by Tiffany Tsao
I’ll wake up before then, thought the tiny grown-up part of her as the rest of her mind directed her body to pick itself up, stop snivelling, and get on with the day so it would soon be over. I have to wake up at some point.
Four days later, she was still dreaming—and worse, feeling everything that her younger self felt at such an excruciating pitch that the tiny blob of brain that formed her grown-up self, her consciously dreaming self, yearned to rip itself away from the larger brain so it could wither and die. Ann hadn’t realized the extent to which having dual consciousness in her past dreaming sessions had mitigated the intensity of her younger self’s emotions. Now, without that double consciousness as a filter, she was exposed to the full measure of her juvenile passions—steeped in them. She felt as if she were drowning.
There was misery, obviously—that ever-present companion, weighing on her as she plodded through school day after school day of loneliness and bullying, not to mention her evening sessions of relentless drilling and her coaches’ unspoken disapproval. There was that nameless emotion too—the dark energy that she had learned to generate as a powerful and potent substitute for rage, which prevented her from completely falling apart.
There was also anticipation. The further her encounter with the One receded into the past and the less time that remained until the pageant in Louisville, the more Ann found herself fantasizing about Kentucky and what would happen there. Would the One really find her like she said she would? Would she tell Mama to stop entering her in pageants and perhaps take both her and Mama away to live happily ever after in the More Known World? Or would the One teach her how to go to that magical place whenever she wanted so she would never have to feel homesick or out of place ever again?
Related to this eagerness was anxiety, rising in sudden malicious bursts like indigestion. What if the One couldn’t find her? Or what if she hadn’t really meant what she’d said about coming back? Or worse, what if she, Ann, had imagined it all? How absurd it all sounded whenever she reviewed what had happened: a mysterious woman had given her a glimpse into a magical world, told her she was a magical type of human being, and then vanished into thin air. That was the sort of thing that happened only on TV or in storybooks. How could anything like that ever occur in real life?
These feelings alone were already too much for Ann. They submerged and suffocated her. They swelled her insides to bursting. They threatened to tear her apart. And yet there was still another emotion—the worst one of all—that Ann had to endure. It was even more relentless than the misery and dark energy she carried inside her, and unlike the anticipation and anxiety engendered by the prospect of the One’s return. It had always been there, must have always been there, even if she had never really registered its presence in any dreams before this one. It was an emotion her grown-up self had succeeded in forgetting, in burying without ceremony in an unmarked grave so that she could live the life she had always been destined to live and be happy and never look back. And the longer Ann spent in this dream, the more powerful the feeling seemed to grow.
She loved Mama. She loved Mama so much that the fact of it took her breath away. Yet that love had always been absent in her past remembrances, or else watered down by a generous measure of hindsight into childish affection, into senseless attachment, into foolish devotion. But it was present now, filling every second, colouring every moment, sharpening every sight, smell, and sound.
Of course you love her, Ann thought as she buried her face in Mama’s shoulder after her Tuesday night dance lesson, when her coach had berated her for a poorly executed pirouette. You love her because she’s the only one who loves you. You love her because she thinks you’re the most special, most wonderful person in the entire world even though everyone else tells her otherwise.
“You dance perfectly. She just can’t see it,” murmured Mama, stroking her hair, squeezing her dry of all remaining tears, then lovingly stuffing a White Rabbit candy into her mouth. “But she will someday. They all will.”
And she genuinely believes it, thought Ann with astonishment. She genuinely believes in me.
“An An, put the dress on again. Mama wants to get the sleeves right.”
This was on Wednesday night, after an extra session with her pageant coach. Mama wanted to make further alterations to the full-skirted purple dress Ann would be wearing for the formal-wear competition—even though she was obviously dead tired, even though she’d spent all day driving around doing hair and nails at different beauty parlours to earn some quick cash for their upcoming trip.
“It’s not pretty enough,” mumbled Mama, her mouth full of pins, the circles under her eyes dark despite her concealer. “We can’t break our winning streak. Everything has to be as perfect as you are.”
I love you, Ann thought in response. She recalled what the other girl at her pageant-coaching session had hissed to her behind the coach’s back: “Ugly dogface. Woof woof.”
I love you. It was Friday evening—the day before the pageant—and they were driving to Louisville. As far as pageant trips went, this one was a piece of cake: two hours, three at most with traffic. So they’d started later than was prudent and stopped at McDonald’s for dinner. Everything was going fine until Ann spilled ketchup on the socks she was going to wear for the casual-wear competition—the ones that she’d insisted on putting on that night, despite what Mama had said. Ann shut her eyes and steeled herself for a slap. But Mama didn’t this time. Instead she dabbed at the stain with a wad of paper napkins and swore furiously under her breath.
And instead of scolding Ann, she kissed away her daughter’s tears and murmured, “It’s fine. You can wear the socks from the formal-wear segment.”
“But they don’t go with that outfit,” Ann hiccupped.
“It’ll be okay. We’ll fold them down twice. Maybe the judges won’t notice.”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” said Ann. “I love you.”
“I love you too, darling,” her mother replied, gazing into her daughter’s eyes.
And we mean it, thought Ann. We really do. We’re all we’ve got, aren’t we? I have her and she has me.
The next thing Ann knew, they were at the hotel, Mama gently shaking her awake, whispering almost like a song, “We’re here.”
So soon?
But they were: the puzzlingly named Louisville Palisades Hotel, with not a single palisade in sight. Ann didn’t know enough to be amused by the name back then—not straight-Cs-and-Ds, no-time-for-homework Ann. It was the One who would teach her fancy words like palisade and palindrome between lessons in exploration and basic taxonomy, alongside absentminded lectures on simple mathematics and general world history. She wasn’t with the One yet, but she would be. It would start here. They were being swept along by time’s current, and there was no turning back.
According to the receptionist, practically every other contestant had already checked in. He delivered this piece of information with a smug look on his face, almost as if he were gloating over the disadvantage they had already incurred before the pageant had even begun.
“It must be very difficult going through life as a fat, stupid pig,” her mother said to him in sympathetic Mandarin.
He blinked. “Whaddya say?”
Mama smiled sweetly. “I say, ‘Thank you. Good night.’”
As they unloaded their bags in the parking lot, they burst into giggles and didn’t stop till they reached their room on the fourth floor.
It wasn’t the crummiest hotel they’d ever stayed at for a pageant, but it wasn’t the nicest either. There were brown water stains on the wall below the window. The bedcover was scratchy and alarmingly orange. The bathroom amenities were the usual: ineffective hair conditioner, waxy-smelling body lotion, and shampoo that would be indistinguishable from the shower gel if it weren’t for the writing on the label. All of them were in those tiny plastic bottles seemingly designed to thwart attempts to access their contents, but Mama popped them into her cosmetics bag anyway. They’d alre
ady taken showers before leaving home so Ann could go straight to bed and get as much rest as possible.
Once Ann was tucked in for the night, Mama pulled out her enormous sewing bag and began rummaging through the sequins and buttons and ribbons.
“What are you doing?” Ann mumbled drowsily.
“Go to sleep,” said Mama sternly. “I’m going to try fixing the socks. Maybe I can put bows on them to cover the stain.”
Then, reaching across the bed, she pecked Ann on the cheek and turned off her bedside light.
“I love you, An An.”
“I love you, Mama.”
Lying sideways, her face nestled in the cool flatness of the pillow, the last thing Ann saw before she closed her eyes was Mama examining the socks under the weak glow of the lamp on her side of the bed.
Please, no more, she heard that part of her brain say—the part that knew what would happen next. We have to wake up now. We have to wake up for real.
Then it came: three knocks on the door—sure and sharp.
“Who could it be?” she heard her mother mutter.
Ann kept her eyes closed, too tired to stir. She heard Mama hurry to the door.
“What is it?” Mama called in English.
“Room service,” answered a familiar voice.
No, thought Ann as her eyes fluttered open and her ten-year-old heart began to race. She sat up. We have to wake up, she begged. But the dream was still going, and now it was too late. She watched her mother unfasten the bolt and open the door.
“We don’t order room service,” said her mother to the person in the doorway. Then after a few seconds’ pause: “You not work here. Who are you?”
“You may call me the One. I’m here to see Ann.”
Ann was fully awake now. She scrambled out of bed.
Mama was still standing in the doorway, her stance that of a protective mother bird. “Ann sleeping. You cannot disturb. You from pageant?”
“Ann?” called the One over Mama’s shoulder.
“What you doing?” shrieked her mother. “I told you she sleeping.”
“I’m here!” Ann called joyfully, peeking out from behind her mother. “You found me! You came back!”
Mama turned to Ann. “An An. Who is this woman?” she asked in Mandarin.
“It’s okay, Mama. She’s here to help me. She says I’m a special type of being. An Oddfit.” Ann looked at the One. “Tell her,” she urged.
“She probably won’t understand,” said the One, taking advantage of the other woman’s confusion and stepping inside the room. “Most Sumfits can’t.” But right after she finished saying this, she took a deep breath and proceeded to explain. “Your daughter is a very rare type of being known as an Oddfit. She will only be truly happy if she’s allowed to live up to her full potential and explore the uncharted nooks and crannies of the world that are invisible and inaccessible to the vast majority of the human population.”
Ann held her breath and waited for her mother’s response.
Mama frowned. “Even if you work for pageant, you still cannot do this. Get out. I call police.”
The One shrugged in Ann’s direction. “I told you so.”
“Her English isn’t good. Let me try,” said Ann.
“Mama,” she said, speaking slowly in Mandarin. “She says I’m special. I can go to parts of the world no one else can go to. She says I’ll only be happy when I’m there.”
Ann’s words trailed off as she realized what she was saying. She looked at the One. “That’s not true, is it? I can only be happy there?”
When the One spoke, she sounded very grave. “As an Oddfit you’ll be happiest exploring the More Known World. If you stay here, you’ll eventually adapt, and you’ll be able to experience happiness too. But it won’t be the same.”
“Can my mother come with me?” asked Ann.
The One held out her hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Yes, if she wants to. But I don’t think she can. Most people can’t absorb information about the More Known World, no matter what.”
As if to prove the One’s point, Ann’s mother frowned and spoke to Ann. “That woman’s a lunatic. I don’t understand what she’s saying! Tell her I’m calling the police!” She ran to the bedside phone and snatched up the receiver.
The One turned to Ann. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have much time here. I never do.”
Ann stared at her. “What do you mean?”
In the background she could hear her mother’s voice. “Help. Is this police? Someone try to hurt us.”
“This world is allergic to me,” replied the One. “I can’t stay. And this time when I go, I won’t be able to return for a long while.” She knelt down to Ann’s level. “If possible, you should decide now.”
“Decide what?”
“If you want to leave with me and join the Quest or if you want to stay.”
At those words, the Quest, something in her lit up, flared, and flickered warm and clear. She remembered it from their last conversation, at the Mütter. She remembered everything the woman had said. How could she forget?
“Tell Mama to come too,” pleaded Ann, jabbing a finger in her mother’s direction.
“Louisville Palisades Hotel, room four-thirteen,” her mother was shouting into the receiver. “You hurry.”
“She won’t,” said the One with a shake of her head, and as if to verify this, Ann’s mother hung up the phone and grabbed the dressmaking shears from the sewing kit lying on the bed.
“Go,” she ordered the One, brandishing them like a knife. But the One paid her no heed and continued to address only Ann.
“You should decide soon,” she said simply before she took a step back as if to allow the girl space to think.
But thinking—at least in any cold, calculating sense of the word—was something Ann was incapable of at that moment. She was experiencing a great yearning. More than a yearning. A craving, as primal and desperate as hunger or thirst or the desire to draw breath. To be sure, it wasn’t a new sensation; it had always been there. But until this point, it had been aimless and muted, or perhaps aimless and therefore muted—for how can the heart truly cry out with any force if it has no idea what it wants? But her heart knew now, and with the same violence a starving woman might lunge for a piece of bread, or a thirsty man for a cup of water, or a drowning boy for another gulp of air, Ann’s heart hurled itself against the walls of her chest towards the glorious new world it had glimpsed and that it longed to glimpse again.
And yet. And yet she loved Mama.
“I can come back, right?” asked Ann, wild eyed and hopeful, though she already suspected what the answer would be.
The One looked at her sadly. “Not for the first few years, no. And after that, only for a few hours each visit, for progressively shorter periods of time.”
A wail of anguish filled the room. It was Ann’s mother. She was incapable of understanding the exact details of what her daughter and the strange woman had been trying to tell her, but she understood enough. This woman wanted to take her daughter away. And her daughter desired to go.
Still clutching the scissors in one hand, she ran to Ann and seized her wrist.
“An An, you can’t go with her. Who is she? Why does she want to take you? You can’t go.”
Mama continued to babble, her fear heightened by her incomprehension of what was going on. Ann tried again to explain, but it was as if Mama wouldn’t listen, couldn’t listen to what she had to say. In the distance, they heard police sirens blaring. Mama looked up.
“Police come!” she crowed triumphantly, turning fiercely to the One.
Then all three of them heard a loud crack. They looked up. There, snaking across the irregular surface of the white stucco ceiling, was a hairline fracture.
The One looked sharply at Ann. “Make your choice. We’re running out of time.”
But Ann had already made it. Or rather, it had been made for her, by every fibre in her being save the one that woul
dn’t let go, but had to. Now.
“Please, Mama,” she said, prying her mother’s fingers from her wrist. “I have to leave.”
The scissors dropped to the carpet as Mama’s hands cradled Ann’s face, pressing their fingers into her cheeks.
“You can’t leave me. You’re all I have.”
“I’ll come back someday. But I have to leave now.”
Another sharp crack. Bits of plaster began to rain from the ceiling onto the One’s head, just as the sound of the sirens outside plateaued and came to a stop just outside the building.
“Ann . . . ,” said the One, her voice urgent and low.
“I’ll find you,” wailed Mama. “If you run away, I’ll find you!”
“Mama, stop.”
“I will. You think I can’t?”
“Ma, let me go!”
“Look at me,” Mama shrieked.
Ann did as she was told.
Mama took a deep breath. “I’ll find you,” she said again, speaking tenderly now. And then she removed her palms from Ann’s cheeks, trailing her thumbs downwards across Ann’s face, wiping away her daughter’s tears. “I know these eyes. I’d know them anywhere. I’ll hunt them down. I’ll never let you go.”
A spring began to bubble inside Ann—an emotion she hadn’t experienced for years. Usually her body would convert it before it rose to the surface, transforming it into the energy that fuelled her astounding albeit unappreciated pageant performances. But now, it gushed out raw and red, seeping out from her core. Anger. Rage. Fury. Frenzy. Accurate words all, yet all of them exceeded by that which roiled and frothed inside her. But its object was not her mother, or even the One. Its object was herself. Yes, she hated herself: for wanting so desperately to leave, for being physically, biologically, instinctively unable and unwilling to remain—and to remain miserable, and to remain perpetually sick in heart and spirit within this world she knew now was not her own—for the sake of this woman, who had caused her such pain and would continue to cause her such pain, yet who loved her and whom she loved in return.
