* * *
Alarm crackled along Ku’s spine.
Something was wrong.
The woman was not answering correctly. But it was too late. She had the scissors raised and they were going to come down whether Ku wanted them to or not. This was how it always ended. She watched the glint of the blades as they drove downward towards the woman’s face. They would slice into the skin and split it wide.
Something was wrong.
The woman’s face was already splitting wide. Her jaw thrust forward and down, unhinging like flesh made into a puzzle, revealing the dark, widening oval of her throat. Lining the throat were ridges, each ribbed with needle-sharp, inwardly curving teeth. A pearlescent bead oozed from each tooth.
MONSTER.
Ku stumbled to the side, striking the monster on the shoulders instead. The blades carved twin tracks in the skin, revealing not blood and bone, but scale. The impossible maw clamped on Ku’s cheek. Hundreds of barbs hit her like a blow and at first there was no pain. Then the throat worked, the ridges of teeth rippled, not pulling Ku into the mouth, but walking the jaws over her cheek, her eye, the top of her head. Ku felt the slippery, sinewy flex and crawl of the monster’s lips over her skin. The punctures burned like fire and she tried to wrench free, but her body would no longer obey. The mouth gained the whole top of her face and there was only darkness. Ku tried to fade into less than thought, but she could not. She screamed.
The throat walked.
* * *
Tully leaned over the bathroom sink and exhaled. Misty condensation clouded the mirror, and in the reflection, the slit-mouthed spirit reformed, poured out of Tully’s gullet like a giant droplet. When she was complete, the spirit pressed herself against the inside of the glass, her cloudy gaze flittering from one corner of the mirror to the other, searching for a way out. Kuchisake-onna cried out, revealing the torn edges of her mouth, but no sound crossed the glass. She raged against the edges, slamming herself against the sides of her crate. She stabbed the scissors at Tully’s face. The blades struck the mirror. A faint, chalky screech came through on Tully’s side.
Abraham slunk into the bathroom. Tully looked down and gave his head a rub. Another distant screech came from the mirror. Abraham’s ears pricked, and he whined.
“She’ll get used to it,” Tully said. She cracked a huge yawn. “Everyone has trouble crate-training the first couple of nights. Look at you, you got it after your second night.”
He thumped his tail happily and leaned against her.
When a second, even bigger yawn threatened, Tully ran her hand over the mirror’s surface. The spirit throwing herself against the glass vanished, and the scratchy, screeching sounds fell silent. In her place, Tek appeared, curled up on her bed, a cloud of matted black hair around her sleeping face. Her blanket had slipped off, revealing where the bottom half of the young woman’s body had been severed by a train. Tully swiped again, and a boy materialised. He lay on his side, solid black eyes open, yet asleep.
In the last crate, Hannah hung in the top right corner. Tully’s sister sensed her watching and swivelled her head until her face was the right way around. She scuttled up to the mirror and stroked the glass, palpating the space around Tully’s face with her feelers. Scar tissue ringed her head and neck. She’d been Tully’s first rescue and she had fought the hardest. But in the end, Tully had swallowed her sister too.
It was for the best. They didn’t belong out here. The people on the bus this morning proved it. Tully would keep them safe. She would always keep them safe.
After all, a pet is for life.
PHOENIX CLAWS
Lee Murray
A block from the Jade Garden restaurant, I reached out and grasped Fin’s arm. “Hang on.” So many boyfriends had failed; I wasn’t going to let it happen again. I made a fuss of straightening his collar, smoothing the flannel fabric over his weekend sweater. “You know to hold your rice bowl, right? Thumb on the lip, fingers underneath.”
He grinned. Rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
“And your chopsticks—”
“Don’t cross them, don’t stand them up in the rice, and remember to keep my hand palm up when I’m using them,” he intoned in his best Victorian schoolboy. “I offer to pay, even insist a bit, but not too hard, because your dad has to take the honours. Otherwise, he loses face and has to hara-kiri himself on a butter knife.”
Not exactly. Hara-kiri was Japanese, not Chinese. Nevertheless, Fin was the one. I knew it. This uneasiness was just normal new-relationship jitters.
“How do I look?” I asked.
He waggled his eyebrows. Slipped his hands around my waist, his palms automatically heading south to cup my bottom. “Well, I’d do you,” he whispered, pulling me close, his breath in my ear.
I pushed him away. A public display of affection! How could I have ever thought this relationship was a good idea? There was no way this was going to work. My parents might like him, but they’d never fully accept him as my partner. He was everything he shouldn’t be: divorced, a tradie, white…
“We’ve been together for four months, Lucy. I practically live at your place. It’s just brunch,” Fin said gently. “And we’re already late. Come on.” Before I had time to come up with a halfway plausible excuse to skive off, he grabbed my hand and pulled me down the street.
Pushing open the double doors of the restaurant—red happiness characters for handles—we were blasted with noise. Even the crimson carpet, blackened from constant wear, heavy brocade curtains and pastoral Chinese tapestries did little to dampen the cacophony. It was a veritable canton of Chinese voices, high-pitched and harsh, the patrons’ shouts and chatter punctuated with the clatter of plates, the clink of cups, and the occasional sentence in flat English tones.
“Pork sui mai!” a server called.
“More chairs over here,” barked a hostess. “Table eight!”
“How many do you want?” another server asked a group of diners.
I squeezed by the line of people waiting for tables, past the murky aquarium full of oversized goldfish, and slalomed though a group of toddlers playing tag between the chairs.
Only a few paces in and already my hair was wilting in the humidity.
The Jade Garden was our “local”. Our family ate yum cha here every Sunday, and we’d become as much an institution as the restaurant itself. We had our own table near the back. A good spot: far enough not to be bothered by the toilets but close to the kitchen where the servers were forced to pass near the table, their trays stacked with bamboo steamers of fragrant dim sum, or pushing their carts of coconut jellies, turnip cake and sticky rice.
I glanced back at Fin, so tall and fair, striding though the restaurant. Diners shunted their chairs closer to the tables to let him through.
Just brunch, I told myself.
“Lucy!” my sister called. She tapped the table to alert my parents, her mouth forming the words “She’s here.”
I drew in a breath. Pushed my shoulders back. Approached the table like it was any other Sunday. “Hey, sorry we’re late.”
Dad got to his feet, and Fin glided in and shook his hand. “Good to see you again, sir.” He gave Mum a nod. “Mrs Yun.”
Respectful without being too effusive. So far, so good.