Spirit Me Away
Summary:Cleaning out my google!docs folders of old files, stumbled across a whole bunch of fanfiction and original fiction and other odds and ends, I decided this was worth posting somewhere to share. The perspective is a little wonky at points, it was something of an experiment. It has nothing to do with the movie Spirited Away, but the idea of being "taken" by supernatural forces is the same.
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It’s not easy being different.
Not that I would know that personally, but, if being friends with someone who is different is this hard, it can’t be any easy for them right? Not that Miranda was one of those ‘I see dead people’ kinds of freaks, but she knew things. Small things that could just be lucky chance save for the fact that they happened too often for it to be simply that. And the things she knew weren’t always good or wholesome or things anyone should ever have to know about anything, but she was kind and she was gentle and I was glad to call her friend - she called me her bodyguard.
The irony?
I was only 5’ 2". She was nearly 5’ 10"......
5’10," slim, and that sleepy kind of pretty that didn’t often get noticed but once it was, it was hard to forget. I was a true plain Jane, but not unhappy for it. I had personality enough for the entire junior class with enough to spare for the seniors who were in desperate need of some.
But that’s not what this is about.
This is about Miranda, and the thing she knew but couldn’t bare to tell me.
It happened not long after we became friends - sometimes I wonder if we became friends because of what she saw and refused to say. It was Monday, the bell had rung, and she was waiting at my locker, I was running late. She asked about biology, I asked about world lit, we both complained about second period gym, and then we joined the throng of freshman exiting the first floors for freedom. It had all been like usual - until we reached the school gates.
“Don’t take the bus on Thursday.”
I’d stopped mid-sentence to look at her, curios and uncertain if I’d heard her correctly, but I’d quickly come to know that particular glint of her hazel eyes. We’d stopped by then, in the middle of the empty sidewalk, those who took the bus having already gone ahead of us.
“This Thursday?” I’d finally asked and she’d only shook her head.
“Any Thursday.”
I’d stared at her in only half belief, laughing. Back then, I’d still been skeptical about her gift.
“And just how long is this bus ban going to be for Miranda?”
“The rest of your life.”
We had fallen silent after that, she unwilling to answer any more of my questions and I too shaken to think of any. I didn’t even look at her when I got off the bus and for weeks after that the feeling was awkward between us but we eventually returned to the easy friendship we’d had before, a return made possible, in part, because I kept that unspoken promise that had been formed between us that day. Even though we hardly spoke or even glanced at one another during classes, I showed by action, if not by word, that I trusted her even then. So for two years, every Thursday, I would walk the long mile from home to train station to school and back again and for the later few years, she would walk with me in an act of quiet solidarity.
It was raining the day I broke my promise. Raining like the world was ending and I’d forgotten my umbrella. It had been taken, I found out later, by a classmate who’d mistaken it for his or her own, only one of many things that acted on that day to bring me to the proper end - to my destiny.
The bus ride was no different from any other; it was even fifteen minutes late, like always. It was what was waiting for me when I disembarked that was so out of the ordinary. I saw him long before the bus had even reached the stop, unable to turn away as the bus drew to an agonizingly slow halt as I realized he was staring at me. It was a man that wasn’t a man; something about the shape of his eyes or perhaps the color of them - a cold and venomous violet -set me ill at ease. The fact that the two other passengers who got out ahead of me neatly sidestepped him yet clearly didn’t see him at all was what truly set off the alarms and I hesitated on the last step, considering staying on the bus and going to the next stop.
“Aria. I have been waiting for you.”
The man-not-man extended his hand and I reached for it by some unnatural compulsion; because he’d said my name, I couldn’t refuse him.
His boney fingers were surprisingly warm, his ruddy skin surprisingly soft, and his grip terrifyingly strong as he helped me down from the bus, but the moment my foot touched ground, it was as if reality rippled and shimmered, like the surface of a lake that’s been disturbed. I blinked then, and when my eyes opened again, the world had changed.
The houses, the sidewalk, the bus, the street, they were all gone, replaced by forest and sunlight and silence, my heart dropping to nearly my knees which were trembling and threatening to give out on me. The same way I’d known the man who still gripped my hand wasn’t a man, I knew I wasn’t anywhere near my home - possibly not even in the same country. Whether by some natural mental defense or some effect of the change or the man-not-man itself, my vision swam and I fell into the darkness of unconscious. When I woke, it was to the sound of a door chime and voices somewhere far away. It was like I was waking from a deep sleep, I sat up slowly and with great effort and for a moment simply sat, dazed, wondering if it was really worth the effort to remain upright. Even more slowly I turned my head, eyes taking in the dimly lit room without truly seeing it. It took three sweeps before the details began to stick in my mind, regardless of the fact that it was small and bare save for the bed upon which I’d been laid. Even that was no more than a slightly over sized chez lounge chair, my head having been pillowed on its single sloping arm, my own arm resting on the low and supporting back. It was only then that the unfamiliar weight of jewelry on my wrist made itself known and it drew my gaze downwards to the glittering onyx beads that were indeed wrapped around it. I lifted my hand slowly to examine the bracelet more closely, brows knitting at the whisper soft chimes that sounded as they moved and rubbed against one another; it was as if they were made of glass, but I could feel they were made of rock as solid as the lounger beneath me. It made me uneasy - more uneasy than the man-not-man’s eyes had; polished though they were, the stones were of a pitch so dark I couldn’t even see my own reflection. As if they consumed everything that touched them, drawing light and shape and thought into their endless depths. Movement at the corner of my eye broke the connection, a connection realized only after the loss of it, and I shuddered, gasping as I reeled back dizzily and found myself prostrate once more, feeling more drained now than I had when I‘d woken. A shadow loomed over me, and then a face hidden by hair and darkness.
“I’m sorry my love, but the seeing stones are necessary until the rite is complete. We can’t have you wandering off without our knowing it, the consequences would be...dire.”
He shifted then, and I realized that it wasn’t that his face was in shadow so much as it was covered by a mask that was seemingly made of the same stuff as the beads about my wrist. It was a fox mask, polished so smoothly and molded so seamlessly to his face that I was certain there were no strings attached to it, almost as if it were his face. The eyes that peered through the provided slits were feline and the color of sulfur, made unnaturally bright by the unnaturally dark color of his mask, though the nose, whiskers, and eyebrows (more dots than eyebrows) were painted on in a very pretty sky blue. His hair was the color of wood smoke and ash, looping in silken ropes over his shoulders into a pony tail which fell well down his back, decorated with charms and beads and clips that glittered black and cobalt when he moved. I sat up again, if only so I could watch him as he moved to the other side of the room to draw back the heavy drapes that had cast the room into an artificial twilight. It was only as the full light of early evening struck him that I realized he wasn’t wearing a kimono but faded blue jeans and an oversized cream sweater, the difference between what I expected and what I saw simply driving home the point that this was real.
“You’re in jeans!” I blurted at his turned back, as surprised by the outrage in my own tone as he was because he laughed, turning back to look at me with a quizzical expression and what I could have almost mistaken for a smile from the way the sunlight curled along the edges of the mask.
“You have been spirited away from your mortal life by strangers, woken in a strange bed with a strange man who greets you wearing a mask and delivering cryptic messages, and yet it is my attire that offends you most?” he asked curiously, his muffled voice kind and almost musical with his amusement as he returned to standing at my bedside. “You truly are the fox bride.”
“The what?”
He had cocked his head then, watching me for a long moment before seeming to think better of something, reaching out a pale hand to cup my cheek. I still remember the chill of his fingers, as if there were no life in him, and the dagger of fear that buried itself in my heart as he stared down at me.
“All in due time. Sleep now Aria, it wont be much longer, I promise.”
Again, I found myself lost in the dark abyss, only this time I was sent rather than simply fallen. Though it may not sound as though it is much of a difference, the first is like falling from your bed in the night and the second like being thrown from land into deep water. It is not at all the same.
I woke again to the sound of chimes and a voice, only this time both were far closer at hand. Neither was there a period of wading through fog and confusion, my senses snapped into perfect focus the moment I opened my eyes, enough to see and distinguish almost a dozen things at once. First and foremost, it was dark again - true dark. Second, the bracelet that had been about my wrist was gone because it was as though a terrible weight had been lifted from my body entirely. Thirdly, I was not alone.
“Aria, can you hear me? We don’t have much time.”
I sat up again, turning to my left to find my companion crouching at my bedside; another masked stranger only this time in white. Before I could recoil or think to raise my voice they lifted their mask and I found myself staring into eerily familiar eyes.
“.... Miranda?!”
The girl smiled, but it was like an image in a kaleidoscope, flickering between too many emotions for me to pin down just one. Thinking back now, I realize it was more like peering through frosted glass at someone on the other side - too many muddled reflections to know which one is real and yet they all were.
“I am not...entirely, the Miranda that you know. It is complicated and I need you to trust me because there is precious little time. Can you stand?” she asked softly, already reaching china fine hands to clasp about my wrists and pull me upwards with her, answering her own question. “Good. We must move quickly now. It wont be long before Fyren returns to check on you and we’ll want to be from here when he does.”
“Fyren?” I asked quietly, though simply saying the word conjured the memory of the dark mask, the sultry voice, and his laughter so vividly I snapped my head around to the window, expecting to see him there.
“Yes. Him.” She answered as if she had seen him too, already leading me towards the doorway, releasing my hands now to press her own against the seemingly solid oak door, hazel eyes glittering like polished amber in the darkness.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask, and yet something in me refused to let a sound past my lips - now wasn’t the time. I settled instead for watching this...Miranda who was not, rubbing at my wrist where the seeing stones had been for the skin still felt numb and uneasy. It was only then that I noticed she WAS in a kimono and an elaborate one at that, the color gradating expertly from white to indigo to pale green at the bottom hems, and I remember that the the print reminded me of starlight and ocean waves even though none of it had a definite shape. I was so busy studying the colors I didn’t notice when she turned to face me until she was pressing a mask in my hands. It was the kind of gray you saw in a lonely winter sky with hints of white and gold touched delicately to its edges, eyes, and nose; it was beautiful.
“You can’t walk around with that face.” The girl who might be Miranda said by way of explanation, already reaching to tuck my hair behind my ears for me as I turned the mask over in my hands carefully, afraid I would break it. “Once you’ve got it on don’t speak, don’t look at anyone directly, and for gods sake stay behind me or the glamour will disappear, do you understand?”
I frowned as I noted there were no strings, the same as there hadn’t been any for Fyren nor for Miranda who was not, a quickly darted glance confirmed as much.
“But how-“
“This mask was made for you, it will fit. It’s your...well...your wedding mask, which is another reason we have to be on our way as quickly as possible. Someone will notice it’s missing.” She said as gently as she could manage, and her hands had remained firm on the backs of mine when I made to drop it, appalled. “Please Aria, we don’t have any time.”
I’d swallowed and gathered what courage I had, slipping the mask into place. It surprised me how light it felt on my face, almost as if it weren’t there at all save for a slight narrowing of my field of vision. When I looked up again Miranda was watching me with that same refracted mirror smile but then she was replacing her own mask, her back straightening and her chin lifting, the air of regal possession so complete that I could almost see her stoic expression. I did my best to mimic her, clasping my hands in front of me like a proper princess and standing as properly straight as I could manage. She’d dipped her head once in approval before turning and pushed open the door - which had turned from oak to rice paper somehow without my noticing. Biting my lip, I followed her out into the hall and tried to keep myself from staring.
It was like stepping out onto a movie set of a traditional Japanese home, right down to the rock garden in the middle. The lights of the open hallways were electric at the very least, but the flickering shadows against the paper walls in the rooms she led me past suggested more traditional lighting methods. After the first terrifying encounter with one of what were obviously many residents, I quickly lost track of all the twists and turns and corridors, too focused on remaining exactly behind Miranda who wasn’t and not so much as breathing until we had exited the complex altogether. However, no sooner had we rounded a bend on the little more than trampled grass pathway to the gates than did Miranda who could be take hold of my hand and start running.
“I know you have questions and I wish I could answer them all Aria, but we simply don’t have time.” She yelled back to me as she darted along the pathway without so much as lifting her mask or hesitating, as if she could see in the dark - and I surprised myself by following along just as nimbly. “We Youkai, for we are all fox demons here, have been taking human lovers for centuries now. It was the only way we could survive in a world so devoid of magic or mystery. Humans have never really been able to see us, but they still believed. Modern science and modern beliefs have slain legends and turned monsters into memory. There is not a fox demon alive now that doesn’t have at least a partially human soul. Conversely, every now and then, there is a human born with a fox demon’s soul. They are prized above all others - veritable royalty. We call them Fox Brides because tradition calls for them to be married to the highest ranking member of the current ruling family when they reach a certain age.”
Fox bride. It was what Fyren had called me - the fox bride. Which meant -
I dug in my heels then, yanking my hand free of hers as I came to a dead stop, finally pushed to my limit of acceptance.
“B-but I’m normal! I have parents - they’re human. They’re normal! I don’t know anything about Youkai or foxes or demons or magic, you’re the one with the powers, you’re the one who knows things, I’m normal. You know me, Miranda! I’m normal!” I shouted, the hot burn of frantic tears blurring my vision and somewhere in the back of my mind instinct screamed that now was not the time for a break down - there was danger and it was coming for us.
Fast.
Miranda remained still however, watching me from behind her mask with the thoughtful kind of passivity that had always infuriated me in school. Finally, she seemed to sigh, and lifted her mask; only this time her expression was one of infinite sadness, a look that made my heart sink all the way into the soles of my shoes.
“Yes, Aria, I know you. No matter how many decades pass nor how many lives we live, I will always know you.” She said softly as she closed the small distance my sudden halt had brought between us, reaching up to push my mask into my hair. “So when it was discovered you were the fox bride, I did the only thing I could think to do - I split my soul in half. The Miranda you know, the human Miranda, is as much me as the me standing here with you now. I split myself against my clan’s will, against my family’s will, against even my own instincts, so that I might keep you safe. So that I might keep you mine. It is a terrible burden to be only half - even worse to be the half that is left behind, but I bore it because you were safe and I was with you. After today, there will be no safety for you and nothing will be normal again and I’m sorry for that but Aria, my Aria...what would you have me do?”
Her lips touched mine then and it was like tasting a dream. Her hands were in my hair and it was like being touched by a memory.
It was terrifying.
It was heaven.
“Stop. Please stop.” I heard myself whispering - I was crying and I didn’t know why, my chest suddenly so full I could hardly breath.
There were so many memories - so many emotions, all of them crashing together, drowning me as I gasped and clung to the only solid ground I could find - Miranda’s hands.
“It’s so loud....”
“I’m sorry Aria. We’ll meet again. Our souls are tied you know?”
“It’s so loud Miranda....”
She kissed me again and then there was nothing. I woke in the hospital a few days later; apparently they’d found me in a park a hundred miles from where I’d last been seen. They found Miranda not much further from me, untouched and yet barely clinging to life. We’d both been missing for a month.
I couldn’t think of a story to tell so I simply said nothing; that the trauma had been so great I’d erased all memories of it. It was a perfectly acceptable reasoning to family and doctors so they never pressed me. Life slowly, so very slowly, regained the shape of normalcy; only nothing was ever normal again. Miranda never woke up. I visited her living corpse every day for the three years it kept breathing, dying slowly with every increasingly labored breath. She was a medical mystery - a perfectly healthy girl on the outside and yet steadily and irreversibly dying. I knew though. How could anyone live with only half a soul?
To this day, I’ve not told anyone what happened to me that day or in the years that followed. So you must be wondering why am I telling you, now, on this, the eve of your 18th birthday. Because now matter how many decades pass or how many lives we live, I will always know you, my dearest Miridian and you are the fox bride.
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It’s not easy being different.
Not that I would know that personally, but, if being friends with someone who is different is this hard, it can’t be any easy for them right? Not that Miranda was one of those ‘I see dead people’ kinds of freaks, but she knew things. Small things that could just be lucky chance save for the fact that they happened too often for it to be simply that. And the things she knew weren’t always good or wholesome or things anyone should ever have to know about anything, but she was kind and she was gentle and I was glad to call her friend - she called me her bodyguard.
The irony?
I was only 5’ 2". She was nearly 5’ 10"......
5’10," slim, and that sleepy kind of pretty that didn’t often get noticed but once it was, it was hard to forget. I was a true plain Jane, but not unhappy for it. I had personality enough for the entire junior class with enough to spare for the seniors who were in desperate need of some.
But that’s not what this is about.
This is about Miranda, and the thing she knew but couldn’t bare to tell me.
It happened not long after we became friends - sometimes I wonder if we became friends because of what she saw and refused to say. It was Monday, the bell had rung, and she was waiting at my locker, I was running late. She asked about biology, I asked about world lit, we both complained about second period gym, and then we joined the throng of freshman exiting the first floors for freedom. It had all been like usual - until we reached the school gates.
“Don’t take the bus on Thursday.”
I’d stopped mid-sentence to look at her, curios and uncertain if I’d heard her correctly, but I’d quickly come to know that particular glint of her hazel eyes. We’d stopped by then, in the middle of the empty sidewalk, those who took the bus having already gone ahead of us.
“This Thursday?” I’d finally asked and she’d only shook her head.
“Any Thursday.”
I’d stared at her in only half belief, laughing. Back then, I’d still been skeptical about her gift.
“And just how long is this bus ban going to be for Miranda?”
“The rest of your life.”
We had fallen silent after that, she unwilling to answer any more of my questions and I too shaken to think of any. I didn’t even look at her when I got off the bus and for weeks after that the feeling was awkward between us but we eventually returned to the easy friendship we’d had before, a return made possible, in part, because I kept that unspoken promise that had been formed between us that day. Even though we hardly spoke or even glanced at one another during classes, I showed by action, if not by word, that I trusted her even then. So for two years, every Thursday, I would walk the long mile from home to train station to school and back again and for the later few years, she would walk with me in an act of quiet solidarity.
It was raining the day I broke my promise. Raining like the world was ending and I’d forgotten my umbrella. It had been taken, I found out later, by a classmate who’d mistaken it for his or her own, only one of many things that acted on that day to bring me to the proper end - to my destiny.
The bus ride was no different from any other; it was even fifteen minutes late, like always. It was what was waiting for me when I disembarked that was so out of the ordinary. I saw him long before the bus had even reached the stop, unable to turn away as the bus drew to an agonizingly slow halt as I realized he was staring at me. It was a man that wasn’t a man; something about the shape of his eyes or perhaps the color of them - a cold and venomous violet -set me ill at ease. The fact that the two other passengers who got out ahead of me neatly sidestepped him yet clearly didn’t see him at all was what truly set off the alarms and I hesitated on the last step, considering staying on the bus and going to the next stop.
“Aria. I have been waiting for you.”
The man-not-man extended his hand and I reached for it by some unnatural compulsion; because he’d said my name, I couldn’t refuse him.
His boney fingers were surprisingly warm, his ruddy skin surprisingly soft, and his grip terrifyingly strong as he helped me down from the bus, but the moment my foot touched ground, it was as if reality rippled and shimmered, like the surface of a lake that’s been disturbed. I blinked then, and when my eyes opened again, the world had changed.
The houses, the sidewalk, the bus, the street, they were all gone, replaced by forest and sunlight and silence, my heart dropping to nearly my knees which were trembling and threatening to give out on me. The same way I’d known the man who still gripped my hand wasn’t a man, I knew I wasn’t anywhere near my home - possibly not even in the same country. Whether by some natural mental defense or some effect of the change or the man-not-man itself, my vision swam and I fell into the darkness of unconscious. When I woke, it was to the sound of a door chime and voices somewhere far away. It was like I was waking from a deep sleep, I sat up slowly and with great effort and for a moment simply sat, dazed, wondering if it was really worth the effort to remain upright. Even more slowly I turned my head, eyes taking in the dimly lit room without truly seeing it. It took three sweeps before the details began to stick in my mind, regardless of the fact that it was small and bare save for the bed upon which I’d been laid. Even that was no more than a slightly over sized chez lounge chair, my head having been pillowed on its single sloping arm, my own arm resting on the low and supporting back. It was only then that the unfamiliar weight of jewelry on my wrist made itself known and it drew my gaze downwards to the glittering onyx beads that were indeed wrapped around it. I lifted my hand slowly to examine the bracelet more closely, brows knitting at the whisper soft chimes that sounded as they moved and rubbed against one another; it was as if they were made of glass, but I could feel they were made of rock as solid as the lounger beneath me. It made me uneasy - more uneasy than the man-not-man’s eyes had; polished though they were, the stones were of a pitch so dark I couldn’t even see my own reflection. As if they consumed everything that touched them, drawing light and shape and thought into their endless depths. Movement at the corner of my eye broke the connection, a connection realized only after the loss of it, and I shuddered, gasping as I reeled back dizzily and found myself prostrate once more, feeling more drained now than I had when I‘d woken. A shadow loomed over me, and then a face hidden by hair and darkness.
“I’m sorry my love, but the seeing stones are necessary until the rite is complete. We can’t have you wandering off without our knowing it, the consequences would be...dire.”
He shifted then, and I realized that it wasn’t that his face was in shadow so much as it was covered by a mask that was seemingly made of the same stuff as the beads about my wrist. It was a fox mask, polished so smoothly and molded so seamlessly to his face that I was certain there were no strings attached to it, almost as if it were his face. The eyes that peered through the provided slits were feline and the color of sulfur, made unnaturally bright by the unnaturally dark color of his mask, though the nose, whiskers, and eyebrows (more dots than eyebrows) were painted on in a very pretty sky blue. His hair was the color of wood smoke and ash, looping in silken ropes over his shoulders into a pony tail which fell well down his back, decorated with charms and beads and clips that glittered black and cobalt when he moved. I sat up again, if only so I could watch him as he moved to the other side of the room to draw back the heavy drapes that had cast the room into an artificial twilight. It was only as the full light of early evening struck him that I realized he wasn’t wearing a kimono but faded blue jeans and an oversized cream sweater, the difference between what I expected and what I saw simply driving home the point that this was real.
“You’re in jeans!” I blurted at his turned back, as surprised by the outrage in my own tone as he was because he laughed, turning back to look at me with a quizzical expression and what I could have almost mistaken for a smile from the way the sunlight curled along the edges of the mask.
“You have been spirited away from your mortal life by strangers, woken in a strange bed with a strange man who greets you wearing a mask and delivering cryptic messages, and yet it is my attire that offends you most?” he asked curiously, his muffled voice kind and almost musical with his amusement as he returned to standing at my bedside. “You truly are the fox bride.”
“The what?”
He had cocked his head then, watching me for a long moment before seeming to think better of something, reaching out a pale hand to cup my cheek. I still remember the chill of his fingers, as if there were no life in him, and the dagger of fear that buried itself in my heart as he stared down at me.
“All in due time. Sleep now Aria, it wont be much longer, I promise.”
Again, I found myself lost in the dark abyss, only this time I was sent rather than simply fallen. Though it may not sound as though it is much of a difference, the first is like falling from your bed in the night and the second like being thrown from land into deep water. It is not at all the same.
I woke again to the sound of chimes and a voice, only this time both were far closer at hand. Neither was there a period of wading through fog and confusion, my senses snapped into perfect focus the moment I opened my eyes, enough to see and distinguish almost a dozen things at once. First and foremost, it was dark again - true dark. Second, the bracelet that had been about my wrist was gone because it was as though a terrible weight had been lifted from my body entirely. Thirdly, I was not alone.
“Aria, can you hear me? We don’t have much time.”
I sat up again, turning to my left to find my companion crouching at my bedside; another masked stranger only this time in white. Before I could recoil or think to raise my voice they lifted their mask and I found myself staring into eerily familiar eyes.
“.... Miranda?!”
The girl smiled, but it was like an image in a kaleidoscope, flickering between too many emotions for me to pin down just one. Thinking back now, I realize it was more like peering through frosted glass at someone on the other side - too many muddled reflections to know which one is real and yet they all were.
“I am not...entirely, the Miranda that you know. It is complicated and I need you to trust me because there is precious little time. Can you stand?” she asked softly, already reaching china fine hands to clasp about my wrists and pull me upwards with her, answering her own question. “Good. We must move quickly now. It wont be long before Fyren returns to check on you and we’ll want to be from here when he does.”
“Fyren?” I asked quietly, though simply saying the word conjured the memory of the dark mask, the sultry voice, and his laughter so vividly I snapped my head around to the window, expecting to see him there.
“Yes. Him.” She answered as if she had seen him too, already leading me towards the doorway, releasing my hands now to press her own against the seemingly solid oak door, hazel eyes glittering like polished amber in the darkness.
There were so many questions I wanted to ask, and yet something in me refused to let a sound past my lips - now wasn’t the time. I settled instead for watching this...Miranda who was not, rubbing at my wrist where the seeing stones had been for the skin still felt numb and uneasy. It was only then that I noticed she WAS in a kimono and an elaborate one at that, the color gradating expertly from white to indigo to pale green at the bottom hems, and I remember that the the print reminded me of starlight and ocean waves even though none of it had a definite shape. I was so busy studying the colors I didn’t notice when she turned to face me until she was pressing a mask in my hands. It was the kind of gray you saw in a lonely winter sky with hints of white and gold touched delicately to its edges, eyes, and nose; it was beautiful.
“You can’t walk around with that face.” The girl who might be Miranda said by way of explanation, already reaching to tuck my hair behind my ears for me as I turned the mask over in my hands carefully, afraid I would break it. “Once you’ve got it on don’t speak, don’t look at anyone directly, and for gods sake stay behind me or the glamour will disappear, do you understand?”
I frowned as I noted there were no strings, the same as there hadn’t been any for Fyren nor for Miranda who was not, a quickly darted glance confirmed as much.
“But how-“
“This mask was made for you, it will fit. It’s your...well...your wedding mask, which is another reason we have to be on our way as quickly as possible. Someone will notice it’s missing.” She said as gently as she could manage, and her hands had remained firm on the backs of mine when I made to drop it, appalled. “Please Aria, we don’t have any time.”
I’d swallowed and gathered what courage I had, slipping the mask into place. It surprised me how light it felt on my face, almost as if it weren’t there at all save for a slight narrowing of my field of vision. When I looked up again Miranda was watching me with that same refracted mirror smile but then she was replacing her own mask, her back straightening and her chin lifting, the air of regal possession so complete that I could almost see her stoic expression. I did my best to mimic her, clasping my hands in front of me like a proper princess and standing as properly straight as I could manage. She’d dipped her head once in approval before turning and pushed open the door - which had turned from oak to rice paper somehow without my noticing. Biting my lip, I followed her out into the hall and tried to keep myself from staring.
It was like stepping out onto a movie set of a traditional Japanese home, right down to the rock garden in the middle. The lights of the open hallways were electric at the very least, but the flickering shadows against the paper walls in the rooms she led me past suggested more traditional lighting methods. After the first terrifying encounter with one of what were obviously many residents, I quickly lost track of all the twists and turns and corridors, too focused on remaining exactly behind Miranda who wasn’t and not so much as breathing until we had exited the complex altogether. However, no sooner had we rounded a bend on the little more than trampled grass pathway to the gates than did Miranda who could be take hold of my hand and start running.
“I know you have questions and I wish I could answer them all Aria, but we simply don’t have time.” She yelled back to me as she darted along the pathway without so much as lifting her mask or hesitating, as if she could see in the dark - and I surprised myself by following along just as nimbly. “We Youkai, for we are all fox demons here, have been taking human lovers for centuries now. It was the only way we could survive in a world so devoid of magic or mystery. Humans have never really been able to see us, but they still believed. Modern science and modern beliefs have slain legends and turned monsters into memory. There is not a fox demon alive now that doesn’t have at least a partially human soul. Conversely, every now and then, there is a human born with a fox demon’s soul. They are prized above all others - veritable royalty. We call them Fox Brides because tradition calls for them to be married to the highest ranking member of the current ruling family when they reach a certain age.”
Fox bride. It was what Fyren had called me - the fox bride. Which meant -
I dug in my heels then, yanking my hand free of hers as I came to a dead stop, finally pushed to my limit of acceptance.
“B-but I’m normal! I have parents - they’re human. They’re normal! I don’t know anything about Youkai or foxes or demons or magic, you’re the one with the powers, you’re the one who knows things, I’m normal. You know me, Miranda! I’m normal!” I shouted, the hot burn of frantic tears blurring my vision and somewhere in the back of my mind instinct screamed that now was not the time for a break down - there was danger and it was coming for us.
Fast.
Miranda remained still however, watching me from behind her mask with the thoughtful kind of passivity that had always infuriated me in school. Finally, she seemed to sigh, and lifted her mask; only this time her expression was one of infinite sadness, a look that made my heart sink all the way into the soles of my shoes.
“Yes, Aria, I know you. No matter how many decades pass nor how many lives we live, I will always know you.” She said softly as she closed the small distance my sudden halt had brought between us, reaching up to push my mask into my hair. “So when it was discovered you were the fox bride, I did the only thing I could think to do - I split my soul in half. The Miranda you know, the human Miranda, is as much me as the me standing here with you now. I split myself against my clan’s will, against my family’s will, against even my own instincts, so that I might keep you safe. So that I might keep you mine. It is a terrible burden to be only half - even worse to be the half that is left behind, but I bore it because you were safe and I was with you. After today, there will be no safety for you and nothing will be normal again and I’m sorry for that but Aria, my Aria...what would you have me do?”
Her lips touched mine then and it was like tasting a dream. Her hands were in my hair and it was like being touched by a memory.
It was terrifying.
It was heaven.
“Stop. Please stop.” I heard myself whispering - I was crying and I didn’t know why, my chest suddenly so full I could hardly breath.
There were so many memories - so many emotions, all of them crashing together, drowning me as I gasped and clung to the only solid ground I could find - Miranda’s hands.
“It’s so loud....”
“I’m sorry Aria. We’ll meet again. Our souls are tied you know?”
“It’s so loud Miranda....”
She kissed me again and then there was nothing. I woke in the hospital a few days later; apparently they’d found me in a park a hundred miles from where I’d last been seen. They found Miranda not much further from me, untouched and yet barely clinging to life. We’d both been missing for a month.
I couldn’t think of a story to tell so I simply said nothing; that the trauma had been so great I’d erased all memories of it. It was a perfectly acceptable reasoning to family and doctors so they never pressed me. Life slowly, so very slowly, regained the shape of normalcy; only nothing was ever normal again. Miranda never woke up. I visited her living corpse every day for the three years it kept breathing, dying slowly with every increasingly labored breath. She was a medical mystery - a perfectly healthy girl on the outside and yet steadily and irreversibly dying. I knew though. How could anyone live with only half a soul?
To this day, I’ve not told anyone what happened to me that day or in the years that followed. So you must be wondering why am I telling you, now, on this, the eve of your 18th birthday. Because now matter how many decades pass or how many lives we live, I will always know you, my dearest Miridian and you are the fox bride.