TATTOOS HAD BEEN etched into the skin of her arms and her face, Sanskrit symbols meant to help her on her journey.
And they worked, thought Taro bitterly. They sped her on her way to the realm of hungry ghosts. . .
But she was at peace now. He kissed his mother’s forehead and then untied her white kimono at the neck. The abbot was standing to one side, seemingly uncomfortable with this desecration of the dead, but Taro had been to death. He was aware that his mother’s body was nothing now but sinews, meat, and bone. The essential part of her had dissipated into brightly glowing light. He remembered that part at least.
With the intricate ties undone, he parted the kimono so that he could see the middle of her chest, where the ribs met. There was an old scar there, a silvery line that ran down her collarbone, a hand-span long. His mother had always told him that she was wounded in childhood, falling onto a sharp agricultural tool.
Taro wondered why he had never questioned this dubious story before.
He traced his finger along the scar. Then, taking a deep breath, he raised his other hand – the hand that was holding a very sharp knife.
Holding the air in his lungs, he pressed down with the blade, and was surprised when no blood welled up. But he supposed the body had been drying here on the mountaintop for nearly a month, turning slowly from living flesh into earth. He was glad there was no blood, anyway. It made what he was doing seem less an act of violence, and more a ritual performed on the corpse – or at least that was one of the advantages.
It also removed any temptation. She was his mother, but he was still a vampire, and a weak one too, his qi depleted by days of haunting and near starvation. He wasn’t sure he could resist the smell of blood at full strength, let alone now.
Drawing the knife towards him, he expected to have to cut through the ribs, but met with almost no resistance. The skin opened up smoothly, like earth behind the blade of a plough. Suddenly Taro’s fingers trembled, and he dropped the knife. It bounced off her chest and clattered on the ground.
‘Sorry. . .,’ he said. ‘I can’t do it.’
He felt more than saw the abbot move up beside him, stooping to pick up the knife. He turned away. Hiro clapped him on the shoulder. ‘You did well to even start it,’ he said.
The abbot was far too old and wise to gasp as he withdrew what lay inside Taro’s mother’s chest. But he did suck in air through his teeth, making a whistling noise. Taro turned to see, and the abbot handed over what he had found.
It was small – much smaller than the golden, false ball. But it felt heavy in his hands.
‘It’s not even gold!’ said Little Kawabata.
Taro frowned at him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not.’
The object he was holding was a tiny, perfect sphere. The outer layer seemed to be a kind of glass. Beneath this was a layer of air, which in places – he was turning it in his hands to examine it – was white and opaque with what seemed to be clouds. Inside, beneath the air, was a smaller sphere. Mostly blue, it was also covered with strange, warped shapes of green, and at the top and bottom were circular coverings of white.
‘It’s a representation of the world,’ said the abbot. ‘As it would look from up there.’ He pointed up at the sky.
‘Don’t be silly!’ said Hiro. ‘That can’t be the world! If it was round like that we’d all slide off.’
‘Idiot!’ said Little Kawabata. ‘Have you never seen a globe? My father saw one when he had to kill a Portuguese merchant.’
They entered into a loud discussion, but Taro was still looking at the ball. ‘I’m not sure it’s a representation,’ he said. ‘Look.’ The others leaned over and peered into the ball, as Taro held his finger over the clouds.
‘What am I looking at?’ asked Little Kawabata.
‘Wait,’ said Taro.
It was the abbot who saw it first. ‘Oh, my,’ he said.
The clouds were moving.