Half World by Hiromi Goto Page B

endless repeating lives we must endure in this place. For eons upon eons we are caught in our Half Lives, repeating our moment of greatest trauma. Over the years some of the stronger ones have managed to extend their patterns, and make small changes, and in this way we have built societies and cities, occupations and some kind of purpose. But always we are yanked back to the Spirit-breaking moment, to begin the cycle once more. Some have never been able to break their pattern. They die and return and die like we breathe in and out the air.”
    Melanie recalled the things she had seen as she had descended the mountain, the woman in the canal who leapt in only to reappear and leap again. Endlessly. For all time. Little children murdered. Women raped. Death and destruction in repeat for all eternity. Light speckled in her eyes, a roaring inside her ears. She weaved.
    â€œMelanie, breathe,” Jade Rat said sharply, sounding like her bossy self. “Slowly. Deeply.”
    Gao Zhen Xi rubbed her back. Melanie took slow breaths until her vision cleared.
    Her parents . . . if they were truly from this nightmare place . . .
    â€œHow did my mother manage to break her pattern?” Melanie asked in a small voice.
    â€œYou must be mistaken.” Gao Zhen Xi’s eyes narrowed. “I cannot see how your mother could be of Half World. There is no true birth in Half World as there is no true death. Half World was an intermediary place where the troubled could work through their mortal suffering before becoming entirely Spirit and move on to the Realm of Spirit. After time, those of Spirit returned to Flesh. I can see no way for your mother to have become pregnant in Half World.”
    â€œBut here I am,” Melanie murmured. She stood up and began to pace. She approached a large wooden table covered in papers and opened books, dust and pens. It looked an awful lot like Ms. Wei’s worktable.
    Melanie’s eyes widened. “Ms. Wei! She had a piece of magic paper. It had words on it that talked about Half World. It said that if an impossible baby is born then it will stop the things that shouldn’t be.”
    Gao Zhen Xi’s small dark eyes narrowed. “Magic paper,” she muttered. “Impossible baby? What could that mean?
    â€œWah!” she shouted, jumping upright. Jade Rat leapt from her shoulder to land atop the cluttered table.
    Déjà vu washed over Melanie as she watched the old woman rifling through stacks of parchment, piles of books, as dust lifted into the air. Gao Zhen Xi scurried alongside the rows of books, her finger tracing the spines. Breathing hard, she came to a standstill. With shaking hands she pulled out an ancient tome.
    Blackened with age, on the cover was a slightly embossed emblem. It looked like the yin-yang symbol, but instead of two pieces that nestled together there were three. Black, white, and gray spiraled into each other to form a perfect circle.
    Gao Zhen Xi placed the tome on the table, saying nothing.
    Melanie and Jade Rat drew close as the old woman began turning the pages.
    â€œThis is The Book of the Realms ,” Gao Zhen Xi said. “This book is unfinished, as are all of the books you will find here, in the Archives of Unfinished Books. There are far more incomplete books than there are completed, and they eventually arrive here through means I do not know. Words are Spirit, also, and when they are written down there is a power. I have been studying these books these long years to seek a remedy to the separating of the Realms. For centuries I studied its pages, but it is a prophetic book, and it was impossible to decipher. After a thousand years I could not bear looking at its frustrating cryptic sayings. But I remember. There was one section that spoke of a child born in Half World. Because this is an impossibility I believed that it was symbolic.”
    She carefully turned the almost transparent pages until she was two-thirds of the way