by Hiromi Goto
White Cat’s eyes were enormous. “Nobody should enter before their time, but Half World has come for you nonetheless.” The creature pressed his cold nose against Gee’s, his yellow-green eyes glinting madly. “You have called creatures out of Half World for reasons you do not know. Should you remain here, you will endanger your grandmother, as the Half Worlders will seek to control you through the ones you love. You must lead them back into their Realm and face what ties you to Half World. The past will always try to catch up with you, no matter how far you flee. You cannot run away from yourself.” The cat leapt off Gee’s chest and, tail held aloft, started walking down the sidewalk. “The past is inside you already.”
He did not look back to see if Gee followed. White Cat’s words trickled behind him as he padded away. “Should you flee, you’ll always be the one who is chased. Is it not better to be the one who seeks?” White Cat’s tail lashed and then he held it aloft once more, the tip flopping a little to one side.
Chapter Ten
“Do you trust that cat?” Cracker’s voice was low. “Do you believe everything he says?”
They’d been walking for over half an hour. In the distance, Gee could hear the roar of the freeway traffic beginning to grow. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “It might be true…. But there’s no way to be sure.”
The sound of their footsteps. Cracker’s jangling buckles. Gee looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t see Ilanna and Karu. Somewhere near or far away, he knew they still followed.
Gee returned his gaze to the awful cat’s vertical tail. The cat made sure they didn’t catch up, somehow keeping a consistent three metres between them, even when Gee picked up his pace. The horrid creature had said that Gee had called Ilanna and Karu out of Half World. But how could he call something he didn’t even know existed? Why was it his responsibility to lead them back?
Your parents are there, the dark little voice whispered. And your birthright.
Where all the sufferers suffered, White Cat had said. Gee didn’t want to go there. But a part of him…. What kind of birthright could there possibly be for a person in Half World?
Back in the parkade. When his palm had swallowed his classmate’s face. Winston’s life a frantic fluttering, like a panicked sparrow. And Gee the one to decide if the boy lived or died…. It had felt delicious….
Gee shuddered. No!
No. He wasn’t like that. He glanced at Cracker. Whatever it was that tied him to Half World, it was no place for her. Cracker, passionate and so full of life. Half World would be filled with monstrosities like Ilanna and Karu.
Monstrosities like you, the dark little voice snickered.
He was not a monster! He cared what happened to Cracker. A monster wouldn’t care.
“Please go home.” Gee’s voice cracked. “I have a bad feeling. You aren’t meant to go to Half World. Please.”
She didn’t respond for several minutes. Gee glanced down at her profile. She dragged the back of her hand across her eyes, her smeared eye makeup beginning to spread thinner.
“My sister,” she finally whispered. “Klara died in the summer. She— She killed herself. If Half World is real, if what that cat said is true…. What if she’s there, still suffering? I have to see. I have to make sure she’s okay.”
A small frown flickered across Gee’s face. “But she’s already dead,” he said slowly. “How can your going make a difference to her now?”
“What if it were your grandmother! What would you do? If you thought she might be suffering, even after death, you’d do the same as me!” Cracker’s voice was harsh.
Gee stared at her jangling buckles. Popo could very well be in a coma, in the hospital. Was a part of her waiting for him to sit beside her? Wanting him to be there, to hold her hand and call her back to life?
Popo, he sent across the damp city sky. I’ll be back as soon as I can….
“I’m sorry,” Gee said softly to Cracker. “About your sister.” He felt he should say something more, but he didn’t know what it could be.
He glanced at her face again. Her profile was resolute, her expression unreadable. Cracker was the first person, apart from his grandmother, who wasn’t repelled by him. And for that he was filled with a kind of gratitude he didn’t want to examine too closely.
Maybe this was what it felt like to have a friend. But what kind of friend would he be if he led her into Half World? If it truly was like what The Book of the Realms had described, she would be in terrible danger.
But he didn’t want to enter Half World alone, with only the company of the unpredictable cat. Still….
“Cracker.” Gee swallowed the quaver in his throat. “What if going to Half World means you might not be able to come back?”
Cracker was silent for so long that Gee thought she was ignoring him.
“I couldn’t do anything for Klara before,” she finally said. “If I get a second chance to help her, I accept the risk.” She spun around, grabbing hold of his arms so that they came to an abrupt stop.
“Promise me. We’ll see each other through this. Me, for my sister, you, for your birth parents. Promise we’re partners in this. Whatever happens.” She met his dark eyes with ferocity.
Gee swallowed hard. “I promise,” he whispered. He didn’t think he was promising only for his own sake.
Cracker smiled. Her golden eyes shone brighter than the light at sunset. But Gee couldn’t smile in return. They resumed walking, in silence, for a long time. The jangle of the many buckles on Cracker’s boots didn’t sound jaunty. Her footsteps were heavy. And Gee was filled with a foreboding.
THEY FINALLY CAUGHT UP to the cat. He sat on the concrete ledge of an overpass, his whiskers bobbing intermittently with sudden gusts of wind. From below came the roaring of automobiles as they plunged in and out of two dark tunnels.
“Is that the Cassiar Connector?” Gee asked. He’d never stood above it before.
White Cat grunted. “There are doors lining the inside wall of the Connector. We enter the west-side tunnel. Door Four is the gateway to Half World.”
Cracker peered over the handrail. A cement truck bellowed into the darkness beneath them.
A slight frown flickered across Gee’s smooth forehead. “How do you know all this?” Just because the cat said it was Popo’s companion didn’t make it so. When Popo had mentioned it, maybe she’d been trying to warn him. Maybe the cat was another Half World creature sent to trick him…. “And why do you know?”
White Cat’s eyes narrowed. “Melanie has been there and back, and she went through the Connector. Do you remember nothing of what you read in The Book of the Realms?”
A knot formed in Gee’s chest. Melanie … and now him. That book on the dining room table: it said that a young woman had carried a living baby out of Half World and taken it to the Realm of Flesh.
What was once taken, must be returned, the dark little voice inside him crowed.
Popo! Gee railed. Why didn’t you tell me more…. He could feel a tightness in his chest, and his eyes burned.
“Come.” White Cat was curt. “It grows dark. And the night will bring with it dark creatures.” He sailed into a bank of twisting ivy that gradually sloped downward to reach the freeway below.
Gee thought he heard the cat muttering “Dirty, dirty” as he leapt from one spot to another. He wasn’t certain if the cat meant the state of his paws or the dark creatures that were out to get them.
Gee took a deep breath. He folded his fear and his doubts smaller and smaller until he could scarcely feel their edges. His face blank, he picked his way down the ivy embankment as the twisting vines tried to tangle his feet.
“Oooph!”
Gee spun around. Cracker had fallen. She began to curse.
He stretched out his hand to help her rise. Her palm felt warm against his own. “Are you hurt?” he asked.
“Uh uhhnn.” She shook her head.
The cat’s face glowed in the growing darkness. Cars roared past, their he
adlights blinding, a cold wind blowing gusts of stinking exhaust fumes.
“Quickly!” White Cat snarled, his fur standing on end. “They come!”
Cracker squeezed Gee’s hand painfully. His heart began slow-pounding. They both looked back up the embankment.
Two silhouettes stood at the railing. The indigo sky was so beautiful behind them. One of the shadows turned, and they could see the profile of a sharp, curved beak.
The liquid sound of low laughter reached them. Her voice was so lovely, Gee thought.
“Come on!” Cracker pulled Gee toward the cat.
He shook his head, trying to free himself from the sound of Ilanna’s laughter as they lurched and broke through the vines.
A massive delivery truck thundered past them with a blast of horn. White Cat’s ears were pressed almost flat against his head.
Gee looked across the four lanes of freeway, the concrete divider that split them into eastbound and westbound. The vehicles hurtled in and out of the tunnel openings. He stared for a break in traffic. “We have to run across?” he shouted.
“Yes!” White Cat snarled. The whites of his eyes were showing and his fur stood on end. “The farther tunnel.”
Cracker didn’t even pause. She swooped up the cat in her arms and started dashing across the first two lanes of traffic. Gee stared, aghast, and then sprinted after her.
Trucks, cars, honked their horns as they swerved around them.
We will die, Gee thought. Die, don’t die, we still have to enter Half World….
They made the divider. A brief island of safety. White Cat was shamelessly plastered against Cracker’s midriff.
“What now?” she panted.
“Into the tunnel.” White Cat’s voice was muffled. “Inside wall.”
Gee couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the embankment again. The orange streetlights cast an eerie glow upon Ilanna’s dress. The eel was writhing with frustration; her mistress’s legs were caught in the mess of ivy. Karu bent down to help her untangle herself.
Grimly, Gee ran along the small ledge of concrete that protruded along the inside wall of the dark tunnel. He could scarcely hear Cracker’s boot buckles over the overwhelming traffic noise.
The lights embedded in the ceiling were dim, their dirty glow casting an ugly pall. From the far end of the tunnel an awful roar began to grow as if a tornado were moving directly toward them. The air swirled with wet garbage, the sting of grit scoring their exposed skin, empty beer cans and dented hubcaps whipping around them like leaves. They ducked low and covered their eyes with one arm as they struggled deeper inside. White Cat began to yowl.
Silence.
Karakarakara. A tin can rolled along the rough concrete. It came to a stop. The after-roar of the wind lingered inside their ears.
The vehicles had vanished. The tunnel was completely empty. Cracker couldn’t stop a small sound from escaping her lips. White Cat, for the first time, was speechless.
Gee looked over his shoulder.
The half-circle of the entrance was black. He had no way of knowing if Ilanna and Karu were there.
White Cat shook his head as if he were trying to dislodge something stuck inside his ears. “The same thing happened to Melanie. The tunnels became silent. Now is our chance to enter the portal.” The cat twisted out of Cracker’s arms and landed silently on the sticky concrete. He quickly padded deeper into the tunnel. Gee and Cracker hurried after him.
They passed the first door. Large, rectangular and framed with wooden beams, the emergency exit looked more like a barn door than an escape route.
Behind the door something enormous, something very far away, groaned. The sound was so deep, so low, it was barely audible. Their cells quivered with the vibrations.
Gee and Cracker shuddered. What was it? Where was it? Because shouldn’t the exit hatch just open to the other tunnel that ran parallel to theirs?
Cracker slipped her small hand into Gee’s sticky palm. Gee went still.
Her touch, so human. So fragile. Saturated with emotion. He folded his fingers around hers and gave a reassuring squeeze.
They raced after the cat, who was stretched out into a leaping run.
Door Two gave off a sickly sweet smell, like noxious flowers rotting. Gee held his breath, ran faster. Cracker was beginning to wheeze.
A liquid giggle echoed inside the concrete passage.
They were coming!
The staccato clacking of a great curved beak.
“Hurry!” Gee pulled Cracker’s hand.
She was beginning to stagger.
Let her go, Gee’s dark little voice snickered. Ilanna and Karu will catch up with her first. And then they’ll want to stop and play.
Gee shook his head. He released Cracker’s hand and grabbed her wrist instead. He pulled harder, and Cracker valiantly kept pace.
Ahead of them, White Cat suddenly veered off the ledge and onto the road, where he ran for several metres before returning to the ledge.
As Gee and Cracker came abreast of Door Three they caught sight of a heap of castaway clothes piled into the corner of the frame. The heap of clothing shifted and then slowly started to rise. A glimpse of cloven hooves, a rancid, oily odour, thick and confusing.
Cracker swore and kicked a warning with her heavy boot.
The heap resettled back into the corner. It began to wail. Like a mother mourning, like a flayed monkey, like a child dying.
The hairs on their arms, their necks, rose at the uncanny sound. Their footsteps faltered…. The wailing was so keen it tore at the heart.
“Make it stop!” Cracker screamed. She clamped her hands over her ears. “Save her!”
Set it afire, the cold, ugly voice inside Gee advised. That will do nicely.
“Beware!” White Cat snarled. “It’s a trap!”
Cracker, unable to bear the sound, dropped to her haunches. Curled over, she bent her arms over her head and started rocking back and forth. “Save her,” she wept. “She’s suffering. We have to help her.”
The cloth heap began to unfold once again. An inhuman limb began stretching toward Cracker as the thing continued keening, snuffling, sobbing.
Cracker staggered to her feet, her eyes glazed, her hands beginning to reach for the ruined thing. “I’ll help you,” she promised, her face frozen.
Gee didn’t know what she was seeing. It couldn’t be the heap of rotting cloth and twig limbs that he saw.
“She feels so much pain,” Cracker crooned as the lurching thing drew nearer, its keening rising in pitch.
Its siren call, Gee thought. The sound of its suffering was the bait—to stun, to trap, the empathetic. To catch people like Cracker.
Not youuuuu, the dark voice gloated.
No, thought Gee. Not me.
He grabbed Cracker from behind, wrapping his arms around her skinny waist. “Come on!” he shouted, giving her a shake.
Her legs were wobbly, as if she were drunk. Gee began to drag her toward White Cat, who stood impatiently beside the fourth door.
The hooflike limb scraped against the concrete and the keening quieted. “Help?” The voice was childlike, sweet and tremulous. “Help me?”
“Klara?” Cracker’s voice broke. “Ohmygod, Klara!”
“I’m thirsty,” the childish voice quavered. “Please.”
Cracker began to struggle. She was wiry and strong. Gee clung with all his might.
“Let me go!” Cracker screamed. “It’s my sister! Let GO!”
Gee clung tighter. Gritting his teeth, he continued dragging her toward the fourth door.
The shambling cloven thing was drawing closer, the sound of its scraping loud against the concrete, its sweet little-girl voice grotesquely beguiling.
Cracker kicked wildly with her boots to break from Gee’s hold. The thick treads landed on Gee’s shin, his knee. The impact was stunning.
Cracker twisted, halfway free.
Something white sailed through the air.
; White Cat, with a yowl, landed upon the misshapen monster. He scratched and swiped, a flurry of claws, and patches of rotting cloth flew through the rancid air.
“Oh.” The thing’s sweet little voice was lost. Ancient. The creature fell with a clatter of skeletal bones, desiccated hooves. The scattered remains were no more than litter strewn upon a dirty road.
“No!” Cracker cried, forlorn.
“Oh, yesssss,” Ilanna sighed. “Darlings.”
The Half Worlders were only twenty metres away. They weren’t even running. Karu’s eyes glinted, the feathers on his head upright. Ilanna’s eel arm lashed violently.
“Rilla is very angry with you, Party Girl,” Ilanna whispered. Her voice dripped in the dank, silent tunnel. “And so am I. When we catch you, we’re going to eat you ever so slowly. Should we start with your fingers? Or should we begin with the toes?”
“Toessssssss,” Rilla sighed.
“The Gate!” White Cat commanded as he twisted away.
Gee dragged Cracker with him, her legs regaining strength as they moved farther from the dregs of the empathy vampire.
There was no way he could leave Cracker behind, Gee realized. Now Ilanna and Rilla were after her as well.
As Cracker’s senses returned, she began to run. Gee loosened his hold. Just as they reached the fourth door the keening began to rise once more out of the tattered clothing, the skeletal limbs scraping their way back together again.
“No!” Ilanna shouted.
“Help me.” The childish voice was heartbreaking.
Karu shrieked, the fierce cry of a raptor.
“No, Karu! What are you doing?” Ilanna screamed.
That thing wasn’t on their side, Gee realized. The Half Worlders were just as much at risk as they were. And they had triggered its trap.
But it was an empathy monster … and how could those two feel empathy?
The cat scratched at the wooden slats of Door Four. He looked so much like a pet asking to be let out that Gee almost laughed aloud. Then he shook his head. He had to get a grip.
