Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Fiction
vr 3.00
2008-02-16
"When She Says, 'Osuwari,' Sit." by Abraxas | 2006-06-08
Chapter Eight
At ten that night Noguichi was again disturbed while reading ‘The Golden Pavilion.’ This time it was not from an inhuman shriek but by an ordinary knock. Without a second thought he leapt out of the chair into the foyer and opened the door. Behind it, framed by the coldest, deepest night, was a man: his voice was familiar though his visage was not.
“Forgive me, but you must be Master Higurashi,” the teenager stuttered with a nervous, quick bow.
“And you must be Noguichi? At last, I meet you.” The man bowed too and upon the rack placed his black coat by the boy’s red jacket.
Higurashi, who was not much older than Noguichi, was armed with a hand-held Xenon lamp. Its rays were bright and strong and by contrast it seemed as if the candle-light had been extinguished. By its glow he saw the teenager was still costumed, still dressed in the red and white outfit.
“I hope you don’t feel like a piece of meat when I say this – but it’s true, Hojo’s right – you fit the build. Even in the light of day you look exactly like what he would have looked.” He grimaced and nodded approval realizing only too late that one, single detail was amiss. “Ah, a part of the puzzle is missing. Hm, come with me. Come.” With the lantern askew, held by the hand, he lit the distance and suggested – non-verbally -- that the boy follow him into the depths of the house. “You know about the basement? I bet by now you’ve explored the house.”
“I have, yes, I have,” Noguichi confessed almost as if to crime then added: “and I swept the floors a bit here and there.”
“I see,” he said, more mechanically than formally while he breezed through the living room: he noted its dust-free chair and table with the books and candles upon it. “Did – did it happen already?”
“Yes, Master Higurashi. It did. And I think it went well.”
“You mean you weren’t scared?”
Souta smiled; he tended to be informal with males of that age, having known many, too many, teenagers since boyhood.
“You think you want to stay?” He led the path from the living room to the kitchen. The doorway into the basement appeared out of the void as though it were a portal into a dimension beyond. “You think you want the job – for a while? A little while?”
“I can do the job, I know that now.”
“That’s good.” He dug into his pants and fetched his keys. “You think it’s weird, don’t you? Weird and sick and perverted. It is what it is, ever since it happened my sister developed a fondness for teenage boys. Well. For one, particular teenage boy. Who he was, I don’t know, maybe he was imagined, maybe he was real. Or both. Like ‘The Wizard of Oz’ where the fantasy characters were based on the real characters. Still, the details she spoke about didn’t make him to be human.”
“Pardon me, Master Higurashi, but she used to talk?”
“Yes, oh, yes. She used to talk. She used to be functional.” Jiggling the keys he stopped to search the right words and weigh the right sentences. “She was fifteen and fell into that well. Hojo must have told you. She fell into the well and remained inside for days. No body knew it; no body knew where she was and what she was doing. At last, when Grandpa and I found her, we feared she was dead – if only she were what she would have been spared – anyway, we raised her with ropes and pulleys. We took her into the hospital. There the doctors discovered the brain damage. The epileptic seizures.”
Higurashi Souta opened the doorway and flipped the switch just beyond the frame. Below, with a flicker and a hum, the cellar awoke into a world of fluorescence. He turned off his lamp and started his descent.
Noguichi followed closely, his arms crossed and folded upon his chest, within the long, red sleeves of the costume’s haori jacket.
“When she awoke she told Grandpa and me all about her adventure in the Feudal Era. And about this special, demonic boy named Inuyasha. My sister was not lonely, certainly she was not lonely, but she was kind and loving. Accepting. She was a romantic and I could tell, even then I could tell, she was in love with Inuyasha. A boy who existed only in her warped and shattered mind.”
The man reached the base of the stairwell and turned left. He set the lamp upon a table; he pulled-up a chair and offered it. The boy climbed it and sat with what would have been an unorthodox style to anyone’s eyes other than Higurashi’s: for upon the chair Noguichi squatted like a dog sitting upon its haunches.
“Afterward, we noticed she’d come and go, vanishing for days. Grandpa knew but didn’t understand; he covered the absences with one excuse after the next and that, in time, lured Hojo into the inner-circle of the Higurashi clan. I, of course, because of my age I didn’t know and I wanted to know. I followed her and saw her enter the well. Again and again. She’d gather supplies like food and water and she’d enter. She caught me watching but she wasn’t mad – no – and it became like our, little secret. I believed the stories, you understand, I fell for the tales, too. I really did think she was going into the past through the well.”
While Noguichi listened Higurashi produced a pair of items: a book and a box.
“But it didn’t take me long to realize it wasn’t time-travel. It was seizures and trances; it was speaking in tongues and acting out fantasies like a sleepwalker. And it got bad. It could not be controlled – not by the strongest medicines, not by the most radical surgeries – it happened elsewhere, everywhere at home and at school. Grandpa and I blamed ourselves. He and I – and Hojo – we, shut, the well. Mother confined Kagome into her room. I still remember it, like it was yesterday, I watching her sitting in front of my sister’s door, that was chained and locked, while from inside the bedroom could be heard her struggling through the seizures. Day by day that scream drowned – it muted – while her body weakened until, at last, not as much as a whisper was sensed and her trances became like sleep. It was not possible anymore to say what she was; it was a new and different state of mind. Not quite dead and not quite alive. Mother, too, didn’t survive – she’s with Hojo’s family now – she’s lost within catatonic states of her own. She couldn’t deal with it.”
He eased the book toward the teenager.
“It’s Kagome’s journal. She called it the ‘Narakunomicon.’ Can you imagine the madness of it? Demons and war-lords and that semi-entity Naraku who lurks within humanity’s vile heart. Hojo read it; he said it should be burned and I agreed. But it’s all that’s left of my sister. Still, it contains Inuyasha’s description and without that knowledge Kagome cannot be placated. Like that costume of yours, it’s Inuyasha’s costume, Mother sewed the outfit. It was supposed to be for Hojo – but – Hojo loves my sister too much and if he had had it his way he would have been with her all of these years. And there would have been two monsters haunting this house. It was a compromise to hire teenagers to wear the outfit. Which reminds me,” he said, tapping the box and sliding it toward Noguichi. “Grandpa and I created this and it’s the most important part of the puzzle.”
The boy took the box and shook it – an object within rattled.
“Anyway, you must feel like a piece of meat.”
“I don’t, Master Higurashi, I don’t. Truth is, I like quiet places where I can be alone. Where I can read and daydream. Mr. Hojo’s covering for me with my folks and school. And Kagome, your sister, she’s – easy – to get along with. Surprisingly so.”
“I’m glad you feel that way. Yes. It is a simple job.”
Noguichi opened the box; Souta smiled, almost laughed.
“A necklace?”
“If you don’t wear it she gets confused. She starts to explore around your neck and chest. Hojo said it always made him feel uncomfortable.”
The youth nodded while he examined the blue and white rosary beads; the necklace lifeless within his palm.
Now to be certain, Noguichi knew it was profoundly sad and wrong, all of it. But was it unforgivable to be placating someone’s wishes? And a part of him, deep down inside, a part of him envied Kagome. Indeed, if it could be arranged that he could be free of the world and its responsibility, just for the time to be alone with his thoughts, he would have taken the job free of charge.
“According to the Narakunomicon, Inuyasha was a half-demon, and every twenty-eight days he transformed into a human with black hair and black eyes. Well, into a teenager, who looked just like you. It was always important to keep the lights off – not that I think she sees at least not the way we see – but you, you, even in daylight you don’t break the illusion, so to speak.”
Noguichi wrapped the rosary beads around his neck.
“Just remember this, when she says ‘Osuwari’, sit.”
END
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