Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction (28 page)

He walked straight up to her and asked, “Are you real?”

In the four months he’d been in Seoul, he hadn’t seen another human. He’d been sent there by his government to see if there was anything they could salvage from the remains of the city, and then abandoned when he lost his communications device. Li Qiang presumed they thought him dead. Seeing the foreign woman had him wondering if they were right.

The woman nodded. “Come here and touch me if you don’t believe it,” she said.

As he reached out to her, she grabbed his hands and placed them on her breasts.

“How… how can I help you?” he asked, pulling his hands back.

“There is a Korean woman here, somewhere in this city. I want you,” she said, placing a finger to his chest, “to find her.”

“What then?”

“Keep her until further instruction.”

“And what will I get in return?” he asked.

She stood up, took one of his hands, placed it on her buttocks, and kissed him firmly on the lips. “More of that, taken to the next level.”

He watched her, dumbstruck, as she then walked toward the river, and disappeared.

It wasn’t until he found the Korean woman that Li Qiang realised it was not a dream. He tried to keep the memory of holding her captive from entering his mind next, but the woman’s words filled his mind.

Kill her.

Inside the warehouse, when the Korean woman came around, he got curious. He wanted to know where she’d come from; why he hadn’t seen her before. But it wasn’t to be. The white woman had other plans.

Kill her now, while you still can.

Her voice continued to echo in his head, even now, and he wondered why he was returning to a woman who would make him do this. A woman who could put thoughts in his mind.

Then he stopped in his tracks. This was not what he wanted. He lifted one foot and twisted to go back the way he’d come, but as soon as that foot hit the ground, a song filled his head. He entered a trance as the song drew him back toward the river.

As torturous as the words sounded—incongruous with the soothing tune—he could not stop himself from walking.

Come to the river

You are the last man in Seoul

All Koreans gone

Come to the river

Where lay the men from the war

Victims of my song

Come to the river

Meet your beautiful lady

Take me on a date

Come to the river

Receive me at my best, and

Meet Mr Kim’s fate

Though Li Qiang knew Kim was probably the most common Korean name, somehow hearing it in his head like this made him realise she was referring to the North’s former dictator. Had this fair songstress controlled him, too?

For a moment, the song paused, long enough for the woman to whisper in his head,
Yes.

He could see the river by now, and—hoping it could buy him some time—asked, “But why?”

I was murdered by my Korean lover, when his wife discovered us.

But Li Qiang wasn’t listening too closely to her, trying to figure out any possible escape route. Before he could turn and run, she began repeating the song, the trance returned, and he walked on. Then he saw her, standing naked in the middle of a bridge. He could see her mouth moving in time with her lyrics, but they remained in his head instead of escaping her mouth, until he was three metres away from her.

“Wha— What do you want from me?” Li Qiang asked, when she had finished her song and taken hold of both his lower arms. He had to look up at her, as she had about fifteen centimetres on him. “What
else
, I mean?”

“Do you not wish to make love to me?” she asked with sultry eyes.

He was too fearful about what that would mean for him now, so he slowly shook his head.

Then you die sooner.
Her words penetrated the deepest recesses of his mind in a painful manner he’d never felt with her words previously. It was enough of a distraction that she was then able to drag him over the edge of the bridge, where she dived into the river. As the pain receded in his head, he saw her legs morph into a tail. All too late did he discover the truth.

Seoul was destroyed by a vengeful, genocidal mermaid.

About Dominica Malcolm

Dominica Malcolm is the author of
Adrift
, a speculative fiction novel that follows pirate Jaclyn Rousseau in the 17th and 21st centuries. As with her novel, her writing tends towards pirates and/or mermaids, though she also writes dystopias. Look her up on Goodreads to find other anthologies she’s been published in.

Though born in Western Australia, Dominica holds citizenship in both Australia and the USA, and currently lives in Malaysia with her husband and two children. She travels a lot, having been to over 30 countries in 6 continents around the world, which inspires some of her writing. She has a Bachelor of Science in Internet Computing, and a Graduate Diploma in Media Production. Checking out her web site (
http://dominica.malcolm.id.au
) will lead you to music videos and short films she’s worked on, as well as sample stand-up comedy, artwork, and writing.

The Healer

Aashika Nair

~ India ~

Apple extract and mint – a task for secrets.

Raspberry juice and cinnamon – love potion.

Lemon juice, anise and a splash of strawberry – to forget.

Sonal ran through the list in her head, closing her eyes as she sat in the city park. The faint pink-and-orange blossoms from the tree fell gently as the wind scooped them from the branches and laid them on the ground with the softest landing possible. It was an evening of sorts; calm and cool on the exterior but maybe, behind the clouds, a plan was brewing. Sonal’s fingers moved slightly, as if she were coming awake from a coma.

Her thoughts shifted to her present life circumstances, and she wondered again if she had chosen the right path. After all, the Head Mistress had carefully elucidated her two options, her tone expressing her preference.

And Sonal had picked to continue her life as a Young Mistress here. On Earth. In this very town of Manipal.

The Head Mistress, though blatantly disapproving, allowed her wish to be granted—Sonal was not the first, and neither would she be the last to make that choice. So, Sonal quietly packed her necessities, rented a cosy little apartment across the crystal rivulets on the west side of town, and minded her own business.

Three months had since disappeared. She sighed inwardly and stirred, as did the fallen leaves in hushed whispers.

That’s when she felt the shift in the weight of the bench and a pained panting. Her eyes darted left.

The boy had piercing eyes, but she had no time to register its details.

He
had been pierced.

He didn’t respond at first, seeing her but not quite seeing her too. Angry puce blotches bloomed across his red shirt and tattered shorts, and his bony kneecaps jutted out at an almost obscene angle.

“Gang fight… knife… after me,” he wheezed out. Then, he trailed off and promptly collapsed into her lap head-first.

Sonal didn’t know who he was, or the truth. But the wound looked deadly, and it was time to show she could do she was did best after years of training. She threw his arm over her left shoulder and brought him back to her apartment in small, quick steps.

Lightning forked the warm grey sky.

§

The boy had been sleeping deeply on her bed since yesterday evening. Sonal had slowly spooned in a mixture of peach tea with crushed poppy seeds, to heal his internal tissues and wounded organs throughout the night. Amidst his feeble, half-delirious attempts to brush her off, she applied the avocado-saffron paste to his right abdominal region. She couldn’t help but stare at his ribcage as she thumbed the paste across the deep wound—his bones were arranged as if on display for a counting game.

Sonal felt slightly uneasy, as if the boy had known who she was—what she was—and came to her for help, of all the people in the park. Who was he? She herself had never tended to a male before. In her world, the healing mistresses were all females, and so were most of their patients—only a select few, out of dire necessity, were male.

She picked up a change in breathing noise. The boy had awoken. He sat up slowly, scanning the small room. She noted how quietly he breathed.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice surprisingly crisp and clear.

She sat at the edge of the bedside, checking his pulse and wounds.

“How are you feeling?”

He smiled shyly, and she caught a glimpse of his teeth.
Perfect for a scrawny thing like him
, she thought enviously and briefly remembered how her mother used to rub neem leaves on her teeth to whiten them.

“Much better… I’m Aditya.” He stuck out his hand, oddly formal for someone who looked only a couple of years younger than she was. She took it up.

“I’m Sonal. Wait here, I’ll get your lunch.” She slipped into her kitchen to spoon the soup and bring the food tray to the bed. He ate with gusto, yet she could tell he was savouring the consistency and taste of the broth. A comfortable silence washed over the little scene.

“You’re very beautiful. The girls where I live don’t look like you do!”

She blushed at his sudden words; obviously this wasn’t one kid who filtered his thoughts first. It had been a long time since she heard the compliment without feeling icky, under the obsidian glare of drunken men in dark alleyways. Her mother used to tell her that, until she reached eighteen. Then, she had told Sonal, “Show me that your skill and courage match that beauty of yours.” That was also the last time Sonal saw her mother.

“So… you want to tell me how you ended up with a knife through your ribs?”

He grinned and burst into his adventure animatedly.

§

Two months passed. Aditya came to live with her, having decided to permanently leave his ‘god-awful’ orphanage. “No wonder Lord Krishna doesn’t come when they pray to him!”

He took a helper’s job at the local market, and often brought her back tasty snacks—some of which he pilfered. Though the living-in arrangement drew no attention, she wouldn’t have bothered about it—
she wasn’t exactly one of them, was she?
She was fairly certain he was head over heels in love with her; she herself had become terribly fond of him.

His wit and humour belied someone his age, and he never failed to make her laugh every day. “You’re too serious. If you never smile, you’d only have me to marry!” he’d tell her, eliciting a giggle.
Mating? Yes. Marrying? Heck no.

Sonal watched him often, thinking about the deception.
Here he is telling me everything about him; his friends, his shoddy school. His dreams, his poor literacy skills. His secrets. So naïve, so trusting.

She wished she could reciprocate that.
But he mustn’t know. He cannot know. Our world is a world of secrets.
She’d recite the warning forcefully in her mind, as if clamping down a restraint on a mad dog.

His eyes were a mystery to her—a clear sable, flecked with tiny strokes of grey on their tranquil surface upon closer inspection. They were so familiar, like fragments of an old song in one’s mind, but never loud enough for one to catch the lyrics.
I bet Diya would know, she knew everything about anything!

Thinking about Mistress Nindiya aroused the old feelings of missing her companions.
I wonder what they felt when I left—Nindiya wasn’t thrilled with my decision.
And neither were the other women, really.

Aditya would have to leave soon. The Head Mistress always had her spies, and sometimes took up observations herself through the veil between this world and her own. If anything happened—meaning if Sonal broke their rules—she was sure the Head Mistress would pay her a ‘kindly visit’, austere eyes and all.

It was a Saturday night in charming Manipal when the boy, having turned fifteen, hugged her tight and kissed her chastely on her cheek.

“I would’ve died without you that day.” And he fell asleep.

Sonal’s heart broke a little. What would she do now?

That’s when the woman in red appeared behind her. Startled momentarily, Sonal recovered quickly in this parallel dimension she’d transcended into and gave a little bow.

“Hello, Mother.”

The Head Mistress studied her daughter. To see Sonal in the flesh was a joy, but one she chose to suppress.

“You have to stop this. That boy has to go. Or you have to come back.” She stared at Sonal sternly, her clear brown eyes seeming to solidify in tandem with her tone.

“I know, but—Why?” Suddenly, she registered that phrase in her mind. “Why does he ‘have to go’? Why would you say that?” Sonal worked up some defiance.

Silence.

“There are secrets and reasons in this world—yes, as ever there will be in our world—that is better left unknown. Just do as I say, please,” came the authoritative command.

Something is very wrong with this picture.

“You can’t tell me that and expect me to simply drop everything. I deserve to know why! I rescued the boy! I kept him alive!” She trailed off, tears threatening to spill over as she tried to choke back a sob. “I’m healing him.”

She poured her frustration and anger, accumulated over the years at her mother’s reticence and, sometimes, barely maternal attitude. One salty droplet escaped her eyes.

More silence from the Head Mistress.

Sonal wasn’t sure how much time slowed down. Was it, too, waiting for something to be revealed, or did it already know as much?