Candle in the Attic Window(51)
The squires, the donceles, are no longer that sweet nor young. From the parking lot that bears the same name of the street, it seems a labyrinthic cave opens up; at its entrance, an impassive, worn, three-story building stares back: three heads which question my entrance, but allow my passage. I penetrate a web of centuries-old neoclassical constructions, which close above me. Although it is noon, the sun barely lightens the sidewalk; there is a cold that slices the bone, but I keep walking. I walk by the theatre, Fru Fru, amidst a thick rain of black feathers. I see, on each side of the street, photographic businesses in niches full of humidity, some which are, ironically, illuminated by candles of trembling light. The bookstores of used books, like angels of a cemetery, open voluptuously. Amongst the angelic businesses shines “Miracle Alley”. I enter this store as though an external force conducts me to the shelf at the back. On the third bookshelf – dusty, damp and covered with a black jacket – is the book. I pay 13 pesos. I walk. The street also smells of mildew; it is cloudy, full of dust. The used bookstores invade the sidewalks. I walk as if possessed. I walk.
I stand before a newsstand. On the right side, a thin, very-white sheet is pasted. With beautiful calligraphy, it offers a room for rent. There is no phone number, only an address on this same Donceles Street. I take the rice paper and ask the newspaper seller for the address.
“Right ahead, miss,” he says, pointing to a moth-eaten wooden gate.
At this moment, I realize I am pressing hard on the book. I open it to the first page and place the white sheet of paper as a bookmark. The dust from the street lodges in my throat when I realize the book, Bakeneko Monogatari, was written by the author of Hitomi. Not only that, but on the margin of the paper, the same name is written in Japanese: ‘Tsukino’.
Heart beating, I touch the knocker. She opens at once and, with a gesture of her enormous eyes, invites me in.
To live in Tsukino’’s house was like going blind: The small building from the dawn of the 20th century had been trapped between another two of greater size. For this reason, it received very little sunlight. The electrical wiring was old and failed constantly, so our daily life depended on the faint candlelights, which shone yellow because of the humidity.
Despite this impenetrable darkness, I grew used to living in this place with airs of used bookstore: There were rooms full of dusty books and a central patio which, I can swear, is the source of all the humidity in the world. At night, Tsukino walked the hallways in the company of her three cats: Hitomi, Kasumi and Ayumu. From my desk, as I made annotations on the thesis, or from the bed, I would see the brightness of the flame travel the house and hear the meows and purring of the felines. Later, I would feel how one of the cats jumped on my bed and snuggled against my feet.
I had not seen the cats. I knew them by their cries and because Tsukino mentioned their names during her nocturnal walks. Once, I tried to caress the fur of the one sleeping in my bed, but it fled when I reached my hand towards its back. Surely, the darkness and loneliness of the house had made them unsociable.
One night, I bumped into a bookcase while searching for a candle to replace the one that was extinguishing. The book that I had bought on that occasion at “Miracle Alley” fell and opened on a page: “The pupils dilate and shine, with the thousand facets of a kaleidoscope with an abyss in the centre ....”
The light went off.
Kneeling at the threshold, I was able to glimpse a reddish light coming closer down the hallway. I heard Tsukino calling the cats and they responding with loving meows. I heard, too, my name. When the light came closer, I realized it floated like a will-o’-the-wisp over the robust body of a beautiful white cat with two long tails, which, with elegant steps, entered Tsukino’s room. My hands shook, I sweated cold sweat, but I managed to drag myself to the main room. What I saw can barely be told with words: On the bed, wearing the clothes of my landlady, the white cat devoured the bloody flesh of a creature which I am unable to describe.
The tails quivered, ethereal, happy: Kasumi, the mist, and Ayumu, the apparition. The white cat turned, looked at me, and with a gesture of her enormous eyes, invited me in. Hitomi, the pupils ....
I felt myself watched into the infinite by those abysmal eyes, which eat away the flesh and soul. I ran outside towards the dirty air of Donceles, where the moldy bookstores grow and spread like mushrooms over the asphalt, and, like the infinite faces of Tsukino, I began to escape eternally to rid myself of those eyes ....
I still feel her lying at my side at night. I hear her whisper lascivious words in a language I do not understand. Each night, I imagine her eyes and I feel her snuggle next to me, and I am paralyzed and I am lulled and I slowly fall asleep, while she, wickedly, purrs her bestial prayer.
Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas is a Mexican writer and a freelance copy editor. Her stories have been published in local independent magazines and anthologies like Historical Lovecraft (Innsmouth Free Press, 2011). She loves cats and has been working on a thesis on Gothic Literature for so long that it’s not sane, anymore. She can be found online at: http://www.nellygeraldine.com.
I Tarocchi dei d’Este
By Martha Hubbard
The Magus
Lurking in the sharp morning shadows, I, Zoesi Bianfacchio studied my niece in the courtyard below. I schooled my long, saturnine face to display little emotion, only my narrow mouth puckering as if I’d just ingested a rotten lemon. Look at her, I thought. Jumping about like a demented chicken. There are times I think my niece should be sequestered somewhere quiet for her own safety – other times, – I’m certain of it. Holy Mother of God, it’s a hanging not a circus.