Half World by Hiromi Goto Page A

“Child”—she turned to Melanie—“how is it that you have brought change to this place?”
    Melanie shook her head. “I’ve come here, to Half World, to find my mother. She’s been kidnapped by someone called Mr. Glueskin. Ididn’t know anything about Half World, but Ithink this is where my parents came from. My friend, Ms. Wei, she gave me Jade Rat for luck. She said she comes from a long line of scholars and archivists. . . . ” She looked around at the immeasurable numbers of books in the cavernous room. The ceilings, where bare lightbulbs shone, were over twenty-five feet high and arched like catacombs. “Why do you know Jade Rat? Do you know Ms. Wei?”
    â€œA long line of scholars and archivists, you say,” Gao Zhen Xi repeated slowly.
    Jade Rat, who had been lovingly grooming Gao Zhen Xi’s straggly hair, pushed through the locks to stare at Melanie with one beady eye. “I was Gao Zhen Xi’s pendant in the Realm of Flesh long, long, long before Ms. Wei was born. Gao Zhen Xi was studying transformations and transferring Spirit, in the tradition of foxes, just before she died. She placed some of her living spirit into the substance of my stone. It is only because I saw Gao Zhen Xi that I have remembered.”
    The old woman nodded. In her profile, Melanie could see something of Ms. Wei.
    â€œIwas an overcurious scholar in my youth. Idabbled with magic and alchemy and herbology.” Gao Zhen Xi shook her head. “I wanted to see if I could leave a little Spirit inside stone. Because stone is inert. It did not breach the laws of the cycles. Jade Rat the animal was very old. I extended her mortal life but even I could not more than double her life span. I turned her into stone from which the amulet was carved. And when my death came upon me, sudden and terrible, I left a little of my Spirit inside the properties of stone.”
    Melanie stared at the old woman. She did not ask her how she died. It seemed too intensely private to ask for the details.
    Gao Zhen Xi’s head sagged wearily. “Upon my death I entered Half World, as all must enter. But before I could attain Spirit, the great division occurred. And I have been trapped here, in Half World, these millennia. As everyone has been trapped inside the Realm, since.”
    Jade Rat stroked the old woman’s tangled white hair.
    â€œTrapped how?” Melanie asked in a small voice. “Why did it happen?”
    Gao Zhen Xi took a deep breath. “The Three Realms—the Realm of Spirit, the Realm of Flesh, and Half World—are meant to be connected. We should move from one to the other, in due time, as each individual lives, dies, half lives, then becomes Spirit. But someone or something divided the sacred cycle, dooming our Realms to an ungenerative deterioration. I don’t know why! I don’t know how! I only know that we are very close to complete disintegration. I have been studying long for the solution in my archives, but it is impossible to find the answer in unfinished books.”
    Jade Rat murmured comfortingly as she continued to comb her claws through Gao Zhen Xi’s tangled hair.
    Melanie frowned. “Jade Rat?” she asked. “Have you always been able to go between your stone form and animal form? Ever since then? Why didn’t you tell me more about Half World if you already knew about the Three Realms?”
    Jade Rat shook her head. “I had a slow and quiet awareness, but it was a stone’s awareness. I could not act. But the Life inside you, Melanie, is, perhaps, special. You have brought change. You have returned me to my old companion.” The rat’s voice trembled with great feeling.
    â€œThat green light”—Gao Zhen Xi placed her palm upon her own chest almost wonderingly—“that was a little of my Spirit returning to me. And I am truly awake as I have never been before. Child, you cannot understand the