Rurouni Kenshin Fan Fiction ❯ Oiran no Gaijin - "The Foreign Courtesan" ❯ Silk Prison ( Chapter 5 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

"There. You're done," Saki declared, stepping back to admire her work.

Nicole had finally been wrestled into the purple off-the-shoulder kimono with the lavender trim. Fuming, she begrudgingly agreed that it was lighter and easier to move in than the kimono she had back home. It was funny... When she had gotten her kimono at her first anime convention, nobody had told her what it was. It was a homongi, as she subsequently found out at the seminar they had on kimono and how to wear them, etc. What was funny about it was that she had wound up wearing a kimono that should have been worn by a married woman... And now look at where she was... A snort of derisive laughter escaped her, confusing Saki, who opened her mouth to ask.

"Don't ask..." Nicole said curtly. "I just thought of something back home."

Saki, still unnerved by the other girl's earlier behavior, decided it was best to let the matter drop. Nicole's expression softened - Saki seemed genuinely friendly and she (Nicole) was in no position to pass up friends. That wasn't at all to say that she couldn't or wouldn't still be crazy or scary if it got her what she wanted, though. She smiled at the younger girl and bowed respectfully, saying "Arigatou gozaimasu... For all your help..." Saki beamed at her once more and replied that it was nothing at all - she'd have done it for any new girl.

"Still, thanks for helping me out," continued Nicole, fiddling with her fingers. "I'm in a bit of a tough position here..."

"We all are," Saki reminded her. "But we do what we have to do to make it through every day. That's our lot in life - it's not a lot, but it's our life."

Nicole sighed in response and sort of drifted over to the door of the bath house, which had been left opened earlier to let some of the steam out. Saki followed her - she knew that one's first night in a place like this was tough and she wanted to be as supportive as she possibly could. The sounds of the street filtered back behind the establishment to the bath house, making Nicole shiver and Saki shrug. Nicole had never heard the sounds of a city's red-light district before, so everything there was new and quite disturbing to her. She was forcefully reminded of the scene in "Spirited Away" where Chihiro bangs herself on the head, exclaiming "I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!" then curls up beside the river, wishing it will all disappear. That was exactly what she wanted to do, curl up and pray to whatever god, gods, goddess, or goddesses might be listening. Maybe they would hear her and somehow take her home.

She knew she wouldn't be expected to work her first night... Or would she? She shuddered visibly at the thought - maybe it was like "Memoirs of a Geisha", where a girl's virginity was sold to the highest bidder... Then she reminded herself that the movie and the book it had been based on were works of fiction. She had read "Geisha, A Life" by Mineko Iwasaki and she knew that geisha were to look at, not to touch. Oh that's right, she thought numbly. We aren't geisha - we're just... She couldn't make her brain form any of the distasteful epithets for her new-found profession. It was just now starting to sink in that Miku really had left her there and wasn't coming back for her.

I thought he loved me, she thought sadly.

You're being silly, she told herself - he had probably been planning to do that all along. But another brain elf poked her mind with the infamous q-tip, bringing up an alternative story. She couldn't see the reason for why he had done what he did, but surely he wouldn't have taken her home to meet his family if all he intended to do was... Again, she couldn't make her brain form the words. She dared not even think them - it would make the situation all too real, and all she wanted to do was sink into a dream world until she woke up and she was back home in her own bed.

"We should be going back now," Saki said quietly, startling Nicole from her thoughts. "You can room with Yumi and me - come on, I'll show you where it is."

Nicole followed Saki mindlessly, not really knowing where she was headed and not particularly caring either - Saki could have been leading her straight into a cave full of rabid shrews and she wouldn't bat an eye. One turn led to another - the establishment had seemed smaller than this from the outside. She could vaguely hear Saki chattering about how the rooms used for business were separate from the rooms where the girls lived. Well that was good, she supposed - maybe she could just hide back there and nobody would notice her. Then reality hit her like a flying brick - she was a foreigner, so she would stick out like a boy in a girl's locker room.

I guess this is karma getting me back for all the attention-getting stunts I did back home, she thought sardonically.

Normally, she loved to stick out of a crowd, to have people recognize her and look at her, but now she just wanted to melt into the wall or become invisible or something. The boys back home made her nervous enough - what was she supposed to do with men who would probably be twice her age or older? She nearly gagged at the thought - the young, handsome ones she could possibly deal with, but certainly not men old enough to be her father or grandfather... Yuck! She shook her head and walked straight into a door frame.

"Nikooru-san, daijoubu ka?" Saki asked in a concerned voice. "Weren't you looking where you were going?"

Well thank you, Little Miss Obvious, Nicole snarled in her mind.

"I guess not," she admitted, shrugging - the feel of fabric sliding around on her shoulders was beginning to get on her nerves. "I guess I'm still a little shaken..."

"I totally understand," Saki said sympathetically, patting the older girl's shoulder. "But don't worry - you won't have to work for a few days at least. Himejima-sama is kind to new girls."

"Yeah, but to the rest of us..." grumbled a girl with brownish-black hair and honey-colored eyes. "Let's just say once your novelty wears off, you're just another cash cow for her. She's an old cow herself..."

"Moo!" chimed in Saki, giggling.

Nicole stood there silently, listening to the girls conversing animatedly about their obvious dislike for the madam of the establishment and wondering how much of it was true and how much was exaggeration. Maybe they were just trying to scare her because she was new... No, that couldn't be the case - they weren't even talking to her! She shuffled her bare feet uncomfortably, scratching at the tatami with one toenail like a chicken. Once again, a memory from back home came to her and brought tears to her eyes.

They say I have A.D.D. They just don't understand... Oh, look! A chicken!, she thought, smiling through her tears at the memory of her "chicken shirt" and baffling the other girls, who were watching her curiously.

"Oh, I haven't introduced myself!" exclaimed the honey-eyed girl. "Atashi Tadakichi Toriko!"

"Hajimemashite, Tadakichi-san," Nicole replied automatically.

Wait... Tadakichi? she thought... Mr. Tadakichi... Chiyo-chan...

Thinking about Azumanga Daioh, for the first time since the first time she had seen the graduation episode, was making her cry. With the eyes aside, Toriko looked just like a real life Tomo Takino - the one of the Azumanga group whom Nicole took great pride in mimicking almost exactly. Sniffling, she turned to Saki and was about to urge her to show her the room, but her lip trembled and she dissolved into tears again. Just like Chihiro, she crouched, sort of curled up, on the floor, wrapping her arms around her drawn-up knees and flinching at the pain this caused her twisted knee. She buried her face in the fabric of her kimono and let herself cry.

"What's wrong with her?" asked Toriko, pointing at Nicole. "All I did was introduce myself!"

She bent down next to Nicole and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Nani yo?" she asked. "All I did was tell you my name! What made you cry?"

"You wouldn't understand," mumbled Nicole, sniffling loudly and curling up tighter.

The Tomo look-alike opened her mouth to say something back but Saki stepped in.

"Lay off, Toriko," she said tiredly. "She's new and she doesn't feel too well. I think she just needs to get to sleep."

Yes! Yes! thought Nicole. Sleep would be wonderful right now... Maybe I'll wake up and I'll be home...

Toriko nodded, bade the two girls good night and retired to the room she shared with two other girls. Saki took Nicole's hand and guided her into the darkened room. Yumi's and her futon stayed spread out all day usually, but there was definitely room to spread out one more. Saki slid a panel on the wall aside and pulled out the spare futon, blanket, and pillow, holding them out to Nicole. The American girl looked at the assortment of bedding with her head tilted in a vaguely quizzical manner, as if it were a mildly interesting television show that she didn't quite understand.

"You don't know how to set one of these up, do you?" Saki said, crestfallen - then again, what did she expect from a gaijin girl? "Here, I'll show you."

She spread out the kakebuton, the mattress-like part, on the only remaining floor space in the room - the far left corner - and spread the shikibuton on top of it. Nicole watched in wonder - she could have figured it out easily enough, but how was that blanket, the shikibuton, supposed to keep her warm? At home, she slept under no less than seven blankets every night, thick enough that she could put them on the floor and sleep on them like a futon. Well, she still had her cape, which she noticed had been folded and placed near the space where her futon was being laid out. So Yumi and Saki had kept their word... That was good - maybe it meant she could trust them.

"I heard you and Tadakichi-san talking," Nicole said, bringing back the memory of her fifth grade teacher telling a classmate of hers not to be a 'stater of the obvious'.

"It's not like you could have very well missed it," Saki responded casually. "What about it?"

"Himejima-sama... What's she like?" asked the American girl, trying not to sound overly curious. "Is she really that bad?"

"Well compared to most places, this one is heaven for girls like us," the almost-eighteen-year-old said dully. "We get decent food and we each have assigned nights off, but that doesn't change the bare facts. Himejima-sama owns us - she paid for each and every one of us."

"Do you get paid?" Nicole asked.

Saki gave a grunt of dry laughter.

"Oh that's really funny," she said sardonically. "You heard Toriko-san - we're just cash cows. What use does a cow have for money?"

"Do you at least get sick leave along with your nights off?" inquired Nicole, feeling more and more desolated by the second.

"If by 'sick leave' you mean we don't have to work when we're on our periods, then yeah," replied Saki, using her fingers to make little quote marks when she said 'sick leave' and looking away consideringly. "Well, if there's heavy business, like somebody important, we might have to work, but not all the way."

Nicole almost gagged at the imagery in her head.

"Do you ever get to go out?" she croaked.

"Well, we can go to the courtyard out back," said Saki. "But out front? Absolutely not! I mean, if we don't have any money, what use is there in going out to the market? Anyway, we're easy to identify even though Himejima-sama doesn't have us branded. The traders would love to pick us up and re-sell us for a higher price. From what I hear, they get some sick, twisted pleasure out of 'breaking' a 'spoiled' woman like one of us."

Nicole swallowed hard. She touched the off-the shoulder collar of her kimono and shuddered. A regular kimono was restraining enough and even though this one allowed for more freedom of movement... Now it just felt uncomfortable and very restrictive. She thought vaguely back to her first impression of the establishment - everything was so elegant, silk calligraphy paintings hanging on the walls, silk cushions on the floor, even the noren curtain moved like it was made of silk. She was reminded of a line in the Disney animated version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". It was when Frollo said to Esmerelda "You've chosen a magnificent prison, but it is a prison nonetheless, and Gypsies don't do well inside stone walls." Well the walls here weren't even made of hard wood and they were draped with silk.

Well I don't do well inside any walls, thought Nicole.

Again, irony stared her in the face. Back home, most of the time all she wanted to do was stay holed up in her room - sometimes she would stay in there for days, not even coming out for meals. But it was her own choice to stay there - most of the time, she didn't want human interaction. When she did, it was either with her friends from anime club or Ashley - most other people just made her angry. But again, that was her own choice to be so solitary and reclusive - that was just the way things were. Now she had no choices - well, she did, but she didn't like thinking of the alternative. She wanted to get home and she had to live to do that, no matter what.

"It's a prison, this is," Nicole said quietly, unconsciously taking on a soft British accent - she spent too much time reading Harry Potter out loud and doing the voices of the characters. "It 'ent got bars 'er anythin' like that, but 's a prison jus' th' same."

Saki stared at the American girl - what next? She knew Nicole could growl and sound quite intimidating, that she could be incredibly loud if she wanted to, had an attitude, and was very modest, but changing her voice completely? What Nicole's voice had actually sounded like was a slight British accent with a bit of Georgia/Southern twang. It would have sounded odd to just about anyone's ears, not just Saki's. But Nicole was just, as a friend had put it, "doin' what Nicole does" - she could change her voice at will. She wasn't a ventriloquist or anything - she couldn't throw her voice, but she could project it at different levels, change her accent, and imitate voices from animated television shows.

"Um, excuse me for asking, but, what in the heck was that?" Saki blurted out finally.

"I can change my voice," Nicole replied nonchalantly. "Sometimes it just changes on its own to suit my mood."

"Uh-huh..." said Saki, still looking at Nicole as though she had just grown a tail. "Congratulations..."

She didn't know what else to say! What were you supposed to say to somebody when they revealed something strange, almost unnatural about themselves? But Nicole shrugged and said, in a very Southern-sounding voice, "Aww... 't's nuthin'." Saki gave her another strange look, but shrugged her own shoulders and tried hard to brush it off. There were no two ways about it - this girl that Himejima-sama had taken on had to be the strangest person Saki had ever encountered. And that was even counting some of her clients and her insane second cousin.

"So, when's it lights-out for the girls who don't have... erm... work?" asked Nicole, trying to change the subject. "Speakin' of which, is there an oil lamp or a candle in here? I can see in the dark, but this is kinda strainin' my eyes."

"Oh heavens, no!" exclaimed Saki. "We aren't allowed to have anything flammable in our rooms, especially not oil lamps. We used to be able to, but one of the girls who couldn't take it anymore killed herself by drinking lamp oil. After that, no candles, no lamps, no nothing. In the spring and summer, we take some of the paper off the shoji and make windows. In the winter, like it is right now, we just have dark after the sun goes down."

"Well that sucks," commented Nicole.

"Nani yo?" asked Saki, unfamiliar with Nicole's terminology.

"It means it stinks, it's not good, not fun, et cetera," explained Nicole.

"Oh," said Saki, not sure what to say next.

-- Back out in the main market --

Miku was still wandering aimlessly around the market, taking in the shop fronts in the moonlight. Thoughts of all kinds were screaming through his head. Part of him wanted to go home, curl up, and never come out again, but the other part of him never wanted to see that house again. It was enough to make his head hurt very badly. He was walking past all the booths and stalls and shops that he had stopped at with Nicole. That was enough to make his heart hurt even worse. He stopped in front of the stall that had those beautiful crystal-like candies - he had five hundred yen on him... What could it hurt to buy a box of them for his little sisters? It might make him feel better.

"Face it, Hasegawa," he said out loud to himself. "There's nothing in this world that can make you feel better right now."

That wasn't true - what he wanted more than anything else was to go back to that place, throw the money on the floor, and get Nicole out of there. Damned be the consequences - if he did that, he could die happy right at that moment. That thought raised two very important issues in his mind. What if he did go back for Nicole? It wasn't too late to turn around and go back to the red-light district... But then his sisters' faces appeared in his mind - they were so hungry and so sad. How could he show up empty-handed when he had to provide for his mother and sisters?

The other issue was the last part of the thought - 'he could die happy right at that moment'. That was also an option - if he couldn't reverse what he had done, there was no need to live with the shame. He stared at the beautiful tanto that Nicole had been admiring - it was visibly sharp and had a lovely ebony saya. His hand slipped itself into the front panel of his gi and he fingered the small money bag. He smiled bemusedly - yes, this was his way out. Just a few yen for the dagger, then he could give the rest to his family. A hunting trip would be the perfect cover. Before he could stop himself, he was handing five yen over to the man behind the display, accepting the dagger from the man, and tucking it into the waist tie of his hakama. With a vague smile still on his lips and a rather dazed look in his topaz-colored eyes, he turned and started back down the road that would take him home.

The walk seemed to take no time at all, but at the same time, each step seemed so slow. He was unaware of the people who looked at him strangely as he weaved through the crowd on unsteady legs. Most of them probably thought he was very drunk, said the little elf at the back of his brain, but he didn't care. In fact, he welcomed it - they would give him a wide berth and he would be able to get home faster. Looking around blearily, he forgot to watch where he was going and walked straight into a rather portly older woman. He muttered an apology and shook his head, continuing on his way. Very soon, he was on the road that would take him out of Edo and back to his village.

Finally, he was ambling up the path to his small house and his mind snapped back with a vengeance. The door was standing open and the lamp was not lit. Something had to be amiss, he thought, noting the painful feeling in his stomach that told him something was more than amiss - it was something terribly wrong. Cautiously, he stepped into the house and silently slid his sandals off. There was a terrible smell in the house - the smell of fresh blood. Forgetting his own problems, he ran out into the living room and saw...

"Okaa-san! Okaa-san! No!" he cried, falling on his knees beside his mother's body. "Okaa-san, you can't be gone... You're just... knocked out... Please 'kaa-san, get up..."

He sounded like a lost child and in a way, though physically he was now a man, he was. Swallowing hard, he took hold of his mother's shoulders and pulled her up, trying to help her sit up. It was no use - her head dropped limply on her chest and her body was literally dead weight. Miku's expression was torn between terror, grief, and terrible shock. He cradled his mother's body as she had done for him when he was sick and took hold of her hand. It was cold as ice, but still limp. His eyes widened, filling with tears that clouded his vision but refused to fall. Finally, he tilted his mother's face up to his - her face's expression wasn't quite peaceful, but it looked like whatever had happened had been quick. Then he saw the bloody hole in his mother's chest and his father's knife lying near her other hand.

Swallowing hard, he picked her up and held her in his arms, laying her on his futon. He had to check the rest of the house - where were his sisters? Were they safe? Were they even alive? He checked the room that his mother and sisters had shared since Miku's father had disappeared in the chaos of the revolution. The family had never received word of what might have happened to him. His two older brothers, who had left to fight along with their father, had also vanished in the melee. But that thought left his mind as he shut the door to that room, not thinking or feeling much of anything at that point.

Then a sour thought entered his head - he should at least check on the old pig. Steeling himself against what he might see, he closed his eyes and slid the door open, taking a careful step in. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and cautiously opened his eyes. There was the old man, covered by a bloodstained blanket, his eyes frozen open in a terrified stare. Out of morbid curiosity and the need to know what had happened, Miku peeled the blanket back. The body was obviously still limp, because the three stab wounds in his chest were wet with blood and there was fresh blood staining the futon he lay on. Miku's stomach clenched and he ran from the room, then out the door. He barely made it to the back of the house, where he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

"Okaa-san... Why?" he whispered weakly. "What have you done?"

He took a few weak steps to the side and fell on his knees, clutching at his stomach with one hand and pressing the other over his mouth to keep from being sick again. Breathing hard, he squeezed his eyes shut - he couldn't believe what he had come home to find. Had his mother really... murdered his grandfather? There had been no sign of a struggle in the grandfather's room, except for the look of terror in his dead eyes. She must have taken the knife to him when he was sleeping - the old bastard slept most of the time anyway. It wasn't so much his grandfather's death that shocked him - he had been waiting for the old man to croak for a long time. Miku shook his head - it was just... bizzare. He could never imagine anyone in his family taking a life, least of all his mother or sisters. But his mother, of all people, had put an end to the old tyrant's reign.

"What have I done?" Miku asked himself out loud.

Somehow, he felt the whole mess was his fault. His mind told him that if he had never brought Nicole home, he never would have gotten mixed up in that horrible business. But if he had found her and just left her there, his heart was telling him that she would have died out there - it would have been inhuman to leave her. But what he had just done had been an inhuman act as well - he had sold another human being, on top of that, one who trusted him! But it wasn't even the fact that he had seen something special in Nicole and had genuinely liked her. Even if the two of them had hit it off like a bobcat and a pit bull, he never would have thought to do something like that.

His feelings were beyond tears - he felt hollow, empty inside. He swallowed hard and his mind told him to do whatever he had to do to find his sisters. His heart agreed and he pushed himself off the ground and got to his feet, biting his lip as he half-heartedly brushed the dust from his hakama. There was the basic question in his mind - Where were his sisters? - but there were only a few logical answers to it. He just had to ask a few of the neighbors if they had seen the village's Trio of Terror - Okon, Omasu, and Michiko. The girls were always getting into mischief, playing "ninja" around people's houses and chasing each other all over creation. Their village was small and just about everybody knew just about everybody else - someone had to have seen them, he reasoned.

"What am I going to tell them?" he asked himself miserably.

He pushed that question out of his mind and stepped carefully around the pool of sick on the ground. Squaring his shoulders resolutely, he headed out to find his sisters. His first stop was the home of the elderly couple next door - they had always acted as surrogate grandparents for Okon and Omasu, and Miku as well. This was just as well, as the Hasegawa brood got along with their grandfather about as well as a trio of monkeys got along with an angry dog. The resulting mutual dislike had hung over the house for years like an old dead goose. Where had that thought come from? Miku asked himself, shaking his head - it sounded like something Nicole would say.

Shrugging his shoulders, he approached the elderly couple's front door and knocked on it quietly, trying not to let himself shiver visibly. It was colder than usual tonight and his clothes were in less-than-weather-appropriate condition. A few moments went by, in which Miku realized he had run out barefoot again. He bit his lip and sort of stood one foot on top of the other, trying to keep them both warm - that didn't work. Another minute went by and then a lamp turned on in the elderly couple's house, creating a ball of light in the silhouette of the shoji. The light ball moved through the house, supported by a shadow that was rather bent-looking.

"Ah, Mii-chan, what brings you around tonight?" asked Kawazoe Ayumi, her dark eyes lighting up and crinkling happily around the edges. Then she noticed the serious look on Miku's face. "Is something wrong?"

"Konbanwa, Obaa-san," replied Miku, dodging the question momentarily and trying to seem casual. "Have you seen the Trio lately?"

The surrogate grandmother frowned, the lines in her face defining themselves as they were shadowed in the light of the lamp she held in her knobbly hand.

"Iie, Mii-chan... But come in," she told him.

"Oh, gomen nasai, Obaa-san," Miku said quickly, bowing respectfully. "If you haven't seen them I really do need to go. I have to find them."

Kawazoe-san's frown deepened, but she saw the look in her almost-grandson's eyes and knew that whatever was going on, the matter was out of her hands.

"I don't like what I'm hearing, but you do what you have to do," she said firmly.

"Domo arigatou gozaimasu, Obaa-san," Miku said gratefully, bowing again. "I really must be going..."

Kawazoe-san nodded and Miku swallowed hard and turned away.

"The gods be with you, Miku," she said quietly, waiting until the young man was out of her sight before closing the door and going back into the living room of her house.

----

"What was that all about, Ayumi?" her husband asked, looking up from his reading and frowning. "Who was it?"

"It was Miku, Kazuma," Ayumi said worriedly. "He seemed very upset. I've never seen him like this before - I think something's wrong."

Kazuma furrowed his brow.

"Like what?" he inquired, concerned about the young man he saw as a grandson. "Like physically sick or something bothering him?"

"I think something's happened - he wasn't himself, looked like he'd seen a ghost," replied Ayumi, fidgeting with her hands. "He can't find his sisters either."

"This late at night? What are they doing out in the first place?" asked Kazuma, now agitated and worried. "You're right, koishii. I think something's wrong. Probably something happened at home. Wouldn't surprise me if the old goat's gone too far and somebody's snapped on him."

Ayumi nodded and Kazuma stood up, putting his reading material aside, not knowing how right he was - they were going to go over to that house and get to the bottom of whatever was going on.

----

Miku was now bordering on panic - he had visited every house on his family's row and no one had seen hide nor hair of either of his sisters.

----

The fire department and a couple of sheriff's deputies had showed up by then. The firefighters were scouring the campus, looking for what had caused the disturbance and the deputies were trying to talk to the school administration. Ms. Kirkpatrick was trying to explain that she could not give any information until they were allowed back on campus. The parents of the missing student, who were also Ashley's legal guardians, would have to be contacted first, she insisted. She was also trying to convince one of the firemen to let some of the faculty back on campus to start calling parents. Unable to get any information out of Mrs. Kirkpatrick, one of the sheriff's deputies turned to the dean of students.

"I can give you no more information than Ms. Kirkpatrick can," he said plainly. "It would be against school policy to give students' personal information to outside parties without a parent's or guardian's consent."

Ashley's tears had stopped, a long time after she had cried herself into silence, still leaning on Kirsten. Natalia looked stricken, a major reaction from her, as she looked on helplessly, unable to help her friend. Daniel stood about awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, not really knowing what to do. Finally, he swallowed hard, mumbled something to excuse himself, and went over to talk to Keith and Patrick. Natalia didn't even notice his absence - she was too concerned with trying to bring Ashley out of the shocked stupor she had sunk into.

"Ashley, come on!" she persisted, shaking her friend's shoulder. "There are people here who need to talk to you!"

Ashley shook her head 'no'.

"Who needs to talk to her?" asked Kirsten, her knees nearly buckling from Ashley leaning so heavily against her - it wasn't that Ashley was particularly heavy; it was just that she was quickly becoming dead weight.

Natalia was about to answer when Keith interrupted.

"Hey, Ashley..." he said quietly. "They've found her stuff. I thought you might want to take it."

Ashley pushed herself up off of Kirsten and forced her legs, usually so strong from swimming, to support her weight in an uneasy fashion. She looked around rather dazedly and saw a sheriff's deputy talking to a freshman she didn't know - he was small and looked to be Indian by descent. The sheriff's deputy was holding an all-too-familiar dirty, faded lavender messenger bag, complete with the broken length-adjuster-thing. Miraculously, it was mostly dry. The freshman boy shrugged his shoulders - he didn't know anything about the bag or its contents. Ashley swallowed hard and made herself walk over to the deputy and the freshman.

"That's Nicole's stuff," she said in a hollow voice, pointing at the bag. "Let me have it. I'll take it back to her parents."

"Well, Miss, we're going to have to take this bag and it's contents and look them over," said the deputy.

Another deputy stepped in.

"Tom, we don't have a warrant to search anything," he said, his arms folded across his chest. "Hell, we don't even have half an idea of what happened here. Get the facts first."

Tom nodded and handed the dirty lavender bag to Ashley, who took it with shaking hands. She walked over to a bench, followed by Natalia and Kirsten, and set the bag down on her lap as she sat down. The inside of Nicole's purse was a wreck, as it always was. Today, there was an overdue library book, a yellow fountain pen, two manga, and a couple of books that Nicole had been using to teach herself Japanese. Cluttering the bottom was a set of drawing pencils, a kneadable eraser, a package of paper blending stumps, and probably half the makeup Nicole owned. Hey, thought Ashley - that's my MAC gel mascara!

I've been looking for that for two weeks! she thought. I'd feel really bad taking it back now...

Ashley's best guy friend, Brandon, sidled up carefully and sat down on the bench next to her. Everyone knew he was flamingly gay - Ashley was just coming to terms with that - but he slid his arm around her shoulders. He didn't know how to react, just like everybody else. What was he supposed to say to her? When her parents had died, it had been almost easy to say "I'm sorry" - that was just what you said when somebody died. But what were you supposed to say when somebody just disappeared in front of everyone? Brandon bit his lip, then opened his mouth to say something - at first only a choking noise made it out.

"Um... Er... Ah... Uh, Ashley?" he asked haltingly, as though his grasp of the English language had weakened significantly in the space of a few seconds. "I... I'm... I just... Well... Um... Ashley... I don't know how to say this, but... Oh dammit - I'm just going to say I'm sorry!"

"I know..." said Ashley, not sure how she was managing to make her voice work. "Thank you... I don't know what to say either... I mean... She's my best friend - always has been..."

"Ashley," said Daniel, who had drifted back over to hover around his girlfriend. "I'm sorry..."

And he clammed up, stuffing his hands in his pockets again and not saying another word.

"I miss Nicole," whispered Ashley. "And she hasn't even been... for more than a few hours..."

She couldn't make her brain or her mouth form the taboo word - gone.