InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Stranger In My Bed ❯ Chapter 9
[ P - Pre-Teen ]
By: Yoshimi Evangelina 
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 04.17.2004 | Updated On: 04.18.2004 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 265 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: InuYasha Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 04.17.2004 | Updated On: 04.18.2004 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.4K | Visits: 265 | Status: Completed
It’s been a couple of days since we left Ami-Lee’s condominium. Leaving the garden-rooftop and going through all that carnage again in Ami-Lee’s living room made me sick. All that unfeeling regard I had felt started curdling in my stomach. I wish I could throw up just to get rid of this guilty, filthy feeling.
On top of that, I’d had a dream about my mother: how her marriage with my father wasn’t the paradise it was, and that I was a bastard child. The strangest thing was, I wasn’t even my mother’s child either. I felt betrayed, nobody’s child in a nowhere place. Of course I knew it was just a dream when I woke up, but I couldn’t believe the feeling of betrayal and displacement was still there.
It feels like I never actually woke up. I’m walking in and out of dream, seeing my mother at the corner of my eye, the back of her head bobbing up and down across the street, the sound of her footsteps marching me down from behind.
“Are you sick?” Sesshoumaru-sama demands of me when I haven’t said anything for a while. He’s dressed in a full-length lamb-skin coat, long dark green pants and a pristine white turtleneck that I bought him. The boa flowing over his right shoulder is a really good addition to the outfit, I muse abstractedly even if I can’t feel anything right now.
“No.” I say simply, mistaking another woman for my mother again and feeling a sigh of relief when it‘s not. I think I’m just over-exhausted. He states something about humans being weak, how even one cold could finish us off.
Although I think feudal Japan must have been a healthier time to live in than London during the Industrial Revolution, I keep quiet. Ever since that “soft and yielding” look he gave me on that rooftop, he’s been trying to remind himself how weak and disgusting humans are. I can see his self-inflicted anger in his eyes, his self-disgust.
I wonder if hating humans is a natural youkai trait or if there’s a story attached to his dislike somewhere. In all my experiences of dating, the bad boys are usually the ones who have been hurt the most. Truth to tell, after the initial shock of him trying to strangle me, I’ve never felt afraid of Sesshoumaru-sama after that.
Secure, actually. Protected. I smile into my Tim Horton’s coffee. Sesshoumaru-sama would not like that image in my head at all.
We’re walking through the streets of Toronto, wind howling between the buildings. I feel like I’m in a tunnel. Sesshoumaru-sama walks slowly, taking in the humans rushing past us.
‘Humans’. I’m talking like him already.
He doesn’t seem like he’s in a hurry. Upon hearing the sound of a Chinese violin, he follows the tune to the TTC tunnel where an old Chinese man is playing it with skill and reverence. The tune lifts beyond the rush of people, the dull scuffed grey interior. It floats hauntingly after them as the wind blows through the doors and scatters forgotten shards of paper about. Before him lies a cup for donations.
“I wonder if he has children.” I say suddenly to Sesshoumaru-sama, although I know he couldn’t care less. “I wonder if he’s taught them how to play it, or if they wanted to learn.” I sigh when he hasn’t said anything. “I hate how everything old gets washed away.” I’m looking at the grey buildings, the kids in their swanky getups listening to their music, talking into their cell-phones.
“Give him a coin.” Sesshoumaru-sama tells me. Intrigued and feeling a little mischievous in my grey mood, I pass him my change and indicate that he should do it. He looks at my outstretched hand with an agitated and confused look, but eventually takes it. He walks over and drops it in the cup. Still the Lord of the Western Lands, his movements are graceful and dignified as he does this, but he is neither condescending nor openly reluctant about it. The old man nods gratefully and keeps playing.
“I thought you were going to refuse.” I say to him, sipping on my coffee.
“His playing was mediocre at best.” he says, as if the donation wasn’t his idea to begin with.
“You’ve probably heard better music.” I reply, suddenly curious about his experiences.
My approach with Sesshoumaru-sama has changed over the last couple of days: instead of asking him direct questions, I imply them in conclusive statements. Even though we converse for hardly more than 5 minutes, I rather like this kind of discussion. It’s paced, meditated, like prolonging the enjoyment of a fine wine without getting yourself sick with it.
I feel that his own feelings towards me has changed a bit too. He doesn’t look like he wants to club me every time I open my mouth. He still says I talk too much, but it seems out of habit now.
For a man (youkai?) who sucked in the contents of the encyclopedias like a sponge, his natural intellectual curiosity must be getting the better of him. Despite his hate for humans and human technology, I find him still overcome with curiosity by the cars that pass by, the train, the elevators, the huge television screens around the square. I don’t draw any attention to this, merely watch and admire.
Women definitely stop to admire him. It’s his height first that makes them aware of him, and then his gorgeous silver hair, and then his boyish but angular features. School girls will follow us for a block or more, pretending to be looking in on the shops, but if I can hear their high-pitched giggling, I’m sure Sesshoumaru-sama can hear more. At one point he turns around and gives them an icy glare that makes them feel like nothing more than insects.
To the more relentless school girls, he curls his lips and growls at them. It’s not a kittenish growl either, it’s a genuine guttural growl. Suddenly the open streets of Toronto and the multitudes of people walking past doesn’t seem safe enough from him. They freeze in their spots, like deer in the headlights until he turns away. At this point, they turn around and flee.
The older, prettier women give him a wink and a smile, which doesn’t impress him much either. They’re breaking some sort of decorum with him, I can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps nobody should look directly at the Lord of the Western Lands?
I look down into a car at the stoplights and suddenly see her. I watch her mouth open as she laughs that perfect, high trilling laugh. Catching my incredulous stare, she smiles back at me in that affectionate way I’ve always remembered her to do. She waves at me, and I see the flash of a gold ring on her hand. It’s the gold ring I’m wearing. I’m like a pole-axed cow just staring there dumbly. The light changes to green and the car zooms off.
“Eva.” Sesshoumaru-sama’s voice startles me. The coffee cup lies spilled at my feet. People jostle past me.
“Tell me you saw that woman in the car.” I say urgently. When he says nothing for a split-moment, I grab his arm urgently and look up into his face. “Tell me you saw that woman.”
“There was no woman in that car, Eva.” he says, almost ruefully. His eyes are searching mine, his eyebrows knit in consternation. I feel like somebody’s just punched me in the stomach. “Who did you see?”
“Somebody dead.” I spit out, unable to mention her name. “Somebody’s fucking around with my mind, I can almost hear them laughing at me.“ I’m being sucked into a vacuum of nothingness, the people around us blur into single monochromatic lines, the sound of the streets, of the people softens into a single reverberating hum. All I can see is Sesshoumaru-sama lifting me into his arms and carrying me down the streets.
He stalks through a hotel lobby, demands a place for me to lie down for a short while.
“I do not require a room for the night. Only for a few hours until my guide may revive herself.”
I hear the person behind the desk utter the usual inanity about hotel policy. He suggests the hotel’s medical care instead.
“She is not physically sick.” he enunciates as if he’s talking to an idiot.
“Is she just feeling faint? Perhaps she may sit on the lobby chaise-lounge and one of our waitresses will bring some water for her.”
“She is not a dog waiting for scraps.” Sesshoumaru-sama replies.
I’m guessing Sesshoumaru-sama is giving him one of his perfected death-stares, since he’s stuttering away. An older, more veneered manager comes forward and asserts himself. He looks at my grey face in concern and the steely determination in Sesshoumaru-sama’s with approbation.
“Never let it be said that Hotel Du-Lac only extends its warmth for monetary values.” he says smoothly, hoping to mollify the riotous anger in Sesshoumaru-sama’s eyes. “Come this way, sir.”
He lets us in to a hotel suite. “This room has only just been cleaned.”
Sesshoumaru-sama says “hnh” in response, moving towards a bed and placing me on it.
After a while, the manager withdraws with a nod and his personal business card. “Call down to Concierge and ask for me, I will be at your service.”
“Summon Jack Lysander.” he says to the manager. I’m slightly surprised Sesshoumaru-sama knows the Owl-Spirit’s full name.
“Uh.. yes... would you happen to know his number, sir?”
Sesshoumaru-sama ignores his question. “Tell him that it is about the girl, Eva.”
“Very well, sir. May I tell him whom the message is from?”
“He will know.”
“Uh... yes, sir.”
“Actually asking for help? My fainting must be serious then.” I say to Sesshoumaru-sama, making a feeble attempt at humor. He’s brought a chair to the side of the bed, leaning forward to scrutinize me more closely.
“This Sesshoumaru-sama must admit an oversight on your part.” he says gravely, which makes me giggle a little bit. “Something humorous, Eva?” he asks me in a sonorous voice.
“You admitting a mistake on a human’s part. That’s funny.” I say, feeling myself being sucked into a vacuum again but trying to resist. Sesshoumaru-sama’s eyes betray some semblance of apprehension.
“It’s like somebody’s forcing me into unconsciousness, Sesshoumaru-sama.” I say, I can feel my heartbeat accelerate in anxiety. I want to touch something palpable, something that’ll keep me awake. I clutch his hand, which he at first resists, but seeing the urgency in my face his hand eventually curls around mine.
“Sesshoumaru-sama... Why have we been loitering around the city for so long? I thought you intend on destroying the brotherhood?”
“The Brotherhood is nothing compared to this Sesshoumaru-sama.” he replies.
“But...” This time the pull is too strong, I become sucked into the abyss.
***
I must be dreaming.
I’m in my mother’s kitchen, slicing cucumbers. It’s a Sunday afternoon, which means it’s the maid’s day out. Mom and I are preparing our usual Sunday meal - lamb curry. Our backs are to each other. She’s whistling Julio Iglesias’ new single, “Starry Starry Night” under her breath.
It’s a slumberous, lazy, uncomfortable Sunday afternoon. I turn around, “Could you quit whistling that?” I actually mean it as a joke, but it comes out harshly instead.
Her face becomes tight as if she’s going to cry. “Alright.”
I try to make amends, “I mean, it’s getting stuck in my head.” Ha ha.
But it’s too late. I might as well have stuck the knife in her eye.
She’s been bedridden for six months. I haven’t seen her in 4, I’ve only just returned from boarding school. She’s bald from the chemotherapy. I ignore the pallor of death in her cheeks. It’s been six years since she’s been diagnosed with cancer. She’s so emaciated and weak she can hardly hold her piss in long enough to reach the toilet. It’s just another phase of her ‘treatment’. What else are those doctors going to put her through? There seems no end to this inane bullshit.
Her appointment for treatment is at 9 am in the morning, we arrive at 7 to get the ball rolling quicker. There’s nobody else in the plum pink waiting room except my mother and I, but it’s not until noon or sometimes 1pm that they call her in to look over the tests.
Hell, my mother’s dying anyway, what’s another minute, right?????
As I’m packing to return to boarding, she holds my cheetah toy to her chest and asks if she can have it. Practicing my newfound assertion, I say “Nnnnn-o?” It’s a pathetic attempt anybody could laugh off easily, but it strikes her through the heart. The little girl smile on her face falls away. Again I try to make amends, “But you can have my other toys...” But she says it’s alright and passes the toy back to me. Her face is closed.
I realize a few years after her death it wasn’t the toy she wanted. She just wanted a semblance of me around while I was away at school.
All those Fridays she tried to call me at the boarding house and I was too stupid to stay around half an hour more to wait.
I’m standing in front of her grave. It’s a bed of concrete laid over with tiles. “What do you want?” I ask the figure next to me. He looks like Peter Graves, but his features are younger, more immaculate. His hair is pristine white, and he’s dressed in black.
“You know who I am.” he says ominously.
“I’ve met somebody who looks like you.” I contradict him. “It was a long time ago.”
“Yeah. Remember this?” We’re in a boxing ring, enshrouded in shadow. It‘s a semblance of a dream I had years ago when my friend died. “You’re going to die someday, you just have to learn how to swing with it.”
He moves to punch me but I dodge it with impunity. Almost in agitation. “You making fun of me?”
“How so?” the guy asks back, perplexed.
“I had THIS dream after my friend died for no apparent reason. Her heart just died like a fucking battery, no warnings, no detection. I lay awake every night for the next six months crying for her, fearing the fact that death might come and take me away in my sleep... This dream was the one that ended those sleepless nights and made me grow up, and you’re just fucking it up because you‘re sloppy with details!”
“Who cares what I said and how I say it?”
“The guy in my dream had said it more profoundly.” I turn away from him, willing the scene to change around us. It reverts to my mom’s grave like a thunderclap. The guy seems perturbed by this sudden change. What is it? Something he hadn‘t calculated on?
I sit on the grave, wiping away the dust on my mother’s plaque. “He’d said: ’You’re going to die someday, it’s just up to you how you’re going to live with it.’ And then he punched me and I woke up having an anxiety attack.”
“I can’t believe you remembered it all.” the man says in a gentle, sympathetic voice attempting to recover his original veneer. His attempt at sincerity is pathetic. “It WAS just a dream after all.”
“It WAS. But you’re not.“ I turn around to confront him. “YOU’VE been fucking around with my mind the last two days.”
I see my mom standing there, flowery blouse and navy blue skirt she used to wear all the time. “And I know you’re not who you’re supposed to be.” I reach forward to touch my mother’s hand with the gold ring. “I know that the only person with this ring on is me.” The gold melts off her finger like egg-yolk.
I see an owl in the distance. It‘s Jack.
“You want the Tenseiga, you should come find it yourself instead of trying to insult me.” I say to the man. I‘m still looking into my mother’s eyes. She feels so palpable, her soft warm palms hold me. I can smell her skin, reminding me of early morning cuddles and random hugs.
“Testy little bitch, aren’t you?”
“Don’t make me answer that.” I threaten.
He clears his throat. “I come with a proposition.“
“Mm... From behind smoke and mirrors, huh?”
He takes on a very serious expression. “I regret to admit, but it hasn’t been that easy reining in the great Lord. His powers, even in this era of technology, is too strong for us to summon him.”
“You seemed capable enough to bring him to this era.”
“As you noticed, there was a glitch there too. The problem with our organization is that we have a varying amount of ‘talent’, we couldn’t translocate a single bead of rice from one jar to the next without one of us having a seizure. That night was the single providential moment when we were at our strongest.”
“Don’t tell me.. Something to do with the magnetic waves of the converging planets on that day... the reason why we had an ice-storm... something ridiculous like that, right?“
Despite himself, he nods.
“What makes you think I could make him do it, then?” His forthrightness about the Brotherhood’s weaknesses is suspicious. Why do I feel like he’s already won this battle?
“You remember that romantic moment under the magnolia tree?” He puts an imaginary flower to his nose and bats his eyelids at me. I remain silent. “Well, you have a far better hold on him than any of us could dream of.” I snort derisively at that. “Our envoys tried to supplicate him with worship, but he hates humans too much to actually WANT a bunch of us grovelling at his feet. When we thought the prospect of holding the ONLY way back to the feudal era would bring him around to our side, we were surprised about his indifference about that too. By the way,” he says, attempting to change the subject. “How did you know I wasn’t part of your.. ‘psyche’?” he asks me, gesturing the last word with his fingers.
“Probably because the farthest reach of my imagination wouldn’t come up with something as annoying as you.” I reply. “You might be taking on the guise of my past dreams, but that particular disguise you’ve taken on has become useless to me. I’d have no reason for summoning you up in my head.” I haven’t dreamt of my mother with such vividness before though.
“The Brotherhood can bring her back to the living.” the man bargains with me like a smarmy car-dealer. “With the help of the Tenseiga.”
The owl draws closer.
“The Brotherhood will be very grateful if you persuaded Sesshoumaru to help us. It’s a ‘you scratch our back, we scratch yours arrangement...‘ As a reward, we’ll bring your mother back.”
I look at her. After all that suffering she had to live through... I won’t bring her back. What if her cancer would just revive again?
I want to kill myself for saying these words: “I wouldn’t bring her back. What‘s done is done.”
“Well that’s very wise of you, but we’ve already..” he does a tsking sound with his mouth, as if trying to find the right phrasing. There‘s a supreme sense of self-conceitedness that makes me wary, as if he‘s already closed off all the exits: “We’ve already procured her soul. Plucked it like a rotten grape on the vine, to say the least. We already have her. That really IS her, not just some apparition we conjured up. You have no choice BUT to come to us. Otherwise, down to the fiery depths of Hell she goes!” he does a Whoosh sound with his hand to emphasize his point.
“Mom???” I stare at her incredulously. My body begins to shake before my mind even registers the truth.
It IS her. I can see it in her eyes.
My mother tries to say something but nothing comes out. I’m shaking just as I did the minute my grandmother told me she was dead. Stranger is behind me, holding me. I’m shaking, oh god I’m shaking so much, why is this happening, why did you take my mother... where has she been why oh my god...
“You BASTARD!!!!!” I scream out to the skies, I lurch forward to kill him but he just laughs.
“Why have you done this to my mother?” I scream at him through my tears, my rage, my hate. My mother looks trapped, puny, helpless...
“I haven’t done this. You have. Being glad she‘s not around to see you fuck up your life, to hold you down. Never being compassionate enough when she was dying. Thanks to you, she‘s been trapped between afterlives - unresolved, unhappy - it was fairly easy to pick her up.”
“I’m so sorry...” is all I can say in broken-hearted chokes, “I’m so fucking sorry...” Stranger lets me go to hold her.
“You think you’re so Goddamn smart, huh, Kiddo?” he says to the man.
“Ah... Jack. It’s been a while.”
“It’s been never, actually. You guys are dipped to your eyeballs in shit, ain’t ya? Your own organization is threatening to split itself up if you don‘t resurrect your dead leader in time, all the rebels and demons you haven’t caught yet are united against you, and none of you can light a goddam flame without some help. You think picking on a little girl is going to help your predicament.”
“Hey, like I said, part of this is her fault too.”
“You... Piece.. Of .... SHIT!” I roar... I feel my anger well in me down to the earth, the trees are blowing, threatening to be uprooted, the ground is shaking... my roar has engulfed the skies threatening to rip it apart. Stranger takes a step forward to hold me, the man looks terrified for the first time since we’ve met.
Stranger and my mother’s hands are like spider’s webs as I advance on the man. Nothing can pull me back right now, I’m holding his head in my hands, I can feel him trembling in my grip.
“You’re not supposed to be able... to...”
“To what?” I ask menacingly. All I can see is red.
I lean forward to smell the sweaty fear dripping down his face. “You seem real enough... When I come and find you all, I’ll know to look for a blind man...”
“What do you...” His eyes bulge out as he realizes my intent. Before he can squeeze his eyes shut, I jam my thumbs into his eyeballs, digging the little orbs out with my thumbs. Blood is spurting between my fingers. He’s screaming, scraping his fingers against my hands
“Enough, Eva.” Stranger says behind me, holding me firmly against him. The skies become calm again as I crumble to the earth. The little man is clutching his hands to his face before he and my mother disappear.
I’m sobbing into the cracks of the earth, blood dripping from my hands. Stranger can only rock me. His words are unintelligible.
***
I startle awake. Sesshoumaru-sama is bent over me.
“Tell me everything, Eva.” he commands me urgently. He looks like something unpleasantly startling has happened. Something he hadn’t calculated on.
I don’t trust myself to say anything... I’m hoping it’s all a goddamned nightmare. I couldn’t handle the truth right now. My heart is thudding a thousand beats per minute. My breathing is harsh, racked, as if I’d just sprinted uphill. Maybe this is all just a nightmare. A horrible, terrible... I lift my hand to rake my hair back.
Blood.
There’s blood on my fucking hands.
On top of that, I’d had a dream about my mother: how her marriage with my father wasn’t the paradise it was, and that I was a bastard child. The strangest thing was, I wasn’t even my mother’s child either. I felt betrayed, nobody’s child in a nowhere place. Of course I knew it was just a dream when I woke up, but I couldn’t believe the feeling of betrayal and displacement was still there.
It feels like I never actually woke up. I’m walking in and out of dream, seeing my mother at the corner of my eye, the back of her head bobbing up and down across the street, the sound of her footsteps marching me down from behind.
“Are you sick?” Sesshoumaru-sama demands of me when I haven’t said anything for a while. He’s dressed in a full-length lamb-skin coat, long dark green pants and a pristine white turtleneck that I bought him. The boa flowing over his right shoulder is a really good addition to the outfit, I muse abstractedly even if I can’t feel anything right now.
“No.” I say simply, mistaking another woman for my mother again and feeling a sigh of relief when it‘s not. I think I’m just over-exhausted. He states something about humans being weak, how even one cold could finish us off.
Although I think feudal Japan must have been a healthier time to live in than London during the Industrial Revolution, I keep quiet. Ever since that “soft and yielding” look he gave me on that rooftop, he’s been trying to remind himself how weak and disgusting humans are. I can see his self-inflicted anger in his eyes, his self-disgust.
I wonder if hating humans is a natural youkai trait or if there’s a story attached to his dislike somewhere. In all my experiences of dating, the bad boys are usually the ones who have been hurt the most. Truth to tell, after the initial shock of him trying to strangle me, I’ve never felt afraid of Sesshoumaru-sama after that.
Secure, actually. Protected. I smile into my Tim Horton’s coffee. Sesshoumaru-sama would not like that image in my head at all.
We’re walking through the streets of Toronto, wind howling between the buildings. I feel like I’m in a tunnel. Sesshoumaru-sama walks slowly, taking in the humans rushing past us.
‘Humans’. I’m talking like him already.
He doesn’t seem like he’s in a hurry. Upon hearing the sound of a Chinese violin, he follows the tune to the TTC tunnel where an old Chinese man is playing it with skill and reverence. The tune lifts beyond the rush of people, the dull scuffed grey interior. It floats hauntingly after them as the wind blows through the doors and scatters forgotten shards of paper about. Before him lies a cup for donations.
“I wonder if he has children.” I say suddenly to Sesshoumaru-sama, although I know he couldn’t care less. “I wonder if he’s taught them how to play it, or if they wanted to learn.” I sigh when he hasn’t said anything. “I hate how everything old gets washed away.” I’m looking at the grey buildings, the kids in their swanky getups listening to their music, talking into their cell-phones.
“Give him a coin.” Sesshoumaru-sama tells me. Intrigued and feeling a little mischievous in my grey mood, I pass him my change and indicate that he should do it. He looks at my outstretched hand with an agitated and confused look, but eventually takes it. He walks over and drops it in the cup. Still the Lord of the Western Lands, his movements are graceful and dignified as he does this, but he is neither condescending nor openly reluctant about it. The old man nods gratefully and keeps playing.
“I thought you were going to refuse.” I say to him, sipping on my coffee.
“His playing was mediocre at best.” he says, as if the donation wasn’t his idea to begin with.
“You’ve probably heard better music.” I reply, suddenly curious about his experiences.
My approach with Sesshoumaru-sama has changed over the last couple of days: instead of asking him direct questions, I imply them in conclusive statements. Even though we converse for hardly more than 5 minutes, I rather like this kind of discussion. It’s paced, meditated, like prolonging the enjoyment of a fine wine without getting yourself sick with it.
I feel that his own feelings towards me has changed a bit too. He doesn’t look like he wants to club me every time I open my mouth. He still says I talk too much, but it seems out of habit now.
For a man (youkai?) who sucked in the contents of the encyclopedias like a sponge, his natural intellectual curiosity must be getting the better of him. Despite his hate for humans and human technology, I find him still overcome with curiosity by the cars that pass by, the train, the elevators, the huge television screens around the square. I don’t draw any attention to this, merely watch and admire.
Women definitely stop to admire him. It’s his height first that makes them aware of him, and then his gorgeous silver hair, and then his boyish but angular features. School girls will follow us for a block or more, pretending to be looking in on the shops, but if I can hear their high-pitched giggling, I’m sure Sesshoumaru-sama can hear more. At one point he turns around and gives them an icy glare that makes them feel like nothing more than insects.
To the more relentless school girls, he curls his lips and growls at them. It’s not a kittenish growl either, it’s a genuine guttural growl. Suddenly the open streets of Toronto and the multitudes of people walking past doesn’t seem safe enough from him. They freeze in their spots, like deer in the headlights until he turns away. At this point, they turn around and flee.
The older, prettier women give him a wink and a smile, which doesn’t impress him much either. They’re breaking some sort of decorum with him, I can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps nobody should look directly at the Lord of the Western Lands?
I look down into a car at the stoplights and suddenly see her. I watch her mouth open as she laughs that perfect, high trilling laugh. Catching my incredulous stare, she smiles back at me in that affectionate way I’ve always remembered her to do. She waves at me, and I see the flash of a gold ring on her hand. It’s the gold ring I’m wearing. I’m like a pole-axed cow just staring there dumbly. The light changes to green and the car zooms off.
“Eva.” Sesshoumaru-sama’s voice startles me. The coffee cup lies spilled at my feet. People jostle past me.
“Tell me you saw that woman in the car.” I say urgently. When he says nothing for a split-moment, I grab his arm urgently and look up into his face. “Tell me you saw that woman.”
“There was no woman in that car, Eva.” he says, almost ruefully. His eyes are searching mine, his eyebrows knit in consternation. I feel like somebody’s just punched me in the stomach. “Who did you see?”
“Somebody dead.” I spit out, unable to mention her name. “Somebody’s fucking around with my mind, I can almost hear them laughing at me.“ I’m being sucked into a vacuum of nothingness, the people around us blur into single monochromatic lines, the sound of the streets, of the people softens into a single reverberating hum. All I can see is Sesshoumaru-sama lifting me into his arms and carrying me down the streets.
He stalks through a hotel lobby, demands a place for me to lie down for a short while.
“I do not require a room for the night. Only for a few hours until my guide may revive herself.”
I hear the person behind the desk utter the usual inanity about hotel policy. He suggests the hotel’s medical care instead.
“She is not physically sick.” he enunciates as if he’s talking to an idiot.
“Is she just feeling faint? Perhaps she may sit on the lobby chaise-lounge and one of our waitresses will bring some water for her.”
“She is not a dog waiting for scraps.” Sesshoumaru-sama replies.
I’m guessing Sesshoumaru-sama is giving him one of his perfected death-stares, since he’s stuttering away. An older, more veneered manager comes forward and asserts himself. He looks at my grey face in concern and the steely determination in Sesshoumaru-sama’s with approbation.
“Never let it be said that Hotel Du-Lac only extends its warmth for monetary values.” he says smoothly, hoping to mollify the riotous anger in Sesshoumaru-sama’s eyes. “Come this way, sir.”
He lets us in to a hotel suite. “This room has only just been cleaned.”
Sesshoumaru-sama says “hnh” in response, moving towards a bed and placing me on it.
After a while, the manager withdraws with a nod and his personal business card. “Call down to Concierge and ask for me, I will be at your service.”
“Summon Jack Lysander.” he says to the manager. I’m slightly surprised Sesshoumaru-sama knows the Owl-Spirit’s full name.
“Uh.. yes... would you happen to know his number, sir?”
Sesshoumaru-sama ignores his question. “Tell him that it is about the girl, Eva.”
“Very well, sir. May I tell him whom the message is from?”
“He will know.”
“Uh... yes, sir.”
“Actually asking for help? My fainting must be serious then.” I say to Sesshoumaru-sama, making a feeble attempt at humor. He’s brought a chair to the side of the bed, leaning forward to scrutinize me more closely.
“This Sesshoumaru-sama must admit an oversight on your part.” he says gravely, which makes me giggle a little bit. “Something humorous, Eva?” he asks me in a sonorous voice.
“You admitting a mistake on a human’s part. That’s funny.” I say, feeling myself being sucked into a vacuum again but trying to resist. Sesshoumaru-sama’s eyes betray some semblance of apprehension.
“It’s like somebody’s forcing me into unconsciousness, Sesshoumaru-sama.” I say, I can feel my heartbeat accelerate in anxiety. I want to touch something palpable, something that’ll keep me awake. I clutch his hand, which he at first resists, but seeing the urgency in my face his hand eventually curls around mine.
“Sesshoumaru-sama... Why have we been loitering around the city for so long? I thought you intend on destroying the brotherhood?”
“The Brotherhood is nothing compared to this Sesshoumaru-sama.” he replies.
“But...” This time the pull is too strong, I become sucked into the abyss.
***
I must be dreaming.
I’m in my mother’s kitchen, slicing cucumbers. It’s a Sunday afternoon, which means it’s the maid’s day out. Mom and I are preparing our usual Sunday meal - lamb curry. Our backs are to each other. She’s whistling Julio Iglesias’ new single, “Starry Starry Night” under her breath.
It’s a slumberous, lazy, uncomfortable Sunday afternoon. I turn around, “Could you quit whistling that?” I actually mean it as a joke, but it comes out harshly instead.
Her face becomes tight as if she’s going to cry. “Alright.”
I try to make amends, “I mean, it’s getting stuck in my head.” Ha ha.
But it’s too late. I might as well have stuck the knife in her eye.
She’s been bedridden for six months. I haven’t seen her in 4, I’ve only just returned from boarding school. She’s bald from the chemotherapy. I ignore the pallor of death in her cheeks. It’s been six years since she’s been diagnosed with cancer. She’s so emaciated and weak she can hardly hold her piss in long enough to reach the toilet. It’s just another phase of her ‘treatment’. What else are those doctors going to put her through? There seems no end to this inane bullshit.
Her appointment for treatment is at 9 am in the morning, we arrive at 7 to get the ball rolling quicker. There’s nobody else in the plum pink waiting room except my mother and I, but it’s not until noon or sometimes 1pm that they call her in to look over the tests.
Hell, my mother’s dying anyway, what’s another minute, right?????
As I’m packing to return to boarding, she holds my cheetah toy to her chest and asks if she can have it. Practicing my newfound assertion, I say “Nnnnn-o?” It’s a pathetic attempt anybody could laugh off easily, but it strikes her through the heart. The little girl smile on her face falls away. Again I try to make amends, “But you can have my other toys...” But she says it’s alright and passes the toy back to me. Her face is closed.
I realize a few years after her death it wasn’t the toy she wanted. She just wanted a semblance of me around while I was away at school.
All those Fridays she tried to call me at the boarding house and I was too stupid to stay around half an hour more to wait.
I’m standing in front of her grave. It’s a bed of concrete laid over with tiles. “What do you want?” I ask the figure next to me. He looks like Peter Graves, but his features are younger, more immaculate. His hair is pristine white, and he’s dressed in black.
“You know who I am.” he says ominously.
“I’ve met somebody who looks like you.” I contradict him. “It was a long time ago.”
“Yeah. Remember this?” We’re in a boxing ring, enshrouded in shadow. It‘s a semblance of a dream I had years ago when my friend died. “You’re going to die someday, you just have to learn how to swing with it.”
He moves to punch me but I dodge it with impunity. Almost in agitation. “You making fun of me?”
“How so?” the guy asks back, perplexed.
“I had THIS dream after my friend died for no apparent reason. Her heart just died like a fucking battery, no warnings, no detection. I lay awake every night for the next six months crying for her, fearing the fact that death might come and take me away in my sleep... This dream was the one that ended those sleepless nights and made me grow up, and you’re just fucking it up because you‘re sloppy with details!”
“Who cares what I said and how I say it?”
“The guy in my dream had said it more profoundly.” I turn away from him, willing the scene to change around us. It reverts to my mom’s grave like a thunderclap. The guy seems perturbed by this sudden change. What is it? Something he hadn‘t calculated on?
I sit on the grave, wiping away the dust on my mother’s plaque. “He’d said: ’You’re going to die someday, it’s just up to you how you’re going to live with it.’ And then he punched me and I woke up having an anxiety attack.”
“I can’t believe you remembered it all.” the man says in a gentle, sympathetic voice attempting to recover his original veneer. His attempt at sincerity is pathetic. “It WAS just a dream after all.”
“It WAS. But you’re not.“ I turn around to confront him. “YOU’VE been fucking around with my mind the last two days.”
I see my mom standing there, flowery blouse and navy blue skirt she used to wear all the time. “And I know you’re not who you’re supposed to be.” I reach forward to touch my mother’s hand with the gold ring. “I know that the only person with this ring on is me.” The gold melts off her finger like egg-yolk.
I see an owl in the distance. It‘s Jack.
“You want the Tenseiga, you should come find it yourself instead of trying to insult me.” I say to the man. I‘m still looking into my mother’s eyes. She feels so palpable, her soft warm palms hold me. I can smell her skin, reminding me of early morning cuddles and random hugs.
“Testy little bitch, aren’t you?”
“Don’t make me answer that.” I threaten.
He clears his throat. “I come with a proposition.“
“Mm... From behind smoke and mirrors, huh?”
He takes on a very serious expression. “I regret to admit, but it hasn’t been that easy reining in the great Lord. His powers, even in this era of technology, is too strong for us to summon him.”
“You seemed capable enough to bring him to this era.”
“As you noticed, there was a glitch there too. The problem with our organization is that we have a varying amount of ‘talent’, we couldn’t translocate a single bead of rice from one jar to the next without one of us having a seizure. That night was the single providential moment when we were at our strongest.”
“Don’t tell me.. Something to do with the magnetic waves of the converging planets on that day... the reason why we had an ice-storm... something ridiculous like that, right?“
Despite himself, he nods.
“What makes you think I could make him do it, then?” His forthrightness about the Brotherhood’s weaknesses is suspicious. Why do I feel like he’s already won this battle?
“You remember that romantic moment under the magnolia tree?” He puts an imaginary flower to his nose and bats his eyelids at me. I remain silent. “Well, you have a far better hold on him than any of us could dream of.” I snort derisively at that. “Our envoys tried to supplicate him with worship, but he hates humans too much to actually WANT a bunch of us grovelling at his feet. When we thought the prospect of holding the ONLY way back to the feudal era would bring him around to our side, we were surprised about his indifference about that too. By the way,” he says, attempting to change the subject. “How did you know I wasn’t part of your.. ‘psyche’?” he asks me, gesturing the last word with his fingers.
“Probably because the farthest reach of my imagination wouldn’t come up with something as annoying as you.” I reply. “You might be taking on the guise of my past dreams, but that particular disguise you’ve taken on has become useless to me. I’d have no reason for summoning you up in my head.” I haven’t dreamt of my mother with such vividness before though.
“The Brotherhood can bring her back to the living.” the man bargains with me like a smarmy car-dealer. “With the help of the Tenseiga.”
The owl draws closer.
“The Brotherhood will be very grateful if you persuaded Sesshoumaru to help us. It’s a ‘you scratch our back, we scratch yours arrangement...‘ As a reward, we’ll bring your mother back.”
I look at her. After all that suffering she had to live through... I won’t bring her back. What if her cancer would just revive again?
I want to kill myself for saying these words: “I wouldn’t bring her back. What‘s done is done.”
“Well that’s very wise of you, but we’ve already..” he does a tsking sound with his mouth, as if trying to find the right phrasing. There‘s a supreme sense of self-conceitedness that makes me wary, as if he‘s already closed off all the exits: “We’ve already procured her soul. Plucked it like a rotten grape on the vine, to say the least. We already have her. That really IS her, not just some apparition we conjured up. You have no choice BUT to come to us. Otherwise, down to the fiery depths of Hell she goes!” he does a Whoosh sound with his hand to emphasize his point.
“Mom???” I stare at her incredulously. My body begins to shake before my mind even registers the truth.
It IS her. I can see it in her eyes.
My mother tries to say something but nothing comes out. I’m shaking just as I did the minute my grandmother told me she was dead. Stranger is behind me, holding me. I’m shaking, oh god I’m shaking so much, why is this happening, why did you take my mother... where has she been why oh my god...
“You BASTARD!!!!!” I scream out to the skies, I lurch forward to kill him but he just laughs.
“Why have you done this to my mother?” I scream at him through my tears, my rage, my hate. My mother looks trapped, puny, helpless...
“I haven’t done this. You have. Being glad she‘s not around to see you fuck up your life, to hold you down. Never being compassionate enough when she was dying. Thanks to you, she‘s been trapped between afterlives - unresolved, unhappy - it was fairly easy to pick her up.”
“I’m so sorry...” is all I can say in broken-hearted chokes, “I’m so fucking sorry...” Stranger lets me go to hold her.
“You think you’re so Goddamn smart, huh, Kiddo?” he says to the man.
“Ah... Jack. It’s been a while.”
“It’s been never, actually. You guys are dipped to your eyeballs in shit, ain’t ya? Your own organization is threatening to split itself up if you don‘t resurrect your dead leader in time, all the rebels and demons you haven’t caught yet are united against you, and none of you can light a goddam flame without some help. You think picking on a little girl is going to help your predicament.”
“Hey, like I said, part of this is her fault too.”
“You... Piece.. Of .... SHIT!” I roar... I feel my anger well in me down to the earth, the trees are blowing, threatening to be uprooted, the ground is shaking... my roar has engulfed the skies threatening to rip it apart. Stranger takes a step forward to hold me, the man looks terrified for the first time since we’ve met.
Stranger and my mother’s hands are like spider’s webs as I advance on the man. Nothing can pull me back right now, I’m holding his head in my hands, I can feel him trembling in my grip.
“You’re not supposed to be able... to...”
“To what?” I ask menacingly. All I can see is red.
I lean forward to smell the sweaty fear dripping down his face. “You seem real enough... When I come and find you all, I’ll know to look for a blind man...”
“What do you...” His eyes bulge out as he realizes my intent. Before he can squeeze his eyes shut, I jam my thumbs into his eyeballs, digging the little orbs out with my thumbs. Blood is spurting between my fingers. He’s screaming, scraping his fingers against my hands
“Enough, Eva.” Stranger says behind me, holding me firmly against him. The skies become calm again as I crumble to the earth. The little man is clutching his hands to his face before he and my mother disappear.
I’m sobbing into the cracks of the earth, blood dripping from my hands. Stranger can only rock me. His words are unintelligible.
***
I startle awake. Sesshoumaru-sama is bent over me.
“Tell me everything, Eva.” he commands me urgently. He looks like something unpleasantly startling has happened. Something he hadn’t calculated on.
I don’t trust myself to say anything... I’m hoping it’s all a goddamned nightmare. I couldn’t handle the truth right now. My heart is thudding a thousand beats per minute. My breathing is harsh, racked, as if I’d just sprinted uphill. Maybe this is all just a nightmare. A horrible, terrible... I lift my hand to rake my hair back.
Blood.
There’s blood on my fucking hands.