Chapter 7
I heard a whistling sound. It was close by, and I heard it every time I heaved my chest. So I knew that it was not the wind, but a sound coming from me.
On the little path to Ellen’s house.
The black cat had told me things I never wanted to hear.
After his words made me lose consciousness at the end of the conversation, I woke up on a cold floor.
It was pitch black before me. I could see nothing.
I could only hear my labored breathing.
I had no feeling beneath my thighs, and I remembered that it was because there were no legs there.
In the depths of my ears, I heard the voice of the black cat I’d just heard, and "my" laughter.
"Mine"?
Yes.
I heard my laughter. As my body laughed, I heard it leave the room and run down the hallway.
I was Viola. A thirteen-year-old girl.
I lived in a rural village with my father, a hunter.
But now, my body was Ellen.
A sick witch who had lived longer than she should have.
…And here I was after switching bodies with her.
Ellen’s memories, all the things she’d seen, were in her body.
On a whim, she had her magic compose it in her diary.
Her life in the slums. Her bedridden days. Her parents who didn’t love her. The back alley she ran into after killing them both. Her meeting with a demon, and the house she was taken to. The days she spent after becoming a witch.
All the way up to receiving a spell to cure her sickness, finding me, and switching bodies with me.
At that time…
I visited with a basket of flowers, and saw Ellen breathing laboriously.
Bandages were wrapped around both eyes.
I let go of the basket and ran over.
I gripped her hand, and listened carefully to each faint syllable out of her little lips.
Thinking on it now, I can’t exactly remember what we said to each other. I’m unable to.
After a word or two…
She said she could use magic.
And she said that she wanted to borrow my body, just for a day.
I felt so sorry for her, I lent her my body.
…And yet.
Ellen ran, leaving me behind.
She had me drink a medicine that burned my throat, and said she’d borrow my body forever.
Her betrayal echoed in my ears.
Her words pierced my chest and gouged the meat out of my heart.
My body was hot like a fire had been lit. I sobbed in terrible sorrow.
I thought of you as my friend.
Why?
…Why, you ask?
I heard the voice of the black cat.
Are you still saying that?
Surely you know.
Was it the black cat?
No.
The moment I realized that voice wasn’t his, suddenly a cutting pain ran through my throat, making me cough.
It was like something sharp had been stabbed in there and was twisting around.
…Tell the truth, or it’ll keep going, I felt I heard a voice say.
It was just like torture.
I clutched my throat with all my strength, desperately enduring as I rubbed my head on the floor.
As I was drenched in sweat, a part of my mind was clear. Dimly in my consciousness, I realized, and wrung out a yelp.
I knew.
I knew it would be painful in her body.
But if a girl younger than me could endure it, it couldn’t be that bad, I thought. I thought I could endure, too.
What if my body was stolen?
What if she didn’t give it back after I let her borrow it?
I didn’t even entertain those thoughts.
But thinking such terrifying thoughts at all made me embarra.s.sed.
Yet, embarra.s.sment over what?
Over Ellen, who I readily believed?
Over the voice of society, who said there must be good?
How did I really feel?
Didn’t I hate it?
…Being put into a body on the verge of dying?
Ah.
That’s it.
I had switched bodies with her.
But it wasn’t because I felt sorry for her.
It was because I wanted to be a kind-hearted person.
It was because I didn’t want to doubt her.
It was because I didn’t want "If only I could take your place" to have been a lie.
I was afraid.
Afraid of her. Then, in that room, as she smelled of death.
My legs trembled, wanting to flee.
My hands wanted to push her away.
But I was more afraid of something else.
Of the look of despair she’d give me if I said no.
That would have undeniably cut my heart into pieces like a cold blade of ice.
I complied with her wish.
Because I wanted to let her taste freedom, even if only for a day. And it seemed natural that I should bear her pain in the meantime.
Because I loved her. Because I felt sorry for her.
Because I smiled in such a way that showed I would never doubt her.
Those were the earnest feelings I had for her, so I decided to lend her my body.
But no, that was all nonsense.
I pretended to believe in my sweet friend and lied to myself.
…If it was that important to you, you shouldn’t have given it up so easily.
Her words came back to me.
She wanted to be loved.
Wasn’t I the same?
I wanted to be loved.
I wanted to be her kind-hearted friend to the end. The sole friend whom she could put her trust in. I wanted to love her, who’d said she loved me. I didn’t want to betray her who believed in me. Even if it came to giving up my body.
I shouldn’t have lied.
I should have believed the voice deep down yelling at me to say no.
Believed in father, who said he didn’t know such a girl.
…You can’t go back now.
The black cat’s words returned to me.
In my memory, his image was erased and replaced with myself.
The words I thought were the black cat’s, which I didn’t want to hear, were all my own.
…"For just one day… I want to borrow your body."
She appealed on the verge of tears.
I held her faintly trembling hand.
My soul was tested.
And I lost.
Eventually, the pain in my throat seemed to withdraw.
In its place came something warm from the backs of my eyes. Even though I couldn’t see, I felt it was red.
As if it were tears, I found it mysteriously comforting.
Ellen knew I would do this.
From the moment she found me in the forest, before we even met.
Knew I was kind, and wouldn’t betray her.
Knew I was foolish, and couldn’t refuse her.
Of course I would find myself comfortable around her. Because she knew more about me than I did.
When she looked into my eyes, she wasn’t looking at me.
She was looking at my body, and my expression that told of its life, its sights, and all the future ahead of it.
On the floor covered in bodily fluids, I heard a ringing in my ears.
Crawling along the cold floor like this, I felt like I’d always been here, since long ago.
Though it couldn’t be so. I was Viola.
But now I was Ellen. The witch who had lived in this house for centuries.
This body remembered her, and teasing me, it showed me her memories.
She had innumerable amounts of ill will.
It made me nauseous trying to explain it.
Though she knew me so well, I didn’t know her at all. The only thing I understood was that she desperately wanted to be loved. That was it.
She had sacrificed so many people for her desire.
She crushed human skulls like a child stepping on ants. But I also knew how it brought her agony.
All the people who died for her were her friends.
And I was one of them.
To her, "friend" was little more than a word to cla.s.sify people.
…Just, why?
With my meager imagination, I tried to find the reason why Ellen had been driven so mad.
Her life in poverty? Her misfortune of being born sick? Her parents who didn’t love her? The demon’s whisper?
She must have gone wrong somewhere.
And how could her heart have been brought back onto the right path?
I saw a shadow looking down on me as I thought.
It was Ellen.
Surely an illusion created by my memory. She looked down on me with a healthy body and a pitying expression.
Ellen squatted next to me and told me without emotion.
…I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not wrong. I’ve always lived the right way, haven’t I?
Something coughed out from the back of my throat. I didn’t know if it was peeling skin from my throat or something from my stomach. The sharp pain erased the phantom Ellen.
I closed my eyes, feeling dizzy.
My vision was the same blackness, but I felt somehow relieved to not have the air coming into my eyesockets.
I would die, in this room.
The owner’s soul released, this body delighted. The duty of its cells complete, they waited for death along with my soul.
…For a witch to die, must she despair?
If that were true, I would have died long ago.
Back when she betrayed me.
Back when I realized I’d been betrayed.
She was a witch, to the end.
She’d toyed with me, to the end.
She delighted in making me despair before my death, in ways that would please the demon.
All the days we’d spent together were nothing more but strategic preparation for today. Even her friendliness was just a game.
I felt my life like a candle about to go out.
…I’ll soon vanish no matter what I do.
Gradually, my breath and the ringing in my ears grew distant,
and finally, I heard nothing.
Darkness covered me like a black cloth.
Yet still, my senses did not fully leave me.
Perhaps it was a kind of hallucination.
Or maybe something else.
In a world of black, I saw a white mountain rise up.
It was made of human bones, which looked like rubble.
Bones large and small made up the ma.s.sive pile.
I saw a girl sit at the peak of that mountain.
It was Ellen.
Ellen closed her eyes, holding light in her chest.
She looked peaceful, like
Begin
I heard the wind.
The leaves rustling against each other.
I slowly opened my eyes, and saw cute bell-shaped flowers looking down on me.
I was sleeping in the middle of a familiar garden.
I held my slightly-aching forehead.
That’s right. I’d lost consciousness.
I was..h.i.t by the wave of magic.
Magic? Whose?
…"Mine," of course.
"You’re up and at ‘em, eh?"
I turned to the familiar voice and saw the black cat looking at me.
How long had it been since I’d seen the black cat in bright light?
Still lying on the ground, I turned my head to look around.
The smell of flowers was strong enough to make me choke. Red and blue flowers swayed above my head.
I could see the pale blue sky, but surrounded by deep green trees, I knew I was in the forest.
Unmistakably, it was my garden.
But something was odd.
I felt like I was in a house much like my own, only it was someone else’s.
Just what was going on?
I could more or less guess.
"…Did Viola do this?"
"Seems so," the black cat replied.
I dimly recalled.
The witch’s magic resides in her body.
Even that ragged body had magic left in it. Viola had used that little sc.r.a.p of magic to trap me in the forest.
Suddenly, a cute b.u.t.terfly flew above my head. My eyes followed it casually.
I almost yawned in the carefree afternoon air.
Soon, the b.u.t.terfly flew out of sight, so I looked back to the black cat and asked.
"…Did you know this would happen?"
"Eh. There was the possibility."
"But you didn’t mention it."
"You didn’t ask."
The cat replied coolly, with no sign of anger.
I sighed and sat up.
I brushed away some leaves and petals in my hair.
"What’ll you do? Humans shouldn’t be out here. Too dangerous."
My eyes widened at his phrasing.
…Dangerous, for humans?
I knew what he was trying to get at.
The irony in the fact that in exchange for obtaining a healthy body, I now had a powerless body.
I looked at my fingers, covered in leaf residue.
I gazed at my neatly-cut nails.
I wasn’t a witch anymore.
I could still talk to the black cat, but there was no longer any link between us. This demon was just talking to me, a human, on a whim.
Yes, much like the first time he spoke to me in that back alley.
Unlike then, however, I knew him, and knew he was a demon. And I knew I wouldn’t ask for a demon’s help ever again.
"Hmm. I wonder what I’ll do…"
I said not too seriously, and stood up.
I adjusted my skirt.
Taking in the sensation of my feet on the ground, I went step by step.
I headed for the exit of the forest.
Between the trees around the path had been made a red wall which roses coiled around.
I brought my nose to the roses.
They didn’t smell of anything.
The petals shone cold like razor blades. They could have easily sliced into my neck, but showed no sign of it.
I wondered why. Did the master of these roses not have any power left? Or was she not determined enough?
I quietly smiled and began to walk again. I went up the path to the point where I could go no further.
The exit to the forest was blocked by a startlingly huge patch of roses.
Nearly twice my size.
Roses that had before been my limbs. Now, they had a different intention, and blocked my path.
I ran my finger along the stems. They were cold and hard like metal.
Unmistakably, they had been a part of my body. And now they were her own flesh and blood.
I knew how to make these roses wilt. I knew how to take her body away.
A little bottle came to my mind like a ray of light.
That cute little bottle I had put away in a shelf one day. The key to destroying the body of Ellen, the witch.
Even if she had changed the house’s form, it slept there somewhere still. It would just be a matter of going to get it.
…But.
I shot a pitiful gaze up at the roses.
Even if I just left things as is, surely she would die.
A normal human, especially one only thirteen years old, wouldn’t be able to bear it in my body.
I had lived.
For decades, for centuries. My heart being eaten away at by sickness.
But I was able to live through it all, never despairing, because I had dreamed of this day. When I would obtain a body that would be loved.
But do you have what I do, Viola?
A reason not to despair in that body.
I can’t think of one. You have no legs to stand on the earth, not even a voice to call for help.
Betrayed by me, who you thought your friend, you can only writhe in agony in that room.
Is there a reason for you not to despair in that situation?
What could make the light of hope s.h.i.+ne on you?
What could your broken eyes see?
Perhaps you still want to believe me, Viola. You stopped me thinking I might give your body back.
…If I’m right, how foolish you are.
I covered my face with my hands, pretending to sob.
But I quickly stopped, finding it boring.
"What’ll you do?"
I turned to the black cat’s apathetic voice.
He sat upon a stump.
I ignored him, looking toward the house.
I could just barely see the red-roofed house from here through the green branches.
I narrowed my eyes and thought.
She must be waiting for me in there.
In the house filled with my friends.
My mouth loosened into a smile. I stood on the b.a.l.l.s of my feet.
I want to go play. Yes, I’ll have to go. Because she must be inviting me. She’s waiting for me to come in.
"I’ll go."
The wind rustled, scattering leaves and petals.
My forelocks were swept up, and I smiled, my back to the roses.
…After all, it’s my house, yes?
It wouldn’t be killing me anytime soon.