REBECCA SCHAEFFER
Umeko jerked backward as the coffee splattered across the front of her shirt. She winced in anticipation of the inevitable burn, but ended up shuddering as the cold, liquid-soaked shirt stuck against her skin and raised goosebumps.
“I’m so sorry,” said the stranger standing in front of her, hands stretched out as if he could still catch the coffee cup that was now rolling across the floor.
Umeko shrugged, grabbing a napkin. “It’s fine. The coffee wasn’t hot.”
The stranger grabbed several napkins and started wiping the book she’d been reading at the table, trying to dry it. Umeko ineffectively dabbed at her shirt with the napkins. She sighed, checking the time. Her flight would be boarding any minute.
“Would you mind watching my suitcase while I clean this up in the washroom?” she asked the stranger.
“Of course,” he responded, his own coffee forgotten on the table.
Umeko grabbed her purse and went to the washroom. Her reflection in the mirror told her it was worse than she’d initially thought. Coffee stains covered most of the front of her white button-up business shirt like the inkblots used at psych exams. This one looked like a disembodied hand poking a loaf of bread.
Sighing, she stripped her shirt off and used paper towels and warm water to wash the coffee smell from her own skin while she soaked the shirt in the sink. She opened her purse and pulled out a pink T-shirt in a plastic bag. It was supposed to be a souvenir for her little sister, who, at sixteen, still held on to her love of unicorns with a fierce passion. The cartoonish little horse had a rainbow horn shooting little sparkles.
Umeko pulled the shirt on and promised herself she’d wash it before she gave it to her sister. Yuka would understand.
Ignoring her overly pink reflection in the mirror, she wrung out her business shirt and stuffed it in the plastic bag that had been holding Yuka’s. She tied the plastic handles shut, shoved it in her purse, and hoped it wouldn’t leak.
When she came out, her plane was already boarding. The large TV screens by the gate had news stories running across the screen. Apparently another tour boat going to the Bermuda Triangle to see the giant sea monster had been eaten by said sea monster. Umeko rolled her eyes, unsurprised.
The stranger was sitting at her table, drinking a new coffee and waiting. He glanced up as she approached.
“You a fan of unicorns?” he asked.
Umeko shook her head. “My sister.”
The man smiled. He had blue eyes and brown hair that seemed determined to flop in front of his face no matter how he tried to push it back. Umeko estimated that he was her age, maybe a little older. His jeans and T-shirt made him look like a college student. Or just someone who liked to travel comfortably.
“You look a lot younger than I thought,” he said.
Umeko pulled the long handle from her carry-on bag and swung it out from under the table. “Everyone says that. It’s like, the default thing people say to Asians.”
He laughed, waving his hands in denial. “No, I mean, you looked so professional before, I figured you must be a businesswoman.”
Umeko shrugged. “I just finished an internship.”
“Doing?”
“IT.” Umeko looked toward the dwindling line of people boarding her plane. She wondered if there’d be room in the overhead compartment for her bag.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you. And sorry about the coffee.” The man rose and held out his hand for her to shake. “It was nice talking to you.”
Umeko swung her purse back so it wouldn’t slam into him when she shook his hand. “Likewise. Don’t worry about the coffee.”
When she touched his hand, she almost gasped in pain. There was a horrible sensation, like someone had cast a fishing line and the hook had caught on her heart. It tugged insistently, and she winced.
The man leaned in close, voice concerned. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” Umeko put a hand to her chest, instinct telling her to apply pressure to the wound, even though there wasn’t one.
She gave the man a tight smile and made her way over to the plane. She never saw the faint smile that played across his face as she left.
She tried to read on the flight, but was distracted by the faint tugging of the fishhook in her heart. It didn’t hurt nearly as much now, but it was still there, determined. She wondered if she should go to a doctor when she got home.
Waiting around for her checked bag, she saw the man again. Their eyes met, and he gave her a bright smile and came over.
“Hi again.”
“Hi.” Umeko gave him a polite smile
“I didn’t realize we were on the same flight until I saw you run up to the boarding gate.” His voice was light.
“I see.” Umeko turned her attention to the baggage going round and round on the dispenser.
He laughed, scratching his nose in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. This is probably really awkward. You don’t even know my name.”
“Ah, no, it’s fine—”
Before Umeko had finished, he was holding his hand out. “Can we start again? My name’s Kenneth.”
“Umeko.” She took his hand.
“Japanese?” he asked as they shook.
She nodded. “My mother is. My father’s from Vancouver.”
“Neat.” He smiled. “I guess this is home then?”
She nodded. “Yes. And you?”
“I’m from Albuquerque originally,” he laughed. “I’m studying at UBC these days.”
“Me too.” Umeko saw her luggage and went to take it from the belt. Kenneth beat her to it, pulling it off with ease. “Thanks.”
“No worries.” He gave her a disarming grin.
“What do you study?” she asked.
“Folklore.” He winked. “Ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties.”
She laughed despite herself. Folklore was the politically correct way of saying he studied “unnaturals.” The political activists insisted that calling them unnaturals was wrong, since they were natural. Just not necessarily natural in this world, if you believed the alternate-world theorists. The scientists were still fighting about that, just like they fought whenever they discovered a new species of “non-human sentient being” or another recessive gene that popped up in humans, making them fall into the “unnatural” category.
Umeko never paid any attention to it. Half the things people claimed existed didn’t, and the other half usually kept a low profile. Estimates of the worldwide population of all the “unnaturals” – all species included – never ranged over a few thousand. Chances were, she’d live her whole life and never meet one.
Her pants vibrated and she pulled her cell phone out. A text from her sister telling her that she couldn’t come to the airport, so please take the train from YVR to Broadway station.
“You have a ride?” He pulled his own suitcase from the belt.
Umeko shook her head. “Train.”
He grinned. “Me too.”
It wasn’t until later, lying on her bed at home, after dinner with her family, that she realized there was a second fishhook in her heart.
Umeko met Kenneth for coffee on campus a few days later. He wanted to make up for the one he’d spilled on her.
Kenneth was early but Umeko was earlier. All through their conversation, the hooks in her chest tugged and tugged, pulling her toward Kenneth.
It was during a particularly strong tug – when Kenneth laughed at something, hair falling in front of his face – that Umeko wondered if the fishhooks might be a sign of a crush.
Umeko had always been a little behind the development curve. She read books and watched movies, so in theory she knew how relationships were supposed to go and what people were supposed to feel. She just hadn’t really felt it herself. Having just turned twenty and never been out on a date, she wondered if this might be what it felt like.
She wasn’t really sure how you were supposed to know if you liked someone, but she figured since she was actually thinking about it, that might be the case here. She decided to go with it.
So when they finished their coffee and Umeko rose to leave for class, she didn’t resist when Kenneth took her hand and leaned forward shyly, almost tentatively, to press a light kiss to her lips.
When the third fishhook sank into her chest with enough pain to make her scream so loud she felt like she would never speak again, she knew this wasn’t love.
The pain was gone.
Umeko opened her eyes and was surprised to find there was sky above her. It was the vague colourless grey that was too dull and bored to be white, but didn’t want to expend the effort to be ominously black. It was just grey.
Where was the coffee shop? How did she end up outside? Her mind conjured up the questions, but she felt numb, almost disinterested in the answers, the sort of strange dream mentality where she just accepted things, no matter how unnatural.
She was standing on a path. The dirt might actually be brown, but the weird lighting made it seem grey, too. Her skin, her clothes, everything looked grey in the light.
The path was lined with tall black rose bushes, except there were no roses, only thorns. They didn’t look solid, more like the formless black of rose bush shadows than actual rose bushes.
“Hello, Umeko.” Kenneth was standing behind her. She turned around and blinked, confused because he was all in colour. “Walk with me a bit?”
She hesitated a moment before walking with him, mind fuzzy, like she hadn’t quite woken up. As they walked, the thorns on the rose bushes seemed to snake out and cut Umeko’s arms. She flinched away from each scrape, fighting the sensation that the road was narrowing.
“Have you ever wondered why unicorns only approach virgins?” he asked.
The black thorns were tearing at her now. She winced with each step, fighting their spiky claws. “Not really. Unicorns don’t exist.”
Even as she said it, she was thinking of all the other kinds of folklore creatures that people said hadn’t existed but turned out to be real. And all the unnaturals that were nothing like their folktale counterparts.
He smiled at her, but it wasn’t the good-natured smile she was used to. This one was condescending. “I’m a unicorn.”
Umeko stopped and stared at him. While she stood frozen, the black thorns seized the opportunity to entwine themselves around her body, rooting her in place. She was overcome with the strangest, most inappropriate sensation to laugh. She felt like he was going to follow that sentence with, “and the horn’s not on my head.”
Thousands of tiny little cuts covered Umeko’s body. Rivulets of blood clung to her skin in a way that reminded her of the coffee he’d spilt on her when they first met.
Snapping out of her sense of unreality, she began to struggle against the thorns, swinging her arms and twisting her body to try and escape. But the thorns were everywhere and every time she moved they dug in deeper.
“Why?” Umeko snapped her mouth shut when a vine of thorns tried to crawl down her throat. Turning her face away from the encroaching vines, she continued, “Why do unicorns only come to virgins?”
“Because virgins are usually young and not yet comfortable in their own bodies. And that means their souls are easier to pull out.” Kenneth’s smile was wide, wider than humanly possible, and his teeth were all black thorns.
Umeko gasped when one of the thorns sunk into her side so deeply that her body began to tingle in the strange mix of pain and numbness that came when you knew you’d hurt yourself bad. Her strength slipped away and she would have fallen if the vines hadn’t held her so tight that she couldn’t even move, never mind fall. “But why do you want their souls?”
He spread his hands. The thorns were blocking part of her vision now, so his whole figure seemed criss-crossed with black lines. “To eat of course.”
Umeko would have responded, but the thorns had clamped like a vice around her, and she couldn’t seem to get any air. She gasped for breath and a thorny vine finally clawed its way down her throat.
The last thing she saw was her own black hair spilling across the thorn branches, dripping with blood.
Yuka sat beside Kenneth in the hospital waiting room. He’d followed after the ambulance in a taxi, and met her family at the hospital. He’d taken the liberty of going through her phone and calling them. It was too late by the time they got there. Umeko had passed away en route to the hospital.
Yuka wore the pink shirt with unicorns that her sister had brought home as a souvenir. Her hands were clenched in her lap, and her eyes were squished shut to prevent the tears from slipping out.
Kenneth put his hand on hers. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The pain of her sister’s death stabbed Yuka in the chest, causing her to double over in racking sobs.
It felt like a fishhook in her heart.