Water

Water

  by

  Kassandra Alvarado

  Copyright 2016

  Cover Art designed by Kassandra Alvarado

  The wheels of the bus jounced its few passengers over the muddy ruts in the road. Thin sedge grass bordered the narrow road snaking through the countryside. A flat land demarcated by a few slopes ended in an indeterminate distance where sparkling blue-green water invited those unfamiliar to its shores. Naomi had grown up there, running barefoot on the sands, gathering pretty shells. Their home by the seaside was decorated with driftwood, her finds after a childhood spent scavenging the wilds.   

  She didn't want to return there.  

  It was with great reluctance that she'd turned a blind eye to offers of promotion, a corner office with views of Tokyo Tower rising into majestic red spire. Her father, that fey creature, who often had wandered in and out of her and her mother's small lives, had passed. Naomi's brow furrowed as the sun lit a blinding arc, the fragments of it hurt her vision.   

  He had been a folklorist, her father. In youth, tramping the countryside, staying at tiny hovels, enraptured at firesides by tales told by withered old men. Ghosts, monsters...strange sightings in the sky. He'd compiled them all, written in a relatively tight shorthand then typed up on an ancient typewriter. The first manuscript had sold in gift shops, financing her crib and other small necessities.   

  When had everything gone so completely and utterly wrong?  

  The bus jerked to a stop outside a neatly painted overhang. The driver announced the name of the place in a cheerful enough voice. No one else stood, lulled in the sunshine to a pleasant slumber. Naomi tardily grabbed the handles of her overnight bag, standing with a momentary hesitation on her lips. She didn't owe her father anything. She had her daughter who was miles away. Why was she here then? To prove there was nothing in the dark? 

  ...that I'm not that scared child anymore? 

  She nodded to the driver in passing. 

  "I'm from here," she wanted to say proudly. But she kept her lips sealed. Stepping from the bus into the bright sunlight was like stepping into another world. Immediately she smelled the ocean air, tang, salt, the brine of gutted fish. The sand and rocks possessed their own scent. It seemed to welcome her back, recognizing a daughter of the sea. 

  Naomi walked down the little path. It stretched on quite a ways, ending at a natural stairwell beside a small house with an old fashioned tin roof. There was an old well somewhere on the property. The stones faint to the eye as well the depression in the earth they formed caught her glance. Twenty paces to the left of the back door... 

   The house had been her father's last refuge. He'd shunned people in his last illness, forgetting even the weekly phone call.  

  Naomi hadn't thought of herself as a bad daughter, now she wondered if people saw her that way. She hoped not.  

  Flowers grew beside the doorstep, flanking the small weathered stone step. Naomi reached down, unstrapping her sandals, leaving them beside the door. Her father's slippers were just inside, the soles were worn on the heels. They dwarfed her feet. Naomi padded across the tiny living room, glancing past the old metal lamp on the table carved with seashells. The threadbare sofa beside an old TV set.  Everything she touched had a memory to it.

  She entered the small bedroom off the living room and found a comparative disaster. An older model computer rested on top of a battered desk, beside it, the printer's tray overflowed with paper. Faxes, she saw. All of the same thing. Two characters, a name in black ink.  

  Tomino. 

  Tomino. 

  Tomino. 

  She gathered them up, perturbed. Something like soft fur crawled across the palm of her hand. Naomi screamed, the sound shrill, somehow rebellious. The papers cascaded to her feet. A black centipede snaked away, its feelers twitching at her insensitivity.  

  Her nerves were on edge. 

  She sighed, feeling her shoulders tight. 

  "It's just an insect, harmless really." 

  It was a centipede just like death, explainable.  

  Naomi exhaled the sourness in the air. It was nothing like the clean salted breeze from the ocean. This air tasted of bitterness, shattered dreams. She forced a cheerful tune to her lips. The sooner everything was packed up, the faster she could return to the life she'd carved out for herself and Rin-chan. 

  Naomi decided to tackle the study after lunch. She'd packed kombu snacks, soy sauce flavored rice crackers with instant noodle cups. The kitchen was located at the back of the house, the water, a cold icy jet flowed over her hands. There was a window above the sink, the view overlooked a vast field of grass. Naomi found a towel in the cabinet, she dried her hands slowly. The table was set for one. Naomi sat where she always had, in the smaller chair with the heart-shaped knot hole carved into its headrest. She ate carefully, leaving little trace of herself in the tiny kitchen. No crumbs, no gutted styrofoam and plastic on the counter. She bagged everything up and left it at the back door.  

  The telephone hooked to the wall rang. 

  She went to pick it up. 

  Without preamble, a woman's voice with a Kansai accent blurted."Hi, I'm Fukuda Yoko and I was wondering if Kotsubaki-sensei was available? The matter's extremely urgent!" 

  "That would be my father, Fukuda-san. He is presently unavailable--" 

  "What? When will he be available?" 

  "Not ever. You see, he died recently. If this is referencing his folkloric work, please contact the university of Okinawa. They'll be able to tell you more." She was about to hang up when the woman went on. "No, please you must help me! My brother was researching urban legends and came across a version of Tomino's Hell. Your father told him the origins of the poem. I think he might have something to do with his disappearance!" 

  "I... I'm really sorry to hear about your troubles but, I have no information for you.”

  “Wait –wait, if you're going through his papers, take down my number in case you find anything.”

  She thought of the faxes spilled across the floor, the desperation of someone searching for a loved one. “Alright,” she pulled a pad of paper and a pencil nub out from behind the toaster. A low crackling sound came through the line. She frowned at it, wondering if the phone line was screwing up. “I'm ready,” she said, after a pause jotting down the number told to her.

  When that was done, the two women were silent with one another.

  In the background, Naomi could hear a child at play, singing the same three lines repetitively. That in itself was strange, the voice was seemingly neither male nor female and oddly distorted like it came through a fog of some sort. “Kotsubaki-san, do you believe that there is some truth behind urban legends?”

  No, she thought, putting her thoughts into words. She forced herself to sound more sure than she felt. “They're just made up stories meant to scare young children and teenagers.”

  “Then, your father...he didn't...,” believe.

  “No, he didn't. Goodbye," she said forcefully, hanging up. The encounter left Naomi breathing hard, defensive over her father's reputation. He'd already been considered crazy by some.  

  In the kitchen she drank a tall cool glass of water, resting some before finishing up her inspection of the house.  The last room she hadn't been in had a heavy padlock and chain looped through a hole in the door. Naomi examined it remembering it as a place her father would disappear to whenever inspiration took him.  

  She went through the keys twice and found none that matched the old fashioned square lock. Then she remembered the junk drawer in the kitchen. The key lay among bottle caps, screwdrivers, broken shells and odd bits of fluff.  

  Triumphant, she felt like she was solving one childhood mystery at a time. Twisting
the key in the lock, she felt the door give with a rush of stale air.  

  Disappointment. 

  The room was like any other in the house. 

  Small, wood paneled, most importantly it was nearly empty except for one thing. 

  A box. 

  The kind of which her father had often stored scraps of paper, old newspapers that might be of use to him. 

  But, why was this box behind a locked door? 

  The box was unlabeled, she removed the lid with a mounting sense of anticipation though from where the feeling stemmed from, she could no longer tell. Inside, a manuscript lay wrapped in yellowed tissue paper. The title page was nameless like a child abandoned without a name, the blank whiteness unnerved her.  

  Carefully, lifting it out, she set it aside reaching for the other object hidden beneath; an exercise book with