Heaven Knows Everyone Is Miserable Now
Chapter 14: Candlelight
It wasn't so much the darkness in the storeroom, but the fact Kagura had been consigned to its four walls alone that unsettled her. To get on with her task, or rather punishment — Kagura wasn't so dense she could not perceive the contours of her situation — the old hag, Otaki, had supplied her with a handful of candles, a notepad, a pencil and a broom. What little advice she had provided had come as admonishment.
"I want every crate, every jar, every box, bag, can, bottle and item accounted for. As you know, electricity is economized. The lightning bulbs down here have been removed to ensure not a single watt goes to waste. Those candles should suffice you."
"What about the rats? What am I supposed to do about them? Use the broom?!"
"You are quick to dispatch rotters. What's a measly little rat in comparison? You weren't this squeamish when you sought a fight with those caravan men."
"They picked a fight with me!"
"Ungrateful, selfish child. I hope this will teach you why we ration food, or I'll have you sweating for every extra mouthful!"
Discussion close to a premature end. Lady Otaki went up the stairs to the kitchens, unruffled by Kagura's complaints. It would take Kagura long before she learned that fussing and yelling brokered no peace with the old lady, nor with most sensible adults. But there was no quenching the fire that burned inside her. Hope and despair put her on a volatile path. The loss of her mother hung like a shadow over her thoughts of Gintoki. She plunged into anything she could do not to think them — to feel something other than the gaping hole his absence left in her. Shinpachi's company and Sarutobi's guidance bandaged the wound, but it seemed that the hope Kagura clung to dwindled more and more every day, and the more she held on to it, the more it hurt. The darkness inside the storeroom beckoned that gloom, so Kagura got busy. She lit the candles Lady Otaki had given her and placed them here and there until she had a half-decent view of the room and its contents. A dozen shelving racks surrounded the walls and stood at intervals in the center of the room.
The task felt colossal at first, if not unbearably tedious. Kagura lost track of the times her mind drifted while she counted the items and had to restart all over again. Non-perishables were mixed with string-bags of root vegetables, their odor strong and earthy; on the top shelves she discovered boxes of sewing tools, old kitchen appliances and utensils; on the bottom shelves, wide baskets with old-fashioned trays, bowls, cups and other dusty pottery older than Lady Otaki herself. Yet, in spite of Kagura's inexperience and frustrated attempts at naming all the kitchenware, she got into a steady rhythm. Almost an hour into her work, two shelving racks had been inventoried. Each pinned with a list of items ordered by importance. Kagura thought her method outrageously clever. The lack of lighting, however, strained her eyes. She had to squint to read labels and compare different cans of preserves.
Soft scurrying sounds stopped her as she moved to her third shelving rack.
Kagura reached for the broom Lady Otaki had provided her and went in search of the culprit. She hoped to find no more than two rats, one if possible. Killing the dead was one thing. Killing living creatures was another altogether.
Candlelight flickered across the wooden panels of the ceiling, while stray drafts of air lapped at the wobbly candle flames. Kagura cursed the moving shadows out loud to dispel her anxiety. She looked under the shelves and peeked at the spaces between the racks.
On and on the scurrying continued, followed by little squeaks.
"Where are you guys…"
Kagura walked around the room in circles, armed with broom and guts. For a while, she forgot all about the inventory. Her entire being concentrated on the rodent sounds penetrating the room. Chirping, scampering, digging. Kagura's body became an extension of her ears; the brief intervals of silence between squeaks filled her eardrums to burst.
The rats seemed trapped inside the walls with no way of getting out. Their squeaks rose in pitch. Louder and louder they screamed, a horrible sound that made Kagura freeze. The broom slipped from her hands. She barely caught it before a hollow thump replaced the screeches.
She heard a squelching sound, then more thuds until the scurrying ceased. In a trance, she laid one ear against the storeroom wall. The rats were no more, but something moved beyond it. Nimble and strong, heavier than a rat. Kagura jumped in alarm as it pounded against the spot where she had planted her ear. She gripped the handle of her broom with both hands, paralyzed, heart beating madly. On the other side of the wall, the creature pounded again.
Footsteps approached her from behind. She spun around in a frenzy, ready to sink the handle of her broom into her assailant, when she saw Shinpachi's eyes widen behind his glasses.
"Kagura-chan! It's me!"
A wave of relief washed over her.
"Shit, 'Pachi, you scared the hell out of me!" Kagura exclaimed, lowering the broom, "What are you doing here? Done with laundry already?"
"Yeah, I'm done for today. The group there gave me a hand. What happened?"
"I don't know," Kagura replied, slightly out of breath, looking over her shoulder at the wall, "I think something killed the rats."
Shinpachi frowned.
"What do you mean? Like a trap?"
"No, inside the wall." she said.
But the pounding had stopped, only silence filled the room.
"Kagura," Shinpachi sighed. Candlelight shone upon the lenses of his glasses, "You've been down here for too long. It's been over four hours."
"Four hours? Are you nuts? I've only just started." Kagura said in disbelief. She looked around and pointed at the pieces of paper she had torn from her notepad and pinned to the two shelving racks she had inventoried so far.
Shinpachi squeezed her shoulder.
"You can finish tomorrow."
"But the old hag-"
"Otaki-san told me to fetch you and get you to bed without supper. Same as me," Shinpachi said, drawing his lips into a sly smile, "But don't you worry, I've brought us jerky."
Shinpachi pulled a packet of jerky from under his sweater, where he had tucked it in the waistband of his pants. Kagura's stomach rumbled at the sight, rats forgotten. Any other person would have wrung a laugh out of Shinpachi, but he was too used to Kagura's antics. Her endless appetite had long been a part of his life. They ripped open the packet of jerky and chewed on the savory strips of dry meat, stealing glances around them at the flickering shadows like two thieves in the night. They laughed when their eyes met, amused by each other's fear of being caught with the forbidden snack.
"You know, 'Pachi, I'm responsible for the inventory here. What if a can of tuna got misplaced? The rats could have spoiled it."
A scowl immediately replaced the smile on Shinpachi's face. Kagura reminded him too much of Gintoki at times. They shared a penchant for crafty setups that usually — or dare Shinpachi say, always — got them into trouble.
"No way, Kagura-chan. You've done enough damage today. Besides, Otaki-san would know. Don't ask me, but she would know. You and I would be stuck doing the worst chores for ages! Do you want to double your latrine rotation?! Do you?! You'll never see anything outside these walls again!"
Kagura rolled her eyes before chomping on a third piece of jerky.
"Nhow." she agreed, mouth full, "How'd'ya ghet yo' hands'on this?"
"Kagura-chan…"
She gulped down the jerky and cleared her throat.
"I said, how'd you get your hands on this jerky?" she asked, averting her gaze from his as she recalled her actions earlier that day and the trifling amount of food Shinpachi had received from the caravan men after her outburst, "I thought those guys had taken all the jerky from you. And the rest of the food. I…I'm sorry."
"I appreciate the apology, Kagura-chan. About the jerky, actually, I don't know how to explain it but- but- but-" the assured, adult cadence of Shinpachi's voice broke. He began to stutter. His cheeks flushed red in the dim light, "I mean, I didn't do anything! I don't know why it happened! It was kinda like a dream. I guess I find her pretty cute too- or do you think she was just being kind? I-I-I didn't think this would happen to me now of all times, I-"
"You are creeping me out." Kagura groaned disgusted.
"It was Nobume-san! Nobume-san gave it to me! Can you believe it?"
"Who is that?"
"WHO? Who is that?!" Shinpachi's voice rose to a high pitch before he lowered it again, hearing a flurry of steps upstairs in the kitchens.
"We should leave." Kagura said.
Shinpachi nodded. He tucked what was left of the packet of jerky back into the waistband of his pants, and they made for the exit.
Another thud boomed inside the walls of the storeroom as they reached the door.
"You heard that?" Kagura's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Doesn't sound like a rat." Shinpachi replied.
They exchanged hesitant looks but spared no further words. Kagura blew out the last candle by the door, and they climbed the stairs to the kitchens. Moonlight lit the counters and floors which had been scrubbed clean by the assigned kitchen workers that week. Hushed voices spoke close by on the opposite side of the kitchen wall, directly above the place Kagura and Shinpachi figured the eerie thuds had come from. Kagura made for the voices, but Shinpachi grabbed her by the wrist, shaking his head. They had risked enough that day.
Kagura wavered and followed Shinpachi to their rooms.
There would be other opportunities, she thought. After all, she had only inventoried two shelving racks. Ten others awaited her in the morning.
After a night of fitful sleep, Sarutobi was surprised when she found no trace of Shinpachi or Kagura at the dinning hall the next morning. Separate groups occupied a third of the large room, either gathered by appointed chore rotation or familial ties. Sarutobi sat down with her fixed portion of rice — distributed daily to each person by decree of the estate's Young Master, though anyone was free to eat or share their own food supply so long as they contributed to the estate's minimum reserve, the so-called community percentage.
"Good morning," Kitaoji took the seat beside Sarutobi and placed his breakfast tray next to hers.
"Are you coming with us today? Young Master said you might be interested in going out to the farms."
"Yeah, now I'm interested," Sarutobi all but muttered under her breath. She raised her voice to ask a question of her own.
"Where are Shinpachi-kun and Kagura-chan?"
"Doing chores for Lady Otaki," Kitaoji replied, his brows furrowed as he remembered the events of the previous day, "There was a small incident yesterday with the caravan people. Folks got antsy. Lady Otaki had to discipline the two of them."
"I want to see them." Sarutobi demanded.
"You can. The boy is on laundry duty and the girl is sorting the storeroom."
Kitaoji didn't seem fazed. Although there was little trust between the two of them, his composure calmed her. He could also turn out to be an amazing liar, but Sarutobi had long conferred that handle to his shrewd, creepy superior, Toujou. Too many liars and the castle would crumble. She reckoned Kyuubei's right-hand man was the one keeping a tight reign on the web of lies that held the estate together. Hence, she believed Kitaoji fell more on the spectrum of errand-boy. If he was hiding something, Sarutobi was sure to sniff it out.
"Very well. When are we leaving?" she asked him.
Kitaoji glanced through the open doors of the dining hall at the small crew assembling in the courtyard.
"About twenty minutes. We are taking some of the caravan people with us to the farming complex. We could use the extra hand."
Sarutobi nodded and stood up, tray in hand. Kitaoji stared at her above the rim of his glasses.
"I will meet you at the gate." she told him and left.
Twenty minutes were enough for Sarutobi to take care of concerns more pressing than Kitaoji's tight schedule. She marched through the outer halls of the estate like Toujou's lieutenants themselves. Anxiety and resentment had not been the only things Sarutobi had gleaned from her confinement there. She had followed Lady Otaki closely, done as instructed, and, in the process, mapped all the passageways, nooks and crannies of the place as best she could. It would not be a far-fetched thing to admit she knew the place as well as the back of her hand by now. Traipsing undetected had always been one of Sarutobi's greatest skills, one which the end of the world had forced her to sharpen to its full potential.
Sarutobi checked on Shinpachi and Kagura's whereabouts first and was glad to find they matched Kitaoji's explanation. Yells came from the kitchens. Lady Otaki directed hoarse shrills at Kagura who yapped on and on about rats inside the walls. Sarutobi walked by with a smile on her face. One building and a few sharp turns ahead, she saw Shinpachi bent over an old wooden wash tub, scrubbing a long piece of fabric while three women cheered him on and a fourth pulled a fresh bucket of water from the well.
Satisfied with what Kitaoji had referred to as 'disciplining the kids', Sarutobi moved on to her third and final concern, that of her own safety. She took the well-trodden path to Kyuubei's garden room and stormed in without announcement. She caught Kyuubei with their hair down, dark and loose over the shoulders, poring over maps and layouts spread over a low round table in the center of the room. Moisture hung in the air. The simple robe Kyuubei wore revealed the pale skin of their neck, the defined collarbones. If the blush of color across their cheeks was any indicator, Sarutobi guessed Kyuubei had just come from a hot bath.
"What do you think you're doing?! You can't barge in here!" Kyuubei exclaimed.
The appearance of an uninvited guest certainly did not make the blush go away. If anything, Kyuubei's cheeks turned a brighter shade of red.
Sarutobi walked over to the table and crossed her arms, unapologetic.
"Says who? Your words are worthless to me."
Kyuubei withdrew the hands they had splayed over the table to adopt a more collected stance. Sarutobi's bitterness was not lost on them, nor were the plans spread on the table lost on Sarutobi.
"I'm disappointed that's what you think of me." Kyuubei replied.
"What else am I supposed to think? You're full of lies."
"Will you sit down?"
"No."
The strap of Kyuubei's eye-patch caught in their hair and Kyuubei pulled it down, revealing the scarred empty eye-socket. Sarutobi glanced at it unconsciously, ignoring the sigh of regret Kyuubei let out.
"It was the only way to get you to Biwa. Can't you understand?"
"Sunglasses guy said two people returned here," Sarutobi pressed on, "I want to meet them. See what I'm in for."
She felt Sarutobi's eye on her, yet hers were focused on the layouts displayed on the table. Attempts at dividing the farmland for maximum yield. Studies of transportation routes and defense plans.
"I'll arrange you a meeting." Kyuubei relented.
Sarutobi sat down at the favorable answer. There was a candor to Kyuubei's willingness to help her which Sarutobi could not ignore, even though Kyuubei kept her on her toes, scratching and biting and fighting for every morsel of truth she could lay her hands on.
"You must know why they want people." Sarutobi said, tone both curious and accusatory.
"Same reason we do," Kyuubei answered, "To strengthen their community. More people means more workers, more teachers, more builders, more soldiers."
"More mouths to feed, more wounds to heal, more responsibility when things go south. More chances for someone to hide a bite, to turn."
"It's a delicate balance." Kyuubei agreed.
"Kitaoji-san invited me to go to the farmlands today. He said they are showing the new complex to the caravan people. What's the play here?"
They locked stares, aware of the layout plans between them and all the words they feared to entrust each other.
"No play," Kyuubei replied, "The caravan people are going to assess the place, see how much they can contribute to our efforts to expand. Standard procedure."
"But you will stay here? Toujou too, I bet." Sarutobi scoffed.
"You can be my eyes."
Laughter erupted from Sarutobi's mouth. Oh, the play was magnificent indeed. Were it not for the kids dependent on her, Sarutobi would have enjoyed the role of double agent immensely. As things stood, every risk was calculated. She could no longer remain passive, nor shackled by the kind of gratitude Kyuubei asked of her: the one that stank of obedience.
In an instant, Sarutobi lunged across the table and snatched the sword Kyuubei kept beside them at all times. She unsheathed the blade and drove the pointy end towards Kyuubei's seeing eye.
"You mean I can be your eye, singular," Sarutobi said with a crooked smile, teeth showing, her blade an inch from Kyuubei's eye, "I could push this blade through your skull and end it all. Tell me, why do you trust me?"
"What do you want to hear?" Kyuubei's forbearance wiped the smile off Sarutobi's face, and the proximity to their disfigured eye stilled her hand. Sarutobi had never seen it that close, in so much detail — the size of the teeth marks, the scabs.
Kyuubei's voice stole her attention, brave and timid all at once.
"Because I have no other choice. Because you stopped. Because I want to show you I'm serious-"
"Young Master, may I come in?"
Toujou's voice cut through the thick atmosphere of the room. Sarutobi pulled back the sword and sheathed it, body racked by adrenaline. She placed it on top of the table above the maps and layouts.
Kyuubei stared at her with welled up emotion yet spoke as if nothing had happened.
"Yes, come in."
The sight of Toujou's narrow, slanting eyes pop as he happened upon Sarutobi inside the garden room was one both Sarutobi and Kyuubei stowed away in their minds to laugh at later. At the present moment, however, leaving was all Sarutobi could do. She acknowledged Toujou with a curt nod and excused herself, exchanging no further words with Kyuubei.
She heard Toujou hiss as she closed the door behind her.
"I told you not to let that wench get too close, Young Master!"
"Call her wench again and I'll feed Jugem one of your fingers, Toujou."
Four shelves in and Kagura heard the pounding inside the walls again. After her big row with Lady Otaki in the morning, during which Kagura had argued for the right to wield more than a broom against the dark entity that plagued the storeroom — a description Lady Otaki had rolled her eyes at so hard she almost dislocated them — Kagura had resigned herself to her fate, but not without a backup plan. She pinched a meat mallet from the kitchens and hid it on her person the same way Shinpachi had smuggled the packet of jerky the other night, tucked tight into the waistband of her pants. Nobody seemed to notice its absence since there was little to no meat to cook, a detail that escaped Kagura's reasoning but which worked in her favor nonetheless.
Geared with the extra weapon and a good night's sleep, the unknown now aroused Kagura's curiosity more than her fear. Whatever was going on beyond the walls of the storeroom could not possibly be happening without the old bag knowing it. Kagura was certain of it, and thus, she set on finding everything about the source of the noise. She would not give the old hag the satisfaction of scaring her into submission.
After an interminable day of counting and recounting items, totaling four and a half inventoried shelves, a woman under Lady Otaki's command came to instruct Kagura to close the storeroom and return to her room. Kagura nodded without protest, locked the storeroom, and followed the woman up the stairs. She left in the direction of her room and, once she noticed the woman no longer followed behind her, she turned back towards the kitchens.
Night had settled across the estate. The moon glowed bright enough to light Kagura's path as she sneaked through the estate's outer hallways. She ducked and stopped whenever she heard voices nearby, careful to try and discern what people said in hopes of finding a hint to whatever was trapped inside the walls. But at that late hour, most people were returning to their rooms to sleep or getting ready for a watch turn on the ramparts.
The corridors leading to the kitchens were clear. Kagura's heart pumped faster as she walked in the adjoining room. She lit one of the candles she'd pilfered from the storeroom and found herself in a small cupboard of a room. Meal trays stacked high on her left. On her right, old washing machines stood collecting dust, awaiting a more prosperous future where they might once again be of use. Aside from that, nothing unusual caught her attention. She tiptoed across the small space left for her to move, cursing Shinpachi for not letting her snoop around the previous day when people had flocked to the place. She tried to visualize the floor plan: where the walls met, where the storeroom fit under the kitchens. With her eyes closed, she focused on the images, but all that came to her was the sound of candle wax dripping on the floor.
"Shit."
She crouched to wipe the liquid stains with the hem of her shirt and noticed a pronounced slit on the floor. She followed the small fissure with one finger until it disappeared under one of the washing machines. The slit drew a square shape, like a trapdoor.
"I knew it."
Giddy, Kagura pushed the washing machine aside. Perhaps with better lighting, she might have seen the scuff marks on the floor from repeatedly dragging the machine back and forth. But that did not deter her. The lock on the trapdoor did. Frustration immediately set in. Kagura cursed, feeling her efforts wasted, especially after struggling to maneuver the heavy washing machine as silently as she could. Then she remembered the meat mallet she had tucked into the waistband of her pants.
The switch in her head that dictated bad decisions and which she nurtured in memory of the person she missed most, was fairly easy to access. Kagura struck the lock twice to no avail and recklessness would have her try a third and fourth time, but a flicker of candlelight brought her eyes to the rusty hinges of the trapdoor and those she was able to knock off without raising a racket.
The trapdoor pivoted on the lock and Kagura pushed it aside until a dark hole appeared on the floor, along with the outlines of a ladder.
Kagura took a deep breath before descending, gauging the silence. No scurrying, no pounding. Mallet in hand, she put one foot down, securing her weight, then she traded the mallet for the candle and climbed all the way down.
The room below was wide and empty. The absence of shelves and boxes made it seem bigger than the storeroom that mirrored it. Kagura walked in the direction of the wall that divided the two rooms, and soon she stopped.
The light of her candle fell on the bars of a wide cage that encompassed half the length of the wall. Something murmured softly.
Kagura's free hand closed around the handle of the meat mallet. Candlelight shone upon the floor inside the cage. Her eyes widened in the dark, scanning every inch she could see in the dim light. If there was a rotter inside the cage, which Kagura had never considered since rotters were too real, too boring to fit into her wild guesses, not to mention incapable of climbing the walls of the estate, she did not see it.
But she heard the murmuring, the squeaking.
From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a small rat emerge from a crevice in the wall and scurry across the floor of the cage. The rat stopped beside a pile of half a dozen rat carcasses, maimed and bloody and some torn into chunks. Then she bit back a scream as a heavy mass threw itself against the cage, shrieking. It gripped the bars of the cage and disappeared before Kagura could take a proper look. The candlelight flickered. Everything happened too fast. Kagura's eyes darted from one place to the next. In a second she saw the rat dashing away and the next it was screeching, being chewed, then the candlelight flickered again, and the bigger creature lunged at the bars of the cage again, growling. Kagura winced. Her hands trembled, yet she found enough courage to strike the cage with her mallet. The sound scared the creature away. It scampered towards the carcasses, making a mess. Kagura's eyes followed the bloody trail of its footprints. Something morbidly familiar seized her.
The creature seemed to wail. It was too small to be a human, too big to be a mutated rat. Now that it stood quiet, hunched in a corner, half grunting, half squealing, Kagura could see it for what it was. A pet monkey.
She walked beside the cage, approaching it carefully. She noticed the monkey wore a small collar around its neck and tried to reach for it to check the plate, but the monkey lunged in a fury, gripping her forearm and sinking its teeth into her flesh. Kagura cried out. She saw the monkey's white eyes gleaming, two infected pools, and panicked. Instead of the mallet, she threw her candle on the monkey. Loud screeches filled the room. The flame extinguished and Kagura got her arm free. She felt around for the mallet, wishing to pummel the monkey to death, but in the dark she was powerless. She stumbled towards the ladder and climbed up, heart in her throat. Once she was up, she kicked the trapdoor back in place, thrust the washing machine over it with her hips and left.
The night wind was icy on her skin when she stepped outside. She kept to the dark outer hallways, away from the watchful eyes on the ramparts, though the watchers were more focused on the threats coming from outside than inside. Not that Kagura considered herself a threat, she didn't know what to think. Blood spilled from the spot where the monkey had torn her flesh with its teeth. Just looking at it made Kagura's heart beat faster, a wave of heat rush to her brain and her mind go blank with dread.
Her feet led her towards Shinpachi. She needed him to tell her it would be alright, that the bite would heal, that they would find Sacchan. She would know what to do.
But Kagura bumped into a stranger before she could make any of that happen.
Long dark hair swept into view. Evenly trimmed bangs framed a dull, pale face. Kagura gasped with surprise, but the young woman facing her did not budge.
"Did you like it?" Nobume asked.
Kagura frowned in confusion and hid her arms behind her back.
"Sorry, I didn't see you there," she said, looking around, wondering if the girl was actually speaking to her, "Goodnight."
"Are you okay?"
Kagura kept walking, hoping the girl would leave.
"Yeah, it's my-uh, cramps. Yeah, my cramps were killing me, so I went for a walk."
The excuse was as botched as the state Kagura had left the cupboard room in, but she didn't care. Tendrils of pain stretched from the bite in her forearm to her shoulder, she could barely keep herself from howling.
"I can get you more jerky if you like."
"Yeah, that would be great. T-Thanks!"
"I like a snack too."
"Y-yeah- that's great. See ya!"
The pain escalated. Kagura's vision swam. Shivers racked her body. She didn't know whether her legs still propelled her forward. She thought of Shinpachi, called his name, and felt a pair of arms catch her before passing out.