Chapter 10 – New Voices at Mecchen House

The next words Katsumi said were, “Okay, go ahead. Make them vanish. Or turn them into girls.”

This Nina girl looked at a loss for what she was supposed to do. Eventually, she said softly, with a slight quiver in her words, “You do realize I’m not a priest or a mystic, right?”

Katsumi wobbled her head from side to side. “I get that. But I also know you have abilities because of… what we talked about.”

“Yeah. The ability to see spirits. Sometimes. As I tried to explain before, I think you want someone who is good with purification rituals. There’s a shrine not too far from here. There’s a few I know who would be quite willing to bless this place.”

Katsumi sighed through her nose. “I know. I’ve been there. When I tell them I want to purge the house of all past and future men, they give me strange looks.”

“I see.” This ‘Nina’ looked over at us. “So, what’d you three do to deserve all this?”

Jamie glared at her and said, “We weren’t born female, like you.”

She looked as though Jamie had struck her. Katsumi stepped forward. I noticed she’d avoided eye contact with me. “That’s right. Nina is a born-as-girl. She can out-girl any of you. Just her standing in the same room as you will make your boyhoods shrivel up and retreat.”

Katsumi felt like a kid emboldened by bringing his older brother along to beat up the school bully. Only we weren’t looking for a fight. I tried to tell her as much, but she wouldn’t acknowledge my existence.

Eventually, I attempted, “Don’t you notice something weird with our hair, at least?”

She looked at Jamie and Nathan and responded to them, “I know my efforts have clearly had an effect on you. Don’t worry. It’s not the first time. It’s a typical reaction for boys to try on girlish wigs.” Nina cautiously worked her way to our side of the room. I wondered what she was up to. Then, she retreated from it. She seemed split between the two sides ‘till Katsumi gave her a look and she came closer again.

Jamie answered, “These aren’t wigs. See? They don’t come off.” He gave his hair a subtle tug. Katsumi yawned. “You do realize I’ve heard of glue, right?”

He pointed to his eyes. “Different color.”

She leaned against a bookshelf. “Contacts.”

“Why would we go to all this trouble?”

It seemed as though Katsumi had a prepared response for that, but she couldn’t seem to get it out. After a moment, she threw up her hands. “Why should I care so long as you don’t look as offensive to me? Most of you, at least.”

Now her eyes turned to me like emerald swords slicing through the air. Nina seemed to dart away like a frightened hare from Katsumi’s gaze even though her eyes never came close to her. I didn’t let the blade slip by. I sharpened my tongue. “You should care because something is happening to us. We’re turning into girls, and you sure look like the cause of it.”

Everyone in the room had a reaction to that. I felt hot. Nathan looked uncomfortable. Jamie looked irritated. Nina seemed intrigued. But it was Katsumi’s reaction which surprised me. She seemed upset, but it wasn’t the rage of before. It was a quiet moment. She looked me in the eye. “You can do whatever the heck you want, but don’t mess with me. I’ve had enough of it. I don’t want to be patronized, I don’t need to be reminded of the odds. I KNOW ALL THAT! Ami drives it home all the time. I don’t need two girls belittling what I care about. Do you understand that?”

That wasn’t yelled as much as I expected. Maybe I could still reason with her. I took a deep breath. “Listen. I am sorry. I apologize for what I said. I was disappointed because well… I was upset that this world looked so much like the average, everyday world. It seemed like nothing fantastic could ever happen, no matter how fantastic it looked.”

She held her eyes closed as she answered, “Yeah yeah. You’ve figured it out. That doesn’t mean you have to drive it into someone’s heart over and over again. And then go and add an extra spike of mocking. Okay. I’ll admit I had some fun at the expense of you three. We played a little dress-up. But that doesn’t give you the right to step on my dreams. I found all three of you interesting. I can’t help but imagine what you’d be like turned into girls.”

Even when being reasonable she was still a pain. “That’s the point I keep trying to say. What you imagine may actually be happening. We don’t know if you’re responsible but it’s a possibility. But we are changing. How can we prove it to you?”

She grit her teeth and said, “Grow breasts! And more. Then, I’ll consider it. Unless you’re taking hormones.”

I rubbed my head. “What do you want? You say you want us turned into girls, and yet you reject it when it actually begins to happen. I apologize, and yet you won’t accept it. What do you want from me? What do you want from us?”

Her eyes began to glint and shimmer like tiny diamonds were falling from them. She was actually crying, but she quickly dashed her eyes dry. “I want you to leave me alone. You can’t know a maiden’s heart, so why should I expect anything from any of you? You just trample across it. I create, and you break. I offer you names that I created with Nana’s gracious help, and you just spit at them for our effort. I hate saying it, but Tara and Ms. Ishida are both wrong… You are nothing like me, and you will never be anything like me. Come on, Nina. Let’s go. There’s a lot more house. We’re true maidens. If we stay here too long, these three will leave a taint on us.”

I felt myself rising up again as she slid open the door. I yelled, “Fine. I wouldn’t want to be compared to you anyway. Who would want to be compared to such a single-minded, hot-headed, domineering, flat-as-a-board, hissy little child?! You just can’t ever face the truth, even when it’s in your favor!”

She struck back, with her eyes glaring, “Shut up! You’re not my mother!”

I could barely get out the first syllable of “What is that supposed to mean?” before she slammed the door behind her. I felt sorry for Nina, who seemed to cower in terror around Katsumi as she was hustled out. The rumbling soon vanished.

Jamie sat up on the bed and clicked his tongue. “Smooth.”

“As if you would’ve dealt with that better.”

He gestured a finger between the two of us. “Those are the times when I shine. Notice she didn’t hate on me as much? I know when to be quiet around women.”

“Yeah, you’re so smart, and yet here we still are.”

He shut his eyes like Katsumi. “Whatever. All I care about is we have the books we’re looking for. Now we can leave this place for good.”

“Wait. What? What happened to what you said about this place being better because we don’t change as much?”

He slipped the books under one arm. “The company just got a lot more hostile. I have no interest in seeing the nuclear consequences of you and her occupying the same space. I’m further astonished I coped with it all this long. I have enough money to tide me over in a motel somewhere. Heck, you all can stay here or whatever, but I intend to read all this, figure it out, and get out of here. You can tag along if you wish. So far as this place keeping us from changing, I don’t buy it anymore. If it is, then we’re pretty well damned either way. Our future lies in reading and figuring out what is in these books.”

I felt like everything was falling apart. “Wait, wait. We’ve come through all this together, and now you’re just gonna go off on your own?”

“You bet I will. Where’s the encouragement for me to stay? Sure, Tara is cute…but you think about it. I’d be on the floor below the girl who hates our guts. Granted it won’t be as bad as if you pick the top floor. It’s a nice room, and I wouldn’t mind it, but the cost is just too much for me. And besides, I have no interest in the rest of my money going towards a communal pot. I’m not subsidizing any stay after a week.”

I rubbed my head. All this was coming too fast. Why couldn’t I do anything? Why couldn’t I just find the words to fix this? Why wouldn’t they come from my mouth? “Who says we’ve got to stay a whole week?” That wasn’t quite what I wanted to say.

Jamie stood. “The sooner we cut our ties from this place, the easier it’ll be to leave.”

“But leave after all that? How can we move out of this place again, when we all but promised to stay for a little while? How could we face Ms. Ishida like that?”

“Why do you keep going on about ‘we’? This is my choice. This is in my best interest. I keep telling you I have no real emotions. I have no sentimentality for all this. I’m only concerned with what will and won’t serve my interests. Before, I had no clues and a nice, quiet house. A nice room. It could work. Then comes the noisy one. My prospects on the outside are looking best. I just do what I want.”

“I don’t think you’ll do it.”

“Oh?” He made a motion towards the door.

I stood as well. “What if you don’t understand those books? What if you need us?”

“I know you two will be here, right? Quit fighting it. It should be more of a surprise I didn’t just leave before. I don’t need anyone. I never have.”  

“So, you’re just gonna bail on us? And you’re gonna take our only possible source of answers with you?”

Jamie shrugged. “You can come with me. Then, you’ll know where I’m staying. I will not foot the bill for all three though. If not, well I’ll just look up Ishida in the phone book and tell you where I wound up. See, I’m being quite reasonable about this.”

But I wasn’t. I balled up my fists. “You can’t go! Don’t you understand what we’ve been through? Doesn’t that mean anything to you? What about the dangers?”

“It means I’ll have to foot the bill for anything big with the two of you. If karma bites me for that, so be it. It’s kicked me around enough that I figure I have a good shot. And my best shot comes if I work alone. I don’t need either of you.”

He turned to leave, but I grabbed his hand. “You traitor!” I struggled to get the books out of his hands. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Nathan held his hands up to his mouth in fear.

The books tumbled out. We tripped over one another, and Jamie slammed me into the wall. “You’re just as lousy a fighter as I am. Give it up!”

“Then we’re evenly matched!” I’d fought with Jamie before but not physically. I was surprised I was able to hold my own so well. He must really be bad at this.

I tipped Jamie into one of the taller bookshelves when Nathan yelled out, “NO! Please stop this! Don’t fight.” That stopped us in our tracks. Not so much because of what he said but rather how his voice sounded.

He put his hand to his throat and looked at us. He gulped. The depth of his voice had been eroding ever since we got here, like the rest of us. But this was a jump as if someone had squeezed his family jewels like in a comedy movie.

But this wasn’t a falsetto. It was a high, soft, girlish voice. It flowed breathlessly with little, girlish half-gasps. It wasn’t quite as high as Tara’s, and it wasn’t quite as even as Ms. Ishida’s tone. Ami’s voice was the closest to what this sounded like. It sounded like a young girl Japanese voice actress character, only the words were said in English. It stopped me in my tracks to experience such a voice. The words took on a pleading, sensitive tone which could melt any heart.

Jamie made a sour face. “What the heck?”

Something tipped from the very top of the bookshelf he banged into and spun off, around, and flat on his head. He tumbled over, clutching his head and groaning. There was a touch of silver to his shoulder-length blond locks. The object was really dusty.

Nathan gasped the cutest little gasp with his hands clutched over his chin. He asked Jamie, with halting speech which made his voice even more adorable, “A-a-are you o-o-kay?”

Jamie kept rubbing his head. “No. This jerk was beating me up, and you did nothing to stop it.” Nathan lowered his head and offered the most lovely, girlish tone of apology I’d heard in a long time of anime-watching. Despite that, I helped Jamie up as he dusted his head off and looked at the book which had fallen on him.

He turned it over in his hands and presented it to me. “Looks like we have one more obligation fulfilled. It’s that family album we were supposed to find.” He passed it to me, and I flipped through it.

A lot of the photos in the album were in black-and-white, or at least they were drawn that way. There were family members I didn’t know. I did notice Ms. Ishida’s parents from the photo in the hallway. There were a lot of artistic images of a shrine and a festival and the construction of Mecchen House. And I saw that grey-haired girl again. I squinted. She was standing with the Ishidas. I flipped ahead. Baby pictures of Aneko. Way too cute. I flipped back. The gray-haired girl always appeared from the side, and more often than not, her hair covered her features.

I brought the images right to my face. I scanned them. One in particular caught my eye. If you looked really closely, you could just make out the face of the gray-haired girl.

I looked to Jamie. “Find me something like a magnifying glass I can use.”

“Oh yeah, I have tons of those things in my pocket just ready to be pulled out for the sake of convenience.”

I gave him a serious look. “Just find something to use.” He rolled his eyes but started looking. The best he could find was a makeup kit with a transparent mirror. It distorted the image far too much, but it did the job. I used one eye to look through it. I got really close. When I found what I was looking for, I gasped.

I passed the makeup and album to Jamie, but he passed them back. “Just tell me what you saw there.”

“This is Nana. Somehow. That’s her in these pictures. The same long hair. And the face especially.”