[story] the shadow
Mar. 28th, 2010 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ib_archiveauthor: kagami shin (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misao_kunoichi)
email: fragmentedblue [at] gmail.com
First: A eulogy
My mother wove. She made the most amazing things, and people would come by our house to buy them from her. Immortals came to our house. Gods did, too. I never thought that was strange, kind of like how I never thought about why she never liked to leave the house.
She was my family. I never felt like I needed a dad, or brothers and sisters. Everything about my mother, like her smile or her voice - that was my family. That filled up whatever empty spaces I might have had. When she died, I felt like someone had punched a hole through me, and that everything I ever had, everything I ever was, just spilled out and left me empty.
The only thing I could save from that wreck was vengeance. I wanted revenge for my mother. I wanted to see her killer suffer, too. That was why I summoned Hector Belial. I didn't know what he really was, but that doesn't excuse my actions. I summoned a monster. I shamed my mother's memory.
Second: A name
My mother's name was Jiaoren. I never called her that, of course, but after she died, I had to learn to associate those syllables rolling off strangers' tongues with my mother.
The first night after my mother's murder, I researched her name online. I thought I could find some meaning in the results that blinked onto my screen. It was the first coherent thing I could grasp at, from the thousand other thoughts that had flitted through my head all day. People had come to the house, saying they had admired my mother and her work, that they were sorry. I barely knew any of their names.
I thought I had known everything about her. It was only the two of us, and all my memories were of my mother: watching her weave, listening to her telling me stories, coming home to her gentle greeting. But I had never thought to try and find out who her family was. I had asked about my father once: she turned to her weaving and began to tell me a story instead, about how the sun and the moon were siblings.
The search told me nothing about my mother's family. Instead, I found out that "jiaoren" can mean "dragon person," or "mermaid." In ancient Chinese records, the mermaids are said to live in the water and weave raw silk. When they cry, their tears are pearls.
I could almost believe it. After all, gods and immortals had walked through my door that very day, offering their condolences. My mother had never cried, but - I touched the scarf I wore around my neck. She had woven it for me, for my eighteenth birthday. The colors were a subtle range from copper to pewter, with all the shades melting into each other. It was my favorite scarf, but I only wore it on rare occasions, afraid that I would ruin it. Dragon person, weaver, my mother. I wound one hand into the soft folds of the scarf, and with the other, traced the letters on the screen that spelled out my mother's name.
Third: A visitor
Seung-ri Lee was one of the people who used to visit my mother and me. He only bought small things, like scarves and headbands, for his younger sister. Mostly, he came to see how my mother and I were doing. Seung-ri worked for an organization called the Asclepieion. Their motto, he told me, was to protect the weak, heal the injured, and give help to those who needed it. Seung-ri always brought me flowers. There was nothing romantic in the gesture. It was just Seung-ri's way, to do nice things for people.
He didn't bring anything when he visited after the funeral. But he stayed, helping me set out food for the other guests and then helping me clean up after they had left.
"You should go home," I told him. "Isn't your family waiting for you?"
"They know I'm here."
I stacked the dishes in the sink, then looked at him. The question had been brooding in the back of my head all day. "Seung-ri... do you know why my mother was killed?"
Seung-ri turned on the water and started washing the dishes. He didn't answer for a long time. Then, finally, he said, "Yes."
"Are you going to tell me?"
"I won't lie."
"Seung-ri," I said, "why was my mother killed?"
He finished rinsing the last plate, then set it in the dish rack. "She used to belong to an immortal named Edward Gray."
"My mother did not belong to anyone."
"Gray thought she belonged to him. The things she wove - they're very rare, and very valuable."
"Her name was Jiaoren. It means--"
"Mermaid. Dragon person. Yes." Seung-ri paused. All these words were more than his usual monosyllabic greetings and simple statements. "Gray collects rare things like that, and sometimes he sells them. Your mother wove for him. She escaped before she had you. The Asclepieion was protecting her."
A horrible thought occurred to me. I remembered my mother's silence when I'd asked her about my father. "Is Edward Gray my father?"
"I don't know," Seung-ri said. "But I don't think so. Gray isn't... interested in women."
"But he did kill my mother."
"Yes. He doesn't hide his work."
"What are you doing about it? What's the temple doing about it?"
"I'm looking for Gray. I've been looking for him for a long time."
"Take me with you," I said.
"No," Seung-ri said immediately.
"But he killed my mother. I have the right - I have to--"
"You're thinking about revenge. Don't waste your time with it."
"You've never lost a parent!" The words burst from me in a shout. "You wouldn't know what it's like." Trying to remember all the memories, trying to stand on your own, trying to grapple with the emptiness that yawned around you.
"I've lost my parents," Seung-ri said. "They were killed."
"Then you do know what it's like," I said, starting to cry. "Didn't you want revenge, too?"
Seung-ri touched my shoulder hesitantly. I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in the front of his shirt. "It doesn't make the emptiness any smaller, Valerie," he said, and started stroking my hair gently.
Fourth: A decision
Despite what Seung-ri said, I still wanted vengeance. I wanted something to replace the emptiness. I had to hold onto something, so I wouldn't fall.
Our house was full of books that belonged to my mother. I never knew where she got them - they had been there for as long as I could remember. Shelves lined the walls, crammed full. Books lay stacked on the floor. There were so many titles, so many different genres, from Faulkner to Tolstoy.
There were books about gods and goddesses, books about creation myths, books that contained stories my mother had told me. And there were books that my mother never let me look at, books about torture and dark magic, books about hell. I knew where they were, though I had never read them, for I respected all of my mother's wishes. But I found them easily, after Seung-ri had left, and I began reading.
I barely slept. I sat in the same room where my mother used to weave, drinking cold tea and reading her books. Seung-ri came to see me every few days, but I hid the books from him. I knew he would have stopped me. After more than a week, I finally found what I needed: a way to walk into hell, so I could ask for revenge.
Fifth: Hector Belial
Hector Belial's shadow is not that of a man.
His physical appearance is that of a man. When I first met him, the night I tried to summon a gate to hell, he wore a sober dark gray suit. The only hints of color were his blonde hair, curling down to his neck, and the red tie knotted tightly around his neck. When he smiled, his teeth curved sharply, and it was only when I started away from them that I noticed the shadow he threw against the wall.
Hector Belial is a monster. For most people, it is impossible to grasp this until they see his shadow. What I saw that night was a writhing, black mass. Hands and claws and other limbs pushed their way out of that darkness, clutching at the blank spaces on the wall, before receding again. Sometimes fanged heads emerged, or a slithering shape that reminded me of a snake. The shadow grew as I watched it, pushing itself like an oil stain across all the walls, surrounding me. Meanwhile, Hector Belial stood at the other end of the room, smiling at me.
"Are you here to take me to hell?" I asked him.
His smile widened. "Do you want to go to hell?"
"Only if I can find revenge there."
He tilted his head to the side. His shadow twisted with more urgency. "Why would you be looking for revenge there?"
"My mother told me a story once." It was not a bedtime story. The story had tumbled out of her as she wove, like the words were thread bound tightly around a spool for too long. "There are eighteen chambers of hell. One for every type of punishment. I want to make sure that someone... a man... goes into one of them."
"You can't wait for him to die?"
"He's immortal."
"So that's the problem, isn't it?" A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Yes... there are a lot of people who belong in my chamber. But they avoid it by becoming immortal."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Hector Belial," he said, his shadow now completely surrounding the room. "I live in the fourteenth chamber of hell."
"So you'll help me?"
"With pleasure. It is, after all, my job." He crossed the room, and I tried not to back away. "But there's no need for us to go to hell. I can do my job outside of my chamber. Now, who's this man you're so eager to see punished?"
I looked at his shadow. Some primal, human knowledge inside me knew what it was, even then, and warned me not to continue any further. But I didn't listen to that instinct. I stepped closer to Hector Belial, and I said, "His name is Edward Gray."
Sixth: A murder
Chairs turned over, books tumbled out of the shelves and lying open on the floor. Loom broken, thread tangled in the jagged ends. Splinters on the floor, blood tracked along the carpet. My mother lying in the midst of it, hair in a tangled fan around her, eyes still open.
A piece of me, no matter how small, still crumbles and falls away when I remember.
Seventh: Edward Gray
Hector Belial took me to Edward Gray's house, a mansion perched on a mountain cliff. I don't remember much of that journey, only that we seemed to cover dozens of miles with only one step, and to pass through walls. We stepped through Edward Gray's door as if it did not exist.
"And the meek shall inherit the earth," Hector Belial said, looking around at the vases and paintings and sculptures adorning the house. "Hm. I'm sure."
We walked up a winding flight of stairs. Nobody seemed to be in the house. I had expected servants, bodygaurds - anything but this gray silence. As if reading my mind, Hector said, "He lives alone. There are supposed to be seals on all the doors, but, well - they weren't much of a problem."
I didn't say anything. I only followed him. When we reached the top of the stairs, he turned left. His shadow followed him, spreading along the floor on either side, crawling up the wall. "Here," he said, finally, stopping in front of the third door down.
He opened the door. I saw a room more crammed than what I had already seen outside, and a man sitting behind a large, imposing desk. He looked up when the door opened. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, standing up. He had thick hair black hair slicked back, and a narrow face with jutting cheekbones. He saw the shadow Hector Belial dragged into the room with him, and he stumbled back.
"My name is Hector Belial," Hector said. He smiled at Edward Gray. "I'm sure you can guess where I'm from, and what I want."
Seventh: The devourer of hearts
Another memory that haunts me at nights:
Edward Gray slumped back in his chair, gaping hole in his chest, bones arcing white and stark. Hector Belial holding a heart, Gray's heart, blood staining his hands and suit. My throat burning acrid, a foul taste in my mouth. Blood smeared around Hector's mouth, shining like grease. Hector whispering into my ear, "I am the devourer of hearts. Every evil, every dark desire, is mine to have."
The shadow on the walls, roiling and malevolent.
Eighth: The sun and the moon
Seung-ri found me in Edward Gray's house, covered in blood. I said nothing when he spoke to me. He carried me out of that house and brought me to a temple of the Asclepieion, where I lay for weeks. Seung-ri came to visit me often. He brought flowers and sat by my bedside. He never said anything, as if he could sense my unwillingness to talk. But one day, he began to tell me a story.
He told it haltingly, like someone else had told it to him once, and he was remembering the words again. It was a story about the sun and the moon, how they were brother and sister, how their mother was devoured by a tiger. I knew the story. I could hear my mother's voice, could see her again, and when Seung-ri had finished telling the story, I turned to him and spoke for the first time since he had found me.
"My mother told me that story once," I said. "Who told it to you?"
If Seung-ri was relieved, he didn't show it. "My guardian did," he said.
I was quiet again for a long moment. Then, finally, I said, "I didn't kill Edward Gray."
"I know you didn't. Hector Belial did."
"But I summoned Hector."
"You didn't know what you were doing, Valerie."
"But I did it." I closed my eyes. "You were right."
"About what?"
"It doesn't make the emptiness any smaller."
"No, it doesn't."
"Seung-ri?"
"Yes?"
"Hector Belial is waiting for me," I said. "He told me that, before he left."
Seung-ri didn't say anything, but he put an awkward hand on my arm, for a brief moment.
Ninth: Dog days
I moved out of my old house. I took my mother's books with me, all except the ones I had read to search for a gate to hell. Seung-ri helped me find a small apartment to live in, and a job with the Asclepieion.
The day he helped me move in, he said, "Don't worry about Hector Belial, Valerie."
"Why shouldn't I?" I asked. "He's not going to disappear."
"You can't live your whole life waiting for him."
I looked down at the box of books in my arms. "I'm not waiting for him," I whispered, but it was a lie. I was waiting for him, for the day I would walk into his chamber and see his shadow again.
Tenth: Forgetting
I still wait for Hector Belial. I know there is no way to avoid him, even if I become immortal. But that waiting is buried deep beneath me, and sometimes I forget about him for days.
I still remember my mother. Sometimes I hear her voice again, and see her at her loom, weaving. I can see every tapestry and scarf she's ever woven. I bury Hector beneath her memories, to inch through the days and the months and the years - to live.
the end
misao_kunoichi)email: fragmentedblue [at] gmail.com
First: A eulogy
My mother wove. She made the most amazing things, and people would come by our house to buy them from her. Immortals came to our house. Gods did, too. I never thought that was strange, kind of like how I never thought about why she never liked to leave the house.
She was my family. I never felt like I needed a dad, or brothers and sisters. Everything about my mother, like her smile or her voice - that was my family. That filled up whatever empty spaces I might have had. When she died, I felt like someone had punched a hole through me, and that everything I ever had, everything I ever was, just spilled out and left me empty.
The only thing I could save from that wreck was vengeance. I wanted revenge for my mother. I wanted to see her killer suffer, too. That was why I summoned Hector Belial. I didn't know what he really was, but that doesn't excuse my actions. I summoned a monster. I shamed my mother's memory.
Second: A name
My mother's name was Jiaoren. I never called her that, of course, but after she died, I had to learn to associate those syllables rolling off strangers' tongues with my mother.
The first night after my mother's murder, I researched her name online. I thought I could find some meaning in the results that blinked onto my screen. It was the first coherent thing I could grasp at, from the thousand other thoughts that had flitted through my head all day. People had come to the house, saying they had admired my mother and her work, that they were sorry. I barely knew any of their names.
I thought I had known everything about her. It was only the two of us, and all my memories were of my mother: watching her weave, listening to her telling me stories, coming home to her gentle greeting. But I had never thought to try and find out who her family was. I had asked about my father once: she turned to her weaving and began to tell me a story instead, about how the sun and the moon were siblings.
The search told me nothing about my mother's family. Instead, I found out that "jiaoren" can mean "dragon person," or "mermaid." In ancient Chinese records, the mermaids are said to live in the water and weave raw silk. When they cry, their tears are pearls.
I could almost believe it. After all, gods and immortals had walked through my door that very day, offering their condolences. My mother had never cried, but - I touched the scarf I wore around my neck. She had woven it for me, for my eighteenth birthday. The colors were a subtle range from copper to pewter, with all the shades melting into each other. It was my favorite scarf, but I only wore it on rare occasions, afraid that I would ruin it. Dragon person, weaver, my mother. I wound one hand into the soft folds of the scarf, and with the other, traced the letters on the screen that spelled out my mother's name.
Third: A visitor
Seung-ri Lee was one of the people who used to visit my mother and me. He only bought small things, like scarves and headbands, for his younger sister. Mostly, he came to see how my mother and I were doing. Seung-ri worked for an organization called the Asclepieion. Their motto, he told me, was to protect the weak, heal the injured, and give help to those who needed it. Seung-ri always brought me flowers. There was nothing romantic in the gesture. It was just Seung-ri's way, to do nice things for people.
He didn't bring anything when he visited after the funeral. But he stayed, helping me set out food for the other guests and then helping me clean up after they had left.
"You should go home," I told him. "Isn't your family waiting for you?"
"They know I'm here."
I stacked the dishes in the sink, then looked at him. The question had been brooding in the back of my head all day. "Seung-ri... do you know why my mother was killed?"
Seung-ri turned on the water and started washing the dishes. He didn't answer for a long time. Then, finally, he said, "Yes."
"Are you going to tell me?"
"I won't lie."
"Seung-ri," I said, "why was my mother killed?"
He finished rinsing the last plate, then set it in the dish rack. "She used to belong to an immortal named Edward Gray."
"My mother did not belong to anyone."
"Gray thought she belonged to him. The things she wove - they're very rare, and very valuable."
"Her name was Jiaoren. It means--"
"Mermaid. Dragon person. Yes." Seung-ri paused. All these words were more than his usual monosyllabic greetings and simple statements. "Gray collects rare things like that, and sometimes he sells them. Your mother wove for him. She escaped before she had you. The Asclepieion was protecting her."
A horrible thought occurred to me. I remembered my mother's silence when I'd asked her about my father. "Is Edward Gray my father?"
"I don't know," Seung-ri said. "But I don't think so. Gray isn't... interested in women."
"But he did kill my mother."
"Yes. He doesn't hide his work."
"What are you doing about it? What's the temple doing about it?"
"I'm looking for Gray. I've been looking for him for a long time."
"Take me with you," I said.
"No," Seung-ri said immediately.
"But he killed my mother. I have the right - I have to--"
"You're thinking about revenge. Don't waste your time with it."
"You've never lost a parent!" The words burst from me in a shout. "You wouldn't know what it's like." Trying to remember all the memories, trying to stand on your own, trying to grapple with the emptiness that yawned around you.
"I've lost my parents," Seung-ri said. "They were killed."
"Then you do know what it's like," I said, starting to cry. "Didn't you want revenge, too?"
Seung-ri touched my shoulder hesitantly. I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in the front of his shirt. "It doesn't make the emptiness any smaller, Valerie," he said, and started stroking my hair gently.
Fourth: A decision
Despite what Seung-ri said, I still wanted vengeance. I wanted something to replace the emptiness. I had to hold onto something, so I wouldn't fall.
Our house was full of books that belonged to my mother. I never knew where she got them - they had been there for as long as I could remember. Shelves lined the walls, crammed full. Books lay stacked on the floor. There were so many titles, so many different genres, from Faulkner to Tolstoy.
There were books about gods and goddesses, books about creation myths, books that contained stories my mother had told me. And there were books that my mother never let me look at, books about torture and dark magic, books about hell. I knew where they were, though I had never read them, for I respected all of my mother's wishes. But I found them easily, after Seung-ri had left, and I began reading.
I barely slept. I sat in the same room where my mother used to weave, drinking cold tea and reading her books. Seung-ri came to see me every few days, but I hid the books from him. I knew he would have stopped me. After more than a week, I finally found what I needed: a way to walk into hell, so I could ask for revenge.
Fifth: Hector Belial
Hector Belial's shadow is not that of a man.
His physical appearance is that of a man. When I first met him, the night I tried to summon a gate to hell, he wore a sober dark gray suit. The only hints of color were his blonde hair, curling down to his neck, and the red tie knotted tightly around his neck. When he smiled, his teeth curved sharply, and it was only when I started away from them that I noticed the shadow he threw against the wall.
Hector Belial is a monster. For most people, it is impossible to grasp this until they see his shadow. What I saw that night was a writhing, black mass. Hands and claws and other limbs pushed their way out of that darkness, clutching at the blank spaces on the wall, before receding again. Sometimes fanged heads emerged, or a slithering shape that reminded me of a snake. The shadow grew as I watched it, pushing itself like an oil stain across all the walls, surrounding me. Meanwhile, Hector Belial stood at the other end of the room, smiling at me.
"Are you here to take me to hell?" I asked him.
His smile widened. "Do you want to go to hell?"
"Only if I can find revenge there."
He tilted his head to the side. His shadow twisted with more urgency. "Why would you be looking for revenge there?"
"My mother told me a story once." It was not a bedtime story. The story had tumbled out of her as she wove, like the words were thread bound tightly around a spool for too long. "There are eighteen chambers of hell. One for every type of punishment. I want to make sure that someone... a man... goes into one of them."
"You can't wait for him to die?"
"He's immortal."
"So that's the problem, isn't it?" A thoughtful expression crossed his face. "Yes... there are a lot of people who belong in my chamber. But they avoid it by becoming immortal."
"Who are you?" I asked.
"My name is Hector Belial," he said, his shadow now completely surrounding the room. "I live in the fourteenth chamber of hell."
"So you'll help me?"
"With pleasure. It is, after all, my job." He crossed the room, and I tried not to back away. "But there's no need for us to go to hell. I can do my job outside of my chamber. Now, who's this man you're so eager to see punished?"
I looked at his shadow. Some primal, human knowledge inside me knew what it was, even then, and warned me not to continue any further. But I didn't listen to that instinct. I stepped closer to Hector Belial, and I said, "His name is Edward Gray."
Sixth: A murder
Chairs turned over, books tumbled out of the shelves and lying open on the floor. Loom broken, thread tangled in the jagged ends. Splinters on the floor, blood tracked along the carpet. My mother lying in the midst of it, hair in a tangled fan around her, eyes still open.
A piece of me, no matter how small, still crumbles and falls away when I remember.
Seventh: Edward Gray
Hector Belial took me to Edward Gray's house, a mansion perched on a mountain cliff. I don't remember much of that journey, only that we seemed to cover dozens of miles with only one step, and to pass through walls. We stepped through Edward Gray's door as if it did not exist.
"And the meek shall inherit the earth," Hector Belial said, looking around at the vases and paintings and sculptures adorning the house. "Hm. I'm sure."
We walked up a winding flight of stairs. Nobody seemed to be in the house. I had expected servants, bodygaurds - anything but this gray silence. As if reading my mind, Hector said, "He lives alone. There are supposed to be seals on all the doors, but, well - they weren't much of a problem."
I didn't say anything. I only followed him. When we reached the top of the stairs, he turned left. His shadow followed him, spreading along the floor on either side, crawling up the wall. "Here," he said, finally, stopping in front of the third door down.
He opened the door. I saw a room more crammed than what I had already seen outside, and a man sitting behind a large, imposing desk. He looked up when the door opened. "Who the hell are you?" he asked, standing up. He had thick hair black hair slicked back, and a narrow face with jutting cheekbones. He saw the shadow Hector Belial dragged into the room with him, and he stumbled back.
"My name is Hector Belial," Hector said. He smiled at Edward Gray. "I'm sure you can guess where I'm from, and what I want."
Seventh: The devourer of hearts
Another memory that haunts me at nights:
Edward Gray slumped back in his chair, gaping hole in his chest, bones arcing white and stark. Hector Belial holding a heart, Gray's heart, blood staining his hands and suit. My throat burning acrid, a foul taste in my mouth. Blood smeared around Hector's mouth, shining like grease. Hector whispering into my ear, "I am the devourer of hearts. Every evil, every dark desire, is mine to have."
The shadow on the walls, roiling and malevolent.
Eighth: The sun and the moon
Seung-ri found me in Edward Gray's house, covered in blood. I said nothing when he spoke to me. He carried me out of that house and brought me to a temple of the Asclepieion, where I lay for weeks. Seung-ri came to visit me often. He brought flowers and sat by my bedside. He never said anything, as if he could sense my unwillingness to talk. But one day, he began to tell me a story.
He told it haltingly, like someone else had told it to him once, and he was remembering the words again. It was a story about the sun and the moon, how they were brother and sister, how their mother was devoured by a tiger. I knew the story. I could hear my mother's voice, could see her again, and when Seung-ri had finished telling the story, I turned to him and spoke for the first time since he had found me.
"My mother told me that story once," I said. "Who told it to you?"
If Seung-ri was relieved, he didn't show it. "My guardian did," he said.
I was quiet again for a long moment. Then, finally, I said, "I didn't kill Edward Gray."
"I know you didn't. Hector Belial did."
"But I summoned Hector."
"You didn't know what you were doing, Valerie."
"But I did it." I closed my eyes. "You were right."
"About what?"
"It doesn't make the emptiness any smaller."
"No, it doesn't."
"Seung-ri?"
"Yes?"
"Hector Belial is waiting for me," I said. "He told me that, before he left."
Seung-ri didn't say anything, but he put an awkward hand on my arm, for a brief moment.
Ninth: Dog days
I moved out of my old house. I took my mother's books with me, all except the ones I had read to search for a gate to hell. Seung-ri helped me find a small apartment to live in, and a job with the Asclepieion.
The day he helped me move in, he said, "Don't worry about Hector Belial, Valerie."
"Why shouldn't I?" I asked. "He's not going to disappear."
"You can't live your whole life waiting for him."
I looked down at the box of books in my arms. "I'm not waiting for him," I whispered, but it was a lie. I was waiting for him, for the day I would walk into his chamber and see his shadow again.
Tenth: Forgetting
I still wait for Hector Belial. I know there is no way to avoid him, even if I become immortal. But that waiting is buried deep beneath me, and sometimes I forget about him for days.
I still remember my mother. Sometimes I hear her voice again, and see her at her loom, weaving. I can see every tapestry and scarf she's ever woven. I bury Hector beneath her memories, to inch through the days and the months and the years - to live.
the end
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Date: 2010-03-29 05:33 am (UTC)