Strange Happenings, Part 1

The mystery begins years ago.

~紀異~

Something acrid, something afire.

The smell stirred Shiga Mitsuko, her head throbbing from a thump and the embers of a hangover, her thoughts still in dreamlet hinterlands.

What had just happened?

Picking herself off the ferns and foliage, she remembered falling. Overwhelmed by dizziness that, on her express trip to the floor, Mitsuko had stumbled into the peculiar iron statue of Buddha at that hidden shrine, tucked away at the edge of Central Park. After reciting the nianfo, no less.

Wait, when did the cobblestone turn into grass?

A strong gust quickly dispersed her gnawing doubts, again carrying that smell. This time, ashes buffeted her face, mussed her hair. Oh. So that’s what that was. Burnt hair. Hard to mistake, for all the times young Mitsuko had messed up with her straightener, trying in vain to permanently stifle her natural wavy hair. All that ‘straight hair is the most beautiful,’ and ‘are you sure you’re 100% Japanese if you don’t have straight hair?’ rubbish. Aggravating. Only as an adult was Mitsuko able to laugh at those sentiments.

Burnt hair and burning wood. Coming from the east.

Mitsuko squinted that way, and saw the fires, chasing a handful of scampering people, engulfing several buildings and flaring with the wind. Breathing and growing. Each exhale, crossing a nearly dry river below, pushed more of that disgusting scent onto her, even prickling her skin, and with that sensation, somehow, she could feel the deranged heartbeat of this imp of a fire. This imp was mocking the creek. Mocking her.

Mitsuko clenched her teeth and her fists.

Taking a moment to kick off those stupid high heels mandated by the company dress code, she walked down the foothill and approached the dying creek of a river. She scooped silty water into cupped hands.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I won’t let this won’t break you.”

For a few minutes, she watched the sediment in her hands settle, as she let her emotions settle just the same. The wind, too, settled into a breeze. And then to nothing.

The crackling flames cried out for air. A damp earthiness started to snuff out the imp’s scent.

And then rain fell.

What was the phrase in English? Gradually and then suddenly, Mitsuko thought. But she preferred the cadence of the common misattribution. Slowly, and then all at once. Sorry, Hemingway.

As she hoped for water to wash her away, wash everything away, rain blanketed the land. Slowly, and then all at once. Mitsuko clapped her hands, spraying the silt and water back to its home, folded together her fingers, imagining them wound around the imp’s throat. Choked, smothered to cinders. Satisfied, with the bonus of feeling like she was taking a shower after a long day, she surveyed the scene. It was some sort of rural town, where the fire had taken root in some kind of estate. Not too far off from there was a Buddhist temple complex.

“Huh. I know that temple,” she said. “That old-ass one in that Nara Prefecture village.”

Some vague high school history class memories came to mind. Mitsuko stood there, stuck in contemplation of what it all meant, and didn’t notice a small child slink up to her.

“Oþ ðæt oþer com, isgebinde?!”

Jerking her head to the precociously excited voice speaking a strange tongue, she relaxed when she saw who it was. A little boy around elementary school age, with close-cropped blue-black hair and jade-green eyes framing an awestruck expression. The simple monk-like dark grey robes he wore were layered with a short bib-like cloth around his neck. But once the boy noticed Mitsuko examining him, he began to examine the dirt, shyly backing away.

Now monks? This has been one hell of a dream.

And those words he said. Was that a language she knew? It sounded vaguely like how a beleaguered scholar might speak Korean with a thick western Kagoshima accent – but in kid form. And even more unintelligible.

She watched the boy pick at the ground with his sandaled toe, until he came across a flower. He plucked it and pranced back to her. The boy held it as high as he could, to her, all the while without looking up.

“Oh, it’s quite beautiful. This is a camellia, right?” She gave it a twirl between her fingers. “It looks like it’s changing color when it’s all dewed up like this.”

She crouched down so that she could smile at him face-to-face. And she did so with a “thanks bouzu.”

The boy’s face reddened immediately, his gaze went straight to the grass.

I wish I had a treat to give this cute li’l bouzu. Mitsuko pursed her lips, mentally rummaging her handbag inventory. Guess this’ll have to do.

A whip and a shake of her hair to loosen it up, and then she slid off her hair clip. Boringly silver and thin, but she had glued on an equally-flimsy company-branded USB drive that she received as an empty-gestured corporate appreciation gift a couple years ago.

She gently tugged his arm from his side. Placing the USB hair clip into his palm, she clasped her hands together over his, re-shelling the pearl.

“You can be as shy as you need, but don’t be embarrassed.” Mitsuko said, as he looked up, once again gawking in awe. This kid doesn’t understand me at all. After resisting the urge to tousle his hair, she continued: “a Buddhist monk trainee has better use for ‘emptiness’ than me.”

“Joshin!”

A stern yet creaky voice came from further downhill. Before the second syllable was out, the boy was dashing away.

After watching the boy hop from stone to stone across the creek, Mitsuko stood up to inspect the newly-doused buildings. Only a few moments later, she could see the boy running towards that smoldering mess. She couldn’t see anyone else from before.

So she closed her eyes again, breathing in deep, this was all still part of those snooze minutes before being jolted awake from a doze of seconds. A memory of herself playing in the puddles and squall as a child snuck into her head. A lot windier then. In any case, Mitsuko didn’t have to worry long, because a gale picked up right away. She moved her hands up to her chest, next to each other to make a bowl, and let the storm lash in water.

“Hremig Þa wæs on gange, langað gifu?”

That stern voice again, sturdier this time to fight the sound of the wind. That strange language again.

Mitsuko opened her eyes.

In front of her was a short elderly man, dressed in a long grey-black robe with wide sleeves – a priestly jikitotsu – which was layered with a purple-black kasaya clasped at the left. His right sleeve nearly covered a long bracelet of mala prayer beads, which dangled in view as he held a staff topped with metal rings. Definitely a Buddhist monk.

“Hanc q·el fo senz s'es ben vera·sta?”

Well, those words definitely had a Japanese energy in it, but now it was a nasally Zainichi scholar from Hachijo island who must’ve been allergic to anything but one consonant and one vowel per syllable. Almost choppy, although rhythmic and tonal in its own way.

It did remind her a little bit of Korean, too. No, more than that, it reminded her of high school classics class that she totally did not sleep through, ever. Did she really remember enough that it could show up in a dream?

“Fuck. I know where I am,” she blurted.

“Please, excuse me,” she added quickly. “Could you say that again?”

Grasping the staff with both hands for support, the old monk straightened his back to properly look up at her, as if he were trying to decipher a blurry spot on a hanging scroll. He tilted his head for a second. And for another few seconds, his gaze meandered around her face, so gradually that she couldn’t see his eyes darting back-and-forth. An appraisal of a student’s calligraphy.

At this point, she hardly felt awkward. She just kept listening to the constant shhhh of the pouring rain, watching how the drops, stinging while they trickled into view, made the world bleary and distant.

“My lady, auspicious rain-maker, you have conjured this tempest yourself, exorcising that supernatural blaze and the demons among it. Already we could see onibi, flame wisps, emerging from scorched remains. It is an astonishing feat. And yet you are not from this place. This kalpa. Please accept my gratitude for sharing your strength with us. That was the manor of my patron clan, and I fear the worst for those inside.”

Mitsuko blinked. As soon as he had started to talk, she had started to stare at his stately expression, where his moving lips were just not in sync. Was he speaking modern Japanese in her head or through her ears?

“Ah, um. It’s nothing, osho-san.”

He chuckled, putting his hands together, and bowed with a “Namu Amita Bul.”

Mitsuko blinked again as she tried to intone a “Namu Amida Butsu” on reflex. She wasn’t sure if she said it or thought it. Her hands were still cupped in front of her, brimmed with water. So she let her arms fall limply to her sides, and the raindrops let up to a drizzle.

“There’s a hurt girl here! Master!” The boy’s voice was clear even from this far away.

When the elder monk glanced back as he clambered down, he saw that Mitsuko had already vanished.

~紀異~

If there was anything left to say, well, the sudden tableau of a bleeding teenager, slumped against a streetlight by Central Park, a bleeding teenager clad in medieval Asian clothing and surrounded by embers and ash, as you drunkenly stagger the way home, really puts you off for the week.

Like, definitely medieval style. There was no mistaking that. Lucas Cheon considered himself pretty sub-par in his Koreanness for his sheer lack of interest in nearly all K-dramas. Except for sageuk, historical dramas, with all their hammy war scenes, that he had liked since he was young.

So this was what happens when your broken heart binges on beer a day after binging on a new sageuk TV show.

This was what Lucas thought during the first ripple. All at once, on his way to the subway, the air around him had folded in on itself, and where there had been empty pavement became this.

Easier to dismiss after such a glimpse, such a single flicker.

Complain to a good friend over a beer, slur your words, enjoy getting worked up. Feed your head, feed your heart. Promise to go home, then keep drinking somewhere else instead, where the brooding starts to weave a little tale of its own.

Much harder to see it actively develop. Because the second ripple delivered a short rain of burning debris, of which a scrap singed Luca’s hand. Reality overwhelming the stunned standstill.

There she was, shallow panting and bright red blood, gushing and gushing.

A manifold memory pushed through Luca's head, he was never one for such sharp panicky colicky situations but boy, did he pretend for it at some point when he volunteered as an EMT during his gap year. A decade ago. Mentally repeating ABC – airway, breathing, circulation – so that he wouldn’t forget. And lucky enough to never have run into such a situation back then.

Lucas rushed over. Hooking his arms under the teenager’s armpits, he dragged them out of the open flames. Scene safety.

A quick size-up: one bad stab wound, cuts and scrapes, blistered burns on the right arm and shoulder. No bandages, but his overworn wool sweater could do for now. Which he peeled off and pressed hard at the stomach gash, hemming in the speartip stabbed in. Circulation.

Wrong order, but breathing raggedly means airway and breathing are OK, right?

The speartip didn’t look to be lodged in too deep but you don't pull that out. Pressure or nothing. The burns were all over the arm, and the swollen wrist was close to chafing against a bracelet of linked comma-like stones. He quickly slipped off the band before he forgot.

“HEY", he yelled, looked at eyes glazed-over, moved his ear right up close to hear, and the shallow gasping was still there. Breathing.

Too drunk to trust anything but touch, he sprawled his fingers in their mouth. Nothing blocking. Then an awkward one-handed chin lift. Airway.

Wrong fucking order.

"CAN YOU HEAR ME," he tried to shout, but out came a bleat. Never the stoic one in his head.

But he could still dial 911 with spit-slimed fingers, "A kid has stabbed and bleeding! Off Central Park, right by the corner of–”