Awakening
didn’t love me.
So I X them.
Black curves like ivy, or like snakes, decorated the ceiling. As my eyes followed the patterns, I noticed how regulated they were. Buried in a soft bed, I gazed up at the unfamiliar ceiling.
How comforting. I had only just awoken, yet already felt ready to fall asleep again.
In the corner of my thoughts, a calm part of me asked:
My light purple hair fell upon the pure white sheets. Yes, rather than a dirty blanket, beautiful embroidered sheets covered my body. They were so smooth, I found it hard to escape this dreamy state of mind.
It was a lovable room.
The color red drew my eyes to a table, upon which I saw flowers. So that was why I could smell them despite being inside.
“Up and at ‘em?”
I squinted at the rays of light coming through the window.
I faintly recalled the black cat’s figure, and his boyish, overly-familiar voice.
“Told you, didn’t I? It’s your house.”
I did feel like he had said that. Going back through my memory, I found there was nothing whatsoever after nodding to the cat. I supposed I had lost consciousness just after, but how did I get here?
When…?
Stepping on the flowery tile, I went over toward the window where the cat sat.
Outside, I could see many large trees, with sunlight streaming through them.
Through dense, lively leaves, I could just barely see a light blue sky.
What’s more, this room was quite high up.
Absorbed in feeling the wind, I replied a few seconds late.
“That’s right. Thought I told you? I want to make you a witch.”
I looked at the cat doubtfully and blinked. Just then, a forelock swung into my eye.
“As for what a witch is? Well, you’ll figure it out soon enough,” he yawned, either unwilling to explain or not wanting to bother.
In this clean forest air, I felt like any words or thoughts were positive ones.
The black cat looked rather cute then, sitting in sunlight that made his fur look gray, the wind blowing at it. Yet he had looked rather eerie last night, in the darkness, with only his eyes dubiously gleaming.
“Hmm. Y'know, you got a pretty cute face, Ellen. Just what I like.”
What was he saying about this ugly face? I reached for my cheek to check for the swelling. Yet I was surprised to find my fingers touched smooth skin.
I met eyes with my reflection.
I took a few steps back and looked over my body. I couldn’t see so much as a trace of the ugly, sore skin. The only red on my body came from my big ribbon, my one-piece, and my lips hanging half-open in shock.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the mirror. I touched my cheek which had always been so swollen and sore. I could hear my heart pounding.
“Thing is, you can’t leave the house. 'Cause you’re a witch.”
“I… can’t go outside?”
“So what if you can’t? It sure ain’t a boring house, I can tell you that. C'mon, follow me.”
I quickly looked back to the windowsill. Yet though the cat had just been sitting there, he wasn’t anymore.
He spoke from the door with his back to me. He turned his head around and whipped his tail invitingly.
Sun streamed from the windows, warming up the wooden floor.
The hallway had pedestals placed at fixed intervals, decorated with red flowers. They were the same as the ones in the room I’d slept in.
I felt the water must have been freshly replaced. The petals and stem seemed so lively, covered with dew.
“What’re ya doin’?”, the black cat stopped and said.
At the bottom of the stairs was a door.
Opening the door, I found a large dining room with a fireplace.
The burning red candle flames sent heat through the room.
After the black cat spoke, the chair nearest the fireplace slid itself out.
Once the cat and I were seated, a teapot on the table began shaking. Then it floated into the air, and tilted itself to pour into a teacup. A reddish-brown liquid filled the cup with a pleasing sound.
Once the spoon settled back in place, the table returned to silence, as if nothing had happened. I stared at the steaming cup in front of me, dumbfounded.
I saw my face in the reflection of the drink. I took the teacup in both hands and slowly sipped it.
Warm. Sweet. It seemed to seep into my entire body. Though to be honest, before I drank it, the nice smell had overwhelmed my lungs - but that was all. I had never been so pleased by a drink before.
“No worries about starving here. Nor freezing, 'course.”
My mind was still hazy. As if I was taking in his words, the flavor rolled around my mouth.
I asked the name of the unfamiliar drink.
“Tea…”
All I had ever had to drink before was impure water and diluted soup. I never even knew such a delicious drink existed.
While I was asking questions, I looked over at the flowers in the corner of the room.
“Which ones?”
I pointed at the red flowers.
“Oh, they’re roses. You didn’t know that?”
Like before, I repeated the word in my mouth.
…There’s so much I don’t know, I thought.
I was befuddled by each and every happy thing presented to me. And I also began to accept the way of life in this house.
Click.
When I saw him, I nearly dropped my teacup.
“Sheesh, don’t startle her! You can’t just come in like that.”
“This is our cook,” the cat explained, and I looked him over again.
The cook nodded at the cat’s question and pushed the kitchen wagon over to me.
He took off the silver cover. And when he did, there came to my eyes and ears -
- the black cat in hysterics, and a muddy green soup.
All of a sudden, a black figure leapt onto the perfectly orderly table.
The cat complained, and the cook twisted his thick neck.
I don’t know where the voice came from, but it was low and hard to make out.
“Ugh. You seriously mistook her for the last one? This guy… Just make it normal. VERY normal. Do it again!”
“Man, he would come out with somethin’ weird… Sorry, I hope you can forgive me.”
The cat continued to mumble complaints.
…Last one?
“Did someone live here before me?”
“And… she was a witch, too?”
“Nobody’s lived in this house a long time. Really, reeeally long time.”
Even if no one had lived in it, it seemed very well prepared to accept me.
I recalled the touch of the water droplets on my finger.
A house that revives itself when someone lives there. Are there such houses as that? While it absolutely wasn’t normal, it seemed like a fitting description.
“Oh yeah, there’s a better place. Lemme show you.”
“Isn’t this the way we came?”
The black cat had opened the door we entered the dining room through, and we climbed up the stairs we’d just gone down. I was suspicious, but followed him.
“This waaay!”, the cat called from down the hall. He had traveled quite a distance while I looked away.
I placed my palm on the wall that had been stairs, then hurried off after the cat.
The black cat stopped in front of a thick door.
The door opened with a comforting sense of heaviness.
Inside the room were long continuous rows of bookshelves. One row after another; I couldn’t see the end of them. The walls were packed with bookshelves too, reaching as high as the ceiling.
It was a room that carried the stillness of the indoors on a rainy day.
Perhaps picking up on this, the black cat spoke like a tour guide.
The shelves were neatly lined of books large and small, their covers spanning the color spectrum. And all the books seemed to be waiting for me to reach for them at any moment.
“Ellen. Can you not read?”
He was correct.
He brushed his tail against my ankle and walked toward the back of the room. I followed.
In the back of the room was a long wooden desk and a chair.
I sat in the chair that pulled itself out.
The cat jumped up on the desk and started to hum. He seemed to be enjoying himself more than me.
Those flowers again. Were they in every room?
I asked, not taking my eyes off the roses, “About the person who lived here before…”
“Did they like roses?”
“Yeah,” then turning back to me, he said “You’ll come to, too.”
In truth, I was already beginning to. I felt something coming from those roses that grabbed my heart and wouldn’t let go. I wonder why they made my heart beat fast?
Breaking from thought, I looked at the cat.
As he spoke, the feather pen lifted up. It touched the ink, then whirled and danced around the paper, drawing smooth letters.
I looked at my name as if eating into it. The feather pen came to my right hand and lost the force moving it.
I gripped the feather pen and wrote the letters. My hand trembled a little. Surely, I thought, because this would be a memorable first step in my learning.
In the corner of my vision, a petal fell off the rose.
2
I spent much time in the room of books for the next few days.
I picked out books at random from the innumerable supply. Yet doing this, I surprisingly found books just the right difficulty for me.
As he loitered around me, he would sometimes say things I didn’t quite understand, and tell me old stories.
Yet he didn’t seem to want much from me. If all it took was my parents’ souls to be given this life, I would have been satisfied with that being that.
Sometimes my parents would come to mind. But I soon forgot them. I didn’t need them now. I looked upon my past self coldly for desiring their love to such a degree.
Thinking that, my past self seemed so pathetic.
“The form of the witch’s house changes based upon the witch’s power.” That’s what the book I read that day said.
There were doors when I went back the way I came, and some stairs would lead to nowhere.
The house must have had rooms I had yet to see. I hadn’t found this room until today, in fact.
Surely there was no deep ground for it to reach into, yet in the center of the room was a single large tree with abundant leaves spreading its roots.
I sat on a wooden bench underneath the tree.
I felt like I’d seen a tree like this somewhere before.
But I pretended that I didn’t.
I was a resident of that town no longer. I wouldn’t remember anything about it. Because I was a witch. Here in this house, I was allowed to live freely.
To begin with, I thought that was fine. Because I had freedom here. Like he had said, I never felt bored here, and I would never freeze.
There were people living here who could talk. But I felt like they had no heart. Toys seemingly created to tide me over.
I wanted warmth. The first thing that came to mind was a human hand. A hand much like mine. A hand to hold. I wanted a human friend. That was the clear desire that came to mind next.
That desire heated up my chest.
I’ll go talk to him.
As if to still my heart, I put the book to my chest with both hands and stood up from the bench.
Suddenly, strange plants by the wall came into sight. The plants looked like coral with many red feelers reaching skyward, and they seemed to be whispering amongst each other.
I spoke to them. “Good day.”
“Good day. What do you need?”
I decided I’d try asking them.
“I do,” another red plant interjected.
“Simply go all the way down that hallway. You’ll find the black cat there,” it said, pointing.
“Thank you,” I said to them, then left. Once I did, the plants began whispering amongst each other again.
I entered the stone passage.
The floor, walls, and ceiling of the passage were all made of stone, and it was terribly dark. The light of the torches on the wall was weak.
Though I didn’t turn back. Because I knew that this house had no ill will against me. Because the residents of this house would surely not trouble me.
And yet… I thought. The feel of this paved stone. It was disgustingly similar to something in my memory.
A cold sweat came over me. I breathed restlessly, and began to walk again.
“Black cat? Are you here?”
As I walked, I found iron bars on the wall to my left.
My surroundings didn’t change one bit.
I took my foot away and looked down at the object.
My heart leapt up, and I thought it was going to stop.
That thing on the ground.
Suddenly, I heard moaning from down the hallway. A familiar voice. My pulse quickened. When I saw the human shape in the hall, I turned around -
“You up and at 'em?”
I was sleeping face-up in my usual bed.
…Had I been dreaming?
My soles still felt cold. I could still feel the sensation of stepping on the pipe.
“I had a weird dream.”
“Yeah…”
I was relieved it was just a dream, but I found I couldn’t answer to at what point it became one. The scene of that dark hallway made me restless.
I lied down like that for a while, then the black cat spoke.
“Huh?” I looked at the cat.
“You’ve only just learned to read. You need to study. Learn what’s right, and what’s not right. You need to read that stuff from between the lines. Of course, it’s the same when you’re talking to somebody.”
I scrunched up my face. He was talking about things I didn’t get again, so I didn’t reply, while he continued.
When he said that, I broke from my silence and sat up in realization, looking at him.
Suddenly, I noticed the color of the book on the table. Wasn’t that the book I had been reading?
Was it not a dream?
“Look, it’s my bad for not telling you. Though I did put those weirdos there 'cause I thought it’d help in your studies.”
“…”
I had questions.
But I wondered what would happen if I asked those questions.
I didn’t want to think about anything I had intentionally thrown away.
“Hmph, what is it?”
“I -”
I dropped my gaze and held the edge of my sheets. Even though I was free, my body simply wasn’t used to voicing my desires.
My throat finally produced it.
I felt the room go silent at once.
When I looked up at him, curious, I found that he was looking at me with much the same expression as always, though perhaps a little astonished.
“Invite one?”
He waved his tail. “'Cause you can’t leave the house. How else but to have them come to you? Your body’s got magic power in it. And that power extends to the surrounding forest, too. Think of the house as the brains, and the forest as the limbs. Well, you can just give it a try.”
My power. Was that my power as a witch?
The cat closed his eyes in example.
I did as he said and closed my eyes.
In the darkness, I imagined myself on the bed. Then the pattern of the floor spread outward, and the rest of the room appeared. Next, I saw the house’s red roof. Even though I had never seen the roof or known its color.
In the blink of an eye, my view flew up at incredible speed, widening.
I could see everything in the forest at a glance. Where there were rabbits, sticking their heads out. Where there were nests with mother birds protecting their eggs. I could sense the breath of every living thing in the forest.
“…Ah!”
The black cat looked at my face with worry.
What did he mean, “once the house is well”?
I got my breathing in order, closed my eyes again, and looked around in my vision.
Using my powers, I could see places that weren’t here.
I could hear the black cat from outside the vision in my head.
It was like there was a spider web over the forest, with the house at the center. When anything touched one of the threads, it would respond as if plucked. That was the sort of power it was.
But for what? Why did witches have this power? I didn’t think deeply on it then.
And then I found him.
“I told you, no! How many times you’ve asked me now?”
The cat let out a tired sigh. “You’ll be fine. You’re cute, Ellen.”
“Yeah. Look, your friend’s here already.”
Though it was more correct to say I got him lost there.
The cat was going to leave, then turned back, remembering.
“I know,” I groaned, when suddenly the door swung open. I almost fell over, and I hurried to brace my legs.
He had scruffy chestnut-colored hair. A tanned face dotted with freckles. Dirty, patched clothes, and he held a twig in his right hand. He gazed at the colorful flowers of the garden.
“This garden’s awesome! This your place?”, he asked, his eyes sparkling.
Just hearing him excited me, and I struggled to nod. He showed no timidity, curiosity bringing him inside the house.
“Um -”
I cleared my throat and pressed out some words.
Maybe it was a little too sudden.
“Really? Sure!”, he said with joy.
“Whoa, wow… It’s such a pretty house.” He looked around the spacious entryway.
“I-I…”
Gripping the ends of my skirt, I managed a smile.
“I’m… Ellen. Will you… be my friend?”
The boy started coming to visit my house regularly.
The boy felt like he’d found a secret place. Thus he wouldn’t “let it out” to anyone else, which for me was perfect.
The boy smiled at me. He said my name. When I waved, he waved back. I became entranced in playing with him.
“Oh, nothing.” It didn’t make any different if he was here or not.
He was lying down and reading an encyclopedia open on the floor.
I read the word he pointed to. “Um, it’s XXXXXXX (the bug’s name).”
“Yeah,” I giggled.
“Only the simple ones…”
The boy rested his chin in his hands and looked down at the encyclopedia’s illustrations.
I sat up, having thought of a good idea, and asked.
The boy thought for a moment, then shook his head.
“…My, father…”
“…I don’t know. What he does.”
“Hmm. But you live in such a big house, so I bet you’re pretty rich. And you got all these books. ’s nice. Would be nice to be a kid here. Ooh, cake!”
He waited for the cook to place the cake down, then ate it with a smile.
I smiled as well, but I was still thinking.
I felt my cheeks ache, and I touched them. Was it regret? Surely not. It was just loneliness. I could get along with this boy, and most kids like him, but I had no one like my parents.
I was overcome with loss. I had a hole in my chest. Through which the wind blew, making me shiver.
I looked down to check that it was perfectly normal skin.
Because I had become a witch, and was permitted to live here.
One night.
I wasn’t sure if it was a dream, or a scene I saw with my powers. I saw the black cat sitting up on a roof. I knew it was the roof of this house, from the shape and color.
Looking closer, there was a crow beside him. It was one to two times his size.
The cat responded with a few words. I couldn’t hear what they were.
The black cat returned to looking at the sky.
It was a rather clear, windless day.
I met him in the entryway and invited him to come inside as usual, but he stopped me.
“Outside?”
“I… can’t go outside.”
With my eyes swimming around, I said “Um, because, I’m sick.”
The boy carefully looked me over from the red ribbon atop my head, to my one-piece, to the ends of my toes, and laughed.
“……”
“There’s this HUGE bug on the log over there, and I wanna know if you know what it’s called.”
The black cat’s voice came back to me.
…Just come out for a little bit, you’ll live.
I pursed my lips.
I was already imagining playing with the boy in the garden a few seconds ahead, and put one foot forward.
I felt like I was whacked in the head with a mallet and fell to the ground.
The boy noticed and hurried back to me.
Trip? No, I had not tripped. A sharp pain attacked my joints, rendering me unable to stand.
I held my aching right eye. It ached? Why? I felt pain behind my eye, and noticed something warm leaking through my fingers.
The boy leaned back, realizing before me that it was blood.
Overreacting to his rejection, I insisted I was fine and forced a smile.
The boy’s face went pale and he backed away. He was already quite far away - now it looked like he was about to run.
I was confused myself, but tried to deny what was happening.
“WAAAAAHHH!!”
I reached my arm out for him.
…Why? Why are you running? We’d played together. You were my friend. Why…
My hand became a claw, reaching for the shrinking boy’s back.
“Aaahhh…”
At some point, the black cat had appeared next to me as I lied on the ground.
“I told you you couldn’t leave the house, Ellen,” he said, in a sing-songy “I told you so” way.
As if that word were a signal, my whole body shook. A familiar pain crawled up my legs and face. I felt a chill, yet the swollen areas of my skin and the backs of my eyes were horribly hot.
“My sickness wasn’t cured?”
I felt like I’d been pushed off a cliff.
When I became a witch, had I not been reborn?
“You lie.”
“You can be healthy inside the house. Because you’re protected by magic. But once you leave, it wears off. And you’re back to normal. Particularly since you were sick, it’s really best not to go out. So now you know.”
“And now you’ve made another one run.”
His phrasing made me shiver. Because it made me feel like he knew my past, and how my parents gave up on me because of my sickness.
“…What do you mean?”
Since he said it so casually, I didn’t immediately understand the gravity of it.
“That’s right,” the cat answered to the voice in my heart.
His words circled around in my head, and my vision went black.
…Forever?
If I couldn’t be cured, wouldn’t everything be the same as it had been? No, it would be even worse. To keep living with my sickness. To not die even as it worsened. I wouldn’t be able to leave that house. Would I be bound to live there - forever?
I wanted to tear at my body, like I’d done before. But I resisted it. Because I knew it wouldn’t solve anything. And because someone else was watching. And his heart would be pleased to see my emotions shifting.
Gradually, the impatience and sadness swirling inside me consolidated into a single emotion.
I endured the pain in my legs to stagger to my feet. Grinding my teeth hard enough I thought the back ones might break, I looked down at him.
He was waiting for me to take refuge back inside.
I wouldn’t grant him that.
“Oh, c'mon, Ellen. Don’t give me that look, you’re embarrassing me,” he said, not at all perturbed.
“…Why would you do that?”
The black cat didn’t answer.
“What’s the point?”
I went on in the verge of tears.
“Rather just die?”, he interrupted. My body shook.
“Weren’t you cold, in that alley? You didn’t have a house or anything anymore. You wanted someplace warm.”
“I gave you what you wanted. I wouldn’t think you should hate me for that. Warm food, knowledge, friends, oh, and I’m a friend too. And a healthy body to boot. Well, or so it seems, at least.”
“You didn’t even know. But you needed to.”
I tried to stay strong, but my voice trembled.
I looked at the black cat with an expression of disbelief.
“A human who doesn’t know warmth simply freezes to death. But one who does knows they’re cold as they die. So they’re unhappy. Get it? You were unhappy. But if you died like that, you’d be happy. You should have known your unhappiness.”
I screamed, turning pale. I didn’t want to hear any more. The strain made either blood or tears flow from my right eye down my swollen cheek.
“That’s ridiculous…”
But I felt I had the gist of it.
Now that I knew all these things, the reality of my sickness, compared to the time when I knew nothing, was much more severe.
The cat who had yet to show any movement shifted his gaze. He saw the knife and whistled.
I screamed and swung the knife down on the black cat.
He didn’t dodge.
He showed no pain, bulging his golden eyes up at me.
“It’s important that you shout "it’s cold,” Ellen.“
The cat nimbly leapt up and pushed me down.
I screamed. The intense pain of him directly touching the nerves in my cheek rippled through my body.
The cat brought his face close to me and opened his mouth. The knife still protruded from his side.
"You just want to live? Live a long life? No, you have a desire. Say it, Ellen. Tell me what it is you can’t bear not to have.”
I turned away. But he wouldn’t let me escape, and continued to whisper.
I didn’t want to hear it. I shouldn’t have. My ears tried to filter out every word, every syllable he said.
As I moaned, enduring the pain, I found my moaning turned to wailing.
…I knew. He didn’t have to tell me.
But wasn’t it all a lie?
Just like mother and father.
Because the curse of my sickness would go on forever.
I cried, like a deserted child. Like a child realizing no one would come to pick them up, so they just kept crying.
With no one loving me, my spirit would rot in this house.
Because I had naively accepted to become a witch.
My heart sunken into despair, I could see nothing.
Just when I was about to hear nothing as well,
I stopped crying and stared at the black cat. I felt the warm sunlight on my skin again. Come to think of it, it was still early afternoon.
I felt the pain and unpleasantness soften. The appearance of being cured calmed my heart.
“How, you might ask? Simple.”
“Just feed me like you did before,” he moved his mouth.
“I told you there was another way, didn’t I?”, his mouth.
“Feed me more people. And I’ll teach you a spell to cure yourself.”
The cat trotted toward me. He casually put a paw on my shoulder, coming near enough to my ear to eat it.
I sat at the dresser, looking at myself in the mirror.
In the mirror was a girl who had lost her expression.
I now saw that it was fake.
A bird tapped on the window with its beak.
I felt a sharp pain in my eyes.
I opened the front door.
When he saw me, his face brightened.
He sighed with relief, then faked an apologetic expression.
A monster.
I loosened my lips into a smile.
“Oh, please. I just tripped and got all muddy. I can’t believe you just ran away, XX (the boy’s name).”
“Heh,” I laughed with mouth only, keeping up my smile.
I invited the boy into the house.
I shut the door, quarantining the house from the outside world. I felt like the sound carried further than usual.
I pointed at the door in front of the entrance. The gesture and words were all done unconsciously.
He went into the room and shut the door. I knew that sound that would follow.
“Huh?”
“Hey, Ellen, there’s nothing here. And it got dark all of a su…? U-Uh? Ellen! Why’s it locked?!”
He was frightened by the sudden darkness, no doubt. While I listened, I took a few steps back and squatted against the wall.
“Quit jokin’ around!”, the boy shouted, furiously hitting the door. The sound grabbed at my heart, making me sad.
I distantly gazed at the door. I recalled the boy as I listened to his screams and the beating at the door.
I liked you.
But you scratched my heart. You hit a sore spot, never to be touched. My torn heart spewed pus, and I couldn’t move.
What it’s like to love, or be loved.
…Can I eat it?
You want to eat?, I answered in my heart.
You can, I answered.
The next moment.
A shock like a huge elephant ramming into a wall shook the house.
The boy’s voice stopped.
The walls of the house had squashed the boy’s body.
Because it was my house. It was like a part of my body.
The house made a sound of crunching