of wooden beads.
“Get up,” Mr. Glueskin said kindly.
Melanie stood.
He pressed a slender glass into her hands and raised his own high. “Everyone! Everyone! I’d like to make an announcement!” The creatures grew silent and waited expectantly.
“C’mere, dollcake!” Mr. Glueskin stretched out an arm and tugged Fumiko into the crook of his vinegary armpit.
Melanie kept her face impassive. Only her hand holding the glass shook the tiniest bit.
“I’d like to welcome Melanie to my humble home and to Half World!” Mr. Glueskin began.
“Hear! Hear!” several people cheered.
“I’m not FREAKING FINISHED!” Mr. Glueskin roared.
The guests froze, silent.
“As I was saying”—Mr. Glueskin glared—“Melanie’s arrival is so timely because Fumiko has agreed to marry me.” He turned to his fiancée and gazed down upon her expressionless face with cloying adoration. “Haven’t you, darling?” He gave Fumiko a little shake, and her head bobbled from side to side.
The guests politely applauded and cheered dutifully, but Melanie could scarcely hear a thing. A sheet of fire seemed to roar behind her eyes.
Her mother treated like this. Like an object. Like a thing.
Mr. Glueskin glanced at Melanie from the corner of his eye, his mobile lips smirking with glee.
Melanie inhaled deeply and slowly released.
Time. She would bide her time. She would not lose control. She had to convince him that she could be his friend. . . . Jade Rat, she prayed. Come back to me.
Mr. Glueskin’s eyes narrowed.
“Congratulations,” Melanie said in an even voice.
Mr. Glueskin’s thin nostrils flared. His pinprick pupils disappeared, and the whites of his eyes gleamed. “Drink!” he roared, and everyone quaffed their bubbly champagne. Melanie tipped the glass but kept her lips shut so that the liquid would not pass. She lowered her flute while everyone was still drinking and poured the contents onto the carpet.
“Melanie”—Mr. Glueskin leaned down to kiss her forehead; Melanie turned away and his sticky lips grazed her hair—“will be our little flower girl. After the ceremony, she’ll be our roast suckling pig.”
The bone people clattered nervously.
“Aren’t you thrilled to be able to eat fresh suckling pig?” Mr. Glueskin seethed.
The cluster of guests broke into loud applause and whistles. “Roast pig! Roast pig! Roast pig!” they chanted, stamping their feet until the light fixtures clattered.
“Mmmmm, mmmmm good!” Mr. Glueskin smacked his lips, sliding his hand over his flat stomach. No longer bulging, the wallaby-man had been digested or yanked back to the kiddie zoo to begin his cycle once more. “I feel a mighty hunger! I have a mighty thirst! But first—” Mr. Glueskin latched his sticky hand to the back of Melanie’s neck and propelled her toward The Book of the Realms—“I want you to read this out loud for our guests. This is the last bit of writing in the book. The pages that follow it are empty. So I want to know the last things it says. Share the future of your demise with us. Give us the gory details of what you see.”
His tone. Mr. Glueskin soun
ded gloating and sadistic, but there was something else, too. He was uncertain. . . .
Melanie’s thoughts clicked inside her as her eyes skimmed over the words of the prophecy.
A child has grown
across the Realms
what divides draws
near. A child
may be reborn
so ends
what may
begin.
It had changed! Melanie blinked rapidly as she read it once more. The last time she had read it, it said something about an unborn child and then a child being born a second time. This version of the prophecy said the child had grown . . . she had grown! A glow of pride and sadness filled her heart. It was true, after all.
Her heart leapt. The prophecy also said what divides was drawing nearer. It must mean that they were closer to making things better. Surely it meant that! Her heart pattered like a little mouse.
The gluey clamp around the back of her neck stretched around to completely encircle her throat. The sticky elastic vise began to squeeze. “Read it, I said,” Mr. Glueskin whispered.
“You first!” Melanie gasped while she could. “You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine!”
Mr. Glueskin’s eloquent face twisted from rage to fear to shame.
Melanie stared, amazed.
His eyes. They darted all over the page, corner to corner, side to side, but he was not tracking the letters.
Mr. Glueskin could not read.
FIFTEEN
HE COULD NOT read his own prophecy . . . did not know what the future might hold. He couldn’t be sure he was winning. . . .
Where Melanie had hope, Mr. Glueskin was filled with doubt. The rope of glue around Melanie’s neck stopped her breath and white lights speckled and strobed in her vision. “Okay!” she choked. “I’ll read it!”
Mr. Glueskin loosened his deathly grip, but did not release her. Melanie, breathing hard and fast, thought rapidly. She cleared her throat then spoke aloud in a quavering voice.
All you have sought
