Half World (2 page)

The reeking man in the raincoat giggled, then puckered his loose lips like a kiss. He blew. The sour breath hit the child in the chest and she toppled in slow motion backward into the gawping abyss. Her shrieks took ever so long to fade.

The motley creatures hooted and guffawed, hopping up and down on kangaroo legs, swinging reptilian tails and clapping their strangely formed hands.

“Please,” the woman begged their leader. “Let us pass into the Realm of Flesh. We shall harm nothing of the workings of Half World once we are gone.”

The man in the raincoat cupped his right elbow with his left hand, his fingers tapping his tacky cheek thoughtfully. “Maaaaay-beeee,” he crooned in a childish voice, slumping his weight onto one hip. “Maybe not!” He swung out his opposite hip. He began tossing his hips in time with his response. “Maybe, maybe not! Maybe, maybe not! Yes! No! Maybe so! Yes!No!Maybeso! Yes! No! MAYBE SO!” he roared.

The young couple cowered at his feet.

The Gatekeeper stared implacably across the great divide.

The reeking man sighed, as if he were troubled. “How about this,” he suggested, his tone moderate and kindly. “I like to play games. Doesn't everyone love games?”

“Yes, yes, we all love games,” his motley companions agreed fawningly.

“Shut up!” he roared, and the companions reared back, a few dangerously close to the edge.

“As I was saying,” he continued, gazing with compassion at the young couple, “this particular game has concluded with my victory. One point for me, zero for you. But if I drag you back with me it will be back to the ol' cycle. And I've grown so tired of the routine.” He yawned dramatically. Body temperature cooling, the inside of his mouth no longer sagged like melting cheese. “I know!” he shrieked like an excited child. The young couple flinched.

“I know! I know! Ask me what!” he demanded.

The young couple obeyed. “What?”

“What, please!” the stinking man screamed.

“What, please,” the pregnant woman said wearily.

“You”—he pointed at her—“I will allow to pass. But you will leave your little love bucket behind.” The reeking man gazed pityingly at the young man. “Ahhhhh,” he crooned. “Thus sweet, tender love parted.” He wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye. “I will hold him ransom. I give you fourteen years of maternal bliss and life to enjoy your love whelp in the Realm of Flesh. But when I tell you to return, you will bring the child back with you for a lovely family reunion. If you do not return, I will flay your lover every day and force him to eat his skin, for all eternity.” He stretched his neck down, down, to press his tacky nose against the woman's horrified face. “Do you agree?”

The woman wrapped both arms around her middle. She turned to gaze upon the ashen face of her love.

“Go,” the young man said hoarsely. “We have no other choice. If you remain we have nothing at all, we will fall back into the pattern. But this”—he cupped one hand wonderingly over the bulge of the unborn baby—“this is something new. . . . Go! Fourteen years is something even if it all comes to naught.” He pressed his face into his love's hair as if he were kissing her for the last time. “You needn't return,” he whispered.

The woman reared away from his words, her eyes full of tears.

“Yes!” The stinking man clapped his hands with a wet squelch. “They're going to take door number four!”

His companions hooted and clapped.

“The toll,” the Gatekeeper groaned.

The young woman and the man stared fearfully at each other, patting their pockets for coins, food, anything.

The reeking man in the raincoat covered his lips with his hand and began to titter.

“We have nothing,” the young couple beseeched.

“The toll is the smallest finger of your hand,” the Gatekeeper intoned.

“Better and better!” the man in the raincoat chortled. “Don't you love this part?” he asked his companions. They began to clap, enthusiastically, once more.

“Shhhhhht!”
he admonished. “I can't hear!”

The young couple gazed at their pale hands. They looked about for a piece of rock with a sharp edge, with which to cut. Stopped. They finally saw that the small, dry twigs beneath their feet were the bones of those who had tried to pass long, long ago.

“The finger must be bitten off,” the Gatekeeper intoned.

The young woman held up her trembling hand. She curled her fingers around her thumb, leaving her pinkie extended. “Bite it off,” she demanded, gritting her teeth. “Do it!”

Her companion opened his mouth and gently placed the edge of his teeth against the thin layer of flesh. Tears streamed down his face as he began to apply pressure.

He fell back. “I can't,” he sobbed, hands covering his face. “I can't do it.”

“He can't do it!” the man in the raincoat repeated gleefully.

The young man lowered his hands and extended his pinkie toward his love. “Take mine,” he said.

The young woman's haggard face shone with love and sorrow. Her dark eyes narrowed. She grabbed his hand and bit down on his pinkie, hard, fast, a wet crunch. Dark blood filled her mouth, and the young man swallowed a scream, then fell backward in a faint.

“She did it,” the man in the raincoat said with wonder.

“Ohhhhhhhhhh,” his companions sighed.

The young woman's eyes welled with guilt and love. She spat out her lover's pinkie into her palm. She tipped her hand and the finger fell to the ground.

The great rock face creaked and groaned as a portal slowly ground open.

The man in the raincoat did not stop her. “Buh-bye!” he called out merrily. “Fourteen years, sweetheart. Be very brave! We'll be thinking about you. Don't worry about your love bucket. We won't drop him when we cross over the bridge. We'd never do a thing like that! Don't worry! Have a nice tiiiiiiiiiime!”

The woman stepped through.

She did not look back.

The portal closed with a grinding sound like a millstone.

MELANIE TAMAKI PELTED
around the corner of the damp sidewalk in front of Rainbow Market. The worn soles of her runners slipping on a wet leaf, she almost fell, but she managed to keep her balance and staggered on.

Something hit her square in the back.

Soft. Squishy. Probably a tomato.

Panting, gasping, Melanie kept on running. She was lucky it wasn't an apple. Apples left bruises. She knew through experience.

“Come back, retard!” a voice jeered.

“Fat crow!” another voice screamed. “We're gonna get you!”

“Lookit her ass move!” they shrieked, teeth gleaming like wolves.

Four, five girls were chasing her. Off the school grounds. Onto the streets.

“Hey!” Melanie heard an old woman's voice bellow. “Leave her alone! Calling the cops on hooligans and miscreants!”

Despite the fear in her throat, warmth swelled in Melanie's eyes.

Ms. Wei was always nice to her. Even when it meant that her store would be vandalized on Halloween.

Melanie kept on running, her body heavy, her sides stabbing with pain. She could hear the echo of her tormentors' footsteps pounding behind her, though it sounded like they were slowing down, losing interest.

A tiny portion of her mind gazed upon her flight with detached humor. What a waste of effort, she thought. If only her gym teacher could time this run, her P.E. marks would go up . . .

When she finally pattered to a stop, she was trembling with exhaustion and far beyond her neighborhood.

Her tormentors were gone.

Panting, gasping, Melanie bent over, almost retching. Her knees quivered with fear and exhaustion, and her long black hair clung wet with sweat. She pushed her straggly hair behind her ears and sat down on the curb. Waited, breathed, willing her pounding heart to slow.

Melanie gave a ragged sigh.

There was no point in going back to school. The Valkyries might be waiting for her by the parking lot, and she'd miss most of her Math Essentials, anyway, before ever getting through the door. After that there was only gym . . . she was too exhausted to run any laps, and she'd only get in trouble for being a slacker. The kids would make fun of her some more.

Melanie dragged her sleeve under her nose. Was there enough time to take the bus to the used bookstore downtown and get back home before her mum worried?

Melanie loved Macleod's. Its leaning towers of dusty books teetering up to the ceilings, the mounds of ragged tomes, a great many of them uninteresting and boring, but sometimes among them a wondrous discovery, like an amazingly illustrated anthology of medieval creatures. Or a cookbook from an ancient emperor's banquet. Or a travel-worn volume of edible plants in Patagonia, complete with photographs. . . . The children's section wasn't really up to date, but Melanie mostly liked to look at nonfiction books with illustrations and read the descriptions.

When she had shared her fondness for old books with a radical substitute teacher, she had heard about the store on the edges of a more ragged part of the city. It wasn't the safest area, Ms. Lee cautioned, but most people there did no harm except to themselves. Far more dangerous, she warned, were the people who preyed upon them. Under advisement to go only during the day, Melanie had ventured to the bookstore one rainy Saturday.

And fell in love with the entire place.

It wasn't only the scavenger hunt aspect of the books—she was also intrigued by the quiet people she saw there. In interesting clothing and odd hats, they looked like they had strange and extraordinary private lives, something beyond the mind-numbing routines of school and work.

She never saw any of her classmates at Macleod's.

Melanie squinted at the sun as it moved through patches of dark gray clouds. It was probably too late to get downtown and back before her mother began to wonder where she was. And she would get caught by the early rush hour. Her mum had looked particularly wan this morning. There was no need to add to her exhaustion unnecessarily, Melanie decided. She would go to the small park near the train tracks, her other special place. She would rest there for a little while, before going home.

Melanie sat on an old, disused dock, swinging her dangling feet as she stared across the dirty gray water of the inlet. Light speckled over the surface, as the sun moved in and out of clouds. The tide was pushing a yellow plastic bag toward the edge of the rocky shore, which glinted with shards of broken bottles, crumpled aluminum cans. Tankers, silent and inexorable, crept toward the industrial docks. Melanie shivered as the afternoon grew chillier.

Crack!
Something fell on a large rock near her and Melanie flinched.

Her heart began to pound.

Had her tormentors discovered her sanctuary? Were they throwing stones?

It was a mussel, shell broken, its pale, wet insides glistening.

Melanie cast furtive looks all around her, but she could see no one. Where did it come from? She frowned, then looked up just as a crow spiraled down. It landed with a swish of wings and hopped toward its prize. It stopped, before reaching the exposed mussel, and tilted its head to one side to peer with one glinting eye at the girl. Melanie gave it a lopsided grin. “Hello, crow friend,” she murmured.

Melanie didn't know if the crows began loving her first or if her love had called the crows, but whenever she ventured outdoors they were nearby. As far back as she could remember. Perched on treetops, on the roof of a building across the street, her dark guardians were never far. The smile fell from her face.

Melanie turned to the water once more and stared at the distant shore. Industrial cranes, with their bright orange legs and long necks, looked like mechanical giraffes. In her peripheral vision she could see the crow hop closer and begin picking at its meal. Melanie's stomach grumbled. She was hungry . . . almost hungry enough to try the abundant mussels exposed on the rocks, but she knew the water was filthy with chemicals, tanker sludge, and heavy metals. “It's not good for you,” she murmured to the crow.