Chapter 17 – Clues from Mecchen House (cont.)

I started with a shrug. The sound seemed muted and yet more intense along the path. I wondered a moment if he noticed things as cute on me as much as I did on him. I stumbled at that thought but said, “Nothing special. I just try to piece it together. I try to understand it. I try to illuminate things for myself and, hopefully, others.”

Jamie scuffed the ground and half-circled around me. “Illuminate? Really? Then why do you choose to leave so many in the dark? Why do you keep things for irrational reasons? And why do you tell things that cause so much worry?”

His hair flipped one way then the other like a roughly-yanked drape. His muddy eyes darted at me. He waited for my answer.

“I don’t say these things with any intent. I just want to understand. I want it all to make sense. Don’t you? Don’t you want to understand it? Wouldn’t that make things steadier? Wouldn’t that help?”

He lowered his head. “And what about keeping things?”

“I wouldn’t be the only one. You’ve kept plenty from Nana in your suspicions of her.”

He shook a finger. “I still keep them.”

I continued, “The point is… I wasn’t trying to trick Ms. Ishida or any of the other girls. I just didn’t want to upset them. How would you like to be told that your world is actually the warped version of someone else’s world?”

“Who says that’s not what happened?” Jamie spoke with surprising calm, his eyes drifting to the trees above.

“What do you mean?”

He kept his eyes up but laid out a palm. “Pretend I understand what the heck I’m about the say as I lay it all out. First, we will suppose this is the world or universe or dimension… whatever you want to call it… that we recall for twenty-some odd years of life.” He tapped the ground with his foot for emphasis. “In some ways, it’s the same but, in others, it has changed dramatically.

“Let us further suppose that this was done intentionally. Something or someone wanted this to happen. There have been these little clues and whatnot, after all. So, let’s also say that… whatever it or they are… wants us to somehow figure it out or wants to hint at what they’ve done. That work for you?”

I fingered my pocket and pulled out the bookmark.

He nodded. “I’d consider that the prime clue, along with anything Nana has said. Let’s read it again.”

I knew it well enough to recite the main parts, but it was good to check.

Jamie went line-by-line.

“Alright. ‘The ingredients are variable.’ If we have some strange… ‘cook’ planning all this, then the ingredients could be another name for… universes? If you’re cooking on a massive scale. Then this ‘recipe’ would be ‘how to prepare a universe to turn it into a cartoon world where boys turn into girls.’ Julia Child would be orgastic.”

I gave Jamie a look, but I was glad he still had his sense of humor. I tried to sneak a grin by the side of my mouth, but Jamie seemed to notice it anyway.

“Then we have the basic… composition of our cosmic recipe. One full stock and one empty stock. There’re several ways to interpret ‘stock’. One where you have your head and arms locked up. One where people run and try to sell and buy. But since there’s a motif of food analogies, I’m guessing it’s like a beef stock. A broth which can be mixed with other things… producing a stew. With ingredients.”

I pointed out though, “What about like… raw materials in building something?”

“Possible. Only, there are two. One defined as ‘empty’, the other ‘full’. Like two bags of stuff. To us, maybe it’s like a whole universe. But to some other, different being, it’s just two sets of ingredients. One is punctured and its contents put into the other. And that empty one is just…” He made a motion like throwing a crumpled ball at an invisible trashcan.

I let that sink in. If we supposed that the ‘stocks’ were indeed universes, then it was possible at least one had been discarded. An entire universe completely wiped out for a ‘recipe’. I shook my head slowly.

Jamie sighed. “Imagine what old Ben Kenobi would say about that.”

I coughed. “Of course, we’re only supposing about all this. We can’t know for sure.”

Jamie shrugged. “Something like that. But my question is ‘are the two stocks something outside of us that affected us somehow’? Or are we ‘full’ now?”

“Or we could be discarded.”

Jamie shook his head. “But then what of the rest of the recipe?”

“Right.”

We walked away from the alley. Figures passed in a moment through the opening and vanished at the end.

“What about the ingredients?” I asked.

He gestured around. “It would have to be everything we see here. All blended and combined and cooked.”

I glanced at the bookmark and pointed. “The full… container for the ‘stock’ is discarded too.”

Jamie read over it and frowned. “Oh well. Then I guess Ben wouldn’t be quite so bothered. Or he could be totally pissed.”

“But what is the container?”

Jamie took a stab. “The confines of reality? No? I don’t watch enough trippy films. But we can say this recipe has changed the order of things. Now we get into easier territory. We know things were ‘simmering’ for nine months. Perceived months, at least.”

He seemed a lot better at deciphering this than he’d probably give himself credit. I was amazed by how quickly and logically it all fell into place. Of course, we could be leading ourselves down precisely the wrong path.

He slowed a little in his reading. “Then we have another little bit about ingredients. There are stages here. Ingredients form the initial composition, then there are ones that are introduced into the recipe.”

I rubbed my red hair. “But what do they represent?”

Jamie snorted and turned the bookmark over in his hands. “They could be anything. They could be things we may not expect. A single object. An entire system of physics. A time period…”

That would make sense of why it had to be introduced slowly with time to permeate the ‘dish’. But what would ‘slowly’ mean to something that could discard what holds a universe’s composition? And what would all this go into?

Neither of us had a clear idea of that but Jamie supposed, “What if… there’s like a window? What’s happening can be observed. Attentively-observed. And stirred. And strained.”

I could see his eyes beginning to gloss over as he looked at the bookmark and remarked, “Sheesh. This needs a professor in physics.”

“We can do this. Come on.”

Jamie let out a soft breath. “It seems to me that even if this isn’t an entirely-accurate depiction of what’s happening, if we say that this was an intentional clue placed in our path, then it must mean something. The numbers are there because someone wants us to associate it with ourselves. What worries me above anything is what happens at the end… When the ‘meal’ is ready to be served…”

It definitely felt like a clue to me. And some part of me wondered if it was all connected together how Jamie described. I just didn’t have enough of the puzzle to truly articulate it to myself. But that vision had changed so much.

I reminded Jamie of what it had told us.

He passed the bookmark back to me. “I’ve thought on that even though my rational mind might be skeptical. It could well be another clue, but it makes me wonder why all the clues seem to be concentrated around you.”

“I’d like to know as well.”

We shared a quiet moment before Jamie raised his tiny palm with all five fingers extended.

“I think we need to ask some big questions about all this. We may not be journalists, but in any investigation, it needs to be asked, first of all, ‘who’?”

“Who?”

“Yes. Who are we talking about in all this? Who or what, actually.”

It was a hazy proposition, but I had a few prime suspects.

“Well, there’s Nana, as you prefer, and the mysterious girl I’ve seen twice. And there’s also Toki, Masuyo, Hitomi, and the old man and woman.”

“Why those? And the ‘mysterious girl’? You said it was Hitomi.”

I pointed out they were present in the vision. And I explained to him that the mysterious girl was someone I described in my rush as Hitomi but really she looked like someone who had traits of both Nana and Hitomi, while not being either girl.

Jamie started walking back towards the alley. “Can we suppose this girl could be either Nana or Hitomi in some form… perhaps both?”

“Both?”

“Suppose they’re working together. You said Nana wanted to help… help Hitomi specifically. Who knows what that girl can do with her geeky stuff in that room.”

“What if they’re working for someone else?”

Jamie rocked his head back. “Pleeease… don’t go inventing people. My brain is already throbbing.”

“Sorry. But Nana seems so honest and willing to help. Why would she be involved in something like this?”

“We should both know by now… that it’s the way you say something to Nana more than what she says that means everything. And hell, she could’ve been a snake before, if the entire structure of reality has been undone and remade.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m just musing.”

“Why a snake?”

“I DON’T KNOOOOW! …Alright? It was just something I pulled out of my head. Sheesh. Next question. We can’t really know ‘where’ except for what we can see, which is here. ‘How’ would just be supposition. ‘When’ seems to say things were set in motion nine months ago.”

“Why?”

“We’re not on ‘why’ yet.” He tapped a tree with his foot.

“I mean why does it have to be nine months ago? You did say it was only from our perspective.” Then, a thought suddenly chilled me. I remembered the feeling when we left our apartment for the last time and said, “It could well be, if someone was involved, then they were planning this for quite a while. Even when we saw no changes in the world, it’s possible something was still happening to us… or around us.” I also thought of how vacant the world seemed when we went on our walk. Had the composition of the universe already started to break down then? I felt woozy, and my knees felt weak. I had to support myself against one of the trees and take a few breaths.

Jamie offered a tentative hand on my shoulder, which he quickly took away when I noticed the gesture.

He asked, “So you’re supposing… we had hints before all this happened?”

My mind immediately latched onto the moment when Nathan proposed we visit the anime shop. “There could’ve been something like bleed-through before. I mean I know for a fact that shop wasn’t there. If Nathan saw it then it could’ve been a little bit of something else in our world.”

Then, I thought of the figurines.

“Oh my gosh… I had these figurines near my computer. I didn’t really remember them from before.”

Jamie nodded. “Oh yeah, I saw them. The trio, right? I had to borrow a book from you that morning… remember? I don’t know why, but they drew my eye for some reason.”

I recalled it vividly, unlike all the other things in my life before this.

Jamie had borrowed a book by Ray Bradbury. The Illustrated Man. I wondered if that book even existed anymore or that author. Or had they ever existed? Or had whatever did this put that there as another hint of some sort?

I could see how Jamie felt frustrated.

But it was the figurines that truly worried me.

I asked Jamie, quite deliberately, “Do you remember what those figures looked like?”

It took a moment of his rattling off their descriptions for it to finally click with him and the words, “Oh! NO WAY! That’s just… crazy!” to come out of his mouth.

He caught tremors of hair across his face as he shook his head back and forth.

“No! The… figures. There was a redhead, a blond, and a blue-haired chick. They… the BLOND! She was STACKED, darn it!”

[Jamie before and Jamie maybe soon...]

Jamie crumpled on the ground and touched his hands to his flat chest. Then he punched the ground and yelled, “CURSE YOU! WHATEVER YOU ARE! WHY??? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”

It was the next question, but I figured Jamie wasn’t asking me. After a few moments of raging, he stood up, and coughed into his hands.

He said, “I don’t think the other two figures were very… big. But they still looked like girls. The blue-haired one more so.”

I proposed an alternative idea. “What if it was just a side effect of us seeing the figures before all this happened? Nathan saw them too. And so did I.”

“Then I wish I would’ve seen a figurine of a guy with more muscles than even Nathan used to have. But I highly doubt it. The recipe suggests that whoever did this had a lot of control.”

“Or wants us to think they do with these clues,” I offered.

“Also possible, but if they can do all this stuff to entire universes then guiding our changes should be a piece of cake. Which means we need to take a real look at ‘why’. Why do all this?”

“Sisters. It or she seems to think we are its sisters. The three of us.”

Jamie tapped the edge of the pavement. “I sure as heck wouldn’t destroy realities just for the sake of my sister. So, I don’t really get it.”

The wind picked up a little, funneled through the narrow space between buildings. Jamie’s hair moved like an amber flag.

I posed, “Maybe it just somehow thinks we’re connected to it or wants things that way?”

“Supposition but possible. Either we really are its… sisters… or it is really mistaken or deluded. Probably both.”

A gust nearly toppled us. I put the bookmark away safely and we edged into the protective cover of the trees. The wind died down after a moment.

Jamie fixed his twisted hair, picked up a lost pin from the ground, and put it back in place. “We can’t know any of this is true, but it all seems to make sense with events. Come on, we need to keep going. And maybe Carolyn will be able to… help our theories and help trim these oppressive locks… a little.”

He looked forward, but I could tell there was a tinge of doubt in his words.