Half World (5 page)

“Ms. Wei doesn't often have guests,” Ms. Wei apologized. She cleared off part of the table and gestured for Melanie to sit.

Melanie sat on the crushed velvet seat and curled her fingers over the carved wooden arms of the chair. Ms. Wei put water on to boil in the kitchen. Melanie sagged back in her seat and her eyes began to grow heavy with exhaustion. She jolted upright when Ms. Wei set down a teapot and two cups with a soft
thump
.

Ms. Wei's crinkly eyes narrowed. She poured out brown tea, a nutty aroma filling the air. Melanie drank the hot liquid gingerly. It was delicious.

Ms. Wei's eyes narrowed even more. “Is Melanie hungry?”

Melanie looked up from her cup. It took several seconds before the words sank in. She nodded.

“Melanie must first eat before she tells her story,” Ms. Wei said emphatically.

“No, I have to hurry. My mum—”

“Melanie cannot think or make good choices if she is hungry. Eat first. Talk later!” Ms. Wei went back into the kitchen. She set something to whir and turn in the microwave. Melanie heard the
crack
,
crack
of eggshells, the sound of mixing. She slowly nodded off once more until the
thump
,
thump
of plates being set before her jolted her out of her stupor.

“Eat,” Ms. Wei said.

Melanie fell to the simple meal of hot broth, stir-fried pea leaves, and scrambled eggs. Hot rice. Each bite was full of flavor, savory and nourishing, and Melanie could feel her unsettled emotions grounding, her wits returning. When she was finished, Ms. Wei added more water to the teapot. She refilled Melanie's cup, then focused her sharp eyes upon the girl's face.

“Talk.”

She began slowly, at first, and when Ms. Wei did not interrupt with questions or ridicule, the words tumbled from Melanie's lips. She told her everything that had happened that afternoon and evening. “As I was running from the house,” Melanie concluded, “the phone started ringing again. And it shouldn't have.” Melanie shook her head. “‘Half World,' he said. ‘Realm of Flesh.' Could such a thing possibly be, Ms. Wei? He's just a crazy man and I should phone the police, right? ‘Mr. Glueskin,' he said.” Melanie shuddered at his repulsive name. “Is this all true?” She looked up from her empty cup. Ms. Wei's eyes were closed. Had she fallen asleep?

Ms. Wei stood up so quickly, her chair clattered on the hard wood floor. The old woman rushed from the table to her filing cabinets. Using a key she had on a chain around her neck, she unlocked one of the cabinets and began to slide open heavy drawers, rifling through folders. The smell of ancient dust filled the air. Melanie sneezed.

The old woman was swearing. She slammed shut the lowest drawer, relocked the cabinet, then turned to the second one and began rummaging once more. “Hah!” she shouted. “Ms. Wei knew it! It sounded familiar!”

“What? What!” Melanie demanded.

Ms. Wei held up an old file folder with great care. The old woman brought her prize to the table. She ran off to her kitchen and came back wearing white cotton gloves. Melanie frowned, bewildered.

“There is natural acid on hands, on the skin,” Ms. Wei explained as she carefully opened the folder. “If they touch ancient things with their skin they can damage it.” She looked up and winked. “Ms. Wei was an archivist before she came to this country,” she said in a conspiratorial tone. “Ms. Wei comes from a long line of archivists and scholars. One day, many years ago, a younger Ms. Wei was looking for interesting books at Macleod's when she found a very old copy of the
Tibetan Book of the Dead.
It was an edition she had never seen before. She bought it and took it home and this little scrap of ancient paper fell out of it!”

She removed a small envelope from the folder and gently tipped a ragged fragment of yellow paper into her palm. On the surface was a wriggling script that Melanie could not identify. It didn't look at all like Chinese characters, but what did she know? Her throat was tight. “What does this have to do with my mum?” she whispered hoarsely.

“Shhhht!”
Ms. Wei commanded. “Look. Look and listen. Listen with your entire spirit.”

Melanie stared at the script, and as she traced the strange lines with her eyes her heart began to open like the petals of a flower.

The wriggling script began to move, to undulate and weave on the page, the faint black ink re-forming into letter, words:

Melanie stopped breathing. Her thoughts clicked like an old-fashioned clock. That vile Mr. Glueskin. On the phone. He said that her mother had made a pact. Fourteen years. So that she could raise Melanie in the Realm of Flesh.

And—

The photo of her parents. The “Wanted” poster description.

It had mentioned Half World, too. . . .

“Ms. Wei,” Melanie said grimly, “I have to go.”

“What did Melanie see?” Ms. Wei asked.

Melanie glanced at the script, but it had reverted to its original unreadable form. She blinked with frustration. She couldn't remember things exactly, one of the reasons she did so poorly in school. “It said—it said something about the thing that shouldn't be stopping. When the impossible baby is born in Half World.”

“Ohhhh,” Ms. Wei breathed.

“Is that what you saw?” Melanie asked.

The old woman shook her head. “Ms. Wei saw something else. It changes for people, perhaps. Ms. Wei's message said, ‘From the darkness comes a Half World child to be well tended.'”

Melanie gasped. “Is that me? Tonight?”

“It may be.” Ms. Wei shrugged. “This must be part of a prophecy. But the prophecy must change all the time as life moves forward. The prophecy must be forced to change, but it also has the capacity to change the future. At least that is what Ms. Wei has come to understand. . . . ”

“Ms. Wei”—Melanie gulped—“are you human?”

Ms. Wei's small dark eyes widened.

Melanie held her breath. Had she insulted her only friend? Or had she discovered the secret of the monster who would now be forced to kill her?

The old woman began to laugh. “Ba! Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaaaaaah!” she bellowed, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. “Ahhh, Melanie. Ms. Wei wishes she was not trapped being a human mortal, but that is all we have. Some of the most ancient books on these shelves speak of a time that might have been. When we were not trapped as mortals in a world of suffering and hardship. A time when all living things died and went to different Realms. Many of the religions, now, echo this sentiment. Heaven and Hell. Nirvana. Paradise. Purgatory. Ms. Wei does not believe in these things. But a better cycle than the one we live in now, Ms. Wei hopes for this with all her spirit.”

Melanie shook her head, her mind already moving toward the trek to the Cassiar Tunnel.

Ms. Wei placed the ancient scrap of paper in the envelope and put it back into the file folder. She removed her white gloves and began bustling about the room, tossing items onto a chair: a black backpack, granola bars, matches, several black garbage bags, a pocketknife, a coil of rope, a bag of nuts and raisins. She ran downstairs and came back up carrying four small bottles of water.

“What are you doing?” Melanie asked.

“We need provisions. Where did Ms. Wei put that flashlight?”

When the old woman's use of “we” sank in, a warm smile lit up Melanie's somber face like a beacon.

Ms. Wei took another key from a clip on her trousers and opened a small wooden cabinet beside the bookshelf. “We need them now,” she muttered. She unwrapped some objects bundled in faded red silk and set them upon the table.

One was a small white stone sculpture. It was so worn with age the details were indistinct, but Melanie thought it might be a cat. The second item was a smaller piece of green jade, an amulet tied to red string. Melanie thought it looked like a rat. Ms. Wei held the amulet up to the light and it twirled slowly. The jade was a deep imperial green, darker in the center and more transparent at the edges. The old woman tied the red string around Melanie's neck and kissed her forehead as if bestowing a benediction.

“Let Jade Rat bring Melanie luck and strength. Jade Rat has been in Ms. Wei's family for more years than can be remembered. Ms. Wei gifts it to Melanie now. Carry hope and faith.” The old woman turned to the small cat sculpture. “White Cat!” Ms. Wei commanded. “Don't let this old woman down!” She sniffed. “Cats are so self-centered,” she grumbled beneath her breath.

“Now!” Ms. Wei said. “We are ready!”

MS. WEI HAD
the cab driver drop them off on the corner of Cassiar and Adanac streets.

Melanie stared wide-eyed all about her.

Adanac Street bisected the Tunnel from above. Melanie could feel the rumble of large trucks vibrating beneath her thin runners.

“Be careful!” the cabbie called out before driving away.

“Nice man,” Ms. Wei muttered approvingly.

The sidewalk of the Adanac overpass was guarded only by a low double concrete wall. A strip of grass grew inside this barrier. There was nothing else. No mesh, no nets, no high fence. If someone fleeing along Adanac didn't know any better, they could hop right over the ledge only to plummet twenty-five feet straight down onto the freeway. If the fall didn't kill them, a vehicle roaring out of the mouth of the Cassiar Tunnel certainly would. . . .

Melanie hopped awkwardly on top of the concrete wall and stood in the strip of grass. It was late. There were few vehicles. But when they rushed past, the noise and the lights were dizzying.

There was no access to the freeway along the west side of the tunnels, only a sheer drop-off, a concrete wall. But along the east side, a long sloping bed of ivy led to the freeway below. Orange street lamps cast a strange glow upon the foliage. In the darkness of the night, the green space looked almost sinister.

Melanie frowned. “How did you know we could get to the tunnels this way?” They were well out of their own neighborhood. How had the old woman known that this was the best spot? Doubt began to grow inside her chest.

Ms. Wei was silent for several seconds. Then she let out a self-deprecatory noise. “Ahhh, Melanie. Ms. Wei was very sad after Nora Stein was killed. Ms. Wei even thought she should just end it all. But Ms. Wei is scared of heights. Ms. Wei doesn't like water. So she thought she could jump off a lower bridge and get hit by a truck.” The old woman dragged her arm over her eyes. She laughed. “But Ms. Wei thought it would not be nice to cause a driver so much trouble! So she looked over this bridge, then went home. Hah!” The old woman extended her hand so that Melanie could help her up onto the concrete wall.

They both stood on the ledge and looked over the side, at the roar of a delivery truck being swallowed by the tunnel.

“I'm glad you didn't jump,” Melanie said in a low voice.

“Thank you,” Ms. Wei answered. “Ms. Wei is glad, also.”

They scrambled over the corner of the concrete divider into the sloping ivy. The mesh of vines wrapped around their feet and they fell several times before they were finally at the bottom, sweaty, scratched, and breathless. They stood beside the freeway.

The two holes of the Cassiar Tunnel yawned like open mouths.

Ms. Wei turned to the young girl. “The glue man. He said the Cassiar Tunnel. Inside the tunnel. There are two of them. Which one do we enter?”

Melanie bit her lip. Was it south? It had something to do with the sunny side. . . . “The west side!”

They would have to cross the oncoming traffic in order to get to the west tunnel.