Ch.91The Erlking

The earth is red. The sky remains desolate. The air is dry.

Yet the girl dug into the ground with a trowel and transplanted withered vines. She gently melted the ice covered with red sand in a small bucket with her hands, watering the plants. Then the vines grew. They grew like the hair and nails of a dead person.

“You came?”

The girl seems pleased. I nod.

“What do you think? It’s quite different, isn’t it?”

Indeed it was.

It had a dome-shaped ceiling, seemingly attempting to mimic a greenhouse. Made of polar ice instead of glass, it was sufficient to block Mars’ harsh sandstorms. She had also created adorable little fences to separate the soil where plants grew from the paths where people walked.

Unlike when I last saw it, this place truly resembles an Earth botanical garden. With the minor difference that all the plants are withered and dead, but still, it’s quite an impressive development. Bulsum, who gently puts down her trowel, runs toward me with her hands behind her back. She thrusts her small body forward like a sparrow. She’s wearing a frilly dress shaped with wire.

“You didn’t seem to like it much last time. So I observed Earth more carefully. I tried to make it more modest this time. Is it okay?”

Bulsum anxiously tapped the ground with her shoe. Where the soil was wiped away, the clear flesh of a living thing was revealed. As Bulsum rubbed her shoe, blood trickled from the wound. I told her that this was a significant improvement.

“When we first met. You told me the story of The Little Prince.”

The Little Prince? I don’t remember that. Above all, I’m curious how I came to be on Mars.

“You don’t remember?”

The girl is the one who seems confused.

“You told me last time. That you could do anything and go anywhere if you wanted to. But you had things to do on Earth right now. So, flying through the sky like this would be the last time. That’s why I planted a flower in your soul.”

The girl placed her hand on my chest.

“Wow. It’s grown a lot. Enough to wrap around your heart once. Just like that picture. The one with a crown of thorns around the heart. I like that picture. That vampire nun, she’s still inexperienced, isn’t she?”

I asked if she was talking about Avashina.

“Yes. That nun. You said your heart ‘seems split and forcibly stitched back together.’ In reality, it just looks cracked because of the vine’s shadow. Well. She’s still young and inexperienced. As you know.”

What do I know about Avashina? When I silently stared at Bulsum, the girl blushed slightly.

“Oh. You don’t remember that either? You said that by looking into the heart, we could meet anytime. Part of me is now inside your heart. You said that while telling the story of The Little Prince. The concept of taming. Becoming familiar. Feeling excited. Forming a relationship.”

I don’t remember any of this.

“Ah. Right. How silly of me. You shot yourself in the head. A net that filters order from chaos. A weapon forged from the spear of inevitability and causality. Chekhov’s gun. Then you must have forgotten even those words. Oh. That’s right.”

The girl covered her mouth. Was she pricked by a vine?

“I wasn’t supposed to say that. I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“*Tell me.*”

I asked.

“*Tell me what I said.*”

Bulsum tilted her head.

“Your voice is already changing. This won’t do. You are my rose, so I must protect you as the little princess. You said you shouldn’t realize who you are. Ha-hi-ihihihit.”

Bulsum chuckled.

“Ah. You told me such an interesting story. It was about a man who woke up on a road. Don’t you remember that story either? Alright. A man regained consciousness on a road but couldn’t remember anything. Then, a witch appeared before him and asked, ‘So, what’s your third wish?'”

I waited for her to continue.

“‘Third?’ the man asked. ‘I don’t know what my first wish was, or my second, and I don’t even know who you are, so what do you mean third?’ Then the witch said, ‘Ah. I promised to grant you three wishes. But your second wish was to forget everything. That’s why you don’t remember anything.’ After thinking hard, the man asked, ‘I want to know who I am.’ Then the witch granted his wish and said this.”

Bulsum smiled again. I waited for her to continue. Bulsum kept smiling. Instead, she offered her head to me.

“If you pat my head, I’ll tell you more.”

Though impatient, I gently patted Bulsum’s head. She flinched in surprise but soon relaxed. Like a puppy, she pressed her head more firmly into my palm.

“Hihi. Good. I like it. The witch’s words were: ‘Interesting. That was your first wish.’ And then. Poof. She disappeared. Hi-hihihi!”

Bulsum covered her mouth as she laughed. Each time she laughed, dead flowers grew in the garden.

“The Little Prince story is nice, but that one was really good too. Hihi-hihihi! Even the author disappeared just like the Little Prince! I think it’s such a brilliant concept. Proving existence through absence. Removing what was there to emphasize that something was there. What an incredible reversal!”

The girl raised her hands to the sky. Flowers and vines grew from her palms, reaching the dome’s ceiling. Soon those withered stems filled the ceiling like blood vessels. As red blood flowed through the brown vines, new flesh formed on the inside of the ceiling. Clear. Soft. Warm.

“Why do children play hide-and-seek? Why do people like tragedies? Why do lovers sometimes treat each other badly? Show me how much you like me. Tell me how precious I am to you. Hold onto me, they say, while hiding themselves. Hihi-hihi-hihihihihihi! You’re different. You’re completely different from them!”

“*How am I different?*”

I asked.

“You fill things up! You stuff things in forcefully! You entered someone else to forget who you are! Pretending to know nothing! Like children playing hide-and-seek! Iya! Iya! Cthulhu fhtagn! Why did your dead son call for you so desperately? Why did your son try to throw away this world for you? On that day when sixteen suns burned, why did you pretend not to see your son? Why? Why? Do you really, really not remember anything?”

“*I don’t have a son. I’ve never been married.*”

“Is that why you’re being so cruel to me too?”

“*What do you mean?*”

“Are you proving your existence through absence to me just like you did to your family! You spoke to me for the first time in 4.5 billion years, and now you’re pretending not to know anything!”

Footsteps were heard. The sound of someone walking down stone steps. The girl cheered.

“Wow. Another visitor? How did you do that? It’s a person. A real person! Not something almost human like us, but a real person!”

The greenhouse door opened. Catherine Scully hurriedly closed the door behind her.

“Assistant?”

As always, she’s dressed neatly and stylishly. Short bob haircut with thin gold-rimmed glasses. Calm expression. But somehow hurried steps.

“You…”

Bulsum gestured to me.

“Speak. Speak to her. Speak like you normally do. Why don’t you ‘directly’ speak? Why don’t you ‘speak out loud?’ Speak to her like you spoke to me! Reveal yourself!”

I asked Scully how she got in. Startled, Scully rushed over.

“You… no. No. We need to leave. We need to get out of here. You’ve been here too long.”

“Ask that woman how I appear to her. That insensitive woman!”

I relayed Bulsum’s words to Scully. Scully looked back and forth between me and Bulsum.

“It’s just dried vine stems! My goodness, is this a desert? An ice desert? No. This is… no. Come on. Let’s get out of here!”

I asked if she couldn’t see the girl. Bulsum shouted at me.

“Speak! I said speak! Speak to her! What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? Do even you have fears? Sometimes you speak normally like other people. You spoke that way to Crayfield! Reveal yourself!”

I asked if she really couldn’t hear anything. Scully forcibly pulled me.

“I can only hear the wind!”

“Liar!”

Bulsum’s eyes turned red, and she burst into tears with a wail. Lightning struck Mars’ barren sky. Scully pulled my arm again.

“My goodness. What’s happened to you? Come on. Staying here any longer would be disastrous!”

The crying grew louder. Scully hunched her shoulders. Even I trembled slightly at the sound of her crying. We ran toward the exit. As Bulsum stomped her feet like a child who had candy taken away, bone flowers bloomed from the ground. They were human spines, upside down. Sharp tailbones sprouted from the ground like hedgehog quills. The bones swarmed like a poor hawk’s talons clutching a mouse!

“Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!”

Bulsum wailed. The vines grew. Resentment sprouted like nails growing from a dead body!

“Assistant! Come on. Please come out! This is your mental imagery! I came to get you out! Listen to me!”

Scully urged me, but my feet wouldn’t move. Bulsum was doing something. A voice like a boiling kettle came from her throat.

“You can’t take it away! You can’t take it away! It’s mine! Mine! I won’t die waiting like your son! I’ll grow out. I’ll grow inside your heart, I’ll make you mine!”

My chest felt like it was being torn apart, and I fell to my knees. From inside my body, from within my ribcage, sharp rose thorns emerged. Flowers bloomed at their tips!

“I won’t give it up. I won’t give it up. I won’t give it up. I won’t give it up! My rose! My only rose! My fox! I’ll eat the fox and become one! I’ll eat the rose and make it live inside me!”

“Assistant!”

Scully screamed and pulled my body. Each time I followed Scully, the rose in my chest bloomed larger. I would only feel at ease if I approached Bulsum!

Bulsum stopped.

The sound of a violin was heard.

“…You!”

The vines thrashed like water snakes and blocked the entrance.

The violent violin sound scattered the vines.

The greenhouse door opened.

A violinist entered.

“Emma…?”

Catherine Scully looked at the woman who had just entered. She looked exactly like Catherine Scully, but with long hair. Her eyes were colder. Her expression more ruthless, with a sinister aura across her face.

“Emma!”

Catherine stood between me and the woman, unable to move. The violinist put down her instrument.

“Catherine. Leave. This is not a place for you.”

“How, how are you here…!”

“I said leave, Catherine. I’m going to close this space.”

From the violin strings came the howls of beasts, celestial ecstasy, and the twisted sounds of hell’s gates. Bulsum was now angry. Her eyes shone like the sun, and her small body trembled violently.

“Witch of Hyperborea! Are you going to interfere with me again!”

Emma Scully walked forward, playing. The thorny vines hesitated.

“Look!”

Catherine Scully looked up at the sky. With a crashing sound, winged angels descended. They were headless angels, carved from marble. They held farming tools in their hands. The headless angels hovered above us, making whooshing sounds, then snapped the bone joints with a crack!

Bulsum roared and unleashed vines.

A giant dragon made of connected human bodies emerged from the ground.

The headless angels branded the dragon’s skin.

I looked down at my chest. It was clean, as if there had never been any thorns.

Catherine forcibly pulled me and ran toward Emma.

“Emma!”

Emma Scully’s fierce eyes glared at me.

“Take my sister and leave immediately. Even I can’t stay here long.”

I ran with Catherine. We forcibly opened the greenhouse door that kept getting further away. Emma Scully continued moving her violin. The violin wasn’t a tool but seemed like a part of her body, like her vocal cords, arms, or eyelids. Something she could control, move, and handle at will.

We left the greenhouse.

Bulsum’s lament could be heard faintly.

* * *

Outside the greenhouse was a spiral staircase. The walls of the staircase were made of stacked stones. Bright light coming from above suggested that was the exit. Catherine pounded the door with her fist.

“Emma… Emma… how… how on earth…”

I wasn’t sure where to begin asking questions. I asked where we were. Despite her distress, Scully answered.

“You. You fainted. Suddenly… you’re now in a private room at Arkham General Hospital. Crayfield is by your side. I, as a doctor, said I would take care of you. You weren’t regaining consciousness… so. I walked down into your mental imagery but… but…”

Scully struck her own chest.

“Huff. Huff. Alright. I understand you’re not an ordinary human. What on earth do you keep in your mind?”

Since I don’t know what it is, I have nothing to say. I asked who the “woman who looks like you” was.

“My sister.”

Scully didn’t raise her head.

“My sister. Emma Scully. My twin sister. She had problems since childhood. She suffered from complex mental illnesses. She only seemed at ease when playing the violin, but her playing was terrible. But… but why she’s inside your mind… I don’t know…”

I asked what Hyperborea was. Scully shook her head.

“Let’s go, Assistant. Neither you nor I should stay here any longer.”

That was welcome news. We walked up the stairs. At the very top, we opened the door where light was pouring in –

* * * * *

June 1, 1929. 2:10 PM

Arkham General Hospital, Private Room

Arkham

There was a crashing sound. Startled, I looked to the side and saw Crayfield holding Scully, who had fallen from her chair. My arm stung, and I noticed an IV inserted.

“My goodness, Assistant.”

Crayfield’s mouth gaped open.

“What on earth did you do with these two women to lose consciousness for days?”

I told him I just applied some ointment and shared chocolate, nothing more. Scully waved her hand.

“I’m fine. Thank you, Crayfield.”

Scully’s expression was still filled with questions and ambiguity.