Chapter 10 - New Voices at Mecchen House (cont.)

She staggered back and rested her hand on a wall. Nina took this moment to give herself a bit of distance between the two of us. Her eyes darted back and forth like she was a small rabbit ready to bolt for its burrow.

Ms. Ishida appeared from around her with a cup of tea, sending her into alarm when she said, “Anyone thirsty? Dinner will be served in just a few moments.”

Nina quivered but Ms. Ishida gave her a pat on the shoulder and inquired, “Are you all right?” She stared. Ms. Ishida caressed her cheek. Nina looked down in embarrassment and squirmed again. That raised an eyebrow for me. Ms. Ishida gave her a warm cup of tea, which she took and looked into, the white steam curls spreading around her face.

I shook my head. Not all cases were of gender-change, right? This girl, Nina, I saw before me was just a normal anime girl, born as one, always been one. Surely, that was the case.

I mean Katsumi seemed to know her well. I figured that meant they’d known each other for some time and they probably shared the same interests.

Ms. Ishida looked over at me and over at Katsumi. Nina edged away carefully and blew on her tea. Ms. Ishida asked Katsumi, holding out a cup of tea for her, “Dinner soon. Is Mami back yet?”

That seemed to snap Katsumi out of the mood which my comments had put her in. “Not yet. I haven’t… umm… I haven’t seen her.”

She turned her head slightly. Her broad eyes remained on Katsumi. “Is something wrong, Katsumi? Is it your purification effort? Did your friend see something scary? Was it gruesome? Oozing blood?”

Katsumi blinked and shook her head. She pointed to me. Ms. Ishida followed her finger. So as not to confuse her, I offered a quick, “Hello, Miss Ishida.”

Her hand went swiftly to her mouth. “My word! Your voice too!”

I explained to her that all three of our voices had changed. I watched Katsumi’s reaction. This wasn’t the sort of post-success ecstasy I expected from her. She seemed to dig a hand into the wall and wobble. Ms. Ishida’s attention shifted to me, so that allowed Nina to dart away. I didn’t see her. I thought I saw a whisper of dark-brown hair and tea steam when I turned, like she was watching us covertly but I could detect no sign of her face.

I’d seen her sort in anime before. The shy girl, the submissive girl who makes soft, cute noises. Not the weird kind of shy girl, more sullen, which Nana seemed to typify. But yet, as I watched Katsumi taken aback by what I’d said, I had to wonder how neatly any of them fit into the sort of clichés I knew. These were living anime girls I was dealing with, not ones on a page or a screen.

In Ms. Ishida’s gentle looks at me, I remembered to tell her we’d found the books and the family album, despite Jamie’s calls to be cautious. She clapped her hands gently and touched my shoulder. “I’m glad. But, more importantly, do you need to sit? Would you like some tea? I’m sure this is a bit of a shock. Are your friends alright?”

I assured her it was fine. I seemed to stay on my feet. Katsumi was the one she should be focusing her attention on and I told her so. Katsumi nearly gave me the sort of look she always gave Ms. Ishida, but she quickly glanced away.

I heard a ringing phone from the area of the kitchen.

We helped Katsumi over to the couch. Ms. Ishida rushed away to get more tea and answer the phone. Katsumi pressed her hands against the material of the couch. Without prompting, she said, “Were there any other changes? I mean. I imagined you having, you know… girl parts between your legs. Fair warning, by the way.”

I shook my head. I couldn’t tell if it was a look of disappointment or relief that Katsumi gave me in return. I asked her if it was okay to sit beside her.

She looked at me. She looked to the open spot to her left, then tersely stated, “Sit on the other couch.” So much for progress. But I sat there without a word of complaint.

A moment of silence passed like before with Ami. Katsumi broke it by saying, “So, I’m supposed to believe that you three are slowly changing into girls. And what do you want from me?” Her words didn’t sound so much an accusation as seeking clarity. I didn’t have much to give her. But I figured now she would listen to what I had to say about Carolyn and Shiori.

She listened to both. Her reaction was biased. “Ick. For a girl to change into a boy. It disturbs me, but she seems to prefer it. I would make an exception for her to enter this house without protest because she was once a girl. I don’t like it though. What I do like is what you say about this librarian. I think I remember her. I remember the piles of books. I never figured that about her though. But if such a thing happened to her, then that makes me wonder about the three of you.” Her eyes flashed with some of the familiar fire I’d seen in her from the topic of making girls from boys.

I used a particularly-high, girlish note to ask her, “Oh?” I thought I saw a bit of Nina’s hair flicker nearby, but when I looked, nothing was there. That girl sure was peculiar.

Katsumi seemed to be getting back her swagger. She laid an arm out. “It means that one girl may have already been made and you three are rather quickly becoming more feminine than masculine. Someone or something somewhere is doing it. If it’s me, I want to learn how and why. If it’s someone else, I want to learn how and why from them in the most severe way possible.” I expected her to brag a little more than that, but at least her priorities were the same as always.

Against my better judgment and Jamie probably chewing me out later, I took out the recipe paper and handed it to Katsumi. “We found this in the books. If the person who brought us here, who may also be the person changing us, was reading those books, then that could be some sort of clue about them.”

She read through the paper several times, her emerald eyes pierced it like a warrior threatening someone at the point of a sword for information. The information ultimately eluded her despite repeated searching. She flipped it back to me. “Makes no sense to me. Probably just wastepaper anyway.”

I clutched it tightly. She brushed at her hair with her hands and gave a cough. “Come out, Nina. I know you’re there.” This time, Nina was frozen in place. She shuffled closer, an intangible look on her face.

Ms. Ishida came back with a plate of steaming teacups and set it on the footstool. “Mami just called. She’ll be a few minutes late. She said she’s getting a present for someone she knows.” My eyes widened a bit, not as though they weren’t wide enough already. Mami certainly didn’t seem like the type to give gifts without some sort of blackmail involved. I naturally looked to Katsumi, who appeared bored. She asked, “So, is another change going to happen anytime soon? Do I need to think it?”

I had no answers for her. I asked, “Are you going to, knowing that it might turn us into girls?”

She stood. “What I think about is my own business, I don’t have to tell you. It’s probably someone else doing it anyway. Not that it matters. I’ll figure out their secret. For now, I wasn’t done purifying that room. And we really should sprinkle water at the front door in the morning and before going to bed. Who knows what… might show up…”

She flashed a look at Ms. Ishida, who smiled and said, “If they’re demons, then I get to talk their ears off.” Nina’s hands went to the sides of her head. Katsumi rolled her eyes and beckoned Nina to come with her. Nina followed hesitantly.

Since I’d told Katsumi about Shiori and Carolyn, I figured it was probably time to tell Ms. Ishida. She listened carefully and when I was done, she broke in with, “I’m sure Katsumi was thrilled to hear… half of that at least. Do you really think she could be responsible for what’s happening to you three?”

I shrugged, although I figured it was looking unlikely. If it was by force of will, then telling Katsumi would’ve made us into the most feminine girls imaginable. But that hadn’t happened. I had to suspect something else was afoot.

I also figured it was time to show the recipe to Ms. Ishida. I did stop short of telling her about the unusual persons in the family album. At least when Jamie chewed me out, I could tell him I didn’t mention that to anyone yet.

Ms. Ishida traced the paper with her finger several times. She lingered on it like a work of art, like a puzzle trying to reveal itself to her. She murmured a bit then said out loud, “That’s so odd. This can’t be a real recipe. There’re no real ingredients listed. I don’t think it’s cut off, because there’s too little space at the top. It could be the bottom half of something though.”

I hadn’t considered there were two halves to this recipe. All the slips were alike but maybe there was a top part around somewhere. I realized, looking at the slip of paper and thinking back to the words on the karaoke screen, that the kanji, while still there, was barely visible now. It was being replaced by the English version. The idea of that happening didn’t bother me too much. Overlays were disconcerting. But it worried me about what it might mean for us being saturated by this world.

She kept talking in soft murmurs. “A stock. That’s an odd name for something to put in a dish. If it is a dish. Sounds more like nabemono, a big pot of food. That could explain stock, just a stock of a lot of things. If the ingredients were earlier, then that would help. But then it just calls them ‘ingredients’. Blended though. How strange. I don’t know why they would have you puncture something. And let it fill. I’m afraid I can’t make much sense of it. Simmer for nine… m? Nine m? What is that supposed to mean? Introduce slowly. Be patient… Serves three.”

It was like a beacon flashed in my head. I asked Ms. Ishida for the paper and looked it over. I couldn’t make much sense of it. But the numbers stuck out to me.

Nine and three.

Where was the thought leading me? Nine was a composite number, if I recalled right. It was also a lucky number. As was three. And three was a lucky prime. If you multiply nine by itself and any number other than zero, its numerals added up to nine again. Nine times five is forty-five… Four plus five becomes nine.

Three was the only other number that did that, right? It made the two of them quite significant from a mathematical perspective. But did this have something to do with the possible wormhole which brought us here, or was it just a quirk of the numbers listed?

Maybe I was looking at this the wrong way. What other meanings did those two have? Nine was the atomic number of fluorine… or nitrogen… my atomic numbers were hazy. Probably fluorine. Nine planets. No, wait. Just eight now.

I remembered that Nathan once told me there were nine parts to the New Testament. And I remembered from college English that Dante describes nine levels of Heaven and Hell. I rather hoped we were in neither. The Norse loved nine too. And the Greeks had nine muses.

I paused a moment there. Nine muses. That was an ‘m’. Then, I struck myself in the head. Ms. Ishida looked concerned.

I explained, “There are nine people here. Well, residents here.”

Unless I used Katsumi’s ‘maiden’ terminology, that wouldn’t match with the form.

I set aside nine for a moment and looked back at three. Prime. Three sides form a triangle. My brain was not meant to remember all this. I wish I had an internet search. There was a computer in the other room, but I wasn’t sure if all the number values would be comparable to what I knew. Although it could be more relevant, perhaps. I stuck with using my brain to figure it out.

Okay. Three main colors. Lithium. The trinity. The triple goddesses. Carolyn taught me that one. It’s a magic number. 33 AD and Christ. Nathan taught me that one.

Maybe I was trying to be a bit too technical with all this. I went back to nine. That was when it hit me. I gulped down. It couldn’t be that but when I considered it, the other number made sense. The whole thing came together in a strange and frightening way.

“What is it?” Ms. Ishida asked. I looked over the recipe one more time then I told her what I was thinking.

“I have a hunch. I think nine is for nine months. The exact amount of time we were skipped ahead from our world. And the three… Me, Nathan, and Jamie…”

I could tell Ms. Ishida knew what I was getting at. Her hand went right to her mouth in surprise. I finished my thought, “I don’t think this is a recipe for a dish. I think it’s a recipe related to me and my friends. And, if that’s true, then it could be proof someone planned our coming to this world. And maybe they even planned what’s happening to us now.”