Darkest Light

by Hiromi Goto

  White Cat made a noise as if he were bringing up a hairball. “It’s not the kind of thing a person would believe. You needed to learn, to grow, and that meant you had to live through the experience. Everyone did. Difficult though it was,” White Cat conceded.

  “Grow,” Gee scoffed, gazing at his baby arms, the remains of his legs.

  “Unpleasant as the change may feel”—White Cat’s voice was gentle again—“this is your true size in Half World. You never grew out of infancy.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Gee said.

  White Cat closed his eyes. “You learned to stretch the limitations of your cycle, first by turning your rage and fear into a way to control your body. Then you fed it with borrowed energy from the Half Lives of other creatures. But your body’s growth in Half World wasn’t organic growth. Impressive though it was. It was a distortion.”

  “How did I grow in the Realm of Flesh?”

  “You were still half alive, after all. And Popo fed you well.” White Cat’s ear twitched.

  Gee sighed. “Popo is an amazing cook….” He blinked fiercely.

  “I meant she fed you with love,” the cat snipped. “She makes a fine steamed sablefish with green onions and ginger, however,” he couldn’t help adding with a little quiver.

  White Cat tipped his head back and stared directly upward. “How long do you intend on eavesdropping?” he asked rudely. “You can go away now.”

  The great pillar legs of the stone giantess groaned as she shifted her great weight. “The tolllll,” she moaned.

  Gee gazed unhappily at the Gatekeeper’s worn face. “And how long have you cycled, asking for this terrible toll?” he asked. “When will you be free?” He shook his head. “I don’t know why Life and Half Life must be so hard.” His small hands squeezed into tight fists.

  White Cat set a soft paw atop the back of one fist. For once he said nothing.

  Gee exhaled and opened his hands. “Can you tell me that one day there’ll be more than just suffering?”

  White Cat patted with his paw, once, twice, a third time with the prick of claws before he drew away. “Has that not happened for you already?”

  Gee’s lips trembled as a faint smile flickered across his face. “Yes,” he whispered. The relief that washed over him was so very sweet. “Yes, it has.”

  He closed his eyes. Just one last thing. Though the mountain was so cold. He wanted to do this last thing.

  Gritting his teeth, Gee willed the flesh he had left to stretch once more … to grow elastic, to ripple from his torso, down his thighs, past his knees. Quaking with the effort, the tendons in his neck taut, he formed shins, calves, ankles, feet and all the toes, those numerous toes….

  “Paws would have been easier,” White Cat remarked. “Perhaps without the fur.”

  “Pah-hahaha!” Gee burst out laughing. Before he could finish the last toe. He fell back, panting, and watched a slurry of grey clouds slide across the intensely blue sky. He chuckled weakly. Stupid cat, he thought, with resentment and affection. Ahhh, he didn’t need that last toe. He would make do with what he had.

  Gee rolled to his front and placed his hands flat on the rock ledge, underneath his skinny little chest. Pushing his butt up in the air, he walked his new feet toward his hands, like a baby learning to stand. He pushed up with his hands and wobbled as he adjusted to the limbs of a gaunt baby. Much too large, his T-shirt and underwear slid off and puddled at his feet.

  Perfect, Gee thought. Naked, to top it off. Figures.

  “Planning on going somewhere?” White Cat asked. “Streaking, maybe?” He rose gracefully and stretched his back, extending one paw and his tail before padding silently around Gee’s unsteady form. As he passed by, he let his fluffy tail slide across Gee’s back.

  It was almost enough to topple him.

  “Shut up,” Gee muttered. “Don’t touch me. I have one thing left to do. And it’s going to take everything I have, so don’t distract me.”

  “What, pray, is there left to do?”

  “I’m returning to my cycle.” Gee’s throat was so dry he could no longer swallow.

  White Cat shrugged a cat shrug. “You needn’t do anything to get there. You can rest on this ledge until you fade away, as everyone does in Half World. And you’ll automatically be taken back to the start of your cycle.” The cat’s tone shifted. Softer. “You don’t have to do anything else. It’s enough.”

  Gee’s eyes shone. “I want to return on my own terms. I’m going to meet it halfway.”

  The Gatekeeper was staring at him with her unreadable stone face. “Why are you still here?” Gee asked her again. “Why haven’t you reached Spirit?”

  The stone giantess took a crashing step backward.

  “One day,” Gee whispered. “You will one day.” He turned to the edge of the ledge. Resolute. He tottered toward it, unsteady on his newly formed feet. His certainty was a solid core inside him.

  He looked down, down; so far and deep it fell away that he couldn’t see the bottom, only swaths of clouds wisping white and grey, texturing the immense distance.

  If you fell forever, would it stop feeling like falling?

  “Tell Popo I….” Gee’s voice faded. “She’ll know.” He smiled. “She knows.”

  He did not look back at White Cat. “Thank you. Until our cycles overlap once again.”

  Gee dove.

  The air roared.

  Cold. Fast. Tears stripped from the corners of his eyes. Hair a white flame forced back from his face. Arms extended, fingertips tearing through icy sheets of clouds. A falcon’s majestic plummet. A superhero.

  Try “naked baby.”A snide voice filled the inside of Gee’s mind.

  Startled, he looked to his side.

  White Cat, ears pressed flat to his skull, plummeted beside him.

  What are you doing? Gee screamed, appalled.

  I’m just joining you. For a little while. I’ve never tried this before.

  Are you crazy? What about your cycle!

  I’m not going with you to the end of this journey. Just partway. Shut up. You’re ruining the experience.

  Gee shook his head. That cat. That awful, awful, infuriating cat!

  The edges of the roaring wind growing darker. Gee could no longer feel his fingers, his toes.

  It was so cold, so fast.

  Turning to heat.

  Gee closed his eyes.

  Like a meteor.

  Roaring.

  Faster.

  Now.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ming Wei, Melanie and Cracker sat around the large wooden table in the open living room. The air was still. The weight of their words would not dissipate and the burden of it pressed upon their shoulders.

  Face washed clean, Cracker was pale and gaunt in the folds of Melanie’s old green housecoat. She looked hardly old enough to be in junior high school, let alone sixteen. Cracker glanced about, wide-eyed, as if she could scarcely believe that colour had always existed. The tall potted tree with brilliant miniature oranges hanging from the branches, the nap of the red velvet cushions, the golden glow of sunset blazing through the large windows…. She marvelled at the beauty.

  Ming Wei’s palm rested on one of two books lying on the table. One of the tomes was ancient, with a thick leather cover, cracked and stained with age. A faded circular symbol was engraved in the middle. The book beneath Ming Wei’s palm was newer. The edges of the pages were gilded in gold and the leather cover was smooth, a rich deep blue.

  Melanie’s long hair hung loosely. Movement on her shoulder; a dark red rat muzzle poked past the curtain of her hair. It twitched its whiskers as it sampled the air, and then looked upward.

  A small object dropped out of the ceiling and landed with a clunk on the wooden table. It clattered across the surface until it came to rest against the spine of the blue book.

  The three of them stared at the statuette, looked up at the ceiling for a hole that wasn’t there.

  “We
ll.” Ming Wei’s voice was dry. “He’s never done that before.”

  The white statuette shivered, some force within its nucleus shifting, the fine moment between inert and living. Shimmering, it burst from stone to flesh.

  White Cat’s eyes bulged, his pupils enormous. His tail puffed and perpendicular, his fur crackling as if he’d been caught in a storm of static. “Spirits light the way!” he yowled.

  They stared at the cat, aghast.

  The cat’s pupils slowly narrowed in the yellow-green of his irises. His fur settled and he calmly lowered his tail, wrapping it around his paws as he sat down.

  “Gee….” Ming Wei whispered. “And what of Grandson?”

  White Cat was sober. “He has returned to his cycle. Bravely. His Spirit true.”

  Ming Wei stroked the cover of the blue book. Her fingers brushing the embossed letters of the title, The New Book of the Realms. She smiled, a little sadly, but no longer wept.

  White Cat’s eyes narrowed. “Ahhh,” he said. “A new book. I wondered if that might happen.”

  “What does it all mean?” Melanie’s voice had an edge. “What now?” She started laughing, a small, bitter sound. “How many times must people go back there? First, to seek my mother, only to lose her. Then end up saving Baby Glueskin. Only to have him returned to Half World!” She was standing now, her hands on the table, breathing hard. “He’s gone back to his cycle, a cycle that produced a monster! It’s going to start all over again!”

  “Gee’s not a monster,” Cracker said.

  “Cracker is wrong,” Ming Wei said gently. “Gee is a monster, but if he is, so are we all.”

  “We’re nothing like Mr. Glueskin!” Melanie cried. “I am not!”

  “No,” Ming Wei agreed. “Melanie has not turned into Mr. Glueskin. Yet Melanie has a propensity to be him. Everyone does.” She raised the new book and set it atop the old, pushed them both to the middle of the table. Ming Wei rested her hands on the curved arms of her wooden chair. Melanie sat down.

  Through the closed window they could hear the hoarse caws of the evening crows returning to the mountains. The house rattled slightly as a bus drove past. Someone pressed long and hard on their car horn.

  “It’s still not fair,” Cracker whispered.

  Ming Wei shrugged with great eloquence. “It is not fair that your sister died so young. It is not fair that Ming Wei’s lover was killed during a burglary. It is not fair that Melanie could not have more time with her mother. It is not fair that Grandson could not return with us to Life.” She shrugged once more. “And so, the cycle continues, fair or not.”

  “But Popo.” Melanie’s voice was soft. “Won’t it start all over again? Gee’s in Half World to stay, and he’ll turn back into Mr. Glueskin. He’ll find Ilanna, and they’ll start their work to dissolve the binding that separates the Three Realms. Someone will have to go back and fight him all over again!”

  Ming Wei was stern. “Youth seeks immediate and visible outcomes. And if they don’t see it with their eyes, they believe nothing has changed. Yet change is often slow, and it is often subtle.” The old woman took a deep breath. “Gee had to return to his cycle, as he discovered he must, so he accepted. But he returned on his own terms. And he returned to the cycle changed, did he not? For he lived here, with us, for sixteen years. He experienced life and love, friendship and family. He had a home. These things he had which he never had before. He is changed, even as he returns to a cycle he did not ask for.” Ming Wei nodded. “What kind of effect this will have upon his cycle we have no way of knowing. But change has been wrought.”

  “So, you really think things have changed for Gee? Do you think it’s going to be okay?” Cracker asked.

  Popo turned her head toward the window. To the gathering darkness outside.

  White Cat flicked his ear.

  “As night follows day,” Popo said. Her eyes shone bright.

  The tension fell from Melanie’s shoulders, and Red Jade Rat climbed down her arm to nestle in the cup of her hands on the table.

  Cracker sighed, her breath breaking into shudders. “So what do we do now? What are we supposed to do?”

  Ming Wei smiled. “We carry the memories of our loved ones forward. We honour their memories. And we live well. That is all.” Her eyes glinted. Her matter-of-fact tone was belied by the tears in her eyes.

  Cracker dragged the back of her hand across her face. “Live well…,” she muttered. “After what I saw in Half World, I’m scared to death of dying!”

  Melanie grinned momentarily before it faded. “I’m frightened, too. To have to return to the moment when I lost my mother…. I still have nightmares.”

  Ming Wei clicked her tongue. “Cannot Melanie and Cracker see?” she asked impatiently. “They have already confronted and accepted their worst moment. Just as Ming Wei accepted that Nora Stein was killed, Ming Wei chose to live and continued to grow. So Melanie and Cracker have accepted, and will continue to grow. If you live your life well, without rage and denial, if you live with patience and compassion, you have nothing to fear in Half World. Inside every one of us there exists already our own Realm of Flesh, Half World and Realm of Spirit. Inside of us! When we understand this, there is greater balance. Melanie, you chose to live. You have moved forward. You are not trapped in your Half Life here, and so you will not be trapped when your time in Half World comes. It is the same for Cracker.”

  “I think I understand what you mean,” Cracker said slowly. Her head dropped and a lock of black hair fell across her pale face. “It still hurts so much that Klara killed herself, that I couldn’t help her.” She took a deep breath and dragged her fingers through her hair to push it away from her forehead. “But you’re right, Ms. Wei. I’ve accepted that I couldn’t undo her suicide. And hearing Karu’s story, and what happened to his brother….” Cracker shuddered. “There are worse things than death.”

  “Poor Gee.” Melanie’s voice was low. “I-I didn’t treat him well. I was too frightened to give him a chance. And then I left as soon as I could.” The red rat scurried up her arm to nestle against her neck, its tail hanging down over Melanie’s chest. Melanie automatically raised her hand to gently stroke the curve of the rat’s back. “I’m sorry, Popo.”

  Ming Wei stared intently at her adopted granddaughter. Melanie did not look away. “Popo was sad and angry,” Ming Wei stated. “But Popo also understood why Melanie did what she did.” She half-rose and then leant across the table to gently tap Melanie’s cheek with her rough, work-worn hand.

  Cracker tilted her head to one side. “Weren’t you in hospital, Ms. Wei? Gee was worried about you.”

  “Pah!” Ming Wei scoffed. “Anemic, they said. Low blood pressure.” She flapped her hand. “The doctor was younger than Melanie! What can a doctor that young know about an old woman’s health! Ming Wei needs to sell her store and start dating again!”

  Melanie’s eyes crinkled with laughter. Cracker’s mouth fell open with awe.

  White Cat rose to his paws, arching upward in a slow stretch, ending with a dramatic quiver of his tail. He padded to the far end of the table and turned so that he faced them all at once. “I’m bored. And I’m hungry,” he yawned. “No one has bothered to ask me about my well-being, to offer me sustenance after all the things I’ve done, everything I’ve suffered for no personal gain. I’m ordering takeout. I don’t know why but I fancy broiled eels drizzled with teriyaki sauce on rice.”

  The three women stared at the cat.

  “You’re unbelievable,” Cracker muttered.

  White Cat began to purr. Once he was certain everyone was watching, he leapt gracefully and landed upon the velvet cushion of the easy chair. Draping his paws over the armrest, he batted the phone receiver out of the cradle and began tapping out numbers with a single extended claw. He nosed the mouthpiece and cleared his throat. “Hello? Yes. I’d like to order for delivery,” he purred.

  “Order for everyone else as well, wretched creature!” Ming Wei called out
. “And White Cat is paying.” Ming Wei stood and gestured to Melanie and Cracker. “Come.”

  She went to the filing cabinet. Atop it was the latest framed school photo of Gee. Next to it was Melanie’s university convocation photo. Ming Wei took her grandson’s photo and carried it to the altar she’d made for her long-dead lover. She moved Nora’s photo a little to the side. “Please take good care of Gee, dear Nora,” Ming Wei said as she placed Gee’s photo beside it.

  Cracker gazed at his image. The long hank of dark hair, falling diagonally across his face, covered one eye. His other eye stared directly at the camera. Dark, intense, unreadable. The long lines of his pale face…. His thin and mobile lips were pressed tight. As if he held something back. He’s beautiful, Cracker thought. And now he’s gone.

  Ming Wei picked up three sticks of incense. She handed one each to Melanie and Cracker, and kept one for herself. Producing a lighter from her pocket, she flicked it, raising the flame to the tip of the stick. It began to burn, and the musty, rich scent filled the air. Handing the lighter to Melanie, Ming Wei faced Gee’s photo, raised the incense stick and bowed three times. She placed it in the holder and closed her eyes, her hands pressed together. Her lips moved as she mouthed words Cracker and Melanie could not hear.

  Maybe Gee hears them, Cracker thought.

  Melanie and Cracker lit their incense and sent their own messages as the rich, sweet smoke twined toward the high ceiling.

  “Thank you, Gee,” Cracker whispered. “I miss you. And I’m still pissed that you choked me, you asshole.” She dragged her forearm across her eyes. “I hope we catch up with each other some time. I think we will.” She felt a gentle tugging at the bottom of her bathrobe. It was the dark red rat. Its almost human hand patted her lower calf reassuringly.

  “So it may be,” Red Rat said in its funny low voice. “The cycles continue to turn, and we with them.” It scampered back to the table.