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… There are reports of Creatures who take Man’s form but make use of a strange Poison. Incidents wherein the Creatures formed poisoned projectiles from blood or spittle have been reported since before the rule of Octavian (called Augustus). Such poison causes the Body to rapidly enter a state of Putrescence, creating Miasma that which causes illness in others. Surgeons may be able to quickly remove the offending limb, using Yarrow often called Arrowroot or Thousand Leaf to stop up the blood of the amputated wound.
A previous author hath reported a legend that these Creatures are the souls of dead Men under the control of Magics. Such legends are found in all corners of the empire, however, this author hath stated themselves to be witness to the magic Ritual. The author describes a figure of an unknown Man who purports to resurrect one who has Died. The skin of the asker is flayed from them bloodlessly and a frame purporting to contain the soul of the one who has died is Inserted, seemingly causing torturous pain as well as an ethereal wailing emanating from the soul in the frame …
- an excerpt from a well known late roman scientific record.
The boxes in Lenalee’s brother’s new office were stacked in ominously leaning towers, a city of neglected paperwork and hoarded research notes encircling his battered desk. After the disaster of moving from the old headquarters, none of the Science Department dared touch Komui’s belongings, let alone unpack them. Komui had been put to work teaching the Science Department how to deal with his more volatile experiments, and the task of sorting his office had fallen to Lenalee herself.
Heaving a weary sigh, she set to sorting the haphazardly-packed papers and books. Official documents from the order, filled out in a nightmarish mishmash of Italian, French, English, and Church Latin went into piles sorted by years. Scientific journals in German and Dutch went into their own pile, and her brother’s own research in scratchy Hanzi and hastily translated English she set aside with a fond look.
The years Lenalee’s brother had spent being by her side began to pile up, the languages he’d taught himself to find her and keep her safe rustling and shifting in the stacks around her. Whenever she found herself holding papers with the names he had rattled off desperately at the ghost of the old Headquarters, she skimmed them and set them aside because her chest hurt too much to keep reading them. The rest of those files had to be somewhere in this hoard, the least Lenalee could do for them was sort them out and bring them into the light again.
She was down to the last box in the first tower of files. It was a sad and squashed looking thing, and there was an imprint in the heavy dust on top of that from the rest of the tower. Clearly, her brother hadn’t touched it in years. She brushed the dust off of it and opened it gingerly.
There were a few books, spines cracked and worn, along with a few notebooks. Lenalee lifted the books out first, mostly second-hand translations of older texts on science and the occult. One of the books fell open, ribbon set into a page that was marked up with her brother’s handwriting.
“akuma described as far back as first roman emperor?”
“lvl ones described? look into other pre christian txt”
“why dont we produce armor”
“more research field amputation”
“i wish id’ known this”
“can we ever win”
His already shaky handwriting got shakier as she tracked it down the page. She wondered how old he’d been when he wrote these words. He’d always been so much older than her, and she couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been taking care of her. But his notes felt like her own racing teenage thoughts. He’d been a teenager when their parents had died, hadn’t he?
She held the book close to her chest before she set it down, looking at the cheaply bound notebooks next. Opening the first page, she was met with more of her brother’s scribbly handwriting.
Father invited our uncles over for the Spring Festival. Eldest Uncle has had a really bad last year, and Father said being around his brothers would help. He and Eldest Aunty only ever had a daughter and she’s spending the festival with her married family, and Aunty died a few months ago, so Father doesn’t want him to be alone in the new year. Lenalee keeps asking us for lucky money because Mother is making her practice and she’s so so cute… I keep giving her a piece of candy instead. When Yang Auntie is watching her, she always makes a face when I give it to her, but how am I supposed to resist?
Lenalee read the page slowly, her hands shaking slightly. She hadn’t remembered that they had uncles. The mention of the woman who used to mind her stirred something in the deepest parts of her brain, bringing to mind the slow gait of an older woman and a voice scolding her brother.
Her brother laughed in the memory with an ease and lightness that Lenalee had never heard since.
She turned the pages. The next few entries briefly touched on the preparations for the Spring Festival, but her brother seemed to mostly write about his self-studies in science and mathematics, and bemoaning an upcoming visit to the matchmaker. It seemed strange, realizing he could’ve been married. She couldn’t picture it at all.
Lenalee flipped to the next page.
uncle was so strange and so miserable when he came. he looked sick and ba said it was worse than he thought. so he sent me and meimei with gifts to send to our neighbors and when we came back the doors were wide open
lena ran ahead of me even when i shouted at her to stay back and she saw it first. i dont know if who screamed louder me or her. that thing was uncle but it wasnt and there wasn’t anyone left-
Lenalee had the book slammed shut before she could even think about it.
She didn’t remember their faces, or what she had walked in on that day, but she could take a very educated guess. She could guess at how the bodies smelled, rotting unnaturally. At how they would be distended and bloated, covered in stars like macabre freckles, the fear frozen forever in their eyes. At the color of the blood and purged liquids spreading across the ground, poisoning the earth beneath it.
No one could live in the house after that.
Eventually, the book slid out of her grasp. Lenalee startled at the quiet thunk of it falling onto the ground and scrambled to pick it back up.
Her curiosity warred with her nausea as she opened it up again, flipping quickly past the pages she skipped. Her brother’s scrawl talked about being taken in by their neighbors, the ones who minded her. The entry about funerals was blessedly short. He’d been too busy taking care of all of it to write. He wrote about the missionaries who’d rescued them from the monster who used to be their uncle, who had shared their knowledge about the thing that had attacked their family. He regarded them with a mix of reverence and paranoia.
His entries as he went on were full of his anxieties about her. About not having enough money to take care of her, about how to comfort her when she was so withdrawn from the world, about the people who asked him if he would sell his sister to them so she’d be taken care of.
Meimei’s gone. First the missionaries came to me and asked if I’d take money for her. I thought they were joking. Foreigners don’t like to buy children so openly. I chased them off like I would any other child buyer. Auntie said it was strange, everyone knows I’d never give up Lenalee for anything. I’d rather die first.
But I was stupid for not thinking anything of it, I was so stupid for not watching her when she went out to play. Those missionaries took her, I know it. Auntie and A-Qing and I have been looking for her all night. I have to find her. I have to.
Lenalee clutched the pages. They’d barely talked about the time they had spent apart. After all, what did it matter now that they were together again? But all of that time was at her fingertips now. She read on.
…The Black Order aren’t missionaries. The other Christians say they’re exorcists who answer directly to the Pope (said with no small amount of vitriol. The missionaries kind of hate the Pope). They said that sometimes, after tragedies, the Black Order descends on a town, and people disappear.
I guess Uncle was…demonic, at the end. His skin was blackened and slipping off of his body, like something that wasn’t him was bursting out of him. But I don’t know what they could want with Lena. She’s only six, they can’t be teaching a six year old about… whatever exorcism is about. Meimei has always been great at reading but she could barely hold a pen. How could she exorcize something like that?
Are they feeding her well? Do they let her have candy sometimes? I loved giving her candy and pastries, but I hated holding her sticky hands afterward. Auntie always knew when her hands were sticky I was sneaking her sweets. She’d go right to Mother and tell on me.
I feel like I have to write this down before I forget it all. I can’t take care of their graves or give them offerings so I hope this is enough. Sometimes when I write about Meimei, I feel like I’m mourning her already.
We were both having bad nightmares. I wonder if there’s anyone there, sitting up with her until she goes back to sleep.
.
.
.
They sent Meimei off to Europe months ago. She’s an Accommodator, they said. She’s compatible with the Innocence they use to fight Akuma. She’s going to be an Exorcist. She was chosen by God.
I felt like screaming when they told me. It took me too long to find this branch and work my way into a position with any leverage, and she’s not even here anymore. What right does a God I don’t even believe in have over the only family I have left? I know now that if I’d been there, trying to stop them, they would’ve killed me. I wish I could’ve fought. But all I can do now is do my best to see her and make sure she’s been taken care of.
I’m about to put in a transfer for the European Branch. Let Bak Chang think I’m a ladder climber, I don’t care. I need to be there for her. It’s been over 2 years since we were together. I just can’t keep failing her.
.
.
.
I saw Meimei today.
I smiled at her when her eyes focused on me. I told her I was home. That we would be together again forever, starting from now on. Her hair was matted and her face was scratched up and they told me she was tied to the bed so she wouldn’t run or scratch herself.
I thought I’d be prepared. I know the things this place has done to children. I’ve read all the files that I can get my hands on. And there are so, so many files. But it’s another thing to see my sister like that. I felt like throwing up. But we can’t leave. I couldn’t protect her enough to keep her out of here, so I have to make her safe here.
I have to fix as much as I can in this rotten house. And I have to make sure I never ever let Lenalee go where I won’t be able to find her ever again.
“Lenaleeeee! Reever was working me to the bone or I would’ve come to help you sooner!” Lenalee looked up at her brother’s voice, his journals still spread out on the desk, piles of sorted but unfiled papers surrounding her. Komui walked through the door of the office, cheerful smile on his face as he carried in two steaming mugs. The smile quickly turned to worry when he took in the remaining boxes in the office, and the tear tracks on her face.
“What’s wrong, Lenalee?!” He rushed over to her, forgetting about the hot drinks in his hands and hissing when they splashed across his fingers.
She reached out to take the mugs from him and set them on the table. “Nothing, Gege. Nothing’s wrong. Please don’t worry about me.”
She took his scalded hands in hers and started leading him outside to a tap, even as he sputtered, “You were crying! I have to find out who hurt you!!”
The cooling water ran over both of their hands, as Lenalee looked fondly at her brother. They would always be tied to this rotten place, but at least they were tied together.
“I’m just happy we’re home, Gege.”