CHAPTER 6

Jess's POV

I was shaken awake that evening by a small pale hand.

"Five more minutes…" I groaned before rolling over.

"There'll be none of that in Yubaba's bathhouse," Lin's voice broke over the din of rustling bedding. It was then that I remembered where I was – the Spirit World.

I jumped out of my bed roll and folded it, quickly slipping off my jeans and pulling on the uniform pants (I surreptitiously slid my pocket knife into the pants' pocket). But when it came to the shirt I was more than hesitant to remove it.

"Uh, Lin?" I said. I got a "hm" in response. "Is there somewhere I could change?"

"Just change out here. You've already got your pants on, and we've all seen boobs here."

"I'm not – uh – comfortable changing in front of other people. At all."

Lin sighed but pointed to a door beside the main sliding ones.

"Just use the bathroom there. Just don't take too long."

"Sure thing."

I dashed into the bathroom and stripped my sweatshirt from my body, quickly slipping on the new uniform top and glancing at myself in the mirror.

Shit.

The sleeves didn't even come close to covering my forearms, which were littered with tiny dash-scars. I knocked on the bathroom door.

"Lin?" I called.

"What do you want?"

"Is this everything to the uniform? Just the top and the pants?"

"And the apron!" I quickly tied the discarded apron around my waist.

"No! I mean is there anything to cover the arms?"

"You'll be fine! Just get out here!"

Hesitantly I stepped from the bathroom, anxiously concealing my arms from view. Lin immediately saw me and grabbed me by the elbow, smiling.

"Come on, you dope! There's only thirty minutes before the bathhouse opens!" she said. She yanked my arm hard enough to pull my arm from behind my back. "I don't know why you're so self-conscious. Your arms are-" She stopped upon noticing the little marks on my wrists. "What happened to you, Yuka?"

I immediately pulled my arm from her grasp and looked away.

"I lost a fight to a rosebush in my youth," I said. Lin looked at me suspiciously, but didn't question me any more on the subject.

She guided me down to the bath level and set me before the foreman.

"This is Yuka," she told him sternly. "She is my assistant and you are to treat her as such." Lin then spoke to me. "If he gives you hell you call me. We need an herbal soak token. I'm gonna go get us some breakfast."

"You do that," I said.

The foreman eyed me distrustfully.

"I need an herbal soak token," I told him evenly.

"No way, human," he spat. "I don't care if Lin gets mad at me. You'll get your stench all over the tokens."

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then stared down the foreman with a hard jaw.

"Look," I said sternly. "I don't necessarily want me to be here, either. But the longer you withhold that token from me the longer my job is going to take and the longer I stay here."

He glared at me, then swiped a token from the token rack and plunked it forcefully into my hand.

"Just take the damn token and get out of my sight," he grumbled, writing something in his log book.

Lin came back with our breakfasts and led me to the tub we would be cleaning, a small one near the back corner of the bathhouse. We ate our rice – Lin laughed at my gross inability to use chopsticks – and set to work.

The bath may have been small, but it was disgusting: various kinds of dirt and grass littered the floor and the tub itself was coated with a thick layer of green-brown grime. I almost heaved at the stench the sludge gave off.

"When was the last time this thing was cleaned?" I groaned through a hand I held over my nose.

"Probably a month or so," Lin muttered. "Those bastards. They always give me the hard jobs."

"I'm fairly sure I had something to do with it," I said regretfully.

"Did you threaten the foreman or something?"

"Something like that."

"Then it's worth it. I've been wanting to do that for years." She tied a handkerchief around her nose and mouth. "You've got guts, kid."

"Thanks. Now let's get this over with."

"Absolutely."

We both climbed into the tub and began to scrub away at the grime caked to the sides. It was no use; it was so thick I could have cut it with my knife.

My knife.

"Hold on, Lin," I said. "I think I may have a solution."

"If it involves soaking the grime off don't bother. This stuff's got so much salt in it water can't even penetrate it."

"Water may not be able to penetrate it," I said, grabbing my knife from my pocket and flicking it open, "but this can."

"Yuka! What are you doing?"

I gingerly stuck the knife into the grime and pulled it to the side; it cut like butter. I grinned.

"Getting this shit out of the tub."

I ran the blade along the rim of the tub and then down the sides, eventually creating a little network of slices that resembled a pizza. A really disgusting pizza.

"Alright, now start pulling at one of the ends," I told Lin. Smiling incredulously at me, she did as I asked.

"How did you think of this?" she asked as the grime came off in one cakey sheet.

"Not sure," I grunted, pulling at a particularly caked-on place. "Just came to me."

"Well, this is sure gonna speed up the process." She pulled up another slice of muck and threw it out of the tub. "Good luck explaining this to the others, though."

"I think I'm going to need more luck explaining why I had a knife in my pocket."

We pulled all of the grime sheets into the trash cart and started scrubbing the floor. Within thirty minutes the place sparkled it was so clean. Lin and I wordlessly high-fived, the impact making my bicep ache. She laughed at my grimace and patted me on the shoulder proudly.

"You did fine. I'm sure you'll do even better when there's a customer," she told me.

"What do we do when there's a customer?" I asked. She looked at me strangely, like she couldn't believe I didn't know what to do.

"I keep forgetting you're new," she said. "Basically, when there's a customer, let them soak for a few minutes, and then start scrubbing at their hands and anywhere else they want cleaned."

"Okay," I breathed. "I just hope there aren't any really pervy characters coming in tonight." Lin laughed loudly and clapped me on the back.

"Even if there are, there's a bright side to that."

"What?"

"You'll get some pretty big tips."

"Oh, that's exactly why I'm working here," I said sarcastically. She smiled at me before her name was called.

"What?" she called back.

"You've got a customer on the way!" someone's voice yelled.

"Okay!"

"Customer?" I asked. She nodded.

"Let's get down to business."