Chapter 9 - Reunions and a Recipe at Mecchen House (cont.)

Carolyn couldn’t keep him out of the chair. He prepared his shears, and I fought the urge to keep thinking the female pronoun with Carolyn. That time was passed and she… he seemed alright with the results, despite all the questions and unknowns. Did we have a family here like Carolyn did? Would we when this all was over? Would we remember what was happening right now? Would we develop particular gaps in our memory like Carolyn and Shiori?

His pondering about mice in a maze sat as uneasily with me as it had with Jamie. But, if none of it was true, then what did it matter even trying? I felt a surge of panic that struck at the deepest part of my gut. Nathan’s reaction was hard to read, but he seemed thoughtful in his listening. We sat off to the side as Carolyn wrapped a white cloak around Jamie.

It was all for naught though as he started trying to snip. At first, I thought Carolyn was actually cutting something off. But it was more like the shears passed through his hair like light through our front locks. He held it closer and it looked more like he was trying to cut through a pipe with a pair of kindergarten scissors. After several minutes of strained effort, he nearly cracked his shears but didn’t so much as free a single sliver of hair.

He let out a deep breath and told Jamie, “Looks like the intentional theory just got a boost. This hair is impossible to cut. Worse than painted steel wool or something. Actually, I might be able to make a dent in steel wool, but this certainly isn’t going anywhere.”

Jamie gripped his hair and pulled intently but only managed to leave himself in a moaning heap. Carolyn helped him up and gave him a sock in the shoulder. “Pulling won’t work, ya dummy. You know, that hair isn’t out of place for most of the bishies that I like. Long hair is a manly thing in this world.”

Jamie nodded sparingly. “I know. Kelly used that idea on me.”

“Wise words…”

“But I don’t want long hair. I want my hair…”

She coughed and said only, “No glue…”

He shut his eyes and tugged at his hair ‘till he could bear it no longer. I gave my own hair a little tug. Carolyn tried his shears on me next. Jamie seemed to be holding onto a look of envy until Carolyn had as little success with my hair as she… he had with Jamie’s. All he could offer us was, “I tried my best.”

We stood, left with no destination but Mecchen to guide us. I wondered if we even had a choice in our path. Carolyn pulled out a paper pad, took the info for Mecchen, and gave us a copious info list of his own. I hit myself for not thinking to bug Shiori for more contact information. We were stuck if she didn’t contact us first. I told Carolyn about my omission with a great deal of red-shading on my face.

He revealed a thin cut-out of pearly teeth. “Aren’t you all glad you have me to remind you? I’ve noticed this Mecchen House before. Nice-looking place. I’ll have to go see how you three are holding up there and taunt vigorously those who are bothering you. This Katsumi especially. For now, I have a full day scheduled. Monday is my busiest day of the week. So many appointments too. You all came at a good time. I'm glad we found each other. I will find you again, so don’t wander too far from Mecchen House. I still can’t believe none of you own cell phones. Anywho. Be well. It’s time for one last hug.”

I and Nathan received our hugs happily, but it took some convincing before Jamie acquiesced to a ‘barely-touching’ hug with the condition Jamie could imagine Carolyn still as a girl. When Jamie broke from the hug, he rubbed his chest. That earned an eyebrow raise from Carolyn, who couldn’t resist saying, “Not bad. I’d say you’re well on your way to an A-cup at this rate, cutie.”

Jamie tensed his muscles, especially at his chest. “No matter what you say, I’m still a boy.” Carolyn didn’t tease him further, he just gave a gentle, eyes-curling-upward smile and bid us a pleasant afternoon.

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We worked our way further up the road. I knew we were headed the right way at least. The quieter businesses were returning. I thought I saw the police box. Jamie wanted to use the opposite side of the street. He surmised that if those officers mistook us for girls before, they were sure to this time around. The crowds also swelled. We crossed a wide intersection and ducked around an overhang. A girl stood in front of us.

It was Nana.

[My favorite sketch notes of Nana by Alexis Rillera/Anirhapsodist]

She held a bag with one hand. It was brown, and the shape inside was like a thick, lumpy little picture frame. She was still dressed in the Azako High School uniform; her yellow bow looked as immaculate as when she’d tied it in the morning.

Nana came to a halt a few feet in front of us. Walkers swarmed around us, and she turned a shoulder to let them slip by. A moment later, the flood passed and all seemed calm.

I offered her a quick greeting and asked her, “What are you up to?”

Her answer was just as prompt. “Forging the sea.” With the sea of travelers we’d just been enveloped by, I nodded and asked her about the bag in her hand.

“Ms. Ishida needed ingredients. Cooking.” Her hand rummaged through the bag and pulled out a number of sweet red peppers, a vial of soy sauce, chili powder, and a large, flat container of herring roe. She quickly put them all back in a better position than they were before she removed them. I just gave her a friendly nod and said, “Cool. We’re heading back to Mecchen. We have to talk to Ms. Ishida. She apparently borrowed the books you told us about.”

She bowed her head. “I see. I will accompany you.”

So, Nana came with us.  I led the way this time.

We were getting near to the police box. I figured if we timed it right, we could avoid the heaviest cycle of pedestrians and cars. It really did move like the sea. I noticed the walkway was clear, so I trudged ahead. Something held me back though. I felt an irresistible grip on my left shoulder.

With my forward motion, it was enough to whip me around and turn me to face Nana. Her hand held tight to me. I blinked at her. Then, I jumped. A massive wind roared behind me. I turned in time to see a large, black, square-ish truck zoom recklessly through the walkway and vanish behind a building like a phantom of death.

It took several seconds for my heart rate to come down. The alarm from the phone call was one thing. If I’d stepped out into the street, I would’ve been dead.

All the questions about what it meant to exist here would've been moot. I had to remember to breathe as I thanked Nana several times over. She bowed her head again. Nathan shook me, emboldened by panic. “You gotta be careful, Kelly!” I gave Nathan plenty of nods ‘till he calmed down. Jamie looked subdued.

It took a few minutes but, eventually, I was ready to keep moving. I walked with Nana this time. I offered to hold the bag for her. She said it was fine.

I shrugged and took it upon myself to fill in Nana on the details of what had happened to us. I had nearly gotten to the part about the library when Jamie coughed loudly and called me up to the front.

When I made my way over to him, he leaned in my ear and said, “Don’t tell her everything that happened. If she’s responsible for it, then she either already knows what happened and it doesn’t matter, or telling her something could jeopardize our chances of being restored.”

I looked back at Nana. She was looking off to the left with a hand at her lengthy, gray locks. I held onto a little irritation with how Jamie treated Carolyn even though I’d exercised just as much skepticism. I posed the question to Nana, “Are you responsible for everything that’s happened to us?”

She turned her head to look at me. “No, I am not.”

Jamie chastised me for posing too vague a question and posed his own, “Are you responsible for us changing…” He took a deep breath and started again, “Are you responsible for us changing into girls?”

Nana shook her head. “I am not responsible for that.” That pretty much settled it for me. Seeing as I wasn’t at the point where I wanted to consider everything Nana said to be a lie, I accepted that other forces were at work here. Probably tied to that telephone call.

The harvesters Carolyn mentioned stuck close to my thoughts. But I also had to consider the world we used to know might have been destroyed. If so, then there was no going back. This would be our home from now on. It was a possibility that gave me a shudder of melancholy.

I dwelt on Carolyn’s first possibility for a while instead. Supposing we wanted to come here, what did that mean? I was certainly amiable to this place. I didn’t look forward to the prospects of getting a job here with no resume or identity. Still, watching row after row of crisp, radiant color flow past my eyes gave me a comfort that set aside all the other worries.

So far as Nathan, it confounded me as to how he could will or want himself into a world such as this. But then there were many things about him I still didn’t understand in all this time. Jamie, despite knowing him only briefly, seemed like such an open book that I could discard the possibility he secretly wanted all this. I just couldn’t imagine it. Carolyn made sense. She’d often lamented the lack of anime-inspiration and pretty boys in the world.

And what of the gender-changes? I knew nothing of Shiori’s life, but she seemed half-troubled, half-amenable to what happened. Carolyn was a picture of cautious-but-playful acceptance. Where did we fit in? Sure, I sometimes gave anime girls a lingering look, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be one of them. Not for the rest of my life, at least.

It would be nice to feel a little more accepted at Mecchen House and less out of place. Maybe Katsumi would stop being so sour with me, and she would give me more looks like she gave Ms. Ishida. But then the girls said she was often like that, with a special devotion to other girls.

If we were really turning into girls, then what did Jamie and Nathan really make of it? It was impossible to imagine that deep down Jamie was going, “Yay! I love dresses! Flowers and fun! I’ll be so cute! Twirl! Sparkle! Spin!” He wouldn’t be Tara. I could imagine him like Katsumi. Nathan, I could see him having a vacation in a female form. He had great respect for women, after all. But it wasn’t his home. I couldn’t envision him being happy as a girl.

But I was already wrong once when I told Katsumi that boys didn’t turn into girls. I’d already seen one, and I’d seen it the other way as well. As we passed the police box, I knew that soon I would have to face up to Katsumi and confess I was wrong.

If that meant she was responsible for what happened, either consciously or unconsciously, that presented a worrying possibility. Suppose she was, and she knew she could turn boys into girls with her mind, how many boys would she leave the world with? None. Not a single one would be left behind, not even Carolyn. It made me shudder. I didn’t want Carolyn to get hurt.

Nana came close and put her hand on my shoulder. Her hand was narrow with exceptionally-long fingers. Her touch was actually just what I needed at that moment. Despite Jamie’s questions about her, despite my own lingering doubt about her intent and her mysterious personality, I gave a little bow to Nana. Her hand slipped off gently.

Then, I heard Nathan gasp. I turned around. He was at the back of the group. It looked like Jamie now had a little less to complain about.

Nathan’s hair had taken on a form more like Carolyn’s hair. And his eyes had become an even more brilliant color of green than Katsumi’s. A thin line of green traced the bottom edge of his eyes. The shading of dark bluish-purple had exploded into a curtain which weaved the line between the two colors. The part that caught the light looked like a deep blue. Other parts contained lavender and the shadowed segments flowed with deep purple tones. The front left curled like Jamie’s hair did when first molded into an anime form. On either side of his head, from a high point, a trio of dense locks dipped all the way to his waist.

His hair wasn’t quite as dense as Nana’s, but it looked just as long. It had the same appearance as Carolyn’s locks, only his roamed all over. Nathan’s were very calm, even, and orderly.

He seemed hesitant to touch his new hair. Jamie walked near and asked, “What the heck?”

Nathan apologized, sending his hair askew. He quickly fixed it and said, “I don’t know what happened. I was just walking one moment, and I felt this new weight pulling at the back of me. Wow, this hair is so… much. A lot of bows could go in it.”

Jamie looked him over, walking in a circle around Nathan until he finally said, “Dang. If it’s the same as the rest of us, then there’s no way to cut that hair. You’re gonna have to deal with it ‘till we find some way to stop all this.”

Nathan nodded with a dusting of blush to his features. Jamie folded his arms. “You think it’s just the hair?” Nathan felt around his body. He paused at his hands. He turned them around in his sight. Jamie gestured with his head for Nathan to look in the store window. He gaped at his visage until it struck him and he said, “My eyes! My gosh! I can’t believe it. Do they look okay?” Nana nodded immediately. Jamie and I looked at each other. Jamie asked, “Do you like this? Do you actually want to become a chick?”

Nathan staggered back in alarm, sending his locks back too, and stammered out a shaky rejection. “No no. I was just surprised. I didn’t think it would wind up so long. I have a thing for long hair, so it’s kinda nifty. It’s really weighty though. Good thing my back muscles are strong. It should really give my chest muscles a workout. The eye color… It’s my favorite color. I mean it’s kinda different. But it’s kinda exhilarating too. Like riding a wave at sea.”

Jamie dipped his head back. “Yeah, if a wave makes you have to pee sitting down at the end of it.”

Nathan raised a hand. “Actually, a girl I know told me that given enough practice and muscle control…”

Jamie covered his ears through his hair and hummed. Nathan let it go. When his eyes dipped to the ground, Jamie uncovered his ears and proclaimed, “For some of you, this all may be nice and fun, but I am reaching the end of my tolerance. I think the whole thing is one big trick, and it starts and ends with her!”

He aimed an accusing finger right at Nana, who didn’t react to the gesture except to look back impassively at Jamie. He told her, like a charged, hardened stone, “I’m certain you’re the one responsible, and I’ll prove it! Then I’ll make things right!”

Nana slowly bowed her head, sending locks cascading over her shoulder, and offered only this, “I’m sorry. There’s really nothing more that I can offer to you. I wish I could fix things and make them as they were… In so many ways.”

Jamie’s tension seemed to drop a bit. The rumbling dwindled. He looked at her with softer eyes. “You’ve had pain in your past too?”

Nana said nothing. She just pulled her bag closer. “I will go on ahead. You three know the path back home.”

Jamie darted ahead of her. “Actually, it’s okay. We’ll go with you.”

Nana marveled at Jamie like she had when I pointed out the rice left on her cheek. We kept close to her. It was hard to read her features, but I couldn’t help but think that there was a sense of comfort in her gaze from what Jamie said.