This House is Not a Home

Kira sidled up to her front door past the dead rusted gate, and the new worn behemoth asleep in the driveway against all expectations. Well, maybe not expectations. That was the wrong word. Hopes was more accurate.

She had hoped her mother wouldn’t drive straight home after she’d unexpectedly jumped out and vanished into the busy Shinjuku crowd whilst idled at the crosswalk. She had hoped she’d just forget the whole thing. Chalk the moment up to wielder idiosyncrasies and leave it at that. She’d married one, so of course she’d – more than others – understand how they could be at times.

The doorbell nowadays was only a fiddly button. Knocking was a thought that gave her pause: announcing intent to enter would only draw a crowd and slow her down in the long run.

There was a certain, undeniable drama in that, like flinging open the church doors at her own funeral while a friend waxed philosophical about the nature of life and untimely death and what a good, wholesome soul she was. Arata would have taken that opportunity in a heartbeat, she thought, slowly twisting the unlocked door open.

Inside, the occupants’ voices careened off the walls at varying pitches and states of distress, missing Kira who had swept herself upstairs. Stopped when the door slammed shut behind her.

A second slam of her own door cut the calls off completely, but not the sounds of dogged footsteps on their way. Sweet formaldehyde scent suffused her nostrils. Familiar odor of stasis.

Her mother was the first to break that boundary.

Waving a silent hand to the other before the lock clicked shut, she crossed to the grunting Kira, stepping over discarded heels and a stocking torn jaggedly off its mount.

“I’m not going to stop changing,” she said. Fabric ripped apart the air, and she tossed aside the other slip beside her backpack on the floor.

“What madness has come over you, child, to conduct yourself in this manner?” From under her eyes did dark clouds blossom. She’d been wiping tears. The tips of her fingers were stained black. “We’ve been worrying ourselves to pieces since you vanished. I almost contacted the authorities to see you back here safely!”

“Fat load that would have done.” True to her word, Kira worked at unbuttoning her skirt, kicking it at the wall once around her ankles. Displays caught by sudden gust rattled like skeletons. Remembering, she strode over to the skirt, sighing all the while, and dug through the pockets for the Don’s talon.

“Is this about the interview? One failed step does not spell the end of a life.”

“Haven’t you a day off to enjoy now that your obligations are fulfilled?” She stormed to her closet and threw the doors open. Longer clothes aplenty if she were willing to endure the burn they’d leave upon her skin, too frail and too thin. Eye-catching designs glimpsed from fashion magazines delivered to an address she hadn’t bothered to commit to memory, donated in excess to build a bridge out of gifts. The point was to be subtle, not perceived.

But there was a heap of worn clothing at the bed’s foot, potent enough a smell to awaken the room’s crucified carrion bugs to their new impaled present hanging in the immediate air.

“There is no greater obligation than my only daughter’s happiness. Your security is my duty as a parent even if you feel it smothering your ability to breathe. I’d rather not go to those lengths, if it can be helped, but I’m uncertain of your health after today!”

Ash still stuck to the fibers of the clothes greyed up her hands, and they were stiff in places with dried sweat. Yellow streaked the inside of the sweater’s neck hole like a rash. Nevertheless, they’d passed the warmth test with flying colors once before and were poised to do so again.

“Are you even listening? Have you no shame?”

Oh, but it’s impossible not to hear.

Her mother’s voice had grown a shrill edge in response to Kira ignoring her pleas, and it was only grinding itself sharper on the stone of her eardrum. She regarded the woman with a quick glance.

Hairs sticking up. Pit stains. Makeup smeared clean from her cheeks, exposing her wrinkles. (Kira blinked at those. Had she always had so many?) Red eyes. Slack clothing no longer adhered to her body.

She was a wreck.

A queer jolt of pity warmed Kira’s chest. A pang of sadness for the woman who, on paper, was her mother. She didn’t feel the part; she didn’t even feel a friend, not a real one – flesh and blood – but an online one. The kind you shared pictures of your naked body with, face cropped off, tattoos left in because she found them alluring and also because they couldn’t be connected to your headless torso, before letting them into the secret of your time zone.

“How do even want me to answer that?” said Kira.

“By asking yourself if you’ve considered our feelings, your father’s and mine. Association with criminals, erratic behaviors… none of these speak well of you, and we are worried.”

“I’m alive and I’m here. Is that not enough?”

“For such childish notions I could hit you.” Her hand twitched, but did not come up. The black square of her dead watch remained wrapped around her wrist still. “If I feared that would not destroy what relationship we have left. I would prefer embracing you, if such is possible.”

Kira quickly stepped back. “Neither do I want to fight. I don’t plan on staying long enough for hugging, anyway.” She shucked her jacket to the floor and shivered. Button by button the blouse went next. As it came off her mother cried out an animal noise, hands flying to her ragged mouth.

She continued to dress while her mother wept. Stiffened by wear, the shirt and sweater both caught on the edges of her golden necklace, and she was forced to tug them apart at the cost of threads and nagging discomfort when the necklace detached from her skin more than a moment. Warm again, she shifted attention to the bed itself where a familiar case had remained undisturbed. When the backpack was heavy with a fresh influx of funds, she turned and found her mother’s body blocking the door.

“Move. Please.”

Rather than acquiesce, the older woman spread her arms wide over the frame. “You’ll stay right here,” she said. Kira shrugged, and bent down under the bed, feeling around for the jar. Finding the metal handle, she exposed it to the light. Innards glistened brown and dull golden around preserved bodies. With no exact amount needed given, it felt safer to pack the entire amber assortment.

“You can’t exactly keep me here,” Kira said.

“I’ll try. For you,” came the reply. “I’ve failed to keep you from pain, but I will not fail in this.”

Someone beat their first on the door, masculine voice bearing hints of concern: her father’s. Finally grown tired chasing outdoor cats, it seemed, now that his own had slunk back. Anger spiked inside her, and with the flash a roadblock. Anger would only propel them forward. Out the window, then. Deja-vu.

The damp sheets curled like shed serpent skin, cold and clammy, underneath the life cycle of the arcte coerula in tableaux by the window.

The wood-and-muslin display had been picked up from a second-hand stall, some celebration a lifetime ago, having been repaired with brackets and screws for the purpose of being resold at a lower cost. A real bargain for a wielder whose wallet contained little more than pocket change. In fixing it had become sturdier than others lining her walls. It could withstand a sudden fall, an impact or three, break the glass of her window when needing escape, this tool between Kira’s hands, shaking as Mother’s graceless shadow fell upon her.

On her tongue, intuition. The suspicion of a daughter’s half-formed plan that needed halting.

The woman crumpled with the sound of a sloppy kiss as the reinforced corner connected with her temple.

Kira stepped forward, chrysalis jarred loose from the insect display on impact crunching underfoot, and raised the wooden panel overhead. Outside, fists beating heavily against the door redoubled their efforts. The frame cracked as the display came down again. Warmth misted her face. Her mother’s body jerked as if shocked with a cattle prod.

Another blow landed as the door flew open and a living boulder caught his daughter by the wrist before she could strike another time. Eyes locked with her father, she could only watch as his expression contorted into one of pure venom.

The room spun, backpack spinning off with it, her breath driven out in a gasp as meaty hands clamped down on her windpipe, his knee on her bladder. Thick, black hair on his knuckles tickled her throat. He was putting her to shame as he put her down. Waggling his peaceful gifts in her face. Jerk.

Spittle dripped onto her chin, and she threw her vision away from the gritted teeth and bloody daggers above to the ceiling instead. The white expanse reminded her of the snow outside. Here, in the room, it was almost as cold.

That’s the asphyxiation talking.

Its inside voice was louder than the blood in her ears, and the digits mashed into those ever-important arteries necessary to feed her brain with oxygen had a firm press on the latter’s volume “Decrease” button. Bar by bar the pound slowed. A vignette was being drawn over her vision, like the shuttering of a camera’s aperture. What was left was red. A blood vessel had popped.

Then suddenly the pressure vanished and she could breathe again. A thin form had shoved her father aside, gurgling defiance, head like a partially peeled orange, misshapen and dripping juice. One foot lay in contact with Kira’s own.

Leaving her parents fighting on the ground, the clutches of magic making them indistinguishable from beasts, Kira ran from her home in a blazing sprint. Swollen red dotted her skin, pooling in the impressions of hands at her throat.